He gave permission for Harry to slip into the storage room and lift a bottle of whiskey, one of the finer brands not intended for drinking, “least not by my crowd,” he said.
Harry snuck up to his room and hid the bottle under his bed then slept through the night.
His mother asked him why he was leaving so early. “To play,” he said.
“This early?”
He fished around in the alley cans and a dumpster and found a small box and used packing. He put these at the foot of his bed and hoped she wouldn’t ask. At the door, she look wrung and tired.
She said, “What were you doing with whiskey?” Tell me, you. Tell me.”
“I found it,” he said. “I just found it.”
He climbed out the window. He fished the bottle out of the midnight trash. He ducked when the curtains moved and his mother looked out. He brought his hand up to the place where his jaw still hurt and for reason he thought about purple mushrooms.
This time he hid the bottle behind the book case. When he knew she was at work, he put the bottle in the box and carefully wrote out the address. He found tape in the kitchen drawer, stamps in the desk. He didn’t know the postage so he pasted all the little squares on the right side and hoped.
The next few days his mother gave him curtness and dishes to wash but he could tell she felt sorry. He didn’t want her to feel sorry. He’d listen through the door. “He can’t come out,” he heard her tell friends. “Maybe in a few days,” he heard.
On Saturday, she gave him a letter, which she’d already opened. She watched him unfold it. “Thank you,” it said. It said nothing else and there was no return.
“What does it mean?” his mother said. “Tell me what it means.”
