The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [46]
It wasn’t his clothes that made her notice him. There was something changed about his face because he was without the horn-rimmed specs he usually wore. A red, droopy sty had come out on one of his eyes and he had to cock his head sideways like a bird in order to see. His long, thin hands kept touching around his sty as though it hurt him. When he asked for punch he stuck the paper cup right into her Dad’s face. She could tell he needed his glasses very bad. He was nervous and kept bumping into people. He didn’t ask any girl to prom except her--and that was because it was her party.
All the punch had been drunk. Her Dad was afraid she would be embarrassed, so he and her Mama had gone back to the kitchen to make lemonade. Some of the people were on the front porch and the sidewalk. She was glad to get out in the cool night air. After the hot, bright house she could smell the new autumn in the darkness.
Then she saw something she hadn’t expected. Along the edge of the sidewalk and in the dark street there was a bunch of neighborhood kids. Pete and Sucker Wells and Baby and Spareribs--the whole gang that started at below Bubber’s age and went on up to over twelve. There were even kids she didn’t know at all who had somehow smelled a party and come to hang around. And there were kids her age and older that she hadn’t invited either because they had done something mean to her or she had done something mean to them. They were all dirty and in plain shorts or draggle-tailed knickers or old everyday dresses. They were just hanging around in the dark to watch the party. She thought of two feelings when she saw those kids--one was sad and the other was a kind of warning.
‘I got this prom with you.’ Harry Minowitz made out like he was reading on his card, but she could see nothing was written on it. Her Dad had come onto the porch and blown the whistle that meant the beginning of the first prom.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Let’s get going.’
They started out to walk around the block. In the long dress she still felt very ritzy. ‘Look yonder at Mick Kelly!’ one of the kids in the dark hollered. ‘Look at her!’ She just walked on like she hadn’t heard, but it was that Spare-ribs, and some day soon she would catch him. She and Harry walked fast along the dark sidewalk, and when they came to the end of the street they turned down another block.
‘How old are you now, Mick--thirteen?’
‘Going on fourteen.’
She knew what he was thinking. It used to worry her all the time. Five feet six inches tall and a hundred and three pounds, and she was only thirteen. Every kid at the party was a runt beside her, except Harry, who was only a couple of inches shorter. No boy wanted to prom with a girl so much taller than him. But maybe cigarettes would help stunt the rest of her growth.
‘I grew three and a fourth inches just in last year,’ she said.
‘Once I saw a lady at the fair who was eight and a half feet tall. But you probably won’t grow that big.’
Harry stopped beside a dark crepe myrtle bush. Nobody was in sight. He took something out of his pocket and started fooling with whatever it was. She leaned over to see--it was his pair of specs and he was wiping them with his handkerchief.
‘Pardon me,’ he said. Then he put on his glasses and she could hear him breathe deep.
‘You ought to wear your specs all the time.’
‘Yeah.’
‘How come you go around without them?’
The night was very quiet and dark. Harry held her elbow when they crossed the street.
‘There’s a certain young lady back at the party that thinks it’s sissy for a fellow to wear glasses. This certain person--oh well, maybe I am a--’ He didn’t finish. Suddenly he tightened up and ran a few steps and sprang for a leaf about four feet above his head. She just could see that high leaf in the dark. He had a good spring to his jumping and he got it the first time. Then he put the leaf in his mouth and shadow-boxed for a few punches in the dark. She caught up with him. As usual a song was in her mind. She was humming to herself. ‘What’s that you