The children understood.

“All right,” said Arthur. “Allen, go back to class.”

Allen took the spot, picked up his books and went down. “But where’s Billy?” asked Christene.

The others listened to hear Arthur’s answer.

Arthur shook his head gravely, put his finger to his lips and whispered, “We mustn’t wake him. Billy is sleeping.”

Chapter Ten

(1)

Allen got a job at a flower shop in Lancaster, and things started out fine. “Timothy,” who loved flowers, did most of the work, though Adalana came out from time to time to do the flower arranging. Allen convinced the owner it would be a good idea to hang some of his paintings in the window, and if one sold, he could take a commission. The idea of making money from his artwork appealed to Tommy, and after the first few paintings sold, Tommy worked harder than ever, investing some of the income to buy more paints and brushes, He turned out dozens of landscapes, which sold more quickly than Allen’s portraits or Danny’s still lifes.

One Friday evening in June, after closing, the owner, a middle-aged man, called Timothy into the back office and made a pass at him. Frightened, Timothy left the spot and withdrew into his own world. Danny looked up and saw what the man was trying to do. Remembering what had happened to him on the farm, Danny screamed and fled.

When Tommy came to work the following Monday, eager to see if any of his paintings would be sold that day, he discovered the store was empty. The owner had moved out, leaving no forwarding address, and taken all the paintings with him.

“Goddamned son of a bitch,” shouted Tommy at the empty store window. “I’ll get you, you bastard!” He picked up a rock, threw it through the window and felt better.

“Rotten capitalist system is to blame,” Ragen said.

“I don’t see the logic in that,” Arthur said. “The man was obviously afraid of being exposed as a homosexual. What does one frightened man’s dishonesty have to do with the economic system?”

“Is result of profit motive. Is contaminate the minds of young people like Tommy.”

“I say, I didn’t know you were a bloody communist.” “Someday,” said Ragen, “all capitalist societies will be destroyed. I know you are capitalist, Arthur, but I want you. All power belongs to the people.”

“Be that as it may,” Arthur said in a bored voice, “the florists shop is gone, and somebody’s going to have to find another bloody job.”

Allen got a job as an orderly on the night shift at the Homestead Nursing Home on the east end of Lancaster. It was a modem low brick building with a wide glass-fronted lobby always filled with elderly residents wearing their bibs, parked in their wheelchairs. Most of the work was menial, and “Mark” handled it without complaint, sweeping and mopping the floors’, changing the linens and the bedpans.

Arthur was most interested in the medical aspects of the position. When he found that some of the nurses or attendants were loafing on the job, playing cards, reading or dozing, Arthur would make the rounds himself, attending to the sick and dying. He listened to their complaints, cleaned infected bedsores and generally devoted himself to what he felt was his destined profession.