The two boys returned to the dormitory, and as Stern walked after them, the Negro stopped him and said, "There can be a little staying up later sometimes. If authorities come, though, I didn't see you."
Stern said, "Thank you," but he felt very uncomfortable about the favor and wanted to do a thousand quick ones for the Negro. He wanted to tell him that if he ever got into trouble with the police, he could hide in Stern's house, or if he ever wound up helpless and drugged on Welfare Island, Stern would go take a taxi in the middle of the night and cut through red tape to get him into a decent hospital. But the Negro clattered off in a metallic symphony and Stern sat guiltily on a chair, staring off at the winking lights of Rosenkranz. He stayed up late, sucking in the dewy air, exulting in its freshness, aware there were only a few days before his return to the kike man and yet thrilled that there were those few days. He wished that he were clever enough to stretch his mind so that he could turn those days into eternities, fondling each second, stretching it, cramming a lifetime into it before yielding it selfishly for the next one. Perhaps if he stayed on the porch and stared at the night, pinned it with his eyes, he would be able to hold it there and forever block out daylight. Across the field he studied Rosenkranz and wondered whether at some future date he might not himself be taken there, ulcer-free but a mindless urinator now, squatting beside the others, filling the corridors with a giant stream and cackling at the walls.
The following night, the three evaded Lennie and dashed drunkenly at midnight across the lawn toward the main gate, the tall, blond boy propelling the Greek ahead, as though the wheelchaired youth were a wild street hoop. "We meet that coon fucker tonight," said the Greek, his vehicle skidding across the wet grass, "he and me going to tangle asses." Stern kept looking back over his shoulder at the main building, as though he were a child running away from home, taking one giddy step and then another but always remaining close enough to dash back and say he was only fooling. He wondered what punishment Lennie would mete out if they were caught—and could he protest it to a higher authority without appearing to be anti-Negro? If Lennie made him stay in his room, for example. Since there were only a few days left, he would probably stay in there and let it go without fuss.
The tall boy suddenly released the wheelchair and flicked his body to the top branches of a tree like a whip, swinging easily in the wind. "Aren't I a crazy bastard?" he said from above. "That's what the guys said when I was working on high wires. I never used a safety harness. I don't care if I fall down and break my head." He swung from branch to branch like a lean night animal and the Greek boy said, "I'm cutting out. I don't want to do no stuff on trees. I want to do some jazzing."
"How you going to get up here?" said the tall boy. "With your bony ass?"
Stern wanted to tell him not to make fun of the young Greek's missing leg, but the tree swings had intimidated him and he had no desire to run up against the tall boy's explosive wiriness. Dropping easily to the ground, the tall boy flung the wheelchair on ahead of him and said, "Did you see me up there? Aren't I one helluva crazy bastard? I don't care what happens to me."
Stern said, "You were very good up there," and the boy said, "But sometimes everything stops in me. I lay in bed for six months and I can't get out. My kid sister brings me soup. It's in my veins. That's what I'm in here for."
There were no guards at the gate, but as they rolled toward it, Stern had a sudden fear that Lennie had been watching them all along; the instant they passed the gate, he would have them picked up in trucks and initiate punitive measures.
"They don't like you to go through this gate," Stern said, but the Greek boy, wheeling right through, said, "I got to hop on something. Then I'm happy." And Stern raced along after the pair. The three of them traveled seven blocks in darkness, and when they came to a small bar and grill the blond boy said, "I can taste that brew already. I can't go no more than a few days without a few brews." The Puerto Rican girl was waiting for them in a booth, and it seemed to Stern that she was more like Tierney than ever, Tierney after a session with two longshoremen who'd been paid to rough her up a little, not to kill her but to change her face around a little. She wore a bulging black sweater, and her paper-white teeth were chipped a little. Stern, drunk with the danger of having run away from the Home, wondered what her teeth would be like on sections of his body; perhaps they would nibble erotically at him in the style of some primeval creature of the Puerto Rican rain forests.