Donald Olson
The Intricate Pattern
The touching and revealing story of two peoplethe owner of a
bookstore and a dirty homeless dropout of a boy . . . and of "the
only real mystery of life, which is the mystery of why and how
things happen as they do. And this thought was like the deli-
cate quivering of the web that first alerts the innocent ego to the
artful designs of the spider-wiled subconscious" . . .
Myrna greeted him with one of those peck-like salutations
which only vaguely resemble kisses. "You're late," she said.
"Last minute customer." It was his only reference to the boy.
"Have a good day?"
He could have pinpointed the second when she would ask this,
and thereupon he would give her the sales figure for the day and
would relate bits of gossip. "Mrs. Antonucci came in, terribly ex-
cited. She's had another message from Outer Space. There's going
to be a momentous Cosmic Discovery that's going to change all
our concepts about the universe. But we mustn't be afraid, she
said. It's going to change our lives drastically, but it'll be to our
benefit."
And he would dry the dishes for her and they would watch Wal-
ter Cronkite and the news and would settle down, he on the sofa,
she in the swivel rocker, and they would read advance copies of
the new books and presently, yawning, he would get up and move
toward the door and she would ask him where he was going and
he would answer, "Just outside to check on the weather."
It was the way they communicatedritual phrases, with smil-
ing glances that didn't-quite meet.
Outside he would look at the stars and wish for impossible
things.
It wasn't that he disliked the bookstore. After 20 years in the
insurance company office it was in many ways a perpetual vaca-
tion. He liked books, and by and large the customers were agree-
able enough, and yet it was far from the ideal life of which he'd
always vaguely but persistently dreamed; it was not the freedom
he'd always wanted, though what he meant by freedom he
couldn't have said, aside from knowing it was not mere comfort.
At times he thought freedom might be adventure; at other
times, peace of mind. Had it been some concrete ambition he
would likely have attained it by now, at 38, but it was more a
thing of the spiritone of those hankerings which do not age with
the body but rather intensify with the shrinkage of time, as the
mind begins to realize there is no longer a limitless future in
which to discover the heart's desires.
Often of late he thought that what he truly wanted was his own
life, not somebody else's, for at times he actually felt he was liv-
ing a life designed and intended for someone else, and tHis evoked
obscure feelings of guilt, secret yearnings to be punished in some
way for the things he had. His life, however, seemed as charmed
as it was false. For years he'd saved his money and invested it
indifferently, scarcely caring if these investments were sound or
foolish, as if it were an enemy's property he was disposing of, or a
stranger's. Still, in spite of this, he was left with more gains than
losses.
The .bookstore turned out to be as confining as the insurance
company office. It did not represent freedom, only independence,
and the cry still sounded in his heart.
The boy had come in one day just as Edward was closing up. He
was slim and blond and had a pug-nosed, blue-eyed Huckleberry
-Finn face. He wore a ragged blue sweat shirt and shorts made
from a pair of jeans. His feet were huge and bare and remarkably
dirty, and silver-colored chains around his right ankle had left a
greenish brown ring on his skin.
Edward was about to tell him the store was closing when the
boy lunged toward one of the racks of paperbacks. "Hey, you've
got it! Born Free!"
Clumsy brown fingers fished into pockets so frantically the
cloth ripped, but came out of each pocket with nothing. He looked
sheepishly at Edward. "I guess I forgot my money. Okay if I pay
you tomorrow?"
Edward looked into the boy's strange blue eyes. Saying it
perhaps because he was tired or because he felt a flash of envy for
the boy's youth and spirit, and hating himself for saying it, he
said, "It'll still be here tomorrow."
"I'll come earlier tomorrow," the boy said, unoffended. He
looked around. "I never even knew this place was here."
On the way home Edward drove out into the country along a
road from which you could see far off into a deep purple-misted
valley glade. The air was dry and cool and smelled of pine. More
urgently than ever before, he was touched by that poignant and
mysterious sense of something drifting irretrievably out of his
reach.
The boy came back the next day, but again he had no money
and this time he stood by the rack with his nose in Born Free.
"If you want to read it but not own it I'm sure the library must
have a copy," Edward felt impelled to remark.
"That's okay," said the boy, one of those teenage put-off replies
which Fdward found unanswerable.
He must have been an exceedingly slow reader, Edward de-
cided, because he came back every day at three o'clock and stood
there deeply absorbed in the same book. By then, however, Ed-
ward was curiously intrigued by the boyhe wasn't as annoyed
as he ordinarily would have been by an habitual nonbuying
browser; and he actually began to look forward to seeing him
every day. He learned that his name was Tom Rodack and that he
went to the high school, or said he did, although none of the other
high-school students who stopped at the store ever spoke to him
or appeared to recognize him.
Edward assumed that once the boy had finished Born Free he
would not return, but by then he had discovered Living Free and
Forever Freethanks to Edward's pointing them out.
Occasionally, as the weeks went by, Edward gave him simple
duties to perform, such as dusting the books and washing the
windows. But there was a reckless clumsiness about the boy; his
attention span was limited, and his enthusiasm, though quickly
sparked, was of short duration.
Nevertheless, the hours when Rodack was not there began to
seem empty to Edward, and when the boy did show up, a certain
oppressiveness lifted from Edward's heart and the lines of his
mouth became less rigid.
Like most complex people Edward was seldom bored by candor
and simplicity, when they were genuine, as Rodack's were. That
may have been why he tolerated Rodack's presence, or it may
have been that he was grieved to think of that wild blue light
being extinguished from Rodack's eyes, u>f the tiresome obligations
of life crippling the pride of that stalwart body. The boy was all
instinct, all feeling, with a lopsided nature that would make life a
never-ending struggle.
One morning Edward got the shock of his life when he arrived
at the store at his usual time, 8:45, unlocked the door, switched
on the lights, and walked into the back room, where he found
Rodack asleep in the wicker lounge chair.
Edward knew he should have been angry; in fact, he was angry
at first, but still he didn't choose to awaken the boy, finding
something touching about the vulnerability of his sleeping face.
And by the time Rodack awoke, Edward's anger had changed to
perplexity.
"Easy," grinned Rodack, when Edward asked him how he'd got
in. "I sticky-fingered your key one day and had a duplicate made."
"But, Tom, you had no right to do that."
"But, gee, you might get sick someday or something and want
me to open up for you."
"What time did you get here this morning?"
"Came in last night."
"You've been here all night?"
"Sure."
"But your folks must be worried about you."
"They're dead."
Edward had studiously avoided ever asking Rodack any per-
sonal questions. Knowledge seemed always to confer a kind of ob-
ligation, which Edward wished to avoid.
"Then whom do you live with?"
"I kind of move around."
Rodack was in and out of the store all day; he seemed unusu-
ally eager to please Edward, to do odd jobs and run errands, and
that afternoon when it came time to close he said he would
lock the door when he left.
"Well, it's closing time right now," Edward said, turning off the
lights.
"Can't I hang around for a while?"
Edward looked at him. "What for?"
"You know that creep who came in and tried to sell you his
watch? I didn't like the way he kept looking at the cash register."
"You know I don't leave money in the register overnight."
"Yeah, but he might not know it. I better stay here and keep
watch. You know, just in case."
Edward surprised himself by not objecting. He knew it was
wrong, knew that Rodack simply wanted to stay the night, yet he
hadn't the heart to refuse.
The following morning Rodack was gone when Edward got to
...
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