Harry wasn’t as surprised as Buddy thought he’d be, but he was surprised enough, I guess.
“This isn’t exactly what I wrote, is it?” Harry said.
Buddy thought about that for a moment, sitting on their bench, looking out over Stuart Channel. “It’s how I would have written it if I was you,” he countered, then paused while the astonished look on Harry’s face eased, the old man’s bunched brows and bugging eyes relaxing back into a look of tentative acceptance.
“Your experiences inside the murals, Harry, it’s a story that should be told.”
Harry looked doubtful. “You kept your promise?” he asked accusingly.
“I tried not to read too far ahead,” Buddy flummoxed.
Harry frowned. “At least you’re honest about not being honest.”
They sat in silence a while, listening to the waves lap and the ocean breeze shush. “The way you’ve written it, it’s sort of like fiction,” Harry said at last. “Never been big on fiction myself, except on TV. Real life is weird enough without making stuff up.”
“Everything you said is included, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
“Nothing’s been added that you didn’t say?”
“Okay, but the way you’ve said it makes everything sound so… dramatic.”
It was Buddy’s turn to look astonished.
Harry glanced away, as if something had caught his eye out on Stuart Channel. Mr. Beasley watched the two of them with interest, obviously expecting surprising developments.
“In my experience, nothing’s important unless we make it so,” Buddy advised. “Presidents, generals, movie stars, captains of industry—they’re all people who’ve thought themselves important, Harry. And because they believed it, voters, soldiers, fans, investors, and historians have, too.”
“What are you on about?”
“Your story’s important to me, Harry. That’s why I wrote it the way I did.”
“Rewrote it, you mean?”
“Yes!” Buddy conceded, annoyed. “Sometimes we have to leaven the truth with a touch of dramatic flare.”
“Don’t know if Bernice is going to like it,” Harry sulked.
Perhaps not, Buddy allowed.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” he said after a while. Harry nodded. “Who’s Arthur?”
“Sort of thought that might come up,” Harry shifted uncomfortably on the bench. “Arthur was a boyhood friend.”
“And?”
“He and his dog, Gypsy, went up into the woods one day, where Saint Joseph’s church is now, and they never came out again. Phtt, gone! Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Buddy was taken aback by his anger.
“Ever find out what happened?”
“They mounted a search, talked about bears and cougar, but never found a trace of either Arthur or Gypsy… No animal took them; I’m sure of that. There would have been remains if that’d been the case.”
“How old were you when this happened?”
“Nine or so,” Harry sighed. “Never really got over it. More than ninety years on, and I still think of Arthur and Gypsy most days.” He paused, looking at me like he wanted approval. “Funny,” he said. “Sad as I’ve been all these years about Arthur’s disappearance, I’m angry, too—mad at him for getting himself and Gypsy into whatever kind of trouble they got themselves into. If he stepped out of one of them murals today, I don’t know whether I’d hug him or yell at him for being such an idiot!”
“Do you think he will?”
“Huh?”
“Step out of the murals.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Harry grumped.