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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:14:57 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:14:57 -0700 |
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diff --git a/24921-h/24921-h.html b/24921-h/24921-h.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abc66f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/24921-h/24921-h.html @@ -0,0 +1,6049 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /><link rel="schema.DC" href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" /><meta name="DC.Creator" content="Emily Neville" /><meta name="DC.Title" content="It's like this, cat" /><meta name="DC.Date" content="March 27, 2008" /><meta name="DC.Language" content="English" /><meta name="DC.Publisher" content="Project Gutenberg" /><meta name="DC.Identifier" content="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24921" /><meta name="DC.Rights" content="This text is in the public domain." /><title>The Project Gutenberg EBook of It's like this, cat by Emily Neville</title><style type="text/css">/* +The Gnutenberg Press - default CSS2 stylesheet + +Any generated element will have a class "tei" and a class "tei-elem" +where elem is the element name in TEI. +The order of statements is important !!! 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You may copy it, + give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project + Gutenberg License <a href="#pglicense" class="tei tei-ref">included with this + eBook</a> or online at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license" class="tei tei-xref">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a></p></div><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">Title: It's like this, cat + +Author: Emily Neville + +Release Date: March 27, 2008 [Ebook #24921] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IT'S LIKE THIS, CAT*** +</pre></div> + </div> + <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> + + </div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"> +</p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/cover.jpg" width="348" height="502" alt="Cover: Dave standing on top step looking across street; Cat curled up below. Tall apartment building in background." /></div> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"> +</p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/title.png" width="654" height="500" alt="Title Page: City scene of park entrance and busy street: tall apartment building on left; car driving by; bike-riding boy behind running boy and dog; mailman handing mail to woman on sidewalk." /></div> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.50em; margin-top: 4.50em"> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-variant: small-caps">it’s like this, cat</span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Copyright © 1963 by Emily Neville</span></div> +</div> + +<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.50em; margin-top: 4.50em"> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of +this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without +written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in +critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, +Publishers, Incorporated, 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y.</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 120%">TO</span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 120%">MIDNIGHT,</span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 120%">“MAYOR” OF GRAMERCY PARK</span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 120%">1954-1962</span></div> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CONTENTS</span></h1> +<ul class="tei tei-index tei-index-toc"><li><a href="#toc1"> 1. Cat and Kate</a></li><li><a href="#toc3"> 2. Cat and the Underworld</a></li><li><a href="#toc5"> 3. Cat and Coney</a></li><li><a href="#toc7"> 4. Fight</a></li><li><a href="#toc9"> 5. Around Manhattan</a></li><li><a href="#toc11"> 6. And Brooklyn</a></li><li><a href="#toc13"> 7. Survival</a></li><li><a href="#toc15"> 8. West Side Story</a></li><li><a href="#toc17"> 9. Fathers</a></li><li><a href="#toc19">10. Cat and the Parkway</a></li><li><a href="#toc21">11. Rosh Hashanah at the Fulton Fish Market</a></li><li><a href="#toc23">12. The Red Eft</a></li><li><a href="#toc25">13. The Left Bank of Coney Island</a></li><li><a href="#toc27">14. Expedition by Ferry</a></li><li><a href="#toc29">15. Dollars and Cats</a></li><li><a href="#toc31">16. Fortune</a></li><li><a href="#toc33">17. Telephone Numbers</a></li><li><a href="#toc35">18. “Here’s to Cat!”</a></li></ul> + + + +</div> +</div> + +<div class="tei tei-body" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 6.00em"> +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.00em"><span style="font-size: 200%; font-weight: 700">IT’S LIKE THIS, CAT</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg001" id="Pg001" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc1" id="toc1"></a> + <a name="pdf2" id="pdf2"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">1</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image01.png" width="474" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave holding Cat while Dad looks up from reading his newspaper." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">My father is always talking about how a dog can +be very educational for a boy. This is one reason +I got a cat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">My father talks a lot anyway. Maybe being a +lawyer he gets in the habit. Also, he’s a small +guy with very little gray curly hair, so maybe he +thinks he’s got to roar a lot to make up for not +being a big hairy tough guy. Mom is thin and +quiet, and when anything upsets her, she gets +<a name="Pg002" id="Pg002" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +asthma. In the apartment—we live right in the +middle of New York City—we don’t have any +heavy drapes or rugs, and Mom never fries any +food because the doctors figure dust and smoke +make her asthma worse. I don’t think it’s dust; +I think it’s Pop’s roaring.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The big hassle that led to me getting Cat came +when I earned some extra money baby-sitting for +a little boy around the corner on Gramercy Park. +I spent the money on a Belafonte record. This +record has one piece about a father telling his +son about the birds and the bees. I think it’s +funny. Pop blows his stack.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You’re not going to play that stuff in this +house!” he roars. “Why aren’t you outdoors, anyway? +Baby-sitting! Baby-talk records! When I +was your age, I made money on a newspaper-delivery +route, and my dog Jeff and I used to go +ten miles chasing rabbits on a good Saturday.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Pop,” I say patiently, “there are no rabbits +out on Third Avenue. Honest, there aren’t.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Don’t get fresh!” Pop jerks the plug out of +the record player so hard the needle skips, which +probably wrecks my record. So I get mad and +start yelling too. Between rounds we both hear +Mom in the kitchen starting to wheeze. +</p> + +<a name="Pg003" id="Pg003" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop hisses, “Now, see—you’ve gone and upset +your mother!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I slam the record player shut, grab a stick and +ball, and run down the three flights of stairs to +the street.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This isn’t the first time Pop and I have played +this scene, and there gets to be a pattern: When +I slam out of our house mad, I go along over to +my Aunt Kate’s. She’s not really my aunt. The +kids around here call her Crazy Kate the Cat +Woman because she walks along the street in +funny old clothes and sneakers talking to herself, +and she sometimes has half a dozen or more stray +cats living with her. I guess she does sound a +little looney, but it’s just because she does things +her own way, and she doesn’t give a hoot what +people think. She’s sane, all right. In fact she +makes a lot better sense than my pop.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was three or four years ago, when I was a +little kid, and I came tearing down our stairs +crying mad after some fight with Pop, that I first +met Kate. I plunged out of our door and into +the street without looking. At the same moment +I heard brakes scream and felt someone yank me +back by the scruff of my neck. I got dropped in +a heap on the sidewalk. +</p> + +<a name="Pg004" id="Pg004" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I looked up, and there was a shiny black car +with M.D. plates and Kate waving her umbrella +at the driver and shouting: “Listen, Dr. Big +Shot, whose life are you saving? Can’t you even +watch out for a sniveling little kid crossing the +street?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The doctor looked pretty sheepish, and so did +I. A few people on the sidewalk stopped to watch +and snicker at us. Our janitor Butch was there, +shaking his finger at me. Kate nodded to him and +told him she was taking me home to mop me up.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yas’m,” said Butch. He says “Yas’m” to all +ladies.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate dragged me along by the hand to her +apartment. She didn’t say anything when we got +there, just dumped me in a chair with a couple +of kittens. Then she got me a cup of tea and a +bowl of cottage cheese.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That stopped me snuffling to ask, “What do +I put the cottage cheese on?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Don’t put it on anything. Just eat it. Eat a +bowl of it every day. Here, have an orange, too. +But no cookies or candy, none of that sweet, +starchy stuff. And no string beans. They’re not +good for you.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">My eyes must have popped, but I guess I knew +<a name="Pg005" id="Pg005" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +right that first day that you don’t argue with +Kate. I ate the cottage cheese—it doesn’t really +have any taste anyway—and I sure have always +agreed with her about the string beans.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Off and on since then I’ve seen quite a lot of +Kate. I’d pass her on the street, chirruping to +some mangy old stray cat hiding under a car, and +he’d always come out to be stroked. Sometimes +there’d be a bunch of little kids dancing around +jeering at her and calling her a witch. It made +me feel real good and important to run them off.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Quite often I went with her to the A & P and +helped her carry home the cat food and cottage +cheese and fruit. She talks to herself all the time +in the store, and if she thinks the peaches or +melons don’t look good that day, she shouts clear +across the store to the manager. He comes across +and picks her out an extra good one, just to keep +the peace.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I introduced Kate to Mom, and they got along +real well. Kate’s leery of most people, afraid +they’ll make fun of her, I guess; my mom’s not +leery of people, but she’s shy, and what with +asthma and worrying about keeping me and Pop +calmed down, she doesn’t go out much or make +dates with people. She and Kate would chat together +<a name="Pg006" id="Pg006" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +in the stores or sitting on the stoop on a +sunny day. Kate shook her head over Mom’s +asthma and said she’d get over it if she ate cottage +cheese every day. Mom ate it for a while, but she +put mayonnaise on it, which Kate says is just like +poison.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The day of the fight with Pop about the Belafonte +record it’s cold and windy out and there +are no kids in sight. I slam my ball back and forth +against the wall where it says “No Ball Playing,” +just to limber up and let off a little spite, and +then I go over to see Kate.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate has a permanent cat named Susan and +however many kittens Susan happens to have +just had. It varies. Usually there are a few other +temporary stray kittens in the apartment, but I +never saw any father cat there before. Today +Susan and her kittens are under the stove, and +Susan keeps hissing at a big tiger-striped tomcat +crouching under the sofa. He turns his head +away from her and looks like he never intended +to get mixed up with family life. For a stray cat +he’s sleek and healthy-looking. Every time he +moves a whisker, Susan hisses again, warningly. +She believes in no visiting rights for fathers.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate pours me some tea and asks what’s doing. +</p> + +<a name="Pg007" id="Pg007" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“My pop is full of hot air, as usual,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Takes one to know one,” Kate says, catching +me off base. I change the subject.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How come the kittens’ pop is around the +house? I never saw a full-grown tom here +before.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He saw me buying some cans of cat food, so +he followed me home. Susan isn’t admitting she +ever knew him or ever wants to. I’ll give him +another feed and send him on his way, I guess. +He’s a handsome young fellow.” Kate strokes +him between the ears, and he rotates his head. +Susan hisses.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He starts to pull back farther under the sofa. +Without stopping to think myself, or giving him +time to, I pick him up. Susan arches up and +spits. I can feel the muscles in his body tense up +as he gets ready to spring out of my lap. Then +he changes his mind and decides to take advantage +of the lap. He narrows his eyes and gives +Susan a bored look and turns his head to take +me in. After he’s sized me up, he pretends he +only turned around to lick his back.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Cat,” I say to him, “how about coming home +with me?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hah!” Kate laughs. “Your pop will throw +<a name="Pg008" id="Pg008" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +him out faster than you can say ‘good old Jeff.’”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah-h?” I say it slowly and do some thinking. +Taking Cat home had been just a passing +thought, but right now I decide I’ll really go to +the mat with Pop about this. He can have his +memories of good old Jeff and rabbit hunts, but +I’m going to have me a tiger.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Aunt Kate gives me a can of cat food and a +box of litter, so Cat can stay in my room, because +I remember Mom probably gets asthma from +animals, too. Cat and I go home.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop does a lot of shouting and sputtering +when we get home, but I just put Cat down in +my room, and I try not to argue with him, so I +won’t lose my temper. I promise I’ll keep him +in my room and sweep up the cat hairs so Mom +won’t have to.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As a final blast Pop says, “I suppose you’ll +get your exercise mouse hunting now. What are +you going to name the noble animal?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Look, Pop,” I explain, “I know he’s a cat, +he knows he’s a cat, and his name is Cat. And +even if you call him Honorable John Fitzgerald +Kennedy, he won’t come when you call, and he +won’t lick your hand, see?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He’d better not! And it’s not my hand that’s +<a name="Pg009" id="Pg009" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +going to get licked around here in a minute,” +Pop snaps.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“All right, all right.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Actually, my pop sometimes jaws so long it’d +be a relief if he did haul off and hit me, but he +never does.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We call it a draw for that day, and I have Cat.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg010" id="Pg010" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc3" id="toc3"></a> + <a name="pdf4" id="pdf4"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">2</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image02.png" width="573" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave looking at Cat locked in cage." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat makes himself at home in my room pretty +easily. Mostly he likes to be up on top of something, +so I put an old sweater on the bureau +beside my bed, and he sleeps up there. When +he wants me to wake up in the morning, he +jumps and lands in the middle of my stomach. +Believe me, cats don’t always land lightly—only +when they want to. Anything a cat does, +he does only when he wants to. I like that. +</p> + +<a name="Pg011" id="Pg011" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When I’m combing my hair in the morning, +sometimes he sits up there and looks down +his nose at my reflection in the mirror. He +appears to be taking inventory: “Hmm, buckteeth; +sandy hair, smooth in front, cowlick in +back; brown eyes, can’t see in the dark worth a +nickel; hickeys on the chin. Too bad.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I look back at him in the mirror and say, +“O.K., black face, yellow eyes, and one white +whisker. Where’d you get that one white +whisker?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He catches sight of himself in the mirror, and +his tail twitches momentarily. He seems to know +it’s not really another cat, but his claws come out +and he taps the mirror softly, just to make sure.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When I’m lying on the bed reading, sometimes +he will curl up between my knees and the +book. But after a few days I can see he’s getting +more and more restless. It gets so I can’t listen +to a record, for the noise of him scratching on +the rug. I can’t let him loose in the apartment, +at least until we make sure Mom doesn’t get +asthma, so I figure I better reintroduce him to +the great outdoors in the city. One nice Sunday +morning in April we go down and sit on the +stoop. +</p> + +<a name="Pg012" id="Pg012" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat sits down, very tall and neat and pear-shaped, +and closes his eyes about halfway. He +glances at the street like it isn’t good enough for +him. After a while, condescending, he eases +down the steps and lies on a sunny, dusty spot in +the middle of the sidewalk. People walking have +to step around him, and he squints at them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then he gets up, quick, looks over his +shoulder at nothing, and shoots down the stairs +to the cellar. I take a look to see where he’s going, +and he is pacing slowly toward the backyard, +head down, a tiger on the prowl. I figure I’ll sit +in the sun and finish my science-fiction magazine +before I go after him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When I do, he’s not in sight, and the janitor +tells me he jumped up on the wall and probably +down into one of the other yards. I look around +a while and call, but he’s not in sight, and I go +up to lunch. Along toward evening Cat scratches +at the door and comes in, as if he’d done it all +his life.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This gets to be a routine. Sometimes he +doesn’t even come home at night, and he’s sitting +on the doormat when I get the milk in the morning, +looking offended.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Is it my fault you stayed out all night?” I +ask him. +</p> + +<a name="Pg013" id="Pg013" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He sticks his tail straight up and marches down +the hall to the kitchen, where he waits for me +to open the milk and dish out the cat food. Then +he goes to bed.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One morning he’s not there when I open the +door, and he still hasn’t showed up when I get +back from school. I get worried and go down +to talk to Butch.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Wa-a-l,” says Butch, “sometimes that cat sit +and talk to me a little, but most times he go on +over to Twenty-first Street, where he sit and talk +to his lady friend. Turned cold last night, lot of +buildings put on heat and closed up their basements. +Maybe he got locked in somewheres.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Which building’s his friend live in?” I ask.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Forty-six, the big one. His friend’s a little +black-and-white cat, sort of belongs to the night +man over there. He feeds her.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go around to Twenty-first Street and case +Forty-six, which is a pretty fair-looking building +with a striped awning and a doorman who +saunters out front and looks around every few +minutes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">While I’m watching, a grocery boy comes +along pushing his cart and goes down some +stairs into the basement with his carton of +groceries. This gives me an idea. I’ll give the +<a name="Pg014" id="Pg014" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +boy time to get started up in the elevator, and +then I’ll go down in the basement and hunt for +Cat. If someone comes along and gets sore, I +can always play dumb.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go down, and the coast is clear. The elevator’s +gone up, and I walk softly past and +through a big room where the tenants leave +their baby carriages and bicycles. After this the +cellar stretches off into several corridors, lit by +twenty-watt bulbs dangling from the ceiling. +You can hardly see anything. The corridors go +between wire storage cages, where the tenants +keep stuff like trunks and old cribs and parakeet +cages. They’re all locked.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Me-ow, meow, me-ow!” Unmistakably Cat, +and angry.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The sound comes from the end of one corridor, +and I fumble along, peering into each +cage to try to see a tiger cat in a shadowy hole. +Fortunately his eyes glow and he opens his +mouth for another meow, and I see him locked +inside one of the cages before I come to the end +of the corridor. I don’t know how he got in or +how I’m going to get him out.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">While I’m thinking, Cat’s eyes flick away from +me to the right, then back to me. Cat’s not making +<a name="Pg015" id="Pg015" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +any noise, and neither am I, but something +is. It’s just a tiny rustle, or a breath, but I have +a creepy feeling someone is standing near us. +Way down at the end of the cellar a shadow +moves a little, and I can see it has a white splotch—a +face. It’s a man, and he comes toward me.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t know why any of the building men +would be way back there, but that’s who I figure +it is, so I start explaining.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I was just hunting for my cat ... I mean, +he’s got locked in one of these cages. I just want +to get him out.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The guy lets his breath out, slow, as if he’s +been holding it quite a while. I realize he doesn’t +belong in that cellar either, and he’s been scared +of me.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He moves forward, saying “Sh-h-h” very +quietly. He’s taller than I am, and I can’t see +what he really looks like, but I’m sure he’s sort +of a kid, maybe eighteen or so.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looks at the padlock on the cage and says, +“Huh, cheap!” He takes a paper clip out of his +pocket and opens it out, and I think maybe he +has a penknife, too, and next thing I know the +padlock is open.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Gee, how’d you do that?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg016" id="Pg016" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sh-h-h. A guy showed me how. You better +get your cat and scram.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Golly, I wonder, maybe the guy is a burglar, +and that gives me another creepy feeling. But +would a burglar be taking time out to get a +kid’s cat free?</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, thanks for the cat. See you around,” +I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sh-h-h. I don’t live around here. Hurry up, +before we both get caught.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maybe he’s a real burglar with a gun, even, I +think, and by the time I dodge past the elevators +and get out in the cold April wind, the sweat +down my back is freezing. I give Cat a long +lecture on staying out of basements. After all, I +can’t count on having a burglar handy to get +him out every time.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Back home we put some nice jailhouse blues +on the record player, and we both stretch out on +the bed to think. The guy didn’t really <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">look</span></span> like +a burglar. And he didn’t talk “dese and dose.” +Maybe real burglars don’t all talk that way—only +the ones on TV. Still, he sure picked that lock +fast, and he was sure down in that cellar for +some reason of his own.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Maybe I ought to let someone know. I figure +<a name="Pg017" id="Pg017" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +I’ll test Pop out, just casual like. “Some queer-looking +types hanging around this neighborhood,” +I say at dinner. “I saw a tough-looking +guy hanging around Number Forty-six this +afternoon. Might have been a burglar, even.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I figure Pop’ll at least ask me what he was +doing, and maybe I’ll tell him the whole thing—about +Cat and the cage. But Pop says, “In case +you didn’t know it, burglars do not all look like +Humphrey Bogart, and they don’t wear signs.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Thanks for the news,” I say and go on eating +my dinner. Even if Pop does make me sore, +I’m not going to pass up steak and onions, which +we don’t have very often.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">However, the next day I’m walking along +Twenty-first Street and I see the super of Forty-six +standing by the back entrance, so I figure I’ll +try again. I say to him, “Us kids were playing ball +here yesterday, and we saw a strange-looking guy +sneak into your cellar. It wasn’t a delivery boy.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah? You sure it wasn’t you or one of your +juvenile pals trying to swipe a bike? How come +you have to play ball right here?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I don’t swipe bikes. I got one of my own. +New. A Raleigh. Better than any junk you got +in there.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg018" id="Pg018" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What d’you know about what I got in there, +wise guy?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Aw, forget it.” I realize he’s just getting +suspicious of me. That’s what comes of trying +to be a big public-spirited citizen. I decide my +burglar, whoever he is, is a lot nicer than the +super, and I hope he got a fat haul.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Next day it looks like maybe he did just that. +The local paper, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Town and Village</span></span>, has a headline: +“Gramercy Park Cellar Robbed.” I read +down the article:</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“The superintendent, Fred Snood, checked +the cellar storage cages, after a passing youth +hinted to him that there had been a robbery. +He found one cage open and a suitcase missing. +Police theorize that the youth may have been +the burglar, or an accomplice with a guilty +conscience or a grudge, and they are hunting +him for questioning. Mr. Snood described him +as about sixteen years of age, medium height, +with a long ‘ducktail’ haircut, and wearing a +heavy black sweater. They are also checking +second-hand stores for the stolen suitcase.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The burglar stole a suitcase with valuable +papers and some silver and jewelry in it. But +the guy they were hunting for—I read the paragraph +over and feel green. That’s me. I get up +<a name="Pg019" id="Pg019" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +and look in the mirror. In other circumstances +I’d like being taken for sixteen instead of fourteen, +which I am. I smooth my hair and squint +at the back of it. The ducktail is fine.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Slowly I peel off my black sweater, which I +wear practically all the time, and stuff it in my +bottom drawer, under my bathing suit. But if I +want to walk around the street without worrying +about every cop, I’ll have to do more than +that. I put on a shirt and necktie and suit jacket +and stick a cap on my head. I head uptown on +the subway. At Sixty-eighth Street I get off and +find a barbershop.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Butch cut,” I tell the guy.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That’s right. I’ll trim you nice and neat. Get +rid of all this stuff.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And while he chatters on like an idiot, I have +to watch three months’ work go snip, snip on +the floor. Then I have to pay for it. At home I +get the same routine. Pop looks at my Ivy-League +disguise and says, “Why, you may look +positively human some day!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Two days later I find out I could’ve kept my +hair. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Town and Village</span></span> has a new story: “Nab +Cellar Thief Returning Loot. ‘Just A Bet,’ +He Says.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The story is pretty interesting. The guy I met +<a name="Pg020" id="Pg020" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +in the cellar is named Tom Ransom, and he is +nineteen and just sort of floating around in the +city. He doesn’t seem to have any family. The +police kept a detective watching Number Forty-six, +and pretty soon they see Tom walking along +with the stolen suitcase. He drops it inside the +delivery entrance and walks on, but the cop +collars him. I suppose if it hadn’t been for me +shooting my big mouth off to the super, the +police wouldn’t have been watching the neighborhood. +I feel sort of responsible.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The story in the paper goes on to say this guy +was broke and hunting for a job, and some other +guy dares him to snatch something out of a cellar +and finally bets him ten dollars, so he does it. +He gets out and finds the suitcase has a lot of +stocks and legal papers and table silver in it, +and he’s scared stiff. So he figures to drop it back +where it came from. The paper says he’s held +over to appear before some magistrate in +Adolescent Court.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I wonder, would they send a guy to jail for +that? Or if they turn him loose, what does he do? +It must be lousy to be in this city without any +family or friends.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At that point I get the idea I’ll write him a +letter. After all, Cat and I sort of got him into +<a name="Pg021" id="Pg021" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +the soup. So I look up the name of the magistrate +and spend about half an hour poring through +the phone book, under “New York, City of,” to +get an address. I wonder whether to address him +as “Tom” or “Mr. Ransom.” Finally I write:</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><br /><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dear Tom Ransom:</span></span></p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I am the kid you met in the cellar at Number +Forty-six Gramercy, and I certainly thank you +for unlocking that cage and getting my cat out. +Cat is fine. I am sorry you got in trouble with +the police. It sounds to me like you were only trying +to return the stuff and do right. My father is +a lawyer, if you would like one. I guess he’s +pretty good. Or if you would like to write me +anyway, here is my address: 150 East 22 St. I read +in the paper that your family don’t live in New +York, which is why I thought you might like +someone to write to.</span></span></p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: right"><span style="font-style: italic">Yours sincerely,</span></span><br /> +<span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: right"><span style="font-style: italic">Dave Mitchell</span></span><br /> +<br /></p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now that I’m a free citizen again, I dig out my +black sweater, look disgustedly at the butch haircut, +and go out to mail my letter.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Later on I get into a stickball game again on +<a name="Pg022" id="Pg022" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +Twenty-first Street. Cat comes along and sits up +high on a stoop across the street, where he can +watch the ball game and the tame dogs being led +by on their leashes. That big brain, the super of +Forty-six, is standing by the delivery entrance, +looking sour as usual.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Got any burglars in your basement these +days?” I yell to him while I’m jogging around the +bases on a long hit.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looks at me and my short haircut and +scratches his own bald egg. “Where’d I see you?” +he asks suspiciously.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh—Cat and I, we get around,” I say.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg023" id="Pg023" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc5" id="toc5"></a> + <a name="pdf6" id="pdf6"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">3</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image03.png" width="556" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave, Cat, and Nick running on the beach." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick and I have been friends pretty much since I +can remember. Our mothers used to trade turns +fetching us from kindergarten. Nick lives +around the corner on Third Avenue, upstairs +over the grocery store his old man runs. If anyone +asked me <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">how come</span></span> we’re friends, I couldn’t +exactly say. We’re just together most of the time.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Neither of us is a real whiz at sports, but we +used to roller-skate and play a little king and +<a name="Pg024" id="Pg024" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +stickball and ride our bikes around exploring. +One time when we were about ten, we rode way +over to Twelfth Avenue at the Hudson River, +where the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Queen Mary</span></span> docks. This is about the +only time I remember my mom getting really +angry. She said Pop ought to take my bike away +from me, and he did, but only for about a week. +Nick and I still ride bikes a lot. Otherwise we +sit and do our homework or play chess and listen +to records.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Another reason we’re friends is because of this +creepy little kid who lived down toward the +corner, between me and Nick. He always tagged +along, wanting to play with us, and of course in +the end he always fouled up the game or fell +down and started to cry. Then his big brother +came rushing out, usually with another big guy +along, and they figured they were entitled to +beat us up for hurting little Joey.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a while it looked to me as if Joey just +worked as a lookout, and the minute me or Nick +showed up on the block, one of the big guys came +to run us off. They did little things like throwing +sticks into our bike spokes and pretending it was +just a joke. Nick and I used to plot all kinds of +ways to get even with them, but in the end we +<a name="Pg025" id="Pg025" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +mostly decided it was easier to walk around the +block the long way to get to each other’s houses. +I’m not much on fighting, and neither is Nick—’specially +not with guys bigger than us.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Summers, up in the country, the kids seem to +be all the time wrestling and punching, half for +fun and half not. If I walk past some strange kid +my age up there, he almost always tries to get me +into a fight. I don’t get it. Maybe it’s because +sidewalks are uncomfortable for fighting, but we +just don’t do much scrapping for fun. The only +couple of fights I ever had, I was real mad.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Come spring, Nick and I got restless hanging +around the street, with nothing to do but stickball +and baiting the super at Forty-six. It was +so easy to get him sore, it wasn’t even fun. Cat +stayed out of that basement, but I wanted to get +him really out in the open, where he could chase +squirrels or something.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One day we rode our bikes up to Central Park. +I put Cat in a wicker hamper and tied it on the +back of my bike. He meowed a lot, and people +on the street would look at me and then do a +double take when they heard him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We got up to Central Park and into a place +they call The Horseshoe, because the parking +<a name="Pg026" id="Pg026" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +area is that shape. I opened the lid a crack to look +at Cat. He hissed at me, the first time he ever +did. I looked around and thought, Gee, if I let +him loose, he could go anywhere, even over into +the woods, and I might never catch him. There +were a lot of hoody looking kids around, and I +could see if I ever left my bike a second to chase +Cat, they’d snatch the bike. So I didn’t let Cat +out, and I wolfed my sandwich and we went +home. Nick was pretty disgusted.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then we hit a hot Saturday, the first one in +May, and I get an idea. I find Nick and say, +“Let’s put Cat and some sandwiches in the basket +and hop the subway out to Coney.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick says, “Why bring Cat? He wrecked the +last expedition.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I like to take him places, and this won’t be +like Central Park. No one’s at Coney this time of +year. He can chase around on the beach and hunt +sand crabs.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why do I have to have a nut for a friend?” +Nick moans. “Well, anyway, I’m keeping my +sandwich in my pocket, not in any old cat +basket.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Who cares where you keep your crumby +sandwich?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg027" id="Pg027" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So we went. Lots of people might think Coney +Island is ugly, with all the junky-looking booths +and billboards. But when you turn your back on +them and look out at the ocean, it’s the same +ocean as on a deserted beach. I kick off my shoes +and stand with my feet in the ice water and the +sun hot on my chest. Looking out at the horizon +with its few ships and some sea gulls and planes +overhead, I think: It’s mine, all mine. I could go +anywhere in the world, I could. Maybe I will.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick throws water down my neck. He only +understands infinity on math papers. I let Cat +out of the basket and strip off my splashed shirt +and chase Nick along the edge of the water. No +need to worry about Cat. He chases right along +with us, and every time a wave catches his feet +he hisses and hightails it up the beach. Then he +rolls himself in the hot, dry sand and gets up +and shakes. There are a few other groups of +people dotted along the beach. A big mutt dog +comes and sniffs Cat and gets a right and a left +scratch to the nose. He yelps and runs for home. +Cat discovers sand crabs. Nick and I roll around +in the sand and wrestle, and after a while we get +hungry, so we go back where we left the basket. +Cat is content to let me carry him. +</p> + +<a name="Pg028" id="Pg028" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Three girls are having a picnic right near our +basket. One yells to the others, “Hey, look! The +guy went swimming with his cat!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat jumps down, turns his back on them, and +humps himself around on my sweater until he is +settled for a nap. I turn my back on the girls, +too, and look out at the ocean.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Still, it’s not the same as it would have been +a year ago. Then Nick and I would either have +moved away from the girls or thrown sand at +them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We just sit and eat our sandwiches. Nick looks +over at them pretty often and whispers to me +how old do I think they are. I can’t tell about +girls. Some of the ones in our class at school +look about twenty-five, but then you see mothers +pushing baby carriages on the street who look +about fifteen.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of the girls catches Nick’s eye and giggles. +“Hi, there, whatcha watching?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I’m a bird watcher,” says Nick. “Seen any +birds?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girls drift over our way. The one that +spoke first is a redhead. The one who seems to be +the leader is a big blonde in a real short skirt +and hair piled up high in a bird’s nest. Maybe +<a name="Pg029" id="Pg029" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +that’s what started Nick bird-watching. The +third girl is sort of quiet-looking, with brown +hair, I guess.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You want a couple of cupcakes? You can have +mine. I’m going on a diet,” says the blonde.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Thanks,” says Nick. “I was thinking of going +after some cokes.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why waste time thinking? You might hurt +your head,” says the redhead.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The third girl bends down and strokes Cat +between the ears very gently. She says, “What’s +his name?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I explain to her about why Cat is Cat. She sits +down and picks up a piece of seaweed to dangle +over his nose. Cat makes a couple of sleepy +swipes at it and then stretches luxuriously while +she strokes him. The other kids get to talking, +and we tell each other our names and where we +go to school and all that stuff.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then Nick gets back on the subject of going +for cokes. I don’t really want to stay there alone +with the girls, so I say I’ll go. I tell Nick to watch +Cat, and the girl who is petting him says, “Don’t +worry, I won’t let him run away.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s a good thing she’s there, because by the +time I get back with the cokes, which no one +<a name="Pg030" id="Pg030" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +offers to pay me back for, Nick and the other +two girls are halfway down the beach. Mary—that’s +her name—says, “I never saw a cat at the +beach before, but he seems to like it. Where’d +you get him?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He’s a stray. I got him from an old lady who’s +sort of a nut about cats. Come on, I’ll see if I can +get him to chase waves for you. He was doing it +earlier.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We are running along in the waves when the +other kids come back. The big blonde kicks up +water at me and yells, “Race you!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I chase, and just as I’m going to catch up, +she stops short so I crash into her and we both +fall down. This seems to be what she had in +mind, but I bet the other kids are watching and +I feel silly. I roll away and get up and go back to +Cat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">While we drink cokes the blonde and the +redhead say they want to go to the movies.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s on?” Nick asks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“There’s a Sinatra thing at the neighborhood,” +the blonde tells him, and he looks interested.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I can’t,” I say. “I’ve got Cat. Besides, it’s too +late. Mom’d think I’d fallen into the subway.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg031" id="Pg031" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I told you that cat was a mistake,” says Nick.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Put him in the basket and call your mother +and tell her your watch stopped,” says the redhead. +She comes over and trickles sand down my +neck. “Come on, it’d be fun. We don’t have to +sit in the kids’ section. We all look sixteen.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nah, I can’t.” I get up and shake the sand +out.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick looks disgusted, but he doesn’t want to +stay alone. He says to the blonde, “Write me +down your phone number, and we’ll do it another +day when this nut hasn’t got his cat along.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She writes down the phone number, and the +redhead pouts because I’m not asking for hers. +The girls get ready to leave, and Mary pats Cat +good-bye and waves to me. She says, “Bring him +again. He’s nice.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We get on the subway and Cat meows crossly +at being shut in his basket. Nick pokes the basket +with his toes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Shut up, nuisance,” he says.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg032" id="Pg032" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc7" id="toc7"></a> + <a name="pdf8" id="pdf8"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">4</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image04.png" width="402" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Nick fighting on the ground." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I actually get a letter back from Tom Ransom. +It says: “Thanks for your letter. The Youth +Board got me a room in the Y on Twenty-third +Street. Maybe I’ll come say Hello some day. +They’re going to help me get a job this summer, +so I don’t need a lawyer. Thanks anyway. Meow +to Cat. Best, Tom.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go over to Nick’s house to show him the +letter. I’d told him about Tom getting Cat out +<a name="Pg033" id="Pg033" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +of the cellar and getting arrested, but Nick always +acted like he didn’t really believe it. So +when he sees the letter, he has to admit Cat and +I really got into something. Not everyone gets +letters from guys who have been arrested.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One thing about Nick sort of gripes me. He +has to think up all the plans. Anything I’ve done +that he doesn’t know about, he downgrades. +Also, I always have to go to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">his</span></span> house. He never +comes to mine, except once in a coon’s age when +I have a new record I won’t bring to his house +because his machine stinks and he never buys a +new needle.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s not that I don’t like his house. His mom is +pretty nice, and boy, can she cook! Just an +ordinary Saturday for lunch she makes pizza or +real good spaghetti, and she has homemade +cookies and nut cake sitting around after school. +She also talks and waves her arms and shouts +orders at us kids, but all good-natured-like, so we +just kid her along and go on with what we’re +doing.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She’s about the opposite of my mom. Pop does +the shouting in our house, and except for the one +hassle about bike-riding on Twelfth Avenue, +Mom doesn’t even tell me what to do much. +<a name="Pg034" id="Pg034" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +She’s quiet, and pretty often she doesn’t feel +good, so maybe I think more than most kids that +I ought to do things her way without being told.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Also, my mom is always home and always +ready to listen if you got something griping you, +like when a teacher blames you for something +you didn’t do. Some kids I know, they have to +phone a string of places to find their mother, and +then she scolds them for interrupting her.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom likes to cook, and she gets up some good +meals for holidays, but she doesn’t go at it all +the time, the way Nick’s mother does. So maybe +Nick doesn’t come to my house because we +haven’t got all that good stuff sitting around. I +don’t think that’s it, really, though. He just likes +to be boss.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One day, a couple of weeks after we went to +Coney, he does come along with me. We pick up +a couple of cokes and pears at his pop’s store.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat is sitting on my front stoop, and he jumps +down and rubs between my legs and goes up the +stairs ahead of us.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“See? He knows when school gets out then it’s +time to eat. That’s why I like to come home,” I +tell Nick.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We say “Hi” to Mom, and I get out the cat +<a name="Pg035" id="Pg035" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +food while Nick opens his coke. “You know +those girls we ran into over on Coney Island?” +he says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, I got the blonde’s phone number, so +Sunday when I was hacking around with nothing +to do, I called her up.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah? What for?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You stupid or something? To talk. So she +yacked away a good while, and finally I asked +her why didn’t she come over next Saturday, we +could go to a movie or something.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah.” I was working on my pear, a very +juicy one.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That all you can say? So she says, well, she +might, if she can get her girl friend to come too, +but she doesn’t want to come alone, and her +mother wouldn’t let her anyway.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Which one?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Which one what?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Which girl friend?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh. You remember, the other one we were +kidding around with at the beach, the redhead. +So I said, O.K., I’d see if I could get you to come +too. I said I’d call her back.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmp. I don’t know.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg036" id="Pg036" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What d’you mean, you don’t know?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How do I know if I like that girl? I hardly +even <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">talked</span></span> to her. Anyway, it sounds like a date. +I don’t want a date. If they just happen to come +over, I guess it’s all right.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So shall I tell them it’s O.K. for Saturday?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmm.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s nice you learned a new word.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Do I have to pay for the girl at the movies?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Cheapskate. Maybe if you just stand around +saying ‘Hmm,’ she’ll buy her own. O.K.?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. But this whole thing is your idea, and +if it stinks it’s going to be your fault.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Boy, what an enthusiast! Come on, let’s play +a record and do the math.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick is better at math than I am, so I agree.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Saturday morning at ten o’clock Nick turns +up at my house in a white shirt and slicked-down +hair. Pop whistles. “On Saturday, yet! You got +a girl or something?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yessir!” says Nick, and he gives my T-shirt a +dirty look. I go put a sweater over it and run +a comb through my hair, but I’m hanged if I’ll +go out looking like this is a big deal.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We’re going to a movie down at the Academy,” +I tell my family.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s there?” Pop asks. +</p> + +<a name="Pg037" id="Pg037" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“A new horror show,” says Nick. “And an old +Disney.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Is it really a new horror show?” I ask Nick, +because I think I’ve seen every one that’s been +in town.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yup. Just opened. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Gold Bug.</span></span> Some guy +wrote it—I mean in a book once—but it’s supposed +to be great. Make the girls squeal anyway. +I love that.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmm.” I just like horror shows anyway, +whether girls squeal or not.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You’ll be the life of the party with that +‘Hmm’ routine.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">your</span></span> party.” I shrug.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, you could at least <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">try</span></span>.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We hang around the subway kiosk on Fourteenth +Street, where Nick said he’d meet them. +After half an hour they finally show up.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s nice and sunny, and we see a crowd +bunched up over in Union Square, so we wander +over. A shaggy-haired, bearded character is making +a speech all about “They,” the bad guys. A +lot of sleepy bums are sitting around letting the +speech roll off their ears.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What is he, a nut or something?” the blonde +asks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“A Commie, maybe,” I say. “They’re always +<a name="Pg038" id="Pg038" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +giving speeches down here. Willie Sutton, the +bank robber, used to sit down here and listen, +too. That’s where somebody put the finger on +him.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girls look at each other and laugh like +crazy, as if I’d said something real funny. I catch +Nick’s eye and glare. O.K., I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tried</span></span>. After this I’ll +stick to “Hmm.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A beard who is listening to the speech turns +and glares at us and says, “Shush!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Aw, go shave yourself!” says Nick, and the +girls go off in more hoots. Nick starts herding +them toward Fourteenth Street, and I follow +along.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the Academy Nick goes up to the ticket +window, and the girls immediately fade out to +go read the posters and snicker together. I can +see they’re not figuring to pay for any tickets, so +I cough up for two.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick and I try to saunter up to the balcony the +way we always do, but the girls are giggling and +dropping their popcorn, so the matron spots us +and motions. “Down here!” She flashes her light +in our eyes, and I feel like a convict while we get +packed in with all the kids in the under-sixteen +section. +</p> + +<a name="Pg039" id="Pg039" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick goes in first, then the blonde, then the +redhead and me. The minute things start getting +scary, she tries to grab me, but I stick my hands +in my pockets and say, “Aw, it’s just a picture.” +She looks disgusted.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next scary bit, she tries to hang onto her +girl friend, but the blonde is already glued onto +Nick. Redhead lets out a loud sigh, and I wish I +hadn’t ever got into this deal. I can’t even enjoy +the picture.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We suffer through the two pictures. The little +kids make such a racket you can hardly hear, +and the matron keeps shining the light in your +eyes so you can’t see. She shines it on the blonde, +who is practically sitting in Nick’s lap, and hisses +at her to get back. I’m not going to do this again, +ever.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go out and Nick says, “Let’s have a coke.” +He’s walking along with the blonde, and instead +of walking beside me the redhead tries to catch +hold of his other arm. This sort of burns me up. +I mean, I don’t really <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">like</span></span> her, but I paid for her +and everything.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nick shakes her off and calls over his shoulder +to me, “Come on, chicken, pull your own +weight!” +</p> + +<a name="Pg040" id="Pg040" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girls laugh, on cue as usual, and I begin +getting really sore. Nick got me into this. The +least he can do is shut up.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk into a soda bar, and I slap down +thirty cents and say, “Two cokes, please.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, hey! The last of the big spenders!” says +Nick. More laughter. I’d just as soon sock him +right now, but I pick up my money and say, +“O.K., wise guy, treat’s on you.” Nick shrugs and +tosses down a buck as if he had hundreds of +them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The two girls drink their cokes and talk across +Nick. I finish mine in two or three gulps, and +finally we can walk them to the subway. Nick is +gabbing away about how he’ll come out to +Coney one weekend, and I’m standing there +with my hands in my pockets.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Goo’bye, Bashful!” coos the redhead to me, +and the two of them disappear, cackling, down +the steps. I start across Fourteenth Street as soon +as the light changes, without bothering to look +if Nick is coming. He can go rot.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Along Union Square he’s beside me, acting +as if everything is peachy fine dandy. “That was +a great show. Pretty good fun, huh?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg041" id="Pg041" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I just keep walking.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You sore or something?” he asks, as if he +didn’t know.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I keep on walking.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K., be sore!” he snaps. Then he breaks +into a falsetto: “Goo’bye, Bashful!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I let him have it before he’s hardly got his +mouth closed. He hits me back in the stomach +and hooks one of his ankles around mine so we +both fall down. It goes from bad to worse. He +gets me by the hair and bangs my head on the +sidewalk, so I twist and bite his hand. We’re +gouging and scratching and biting and kicking, +because we’re both so mad we can hardly see, +and anyway no one ever taught us those Queensberry +rules. There’s no point in going into all +the gory details. Finally two guys haul us apart. +I have hold of Nick’s shirt and it rips. Good. +He’s half crying, and he twists away from the +guy that grabbed him and screams some things +at me before darting across the avenue.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m standing panting and sobbing, and the +guy holding me says, “You oughta be ashamed. +Now go on home.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Aw, you and your big mouth,” I say, still mad +<a name="Pg042" id="Pg042" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +enough to feel reckless. He throws a fake punch, +but he’s not really interested. He goes his way, +and I go mine.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I must look pretty bad because a lot of people +on the street shake their heads at me. I walk in +the door at home, expecting the worst, but fortunately +Mom is out. Pop just whistles through +his teeth.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That must have been quite a horror picture!” +he says.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg043" id="Pg043" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc9" id="toc9"></a> + <a name="pdf10" id="pdf10"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">5</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image05.png" width="506" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Tom lunching in meadow above river." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">By the next weekend I no longer look like a +fugitive from a riot. All week in school Nick and +I get asked whether we got hit by a swinging +door; then the fellows notice the two of us aren’t +speaking to each other, and they sort of sheer +off the subject. Come Saturday, I sit on the stoop +and wonder, what now? There are plenty of +other kids in school I like, but they mostly live +over in the project—Stuyvesant Town, that is. +<a name="Pg044" id="Pg044" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +I’ve never bothered to hunt them up weekends +because Nick’s so much nearer.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Summer is coming on, though, and I’ve got to +have someone to hang around with. This is the +last Saturday before Memorial Day. Getting +time for beaches and stuff. I suppose Nick and +I might get together again, but not if he’s going +to be nuts about girls all the time.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A guy stops in front of the stoop, and Cat half +opens his eyes in the sun and squints at him. +The guy says, “You Dave Mitchell?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh? Yeah.” I look up, surprised. I don’t +exactly recognize the guy, never having seen him +in a clear light before. But from the voice I know +it’s Tom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh, hi!” I say. “Here’s Cat. He’s pretty handsome +in daylight.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah, he looks all right, but what happened +to you?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Me and a friend of mine got in a fight.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“With some other guys or what?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nah. We had a fight with each other.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Um, that’s bad.” Tom sits down and has +sense enough to see there isn’t anymore to say +on that subject. “I start work Memorial Day, +when the beaches open. Working in a filling +<a name="Pg045" id="Pg045" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +station on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Gee, that’s a long way off. You going to live +over there?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah, they’re going to get me a room in a Y +in Brooklyn.” Tom stretches restlessly and goes +on: “I suppose you get sick of school and all, +but it’s rotten having nothing to do. I’d be ready +to go nuts if I didn’t get a job. I can’t wait to +start.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I think of asking him doesn’t he have a home +or something to go back to, but somehow I don’t +like to.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Like today,” Tom says. “I’d like to go somewhere. +Do something. Got any ideas?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Um. I was sort of trying to think up something +myself. Movies?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom shakes himself. “No. I want to walk, or +run, or throw something.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“There’s a big park—sort of a woods—up near +the Bronx. A kid told me about it. He said he +found an Indian arrowhead there, but I bet he +didn’t. Inwood Park, it’s called.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How do you get there?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Subway, I guess.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Let’s go!” Tom stands up and wriggles his +shoulders like he’s Superman ready to take off. +</p> + +<a name="Pg046" id="Pg046" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. Wait a minute. I’ll go tell Mom. Should +I get some sandwiches?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom looks surprised. “Sure, fine, if she doesn’t +mind.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m not worried about getting Mom to make +sandwiches because she always likes to fix a little +food for me. The thing is, ever since my fight +with Nick, she’s been clucking around me like +the mother hen. Maybe she figures I got in some +gang fight, so she keeps asking me where I’m +going and who with. Also, I guess she noticed I +don’t go to Nick’s after school anymore. I come +right home. So she asks me do I feel all right. +You can’t win. Right now, I can see she’s going +to begin asking who is Tom and where did I +meet him. It occurs to me there’s an easy way +to take care of this.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I turn around to Tom again. “Say, how +about you come up and I’ll introduce you to +Mom? Then she won’t start asking me a lot of +questions.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You mean I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">look</span></span> respectable, at least?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sure.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go up to the apartment, and Mom asks if +we’d like some cold drinks or something. I tell +her I ran into Tom when he helped me hunt for +<a name="Pg047" id="Pg047" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +Cat around Gramercy Park, which is almost true, +and that he sometimes plays stickball with us, +which isn’t really true but it could be. Mom gets +us some orangeade. She usually keeps something +like that in the icebox in summer, because she +thinks cokes are bad for you.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Do you live around here?” she asks Tom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No, ma’am,” says Tom firmly. “I live at +the Y. I’ve got a summer job in a filling station +over in Brooklyn, starting right after Memorial +Day.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That’s fine,” Mom says. “I wish Davey could +get a job. He gets so restless with nothing to do +in the summer.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Aw, Mom, forget it! You got to fill in about +six-hundred working papers if you’re under +sixteen.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Listen, Mom, what I came up for—we +thought we’d make some sandwiches and go up +to Inwood Park.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Inwood? Where’s that?” So I explain to her +about the Indian arrowheads, and we get out +the classified phone book and look at the subway +map, which shows there’s an IND train that goes +right to it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I get sort of restless myself, with nothing to +<a name="Pg048" id="Pg048" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +do,” says Tom. “We just figured we’d do a little +exploring around in the woods and get some +exercise.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why, yes, that seems like a good idea.” Mom +looks at him and nods. She seems to have decided +he’s reliable, as well as respectable.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I see there’s some leftover cold spaghetti in +the icebox, and I ask Mom to put it in sandwiches. +She thinks I’m cracked, but I did this +once before, and it’s good, ’specially if there’s +plenty of meat and sauce on the spaghetti. We +take along a bag of cherries, too.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Thanks, Mom. Bye. I’ll be back before +supper.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Take care,” she says. “No fights.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Don’t worry. We’ll stay out of fights,” says +Tom quite seriously.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go down the stairs, and Tom says, “Your +mother is really nice.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m sort of surprised—kids don’t usually say +much about each other’s parents. “Yeah, Mom’s +O.K. I guess she worries about me and Pop a +lot.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It must be pretty nice to have your mother +at home,” he says. +</p> + +<a name="Pg049" id="Pg049" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That kind of jolts me, too. I wonder where +his mother and father are, whether they’re dead +or something; but again, I don’t quite want to +ask. Tom isn’t an easy guy to ask questions. He’s +sort of like an island, by himself in the ocean.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk down to Fourteenth Street and over +to Eighth Avenue, about twelve blocks; after all, +exercise is what we want. The IND trains are +fast, and it only takes about half an hour to get +up to Inwood, at 206th Street. The park is right +close, and it is real woods, although there are +paved walks around through it. We push uphill +and get in a grassy meadow, where you can see +out over the Hudson River to the Palisades in +Jersey. It’s good and hot, and we flop in the sun. +There aren’t many other people around, which +is rare in New York.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Let’s eat lunch,” says Tom. “Then we can +go hunting arrowheads and not have to carry it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He agrees the spaghetti sandwich is a great +invention.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I wish the weather would stay like this more +of the year—good and sweaty hot in the middle +of the day, so you feel like going swimming, but +cool enough to sleep at night. We lie in the sun +<a name="Pg050" id="Pg050" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +awhile after lunch and agree that it’s too bad +there isn’t an ocean within jumping-in distance. +But there isn’t, and flies are biting the backs of +our necks, so we get up and start exploring.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We find a few places that you might conceivably +call caves, but they’ve been well picked +over for arrowheads, if there ever were any. +That’s the trouble in the city: anytime you have +an idea, you find out a million other people had +the same idea first. Along in mid-afternoon, we +drift down toward the subway and get cokes +and ice cream before we start back.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t really feel like going home yet, so I +think a minute and study the subway map inside +the car. “Hey, as long as we’re on the subway +anyway, we could go on down to Cortlandt +Street to the Army-Navy surplus store. I got to +get a knapsack before summer.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K.” Tom shrugs. He’s staring out the +window and doesn’t seem to care where he goes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I got a great first-aid survival kit there. Disinfectant +and burn ointment and bug dope and +bandages, in a khaki metal box that’s waterproof, +and it was only sixty-five cents.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmm. Just what I need for survival on the +<a name="Pg051" id="Pg051" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +sidewalks of New York,” says Tom. I guess he’s +kidding, in a sour sort of way. If you haven’t +got a family around, though, survival must take +more than a sixty-five-cent kit.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The store is a little way from the nearest subway +stop, and we walk along not saying much. +Tom looks alive when he gets into the store, +though, because it really is a great place. They’ve +got arctic explorers’ suits and old hand grenades +and shells and all kinds of rifles, as well as some +really cheap, useful clothing. They don’t mind +how long you mosey around. In the end I buy +a belt pack and canteen, and Tom picks up some +skivvy shirts and socks that are only ten cents +each. They’re secondhand, I guess, but they look +all right.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk over to the East Side subway, which +is only a few blocks away down here because the +island gets so narrow. Tom says he’s never seen +Wall Street, where all the tycoons grind their +money machines. The place is practically deserted +now, being late Saturday afternoon, and +it’s like walking through an empty cathedral. +You can make echoes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We take the subway, and Tom walks along +<a name="Pg052" id="Pg052" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +home with me. It seems too bad the day’s over. +It was a pretty good day, after all.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So long, kid,” Tom says. “I’ll send you a card +from Beautiful Brooklyn!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So long.” I wave, and he starts off. I wish he +didn’t have to go live in Brooklyn.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg053" id="Pg053" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc11" id="toc11"></a> + <a name="pdf12" id="pdf12"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">6</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image06.png" width="459" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave wheeling his bike across Belt Parkway." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">You can’t really stay sore at a guy you’ve known +all your life, especially if he lives right around +the corner and goes to the same school. Anyhow, +one hot Saturday morning Nick turns up +at my house as if nothing had ever happened +and says do I want to go swimming, because the +Twenty-third Street pool’s open weekends now.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After that we go back to playing ball on the +street in the evenings and swimming sometimes +<a name="Pg054" id="Pg054" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +on weekends. One Saturday his mother tells me +he went to Coney Island. He didn’t ask me to go +along, which is just as well, because I wouldn’t +have. I don’t hang around his house after school +much anymore, either. School lets out, and +there’s the Fourth of July weekend, when we +go up to Connecticut, and pretty soon after that +Nick goes off to a camp his church runs. Pop +asks me if I want to go to a camp a few weeks, +but I don’t. Life is pretty slow at home, but I +don’t feel like all that organization.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I think Tom must have forgotten about me +and found a gang his own age when I get a +postcard from him: “Dear Dave, The guy I work +for is a creep, and all the guys who buy gas +from him are creeps, so it’s great to be alive in +Beautiful Brooklyn! Wish you were here, but +you’re lucky you’re not. Best, Tom.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s hard to figure what he means when he +says a thing. However, I got nothing to do, so +I might as well go see. He said he was going to +work in a filling station on the Belt Parkway, +and there can’t be a million of them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t say anything too exact to Mom about +where I’m going, because she gets worried about +me going too far, and besides I don’t really know +where I’m going. +</p> + +<a name="Pg055" id="Pg055" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Brooklyn, what a layout. It’s not like Manhattan, +which runs pretty regularly north and +south, with decent square blocks. You could lose +a million friends in Brooklyn, with the streets +all running in circles and angles, and the people +all giving you cockeyed directions. What with +no bikes allowed on parkways, and skirting +around crumby looking neighborhoods, it takes +me at least a week of expeditions to find the +right part of the Belt Parkway to start checking +the filling stations.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I wheel my bike across the parkway, but even +so some cop yells at me. You’d think a cop could +find a crime to get busy with.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On a real sticky day in July I wheel across +to a station at Thirty-fourth Street, and nobody +yells at me, and I go over to the air pump and +fiddle with my tires. A car pulls out after it gets +gas, and there’s Tom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hi!” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom half frowns and quick looks over his +shoulder to see if his boss is around, I guess, +and then comes over to the air pump.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How’d you get way out here?” he says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“On the bike. I got your postcard, and I +figured I could find the filling station.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He relaxes and grins. I feel better. He says, +<a name="Pg056" id="Pg056" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +“You’re a crazy kid. How’s Cat?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But just then the boss has to come steaming +up. “What d’ya want, kid? No bikes allowed on +the parkway.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I start to say I’m just getting air, but Tom +speaks up. “It’s all right. I know him.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah? I told you, keep kids out of here!” The +guy manages to suggest that kids Tom knows +are probably worse than any other kind. He +motions me off like a stray dog. I don’t want to +get Tom in any trouble, so I get going. At the +edge of the parkway I wave. “So long. Write me +another postcard.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom raises a hand briefly, but his face looks +closed, like nothing was going to get in or out.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I pedal slowly and hotly back through the +tangle of Brooklyn and figure, well, that’s a +week’s research wasted. I still don’t know where +Tom lives, so I don’t know how I can get a hold +of him again. Anyway, how do I know he wants +to be bothered with me? He looked pretty fed +up with everything.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So long as I got nothing else to do, the next +week I figure I’ll get public-spirited at home: I +paint the kitchen for Mom, which isn’t so bad, +but moving all those silly dishes and pots and +<a name="Pg057" id="Pg057" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +scrumy little spice cans can drive you wild. I +only break one good vase and a bottle of salad +oil. Salad oil and broken glass are great. In the +afternoons I go to the swimming pool and learn +to do a jackknife and a backflip, so Pop will think +I am growing up to be a Real American Boy. +Also, you practically have to learn to dive so you +can use the diving pool, because the swimming +pool is so jam-packed with screaming sardines +you can’t move in it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Evenings Cat and I play records, or we go to +see Aunt Kate and drink iced tea. One weekend +my real aunt comes to visit and sleeps in my +room, so I go to stay with Aunt Kate, and I pretty +near turn into cottage cheese.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’ve about settled into this dull routine when +Mom surprises me by handing me a postcard +one morning. It’s from Tom: “Day off next +Tuesday. If you feel like it, meet me near the +aquarium at Coney Island about nine in the +morning, before it’s crowded.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So that week drags by till Tuesday, and there +I am at Coney Island bright and early. Tom is +easy enough to find, pacing up and down the +boardwalk like a tiger. We say “Hi” and so forth, +and I’m all ready to take a run for the water, +<a name="Pg058" id="Pg058" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +but he keeps snapping his fingers and looking +up and down the boardwalk.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Finally he says, “There’s a girl I used to know +pretty well. I didn’t see her for a while till last +week, and we got in an argument, and I guess +she’s mad. I wrote and asked her to come swimming +today, but maybe she’s not coming.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I figure it out that I’m there as insurance +against the girl not showing up, but I don’t +mind. Anyhow, she does show up. It can’t have +been too much of an argument they had, because +she acts pretty friendly.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom introduces us. Her name is Hilda and a +last name that’d be hard to spell—Swedish maybe—and +she’s got a wide, laughing kind of mouth +and a big coil of yellow hair in a bun on top of +her head, and a mighty good figure. She asks me +where I ran into Tom, and we tell her all about +Cat and the cellar at Number Forty-six, and I +tell them both about my Ivy-League haircut, +which I had never explained to anyone before. +They get a laugh out of that, and then she asks +him about the filling-station job, and he says it +stinks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I figure they could get along without me for +a while, so I go for a swim and wander down +<a name="Pg059" id="Pg059" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +the beach a ways and eat a hot dog and swim +some more. When I come back, I see Tom and +Hilda just coming out of the water, so I join +them. Hilda says, “Come have a coke. Tom says +he’s got to try swimming to France just once +more.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t know just what she means, but we go +get cokes and come back and stretch out in the +sun. She asks me do I want a smoke, and I say +No. It’s nice to be asked, though. We watch +Tom, who is swimming out past all the other +people. I wish I’d gone with him. I say, “Lifeguard’s +going to whistle him in pretty soon. He’s +out past all the others.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hilda lets out a breath and snorts, “He’ll always +go till they blow the whistle. Always got +to go farther than anyone else.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say +anything.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hilda goes on: “I used to wait tables in a +restaurant down near Washington Square. Tom +and a lot of the boys from NYU came in there. +Sometimes the day before an exam he’d be +sitting around for hours, buying people cokes +and acting as if he hadn’t a care in the world. +Some other times, for no reason anyone could +<a name="Pg060" id="Pg060" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +tell, he’d sit in a corner and stir his coffee like +he was going to make a hole in the cup.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Tom was at NYU?” I ask. I don’t know +where I thought he’d been before he turned up +in the cellar. I guess I never thought.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sure,” Hilda says. “He was in the Washington +Square College for about a year and a half. +He lived in a dormitory uptown, but I used to +see him in the restaurant, and then fairly often +we had dates after I got off work. He has people +out in the Midwest somewhere—a father and +a stepmother. He was always sour and close-mouthed +about them, even before he got thrown +out of NYU. Now he won’t even write them.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This is a lot of information to take in all at +once and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. +The first one that comes into my head is this: +“How come he got thrown out of NYU?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, it makes Tom so sore, he’s never +really told me a plain, straight story. It’s all +mixed up with his father. I think his father wrote +him not to come home at Christmas vacation, +for some reason. Tom and a couple of other boys +who were left in the dormitory over the holidays +got horsing around and had a water fight. The +college got huffy and wrote the parents, telling +<a name="Pg061" id="Pg061" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +them to pay up for damages. The other parents +were pretty angry, but they stuck behind their +kids and paid up. Tom just never heard from +his father. Not a line.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That was when Tom began coming into the +restaurant looking like thunder. The college began +needling him for the water-fight damages, as +well as second-semester tuition. He took his first +exam, physics, and got an A on it. He’s pretty +smart.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He still didn’t hear anything from home. +He took the second exam, French, and thought +he flunked it. That same afternoon he went into +the office and told the dean he was quitting, +and he packed his stuff and left. I didn’t see him +again till a week ago. I didn’t know if he’d got +sick of me, or left town, or what.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He says he wrote his father that he had a +good job, and they could forget about him. +Then he broke into that cellar on a dare or for +kicks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So here we are. What do we do next?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hilda looks at me—me, age fourteen—as if I +might actually know, and it’s kind of unnerving. +Everyone I know, their life goes along in set +periods: grade school, junior high, high school, +<a name="Pg062" id="Pg062" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +college, and maybe getting married. They don’t +really have to think what comes next.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say cautiously, “My pop says a kid’s got to go +to college now to get anywhere. Maybe he ought +to go back to school.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You’re so right, Grandpa,” she says, and I +would have felt silly, but she has a nice friendly +laugh. “I wish I could persuade him to go back. +But it’s not so easy. I guess he’s got to get a job +and go to night school, if they’ll accept him. He +won’t ask his father for money.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You two got my life figured out?” Tom has +come up behind us while we were lying in the +sand on our stomachs. “I just hope that sour +grape at the filling station gives me a good recommendation +so I can get another job. The way he +watches his cash register, you’d think I was Al +Capone.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We talk a bit, and then Hilda gets up and says +she’s going to the ladies’ room. She doesn’t act +coy about it, the way most girls do when they’re +sitting with guys. She just leaves.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How do you like Hilda?” Tom asks, and +again I’m sort of surprised, because he acts like +he really wants my opinion.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“She’s nice,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah.” Tom suddenly glowers, as if I’d said +<a name="Pg063" id="Pg063" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">didn’t</span></span> like her. “I don’t know why she wastes +her time on me. I’ll never be any use to her. +When her family hears about me, I’ll get the +boot.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I could ask my pop. You know, I told you +he’s a lawyer. Maybe he’d know how you go +about getting back into college or getting a job +or something.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom laughs, an unamused bark. “Maybe he’ll +tell you to quit hanging around with jerks that +get in trouble with the cops.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This is a point, all right. Come to think, I +don’t know why I said I’d ask Pop anyway. I +usually make a point of not letting his nose into +my personal affairs, because I figure he’ll just +start bossing me around. However, I certainly +can’t do anything for Tom on my own.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say, “I’ll chance it. The worst he ever does +is talk. One time he made a federal case out of +me buying a Belafonte record he didn’t like. +Another time playing ball I cracked a window in +a guy’s Cadillac, and Pop acted like he was going +to sue the guy for owning a Cadillac. You just +never know.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom says, “With my dad, you <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">know</span></span>: I’m +wrong.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hilda comes back just then. She snaps, “If he’s +<a name="Pg064" id="Pg064" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +such a drug on the market, why don’t you shut +up and forget about him?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K., O.K.,” says Tom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The beach is getting filled up by now, so we +pull on our clothes and head for the subway. +Tom and Hilda get off in Brooklyn, and I go +on to Union Square.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After dinner that night Mom is washing the +dishes and Pop is reading the paper, and I figure +I might as well dive in.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Pop,” I say, “there’s this guy I met at the +beach. Well, really I mean I met him this spring +when I was hunting for Cat, and this guy was +in the cellar at Forty-six Gramercy, and he got +caught and....”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Wha-a-a-t?” Pop puts down his paper and +takes off his glasses. “Begin again.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I give it to him again, slow, and with +explanations. I go through the whole business +about the filling station and Hilda and NYU, +and I’ll say one thing for Pop, when he finally +settles down to listen, he listens. I get through, +and he puts on his reading glasses and goes to +look out the window.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Do you have this young man’s name and +address, or is he just Tom from The Cellar?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg065" id="Pg065" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’d just got it from Tom when we were at the +beach. He’s at a Y in Brooklyn, so I tell Pop this.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop says, “Tell him to call my office and come +in to see me on his next day off. Meanwhile, +I’ll bone up on City educational policies in regard +to juvenile delinquents.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He says this perfectly straight, as if there’d be +a book on the subject. Then he goes back to +his newspaper, so I guess that closes the subject +for now.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Thanks, Pop,” I say and start to go out.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Entirely welcome,” says Pop. As I get to the +door, he adds, “If that cat of yours makes a +practice of introducing you to the underworld +in other people’s cellars, we can do without him. +We probably can anyway.”</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg066" id="Pg066" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc13" id="toc13"></a> + <a name="pdf14" id="pdf14"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">7</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image07.png" width="496" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave talking with veterinarian while holding Cat." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat hadn’t got me into anymore cellars, but I +can’t honestly say he’d been sitting home tending +his knitting—not him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One hot morning I went to pick up the milk +outside our door, and Cat was sleeping there on +the mat. He didn’t even look up at me. After I +scratched his ears and talked to him some, he +got up and hobbled into the house.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I put him up on my bed, under the light, for +<a name="Pg067" id="Pg067" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +inspection. One front claw was torn off, which +is why he was limping, his left ear was ripped, +and there was quite a bit of fur missing here and +there. He curled up on my bed and didn’t move +all day.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I came and looked at him every few hours and +wondered if I ought to take him to a vet. But +he seemed to be breathing all right, so I went +away and thought about it some more. Come +night, I pushed him gently to one side, wondering +what I better do in the morning.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well, in the morning Cat wakes up, stretches, +yawns, and drops easily down off the bed and +walks away. He still limps a little, but otherwise +he acts like nothing had happened. He just +wants to know what’s for breakfast.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You better watch out. One day you’ll run +into a cat that’s bigger and meaner than you,” +I tell him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat continues to wait for breakfast. He is not +impressed.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But I’m worried. Suppose some big old cat +chews him up and he’s hurt too bad to get home? +After breakfast I take him out in the backyard +for a bit, and then I shut him in my room and +go over to consult Aunt Kate. +</p> + +<a name="Pg068" id="Pg068" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She sets me up with the usual iced tea and +dish of cottage cheese.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I had breakfast already. What do I need with +cottage cheese?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Eat it. It’s good for you.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I eat it, and then I start telling her about +Cat. “He came home all chewed up night before +last. I’m afraid some night he’s not going +to make it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Right,” says Kate. She’s not very talky, but +I’m sort of surprised. I expected she’d tell me +to quit worrying, Cat can take care of himself. +She starts pulling Susan’s latest kittens out from +under the sofa and sorting them out as if they +were ribbons: one gray, two tiger, one yellow, +one calico.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So what you going to do?” she shoots at me, +shoveling the kittens back to Susan.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I—uh—I dunno. I thought maybe I ought to +try to keep him in nights.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh. Don’t know much, do you?” she says. +“Well, so I’ll tell you. Your Cat has probably +fathered a few dozen kittens by now, and once +a cat’s been out and mated, you can’t keep him +in. You got to get him altered. Then he won’t +want to go out so much.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg069" id="Pg069" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Altered?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Fixed. Castrated is the technical word. It’s +a two-minute operation. Cost you three dollars. +Take him to Speyer Hospital—big new building +up on First Avenue.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You mean get him fixed so he’s not a real +tomcat any more? The heck with that! I don’t +want him turned into a fat old cushion cat!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He won’t be,” she says. “But if it makes you +happier, let him get killed in a cat fight. He’s +tough. He’ll last a year or two. Suit yourself.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Ah, you’re screwy! You and your cottage +cheese!” Even as I say it I feel a little guilty. +But I feel mad and mixed up, and I fling out +the door. It’s the first time I ever left Kate’s mad. +Usually I leave <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">our</span></span> house mad and go to Kate.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now I got nowhere to go. I walk along, cussing +and fuming and kicking pebbles. I come to +an air-conditioned movie and go up to the +window.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The phony blonde in the booth looks at me +and sneers, “You’re not sixteen. We don’t have +a children’s section in this theater.” She doesn’t +even ask. She just says it. It’s a great world. I go +home. There’s no one there but Cat, so I turn +the record player up full blast. +</p> + +<a name="Pg070" id="Pg070" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop comes home in one of his unexpected +fits of generosity that night and takes us to the +movies. Cat behaves himself and stays around +home and our cellar for a while, so I stop worrying. +But it doesn’t last long.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As soon as his claw heals, he starts sashaying +off again. One night I hear cats yowling out back +and I go out with a bucket of water and douse +them and bring Cat in. There’s a pretty little +tiger cat, hardly more than a kitten, sitting on +the fence licking herself, dry and unconcerned. +Cat doesn’t speak to me for a couple of days.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One morning Butch, the janitor, comes up +and knocks on our door. “You better come down +and look at your cat. He got himself mighty +chewed up. Most near dead.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I hurry down, and there is Cat sprawled in a +corner on the cool cement floor. His mouth is +half open, and his breath comes in wheezes, like +he has asthma. I don’t know whether to pick him +up or not.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Butch says, “Best let him lie.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I sit down beside him. After a bit his breath +comes easier and he puts his head down. Then +I see he’s got a long, deep claw gouge going from +his shoulder down one leg. It’s half an inch +<a name="Pg071" id="Pg071" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +open, and anyone can see it won’t heal by itself.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Butch shakes his head. “You gotta take him +to the veteran, sure. That’s the cat doctor.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah,” I say, not correcting him. It’s not just +the gash that’s worrying me. I remember what +Aunt Kate said, and it gives me a cold feeling in +the stomach: In the back-alley jungle he’d last +a year, maybe two.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Looking at Cat, right now, I know she’s right. +But Cat’s such a—well, such a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cat</span></span>. How can I +take him to be whittled down?</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I tell Butch I’ll be back down in a few +minutes, and I go upstairs. Mom’s humming and +cleaning in the kitchen. I wander around and +stare out the window awhile. Finally I go in the +kitchen and stare into the icebox, and then I tell +Mom about the gash in Cat’s leg.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She asks if I know a vet to take him to.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah, there’s Speyer. It’s a big, new hospital—good +enough for people, even—with a view of +the East River. The thing is, Mom, Cat keeps +going off and fighting and getting hurt, and +people tell me I ought to get him altered.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom wets the sponge and squeezes it out and +polishes at the sink, and I wonder if she knows +what I’m talking about because I don’t really +<a name="Pg072" id="Pg072" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +know how to explain it any better.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She wrings the sponge out, finally, and sits +down at the kitchen table.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She says, “Cat’s not a free wild animal now, +and he wouldn’t be even if you turned him +loose. He belongs to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span>, so you have to do whatever +is best for <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">him</span></span>, whether it’s what you’d like +or not. Ask the doctor and do what he says.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom puts it on the line, all right. It doesn’t +make me feel any better about Cat. She takes +five dollars out of her pocketbook and gives it +to me.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I get out the wicker hamper and go down to +the cellar and load Cat in. He meows, a low +resentful rumble, but he doesn’t try to get away.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat in the hamper is no powder puff, and +I get pretty hot walking to the bus, and then +from the bus stop to the animal hospital. I get +there and wait, and dogs sniff at me, and I fill +in forms. The lady asks me if I can afford to +pay, and with Mom’s five bucks and four of my +own, I say Yes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The doctor is a youngish guy, but bald, in a +white shirt like a dentist’s. I put Cat on the table +in front of him. He says, “So why don’t you stay +out of fights, like your mommy told you?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg073" id="Pg073" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I relax a bit and smile, and he says, “That’s +better. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of tomcat. +I suppose he got this gash in a fight?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He been altered?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How old is he?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I don’t know. He was a stray. I’ve had him +almost a year.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All the time he’s talking, the doctor is soothing +Cat and looking him over. He goes on +stroking him and looks up at me. “Well, son, +one of these days he’s going to get in one fight +too many. Shall we alter him the same time we +sew up his leg?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So there it is. I can’t seem to answer right +away. If the doctor had argued with me, I might +have said No. But he just goes on humming and +stroking. Finally he says, “It’s tough, I know. +Maybe he’s got a right to be a tiger. But you +can’t keep a tiger for a pet.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say, “O.K.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">An attendant takes Cat away, and I go sit in +the waiting room, feeling sweaty and cold all +over. They tell me it’ll be a couple of hours, so +I go out and wander around a lot of blocks I +<a name="Pg074" id="Pg074" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +never saw before and drink some cokes and +sit and look up at the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge +to Queens.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When I go back for him, Cat looks the same +as ever, except for a bandage all up his right +front leg. The doctor tells me to come back +Friday and he’ll take out the stitches.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom sees me come in the door, and I guess +I look pretty grim, because she says, “Cat will +be all right, won’t he, dear?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yes.” I go past her and down into my room +and let Cat out of the basket and then bury my +head under the pillow. I’m not exactly ashamed +of crying, but I don’t want Mom to hear.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a while I pull my head out. Cat is lying +there beside me, his eyes half open, the tip end +of his tail twitching very slowly. I rub my eyes +on the back of his neck and whisper to him, +“I’m sorry. Be tough, Cat, anyway, will you?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat stretches and hops off the bed on his three +good legs.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg075" id="Pg075" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc15" id="toc15"></a> + <a name="pdf16" id="pdf16"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">8</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image08.png" width="524" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Mary buying tickets to West Side Story." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The regular park man got sunstroke or something, +so I earned fourteen dollars raking and +mowing in Gramercy Park in the middle of August. +Gramercy Park is a private park. You have +to own a key to get in, so the city doesn’t take +care of it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Real paper money, at this time of year especially, +is very cheering. I head up to Sam Goody’s +to see what records he’s got on sale and what +<a name="Pg076" id="Pg076" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +characters are buying them. Maybe I’ll buy +something, maybe not, but as long as I’ve got +money in my pocket, I don’t feel like the guy +is glaring at me for taking up floor space.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Along the way I walk through the library, +the big one at Forty-second Street. You go in by +the lions on Fifth Avenue, and there’s all kinds +of pictures and books on exhibit in the halls, +and you walk through to the back, where you +can take out books. It’s nice and cool, and nobody +glares at you unless you either make a lot +of noise or go to sleep. I can take books out of +here and return them at the Twenty-third Street +branch, which is handy.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sam Goody’s is air-conditioned, so it’s cool too. +There are always several things playing on different +machines you can listen to. Almost the +most fun is watching the people: little, fat, bald +guys buying long-haired classical music, and +thin, shaggy beatniks listening to the jazz.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go to check if there are any bargains in the +Kingston or Belafonte division. There’s a girl +standing there reading the backs of records, but +I don’t really catch a look at more than her shoes—little +red flats they are. After a bit she reaches +for a record over my head and says, “Excuse me.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg077" id="Pg077" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sure.” Then we catch each other’s eye and +both say, “Oh. Gee, hello.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well, we’re both pretty surprised, because this +is the girl I met out at Coney Island that day with +Nick when I had Cat with me, and now we’re +both a long way from Coney Island. This girl +isn’t one of the two giggly ones. It’s the third, +the one that liked Cat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We’ve both forgotten each other’s names, so +we begin over with that. I ask her what she’s been +doing, and she’s been at Girl Scout camp a few +weeks, and then she earned some money baby-sitting. +So she came to think about records, like +me. I tell her I’ve been at Coney once this summer, +and I looked around for her, which is true, +because I did.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s a big place,” she says, smiling.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Say, you live out there, don’t you? How come +you get all the way in here by yourself? Doesn’t +your mom get in a flap? Mine would, if she knew +I was going to Coney alone.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary says, “I came in with Mom. Some friend +of hers has a small art exhibition opening. She +said I could go home alone. After all, she knows +I’m not going to get lost.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say, “Gee, it’d be great to have a mother +<a name="Pg078" id="Pg078" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +that didn’t worry about you all the time.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh, Mom worries.” Mary giggles. “You +should have heard her when I said I liked <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Gone +With the Wind</span></span> and I didn’t like <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Anna Karenina</span></span>. +I pretty nearly got disowned.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What does she think about science fiction?” +I ask, and Mary makes a face, and we both laugh.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go on. “Well, my mom doesn’t care what I +read. She worries about what I eat and whether +my feet are wet, and she always seems to think +I’m about to kill myself. It’s a nuisance, really.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary looks solemn all of a sudden. She says +slowly, “I think maybe it’d be nice. I mean to +have someone worrying about whether you’re +comfortable and all. Instead of just picking your +brains all the time.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This seems to exhaust the subject of our respective +mothers, and Mary picks up the record +of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> and says, “Gee, I’d like to +see that. Did you?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say No, and to tell the truth I hadn’t hardly +heard of it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I read a book about him. It was wonderful,” +she says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Who?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Bernstein. The man who wrote it.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg079" id="Pg079" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> about, him?” I ask +cautiously.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No, no—he wrote the music. It’s about some +kids in two gangs, and there’s a lot of dancing, +and then there’s a fight and this kid gets—well, +it isn’t a thing you can tell the story of very well. +You have to see it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This gives me a very simple idea.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why don’t we?” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Go see it. Why not? We got money.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So we do,” she says slowly. “You think they’ll +let us in, I mean being under sixteen?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">You know, this is the first girl I really ever +talked to that talks like a person, not trying to +be cute or something.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk around to the theater, and being it’s +Wednesday, there’s a matinee about to start. The +man doesn’t seem to be one bit worried about +taking our money. No wonder. It’s two dollars +and ninety cents each. So we’re inside with our +tickets before we’ve hardly stopped to think.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly Mary says, “Oops! I better call +Mom! Let’s find out what time the show is over.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We do, and Mary phones. She says to me, “I +just told her I was walking past <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> +<a name="Pg080" id="Pg080" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +and found I could get a ticket. I didn’t say anything +about you.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why, would she mind?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary squints and looks puzzled. “I don’t +know. I just really don’t know. It never happened +before.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go in to the show, and she is right, it’s +terrific. I hardly ever went to a live show before, +except a couple of children’s things and something +by Shakespeare Pop took me to that was +very confusing. But this <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> is clear +as a bell.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We have an orangeade during intermission, +and I make the big gesture and pay for both of +them. Mary says, “Isn’t it wonderful! I just +happened to meet you at the beach, and then I +meet you at Goody’s, and we get to see this show +that I’ve wanted to go to for ages. None of my +friends at school want to spend this much money +on a show.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s wonderful,” I say. “After it’s over, I’m +going back to buy the record.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So after the show we buy it, and then we walk +along together to the subway. I’ll have to get +off at the first stop, Fourteenth Street, and she’ll +go on to Coney, the end of the line. +</p> + +<a name="Pg081" id="Pg081" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s hard to talk on the subway. There’s so +much noise you have to shout, which is hard +if you don’t know what to say. Anyway, you +can’t ask a girl for her phone number shouting +on the subway. At least I can’t.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m not so sure about the phone-number +business either. I sort of can’t imagine calling +up and saying, “Oh, uh, Mary, this is Dave. You +want to go to a movie or something, huh?” It +sounds stupid, and I’d be embarrassed. What +she said, it’s true—it’s sort of wonderful the way +we just ran into each other twice and had so +much fun.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I’m wondering how I can happen to run +into her again. Maybe the beach, in the fall. +Let’s see, a school holiday—Columbus Day.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The train is pulling into Fourteenth Street. +I shout, “Hey, how about we go to the beach +again this fall? Maybe Columbus Day?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K.!” she shouts. “Columbus Day in the +morning.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Columbus Day in the morning” sounds loud +and clear because by then the subway has +stopped. People snicker, and Mary blushes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So long,” I say, and we both wave, and the +train goes.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg082" id="Pg082" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc17" id="toc17"></a> + <a name="pdf18" id="pdf18"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">9</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image09.png" width="483" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Tom sitting on front steps with Cat." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That operation didn’t make as much difference +to Cat as you might think. I took him back to +the clinic to get the stitches out of his leg and +the bandages off. A few nights later I heard +yowls coming up from the backyard. I went +down and pulled him out of a fight. He wasn’t +hurt yet, but he sure was right back in there +pitching. He seems to have a standing feud +with the cat next door. +</p> + +<a name="Pg083" id="Pg083" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">However, he’s been coming home nights regularly, +and sometimes in the cool part of the +morning he’ll sit out on the front stoop with +me. He sits on a pillar about six feet above the +sidewalk, and I sit on the steps and play my +transistor and read.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Every time a dog gets walked down the street +under Cat’s perch, he gathers himself up in a +ball, as if he were going to spring. Of course, +the poor dog never knows it was about to be +pounced on and wags on down the street. Cat +lets his tail go to sleep then and sneers.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Between weathercasts I hear him purring, +loud rumbly purrs, and I look up and see Tom +there, stroking Cat’s fur up backward toward +his ears. Tom is looking out into the street and +sort of whistling without making any sound.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Gee, hi!” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hi, too,” he says. He strokes Cat back down +the right way, gives him a pat, and sits down. +“I just been down to see your dad. He’s quite +a guy.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh-h-h? You got sunstroke or something? +Didn’t he read you about ten lectures on +Healthy Living, Honest Effort, Baseball, and +Long Walks with a Dog?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg084" id="Pg084" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No-o-o.” Tom grins, but then he sits and +stares out at the street again, so I wait.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You know,” he says, “you give me an idea. +<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">You</span></span> talk like <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">your</span></span> dad is a real pain, and that’s +the way <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> always have felt about <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mine</span></span>. But your +dad looks like a great guy to me, so—well, maybe +mine could be too, if I gave him a chance. Your +dad was saying I should.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Should what? You should go home?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No. Your dad said I ought to write him a +long letter and face up to all the things I’ve +goofed on. Quitting NYU, the cellar trouble, +all that. Then tell him I’m going to get a job +and go to night school. Your dad figures probably +he’d help me. He said he’d write him, too. +No reason he should. I’m nothing in his life. +It’s pretty nice of him.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I try to digest all this, and it sure is puzzling. +The time I ran down that crumb of a doorman +on my bike, accidental on purpose, I didn’t get +any long understanding talks. I just got kept in +for a month.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom slaps me in the middle of the back and +stands up. “Hilda’s gone back to work at the +coffee shop. I guess I’ll go down and see her +<a name="Pg085" id="Pg085" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +before the lunch rush, and then go home and +write my letter.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Say ‘Hi’ for me.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. So long.”</p> + +<div class="tei tei-tb">* * * * * </div> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The weather cools off some, and Pop starts to +talk about vacation. He’s taking two weeks, last +of August and first of September, so I start shopping +around for various bits of fishing tackle and +picnic gear we might need. We’re going to this +lake up in Connecticut, where we get a sort of +motel cottage. It has a little hot plate for making +coffee in the morning, but most of the rest of the +time we eat out, which is neat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We’re sitting around the living room one +evening, sorting stuff out, when the doorbell +rings. I go answer it, and Tom walks in. He nods +at me like he hardly sees me and comes into the +living room. He shakes hands like a wooden +Indian. His face looks shut up again, the way +it did that day I left him in the filling station.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a letter. +I can see a post-office stamp in red ink with +a pointing hand by the address. He throws it +down on Dad’s table. +</p> + +<a name="Pg086" id="Pg086" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I got my answer all right.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop looks at the letter and I see his foot start +to twitch the way it does when he’s about to +blow. But he looks at Tom, and instead of blowing +he just says, “Your father left town? No forwarding +address?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I guess so. He just left. Him and that woman +he married.” Tom’s voice trails off and he walks +over to the window. We all sit quiet a minute.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Finally Pop says gently, “Well, don’t waste +too much breath on her. She’s nothing to do +with you.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom turns around angrily. “She’s no good. +She loafs around and drinks all the time. She +talked him into going.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“And he went.” There’s another short silence, +and Pop goes on. “Where was this you lived?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“House. It was a pretty nice little house, too. +Dark red with white trim, and enough of a yard +to play a little ball, and I grew a few lettuces +every spring. I even got one ear of corn once. +We moved there when I was in second grade +because my mom said it was near a good local +school. I lived there till I went to college. I suppose +he sold it, or got a loan, and they lit off to +<a name="Pg087" id="Pg087" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +drink it up. Soon’s they’d got <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">me</span></span> off their +hands.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom bites off the last word. Suddenly I can +see the picture pretty clear: the nice house, the +father Tom always talked down and hoped +would measure up. Now it’s like somebody has +taken his whole childhood and crumpled it up +like a wad of tissue paper and thrown it away.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom gets up and goes into the kitchen. Pop’s +foot keeps on twitching. Finally he says, “Well, +I steered you wrong. I’m sorry. But maybe it’s +just as well to have it settled.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s settled, all right,” Tom says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom brings out a tray of ginger-ale glasses. +It seems sort of inadequate at a moment like +this, but when Tom takes a glass from her he +looks like he’s going to bust out crying.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He drinks some and blows his nose, and Dad +says, “When are you supposed to check in with +the Youth Board again?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Tuesday. My day off. And I wind up the +filling-station job the next week, right after Labor +Day.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Labor Day. Hm-m. We’ve got to get moving. +If you like, I’ll come down to the Youth Board +<a name="Pg088" id="Pg088" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +with you, and we’ll see what we can all cook up. +Don’t worry too much. I have a feeling you’re +just beginning to fight—really fight, not just +throw a few stones.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I don’t know why you bother.” Tom starts +to stand up. But while we’ve been talking, Cat +has been creeping up under the side table, playing +the ambush game, and he launches himself +at Tom just as he starts to stand. It throws him +off balance and he sits back in the chair, holding +Cat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Pop +says. “Cat’s on your side.”</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg089" id="Pg089" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc19" id="toc19"></a> + <a name="pdf20" id="pdf20"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">10</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image10.png" width="631" height="450" alt="Illustration: Cat jumping out of car on parkway." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat may be on Tom’s side, but whether Pop is +on Cat’s side is something else again. I worry +about this all the time we’re planning the vacation. +Suppose the motel won’t take cats? Or suppose +he runs away in the country? If he messes +up the vacation in any way, I know Pop’ll say +to get rid of him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I practice putting Cat back in the wicker +hamper to see if I can keep him in that sometimes, +<a name="Pg090" id="Pg090" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +but he meows like crazy. That’d drive +Pop nuts in the car, and it certainly wouldn’t +hide him from any motel-keeper. So I just sit +back and hope for the best, but I got a nasty +feeling in the bottom of my stomach that something’s +going to go haywire.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop’s pretty snappish anyway. He’s working +late nearly every night, getting stuff cleared up +before vacation. He doesn’t want any extra problems, +especially not Cat problems. Mom’s been +having asthma a good deal lately, and we’re all +pretty jumpy. It’s always like this at the end of +the summer.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tuesday night when he gets home, I ask Pop +what’s happened about Tom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We’ll work something out,” he says, which +isn’t what you’d call a big explanation.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You think he can get back into college?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I don’t know. The Youth Board is going to +work on it. They’re arranging for him to make +up the midyear exams he missed, so he can get +credit for that semester. Then he can probably +start making up the second semester at night +school if he has a job.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Apparently the Youth Board knew his father +had skipped—they’ve been trying to trace him. +I don’t think it’ll do any good if they find him. +<a name="Pg091" id="Pg091" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +Tom had better just cross him off and figure his +own life for himself.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">You know, I see “bad guys” in television and +stuff, but with the people I really know I always +lump the parents on one team and the kids on +the other. Now here’s my pop calmly figuring +a kid better chalk off his father as a bad lot and +go it alone. If your father died, I suppose you +could face up to it eventually, but having him +just fade out on you, not care what you did—that’d +be worse.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">While I’m doing all this hard thinking, Pop +has gone back to reading the paper. I notice the +column of want ads on the back, and all of a +sudden my mind clicks on Tom and jobs.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, Pop! You know the florist on the corner, +Palumbo, where you always get Mom the +plant on Mother’s Day? I went in there a couple +of weeks ago, because he had a sign up, ‘Helper +Wanted.’ I thought maybe it was deliveries and +stuff that I could do after school. But he said +he needed a full-time man. I’m pretty sure the +sign’s still up.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Palumbo, huhn?” Pop takes off his glasses +and scratches his head with them. He looks at +his watch and sighs. “They still open?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They are, and Pop goes right down to see the +<a name="Pg092" id="Pg092" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +guy. He knows him fairly well anyway—there’s +Mother’s Day, and Easter, and also the shop is +the polling place for our district, so Pop’s in +there every Election Day. He always buys some +little bunch of flowers Election Day because he +figures the guy ought to get some business having +his shop all messed up for the day.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Dad comes back and goes over to the desk and +scratches off a fast note. He says, “Here. Address +it to Tom and go mail it right away. Palumbo +says he’ll try him out at least. Tom can come +over Thursday night and I’ll take him in.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom comes home with Pop Thursday about +nine o’clock. They both look pretty good. Mom +has cold supper waiting, finishing off the icebox +before we go away, so we all sit down to eat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Tom’s all set, at least for a start,” Dad says. +“He’s going to start Tuesday, right after Labor +Day. Palumbo can use him on odd jobs and deliveries, +especially over the Jewish holidays, and +then if he can learn the business, he’ll keep +him on.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Never thought I’d go in for flower-arranging.” +Tom grins. “But it might be fun. I’m +pretty fair at any kind of handiwork.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Remembering how quick he unlocked the +<a name="Pg093" id="Pg093" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +padlock to get Cat out in the cellar, I agree.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He starts for his room after supper, and we +all say “good luck,” “have a good time,” and +stuff. Things are really looking up.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I get up early the next morning and help +Mom button up around the house and get the +car loaded before Pop gets home in the afternoon. +He hoped to get off early, and I’ve been +pacing around snapping my fingers for a couple +of hours when he finally arrives about six o’clock. +It’s a hot day again.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t say anything about Cat. I just dive in +the back seat and put him behind a suitcase and +hope he’ll behave. Pop doesn’t seem to notice +him. Anyway he doesn’t say anything.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s mighty hot, and traffic is thick, with everyone +pouring out of the city. But at least we’re +moving along, until we get out on the Hutchinson +River Parkway, where some dope has to run +out of gas.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All three lanes of traffic are stopped. We sit +in the sun. Pop looks around, hunting for something +to get sore about, and sees the back windows +are closed. He roars, “Crying out loud, +can’t we get some air, at least? Open those windows!” +</p> + +<a name="Pg094" id="Pg094" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I open them and try to keep my hand over +Cat, but if you try to hold him really, it makes +him restless. For the moment he’s sitting quiet, +looking disgusted.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We sit for about ten minutes, and Pop turns +off the motor. You can practically hear us sweating +in the silence. Engines turn on ahead of us, +and there seems to be some sign of hope. I stick +my head out the window to see if things are +moving. Something furry tickles my ear, and it +takes me a second to register.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then I grab, but too late. There is Cat, out +on the parkway between the lanes of cars, trying +to figure which way to run.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Pop!” I yell. “Hold it! Cat’s got out!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">You know what my pop does? He laughs.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hold it, my eyeball!” he says. “I’ve been +holding it for half an hour. I’d get murdered +if I tried to stop now. Besides, I don’t want to +chase that cat every day of my vacation.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t even stop to think. I just open the +car door and jump. The car’s only barely moving. +I can see Cat on the grass at the edge of the +parkway. The cars in the next lane blast their +horns, but I slip through and grab Cat.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I hear Mom scream, “Davey!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Our car is twenty feet ahead, now, in the center +<a name="Pg095" id="Pg095" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +lane, and there’s no way Pop can turn off. +The cars are picking up speed. I holler to Mom +as loud as I can, “I’ll go back and stay with Kate! +Don’t worry!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I hear Pop shout about something, but I can’t +hear what. Pretty soon the car is out of sight. I +look down at Cat and say, “There goes our +vacation.” I wonder if I’ll be able to catch a +bus out to Connecticut later. Meanwhile, there’s +the little problem of getting back into the city. +I’m standing alongside the parkway, with railroad +tracks and the Pelham golf course on the +other side of me, and a good long walk to the +subway.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A cat isn’t handy to walk with. He keeps trying +to get down. If you squeeze him to hang on, +he just tries harder. You have to keep juggling +him, like, gently. I sweat along back, with the +sun in my eyes, and people in cars on the parkway +pointing me out to their children as a local +curiosity.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One place the bulrushes and marsh grass beside +the road grow up higher than your head. +What a place for a kids’ hideout, I think. Almost +the next step, I hear kids’ voices, whispering and +shushing each other.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Their voices follow along beside me, but +<a name="Pg096" id="Pg096" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +inside the curtain of rushes, where I can’t see +them. I hear one say, “Lookit the sissy with the +pussy!” Another answers, “Let’s dump ’em in +the river!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I try to walk faster, but I figure if I run they’ll +chase me for sure. I walk along, juggling Cat, +trying to pretend I don’t notice them. I see a +drawbridge up ahead, and I sure hope there’s +a cop or watchman on it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The kids break out of the rushes behind +me, and there’s no use pretending anymore. I +flash a look over my shoulder. They all yell, +“Ya-n-h-h-h!” like a bunch of wild Indians, but +they’re about fifty feet back.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I grab Cat hard about the only place you can +grab a cat, around one upper forearm, and I +really run. The kids let out another war whoop. +It’s uphill to the bridge. Cat gets his free forepaw +into action, raking my chest and arm, with +his claws out. Then he hisses and bites, and I +nearly drop him. I’m panting so hard I can’t +hardly breathe anyway.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A cop saunters out on my approach to the +bridge, his billy dangling from his wrist. Whew—am +I glad! I flop on the grass and ease up on +Cat and start soothing him down. The kids fade +<a name="Pg097" id="Pg097" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +off into the tall grass as soon as they see the cop. +A stone arches up toward me, but it falls short. +That’s the last I see of them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As I cross the bridge, the cop squints at me. +“What you doing, kid? Not supposed to be +walking here.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I’ll be right off. I’m going home,” I tell +him, and he saunters away, twirling his stick.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s dark by the time I get to the subway, and +most of another hour before I’m back in Manhattan +and reach Kate’s. I can hear the television +going, which is unusual, and I walk in. +No one is watching television. Mom and Pop are +sitting at the table with Kate.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom lets loose the tears she has apparently +been holding onto for two hours, and Pop starts +bellowing: “You fool! You might have got killed +jumping out on that parkway!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat drops to the floor with a thud. I kiss Mom +and go to the sink for a long glass of water and +drink it all and wipe my mouth. Over my +shoulder, I answer Pop: “Yeah, but if Cat gets +killed on the parkway, that’s just a big joke, +isn’t it? You laugh your head off!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop takes off his glasses and scratches his head +with them, like he always does when he’s thinking. +<a name="Pg098" id="Pg098" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +He looks me in the eye and says, “I’m sorry. +I shouldn’t have laughed.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then, of all things, he picks up Cat himself. +“Come on. You’re one of the family. Let’s get +on this vacation.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At last we’re off.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg099" id="Pg099" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc21" id="toc21"></a> + <a name="pdf22" id="pdf22"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">11</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image11.png" width="596" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave picking out fish while Ben and garbage-sweeper watch." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We came back to the city Labor Day Monday—us +and a couple million others—traffic crawling, +a hot day, the windows practically closed up tight +to keep Cat in. I sweated, and then cat hairs +stuck to me and got up my nose. Considering +everything, Pop acted quite mild.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I met a kid up at the lake in Connecticut +who had skin-diving equipment. He let me use +it one day when Mom and Pop were off sight-seeing. +<a name="Pg100" id="Pg100" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +Boy, this has fishing beat hollow! I found +out there’s a skin-diving course at the Y, and +I’m going to begin saving up for the fins and +mask and stuff. Pop won’t mind forking out +for the Y membership, because he’ll figure it’s +character-building.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I can get back +up to Connecticut again one weekend while +the weather’s still warm, and I see that Rosh +Hashanah falls on a Monday and Tuesday this +year, the week after school opens. Great. So I +ask this kid—Kenny Wright—if I can maybe +come visit him that weekend so I can do some +more skin diving.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Rosh Hashanah? What’s that?” he says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I explain to him. Rosh Hashanah is the +Jewish New Year. About half the kids in my +school are Jewish, so they all stay out for it, and +I always do too. Last year the school board gave +up and made it an official school holiday for +everyone, Jewish or not. Same with Yom +Kippur, the week after.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kenny whistles. “You sure are lucky. I don’t +think we got any holidays coming till Thanksgiving.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I always thought the kids in the country were +<a name="Pg101" id="Pg101" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +lucky having outdoor yards for sports and recess, +but I guess we have it over them on holidays—’specially +in the fall: three Jewish holidays in +September, Columbus Day in October, Election +Day and Veterans’ Day in November, and then +Thanksgiving. It drives the mothers wild.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t figure it’d be worth train fare to Connecticut +for just two days, so I say good-bye to +Kenny and see you next year and stuff.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Back home I’m pretty busy right away, on +account of starting in a new school, Charles +Evans Hughes High. It’s different from the +junior high, where I knew half the kids, and +also my whole homeroom there went from one +classroom to another together. At Hughes everyone +has to get his own schedule and find the right +classroom in this immense building, which is +about the size of Penn Station. There are about +a million kids in it—actually about two thousand—most +of whom I never saw before. Hardly any +of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village +kids come here because it isn’t their district. +However, walking back across Fifth Avenue one +day, I see one kid I know from Peter Cooper. +His name is Ben Alstein. I ask him how come +he is at Hughes. +</p> + +<a name="Pg102" id="Pg102" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“My dad wanted me to get into Peter Stuyvesant +High School—you know, the genius factory, +city-wide competitive exam to get in. Of +course I didn’t make it. Biggest Failure of the +Year, that’s me.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Heck, I never even tried for that. But how +come you’re here?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“There’s a special science course you can +qualify for by taking a math test. Then you don’t +have to live in the district. My dad figures as +long as I’m in something special, there’s hope. +I’m not really very interested in science, but that +doesn’t bother him.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So after that Ben and I walk back and forth +to school together, and it turns out we have three +classes together, too—biology and algebra and +English. We’re both relieved to have at least one +familiar face to look for in the crowd. My old +friend Nick, aside from not really being my +best friend anymore, has gone to a Catholic +high school somewhere uptown.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On the way home from school one Friday in +September, I ask Ben what he’s doing Monday +and Tuesday, the Jewish holidays.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Tuesday I got to get into my bar mitzvah +suit and go to synagogue and over to Brooklyn +<a name="Pg103" id="Pg103" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +to my grandmother’s. Monday I don’t have to +do anything special. Come on over with your +roller skates and we’ll get in the hockey game.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I skate on my tail,” I say, because it’s true, +and it would be doubly true in a hockey game. +I try quick to think up something else. We’re +walking down the block to my house, and there’s +Cat sitting out front, so I say, “Let’s cruise +around and get down to Fulton Fish Market and +pick up some fish heads for my cat.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You’re a real nut, aren’t you?” Ben says. He +doesn’t say it as if he minds—just mentioning +the fact. He’s an easygoing kind of guy, and I +think most of the time he likes to let someone +else make the plans. So he shrugs and says, +“O.K.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I introduce him to Cat. Ben looks him in the +eye, and Cat looks away and licks his back. Ben +says, “So I got to get you fresh fish for Rosh +Hashanah, huh?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat jumps down and rubs from back to front +against Ben’s right leg and from front to back +against his left leg and goes to lie down in the +middle of the sidewalk.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“See? He likes you,” I say. “He won’t have +anything to do with most guys, except Tom.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg104" id="Pg104" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Who’s Tom?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I tell Ben all about Tom and the cellar +and his father disappearing on him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Gee,” says Ben, “I thought I had trouble, +with my father practically telling me how to +breathe better every minute, but at least he +doesn’t disappear. What does Tom do now?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Works at the flower shop, right down there +at the corner.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben feels around in his pockets a minute. +“Hey, I got two bucks I was supposed to spend +on a textbook. Come on and I’ll buy Mom a +plant for the holidays, and you can introduce +me to Tom.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go down to the flower shop, and at first +Tom frowns because he thinks we’ve just come +to kid around. Ben tells him he wants a plant, +so then he makes a big thing out of showing +him all the plants, from the ten-dollar ones on +down, so Mr. Palumbo will see he’s doing a good +job. Ben finally settles on a funny-looking cactus +that Tom says is going to bloom pretty soon.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben goes along home and I arrange to pick +him up on Monday. I wait around outside until +I see Tom go out on a delivery and ask him how +he likes the job. He says he doesn’t really know +<a name="Pg105" id="Pg105" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +yet, but at least the guy is decent to work for, +not like the filling-station man.</p> + +<div class="tei tei-tb">* * * * * </div> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I sleep late Monday and go over to Peter +Cooper about eleven. A lot of kids are out in +the playgrounds, and some fathers are there tossing +footballs with them and shouting “Happy +New Year” to each other. It sounds odd to hear +people saying that on a warm day in September.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben and I wander out of the project and he +says, “How do we get to this Fulton Street?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I see a bus that says “Avenue C” on it stopping +on Twenty-third Street. Avenue C is way +east, and so is Fulton Street, so I figure it’ll +probably work out. We get on. The bus rockets +along under the East Side Drive for a few blocks +and then heads down Avenue C, which is narrow +and crowded. It’s a Spanish and Puerto Rican +neighborhood to begin with, then farther downtown +it’s mostly Jewish. Lots of people are out +on the street shaking hands and clapping each +other on the back, and the stores are all closed.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Every time the bus stops, the driver shouts to +some of the people on the sidewalk, and he seems +to know a good many of the passengers who get +on. He asks them about their jobs, or their +<a name="Pg106" id="Pg106" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +babies, or their aunt who’s sick in Bellevue. This +is pretty unusual in New York, where bus +drivers usually act like they hate people in general +and their passengers in particular. Suddenly +the bus turns off Avenue C and heads west.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben looks out the window and says, “Hey, +this is Houston Street. I been down here to a +big delicatessen. But we’re not heading downtown +anymore.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Probably it’ll turn again,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It doesn’t, though, not till clear over at Sixth +Avenue. By then everyone else has got off and +the bus driver turns around and says, “Where +you two headed for?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s funny, a bus driver asking you that, so +I ask him, “Where does this bus go?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It goes from Bellevue Hospital down to Hudson +Street, down by the Holland Tunnel.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Holy crow!” says Ben. “We’re liable to wind +up in New Jersey.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Relax. I don’t go that far. I just go back up +to Bellevue,” says the driver.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You think we’d be far from Fulton Fish +Market?” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The driver gestures vaguely. “Just across the +island.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg107" id="Pg107" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So Ben and I decide we’ll get off at the end of +the line and walk from there. The bus driver +says, “Have a nice hike.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I think there’s something fishy about this,” +says Ben.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That’s what we’re going to get, fish,” I say, +and we walk. We walk quite a ways.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben sees a little Italian restaurant down a +couple of steps, and we stop to look at the menu +in the window. The special for the day is +lasagna, and Ben says, “Boy, that’s for me!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go inside, while I finger the dollar in my +pocket and do some fast mental arithmetic. +Lasagna is a dollar, so that’s out, but I see +spaghetti and meat balls is seventy-five cents, so +that will still leave me bus fare home.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A waiter rushes up, wearing a white napkin +over his arm like a banner, and takes our order. +He returns in a moment with a shiny clean white +linen tablecloth and a basket of fresh Italian +bread and rolls. On a third trip he brings enough +chilled butter for a family and asks if we want +coffee with lunch or later. Later, we say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Man, this is living!” says Ben as he moves +in on the bread.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He treats us just like people.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg108" id="Pg108" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pretty soon the waiter is back with our lasagna +and spaghetti, and he swirls around the table as +if he were dancing. “Anything else now? Mind +the hot plates, very hot! Have a good lunch now. +I bring the coffee later.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He swirls away, the napkin over his arm +making a little breeze, and circles another table. +It’s a small room, and there are only four tables +eating, but he seems to enjoy acting like he was +serving royalty at the Waldorf. When we’re just +finished eating, he comes back with a pot of +steaming coffee and a pitcher of real cream.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m dolloping the cream in, and it floats, when +a thought hits me: We got to leave a tip for this +waiter.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I whisper to Ben, “Hey, how much money you +got?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He reaches in his pocket and fishes out a buck, +a dime, and a quarter. We study them. Figure +coffees for a dime each, and the total check ought +to be $1.95. We’ve got $2.35 between us. We +can still squeak through with bus fare if we only +leave the waiter a dime, which is pretty cheap.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At that moment he comes back and refills +our coffee cups and asks what we will have for +dessert. +</p> + +<a name="Pg109" id="Pg109" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Uh, nothing, nothing at all,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Couldn’t eat another thing,” says Ben.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So the waiter brings the check and along with +it a plate of homemade cookies. He says, “My +wife make. On the house.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We both thank him, and I look at Ben and he +looks at me. I put down my dollar and he puts +down a dollar and a quarter.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Thank you, gentlemen, thank you. Come +again,” says the waiter.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk into the street, and Ben spins the +lone remaining dime in the sun. I say, “Heads +or tails?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh? Heads.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It comes up heads, so Ben keeps his own +dime. He says, “We could have hung onto +enough for <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">one</span></span> bus fare, but that’s no use.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No use at all. ’Specially if it was yours.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Are we still heading for Fulton Street?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sure. We got to get fish for Cat.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It better be for free.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk, threading across Manhattan and +downtown. I guess it’s thirty or forty blocks, +but after a good lunch it doesn’t seem too far.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">You can smell the fish market when you’re +still quite a ways off. It runs for a half a dozen +<a name="Pg110" id="Pg110" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +blocks alongside the East River, with long rows +of sheds divided into stores for the different +wholesalers. Around on the side streets there are +bars and fish restaurants. It’s too bad we don’t +have Cat with us because he’d love sniffing at all +the fish heads and guts and stuff on the street. +Fish market business is done mostly in the morning, +I guess, and now men are hosing down the +streets and sweeping fish garbage up into piles. +I get a guy to give me a bag and select a couple +of the choicer—and cleaner—looking bits. I get a +nice red snapper head and a small whole fish, +looks like a mackerel. Ben acts as if fish guts +make him sick, and as soon as I’ve got a couple +he starts saying “Come on, come on, let’s go.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I realize when we’re leaving that I don’t even +notice the fish smell anymore. You just get used +to it. We walk uptown, quite a hike, along +East Broadway and across Grand and Delancey. +There’s all kinds of intriguing smells wafting +around here: hot breads and pickles and fish +cooking. This is a real Jewish neighborhood, and +you can sure tell it’s a holiday from the smell of +all the dinners cooking. And lots of people are +out in their best clothes gabbing together. Some +of the men wear black skullcaps, and some of +<a name="Pg111" id="Pg111" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +them have big black felt hats and long white +beards. We go past a crowd gathering outside a +movie house.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“They’re not going to the movies,” Ben says. +“On holidays sometimes they rent a movie +theater for services. It must be getting near time. +Come on, I got to hurry.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We trot along the next twenty blocks or so, +up First Avenue and to Peter Cooper.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So long,” Ben says. “I’ll come by Wednesday +on the way to school.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He goes off spinning his dime, and too late I +think to myself that we could have had a candy +bar.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg112" id="Pg112" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc23" id="toc23"></a> + <a name="pdf24" id="pdf24"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">12</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image12.png" width="517" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave holding up lizard for Ben by pond in woods." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben and I both take biology, and the first +weekend assignment we get, right after Rosh +Hashanah, is to find and identify an animal +native to New York City and look up its family +and species and life cycle.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s a species?” says Ben.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I don’t know. What’s a life cycle?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We both scratch our heads, and he says, +“What animals do we know?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg113" id="Pg113" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say, “Cat. And dogs and pigeons and +squirrels.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That’s dull. I want to get some animal no +one else knows about.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, how about a praying mantis? I saw one +once in Gramercy Park.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben doesn’t even know what it is, so I tell +him about this one I saw. For an insect, it looks +almost like a dragon, about four or five inches +long and pale green. When it flies, it looks like +a baby helicopter in the sky. We go into Gramercy +Park to see if we can find another, but +we can’t.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben says, “Let’s go up to the Bronx Zoo +Saturday and see what we can find.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Stupid, they don’t mean you to do lions and +tigers. They’re not native.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Stupid, yourself. They got other animals that +are. Besides, there’s lots of woods and ponds. I +might find something.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well, it’s as good an idea for Saturday as any, +so I say O.K. On account of both being pretty +broke, we take lunch along in my old school +lunchbox. Also six subway tokens—two extras +for emergencies. Even I would be against walking +home from the Bronx. +</p> + +<a name="Pg114" id="Pg114" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Of course there are plenty of native New +York City animals in the zoo—raccoons and woodchucks +and moles and lots of birds—and I figure +we better start home not too late to get out the +encyclopedias for species and life cycles. Ben still +wants to catch something wild and wonderful. +Like lots of city kids who haven’t been in the +country much, he’s crazy about nature.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We head back to the subway, walking through +the woods so he can hunt. We go down alongside +the pond and kick up rocks and dead trees +to see if anything is under them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It pays off. All of a sudden we see a tiny red +tail disappearing under a rotten log. I push the +log again and Ben grabs. It’s a tiny lizard, not +more than two or three inches long and brick +red all over. Ben cups it in both hands, and its +throat pulses in and out, but it doesn’t really +try to get away.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, I love this one!” Ben cries. “I’m going +to take him home and keep him for a pet, as well +as do a report on him. You can’t keep cats and +dogs in Peter Cooper, but there’s nothing in the +rules about lizards.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How are you going to get him home?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Dump the lunch. I mean—we’ll eat it, but I +<a name="Pg115" id="Pg115" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +can stab a hole in the top of the box and keep +Redskin in it. Come on, hurry! He’s getting +tired in my hand I think!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben is one of those guys who is very placid +most of the time, but he gets excitable all of a +sudden when he runs into something brand-new +to him, and I guess he never caught an animal +to keep before. Some people’s parents are very +stuffy about it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I dump the lunch out, and he puts the lizard +in and selects some particular leaves and bits of +dead log to put in with him to make him feel +at home. Without even asking me, he takes out +his knife and makes holes in the top of my lunchbox. +I sit down and open up a sandwich, but +Ben is still dancing around.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What do you suppose he is? He might be +something very rare! How’m I going to find out? +You think we ought to go back and ask one of +the zoo men?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Umm, nah,” I say, chewing. “Probably find +him in the encyclopedia.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben squats on a log, and the log rolls. As he +falls over backward I see two more lizards +scuttle away. I grab one. “Hey, look! I got another. +This one’s bigger and browner.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg116" id="Pg116" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben is up and dancing again. “Oh, boy, oh, +boy! Now I got two! Now they’ll be happy! +Maybe they’ll have babies, huh?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He overlooks the fact that <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> caught this one. +Oh, well, I don’t want a lizard, anyway. Cat’d +probably eat it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben takes it from me and slips it in the lunchbox. +“I’m going to call this one Big Brownie.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Finally he calms down enough to eat lunch, +taking peeks at his catch between mouthfuls. As +soon as he’s finished eating, he starts hustling to +get home so he can make a house for them. He +really acts like a kid.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We get on the subway. It’s aboveground—elevated—up +here in the Bronx. After a while I +see Yankee Stadium off to one side, which is +funny because I don’t remember seeing it when +we were coming up. Pretty soon the train goes +underground. I remember then. Coming up, we +changed trains once. Ben has his eye glued to the +edge of the lunchbox and he’s talking to Redskin, +so I figure there’s no use consulting him. +I’ll just wait and see where this train seems to +come out. It’s got to go downtown. We go past +something called Lenox Avenue, which I think +is in Harlem, then Ninety-sixth Street, and then +we’re at Columbus Circle. +</p> + +<a name="Pg117" id="Pg117" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, Ben, we’re on the West Side subway,” +I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah?” He takes a bored look out the +window.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We can just walk across town from Fourteenth +Street.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“With you I always end up walking. Hey, +what about those extra tokens?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Aw, it’s only a few blocks. Let’s walk.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben grunts, and he goes along with me. As +we get near Union Square, there seem to be an +awful lot of people around. In fact they’re +jamming the sidewalk and we can hardly move. +Ben frowns at them and says, “Hey, what goes?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I ask a man, and he says, “Where you been, +sonny? Don’tcha know there’s a parade for General +Sparks?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I remember reading about it now, so I poke +Ben. “Hey, push along! We can see Sparks +go by!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Quit pushing and don’t try to be funny.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Stupid, he’s a general. Test pilot, war hero, +and stuff. Come on, push.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">quit pushing!</span></span> I got to watch out for these +lizards!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I go first and edge us through the crowd +to the middle of the block, where there aren’t +<a name="Pg118" id="Pg118" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +so many people and we can get up next to the +police barrier. Cops on horseback are going +back and forth, keeping the street clear. No sign +of any parade coming yet, but people are throwing +rolls of paper tape and handfuls of confetti +out of upper-story windows. The wind catches +the paper tape and carries it up and around in +all kinds of fantastic snakes. Little kids keep +scuttling under the barrier to grab handfuls of +ticker tape that blow to the ground. Ben keeps +one eye on the street and one on Redskin and +Brownie.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How soon you think they’re coming?” he +asks fretfully.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">People have packed in behind us, and we +couldn’t leave now if we wanted to. Pretty soon +we can see a helicopter flying low just a little +ways downtown, and people all start yelling, +“That’s where they are! They’re coming!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly a bunch of motorcycle cops zoom +past, and then a cop backing up a police car +at about thirty miles an hour, which is a very +surprising-looking thing. Before I’ve hardly got +my eyes off that, the open cars come by. This +guy Sparks is sitting up on the back of the car, +waving with both hands. By the time I see him, +<a name="Pg119" id="Pg119" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +he’s almost past. Nice-looking, though. Everyone +yells like crazy and throws any kind of paper +they’ve got. Two little nuts beside us have a box +of Wheaties, so they’re busy throwing Breakfast +of Champions. As soon as the motorcade is past, +people push through the barriers and run in the +street.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben hunches over to protect his precious +animals and yells, “Come on! Let’s get out of +this!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go into my house first because I’m pretty +sure we’ve got a wooden box. We find it and +take it down to my room, and Ben gets extra +leaves and grass and turns the lizards into it. +He’s sure they need lots of fresh air and exercise. +Redskin scoots out of sight into a corner +right away. Big Brownie sits by a leaf and looks +around.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Let’s go look up what they are,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The smallest lizard they show in the encyclopedia +is about six inches long, and it says lizards +are reptiles and have scales and claws and +should not be confused with salamanders, which +are amphibians and have thin moist skin and no +claws. So we look up salamanders.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This is it, all right. The first picture on the +<a name="Pg120" id="Pg120" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +page looks just like Redskin, and it says he’s a +Red Eft. The Latin name for his species is +<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Triturus viridescens</span></span>, or in English just a common +newt.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, talk about life cycles, listen to this,” +says Ben, reading. “‘It hatches from an egg in +the water and stays there during its first summer +as a dull-green larva. Then its skin becomes a +bright orange, it absorbs its gills, develops lungs +and legs, and crawls out to live for about three +years in the woods. When fully mature, its back +turns dull again, and it returns to the water +to breed.’”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben drops the book. “Brownie must be getting +ready to breed! What’d I tell you? We got +to put him near water!” He rushes down to my +room.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We come to the door and stop short. There’s +Cat, poised on the edge of the box.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I grab, but no kid is as fast as a cat. Hearing +me coming, he makes his grab for the salamander. +Then he’s out of the box and away, with +Big Brownie’s tail hanging out of his mouth. +He goes under the bed.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ben screams, “Get him! Kill him! He’s got +my Brownie!” He’s in a frenzy, and I don’t +blame him. It does make you mad to see your +<a name="Pg121" id="Pg121" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +pet get hurt. I run for a broom to try to poke +Cat out, but it isn’t any use. Meanwhile, Ben +finds Redskin safe in the box, and he scoops +him back into the lunchbox.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Finally, we move the bed, and there is Cat +poking daintily with his paw at Brownie. The +salamander is dead. Ben grabs the broom and +bashes Cat. Cat hisses and skids down the hall. +“That rotten cat! I wish I could kill him! +What’d you ever have him for?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I tell Ben I’m sorry, and I get him a little +box so he can bury Brownie. You can’t really +blame Cat too much—that’s just the way a cat is +made, to chase anything that wiggles and runs. +Ben calms down after a while, and we go back +to the encyclopedia to finish looking up about +the Red Eft.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I don’t think Brownie was really ready to lay +eggs, or he would have been in the pond already,” +I say. “Tell you what. We could go back +some day with a jar and try to catch one in the +water.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That cheers Ben up some. He finishes taking +notes for his report and tracing a picture, and +then he goes home with Redskin in the lunchbox. +I pull out the volume for C.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat. Family, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Felidae</span></span>, including lions and +<a name="Pg122" id="Pg122" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +tigers. Species, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Felis domesticus</span></span>. I start taking +notes: “‘The first civilized people to keep cats +were the Egyptians, thirteen centuries before +Christ.... Fifty million years earlier the ancestor +of the cat family roamed the earth, and +he is the ancestor of all present-day carnivores. +The Oligocene cats, thirty million years ago, +were already highly specialized, and the habits +and physical characteristics of cats have been +fixed since then. This may explain why house +cats remain the most independent of pets, with +many of the instincts of their wild ancestors.’”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I call Ben up to read him this, and he says, +“You and your lousy carnivore! <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">My</span></span> salamander +is an amphibian, and amphibians are the ancestors +of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">all</span></span> the animals on earth, even you and +your Cat, you sons of toads!”</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg123" id="Pg123" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc25" id="toc25"></a> + <a name="pdf26" id="pdf26"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">13</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image13.png" width="474" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Mary in wind on boardwalk at beach." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Columbus Day comes up as cold as Christmas. +I listen to the weather forecast the night before, +to see how it’ll be for the beach. “High winds, +unseasonably low temperatures,” the guy says. +He would.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I get up at eight-thirty the next morning, +though, figuring he’d be wrong and it would be +a nice sunny day. I slip on my pants and shirt +and go downstairs with Cat to have a look out. +<a name="Pg124" id="Pg124" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +Cat slides out and is halfway down the stoop +when a blast of cold wind hits him. His tail goes +up and he spooks back in between my legs. I +push the door shut against the icy wind.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom is sitting in the kitchen drinking her +tea and she says, “My goodness, why are you up +so early on a holiday? Do you feel sick?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nah, I’m all right.” I pour out a cup of coffee +to warm my hands on and dump in three or four +spoons of sugar.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Davey, have you got a chill? You don’t look +to me as if you felt quite right.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Mom, for Pete’s sake, it’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">cold</span></span> out! I feel +fine.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, you don’t have to go out. Why don’t +you just go back to bed and snooze and read a +bit, and I’ll bring you some breakfast.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I see it’s got to be faced, so while I’m getting +down the cereal and a bowl, I say, “Well, as a +matter of fact, I’m going over to Coney Island +today.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Coney <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">island</span></span>!” Mom sounds like it was +Siberia. “What in the world are you going to do +there in the middle of winter?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Mom, it’s only Columbus Day. We figured +we’d go to the aquarium and then—uh—well, +<a name="Pg125" id="Pg125" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +fool around. Some of the pitches are still open, +and we’ll get hot dogs and stuff.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Who’s going? Nick?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nick wasn’t sure—I’ll stop by his house and +see.” I’d just as soon steer clear of this “who’s +going” business, so I start into a long spiel about +how we’re studying marine life in biology, and +we have to take some notes at the aquarium. +Mom is swallowing this pretty well, but Pop +comes into the kitchen just then and gives me +the fishy eye.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“First time I ever heard of you spending a +holiday on homework. I bet they got a new twist +palace going out there.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I slam down my coffee cup. “Holy cats! Can’t +I walk out of here on a holiday without going +through the third degree? What am I, some kind +of a nut or a convict?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Just a growing boy,” says Pop. “And don’t +talk so sassy to your mother.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I’m talking to you!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop draws in a breath to start bellowing, but +Mom beats him to it by starting to wheeze, +which she can do without drawing breath.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop pats her on the shoulder and gives me a +dirty look. “Now, Agnes, that’s all right. I’m not +<a name="Pg126" id="Pg126" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +sore. I was just trying to kid him a little bit, and +he flies off the handle.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">I</span></span> fly off the handle! How do you like that?</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I give Mom a kiss. “Cheer up, Mom. I won’t +ride on the roller coaster. It’s not even running.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I grab a sweater and gloves and money and +get out before they can start anymore questions. +On the subway I start wondering if Mary will +show up. It’s almost two months since we made +this sort of crazy date, and the weather sure isn’t +helping any.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Coney Island is made to be crowded and +noisy. All the billboards scream at you, as if they +had to get your attention. So when the place is +empty, it looks like the whole thing was a freak +or an accident.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s sure empty today. There’s practically no +one on the street in the five or six blocks from +the subway station to the aquarium. But it’s +not quiet. There are a few places open—merry-go-rounds +and hot-dog shops—and tinny little +trickles of music come out of them, but the big +noise is the wind. All the signs are swinging and +screeching. Rubbish cans blow over and their +tops clang and bang rolling down the street. The +wind makes a whistling noise all by itself. +</p> + +<a name="Pg127" id="Pg127" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I lean into the wind and walk up the empty +street. My sweater is about as warm as a sieve. +I wonder if I’m crazy to have come. No girl +would get out on a boardwalk on a day like this. +It must be practically a hurricane.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She’s there, though. As soon as I turn the +corner to the beach, I can see one figure, with +its back to the ocean, scarf and hair blowing +inland toward me. I can’t see her face, but it’s +Mary, all right. There isn’t another soul in sight. +I wave and she hunches her shoulders up and +down to semaphore, not wishing to take her +hands out of her pockets.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I come up beside her on the boardwalk and +turn my back to the ocean, too. I’d like to go +on looking at it—it’s all black and white and +thundery—but the wind blows your breath right +back down into your stomach. I freeze.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I was afraid you wouldn’t come on a day like +this,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Me too. I mean I was afraid <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">you</span></span> wouldn’t.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Mom and Pop thought I was crazy. I spent +about an hour arguing with them. What’d your +mother say?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nothing. She thinks I’m walking alone with +the wind in my hair, thinking poetic thoughts.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg128" id="Pg128" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh? What for?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary shrugs. “Mom’s like that. You’ll see. +Come on, let’s go home and make cocoa or something +to warm up, and then we’ll think up something +to do. We can’t just stand here.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She’s right about that, so I don’t argue. Her +house is a few blocks away, a two-family type +with a sloped driveway going down into a cellar +garage. Neat. My pop is always going nuts hunting +for a place to park.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary goes in and shouts, “Hi, Nina! I +brought a friend home. We’re going to make +some cocoa. We’re freezing.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I wonder who Nina is. I don’t hear her mother +come into the kitchen. Then I turn around and +there she is. Holy crow! We got some pretty +beat-looking types at school, but this is the first +time I’ve ever seen a beatnik mother.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She’s got on a black T-shirt and blue jeans and +old sneakers, and her hair is in a long braid, +with uneven bangs in front.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary waves a saucepan vaguely at us both and +says, “Nina—Davey—this is my mother.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So Nina is her mother. I stick out my hand. +“Uh—how do you do?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hel-looo.” Her voice is low and musical. “I +think there is coffee on the stove.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg129" id="Pg129" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I thought I’d make cocoa for a change,” +says Mary.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“All right.” Nina puts a cigarette in her +mouth and offers one to me.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say, “No, thank you.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Tell me....” She talks in this low, intense +kind of voice. “Are you in school with Mary?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I tell her I live in Manhattan, and how I +ran into Mary when I had Cat on the beach, +because that makes it sound sort of respectable, +not like a pickup. But she doesn’t seem to be +interested in Cat and the beach.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What do you <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">read</span></span>? In your school?” she asks, +launching each question like a torpedo.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I remember Mary saying something about her +mother and poetry, so I say, “Well, uh—last week +we read ‘The Highwayman’ and ‘The Wreck of +the Hesperus.’ They’re about—I mean, we were +studying metaphors and similes. Looking at the +ocean today, I sure can see what Longfellow +meant about the icy....”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I thought I was doing pretty well, but she cut +me off again.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Don’t you read any <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">real</span></span> poetry? Donne? +Auden? Baudelaire?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Three more torpedoes. “We didn’t get to +them yet.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg130" id="Pg130" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nina blows out a great angry cloud of smoke +and explodes, “Schools!” Then she sails out of +the kitchen.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I guess I look a little shook up. Mary laughs +and shoves a mug of cocoa and a plate of cinnamon +toast in front of me. “Don’t mind Mother. +She just can’t get used to New York schools. Or +Coney Island. Or hardly anything around here.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“She grew up on the Left Bank in Paris. Her +father was an artist and her mother was a writer, +and they taught her to read at home, starting +with Chaucer, probably. She never read a kids’ +book in her life.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Anything I ever tell her about school pretty +much sounds either childish or stupid to her. +What I really love is science—experiments and +stuff—and she can’t see that for beans.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Our science teacher is a dope,” I say, because +she is, “so I really never got very interested in +science. But I told Mom and Dad I was coming +to the aquarium to take notes today, so they +wouldn’t kick up such a fuss.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary shakes her head. “We ought to get our +mothers together. Mine thinks I’m wasting time +if I even <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">go</span></span> to the aquarium. I do, though, all +the time. I love the walrus.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg131" id="Pg131" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What does your pop do?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Father? He teaches philosophy at Brooklyn +College. So I get it from both sides. Just think, +think, think. Father and Nina aren’t hardly even +interested in <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">food</span></span>. Once in a while Nina spends +all day cooking some great fish soup or a chicken +in wine, but the rest of the time I’m the only +one who takes time off from thinking to cook a +hamburger. They live on rolls and coffee and +sardines.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary puts our cups in the sink and then +opens a low cupboard. Instead of pots and pans +it has stacks of records in it. She pulls out <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West +Side Story</span></span> and then I see there’s a record player +on a side table. What d’you know? A record +player in the kitchen! This Left Bank style of +living has its advantages.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I sit down here and eat and play records +while I do my homework,” says Mary, which +sounds pretty nice.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I ask her if she has any Belafonte, and she +says, “Yes, a couple,” but she puts on something +else. It’s slow, but sort of powerful, and it makes +you feel kind of powerful yourself, as if you +could do anything.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s that?” I ask. +</p> + +<a name="Pg132" id="Pg132" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s called ‘The Moldau’—that’s a river in +Europe. It’s by a Czech named Smetana.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I wander around the kitchen and look out the +window. The wind’s still howling, but not so +hard. I remember the ocean, all gray and powerful, +spotted with whitecaps. I’d like to be out +on it.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You know what’d be fun?” I say out loud. +“To be out in a boat on the harbor today. If you +didn’t sink.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We could take the Staten Island ferry,” Mary +says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh?” I hadn’t even thought there was really +any boat we could get on. “Really? Where do +you get it?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Down at Sixty-ninth Street and Fourth +Avenue. It’s quite a ways. I’ve always gone there +in a car. But maybe we could do it on bikes, if +we don’t freeze.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We won’t freeze. But what about bikes?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“You can use my brother’s. He’s away at college. +Maybe I can find a windbreaker of his, +too.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She finds the things and we get ready and go +into the living room, where Nina is sitting reading +and sipping a glass of wine. +</p> + +<a name="Pg133" id="Pg133" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We’re going on our bikes to the ferry and +over to Staten Island,” Mary says. She doesn’t +even ask.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh-h-h.” It’s a long, low note, faintly +questioning.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“We thought with the wind blowing and all, +it’d be exciting,” Mary explains, and I think, +Uh-o, that’s going to cook it. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">My</span></span> mother would +have kittens if I said I was going out on a ferry +in a storm.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But Nina just says, “I see,” and goes back to +reading her book. I say good-bye and she looks +up again and smiles, and that’s all.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s another funny thing—Nina doesn’t seem +to pay any attention to who Mary brings home, +like most mothers are always snooping if their +daughter brings home a guy. Without stopping +to think, I say, “Do you bring home a lot of +guys?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary laughs. “Not a lot. Sometimes one of the +boys at school comes home when we’re studying +for a science test.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I laugh, too, but what I’m thinking of is how +Pop would look if I brought a girl home and +said we were studying for a test!</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg134" id="Pg134" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc27" id="toc27"></a> + <a name="pdf28" id="pdf28"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">14</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image14.png" width="552" height="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Mary on ferry with other people." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As we ride through Brooklyn the wind belts us +around from both sides and right in the teeth. +But the sun’s beginning to break through, and +it’s easy riding, no hills.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This part of Brooklyn is mostly rows of houses +joined together, or low apartment buildings, +with little patches of lawn in front of them. +There’s lots of trees along the streets. It doesn’t +look anything like Manhattan, but not anything +like the country, either. It’s just Brooklyn. +</p> + +<a name="Pg135" id="Pg135" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All of a sudden we’re circling a golf course. +What d’you know? Right in New York City!</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Ever play golf?” The wind snatches the +words out of my mouth and carries them back +to Mary. I see her mouth shaping like a “No,” +but no sound comes my way. I drop back beside +her and say, “I’ll show you sometime. My pop’s +got a set of clubs I used a couple of times.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Probably I better carry the clubs and you +play. I can play tennis, though.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We pass the golf course and head down into +a sort of main street. Anyway there’s lots of +banks and dime stores and traffic. Mary leads +the way. We make a couple of turns and zigzags +and then go under the parkway, and there’s the +ferry. It’s taken us most of an hour to get from +Mary’s house.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m hoping the ferry isn’t too expensive, so +I’ll have plenty of money left for a good lunch. +But while I’m mooning, Mary has wheeled her +bike right up and paid her own fare. Well, I +guess that’s one of the things I like about her. +She’s independent. Still, I’m going to buy lunch.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The ferry is terrific. I’m going to come ride +ferries every day it’s windy. The boat doesn’t +roll any, but we stand right up in front and the +wind blows clouds of spray in our faces. You can +<a name="Pg136" id="Pg136" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +pretend you’re on a full-rigged schooner running +before a hurricane. But you look down at +that choppy gray water, and you know you’d be +done if you got blown overboard, even if it is +just an old ferryboat in New York harbor.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The ferry ride is fast, only about fifteen minutes. +We ride off in Staten Island and start thinking +where to go. I know what’s first with me.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I ask Mary, “What do you like, hamburgers +or sandwiches?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Both. I mean either,” she says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The first place we see is a delicatessen, which +is about my favorite kind of place to eat anyway. +I order a hot pastrami, and Mary says she never +had one, but she’ll try the same.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Where could we go on Staten Island?” I say. +“I never was here before.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“About the only place I’ve been is the zoo. +I’ve been there lots of times. The vet let me +watch her operate on a snake once.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This is a pretty surprising thing for a girl to +tell you in the middle of a mouthful of hot +pastrami. The pastrami is great, and they put it +on a roll with a lot of olives and onions and +relish. Mary likes it too.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Is the vet a woman? Aren’t you scared of +snakes?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg137" id="Pg137" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Uh-un, I never was really. But when you’re +watching an operation, you get so interested you +don’t think about it being icky or scary. The vet +is a woman. She’s been there quite a while.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I digest this along with the rest of my sandwich. +Then we both have a piece of apple pie. +You can tell from the way the crust looks—browned +and a little uneven—that they make it +right here.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So shall we go to the zoo?” Mary asks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K.” I get up to get her coat and mine. +When I turn around, there she is up by the +cashier, getting ready to pay her check.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, I’m buying lunch,” I say, steaming up +with the other check.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh, that’s all right.” She smiles. “I’ve got it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I don’t care if she’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">got</span></span> it. I want to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pay</span></span> it. I +suppose it’s a silly thing to get sore about, but +it sort of annoys me. Anyway, how do you maneuver +around to do something for a girl when +she doesn’t even know you want to?</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man in the deli gives us directions to +get to the zoo, which isn’t far. It’s a low brick +building in a nice park. In the lobby there are +some fish tanks, then there’s a wing for birds +on one side, animals on the other, and snakes +straight ahead. +</p> + +<a name="Pg138" id="Pg138" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go for snakes. Mary really seems to like +them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She says, “The vet here likes them, and I guess +she got me interested. You know, they don’t +really understand how a snake moves? Mechanically, +I mean. She’s trying to find out.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We look at them all, little ones and big ones, +and then we go watch the birds. The keeper is +just feeding them. The parrot shouts at him, +and the pelican and the eagles gobble up their +fish and raw meat, but the vulture just sits on +his perch looking bored. Probably needs a desert +and a dying Legionnaire to whet his appetite.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the animal wing a strange-looking dame +is down at the end, talking to a sleepy tiger.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Come on, darling, just a little roar. Couldn’t +you give me just a soft one today?” she’s cooing +at him. The tiger blinks and looks away.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The lady notices us standing there and says, +“He’s my baby. I’ve been coming to see him for +fourteen years. Some days he roars for me beautifully.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She has a short conversation with the lion, +then moves along with us toward the small cats, +a puma and a jaguar. She looks in the next cage, +which is empty, and shakes her head mournfully. +</p> + +<a name="Pg139" id="Pg139" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I had the sweetest little leopard. He died last +week. Would you believe it? The zoo never let +me know he was sick. I could have come and +helped take care of him. I might have saved his +life.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She goes on talking, sometimes to herself, +sometimes to the puma, and we cross over to look +at two otters chasing each other up an underwater +tunnel.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What is she, some kind of nut?” Mary says. +“Does she think this is her private zoo?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I shrug. “I suppose she’s a little off. But so’s +my Aunt Kate, the one who gave me Cat. They +just happen to like cats better than people. Kate +thinks all the stray cats in the world are her children, +and I guess this one feels the same way +about the big cats here.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We mosey around a little bit more and then +head back to the ferry. I make good and sure I’m +ahead, and I get to the ticket office and buy two +tickets.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Would you care for a ride across the harbor +in my yacht?” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why, of course. I’d be delighted,” says Mary.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A small thing, but it makes me feel good.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Over in Brooklyn I see a clock on a bank, and +<a name="Pg140" id="Pg140" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +it says five o’clock. I do some fast calculating and +say, “Uh-oh, I better phone. I’ll never make it +home by dinnertime.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I phone and get Pop. He’s home early from +work. Just my luck.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I got to get this bike back to this kid in +Coney,” I tell him. “Then I’ll be right home. +About seven.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What do you mean <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">this</span></span> bike and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">this</span></span> kid? +Who? Anyway, I thought you were already at +Coney Island.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I suppose lawyers just get in the habit of asking +questions. I start explaining. “Well, it was +awfully cold over in Coney, and we thought we’d +go over to Staten Island on the ferry and go to +the zoo. So now we just got back to Brooklyn, +and I’m downtown and I got to take the bike +back.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So who’s ‘we’? You got a rat in your pocket?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I can distract Mom but not Pop. “Well, actually, +it’s a girl named Mary. It’s her brother’s +bike. He’s away in college.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All I can hear now is Pop at the other end of +the line, laughing his head off.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So what’s so funny about that?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing. Only now I can +<a name="Pg141" id="Pg141" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +see what all the shouting was about at breakfast.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. Now mind you get that girl, as <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">well</span></span> as +the bicycle of the brother who goes to college, +home safe. Hear? I’ll tell your mother you narrowly +escaped drowning, and she’ll probably +save you a bone for dinner. O.K.?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. Bye.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Him and his jokes. Ha, ha, ha. Funny, though, +him worrying about me getting Mary home safe, +when her own mother doesn’t worry any.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We start along toward her house slowly, as +there’s a good deal of traffic now. I’m wondering +how to see Mary again without having to ask for +her number and phoning and making a date. +Something about telephoning I don’t like. Besides, +I’d probably go out to a pay phone so the +family wouldn’t listen, and that’d make me feel +stupid to begin with.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Just then we start rounding the golf course, +and I whack the handle bar of my bike and say, +“Hey, that’s it!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s it?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Golf. Let’s play golf. Not now, I don’t mean. +Next holiday. We’ve got Election Day coming +up. I’ll borrow Pop’s clubs and take the subway +<a name="Pg142" id="Pg142" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +and meet you here. How about ten o’clock?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hunh?” Mary looks startled. “Well, I suppose +I could try, or anyway I could walk around.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s easy. I’ll show you.” The two times I +played, I only hit the ball decently about four or +five times. But the times I <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">did</span></span> hit it, it seemed +easy.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We get to Mary’s house and I put the bikes +away and give her back her brother’s jacket. “I +guess I’ll go right along. It’s getting late. See you +Election Day.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K., bye. Say—thanks for the ferry ride!”</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg143" id="Pg143" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc29" id="toc29"></a> + <a name="pdf30" id="pdf30"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">15</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image15.png" width="507" height="450" alt="Illustration: Cat eating turkey neck from bowl on floor." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Wednesday night before Thanksgiving I go +down to the delicatessen to buy some coke, so I +can really enjoy myself watching TV. Tom is +just finishing work at the flower shop, and I ask +him if he wants to come along home.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Nah. Thanks. I got to be at work early tomorrow.” +He doesn’t sound too cheery.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How’s the job going?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K., I guess.” We walk along a little ways. +<a name="Pg144" id="Pg144" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +“The job’s not bad, but I don’t want to be a +florist all my life, and I can’t see this job will +train me for anything else.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That seems pretty true. It must be tough not +getting regular holidays off, too. “You have to +work all day tomorrow?” I ask.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I open the store up at seven and start working +on orders we’ve already got. I’ll get through +around three or four.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, you want to come for dinner? We’re +not eating till evening.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom grins. “You cooking the dinner? Maybe +you better ask your mother.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’ll be all right with Mom. Look, I’ll ask +her and come let you know in the store tomorrow, +O.K.?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmm. Well, sure. Thanks. I’ve got a date +with Hilda later in the evening, but she’s got to +eat with her folks first.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. See you tomorrow.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Right.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom says it’s all right about Tom coming, so +I go down and tell him in the morning. Turns +out Mom has asked Kate to have dinner with +us, too, which is quite a step. For Kate, I mean. +I think she would have turned the invitation +<a name="Pg145" id="Pg145" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +down, except no one can bear to hurt Mom’s +feelings. Kate’s been in our house before, of +course, but then she just came in to chat or have +tea or something. It wasn’t like an invitation.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She comes, and she looks like someone from +another world. I’ve never seen her in anything +but her old skirts and sneakers, so the “good +clothes” she’s wearing now must have been hanging +in a closet twenty years. The dress and shoes +are way out of style, and she’s carrying a real old +black patent-leather pocketbook. Usually she +just lugs her old cloth shopping bag, mostly full +of cat goodies. Come to think of it, that’s it: Kate +lives in a world that is just her own and the cats’. +I never saw her trying to fit into the ordinary +world before.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cat knows her right away, though. Clothes +don’t fool him. He rubs her leg and curls up on +the sofa beside her, still keeping a half-open eye +on the oven door in the kitchen, where the +turkey is roasting.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom comes in, also in city clothes—a white +shirt and tie and jacket—the first time I ever saw +him in them. He sits down on the other side of +Cat, who stretches one paw out toward him +negligently. +</p> + +<a name="Pg146" id="Pg146" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Looking at Kate and Tom sitting there on the +sofa, both looking a little ill at ease, I get a funny +idea. My family is starting to collect people the +way Kate collects homeless cats. Of course, Kate +and Tom aren’t homeless. They’re people-less—not +part of any family. I think Mom always +wanted more people to take care of, so she’s glad +to have them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kidding, I ask Kate, “How many cats at your +home for Thanksgiving dinner?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She stops stroking Cat a minute and thinks. +“Hmm, Susan’s got four new kittens, just got +their eyes open. A beautiful little orange one +and three tigers. Then there’s two big kittens, +strays, and one old stray tom. Makes eight, that’s +all. Sometimes I’ve had lots more than that.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Doesn’t the landlord ever object?” Pop asks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate snorts. “Him! Huh! I pay my rent. And +I have my own padlock on the door, so he can’t +come snooping around.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We all sit down to dinner. Pop gives Cat the +turkey neck to crunch up in the kitchen. He +finishes that and crouches and stares at us eating. +Kate gives him tidbits, which I’m not supposed +to do. I don’t think she really wants to eat the +turkey herself. She’s pretty strictly a fruit and +yogurt type. +</p> + +<a name="Pg147" id="Pg147" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After dinner Tom leaves to meet Hilda, and I +walk home with Kate, carrying a bag of scraps +and giblets for her cats. While she’s fiddling with +the two sets of keys to open her door, the man +next door sticks his head out. “Messenger was +here a little while ago with a telegram for you. +Wouldn’t give it to me.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“A telegram?” Kate gapes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah. He’ll be back.” The man looks pleased, +like he’s been able to deliver some bad news, +and pulls his head in and shuts his door.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go into Kate’s apartment, and cats come +meowing and rubbing against her legs, and they +jump up on the sink and rub and nudge the bag +of scraps when she puts it down. Kate is muttering +rapidly to herself and fidgeting with her coat +and bag and not really paying much attention to +the cats, which is odd.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Lots of people send telegrams on holidays. +It’s probably just greetings,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Not to me, they don’t!” Kate snaps, also +sounding as if they better hadn’t.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go over to play with the little kittens. The +marmalade-colored one is the strongest of the +litter, and he’s learned to climb out of the box. +He chases my fingers. Kate finishes feeding the +big cats, and she strides over and scoops him back +<a name="Pg148" id="Pg148" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +into the box. “You stay in there. You’ll get +stepped on.” She drops Susan back in with her +babies to take care of them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The doorbell rings, and Kate yanks open the +door, practically bowling over an ancient little +messenger leaning sleepily against the side of +the door.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Take it easy, lady, take it easy. Just sign +here,” he says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She signs, hands him the pencil, and slams +the door. The orange kitten has got out again, +and Kate does come close to stepping on him as +she walks across the room tearing open the telegram. +He doesn’t know enough to dodge feet +yet. I scoop him back in this time.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate reads the telegram and sits down. She +looks quite calm now. She says, “Well, he died.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh? Who?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“My brother. He’s the only person in the +world I know who would send me a telegram. +So he’s dead now.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She repeats it, and I can’t figure whether to +say I’m sorry or what. I always thought when +someone heard of a death in the family, there’d +be a lot of crying and commotion. Kate looks +perfectly calm, but strange somehow. +</p> + +<a name="Pg149" id="Pg149" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Has he been sick?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate shakes her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t +seen him in twenty years.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There is silence a moment, and then Kate goes +on, talking half to herself and half to me. “Mean +old coot. He never talked to anyone, except about +his money. That’s all he cared about. Once he +tried to get me to give him money to invest. +That’s the last time I saw him. He has an old +house way up in the Bronx. But we never did +get along, even when we were kids.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Did he have a wife or anything? Who sent +the telegram?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“He’s had a housekeeper. Just as mean as him. +She’d buy him day-old bread and dented cans +of soup because they were cheaper. She suited +him fine—saved him money and never talked to +him. Well, she’ll get his money now, if he left +any. That’s what she’s been waiting for. She sent +me the wire.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Twenty years, I think. That’s a long time not +to be speaking to your own brother, and him living +just a ten-cent phone call away. I wonder. +She couldn’t just not give a hoot about him. They +must have been real mad at each other. And mad +at the whole world, too. Makes you wonder what +<a name="Pg150" id="Pg150" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +kind of parents <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">they</span></span> had, with one of them growing +up loving only cats and the other only money.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate is staring out the window and stroking +the old stray tomcat between the ears, and it hits +me: there isn’t a person in the world she loves or +even hates. I like cats fine, too, but if I didn’t +have people that mattered, it wouldn’t be so +good. I say “So long” quietly and go out.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg151" id="Pg151" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc31" id="toc31"></a> + <a name="pdf32" id="pdf32"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">16</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image16.png" width="453" height="450" alt="Illustration: Reporters and photographers crowding in on Kate." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I always wondered if the poor soul had any +relatives.” That’s what Mom says when I tell her +about Kate’s telegram. “And now she’s lost her +only brother. That’s sad.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I think it’s sad she never talked to him for +twenty years. All these years I’ve wished I had a +brother,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“If it’s her only brother, she’s going to have to +do something about his estate,” says Pop. That +<a name="Pg152" id="Pg152" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +legal mind, it never rests. I guess he’s got a point +about this, though. How is Kate going to deal +with lawyers, or undertakers, or anyone? She +can’t hardly stand to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">talk</span></span> to people like that.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’ll she have to do?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Maybe I better go see her tomorrow,” says +Pop. “There can be lots of things—see if he left +a will, if he owes any taxes, if he has property that +has to be taken care of or sold. You can’t tell.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Kate said he was a miser. Maybe he left her a +million. Say, that’d be great!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Don’t be a dope!” Pop snaps, and he really +sounds angry, so I pipe down.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next morning Pop tells me to go over and +see how Kate is. “The way she feels about people, +I don’t like to just barge in. I’ll come by in ten +minutes, like I was picking you up to go to a +movie or something.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I saunter round the corner onto Third Avenue +and stop short. There are two newspaper +cars pulled up in front of Kate’s building, one +red and one black, and a sizable knot of people +gathered on the sidewalk. I move in among them.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That crazy cat lady ... he musta been a +nut too ... left her about a million ... a +lotta rich cats, how d’ya like that....” +</p> + +<a name="Pg153" id="Pg153" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I guess he did leave her money, and all of +a sudden I see it isn’t “great.” It’s going to be +trouble. I push through the people and go upstairs +without anyone stopping me. When I open +Kate’s door, old stray tomcat shoots out. He’s +leaving, and I can see why.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate’s room is tiny, and it looks like it’s filled +with a mob. Maybe it’s only half a dozen guys, +but the photographers are pushing around trying +to get shots and the reporters are jabbering.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Orange kitten sticks his head out of the box. +Then out he comes, into the sea of feet. I drop +him back in and try to get across to Kate. She’s +pretty well backed into a corner and looking +ready to jump out the window. She has her arms +folded in front of her, each hand clenching the +other elbow, as if to hold herself together. A +reporter with a bunch of scratch paper in his +hand is crowding her.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Miss Carmichael”—funny, I never even knew +her last name before—“I just want to ask one or +two questions. Could you tell us when you last +saw your brother?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No, I couldn’t,” she snaps, drawing her head +down between her shoulders and trying to melt +into the wall. +</p> + +<a name="Pg154" id="Pg154" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Watcha going to do with the money?” a photographer +asks. He picks up a cat, one of the big +stray kittens, and dumps it on Kate. The cat +clings to her and the photographer says, “Hold +it now. Just let me snap a picture.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He takes two steps back.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the first step the room is silent. At the +second step a shattering caterwaul goes up. He +has stepped on the adventurous orange kitten.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The scream freezes us all, except Kate. She +shoots out of her corner, knowing instantly what +has happened. The kitten is jerking slightly now, +and bright, bright blood is coming out of its +mouth. With one violent, merciful stroke Kate +finishes it. She picks the limp body up and wraps +it neatly in a paper towel and places it in the +wastebasket.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The room is still silent for one congealed instant. +Kate seems almost to have forgotten the +crowd of men. Then two of them make hastily +for the door. The photographer shuffles his feet +and says, “Gee, m’am, I didn’t mean ... I +wouldn’t for the world....”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate whirls and screams at him: “Get out! +Get out, all of you! Leave me and my cats alone! +I never asked you in here!” +</p> + +<a name="Pg155" id="Pg155" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At that moment my pop comes in the door. +Of course he doesn’t know anything about the +kitten, but he takes in the general situation and +herds the two remaining newspapermen to the +door. He gives them his card and home address +and tells them to look him up a little later.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">My knees suddenly feel weak and I slump +onto the sofa, and my eyes swivel round to the +little package in the wastebasket. It would be +the strongest one. I really never saw anything +get killed right in front of me before. It hits you.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop is trying to calm Kate down. She’s facing +him, grabbing each sleeve of his coat. “What am +I going to do? What can I do? I don’t want his +money. I don’t want anything from anyone. I +just want to be let alone!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Take it easy, Kate, take it easy. You don’t +have to let anyone into your apartment. About +the inheritance, well, I’ll have to look into that.” +Over his shoulder Pop signals to me to go home +and get Mom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go home and explain the situation to Mom, +and she comes back with me. One photographer +and a couple of reporters are still hanging +around, and the guy snaps a picture of me and +Mom at the door. Mom scoots on up. Bad as I +<a name="Pg156" id="Pg156" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +feel, I still get a charge out of getting my picture +taken for a paper.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hey, kid,” one of the reporters shoves in +front of me, “about this Miss Carmichael. Does +she act pretty strange, like talking to herself on +the street and stuff?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I see the story he’s trying to build up. While +it’s true in a way, if you really know Kate it’s +not. Anyway, I’m against it. I say, “Nah. She’s +all right. She’s just sort of scared of people, and +she likes cats.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“How many cats she got?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There have been up to a dozen on a busy day, +but again I play it down. “She’s got a mother +cat with kittens. Sometimes a stray or two. Don’t +get sucked in by all that jazz these dumb kids +around here’ll give you.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“She gets all that money, you think she’ll buy +a big house, set up a home for stray cats?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I shrug. “I don’t know. She doesn’t want the +money anyway. She just wants to be let alone.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Doesn’t want the money!” the photographer +chips in. “Boy, she must be <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">really</span></span> nuts! I’m +going back to the office.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The reporter says he’s going to wait and talk +<a name="Pg157" id="Pg157" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +to my pop, and I go on upstairs to see what’s +doing.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate is sitting on the sofa, sniffing and wiping +her eyes and muttering, but looking calmer. +Mom is making tea. Pop is looking out the window, +scratching his head.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate gulps and draws a big breath. “Tell them +I don’t want his old money. Tell them to give +it to someone else. Tell them to leave me alone. +I just want my own place and my cats. They can’t +make me move, can they? I’ve lived here thirty +years. I couldn’t go anyplace else.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She gulps and sniffs some more, and Mom +brings her a cup of tea. The stray kittens jump +up to see if it’s anything good and nuzzle into +her lap. Kate takes a sip of tea and asks Pop +again, “They can’t make me move, can they?” +This seems to be what worries her most.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No-o,” says Pop, “it’s only....”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He’s interrupted by a knock on the door, and +I go open it a crack. A guy says he’s the landlord. +As soon as Kate hears his voice, she yelps at him, +“I paid my rent, first of the month like always. +Don’t you come bothering me!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s about the cats,” he says. “People outside +<a name="Pg158" id="Pg158" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +saying you got a dozen cats in here. There’s a +law, you know.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He’s a seedy-looking, whining kind of a man, +and he looks real pleased with himself when he +says there’s a law about cats.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate jumps right at him. “I’m not breaking +any laws. I know you. You just want to get me +out of here and rent the place for more money. +You leave me alone!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man whines, “There’s a law, that’s all. +I don’t want no violation slapped on my building.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop comes over and tells the man there’s just +a mother cat with kittens. “There’s a couple of +strays here, too, right now, but I’ll take them +home with me.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“There’s a law, that’s all. Also, I got a right +to inspect the premises.” Pop shows no signs of +letting him in, and he shuffles and grumbles and +goes away.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Lock the door,” Kate snaps. “I keep it locked +all the time.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop says he’s going home to make some phone +calls and try to figure out what’s going on. He +takes down the name and address of Kate’s +brother and asks her if she’s sure there are no +<a name="Pg159" id="Pg159" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +other relatives. She says she never heard of any. +Pop goes, and Kate insists that I lock the door +after him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She gets up and starts stirring around getting +food out for the cats. She buys fish and chicken +livers for them, even though she hardly eats any +meat herself. She listens at the back door a +moment to make sure no one’s out there, then +opens the door and puts out the garbage and +wastebasket. There goes the adventurous kitten. +You got to hand it to Kate. She has no sniffling +sentimentality about her cats. Kitten’s dead, it’s +dead, that’s all. She doesn’t mope over the limp +mite of fur. In fact, anything to do with cats +she’s got sense and guts. They’re her family. I +don’t know that I could have put that kitten out +of its misery.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Just as long as the world doesn’t throw any +stray fortunes at her, Kate does fine. But when +people get in her way, she needs someone like +Pop.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom says she’ll stick around a while and tells +me to take the two stray kittens home, just in +case the landlord comes back trying to make +trouble.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K., great—Cat’ll have some company!” +</p> + +<a name="Pg160" id="Pg160" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Kate sniffs. “He’ll hate it. Cats don’t like +other cats pushing into their house.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She’s right, of course. I put the kittens down +at home, and Cat hisses at them and then runs +them under the radiator in the kitchen. Then +he sits down in the doorway and glowers at them, +on guard.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Things simmer down gradually. Mom and I +and sometimes Tom, who’s right at the flower +shop on the corner, take turns checking on Kate +and doing shopping for her, or going with her +so she doesn’t get badgered by people. But pretty +soon everyone in the neighborhood forgets all +about her and her inheritance. They see her +buying just the same old cat food and cottage +cheese and fruit, and they probably figure the +whole thing was a phony.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It wasn’t though. Pop finds out her brother +did leave a will. He lined up his funeral, left +something to his housekeeper, something to a +little restaurant owner way downtown—apparently +that was his one big luxury, a decent meal +twice a year when he went down to buy more +stocks—and the rest to Kate.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop says it may take months or years to clear +up the estate, but he says Kate can get her share +<a name="Pg161" id="Pg161" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +all put in trust for her with some bank, and +they’ll take care of all the legalities and taxes and +just pay her as much or little as she wants out +of the income. And she can leave the whole kit +and caboodle to a cat home in her will if she +wants to, which will probably make her tightwad +brother spin in his grave. I asked her once, +and she said maybe she’d leave some to the +Children’s Aid, because there are a lot of stray +children in New York City that need looking +after, as well as cats. She’s getting to think about +people some.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg162" id="Pg162" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc33" id="toc33"></a> + <a name="pdf34" id="pdf34"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">17</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image17.png" width="534" height="450" alt="Illustration: Mary calling from phone booth at Macy’s." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There are some disadvantages to not getting a +girl’s phone number. This sort of date I had +with Mary for golf on Election Day fell through. +In the first place, I was sick in bed with the flu, +and Mom wouldn’t have let me out for anything, +and secondly, it was pouring rain. Without +the phone number, there wasn’t any way I +could let her know, and I didn’t even know a +street address to write to later. +</p> + +<a name="Pg163" id="Pg163" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">By the time I got finished with the flu, we +were into Thanksgiving and then all the trouble +with Kate. Time passed and I felt rottener about +standing her up without a word, and I couldn’t +get up my nerve to go out to Coney and just +appear on her doorstep. I could have found the +house all right, once I was out there.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The first week of Christmas vacation the +phone rings late one afternoon and Pop answers +it. He says, “Just one minute, please,” and I +know right away from his voice it isn’t someone +he knows.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Young lady on the phone for you, Dave,” he +says, and he enjoys watching me gulp.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hullo?” a rather tight, flat little voice asks. +“Is this Dave—uh, Mitchell—uh, I mean, with +Cat?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I recognize it’s Mary, all right, even if she does +sound strange and scared.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh, hi!” I say. “Sure, it’s me! I’m awfully +sorry about that day we were going to play golf. +I was in bed with the flu, and then I didn’t know +your phone number or....”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh, that’s all right,” she says. “I wondered +what happened.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There’s a slight pause, and I see Pop grinning +<a name="Pg164" id="Pg164" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +and pretending to read his paper. I turn around +so I won’t see him.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Where are you now, out in Coney?” I ask +Mary.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No, as a matter of fact, I’m in Macy’s.” Her +voice trails off a little, but then she starts in +again. “As a matter of fact, that’s why I called. +You see, I was supposed to meet Mom here at +five, and she hasn’t come, and I bought all these +Christmas presents, and I forgot about the tax +or something, and this is my last dime.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She stops. I see now why she sounds scared, +and I get a curdled feeling in my stomach, too, +because what if the dime runs out in the phone +and she’s cut off? I’ll never find her in Macy’s. +It’s too big.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Pop!” I yelp. “There’s this girl I know is in +a phone booth in Macy’s and her dime is going +to run out and she hasn’t anymore money. +What’ll I do?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Get the phone number of the booth and call +her back. Here—” He gives me a pencil.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">What a relief. Funny I never thought of that. +You just somehow don’t think of a phone booth +having a number. +</p> + +<a name="Pg165" id="Pg165" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary sounds pretty relieved, too. I get the +number and call her back, and with Pop making +suggestions here and there we settle that I’ll +go over to Macy’s and meet her on the ground +floor near Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway at +the counter where they’re selling umbrellas for +$2.89, which Mary says she can see from the +phone booth.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K.” I say, and then I sort of don’t want to +hang up. It’s fun talking. So I go on. “Look, just +in case we miss each other at Macy’s, what’s +your phone number at home, so I could call you +sometime?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“COney 7-1218.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K. Well, good-bye. I’ll be right over. To +Macy’s, I mean.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I grab my coat and check to see if I’ve got +money. Pop asks if I’m going to bring her home +for dinner.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Gee, I don’t know.” I hadn’t given a thought +to what we’d do. “I guess so, maybe, if her +mother hasn’t come by then. I’ll call you if we +do anything else.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K.,” Pop says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go out and hustle through the evening rush-hour +<a name="Pg166" id="Pg166" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +crowds to the subway. The stores are all +open evenings now, for Christmas, so the crowds +are going both ways.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I get to the right corner of Macy’s, and I see +Mary right away. Everyone else is rushing about +and muttering to themselves, and she’s standing +there looking lost. In fact she looks so much like +a waif that the first thing I say is, “Hi! Shall we +go get something to eat?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yes, I’m starved. I was just going to get a +doughnut when I found I’d run out of money.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Let’s go home and you can have dinner with +us then. But what about your mother? Won’t +she be looking for you?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary shifts her feet and looks tired. “I don’t +know. Probably if she came and I wasn’t here, +she’d figure I’d gone home.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I try to think a minute, which is hard to do +with all these people shoving around you. Mary +starts to pick up her two enormous shopping +bags, and I take them from her, still trying to +think. At the subway entrance I see the phone +booth.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“That’s the thing,” I say. “Why don’t you call +your house and see if your mother left a message +or something?” +</p> + +<a name="Pg167" id="Pg167" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well....” Mary stands by the phone looking +confused and in fact about ready to cry. I +suddenly decide the best thing we can do is get +home and sit down where it’s quiet. Waiting +fifteen minutes or so to phone can’t make much +difference.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We get home pretty fast and I introduce Mary +to Mom and Pop. She sinks into the nearest chair +and takes off her shoes.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Excuse me,” she says. “I just bought these +heels, and it’s awful wearing them!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She wiggles her toes and begins to look better. +Mom offers her a pair of slippers and Pop passes +some potato chips.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom says, “Poor child, did you try to do all +your Christmas shopping at once?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, actually, I was having fun just looking +for a long while. I have two little cousins +that I don’t really have to get much for, but I +love looking at all the toys. I spent quite a while +there. Then I did the rest of my shopping in a +rush, and everything is so crowded, and I got +mixed up on my money or the sales tax and +only had a dime left, and I missed my mother +or she forgot.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She stretches out her toes to touch Cat, who +<a name="Pg168" id="Pg168" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +is sitting in front of her. “I couldn’t think what +to do. It’s so hard to think when your feet hurt.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It certainly is,” agrees Mom. She goes out +to the kitchen to finish fixing dinner, and Pop +suggests Mary better phone her home. She gets +her father, and her mother has left a message +that she was delayed and figured Mary would +go home alone. Mary gives her father our address +and tells him she’ll be home by nine.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We must have hit a lucky day because we +have a real good dinner: slices of good whole +meat, not mushed up stuff, and potatoes cooked +with cheese in them, and salad, and a lemon +meringue pie from the bakery, even.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After dinner we sit around a little while, and +Pop says I better take Mary home, and he gives +me money for a cab at the end of the subway. +When Mary gives the driver her home address, +I say it over to myself a few times so I’ll remember.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly I wonder about something. “Say, +how’d you know <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">my</span></span> phone number?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I looked it up,” she says simply. “There’s +about twenty-eleven Mitchells in the Manhattan +phone book, but only one in the East Twenties, +so I figured that must be you.” +</p> + +<a name="Pg169" id="Pg169" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Gee, that’s true. You must have had an +awful time, though, standing in the phone booth +with your feet hurting, going through all those +Mitchells.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Says Mary, “Oh, no. I did it one rainy afternoon +at home, weeks ago.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well, what do you know.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<a name="Pg170" id="Pg170" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> + <a name="toc35" id="toc35"></a> + <a name="pdf36" id="pdf36"></a> + <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">18</span></h1> +<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/image18.png" width="529" height="450" alt="Illustration: Raised champagne glasses toasting Cat." /></div> + + + + + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The two stray kittens gradually make themselves +at home. Somehow or other Cat has taught +them that he’s in charge here, and he just chases +them for fun now and again, when he’s not busy +sleeping.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As for keeping cats in my room, that’s pretty +well forgotten. For one thing, Mom really likes +them. She sneaks the kittens saucers of cream +and bits of real hamburger when no one’s looking, +<a name="Pg171" id="Pg171" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +and she likes talking to them in the kitchen. +She doesn’t pick them up, but just having them +in the room sure doesn’t give her asthma.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The only time we have any trouble from the +cats is one evening when Pop comes home and +the two kittens skid down the hall between his +legs, with Cat after them. He scales his hat at +the lot of them and roars down the hall to me, +“Hey, Davey! When are you getting rid of these +cats? I’m not fixing to start an annex to Kate’s +cat home!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I’m sure Davey will find homes for them,” +Mom says soothingly, but getting a little short +of breath, the way she does any time she’s afraid +one of us is losing his temper.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In fact, one thing this cat business seems to +have established is that me and Pop fighting is +the main cause of Mom’s asthma. So we both try +to do a little better, and a lot of things we used +to argue and fight about, like my jazz records, +we just kid each other about now. But now and +then we still work up to a real hassle.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’ve been taking a history course the first +semester at school. It’s a real lemon—just a lot +of preaching about government and citizenship. +The second semester I switch to a music course. +<a name="Pg172" id="Pg172" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +This is O.K. with the school—but not with Pop. +Right away when I bring home my new program, +he says, “How come you’re taking one less +course this half?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I explain that I’m taking music, and also +biology, algebra, English, and French.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Music!” he snorts. “That’s recreation, not a +course. Do it on your own time!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Pop, it’s a course. You think the school signs +me up for an hour of home record playing?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“They might,” he grunts. “You’re not going +to loaf your way through school if I have anything +to say about it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Loaf!” I yelp. “Four major academic subjects +is more than lots of the guys take.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom comes and suggests that Pop better go +over to school with me and talk it over at the +school office. He does, and for once I win a +round—I keep music for this semester. But he +makes sure that next year I’m signed up all +year for five majors: English, French, math, +chemistry, and European history. I’ll be lucky +if I have time to breathe.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go down to the flower shop to grouse to +Tom. It’s after Valentine’s Day, and business is +slack and the boss is out.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why does Pop have to come butting into my +<a name="Pg173" id="Pg173" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +business at school? Doesn’t he even think the +school knows what it’s doing?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Aw, heck,” says Tom, “your father’s the one +has to see you get into college or get a job. Sometimes +schools do let kids take a lot of soft courses, +and then they’re out on a limb later.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh. He just likes to boss everything I do.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So—he cares.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh.” I’m not very ready to buy this, but +then I remember Tom’s father, who <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">doesn’t</span></span> +care. It makes me think.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Besides,” says Tom, “half the reason you +and your father are always bickering is that +you’re so much alike.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Me? Like <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">him</span></span>?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sure. You’re both impatient and curious, got +to poke into everything. As long as there’s a +bone on the floor, the two of you worry it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mr. Palumbo comes back to the shop then, +and Tom gets busy with the plants. I go home, +wondering if I really am at all like Pop. I never +thought of it before.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s funny about fights. Pop and I can go along +real smooth and easy for a while, and I think: +Well, he really isn’t a bad guy, and I’m growing +up, we can see eye to eye—all that stuff. Then, +whoosh! I hardly know what starts it, but a fight +<a name="Pg174" id="Pg174" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +boils up, and we’re both breathing fire like +dragons on the loose.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We get a holiday Washington’s Birthday, +which is good because there’s a TV program on +Tuesday, the night before the holiday, that I +hardly ever get to watch. It’s called <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Out Beyond</span></span>, +and the people in it are very real, not just good +guys and bad guys. There’s always one character +moving around, keeping you on the edge of your +chair, and by the time it all winds up in a surprise +ending, you find this character is not a real +person, he’s supernatural. The program goes on +till eleven o’clock, and Mom won’t let me watch +it on school nights.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I get the pillows comfortably arranged on the +floor, with a big bottle of soda and a bag of popcorn +within easy reach. The story starts off with +some nature shots of a farm and mountains in +the background and this little kid playing with +his grandfather. There’s a lot of people in it, but +gradually you get more and more suspicious of +dear old grandpa. He’s taking the kid for a walk +when a thunderstorm blows up.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Right then, of course, we have to have the +alternate sponsor. He signs off, finally, and up +comes Pop. +</p> + +<a name="Pg175" id="Pg175" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Here, Davey old boy, we can do better than +that tonight. The Governor and the Mayor are +on a TV debate about New York City school +reorganization.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At first I figure he’s kidding, so I just growl, +“Who cares?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He switches the channel.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I jump up, tipping over the bottle of soda on +the way. “Pop, that’s not fair! I’m right in the +middle of a program, and I been waiting weeks +to watch it because Mom won’t let me on school +nights!”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop goes right on tuning his channel. “Do +you good to listen to a real program for a +change. There’ll be another western on tomorrow +night.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That’s the last straw. I shout, “See? You don’t +even know what you’re talking about! It’s not +a western.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop looks at me prissily. “You’re getting altogether +too upset about these programs. Stop it +and behave yourself. Go get a sponge to mop +up the soda.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s your fault! Mop it up yourself!” I’m too +mad now to care what I say. I charge down the +hall to my room and slam the door. +</p> + +<a name="Pg176" id="Pg176" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I hear the TV going for a few minutes, then +Pop turns it off and goes in the kitchen to talk +to Mom. In a little while he comes down and +knocks on my door. Knocks—that’s something. +Usually he just barges in.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Look here now, Dave, we’ve got to straighten +a few things out quietly. Your mother says she +told you you could watch that program, whatever +it was. So O.K., go ahead, you can finish it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Yeah, it’s about over by now.” I’m still sore, +and besides Pop’s still standing in my door, so I +figure there’s a hitch in this somewhere.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“But anyway, you shouldn’t get so sore about +an old television program that you shout ‘Mop +it up yourself’ at me.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmm.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hmm, nothing.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, I don’t think you should turn a guy’s +TV program off in the middle without even +finding out about it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop says “Hmm” this time, and we both stand +and simmer down.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I look at my watch. It’s a quarter to eleven. +I say, “Well, O.K. I might as well see the end. +Sorry I got sore.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop moves out of the doorway. He says, +<a name="Pg177" id="Pg177" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +“Hereafter I will only turn off your TV programs +before they start, not in the middle.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Just as I get the TV on and settle down, the +doorbell rings.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Goodness, who could that be so late?” says +Mom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop goes to the door. It’s Tom, and Hilda is +with him. I turn off the television set—I’ve lost +track of what’s happening, and it doesn’t seem +to be the grandfather who’s the spook after all. +It’s the first time Hilda has been to our house, +and Tom introduces her around. Then there’s +one of those moments of complete silence, with +everyone looking embarrassed, before we all +start to speak at once.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Hilda came to the beach with us,” I say.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I told Tom we shouldn’t come so late,” says +Hilda.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop says, “Not late at all. Come in and sit +down.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hilda sits on the sofa, where Cat is curled +up. He looks at her, puts his head back and goes +on sleeping.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mom brings coffee and cookies in from the +kitchen, and I pour the rest of the popcorn into +a bowl and pass it around. Tom stirs his coffee +<a name="Pg178" id="Pg178" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +vigorously and takes one sip and puts the cup +down.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Reason we came so late,” he says, “Hilda +and I have been talking all evening. We want +to get married.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop doesn’t look as surprised as I do. “Congratulations!” +he says.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tom says, “Thanks” and looks at Hilda, and +she blushes. Really. Tom drinks a little more +coffee and then he goes on: “The trouble is, +I can’t get married on this flower-shop job.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Doesn’t pay enough?” Pop asks.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Well, it’s not just the pay. The job isn’t +getting me anywhere I want to go. So that’s what +we’ve been talking about all evening. Finally we +went up to Times Square and talked to the guys +in the Army and Navy and Air Force recruiting +office. You know, I’d get drafted in a year or +two, anyway. I’ve decided to enlist in the Army.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Goodness, you may get sent way out West for +years and years!” says Mom.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No, not if I enlist in the Army. That’s for +three years. But I can choose what specialist +school I want to go into, and there’s this Air +Defense Command—it’s something to do with +missiles. In that I can also choose what metropolitan +<a name="Pg179" id="Pg179" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +area I want to be stationed in. I can +choose New York, and we could get married, +and I might even be able to go on taking college +course at night school, with the Army paying +for most of it.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop says, “You sound like the recruiting officer +himself. You sure of all this?”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I’ll have to check some more,” says Tom. +“The recruiting officer, as a matter of fact, tried +to persuade me to shoot for officers’ training and +go into the Army as a career. But then I would +be sent all over, and anyway, I don’t think Army +life would be any good for Hilda.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I can see you have put in a busy evening,” +says Pop. “Well, shove back the coffee cups, and +I’ll break out that bottle of champagne that’s +been sitting in the icebox since Christmas.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go and retrieve my spilled bottle of soda. +There’s still enough left for one big glass. Pop +brings out the champagne, and the cork blows +and hits the ceiling. Cat jumps off the sofa and +stands, half crouched and tail twitching, ready +to take cover.</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Pop fills little glasses for them and raises his +to Tom and Hilda. “Here’s to you—a long, +happy life!” +</p> + +<a name="Pg180" id="Pg180" class="tei tei-anchor"></a> +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We drink, and then I raise my glass of soda. +“Here’s to Cat! Tom wouldn’t even be standing +here if it wasn’t for Cat.”</p> + +<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That’s true, and we all drink to Cat. He sits +down and licks his right front paw.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> + +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Format by Jean Krulis</span></span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Set in Linotype Baskerville</span></span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Composed and bound by American Book-Stratford Press</span></span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-style: italic">Printed by The Murray Printing Co.</span></span></div> +<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: 700">Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated</span></span></div> +</div> + +</div> + <div class="tei tei-back" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 6.00em"> +<hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em"> +<div id="pgfooter" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IT'S LIKE THIS, CAT*** +</pre><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader37" id="rightpageheader37"></a><a name="pgtoc38" id="pgtoc38"></a><a name="pdf39" id="pdf39"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Credits</span></h1><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr><th class="tei tei-label tei-label-gloss">March 27, 2008 </th></tr><tr><td class="tei tei-item"><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-respStmt"> + <span class="tei tei-resp">Produced by <span class="tei tei-name">Adam Buchbinder</span>, <span class="tei tei-name">René Anderson Benitz</span>, + and the <span class="tei tei-name">Online Distributed Proofreading Team</span> at + <http://www.pgdp.net/c>. + Page-images available at + <http://www.pgdp.net/projects/projectID467059110c292/></span> + </span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader40" id="rightpageheader40"></a><a name="pgtoc41" id="pgtoc41"></a><a name="pdf42" id="pdf42"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h1><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This file should be named + 24921-h.html or + 24921-h.zip.</p><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This and all associated files of various formats will be found + in: + + <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/9/2/24921/" class="block tei tei-xref" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">http://www.gutenberg.org</span><span style="font-size: 90%">/dirs/2/4/9/2/24921/</span></a></p><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Updated editions will replace the previous one — the old + editions will be renamed.</p><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Creating the works from public domain print editions means that + no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the + Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United + States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. + Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this + license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works + to protect the Project Gutenberg™ concept and trademark. 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