Characters in Sometimes They Come Back

The phone rang a dozen times and he was about to hang up when a rough, sleep-blurred voice said, “Yeah?” “Mr. Osway?” “Barry Osway's been dead six years. I'm Gary Denkinger.” “Are you Chip Osway's stepfather?” “What'd he do?” “Pardon?” “He's run off. I want to know what he did.”

“Chip Osway here today?” he asked casually. “Chip . . . ?” She looked at him doubtfully. “Charles Osway,” Jim amended. “Chip's a nickname.” She leafed through a pile of slips, glanced at one, and pulled it out. “He's absent, Mr. Norman.” “Can you get me his phone number?”

“It was a hot rod.” “Any description?” “Black 1954 Ford sedan with ‘Snake Eyes’ written on the side. Fitting enough. They really crapped out.” “They had a sidekick, Mr. Nell. I don't know his name, but his nickname was Bleach.” “That would be Charlie Sponder,” Mr. Nell said without hesitation.

Wearing dirty whites with a few drops of drying blood splattered across the front. Cleaning his fingernails with a knife. The orderly looked up and grinned into Jim's eyes. The orderly was David Garcia. Jim fainted. Funeral. Like a dance in three acts. The house. The funeral parlor. The graveyard.

“Will you take a taxi home?” he asked. “It's only four blocks. Besides, the walk is good for my figure.” “Someone grabbed one of my girls over on Summer Street,” he lied. “She thinks the object was rape.” “Really? Who?” “Dianne Snow,” he said, making a name up at random.

Donald Nell?” “Yes.” “My name is James Norman, Mr. Nell. Do you remember me, by any chance?” “Yes,” the voice responded immediately. “Pie à la mode. Your brother was killed . . . knifed. A shame. He was a lovely boy.” Jim collapsed against one of the booth's glass walls.

A cop was chasing them. Frank Simon was the cop, as a matter of fact. He works out at Sikorsky now. Probably makes a lot more money.” “And they crashed.” “The car left the road at more than a hundred miles an hour and hit a main power pole.

The phone rang a dozen times and he was about to hang up when a rough, sleep-blurred voice said, “Yeah?” “Mr. Osway?” “Barry Osway's been dead six years. I'm Gary Denkinger.” “Are you Chip Osway's stepfather?” “What'd he do?” “Pardon?” “He's run off. I want to know what he did.”

The phone rang once. “Stratford Police.” “Hello. My name is James Norman, Officer. I'm calling long-distance.” He named the city. “I want to know if you can give me a line on a man who would have been on the force around 1957.” “Hold the line a moment, Mr. Norman.”

“God!” he said, splitting his wife's easy flow of morning chatter. His belly felt suddenly filled with splinters— “Teen-Age Girl Falls to Her Death: Katherine Slavin, a seventeen-year-old junior at Harold Davis High School, either fell or was pushed from the roof of her downtown apartment house early yesterday evening.

“Switchblades, motor-cycle boots, zip guns in the lockers, lunch-money protection rackets, and every third kid selling dope to the other two. I know about Trades.” “There was a kid named Mack Zimmerman,” Jim said. “Sensitive boy. Played the guitar. I had him in a composition class, and he had talent.

“I'm Sergeant Morton Livingston, Mr. Norman. Who are you trying to locate?” “Well,” Jim said, “us kids just called him Mr. Nell. Does that—” “Hell, yes! Don Nell's retired now. He's seventy-three or -four.” “Does he still live in Stratford?” “Yes, over on Barnum Avenue. Would you like the address?”

His interview had been conducted by the principal of Harold Davis High School and the head of the English Department. The subject of his breakdown had come up. He had expected it would. The principal, a bald and cadaverous man named Fenton, had leaned back and looked at the ceiling.

and hers from U. Mass. A giant pair of styrofoam dice she had given him as a gag after he had dropped sixteen dollars in Pinky Silverstein's poker game a year or so before. A thin china cup she had bought in a Cleveland junk shop last year.

… Robert Lawson hooked his thumbs into his garrison belt, listened, smiled, and began to nod, as if they were old friends. • • • “Jim?” “Hmmm?” “Is something wrong?” “No.” “Those Living with Lit boys still giving you a hard time?” No answer. “Jim?” “No.” “Why don't you go to …

“I went into analysis. A community therapy deal. I couldn't afford a psychiatrist. It did me good. Sally and I are married. She has a slight limp and a scar, but otherwise, good as new.” He looked at them squarely. “I guess you could say the same for me.”

He had expected it would. The principal, a bald and cadaverous man named Fenton, had leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Simmons, the English head, lit his pipe. “I was under a great deal of pressure at the time,” Jim Norman said.

No question about this one. The crew cut had been replaced by long hair, but it was still blond. And the face was the same, Vincent Corey. Vinnie, to his friends and intimates. He stared up at Jim from the picture, an insolent grin on his lips.

“I did as she asked,” he said, leaving the tangled relationship of his mother and his brother Wayne—poor, murdered Wayne—and himself behind. “During the second week of my intern teaching, my fiancée was involved in a hit-and-run accident. She was the hit part of it.

Hit-and-run.” “Billy?” The picture formed in his mind in black and white, like a senior photograph. William Stearns, Key Club 1, Football 1, 2, Pen & Lance, 2. He had been one of the few good ones in Living with Lit. Quiet, consistent A's and B's on his exams.