Like many of the most vivid memories of his childhood, Jimmy would recall with acute clarity those that occurred above the green grasses of suburban spring, especially when a strong breeze made those grasses sway and the leaves in the trees above rustle with what seemed the news of some distant day. The reader must decide for herself whether Jimmy’s recollections were stilted in their muddled cradle by some oddness of mind, perhaps some dreamy distortion of the demented kind. Or, the reader might decide that in a child’s mind, the year in its fertile childhood etched a more lasting image in the yet young reflection returned to the faded man who will never see spring again in drear and graying years.
There was a shelf of lawn above the long flight of fake-stone stairs to the public sidewalks and the short flight of concrete stairs up to the concrete slab of a porch ringed in black twisted iron before the brick face of the row houses. Jimmy had a space capsule, a vehicle of human heroism, of cosmic scope, within which rode the bearded G.I. Joe. There was also the horse for G.I. Joe and the jeep—an Indian buddy like Tonto and other means of high adventure.