Heroes by Robert Cormier

second-floor tenement of a three-deckerowned by someone whose name I don’t catch, on the corner of Ninth and Spruce.
    “Which corner?” Mrs. Belander, bless her, asks the question I myself want to ask.
    “The green house, cheap paint, bought discount, fading already …”
    But I don’t hear the rest of her description.
    I have heard enough.
    Larry LaSalle has returned to Frenchtown.
    And I know where to find him.

 
    T he gun is like a tumor on my thigh as I walk through the morning streets against the wind that never dies down. April sunlight stings my eyes but the wind dissipates its heat, blustering against store windows and kicking debris into the gutters.
    At Ninth and Spruce, I pause and look up at the three-decker and the windows of the second floor, where Larry LaSalle can be found at last. Does hesuspect my presence here on the street? Does he have a premonition that he has only a few minutes left to live?
    I am calm. My heartbeat is normal. What’s one more death after the others in the villages and fields of France? The innocent faces of the two young Germans appear in my mind. But Larry LaSalle is not innocent.
    The steps leading to the second floor are worn from use and age, and I think of all the people who have climbed stairs like these, who have worked in the shops and come home heavy with weariness at the end of the day. As I stand at the door of Larry LaSalle’s tenement, I touch the bulge in my pocket to verify the existence of the gun. The sound of my knocking is loud and commanding in the silent hallway.
    No response. I wait. I rap on the door again, hand clenched as a fist this time.
    “Come on in, the door’s not locked,” Larry LaSalle calls out. That voice is unmistakable, a bit feeble now, yet still the voice that cheered us at the Wreck Center.
    Hesitant suddenly, uncertain—his voice giving reality to what I must do—I step into the tenement and into the fragrance of pea soup simmering on the black stove, steam rising from a big green pot.
    He is sitting in a rocking chair by the black coalstove, and narrows his eyes, squinting to see who has come into his tenement. He is pale, eyes sunk into his sockets like in the newsreel at the Plymouth, and he seems fragile now, as if caught in an old photograph that has faded and yellowed with age. His eyes blink rapidly as if taking quick pictures of me. Is there a glimmer of fear in his eyes? My heart quickens at the possibility.
    “Francis, Francis Cassavant,” I announce. It’s important for him to know immediately who I am. I don’t want to waste any time.
    “Ah, Francis,” he says, his eyes flashing pleasure because he doesn’t sense my mission.
    “Come in, come in,” he says, the old enthusiasm back in his voice.
    He rises slowly from the chair, steadying the rocker as he lifts himself up. As he holds out his hands in greeting, I go forward to meet him. We shake hands. At the last minute, when it seems we might embrace as old friends and comrades, teacher and pupil, I pull away. His white hands clutch the air before he clasps them together and settles back into the chair.
    “Sit, sit,” he says, indicating the chair next to the window opposite his own.
    “Take off your jacket,” he says. “Your Red Sox cap, too, and your scarf …”
    I don’t move. I don’t take off anything. I don’tplan to stay long, only long enough to carry out my mission.
    “Don’t be afraid to show your face, Francis. That face, what’s left of it, is a symbol of how brave you were, the Silver Star you earned …”
    “You earned a Silver Star, too,” I say, having to reply, and marveling again how Larry LaSalle was always one step ahead of us just as he now knows about my face and the Silver Star.
    He shrugs, sagging in the chair, sighing, as if tired suddenly.
    “It’s good of you to visit …,” he says, smiling the old movie-star smile. “Makes me remember the old days at the Wreck Center. Those were good days, weren’t they? That