He took three deep breaths, his back to me, head high, face toward the fireflies and a few constellations. Then the Hood was back in place.
I’m glad, I thought, there’s no moon tonight.
Five days and five Studebakers later (one blue, one black, two tans, and one sunset-red) Mr. Mysterious was sitting out in what he said was his final car, a sun-yellow open roadster, so bright it was a canary with its own cage, when I came strolling out, hands in overall pockets, watching the sidewalk for ants or old unused firecrackers. Wh
en Mr. M. saw me he moved over and said, “Try the driver’s seat.”
“Boy! Can I?”
I did, and twirled the wheel and honked the horn, just once, so as not to wake any late-sleepers.
“ ‘Fess up, Quint,” said Mr. Mysterious, his Hood pointed out through the windshield.
“Do I look like I need ‘fessing’?”
“You’re ripe-plumful. Begin.”
“I been thinking,” I said.
“I could tell by the wrinkles in your face,” said Mr. M., gently.
“I been thinking about a year from now, and you.”
“That’s mighty nice, son. Continue.”
“I thought, well, maybe next year if you felt you were cured, under that Hood, that your nose was okay and your eyebrows neat, and your mouth good and your complexion—”
I hesitated. The Hood nodded me on.
“Well, I was thinking if you got up one morning and without even putting your hands up to feel underneath you knew the long waiting was over and you were changed, people and things had changed you, the town, everything, and you were great, just great, no way of ever going back to nothing.”
“Go on, Quint.”
“Well, if that happened, Mr. Mysterious, and you just knew you were really great to see forever, why then, Mr. M., you wouldn’t have to take off your Hood, would you?”
“What’d you say, son?”
“I said, you wouldn’t have to ta—”
“I heard you, Quint, I heard,” gasped Mr. M.
There was a long silence. He made some strange sounds, almost like choking, and then he whispered hoarsely, “No, I wouldn’t need to take off my Hood.”
“ ‘Cause it wouldn’t matter, would it? If you really knew that underneath, everything was okay. Sure?”
“Oh, Lord yes, sure.”
“And you could wear the Hood for the next hundred years and only you and me would know what’s underneath. And we wouldn’t tell or care.”
“Just you and me. And what would I look like under the Hood, Quint? Sockdolager?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a long silence and Mr. Mysterious’ shoulders shook a few times and he made a quiet choking sound and all of a sudden some water dripped off the bottom of his Hood.
I stared at it. “Oh,” I said.
“It’s all right, Quint,” he said, quietly. “It’s just tears.”