I am not certain where he kissed her, but at the shock of a small boy hurtling himself dramatically from the shadows, the Dresden Doll recoiled and shrieked and wilted.
Nathan exploded his kiss, trusting it to hit its mark. He sensed much talcum powder and cologne in his nostrils, contact with adolescent flesh, sweet and soft and warm. Then, at the instant of glorious success, the wrath of God broke from the heavens and consumed him as the fire that blasted Sodom. From the skies above, from the earth, from the waters beneath the earth, from somewhere came a Voice, a terrible, blasting, annihilating Voice:
“Here! Here! Here! What the devil’s comin’ off here, anyhow?”
Nat snapped up into the air. Then he assumed a Direction. Luckily the open church door was ahead. Into the soft spring dusk he shot and began to tread the world beneath him crazily. His not to reason why, his but to flee or die; Nathan cleared the doorstep into thin air and zoomed for the horizon. I was close behind him.
We negotiated the walk, the curb and the street. We made the opposite walk and kept on going. We went through Pat Larkin’s side yard and Mrs. Larkin’s choicest roses. A lot of sweet-pea vines came next, with most of them trailing behind us. Nat stepped on a cucumber frame and I plowed through a couple of yards of hen wire. Thereupon we got through the Alderman property into Adams Street. But we did not stop there.
We went through Adams Street, through Pine and Walnut. Then out of town by the pumping station. We covered two miles that night before we finally plunged into Bancroft’s Woods far down the river. There we crawled into the underbrush and squatted on our haunches.
Said Nathan, “Who was it?”
Said I, “It was Mr. Gridley!”
Sickening silence!
“Where’d he come from?” Nathan finally found strength to ask.