UNDERTOW

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 Contents

Red 1

She 5960

Ann 171173

War 289294

The 396403
City
 The waters closed in over me,
The deep engulfed me.
Weeds twined around my head.
I sank to the base of the mountains…
Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea,
which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins,
collects, lets fall.

Virginia Woolf,
“Mrs. Dalloway”
 Red
In the beginning, I remember my Grandma Kay. I
lovedlove my Grandma Kay. She wasShe’s strong and she
hadhas a loud laugh. When she laughedlaughs, her eyes
sparkledsparkle and sometimes criedcry tears even though
she wasshe’s happy, not sad. She huggedhugs me and
kissedkisses me and calledcalls me her boy, her good boy,
her handsome boy. She smelledsmells like cigarettes and
peppermint chewing gum and perfume from the big fancy
bottle with the pink top on her dresser. Grandma Kay
saidsays that she brought those bottles home from France.
She smokedsmokes long cigarettes from beautiful dark-red
packages and chewedchews pieces of gum that lookedlook
like little pillows. She gavegives me gum whenever I
wantedwant some. She cookedcooks me chicken and baked
potato with butter and gravy and cutcuts the chicken into
pieces for me and satsits with me while I ateeat. She
saidsays, “Let me cut your chicken for you and make it nice.”
Grandma Kay toldtells Grandpa Murray what to do: “Murray
get me my glasses.” He smiledsmiles. He askedasks me if I
wantedwant a horsey ride and then he bouncedbounces me
on his knee. He putputs his teeth in a glass of water before
he wentgoes to bed and that mademakes Grandma Kay
laugh.
On Sunday afternoons, Grandma Kay and Grandpa
Murray camecome to our apartment. Grandpa Murray
watchedwatches the ballgame on the television in the corner
of the dining room. He saidsays that I should be quiet and

1
listen to the announcer because the announcer toldtells you
what waswhat’s happening. The announcer’s voice
soundedsounds like an engine and mademakes me think of
falling asleep on the back seat of the car. It’s bad to bother
Grandpa Murray. If I don’t bother him, I’m allowed to lie on
the carpet that smells like my sweater and listen. I heardhear
the announcer’s voice and the cracking noise when one of the
players hithits the ball with his bat and the popping noise the
ball mademakes when it lands in a player’s glove and the
sounds of whistling and cheering. Through the open
windows, I heardhear buses slowing down and speeding up
on the street outside and sometimes a car horn.
Grandma Kay and Grandpa Murray stayedstay to eat
dinner with us. Usually, Aunt Doris hadhas dinner with us too,
and sometimes Aunt Joan camecomes with her husband,
Phil, and her daughter, Kate, who was born the same year as
I was. Uncle Phil watchedwatches the ballgame with Grandpa
Murray. Kate wasis beautiful, everyone saidsays so. Yes,
Kate wasis beautiful. She wentgoes into the kitchen with the
women. They helpedhelp my Mother cook dinner and they
talkedtalk. They toldtell me that I don’t belong in the kitchen,
that I am in the way. They saidsay that I should go and watch
the game with Grandpa and Uncle Phil. Sometimes, I
heardhear Mommy talk about Daddy.
“I can’t believe I married him,” she saidsays.
Aunt Doris askedasks, “How could he be so
irresponsible? To get married, start a family and then just
leave the country?” Nobody answers her question. “What
does he think you are going to do with a young child alone?
Did he think you could just drag the child around the world
after him?”
Grandma Kay laughedlaughs and there wasis a wet
sound in her throat; it wasit’s the same sound that my throat
mademakes when I hadhave a cold.
“What did you expect when you married him,
ElaineBarbara? He has to work.”

2
 She coughedcoughs.
Mommy said that she expectedexpects Daddy to stay
with his family like other husbands.
“I’m too tired to do everything by myself.”
“Uchh,” saidsays Grandma Kay, “everyone is tired.”
Daddy wasis across the ocean. Later, I
rememberedremember when I heardhear the song: “Daddy’s
gone across the ocean…”
Mommy wasis so tired that she hadhas to go to the
hospital. Aunt Doris camecomes to stay with me because she
didn’tdoesn’t have children. She wasShe’s too smart,
Grandma Kay saidsays. I askedask Aunt Doris when is
Mommy coming back? She saidsays she didn’tdoesn’t know.
Daddy camecomes home for a while. He pickedpicks me up
and calledcalls me Chief, and I feltfeel very happy. Lots of
grownups camecome to visit Daddy and Grandma Kay and
Grandpa Murray. They whisperedwhisper to each other. Aunt
Doris toldtells me to go and play in my room, and the
grownups camecome to see me. A fat lady saidsays, “Hello
Sweetie, I’m Ethel Greenbaum,” and she leanedleans over
and huggedhugs me so that I hadhave to bend my back and
almost fellfall on the floor. I askedask Grandma Kay, “When
is Mommy coming home?” She saidsays that Mommy isn’t
coming home, that I should be brave and that Aunt Doris will
take care of me. I cry. I wantedwant to live with Grandma
Kay, but she saidsays that she hadhas to take care of
Grandpa Murray, and that one child wasis enough for her. So
Aunt Doris movedmoves into our apartment and Daddy
wentgoes back across the ocean to work.
“You will be living with me now,” she said, “Besays, “be
a good boy.”



Aunt Doris straightened things up. She said that I had

to learn to pick up my toys and help her. She put a big pile of

3
clean clothes on my bed.
“Help me fold the laundry,” she said.
“I don’t know how,” I told her.
“You can learn. It’s not hard. You can learn to fold a t-
shirt and then you can fold the t-shirts. You can put the socks
together and fold pillow cases. It will be fun.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t care; you have to start helping. You’re old
enough.”
She took a t-shirt and made it flat on the bed. “Watch
me,” she said. She began to fold.
“Here’s a shirt for you. Fold it the way I did.”
I couldn’t remember and Aunt Doris grabbed the shirt
and started to show me again.
“Pay attention,” she said. “Don’t be lazy.”
I tried to pay attention.
“Just pull out all the socks and put them together in
pairs,” she said with her disgusted voice.
“What are pairs?” I asked.
“Just pull out all the socks and pay attention,” she
answered.
I stared at the lump of laundry, then pushed my hands
into it, trying to find socks. Parts of all sorts of things stuck out
of the pile, but I couldn’t find a part of anything that I thought
was a sock.
“What are you doing?” my Aunt asked me.
I jumped.
“Pay attention and stop fooling around. Just find the
socks; anyone can do that.”
Small things were wrapped up inside the sheets. I
noticed the red sleeve of one of my shirts sticking out of a
bunch of sheet and I pulled on it. The sheet fell off the bed
onto the floor, making a nice clean-smelling puff of air.
“That’s enough!” shouted my Aunt. “Go find something
else to do! Now!”
I walked away from the bed quickly, watching Aunt

4
Doris. I wanted to ride my horse, but she didn’t like the horse
noise, so I went quietly out of the room and walked into the
living-room where I hid behind one of the window drapes. It
was warm behind the drape. I could feel warm air moving
above the radiator in front of the windowsill. I pressed my
forehead against the window glass. It was cold. A truck drove
past and engine noise made the window shake. I could feel
with my forehead that the glass wasn’t really flat, that it had
bumps. I touched them with my fingers while I looked outside
at the people on the sidewalk. They were wearing their warm
coats.
“Where are you?” my Aunt shouted.
I ran out of the living room as fast as I could. She was
standing in the hall.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said, thinking that I might be lying. She
didn’t seem to know.
There wasn’t any more laundry on my bed; the room
looked okay again. I closed the door and locked it. Then I got
on my horse and began to rock and bounce. The horse was
white with black spots and he had a brown saddle shape in
the middle of his back. He didn’t have real stirrups; I put my
feet on a piece of wood that went through his body. There
was another piece of wood through his ears that I held, but he
also had reins. I rocked and bounced as hard as I could. I
closed my eyes a little so that I was seeing through my
eyelashes, and I imagined that I was riding a real horse in the
West like a cowboy. The horse began to slide around on the
carpet. Suddenly, someone started banging on the door and
I knew that I was in trouble.
“Open this door!” Aunt Doris shouted, and she shook
and twisted the door handle.
I got off my horse and unlocked the door, and then I
ran back to my horse and stood behind it. Aunt Doris came
into the room, and I started to cry.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked me in a

5
loud voice.
I wanted to cover my ears with my hands, but I didn’t.
I stood there crying, watching her and saying nothing.
“I asked you a question! Don’t just stand there crying
like a baby. Answer me! You are not to lock this door! Ever!
I’ve told you that before. Do you understand me?”
I nodded.
“I hope you do. Stop crying and find something else to
do because that horse drives me crazy. I’ve told you that
before too, but you just don’t listen. It’s impossible to get
through to you.”
She left the room, and I lay down on my bed facing the
wall and hugged my bear. I wasn’t allowed to lie on my bed
during the day but I knew that Aunt Doris wouldn’t come back
for a little while. I loved my bear. He was so perfect, so soft,
such a nice brown color, like the chocolate cake with mocha
icing that Grandma Kay made. He smelled so good. When I
hugged him, I thought of the Pooh.



Daddy came home for Christmas and slept in the extra

bedroom across the hall from my room, because Aunt Doris
slept in his room, which was now her room. When he got
home, he picked me up and squeezed me and called me
Chief. He had his special smell and the skin of his cheek was
rough. I wanted to have rough skin like his. He gave me his
Army hat with the heavy gold eagle on the front and the brown
leather brim that was as smooth as a new bar of soap. When
I put it on, it fell down over my eyes and ears so that I couldn’t
wear it because, for me, it wasn’t like a real hat. The inside of
the hat smelled like his hair, which I liked. Daddy said that I
could keep the hat and I put it on my bed, but Aunt Doris said
that it was bad luck to put a hat on a bed and that I should put
it in the closet where it belonged. Daddy brought me a
baseball glove, although it was a kid’s glove so that it would

6
fit on my hand, and a big ball that I could barely squeeze into
the glove. He took me to the movie about Robin Hood, and
after the movie, at lunch, I told Aunt Doris the movie story until
she said to eat my sandwich. He took me to Grandma Kay’s.
Grandma Kay gave me a big hug and a kiss and she gave
Daddy a kiss. She smoked a cigarette. She sat with Daddy
in the living room and sent me into her room so that Grandpa
Murray could show me the coins from France that she kept in
a drawer of the table next to her bed. At bedtime, Daddy read
me the Pooh story. I liked the Pooh. It was very unfair to say
that he was a bear of little brain because he always did the
right thing, but I thought that the person who had written the
story was joking about this. The person who had written the
story was saying that the Pooh had little brain because he was
a bear. I decided that what the Pooh did was most important,
and then I felt better when the story said that the Pooh had
little brain.
On Christmas day I woke up very early. It was still dark
outside, but I knew that morning was coming because I could
see through the window blinds that the sky had a pink color. I
lay very still feeling my heart beating and listening, and I
thought about opening presents. I knew that it was too early
for me to get up, and that it was wrong to disturb Daddy and
Aunt Doris because it was dark outside. She had told me how
the clock should look before I woke her up, but I couldn’t
remember. I thought that it would be alright if I just went very,
very quietly down the hall to see the presents and the tree in
the living room. After looking at them, I would go back to bed
and sleep until daytime, and then it wouldn’t be bad to wake
up Daddy and Aunt Doris.
I got out of bed and looked through the window at the
dark city. It was very quiet. There were no cars moving on
the street, no people on the sidewalk. An invisible stream of
cold air hit me in the face. I held my hand carefully over the
top of the radiator and then touched it with just the tip of my
finger; it was only a little warm. Then I yawned and suddenly

7
I felt very tired. I got back into bed and closed my eyes, and
when I opened them again it was daytime.
I didn’t remember what day it was until I smelled the
tree smell from the living room. Then I jumped out of bed as
fast as I could and looked into the hall. The door to the guest
room was already open; Daddy was awake and I thought that
Aunt Doris must be awake, too. I ran into the living room and
there, on the floor around the tree, were all of the presents.
“Look who slept late like a good boy,” Aunt Doris’s
voice said.
I turned around and saw that she was sitting next to
Daddy on the sofa, drinking coffee.
“Merry Christmas,” they each said.
I stared at what was on the floor beside the tree. I
looked at Daddy and then I stared again at the thing on the
floor. It was a board with train tracks on it: a train set. The
board was painted green to look like grass and grey to look
like roads and blue to make a river and a pond. There were
little houses and trees in the fields and little cars on the roads,
and, on the train tracks, there was a train with six cars: a black
steam engine and a dark red caboose, some cars for people,
and two other cars, the names of which I didn’t know. I ran to
look at the board and try the train, because I was sure that it
was an electric train and that meant, I knew, that it would really
go.
“Don’t touch it,” shouted my Aunt, making me jump.
“The paint’s still wet. Daddy and Grandpa Murray put it
together last night after you went to bed and the paint hasn’t
dried yet. You’ll get paint all over.”
I looked at her. Didn’t Santa paint it? I sat on my heels
beside the board, and my hands waved in the air above the
train, which was stopped next to a little stationhouse and a
parking lot where two toy cars were parked in the spaces
between white lines. A red and white pole blocked the road
into the parking lot because the road crossed the tracks in
front of the train; cars couldn’t go in or out of the parking lot

8
when the train was at the station.
“Don’t worry, Chief,” Daddy said. “We can still use it,
and the paint will be dry in a few hours.”
“Show me, please!”
I didn’t have to ask him again. He came over from the
sofa and got down on the floor with me. We were both there
together on our hands and knees in front of the train. I moved
closer to him. He showed me the transformer, a big heavy
black box with three knobs on its top. It was connected by a
red wire and a green wire to the tracks and also had a thicker
long black wire that could be plugged into the wall.
“Don’t touch those wires when the transformer is
plugged in because you could get an electric shock,” Daddy
told me, and I said that I wouldn’t.
He showed me the knob that changed forwardsforward
to backwardsbackward and backwardsbackward to
forwardsforward, and the knob that made the whistle, and
then the big knob in the middle of the transformer that made
the train go. You had to twist the big knob slowly so that the
train made a smooth start and didn’t fall off the tracks. It made
a nice clicking sound when I twisted it.
“You’re not to use this without a grownup here,” my
Aunt said.
Daddy allowed me to plug the black wire into the wall,
which I did very carefully to show him that I could do it by
myself. The transformer box made a humming noise and I
could smell electricity; the electricity smelled the same as it
did at the beach near the wires that were attached to our
house. I turned the handle slowly, and the train started to go,
making a noise that was like the noise of a real train. After it
had left the station, the pole blocking the road into the parking
lot went up in the air all by itself so that cars could drive over
the tracks.
“Try the whistle,” Daddy said. He sounded happy.
I did. The whistle knob twisted smoothly and popped
back when I let go of it. The farther I turned the knob, the

9
louder the train whistled, and I saw that when the whistle
sounded, white smoke came out of the smokestack on the
steam engine. If I turned the handle the right way, the whistle
sounded just like the whistle of a real train.
“Oh, my God,” my Aunt said and laughed a little. “I
hope that thing doesn’t set fire to the carpet.”
Daddy was still on the floor next to me. “Let’s make it
go backwards. Do you want to do it?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
I turned the big knob in the middle of the transformer to
stop the train, and it stopped suddenly and fell off the tracks.
It was wrecked. I almost started to cry because I thought that
it might be scratched and bent and ruined, but Daddy said,
“Don’t worry Chief. No harm done. Let me show you how to
put it back on the tracks.” He crawled around the board to
where the train was, and carefully put the wheels of each car
back on the tracks. Then he showed me how to check that
the cars were still hooked together. When he was done, I
looked at the train carefully: everything was perfect again.
“See, you need to be sure that all the wheels are on the
tracks. It’s easier to do if the train is on a straight piece of
track, not on a curve.”
I said, “Yes,” but I didn’t think that I could do it. “You’ll
help me, won’t you?” I asked him, wondering what I would do
after Daddyhe went back across the ocean?
“Sure,” he answered. “Now let’s try it again. Pretend
it’s a real train and start it gradually so that the passengers
don’t get hurt, okay?”
I twisted the big knob very slowly and the train began
to move backwards. When it was almost at the station, the
little gate went down to block the road into the parking lot
again. Then I stopped the train carefully and made the
whistle, because the train was at the station. It sounded nice,
the way it did at night at the beach.
“Do you see this switch track?” Daddy asked, pointing
to a place where the track turned into two tracks. “This is

10
where you can switch the train so it will go around the inside
circle. Before the train gets here you just push the button on
this box and the track changes.”
He pushed the button: part of the switch track moved
sideways with a loud click and a flag on the end of a little pole
next to the track went up in the air.
“Now try. Start slowly.”
I made the train go forward, slowly twisting the knob so
that it went faster. When the engine got to the switch track, it
changed tracks and pulled the train over a bridge across a
painted river. I let the train run and watched it go around and
around, staring at the beautiful real-looking engine and the car
called a flatbed car. There was also a tanker car, Daddy said,
and he told me what it was for. I noticed that there were lights
in each of the cars for people, and a light on the flag next to
the switch track and also on the pole that blocked the road
where it crossed the track near the station. The train, I
thought, would look beautiful in the dark because of the lights.
I looked at Daddy and then I gave him a big hug and he
hugged me back.
“Well, don’t you say thank you?” my Aunt asked.
“Thank you, Aunt Doris.”
“Give me a kiss.”
I got up and kissed her.
“I love you, honey” she said. “I hope this is the best
Christmas ever for you. Well, let’s turn that thing off for a while
and open the other presents. Daddy and I want to see what
Santa brought us, too. You can play with it later, but
remember, only with an adult present and don’t touch the
board until the paint is dry.”
After all the other presents had been opened, I played
with my train set, stopping only when Aunt Doris told me to
put my new toys in my closet.
“Be sure you do a neat job,” she said.
After a while, she left me alone in the living room. I was
careful to start and stop the train slowly so that it wouldn’t fall

11
off the tracks. When sometimes it did, I told Daddy and he
fixed it for me. Aunt Doris came into the living room to check
on me, and I asked her if Daddy could put my train set in my
room, and she said that we would talk about it later when there
was time because it was a big job, and that it was a very large
train set so it might take up too much space on the floor of my
room.
“Where will we keep it?” I asked
“We’ll see,” she said.



In the afternoon, Aunt Doris took her bath and then,

while she was standing in front of the mirror putting on her
makeup, I took a bath in her bathtub. I lay on my stomach
with my face in the water and wondered how long I could hold
my breath. What would happen if I held my breath a little
longer, and then a little longer after that? My insides felt as if
they were going to explode, and I couldn’t think about anything
besides breathing. I became a second person pushing my
own head into the water.
“How long can you hold your breath?” I asked Aunt
Doris.
“I don’t know. A minute maybe. I’ve never timed
myself.”
“I mean, how long can I hold my breath?”
“I don’t know. How could I know a thing like that. Not
very long.”
“What happens if you don’t hold your breath under
water?”
“You drown, of course. You can’t breathe when you’re
under water. Okay, stop fooling around and wash yourself,”
my Aunt said. “. Be sure to wash everywhere.”
Aunt Doris dressed me in my good clothes and she put
on her good clothes too: a black dress with a big skirt that
made a noise like tissue paper. Daddy got dressed in one of

12
his dark suits and a very white shirt with cuffs that stuck out of
the sleeves of his suit jacket so that you could see his shiny
gold cufflinks, and a soft red tie with small white dots on it and
his shiny black shoes, and the three of us took a taxi cab to
Aunt Joan’s house to have a fancy dinner. I loved riding in a
taxi cab, sitting on the seat feeling warm even though it was
cold outside, bumping up and down in the dark and looking
through the window at the smoke coming out of holes in the
street and, tonight, at the colored lights and decorations and
at all of the people on the sidewalks dressed in their good
clothes and carrying bags of presents. We had presents with
us too for Aunt Joan and Kate and Grandma Kay and Gussie
and Grandpa Murray and Uncle Phil.
The taxi driver stopped the cab next to the end of the
green awning in front of Aunt Joan’s apartment house. Aunt
Doris and I got out of the cab while Daddy paid the driver, and
then we all walked to the door and a doorman standing in the
lobby opened it for us. I started to go inside but Aunt Doris
walked in front of me.
“Remember, ladies first,” Daddy said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that’s the proper way to behave,” said Aunt
Doris.
“That’s just the way people do it,” Daddy said.
The three of us walked to the elevator. There were lots
of mirrors and dark pictures on the walls of the lobby, and
sofas and chairs and coffee tables. I wondered why they put
living-room furniture in lobbies? I had never seen anyone
sitting on the chairs in our building lobby. I stopped next to
the open elevator door and waited for Aunt Doris to go in first.
“Ladies first. Good boy,” she said as she walked past
me.
In the elevator, I remembered to take off my hat,
because you had to do that too when you were in an elevator
with a lady. Daddy took off his hat that looked like a cowboy
hat and smiled at me because, I thought, he was glad that I

13
had remembered.
It was dark in the hall outside Aunt Joan’s apartment.
Daddy put down one of the shopping bags of presents that he
was carrying and pressed the pearly white button on the wall
next to the front door. I heard the bell ring inside the
apartment and someone’s heels tapping the floor, and then
Aunt Joan opened the door and there was bright light that
made me squeeze my eyes shut, and I heard the sounds of
people talking; I heard Grandma Kay’s laugh.
“Welcome,” said Aunt Joan, looking at everyone and
smiling. She sounded as if she were surprised to see us.
“Merry Christmas. Come in.”
I felt shy, and Daddy pushed me in front of him into the
apartment.
“Well, don’t you look handsome,” Aunt Joan said,
looking at me and then bending down to give me two kisses.
She smelled like Grandma Kay. “You too,” she said to Daddy
and gave him a kiss and laughed.
Her laugh sounded a little like Grandma Kay’s laugh.
She kissed Aunt Doris on the Cheek.
“Hi, Doris dear. Let me take your coats. I think Katie
has a present for you,” she said to me as she helped me take
off my coat.
I looked across the foyer. Kate stood under Aunt
Joan’s chandelier which was covered with sparkling glass
beads that looked like pieces of ice. She wore a dark green
dress with puffy shoulders and a wide skirt, black stockings
and very shiny black shoes with straps that went over the tops
of her feet. Kate was beautiful. I stared at her eyes; they were
dark brown with long lashes and they looked like cat eyes.
They stared back at me. She was holding a package.
“Go run and play with Katie, and see what’s in that
package for you, and tell Gussie if you want something to
drink,” said Aunt Joan, smiling at me again.
“Wait Sweetie,” said Aunt Doris, “give this to her.”
She handed me a big box wrapped with green and red

14
paper, and with a wide red ribbon around it that was tied into
a fat bow.
Kate turned around and ran out of the foyer, her skirt
bouncing, and I followed her slowly so that I could look at the
things in Aunt Joan’s apartment because I liked her
apartment. There was wallpaper that had pictures of little
houses and other wallpaper that had pictures of flowers.
There were soft carpets and shiny-smooth dark wood furniture
and fat sofas and chairs. There were drapes and shades
covering the windows, and lots of paintings on the walls to
look at, and all sorts of little things on the tables: boxes and
ashtrays and pots and plants.
Some grownups, including Uncle Phil and Grandpa
Murray, were sitting in the living room, talking and holding
glasses that sparkled like the foyer chandelier. The ice cubes
made ringing noises when they hit the sides of the glasses as
the grownups drank. I walked near the wall carrying Kate’s
present and they didn’t notice me. Grandma Kay wasn’t there,
and I guessed that she was in the kitchen. Daddy came into
the living room and the men got up to say hello. I stopped and
watched. Uncle Phil, Grandpa Murray and the other men,
whose names I couldn’t remember, were wearing dark suits
like Daddy’s. There were also some women in the room
wearing silky dresses and shiny jewelry; they stayed in their
chairs to say hello. Everyone was very happy to see Daddy,
who walked around shaking hands with the men and bending
down to kiss the women on their cheeks. “Let me get you a
drink,” Uncle Phil said to Daddy. “Tell us what’s going on in
the world.” I turned around and ran down the hall to Kate’s
room.
“Let me get you a drink,” Uncle Phil said to Daddy. “Tell
us what’s going on in the world.”
I turned around and ran down the hall to Kate’s room. Formatted: Body Text Indent 2, Left, Indent: First line:
She was sitting Indian style on the floor facing the door, 0", Widow/Orphan control, Tab stops: Not at 3"
holding my present on her lap. She smiled a big smile,
showing lots of white teeth. I sat down on the floor in front of

15
her and we traded packages.
I began to tear the wrapping paper off my box; there
were pictures of little white snowmen and reindeer on the
paper, which was red, and there was a gold-colored bow stuck
on one side. A heavy thing slid around a little inside of the
package. After I had torn off some of the paper, I could see
through a window underneath where the bow had been that
the present was a cowboy gun and a belt with a holster. My
heart was beating the way it had in the early morning, and my
fingers shook.
“Do you like it?” asked Kate. Her dark eyes stared at
my face.
The holster and belt were made out of stiff brown
leather with the shapes of cowboys and horses on it, which I
thought was stupid because real cowboys wouldn’t have that,
but I didn’t say anything. The gun, though, was heavy, the
way I imagined a real gun would be: smooth dark silver metal
with a rough white handle and with a flat screw through the
handle. I had seen screws like that through real gun handles
on TV. I aimed the gun at the wall because I didn’t want Kate
to think that I was going to shoot something in her room, and
I pulled the trigger hard with my pointing finger. The gun shot
and, at the same time, the part that held the bullets turned to
a new bullet. I had a big smile and got up to put on the holster
belt while Kate began to unwrap her present, which was a doll
with thick blonde hair in a dress that was even fancier and
puffier than her own. The doll dress looked like tissue paper,
but it wasn’t made out of paper, it was made out of real
material. The doll had little hard pink hands sticking out of the
puffy tissue-paper dress sleeves and a hard pink face with
shiny eyes, and hard eyelids with long stiff black lashes. Why
did a blonde doll have black lashes? The eyelids closed and
made a clicking noise when Kate put the doll on the floor, and
they opened and made a clicking noise when she made it
stand on its feet.
“Thank you,” Kate said. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

16
 I looked at the doll, but I didn’t answer. It wasn’t nearly
as beautiful as Kate. I wondered why you would make a doll
like that? I decided that you couldn’t make a doll like Kate. I
thought of shooting the doll but then I decided that I would get
into trouble if I shot it, so I paid attention to the silver metal
buckle on the gun belt. Then I noticed a really bad problem:
the holster was on the wrong side of the belt. When the belt
was around my waist, I couldn’t take out the gun with my
shooting hand. I tried twisting the belt around so that the
holster was on the same side as my shooting hand, but that
made the holster backwards and the buckle behind me, which
was stupid. I twisted the belt around my waist again so that it
looked right.
“The holster is on the wrong side,” I said.
“It’s okay,” said Kate, who was looking at her doll.
“But itsit’s on the wrong side!”
“It will still work. Just reach around and get the gun out,
that’s all. Do you want to play dolls?”
“No.”
“Please. It’s fun.”
“No!”
I reached my shooting hand around the holster the way
Kate had said that I should, pulled out the gun, turned it over
using both hands and then aimed it at the doll with my
shooting hand.
“No!” shrieked Kate, crossing her arms over the doll
and hugging it.
“Children!”
I turned around, surprised. Aunt Joan was standing in
the doorway.
“He was going to kill my doll!”
“Oh, what a beautiful dolly. Where did you get it?”
asked Aunt Joan.
“It was a present,” answered Kate.
“Did you say thank you?”
Kate and I both nodded.

17
 Aunt Joan looked at me. “Do you like your pistol?”
“Yes, thank you, Aunt Joan.”
“He thinks it’s on the wrong side,” said Kate.
“Oh? Well remember, you must never ever point it at
anyone, okay?”
“Yes, Aunt Joan,” I answered.
“Good. Now why don’t you both come with me and say
hello to everybody? We’re going to eat soon.”
We walked back to the living room. Kate carried her
hard pink doll in her arms as if it were a real baby. I switched
my gun from my shooting hand to my other hand and put it
back in the holster. No cowboy would ever have to do that, I
thought. The grownups in the living room saw Kate and began
to say hello and merry Christmas. They said how beautiful
she was and how beautiful her doll was. She knew them all
and said their names. Grandpa Murray looked at me and
noticed my new gun; he let me know by raising his eyebrows
and making his eyes large as if he were afraid of me. I smiled
at him and ran over to where he and Grandma Kay were
sitting on a big sofa under a painting of a woman who was
wearing a puffy tissue-paper dress like the doll’s and sitting
on a swing in a flower garden. I jumped up on the sofa
between them, and Grandma Kay grabbed me and gave me
a big hug.
“Uchh, hello my darling,” she said and she squeezed
me and coughed.
Before dinner, I had to take off my gun and put it on the
floor under the Christmas tree because Daddy said that guns
weren’t allowed at the table. There were two tables in the
dining room, one for grownups and a small one for children,
and even the children’s table had a white tablecloth and
special dishes and glasses and silverware. I sat at the
children’s table with Kate and her cousin, Jean. Jean was
older. She wore a black dress and she looked almost like a
grownup. She had a necklace and a bracelet made out of
pearls.

18
 First, Gussie brought us each grapefruit on a small
plate. Gussie was wearing a black uniform with a fancy white
collar and a very stiff white apron that you could see through.
Gussie wore a black uniform for special occasions; other
times she wore a white uniform. There was a small silver pot
of sugar on the table. Jean gave it to Kate and then to me,
and we put sugar on top of our grapefruit and I watched the
sugar turn grey. Then we all ate the grapefruit with pointed
silver spoons and the juice squirted up in the air and onto our
faces, stinging a little, but making us laugh. The grownups at
the other table were busy talking and getting ready to eat.
They were making so much noise that they didn’t notice what
was happening at our table.
“Katie, you’re getting juice in my hair,” Jean yelled.
Kate didn’t pay any attention to her and scooped out
another piece. I had juice all over my fingers. I tried to suck
them clean because I hated having sticky fingers. When I
sucked, my tongue smacked against the top of my mouth and
that made Jean and Kate giggle. I took my fingers out of my
mouth, grabbed my grapefruit and stabbed it with the tip of my
spoon. A piece of grapefruit popped up in the air, almost hit
Jean’s shoulder and then landed on the rug behind a fat bald
man. Jean and Kate shrieked and the three of us laughed so
hard that we couldn’t breathe. Grandma Kay, who was sitting
near us at the end of the grownup table, turned her head to
see what we were doing and she also started to laugh, I
thought just because we were laughing. She coughed and
her eyes began making tears. Then all of the grownups
looked at us.
“My goodness, what is going on over there?” asked
Aunt Joan. She was smiling. “Jeanie, help him with his
grapefruit, would you?”
“I don’t need any help,” I said.
“You do too!” yelled Kate.
“I do not! You do!”
“No I don’t! Girls are more matour than boys. Isn’t that

19
right Mommy? Aren’t Girls are more matour than boys?”
“All of you settle down. Jeanie, can you make sure that
everyone is well behaved at that table?” said Aunt Joan
without saying whether or not Kate was right. I didn’t
understand what Kate was talking about, but I decided not to
ask her because I was sure that she had said something bad
about me. I thought that she was making as big a mess as I
was. I stared at my grapefruit and tried to figure out how to
eat it without getting juice on my fingers or squirting it all over
the table.
“Children, Gussie wants to know whether you want
dark meat or light?” said Aunt Joan. Gussie was standing next
to her.
“White meat.”
“White meat, please.”
“I want white meat.”
A lady at the grown-up table whose name I couldn’t
remember said, “When I was a child, I didn’t get to eat white
meat because the adults took it. Now I’m an adult and I don’t
get to eat white meat because the children get it.”
“There’s plenty for everybody,” said Aunt Joan.
When Gussie brought the food out of the kitchen,
everyone started saying how delicious it looked, and what a
good job Aunt Joan and Gussie had done: “The dinner looks
wonderful, Gussie.” “The table is beautiful, Joan.” Gussie
carried the food around the grown-up table on a silver tray
stopping next to each person, and the grownups took what
they wanted using big silver spoons and forks that were on
the tray. “Oh, Gussie, that’s wonderful, thank you,” and
Gussie answered in a quiet voice, “Thank you, Mr. Somebody
or Mrs. Somebody.” Gussie’s helper brought our dinners on
shiny plates that had pictures of flowers on them. My turkey
already had been cut into little pieces and covered with juice.
Next to the turkey there was cranberry sauce with little berries
in it and there was sweet potato with golden-brown
marshmallow on top and stuffing. There also were a few

20
skinny string beans mixed with pieces of some kind of nut. I
checked to see that I had been given all of the good things,
which I had, and I began eating. Everyone else must have
been eating too, because it was much quieter. While I ate, I
listened to the grown-ups talk:
“...I saw her at Lynn’s, she looked awful…”
“……Did you take the cottage?…………The
other………..”
“………………………….that diamond…………..”
“..redo the living room, or at least change the
carpet……..”
“……but she must be sick…………..….couldn’t
possibly……… she said…”
“………………..back to Europe so soon?
What……….…here……..”
“…….They both looked awful…….”
“……………………………..not, it’s the clothes and the
hair and……..”
….can’t live with her old things………..………not right.”
“………………………that’s when they expect me.”
I moved the string beans around my plate so that they
looked like leftovers, and I told Gussie that I didn’t want
seconds of anything. I wanted to have room in my stomach
for dessert, because Grandma Kay, I knew, had made a
chocolate cake with mocha icing. We only had mocha
chocolate cake for special meals because it was a lot of work.
Sometimes Grandma Kay let me help her mix the icing and
then lick the bowl when the cake was finished. Gussie wanted
to know why I didn’t want more turkey or stuffing or even
cranberry sauce or sweet potato, and she said that she
thought I must be sick. She looked at me and then she said,
“Oh, I knows what you wants,” and she took away my plate
before Aunt Doris saw it, and soon Gussie’s helper brought
the cake and also apple pie with ice cream and some kind of
fruit. I ate my cake very slowly, starting at the thin end, and I
had sips of milk between bites. By the time the cake was

21
gone, I was feeling sleepy.
After dessert, Kate and Jean and I were excused from
the table by Aunt Joan and we went into the living room to
watch television. I got my gun and lay on the carpet holding
it in front of me. I couldn’t pay attention to the TV show
because I kept looking at the gun and thinking about the
holster being on the wrong side of the belt and how that ruined
it because I couldn’t draw the gun like a real cowboy. It was
such a good gun. I looked at it and felt its weight. Why
couldn’t the holster be on the right side? It was as if the
present weren’t really for me, but were for somebody else who
shot with the wrong hand.
A little while later, after we had put our coats and hats
back on and had said thank you and goodnight and when we
were sitting on the backseat of another taxi cab, I said this to
Aunt Doris and to Daddy. I told them that my present was
wrong.
“Don’t be spoiled, Honey,” said Aunt Doris. “It was very
nice of Aunt Joan to give you such a thoughtful present. It’s
not nice to look at it so closely; you shouldn’t look a gift horse
in the mouth. Didn’t you have a good time?”
“But it’s wrong,” I said again, almost crying and then
really crying. “I can’t use it because it’s on the wrong side.”
“Oh,” said Daddy. “It’s because you’re not right-
handed.”
“No,” I cried.
“Chief,” Daddy said, “most people are right-handed.
They use the other hand from you. You’re left-handed. The
holster was made for someone who is right-handed and uses
the other hand, so when you put the belt on, you don’t like
where it is.”
Daddy spoke again. “Chief, maybe Aunt Doris can find
you one on the other side so that it works for you.”
I looked at my Aunt. “Would you do that?” I asked.
“Of course, Honey. I’ll try. We’ll see.”

22
 

When summer came, Aunt Doris packed our clothes in

suitcases and put the other things that she needed into
cardboard boxes. She pulled down the window shades and
closed all of the drapes, and had Rose cover the furniture with
old sheets and unplug the lamps so that they wouldn’t catch
fire. George, the doorman, helped her by taking the suitcases
and boxes downstairs with Grandpa Murray. They put them
in the car, and then we went to the country where we stayed
in a white house near the beach. Aunt Doris drove the car
and Grandma Kay sat on the other front seat, knitting;
Grandma Kay knitted me a new sweater every summer. I sat
next to a pile of suitcases and boxes on the backseat and
looked out the window. Grandpa Murray stayed in the City
and went to business, so Aunt Doris had to do all of the driving
by herself, which was hard.
“You’d think one of the men would drive us up there
and help us get settled,” she said to Grandma Kay. “Every
summer it’s the same thing: pack the suitcases and the
household utensils, pack the car, drive the whole way by
myself and then have to get everything inside and organized
while taking care of a child with his Father off somewhere
doing nothing to help. It’s just too hard for me.”
“Oh, Doris,” said Grandma Kay. She sighed. “We’ll
have fun. It will be a fun drive, won’t it Sweetie?”
“Yes,” I answered.
I liked riding in the car and watching the world outside
the window. I liked the way the buildings changed. First, for
a little while, there were apartment houses like the one in
which we lived, but each one had a different front. I looked at
the doormen who made me think of old-time television
soldiers in complicated uniforms guarding the buildings. Then
Aunt Doris turned the car and we passed small buildings
where there were stores with mysterious and surprising things
in their windows. Sometimes I saw a window and

23
remembered having been inside the store, but it was different
seeing a place from the car, knowing that I was going faraway
and couldn’t touch the place, except in my mind where I could
imagine being inside and maybe remember times when I had
been inside, times that seemed like old memories even if they
only had been a few days before.
Aunt Doris stopped the car at a corner because the
traffic light was red and I saw the butcher shop where she
went every week to buy meat. There were big pieces of red
and white meat hanging in the window; I smelled the butcher
shop when I saw the meat hanging there. Inside, the floor
was made of wooden boards covered with sawdust and I
smelled the sawdust. In my mind, I moved my feet through
the sawdust and pushed it into little piles the way I did when
she went shopping there. The man behind the counter said,
“Would you like a piece of baloney, Red?” and Aunt Doris said
that I would and he cut me two pieces with a knife that had a
very thin blade and I noticed that some of his fingers were too
short and had stubby ends. When I could squeeze past the
ladies and get close to the low part of the counter where the
cash register was, I could see the other butchers cutting and
wrapping meat in brown paper and sweeping little pieces of
fat and bone and meat off the wooden counter onto the floor
with their hands or their knives, and I saw that some of them
had short stubby fingers too. I said this to Aunt Doris: “Their
fingers are short,” and she told me shush, and later, after she
had paid and taken her package and we had left she said,
“Don’t talk about people in front of them,” and “Butchers lose
their fingers in accidents with knives and that’s why you
shouldn’t play with knives.” I watched the butchers cut, but I
never saw one of them cut off his finger.
Poor people sat on the steps in front of the buildings
that we passed. There were fat ladies with gray skin talking
to each other. They wore thin dresses and they didn’t have
their legs crossed the way Aunt Doris and Aunt Joan and
Grandma Kay and other ladies did when they were sitting.

24
There were men sitting on the steps with them, smoking
cigarettes. Some of the men weren’t wearing shirts, only
undershirts. They also had gray skin, but their faces and
necks were brown and you could see that their hands were
rough when they put their cigarettes in their mouths. I saw a
man spit, which I knew you weren’t supposed to do.
“I saw a man spit,” I said.
“Fouy,” said Aunt Doris. “Those people are poor and
they don’t know proper manners, do they? Look at those
children. Isn’t that terrible?”
Near the corner there were children running through
water that sprayed out of a fire hydrant. The water hit cars on
the street and made a river in the gutter that carried pieces of
trash to the sewer at the corner. The children weren’t wearing
shoes and a lot of them, even the girls, were wearing only
underpants, not even bathing suits, even though they were
outside in public, and you could see through their wet
underwear. They didn’t seem to care though; they ran and
shouted and played in the water, and it looked like a lot of fun
running around nearly naked and spraying water all over the
street by standing in front of the fire hydrant.
“I want to do that,” I thought, and I must have talked to
myself, because Grandma Kay said, “God forbid,” and
laughed. “Those children run around like wild animals like the
Negroes. Make sure the windows are closed and the doors
are locked.”
Soon we were riding on a road without traffic lights past
other kinds of buildings that were different sizes and shapes.
Some of them had broken windows, and some had parking
lots next to them where there were trucks and machines and
boxes. There was a building that looked as if it were made of
dark grey metal and brown bricks. It was old and dirty, and
had two big smokestacks on its roof. The smokestacks were
painted like barbershop poles with red and white stripes and
had grey smoke coming out of their tops. I liked this building.
Sometimes its giant front doors were open and I could see big

25
machines inside and men walking around them. The place
was always gone before I could look at it carefully, though, as
if it had never really been there, had been there only in my
mind.
Aunt Doris drove the car across a bridge and then there
weren’t as many buildings to look at. All of the cars on our
road were going in the same direction. Beside us there were
bushes and trees, and, on the other side of the bushes and
trees, there were cars going in the other direction. The air
started to smell like plants; I watched the green things with my
head pressed against the window glass and waited to be
surprised by passing cars and trucks. The engine made the
seat and the window shake. Sometimes the cars on the road
looked as if they weren’t moving and then they went slowly
forwards or backwards while the trees behind them moved
very fast. When I stared at people in passing cars, they
sometimes looked like two people in two cars. By trying, I
could see one car and then two cars again. The same thing
happened when I looked out the window in my room, and I
wondered why, and then my eyes closed.
When I woke up we were on a different road, an almost
empty road, and there were only trees around us. I imagined
that we were surrounded by woods and wild animals and that
there were no other people anywhere. I thought about my gun
and walking through the woods, hunting and sleeping on the
ground like Davey Crockett. After a little while, we stopped to
eat at the Ho Jo, and to get gasoline and go to the toilet. I had
icy Coke that I sucked through a paper straw from a glass that
looked like a bell upside down, and hot dog with yellow
mustard and French fries with red Heinz ketchup. Why did
you only put mustard and ketchup on these two things that
you ate together? Grandma Kay and Aunt Doris didn’t know.
I always had hot dog and French fries at the Ho Jo except
when we were at the beach where it was safe to have fried
clams and Grandma Kay and Aunt Doris had lobster rolls.
After lunch, I started to feel uncomfortable in the car

26
and I fidgeted, even though I knew that I shouldn’t. Time
passed very slowly, much more slowly than it had at the
beginning of the trip. I wanted to ask how far we still had to
go but that question would make Aunt Doris mad, I knew.
Instead, I thought about the way my space on the backseat
had been cozy in the morning. I tried to feel that it was cozy
again, but I couldn’t.
“How much farther is it?” I had to ask.
“Soon Dear,” answered Aunt Doris. “Be patient.
You’ve been a very good boy.”
Finally, we were riding on a small road and I began to
see houses that I remembered. A lot of the houses had signs
on them and some had old things sitting on their porches. The
dirt at the edge of the road, I saw, was sandy and suddenly I
could smell salty air; we were close to the ocean. I thought
that if I got out of the car and dug in the ground, I would find
pieces of sea shells and pine cones. We were at the beach,
and I remembered summer, and I felt as if I had been in the
country forever.
I saw the drug store in town. I remembered waking up
early and walking to the hotel room where Grandma Kay
stayed, and also Grandpa Murray when he visited from the
City. I knocked on the door and stood on the porch waiting,
listening. My stomach made noises. Grandpa Murray opened
the door. He was wearing blue pajamas with thin white
stripes. The pajama shirt had pearly buttons on its front. He
pushed his white hair off his face with his hand and then he
smiled and touched his lips with his finger.
“Shhh. I’ll be right out,” he said. He already had his
teeth in his mouth.
Grandpa Murray winked his blue eye at me and closed
the door quietly. I walked across the porch and touched the
arm of a big wooden chair. There were drops of water on the
paint even though it wasn’t raining; the sky was blue and the
air was cool and had a nice smell. I knew that it would be a
beautiful day, that the sand would be hot and the ocean very

27
cold. I tasted salty water and shivered. In the middle of the
lawn next to the porch there was a large tree whose branches
made a tent where I could hide. I watched the wind make the
branches shake and listened to the sea gulls that were flying
over the inlet. I thought about climbing up on the fence around
the dock and looking over the edge to see how high the water
was, but I wasn’t allowed to do that without a grownup holding
me. When I leaned over the top of the fence, I could see the
giant posts under the dock: they were as big as trees.
Sometimes these posts were covered with water, but
sometimes they weren’t and I could see seaweed and
mussels sticking to their sides. When the water was low,
people walked and swam across the inlet, but this wasn’t safe,
Grandpa Murray said. People who did this could be dragged
by the water against the posts and cut by the sharp shells, or
carried out into the ocean where they would drown and be
eaten by fish. It didn’t look to me, though, as if people had
any trouble swimming across the inlet.
Grandpa Murray had told me that one day when he was
a boy he had decided to play with bad children who wanted to
put pennies on the train tracks so that a train would run over
them and squeeze them flat. In the place where they went,
one track went over a river on a long bridge built out of posts
like the ones under the dock. If you walked onto the bridge,
you could drop a rock between the tracks and listen to it
splash when it hit the water, but this was very dangerous
because it was easy to fall between the tracks or to be run
over by a train because there wasn’t anywhere to stand
except on the tracks. The biggest boy, who was a bully, dared
the other boys to walk with him across the bridge. Grandpa
Murray didn’t want to go, but the big boy said,
“CommonC’mon, Mickey, don’t be yellow,” and Grandpa
Murray went with him and the other boys even though he
knew that he was doing something wrong. He was the last
boy to get to the other side of the bridge and, as soon as he
had stepped off the tracks, a train came, so he was almost

28
was killed. He said that God had protected him so that he
could grow up and have a nice grandson, and he told me not
to do anything wrong like that. If a bigger boy called me
names and tried to make me do something that I knew was
wrong, he said that I should just go home. He said that I
always should do what I thought was right.
“Did a boy ever fall between the tracks and get run over
by a train?” I asked Grandpa Murray.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure it happened,” he said and nodded
his head.
“Did you see it happen? Did anyone you know get run
over by a train?”
“I’m sure boys got run over by a train and fell off the
bridge.”
“But did you see it happen when you were there to
someone you knew?”
“No,” said Grandpa Murray, “not while I was there but
I’m sure it happened.”
I heard the door open behind me and, when I turned
around, Grandpa Murray was standing on the porch in his
clothes looking at me and smiling.
“Are you ready for breakfast?” he asked.
“Yes.” I ran to hold his hand, and then we walked
together up the big hill into town to eat breakfast at the drug
store.
Aunt Doris turned the car. The hotel was at the end of
the street and Aunt Doris stopped the car there so that
Grandma Kay could get the key to her room. Grandma Kay
stayed at the hotel to make sure that everything was alright,
and Aunt Doris drove the car around the corner and down the
lane to the white house where we lived during the summer.
“You were a very, very good boy,” she said. “You were
very patient. You are the best boy and I love you. Are you
excited to be here? We are going to have a great summer.”
I got out of the car and stretched my arms over my
head. The air smelled like tar and salt and fish and sand and

29
hot grass, and I knew each of those smells. I could hear the
screams of sea gulls flying over the inlet and the sound of
crickets in the weeds on the other side of the lane where Aunt
Joan’s house was. Aunt Doris walked to the gate in the fence
and found the house keys in the mailbox. The fence was
covered with red roses and I stared at them. Soon it would be
dark, and I would be able to see the stars.
I walked on the path through the prickly bushes from
Aunt Joan’s house, where we all had eaten dinner on the
porch, to our house across the lane. The air was cool and
smelled like roses and the ocean. Grandpa Murray was taking
me home to put me to bed; Aunt Doris would be there soon
so that Grandpa Murray could go back to the hotel. I felt
fidgety after sitting still at the dinner table. We crossed the
lane and I opened the gate.
“There are bees,” I said. Fat yellow and black bees
were crawling on the roses that grew next to the fence.
“Be careful of them,” Grandpa Murray said. “They
sting.”
I ran through the gate past the bees, feeling excited.
Then I turned around and ran back to Grandpa Murray. He
waved his finger at me.
“You’ll get stung,” he said.
“They don’t bother me,” I said. “I’m too fast.” I ran into
the yard again, stopped and turned around. Aunt Doris was
walking across the lane and I ran back through the gate to
show her that I wasn’t afraid. Suddenly, I felt a hot pain inside
my ear, and I screamed and covered my ears with my hands.
“What are you doing?” she said in a loud voice.
I couldn’t answer. I stood in front of her crying, holding
my head between my hands.
“I warned you,” Grandpa Murray said.
My Aunt stared at my face. “Were you running through
that gate?”
I nodded.
She looked at Grandpa Murray. “What were you

30
thinking, letting him do that? You should have more sense
than that. I can’t believe you did that.”
“I warned him that he probably would get stung, but he
wanted to do it. What was I supposed to do?”
“What were you supposed to do? You’re the adult.
You should have told him, no. Now what am I supposed to
do?”
Aunt Doris was very angry at Grandpa Murray because
I had been bad. I looked at the ground. My ear burned and it
felt as if it had grown. Aunt Doris pushed me in front of her up
the porch stairs.
“It’s all right,” she said. “We’ll put some ice on it and
soon it will be fine. It will be fine. I can’t believe he let you do
that. You won’t do that again, will you? Now you know that
bees are dangerous and can sting you.”
I was still crying. I had snot and tears all over my face.
“Calm down now,” she said. “It will be fine. You don’t
need to cry.”
I stared at the red roses, the soft flowers and the dark
prickers on the stems.
“Don’t just stand there with your mouth open, Sweetie.
Come and help me get these things inside.”
Aunt Doris surprised me. She was walking down the
porch steps and the front door of the house was open behind
her.
I walked to the car, and she put a cardboard box in my
arms. It was heavy, but not too heavy for me to carry.
“Take this upstairs and put it in the bathroom. Then
come back outside and we’ll see what else you can carry.”
I went into the house. The first floor was dark as usual
because all of the window drapes were closed. Aunt Doris
said that the lady who owned the house wanted them closed,
and that I mustn’t go anywhere on the first floor except the
kitchen. The living and dining room drapes were always
closed in the City apartment, too. I looked quickly into the
living room and then I carried the box up the stairs. The door

31
to my room was open, and I went inside and put the box on
my bed. Through the window at the end of the bed I could
see the backyard. There was another window next to the bed
where my animals used to sit. I stared at the empty window
sill. Dust floated in the sunlight coming through the window.
The bed was made and covered by the white spread with little
bumps that looked like rabbit tails. I stared at the empty
window sill.
Something terrible had happened, I remembered, a
thing that made me shake inside. My animals weren’t on the
window sill next to my bed where they should have been,
where they sat every day while I was at the beach and waited
for me to come home. My brown bear was gone. I searched
for him. He wasn’t on the bed or on the floor. The shaking
feeling got worse. I looked under the bed and between the
bed and the wall. He was gone. I opened my mouth and the
shaking came out as a scream. I ran out of my room to the
top of the stairs, crying.
“Where are my animals?” I yelled. “I can’t find my
animals, they’re gone. Where are they?”
“Stop that,” Aunt Doris said.
I felt a bump inside of my chest and I turned around so
fast that I almost fell over. She wasn’t in the kitchen; she was
behind me, very close to my back.
“Where are my animals?” I screamed.
“Stop that,” she said again loudly. “Don’t talk to me like
that. I don’t ever want to hear you yell at your elders. You’re
too old to have stuffed animals. You’re not a baby anymore.
You don’t want to be a baby, do you?”
I stood crying and looking at the floor.
“I gave your animals to Aunt Joan for Katie while you
were at the beach.”
“You can’t,” I almost whispered. “They’re mine. I want
them. Please, I want them. They’re mine.”
“You’re too old to have stuffed animals. They’re for
babies.”

32
 “Please,” my body shook. “I want them. I want my
bear.”
“Calm down. You’re being silly about this. They’re just
stuffed animals.”
“Please,” I said again.
“Stop it. I can’t do anything about it now anyway. I
gave them to Katie and I can’t go and ask for them back.”
“You can. You can ask Aunt Joan. Please.”
“I can’t ask for them back. What would Aunt Joan
think? It’s not nice to give things and then ask for them back.
You don’t need them. You’re not a baby anymore.”
I stood in the hall, staring at the floor and crying.
“It’s time for your nap. You’re tired and you need to
rest.”
“My bear,” I whispered.
“You have to take a nap. I tell you what I’ll do. Let me
put you to bed and you go to sleep so you’re in a good mood
tonight and then I’ll go across the street and see if I can get
some animals back.”
I got into bed as fast as I could, feeling very tired, and
I lay facing the window sill hoping for my bear. A little while
later, Aunt Joan came back. I rolled over and saw that she
was carrying a small, hard yellow bear that I didn’t care about.
“No,” I cried. “My bear, my brown bear. That isn’t the
one. Please get the brown one, the one I like.”
“Enough,” she shouted. “You wanted a bear and I
brought you a bear. I’m not going over there again. Be happy
with what you have and go to sleep. Don’t make such a big
deal out of everything.”
That, I knew, was the end.



In the morning, when I woke up, sunshine was coming

through the window next to my bed, making the covers warm.
I stretched my legs, feeling the smooth cool spots in the deep

33
corners of the bed with my feet. Then I stepped quietly onto
the floor. After a quick look through the window at the
backyard, I went into the bathroom, peed, and took off my
pajamas. I hung them on the hook behind the bathroom door
by climbing on a stool that Aunt Doris had put in the bathroom
so that I could reach the water faucets to wash my hands and
face and brush my teeth. Then I went back into my room and
put on a dark blue bathing suit with a thin white stripe down
the side of each leg, a shirt and my blue and white sneakers
with bottoms that looked like erasers. As soon as I was
dressed, I went down the stairs, walking on my toes like an
Indian so that nobody could hear me. The house was so quiet
that the silence was like a thing, but I wasn’t afraid of it
anymore or of being alone the way I had been when I was a
baby. I liked the early morning, when the air was still cool and
people were asleep.
In the kitchen there was an empty bowl sitting on the
table and, next to that, the sugar in a glass with a metal top
that had a hole in it, a spoon and a big box of Cornflakes. I
poured Cornflakes into the bowl and then I got the milk bottle
out of the refrigerator. It was easy to tip the bottle because it
wasn’t full. When the cereal was covered by just the right
amount of milk so that it wouldn’t be too dry or too soupymuch
like soup, I poured sugar on top of the Cornflakes; Aunt Doris
didn’t like it when I put a lot of sugar on my cereal, but Aunt
Doris wouldn’t know. I ate quickly so that the cereal didn’t
have time to get soft, and, after I had finished, I slurped the
sugary milk out of the bottom of the bowl. Then I put
everything away and went through the kitchen door out into
the backyard. I was careful not to let the screen door make
any noise when I shut it.
As soon as I was outside on the lawn, I reached my
arms up in the air, tilted my head back, and spun around while
jumping first on one foot and then on the other. Daddy was
coming to Maine. There were several big puffy white clouds
floating in the blue sky, and the air had a green smell. The

34
grass was wet and, as I turned around and around, splashes
of cold water hit my ankles, and I could feel water soaking
through the tops of my sneakers. I spun until I was dizzy and
nearly fell over. Tonight Daddy would be here and then,
tomorrow, he would come to the beach with us and I would
watch him body surf and he would take me swimming and
show me how to body surf and maybe we would dig in the
sand together. I liked to build with the wet sand near the
ocean; when Daddy was there to watch me I didn’t always
have to stay and use the dry sand around Aunt Doris’s
umbrella.
I looked for things in the grass until Aunt Doris shouted
from the house that it was time to go to the beach. She
smeared sun-tan lotion all over me and then we went out to
the car and she put her beach bag in the trunk along with a
bag of sand toys that was sitting on the grass next to the
driveway. We got into the car and she drove around the
corner to the hotel where Grandma Kay stayed. It was my job
to go to Grandma Kay’s room and tell her that Aunt Doris was
waiting. I walked across the porch past the big wooden chairs.
The door wasn’t closed all the way so I pushed it open and
went into her room. She had a big bedroom and a living room
with a small kitchen behind it that was more like a closet than
a real kitchen.
“Grandma Kay?” I called.
“Hello, my darling.”
She came out of the bedroom wearing her beach coat.
Her hair was covered by a light blue hat that looked like a
towel and was the same color as her coat.
“Your Daddy is coming today. Are you excited?”
“Yes.” I lifted my chin to kiss her and she bent down
and kissed me and hugged me.
“Grandpa Murray is coming with him. You two will be
able to have breakfast together tomorrow morning.”
We walked together to the car and I held her hand. In
the other hand she carried a beach bag in which she had, I

35
knew, some peanut butter taffy that was, everyone said, the
best candy in the world. It was the best candy in the world.
“Did you bring some taffy?” I asked her.
“We’ll see. I’m not sure I have any left.”
I knew that she was teasing.
“You just got it. I know you brought it. Can I have some
later?”
“Of course, my darling,” she said.
I climbed onto the backseat of the car. She put her
beach bag down next to me and then got into the front beside
Aunt Doris and kissed her good morning on the cheek.
“I thought we could all eat at the Sand Bar tonight for
dinner,” Grandma Kay said.
“That would be wonderful. Would you like to do that,
Sweetie?”
I nodded and said, “Yes.” I loved the Sand Bar. We
had clam chowder and steamed clams there, and I had
hamburger steak and corn on the cob, and while we ate, we
sat on the porch and watched the boats go in and out of the
cove. It would be beautiful. Daddy would be there.
The car tires made a drum sound on the bridge that
crossed the inlet. I looked out the window and saw men
standing beside the railing fishing with long poles. One of the
men pulled a flopping fish as long as my arm over the railing
and put it into a net. The fish was fighting, I knew, and I
thought that it must be afraid. I had gone fishing.
I had gone fishing with Grandpa Murray’s friend, Mr.
Klausner, whose grandchildren were old and didn’t come to
the beach. Mr. Klausner fished from the hotel dock, and he
asked Grandpa Murray if I would be allowed to go fishing with
him. Aunt Doris said yes, and one morning before breakfast,
Grandpa Murray took me to meet Mr. Klausner on the dock.
There was an extra fishing rod, a real one, for me to use, and
Mr. Klausner showed me the sinker and the hook and how to
crank the reel and stick a worm onto the hook at the end of
the fishing line. I didn’t want to put my hand into the can where

36
he kept his worms, but I knew that I had to touch the worms
because Mr. Klausner was going to a lot of trouble to teach
me how to fish, so I put my hand into the can and took out a
worm. It felt squishy and curled in a nasty way when I picked
it up and held it between my fingers. Its skin was dark brown
and damp and had pieces of dirt sticking to it. I didn’t want to
push the hook into the worm’s body.
“Don’t worry, Red,” Mr. Klausner said. “You’re not
hurting it, but be careful of your fingers. The hook is very
sharp. If you get stuck, the barb will hold on and you won’t be
able to get it out.”
He showed me what the barb was.
“That barb is what keeps the fish on the hook after they
bite the worm. It catches in their mouths.” I saw that he was
watching me.
I saw that he was watching me. Aunt Doris wouldn’t
have let me touch the hook if she were there. I stuck the hook
into the worm. Its body split open; its insides were pink but
didn’t bleed. How did Mr. Klausner know that I wasn’t hurting
the worm? It would have hurt me a lot to be stuck with that
hook, and my hands shook when I thought about the sharp
point getting caught in my finger.
“They can’t feel,” Mr. Klausner said.
Was it true? In the back part of my mind I thought that
everything in the world was alive and I was sure that every
living thing must think and feel. Didn’t people talk to dogs and
other animals and didn’t dogs answer and didn’t dogs look sad
if you yelled at them? I was sure that he was wrong. Did
animals have feelings and memories? Worms and fish must
have been hurt when people killed them. What about the giant
tuna fish that had a fight with the men in the inlet?
“Wake up, Sweetie. We’re here. Close your mouth.”
Aunt Doris was speaking to me. The car was parked,
and Aunt Doris and Grandma Kay were opening their doors
to get out. We took our things and walked together across the
sandy parking lot to the boardwalk on top of the dunes and

37
the steps down to the beach. Aunt Doris and Grandma Kay
carried their beach bags and I carried the bag of sand toys. It
wasn’t heavy, but it scraped against my ankles; the banging,
rubbing bag made me forget about the tuna fish. Soon my
sneakers would be filled with sand. I hated the walkwalking
from the car to the beach and, even more, the walkwalking
from the beach back to the car when it was hot and I was sun-
burned and covered with sand and sticky stinging salt. I knew
that Aunt Doris hated the walk too and that she would yell at
me if I complained, but I was quiet so she wouldn’t get mad.
Aunt Joan and Kate were already sitting under an
umbrella near the water, and, as soon as Aunt Doris and
Grandma Kay saw them, Aunt Doris went back to the
refreshment stand and paid the man to bring another umbrella
and beach chairs for Grandma Kay and herself. Grandma
Kay and I walked through the soft sand, our feet slipping and
twisting, to where Aunt Joan and Kate were sitting.
“Good morning,” Aunt Joan said to both of us, and
smiled.
Kate smiled at me. Her skin was brown like the
caramel candy they had at the drugstore in town. The sun
made it that way. The sun burned my skin so that it was bright
red and peeled, and I had to stay in the shade under the
umbrella most of the time so that I wouldn’t get burned and be
sick.
“Good morning,” Grandma Kay said to Kate and Aunt
Joan. “It looks like it’s going to be another beautiful day.”
She put her bag down on the sand and lit a cigarette
from the dark-red package in the pocket of her beach coat
while she waited for her chair and umbrella.
I sat down on the sand near Kate and pulled my
sneakers off as fast as I could. Then I took a shovel out of the
bag of sand toys and began to scrape away the soft top sand
to get to the damp underneath sand that would be good for
building.
“Sweetie, try not to throw sand on the beach blanket,”

38
said Grandma Kay.
“When can we go swimming?” I asked her.
“For God’s sake, we just got here. Give us a chance
to get settled. Anyway, we have to wait for it to warm up a bit;
you’ll freeze in that water right now. Later, when it’s warmer
and the water isn’t so rough you can go in. The water is too
rough for you and Katie now.”
I thought about what she had said. I liked the ocean
when it had big waves that banged into you making a spray
and pushing you off your feet. I knew how to dive under the
wave so that it wouldn’t knock me over. I began to dig a hole
in the sand near Aunt Joan’s umbrella.
Late in the afternoon, I heard people shouting. I was
hiding under the tree outside Grandma Kay’s hotel room,
practicing a card trick that Grandpa Murray’s friend, Mr.
Weinberg had shown me. I crawled under the hanging
branches and ran to the dock. Aunt Doris, Grandma Kay,
Aunt Joan and Grandpa Murray and Uncle Phil, and other
grownups were standing at the fence watching something in
the water. Grandpa Murray put his arms around my waist and
helped me climb up so that I could see what was happening.
The tide was very low; the posts under the dock looked
like tall trees covered with shells and seaweed, and there was
only a little water in the middle of the inlet. A dark shape
moved in the water; it was as large as a grownup, at least.
“Do you see?” Grandpa Murray whispered.
Some men were wading in the water, shouting and
splashing with their hands. When the shape got close to one
of them, it turned around and went away quickly. It was a
giant fish. The men looked as if they were trying to make a
circle around it. More men came running over the dunes
across the inlet. One of them was carrying a giant fork and
another one had a long pole with a metal hook on its end.
What was it? What were they doing?
“A boathook,” Uncle Phil said.
The long pole was a boathook.

39
 The men ran across the sand and jumped into the
water. Some of them were wearing pants, not bathing suits.
One of the men stopped to take off his shirt and his shoes and
socks; the others already had bare feet. They all splashed
with their hands.
“I think they’re going to catch it,” said Aunt Doris. She
sounded excited.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They’re trying to catch that big fish,” Grandpa Murray
said.
The fish knew and was afraid.
The man with the boathook shouted at the other men;
he was telling them what to do. The man with the fork stayed
near him. More people, grownups and children, were running
over the dunes onto the beach, and many of them were
pointing and shouting.
“They should get a boat,” a man next to Uncle Phil said.
“Why do they want to catch the fish?” I asked Grandpa
Murray.
“I think it’s a tuna fish,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want to be in the water with that big fish,”
said Grandma Kay, and she laughed.
“Why don’t they get washed out into the ocean?” I
asked Grandpa Murray.
The man with the fork and the man with the boat hook
suddenly pushed them into the water at the fish, but it made a
fast turn and got away. I watched the way it moved. It was
like a bird swooping through the sky.
The men kept wading back and forth, trying to keep the
fish in the middle of their circle while they moved closer to
each other. They tripped and sometimes fell completely into
the water and had to swim to a place where they could stand.
Another man came carrying an oar and he became part of the
circle, too. Every time one of the men with a thing pushed it
into the water, the fish moved away quickly so that it wouldn’t
be hurt. I imagined that I was the fish trying to get away from

40
the men, which made me feel the same way that I felt when I
imagined that I was being chased by animals in a dark forest,
and I hoped that the fish would escape but I also wanted to
see what would happen if the men caught it.
“Can’t it just knock them over and swim away?” a lady
asked.
“It could knock them down easily,” answered Uncle
Phil. “It just doesn’t know.”
“Will it bite them?” I asked.
“It doesn’t bite,” said Grandpa Murray. “It’s a tuna, I
think. I don’t think tuna bite.”
“I think it’s a tuna,” said Uncle Phil.
“But it should bite them. They’re trying to stab it.”
“It doesn’t know. It just wants to get away.”
The circle around the fish got smaller and smaller.
“I think they’ll get it,” said Aunt Doris.
The man with the fork suddenly pushed it down into the
water almost underneath where we were standing. I saw the
fish’s giant tail move quickly, and then it swooped around him
and between two other men who were standing in the circle,
and it was free. The people watching made a noise all
together that sounded as if they had fallen on their behinds.
The tuna had escaped. Soon it would be in the ocean. Then
it stopped moving. What was it doing?
Then it stopped moving. What was it doing?
“It can’t get out. It’s too shallow,” said Uncle Phil. “It’s
caught by the low tide. That’s why it’s here in the first place.
It came in here after food and got trapped when the tide went
out.”
I hadn’t seen the man with the fork get out of the water
because I was looking at the tuna fish. Suddenly, with the
side of my eye, I noticed him running across the sand bar
behind the tuna. He held the fork above his head with both of
his hands, like a spear. Then he jumped into the water and
pushed the points of the fork into the fish’s back with what
looked like all of his strength. The tuna wiggled back and

41
forth, but this time it couldn’t swim away. The handle of the
fork waved in the air and came out of the man’s hands, but
the points stayed in its back. I watched a cloud of red spread
in the water. No one was shouting anymore; some mothers
standing on the beach took their children’s hands and pulled
them away from the shore and up the dunes to the parking lot.
The other men ran to where the fish was, and the man with
the boathook started to stab it in the side and the man with the
oar beat its head. In a little while, the tuna floated on top of
the water, not moving. I knew that it was dead. Grandma Kay
had told me that when you areyou’re dead you can’t feel pain
and you are safe forever.



Daddy came when it was just starting to get dark

outside. We had finished eating dinner and I was sitting in the
kitchen, watching Aunt Doris wash dishes and put away
leftovers. Daddy was wearing his business suit and a necktie
and he was carrying his briefcase. I had a briefcase almost
exactly like his; it was an old one that he had given me. I kept
mine filled with papers and pencils. I had a real stapler in mine
too, and also some erasers, a letter opener with a point that
Aunt Doris had made dull by scraping it on a stone, a small
metal box filled with paper clips, a hole puncher, a big roleroll
of Scotch tape and even an appointment book like the one
that Daddy used. I had an old wallet in my briefcase filled with
paper money that looked almost real, and a bunch of crayons
held together by a rubber band, even though I knew that
grownups didn’t use crayons, because I liked to color and
coloring didn’t make a mess the way painting did.
“Hi, Chief,” he said, looking at me and smiling.
I ran to where he was standing with my arms spread so
that we could hug.
“You’re getting big,” he said, lifting me off the floor. “I’m
not going to be able to do this much longer.”

42
 I kissed him; he had his good smell and his cheek was
rough. He carried me to where Aunt Doris was standing
beside the sink.
“Hi Doris, how’s everything?”
He kissed Aunt Doris on the cheek.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ve been having good weather.
How is work? We haven’t seen you for a while and we were
beginning to worry.” Aunt Doris sounded the way she did
when she was disgusted.
“You knew I was coming this weekend, didn’t you? It’s
what we planned the last time I was here.”
“I’m sorry we just finished dinner. I don’t know what I
have to give you to eat.”
“That’s okay. I already ate.”
He put me down on the kitchen floor and picked up his
briefcase.
“I’ll take this upstairs,” he said.
I followed him.
“Wait for me downstairs, Chief,” he said when he saw
me walking after him. “Let me get my suitcase and change
and then I’ll come down too.”
I went back into the kitchen and started to wander
around and touch things and kick the floor.
“Go outside and play, Sweetie. Go on. You’re in my
way. I have to clean up this mess. I don’t want you fooling
around in here.”
I went out of the kitchen through the screen door and
sat down on the ground facing the house, hoping that Daddy
would come downstairs soon and that I would be allowed back
inside. Was it alright to ask him to play catch? In a little while
it would be dark and I would have to go to bed. I sat and
waited, staring at the house and then at the grass and then at
the house again. I heard him open the front door and get his
suitcase out of the car, which was parked in the lane. After a
while, I heard his steps inside the kitchen again and the sound
of one of the kitchen chairs scraping the floor. Aunt Doris was

43
putting the dinner dishes away in the cabinets; the plates
banged together on the shelf. Soon she would go upstairs
and soon after that she would tell me to come inside and get
ready for bed.
They didn’t speak and then, suddenly, Aunt Doris
started yelling, and I couldn’t help hearinghad to hear what
she said even though I didn’t want to hear her yell at Daddy.
“Get up and go outside and spend some time with him.
He’s your kid. You haven’t seen him in weeks. Go do
something with him. Go on, go outside.”
“Alright, I’ll go. You’re right,” Daddy said. That was all.
I was still sitting on the ground when he came outside.
I felt ashamed and afraid, but then he sat down next to me
and I was happy that he was at the beach and I hoped that we
really could do something together.
“Hi, Chief.”
“Can we play catch?” I asked him.
“Chief, I don’t think we can do that now,” he answered.
“It’s almost dark. We’ll try and do it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said, hoping that we really would do it.
I picked at the grass and then quickly pulled my hand
back because there was a spider there with a body the size of
a bean and long legs. It was horrible. I stood up and kicked
at the spider with my foot.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“A spider,” I said, and I put my foot over it, getting ready
to smush it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to smush it. It’s a spider. Look.”
“Why do you want to kill it?”
“Because it’s a disgusting bug,” I answered, wondering
why Daddy wouldn’t want to kill a spider.
“It’s not hurting anyone,” he said.
“But it’s disgusting. It’s a bug.”
“Spiders are good. They eat insects. They eat flies
and mosquitoes.”

44
 “They do? But they’re disgusting.”
“It’s because of spiders that there aren’t more bugs
around. Besides, how does it help you to kill it? There are
spiders everywhere. If you kill this one, there will be millions
and millions left. You won’t be able to tell the difference
except that you killed something.”
I had never thought of that before. The spider began
to move from one blade of grass to another on its disgusting
long legs. It didn’t try to escape. I still wanted to kill it.
“Can’t I kill it, though?” I asked him.
“You can kill it if you want to,” he said. “But there always
will be spiders everywhere. This spider helps you by eating
bugs.”
“But it’s okay if I kill it anyway?”
“You can kill it”
I stamped my foot three times on the spider as hard as
I could. Then I got down on my hands and knees and looked
at it carefully for a few seconds. It didn’t move. Its legs were
broken and its body was broken into the dirt and grass. It was
smushed. I had killed it.
“So why did you do that?” Daddy asked.
“You said I could,” I answered, afraid that I had made
a mistake and that he was angry at me.
“I said you could do it. I was just wondering why you
did do it?”
“Spiders are disgusting,” I answered.
“They aren’t like us, but they have the right to live their
lives,” he said.
Suddenly, I felt very sad and I was sorry that I had killed
the spider. Why had I done that? Why hadn’t I remembered
that killing the spider was hurting a creature? Daddy had told
me it would be bad to kill the spider. What he had said was
like what was written at the end of one of the Fables: one of
the old stories that he read to me. I knew I had done a very
bad thing.
“Can you fix it?” I asked Daddy, and I started to cry.

45
 “Chief, once something like that happens there isn’t
any way to fix it anymore even if we want to. You know that,
don’t you? That’s just the way some things are: once they
happen, there’s nothing you can do about them.”
I stood looking at him, crying quietly.
“What are you men doing out there? It was Aunt Doris.
She was standing in the kitchen doorway. “It’s time to come
inside and get ready for bed,” she said. Then she noticed that
I was crying. “What are you crying about?”
“I smushed a spider.”
“What do you mean?”
“I stepped on a spider and killed him on purpose.”
“Oh, please!” Aunt Doris said. “Why are you crying
about that. Come in here and stop that. Who cares about a
spider. Come in here and stop crying. You’re overtired and
excited to see your Daddy. It’s time for you to go to bed.”



We all went to the beach together in the morning:

Daddy and Grandma Kay and Aunt Doris and Grandpa
Murray and I, and we got two umbrellas and sat with Aunt
Joan and Kate and Uncle Phil who also was at the beach
instead of working in the City. Everyone was very friendly and
happy. Other grownups came to say hello to Daddy and
Grandpa Murray and Uncle Phil. The sand was damp and
good for digging. I sat in the umbrella shade and began to
make a tunnel under the corner of Aunt Doris’s beach blanket.
First, I chopped up the sand with a metal shovel and then I
scooped it out of the hole with my hands. How large could I
make the hole? I imagined being able to hide inside it. Kate
was on the other side of the blanket, filling shapes of sea
animals with wet sand that she had in a pail. I listened to what
the grownups were saying and to the seagulls screeching and
the sounds of the ocean and the wind. Sometimes the wind
blew sand up in the air and it hit the chairs and umbrellas and

46
made a tapping sound. You noticed that it was very noisy at
the beach, if you paid attention.
“It’s noisy,” I said.
I kept pulling sand out of the hole. When I put my head
near the ground, the sounds of the beach went away. I
decided to make a long hole in front of the tunnel so that I
could lie down under the noise while I was digging. I put my
hands together, reached in front of me and scooped up sand
and then pushed it backwards between my legs, digging like
a dog. I was a dog.
“Oh my God!” a woman screamed.
I looked up and saw that she was standing on the other
side of Aunt Doris’s beach blanket, watching me. Was she
screaming because I was acting like a dog?
“Oh my God, they’ve gotten so big! I mustn’t have seen
them for more than two years. Has it been three years, Kay?”
She was a fat lady wearing a red bathing suit. The wind
blew the skirt of the bathing suit up in the air and showed her
bottom, which looked like a giant apple. Her legs were fat.
Old ladies had fat legs. I couldn’t imagine Kate having fat
legs.
“Kids, come say hello to Mrs. Greenbaum,” Grandma
Kay said, coughing and putting down her knitting.
“Oh, don’t disturb them, Kay. They’re busy.”
“No, that’s okay,” said Aunt Doris. “They’re not doing
anything important. They have to learn how to behave. Come
Sweetie.”
I got up and walked around the blankets to where the
fat lady was standing, trying not to kick sand up in the air,
because, if I kicked sand up in the air it would blow on the
grownups and they wouldn’t like that.
“Oh my God, Kay, will you look at this?” she
She came closer to me, bent down and pressed my
cheeks between her hands. They had something greasy with
a perfume smell on them.
“Will you look at this? He’s so skinny. Don’t you feed

47
him anything? And look at the hair! Where did you get that
hair?” she asked me, her face almost touching mine. Then
she scraped the top of my head with her fingers. Her nails
made the sunburn on my head hurt.
“Well, say something, Darling,” Grandma Kay said.
“Mrs. Greenbaum will think you’re dumb.”
“He never stops eating. He eats like a pig,” Aunt Doris
said.
“And look at you Katie! You are so beautiful. I love
your bathing suit.”
“Thank you Mrs. Greenbaum,” Kate said, and made a
big smile.
Her teeth looked very white. I noticed her bathing suit:
it was pink and white, and had little bumps. Kate looked like
a pink banana in her bathing suit. The fat lady was an apple
and Kate was a pink banana.
“They’re just wonderful, Kay. Go ahead and play
children. Go on. Don’t let me keep you.”
We each turned around and ran back to where we had
been digging.
“Watch the sand, the sand,” shouted Aunt Joan and
Aunt Doris.
I got down on my knees in my hole. The umbrella
shadow over the hole, I noticed, had moved. In a little while
the sand would be in the sun and then it would dry out. I
began to dig faster. I stopped digging only to make the walls
of the tunnel hard by patting them with my hands.
“Sit down, Ethel,” Aunt Joan was saying to the fat lady.
“Can we give you something to drink?”
“No,” she answered, “I have to get back to Jules.”
“Sit down a minute. He can live a minute without you.”
She sat on an extra beach chair, which tipped a little
sideways. I dug sand out from farther and farther under the
corner of the blanket. Dry sand fell down the sides of the hole
in front of the tunnel. If I imagined that I was a little person,
then the falling sand could be a landslide; I had seen

48
landslides on television. I got a truck out of the bag of sand
toys and drove it in and out of the tunnel.
“….hit by lightening right at the end of the beach
towards the inlet.”
I stopped what I was doing and looked up again. A
different lady was sitting in the extra beach chair.
“No, you don’t say,” said Grandpa Murray.
“Yes. Killed right away.”
“But why didn’t he get off the beach?” Aunt Joan asked.
“I don’t know. When the lifeguards told everyone to
leave I guess he just stayed there and he was killed. Can you
imagine?”
“Who was killed?” I asked.
“Oh, nobody. Don’t pay any attention. It’s not
important,” said Aunt Doris.
“I always wondered if you would really get hit by
lightning if you stayed on a beach during a storm, and I guess
now I know,” Uncle Phil said and laughed.
“Can we go swimming?” I asked. I had sand on me
and I was starting to feel hot.
“Don’t interrupt, Sweetie,” said Aunt Doris.
Daddy was reading a big book. He looked at me and
then he looked at his watch. “In a little while,” he said.
“Please?”
“Just be patient for a little longer, then we’ll go in,” he
said. “Who wants to go in the water?” he asked the grownups.
Nobody said anything, and then Grandpa Murray and
Uncle Phil said that they would walk to the water with us.
“Do you want to go in, Katie?” Aunt Joan asked.
“I don’t know,” Kate said.
“I wouldn’t mind walking down there and then walking
on the beach,” Aunt Joan said.
“I’ll go with you,” said Grandma Kay. She lit a cigarette
and gave one to Aunt Joan.
“I will too,” said Aunt Doris.
An old man came walking slowly across the beach from

49
the direction of the water.
“Hello Murray. Hello Kay. Hello everyone,” he said.
He looked older even than Grandpa Murray. He had
loose skin and some dark crusty things on his belly and the
top of his head, which was bald, and on his hands and arms.
He wore thick glasses. He looked, I thought, as if he might
have a bad smell.
I put my head down and dug some more, but I was
having trouble reaching the sand at the end of the tunnel
under the beach blanket. I lay flat in the bottom of the hole
and squirmed forward, pushing my head part of the way into
the tunnel so that I could make it larger, and also so that the
grownups wouldn’t notice me and ask me to come and talk to
the old man who might touch me the way the fat lady had.
“You know how he made his money?”
Uncle Phil was talking; the old man was gone.
“I thought he was in the garment business,” said
Grandma Kay. “Or doesn’t he own a department store?”
“No. Before that. How he got started.”
“Where else?” said Aunt Joan. “He came over on the
boat. He probably didn’t even have parents here. The Nazis
probably got his family.”
“He was in the Gold Rush,” said Uncle Phil.
“No!” said Grandpa Murray, “You don’t say. He was a
gold miner? Isn’t that something.”
“No, that’s not what I heard,” said Uncle Phil. “He didn’t
mine. Al Lewis told me he went out there and worked in the
assay office. Can you see him going and digging in the
ground with his hands?” He laughed.
“Oh, please. Well, he didn’t get rich doing that,” said
Grandma Kay.
“He told Al one time that what he did was he grew his
fingernails and when he weighed the gold he scraped a little
up with his finger. Then he went home and scraped the gold
out from under his nails into a bottle.”
“Oh my God!” cried Aunt Joan. “Can you imagine?

50
He’s lucky he didn’t get caught and go to jail.”
“How could he go to jail for having fingernails? He
stayed up there for several years and then came back here
and used the money from the gold to open his first store.”
“He’s lucky somebody didn’t just shoot him,” said
Grandma Kay. She laughed and then coughed. “Well, it just
goes to show you,”
I tried to imagine the old man when he was young. I
had seen television shows about gold miners; they had been
in the West and the old man must have been like the people
in those shows when he was young. He must have walked
on the dirt streets and had a horse with a saddle, and he must
have gone into saloons where there were cowboys who had
real guns and could have shot him for taking some of their
gold. Had he been like that, the same person who was an old
man at the beach and owned a department store and spoke
to Grandpa Murray?
“What are the Nazis?” I asked.
“Oh, nobody. Don’t pay any attention,” said Grandma
Kay, “just grownup talk.”
I scraped the sand at the end of the tunnel. There was
sand under my fingernails and my fingers were sore, but I kept
digging to make the hole larger. Then I felt the edge of
something. Maybe I had found gold or money, and I would be
rich like the fat old man, or maybe it was just a shell. You had
to be very careful when you were digging so that you didn’t
cut your fingers on buried shells. It wasn’t a shell or gold,
though. It felt like a piece of cardboard or a thick piece of
paper. It could be a pirate map; pirates buried treasure at the
beach. I pushed myself into the tunnel to get the thing out.
Then, suddenly, I felt hands holding my ankles, and I was
being dragged backwards and my legs were being lifted up in
the air. I twisted to see who was behind me and my face
banged against the side of the hole and sand got into my nose
and my mouth.
“What is the matter with you?” yelled Aunt Doris.

51
 She was staring at me and holding one of my ankles in
each of her hands. She looked angry.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?”
I didn’t understand why she was dragging me and
yelling.
“Oh my God,” cried Grandma Kay, and she began to
laugh.
The other grownups were looking at me and laughing
too. This made me think that what I had done probably wasn’t
very bad.
“Don’t you have any sense?”
Aunt Doris let go of my ankles and my rear end landed
on the beach with a hard bump. I crawled onto my knees. I
was covered with sand: I had sand in my nose and my mouth
and in my hair and inside my bathing suit and all over my
body. I had to spit, even though I knew that I shouldn’t, and I
tried to wipe the sand off my face with the backs of my hands.
They also were sandy, so that didn’t help.
“Oh my God, get him a towel,” said Grandma Kay, and
she started coughing.
“Don’t you have any sense?” Aunt Doris said again.
She was standing with her hands on her hips and
staring at me the way she did when she was very angry.
“What would have happened if that hole collapsed with
your head in it? You would have suffocated! You don’t ever
think before you do something. You have to be watched every
minute.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You look like a worm,” Uncle Phil said. “How far under
there did you get?”
“Please Phil, don’t encourage him,” said Aunt Doris.
Grandma Kay walked over to where I was kneeling.
She helped me stand and then she began to brush the sand
off me with a towel. The sand under the towel scraped my
skin.
“Sweetie,” she said, “you look like you’ve been buried

52
alive.”
“He could have been,” said Aunt Doris. “That’s exactly
what could have happened. Honestly, you can’t be left alone
for a minute. If somebody didn’t watch you every second, I
don’t know what would happen to you,” she said to me. She
wasn’t yelling anymore. “What were you trying to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Chief, your Aunt means that you have to think before
you do something. The hole could have caved in and
suffocated you,” said Daddy. He was smiling.
“I could have gotten out. It’s not that deep.”
“Well, anyway, no harm done.”
“That’s right,” said Grandma Kay. “Now I think you do
need to go swimming to wash off that sand.”
“Let’s go down to the water,” said Aunt Joan. “Come
on. Let’s walk on the beach, Doris. Katie, do you want to
swim or take a walk?”
“Can I come with you?” Kate asked Aunt Joan.
“Of course, Dear. Come on. Let’s go. Boys, are you
going to stay here to watch the things?”
“That’s fine,” said Grandpa Murray.
“I’ll stay too,” said Uncle Phil, lighting a cigarette.
“Listen to your Father,” Aunt Doris said to me. “Stay
right in front of him while you’re in the water, and don’t go too
deep.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Daddy took the towel from Grandma Kay and got
another towel out of the beach bag.
“Are you ready? Let’s go.” he said, and he began to
walk.
I followed him around people sitting on the beach,
hurrying to keep up with him. I tried not to kick sand on the
blankets, but I had to run so that I wouldn’t be lost and I did
kick sand up in the air making the grownups that I passed
angry. The beach started to burn the bottoms of my feet so
that I had to run anyway, but then the sand got hard, and then

53
wet and cool, and there weren’t any more umbrellas or
blankets. We were close to the part of the beach where the
biggest waves reached, and sand sucked at the bottoms of
my feet. I stood still and stared at the ground and the water
surprised me by suddenly pouring around my ankles. Sand
and pieces of shell moved over the tops of my feet in the
freezing-cold water and the sand under my heels washed
away and my feet sank into the ground so that it looked as if I
were standing just on my ankles. I thought that I could feel
the world turning under me.
Daddy put the towels on the dry sand near the water
and then, without stopping even to look at the sky or the long
beach or past the waves at Europe, he ran into the ocean as
fast as he could. He jumped over the small waves into the
deeper water and ran into the bigger waves, and, when the
ocean began to push him back, hitting him in the chest and
spraying up in the air, he dove under the waves with his arms
over his head. Then his head popped out of the water and he
turned around. He twisted his head to look at the waves that
were coming behind him and bounced up and down and then
tipped forward just in front of the biggest wave and moved his
arms and then he made himself flat with his face in the water
and his arms pointed at the beach and floated on the wave
back to the beach where I was watching him. When he was
tired, he ran out of the water and stood on the hard sand and
rubbed himself with a dry towel.
I looked at the ocean and tried to see all the way to
Europe where France was, but I could only see waves and the
blue sky.
“Will you come in with me?” I asked him.
“No, not now,” he answered. “I’m not hot enough yet.”
I walked very slowly into the water so that my skin got
numb in a way that wasn’t really uncomfortable. The small
waves went up and down around my legs until they reached
the bottom of my bathing suit, pulling me and pushing me and
making me afraid that I would fall into the freezing water.

54
Then water splashed onto my stomach and I bounced on my
toes, still trying not to feel cold.
“Why don’t you just run in? It’s much easier,” Daddy
called from behind me.
After a while I believed that getting wet all at once was
better than being splashed, and I dove into a wave and
bounced up in the air and then knelt down and stayed in the
water. When I was numb all over, I stood up and ran until the
ocean tripped me and I fell into a wave. Then I got up and ran
back to Daddy and fell again slapping my hands into the
water, my skin stinging. Now I felt warm when I was under
the waves, and cold when I stood in the air; this change of
cold to warm and warm to cold I couldn’t understand.
“Please come in with me,” I begged.
“In a few minutes,” he said.
I waded deeper into the water and then turned around
and tried to body surf on a wave the way Daddy did. The
ocean bounced me off my feet and rolled me onto the beach.
I jumped up, and ran back into the water, diving under a wave
and then floating over another one. I looked to be sure that
Daddy was watching me. When he smiled, I tipped onto my
stomach with my face in the water, kicking my legs as hard as
I could. This time, the ocean picked me up and pushed me,
and I started to go fast.

Then it was as if a hand had closed over me and I was

dragged down and backwards, submerged and unable to
move so much as a foot or a finger, my lungs nearly empty of
air. For the briefest moment, I tried hard to free myself and to
rise above the waves, but even as I willed my body towards
the surface, I knew with complete certainty that I was being
held by a force that I could never overcome and that I was
about to drown, to die, and in that instant I experienced a
feeling of the most profound calm and I no longer struggled.
My mind and body drifted apart, and before my inner eye I

55
began to see the world I was leaving, the things I had done
and the people I knew. So my life continued to repeat itself
from its first momentinstant and moving closer to its end,
which was the present, and I floated disembodied through the
days and years until as suddenly as it had begun I was
released. The hand opened and I was thrown up from the
deep, abruptly reincarnated, and I landed hard on the sand
with my face pointed toward the wide blue sky. I breathed.

Slowly, I rolled onto my stomach and then I stood up.

Daddy was standing very close to me, still smiling. It had
happened and now it was over and I had lived my entire life
again but only a little time had passed.
“I’m ready to get out,” I said.
“So soon? You can stay in longer if you want. You just
got in.”
“No, I want to get out.”
“Okay. But go rinse the sand off.”
I walked into the shallow water, kneeled and splashed
myself. Then I got up, turned around and walked back to the
blankets and the grownups sitting under the umbrellas, feeling
as if I were partly at the beach and partly somewhere else,
somewhere new.
Formatted: Font: 10.5 pt
Formatted: Font: Times, 10.5 pt

56
 She
We went back to the City. Aunt Doris opened the
apartment door and warm air with City smells came out of the
foyer into the elevator vestibule. The smells made me think
of friends and school and also of other things that I couldn’t
name. I went into the apartment and walked around the dark
rooms thinking that I was seeing them as they had been while
I was at camp, which made me feel as if I were in two different
places at the same time. In my room, sunlight shined between
the slats of the window blinds and I could see dust moving in
the air and I stopped to watch it, and, as I stood there, I could
feel the summer that had only just ended become a part of the
past.
“Sweetie, help me put these things away.”
I walked down the hall to Aunt Doris’s room. She had
pulled up her window blinds and opened the window, and she
was taking her makeup box into her bathroom. There were
piles of clothes on her bed.
“Take your clothes and put them away neatly, and then
when you’re done you can help me. I don’t want you to start
making a mess until all of this has been taken care of. Get
everything put away before you mess it up again. Go on. And
open up your window so that some fresh air can come in.”
I picked up my shorts and bathing suits, carried them
into my room and put them on my bed. Then I went back into
Aunt Doris’s room to get my shirts. When all my clothes were
on my bed, I sat down on my desk chair and opened the top
desk drawer. My pencils and pens were there in separate

57
parts of the brown tray, and also an eraser and my ruler and
my tan metal stapler. Everything was still in the drawer: things
that I had forgotten had been there all summer. There was a
bunch of old fake money held together by a rubber band. I
picked it up, pulled off the rubber band and spread the money
on top of the desk. It still looked almost real to me.
“What are you doing? Weren’t you going to put your
things away and then help me before you started doing
anything else?”
I quickly straightened my back. Aunt Doris was
carrying some of her clothes on hangers and she took them
into my closet. When she came out, she opened the window
blinds and the window.
“Well?”
“I’m going to do it,” I said. “I just wanted to see what
was here.”
“Well, I guess you’re happy to be home. Don’t worry,
everything is exactly as you left it. Nobody has touched
anything.” She made a laughing noise.
Aunt Doris started to put away the clothes on my bed,
and I sat at my desk and watched her. Who could have
touched the things in my room? She made a lot of noise
opening and closing drawers. When she was almost finished,
the telephone rang.
“Do the rest of this and pick up that money, and then
come back to my room. I want to look at your school clothes
while we’re doing this. It’s that time of year again,” she said,
and then she left to answer the telephone.
I walked to the window and watched a truck drive past
below on the avenue. Everything outside looked the same as
it had before the summer. Now we were home. I pushed the
rest of my clothes into drawers and went back to Aunt Doris’s
room.
She was still talking on the telephone. I watched her
face, and had the idea that she wasn’t seeing anything in the
room: she was seeing something in her mind. Her eyes got

58
bigger. When Aunt Doris talked on the telephone, her face
changed.
“….marvelous. We had wonderful weather almost
every day.”
She stopped talking, looked towards the wall and
started to smile.
“It was gorgeous. Yes. Yes. I know.”
The telephone made a buzzing noise next to her ear.
“Mmm. That must have been marvelous. I’m jealous.”
Aunt Doris’s eyebrows moved up towards her hair, and
the wrinkles on her forehead got bigger.
“Let me tell you something. She has always been like
that. Always.”
Her eyes got smaller and she pushed her lips together.
She turned her head and listened some more to what the
other person was saying.
“I think one of us should just tell her off one of these
days. Really. Can you imagine?”
I walked back to my room and looked again at the
furniture and the books and the decorations; they were almost
as interesting as new things. I went into the closet and looked
at the boxes of games that were piled on the shelves, larger
boxes under smaller ones so that the pile was like a modern
building with balconies. The air in the closet was hot and
smelled like wool and camphor balls. I opened the toy box on
the floor. I liked to reach down into the bottom of the box and
find something with my hand and pull it out and be surprised
by what it was. I didn’t do that, though, because Aunt Doris
didn’t want me to make a mess. Instead, I went out of the
closet and pushed the paper money that was on my desk into
the top desk drawer. Then I walked over to the window, sat
down on the radiator box and leaned my head and back
against the side of the bookcase behind me. By sliding my
head around, I could make the little wooden frames that held
the window glass cover the edge of the building across the
street and also the fancy line of stone between two of its

59
floors. Then, by sliding my head around a little more, I could
fit a whole one of the building’s windows into each of the
frames. I couldn’t get all of the windows into the centers of
the frames, though. Each one was a little bit farther to the side
than the one before it. The side of the frame that I saw out of
the corner of my eye was in front of one of the windows.
“Sweetie, come in here. I want to start teaching you
your letters.”
I went into Aunt Doris’s room. She was standing in
front of her desk. She opened one of the desk drawers and
took out a piece of paper and a pencil.
“I think you should learn to write your name. Would
you like that?”
I nodded my head because I knew that she wanted me
to say yes, but I didn’t think that I could write my name. I didn’t
know anything about writing.
“Let me show you.”
She made some lines on the paper.
“Let’s see. Which hand do you use? I think you use
your left hand, don’t you? Most people don’t, but nowadays
people don’t really care about that.”
She twisted my fingers around the pencil. Her
fingernails were long and red and shiny.
“Go ahead. You do it. Just copy.”
I untwisted my fingers so that I could draw with the
pencil, and I started to put its end on the paper.
“No. Not like that. Hold the pencil the way I showed
you.”
I looked at the pencil and then at my fingers.
“Go on.” Aunt Doris grabbed the pencil. “Like this.”
She held the pencil and then she gave it back to me,
but I still couldn’t do it the right way.
“Oh! Here, let me help you.”
She twisted my fingers around the pencil again. I
looked at her.
“Copy your name,” she said. “It’s easy. Just copy what

60
I did.”
I put the end of the pencil on the paper and it moved
across the page and drew a line that was much bigger than
any of the lines in my name.
“Come on. Try again and pay attention. Just look at
what I did on the paper and you do the exact same thing. It’s
simple.”
I tried again but, instead of writing, I dropped the pencil
on the desk.
“Okay. Okay. Maybe you need to do something
easier. Let’s just make one letter. We’ll start by doing that.
After you’ve learned some letters, then you can write your
name.”
“I don’t want to write,” I said.
“What kind of a thing is that to say? You have to write.
It’s time for you to learn how to write and go to school and get
out of the house. Sit on the chair and pay attention.”
I climbed onto the chair in front of her desk and looked
at the paper. My chin was almost on top of it.
“I guess you’re too short to sit in a chair,” Aunt Doris
said. “Stand up again and I’ll show you a letter. What letter
from the ABC song would you like to do?”
“I don’t want to do letters. Can I draw a picture?”
“I told you that you have to do this. I’m not kidding. It
won’t kill you to spend five minutes and learn to write one letter
of the alphabet. What are you going to do when you go to
school? You know, this is what they do in school and you
don’t want to be bad in school, do you? You have to know all
the letters. They’ll expect that. The teachers won’t tolerate
your fooling around. Now, what letter do you want to do?
Think of a letter from the ABC song.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then here, make an “R” or make an “S”. That’s really
simple. I’m sure you can do that.”
She drew something on the paper and then put the
pencil in my hand again the way she wanted it to be. I put the

61
end of the pencil on the paper and made a shape.
“Does that look like what I did?” Aunt Doris asked.
“Does it? Look carefully at what I did and try again.”
I made another shape with the pencil. Even though I
was trying to copy what she had done, what I drew looked
different than the other lines on the paper.
“I can’t believe you can’t do this. I want you to look
closely at the way I made that letter and then copy it from here
to here.” Aunt Doris pointed at the letter and tapped her red
fingernail on the paper.
“Can’t I do it later?” I asked.
“No, you can do it now.”
“But I can’t do it,” I said.
“Yes you can! Anyone can do it.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Go ahead. Do it!”
I pushed the end of the pencil across the paper and, by
accident, it made a shape that was like the one that Aunt Doris
had made. I looked at her, surprised, hoping that she wouldn’t
know that I had copied by accident, and that she would be
happy.
“See, I told you. I was right, wasn’t I? Do it again,” she
said.
I knew that I couldn’t do it again.
“Please, can I do it later.” I started to cry.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Stop it. That’s enough. Okay,
we’ll do it tomorrow,” said Aunt Doris in her disgusted voice.
“Aren’t you proud of what you did?”
“Yes,” I said.
I put the pencil on the desk and ran out of the room,
hoping that she wouldn’t yell at me.
A doorman wearing a green uniform coat with gold
buttons on the shoulders and the coat sleeves and gold
stripes on the legs of the pants walked out from under the
awning of the building across the street and stepped off the
curb. He stood between the cars parked in front of the

62
building, waved his hand in the air and blew a whistle. A
yellow taxicab stopped next to him. The doorman opened the
back door of the taxicab and a lady walked out from under the
awning and got into the cab. The doorman closed the door,
and the cab drove away.
“I want you to pay attention, and I want you to think
before you answer,” Aunt Doris said. “I just hope they don’t
ask you to write something.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Don’t just give them one of those silly answers. Think
about what you say before you answer their questions.”
“Okay.”
“And use good manners. Say hello and goodbye, and
please and thank you, and don’t hide your face or whine. The
grownups you are going to meet are important.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t act like a baby.”
The taxicab stopped in front of an old brick building.
We went inside.
The Headmaster was very tall and he had white hair.
He said hello and smiled at me, but he didn’t ask me any
questions. He only talked to Aunt Doris. Aunt Doris and I sat
on big chairs with red leather cushions and he sat at a desk.
We were in a dark room. The window drapes were closed and
the lamps were on, even though it was during the day. It was
so quiet and dark in the room that I forgot about the city
outside. The top of the desk had stacks of papers and books
on it. There were lots of pictures on the walls: pictures of big
kids and little kids, pictures of grownups, pictures of buildings
and pictures with only fancy writing on them. There were high
bookcases with fat old-looking books on long shelves. In the
middle of the room, there were two little chairs next to a small
table with some blocks and crayons and papers on it. A lady
came into the room.
“I’m Mrs. Pine,” she said.
“Let’s go outside and talk,” the Headmaster said to

63
Aunt Doris.
“Pay attention,” Aunt Doris said to me as she was
walking out of the room with the Headmaster.
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be fine, won’t we?” Mrs. Pine
said, and she looked at me and smiled.
I smiled at her and nodded my head.
Mrs. Pine just wanted to play with the blocks on the
little table and draw pictures, and then she said that we were
done and she took me to find Aunt Doris, and Aunt Doris and
I said goodbye.



Aunt Doris had to take me to Dr. Allan’sAlan’s office for

a Physical. I sat next to her in the waiting room, wondering
what Dr. AllanAlan would do to me and thinking that I might
get a shot, and I could feel my heart beating inside my body.
“Do I need to have a shot?” I asked Aunt Doris.
“I told you I don’t know Sweetie. Don’t fidget.”
“I don’t want a shot.”
“Well, if you need a shot then you have to have one.
That’s just the way life is. We’ll find out when we see Doctor
AllanAlan, if he ever shows up. Now you know why I changed
my game this afternoon. If it gets much later, I’ll have to leave
anyway.”
We had been waiting a long time. The nurse said that
Doctor AllanAlan had an emergency.
“We can leave,” I said, hoping that we would go back
to the apartment, even though my second mind knew that we
wouldn’t.
“No, you need to have your physical before school.
He’ll be here soon.”
“I don’t want a shot.”
“Let’s think about something else, why don’t we?” said
Aunt Doris. “Do you think Doctor AllanAlan needs some new
furniture?”

64
 I looked at the furniture in the waiting room. A girl and
another boy were sitting next to their Mothers on the orange
chairs and the girl was watching me. “Yes,” I said, even
though I didn’t care about Doctor Allan’sAlan’s furniture. I
didn’t know why I said yes.
“I’ve had the worst pain in my ankle ever since I tripped
over that vacuum cleaner yesterday,” Aunt Doris said. “That
Rose just leaves everything wherever she feels like it. I
should get rid of her.”
I tried not to notice the girl. There was a magazine on
the table next to my chair. I put it on my lap, opened it and
stared at a picture but had trouble understanding what the
picture meant. I wanted to go home.
I started to cry and I slid part of the way off my chair
and scrapped my feet on the floor. “I want to go. I don’t want
a shot. I want to go.” My voice was loud, I knew.
Aunt Doris grabbed my wrist and pulled me back onto
the seat. “Stop that,” she said. “Do you see any other children
here putting on a performance? Just calm down. A shot isn’t
the end of the world.”
“I want to go,” I cried. “I don’t want a Physical.”
“Sit back and behave yourself. You have to learn to
get a hold of your emotions. You can’t behave like this. Don’t
make me lose my temper here in public.”
It was wrong to cry but I couldn’t stop. I breathed hard
and made pig noises. Aunt Doris pretended not to notice.
My pounding heart was like a clock beating inside my
chest. Although time was passing slowly, Doctor AllanAlan
would come soon. Having the ideas of time being slow and
of something happening soon together in my head made it
hard to think.
The nurse came into the waiting room and said that
Doctor AllanAlan was ready to see me. Aunt Doris held my
wrist and pulled me behind her into a room with a doctor smell.
He was standing beside the table, waiting for us.
“Hello Doris,” Doctor AllanAlan said.

65
 He put his hand on top of my head and looked at me.
Then he lifted me up and put me on the table. The paper stuck
to my hands, and made peeling noises when I moved them.
“Help him undress, please, Doris,” Doctor AllanAlan
said.
She took my shoes off my feet and then she dragged
my shirt over my head and my pants down to my ankles and I
pulled my feet out of them so that I was wearing only
underpants and socks. I heard Doctor AllanAlan opening a
drawer behind Aunt Doris. My heart thumped harder and I
made more pig noises.
“Do you want everything off?” Aunt Doris asked him.
“Yes,” answered Doctor AllanAlan, and Aunt Doris
pulled my underpants off me and then also my socks, so that
I was sitting on the table completely naked. Now I was stuck
to the paper almost everywhere. I hoped that Doctor
AllanAlan wouldn’t put a stick in my mouth.
There was a clock on the waiting-room wall, and I tried
to see the time change, but couldn’t; time only changed when
you weren’t watching it. I turned the pages of the magazine.
“Doris, do me a favor and just hold his head for a
second,” Doctor AllanAlan said.
Aunt Doris walked behind me and squeezed my head
between her palms, and when I tried to twist away I could feel
the points of her fingernails on my skin. Doctor AllanAlan
pulled my eyelid up with his finger and shined the bright light
at my eye, and I couldn’t move away because she was holding
me and because I was stuck to the paper on the table.
“Try and keep your eyes still for just a second,” he said
to me. “Look at the picture on the wall.”
I couldn’t see a picture; I could see only the light and
Dr. Allan’sAlan’s white coat.
“Sweetie, get up and pay attention.”
“What?”
“Dr. AllanAlan is ready for you,” a different voice said.
The nurse had opened the door to the examining room.

66
I looked at Aunt Doris who was watching me. She lifted her
hand towards my wrist, but, before she could grab it, I stood
up and walked across the waiting room and through the
doorway. He was waiting inside.
“Hi, AllanAlan,” Aunt Doris said behind me. “I thought
you would never get here. That was some wait.”
“Sorry, Doris. How are you? I couldn’t help it. I’ll get
you out of here as fast as I can.”
He put his hand on top of my head. “And how are you,
young man?”
“Do I need a shot?”
He looked at me and then he said, “I think you do, yes,
a booster.”
Aunt Doris started dragging the back of my shirt over
my head, surprising me so that I jumped forward and hit my
forehead against something hard in Dr. Allan’sAlan’s coat
pocket.
“I can do it,” I said.
I moved away from where they were standing and
undressed quickly until I was naked. She followed me and
took the clothes out of my hands. It was cold in the room.
“OK, young man, hop up here.” Doctor AllanAlan
patted the top of the examining table.
There was a small stool next to the table; I stepped
onto it, turned around and sat on the paper. When I tried to
slide backwards, the paper stuck to my hands and my rear
end.
As soon as I was sitting, he put the band around my
arm and blew up the balloon inside the band until my hand
burned. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to move. Soon
he would put the stick on the back of my tongue. The idea
made me taste wood and almost gag. My heartbeat shook
my chest and I was already sweating allover myself. When
he shined the light at my eyes, I blinked and moved my head
even though I was telling myself that I would be still.
“Do you need me to hold him?” Aunt Doris said, and

67
her fingernails touched the skin under my hair.
Then he was standing in front of me holding the stick
and a flashlight.
“I can open my mouth really wide. I really can,” I said.
“Please don’t put the stick in my mouth.”
“If I can see your throat without it, I won’t.”
He pushed it against the back of my tongue, and I
gagged twice and then made a loud burp that tasted like
vomit. When I did that, he stepped backwards quickly.
“Okay. All done. It’s alright. I’m going to listen to your
chest. I’m just going to put the stethoscope on your back and
then listen to your heart.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. It was cold.
“Relax and don’t breathe so fast.”
I tried to make my breathing slower so that I wouldn’t
be doing it wrong, and he listened, but then he said, “I can’t
hear you. Look breathe like this. Look at me.”
“Look at Doctor AllanAlan, Sweetie,” said Aunt Doris.
I looked at Doctor AllanAlan and he took big breaths. I
tried to do what he was doing. He listened again.
“Come on now, do it slowly,” he said. “I tell you what,
when I say breathe in, you take a big breath, and when I say
breathe out, you breathe out. Go ahead, breathe in.”
I breathed.
“Whoa, whoa. Just in. Then, when I tell you, out. Wait
until I tell you.”
I couldn’t do it right. Doctor AllanAlan stopped telling
me when to breathe. After a while he said, “Well, I guess I’ve
heard enough,” and he said lie down. I lay flat on the table,
and he listened to my front.
“Now don’t talk,” said Aunt Doris.
“I’m not talking,” I said.
“Please, be quiet for a second,” said Doctor AllanAlan.
I said again that I wasn’t talking. I wanted him to know
that I was trying to do it the right way.
“Shush!” said Aunt Doris and she put the end of her

68
finger in front of her lips and made her eyes small.
When he was done listening, he put his hands on my
stomach and began to tap with his fingers and then he
pressed. His fingers made my stomach hurt and, before I
could stop myself, I slid backwards away from him, tearing the
paper on the table.
“Please,” he said to me. “We’re almost done.”
I knew that he was about to push his finger against the
bone between my legs. I squeezed my eyes shut, grabbed
the sides of the table and made my muscles stiff.
“Hold his legs, Doris,” he said.
Aunt Doris pressed her hands down on top of my
knees.
“Cough!”
I started to kick even though I wanted to be good.
“Cough!” he shouted.
“I can’t”
“Will you please cough?” Aunt Doris said in her
disgusted voice.
I made a coughing noise, hoping that would be enough
and then I kicked really hard. Dr. AllanAlan took his hands off
me and stepped backwards and then so did Aunt Doris.
“My God. What a performance!” Aunt Doris said. “Why
do you embarrass me like that? Do you think other children
behave like that at the doctor’s office?”
Doctor AllanAlan came back to the table and I saw
what he had in his hand.
“Hold him Doris.”
He pushed the needle into my arm. It was hot and
made my muscle feel as if someone had punched it hard.
“Was that really so bad? Go ahead and get dressed.
I’ll see you next door.” Doctor Allan picked up his papers and
left the examination room.
Doctor Alan picked up his papers and left the
examination room. My back and shoulders became loose
again, and my heartbeat stopped shaking my chest.

69
 “Really, can’t you control yourself?” Aunt Doris had her
disgusted face.
I didn’t answer; I knew that I wasn’t supposed to
answer. I dressed.
We went into Doctor Allan’sAlan’s office and sat on
living-room chairs in front of his desk. He was sitting in a
leather chair with a high back writing something with his pen.
When he had finished, he looked at Aunt Doris.
“How is everything?” he asked her.
“Oh, everything’s fine,” she answered, “except that I
tripped and hurt my ankle yesterday. Let me just ask you, is
it possible that I broke my ankle and I’ve been walking around
on it all day?”
“Well, of course it’s possible, but if you’ve been able to
walk on it, I don’t think so.”
I looked at the books and papers in Doctor
Allan’sAlan’s office. How could someone know what to do
with all that stuff? His chair was very comfortable and I started
to feel sleepy. My arm hurt, but I didn’t care.
“Everything seems to be fine, Doris, but there is one
thing I’ve been a little concerned about for a while,” I heard
Doctor AllanAlan say. “He has a little heart murmur and I think
we should just check it out to be sure that it’s nothing.”
“He has a heart murmur?”
“He has a little sound. It doesn’t sound serious, but just
to be safe, I’d like him to have an electrocardiogram.”
When I heard Doctor AllanAlan say this, I became
awake again, and I watched his face while he talked to Aunt
Doris.
“Well what does this mean?” Aunt Doris asked. “Could
this be serious, AllanAlan? I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Really, Doris, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,
but we should be cautious and just do this one test.”
“Well, when can this be taken care of? I think a thing
like this should be done right away.”
“I can call the hospital and maybe they can fit you in

70
this afternoon,” said Doctor AllanAlan.
“He won’t have to stay there, will he?” Aunt Doris
asked.
“No, no,” said Doctor AllanAlan. “You’ll just take him in
and they’ll do the test and then you can go home.”
My heart started beating fast again.
“I’ll have to cancel my game,” said Aunt Doris. “I guess
it just wasn’t meant to be. The girls will be fit to be tied. When
will we find out about this?”
“You go home," said Doctor AllanAlan. “I’ll call the
hospital and tell them what I want and have them call you.
Don’t forget to give him some aspirin when you get home. He
may get a reaction to the booster.”
“Oh, AllanAlan. I don’t like the sound of this. His
heart?”
“Doris, don’t worry about it. It’s just a precaution.”
Aunt Doris took me back to the apartment in a taxicab
instead of on the bus. As soon as we were there, she made
me take off my shoes and lie on her bed. Then she called
Mrs. Wasserman on the telephone.
“Janice?”
The telephone buzzed.
“Hi. I’m sorry, but I have to cancel on you. We were at
the pediatrician, and I have a big problem here.”
“………”
“There’s something wrong with his heart. I’m fit to be
tied. I’m taking him to the hospital this afternoon for a special
test and then we’ll see what it is. I was afraid something like
this would happen.”
“……………………………………………………………
………………….”
“I feel awful because I have to cancel on you, but this
has to be taken care of right away.”
“……………”
“We were there just now. He found something wrong
with his heart. We have to go to the hospital this afternoon. I

71
don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
“……………………………..”
“Do me a favor and make my excuses to the girls. I
don’t want to tie up the phone because they’re calling us with
instructions. I’ll give you a ring as soon as I know anything.”
“………”
“Oh, Janice, you’re a doll. Thanks.”
“…………………”
“I’ll speak to you as soon as I know something.”
Aunt Doris hung up the telephone.
“Can I watch television?” I asked her.
When I was sick, I was allowed to watch television
during the day, and I thought this might mean that I was sick.
“Sure, Sweetie. Let me turn it on for you. You stay on
the bed and I’ll get you some lunch.”
She turned on the television, and I asked her to change
the channel until she found a cowboy movie.
After a while, Aunt Doris brought me some chicken-
and-noodle soup and a tuna-fish sandwich on a tray. She put
a bathroom towel over my lap so that I couldn’t spill on her
bedspread and she put the tray on top of the towel.
“What would you like to drink?” she asked me.
“Can I have Coke?”
“Sure you can have Coke. I’ll get you some.”
I was allowed to have Coke with lunch when I was sick.
She brought me a glass of Coke and ice cubes and then went
back into the kitchen to make a grocery list and tell Rose what
to cook for dinner. My arm hurt, but I felt happy eating lunch
on the bed and watching the cowboy movie. Later, the
telephone rang and I heard Aunt Doris answer it in the kitchen
and talk to someone. After she hung up, she came back to
her bedroom.
“Sweetie, we have the appointment for your test at
3:30. When you finish your lunch, I want you to rest on the
bed and try and go to sleep.”
“Can I finish watching the movie?” I asked her.

72
 I knew that she would say yes.
“You can watch TV, but I think you should rest until we
figure out this little thing with your heart,” she said. “I’ll get you
a cover. You don’t need to worry about anything.”
Aunt Doris went out of the room and came back with a
blanket.
“Are you done?” she asked.
I nodded. I had eaten the soup and half of the
sandwich. She took away the tray and the towel and covered
me with the blanket. I lay on her bed feeling mostly
comfortable and sleepy, and I watched the cowboy movie.
I was facing the wall and it was dark. The picture on
my wallpaper was of a farm and I could barely see it. There
was a barn somewhere in the picture, I knew, and around the
barn there were fields with long rows of plants and around the
fields there was a fence. A farmer wearing a hat drove a
tractor across one of the fields. The barn and the fields and
the fence and the farmer were there on the wallpaper over and
over again. The farm made me feel sad, and I understood
that this was because the farm was dull and had no color, and
because it had no end and never changed but kept repeating.
I stared at the farm, and while I stared, I began to hear the
sound of waves hitting the beach and the sound was like the
beating of a drum inside my head.
“Are you awake?” Aunt Doris asked me very quietly.
She was behind me.
I tried to nod and that made my head hurt more.
“Here’s some water.”
I didn’t answer her. I was too tired.
“Wake up, Sweetie.”
I opened my eyes.
It was daytime. Aunt Doris’s room was hot and I had a
headache.
“I have some aspirin for you. Take these and drink
some water. Come on, sit up.”
She gave me the little orange pills and I put them into

73
my mouth and swallowed them with some water.
“I’m sorry I had to wake you, but you’ve had a good
long nap. We have to go for your test. It’s important.”
I nodded and that made me feel as if something were
rolling around inside my head. I didn’t care about the test. I
didn’t think about what they were going to do to me; I was too
tired.
We went to the hospital in a taxicab. The hospital
entrance was very fancy; we had to climb a lot of stone stairs
to reach the door and my knees felt heavy when I lifted my
legs to climb. Holding Aunt Doris’s hand, I walked with her
across a porch past some tall stone columns. My Father had
taken me to the museum and told me about columns and the
names of the orders, but I didn’t have the energy to think about
the orders of these columns. A doorman opened one of the
thick brown-gold metal doors and he tipped his hat. We
walked past him, and Aunt Doris spoke through an open
window in the wall to a lady sitting at a desk. Then we went
through another doorway into the lobby. There wasn’t much
furniture in the hospital lobby, just a stone floor with a pattern
of squares and some wood chairs, and there were two
elevators, also with big metal doors. Aunt Doris pushed me
into the elevator in front of her.
“Third floor, please,” she said to the man, and he
closed the elevator door and the shiny metal gate, and he held
the handle and turned the wheel and the elevator started to
move.
When the elevator got close to the third floor, he let the
wheel turn back and the elevator slowed down and bounced
a little bit and stopped just at the right spot so that we could
get off without tripping. Sometimes, when I wasn’t with Aunt
Doris, George let me drive the elevator in our building. This
one was faster and, in part of my mind, I was sorry that I
couldn’t drive it.
Outside the elevator, there was a vestibule and a
hallway. Some nurses wearing white uniforms and stupid-

74
looking hats, and some doctors wearing long white coats were
walking in the hallway. There were also some old people
standing in the vestibule near the elevators. Aunt Doris
looked at a sign on the wall, and then she took my hand and
we walked to a large woodenwood door. Inside, there was a
nurse sitting at a desk.
“Hello, I’m Mrs. Katz,” Aunt Doris said to the nurse.
“Dr.Alan Sokel sent us.”
The nurse didn’t say anything. She looked down at an
open book that was lying on her desk, then she took a pencil
out of her hair and wrote something on one of its pages.
“Sit down,” she said. “You’ll have to wait.”
I didn’t think that she was polite and I thought that Aunt
Doris might get mad and tell her off, but Aunt Doris didn’t say
anything else to her. She just held my hand and we walked
across the room to where there were some chairs in front of a
big window.
“I want you to behave yourself here,” Aunt Doris told
me.
“I will,” I said.
I didn’t have the energy to complain about what they
were going to do to me. It would have been nice to sit in the
chair and look out the window for the rest of the afternoon.
Another nurse came into the room. She spoke quietly
to the nurse at the desk, and then she looked at me and said,
“Come with me, please.”
Aunt Doris and I stood up, but she told Aunt Doris, “You
stay here,” and then she turned around and began to leave
the room.
“Can I go with him?” Aunt Doris asked.
The nurse looked over her shoulder. “No, you stay
here, please,” she said and kept walking.
I didn’t know what to do. I looked at the nurse’s back
and then I looked at Aunt Doris.
“Go with her,” Aunt Doris said. “I’ll wait for you here.
You’ll be alright.”

75
 I followed the nurse down a hallway with more big
windows on one side and a wall that didn’t go all the way up
to the ceiling on the other. The doorways in the wall had no
doors, only curtains. The nurse stopped walking next to one
of them.
“Come along, Red,” she said, “go in here.”
She held the curtain up in the air so that I could walk
under it. Behind the curtain there was a little room with an
examination table, a small desk and a chair, and also a
machine that had knobs and lots of wires attached to it, and a
strip of paper coming out of its top.
“Get undressed and put that gown on with the opening
in front.” She pointed to something on the examination table.
“I’ll be right back.” When I heard her voice, I knew she
thought that it was stupid for me to have the heart test.
When I heard her voice, I knew she thought that it was
stupid for me to have the heart test. She dropped the curtain
and I was alone. The idea that the nurse didn’t agree with Dr.
AllanAlan surprised me. If the nurse thought that it was stupid
for me to have the heart test, would she tell Aunt Doris to take
me home? Maybe she would do that. Maybe the Doctor
would tell Aunt Doris to take me home.
I stared at the machine. I had never seen one like it
before and I didn’t know how a doctor could do something to
me with it. Would he stick the wires into me? When my trains
were set up at Christmas time, Aunt Doris didn’t want me to
play with them unless there was an adult in the living room,
because she was afraid that I would touch the wires and get
electrocuted. I picked up the gray gown and unfolded it. It
looked like a big smock. While I was holding it, the nurse
came back into the room.
“Aren’t you undressed yet?” she said.
“No,” I answered and I could feel my face get red.
“For the love of Mike, you’re big enough to get
undressed by yourself aren’t you? Go on. Put that gown on
and I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t make me stand around like

76
a monument to public service.”
I wanted to tell her that I didn’t have any energy and
that I knew how to undress myself. I thought of asking her if I
should go home, but before I could decide to say something,
she left again, so I took off all of my clothes and piled them on
the chair. Then I put my hands through the armholes of the
smock; it dragged on the floor. As soon as I had finished, the
nurse came back into the room. She stared at me for a
second.
“Put your underpants back on, young sir,” she said, “we
surely won’t be doing any of that here today.” She laughed.
I rushed over to the chair, grabbed my underpants and
put them back on as fast as I could, and my face felt hot.
“Quick. Up on the table with you,” she said. “It’s getting
late.”
There was a stool next to the table, so I stepped onto
it the way I had done in Doctor Allan’sAlan’s office and sat
down and looked at the nurse’s face. She had a nice face
even though she didn’t smile, and when she spoke her words
sounded like poems.
“Go on then. Lie down on your back.”
I lay down and my heart started to pound because I
knew that something was about to happen to me even though
the Doctor wasn’t there yet. My face got tight and I was
worried that I might cry.
The nurse looked at me. “Oh, for the love of Mike, stop
that silliness. All I’m going to do is put these little things on
your skin with some cream and that will be the end of it.
There’s no need for that nonsense.”
I lay still while she attached wires to my arms and legs
with fat rubber bands, and my heart beat harder.
“What is the Doctor going to do? Is it going to hurt a
lot?”
“It doesn’t hurt at all so be still. And there’s no doctor
coming. You’d think I was about giving you the chair, for the
love of Mike.”

77
 This sounded like the truth and I felt safer. I didn’t think
that what she was doing could be very bad without a doctor in
the room. She turned a knob on the machine and took a little
metal cup with a rubber ball attached to it that made the cup
suck my skin, and she moved the cup around my chest and
every time she moved the cup, she squirted some cream on
my skin from a bottle and tapped a button on the machine.
After only a short time she said, “That’s it. Go get dressed
and find your Mum,” and I was sad when she left the room.
When I was dressed, I walked down the hall by myself
to the room where Aunt Doris was sitting. I noticed that I didn’t
feel tired anymore.
“Are you done already?” Aunt Doris looked surprised.
I nodded.
“Well,” she looked around the room, “let me find out if
there is anything else we have to do.”
She walked over to the desk where the nurse with the
pencil sticking out of her hair was sitting and spoke to her.
Then she said, “Come on, Sweetie. We’re done,” and we left
the hospital and walked to the street corner to find another
taxicab.
“I’m hungry,” I said.
“Well, we’re having broiled chicken and baked potato
for dinner, how’s that?”
Rose served dinner in the dining room as soon as we
were back at the apartment. After dinner, Aunt Doris told me
to take a bath and she went into her room to talk on the
telephone. I floated for a while on my back in the warm water
and looked at the tiles on the walls, then I got out of the tub,
dried myself and put on a clean pair of pajamas and my
bathrobe. Aunt Doris gave me more aspirin and let me watch
a cowboy movie before she told me that it was time to go to
bed. She made the bedcovers neat and tucked me in and
gave me a kiss.
“Tighter,” I said.
She pulled the covers tighter and tucked them in again.

78
 “Sweet dreams,” she said. “You are such a wonderful
boy. You really are terrific. I would do anything for you. Did
you know that? I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said.



In the morning, the yellow school bus stopped at the

corner to pick me up. Its door swung open, and I climbed the
steps holding the metal railing with one hand and pullingpulled
my briefcase behind me with the other, and then I walked
towards the back of the bus between the rows of benches and
looked for an empty seat next to a window. As I sat down, I
heard the door squeak and bang closed. The engine rumbled
and there was a grinding noise under the floor and the. The
bus jerked forward and started going to itsthe next stop, and I
felt my forehead shake against the window glass while I
looked at the roofs of the cars on the street outside. Most of
the boys talked to each other, but they weren’t loud because
if they made too much noise, the Teacher would tell them
silence, and there would be no talking at all until we got to
school.
Carl got on the bus at the next stop, and he walked
down the aisle and sat on the seat next to me.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said.
He bent over and put his hand into his briefcase, which
he had put on the floor between his feet, and pulled out an old
book with a hard blue-green cover that looked like a library
book.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“The Peloponnesian Wars.”
“The what?”
“The Peloponnesian Wars” he said again.
“What’s that?” I asked. Carl didn’t mind answering
questions.

79
 “It’s history.” He opened the book to somewhere near
its middle and started to read.
“What do you mean?”
He looked at me and then back at the page. “You
know. It’s a history book. It tells about the Peloponnesian
Wars.”
Once, when I was at Carl’s house, he had read a
history book about Napoleon while I played on the floor with
some of his soldiers. His Mother had come into his room and
yelled at him.
“What are the Peloponnesian wars?” I asked him.
“I can’t read if you keep talking,” he said.
He sounded annoyed, but that didn’t bother me; Carl
never really got mad at people.
“Just tell me what are the Peloponnesian Wars?”
“I can’t just tell you what the Peloponnesian Wars are
because I’d have to tell you about the whole book. You read
it when I’m done and then you’ll know.”
“I can’t read that,” I said, and I turned my head and
looked out the window.
Carl was one of the kids who had been given a book
first.
I saw them piled on top of the high cupboard across
from the door and I could smell them; they had a good smell
that made me feel excited. Why had someone put them on
top of the cupboard? The Teacher stood on a chair to get a
book. I noticed that she was having trouble balancing on her
high-heel shoes and that her legs looked nice. I walked
across the room to the cupboard as fast as I could and asked
her for a book.
“They’re not for you,” she said. “David, here.”
She gave him the new book that she was holding. It
had a picture of kids and a dog on its cover.
“What do you mean they’re not for me?” I said in a loud
voice.
Some of the other kids looked at me. Had she

80
forgotten that I was in the class?
“You’re not ready yet.”
“That’s not fair.” My voice was too loud again, but I
didn’t care.
“You’ll get one when you’re ready” she said “Go sit
down.”
I walked to my seat and watched the kids who had
books. They were talking and they looked excited. I didn’t
want them to see that I hadn’t been given a book. I could feel
that my face was red. Why wasn’t I ready?
The bus made a screeching sound and stopped
suddenly, bending me forward on my seat. A fire engine with
a man driving the front and another man driving the back went
past the window. Its siren was very loud. Then there was the
noise under the floor and the bus started moving again.
Later, I was given a book, because it was time for all of
the kids to have books, but the Teacher thought that I still
wasn’t ready, I knew. When it was my turn to sit with her and
read, I looked at the words on the page and saw only black
lines. Not knowing what the lines meant made my insides
tight; how did those lines tell you words? The Teacher said to
look at the letters and then she said to look at the letters again,
and, when she spoke, she sounded like Aunt Doris. I knew
that I would only have to sit with the Teacher for a little while.
She told me to pay attention and try.
“Sound them out,” she said.
After the Teacher had finished listening to me, I sat at
my desk and watched Davey read. His desk was next to mine.
There were lots of words on the pages of his book and not
many pictures. He could feel that I was looking at him,
because he stopped reading and looked back at me.
“Why don’t you read?” he asked me. “We’re supposed
to read.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t? It’s easy,” he said.
“I don’t know these words. How could I know all these

81
words?” I looked down at my book and turned bunches of
pages.
He laughed. “You don’t have to know the words. I
don’t know all the words.”
“You don’t? But you have to know the words to read
the book. You know the words.”
“No you don’t.” He sounded as if he were telling the
truth.
Davey slid his chair next to mine. The little metal tips
on the bottoms of the chair legs made a scratching noise on
the floor.
“What is that noise back there?” the Teacher asked.
“I’m showing Red how to read,” said Davey.
The Teacher didn’t say anything for a second, and then
she said, “That’s a good idea. Just keep your voices down.”
Her answer surprised me, because it meant that Davey
and I were allowed to talk in class. Some of the other kids
started to talk also and the Teacher told them settle down.
“Look,” said Davey. He pointed to a word in my book.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know. I told you.”
“But you do know. What sound does c‘c’ make?”
I answered.
“And r‘r’?”
I answered again.
“So what is the word?”
“You didn’t ask me the a‘a’.”
“You don’t need the a‘a’. Just do the c‘c’ and the r‘r’
together.”
“How do you know that you don’t need the a‘a’?”
“Because I know what the word is without making the
a‘a’.” He sounded as if he did know. “What’s the word?”
“How do you know it’s the right word if you didn’t look
at all the letters? You’re supposed to look at all the letters.”
“Because it fits in the story.”
I didn’t say anything. There must have been something

82
else that you had to know, and there must have been
something else that you were supposed to do, because
reading was hard.
“Say them together and guess the word,” Davey told
me.
“Car,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s on other pages, too. See?”
His eyes looked at my eyes and then he turned the
pages pointing to car. The same word was written over and
over; it was on almost every page. I had the idea that the story
must be stupid if it had the same word written on almost every
page.
“When you see it in another place you don’t even have
to make the sounds because it’s the same,” he said.
“You’re allowed to do that?”
He didn’t answer; he just looked at me.
“But what about the other words?” I asked him.
“Do another one,” he said. He pointed to another word
and I read it. “Some of them are harder,” said Davey, “but you
know the right answer because of the story, even the long
ones.”
I stared at the page. I wasn’t sure that I could do it, but
at the same time I thought that Davey had told me how to
read. Why didn’t’ the teacher tell us that?
We were at school. Carl and I waited for the bigger
kids to get off the bus and then I walked in front of Carl and
pushed past the smaller kids, and we climbed down to the
sidewalk ourselves. Before we went to our homeroom, we put
our coats in our hall lockers. While Carl was trying to open
his combination lock, I watched the other kids in the corridor.
It took Carl a long time to do things.
“What are you looking at, Bozo?” an older kid asked
me. Another boy standing next to him laughed.
I didn’t answer; I turned around, hoping that the kid
would decide to forget that I was there. I could feel him
watching me and that made the hairs move on the back of my

83
neck and I started to sweat a little.
Carl was having trouble closing his locker door; he kept
pushing it shut and it kept bouncing open. I noticed that the
sleeve of his coat was sticking out of the locker under the
bottom of the door.
“Carl, your coat is stuck in the door,” I said, wanting him
to hurry.
“Oh,” said Carl. He sounded disappointed. He pushed
his coat sleeve into his locker and finally shut it.
“Let’s go,” I said, and I picked up my briefcase and
started walking to our homeroom without looking behind me.
There was a lot of talking for a few minutes in
homeroom, and then the Teacher told us to get in line and we
went to Assembly.
We did the Pledge of Allegiance and then the
Headmaster made the Announcements. I was sitting near
Mrs. Small, who played the piano, and I stared at her shoes.
Mrs. Small always wore black shoes with sides that covered
her ankles. They had laces and looked like sneakers except
that they were made out of leather and had high heels. Davey
called Mrs. Small’s shoes combat boots. When Mrs. Small
played the piano, she stamped her right foot on the floor as if
she were marching, and she pounded the keys with her
fingers. I could feel the floor shaking while we sang the Hymn.
Assembly ended, and we walked back to our
classroom in a line. The Teacher told us settle down and real
school started.
While the Teacher talked about Pilgrims, I sat at my
desk and looked around the room. I felt calm, and ideas came
into my mind.
The Indians taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn in
rows and told them to put a dead fish in a hole at the end of
each row. The Indians were smart. They knew how to hunt
and shoot with bows and arrows. They could walk in the
woods without making any noise and sneak up on animals.
Indians noticed everything. If I had lived in Pilgrim Times, I

84
would have been an Indian.
The Pilgrims knew about God but they couldn’t take
care of themselves in the wilderness. The Indians lived in the
wilderness, but they didn’t know about God. Why didn’t the
Indians know about God, if God is God for everybody, which
He would have to be if He were really God?
Did the Indians tell the Pilgrims to put a fish at both
ends of the row or only at one end? The dead fish got rotten
in the hole, and rotten fish made the corn grow better. Why
was it safe to eat corn that grew next to a rotten fish when it
wasn’t safe to touch a rotten fish or any rotten thing? When
you ate corn that grew next to a dead fish, did the corn taste
fishy? How did a dead fish in a hole at the end of a row make
corn in the middle of the row grow better? If dead fish made
corn grow better, why didn’t the Indians tell the Pilgrims to put
dead fish in holes everywhere in the field? That would be
disgusting.
The Indians probably didn’t tell them to do that because
it would take too many dead fish. It’s hard to catch animals if
you aren’t an Indian.



The grownups went to Temple on the High Holidays

and I went with Aunt Doris.
“I want you to behave inside,” she said. “This is an
important holiday. We have to stay for a while, so I don’t want
you to keep asking me when we’re leaving.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” I said again, trying to sound friendly to show
her that I was agreeing.
“I expect your Father will put in an appearance.”
I didn’t say anything.
“We’re eating dinner at your Grandmother’s. You’ll like
that, won’t you?”

85
 “Uh huh,” I said.
“Personally, I wish we didn’t have to go. I’m totally fed
up with her. First she gives me those jade grapes that she
brought back from Europe. Then she decides that they look
so nice on the dining-room table that she wants them back.
How do you like that? That’s no way to behave. You don’t do
things like that. When you grow up, I hope you’re not an
Indian-giver.
“But I don’t know why I’m surprised. They always take
whatever they want and just expect me to make do with
whatever is left. Why am I the only one in the family without
a mink coat? Everyone else has one, including your Aunt
Joan, but not me. I’m tired of being treated like the poor
stepsister. One of these days, they’re just going to wake up
and find me gone and that will be that, and I’m not kidding.”
We crossed the street. I looked at the people standing
in front of the building and tried to see my Father.
“Sometimes I think I should just tell everyone that I’m
the maid,” Aunt Doris said.
Without thinking about what would happen if I said it
and because I was feeling happy, I asked her, “Do you want
me to do it for you?”
“What?”
She stopped walking and stared at me, so I had to stop
walking, too. Her eyes were big and her lips were pushed
together. My heart beat faster and my thoughts bounced
around in my head and then I had an idea.
“Tell Grandma Kay that you should have a mink coat,”
I said after just a small stop, and I made my voice sound as if
I didn’t understand how she might think that I could mean
anything else. I listened to myself speak and thought that the
way I had said it sounded really good.
She looked at me a little longer and then started
walking again. For a few seconds she didn’t say anything,
and then she said, “You just mind your own business.”
I breathed out.

86
 We got close to the crowd and suddenly I saw my
Father waiting for us and he saw me too and we both smiled
at the same time. I wanted to run and hug him, but I controlled
myself.
“Hi,” he waved and called to us.
“Hi,” I called back.
“Good morning,” Aunt Doris said.
He kissed me and then he kissed Aunt Doris on the
cheek. I stood next to him with all of the grownups and some
other kids around us. Everyone was dressed in fancy clothes,
and I thought that they looked as if they were going to a
special party.
“How are you,” my Father asked Aunt Doris.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said.
“I guess we should go inside,” my Father said.
We walked under the awning and through a doorway
into the dark lobby that was like the lobby of a very nice movie
theatre with a colored-marble floor, fancy moldings on the
walls and ceiling, and big chandeliers. Then we went through
another doorway and into the huge Sanctuary. Someone was
playing the organ behind the candy-colored marble columns
far away, above the Bema. The sound echoed, and so did the
sounds of footsteps on the marble floor and of talking. I
looked at the tall gold-metal gates in front of the Ark that could
be, I thought, the Gates of Heaven, and then at the colored
light beams shining through the stained-glass windows,
especially the big round one over the door. The light made
the tiles on the walls around the Bema sparkle. The
Sanctuary looked like one of the big churches in the pictures
that Mr. Kurtz showed us at School.
I tried to see Grandma Kay and Grandpa Murray, and
Kate and her family in the crowd, but I couldn’t find them. Aunt
Doris saw Mrs. Wasserman and we walked down the middle
isle past lots of people to where she was sitting with her
husband. Mr. Wasserman stood up and so did Josh and his
sister, and the grownups said hello. Mr. Wasserman kissed

87
Aunt Doris on the cheek. My Father shook his hand, and Aunt
Doris and Mrs. Wasserman touched their cheeks together and
made kisses with their lips next to each other’s ears. When
Aunt Doris put her hand on Mrs. Wasserman’s shoulder, I
heard her bracelets jingle. Mrs. Wasserman was wearing a
mink coat, I noticed. She said happy New Year.
“Say hello, Sweetie,” Aunt Doris said to me.
“Hello,” I said.
I looked at Josh. He had a mean kind of smile, I
thought.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Mrs. Wasserman said to me,
and she kissed my cheek. “Your Aunt tells me that you’re
going to stop taking the school bus and start taking the public
bus. Josh has been after me to let him do that, isn’t that right
Josh, but I told him that he had to wait another year just like
the other boys.”
Josh didn’t look at her.
“It will be any day now, Josh. You’ll see,” Aunt Doris
said, and she kissed his cheek.
“Why don’t you sit with us?” said Mr. Wasserman,
“We can’t. I told Joan that I would sit with her,” Aunt
Doris said.
“Oh please Doris,” said Mrs. Wasserman, “you’ll never
find anyone in this mob. Sit before there are no seats left.
They’re going to start soon.”
“I guess you’re right,” Aunt Doris said, and we walked
sideways between the pews past the Wassermans to an
empty space next to them on the bench.
I stayed beside my Father. He helped Aunt Doris take
off her coat and then he took off his coat, folded it and put it
on the seat, and I did the same with mine. We sat down on
the red cushions, and the grownups took books off the shelf
on the back of the pew in front of us. My Father opened one
and handed it to me.
“You can read along, too,” he said.
I held the book. I didn’t like to read along because,

88
when I did that, I couldn’t think of anything except what I was
reading.
“I don’t know where it is,” I said.
“The Rabbi will tell you what page he’s on.”
It was boring to sit still on the bench without being able
to think of something. The only part of the Service that wasn’t
boring was when the Cantor blew the Shofar. If he did a good
job and made a really loud notenoise, then in my mind I could
see the gates in front of the Ark open. They were the golden
Gates of Heaven, and after they had opened, I could see God
standing in Heaven covered by bright light that poured like
water into the Sanctuary. The people in the Sanctuary
covered their faces with their hands and there was silence
except for the note that the horn made, which was so loud that
it shook the room.
“Did you hear about Celia? Isn’t that awful?” Aunt Doris
said to Mrs. Wasserman.
“Right in front of her apartment, too!” Mrs. Wasserman
said.
“And they got everything. She was going to theatre.”
“Oh, that’s so terrible. Why can’t they do something
about them? She’s lucky she’s alright.”
“And poor Morris standing and watching the whole
thing. Can you imagine?”
The people in the audience started to be quiet. I looked
at the front of the Sanctuary and saw the Rabbi and the
Assistant Rabbi and the Cantor and some other people
walking out of a door at the side of the Bema.
“Why do they wear graduation gowns?” I asked my
Father.
“You mean their robes? I don’t know. It’s just
traditional.”
Coughing sounds and the sounds of books falling on
the floor made loud echoes. Then the music stopped.
“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, thy dwellings, O
Israel!” The Rabbi spoke.

89
 People around us turned the pages of their books and
whispered to each other.
“O Lord, I love the place of Thy house and the abode
in which Thy glory dwelleth.”
The beams of colored light had moved slightly closer
to the Bema, I noticed. Everyone was almost quiet now. I
watched the Rabbi. He stood facing the audience inside a
box made of shiny stone; it was a tall desk for his papers, so
that he could put them down and still read them.
“This is the day of God. On this day we are called to
the sanctuary by a summons as exalting and enduring as the
everlasting hills…”
I walked next to Grandpa Murray. It was early in the
morning. Grandpa Murray was carrying a small dark-red
velvet bag with gold designs on it. The bag looked like a little
pillow. He held my hand. We went up the steps and through
the door of an old building into a small lobby that was crowded
with men wearing dark clothes and hats. I stared at them. A
few said something to each other quietly and nodded their
heads, but there was no other talking. I was the only kid in
the lobby. Was I really allowed to be there? Other men had
velvet bags like the one that Grandpa Murray was carrying.
They opened their bags and took out big white scarves with
black lines on them and fringe on the ends. Then they kissed
the scarves and put them over their shoulders. I felt Grandpa
Murray’s hand on my back and I turned around. Grandpa
Murray was wearing a scarf and he had another one in his
hand.
“Here. Let me show you how to put it on,” he said.
I didn’t want to put it on. It was yellow and dirty. It
smelled old.
“I don’t want it. It’s torn,” I said.
He looked at it.
“You have to wear one.”
He took another scarf off a rack next to the wall and put
it over my shoulders. Then he put a yarmulke on the back of

90
my head. It started to slide off and I held it on with my hand.
We walked together into the Sanctuary.
The Sanctuary was small and crowded with men who
were talking to themselves. They bounced and bowed while
they talked.
“What did you think?” Grandma Kay asked me. “Did
you see all the old men carrying on like a bunch of nuts?”
Grandpa Murray found us a space on the middle of a
wooden bench near the back of the room. We stood in front
of the bench and he also started to talk to himself, but I
couldn’t understand what he was saying because it was
Hebrew. I didn’t know that he could talk Hebrew. He opened
a book and pointed to some printing on a page.
“You go like this.” He bowed. “You do it.”
I bent my knees and then I bowed.
“Very good,” said Grandpa Murray. “Go ahead,
daven.”
I bounced and bowed some more. It made me feel
stupid even though nobody was watching me and everybody
else was doing it. The scarf started to fall off my shoulders,
so I pulled it up and hugged it around myself. I tried to see
the Bema, but I couldn’t because of the men standing in front
of me.
“Where’s the Rabbi?” I asked Grandpa Murray.
“There,” he said.
Through the crowd, I finally saw an old man with a
beard standing with his back to the audience in front of a big
book on a table. He was dressed in dark clothes just like the
other men and he wore a scarf, too.
“When does the ceremony start?” I asked Grandpa
Murray.
“This is it. Shush.”
“Doesn’t he say any English?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand what they’re saying.”
“Well, it’s in Hebrew. Shush.”

91
 I watched the men. They were very serious. Their
whispering was like a song that filled your head. I watched
them bend and bow. A lot of them had their eyes closed; they
didn’t need to read the book. Their voices made a hum in the
small room.
Then I noticed something that I really had noticed
before, but hadn’t thought about.
“Why aren’t there any women?” I asked Grandpa
Murray.
“They’re not allowed,” he said. “Only upstairs.”
I looked up. Around the room there was a balcony with
curtains hanging in front of it. I could see through spaces
between the curtains that there were women sitting in the
balcony.
“Don’t look at them,” said Grandpa Murray.
“So, are you going to be a Rabbi, God forbid?”
Grandma Kay asked me.



Winter came and, sometimes, snow. I sat next to the

window on the radiator box, closed my eyes and listened to
the sound of the storm, which was like the sound of wind
blowing sand at the beach: the cold wet snowflakes hit the
glass and made the sound of sand. It was dark outside and
snowing hard, and when I opened my eyes I could only see
parts of the building on the other side of the street. The snow
filled the air, not just falling, but going in every direction, even
up: bunches of flakes that made me think of flocks of birds. I
tried to see them in the air and watch them bump into the
window. It was hard to do that because they were so small
and moving so fast. When flakes hit the glass, some of them
melted and others bounced off, disappearing in the dark.
Each snowflake, I thought, had a separate life that nobody
noticed. Did God really decide what happened to each
separate flake?

92
 I pressed my face against the window and looked
down, trying to see the sidewalk in front of the building. The
snow was definitely sticking to the pavement. Snowflakes
flew around the tops of the streetlights like bugs. There were
no cars or trucks on the avenue, not even a taxicab. It was
snowing hard, and the snow was definitely sticking. They
couldn’t drive buses through that much snow. Would they be
able to plow it all off the streets before tomorrow morning?
Maybe they could if it stopped snowing soon, but it was still
snowing hard.
My Father held my hand and pulled me behind him.
“Hurry up,” he said.
“I can’t walk. The snow is too deep. Carry me.” I was
whining, I knew.
“Just walk in my footsteps. We have to get to the
school bus before it leaves.”
I tripped.
“Please pick me up,” I begged.
“Come on. It’s not that bad. Step where I step.”
“I think you’re getting the day off tomorrow,” said Aunt
Doris’s voice.
She was standing in the doorway.
“Really? Did they call you?” I asked her.
“I haven’t heard yet, but it sure looks that way.”
“Do you think it will keep snowing all night?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like it’s stopping. The city
is going to be a mess for days.”
“I hope it doesn’t stop.”
There was a rumbling sound outside and the banging
of something heavy. I looked out the window again and saw
a garbage truck with a snow plow attached to its front. The
trucks made huge snow mountains on the street corners. If it
snowed all night, then in the morning the parked cars and the
sidewalks would be covered with clean, smooth snow, and
almost no people would be outside, only kids playing in the
snow, even in the middle of the streets. I hoped that it would

93
keep snowing hard all night.
“Come, it’s time for you to go to bed,” she said.
I stood up and took off my bathrobe.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” she asked me.
“No,” I said.
“Are you sure? You don’t want to have to get up in the
middle of the night.”
“No,” I said again, and I got into bed.
“Did you brush your teeth?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I lied. Did she know?
She turned off the light and started to lower the window
blinds.
“Can you leave the blinds up so I can see the snow?” I
asked her.
“Okay. Say your prayers.”
“I will.”
“Well, goodnight, Sweetie. I love you oodles and
oodles. You’re a good boy.”
She kissed me.
“I love you,” I said.
Alone in the dark, I listened to the sounds of the
snowstorm, and I stretched my legs, sliding my feet over the
clean, smooth sheets.
I would wear one of the heavy sweaters that Grandma
Kay made for me. Corduroy pants with the legs tucked into
the tops of rubber boots. A scarf wrapped around my neck
under my heavy coat. A wool hat that covered my ears and
leather gloves with fur linings on my hands. I was warm and
comfortable.
There was a rumbling sound outside, and the banging
of something heavy.
The snow pile on the corner was huge: a mountain with
two high peaks and one smaller peak, and valleys between
them. I climbed the cliff that led up to the highest peak, kicking
my toes into the snow and grabbing snow chunks with my
hands.

94
 Just below the top, there was a flat space. I stood
there, made a snowball and then threw it, but I had trouble
moving my arm because of my sweater and my coat. When
the snowball hit the ground, it broke into powder and pieces.
I made another one, pressing the snow together and rubbing
it with my palms, trying to make it hard.
“What grade are you in?”
“Fifth,” I said.
“I’m in Fifth, too”
He was small. I threw a snowball.
“Don’t hit anything or you’ll get in trouble,” he said. “Are
you Catholic?”
“No. I’m Jewish.” Was I allowed to say that?
“I’m lucky. I’m Catholic.”
“Why?”
“Cause we get to confess our sins.”
“What?”
“We go to confession, so our sins are forgiven and we
can go to Heaven.”
“Jews don’t have sins.” Was that true?
“But you can’t go to Heaven.”
“How do you know?” Would that be a problem?
“Because you can’t. You’re not Catholic,” he said. “But
it’s not your fault.”
Tommy and I walked past a pile of dirty snow that was
on the sidewalk next to a fire hydrant. Tommy made a
snowball that looked hard, like a baseball. He threw it and the
snowball hit a garbage truck.
“You better not throw at cars,” I said.
He made another snowball.
“You better not throw at cars,” I said again.
Tommy threw the snowball. It hit a car window with a
loud thud. I wished that I could throw like him. As soon as
the snowball hit the car, the car stopped and the front door
opened.
We both started to run, but I wasn’t worried. A grownup

95
couldn’t catch us because a grownup couldn’t run as fast as a
kid.
I was ahead of Tommy. I looked over my shoulder and
saw a big man chasing us; he was running really fast.
“Inside,” I shouted and ran into the lobby of Tommy’s
apartment house. We would be safe there because the
doorman wasn’t allowed to let a stranger into the building.
The doorman stared at me. ; I looked at his face as I
passed him. He knew that we were being chased, but he
didn’t care. He wasn’t going to stop the man.
Maybe we could get in the elevator and go upstairs
before the big man caught us. I looked at the elevator door:
closed. Tommy ran into the lobby behind me, and I was sure
that the man was right behind Tommy. What would he do if
he caught us? Would he hurt me? He would hurt me. He
could kill me.
There was a door in the wall a few feet to my left. I
grabbed the doorknob, pulled it, and the door opened. Behind
the door there was a dark stairwell. I started to run up the
stairs but then quickly stopped. Where I lived, a metal gate at
the top of the first flight of stairs kept robbers out of the
building.
I looked around for a safe place to hide: there was
nowhere to go but up the stairs or back out the door. I was
trapped because the big man was probably outside the door
already. I ran behind the staircase and crawled as far as I
could into the small space between the floor and the first
steps. The man would find me, but maybe he wouldn’t be able
to reach me: he was too big to fit under the stairs. My hands
felt that the floor and the wall were covered with dirt so I
crouched and tried not to touch anything with my clothes. If I
got dirty, Aunt Doris would yell at me and make me tell her
what I had done.
Tommy ran through the doorway and up the stairs as
fast as he could. I startedwanted to tell him about the metal
gate that might be at the top of the first flight of stairs, but the

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big man crashed the door open behind Tommy, so I shut my
mouth. There was a loud rattling noise when Tommy hit the
gate, and just after that, the sound of the big man’s shoes
above my head. I was sure that he could hear me breathing.
Tommy screamed, “Don’t. Please don’t.”
“You little bastard. I’ll teach you, you little fucker.”
I heard the sounds of Tommy being punched, and I
thought that I should do something to help him. If I went up
the stairs and kicked the big man, would that help? What if I
ran out the door? Would he chase me and leave Tommy
alone? Could I get away from him? He would catch me and
beat me up too.
“Stop it. Please stop it.”
“Where’s your buddy you punk.”
“I don’t know. I don’t.” Tommy was crying.
“You know, you little fucker.”
The man’s feet started to walk down the stairs. He was
coming to get me. I held my breath.
Then I heard the door open and close.
After a short time I said, “Tommy? Are you okay?”
“Where are you, you chicken?”
He sounded bad. I should have helped him.
“I’m under the stairs.”
“Why didn’t you help me, you chicken,” he said.



“Time to wake uhupuh-up!”

Aunt Doris kissed me and rubbed my head, and then
she kissed me again.
“Come on. You don’t want to be late for school.”
“Okay,” I said. It was hard to speak because my tongue
was sticky.
She left the room
Feeling warm and weak, I stared at the bookcase next
to the window with my eyes partly closed, floating inside

97
myself near to the dream like another world where I had just
been. Dim gray sunshine came into the room through the
window. Breathing slowly, I sank away from the light. The girl
waved at me. She had dark hair. She was wearing a sweater
and a wide skirt, and she was standing next to a little red car
without a roof. It was the kind of car that people in the movies
drove. The girl was a woman. She was nice. She smiled at
me and waved her hand to tell me to come with her in the car,
and then I floated up to the light again.
The part of the sheet that was folded over the top of the
blanket touched my ear and I turned my head slowly so that it
rubbed against my skin. I could smell the wool blanket and
the clean sheet and also the ribbon that covered the edge of
the blanket.
“Come on now, get out of bed. Don’t make me tell you
again. You’re going to be late.”
She stood in the doorway and watched me while I lifted
the covers and slid my feet off the bed and onto the floor.
“Go on. Get dressed. I’ll see you in the kitchen.”
After I had finished in the bathroom, I took off my
pajamas and put on my underwear and a clean white shirt.
Then I hung my pajamas on the hook in the closet. I looked
at the school pants hanging in the closet and decided that it
was okay to wear the dark gray ones that I liked because I had
already worn each of the other two pairs once that week. I put
them on and carefully tucked the shirt bottom straight into the
pants, using my hands to make sure that there were no folds
in the material except at the sides and that it went around my
waist evenly. Then I put on the brown leather belt that I wore
to school, zipped my fly, and took my blue school tie off the
rack. While I made a knot in the tie, I watched myself in the
mirror on the back of the closet door and checked that the
ends of the tie were the right lengths: the outside end longer
than the inside end but not too much longer. After I had
finished fixing the knot, I took my gold tie clip out of the black
leather box on the closet shelf and slid it over the tie and the

98
front of my shirt, making sure not to pull the tie down too tight
or to leave it too loose because there had to be more tie
material than shirt material above the clip so that I could stand
straight, but not too much more or the tie would make a loopy
bulge on my chest. I put on my brown loafers and jiggled the
waist of my pants so that the cuffs at the bottoms of the legs
lay on the tops of the loafers the right way. The last thing I did
was put on my blue blazer. Then I looked at myself in the
mirror again. One side of my face was bigger than the other.
“Stop admiring yourself in the mirror and come and eat
your breakfast. It’s time for you to get going,” said Aunt Doris,
and my head jerked because I hadn’t heard her come into the
room.
“Come on. It’s time to wake up and get going.”
She walked out of the room, and I picked up my
briefcase and followed her to the kitchen where I drank a glass
of orange juice and ate a bowl of cereal.
“I’ll take care of the dishes,” said Aunt Doris. “Go on.
You’ll be late.”
I took my winter coat out of the foyer closet, put it on
and buttoned it. After I had patted the pocket to be sure that
my bus pass was there, I picked up my briefcase and went out
of the apartment into the vestibule.
“Ring the bell for the elevator. Give me a kiss”
I kissed Aunt Doris and, soon after that, the elevator
door opened.
“Goodbye. I love you. Have a good day and pay
attention in class,” she said.
“I will. Bye,” I said.
I remembered that, atAt least two times, I had dreamed
that the elevator could go down lower than the first floor and
lower than the basement to other floors under the building. In
the dream, I had felt danger coming from thesethose floors.
George knew about the danger. He wouldn’t let me drive the
elevator to the basement because, he said, he didn’t want me
to go too far by accident. If the elevator went down too far,

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something would happen.
I persuaded him to take the elevator just one floor
below the basement. He stopped it there, and I looked at the
door outside the gate. It was made of thick woodenunpainted
wood boards. George didn’t want to open the door or even
the elevator gate.
The door was open just far enough for me to slide
sideways out of the elevator. I had done that once and had
walked a few feet down the dark, dirty corridor on the other
side of the door. Then I had decided that there was a reason
to be afraid and had run back to the elevator before the door
could close. The corridor was filled with the feeling of a
beating heart.
We went down in the elevator to another floor, and
almost to another one below that. George stopped the
elevator. He didn’t want to go any farther. The door outside
the elevator gate was old and dirty. I heard noises and knew
that; something was happening behind the door.
George couldn’t make the elevator go back up to the
lobby. It was stuck. To make it move, we had to go farther
down. They wanted us to open the door.
Outside the apartment house, the air was cold and
gray. I noticed that most of the buildings on both sides of the
avenue had gray stone fronts. The sidewalks were gray
concrete, and the streets were gray-black. The cars were
covered with gray dirt, and so were the windows. The city was
a gray place.
There was a bus at the bus stop, and a small crowd of
people were standing next to its open door. I walked around
them to the front of the bus and started to squeeze myself
through the doorway. Carl was inside; he had just shown his
bus pass to the driver and he was putting it back into his
pocket. I pushed in front of a man and climbed up the bus
stairs.
“Carl,” I said as I showed my pass.
He turned his head. “Oh. Hi,” he said. He didn’t sound

100
surprised to see me; he sounded as if he had known that I
was there but had forgotten to say hello.
“Hi,” I said.
“I changed the map,” he said.
“Oh, great. Did you give me more land?”
“Yeah. I gave you Scandinavia too.”
“Just one country?”
“All of Scandinavia; that’s four countries. Five, if you
count Iceland.”” His face looked as if he were hearing a bad
noise. “You can take Iceland too. That’s a real lot.”
He was worried, I thought, that I would ask him for even
more.
“Let me see it,” I said.
He bent over and opened his briefcase. The inside was
almost as messy as the inside of Davey’s briefcase. He
pushed his hand into a bunch of stuff and pulled out a map
and some papers.
“There,” he said, pointing to part of the map. “This is
all your territory. I wrote it down.” He handed me a piece of
paper that had the names of countries written on it.
“Oh.” It didn’t look like a lot of land to me. “I want more
than that,” I said.
Carl’s face squeezed together. “If I give you more, it
won’t be fair. Look. You had a lot before. Now you have
Scandinavia. That’s a lot. Anyway, you wouldn’t be able to
defend more land than that.”
“Oh?” I said.
The bus stopped and I looked out the window.
“Come on. We have to get off,” I said
I started pushing around the grownups who were
standing in the isle and Carl followed me. We got off the bus
and walked behind it across the avenue and then across the
street that went through the park. Davey was already waiting
at the stop where we got on the second bus.
“Hi,” he said and we said hi‘hi’.
“My Father said he might buy Chamoun,” Carl said to

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Davey.
“My Father says it’s really good,” Davey said.
I waited at the bus stop with Davey and Carl until a bus
came. There were empty seats in the back, and I sat next to
a window with my foot resting on the part of the floor that went
over the wheel. Carl and Davey talked while I looked out the
window at the park.
“I have a great idea,” my Father said. “Let’s go.”
We walked through the park to a playground that was
surrounded by a black metal fence. There was a wide path
just inside the fence and, in the middle of the playground, dirt
and grass.
“You can ride around in a circle and I can be in the
middle and catch you so you don’t fall,” my Father said.
I looked at the playground. It had a long round shape.
It might be safe.
I sat on the bike and he stood next to me, holding the
back of the seat with one hand and the handlebars with the
other. I put my feet on the pedals.
“It’s shaky. It’s going to fall.”
“No it won’t. I won’t let it. Trust me,” he said. “When
you start to pedal the bike will become more stable. That’s
because the wheels act like gyroscopes. You know what a
gyroscope is, right?”
What did he mean? When it was moving, the bike
wouldn’t fall over. Was this true?
“Go ahead. Pedal.”
“Don’t let go,” I said.
“When you’re moving you’ll see that the bike will be
more stable. You won’t need me to hold it. Go on. Pedal.”
“How will I stop?”
“You slow down and put your feet out, but I’ll catch you
for now.”
I was afraid, but I pedaled and he ran beside me,
holding the back of the seat. The bike didn’t feel so shaky
anymore. Then I felt his hand let go of the seat.

102
 I steered with the handlebars, and the bike started to
wobble and tip, and I became more afraid of falling, so I
stopped pedaling. I stuck my legs out almost straight to the
sides, and then I felt him hold the back of the seat. He put his
arm around my waist.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
It was true: he did catch me.
“Don’t stop pedaling and you won’t fall over. The faster
you pedal, the smoother it will go. Don’t steer with the bars
so hard. Just look in front of you and point the bike where
you’re looking. Go on. Do it again.”
I was afraid to do it, but I wanted to do it so I believed
him and pedaled again. The bike started going faster and
faster. Falling would hurt a lot. The turn was coming.
“Steer gently,” I heard him yell behind me.
I turned the bike slowly and it went around the end of
the circle. Then I knew that he was right: it wouldn’t fall. I kept
pedaling. I could do it.
“You’re doing it!” he shouted.
We were happy.
The bus stopped.
“CommonC’mon,” said Davey.
We got off the bus and walked the rest of the way to
school. In homeroom, Mr. Kurtz made Announcementstold us
about the Food Drive. As soon as he was finished, the buzzer
sounded, and Davey and Carl and I went to English.
Mr. Arnold told everyone to settle down and take out
our books. Then he asked who was the hero of the story? I
watched the kid’s raise their hands and felt relaxed. Each one
of them had a different way of doing it: stretching their arms,
waving their hands, wiggling their fingers. Some leaned
forward over the tops of their desks and some called, “Mr.
Arnold, Mr. Arnold,” or “Oh, oh, oh.” Davey didn’t raise his
hand; he sat in his seat drawing pictures on pieces of paper
that he had picked out of a big pile of stuff inside his desk.
Everyone in the class including Davey knew that after a while

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the Teacher would get angry at him because he was messy
or because he was drawing or talking and not paying
attention, and then the Teacher would call on him and Davey
would say something and the rest of us would laugh.
Mr. Arnold was talking about Apprentices. I began to
think about living in the Colonies and learning to be a
silversmith. Living in the Colonies would be better than living
in the City and going to school.
I worked with the silversmith and helped him make
beautiful things: shiny candlesticks and bowls and pitchers,
and the silversmith marked each piece so that everyone
would know that he had made it. I was able to use the tools
and the annealing furnace. I knew how to melt silver in the
crucible and wore dirty leather pants. I thought that there
might be a revolution, but then I thought that everything was
okay without a revolution. I could ride a horse.
A beautiful girl with brown hair came into the workshop.
She looked at me and I looked at her: I looked at her eyes and
felt as if I could see through them to the inside of her which at
the same time made me feel that she could see the inside of
me. I wanted to touch her, but I knew that I couldn’t because
she was proper and a lady. I tried to think of a way to change
the story so that we were together: I would make silver for her
Father and he would want to help me, but then I would have
to become a person who wore fancy clothes and wasn’t a
silversmith. I tried to think of a way that she would need to be
with me: there would be a revolution and I would save her from
the British and we would live together in the woods and take
care of her brothers and sisters, but what would happen after
that? She still would be a proper lady. Anyway, we were both
just kids.
“Mr. Levey, what are you doing?” Mr. Arnold spoke as
if he were surprised because Davey was doing what he was
doing, even though everyone in the class knew that Mr. Arnold
wasn’t surprised by what Davey was doing.
I looked at Mr. Arnold and then I looked at Davey. He

104
wasn’t afraid. He was smiling.
“I’m making notes, Mr. Arnold,” Davey said. He
sounded surprised, too. He acted surprised that Mr. Arnold
didn’t know that he was making notes because he was paying
attention.
Everyone laughed except Mr. Arnold.
“Silence!” he yelled.
His face became very red and his eyes looked almost
big enough to pop out of his head. He walked across the room
to Davey’s desk with big loud steps. His shoes looked huge.
“Get up,” he shouted at Davey.
Davey stood up and started to fold his piece of paper
neatly, showing how careful he was. I could hear Mr. Arnold
breathe.
“Give me that,” Mr. Arnold said and he grabbed the
piece of paper.
He ripped it into little pieces and threw them onto the
floor. Then he bent over and picked up Davey’s desk so that
he was holding it over his head. Some of the kids in the room
made a noise that was like the sound of wind blowing around
the edge of a building, and the ones who were close to
Davey’s desk leaned back in their seats. Mr. Arnold turned
Davey’s desk upside down and all of the stuff inside of it fell
onto the floor and bounced under the desks near where Davey
had been sitting. Davey’s ruler hit my ankle. Mr. Arnold shook
the desk to make sure that it was empty and then he dropped
it on top of the pile of spilled stuff.
“Go get the wastebasket and clean this mess up,” he
said to Davey. “The rest of you take out a blank sheet of paper
and a pencil.”
When we heard that, we all breathed out but no one
spoke. Then the only sounds in the room were the noises of
notebooks snapping open and shut and paper shuffling and
pencils rattling on desk tops, and finally it was very quiet and
we waited.
“Why did the author give the hero of the story a

105
deforming injury?” said Mr. Arnold. “Write!”
Why did the author give the hero an injury? Why did
the author make the hero burn his hand so that it wasn’t
normal and he couldn’t use his thumb? Because if the hero
hadn’t burned his hand, he would have been a silversmith and
he never would have had the adventures that the author wrote
about in the story. If the hero had been normal, there would
be no book or just a book about a kid who became a
silversmith.
The buzzer sounded.



I went to Davey’s house on Saturday morning. We

played soccer in his room and then we found some fried
chicken in the refrigerator and took it to his den so that we
could watch television while we ate lunch. Davey’s parents
didn’t care that he watched TV during the day.
I liked Davey’s den. It was small and always dark
because heavy green drapes covered the windows even
during the day, and because the wallpaper was dark red and
green and the carpet dark red. The carpet was soft and
comfortable, and so were the sofa and the armchairs. There
was a large television against the wall across from the sofa
and the light from its picture made the chandelier on the
ceiling sparkle. I liked to lie on the carpet and watch the
chandelier glass glitter and see the colors in the clear glass
that were made by the TV light, and I liked to sit on the sofa
between the fat pillows with my feet on the dark wood coffee
table and watch TV. When I did this, I felt as if the movie story
were happening in my mind and I forgot that I really was sitting
in Davey’s apartment in the City.
There was a bar in the den closet with a shiny black
stone floor. The bar had red and black woodenwood cabinets
with glass doors, and inside of the cabinets there were bottles
of liquor and rows of glasses on glass shelves with mirrors

106
behind them. At the back of the bar there was a black counter
and a gold metal sink, and, underneath, inside a cabinet with
fancy doors, there were lots of bags of chips and pretzels and
cans of nuts and even a refrigerator filled with drinks.
I took cokes out of the refrigerator and a bag of potato
chips from the shelf next to it. Davey turned on the TV while
I sat down on the sofa. The sofa had really soft cushions and,
when I sat down on it, I always felt as if I were falling through
the bottom onto the floor. I kicked my feet out in front of me
to help me lean forward so that I could push the ashtrays and
magazines on the coffee table out of the way and put down
the food that I was carrying. Davey found a cowboy movie on
TV and we started to eat. We ate as many potato chips as we
wanted and we watched the movie.
It turned out that the movie was almost over; some
cowboys were hanging a bad guy from a tree. He was sitting
on his horse and his hands were tied behind his back. The
cowboys knew the bad guy; he had been their friend and they
knew that he really wasn’t bad so they were all very sad. I
began to feel sad, too, thinking about why he had decided to
do whatever he had done. The cowboys didn’t want to hang
him, but they had no choice because he had rustled and you
were supposed to hang rustlers. That was a law, although I
wondered why it had to be a law if everyone knew that the
person wasn’t really bad? It was like a trap. His best friend
from the time before he was a rustler, who was the saddest
person there, made a noose on the end of his lariat and threw
it over the branch of a tree and then he put it around the
rustler’s neck. He was trying to show the other cowboys that
he was very tough. They all said goodbye and how sorry they
were about the rustling and the hanging, and the rustler said
he knew that they had to hang him and that they didn’t need
to be sorry about it because he shouldn’t have rustled. Then
one of the cowboys slapped the rustler’s horse on the behind
and the rustler was dragged by the noose off the back of the
horse as it galloped away. After that, the movie showed the

107
wiggling shadow of the rustler on the ground, and from the
way the shadow moved you could tell that the rustler was
choking and then the shadow stopped moving which meant
that he was dead. I said to Davey that it was a good movie
because the cowboys looked and sounded real and the
scenery looked real, and because they had hung the guy for
rustling even though he had been their friend which made it
like real life, and Davey agreed.
“I know how to make a noose,” Davey said.
“You do? Show me,” I said.
“Sure, but we need to find some rope.”
“Do you have any?”
“Maybe. Maybe there’s some in the kitchen.”
We ran into the kitchen and started looking inside
drawers.
“Not there. Look over there,” Davey said, pointing to
some drawers under a counter next to the corridor that led to
the maid’s rooms.
I found all sorts of junk in the drawers: tools and papers
and rubber bands and scissors. I even found an old bottle
cap, but I didn’t find any rope and I thought that I wouldn’t
learn how to make a noose because Davey didn’t have any
rope, but then Davey said, “Here, we can use this.” He had
found a box in the pantry with a piece of clothesline tied
around it. He untied the clothesline and we took it back into
the den.
We didn’t need to turn on a lamp because the TV made
enough light for us to see what we were doing. Davey put the
clothesline on the coffee table and folded it into an S shape
with two long ends. He picked up one of the ends and started
winding it around the rest of the S, counting each turn.
“You’re supposed to wind it thirteen times,” he said.
That made sense, because thirteen was the bad-luck
number.
The S began to look like a real hangman’s noose.
When he had made thirteen winds, Davey pushed the end of

108
the rope through the small loop that stuck out of the top of the
noose, and then he pulled on the part of the noose that went
around your neck and the rope got tight and even. It was
perfect.
“Let me try that,” I said and I grabbed it out of his hand
and untied it.
While I practiced making nooses, Davey found another
movie on the TV. It was a love movie; you could tell because
the people in the movie were at a party. They were all dressed
up in fancy clothes, dancing to orchestra music, drinking liquor
and smoking cigarettes and calling each other darling, and
they were very happy and funny. One of the men was leaning
against a column and smoking a cigar. He had a thin
moustache. A waiter standing next to a huge crystal punch
bowl on a table asked a beautiful woman if she wanted some
punch.
“Do you want to make punch?” Davey asked me. “Let’s
make punch.”
“Okay,” I said.
I had the thought that Aunt Doris wouldn’t let me make
punch at home, but Davey’s Mother had different rules.
He went into the bar and got a huge glass bowl out of
the cabinet under the counter. It looked like the one in the
movie.
“Here,” he said, handing me the bowl. “Put that on the
table.”
I put the bowl on the coffee table, and Davey brought
some big bottles of soda out of the bar and put them down on
the table next to the bowl.
“Let’s go get some ice,” he said.
He picked up the bowl and we walked into the kitchen.
Davey started taking ice trays out of the freezer. He dumped
the ice into the bowl and then he threw the empty trays into
the sink.
“Shouldn’t we fill them up?” I asked him.
“Naw. That’s okay,” he said.

109
 I carried the bowl with the ice in it back to the den and
put it down on the coffee table. Then we stood and looked at
everything on the table for a few seconds. There was Coke
and orange soda and a bottle of ginger ale and another bottle
of Coke and a bottle of root beer. I watched a drop of water
run down the side of the bowl: it moved back and forth
between the shapes in the glass and then spread onto the
shiny wood. How had the water gotten out of the bowl?
“Maybe we should do this in my bathroom,” Davey said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Good idea.”
We took everything down the hall to Davey’s bathroom.
I put the bowl with the ice in it on top of the toilet seat and
Davey put the soda bottles on the floor next to the toilet and
shut the door. As soon as the door was closed, though, Davey
remembered that we needed a bottle opener, so he ran to the
kitchen to get one. When he came back, his older brother was
following him.
“What are you doing?” he was asking Davey.
“Nothing,” said Davey. “Leave us alone.”
“You’re not doing nothing. What’s all that stuff for?
You took all those drinks from the bar didn’t you.”
“We’re making punch,” Davey said and he tried to close
the bathroom door but his brother held it open with his foot.
“You’re not supposed to have that stuff in here. That’s
Mom’s good crystal punchbowl. You’re gonna get in big
trouble if you don’t put that back. Dad’s gonna kill you.”
“He won’t know. We’re just making punch,” Davey
said.
“Who’s going togonna drink all that? What are you
going to do with it? I’m telling you, you’re gonna be in trouble,”
his brother said, but he didn’t sound as if he expected Davey
to listen to him even though he was a big kid, and he turned
around and went out of Davey’s room without waiting for
Davey to answer his questions.
Davey closed the bathroom door and locked it. I felt
excited and I knew that Davey felt excited too, because of the

110
way his face looked. He began to open soda bottles. Each
time he pried off one of the caps, there was a SSHHH sound
and some soda sprayed into the air. I picked up a bottle of
Coke and started pouring it into the bowl. When the soda in
the bowl got very foamy, I stopped pouring and put the Coke
bottle down on the floor. Then I picked up the orange soda
bottle and poured some of that into the bowl. We watched the
punch become orange-brown. Davey laughed.
“Don’t put too much in,” he said.
“Let’s taste it.” I could feel my heart beating.
Davey took a glass off the shelf over the sink, filled it
by dipping it into the bowl and drank some punch.
“Uum, that’s not bad,” he said. “Try it.”
He handed me the glass and I tasted some.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe you should mix it.”
Davey took his toothbrush out of the holder on the wall.
“Don’t mix it with the brush end!” I yelled, “you’ll get
toothpaste in the punch.”
He turned the toothbrush around and stirred the punch
with the end that had the brown rubber thing on it, pushing the
ice cubes in a circle. While he did that, I poured some ginger
ale into the bowl. We both watched the punch change color
and foam, and we started to laugh really hard. The bowl was
already almost full and we had more bottles of soda left. We
tasted the punch again.
“Really good,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Davey. “We should do this again.”
“We’re not done yet. I think it should have more
orange,” I said.
“I’ll have to pour some out to make room.”
Davey picked up the bowl and began slowly lifting it
toward the sink. The punch sloshed around and almost spilled
over the edge of the bowl, so he moved it even more slowly.
“Watch out that you don’t knock over one of the soda
bottles with your foot,” I said.
Davey looked down and, when he did that, the

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punchbowl tipped slightly and some soda spilled onto the
floor.
“Whoa!” I yelled and Davey laughed so hard that he
couldn’t hold the bowl still and he spilled more soda.
“Well, I guess I don’t have to pour anymore out,” he
said, and we both laughed together. While he was putting the
punchbowl back on top of the toilet seat, someone banged on
the door and my insides jumped.
“What are you doing in there? I told you you’re going
to get in trouble.”
It was Davey’s brother again. Now it didn’t matter what
he said because there was soda all over the bathroom floor
and it was too late to stop. Knowing that it was too late to stop
gave me a wild feeling.
“We’re not doing anything,” yelled Davey. “Go away.”
We kept laughing; we were both having trouble
breathing.
“I’m telling Mom.”
“If you do then I’ll tell Mom what you were doing with
Max last weekend,” yelled Davey. “Leave us alone.”
“Okay, but Mom will find out anyway.”
“She will not because we’re not doing anything.”
Davey and I looked at each other. Seeing Davey laugh
made me laugh harder and I knew that Davey was laughing
harder because I was laughing. There were no more sounds
on the other side of the bathroom door.
“We’d better clean this up,” Davey said when he could
breathe again.
I wished that his brother hadn’t bothered us.
Davey pulled some toilet paper off the roll hanging next
to the toilet.
“I don’t think you can do it with that,” I said.
“Sure I can.”
“No you can’t.”
He began to wipe the floor with the toilet paper and it
turned into a big blob of orange brown mess.

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 “Yuck! I told you.”
Davey looked at it and then he looked at me and then
he threw the wet toilet paper as hard as he could at the wall
behind the bathtub. There was a splat sound when the paper
hit the tiles. It stuck to the wall, and soda sprayed over the
tiles and dripped down into the bathtub making orange-brown
streaks. We both yelled at the same time and hurried to grab
toilet paper from the roll. I bumped into Davey and he pushed
me out of the way so that he could get more first. Then we
each used handfuls of toilet paper to wipe soda off the floor,
and threw the wet paper at the wall. The soda sprayed all
over the bathroom tiles and got in our hair and on our clothes.
We screamed and laughed and I didn’t even care what would
happen when we were done or that my skin was sticky,
because I felt so crazy. Then Davey stopped and put his hand
up in the air and said “Ssshhh!” He looked very serious.
“What is it?” I asked him, holding myself as still as I
could.
“Hurry. I hear my Mother. We have to clean this stuff
up. Quick.”
I listened and I could hear his Mother calling him from
somewhere in the apartment. She would come into his room
and want to know what we were doing in the bathroom.
Now we were afraid. We started to pull handfuls of
toilet paper off the tiles as fast as we could. When both of my
hands were holding big blobs of paper, I looked at Davey
because I couldn’t think of something to do next. There was
too much paper to flush down the toilet.
“Put it in the bowl,” said Davey, “then go out and tell my
Mom I’m going to the bathroom.”
I dropped the paper into the punchbowl and wiped my
face and hands on a towel. Then I went out into Davey’s room
and slammed the bathroom door. I heard Davey lock it. I
picked up Davey’s soccer ball and, as soon as I had the ball
in my hands, Davey’s Mother walked into the room. My heart
was banging inside my chest.

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 “Why hello, Dear, how are you, it’s good to see you.”
Davey’s Mother kissed me.
“Davey’s going to the bathroom,” I said, trying to speak
in my regular voice.
“Oh? Well that’s good. You two must have been
playing hard. You look all hot and sweaty. Have you had
something to drink?”
“Oh yes. Thank you Mrs. Levey,” I said.
She looked around the room. When Mrs. Levey looked
at things I always had the idea that she couldn’t see them very
well, even though she wore glasses. She squeezed her
eyelids together and looked at the bathroom door.
“Hello, Davey Dear. I’m home. Are you all right?”
“Hi Mom,” Davey yelled from the other side of the door.
“Hi. I’m fine. I’ll come and say Hello‘hello’ in a minute.”
“All right Dear, take your time,” she said. Then she
looked at where I was standing. “I think I’m having dinner with
your Aunt tonight.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes. Tell Davey to come into my room when he’s
finished in the toilet.”
“Thank you. I’ll tell him, Mrs. Levey.”
She didn’t know.
Davey’s Mother left the room and I went and knocked
quietly on the bathroom door. Davey opened it just far enough
for me to squeeze inside and then he closed it again. There
was a big pile of wet toilet paper in the punchbowl. He had
wiped the soda off the tiles with a towel and he had poured
the rest of the soda into the toilet.
“Quick,” he whispered, “put the bottles in the bathtub
and close the shower curtain. He started to wash himself off
at the sink.
“What are we going to do with that?” I whispered back,
pointing at the huge blob of wet toilet paper in the punchbowl.
“Wow, there sure is a lot of paper on one roll.”
“Open the window,” said Davey and he picked up the

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bowl.
“What!” I said without remembering to be quiet.
“Ssshhh! Open the window.”
“You can’t throw that out the window.”
“I’m not throwing the bowl out you idiot, just the paper.
There’s no place else to put it. Help me. This thing is really
heavy.”
“But you can’t throw the paper out. It might hit
somebody.”
“It won’t hit anybody, anyway, there’s no place else to
put it.”
“But it could hit somebody. How do you know what will
happen if you throw it out?”
Davey didn’t answer me. He put the punchbowl back
down on the toilet seat, opened the window himself, and then
he picked up the bowl again and tipped it forward with its edge
balanced on the windowsill. The toilet paper stuck to the
inside of the bowl and he tipped it more. I was afraid that he
would drop everything, including the glass punchbowl, out the
window, and I started to imagine how someone on the street
would be hit and killed by it, but then the paper began to slide
forward. Davey shook the bowl a little, and the whole blob
with the rest of the soda and the ice flew through the window
into the air over the sidewalk. As soon as the bowl was empty,
Davey put it down on the toilet seat, slammed the window
shut, moved the punchbowl into the bathtub with the soda
bottles, and flushed the toilet.
“Come on,” he said.
We went out of the bathroom. Davey closed the door
and we started to play soccer. I wasn’t seeing the ball though,
I was seeing the toilet paper and ice dropping through the air
and then hitting the street. In my mind, it hit the sidewalk, and
soda sprayed in a big circle the way it had when we had
thrown the paper at the wall. It sprayed all over the clothes of
people walking on the street. I saw it falling and turning:
orange and brown drops, clear ice and the fat wad of soaked

115
paper. It hit a woman in the head. She looked up in the air
and saw my face, and I felt as if her face were only a few
inches away from mine.
The ball bounced against my knee.
“Kick the ball you idiot,” Davey said.
“Do you think it hit anything?” I asked him.
“Naw,” said Davey. “I don’t know.”
“Your Mom wants to talk to you,” I remembered to tell
him.



In the morning, when the clock radio began to play

music, I was dreaming, although as soon as I heard the music
the dream stopped and I couldn’t remember it. I lay in bed
thinking about the dream world that seemed so real and then
disappeared, sometimes leaving no memory of itself or a few
memories that didn’t make sense, and I listened to songs and
street noises with my eyes still closed, not wanting to go to
Sunday School. After a while, I began to think that I would be
in trouble if I stayed in bed any longer, and I opened my eyes
and looked at the clock: I was late. I was late every Sunday
morning.
I went into the bathroom, and washed my face and
brushed my teeth. Then I wet my hair. I was careful to wet it
evenly and not soak it. I combed the hair on the top of my
head to the side, but the part was slightly crooked, so I
combed the hair straight forward and parted it again. I had to
do this four times to make the part straight. Then I smoothed
the hair on the sides of my head with a brush until I thought
that it looked right. When I was done, I peed and went back
into my room.
My blue suit had been cleaned and pressed two weeks
before, so I had only worn it once since it had been to the dry
cleaner and it was still neat. I looked at it carefully to make
sure that there wasn’t any lint on it, and then I put on the pants

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and also a clean white shirt that had a button-down collar. I
used my hands to push the shirt bottom and the insides of the
pockets strait down into the pants, making sure that the shirt
material went around my waist evenly. Then I put on my black
leather belt and zipped my fly. I pushed hard on the end of
the zipper to close it so that it wouldn’t open by accident at
Sunday School.
I had two ties that looked good with the suit. After
staring at them and imagining for a moment how each one
would look if I wore it, I took the one with dark red and navy-
blue stripes off the rack, put it on, tied it and twisted the knot
a little to make it look perfect. The ends of the tie were the
right lengths, the outside end longer than the inside end, but
not too much longer, so I didn’t have to redo the knot. I took
my gold tie clip out of the black leather box on my closet shelf
and slid it over the tie and the shirt front, making sure not to
pull the tie down too tight or to leave it too loose, because
there had to be more tie material than shirt material above the
clip so that I could stand straight, but not too much more or
the tie would make a loopy bulge on my chest. Then I put on
my black loafers and looked at myself in the mirror on the back
of the closet door. The loafers weren’t shiny but they weren’t
really dirty either. I noticed that the shirt buttons didn’t go into
my pants behind the belt buckle at the middle of my waist, so
I pulled on the shirt until the buttons went straight down my
front, and I smoothedmade some folds in the shirt material
smooth by pushing them around my waist towards my back.
I looked at myself again and jiggled the pants waist to be sure
that it was in the right place. Then I put on the suit jacket and
buttoned it, while I still watched myself in the mirror. My red
hair made me look like Bozo; it looked stupid, even though the
color had gotten much darker. The suit looked good.
I went into the kitchen, quickly ate a bowl of cereal, put
on my coat and left the apartment before Aunt Doris woke up.
I didn’t go to the bus stop to wait for a bus; there weren’t many
buses going downtown early on Sunday mornings. I just

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started to walk. Cold air came through the front of my coat
because the loops that attached to the buttons didn’t close the
space between the two sides of the coat tightly, but I walked
fast because I was late and walking made me warm, almost
hot, and I had to be careful not to go so fast that I started to
sweat. Five minutes before class started, I was at Sunday
School, in my classroom. I hung my coat on a hook, and then
went quickly to the bathroom so that I could tuck my shirt into
my pants again the right way and fix the knot in my tie,
because walking had made my clothes messy. Nobody else
was in the bathroom. I looked carefully at my reflection in the
mirror over the sink and I had the idea that the person I saw
was somebody else and not me.
There were girls at Sunday School. I stayed away from
them and they didn’t bother me. They spent most of the time
that we weren’t in class standing close to each other,
whispering, giggling and making expressions with their faces
and their hands. When they did this, I thought of what Aunt
Doris did with her face when she was talkingtalked on the
telephone. The girls sat together in the classroom and the
boys sat in the rest of the seats. I didn’t know any of the other
boys in my class, although Carl and Davey and Tommy and
other kids from school also went to religious school.Religious
School. I tried to sit close to a window so that I could look
outside while the Teacher talked. The windows were big. The
whole school was big and clean with wide hallways that had
smooth shiny floors and walls with wallpaper and without
cracks. The place looked a lot nicer than my regular school,
maybe because it was only used one morning each week.
“Why do we remember Joseph?”
I noticed that the room had become quiet and I looked
at the Teacher: she was staring at me.
“Hello. Why do we remember Joseph?” she said again
and louder.
I couldn’t think, but my mind gave me an answer
anyway. “He had a coat of many colors?”

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 “Yes, well that’s right, but that’s not what we’re talking
about,” the Teacher said. “What are we talking about?”
I didn’t answer.
“We’re talking about how Joseph became an advisor to
the Pharaoh. Pay attention. Why did the Pharaoh make
Joseph his advisor?”
Some of the kids put their arms up in the air and waved
them. The Teacher picked a girl in front of me to answer her
question.
“Because Joseph could interpret dreams,” the girl said.
“That’s right, Julie! And why could he do that?”
“Because God told him what they meant?”
“Right! Very good. Because God sent the dreams and
then allowed Joseph to understand their meaning because
Joseph was close to God.”
I felt stupid because a girl knew something that I didn’t
know; I sat in my seat staring at the back of the girl’s head and
feeling as if all of the girls in the room thought that I was stupid.
Then I looked out the window and hoped that the girls and the
other kids would know that I didn’t care about what the
Teacher was saying because I was looking out the window
and not listening. They would know that I didn’t raise my hand
because I didn’t care about what the Teacher was saying and
not because I was stupid.
I wondered if it were true that God sent dreams?
Maybe it was true that God sent dreams a long time ago when
people lived in the desert and had sheep. A lot of things that
didn’t happen now might have happened when people lived in
the desert. Why, though, would things happen now a different
way than they did a long time ago? This story sounded to me
like a fairy tale. Most of what the Teachers said at Sunday
School sounded like things from fairy tales, but they wanted
the kids to believe them, so it was hard to know when they
were lying. I was sure that the Teacher didn’t believe fairy
tales were true.
I had the idea of asking the Teacher if she believed the

119
Joseph story and that God told Joseph the meaning of
dreams, but then I looked at her and decided that this question
might make her angry because she wanted me to believe the
Joseph story, and she might tell Aunt Doris that I was a
problem in class, so I didn’t say anything and I looked out the
window again.
Still, it might be true that God sent dreams, because
dreams were not the same as real life and God wasn’t like a
real person, or even a person at all, although the Teacher said
that God made men in His image. I didn’t think that the
Teacher could know this; how could the Teacher know that
men looked like God or were like God, which was stupid?
That would be the same as believing that Superman could be
a real person. If God were a spirit in the air around us, and if
you sometimes thought that you saw God in your mind, but
not with your eyes, then God was like a dream, and maybe
sometimes you did see God and then you couldn’t remember
what it was like to see him, the way you couldn’t remember
other things that had been in a dream. If you were close to
God, maybe you could remember dreams, and maybe you
also would know the meaning of dreams. I didn’t think that I
was close to God, but that wasn’t because I was a kid; I didn’t
think that God cared that I was a kid, or that God wouldn’t
want to be close to a kid. God might be close to a kid, if the
kid were good.
I looked away from the window and saw that all of the
kids were standing up, and I knew that it was time to go to the
Sanctuary. In the corridor, the Teacher told us to get in line
and not to talk. I waited at the back of the line, and watched
the girls whisper and giggle, and then I turned my head so that
they wouldn’t notice that I was looking at them. When I turned
my head, I saw Davey also standing in the corridor with the
kids from his class. Davey saw me, and he tried to walk
behind his Teacher to get in line next to me so that we could
go to the Sanctuary together, but she grabbed his shirt collar
and pulled him backwards and he almost fell on the floor, or

120
he pretended to almost fall on the floor. Davey frowned and
carefully brushed his suit jacket with his hands to show that
his Teacher had misbehaved and messed up his clothes by
grabbing his shirt collar, and to show that he didn’t approve of
bad behavior. Davey’s suit was a mess and his shirt wasn’t
tucked into his pants. The inside end of his tie was longer
than the outside end and the knot was crooked. I watched
him and laughed without making any noise. Davey looked at
me and waved his hand against his side, telling me to sneak
into the line next to him, but his Teacher saw what he was
doing.
“You stay where you are,” she said to me.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, making the same face that
Davey made at school when one the Teachers yelled at him.
Davey and I looked at each other and we both laughed.
Then a Teacher said something and the kids in the corridor
started walking towards the stairs.
“Everybody stay in line and no talking,” Davey’s
Teacher said in a loud voice, but most of the kids didn’t pay
attention to her, especially the girls, who kept talking to each
other until we got to the sanctuary.
We sat in the front pews of the Sanctuary and the
Rabbi talked to us about Passover and the Seder. The Jews
suffered in Egypt because they were Pharaoh’s slaves. They
didn’t enjoy the freedom that we were lucky to have today, and
we should try and understand what it was like to be slaves.
Pharaoh’s overseers forced the Jews to build pyramids and
make bricks out of mud and straw in the hot desert. It was
probably like digging in the sand at the beach, but without an
umbrella and water, and without swimming in the ocean.
Grownups hated digging in the sand. I would have gotten a
really bad sunburn in Egypt and I probably would have died,
so I couldn’t have been Moses, and I couldn’t have saved the
Jews. I wouldn’t have lived to reach the Promised Land.
When the Rabbi was finished talking, he sent us back to our
classrooms so that we could be dismissed.

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 

I walked back to the apartment, but this time I walked

slowly. It was warmer outside now, and I wasn’t in a hurry to
get home because it was Sunday.
When I was finally at the apartment, I opened the front
door with my key and called hello. Nobody answered, and
that made me afraid. I heard Aunt Doris doing something in
the kitchen so, after I had taken off my coat and hung it in the
front closet and quietly closed the closet door, I went into the
kitchen and said hello to her again.
“Hello,” she answered, and the sound of her voice told
me what I already knew in my other mind: that I was in trouble,
that she was mad.
“I have a little bone to pick with you,” she said, but she
didn’t turn around and look at me or say anything else. She
wiped a shelf in one of the cabinets with a rag. All of the
dishes from the cabinet were on the counter in front of her.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen watching her and
not being able to decide what to do. Should I just go to my
room and wait for her to come there and get me? I knew that
I couldn’t do anything to stop Aunt Doris from being mad, but
I wanted to think that she wasn’t mad, anyway, and that
everything was normal.
“What are you doing?” I asked her. It was stupid to ask
her what she was doing, but it was the only thing that I could
think of saying and it was normal to say something. She
started to answer my question almost before I had finished
speaking.
“What am I doing? What does it look like I’m doing?
I’m cleaning up the mess around here just like I’m always
doing. I’m cleaning the cabinets because Rose is too lazy to
do it. I’m cleaning the pantry because you just leave
everything in there any old way. What do you think I’m
doing?” She was already very mad even though she wasn’t

122
screaming.
“Oh,” I said, noticing that I was tired. “Do you want me
to help you?”
She put her rag down and turned around, and I saw her
face. Her whole face looked as if she were trying to squeeze
everything on it together around her nose: her lips were closed
under the bottom of her nose, her eyes looked as if they had
moved nearer to each other and towards her nose, and she
stared at me. I tried not to see her face even though I had to
look at her.
“You’ve already been enough help,” she said. “Just get
your lunch and stay out of my way.” She turned around,
picked up the rag and wiped the shelf again.
I stood without moving. I didn’t want to eat in the
kitchen while she was there, but I wasn’t allowed to bring food
into my room. If I took food out of the refrigerator, it would
make a mess and that would make her even more angry.
“Did you have a good time with the Leveys last night?”
I suddenly asked her. She didn’t answer; she just kept wiping
the same cabinet shelf. The sound of the rag was too loud.
“Should I take something to eat into my room? So that
I’m not in your way?” I said, still trying to have a normal
conversation, to make the conversation normal.
“Do whatever you want,” she answered. “I’m totally
disgusted with you.”
I waited, watching her, and then I said, “Is it okay if I
eat something at the table?”
She turned around and looked at me with the same
squeezed-together face, threw the rag onto the counter and
walked over to where I was standing. I jumped inside of
myself and stepped backwards a very little bit and, after I did
that, she came even closer to me, leaning forward so that her
face was in front of mine.
“I’ll tell you what you can do. You want to know what
you can do? You can clean up your dishes for a change and
put them in the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink

123
for me to take care of like a spoiled brat.” She pointed her
finger at the table and I saw that her hand was shaking. Her
voice got louder. “And when you do that, you can make sure
that everything is put away in the refrigerator and wipe up the
counter and help me a little bit, instead of just going around
doing whatever you please and letting me wait on you like
some kind of slave. That’s what you can do. How do you like
that, huh?”
I stepped backwards again, and I felt one of the kitchen
chairs touch my side, so I moved a little away from it, and
wherever I moved, she followed me, getting closer and closer
to my face. She stared at me with bulging eyes.
“I’m sorry. Next time I’ll put my bowl in the dishwasher,
I promise,” I said.
“You think it’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, do you? Look at me when I’m speaking to you.
Look at me.”
“I said I’m sorry.” My voice was beginning to shake. I
looked at her face and tried not to cry. I was forced to ask her:
“What else did I do?”
“What else did you do? Did you pick up your dirty
laundry this morning? Did you? If I’ve told you once, I’ve told
you a thousand times, pick up your laundry and put it in the
hamper. I don’t need to go in your closet and find laundry on
the floor. And close your closet door, turn off the lights and
close your closet door.”
“I’m sorry; I was late so I was in a hurry.”
The muscles in my throat were tight and I tried not to
start crying like a baby.
“Why not try getting up on time then, for a change. Did
you ever think of that? Huh? Do you think I like picking up
your dirty laundry?”
“No.”
“What?” Her spit hit me in the face. Now she was
yelling.

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 “No,” I said louder and my voice squeaked.
“You should be glad there’s someone to wash your
clothes for you and take care of you, instead of just taking
everything for granted. It’s about time you started to
appreciate what’s done for you.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You know, there are a lot of children who would be
very grateful to have what you have.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, and my voice was louder too, and
I felt tears in my eyes.
“Okay?” She screamed in my face, “On Tuesday you
left junk all over your room. I find soldiers on the floor, food
in your room; I find all sorts of things. You never turn off lights.
You leave laundry on the floor, you leave dishes in the sink.
Last week I found your sweater in the den, where your stuff
doesn’t belong at all. Did you ever think of putting anything
away? Are you that lazy? I think you enjoy being a slob, don’t
you?
“No,” I whispered, and she just kept screaming.
You don’t pick up. You don’t do your homework.”
“No. Okay. You already told me about the sweater and
I said I wouldn’t leave anything in the den. I’ll clean up
everything. I promise.”
The tears were dripping down my cheeks. I kept my
throat tight, though, so that I wouldn’t make crying noises.
“Listen, you. While we’re having this discussion,
there’s something you did that we need to have a little talk
about. I think you know what I mean, don’t you?”
“No,” I said very quietly, feeling as if there were no air
in my body. “No, I really don’t.”
“No? No?”
“I didn’t do anything, really, I didn’t,” I said. My throat
felt so tight that it was hard for me to speak. “It was Davey.”
“What are you talking about? Are you trying to be cute
with me? I want to know what kind of nonsense you thought
you were pulling with Mr. Arnold at school the other day?

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What did you and Davey do?”
“Wha’ d’ya mean?” I squealed like a pig.
I would cry; I was crying.
“You know darn well what I mean, mister and I want an
answer. I have a good mind to take the hairbrush to you.”
“I don’t know what you mean, honest,” I said, and my
voice honked and made a scraping sound.
“Don’t lie to me. I know what’s going on. You may
think I don’t, but I do. I’m talking about the test you took in Mr.
Arnold’s class.”
I tried to understand what she was saying, but my
thoughts were jumping around in my brain. I was very afraid
that she would hit me with the brush.
“I don’t know,” I squeaked, blowing a snot bubble out
of my nose.
“I’m talking about the test you took in Mr. Arnold’s
class. Didn’t he give you a test last week?”
Then I knew what she was talking about.
“You mean the pop quiz?”
“Call it whatever you like. You took a test or a quiz or
whatever in Mr. Arnold’s class last week didn’t you? Didn’t
you take a test?” She screamed at my face.
“Yes, yes.”
I wanted to tell her that it was a pop quiz, but I couldn’t.
I was afraid of the brush and I kept crying like a baby.
“And what sort of stupid nonsense did you write on the
test. Go on. Tell me.”
“I didn’t write nonsense. Honest,. I answered the
question.” What did she want me to say?
What did she want me to say?
“You didn’t write nonsense? You didn’t write
nonsense, did you?”
She kept spitting as she screamed. Her voice was so
loud that it made a ringing noise in my head.
“No!”
“Don’t lie to me, you. I spoke to Mr. Arnold.”

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 “Why did you speak to him? I didn’t do anything, I
swear.”
“Do you know that you got a D- on the test? You don’t
know that do you! Do you? That’s why I spoke to him.
Because everybody is trying to help you, that’s why. You may
not be the smartest person in the class, but at least you can
do your homework. You can study for a test. Do you think
you could study for a test? Do you? Nobody is asking you to
get an A, we’re just trying to find a way to make you put in an
acceptable performance. Can’t you appreciate that?”
I didn’t have the energy to answer anymore. She
watched me and waited for me to say something, but I
couldn’t. I couldn’t make words. I just cried and hoped that
she would be finished soon and not hit me with the hairbrush.
“So you just decided to write some nonsense because
you probably didn’t study. Did you? What was it that you
wrote? He asked you what it meant that the boy in the book
was crippled and you said what? You said he was crippled
because it was a story about a crippled boy? I can’t believe
that. Did you think he would read that and not say anything?
Were you trying to fail? I bet you didn’t even read the book.
That’s it, isn’t it? You were too lazy to read the book, so you
just had to invent some stupid answer.”
“I did read the book. I did,” I yelled.
“Don’t you yell at me, you brat. Don’t you ever yell at
your elders, especially me.”
“But I read the book.”
“Go in your room,” she said. “I’m disgusted with you.
I don’t know what I have to do to get through to you. You can
come out after you’ve thought about this for a while and then
maybe you’ll have something to say to me. You need to
apologize for the way you act. Maybe from now on you’ll know
that I won’t stand for this kind of thing.” She stopped looking
at me. “My God, what am I supposed to do with you?”
When she said this, I turned around and ran out of the
kitchen as fast as I could. I went into my room and closed the

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door quietly, and I lay down on the bed and pushed my face
into the pillow so that my crying would be less loud. I was
crying like a baby; I was crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
I squeezed the pillow around my head, and then I had the idea
that I would get snot and tears on the bedspread and make a
mess on the bed, so I slid down onto the floor and pushed my
face into the side of the mattress under the bedspread where
she couldn’t see the wet spots that I made on the blanket, and
I tried to stop crying but I couldn’t.
“I told her it was a pop quiz, not a test. You can’t study
for a pop quiz. How was I supposed to know about a pop
quiz?”
I was talking as if there were someone in the room who
was listening to me. I heard myself speaking, but I didn’t stop
even though I was alone. I whispered with my face pressed
against the side of the mattress, and I tried to breathe and to
stop crying. It always happened like that. I couldn’t think of
anything to say to her while she was yelling at me and then,
when I was alone, I thought of things to say and I whispered
them so that she couldn’t hear me.
“And I did answer the question. He asked why did the
author give the hero of the story an injury and I answered what
he asked. What I said was right. If the hero didn’t get injured
then nothing after that in the book could have happened.
Nothing. The author had to give him an injury so that he
couldn’t be a silversmith. Mr. Arnold knows it’s true.”
I choked on my breath and coughed, and suddenly
there were loud steps in the hall and, almost as soon as I
heard them, the door opened fast and she walked into the
room with big heavy steps and put a pile of clothes on the bed
so close to my head that a zipper scraped against my ear.
“Get off of the floor, you, and put these things away and
do it properly for a change instead of like a slob like you
usually do.”
I stood up and tried not to look away from her face, to
look at her eyes that were bulging and staring at me.

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 “What do you think you’re doing on the floor, you lazy
brat? With the amount of time you spend sitting around, sitting
around staring out the window, you’d think you would find time
to do what you’re supposed to, but no. You can’t be bothered.
You must think you’re some kind of little prince. Is that what
you think? That you’re above it all and everyone should wait
on you?”
“No,” I said and I squeaked like a pig and cried harder.
“Do something constructive for a change, if you can
which I doubt.”
She bent her face at mine and her eyes stared. I
thought that she would keep going, but then she turned
around, walked out of the room and slammed the door.
I picked up the folded clothes and took them across the
room to the bureau. My arms were weak. I didn’t care that
tears were dripping onto the clothes, but I had to keep them
neatly folded and not mess up the drawers; she would look
inside the drawers.
“It wasn’t because the boy was arrogant. The boy
wasn’t being punished for thinking he was better than the
others. That’s just a stupid excuse. Anyway, the boy was
better. He was a better silversmith than the others.
Everybody knew that the boy was better. The Silversmith
knew it. He was trying to help the Silversmith and he had an
accident. You can’t punish him for trying to help the
Silversmith. Was it the right answer to say that the boy was
being punished by having an accident for knowing that he was
better at making silver than the others and good enough to
help the Silversmith? To leave out that if he hadn’t been
injured the story would have been over? That would be really
smart: Whywhy did the author have the hero burn his hand so
that it wasn’t normal and he couldn’t use his thumb anymore?
Because the author wanted the hero to be punished for
thinking that he was a good silversmith, even though he really
was a good silversmith. Even though the hero was trying to
do the right thing, he had to be punished and it didn’t matter

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that, if he didn’t burn his hand, then he could have been a
silversmith and the story would have been over, but the author
wasn’t thinking about that. No, he wasn’t thinking that the
hero has to burn his hand so that I can write this story. He
wanted the reader to know that the hero had to be punished.”
I made a loud squealing breath; I couldn’t stop crying.
I squeezed myself between the bed and the desk and sat on
the floor with my back against the wall and my face pressed
against the bed.
“She doesn’t know anything about it; what does she
know about it. Has she read the book? No. When did she
ever read the book? I read the book but she didn’t read the
book and she says that I didn’t read the book. What does she
know about it?”
I noticed that my voice was getting louder and I made
it quiet again, but I didn’t stop speaking, talking to nobody, to
the air or myself.
“It’s not fair. She already yelled at me for leaving
something in the den. I left it there so that I could answer the
phone. She was the one who told me to answer the phone
and then I forgot that it was there because of her. I can’t help
it she tells me to answer the phone. But then she has to yell
at me about it a second time. I just left my bowl in the sink.”
I heard the sound of footsteps again in the hall. I
stopped whispering and tried to think of something that I could
be doing when she came into the room so that she wouldn’t
know that I was still sitting on the floor crying and talking to
myself, and I pulled the spread down to cover the wet spot on
the blanket and stood up as fast as I could and smoothed the
spread with my hands, and then the door opened very quickly.
She stood in the doorway and looked at me; I was bending
over the bed with one hand on the spread, not moving, looking
back at her. Her face was less squeezed together. I didn’t
cry.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.

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 I knew that she was done.
“What? I didn’t hear you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again and louder, but being careful
not to yell, and my voice squeaked even though I tried to make
it sound normal. I sounded like a baby.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because I made you angry.”
“Not because you made me angry. That’s ridiculous.
You have to pay attention. The problem is you. I’m angry
because I want you to behave and do your school work, and I
don’t think that’s so much to ask, do you?”
“No.”
“Is it so much to ask that you do what every other child
in the world does? That you behave in school? That you
clean up your room and not live like a slob? That you don’t
leave things all over the house?”
“No.” My voice squeaked and I breathed in air as if I
had been holding my head under water for a long time.
“I should say not. And what are you going to do from
now on?”
She walked into the room. She walked normally
without squeezing her shoulders together and with normal
steps, and she stopped next to the desk, not close to me.
“I’m going to pick my stuff up and not leave it on the
floor, I promise.”
“And?”
“I’m going to do my homework.”
“It’s not just that, although you have to do your
assignments. If the Teacher gives you a book to read, you’re
expected to read it. It’s that simple. But you also have to
behave in class and not just give flip answers when someone
asks you a question. I want you to apply yourself. Do you
understand?”
“Yes, but I did read the book.”
“Well, you have to complete the job and then listen to
the Teacher and answer his questions properly, and I don’t

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want any arguments about that.”
I couldn’t answer her.
“You understand that the reason I’m asking you to do
this is because you have to learn how to take care of things
and not be spoiled and expect other people always to do for
you?”
“Yes.”
“Is that so much to ask?”
“No,” I said, and the “no” sounded almost like a honk
and I started to cry hard again.
I gave up trying not to cry; I stood next to the bed and
looked at the floor and the tears dripped off of my face.
“Come here,” she said, holding her arms apart to hug
me.
I walked to where she was standing and she closed her
arms around my shoulders.
“You’re getting so big,” she said. “You know I love you,
don’t you?”
I nodded my head, crying with my face pressed against
her sweater. I couldn’t speak.
“And you know that we are all trying to help you?”
I nodded again and made pig noises and coughed.
“Come let’s get you a tissue. You’re getting tears all
over my sweater!”
She held my hand and we walked out of my room and
into her bedroom. I looked at the floor and let her lead me.
She gave me a tissue.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Blow. Everything is going to be
alright.”
I blew my nose and made more pig noises.
“Blow again. Come sit here next to me.”
She sat on the bed, which I wasn’t supposed to do, but
I knew that I was allowed this time. She put her hand on my
back.
“You know,” she said, “it’s tough being a parent. It’s
hard bringing up a child and making sure that they are cared

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for and educated so that they grow up properly. Did you
everyever think of that? I bet you never thought of that, did
you?”
I shook my head; I didn’t need to speak anymore.
“I have a tough job.”
I nodded.
“You’re lucky because you have so many people
rooting for you and helping you, and someday, when you’re
older and you get married and have a family of your own,
you’re going to appreciate all of the things I did for you. It’s
just like they always say, “Youth‘youth is wasted on the
young,”,’ and right now you just don’t understand, but
someday you will.”
She stopped speaking so I nodded my head again. My
breathing was more normal, and I started to feel happy sitting
next to her on the bed. I hoped that she would keep talking to
me. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Let me give you another
tissue.”
“I realize that I’m not always perfect,” she started
talking again. “Sometimes, I make mistakes and I know that
sometimes you’re going to make mistakes too, even though
you’re really a good boy. We all do. That’s just the way life
is. But we have to try and do better. Does that make sense?”
I held the tissue under my nose and nodded my head.
I felt tired. It would have been nice to lie down on the bed and
go to sleep.
“I know that you’re not the smartest kid in your class.
You may not be a Carl Lobell or one of those boys.
Sometimes I think that I made a mistake sending you to school
when I did and that I should hold you back.”
“No!”
“Well we’re not thinking of doing that now, but in return
you need to apply yourself better. It’s not just the grades you
get, you need to pay attention to improving your effort grade
too. Do you think you can do that?”

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 “Yes. I don’t want to be left back.”
“Okay, okay, I said we weren’t thinking of doing that
now. Just as long as you understand. And your teachers and
I are going to continue to help you. Does that sound good?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry if I upset you, but sometimes I just need to
let you know what’s what. Do you forgive me?”
I nodded. I was sad because I knew that now she
would stop talking to me.
“Good. That’s over and done with. Everything is
alright. I have an idea. I’ll make you a sandwich while you go
in your room and do your homework and then later you can
help me get dinner ready for Grandma Kay and Grandpa
Murray, and your Daddy is coming too. How does that
sound?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Remember, I love you. Give me a kiss.”
I stood up and kissed her.
“Come on, you can do better than that,” she said.
I kissed her again and hugged her while she sat on the
bed.



Gray light. I watched cars pass on the street below the

window: a brown truck, two taxicabs, a police car, more cabs,
a bus. A taxicab and a blue station wagon stopped at the
corner and then started moving again. If your mind is empty
and you only watch, time passes slowly. Then a memory, an
idea, can carry you away and when you wake up it is much
later, or maybe not much later at all.
“Sweetie.”
I got off the radiator box and walked into her room.
“What were you doing?”
“Looking out the window,” I answered. She was
dressed only in her underwear.

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 “What’s so interesting out there?”
“Nothing.”
“Go into the kitchen and get the telephone book for
me,” she said.
I went and got the telephone book out of the cabinet
under the counter in the pantry and brought it to her. She sat
on a chair near the bedside table and put the book on her lap.
While she turned its pages, looking for a phone number, I
stood next to her bureau, watching her and waiting. After she
had found the number and started to dial it, I walked back to
my room and sat down again on the radiator box.
The steam in the radiator made a ticking noise that was
first slow and then fast and faster until, suddenly, it stopped.
I could feel warm air moving, rising around me. Warm inside
the room and then at the edge there is the thin glass and
outside the glass, cold gray space. I sat with my forehead
touching the window, and tried to see straight down the brick
front of the building, something that I couldn’t do, I knew,
something that I hadn’t been able to do before, but maybe this
time would be different and I would see. Almost the same as
sitting in the air on the other side, above that space in the cold
gray light, and not to fall, but to be almost falling and then to
think of falling. How it felt, how long before hitting the
pavement?
“I need you.”
Again, I got off the radiator box and walked into her
room. She would want me to put the telephone book back in
the cabinet under the pantry counter.
“Sweetie, I need the step stool. When you go and get
it, put this away, please.” She handed me the telephone book.
I went into the pantry and put away the telephone book.
Then I brought her the step stool.
“Open it in the closet,” she said.
I did, and she climbed onto it and looked inside one of
the boxes on the shelves above her clothes.
“I know I have a little black pockabook with a gold clasp

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in here somewhere. Isn’t that silly that I don’t know where it
is?”
I waited and watched, but I didn’t say anything. Her
rear end covered by the shiny tight slip was in front of my face.
The slip, I noticed, had a lace border.
“Here. Hold this.”
She handed me a small purse and then another larger
one, and she moved things around inside the box.
“Thank you. You’re being a big help. You’re going to
be a good husband someday when you grow up.”
This idea surprised me. I thought about being a
grownup, but I couldn’t imagine anything in the future. After
trying for a minute I said, “I don’t want to grow up.”
She laughed. “What kind of thing is that to say? You
don’t mean that. Do you want to be Peter Pan and live in
Never Land?” and then she changed her voice and started to
sing: “I don’t wanna grow up. I don’t wanna go to school. I’ll
never grow up, never grow up, never grow uh-up, not me,”
and she laughed again. “Is that what you want: to be Peter
Pan? I think I’ll have to take this out of the closet to find it.
What do you think?” She started to pull the box out from under
another one and, while she did that, the telephone rang.
“Answer that, please,” she said.
I walked across the room to her bedside table and
picked up the receiver. “Hello,” I said.
“Who’s this?” a woman’s voice asked.
“It’s Mrs. Rosen,” I said to Aunt Doris.
I held the receiver in my hand and waited for her to get
off the step stool and take it.
“Don’t you say hello, how are you?” she asked me.
“I said hello.”
She took the phone.
“Helen, how are you? Forgive him, we were just
looking for something in the closet. How’s Bob?”
I waited for her to finish talking, because I knew that
soon she would want me to help her move the box.

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 (“They always said that: who’s this?”) I argued to
myself without speaking out loud. (“I said hello. She didn’t
say hello to me; she didn’t say how are you. They always did
that.”)
The next time I answered the phone I would ask her if
she knew what number she had dialed.
(“Who do you think it is? Who did you call?”)
I could act as if I didn’t know already who she was and
ask her what number she had dialed, but I knew that I was too
afraid to do that. I wouldn’t do that because I was afraid.
“Sweetie, close your mouth, and come and help me.”
She climbed back onto the step stool and handed me
the box. I put it on her bed, and she found the purse that she
was looking for. Then she closed the box and I helped her put
it back on the closet shelf.
“Okay. I’m done,” she said
I folded the step stool and carried it through the kitchen
to the maid’s room, and I slid it into the cabinet. After I had
put away the stool, I walked back to my room.
What could I do? I looked at the bookcase. The books
were in even rows on the shelves. Beside the books there
were knick-knacks: two marble bookends that looked like
horse’s heads and a picture in a metal frame of the kids who
had been in my bunk at camp the summer before, some fancy
toy soldiers like the ones that Carl collected, a bowl with a
plant in it and two rectangular clay heads that I had made in
Art. The record player on the counter under the book shelves
was closed and the records were in their jackets next to it. I
looked at the desk. Nothing was on the desk blotter. A bunch
of sharp pencils were standing in a yellow china mug between
the blotter and the desk lamp. The lamp had been in
Grandma Kay’s apartment when I was little, I remembered.
The bedspread was smooth and tight, the bolsters on top of it
against the wall, and the cushions on the upholstered chair
that also was from Grandma Kay’s apartment were puffed up
the way they were supposed to be. Everything was arranged

137
the right way, which made me feel calm. I sat down again on
the radiator box with my back against the side of the bookcase
and looked out the window.
“You have all those expensive toys in your closet,” she
said to me. “Why don’t you use them? I didn’t buy them just
so they could sit in your closet.”
“I use them,” I said.
“Well instead of sitting there and staring out the window
with your mouth open, why don’t you do something?”
“I’m going to do something.”
I got up and walked into the closet. She watched me
and then I heard her leave the room.
I moved the back of my head over the smooth side of
the bookcase until the upper edge of the frame that held the
window glass was just under a row of bricks in the building
across the street.
The blocks were piled on the floor in the middle of my
room. I stared at them and tried to see something that might
be part of a good building.
“I’m talking about using the other toys you have. You
always play with the same toys,” she said. “Why don’t you
use something else?”
“I like blocks,” I said.
“I know you like blocks and that’s fine, but there are
other things you can do too. You have all those expensive
toys. Why don’t you use them? Go on. Why don’t you get
some of those games out? It’s not right to just let them sit in
your closet.”
“Do you want to play a game?” I asked her.
“Those are for you to play with your friends, but you
can play with them yourself too. Maybe you can play them
tomorrow with Katie. Take some of the other toys out and see
what you can find that you might like to play with Katie. Come
on. I’ll help you.”
She went into my closet and brought out some boxes.
I put them on the floor and opened one of them: an erector

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set. The erector set had lots of metal pieces and little screws.
It was hard to screw the pieces together and I couldn’t make
anything good with them. There were pictures of good things
on the box, but I couldn’t make them. She sat on the desk
chair and watched me. I took two pieces out of the box and
started screwing them together.
“That’s it,” she said, “you can build with that too, you
know.”
I couldn’t make the screw tight enough to stop the
pieces from moving.
“What’s in the other box? Show me,” she said.
I was glad that she wanted to see something else
because the metal screw was hurting my fingers. I dropped
the erector set parts and opened the other box. It was a
game.
“What’s in there? Why don’t you take it out?”
“Take it out?”
“Tip it over. See what’s inside, silly.”
I tipped the box over, and the board and the cards and
the dice and a lot of cardboard things fell onto the floor.
“Let’s get some other games,” she went back into the
closet and came out with more boxes. She sounded as if she
were having a good time.
“Open them up and take everything out. Enjoy them,”
she said.
I opened the boxes one at a time.
“Should I put all of this stuff on the floor?” I asked her.
“Of course you can,” she said. “What do you think?”
Soon there were chips and dice and little men and
animals and cards and cardboard pieces all over the floor.
There was a pile of cards next to my knee. I picked it up and
started looking at the pictures on the cards.
“That’s it,” said Aunt Doris. “Dig in and enjoy yourself.
That’s what this stuff is for.” Then she stood up and started
to leave the room.
“Stay here with me,” I said.

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 “I have things I have to do. You go ahead and play.
Spread out and have a good time. I’ll come back later.”
“Please!”
“Not now. You play.”
“Why can’t I go to the party tonight?” I said when she
was almost in the hall.
She turned around and looked down at me. “I told you
already that it’s a grownup party. It’s not for children.”
“But Kate is going.”
“Katie is going because it’s her Father’s birthday.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“Of course it’s fair. Anyway, she’ll be here after the
party and when you wake up tomorrow morning you’ll see her
and you two can play.” She walked out of the room.
I looked at the junk on the floor. I couldn’t think of
anything to do with it. I didn’t know how to play the games
and, anyway, I couldn’t play them by myself because you
needed two people to play a game. I picked up some of the
dice and felt the little dots on their smooth sides. Then I put
them down and looked at a game board. There was a picture
on the board of a bunch of clowns getting out of a very small
car. They had big shoes and red noses, and they were
wearing stupid clothes and makeup. I had seen them when
Aunt Doris and Mrs. Lobell had taken Carl and Davey and
Tommy and me to the circus.
We sat in the dark and I looked at the small lights
bouncing in the air all around us. Davey and I were shaking
our flashlights over our heads. Carl’s flashlight was already
broken; I worried that mine would break, too. Davey pointed
his at my face and I put my hand up so that he couldn’t shine
it in my eyes. This was the best part of the show. I watched
the little bright spots bouncing up and down, and hoped that
the room would stay dark, but a big light in the ceiling started
waving around on the circus floor as if it were looking for
something, and then it found what it was looking for, a little
car, and it stopped waving. The car stopped and all four of its

140
doors opened at the same time and, as soon as they were
open, clowns started getting out of the car and the people
watching screamed. The clowns ran around and more big
colored lights turned on in the ceiling and the clowns waved
their arms and kicked their feet at each other like little kids,
and I could hear people laughing at them. More clowns got
out of the car, and that was a surprise because the car was
very small. Their faces were covered with makeup so that
they didn’t look like real people. They had circles around their
eyes and red dots on their cheeks. They had red hair that
stuck up in the air. They wore hats that were very small or
very big, but none of them had a hat that looked as if it were
the right size for his head. Their clothes were all wrong, too.
They stuck out in wrong places and bounced up and down,
and they were wrong colors. Their shoes were very long and
had fat toes. No real person would ever wear clothes like that.
More clowns got out of the car, and this was a bigger surprise.
How did so many people get inside of such a small car? One
of the clowns was carrying a baseball bat, and he started
trying to hit other clowns with it. Every time he swung the bat
there was a loud whistle noise. The people watching the
circus laughed, even though he was trying to hurt someone.
A fat clown wearing a dress sprayed water out of a bottle at a
small clown. I thought that the fat clown in the dress was a
man. The small clown, who had stubby legs, got a bucket out
of the car. He held it over his head, and he chased the big
clown. When the big clown was very close to the seats, the
small clown swung the bucket and lots of pieces of colored
paper came out of it and landed on the people in the seats.
They screamed and other people screamed. Then the small
clown with stubby legs dropped his bucket, bent over and
stuck his rear end out, put his hands on his cheeks and made
a surprised face, and ran away. There were lots of honking
noises and whistles and people were laughing. I looked at
Aunt Doris and she looked at me and smiled a big smile, which
surprised me. I looked at Davey. He wasn’t watching the

141
show; he was playing with his flashlight and saying something
to Carl. Suddenly, there was a loud siren noise. All of the
clowns ran back to their car and got inside as fast as they
could, and a little police car came out from behind a curtain at
the end of the room. The clown car started to go around in
circles and there were loud engine noises and the police car
chased it, and then both cars went behind the curtain and the
lights went out and the noises stopped.
I turned on my flashlight, but as soon as I started
waving it, a big light turned on and there was sad music. A
clown in very messy clothes was standing in the middle of the
light. He was holding a broom. Aunt Doris leaned over Carl’s
lap and started to whisper to me. Her face looked the way it
did when she told me that she was saying something
important.
“He’s very famous,” she said. “He’s really terrific.
Watch what he does. He’s really terrific.”
“Okay,” I said.
She was talking about the clown, who was trying to
sweep a small spot of light into a dustpan, but he couldn’t do
it, because it was a spot of light. It kept moving the wrong
way. The clown’s clothes were dark and dirty and torn, and
he had a big handkerchief hanging out of his pocket. The
makeup made his face look sad. He tried to clean up the light,
but it kept moving the wrong way, and then he started to cry,
and he took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. There
was a loud noise, and the people watching him laughed, but
he didn’t say anything. He just looked around the room, and
they laughed even more. That was bad, and I said so to Aunt
Doris.
“Oh, Sweetie,” she said, “don’t be silly. He’s just
pretending.”
“But why are the people laughing at him?”
“Because he’s silly. Don’t you think he’s silly?”
I didn’t answer her question.
“Why is he wearing dirty clothes?” I asked her. “Why

142
does he have to clean up the circus when he doesn’t have
clean clothes?”
“Oh, those are just his clown clothes.”
“But they’re ripped and dirty,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just watch what he does. His
own clothes are nice,” she said.
The light that the sad clown was trying to sweep turned
into two and then three and then four smaller lights, and I
knew that he was unhappy and felt stupid because he couldn’t
sweep them into the dustpan and lots of people were looking
at him. “They’re lights,” I screamed, but he knew that they
were lights because he was a grownup. He knew that he
couldn’t clean them off the floor, so why did he stay there and
let people laugh at him?
“Why is he doing that?” I asked her.
“To be funny,” she said.
“But you can’t sweep light,” I said.
“Well, that’s why it’s funny. Oh, I guess you’re too
young to get it,” she said
I wondered if Davey and Carl knew that he was funny?
I stopped looking at the board and threw it at my bed.
Then I crawled around the pile of junk on the floor to the place
where my blocks were. Maybe I could use some of the stuff
from the boxes to make a building.
Everyone would be at the party except me. If Kate
went, I should go too. It wasn’t fair. I was as old as Kate. I
went to Christmas and Kate came to my birthday. Why didn’t
Aunt Joan invite me?
I heard her walking in the hall, and then she came into
the room.
“Well, I see that you’ve been busy,” she said.
“It’s not fair that I can’t go to the party tonight,” I said.
“Please, are you going to start that again? I’ve told you,
it’s a grownup party. It will be over very late. It’s not for
children.”
“But Kate is going. That’s not fair.”

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 “Because it’s her Father’s birthday; she’s going for a
while and then she’s coming here. Now stop it. That’s enough
of that. I suppose we might as well clean up this mess,” she
said.
“Can’t I leave it here for a while?”
“Not like this. I want the house straightened up when
Aunt Joan brings Katie. Go ahead, put it away.”
“But I can’t put it away by myself.”
“Of course you can. It will only take a few minutes. It’s
your toys and your room and you have to learn to take care of
your own things if you’re going to use them.”
“Help me,” I said.
“No. I told you. You do it. That’s enough of this. Go
on. Be sure to put everything in the right boxes.”
“Turn on some lights; don’t sit here in the dark,” she
said, and she turned on the ceiling light. She was standing in
the doorway. She had finished dressing. “Linda is here.”
“Where are you going?” I asked her.
“Oh, just a restaurant with some boring grownups. I left
the number on a piece of paper next to the telephone in my
room. There are leftovers in the refrigerator for your dinner.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t stay up too late. You can watch TV, but I want
you in bed at a reasonable hour.”
“Okay.”
“Come on. Let’s go say hi to Linda. See me to the
door.”
I went with her to the foyer; Linda was there.
“Hi,” she said.
Linda was a nurse. She was wearing a skirt and a
sweater. She had big breasts.
“Hi,” I said.
I watched Aunt Doris put on her mink coat and a pair
of gloves made of very thin leather. Then I held the door open
for her and she walked into the vestibule and pressed the
button to call the elevator.

144
 “Don’t stay up too late,” she said “and clean up the
dishes after you eat dinner.”
“Okay. Have a good time,” I said.
She got on the elevator and Carl slid the door shut. I
heard the gate inside of the door bang closed and then the
sound of the motor and the twang made by the elevator cable.
I shut the apartment door and locked it.



(“Why shouldn’t you use a spread as an extra blanket?

The spread isn’t going to get dirty. It’s not even touching your
skin; it’s just touching the air, like a blanket. Sometimes, she
lies on her bed, and her hands and feet are on the spread,
and her hair. That’s less clean than using a spread as a
blanket. So why can’t you use a spread? If you’re cold and
it’s the middle of the night and you’re asleep and don’t know
what other blanket you can use and the spread is on the chair
near the bed? The spread is even unfolded when you use it
so it doesn’t get wrinkled.”)
My shoulders were tight, and I was walking fast, one
arm swinging. With my other hand, I held my briefcase.
(“And then she has to say, guess what. Take a guess
why. It’s not good enough to just ask me not to use the
spread. Does she tell me to guess because she thinks I don’t
understand what she’s talking about? Does she think that I
don’t understand? People say guess what when they’re
talking about something fun or something interesting or
exciting. Does she think that’s interesting? Oh gee! You
have to leave the bedspread on the chair when you’re asleep?
Boy, I’m really surprised and interested to hear that because
I got cold and I thought it would be okay to use the bedspread
as a cover because it is a cover. Boy, was I stupid to think
that. Thanks so much for letting me know. I can’t wait to tell
the kids in class; golly gee, will they be excited! The teachers
too. They may decide to have Class Meeting about it. It’s

145
time for Class Meeting about the bedspread. Guess what:
who cares about the spread? And why does she say what do
you think? Were we discussing something? Does she think
that we were having a discussion? That I think we were
having a discussion? She doesn’t want to know what I think.
What do I think? You mean what do you think, not what do I
think. Wow, are you clever; I’m just so amazed at the way you
said that. Everyone must want to be just like you. This is such
a fun conversation. I want to learn to say smart things so that
instead of just telling somebody something, I can be smart like
you.”)
I looked around; a bus was stopping next to the curb.
Had I spoken? Four or five men and two women were
standing at the bus stop, but nobody was staring at me. Carl
wasn’t there, though. He had left ahead of me, I was sure.
Would I be late? I looked at my watch.
The bus door opened. I let the grownups get on first,
and then I climbed up the stairs and showed the driver my
pass. All of the seats were taken and a lot of people already
were standing in the aisleisle. I pushed myself around the
grownups in front of me until I was next to the back door. The
bus started to move, and I gripped the steel pole near the door
with one hand and the stair railing with the other hand so that
I wouldn’t fall.
(“Guess what? Nobody cares what you think. Did you
ever think that? Why doesn’t she just say what she means?
Because she’s so smart. She pretends that I must have done
whatever I did because I don’t know that I’m not supposed to
do it. Wow, is she smart. Not like me, because I can’t
remember how to hang up a towel. Oh, isn’t this fun. We’re
so silly. We’re pretending. Let’s play pretend - our favorite
game. Guess what? You get to be the idiot who can’t
remember how to fold a towel and I’m going to surprise you
by screaming until my eyes pop out of my head, and we are
just going to have a great time. I’ll ask you what you think
about folding towels. Won’t that be fun? Oh yeah, that’ll be a

146
lot of fun. Well, guess what? I think you shouldn’t fold towels.
I think you should throw towels on the floor. That’s the right
thing to do with them, and now we’re going to have lots of fun
yelling at you because you don’t throw your towel on the floor.
Well no, you idiot. That’s the wrong answer. The right answer
is that you are too stupid and lazy to fold a towel the way God
wants it folded.”)
I jumped out the back door of the bus, hurried to the
corner and crossed the street in front of the stopped cars. As
soon as I got to the opposite corner, the light changed and I
was able to cross the avenue. Carl and Davey weren’t at the
bus stop, but a bus was coming, so I wouldn’t be late.
There were other kids waiting at the stop and I was the
last one to get on the bus. As I started to climb the steps, I
heard somebody shout. I looked outside and saw Davey
running down the sidewalk and waving at me. I stood in the
doorway so that the driver couldn’t close the door and
watched Davey. His briefcase was open and there were
papers sticking out of it.
“Get outta the door, kid,” the driver said. He closed the
door against my side. It hit my arm and then opened and
closed, hitting my arm again. I shoved my briefcase between
the door and the step.
“Hurry up,” I yelled at Davey.
“Move it, Kidkid,” the bus driver told me again. “I gotta
go.”
Davey jumped through the doorway, pushing me up
the steps. I stumbled and bumped into a man standing in front
of me.
“What does it look like I’m doing, you idiot,” Davey
said. He was sweating and breathing fast. We laughed.
The man I had bumped into stared at us and then he
turned around so that I was looking at his back.
“I wish the drivers would do something about them,” a
woman sitting near him said.
“They shouldn’t let them on the buses if they can’t

147
behave themselves,” somebody else said.
The bus driver didn’t say anything, except step back
from the door. He held the steering wheel with both of his
hands and spun it around, and the bus tilted and moved away
from the curb making us stand on our toes and hold one of the
metal poles between the seats so that we wouldn’t fall.
“Wow, that was a close one,” Davey said and we both
laughed again.
“You would’ve been late,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you already have detention?”
“Nah. I don’t think so. Do you?”
I looked at him. Davey knew that I had never had
detention.
“Do you want to come over Saturday?” Davey asked.
“We can go to a movie and then you can have dinner and
sleep over.”
“Sure,” I said. “But I have to ask.”
The bus tilted from side to side. I stood with my
briefcase between my feet and held on to the pole. The floor
shook and we swayed as the bus rumbled over the street,
going fast and then slowly and then faster again. I had
forgotten about her. I pulled against the pole or the pole pulled
against my hand, and my head rocked. Feeling loose inside
my clothes, I balanced so that I almost didn’t need to hold on
to the pole, and I opened my hand until my fingers were just
touching the metal. I thought that everything would be okay
when my real life started.
Then we were at the bus stop near school; maybe only
a few minutes had passed since Davey had jumped through
the doorway. We got off the bus and walked. Other kids were
around us, and I walked with Davey and started to think about
what we might do on Saturday.
Before I had an idea about the weekend, though, I
noticed that somewhere in front of us a person was shouting.
I looked to see who it was and what was happening, and I saw

148
a bum standing on the sidewalk near the next corner,
screaming at a building. The kids and the people walking past
him were trying not to be close to him.
“Look, it’s Mr. Smythe,” said Davey.
We both laughed.
“I think he has your test. Go ask him what grade you
got,” Davey said, and he pushed me towards the bum.
I laughed. “No. He wants to talk to you,” I said and I
stepped around Davey so that I was walking nearer the curb
and Davey would be between me and the bum when we
passed him.
We got closer to the corner and I smelled piss. The
bum was holding a bottle that was wrapped in a paper bag
and, in his other hand, a really dirty blanket. He had
newspapers stuffed inside of a ripped brown overcoat. I saw
that the coat had wet stains on it.
“What you think you are?” he was shouting. “I’ll come
here if I want. I don’t give a shit what you say. I think I’ll come
in you house. Get warm.”
He had a dirty beard and long greasy-looking hair. I
could see that his teeth were broken and he wasn’t wearing
any socks; he was wearing sneakers that weren’t tied,
probably because his feet were so fat. While I was paying
attention to the bum, Davey walked behind me so that I was
between Davey and where the bum was standing again. I
stopped moving because I didn’t want Davey to have a
chance to push me against the bum. Davey grabbed my arm
and tried to drag me.
“Let go of me,” I yelled. He was trying to make me
touch the bum.
The bum turned around and looked at me.
“You think you so smart you know everything?” He
said and he came nearer to where Davey and I had stopped
walking. “You better than otha people? I a person. It’s a free
country. That’s right. I don take no shit from nobody.”
“Yeah, you tell him,” Davey said, and he let go of my

149
arm, ran between two parked cars and walked in the street
past where the bum was standing.
The bum kept staring at me and I was afraid that if I
moved he would follow and get closer to me. I looked for a
grownup who could tell the bum to leave me alone, but
everyone on the sidewalk was walking fast and trying not to
see the bum or me.
“You think you right tell’n me I’m not here?” the bum
said and looked at my face. “Where’m I goin? What I do? I
gotta sleep somewhere. I gotta live. I don give a shit what he
say.”
The bum made a step and I almost started to run, which
I didn’t want to do, but he turned around and looked at the
building again. When he did that, I walked fast between the
cars into the street and past where the bum was standing, the
way Davey had.
“Who you think you calling like dat.” The bum started
yelling at the building again. “You want me freeze? He think
his building so nice I cain go in dair?”
Davey was waiting for me at the corner.
“Boy Mr. Smythe stinks,” Davey said.
“Don’t push me like that, you idiot,” I said.
“I thought he had your paper.”
“I’m serious. Don’t push me.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. Come on.”
We walked the rest of the way to school.
“You’re right, though. Mr. Smythe definitely needs to
take a shower,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Davey. “Mr. Smythe is a fat pig. They
should send him to a pig farm.”
When we got to our homeroom, I was laughing so hard
that I had trouble breathing.
I had Math after Homeroom. I sat at a desk in the back
row and watched Mr. Tinsley draw a line of numbers and
letters on the blackboard. Mr. Tinsley held his chalk as if it
were a teacup, and, when he wrote on the blackboard, the

150
chalk didn’t squeak. Each Teacher had a different way of
writing on the blackboard. Mr. Smythe banged his chalk
against the board making little white clouds of chalk dust; his
clothes got very dusty, and he broke a lot of chalk. When Mr.
Tinsley wrote on the board, the chalk just tapped and then
made a smooth scraping sound.
I thought that Mr. Tinsley’s name sounded like his hair.
Mr. Tinsley’s hair wasn’t brown and it wasn’t gray. I had never
seen a rat, but I had the idea that his hair was the same color
as rat fur. You could see that it was stiff, too, partly because
it never moved, but also because it looked shiny. Mr. Tinsley
was getting bald. His hair made a high wave on the top of his
head, as if there were a lot of it, but you could see skin through
the wave, and I thought that he would be bald.
Mr. Tinsley was different from most of the other people
at school. He wore tight pants and jackets, and pointed
shoes. When I saw Mr. Tinsley, I wanted to ask him why his
lips were fat and greasy and why his hair looked like rat fur.
This made me grin at Mr. Tinsley whenever I talked to him,
which wasn’t good, because I had to talk to him a lot about
bad grades and mistakes on homework. He would show me
what I had done wrong or ask me what I didn’t understand,
and I would look at him and grin. I knew that I wanted to be
nasty to Mr. Tinsley, even though in my other mind I also knew
that Mr. Tinsley was trying to be nice to me. I didn’t think about
that.
The bell rang and I put my notebook in my briefcase.
Everyone started yelling and banging chairs against desks
and scraping them on the floor.
“People! People!” Mr. Tinsley shouted and flapped his
hand in the air. “For tomorrow, Chapter 6, problems 1 through
20. I want to see all your work.”
I left the room as fast as I could and went to History.
Davey was already there, and we sat next to each other at
desks near the back of the room. Davey took a bunch of
messy papers out of his briefcase and put them on his desk.

151
 “How can you find anything in there?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?” he said, tipping his chin up in the
air and making a loud sniff. “I’m very organized.”
He pulled a sheet of paper covered with smudged
writing out of the pile, waved it in the air and put it down very
carefully. After looking at it and tipping his head to the right
and then to the left, he turned the paper a little, looked at it
again, and slowly rubbed it with his palm to make it smooth,
but also smudging the words even more. Then he put his
other papers back into his briefcase. The inside of his
briefcase looked like the inside of a garbage can.
“Is that your homework?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“When did you do it?”
“Last night, you idiot. When did you do your
homework?”
“It just looks old.” Davey’s papers didn’t need time to
get old.
Davey grinned and held the sheet of paper up in the air
again between his thumb and finger; he held it the way Mr.
Tinsley held chalk and while he was holding it he put his lips
together as if he were going to kiss somebody. Davey was
acting like Mr. Tinsley, but he wasn’t like Mr. Tinsley.
“This is a beautiful piece of very fine work,” he said.
“Very few people can understand work like this. Very few
people are capable of appreciating this type of interplay of
ideas. In the words of H. L. Mencken: ‘The human race is
divided into two classes: a minority that plays with ideas and
a majority that finds them painful.’ I am a member of the
minority.”
I laughed, even though I didn’t know who Davey was
talking about, and while I was laughing Mr. Smythe came into
the room, as usual not really stepping but instead sliding his
feet on the floor as if he were skating. He bumped into the
blackboard, then sat down at the Teacher’s desk. The chair
made a screech.

152
 “And here is the majority,” said Davey, and we both
laughed.
“It’s a good thing we sat back here,” I said.
“He forgot his wine and his blanket,” said Davey, but
not loud enough so that Mr. Smythe could hear him.
“He forgot to zip his fly,” I whispered, and we both
started laughing really hard but quietly.
The bell rang.
“Okay, okay. Everybody let’s get settled down,” Mr.
Smythe said, and he looked at me and Davey, so I tried to be
serious.
“What’s so funny, Mr. Levey? Would you like to share
it with the class?”
“Me?” said Davey.
“Yes, you Mr. Levey.”
“Sir, I would really like to share it with the class,” Davey
said, “but it probably wouldn’t be good right now. I’ll share it
with them later, definitely.”
“Yes, that probably would be more appropriate.”
I had stopped laughing; I was just grinning, but when
Davey said this I started laughing so hard that I had trouble
breathing, and everyone looked at me.
“Would you like to excuse yourself?” Mr. Smythe said
to me, and now he sounded angry. “Why don’t you go and sit
over there, away from Mr. Levey so you can get yourself under
control?” He pointed at an empty desk in the third row near
the wall.
“I’m okay here, Sir,” I said.
“Go on. We have work to do. Don’t waste anymore of
our time.”
For a second I thought about arguing with him, but then
I looked at him and knew that he would say no, and I thought
that he might give me detention because he was angry. I
didn’t want the other kids to see Mr. Smythe make me move,
but I had to pick up my briefcase and walk in front of people
to the other desk, so I did it slowly. I sat down and looked

153
over my shoulder. The other kids were smiling, but Davey had
made his face sad. His head was tipped backwards and he
was shaking it just a little, pretending that he was disappointed
because he didn’t approve of bad behavior. That started
making some of the other kids laugh. I wanted to do
something, too.
“Mr. Levey!” Mr. Smythe said in a loud voice.
“What?” Davey asked him.
“Pay attention. Do you have your homework?”
Davey picked up his homework and waved it in the air.
“Good. Everybody pass your homework to the front,”
Mr. Smythe said.
I took my homework out of my briefcase and leaned
over the top of my desk to give it to the kid sitting in front of
me. As I leaned, the desk slid forward a little bit and that gave
me an idea. While Mr. Smythe was collecting homework, I
took a piece of paper out of one of my notebooks and wrote
“move forward slowly” on it. Then I folded it. Mr. Smythe was
collecting the papers.
“Pssst,” I said at the kid next to me.
He didn’t move.
“Hey,” I said, just a little louder.
He turned his head. I looked at Mr. Smythe and then
down at the piece of paper, which I held next to my leg.
“Pass it on.” I moved my hand slowly across the
isleaisle.
“What is that!” Mr. Smythe yelled.
My hand jerked and I pushed the paper under my leg
quickly. I could feel that my face was red.
“I asked you what is that!” he yelled again even louder.
I looked up: he was staring at me. “Nothing,” I said
quietly.
“It’s not nothing. Get up and give it to me. Now!”
Without waiting, I stood up and walked to the front of
the room. Mr. Smythe held his hand open in front of me.
“Give me that,” he said.

154
 I gave him the crumpled note. He looked really mad; I
had never seen him really mad before. I thought that he was
just a fat sloppy teacher.
“It’s a piece of scrap paper,” I said, but I knew that he
wouldn’t believe me. “It’s nothing. Honestly.”
“What does this mean? ‘Move forward slowly?’ What
does that mean?” he asked me, again in a loud voice. His
cheeks were red and the hand holding the piece of paper was
shaking.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Come on, what does this mean! Tell me or you can
tell the Headmaster! You’re going to have to tell the
Headmaster anyway.”
There was a ringing sound in my head and I stopped
seeing the rest of the room.
“I just needed more space in my seat,” I said. I could
barely hear my own voice because of the sound in my head.
“Get out of here. Go down to the Headmaster’s office
and wait there.”
“Please,” I begged.
“Get out of here!”
I walked out of the room and down the hall without
seeing where I was. The air suddenly felt thick, wrong. How
could I stop this? I saw that I was standing downstairs in front
of the door to the Headmaster’s office, and I opened it. Inside,
his secretary looked at me. She would know that something
had happened. I had to make them think that this was a
mistake.
“Can I help you?” she asked me.
“I’m supposed to wait here,” I heard myself say. I sat
down on the sofa.
The Headmaster’s office was dark. He sat behind his
desk, and I sat facing him on a hard chair. There was a lamp
on his desk that made yellow light. My body was too big. I
could only see the yellow light.
“What is this?” the Headmaster asked me, holding up

155
the note that I had written.
“Nothing. It’s just a note, Sir,” I said and my voice
sounded far away. I was surprised that he had the piece of
paper.
“I know it’s a note. What’s it for?”
He was angry, too. I had to make him think that this
was a mistake.
“I just wanted more space in my seat.” He would have
to believe me, because he hadn’t been there. He didn’t know.
“No you didn’t. You passed it to the person next to you.
Why?”
How did he know that?
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing. Honest. It’s just a note.”
“This is very bad. I’m not sure why you were passing
notes, but now you’re lying about it and that is very bad. I’m
not sure what I’m going to do about this, but if you don’t tell
me the truth it will be a lot worse. Do you understand?”
I nodded my head, and I felt tears in my eyes.
“I’m going to ask you again. What is this?”
“I was just asking Eric to move forward,” I said. I felt
the water on my face.
“Yes, I understand that, but why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m losing patience with this. I have work to do.”
“I wanted him to slide his desk forward a little.”
“Why?”
He wouldn’t think that it was a mistake.
“To get closer to Mr. Smythe,” I said.
“Why?”
“No real reason.”
“I told you I want the truth!”
“I just thought it would be funny if we got closer to Mr.
Smythe while he wasn’t looking.” I wiped my face with the
sleeve of my jacket. There was no sound. I waited, or he
waited.

156
 “Lying is unacceptable.”
“Yes.”
The ringing sound in my head was very loud.
“I’ll let you know what I’m going to do about this, but I
want you to know that it’s very serious. Go to Study Hall and
wait for your next class. Get your homework from one of the
other students.”
I sat on a chair in the back of Study Hall and held a
book on my lap so that I looked normal. I couldn’t read it
because there was no space in my head for anything but what
had happened. It was done. It was really bad. Maybe I would
get two or four detentions or be suspended. Everyone would
know. She would know. The clock changed – the bell rang.
My body was too big. I walked through the thick air. A
car turned the corner in front of me; I was looking down and
saw its tires pass my toes.
She opened the door as I put my key in the lock, but I
wasn’t surprised. She looked at me and didn’t say anything
and then she said, “A fine mess you’ve made now,” and
walked into the kitchen.
I stood in the foyer without taking off my coat and heard
the ringing sound in my head.
“You could be expelled for this.”
The rooms seemed dark. It was all over; it was really
bad now. I wanted the real dark, to be deep in the real dark
where the noise would stop and no one would know.
“Maybe you’ll get away with a suspension,” she said.
(“Please forgive me. Let me die and be forgiven.”)
I made all of my muscles tight then tighter, (“I’m sorry.
Please believe me. I’ll never do anything bad again. I don’t
want to be bad. Tell me what you want.”) and pushed my face
into the mattress so that I could barely breathe. I wanted not
to breathe.
(“Please make a sign that you believe me. That you
know that I mean it. Make my hair white.”)
In the morning, maybe my hair would be white. That

157
would show everyone that God had forgiven me and that I had
suffered and was really good, but God didn’t do that just
because someone wanted it. It was wrong to think that God
would make my hair white, but maybe God would make my
hair white anyway.
There were sounds of talking on the phone. She wasn’t
talking to one of her friends; the sounds were different from
the sounds that she made when she talked to her friends.
She stood in the doorway.
“The Headmaster thought very seriously about
suspending you because of what you did. You know that,
don’t you? I thought he was going to do it. It would have gone
on your permanent record and then you probably could have
kissed College goodbye. He was going to do it. What you did
was very very serious.
But you got lucky. We’ve decided that you’ve suffered
enough and the Headmaster isn’t going to suspend you. You
could have even been expelled. You should thank your lucky
stars. You’d better think about this before you pull another
stunt like that.”
“Yes.”
(“Thank you. Please make my hair white so that people
can know.”)



Everything in the room looked gray, even things that

were made with color: the furniture and books, the pictures,
the rug, the top of my desk. I slid my fingers across the
smooth sheet of paper that was lying on the desk blotter.
Then I looked at the crumpled pile of paper in the wastebasket
next to the desk. Five hundred words — only five hundred
words.
I checked to be sure that the point of my pencil was
sharp enough to make good letters, but not too sharp. Very
sharp pencil points broke and when they broke they made

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smudge marks on the paper or even tore the paper, which
looked terrible. After the tip broke, the rest of the point didn’t
make a nice line, it made a thick uneven line and it crumbled,
and the letters looked different, which was bad, so you had to
start again on a new sheet of paper. That was why it was so
hard to sharpen a pencil. You had to be careful to make it
sharp enough to write good letters, but not too sharp.
I wrote the beginning sentence again: “Samuel
Clemens’s first important story was The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras County. This story, like others written by
Clemens, was about the American West”. As soon as I had
finished writing, I grabbed the sheet of paper and crushed it
against my leg because I had put an “s” after the apostrophe,
and I hated the way that sounded: “Clemens’s”. That sounded
terrible, and I had made the same mistake two times. I
crushed the paper into a ball and stuffed it into the
wastebasket. Why did I keep making the same mistakes?
("You’re allowed to write Clemens’, you idiot so why
don’t you remember to do it, stupid.”)
I wasn’t paying attention to the “s” because I was
listening to the way “story” sounded and thinking that maybe I
should use another word instead of writing “story” twice almost
on the same line, but I couldn’t think of another good word. I
had to say “story” the first time because I was talking about a
Short Story. What else could I say the second time? Saying
“story” the second time wasn’t totally right because Samuel
Clemens wrote books about the American West too, not just
stories. I thought about writing, “This piece of fiction, like
others,” but that sounded horrible. Anyway, books are stories
too, so maybe it was okay to leave the word in the sentence,
but then I was going to have two “stories” really close together.
Maybe I should think of another beginning sentence? But I
had tried to do that already and I couldn’t think of another
beginning sentence.
“Samuel Clemens’ first important story was The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. This story,

159
like others written by Clemens, was about the American
West.” An apostrophe at the end of a word looked wrong.
Looking at the apostrophe at the end of the word gave me a
crawling feeling inside my chest, and I wanted to throw away
the page but I forced myself to keep writing. “Clemens, who
used the pen name, Mark Twain, wrote many stories, books
and essays including, The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg,
My Platonic Sweetheart, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn.”
That was really bad. I had another “story” in the next
sentence – I definitely couldn’t have another “story,” and I also
had a lot of “Clemenses.” I could change one of the
“Clemenses” to “Twain” but then I would have to think of
another beginning because I couldn’t say “Twain” until I had
said that Twain was Clemens’s pen name.
“Right, that would really sound smart: ‘Twain, who used
the pen name, Mark Twain.’ Why don’t you write that, you
idiot?” I said to the empty room, to myself.
Also, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn” sounded like I was talking about one book. That was
really bad, although you could tell they were two books if you
noticed that there was no line under “and.” I could put a
comma before the “and” but Mr. Russell didn’t like it when we
did that. I had to start again, so I crumpled up the paper and
pushed it into the wastebasket as hard as I could. I noticed
that my other mind wanted the wastebasket to look less full so
that anyone who saw it would know that I was just getting
started and being careful, and not think that I was wasting
paper and couldn’t write an essay.
I would write the beginning just one more time. This
would be the last time, and I would pay attention and be
careful about what I said and the way I wrote the letters. I
could still use the same beginning: “Samuel Clemens’ first
important story was The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County. This story, like others written by Clemens,
was about the American West.” That was alright; the two

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“stories” sounded alright, I thought. I looked at the way I had
made the words. The writing was okay, so this part was
alright. What was the next sentence? I started to look for the
piece of paper I had just thrown away, but then I remembered,
and I remembered the problems with the “Clemenses” and the
“Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.” I had a
good idea for the “Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn,” which was that I would switch the order
and make it “Huckleberry Finn and the Adventures of Tom
Sawyer.” That would be good, but what about the
“Clemenses?”
The crawling feeling in my chest got worse and spread
to my arms and my head, and I wanted to rip up the paper. I
wanted to rip it and crush it. I wanted to stab the pencil, smash
the pencil into the desk but that might hurt the desk so,
instead, I threw it at the window as hard as I could, and then I
stood up quickly and picked it up so that it wouldn’t be lying
on the floor. I slammed it down on top of the paper, smudging
the letters, ruining the page.
Another ruined page, (“and then another ruined page
and then another and another for ever and ever and ever and
ever”). It never ended. (“Just five hundred words, ha ha ha
ha ha.”) It would eat me, I thought. It was eating me, I could
feel it eating me.
I walked to the window and sat down on the radiator
box with my forehead touching the window glass. At the edge
there is the thin glass and outside the glass, empty gray
space. Almost the same as sitting in the air on the other side,
above that space in the gray light, and not to fall, but to be
almost falling and then to think of falling. How it felt, how long
before hitting the pavement? Could I do that? Davey said
that when you fell off a roof or out of an airplane, you lost
consciousness and didn’t know what was happening. I found
a nickel in my pocket and dropped it on the floor; it fell very
fast. You would fall very fast. You wouldn’t be afraid for long
– but you would be afraid, horribly afraid. Would it hurt when

161
you hit the street, or would you just be dead before it could
hurt? Who could know. Nobody knew that.
The string that raised the blinds was hanging next to
my shoulder. I pulled it in front of me and started to make a
knot, but I wasn’t allowed to do that so I untied the knot. Then
I thought of making a noose. If I made a noose, the radiator
box could be like a gallows. You could jump off the box right
out the window and you wouldn’t feel falling or hitting the
ground.
“You wouldn’t feel falling or hitting but you would be
hanging there over the street, you idiot, and that would be
scary.”
That sounded worse than falling.
It didn’t take long to make a noose; I only had to do it
once to get it even. The noose didn’t look real because the
string was too thin, but it was attached to the top of the window
and the radiator box was something like a gallows.
I stood on the box and slowly put the noose around my
neck. Should I have the knot behind or at the side of my
head? Sometimes they put it at the side. I decided to have it
at the side. Everything seemed alright, except my hands
weren’t tied behind my back. Your hands had to be tied
behind your back. How could I do that? I had another idea. I
took off the noose, bent over and pulled the shoelace out of
one of my shoes. Then I stood up, put my head through the
noose again and held my hands behind my back. Of course I
couldn’t really tie my wrists together, but I was able to wrap
the shoelace around my wrists, so it was almost the same as
having them tied together.
I was chicken, so I faced the room.
They all watched me: men and women, but no children.
This isn’t the type of thing that you let children watch. This
isn’t for children. The men and women were very serious, and
they were disgusted with me because it was my fault that this
was happening. It isn’t pleasant when you have to hang
someone, but sometimes it just has to be done. At least after

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it’s over I won’t be a problem anymore. It’s too bad, though,
that I had to make them do something like this after I had been
brought up with all the advantages.
“Come on. That’s enough. We have a job to do so let’s
get it over with.”
“Do you want to say anything?” He had to ask that
even though he didn’t want to hear anything more from me.
“No.”
“Alright then, let’s get it over with.”
I jumped off the box. There was a clattering sound: the
blinds opened all the way and hit the top of the window. My
shoe came off as my feet hit the floor and I stumbled and fell
forward until the rope pulled me up hard, and the noose got
very tight around my neck. I lay on the floor with my head and
shoulders dangling and swinging a few inches above the
carpet. My head started to feel like a tire that someone was
pumping full of air. I tried to undo the noose, but my hands
were stuck behind me. Then I heard her key slide into the
lock in the front door: she was here.
I twisted my wrists as hard as I could. The shoelace
dropped onto the floor, and, when my hands were free, I was
able to hold myself up and pry the noose open so that I could
take it off. I untied the noose, lowered the blinds and looked
at them quickly, but carefully. I was lucky; they weren’t
broken. Would she see a red line on my neck? I rubbed my
neck as I pushed my foot back into my shoe. Then I pulled up
my shirt collar as high as I could make it go. She walked into
the room.
“Hi,” she said. “How’s your homework doing?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Why is there a shoelace on the floor? And there’s a
coin over there near the radiator.”
“Oh, it broke.” I picked up the coin and the shoelace
and closed my hand over them.
“Did you finish your work?”
She hadn’t noticed.

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“Almost,” I said.
Formatted: Font: 10.5 pt
Formatted: Font: Times, 10.5 pt

164
 Ann
We waited beside a dirt road somewhere in the woods.
I watched the truck turn around and then drive back toward
us; it made a cloud of dust, and I smelled the dust and weeds
in the morning air. The air was cool in the shade of the trees,
but a breeze that blew through a stripe of sunlight in the
middle of the road felt warm so I thought that it would be a hot
day.
The truck stopped before it reached the place where
we were standing. Not long after that, Emmett jumped down
onto the road from between the trees. Could the trail be
there? He walked to the truck and spoke to Mr. Lewis through
the open window. “I’m sure,” I heard him say and, “I
marked…before.” Then Mr. Lewis revved the engine, put the
truck in gear and drove past us. Even though he went slowly,
the wheels scraped more dust into a cloud that coated my
skin. Dust got into my eyes, and when I breathed, I could taste
it.
“Hey,” somebody yelled, “why’d he do that? He
could’ve waited.”
Some of the kids laughed. A few made loud barking
coughs.
We were completely alone now with only the food and
clothes that we carried. I had a big pot, some dried soup mix,
a box of Bug Juice powder and three loaves of bread with the
air squeezed out of them in my backpack along with my own
stuff. Would I be able to carry all that up a mountain?
“Alright, everybody listen up,” Emmett said in a loud

165
voice, but not really yelling. “We’re all gunna stay together. I
don’t want anyone more than three steps behind the person
in front of him. Nobody gets behind Paul, who’s gunna be last,
and nobody goes in front of me. Got it? Mike will be in the
middle.”
Some people mumbled, “Yeah.” I wondered why he
had said three steps and not four or two steps? Two steps
weren’t many. You might bump into a person who was only
two steps in front of you. You couldn’t lose sight of someone
four or even six steps in front of you, though, even in the
woods.
“And nobody goes off the trail. I mean it. Nobody goes
off the trail. You have to stay with the group. If you get more
than three steps behind the person in front of you, say
something and speed up. If you have to stop, tell the person
in front of you and he’ll pass it up to me.
Okay, men, put on your backpacks and get in line.
Let’s move; we have a long way to go.”
“Yeah, girls, pick up your bags and get in line,”
“Shut up, Ross,” Paul said.
I bent over and pulled one of my pack straps but I
couldn’t lift it over my shoulder. While I thought about what to
do, I watched Feller try to pick up his pack the same way. He
pulled harder and harder on the strap until he fell into a ditch
filled with weeds next to the road.
“Hey Fatso, did you have a nice trip?” somebody said
and a lot of people laughed.
I decided that the only safe way to put on the pack was
to sit in front of it and then slide the straps over my arms. After
I had done that, I couldn’t stand up again without rolling onto
my knees, and, with the pack on my back, I couldn’t bend far
enough once I was standing to brush all the dirt off my pants.
The truck had made me dusty anyhow, so it didn’t matter that
I had to give up and be dirty already, I decided.
“Okay. Everyone get in a line,” Paul shouted.
Mike pulled the hood of JJ’s sweatshirt. JJ started to

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tip backwards and turned to see what was making his pack
feel heavier.
“Hey, what are you doing?” he yelled. “Get offa me you
mo.”
Mike laughed. “Come on, get in line and stop fooling
around,” Mike pushed him forward. “Try and act your age.”
“Fooling around?” JJ yelled and laughed, stumbling
against the kid in front of him and almost pushing him off the
road and into the ditch. “Wait till you fall off a cliff. See if I
help you.”
“Oooo,” said Ross.
“That’ll be the day,” Mike said and laughed again.
“Why don’t you act your age?” somebody said.
“Shut up, Ross,” Mike said.
The line started to move. I watched kids slip and
stumble and then crawl up the embankment across the road.
A few were able to stay on their feet by holding onto branches
and pulling themselves into the woods. One after another
they disappeared. Would the trail be that steep all the way up
the mountain? That wasn’t possible, was it? When it was my
turn I tried to walk, but my feet kept slipping backwards.
“Come on, move it,” Paul said to me.
I had to crawl like a baby. The ground was dry and
dusty, and my fingers slid through the dust and scraped over
sharp pebbles. I reached into the woods without being able
to see what was in front of me, felt a tree branch, grabbed it
and pulled. The branch slid through my hand, scratching my
palm, but I pushed hard with my knees and reached forward
with my other hand. It found a smooth rock and I pulled on
that. Slowly, I moved up the embankment. A pine branch
pricked the side of my face. My knee landed on something
pointed, making me lunge forward. Then my hands touched
a flat spot. I looked up and saw a path, and I got onto my feet.
The other kids were standing on a dark trail in front of
me. I walked forward a short distance, looking at my hands.
They were scratched and there were green stains and dirt on

167
them. I wiped my palms on my pants and discovered that my
left leg was wet: my canteen was leaking.
While the rest of the kids crawled up the embankment,
I stood with the group on the trail. There was a lot of crashing
and cursing, but no talking, except by Emmett who said, “A
real bunch of woodsmen you are. You sound like a heardherd
of cattle.”
Finally, everyone was on the trail, and Emmett said,
“Let’s go. Keep together,” and we started to walk.
My backpack immediately felt very heavy and the
straps hurt my shoulders. After I had made a few steps, the
muscles in my legs started to burn, and I breathed faster,
panted or even gasped as if I were drowning. How could it be
this bad already? In the City I walked really fast and far
without getting tired. Would I be able to hike all day with a
pack on my back? It bounced up and down and from side to
side, and my clothes scraped my skin. The bottom of the pack
kept getting caught on my belt, pushing my pants down, and,
every time I took a step, the canteen hit my leg and spilled
more water. I was sweating and wet and wanted a drink, but
I couldn’t get the canteen off my shoulder because its strap
was under the shoulder strap of the backpack. Maybe the
mountain wasn’t very big and in a few minutes the trail would
go downhill.? It was impossible to see how far we had to climb
because the trail made a tunnel through the trees and I
couldn’t look around the kids in front of me. Their packs
blocked the view and, anyway, the path wasn’t straight: it
made a turn every few feet.
A branch hit me in the face. Then I tripped on a root
and almost fell. Soon I would have to tell them that I couldn’t
go any farther even though they would laugh at me and call
me a girl. They had to send me back to Camp; I wasn’t ready
for this, not strong enough. (“The truck is gone, you idiot. You
can’t go back to Camp.”) So they would have to stop and let
me rest. I wasn’t a Woodsman or anything like that; I couldn’t
do it.

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 “Slow down. This is too fast,” somebody behind me
yelled.
“Yeah. Let’s stop and rest.”
“Yeah. I need to stop. Hey, tell Uncle Emmett we need
to stop.”
Were the others having trouble too?
“What’s the matter with you babies?” I heard Mike say
behind me. “You want to stop already? We just started.”
“Come on. We’re not going that fast,” Emmett said
from somewhere in front of me
I didn’t say anything. I tried only to use energy for
walking. Other kids started shouting, though.
“Okay, okay. We’ll take five minutes,” I heard Emmett
say, and then I heard Paul yell something behind us.
“Hey, Emmett,” Mike shouted, “Paul says that there’s a
couple falling behind back there.”
Everybody had stopped walking. I sat down on the trail
and leaned against a tree trunk. As soon as I was on the
ground, I pulled my arms out of the pack straps, took off my
canteen and had a drink of water. There wasn’t much left
because it had been leaking. Where would I get more water?
I took off my sweatshirt. A fly touched my hair and landed on
my cheek. I tried to smash it, but it got away and flew around
my head. (“Nice, you idiot, you just slapped yourself in the
face”) but nobody had noticed. The air was getting hot and it
was humid.
Emmett walked past me going downhill. He looked as
if he were skipping, I thought, even though he was carrying
the biggest pack, a special one with lots of pockets.
“Where’s the stupid truck,” somebody said to him.
“You’re not allowed to swear,” somebody else said.
“That’s not swearing, dumb ass,” Ross said.
Emmett came back with Feller shuffling and stumbling
behind him. Feller was sweating. His sweatshirt was
dragging on the ground and the top of his canteen was
hanging by the little chain: he didn’t have any more water.

169
 “You all have two more minutes then we’re going,”
Emmett said as he walked past us. “Keep up.”
“Slow up,” somebody said.
I rolled my sweatshirt into a tube and put it around my
neck on top of my shoulders. Then I pulled the pack straps
over the sweatshirt. How could I carry the canteen so that
water wouldn’t spill on me? I put my head and one arm
through the strap and pulled on it until the canteen was behind
me, lying on the pack.
Emmett shouted, “Let’s move. Stay together.”
Slowly, I rolled onto my knees and stood. Then I bent
forward, bounced the pack as high as I could make it go on
my shoulders and pulled hard on the ends of the straps to
tighten them so that the pack would move less. We started to
walk again.
“Hey, JJ,” Ross said behind me, “if a tree falls in the
forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?”
“Ross, what are you talking about?” Walsh said.
After that, nobody talked. I watched the trail in front of
me and tried to make smooth even steps and not stumble on
any roots or loose rocks. Where the trail was steep, I pressed
my palms down on my thighs to help myself climb. This must
have been the way the Scouts and the Indians had walked a
long time ago, I thought. I had to walk like an Indian so that I
didn’t use all my energy before we made it to camp. My
canteen was probably leaking on the pack, making it wet, and
I hoped that the wet part wasn’t near my clothes or my
sleeping bag. When I moved things at camp that night, I
decided, I would cover everything inside with my poncho so
that my stuff stayed dry. I was stupid not to have thought of
that before now.
We were going slower; my legs weren’t hurting
anymore even though the pack still felt too heavy. For a while,
I watched the silver ID bracelet slide around on Gardner’s
wrist. His wrist and his arms and legs were so thin that they
looked as if they would break if you touched them. How could

170
Gardner carry a backpack? Emmett must not have given him
much food or any of the pots to carry. I looked at his canteen.
It was larger than mine and it had a better top. Aunt Doris had
said that the big canteens were too expensive and had bought
the small one when we went to the Camp Store.
Then I looked at the trees and bushes along the sides
of the trail. It would be really hard to walk through these
woods without a path. There were big boulders, thick bushes
and fallen trees all over the ground. It was a perfect place for
an ambush.
My foot slid off a rock. Unable to keep my balance, I
started to fall. Quickly, I wrapped my arms around the trunk
of a tree, bending backwards at the waist and scratching my
cheek on the bark, but staying on my feet.
“Spazz,” Walsh said behind me.
“Shut up,” I said, pushing myself upright as fast as I
could so that nobody else would see me hugging the tree.
“What’s the matter, Bozo. Having trouble walking?”
Ross said.
“Shut up,” I said again.
“Hey Ross,” Walsh said, “if you fall on your ass in the
forest and nobody sees it, does your ass hurt?”
The line stopped and Emmett shouted, “Take five.” I
pulled off my canteen and my backpack without looking at
Walsh or Ross, dropped the pack on the trail and drank the
rest of my water. Still thirsty, I watched Grossman and
Gardner drink.
“Hey, Gardner,” I said, “can I have some water?”
“Drink your own water,” he said.
“I ran out.”
“Tough. Drink slower.”
“I didn’t drink it. It leaked out. Come on. Let me have
some.”
“I told you, no. I need it.” He took another drink, and
screwed the cap back on his canteen.
“Thanks a lot,” I said.

171
 “Thanks a lot,” he imitated me.
I looked away and didn’t bother to ask Grossman or
anyone else.
We continued to walk and rest and walk and rest for a
while, maybe an hour, maybe two hours, or maybe more. I
decided not to think about being thirsty. I decided not to think
about my pack, either, or bugs or heat. I looked at the trail
and I looked at the woods and I didn’t think about anything
except making smooth and even steps.
Gradually, sunlight started to shine between the trees
on the left side of the trail. I noticed that it wasn’t very bright
and thought that now there must be clouds overhead. What
if it rains? (“If it rains, you get wet, you idiot.”) The whole time
that we had been in the woods, the whole time that we had
been in the truck and even for several days before we had left
Camp, this thought had been somewhere in my mind: what if
it rains? I had concentrated on the idea that we would have
good weather, that it wouldn’t rain, or, if it rained then it would
only rain a little. (“You can’t make the weather good by
hoping, even if you hope really hard”) but I hoped anyway. I
looked to my left through the trees; it wasn’t cloudy, was it?
No, it really didn’t look cloudy. (“Yes, you idiot. That dark gray
color means it’s cloudy. The sky isn’t gray when it’s sunny.”)
I could see more sky at times because a ravine next to
the trail made an opening in the forest. From the bottom of
the ravine I heard a rushing roaring sound: there was a stream
down there. As we walked up the mountain, the side of the
ravine became less steep and eventually the trail and the
stream were next to each other only a few feet apart. Water
poured down the mountain making a huge noise and cool
spray where it crashed into boulders and fallen trees. I
opened my mouth and stuck my tongue into the mist, hoping
to catch enough water to make a small drink. When we
stopped, I would be able to fill my canteen.
Then, ahead, something completely unexpected
appeared: log cabins with little front porches and, on the left

172
between the trail and the stream, a larger building.
“Hey, Uncle Emmett, what’s that?” Grossman shouted,
and other people in the line started talking and asking
questions.
“Is this where we’re sleeping?” Ross asked behind me.
The trail went between the cabins and the larger
building. Through its windows I saw rows of tables with
benches lying upside down on top of them. It was a dining
hall. This was a camp, but it didn’t look like anybody besides
us was here.
Again the line stopped moving.
“Everybody gather round,” Emmett said in his loud
voice.
“Hey, Uncle Emmett, can we stay here?”
“No, we’re not staying here, we’re just gunna eat lunch.
I need the peanut butter and jelly and a couple of loaves of
bread. Who has them?” He looked at us for a moment.
“Feldman and Walsh, you have sandwich duty. Somebody
has some raisins, too. The rest of you relax but don’t go far.
Don’t touch anything and don’t leave any trash. Okay?”
“Why do I have to make the sandwiches?” Walsh
asked.
“Because you want to eat,” Emmett said.
“Can I get water?” Feller asked Mike.
“Yeah, you can all get water, but remember if you fall
in you’ll be walking around wet for the rest of the day. Okay
Feller?”
I took off my pack and put it on the porch of one of the
cabins so that it would be protected by the roof if it rained.
There was a wet spot on the pack where the canteen had
been touching the canvas. I opened the top flap and slid my
hand between the canvas and my stuff. The sleeping bag was
a little wet, but it probably would be dry before I needed it that
night, I hoped. I closed the flap and then, after another quick
look at the sky, grabbed my canteen and walked up the trail
and around the dining hall to the edge of the stream. Some

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of the kids were already there, filling their canteens or walking
on the boulders in the water. Paul was there.
“Can’t I go swimming?” Ross asked him.
“Go ahead if you wanna hike in wet clothes,” he
answered.
“We can stay here and dry out.”
“You heard Emmett, we’re just eating lunch.”
“Why can’t we just stay here?” JJ asked him.
“Because we’re not.”
“Who lives here?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“But how did they get all this stuff here? Is there a
road?”
“I guess they just built it here. There aren’t any roads,”
he answered and started to walk back to the trail before we
could ask him more questions.
Bachmann was squatting on a rock near where I was
standing, filling his canteen. It looked like a good place to get
water.
“I call the rock when you’re done,” I said.
He finished and jumped back to shore.
“Boy, that’s cold,” he said.
“How do you think the people get here?” I asked him.
“They walk here, duh,” Ross said.
“With all their stuff, duh?” I said to Ross.
I jumped onto the rock, squatted and dipped my
canteen into the stream. The water was clean and clear and
felt as if there should be ice in it. I held the canteen under the
surface of a small pool next to the rock and turned it to let out
the trapped air. When the canteen was full, I took a big drink
that made the top of my head hurt. I rubbed my hands
together in the stream to clean off the dirt and sap that had
gotten on them, filled the canteen again and then stood on the
rock and looked at the dining hall. Somebody had carried all
the tools and nails up this mountain to make these buildings
in the middle of the woods? Then they had carried all their

174
food and clothes here? Why had they done that? Were there
bathrooms here? Did they have electricity? I couldn’t see any
wires. Where were the people who had built the place?
I walked back to the dining hall and looked through one
of the screened windows. The room was dark, but everything
seemed as if it were just waiting to be used. Maybe the people
were out hiking somewhere and would come back before we
left. There was a door near where I was standing, but it was
padlocked.
“Hey look at this.”
I turned around and saw Berman standing on the porch
of one of the cabins.
“You gotta see this, really,” he said to everybody, and
walked into the cabin.
Some of the kids ran over to the cabin and went inside.
Emmett followed them and so did I. The cabin had only one
room and no bathroom or even a sink. There were two metal
beds in the room like the ones we had at camp. The
mattresses were on top of the bed springs tied in rolls with
cord. There was a small table in the middle of the room and
there were two chairs next to it and some shelves nailed to
the log walls. That wasn’t what Berman wanted us to see,
though. He wanted us to see the stuff that had been left in the
cabin: boxes of cereal, an orange and blue box of something
called Oxydol, a metal can of Saltines, some other cans and,
on a low table between the beds, magazines. Berman wanted
us to see this stuff because it was old. The Cornflakes box
wasn’t like any that I had ever seen in a store.
“Wow, look at that,” somebody said.
“What’s the date on that Life?” somebody else asked.
We moved towards the table where the magazines
were stacked. On top of the stack was a Life Magazine with
a picture of a bride on the cover. Coles picked it up.
“June 22, 1942,” he said.
“What?” somebody said and other people said, “darn,”
and “gimme that,” and “let me see it.”

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 People reached to grab other magazines from the table
and things from the shelves, but Emmett shouted, “Leave that
alone,” and they stopped moving.
“Can’t we look at it?” Burke asked.
“No, leave it alone,” Emmett said.
“Why can’t we?”
“Because it’s not yours.”
So we all just stood and stared at the strange room.
Then Coles said, “Hey, it’s raining.”
I looked out the window. It was drizzling. I was glad
that I had left my backpack on the cabin porch, even though I
hoped that the rain would stop in a minute or two.
“Go on. Get out of here and put your packs under
cover,” Emmett said.
“You mean out in the rain?”
“I mean you go out in the rain, Feller, and put your pack
out of the rain.”
Some people left, but I stayed. So did Emmett and
Ross.
“Where are your packs?” Emmett asked us.
“On the porch of one of the cabins,” I said. “Why do
you think this stuff is still here?”
“They just left it here, I guess.”
“They’re definitely not coming back,” Ross said. “This
stuff has been here forever. Can I just take a magazine?”
“No, Ross, I told you.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s not yours.”
“They just left it here.”
“I don’t care,” Emmett said.
“Who built this place?” I asked Emmett.
“Don’t know,” he said.
I looked at the room. The camp was like a ghost town,
except that the buildings weren’t falling down and there
weren’t cob webs everywhere and thick dust on everything.
The place must have been deserted for years and lots of

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people must have walked past it and gone inside the cabins,
but nothing looked as if it had been moved. There was no
sign that anything had happened here since 1942. Everything
was neat and looked as if somebody had been taking care of
it and then had left for a little while, maybe a few weeks.
“Come on. Let’s go,” Emmett said.
He went outside and we followed him. I turned my
head and looked atin the room a last time and then closed the
cabin door.
Fat raindrops were falling slowly around the cabins.
The shower would probably end in a few minutes, I hoped.
Maybe the air would be cooler after the rain. On the porch
where I had left my backpack, there were sandwiches stacked
on a torn grocery bag that was spread out like a tablecloth. A
box of raisins was lying on its side next to the sandwiches.
People had their plates and they were putting sandwiches and
raisins on them. I waited in line to get my mess kit out of my
pack and take a share of the food.
“You need your plate before you get in line,” Mike said
to me. He was sitting with Paul under a tree next to the cabin.
He turned his head and started talking to Paul before I could
tell him that my mess kit was in my pack on the porch.
“Yeah, go get your plate stupid,” Ross said, and he
pushed in front of me. I walked over to the tree to tell Mike
that my pack was on the porch.
“What’s it doing there?” he asked.
“So it won’t get wet,” I said.
“We told you not to put anything on the porch because
the food is there.”
“Well I didn’t hear you. I was in the other cabin and I
already put it there.”
“Well next time pay attention.”
“I told you. I wasn’t out here.”
“Look, just go get your mess kit and take a sandwich
and don’t argue with me. You can do KP tonight.”
I walked back to the line and waited again. “Jerk,” I

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said, but not loud enough so that he could hear me.
While I waited, I looked at the sky. It wasn’t really
raining very hard; maybe the rain clouds would blow away.
When I got to the front of the line, I walked up the porch steps,
put down my canteen and opened my backpack. My mess kit
was on top of my clothes, which I had shoved inside the pot.
I unscrewed the wing nut, separated the plate from the pan
and took out my cup. Then I closed the kit and put it back in
the pack. I poured the last raisins into my cup, took a
sandwich and walked over to a big tree next to the dining hall.
Its leaves had kept the ground around the trunk mostly dry. I
sat on a root, ate my food and watched raindrops splat down
on the dirt. The rain made the warm air green-smelling.
“We’re leaving here in ten minutes,” Emmett said in his
loud voice while I was eating. “You better get your ponchos.
Don’t leave any trash. None.” He crumpled the paper bag
that had been spread under the sandwiches into a ball, picked
up the raison box and walked over to his backpack, which was
under the tree where Paul and Mike had been sitting.
“Why can’t we just stay here and keep dry?” somebody
yelled, but he didn’t answer.
My poncho was inside my backpack next to the pot.
Wearing it while I walked would be really hot. I decided to just
leave it on top of the other stuff in the pack so that I could get
it quickly if I really needed it. Meanwhile, it would keep my
clothes and my sleeping bag dry. I partly unfolded it and
spread it over the things in the pack, put my cup on top of the
poncho, closed the pack and then sat on the porch waiting for
Emmett to tell us that it was time to leave.
Soon we were walking again and completely
surrounded by woods. The camp was gone, only a memory.
As we walked, the light became dimmer. Just a few raindrops
reached the ground but the air still was damp underneath the
trees. The trail went up and down, through mud and over
rocks. Mosquitoes made the sound of air leaking out of a
balloon through a small hole, then bit the skin around my ears

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and on my neck. We crossed a narrow stream and then a
slightly larger one by stepping on slippery logs and flat rocks.
Once, Emmett lost the trail. We; we had to stop and wait
whileuntil he looked forfound it, eventually finding a path to the
right of where we had been walking. Finally, we came to an
opening where there was rocky, uneven ground. A small lean-
to built of logs sat in the middle of the opening and in front of
the lean-to there was a circle of black stones where other
people had built fires.
“Okay,” Emmett said, “put your stuff down and then I
need everybody to collect firewood before you do anything
else. Dry and not green, and no pine needles. Get some
kindling and some medium stuff like your arm. We’re gonna
eat mashed potatoes so I need the mix and a medium pot,
and the big spoon, whoever has them.”
“What else are we having?” Bachmann asked.
“We’re having hotdogs,” Emmett answered.
I walked quickly to the lean-to. It had no front wall, only
sides, a back and a tilted roof. The bottom was filled with pine
branches and dry pine needles, and there were spider webs
in the corners. There wasn’t enough space in it for everyone,
but there were only two backpacks inside. I put mine next to
one of the walls and hoped that nobody would move it. Most
of the kids were sitting on the ground, but while I was standing
there, Grossman and Gardner and then Walsh, JJ and Coles
claimed spaces by leaving their packs. That made the lean-
to look crowded. Feller started to put his pack inside.
“What are you doing, Feller,” Walsh said. “This place
is taken.”
“Whadaya mean?” Feller said. “I can sleep here if I
want.”
“No you can’t Feller. We have dibs on it and Ross has
that spot.”
“Take your stuff somewhere else, Fatso, there isn’t
enough room especially for you,” Gardner told him.
“You can all move your stuff because the Counselors

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are sleeping here.”
It was Mike. He was carrying his pack and another one
that must have been Paul’s, because it wasn’t Emmett’s. He
put them on the pine needles.
“You don’t need the whole thing,” Walsh said.
“Yeah,” said JJ and then Grossman and Gardner said,
“You can’t keep the whole thing for yourselves,” and “We
should be able to have part of it.”
“You can stay as long as there’s enough room for the
three of us,” Mike said and walked away.
“You guys better not fart in here,” JJ yelled at his back.
“Aw crap,” Walsh said. “Who’s moving? I have dibs
on the middle. Whose packs are those?”
“That one’s mine” I said, “and I was here first.”
“Yeah? How do we know?”
Feller took his pack and walked away. I looked in the
lean-to and decided that it wouldn’t be very comfortable
anyway. There were spiders and probably bugs crawling
around in the pine needles on the floor. The only good thing
about it was that it had a roof. No matter who was in there, it
was going to be crowded and hot. I didn’t want to lie close to
those guys. I decided to leave my pack inside and move it
later after I had found another sleeping spot.
People were already picking up branches between the
trees close to the fireplace, so I walked to the edge of the
woods behind the lean-to and, while I walked, I watched the
ground. It was mossy and soft in places but there were no flat
areas between the rocks that looked big enough to be a good
sleeping spot. Behind the lean-to there were two trees without
many branches to stop raindrops and the trees at the edge of
the woods weren’t very large either. Maybe there was another
small clearing nearby with more flat ground and some
overhanging branches. It would be good to find a thick bush
with enough space underneath for a person in a sleeping bag.
Most of the wood that I found was wet and some of it
was rotten; it had a strong leafy, dirt smell. I decided that I

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would have to take wet stuff or nothing, so I began picking up
pieces that were near the right size and when I had as much
as I could carry, I walked back to where people had already
left some branches in a small pile next to the circle of stones.
“That looks wet,” Paul said to me, or maybe to Berman
who was standing next to me.
“That’s all there is,” I said.
“Well look harder.”
A dragging noise behind me made me turn around.
Grossman and Gardner were pulling a log as thick as my leg
toward the woodpile.
“What are you clowns doing?” Paul asked them.
“That’s way too big.”
“You can break it,” Grossman said. “There are a lot of
branches on it.”
“Take it away and get something we can use,” Paul
said and laughed.
I went back to the place where I had been searching
and found a long dead branch. Was it too big? I stood on it
and broke it into pieces that I carried back to the woodpile.
Emmett was kneeling next to the fireplace rearranging
the rocks. He had made a teepee out of sticks and twigs next
to a stone with a flat top that he had put in the middle of the
circle. The paper bag left over from lunch and some bark were
inside the teepee. He took a match out of a cigar tube that he
kept in his pocket, held the match in his fist and scraped his
thumbnail across its head. The match sparked and made a
flame that he covered with the palm of his other hand. He
leaned over and touched the flame to the bag, which
immediately started to burn.
“Can you make this go?”
“Huh?” I said.
Was he speaking to me?
“Can you get the fire going?”
“Sure,” I said and got down on my knees next to him.
He stood up. “Get a good fire going around that stone,”

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he said, and walked away.
In a moment the bag would be ashes. I jumped up,
pulled more twigs out of the wood pile and crouched down
again in front of the fireplace. As I did this, I started breaking
the twigs into short pieces that I carefully added to the teepee.
The sticks started to smoke. I put my hands behind the
teepee and my face in front of it and blew gently. For a few
seconds nothing happened but then some of the twigs flamed.
I kept adding sticks and blowing until I felt dizzy. When the
flame looked strong enough to light a bigger piece of wood, I
got the parts of the branch that I had just found and put two of
them over the fire with their ends resting on the stone that
Emmett had moved into the circle. Then I gradually laid more
kindling and larger sticks around the teepee to make the base
of the fire wider. I was careful not to suffocate the flames and
stopped a lot to blow on the wood. It made popping and
snapping sounds and the pieces lying over the teepee flamed.
The fire was definitely going.
“Can I help?”
It was Bachmann. I wanted to take care of the fire by
myself, but I knew that other people were going to butt in. If
he helped me, then together maybe we could keep everyone
else away.
“I need some big pieces,” I told him, wanting him to
know that I was in charge.
The air had become misty and was making my skin wet
even though there weren’t any real raindrops falling. “Try and
get the driest ones.”
“Try and get the driest ones,” I said.
He went to the woodpile and came back with two more
dead branches, each almost as long as my leg. I pushed
another rock into the middle of the fireplace and laid both
branches on top of the two rocks so that the fire was
underneath them. There was a hissing sound and then a
popping noise. The teepee collapsed and some sparks shot
up in the air. The flames burned higher and the new wood

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steamed. It was really going.
“More big pieces,” I told Bachmann.
He brought back four medium-sized branches.
“I’ll put some on the other side,” he said, leaving two on
the ground for me. “They should be dry enough.”
“Don’t crush it,” I said.
“We’re going to need more wood,” Bachmann said.
I looked up and saw Emmett walking toward us
carrying a pot with a spoon in it and some packages of
hotdogs. He had a box of potato mix under his arm.
“Good work,” he said. “Let it burn down a little now so
I can put the pot on the rock.”
“Okay,” I said. I looked at the sky. “Uncle Emmett, we
should cover the wood.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He didn’t say anything else for a
few seconds and then he shouted, “Hey, Ross, where are
you?”
Ross walked around the side of the lean-to toward the
fire.
“Where’s your firewood, Ross?” Emmett asked him.
“I already got some,” Ross said.
“That’s okay, Ross. Take off your poncho and cover
the woodpile with it.”
“Why mine?” Ross asked.
“Because it’s waterproof,” Emmett answered.
“But I need it.”
“You don’t need it now. Soon you’ll be in the sack,
anyway. Cover the pile with it.”
“Listen everybody,” Emmett made his voice loud again,
“we need more firewood. After you bring two more loads, get
some sticks to cook hotdogs.”
Bachmann and I watched the fire while Emmett filled
the pot with water from a canteen, and put it on the rock. Then
he stood with Bachmann and me and watched the fire and the
pot while the other kids brought more wood.
“I guess you guys better get your mess kits,” Emmett

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said to everybody, but Bachmann and I stayed where we
were.
I decided that the fire needed more wood so that it
would be big enough to cook all the hotdogs. I got a few more
branches from the woodpile and put them on top of the flames.
Then I used a branch as a poker to push embers around the
rock. Emmett didn’t seem to mind that I had done that.
Paul started handing out hotdogs, and kids crowded
around the flames to cook them. Walsh and Ross got on their
knees between me and the fire.
“Keep out of this area,” Emmett told them, but not me
or Bachmann.
We continued to watch the fire. There was now a bright
bed of embers in the middle of the fireplace. The water in the
pot started to boil.
“Use your stick to grab one of those handles,” Emmett
told me.
I crouched down and pushed the end of my poker stick
under one of the pot handles. He did the same with the spoon
and together we lifted the pot and carried it to a place on the
ground next to the wood pile. Emmett poured the mashed
potato mix into the water, added some salt from a jar that he
had in his pocket and stirred with his spoon.
“Get in line everybody,” Emmett said. “You two better
get your plates,” he said to Bachmann and me.
I didn’t want to leave my spot next to the fire, but I did
so that I could have food. I was very hungry. Bachmann and
I brought our plates and our canteens back to the fireplace
and Emmett gave us each two big spoonfuls of mashed
potatoes without making us wait in line. I took a stick off the
woodpile and got two hotdogs from Paul. Then I kneeled
down and cooked my hotdogs, and had hotdogs and mashed
potatoes while I watched the fire and felt its heat dry some of
the wetness in my clothes. The food tasted like smoke. It
tasted really good and I ate it quickly.
“Flattop, when you’re done eating, clean this pot,”

184
Emmett said.
I looked at Mike. He hadn’t heard or he didn’t
remember that he had given me KP.
“How am I gonna wash the pot?” Flattop asked.
“There’s no water.”
“Just wipe it with some leaves. We’ll wash it tomorrow
when we find some. But get all the food out of it.” Emmett
looked at me: “We should let this thing go out,” he said about
the fire.
It wasn’t night yet, but everybody started taking out
their sleeping bags and arguing about who should sleep in the
lean-to. I sat in front of the fire and watched the embers,
poking them with my stick to make sparks float up into the air.
They looked a little like fireflies. My eyes became unfocused
and I began to see the abandoned camp again: I saw people
there. They were living in the cabins and they were eating in
the Dining Hall. In my mind, they were real, only in another
part of the woods. Maybe these people had come back to the
camp after we had left. They wouldn’t know that we had been
there, that we were here in the woods. The fire made my eyes
dry. I looked away from the embers, blinking. Was the sky
dark because it was almost night or because it was cloudy?
Without a clock you couldn’t know.
I decided that I had better find a place to sleep, so I
carried my plate and canteen back to the lean-to. Ross was
there, yelling at some other kids about where they were
allowed to sleep. Somebody had taken my backpack out of
the lean-to: it was on the ground next to where Ross was
standing.
“Ross,” I yelled, “did you move my backpack?”
“I didn’t touch your pack.”
“Somebody did.”
“Tough shit.”
“This place is taken,” Walsh said.
“I was here first,” I told him.
“You’re not here now,” Walsh answered.

185
 “Jerk,” I said to Walsh.
“Oooo. Why don’t you cry about it,” Walsh said.
I picked up my pack and took it behind the lean-to.
Through the wall, I heard Walsh call me a mo.
“Enjoy sleeping in there with all the spiders and bugs,
jerk,” I yelled, and while I was yelling I thought that this was a
stupid thing to say and not the real thing that I wanted to tell
him. (“It’s always like that.”)
Again I walked around looking for a good place to
sleep. The ground was rough everywhere and there was no
shelter. I stopped to piss on a tree at the edge of the clearing.
Maybe the lean-to wall would protect me a little if it rained. I
walked back to my pack and took out my poncho, my sleeping
bag and my ground cloth. The sleeping bag was damp even
though it had been covered by the poncho. I laid the ground
cloth next to the wall and unrolled the sleeping bag on top of
it. Then I turned the ground cloth and the bag so that my head
would be higher than my feet and dragged the backpack near
to where my head would be while I slept. I covered the
sleeping bag with the poncho and got my towel out of the pack
to use as a pillow.
Other people crouched in little groups around the edge
of the clearing and got ready to sleep.
“Will you move over,” I heard one of the kids in the lean-
to say.
“You move over,” someone answered.
“Ross, if you don’t shut up I’m throwing you out of
here,” Paul said.
I sat down on the ground cloth and looked at the sky;
maybe it wouldn’t rain. Holding my feet in the air to keep them
clean, I took off my shoes and socks, put my socks in the
shoes and the shoes under my pack. Then I twisted on my
butt and slid into the bag. When I was lying down, I squirmed
out of my pants, rolled them up and pushed them into the
bottom of the bag with my feet.
There was a hard point under my hip and the sleeping

186
bag was wet next to my feet, probably because it had been
touching the canvas where the canteen had spilled water. I
rolled away from the hard point, landed on another one and
knew that I wouldn’t find anyplace flat and soft to lie.
Mosquitoes were biting the skin around my ears, so I slid as
far into the bag as I could and dragged the towel over my
head. As soon as I was completely covered by the bag and
the towel, I started to sweat. Would I be cooler if I took the
poncho off the sleeping bag? I thought about this; if it rained
the uncovered bag would be soaked.
I wished that we could have stayed in the camp. What
was different about being in the woods here, or staying there,
where we could have slept in cabins? That was the only thing
that was different; the woods were the same. The forest
changed without really changing and was the same
everywhere and on any day and even in any year, except for
the seasons, but the seasons didn’t matter really, did they?
The seasons happened over and over again, and so you
might say: “I was in the woods in the summer of 1942,” or “I
was in the woods in the summer of 1952,” or “1932,” and what
would be the difference? We were in the same forest as the
Camp People and as the Indians, but we didn’t see them. Did
we think that they had gone forever or were they just in
another part of the woods? Either way, we remembered them
as if they were alive; it was all the same. The question that
Ross had asked JJ about the forest was stupid because the
sound is part of the tree like the branches and the roots. The
sound is always with the tree, but where is the tree? At least
in the cabins, we would have been dry.
The gray sky got darker and the embers shimmered in
front of my eyes. The fire was hot. I had trouble walking. I
straightened my legs and tried to take smooth, even steps. A
kid walked around the edge of the lean-to dragging his
sleeping bag behind him. He came back to camp. A bride
was with him. There was water on my face so I dried it with a
towel. I listened to wind blowing through the leaves and saw

187
the surf flowing over the sand. The pack strap hurt my
shoulder, so I turned onto my back, and then Emmett shouted
get up, it’s morning, and I saw that the sky was gray.
For a couple of minutes I looked at the sky and didn’t
move, but lying on the ground was uncomfortable and I
decided that dressing would be better than staying where I
was, so I pulled my pants out of the bottom of the sleeping
bag and started to put them on. They were damp and smelled
like fire smoke and they were dirty. After what seemed like a
long time, I finished tying my shoes and stood. My muscles
were having trouble remembering how to do things.
What should happen next? Pack my stuff? I stared at
the things around my feet. The sleeping bag, I noticed, wasn’t
on the ground cloth anymore. There were little puddles of
water on the bag and on everything in the field. I decided that
I should just put my stuff in my pack; nothing would dry if I left
it on the ground. After I had closed the pack, I noticed that I
was hungry so I opened it again, took out my plate and walked
to the fireplace hoping to find some food.
Emmett had already made a fire and cooked oatmeal
in the pot. He gave me some, and poured a little brown sugar
on top of it. Other kids came to get breakfast.
“I want to be out of here in twenty minutes,” he told us.
Even though he spoke in his loud voice, his words sounded
as if they were coming from far away, as if my head were
under waterunderwater. “Finish eating and then police the
area. Make sure that you pick up everything.”
After I had eaten my oatmeal, I went and pissed on the
tree at the edge of the clearing. Then I got my pack and sat
on it next to the fireplace. I stared at the embers. Emmett
started scraping dirt off the ground with his plate; he dumped
the dirt on the fire. I watched and then, noticing that my own
plate was on the ground in front of my feet, I stood up and
used it to help him.
“Thanks,” he said. “Finish that off for me. Make sure
nothing is still burning.”

188
 I didn’t say anything; I just kept scraping up dirt and
pouring it on the wood coals. Eventually I couldn’t see them
anymore. A few minutes later, Emmett said let’s go, and we
put on our packs and left the clearing.
The camp disappeared and we were surrounded again
by woods. Not asleep but not awake either, I looked at the
trail and wondered for a second whether we were walking
back to the road or in some other direction. (“What do you
think, you idiot?”) In this way we continued, sometimes
stopping, sometimes eating, sometimes sleeping. I walked
and had thoughts that didn’t seem to be made in my own
mind. Then, on the fifth day or maybe the fourth day, the trees
got shorter, the air hotter and the brush thicker. It crowded
the trail and scraped my skin as we crashed past it on the
narrow path, and suddenly we were standing again beside a
dirt road somewhere in the woods, and I had the feeling that I
had traveled to another world.

  

“You havta play football this year,” Matt said. “You are,
right?”
“Are you playing football?” I asked Davey later.
He laughed. “No way,” he said. “I’ve got bad knees.”
“Whada ya mean, bad knees?”
“My knees hurt when I do sports.”
Davey was great at sports.
“So, they’ll get better,” I said.
“Not without an operation.”
He didn’t want to play.
We sat on the ground under a tree behind the water
bucket and watched the older kids run plays.
“School starts in three days,” Matt said.
“Yeah.”
“Did you hav’ta say that?” Tommy said.
I took off my helmet and looked at the crack in the

189
plastic above the right ear hole. I could smell my sweat in the
helmet and also dog shit and car exhaust in the Citycity air.
Three days was a lot of time if you just thought about now and
the moment after now.
“Do you think we’ll do anything else?” Tommy asked
Matt or maybe me.
“Naw, we’re done,” Matt said.
That let me feel calm: we were done until tomorrow,
except for running. I would worry about tomorrow when
tomorrow happened.
A girl walked toward us on the other side of the field
holding the strap of a book bag over her shoulder with one
hand, and, in her other hand, carrying a brown paper bag in
her other hand. She was Hartman’s girlfriend. I knew that we
were all watching her. She wore a light-blue sweater and a
short blue and gray plaid skirt; the bottom of the skirt touched
the skin above her knees. I looked at her legs. She was
wearing long tight socks that covered her calves. You would
be able to see the shapes of her ankle bones through the
socks when she was closer; in a part of your mind you saw
them already.
“I hope he doesn’t make us run too much,” I said.
“You don’t run anyway,” Stein said.
“I run the same as you.”
“You wish.”
“I don’t hav’ta wish.”
“Right. If you wanna think that.”
She walked around the practice area and waved to
Hartman who was standing behind the center. He must have
seen her but he didn’t move. He wasn’t allowed to stop the
play, but that meant that he was being rude to her. Did he
worry about that? The center snapped the ball and Hartman
took one backward step, then turned and handed off to
Woods. Woods held the ball against his chest and ran
between the guard and the tackle about fifteen yards into what
would be the defensive backfield during a game. It was

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almost impossible for one person to stop Woods.
The girl put her book sack on the ground under a tree
near where we were sitting and waved to Hartman again. As
she waved, we watched her bounce on the toes of her saddle
shoes, making her skirt swing around her thighs.
“Running is good,” Dan said.
“Great,” Matt said and laughed.
I looked at Hartman and wondered what he would do.
“Running makes you stronger,” Dan said.
“We don’t need to be stronger,” I said. “We’re J.V.”
“You wanna play well,” Dan said. “You wanna play
Varsity next year.”
“We’re not playing next year.”
“Speak for yourself. I’ll play,” Stein said.
Makris blew his whistle. “Okay, get a drink,” he yelled.
We watched the girl smile at Hartman. She wasn’t
angry; she was certain that he would come to her, and he did.
He took off his helmet and walked to where she was standing
and that was what she wanted even though he was dirty.
None of us said anything.
She gave him the paper bag, then put her hands on his
shoulder pads, stood on her toes and kissed his lips; everyone
could see her do it. While Hartman drank the bottle of juice
that had been in the bag, she talked to him. Standing near
Hartman showed the girl’s cleanness and also something else
about her. What was the other thing? She had made
Hartman do something, but next to him she seemed very
small. After he had finished drinking the juice, Hartman spoke
to her first with both hands held open in front of him, then
pointing with one hand in the direction of the field. He shook
his head. The girl listened and smiled, then she kissed him
again, picked up her book bag and walked past us towards
the other side of the park. We turned our heads to watch her
walk away.
The kids in my group had been told to put on bathing
suits and bring soap and towels to the dock.

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 We washed in the lake. It was hard to get the soap off
my skin in the cold water. When Jack said that we were clean,
we dried ourselves and went back to our bunks where we
dressed in regular clothes, not camp uniforms. I wore khaki
pants and a navy-blue shirt that she had packed in the bottom
of my trunk. They were damp and creased and they smelled
like clean clothes from the Citycity laundry. I put on my
leather belt and brown loafers. Then I took my comb to the
bathroom and combed my hair until I had a straight part. I
hoped that nobody had noticed me redo the part to make it
right.
“So, are you guys ready?” Jack asked us. He was
wearing clean clothes too, and a regular shirt, not a Staff shirt.
Nobody answered.
“It’s gunna be fun,” he said.
“Right,” Ross said.
“How do you talk to them?” I asked him. He knew
something important about this, I was sure.
“Talk to them like you’d talk to anybody.”
“But what do you talk about?”
“Ask them about camp – ask them if they like camp.
Ask them what they like to do.”
He thought that it was easy because he knew.
“This stinks,” Miller said.
“I don't know,” I said.
“What are you worried about?” Ross said to me.
We waited for them in front of the Dining Hall. They
came from the parking lot walking in a line, watching us as we
watched them.
Inside the Dining Hall, they stood in a group in front of
the tables where the Cookcook had put snacks. The tables
had been moved to make an open space for dancing. We
stood on the other side of the room near the wall.
Music started to play through John Woo’s
loudspeakers and then stopped. Ed and a woman walked into
the middle of the room. Ed said to have fun and that nobody

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should leave the room. The woman said that nobody was
allowed to leave the room; why. Why did she think that she
could make rules for us? Where did they think we would go?
The music started again and that was the only sound
in the Dining Hall. Nobody moved. Then I heard Mike tell JJ
that he should pick a girl and dance with her.
“You first,” JJ said.
He tried to walk away from Mike, but Mike followed him.
“This isn’t my dance, Ace,” Mike said, laughing and
holding him by the shoulder. “Are you chicken?”
“Takes one to know one,” JJ said.
“Come on,” I heard Jack say behind me, “I’ll go over
there with you. They’re your guest. You can’t just leave them
standing there.”
Without turning around to look at him because I didn’t
want to attract his attention, I walked slowly away from his
voice. I decided that eventually the Counselors would make
us all dance, so I started looking carefully at each of the girls
in front of the snack tables, which I had been doing anyway.
Looking for what; what did I want to find? Most of the girls
were at least a little ugly, I thought, for different reasons: their
faces, or they had bodies that could have belonged to different
people, top and bottom, or they were just fat. Grandma Kay
would have said, “They must have extra good food at that
camp.” Did their camp give them better bunks too because
they were girls?
I had stopped being careful about who was near me
and I felt a girl hand grab my wrist before I had a chance to
get away. A Counselor from the Girl Camp had snuck across
the dance area and grabbed me.
“Come on. Let’s dance,” she said, laughing because
she had caught me.
“I’m a kid,” I said, trying to pull my hand free, but I
couldn’t.
Even though her touch was soft, it was strong. She
was like a grownup woman with soft hands and red

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fingernails.
“So? Can you dance?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She started to fast dance so I had to dance with her. I
could feel my face get red. Everyone could see me.
“That’s great,” she said. “Where are you from?”
“The City.”
“Oh. I’m from here.”
“Really? You live here all the time?”
“Not exactly here.” She laughed. “I go to College near
here.”
“Wow. You go to College? Here? You must get cold.”
“Listen. You should dance with one of the girls,” she
said. We hadn’t even danced to one whole song. “What
about her?” She pointed to a girl standing in front of the snack
tables who smiled. The girl looked like a bird, but there was
also another girl standing near her who looked okay. I knew
that the other girl looked okay because I had seen her walk
into the Dining Hall. I could pretend that I thought that the Girl-
Camp Counselor had told me to dance with the other girl. I
could do that even if the other girl or someone else wanted to
know why I had asked her to dance.
“Okay,” I said and walked quickly past the smiling-bird
girl.
“Do you wanna dance?” I asked the other girl.
“Yes,” she said and smiled.
“Okay.” I turned around and walked back to the open
space and she followed me. The smiling-bird girl was mad, I
saw from the side of my eye as I passed her, but that would
be okay because the Girl-Camp Counselor hadn’t said in
words to dance with her and I was dancing with someone,
which was what the Counselor wanted.
“What’s your name?” I asked the other girl.
“Lisa,” she said.
We fast danced. She did look really good, not the way
I had expected her to look, but better I thought. She had blue

194
eyes and her hair was wavy and a dark gold color and also
brown. You could see that each of her hairs was a different
color of gold and brown when you were close to her. She
didn’t seem to mind that I had asked her to dance, so I thought
that I could talk to her. I hoped that my face wouldn’t get red.
I knew that I looked really stupid.
“Do you like camp?” I asked her.
“Yeah. I’ve been going for five years.”
“Oh. That’s a long time.
“Yeah.”
We danced. What should I say next?
“Do you like camp?” she asked me.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“What do you like to do?”
“I like making stuff in shop. You know: projects. And I
guess I like shooting.”
“Shooting?”
“Yeah. 22s. Do you do that?”
Even while I asked her the question, I knew that girls
didn’t shoot. I was totally stupid.
“No, we don’t do that. Are you a good shooter?”
She didn’t laugh at me.
“Yeah, I guess. I usually get 98 or 99 and a lot of times
100. A few 97s.”
Was I lying? No, that was true. Was I bragging?
“Oh,” she said.
When the song was over, people started walking
around the room and bumping into each other, and I noticed
that a lot of the other kids had been dancing too. I decided
that I had been lucky to be one of the first people to pick so
that I wasn’t forced to dance with someone like the bird girl.
What would happen if another kid tried to dance with Lisa?
“Do you want a snack?” I asked her.
“If you do,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
We had Bug Juice and little pretzels. Then a slow song

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started playing.
“Do you wanta keep dancing?” I asked her.
“If you do,” she said.
“Sure,” I said, so we went back to the open space.
She looked at me and smiled; I was going to have to
put my hands on her body. I raised my arms and made a step
forward and she did the same, and then I did put my hands on
her: I held her right hand in my left hand and I put my right
hand on her back. Her sweater felt soft and she smelled clean
and like flowers and lemon. Our faces were close together
and she smiled. I lifted my right hand and moved it higher on
her back to make my arm more comfortable, and when I
touched her again I almost jumped because I could feel her
underwear through her sweater. What should I do? She was
still smiling, but she knew what I was thinking. Slowly, I lifted
my hand and moved it back to where it had been. The skin
on my face felt as if it were burning.
“This is a good song,” she said. “Do you like this
song?”
“Yes,” I said. I did like the song, although I hadn’t
noticed before that I liked it.
I did like the song, although I hadn’t noticed before that
I liked it. We danced some more. We didn’t talk, but that felt
okay.
“Where do you live?” she asked me.
“In the City. Do you live in the City?”
“I live outside it. Not far though.”
“Oh.”
I wasn’t going to see her again. I decided not to think
about that.
“Come on,” Matt said. “Time to wake up and have a
nice little run.”
“What?”
“Time to wake up and run.” He laughed.

  

196
 “Listen to this,” Matt said. A new song was playing on
the radio.
“How does he sing like that?” Tommy said. “Jeeze.”
“He must havetahafta have somebody kick him in the
balls every time,” Dan said.
We laughed.
“It sounds that way. It’s good, though,” Matt said
“don’tya think?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Very impressive,” Davey said.
“Come on. You like it, don’tya?” I asked him, and my
other mind had the idea that I was begging. The song was
good though; we all should know that it was good and like it.
“I love it,” Davey said. “How could anybody not love
listening to a guy who sounds like a girl sing about lions. It’s
a classic. Fats Waller would be envious.”
Everybody laughed again. Who was Fats Waller? Did
Matt know about Fats Waller? Davey grinned at me.
I felt angry and drank the rest of my Coke so that I didn’t
have to see him.
“Well, I have to go,” Davey said.
That made me remember to look at my watch. It was
twenty-to-six; how had it become twenty-to-six so fast? I was
almost late even though it seemed as if we had been at Matt’s
house for only a few minutes. Should I call her? If I called
her, she would make me answer questions and she would be
mad.
“She would be angry.”
“No, she would be mad, Mr. Russell.”
I decided just to leave with Davey. If I left now with
Davey, I really wouldn’t be late, I thought, but my second mind
was unsure about this.
“I’ve gotta go too,” I said.
“Do you really have’ta go?” Matt asked me. “Stay for
one more song.”

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 “No,” I said.
“Just one?”
“Oh well. Okay. One.”
It really wouldn’t make a difference if I stayed for just
one more song. I looked at Davey, who was putting on his
coat.
“Stay for one more song and I’ll go on the bus with you,”
I said to him.
“No. I’m going,” he said, “bye.”
He walked out of the room and Matt followed him. I
heard the front door open and close, and then Matt came
back. The next song was playing.
“This one isn’t any good,” Dan said, and we all agreed.
I couldn’t remember the name of the song or of the band that
played it, but anybody would know this song – I was sure that
I knew it, didn’t I?
“You want more Coke?” Matt asked us. “You can have
another one, but then you havetahafta leave.”
“I’d better leave now,” I said, suddenly feeling a need
to move, to be moving.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Maybe I could catch up with Davey. I put on my coat
quickly.
“Okay.”
Matt walked with me to the door.
“You don’t want to get in trouble.” He laughed.
“Yeah. See ya. Thanks.”
“See ya.”
I waited for the elevator, wishing that I had left with
Davey or before Davey, wishing that I had gone home earlier.
The elevator came after what felt like ten minutes and I rode
in it down to the lobby. When the doorman saw me, he
opened the building door and I walked past him, turned left
and hurried towards the bus stop at the corner. A bus was
just leaving and Davey must have been on it because I

198
couldn’t see him anywhere on the sidewalk. I looked at my
watch: five-to-six.
(“I’ll only be a few minutes late.”) I wanted to believe
myself and feel comfortable again. (“If a bus comes soon, I’ll
only be a few minutes late.”)
When I got to the corner, I looked in the direction of the
river and tried to see another bus: there were only trucks and
cars and cabs on the street. My chest began to feel as if
someone were inflating a balloon inside it. Wanting to find a
bus somewhere in the traffic, I kept staring at the street. The
traffic light at the end of the block turned red and all of the cars
stopped. I looked at my watch again: six o’clock. A cleaning
lady made an angry face at me and I noticed that I was
walking back and forth on the edge of the curb in front of her
so I put my hands in my pockets and yawned to make her and
everyone else know that what was happening wasn’t
important.
The balloon got bigger.
How long did traffic lights stay red? Maybe two or three
minutes, but not five minutes. Maybe only one minute. If they
stayed red for three minutes and a bus didn’t come until the
traffic lights had been red three times, then it would be nine
more minutes before a bus arrived.
(“That’s not right, you jerk. It takes time for the bus to
drive while the light is green too. It could be 15 or 20 minutes
before a bus comes.”)
Was that possible? I usually didn’t wait that long for a
bus.
Finally, the light turned green and the traffic started to
move again, but slowly; a bus passed on the other side of the
street going towards the river.
(“You’re going to have to wait until that one turns
around and comes back.”)
No, there are others coming.
(“Right, asshole. That’s the next one, moron. You’re
going to be really late.”)

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 It was the next bus. I sat on one of the back seats next
to a window with my left foot on the rear-wheel cover. The
bus moved and then stopped and then moved a little more
and stopped again. It was five-after-six. Why hadn’t I called
her?
(“She’d be mad anyway so what’s the difference?”)
The balloon was huge and I couldn’t make it smaller. I
should have called her.
(“I’ll just tell her there wasn’t a bus. There was a lot of
traffic and it took a long time for a bus to come and then a long
time to get through the park. That’s true. I can’t help it if
there’s traffic. There is traffic. You’re late sometimes. People
are late.”)
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“I’m just telling you that there was traffic and it took
longer to get here than I thought. There must have been an
accident.”
It’s okay for her to yell at me because I’m a kid, but I’m
not allowed to yell at her because she’s an adult.
(“Well, big deal. I don’t care if she’s an adult.”)
“If you want to yell at me, then I’m yelling at you too.”
“I think you need to stay home and think about this.
You need to learn a lesson. We’ll see how you act after
spending the weekend in your room.”
“Look, there was an accident.”
(“No. I should say: People, people are late sometimes.
I’m sorry but there was an accident.”)
“I don’t care. I was late because there was an accident
and it took a long time to get through the park. Even you can
understand that.”
“Listen, you brat. You don’t speak to me like that…”
“Yeah? I just did.”
“…and if you can’t get yourself home on time then you
won’t be able to go out. It’s as simple as that.
“I can’t believe you behave this way after everything I
do for you. You should learn to appreciate what people do for

200
you.” Or she says: “Someday, “someday you’ll appreciate
what I do for you. Do you know what the word appreciate
means?”
Behave what way? Took the bus? Had to wait in
traffic? Don’t you take the bus?
“Behave what way? I had to take the bus and it just got
stuck in the park because there was an accident. How can
that be my fault?”
“Don’t you think that I have the right to go out
sometimes? You can’t do something so simple as get home
on time so I can go out?”
“I’m here. You can go out.”. I’m not stopping you. Go
out. .”
(“Yeah. Do me a favor and go out. Go out and leave
me alone.”)
I laughed a little, and then looked quickly at the people
near me without turning my head, hoping that nobody had
heard.
(“Go out sometimes? You must be joking. That’s all
she ever does.”)
“Go out with your friends and tell them to say hello
when they call someone on the telephone and not, ‘Who’s
this?’ If they don’t know who they’re calling, then why are they
calling the number? Don’t they know that I live here?”
“I don’t like your tone. You don’t talk about my friends
that way. Just because you hang around with a bunch of
playboys doesn’t mean you have the right to talk about people
that way and do whatever you want.”
(“No: There was an accident in the park and I had to sit
on the bus for about twenty minutes until they got it out of the
way. Until they could move the wrecked cars out of the way
and until the ambulance left.”)
“Don’t lie to me. You were hanging around with Matt
and Carl and the rest, and you didn’t even have the courtesy
to look at the time and to call me.”
“How could I call you?”

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 An uptown bus was at the stop on the other side of the
park when I got there. It was six-twenty.
(“How can I call you if I’m on the bus?”)
“I have to go out but we’ll talk about this later.”
“Yeah? Maybe I won’t be here later.”
“What are you talking about? You better behave
yourself. That’s enough from you.”
All that red lipstick and makeup and bracelets clinking.
Dyed blonde hair. Diamond rings. Fur coats. “Did you hear
what she said?” and “I can’t believe the nerve of her,” or “I
should tell her off,” and “Don’t you just love that dress,” or
“Don’t you just hate that coat, those earrings, those shoes,
that bag. Don’t you just love the way she did her hair. I hate
the way she did her hair. Can you believe the way she gets
herself together?. I can’t believe what she said.” The long red
fingernails waving in the air. And then they kiss at each other
because they’re such good friends. They love each other.
She was standing in the Foyerfoyer when I opened the
apartment door.
“Where have you been? I was about to call the police.”
“I’m sorry. There was an accident and it took a long
time to go through the park.”
“Well you should have called.”
“I was on the bus.”
“You should call before you left. You have to learn to
pay attention to the time and not be so careless. You have to
think. I have people waiting for me. I can’t be late. Here, zip
my dress.”
I closed the zipper on the back of her dress over her
underwear. The strap was black and lacy. Why did they make
dresses so that women couldn’t put them on and take them
off by themselves?
“What did you do about Extra-Curricular Activities?”
She started walking back to her room so I followed her. I still
was wearing my coat.
“I’m thinking about it,” I said.

202
 “You’d better do something about it and not just think
about it. You need to have some good Extra-Curricular
Activities if you want to get into College.”
She was saying that I probably wouldn’t get into
College.
“I know.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I was thinking about Camera Club.” Maybe she would
let me be in the Camera Club because she wanted me to do
more Activities.
“The Camera Club? You’re going to take pictures?
What do you want to do that for?”
“Not just take pictures. You know, develop them too.”
I said the second part a little more quietly.
“How do you expect to do that?”
“I could make a darkroom?”
“Listen. I don’t want to start with some expensive new
hobby that you’ll do for a while and then forget about. You
have to have something serious on your application. I’m
talking about Yearbook, the School Newspaper, Art Society,
things like that, not some silly pictures.”
I didn’t want to do those things.
She put her junk in a small purse made out of soft black
leather: first a white handkerchief with a wavy edge that made
it look something like a flower. It had her initials embroidered
on the corner. Then the heavy gold compact that Grandma
Kay had brought back from Europe and the lipstick in the
matching gold case, shiny and beautiful. You could see their
weight – was that possible? Why did they look heavy? Maybe
because of the thick ridges in the gold.
“Come see me to the door,” she said. “You can help
me put on my coat.”
I walked behind her to the front door. Her clothes made
a rustling noise. I smelled her perfume.
“Which coat do you want?” I asked her.
“The silk,” and then she said, “I need to remember to

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get the Mink out of storage,” but mostly to herself.
I held the silk coat for her and she put her arms into the
sleeves.
“There are leftovers in the icebox for your dinner,” she
said. “Clean up after yourself; don’t leave a mess. I know
you. And don’t stay up too late. I’ll be back around eleven, I
think, but you should be asleep. Give me a kiss.”
I kissed her and then opened the front door. She
walked into the vestibule and pressed the button to call the
elevator; I heard the bell ring and knew that the elevator was
in the lobby. Then I heard the gate and the door close and
the twanging sound of the cables.
“Why don’t you do some homework?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
The elevator door opened.
“Have fun,” I said.
After she had gone, I hung my coat in the front closet
and went into the kitchen. Suddenly, I felt hungry. There was
a hunk of meatloaf wrapped in aluminum foil in the
refrigerator. While I ate it, I stood in front of the sink so that
crumbs wouldn’t fall on the floor. Then I pressed the foil into
a ball and dropped it into the garbage can. There was nothing
else in the refrigerator that I wanted. Before I went to my
room, I got a handful of chocolate-chip cookies from the
pantry. I was careful to close the cookie package and put it
back on the shelf so that you couldn’t see that it had been
moved.
“Stay out as late as you want,” I said to nobody. “How
can I call if I’m on the bus?”
Maybe Grandma Kay would buy me a good camera.
(“What’s the difference between the School
Newspaper and Camera Club?”)
I didn’t answer myself, but I knew that you had to be
smart to do School Newspaper and Yearbook. She didn’t
want to spend money on a camera; cameras are expensive.
Her old TV was in my room. I turned it on and changed

204
the channel to the movie station. It had a movie about a guy
at a gambling casino in the desert. The movie looked really
good. I quickly took off my clothes, put on my pajamas and
got comfortable in bed.
My real life would be like that. I would live in a huge
apartment in a sunny place and have a convertible car, a
fancy one, and lots of friends. Everybody would be friendly to
me and know that I was important. I would wear a tuxedo with
gold cufflinks and have a beautiful girlfriend and be in love
with her. It felt good to be the guy in the movie, even though
in some part of my mind I thought that I couldn’t do that. Why?
I got a Coke from the kitchen during a commercial.
Then the movie ended; the guy married the woman. I wasn’t
tired, but I had to be asleep before she came home, so I
turned off the TV. I took the Coke glass to the kitchen and put
it in the dishwasher, then I went back to my room and closed
the door until only a thin line of light came inside from the hall.
There was a big round table at the head of my bed; it
had been in Grandma Kay’s apartment when I was little. The
table had a shelf under its top that was divided into four parts
and I had turned the table so that the opening to the part next
to the wall was only a little wider than my head. It had taken
a while to push the table into exactly the right position. My old
brown radio was on the part of the shelf next to the wall, and
I turned it on very carefully so that I could barely hear the
music. Then I switched off my lamp and got comfortable in
bed with my ear next to the shelf opening. A warm orange
glow came out of the radio back. Sometimes, I used that glow
to see the pages of a book when I was supposed to be asleep,
but at other times, I pushed the radio almost against the shelf
divider so she couldn’t see any light and she wouldn’t know
that I was listening to music if she looked into the room.
It would be nice to drive a car like that. We could see
the desert in the moonlight. I drove the car with the top down,
and the radio played music. The air was warm and smelled
like open space. There were mountains in the distance and

205
billions of stars in the sky. We were there alone together.
The sudden scraping sound of her key being pushed
into the front-door lock made my heart jump. Quickly, I turned
off the radio and rolled so that I was facing the wall. She put
her coat in the closet: the hangers clanked together and the
door banged when she closed it. Then she walked down the
hall. More light came into the room and I heard her footsteps
behind me. My heartbeat was shaking my chest. Her clothes
rustled as she bent over and then she kissed my cheek. After
that, she left the room and closed the door. I breathed and
stretched. When my heart was beating normally, I turned on
the radio again.
After a couple of minutes, one of the best songs started
playing; it had a great guitar part. Did the guitar player worry
about mistakes? The music made me feel good the way that
the movie story had, and I wanted to be able to play the guitar.
There was a bad problem with being the guy in the
movie, though, a problem that I couldn’t solve in my mind.
Most of the things that felt good about being the guy in the
movie changed because of the way the movie ended. The
end of the story made his life different, less exciting. You
couldn’t imagine being that guy and not have this happen. It
was as if the story had been forced to kill itself. Was every
story like that? Maybe stories were like that because life was
like that. Was life like that?
“The excitement ends because you find out what
happens, you idiot.”
I repeated this in my mind.
“No. That’s not the problem.”
. It’s not finding out what happened that changed
things; it’s because of what happened that things changed.
The guy became a different person and that’s what was
important. The movie was over because his old life was
finished. Had he chosen to make a story like this for himself,
to change his future? He had decided to marry the girl, but he
also hadn’t decided to marry the girl; it just happened that they

206
met.
I thought about this until I began only to hear the music
and felt myself falling asleep. I made the effort to reach over
my head and turn off the radio, then quickly I sank and was in
a dream that I knew.
I knew the streets. I passed over them through the
evening into the Park and then turned to the right. They were
streets in the City, but also I didn’t know the streets. Some of
them were dead ends near the river. Doormen in fancy
uniforms stood watching. Beautiful buildings with carved
stone fronts and tall windows lit by glittering chandeliers were
there, but then they were not there. I didn’t know this part of
the City. The Avenues were long, and the farther that the bus
went, the less I remembered them. It was dark night with a
wind that blew litter through the alleys. The buildings were
made of old carved stones built into gigantic arches and
alcoves, the blocks covered with soot, the elaborate moldings
chipped. I stood on the sidewalk beside one of the iron grilles
that covered the lower windows. I was alone. How could I get
back? It didn’t matter; it was only a dream.

  

Should I wear my blue suit? The suit was too fancy for
a party, even a party with girls. I wasn’t going to Dancing
School.
I slid the glass shower door open a few inches and
reached through the gap. Carefully, I turned the faucets to
positions that felt right, waited and then touched the water with
my fingertips. The temperature was okay. I closed the door,
moved to the opposite end of the tub and stepped over the
side, shutting that part of the shower door behind me. For a
moment, I tested the temperature with my feet. Then I moved
slowly sideways underneath the stream, first my leg and hip,
then my shoulder and finally my head. The water wasn’t hot
enough. I twisted the cold faucet counterclockwise. Was that

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right? I nudged it a little further and then let the water pour
down onto my neck and back. It was good. Swaying from
side to side I let it soak my hair and face. My shoulders
sagged and my knees began to feel loose.
At Dancing School, we stood in a circle next to the
tables around the dance floor while the Teachers showed us
the steps. Then we picked girls and did the dance with them.
People walked quickly across the room to get to the girls who
were okay before anyone else. We weren’t allowed to run.
The Teachers watched us…the.
The man behind the counter watched us. He had a
stained apron tied over his fat stomach. His arms and hands
were huge. We reached into the barrel of cold water and
grabbed the biggest pickles that we could find. The ones we
picked had to be the right color: green, but not too dark. The
dark ones were soft sometimes.
“Don’t touch em all, just pick one.” He didn’t want us in
the store. “Come on, hurry it up.”
“Hurry it up,” Tommy imitated him. Tommy imitated
him every week.
“Shut up, Tommy,” I whispered at his back, “you’ll make
him mad.”
“Listen, sonny taka pickle, pay me and get outta here.”
I gave the man two quarters. The pickle was crunchy
and salty. I finished eating it before we got to Matt’s house.
We all went into the bathroom to wash the pickle juice
off our hands. It was hard to keep your suit sleeves dry with
so many people standing in front of the sink, grabbing the
soap and splashing water. I combed my hair with Matt’s
comb, uncovering the white patch on the right side of my
head.
“Come on. We havetahafta go. The car is waiting,”
Matt said.
Bending under the spray, I picked up the soap and
rubbed it on my chest, then up and down my right arm four
times, then up and down my left arm four times, then twice

208
under each arm.
We shoved each other away from the car door, trying
to be one of the first three into the back so that we could sit
on the comfortable seat facing forward. Matt always got one
of the places because it was his Father’s car.
“Move your feet,” Davey said to me. My ankles crossed
over his in the space between the jump seats and the
backseat.
“You move yours,” I said.
We all kicked at each other, but not hard. Carl looked
unhappy but the rest of us laughed. I laughed, but I was
worried that my shoes would be scuffed and that someone
would kick my ankle bones.
“Your Father doesn’t want you fighting back there,”
Bernard yelled from the front seat. He was talking to Matt and
he was talking to the rest of us also, but he meant Matt’s
Father. He was always confusing in that way. Maybe it was
because he was drunk.
“You think we’ll crash?” I asked Matt.
“Shush. He’s okay.”
He looked at the front seat and laughed quietly while
he said this.
I scrubbed each leg the way that I always did: front and
back down to the feet and the toes. Then I let the shower
rinse the soap off my skin everywhere. It was good that she
didn’t know what we did on the way to Dancing School.
“Why do you need fifty cents?”
“For a pickle.”
“You shouldn’t be eating pickles before dancing school
anyway.”
“But everybody gets them.”
“I don’t care what everybody does. You don’t have to
do something just because everybody else does it. If
everybody jumped off a bridge would you do that?”
“Whada you think, you idiot?” I made sure that my
voice wasn’t too loud.

209
 With my eyes pressed tightly closed, I washed each
cheek and then my nose and then behind and inside each ear
and then my forehead and finally my chin, being careful not to
miss any spots and to wash evenly and in the right order.
After I had finished, I put my face under the shower.
“Why shouldn’t I get one? What’s the big deal?”
I imitated her: “You don’t have to do something just
because everybody else does it.”
“Really? No kidding? What does that have to do with
it if I’m hungry?”
I wanted to stand under the shower and think but
decided that I would be late if I didn’t dry myself soon and get
dressed so I bent forward and turned off the water.
“You can’t dance with a girl when you stink of garlic.”
“We don’t stink, we just ate a pickle.”
“The pickles stink. They make your breath stink.”
Nobody at Dancing School ever said anything about
that.
After I had finished in the bathroom, I put on underwear
and a clean white shirt. It probably was okay to wear the dark
gray slacks again even though I had just worn them to school,
because a party is different from school. I put them on and
carefully tucked the shirt bottom and the insides of the pockets
straight into the pants, using my hands to make sure that there
were no folds in the material except at the sides and that it
went around my waist evenly. Then I put on the brown leather
belt that I wore to school, zipped my fly, and took my dark red
tie off the rack. While I knotted the tie, I watched myself in the
mirror on the back of the closet door and noticed that the shirt
buttons didn’t go into my pants at the middle of my waist. I
pulled on the shirt until the buttons went straight down my
front, then took my gold tie clip out of the black leather box on
the closet shelf and slid it over the tie and the front of the shirt,
being careful not to pull the tie down too tight or to leave it too
loose. I put on my brown loafers and jiggled the waist of my
pants so that the cuffs at the bottoms of the legs lay on the

210
tops of the loafers the right way. The last thing I did was put
on my blue blazer.
“Stop admiring yourself in the mirror. You look very
handsome,” she said.
She was standing in the doorway smiling or maybe
grinning at me.
“Are you excited?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You’d better hurry up. You don’t want all the hot
numbers to be taken before you get there.”
“I’m almost ready,” I said, wishing that she would stop
talking and leave the room. What did she think she was
saying?
She watched me while I put my wallet and keys into my
pockets; wallet in the right inside pocket of my sportssport
coat, keys in my right pants pocket. The left pants pocket was
for change. A small pocket knife that my Father had given me
went into the left side pocket of the blazer. Where was the
knife? I couldn’t find it. I looked for it again in the leather box,
but it wasn’t there. Had I dropped it? I searched the floor and
then put my hand in the left side pocket of my other sports
jacket. Still, I didn’t find it.
“Come on. What are you doing? It’s time to go or you’ll
be late,” she said.
“I’m just trying to find my pocket knife,” I said.
“Don’t be silly. You don’t need a pocket knife to go to
a party.”
“I just want to find it.”
I walked to my desk and opened the top middle drawer:
not there. My shoulder muscles suddenly began to feel tight.
I couldn’t leave without the pocket knife. Where should I look?
What if I couldn’t find it? I went back into the closet and looked
on the shelf around the black leather box. I wanted to search
the floor by crawling under the hanging clothes where it was
dark and hard to see, but I couldn’t because that would make
knee marks on my pants. I stared at the floor.

211
 “Will you please stop this and go. It’s ridiculous to
worry about a knife. What use will it be, anyway. Come
on.Don’t be such a perfectionist. You need to get going.”
“But I want to find it.”
“Don’t be such a perfectionist all the timeso picky. It’s
just a knife.”
Maybe I had put it into a pants pocket by mistake. I
started searching the pockets of my other pants.
“This is ridiculous. Get going,” she said.
She was ordering me and I knew that I would have to
leave without the knife.
“You can’t be such a perfectionist all the time. Do you
have the address?”
I took the piece of paper with the girl’s address on it off
the top of my desk and showed it to her.
“What if it’s lost?” I said while I stood in the foyer and
put on my overcoat.
“If it’s lost then it’s lost. Forget about it.”
I couldn’t get another one. It was perfect. My Father
had given it to me because it was something that he thought
was useful to have. He had said that. He had said, “I always
have mine.” It was a perfect size, stainless steel with small
bumps in the metal and a single blade. It had a brown leather
case that I had rubbed between my fingers, making it dark and
smooth. I felt wrong without it. What if it were lost forever and
I didn’t have one anymore?
(“If it’s lost, then it’s lost. Forget about it. Nothing to be
done.”)
No, my Father always had his knife.
When the elevator arrived she kissed me.
“Don’t forget to say thank you to the girl’s parents,” she
said, “and be back in the door by eleven.”
“I know. I won’t”
I stood in the elevator without speaking and looked at
the floor. Everything would be perfect if I had the knife.
“Good night,” Carl said.

212
 “Bye.”
There were lots of empty cabs driving up the avenue.
I waved my hand and one swerved quickly to the curb and
stopped in front of me.
“454 East 95,” I told the driver, reading the address
from the scrap of paper. He didn’t say anything.
The cab bounced over the streets while I tried to
remember the last time that I had seen the knife: the day
before when I had gotten home from school? Which jacket
had I been wearing? I looked at the other jacket hanging in
my closet. Did I see myself putting the knife in the right- side
pocket while I was at school?
(“Just forget about it, you idiot. There’s nothing you
can do about it now.”)
The cab stopped next to a row of cars on a side street;
the gold metal numbers, 454, were on the black door of a
brownstone building behind the cars. Did they live in the
whole building? I had never been in a brownstone that was
somebody’s house. I paid the driver and got out of the cab.
A wide flight of stairs led up to the front door. Before climbing
them, I straightened my clothes.
A woman with black hair opened the door at the same
time that I rang the bell. She was standing in a little room that
had a mirror in a fancy gold frame on one wall and a row of
coats hanging on hooks on the wall facing it. There were
small black and white square tiles on the floor and a brown
doormat. The bathroom tiles looked good there. The woman
didn’t smile.
“Go ahead inside. You can leave your coat on the
settee,” she said.
I took off my coat and started to hang it on one of the
hooks.
“Not there,” she said. “Go inside and put it on the
settee.”
My face got warm. Those hooks were for family coats.
I walked out of the little room through another doorway. There

213
already were a lot of kids inside the house, talking and almost
running around a large living room. A record player in the
corner was playing Rock-and-Roll, but nobody was dancing.
On my left, there was a pile of coats on a bench. I didn’t want
to leave my coat on top of the pile because I knew that it would
fall on the floor when other kids looked for their own coats
under it. Instead I put it on a chair with a red velvet cushion
to my right.
“No. On the settee.”
She was behind me.
Slowly I picked up the coat and put it on top of the pile,
pressing it close to the wall so that it would be less likely to fall
on the floor where people would step on it. I looked at it over
my shoulder as I walked farther into the living room, trying to
believe that it would stay where it was and, in my other mind,
knowing that it wouldn’t. Then I stopped next to some stairs
that went up to a raised area like a stage with a dining table
on it and looked at the kids, forgetting the coat and thinking
that I didn’t know any of them. Tommy and Carl might be
coming, but I didn’t see them anywhere. I didn’t see anyone I
knew. What should I do?
I walked up the stairs trying to move smoothly. The
dining table was covered with a tablecloth made of plastic, not
cloth, so what should you call it? On the plastic were snacks
and drinks; I poured some Coke into a clear plastic glass.
Could you call them glasses if they were made of plastic?
What should you call them? Cups? A cup of soda? It
sounded like something that you would say to a baby. A
plastic cup of soda, and if you squeeze it, especially near the
top, the plastic will crack and break and the soda will spill. My
hand shook a little and Coke dripped down the side of the cup.
(“Spaz.”)
Where were Tommy and Carl? I took a handful of
potato chips out of a china bowlbowel, walked to the metal
fence that went around the stage and watched the other kids.
They weren’t all in my grade, I knew by looking at them. A lot

214
of them were older. What should I do next? I ate the potato
chips and drank the Coke very slowly, being careful not to spill
any.
(“You have to act as if you know that everything is
okay.”)
I would have to talk to someone.
Lots of the girls seemed to know each other, which I
thought meant that they were probably in the same class as
the girl who lived in the house and was having the party..
They talked to each other and made gestures with their hands.
I watched their faces. Their eyes were wide and, even if they
were listening to someone else and not speaking themselves,
their faces looked as if they were almost shouting.
They were kids but they were like women too. “Look
what I got Katie for her birthday.” Her eyes were wide and
she was grinning. She took a lacey bra out of a box and shook
it in front of my face.
“Don’t touch it.”
Why was she showing that to me?
“She doesn’t need that.”
“I want to get her first one.”
“What’s she going to do with it.”
“She can stuff toilet paper in it.”
“Stuff toilet paper in it? Are you joking?”
“You have to remember that she’s almost a woman.”
Now their bodies had definite shapes: fat on top or on
the bottom, fat legs, or very skinny in some places, different
combinations. Their face shapes also had changed and they
were wearing makeup and jewelry and had hairdos. They
turned their heads to see the other people in the room; they
wanted to be noticed.
Only a little Coke was left in the cup. What should I do
now? I would have to talk to someone because that was
normal, .
(“You look like a jerk if you don’t talk to someone.”)
I watched the crowd of kids. Nobody I knew had

215
arrived, so I turned around and got more Coke and potato
chips from the table. Eating was doing something.
Beside the fence again, I started to look at each girl in
the room carefully but quickly, one after the other, hoping that
they wouldn’t see me noticing them. It was difficult to keep
track of them because they were moving, but I tried to look at
each one: first the ones near the windows on the right and
then the ones in the middle of the room and then the ones
near the wall on the left. Looking for what? I did it again to
be sure that I hadn’t missed any. Then I saw, standing near
a table beside the wall on the left, a girl who seemed to have
just appeared in the room.

She is taller, older. She has a different kind of face.

The room light has dimmed, and time has thickened
around me.
I watch her and, as I watch, my second mind sees her
too from a place above my head.
She is older than the others [(and has come here with
an older boy who has gone to get something. Soon he will be
back.].)
I have never seen this girl before but she also is known
in some important way to my other mind.
She waits calmly, standing straight, her heels together
and the toes of her shoes spread slightly apart, the palm of
one hand resting on the back of the other in front of her. Her
fingers are long, thin. She has smooth brown hair parted
slightly to the side of her head and cut in a curve beneath the
line of her jaw, the ends turning slightly inward at a place
where her neck becomes her shoulder.
I watch her and know that my second mind already has
decided that I willmust speak to her.
How can I do that? She is older, she is beautiful, she
is perfect. [(She is here with an older kid, maybe even
someone from Schoolchool who knows me,],) but I have
decidedno choice.

216
 I place the plastic cup on the dining table, wipe my
hands on a paper napkin, then turn and walk slowly down the
stairs towards her.
There is no sound in my head. I am standing in front
of her. She looks at me and smiles.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Do you know these people?”
We are speaking, she is speaking to me. She is
looking at my face.
“What’s your name?”
I am looking at her face. She smiles.
“Where do you go to school?”
I know the answer but ask the question anyway.
“What grade are you in?”
“How old are you?”
We are in the same grade but she is older. What
should I say now?
“It’s noisy in here. Let’s walk over there and talk next
to the window. It will be quieter. Do you want to go over
there?” [(Is that possible?]?)
“Yes.”
[(Can that be true?]?)
We stand beside a tall window with our backs to the
room. The window panes are black; it is night and I see our
reflections together, waiting. We seem almost real. What
should I say?
“Sometimes, I like to look out the window of my room
and move my head so that the wood frames around the
window panes match the shapes of the building across the
street.”
I know she will think that this is stupid.
“I think that’s so interesting.”
“My Father is here to take me home,” she says.
“You have to leave?”
“Yes.”

217
 “What’s your phone number?” I have to ask now. “Can
I call you?”
I say it without stopping to think, and she tells me. I
write the number under the brownstone address on the scrap
of paper.
“I’ll call you.”
“Okay.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
A big man in a gray overcoat is standing in the living
room doorway. He kisses her and they leave together.

For a moment, the room seemed completely empty.

Then someone to my right screamed, “Oh my God.” I looked
towards the sound and saw that a girl had spilled soda on the
carpet. The girls beside her were giggling and gasping,
flapping their hands in the air. Others crossed the room,
almost running, to see what had happened. The woman with
the black hair rushed past me with a rag in her hand.
“Thank you,” I said.
My coat was still lying on top of the pile of coats on the
bench. While I put it on, I watched the woman with the black
hair crouch on the floor and rub the dark spot in the carpet
with her rag.
Outside the air was clear and cold. The streetlamps
were on and lights sparkled in the windows of the
brownstones across the street. At the bottom of the stairs I
turned left towards the avenue. There would still be lots of
buses running – it was only ten o’clock – but I decided to walk.
The weather was good and the apartment wasn’t far away. I
made long fast strides, walking smoothly around and past the
few other pedestrians outside at that hour. Soon I would have
to call her, but I would worry about that later. There was plenty
of time.

  

218
 
It was almost dark. Lights already sparkled in the
building windows and from the tops of the street lamps. I
walked quickly down the avenue and across the side streets,
avoiding the cabs and other cars without having to think about
them.
Her Mother opened the apartment door. “Hello,” she
said, “it’s nice to see you.” She smiled.
I smiled. “Hello.”
“Ann will be ready in a second. How are you?”
“Fine, thank you. How are you?”
“What movie are you kids going to see?”
Ann walked through the doorway on the other side of
the living room. She looked at me and smiled. I smiled at her
and tried to be calm [(to look calm].). Her overcoat was in my
hands; I held it while she slid her arms into the sleeves. Her
hair lightly touched the collar.
“We won’t be late.”
The door closed behind us; we were alone together.
She spoke and I listened, nodding my head, while my other
mind concentrated on seeming normalsnormal.
Something made her laugh: a small gasp, a high-
pitched sound, “Rick,” she said. She continued talking. I
didn’t have to say anything.
The party was in a private club. I helped Ann take off
her coat and I put it on the marble counter of the lobby
coatroom together with my own. A woman in a black maid’s
uniform with white lace cuffs and collar and a starched white
apron took them and handed me a single brass disc with the
number 11 on it. I slipped it into the side pocket of my suit
jacket, feeling the smooth hole in one edge between my left
thumb and index finger. The suit smelled clean and pressed,
which it was.
I looked at Ann. She stood on a Persian carpet beside
a round table that held a large crystal vase full of flowers. She
was waiting for me, watching me. Her heels were touching

219
and the toes of her shoes were turned outward slightly. The
palm of one hand rested on the back of the other in front of
her. She wore a black velvet dress with a wide skirt. Her pale
skin touched the soft dark material. I noticed again the shape
of her eyes.
We walked together through the lobby between two
curving staircases and under an archway into an anteroom,
our heels clicking on the marble floor. The edge of her skirt
brushed against my leg. Music played inside the room to our
right: a piano, a bass, a snare drum, and then the sound of a
saxophone. A man with a smooth voice sang.
“…until I smile at you…within my heart…to smile
again…”
Together, we entered the room. It was large and lit by
three crystal chandeliers. The ceiling curved upward to form
a blue oval painted with clouds at its center. Beneath the
clouds was a wooden dance floor. Many people were already
dancing. Others were sitting and talking at small tables
around the edge of the dance floor. I hoped that we hadn’t
arrived late. I didn’t notice anyone from school.
Our fingers touched. The palm of my right hand
pressed lightly against her back. The velvet was soft. She
laughed her laugh, .
“Your hand’s so stiff.” [To avoid danger.]
“It’s not stiff.”
“Yes it is.”
We danced close to each other. I let the right side of
my face just touch her hair.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your hair is prickly.”
“It’s hairspray. I won’t use it anymore.”
I ring the doorbell; her Mother opens the door.
“Hello,” she says. “How are you?”
“Hello. Fine,” I answer. “How are you?” I amI’m
smiling.
“What movie are you kids going to see?”

220
 Ann walks through the doorway on the other side of the
living room. I wait, and my second mind waits, for her to look
at me; she does and smiles. I smile at her and breathe slowly.
“Hi,” I say and she says “Hi” to me.
She slides her arms into the sleeves of her coat while I
stand behind her and hold it. Her hair shines and has a clean
smell.
“Have fun. Don’t be home late.”
“We won’t.”
The door closes behind us; we are alone together.
“Do you want to walk?”
“Okay,” she says.
We walk fast, side by side, almost touching but not
touching, still I can feel her there. I listen to her voice. I don’t
have to say anything. It isIt’s dark now. I don’t see the
strangers on the sidewalk, don’t watch them, and I don’t feel
them watching us. I don’t notice the cars that must be
passing, the cabs, trucks or buses, stopping and starting as
the traffic lights change from green to red and then to green
again. There must be street noise but I don’t hear it. I listen
to her voice.
“When we’re older, we’ll definitely meet each other.
What do you think that will be like?”
Although my legs continue moving, I stop suddenly
inside myself. This is the second time she has said this to me
and again I see it happen. It is exactly the same, and I can’t
prevent it.
She looks down at me and smiles, but her smile is
different, it is not the smile I know. Then she lifts her arm
towards where I am standing. We can’t touch; I am too far
away. She is wearing a silver and black jacket made of heavy
silk and I see around her neck a chain of diamonds that
sparkle brilliantly in the dim light. Her hair is combed like the
hair of the older women around her. They are all elegantly
dressed. So are the men, who carry glasses that make bell-
like sounds when the guests raise them to their lips. They

221
laugh and talk calmly, happily. I notice the shine of their shoes
and look down at where my own feet should be, but I have
disappeared.
I laugh a little [(a laughing sound].). “I don’t know,” I
say.
“But what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” [(I can’t]) I repeat, wanting the world
back in place.
We continue walking and after a moment she starts to
speak again, and I am moving within myself at her side
listening to her voice until we arrive at the movie theatre. In
the line, surrounded by adults and waiting to enter, we say
nothing. Then we are seated in the dark and the movie has
started.
The spy wears a white dinner jacket and a black
bowtie. He smokes a cigarette; it isit’s a special type of
cigarette that he carries in a silver case. He kisses a woman
in a gauzy dress, a dress like a nightgown. The dress lets you
see her breasts without really seeing them. Her eyes are
closed and her body is limp.
When the movie is over, we walk back to Ann’s
apartment, but more slowly. It is almost ten o’clock and she
becomes quiet.
“It must be ten,” I say and she laughs her laugh.
“Do you want to come in for a minute?” she asks.
“Yes.”
To sit at the kitchen table with her and eat ice cream.
First, she asks me what I want. She looks in the freezer and
says, “We have ice cream.” Then she takes the ice cream out
of the freezer and scoops it into two bowls. I offer to help but
she says, “No. Sit down. I’ll do it.” She talks to me and we
are alone together surrounded by darkness and silence, and
then I also feel my muscles start to tighten.
When I leave, will I kiss her?
I want not to think about this but the question keeps
asking itself in my mind. The time is getting closer. She also

222
knows that the time is getting closer. It would be normal for
me to kiss her, but in my second mind I am sure that I can’t
do this. It is impossible. Doing it would mean that I can
imagine her feeling connected to me. I can’t act as if she
might be connected to me, because that would be ridiculous.
She would have to laugh, she would laugh in her mind. Again,
I try not to think about the problem. It’s stupid. Still, if I did
kiss her, what would I say later – tomorrow or another day –
that I was able to say?? How would we be together? Who
would I be?
I stand in the corridor and Ann stands quietly in the
doorway facing me.
“Goodnight,”
“Goodnight, Rick,” she says. “Thank you.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Okay,” she says.

  

Walking slowly to the bus stop from Matt’s house, I
breathed the cool air and, in it, I smelled the changing season.
It was past midnight and I hoped that she was asleep,
although my other mind knew that she was watching her clock
and waiting for me. Why hadn’t I remembered to call her? I
was busy and not thinking about her and didn’t see a pay
phone until it was so late that calling wouldn’t have mattered.
[(If I had called her, she would have tried to make me do
something. She would make me feel as if I were with her and
not with Matt and Tommy and Dan.].) I waited at the bus stop
and breathed the smell of spring in the air mixed with Ann’s
faint smell on my clothes. After spring it would be summer
and the end of school and summer vacation.
There were only three passengers on the bus: two
cleaning ladies and an old man sitting in the front near the
driver. I sat in the back facing forward with my left foot on the
rear wheel cover and my right leg stretched towards the isle.

223
The window beside me was open. I unbuttoned my suit jacket
and leaned against the side of the bus, looking at the people
on the sidewalk and breathing the warm night air.
This summer I would be with kids who didn’t know me.
I could be different. They wouldn’t know that I was being
different or who I had been before. They would only know
who I was this summer and that would be who I always was
in their minds. The important thing was to act as if I were sure
that everything I did was right. The important thing was to
show other people that I didn’t care what they thought. If a kid
said something bad about me, I would laugh to show that what
he had said was stupid and didn’t matter. That was what I
would do; I wouldn’t say anything to him, but I would look at
him in a way that told him he didn’t matter. The important
thing was not ever to show that I was worried. Nothing that
happened could worry me. This would make the counselors
like me and the thing was to act as if I knew that the
counselors would like me because I was sure that everything
I did was right. That would be who I was.
I got on the bus, paid the fare and walked to the back,
where I sat on the seat facing forward with my left foot on the
rear wheel cover and my hands in my coat pockets. The bus
made a hissing noise and then jerked forward across the
avenue towards the park. I looked out the open window
beside me at the few people on the sidewalk.
There was a noise at the front of the bus. A bum had
gotten on and not paid his fare. The driver turned and
watched as the bum walked towards the back where I was
sitting.
“Hey, you,” the driver shouted, “you gotta pay your
fare.”
I thought the bum might sit next to me and the muscles
in my stomach and shoulders started to feel tight, but then I
was sure that he couldn’t sit next to me because the driver
would throw him off the bus.
The bum made a grunt or a growl and didn’t look at the

224
driver or stop walking. He was looking at me, and while he
looked at me I also saw myself sitting in the back of the bus
wearing a blue suit and a red and blue tie, and I knew that the
bum had noticed how I was dressed and that I was a kid and
that he was going to try and sit near me, maybe next to me on
the same seat, because I looked like a rich kid. He wanted to
show that the bus also belonged to him. My heartbeat began
to shake my chest. I had to ignore him. If I ignored the bum
he would forget me. What would I do if he touched me?
(“Come on, throw him off, throw him off.”)
“Hey, you,” the driver shouted.
“He don’t have no money,” thean old man sitting near
the driver said and laughed. “You know he don’t have no
money.”
(“Please throw him off the bus. You have to throw him
off the bus because he didn’t pay. Come on, throw him off.
You can’t let him sit next to me.”)
The driver looked at the bum for another few seconds
and then turned around and closed the front door. He spun
the steering wheel, and the bus made a hissing noise and
started to move away from the curb.
This was not right. It was the driver’s job to collect the
fare from everybody who got on the bus. He couldn’t just let
a bum sit next to a regular person who had paid the fare. He
was in charge of the bus.
It was very important not to look at the bum, not to let
the bum see me looking at him. I turned my head towards the
window but continued to watch him with the side of my eye.
He sat down on the seat facing the isle in front of me that
faced the aisle. He was close enough to bend and touch me
with his right hand. The air around us began to smell like a
clogged toilet. What should I do? (“Just don’t look at him,
ignore him.”) I pushed my face as far toward the open window
as I thought I could without showing that I was trying not to
breathe his stink. He started to make mumbling sounds. Was
he going to talk to me? Maybe I should move to another seat

225
near the bus driver. That was what a baby would do. I
wouldn’t look like a baby if I got off the bus at the next stop
because nobody would know that it wasn’t my stop, but then I
might have to wait a long time for another bus and be late.
[(She would be waiting for me.].)
The bus stopped again and the driver opened the front
door.
(“Throw him off. Throw him off the bus.”)
Maybe a cop was standing on the sidewalk near the
bus stop. The driver should yell out the door that there was a
bum on the bus who hadn’t paid his fare. He didn’t say
anything though or even turn around and look towards the
back.
“If somebody gives you trouble on the bus, tell the bus
driver,” she said, “tell a policeman.”
Instead he waited while a negro kid got on and paid his
fare, and then another one and another one after him. Four
negro kids got on the bus and they also walked down the
isleaisle towards me. They didn’t sit on any of the empty seats
in the middle of the bus. They were going to sit on the back
seats near me. I was trapped. I couldn’t move to a seat near
the driver because I would look like a chicken, and the
negroes would notice. They would notice that I had moved
away from them and that might make them do something to
me. Would they want money? (Did they have knives??)
I crouched on the sidewalk in front of the apartment
building and tightened my skate strap while Tommy waited for
me.
“Give us your money. Give it now,” a kid said.
I looked up and saw two kids with dark shiny hair
combed into pompadours and DAs standing near us. They
wore white t-shirts, tight jeans and black pointy shoes. One
of them, the taller one, was talking. My heartbeat shook my
chest. I looked at Tommy. He looked at me. Maybe we could
skate into the apartment building lobby before they did
anything to us. George was inside. I stood and noticed that I

226
was having trouble moving. The kids were really close to
Tommy. The taller one held his left fist under Tommy’s chin.
He was bigger than Tommy, almost as tall as I was wearing
skates, and his face looked hard.
“You take that one,” he said to the smaller kid pointing
at me, but the smaller kid stayed next to him and looked at
Tommy.
“Hurry up. Give us your money. Go take that one I told
you,” the taller kid said.
I looked for an adult on the sidewalk who would help
us. A woman walked past without noticing what was
happening even though I stared at her with big eyes.
“Take that one.”
I found a quarter and a nickel in my pocket.
“Here.”
I stretched my arm towards the big kid. Would this be
enough? Did he have a knife?
The short kid grabbed the money out of my hand and
ran away. The taller kid ran after him.
The negroes were talking in regular voices and
laughing.
(“You have to ignore them. Don’t look at them.”)
One of them sat on the seat across the isleaisle from
me and the other three sat behind him on the backseat. My
muscles felt so stiff that I didn’t think that I could move and I
started to sweat even though a breeze came into the bus
through the open window. My heartbeat shook my chest. The
bum mumbled something in a loud voice and, before I could
stop myself, I turned my head and looked at him.
“Man you smell,” one of the negro kids said. “Whada
you walk round like that for?”
“Yeah,” another one said. “Go sit somewhere else.”
“Hey kid.”
The one straight across the aisle was talking. He; he
was talking to me. I turned my head and stared at him, trying
to make my face smile.

227
 “Kid, you don’t wanna sit next to that stinkin bum, do
you?”
I tried to smile, stared at him and shook my head for a
second but then stopped because I didn’t want the bum to see
me agreeing. They were all watching me. What should I do?
What were they going to do? I looked at the bum.
“Shut the damn window. That wind’s cold,” He said
looking at my face.
“Don’t shut the window,” the kid across the aisle said.
“Yeah,” one of the kids on the backseat said, “he can
keep the window open if he wants. I like it open. Keep the
window open kid.”
“Yeah. Keep it open. Open it more. We like it open.”
“Man, if you close that window kid, we’ll die.” They all
laughed. The kid across the aisle opened his window.
They all laughed. The kid across the aisle opened his
window. I looked at them. What should I do?
“Close that window, I said,” the bum shouted at me.
“Shut up and leave him alone,” one of the kids sitting
on the backseat said.
“Yeah, leave him alone and shut up. Get off the bus if
you don’t like it.”
“Yeah, get off. You stink. Leave the kid alone.”
The bum didn’t answer. I turned my face towards the
window, trying to breathe only the outside air.
Then the bus was at my stop. I stood up quickly and
almost ran to the back door, down the stairs and out onto the
street. I had escaped. My muscles relaxed and my body
stopped sweating as soon as my feet were on the sidewalk.
No longer feeling stiff, I began to walk slowly towards the
street corner and the back of the bus where the negro kids
were sitting. The bus made a hissing noise.
I had to think about something – what was it?
Two of the negroes were leaning out the open bus
window; would it be safe to walk past them?
My second mind wanted something. I needed to think

228
about this quickly.
The engine made a louder noise. One of the negro
kids was watching me. I looked at him and walked even more
slowly. The bus began to move.
I stopped walking, smiled and then I waved to him.
Right away, he smiled a big smile and waved to me. It was
good. I smiled a big smile and waved again. They all turned
their heads and smiled big smiles at me and waved and I
waved to all of them, as the bus took them away up the
avenue.
Feeling light inside, I turned the corner and walked
towards the apartment. The space around me seemed large.
I could feel the streets go in every direction before me under
the sparkling street lamps to the wide boundaries of the City.
city.
In the future, I would be different. I would be sure that
I was right and not care what people said. I wouldn’t worry.
[(I would be the person who talked to Ann.].)
She was in the kitchen waiting for me.
“Where have you been?” she said.
“With Matt and Tommy and Dan at the movies,” I
answered without thinking first about what I should say.
“Don’t get smart with me. You know what I mean.”
I looked at her face, which was squeezed together, and
her staring eyes. I looked at her hunched shoulders. Seeing
her that way made me feel very tired.
“I want to know where you were. You’re an hour late.”
She pointed to the clock over the stove with a
movement of her hand that was like a punch.
“I was with Matt and Tommy and Dan,” I said, taking off
my coat.
I wanted to go to bed, I wanted to be away from her,
but couldn’t move because she kept speaking at my face.
While she spit words at me, I noticed that my other mind was
trying to tell me something again, a new thing.
“And what exactly were you doing that you didn’t have

229
the courtesy to think of me and call here like you’re supposed
to? Did you ever think...
My mind was trying to tell me something important.
Time began to pass more slowly in my head.
...that I was here desperately worried, hanging out the
window looking for you. I was about to call the police. What
if something horrible had happened to you?”
“By being late?”
That wasn’t right.
“Excuse me?” She was screaming. “You know what I
mean. What were you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said. “What would I be doing? We just
went to the movies, then went back to Matt’s house and had
a Coke. Everybody went there.”
“Everybody? What do I care about the rest of them?
[MyYour friends.] Let their parents worry about what they do.
How can you be so inconsiderate?”
Suddenly I understood.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What?”
“I said I don't know. I just am, I guess.”
For a few seconds she stared at me without speaking,
her eyes wide. Then she said, “What is this stunt that you’re
trying now?”
“You said I’m inconsiderate and I’m agreeing with you.
I thought that’s what you want.”
I noticed that I felt stronger. It was right.
“Well you are inconsiderate,” she yelled. “Are you
proud of that? That would be just like you. Don’t you care
about me? I’m here thinking that you’re dead and you’re
running around with your playboy friends as usual without
ever thinking about anybody else.”
“I guess.”
“You guess? You guess? So you’re proud of being the
way you are?”
“I don’t know.”

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 “Well, you act like it. I want a better answer than that
from you. You guess. You're always guessing. Think for a
change, don't guess.”
“What can I say? You’re right.”
She was suddenly silent again. I heard a truck engine
on the street outside. I heard a dog bark.
“I’m very disappointed in you,” her voice hissed.
I waited. [(Don't argue.].)
“We’re going to have to talk more about this tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t say anything else. [(It was right.].)
I walked out of the kitchen, hung my coat in the hall
closet and then went into my room and closed the door.
(“Sure. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. It’ll be a ton of fun.
Can’t wait. It’ll give you a good topic and also you’ll have time
to think of some other interesting stuff to talk about too.”)
I took off my clothes and put on my pajamas. Then I
got into bed. I would put my laundry in the basket tomorrow;
I didn’t want to leave the room now.
“Whatever you say.”
I made sure that I spoke with a quiet voice.
“I’m inconsiderate or careless or whatever else you
say. Have it your way. I’m not playing.” (“
What does she think? It was as if she were saying that
everyone gets killed between eleven and twelve o’clock but
not between ten and eleven o’clock,”), even though she really
was saying that being late might mean that I was dead. The
way she acted was confusing; it made events confusing, not
real. How could you live a real life and be like that?
(“If I’m dead, does it matter what time it is? Why not
call the police at ten o’clock or nine o’clock?”)
“Who cares anyway.”
“The question is, why do I listen to anything she says?
You’re inconsiderate, you’re a perfectionist, you’re lazy,
you’re careless, you’re wonderful, I can't stand you, you’re
terrific. That’s a big one: you’re terrific. I love you. I didn’t

231
mean it when I said I can’t stand you or I didn’t mean it when
I said I’m leaving. So how should I know what you mean?
Just guess? Guess the thing that’s best for her?”
(“They just say anything that happens to be in their
heads when they open their mouths. I’m not playing. Let her
say whatever she wants. I don't care.”)
(“. I’m inconsiderate and I could be killed, but if I call
her, then I’m considerate and I won’t be or wasn’t killed and
she won’t have to hang out the window looking for me.")
Or whatever she thinks she means.

  

It was okay to play Classical records on the stereo in
the Living Room [(no rock and roll].). The stereo was bought
and put in the Living Room, so to use it had to be okay. If I
sat on the Living-Room furniture, though, it would look as if I
were lounging around in there. She wouldn’t like that.
Anyway, I didn’t want to sit on the furniture.
I turned on the amplifier and twisted the volume knob
to the spot that would make the sound loud enough to fill my
head but not loud enough to make her complain, usually.
Then I lowered the tone arm onto the record and walked
quickly to the center of the room where I lay flat on my back
with my feet towards the speakers in the bookcases. I was
careful to lie exactly straight in the place where I thought that
the same amount of sound would reach each side of my head.
Kettle drums made the roar of waves pounding a
beach. Violins began to play and then oboes. Some of the
music was sinister, some was victory music. I waited for the
piano part, stretching on the hard floor, pressing my back into
the carpet, my eyes closed. Finally it began, and I floated in
the sound tide, changing time and place, seeing what I would
do tomorrow morning.
I crouched in the dirt facing the offensive tackle with my
head tilted slightly down so that I could watch the ball without

232
twisting my neck. [ (I don’t like looking at the eyes of the other
players.].) When the ball starts to move, as soon as the
center’s hand moves, I straighten my legs as hard and as fast
as I can - “Move faster,” Makris says - almost harder and
faster than even that, and I put my hands up in front of me. I
slap my right palm against the ear hole of the tackle’s helmet
and jab the heel of my left hand under the edge of his shoulder
pads, shoving him up and away from my body. [(This is my
way.].) For a small part of a second, I don’t push so that I can
feel how he wants to move me, then I quickly ram the heel of
my hand into his forehead. He becomes limp, soft. By
pressing my hands under the edges of his pads it is easy to
throw him into the space he is trying to make. So he leans
into empty air and collapses onto the ground. I move around
his body, my legs spread apart, my knees bent, my hands up
in front of me. The running back is coming quickly. Arms
spread, I rock forward, straighten my legs and ram my
shoulder pads into his thighs. There is a loud cracking noise.
I squeeze his knees, closing my right hand over my left wrist
to hold my arms together and his legs together and he rocks
backwards. I let all of my weight drop on top of him, slam his
back into the ground and I tilt the top of my helmet into his
chest.
I do it again faster, harder.
Time passes slowly. I see each movement very
clearly, feel each movement.
I do it again. I straighten my legs and slap my right
palm against the ear hole of the tackle’s helmet as hard as I
can and jab the heel of my left hand under the edge of his
shoulder pads, pushing him up and away from my body. Then,
for a small part of a second, I don’t push so that I can feel the
way he wants to move me. He steps backwards. I follow and
press myself under his shoulders towards the quarterback.
He steps to his left allowing me to move around him. I feel it
and stop, look to my left. The right guard has pulled and is
coming towards me, his shoulders down, aiming at my knees.

233
I step away quickly and slam the heel of my left hand into the
back of his helmet, move with him slightly to my right, lean on
his back, push his face towards the ground. He falls, but I
don’t watch him; I look in front of me. The running back is
there holding the ball against his chest. I ram my shoulder
pads into his thighs. There is a loud cracking noise. I squeeze
his knees together, closing my right hand over my left wrist.
He rocks backwards and I let all of my weight drop on top of
him, slam his back into the ground and tilt the top of my helmet
so that it hits his arms, the ball.
I float in the sound. I smell dirt and sweat. I have no
fear, no pain, no fatigue, no thirst. I am irresistible,
insurmountable.
I do it again.
“OhOhoo Romeo.”
It all stops.
“Turn that thing down so you can hear me.”
She was in the archway behind my head, looking at
me. I didn’t move for a moment, then I stood. Feeling dazed,
I went and lifted the tone arm off the record and pressed the
power button on the amplifier.
“Matt called. He wants to know if you’re going to the
party tomorrow night. I told him yes. You’d better call him.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
She went away and left me standing in the middle of
the Living Room, now very quiet. I hadn’t heard the climax of
the music, the pounding piano chords and brassy crash of the
orchestra that I had been waiting for at the end of the piece.
It was too late now; I couldn’t start again.
Nothing to do about it.
I looked carefully at the room to see if anything was
changed. There was an indentation in the carpet where I had
been lying and I slid my foot over it, erasing my outline. Then
I walked to my room, closed the door and sat down on the
radiator box with my head and back against the side of the
bookcase behind me.

234
 They were punting. I crouched in the dirt facing the
offensive tackle with my head tilted slightly down so that I
could watch the ball without twisting my neck. When the ball
started to move, I straightened my legs as hard and as fast as
I could and put my hands up in front of me. I slapped my right
palm against the ear hole of the tackle’s helmet and jabbed
the palm of my left hand under the edge of his shoulder pads.
The force made him rock on his heels. He fell backwards and
curled up like a dead bug. I moved to my left around him in a
line towards the punter. I would block the punt, a great play –
but then he grabbed my ankle and kicked my other leg with
the hard toes and bottoms of his cleats. It was illegal. I tried
to pull my foot free but couldn’t. The whistle blew before the
punter kicked the ball.
There was a penalty, not because of what he had done
but because they were off-sides. I looked at the kid lying on
the ground between my legs.
“If you do that again, I’ll run across your face.” I stood
over him. “I’ll run on your body. I swear.”
My spit sprayed onto the cage of my helmet. I stared
down at him, my jaw muscles tight, my arms straight at my
sides, my hands squeezed into fists, then I walked away and
paced near the new line of scrimmage.
We crouched in the dirt facing each other again. He
looked at me; he was grinning. Hadn’t he heard me? Was he
stupid? He understood that I didn’t want to see his face. He
sneered at me.
The punter started the snap count. I tilted my head
slightly down so that I could watch the ball.
What would I do?
The center moved his hand, and only a very small part
of a second after his first motion, I hurried out of my
crouch.thrust myself forward. The kid in front of me tried to
move faster than he had before, but that meant nothing. I
slammed the palm of my right hand over the left ear hole of
his helmet and rammed my shoulder into the center of his

235
chest, lifting him off his feet and rolling him onto his back. He
curled up like a dead bug.
What would I do? I had another chance to block the
punt. It had taken almost no time to knock him down. All I
needed to do was run straight forward four steps. I could hit
the last blocker running, push him into the kicker. I would
block the punt and might get the ball. Their end zone was only
twenty yards away.
I lifted my knees high to keep my feet away from the
cheating kid, but he immediately grabbed my ankle anyway
and started to kick my other leg with the hard toes and
bottoms of his cleats.
I looked down at him. He was grinning.
I could make one easy, natural step and put my foot on
his neck, the steel tips of my cleats on the skin of his neck. I
had told him I would do it.
Might that kill him?
I could run across his chest. I could make one step and
put my foot on his chest, my cleats on his ribs, my weight and
the steel tips on bone. I felt them crack.
He thought that he had won something because I
hadn’t killed him or broken his ribs, or cracked his chest, killed
him. He thought that he had beaten me because I wouldn’t
hurt him. He was an idiot. I had knocked him down twice;
twice he couldn’t stop me. I would have blocked the punt,
maybe scored. He had cheated. What could I have done?
I was a jerk. Why did I let him stop me?
(“Why are you such an idiot?”)
What else could I do?
I breathed slowly and slid my head around to make the
little wooden frames that held the window glass cover the
edge of the building across the street and also the fancy line
of stone between two of its floors. I could feel my heartbeat
shake my chest.
What else could I do?
Our fingers touched. The palm of my right hand

236
pressed lightly against her back. The velvet was soft. I let the
right side of my face just touch her hair. Was that too
personal?
There was a reason to call Ann.
I walked across the room to my desk and sat on the
desk chair. Doris had given me a telephone with its own
number so that my calls didn’t prevent her friend’s calls from
reaching her. I dialed Ann’s number and, while I waited for
someone to answer, opened a news magazine.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Feld,” I said, “this is Richard. May I speak
to Ann please?”
“Of course. Wait a minute, she’s right here.”
Then I hear her voice.
“Hi.”
She speaks. [(I feel very calm.].) I turn the pages of
the magazine.
She makes a short laughlaughs, her special laugh: a
small gasp, a high-pitched sound.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I hear pages turning.”
“Oh, I just moved some papers on my desk.”
I listen to her speak.
“Are you reading a magazine?”
“No.”
“You are. I hear pages turning.”
“I’m just looking at a news magazine. I’m not reading
it.”
Would she be angry?
“You’re looking at a magazine?”
“I’m just looking at the pictures. It’s a news magazine”
She laughs. I listen to the squeaking noise.
“Rick,” she says.
“What time should I pick you up tomorrow?”
“Skip called and asked me out next weekend.”

237
 I sit up straight on the desk chair and look away from
the magazine, look at the phone.
“My Mother says I should go out with other people, not
just you.” Her voice sounds almost like a question.
“Are you going out with him?”
She is quiet for only a small part of a second when she
usually would have spoken.
“No,” she says.
I look back at the picture in the magazine.
“My Aunt says I should go out with other people, too.”
“Do you want to?”
I try not to answer. I say, “Do you want to?”
“Do you want to?” She repeats.
“No. I only want to go out with you.” [I am close to an
edge or boundary, but I have said it.]
(I am close to an edge or boundary, but I have said it.)
“I don’t either,” she says, without seeming to notice.
I breathe slowly.
“His parents gave him a dog name?”
“That’s not nice. You shouldn’t say that. He’s very
nice.”
“Yeah, but he has a dog name.”
Does she think that I’m nasty?
She laughs. She isn’t really angry. Soon the phone
call would have to be over. I want to talk to her.
“I guess I should go,” I say.
She speaks more and I listen.
“I’ll pick you up at six-thirty, okay?” I tell her.
“Okay.”
“Okay, I guess I should go.”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight.”

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 She was gone.
“Why don’t you go out with someone else? Give some
other girl a chance?” she said.
She was wearing only underwear. Which other girl?
“You know, there are lots of fish in the sea. You should
be meeting lots of people at your age. See what they’re like.
There are lots of cute girls out there.”
I looked out the window and slid my head against the
bookshelf. Ann isn’t cute. The thought is strange. It is
unconnected to me.
What other girl would I like? I think of how another girl
would look. She should look like Ann. I think of how another
girl would act. She should act like Ann. Why look for another
girl, if I thought she should be like Ann. Could you find another
girl exactly like Ann? That wasn’t possible. Ann was real.
“You know, Ann is a very nice girl, but she’s older than
you. When she’s ready to get married, you’re still going to be
much too young. She’s going to marry a muchan older guy…
extends her arm towards where I am standing… don’t touch;
I am too far away... My husband was eleven years older than
me. You need to find some other people.”
This was true, and (she was right.).
[(I wouldn’t think about it.].)
Skip. I had seen him twice. He was small, a dork. No,
he was a baby in a suit. A good boy. Very clean. Very polite.
Such a nice boy. Not anything, nobody. Skippy. Here Skippy.
I could crush him like a bug. Would she go out with him? She
wanted to go out with me.

  

“Give me a word, John. A soft word.”
What is a soft word? Concentrate.
“No – no, Abby, I’ve not come for that.”
“You come five mile to see a silly girl fly? I know you
better.”

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 Emphasize to make the meaning. “I come to see what
mischief your uncle’s brewing now. Put it out of mind, Abby.”
“I come to see what mischief your uncle’s brewing now.
Put it out of mind, Abby.”
“John – I am waitin’ for you every night.”
“Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you
more.”
Did that sound okay?
“You’re surely sportin’ with me.”
“You know me better.” [
(He is sure that what he does is right.].)
“I know how you clutched my back behind your house
and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! I saw your
face when she put me out and you loved me then and you do
now!”
I hear the sound of laughter through closed lips. Forget
that. Only think about the meaning. “Abby, that’s a wild thing
to say…” [He doesn’t show that he is worried. He is calm.]
“Abby, that’s a wild thing to say…”
(He doesn’t show that he is worried. He is calm.)
“A wild thing may say wild things. I have seen you
since she put me out, I have seen you nights.”
“I have hardly stepped off my farm this sevenmonth.”
“I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn
me to my window. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at
my window?”
[(Is this possible?]?) Think about timing, the same as
in music.
“Perhaps I… have.”
More laughter. I try not to hear anything in the room
but the Abby. I have decided: I will do it right, speak with the
emotions of the character, even when they laugh.
“I know you, John, I know you. I cannot sleep for
dreamin’, I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house
as though I’d find you comin’ through some door.”
What does this mean? [(He always makes me read the

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hardest parts.] .)
“Child…”
“How do you call me a child!”
“Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But
I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe
it out of mind – we never touched, Abby.”
“Aye, but we did.”
“Thank you. Stop there.”
He may give me the part. Could that happen? The
other two were older: Seniors. One of them wasn’t very good,
but the other one was okay. Was he okay? What would
happen next?
It was time to be finished. I looked at my watch again.
It was time to leave. I had to leave now to get there before
the beginning [(and be with Ann,],) but I couldn’t leave until we
were done.
He might give me the part. He could even give it to me
now. Could I learn all these lines? Could I remember all these
lines?
I looked at the clock over the door. Ann would be
waiting. Would she wait?
(“Be finished. Come on. It’s time. It’s past the time.”)
“Chris, read the same section. Melissa, keep reading
Abby.”
No. When would we stop? He had to stop. [(When
would he choose?]?) She was the Abby. He had decided that
she would be Abby but he was unsure about the John. The
good Senior would be John. [(The other one stank.].) This
had to be the end. We should have been finished already, but
he was unsure about the John. Could I still get there before
they started dancing? [(No.].)
“Give me a word, John. A soft word.”
She was okay.
“I come to see what mischief your uncle’s brewing now.
Put it out of mind, Abby.”
“John – I am waitin’ for you every night.”

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 “Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you
more.”
No, the emphasis of the words should be different: (“I’ll
not be comin’ for you more.”) I was better. Was I better?
Again the sound of laughter through closed lips. They
hadn’t laughed because I was saying the lines or at the way I
was saying the lines: they laughed even when someone else,
someone older read the part.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
Al, a Senior, would be a Senior when school started.
He could say that without laughing. He was saying that to me,
and I thought to act calm and as if it were normal for me to talk
like this. I was a person who could talk like this.
“I go out with someone.”
“Yeah? From what school?”
I concentrated on walking up the trail with smooth, even
steps, and I watched the ground so that I didn’t trip on a rock.
I told him.
“Yeah? Who is it?”
Was it okay to say Ann’s name, to say that I went out
with Ann? I had to answer.
“Ann Feld.”
“Your girlfriend is Ann Feld?”
I breathed. “Yeah.”
Was that lying? Ann did go out with me. Did Al really
know her? Why did he know her?
“She’s really sharp. There are only two really sharp
girls in that school and she’s one of them.”
“Yeah?” I wanted to hear him say that again. “Two
sharp girls?”
“Yeah. Ann and Catherine Gray.”
Ann and I waited for the movie to start.
She said, “I saw Catherine Gray changing in the girls
bathroom.”
“Oh?”
“She was wearing the most beautiful underwear. She

242
goes out with older guys, with men.”
“Okay. Thank you all. That was very good. See you
next week. Don’t forget to leave your scripts.”
I walked quickly to the table at the end of the stage and
put the yellow booklet in a cardboard box. Then I walked out
the door and down the stairs. The centers of the stone treads
were dented because so many feet had scraped across them.
My hand slid over the slick surface of the railing. Just like the
others, I had done this many times before, would do it again
over and over in the future. What made the people different,
the days different? Eventually, it would end and then what
would there be?
A cab had stopped at the corner to let a passenger out.
I held the door and then stepped inside and told the driver the
club address. The traffic light turned green and the cab began
to move. I looked at my watch. Already started.
Outside on the sidewalk, people moved in many
directions doing small things. The cab passed a man selling
newspapers. He wore a canvas apron and waited for
someone to take a paper off the stack lying on the sidewalk
beside him.
We walk fast, side by side, almost touching but not
touching, still I can feel her there. I listen to her voice. I don’t
have to say anything. It is dark now.
A man at a fruit and vegetable stand sells something in
a brown paper bag to a woman wearing a fur coat. They block
our path and we wait until the man has given the woman
change and she has walked past us carrying her package.
Ann says, “Don’t youryou wish you were like them? It
would be easier.”
She is speaking about the grocery man.
“They don’t think about everything.”
I don’t answer. The adults would laugh and say that
this is a stupid question but it confuses me. [(I am not sure
that what she is saying is stupid. In my mind it is somehow a
horrible problem.].) Why does she have this thought? She

243
has never said anything like this before. I don’t know her this
way.
The cab stopped in front of the club entrance and I paid
the driver. The stone staircase leading to the front doors was
empty; nobody was going in or out. I was very late. What was
she doing?
I rushed up the stairs into the building, took off my coat
and threw it onto the counter. Where was the coat-check
lady?
“Hello?”
After many seconds like minutes she walked slowly
towards me from somewhere in the back of the coatroom.
She looked at me. She looked down at the coat. Slowly, she
picked it up, found a hanger, gave me the little tag with a
number on it.
I rushed to the back of the lobby. There was an
archway. Through the archway, a curved staircase, marble.
A brass railing fastened to the polished stone wall by ornately
formed metal. Ahead, at the bend, a glass chandelier with
glittering crystal drops. I grasp the railing and pull myself
forward up two stairs with each stride, looking towards the
curve of the rising marble passage. I turn the corner.

She appears from somewhere within, steps onto the

upper landing, turns and faces me, eyes searching. Black
velvet, a broad skirt. She has smooth brown hair parted
slightly to the side of her head and cut in a curve beneath the
line of her jaw, the ends turning slightly inward at a place
where the neck becomes the shoulder. Pale skin. We smile.
My heart smiles. Her face is a light that darkens everything
around us. I feel myself lifted, lifted towards her, slowly rising
in the light. The air glitters, the smooth stone walls shine, the
crystal drops of the chandeliers star-like. She raises her arms.
Her hands open, her fingers long, slender. I am lifted. Her
breath flows through me andbut my mind screams. What can
I do? What comes after? I have no answer. I am almost

244
there. I raise my arms. Our fingers touch, her face waiting
just beneath my own.

I held her hands and stepped around her onto the

landing. We looked at each other only for a small part of a
second as she began to pull her hands away from mine. I saw
her eyes and felt sickened by the feeling there, which forced
me to turn my head. What should I say?
“I need to go to the bathroom.” This was true. “I’ll meet
you inside.”
I went into the men’s room. It’s stupid, impossible. Will
she come and live in my room with me, with me and Doris at
the apartment? What will we do? Go to the movies? Dress
up and go to dances like dead people in old movies? It’s
stupid. Then what would happen? We would have to go to
college soon. She would go to college and meet people who
were going to be lawyers and business men. Doctors. And
where would I be? I saw her face evaporating, becoming
transparent in the air. What would I do? I can’t think about
this.
I found her in the ballroom. She was dancing with Matt.
They weren’t talking. Tommy and Carl were standing nearby.
I rushed to cut in.
“We were taking turns dancing with her to keep other
guys away,” Tommy said.
Matt looked at me and laughed, “Where were you?
Some guy was trying to dance with her, but we kept cutting
in.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t go away, but we wouldn’t let him
dance with her.”
“Thanks. Thank you. It was supposed to end much
earlier. I wanted to be here.”
Ann didn’t say anything. Her back felt stiff under my
hand. After a few dances, everything would be alright. [(No.].)
It was over, anyway. Nothing to be done. I wouldn’t think
about it.

245
 “I couldn’t leave. I had to stay,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m
late.” [
I would believe that this was the problem. The problem
was that I had missed most of the dance, had told her that I
would be here.].
She didn’t say anything.
Then she said, “That’s okay.”
Her voice was different. My insides felt dull, sick.
[(After a few dances everything would be alright.].)
“Thank you very much. Goodnight,” the bandleader
said. “We hope you’ve all enjoyed yourselves.”
That was all? It was over?
I looked at her, but she had turned and was walking
toward the stairway. I followed, walking quickly, but couldn't
catch her until she stopped in the lobby to get her coat. I took
it and held it for her and she pushed her arms rapidly into the
sleeves.
“Goodnight,” she said. “My Dad is here for me.”
He was?
“Where?” I asked her.
“Outside,” she said.
She was gone. When would I see her again? I wanted
things to be normal.
(“You’ll fix it later. Don’t worry about it now.”)
I stood on the sidewalk in the gray darkness, the dull
feeling now was stuck inside me. Suffocating. How should I
go home, which way? Not seeing anything that I recognized,
I turned slowly, then began to walk.
What could I have done, anyway? I had no choice. I
had to stay until it was over.
(“Just don’t think about it, you idiot. It’s not important.”)

  

“Have you read it?” Carl asked me.
“I’ve started, but I haven’t read the whole thing yet.”

246
 Carl knew I couldn’t finish a book with more than a
thousand pages in five days [(knew I wasn’t smart enough.]).
“But it’s really good,” I said. It definitely was a good
story. “Are the others this good?” The story filled your mind
completely.
“I haven’t read them yet, but this is the main one.”
“She’s definitely right about people,” I said, although in
my second mind I thought this probably wasn’t true [(wrong
about everything?]?)
“Yeah.”
The woman in the book was different from real women.
(“That’s the point, you idiot.”)
Were the other characters like real people? Each of
them was too much one way: too stupid or too smart mostly,
or too something — but I didn’t want to think that.
"It’s the way people are,” I said.
“It’s a great description of bourgeois behavior,” Carl
said.
“Yeah.” Carl was definitely right. (Did I understood
what he meant [?]?)
“You have to read the explanation of the philosophy.
There’s a long explanation of the philosophy later,” he said.
“Yeah, I know.” Was I lying?
“She’s basically saying that the reality you perceive
exists outside of consciousness, you know, that the world is a
definite thing, not just something we think about or imagine.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Titssess,” Tommy said behind me.
No, I wasn’t lying, because Carl had told me twice
already that the book had an explanation of the philosophy.
“Titssess,” Matt said and laughed quietly.
I looked to my left and saw a woman walking towards
us in a grey coat that bulged over her chest.
“Titssess,” Dan and I said at the same time.
I spit each of the “Ts” over the top of my tongue and
hissed the rest so that the word sounded right, which I thought

247
it had. Carl and Davey didn’t say anything [, making me feel
embarrassed.].
She was wearing a very short skirt, black stockings and
boots. She didn’t look at us as we passed. We stared at her.
Through the tight stocking material, I could see the line that
the edge of the muscle made above her knee.
A woman walked towards us. She wore a white
sweater. Her breasts raised the sweater into pointed cones.
I stared at them.
“That’s really something,” she said. “Do you like that?”
I didn’t want to hear her and didn’t answer.
“Do you like them that way?” she said more loudly.
“What?” I said, and walked faster.
“Do you like that?”
Tommy laughed. He had gotten drunk because of
Carol Leiber, but he wasn’t as drunk as Matt had been the
weekend before when he had vomited on my shoes.
“Tits,” he shouted.
“God. Shut up, Tommy,” I said. “We’re in public.”
“She’s got em.”
“Yes, that’s very nice. We know. Keep quiet.
Matt and Dan laughed.
“He’s not coming inside if he’s going to act like that,”
Davey said.
“He’ll be alright.” Matt patted Tommy on the back.
“Feeling good, Buddy?”
“No I feel like shit.”
“Well, if you’re gonna puke, you’d better do it now
before we get there.” Matt laughed.
“I may puke.”
“Yeah, why don’t ya. You’ll feel better.”
Carl looked at Tommy. I watched his face, which was
twisted as if he were already smelling vomit.
“He could do it in the gutter,” Carl said quietly, almost
only to himself.
“Let’s do it in the streetroad,” Tommy yelled.

248
 “I’m telling you, he’s not coming inside,” Davey said.
“Wanna go home, Buddy?” Matt asked Tommy.
“I wanna go find Carol.”
I patted him on the back and said, “I know you do, but
I don’t think you can, Tommy,” making my voice sympathetic,
hoping he would forget about Carol and be sober [(but also
wanting to hear him talk about Carol.].)
“You don’t care. You’re going to marry Ann,” he said.
“I’m not going to marry Ann.”
“You’re going to marry Ann,” Matt said.
“Yeah,” said Dan.
“No I’m not.”
I stared at them, then turned my head and looked
towards the buildings we were passing. Why did they always
say that? They must know that it was impossible, that it
couldn’t happen. Anyway, ifIf it happeneddid happen, then
nothing would ever change. Everything would always have to
be the same as now. [, which was impossible. (Who would I
be?]?) Don’t think about it.
“Titssess,” Matt said.
I didn’t look.
“Who is John Gault?” I said to Carl, feeling angry.
“Who is John Gault.” he said.
“Titssess,” said Dan.
“You understand, don’t you?” Tommy groaned and
looked at me. “Carol’s going out with other guys.”
“Yeah, Tommy, I understand.” Wanting him to stop
talking. [ (Wanting to be drunk, too.] .)
Why did he think that she would go out only with him?
“You understand.”
He put his arm around my shoulders.
Matt stopped walking and we all stopped behind him. I
saw that we were standing in front of the club and looked at
Davey who was watching Tommy.
“Don’t worry, Davey,” I said, “I’ve got him. He’s okay.”
“Come on. Let’s go in,” Matt said.

249
 We climbed the stone steps in a group.
“Tommy, just don’t say anything. I’m serious.”
“Okay,” he said, and I thought that he understood.
“Do you need to be sick?”
“No,” he said. He was looking at his feet.
“Great,” I said.
We waited while Davey walked towards a man in a
black suit who was standing beside a desk made out of dark
shiny wood at one side of the large lobby. It looked old and
expensive. Was this possible? Could something look old or
look expensive? The muscles of Davey’s face were tight.
“Good evening Mr. Levey,” the man said to Davey.
“How can we help you?”
“We’re going to play pool. Is my Father here?”
“He’s in the library. Enjoy yourselves gentlemen,” he
said. “I’ll send Mario up to you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Davey answered. He turned
his head. “You go upstairs. Don’t go in if someone else is
using the table. I’m going to tell my Father we’re here. And
don’t do anything.”
Matt made his quiet laugh again. “It’ll be okay,” he said.
“We won’t do anything will we?”
Davey looked over his shoulder at us as we walked
towards the elevator.
“Tommy, don’t say anything,” I told him.
“Don’t worry.” He did understand, or maybe he was
thinking about Carol.
“Somber not sober,” I said.
Carl laughed.
Matt pushed the button on the wall beside the elevator
and the door slid open immediately. The elevator was small
and paneled with polished dark-brown wood that reflected the
dim light from a thick brass fixture on the ceiling. We crowded
together inside and Matt pushed the button for the third floor.
The door slid closed.
“Chchllllellll,” Matt gurgled.

250
 “Hi sweetie,” Dan said to Matt.
“Get away from me, you queers,” Tommy said and
pushed Dan against Matt. The elevator shook.
“Come on, Tommy,” I said, hoping that we went directly
to the third floor and that nobody was waiting there for the
elevator.
“Oh, sweetie,” Matt said to me.
The door opened. In front of us there was an arched
entry. Beyond that, a large room with a bar, a television and
green leather armchairs around low coffee tables. There was
a brick fireplace facing the bar.
Dan pushed in front of Tommy and me. “Chchllllellll,”
he gurgled.
“Watch it, sweetie,” I said.
“God you’re all a bunch of faggots,” Tommy said loudly.
“Shut up, Tommy.”
There were no adults in the room. We walked inside
and to the right. The pool room was behind a door near the
fireplace. No one was in the pool room either; the lights were
out. Carl waited while we shoved each other to get through
the doorway first. Matt turned on the lights and, when we were
all inside, Dan slammed the door.
“Okay! Who’s playing snooker?” Matt said.
“Eight Ball,” Dan shouted and rushed to collect the
balls and rack them. “I’ll break.”
Tommy stood in front of the cabinet against the long
wall facing the door. I looked over his shoulder and tried to
decide again which cue was the best.
“Lag for break,” Matt said. “Who goes first?”
While I stared into the cabinet, the others stepped in
front of me and took cues. There were only four left. I picked
the one that looked most right: straight, polished-smooth.
What was the right length? Was this the best one? It didn’t
matter now because there were only three others in the
cabinet and they definitely looked wrong. Two seemed bent
and one had a chip in its side. Maybe someone else would

251
share with me? The problem might be that I never had the
right cue.
I slid my arms out of my coat and sport jacket and laid
itthem over the back of a chair with the lining folded to the
outside. Dan shot a ball the length of the table. It hit the
cushion at the other end and rolled half-way back towards
him.
“Shit,” he said.
“Sorry buddy.” ,” said Matt .
Matt bent over the table and put another ball on the felt
surface. He bent over the table, balancing the cue on top of
his thumb and holding it under his index finger,laid his hand
resting on the smooth green tabletop, behind the ball with his
fingers spread apart like an open fan., then balanced the cue
on top of his thumb and held it under his index finger. Slowly,
smoothly, he slid the cue back and forth without touching the
ball. I watched what he did and tried to relax and be confident
– to know that: I would imitate him and make a good shot.
Suddenly, the door opened and Davey walked into the
room followed by a man wearing a white jacket with brass
buttons. Matt stood up and put the butt of his cue on the floor.
We didn’t say anything. The waiter stood behind Davey.
[He(The waiter didn’t like us.].)
“Do you want something to drink?” Davey asked us.
“Yeah, Coke.”
“Coke.”
“What kind of gin do you have?” Tommy asked in a loud
voice.
We all laughed except Davey.
“You’re not having gin,” Davey said.
We laughed again.
“Bring us six Cokes, please,” Davey said to the waiter.
The man nodded at Davey, then turned and left the
room without speaking.
“And bring some gin,” Tommy shouted.
Davey stared at Tommy and shut the door, while the

252
rest of us laughed.
“Well, I guess we have to start over,” Dan said and
picked up his ball. “Matt goes first.”
Matt laughed, bent over the table again and aimed his
cue at the ball. I watched the way he held it, made it slide
between his fingers. The cue tapped the ball, which rolled the
length of the table, struck the cushion and rolled back
almostnearly to the cushion under his handin front of him.
“Good shot,” Dan said. “Tommy, you go.”
Tommy’s shot was good even though he was drunk,
but not as good as Matt’s. He picked up his ball, dropped it in
one of the side pockets and walked to the corner of the room
where he sat on a chair.
Dan’s shot was too hard and hit the near cushion.
Carl’s ball stopped in the middle of the table.
Maybe it would be better if I used Matt’s cue.
“Can I use your cue,” I asked Matt.
“Sure.” He traded with me.
I put my ball on the felt tabletop and rested his cue
behind it on top of my thumb. Imitatinghand, imitating him.
Slowly, I slowly slid the cue back and forth throughover my
fingers, trying to make the motion smooth and straight. It
wobbled slightly. Maybe I should change the position of my
feet?
“Come on,” Davey said. “We want to play at least one
game before school starts Monday.”
“Shut up, Davey. Let me shoot.”
“Well then shoot.”
“Come on,” Matt said.
I shot. The ball hit the far cushion and rolled back
towards me. The shot was okay, wasn’t it?
“Uh oh.”
“A leetle speedy.”
It would be okay. [(No.].) I had been rushed.
“Too bad.”
The ball bounced against the cushion in front of me and

253
rolled back almost to where it had started.
(“Jerk. Can’t you just shoot the right way.”) [
No.]. I picked up the ball.
Davey’s shot was good, stopping about six inches from
the near cushion. Everyone except Tommy looked at the two
balls on the table.
“Matt wins,” Dan said. “Give me your balls.”
We all laughed.
“Shut up you assholes.”
He put the rest of the balls in the rack and slid it across
the table until its front point was on the black spot.
“Okay, I break and play Davey first game,” Matt said.
“I’ve got the winner,” Dan said.
Instead of watching them, I sat on a chair in the corner
next to Tommy.
“How are you doing?” I asked him, because he was
drunk and might be sick [(because I wanted to hear him talk
about Carol.].)
He stared at his hands and didn’t answer. Then he
said, “Why does she do that? I thought she cared about me.
Everything was perfect. She said she cared about me.”
“You can’t believe that stuff, Tommy, you know.” Did
he think that he and Carol would be together forever just
because she was beautiful.
Did he think that he and Carol would be together
forever just because she was beautiful?
“She’s so beautiful. You think she’s beautiful too, don’t
you?”
“Yeah.” [(He knows this but wants me to say it.].)
“I wish we were together.”
“Tommy, you should just forget about her.” [I tried to
sound wise.].
“I can’t forget about her. I can’t stop thinking about
her.”
“It doesn’t do any good. Take my word for it. Just put
her out of your mind.”

254
 “She said she cares about me.”
“Well, you can’t believe that stuff. You knew she went
out with a lot of people.”
“But now she goes out with me.”
“Tommy, she says that but she’s going out with other
people. She changed her mind.”
“No. She cares about me. Why else would she say
that?”
“Who knows, Tommy.”
“But I feel the same as I did. I can’t forget her.”
“Just wait awhile. It willIt’ll go away.”
I looked in the direction of the pool table. Davey was
shooting. Why did you have to watch them? They made you
watch them, they knew you wanted to touch them.
“I keep hearing stories about you with other girls all
over the city,” Ann said.
I stop breathing; I can’t breathe for several seconds or
even minutes.
“It's nothing. They don’t mean anything. I don’t care
about them.” [I don’t care about them; they are nothing.]
This is very true: I don’t care about them. They are
nice, pretty, but they are not important. Ann is important; they
are nothing.
I have taken off the costume [(the last time].). I dressed
slowly in my own clothes, pulled the dark red sweater that
Grandma Kay had made over my head. As I straightened my
shirtsleeves under the sweater arms and pulled them so that
the cuffs showed over my wrists, I realized that I was alone in
the dressing room. They will leave the theatre and I won’t be
able to find the party. My shoulder muscles tightened. I
looked carefully at the room and smelled its air to remember,
then rushed through the door into the wings and onto the
stage, which was empty and almost completely dark. A thin
bar of light and the sound of a few voices came through the
space between the two halves of the curtain: the only sound.
Have they left? I pulled the curtain aside and stepped through

255
the opening onto the apron, and, when I did that, everyone
stopped talking and looked at me. They were all there waiting,
all of them including the older kids. Ann was sitting in the
second row, empty seats on either side of her. We see each
other. We smile. Then, at once, together, they alleveryone
stood and began to leave the theatre.
Ann walks beside me in the frigid air. She is wearing
her long cloth coat. Her hair is smooth; it touches her collar.
I want to smell it, to put my arm around her waist. Near us,
people laugh and talk in loud voices. We are quiet, but my
heart is shaking my chest. There will be beer at the party. If
I am drunk I may kiss her; it might happen that way. We would
dance and then begin kissing, pressed together in the dark. It
would be because I was drunk. Everyone would be drunk so
they could be crazy. Maybe Ann would drink too.
“I feel sick,” Tommy was still staring at his hands.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” I said. ‘We can take
a cab. Come on.”

  

The stripes passed beneath my eyes so quickly that I

saw a single line. Blurred black marks on the line meant that
what I saw was an illusion though, really a lot of separate
things that created one bigger thing. I could even make
myself see the line as black with white stripes on it. Each
stripe was like a mark on a ruler measuring the distance we
had gone, or like a clock tick measuring the time we had
traveled. Was there a difference?
("Of course, you idiot. It depends on how fast you're
moving.") [
(Was there?]?) My eyes began to hurt and I turned my
head and looked at the dashboard and then at my Father's
hands on the steering wheel. They were my hands, but
stronger and with dark hairs on the backs of the fingers. We
had the same hands. I looked at his face. I thought he looked

256
happy, maybe excited because he was going back to his
college. How could you know this? I tried to think of
something to say.
"Are you glad to be going back?"
"Sure. It'll be fun."
In my other mind I wasn’t sure that this was an answer
to my question.
"Are you ready for your interview?" he asked me.
"I guess." [(Ready?]?)
"It's a real reach, but you never know."
"Uh huh," I said, sitting on the front of my chair, leaning
forward and looking at him to show that I was listening and
understood what he was telling me.
"But do you think there's really a chance?" she asked.
[Begged.]
"I think this is a place where you're never sure what
they're going to do, but of course it's a long shot," he
answered.
My Father didn't say anything.
"But then you really have to get to work on those other
applications," she said to me.
"I know." [(The crappy places.].)
"You have to stop procrastinating."
"I will. I'll do it,"
I didn't have to think about that now.
"We're going to take a trip and visit them," she said
looking at Mr. Hollis and then at my Father, who nodded his
head.
"You should think about the interview in advance: the
questions he might ask you and your answers," Mr. Hollis said
to me. "He may do something to make you uncomfortable to
see how you react."
"You really have to prepare," she said. "Use your head.
([For a change.)".]"
They all looked at me.
"I will," I answered, and, with part of my mind, tried to

257
remember Mr. Hollis's speech about college interviews.
"Why do you want to go to college?"
Everybody has to go to college. You have to go to
college so that you can get a job. [(Where else would I go?]?)
Only morons don't go to college.
"Tell me about yourself."
What was the right answer to that? Tell about what?
I would just think of something to say when I heard the
questions. Who could know what he would ask me?
I watched my Father drive the car and felt the world
around us become strange.
We should talk about something.
"What should I say at my interview?"
"I don't know. It depends on what he asks you."
"Yeah."
"If you have the opportunity, you could talk about what
you did last summer."
"Yeah, that would be good." [(Why?]?)
"Or you could talk about what you've been reading."
"Yeah."
That was easy.
My Father steered the car off the highway at an exit
marked by a large green sign that rushed towards my face so
fast that I flinched. At the end of the exit ramp, he turned the
car right onto a regular road between two farm fields.
"It's the country here," he said.
"Yeah."
I tried to understand a college being in this place.
"Well, they keep the students real busy so there isn't
time to get bored. There actually are a lot of people around
because of the State University."
[What did they do all day?]? I looked at the brown fields
and the farm buildings. The buildings were old: some of the
boards were falling off the sides of the barns and the paint on
the farm houses had peeled in places uncovering bare gray
wood. We passed a large village green surrounded by old-

258
style houses with wide front porches and narrow attic
windows. There was a church that looked like the ones in
Christmas-story books and another large wooden building
that had a portico with four tall columns. Who lived here?
What did they do?
"We're almost there now," my Father said.
The road began to go uphill between clusters of trees
and more houses. The houses didn't have garages, but some
of them had driveways that led to separate buildings with wide
high doorways.
"It hasn't changed much."
They had cornices and moldings, hinged shutters held
against their sides by s-shaped metal bars, iron fences and
weather vanes. Then, on the right, a brick fence surrounding
a football field and, behind the field, a stadium with wooden
bleachers.
My Father stopped the car at a traffic light at the top of
the hill.
"We're here," he said.
In front of us was another village green, this one
surrounded on two sides by buildings with flat fronts, mostly
made of brick, containing stores. Across from where we were
stopped and facing the long side of the green to the left of the
road, were some larger buildings including a church and one
that looked like several brick houses attached to each other in
a random way. A painted sign hung from a thick woodenwood
post beside its door. To the right of the road there was a large
brick building with a portico and stone columns [(Corinthian].).
"That's the College," my Father said, looking straight
out the windshield, "and that's the Inn." He pointed across the
green at the building with the sign in front of it. "I've always
wanted to stay there." He smiled.
The light changed and my Father drove through the
intersection, turned left at the far side of the green and parked
the car in front of the Inn.
"This'll be fun," he said.

259
 My heartbeat shook my chest. We carried our
suitcases into a dark lobby with a low ceiling. There were oil
paintings of colonial scenes on the walls. We stopped in front
of a polished counter to the left of the doorway near a narrow
staircase. A man wearing a dark suit [(here?]?) walked out of
an office behind the counter. I turned slowly, looking at the
room: armchairs, dark wood, lamps and, facing the counter,
double doors with glass panels covered by curtains on the
opposite side. There was a large painting of woodenwood
ships anchored in a harbor [(had I seen them before?].?).
"Good evening," I heard the man say behind me. "How
may I help you."
"We have a reservation," my Father said, "Mr. Frank
and Mr. Frank."
"Ah, yes. One night for two. And will you be eating
dinner with us?"
"Yes, I think so. We should do that, don't you think?"
"What?" I turned to face him.
"Would you like to eat dinner here?"
"Sure," I answered. "That sounds great."
"Do you need help with your bags?" the man asked.
My Father looked at me. "No, I don't think so."
We carried our suitcases up the stairs. I was careful
not to let mine scratch the wallpaper.
Our room was small. It had a cupboard [(armoire?]?)
instead of a closet and two beds separated by a table. I
looked at the symmetrical curves cut into the tops of the
headboards. [(Did their shapes mean anything?].?) The
shape of the headboards reminded me of the top of a building.
"Which bed would you like?" my Dad asked.
"I don't care. You pick," I said.
"I'll take this one." He put his bag on the one nearer
the door. "You can have the one next to the window. Is that
okay?"
"Sure."
I put my suitcase down beside the bed, trying to step

260
lightly on the carpet so that I didn't disturb it.
"Why don't you hang up your suit and then we can go
have a look around? I think we have time before dinner."
He hung his clothes in the armoire and went into the
bathroom. I put my suitcase on the bed carefully, opened it
and took out my suit and my sport jacket. The air inside the
armoire was warm and smelled woody. I had to turn the
hangers slightly sideways to close the armoire doors. They
banged shut making me jump because I hadn't pushed them
hard. While I watched the armoire shake, my Dad came out
of the bathroom.
"Come on," he said. "Let's look around."
We walked out of the hotel and turned left, going uphill
toward the building with the Corinthian columns. The
sidewalk was narrow and, although I stayed close to the edge
of the pavement, I veered and bumped against my Father's
side several times.
("Why can't you walk straight?")
In my other mind, I thought that it felt as if I were being
pulled toward him by a personal gravity. He didn't seem
bothered; he was looking at the big brick and stone building.
"That used to be the library before they built the new
one on the quad," he said, raising his bare arm and pointing.
He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and he had taken off his
tie. I looked at his arms: they were covered with smooth black
hair. My arms were thinner. [(How did he know that they had
built another library?]?)
"That's where I decided to go to business school. I was
in the can on the second floor.”
"In there?"
"Yup. In the can on the second floor."
"Oh."
We reached the building and he stopped and turned to
look at its front.
"Now I think it's the administration building. I guess
we're going there tomorrow."

261
 "Oh," I said.
"Come on. Let's go see the quad."
Not very far past the old library or administration
building, the street ended at a road that went uphill to the left
and was separated from the sidewalk by a wide strip of grass.
"That's the new library," he pointed at a much larger
modern brick and concrete box in front of us.
"This is just the College here?" I asked him, looking at
the library and the other nearby buildings. "That library is just
for the College?"
"Yes. What do you mean?"
"There isn't an entrance? The College is just in the
town?"
"Uh huh."
"And all this is the College?"
"Uh huh. All the College."
In front of the new library there was a terrace paved
with gray stone and, in front of that on the other side of the
road, a large grassy rectangle with huge old trees growing
alongside paths that crossed the lawn at odd angles. The
road went all the way around the lawn, separating it from other
buildings.
"That's the main quad."
[(Other quads?] ?)
There was a white-painted wood and brick church to
the right. On each side of the church were identical long brick
buildings and, beside them, smaller ones, similar but not
identical, with their narrow ends facing the grass. Opposite,
across the quad, there were two more long brick buildings that
looked newer. I could see past the trees that there were other
buildings at the far end of the quad and, at the center of the
far end, a wide piece of blue sky that must have been a view
from the top of the hill.
I stared at the space, my eyes feeling the symmetrical
plan that was crossed and touched by unsymmetrical parts
[How(how did they know they could combine symmetry and

262
asymmetry that way?],?), and at the combination of brown
brick, white wood and gray stone, old trees, and cut grass. I
smelled the fresh green. The space was good if you didn't
look at the new library. The new library wasn't right.
"What do you think?"
"It's big."
He laughed. "Not that big. But it does look strange
without most of the students here."
It looked unused and almost perfect. There were only
a few people walking around the campus and going in and out
of the long buildings. Were they students? They wore casual
clothes, not ties and jackets.
"Come on, let's take a look at the view."
I followed my Dad who was crossing the road and we
walked together over the grass between the trees. Was it
okay not to walk on a path?
The center of the far end was paved with gray stones
and encircled by stone posts connected by a thick black chain.
Within the circle, place names were carved on the fronts of
rectangular granite blocks had the names of foreign battles
carved on their faces.. Beyond this enclosure, a flight of stairs
and then, across a path, a steep hill went down to an
enormous playing field and, past that,. On the far side of the
field, there were dark woods and distant mountains. I couldn't
see even one house past the fieldsfield. The grass on the hill
was cut in a widening wedge that made me feel as if I were
being sucked into empty space. It was meant to do that, I
realized.
"This is a monument to students and teachers who died
in the war," my Father said.
Teachers died?
"I guess I knew some of them."
He stood still and looked at the names carved into the
surface of a raised platform in the center of the circle.
A sudden deep noise made my body shake. One bong,
then another and another: the clock in the steeple on top of

263
the church.
"Wow, it's later than I thought," my Dad said, "we
should go so we're not late for dinner."
I looked again at the view and then began walking with
him back across the quad.
"When I was a senior, I had a room in that building over
there on the fourth floor right next to the steeple."
"Did that thing ring at night? How did you sleep?"
"I don't know. I guess I just did. One time, though, I
borrowed an old car from a guy who lived down the hall
because I had a date, and the steering on the car didn't work
right. The girl wanted to drive. It was stupid, but I let her and
she crashed the car into a tree."
"The guy must have been really angry."
"I don't remember. I took the girl home and then I went
back to my room and listened to those bells ringing all night
and my head was killing me. Finally I got up, put all my shoes
in a suitcase and walked to the infirmary."
"You put all your shoes in a suitcase? Why did you do
that? You took all your shoes to the infirmary?"
"I don't know. I had a fractured skull and a concussion.
I didn't know what I was doing."
"A fractured skull?"
"I'd broken my skull."
"You mean you broke the bone? You hit your head so
hard you broke the bone and then you just went back to your
room?"
"Yup."
"But you could’ve died, couldn't you?"
"I guess I could have. In those days all they did was
keep me in the infirmary. It's hard to remember what
happened I guess because I had a concussion. But I
remember lying in bed with those bells ringing in my head and
dreaming about bells. I missed my final exams and didn't
make fifigh bait."
"What's fifigh bait?"

264
 "The honor society. Phi Beta Kappa."
"But didn't they give you make-up exams?"
"They did, but my score on the English exam was one
point too low and I didn't make it."
"That's not fair. You cracked open your head."
"That's the way it is."
"What's a concussion?"
"It's when your brain gets hurt, I think, but not
permanently damaged."
"You cracked open your head and hurt your brain and
didn't go to a hospital? Where did you break your skull?"
"Back here."
He pointed at the bottom of his skull in the exact middle
just above his spine where he had a long narrow white scar.
"Did you get cut there? Where you have the scar? I
thought you just had a cut there or something."
"I can't remember. I must have because I have a scar."
When we reached the hotel, we went upstairs to our
room and put on ties and our sport jackets. Then we went
back downstairs. The double doors with glass panels had
been opened. Behind them was a large dining room, the
tables covered with smooth clean white tablecloths and set
with shining plates, glasses and silverware. I could smell the
tablecloths and food cooking somewhere, and another smell,
which I thought was from the carpet or the drapes. It was a
warm restaurant smell.
"Mr. Frank and Mr. Frank," my Dad said to a man
standing beside a tall desk just inside the doorway. [
(Which Frank was him and which Frank was me?]
He?)
The man led us to a table almost in the middle of the
room. A waiter wearing a white jacket and a black bowtie
brought us menus and then we ate pot roast and green beans.
The restaurant was fancy but the meat was dry, not like
Grandma Kay's pot roast. [(So was it actually a good place to
eat?]?) My Dad didn't talk very much. What would I have

265
done if I had broken my skull and hurt my brain? I couldn't
know. There were only a few other people having dinner and
they weren't talking either, and the dining room was so quiet
that you could hear a clinking noise every time someone put
a knife or fork on his plate. [(Soon I would have the interview.
Then it would be over.].)
We went back to our room after we had finished our
dinners. First I washed and put on my pajamas and then my
Dad washed and put on his pajamas. We both had the same
kind of pajamas, but his had blue stripes and mine were solid
blue like the sky. I liked the color. Why?
[What should I do?]? I got into the bed. The mattress
sagged uncomfortably and my feet touched the board at its
end. I moved so that I was lying at an angle, but my toes still
rubbed against the wood. I moved again.
"Do you want to read or do you just want to go to
sleep?" he asked me.
"I don't know. [No talking.] I think I'll just go to sleep."
"Will it bother you if I read for a while?"
"No."
I rolled so that my back was towards him and I was
facing the window: the bed rocked like a boat. It wasn't
completely dark outside yet, but soon we would wake up, go
to the interview and then it would be over and things would be
normal again. [(Sooner if I went to sleep now.].) I tried to
move my feet away from the board so that I couldn't press my
toes against it, which I was doing even though I didn't want to.
The bed rocked.
I remembered that weWe had been travelingpaddling
all day with just a short stop for lunch on a rocky beach. There
hadn't been much food and I was still hungry when we got
back into the canoes. We paddledtraveled with the current in
the middle of a wide river, then later we turned into streams
that branched and reconnected or met other streams
bordered by thick woods. How could Emmett know the way?
There were fallen logs in the streams and, standing on the

266
logs, long rows of turtles, some with shells as large as dinner
plates.
"Don't touch them or you'll get a nasty bite."
It was hot and I wanted to swim in the cold water, but
there wasn't time [and there were turtles.]. We had decided
to go all the way to the place where we would meet the truck,
finish a day early, because we had almost no food.
The river widened. I was in the stern and Uncle Paul
was in the bow. Berman and Walsh lay on the bottom of the
canoe, unmoving, againsttheir backs resting on packs that
were propped against the thwarts. No one spoke. I felt very
hungry, but strong. It was almost completely dark. The
canoes were in a group, not in the usual line, but it was still
hard to see who was in each one.
Paul turned and looked at me over his shoulder. "Can
you keep going?" he asked.
I had taken a very long turn.
"I feel fine," I said. "I can keep going."
The water was choppy and a cold wind began to blow
from the port bow. I could smell salt and weeds in the air. It
was hard to paddle. The canoe rocked on the waves.
"Where is this?" Mike yelled from his canoe to Emmett
whose canoe was in front.
"I'm not sure," Emmett yelled back. "I can't tell from the
map."
"Oh shit," Walsh said, sounding almost asleep.
"What should we do? It doesn't look right"
"Let's go on a little farther and see if we recognize
anything," Emmett yelled.
I felt cold and then suddenly tired. The waves slapped
against the aluminum sides of the canoe and splashed over
the gunnels.
"I feel tired," I said to Paul.
"I thought you felt fine."
He sounded angry. [(I was weak.].)
"I did, but now I feel tired."

267
 "Well stay there. We can't change now. You said you
could keep going."
"You mo," Walsh said to me.
"What's that sound?" Mike yelled.
I listened to a roaring noise [(a noise I knew]) that came
from somewhere in front of us.
"I don't know," Emmett answered.
The ocean; we had reached the end of the river.
It became more difficult to paddle in the choppy water;
the canoe was being pushed backwards by the current.
Nobody spoke, the only sounds were the rush of wind, the
slap of waves against aluminum and the roaring.
"I need to change. I've been going a long time." I told
Uncle Paul.
"Shit. Walsh, change with him," he said. "I thought you
felt fine. Why did you tell me you felt fine?"
"I'm tired too," Walsh said.
"Change with him. Keep really low so we don't ditch."
Walsh turned towards me and crouched between the
thwarts with a hand on each of the gunnels. The canoe
rocked.
"You go over," he said to me, his voice sounding
disgusted.
I put my paddle in the canoe and moved slowly towards
him, keeping as low as I could and feeling the boat jerk from
side to side each time I took a step. [(I was weak.].) Cold
water hit my hands. [(We would ditch. We would be in the
freezing water, a long way from land, unable to see anything.
We would lose our packs and have to flip the canoe in
darkness and be soaked. Could we flip the canoe in this
freezing dark?]?) My hands shook. [(Would someone
drown?]?) I stepped over Walsh and he crawled between my
legs pulling his feet over the thwarts. The canoe swayed from
side to side.
"Be careful," Paul yelled at me.
I made it to Walsh's spot between the thwarts and sat

268
in the bottom of the canoe. It contained several inches of cold
water. [(We should bail.].) There was no dry place; everything
would be wet. My back was bent uncomfortably and pressed
against a hard edge inside somebody's pack.
"Move your feet," Berman said from in front of me.
I tried to find a better position without pressing my feet
against Berman, some way to rest. My eyes wanted to close
even though I was cold and wet and hungry. More water
splashed against my face and into the bottom of the canoe.
[(Would we sink and be unable to flip the canoe?]?)
"Holy shit, look at that," somebody in front of us
shouted.
I stared over the gunnel. The river had become a large
space that vanished around us into darkness, a hole, and far
away across the water to our left was a town on a hillside.
Small wooden houses lined narrow irregularly angled streets
that went all the way down to the shore where there was a row
of dark brick buildings. A church with a tall white steeple sat
on the hillside among the houses. I could see lights in some
of the windows.
"Where is this? What is that?" I heard Ross's voice say
from one of the other canoes.
Pale moonshine lit the water and a row of wooden piers
along the shore. Some of them sagged under the waves or
had wide gaps filled with broken timbers. Others were charred
by fire. Moored at the piers were wooden sailing ships, black
ships with masts and spars, tied in groups three, four or five
ships wide. More of these ships were anchored in long lines
out in the harbor, their masts broken, planks broken from their
sides, burn marks and holes in their sides. Hundreds of dead
ships floating there in front of us. Was this real? Where were
we?
"Turn around. We're going back," Emmett yelled.
I closed my eyes and listened to the pounding of the
surf. [(Would we survivie?]survive?)
The phone rang; its sound was a pain in my mind.

269
"Thanks," I heard my Dad say, and then, "time to get up."
My mouth was dry and my calves ached. Without
wanting to, I pressed my toes against the board at the end of
the bed. To stop doing that, I swung my legs out of the bed
and sat up, even though I wasn't ready to be awake. The
room was warm and seemed far away and dull. I was thirsty,
stiff and sore.
We washed and dressed. I stared at my appearance
in the mirror.
We ate breakfast in the fancy restaurant then left the
hotel and walked uphill toward the building with the Corinthian
columns. I didn’t speak. The sun was bright and the air warm,
the same weather as the day before, but today was not
yesterday. [(The world was alive but didn't care.].)
"So, are you ready?" my Dad asked.
"I guess so," I said.
"Just be yourself. Don't worry. You talk to people all
the time."
"I know," I said.
Together, we climbed the portico stairs and walked
between the Corinthian columns through a high doorway into
the Administration Building.
Then we sat beside each other, almost touching, on a
sofa facing two closed doors and, to our right, a desk where a
woman did something with stacks of files. The walls were very
white, clean, the sofa modern, like an open box without a front.
It was ugly; it didn't belong in the building.
As long as I was on the sofa, I was safe; I tried to hold
time still in my mind. My Father didn't speak. I sensed that
his arm beside mine was stiff.
The door nearest the woman opened making me flinch,
and the sound of happy voices came through the doorway
immediately followed by a thin kid with smooth brown skin
wearing a suit and then a taller man wearing a shirt and tie but
no jacket. They were both smiling [(showing they liked each
other].). I watched them. That was not the Dean.

270
 "I think it will be a better place for you," the man said to
the kid, "but you need to go over there right away because it'll
take an hour and a half or so to get there. I'll call them now."
They stood in front of the woman's desk.
"Gertrude, get me Bob Hemings," the man said, and
the woman looked in a book on her desk and then dialed a
telephone number.
"I just think it would be a better place for you," the man
said again. Do you know how to get there?"
[(The kid was alone.].)
"Hi, Bob, I have somebody here for you. He's coming
over right now."
He was sending the kid away.
"No, he hasn't. He can fill one out while he's there.
Sure. Are you ready? Good. I'll start with his junior year. AP
English, A. Calculus, A. AP History, A. Chemistry, B+." The
man laughed, "He slipped up there."
My face felt hot. I looked at my Father with the side of
my eye; he was smaller than he should have been. They
didn't want that kid?
"Latin, A."
I tried to be comfortable on the sofa. There was still
time before I had to say anything, I thought, and then the door
in front of us opened suddenly. I flinched again, looked up
and saw a man with a large stomach. This was the Dean.
I stood rapidly. My Father also started to stand. [(He
was confused.].)
"Richard Frank?"
The Dean raised his arm and I shook his hand, looking
at his face. It was not the face I had expected. [(Why?]?) I
wanted him to stop moving, but he immediately turned
towards my Father and shook hands with him as well, .
"Mr. Frank, how are you?"
Then he started to walk back into his office.
"Why don't you both come in."
"Oh, that's alright, I'll..." My Father tried to sit on the

271
sofa.
"No, both of you come in."
My Father was partly standing and partly sitting.
"Really," he said, "I think I should stay here."
"Really," he said, "I think I should stay here."
"No, that's fine. Why don't you come in too."
[(He knew that we would obey.].)
The Dean looked at me and moved his hand towards a
woodenwood chair in front of his desk.
"Please, sit down, both of you," he said.
His face was quiet. [(He wasn't unfriendly or friendly.
His face wasn't trying to tell anyone anything.]
.). He looked at my Father, who sat in a fat armchair to
my left.
"Is this the first time you've been back?"
I hoped they would talk together for a long time.
"No, but almost," my Father answered. "I've come
back a couple of times at Homecoming.
There were motorcycles parked in the fraternity house
living room...
"So, I guess you've been here with your Old Man." [I
wished that I weren't sitting right in front of him.] He looked at
me.
I wished that I weren't sitting right in front of him. He
looked at me.
"Yes," I answered and nodded my head.
Should I say more? My Father was watching me. His
lips curled upwards at the edges and I could see his teeth.
[(This was a smile.].)
I waited for the Dean to ask questions and watched his
face; it said nothing. [I waited to know what he would do.]
"What are you reading this summer for school?"
"The Forsyte Saga."
[Soon he will ask something that will have no easy
answer.].
"Oh, Galsworthy is a great writer. You should read all

272
his books."
"All of them?"
Loud. Too loud. My mind began to vibrate; suddenly
I had no clear thoughts. Explain.
"He wrote about seven books and each one of them
was over a thousand pages long."
Bad. Lazy.
The Dean's eyes had widened. He moved in his seat
and looked at my Father for a second and then looked at me
again without saying anything. I saw my Father's face from
the side of my eye; he looked as if he were smelling something
horrible.
[(Time stopped.].)
"I didn't mean this summer," the Dean finally said and
smiled a little. His face became calm again. "I just meant that
they would be good to read sometime."
Broken thoughts piled up in my head, but then I had an
answer.
Sitting back in my chair, I tried to smile at him. [My face
was tight.].
"In fact," I said, "Galsworthy wrote so much about the
Forsyte family that he got tired of them, but people loved the
stories and kept wanting him to write more. He really didn't
want to and so finally what he had to do was kill all the main
characters, I mean have them die in the story so that he
couldn't write about them anymore."
"Oh?"
"Yes, and when he killed the last Forsyte, the London
Times wrote his obituary, the character's obituary. It's the only
time in history that the London Times has had the obituary of
somebody who wasn't a real person."
"Oh?" the Dean said.
"Uh huh," I said.
He asked more simple questions, and then we were
outside on the sidewalk in front of the building and I saw that
it was a normal day.

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 "Well that sure wasn't what I expected," my Dad said.
He looked normal again too. He wasn't angry.
"No, I guess not." [It was all a waste.]
It was all a waste.
"Do you want to stay here and look around, or do you
want to go back?"
It was over.
"Let's go back."

  

Wind-blown leaves scraped the pavement outside and
hit the window glass behind me. I smelled radiator paint
cooking. [(Another year.].)
"So why was there a Civil War?" Mr. Baker's voice
asked.
He gently bounced the black rubber tip of a long pointer
on the floor in front of his feet.
"Was there one reason, one cause for the war, or was
there more than one cause?"
Nobody answered. Mr. Baker looked at us and waited.
We looked at him and waited.
The classroom door was open and a sudden burst of
sound came into the silent room from the long corridor that led
to the front of the school, a quick rumble of voices. It stopped
and then repeated: "...don't believe..."
"What are these authors saying?" Mr. Baker asked.
"What is the reason?"
[(I had gotten into College.].)
Then came the sound of rapid footsteps, heels hitting
the linoleum. [(The Headmaster was coming to tell me]) I had
gotten into College.
Everyone in the class stared silently at the dark
doorway. He appeared there and looked into the room. His
eyes found me.
"You just got into College," he said. "You'd better get

274
your grades up. Don’t make us look bad."
It was done. I smiled, feeling comfortable in my
clothes, the second one, only Dan before me. No more
applications.
"Can I call?" I asked him, or I asked Mr. Baker.
The Headmaster didn't speak for a second, and then
he said, "I guess it's okay. You can leave for a few minutes.
But only a few minutes. [(He spoke as if I had asked him to
leave school for the rest of the day or the rest of the year]) he
wanted me to know that he [still] controlled me. [(He felt
almost that he no longer did. He felt me leaving. Suddenly, I
was leaving.].)
I stood and followed him to the school office. The
corridor was unusually dark and long.
How many phone calls would they allow me to make?
I wanted to tell my Father, but I knew that he couldn't talk to
me during the day.
She answered the phone.
"You'd better sit down," I said, "I have something to tell
you."
"You got expelled."
[Huh?]?
"No, I didn't get expelled, I got into College."
"Tell me the truth. What did you do?"
"I got into College. I just found out. They sent a letter
to school. We probably got one too."
"You really got into college? You got into college?
You're not joking?"
"Yes."
"Oh! I'm so excited. I don't know what to say. Are you
sure?"
"Yes. They sent a letter to school. The Headmaster
told me."
"Oh, that's wonderful. Did you tell your Father?"
"I can't reach him."
"Well, I'll tell him. Oh, he'll be thrilled. That's so

275
wonderful. Where is the Headmaster? I want to speak to
him."
"Why?"
"I just want to speak to him."
"I told you I got in."
"Well that's really wonderful. Congratulations. Are you
happy? You should be thrilled."
"Uh huh."
"You've got it made now."
"Yeah."
"Don't you have class?"
"Yeah. They let me call."
"Well, congratulations. You'd better go back. You've
really got it made now. I can't wait to call everyone. Your
Father will be thrilled."

  

Who had told me about it?

It would be a small party, probably not many girls there.
Nobody elseEverybody wanted to go.
Without the others,do something else, but I went
anyway: rode a bus south almost to the end of the avenue and
saw the address on a green awning over the entrance of a
building near a small park. The neighborhood was quiet.
There weren't many cars on the street. Only one other person
on the sidewalk in the freezing darkness.
I said the girl's name to the doorman and walked past
him to the back of the lobby. She lived on the sixth floor.
Outside her apartment, on the vestibule wall, there was a
mirror in a gold-painted frame. I looked at my reflection,
unbuttoned my coat and pulled the knot of my tie to the exact
center of my collar. Sounds of music and talking came
through a door with a brass B on it to my right. I rang the bell
and waited.
"Hi," I said to the girl who opened the door.

276
 "Hi," she said.
She looked at me and stepped backwards out of the
doorway, and I went into the apartment.
I folded my coat and put it carefully on an empty chair
and then walked into the living room. Five or six kids stood
talking and drinking sodas around a table in a dining alcove
talking and drinking sodas. I didn't know any of them. I sat
on a sofa facing the alcove and looked at the girls. They were
boring. Maybe other people would come. A record was
playing on a stereo in the corner: "I don't know why... time
after time... I wouldn't mind..."
Then the room darkens.

Two women are pulling their arms out of their coat

sleeves at the edge of my sight. They speak to each other
quickly. One, a girl, takes both coats and turns away,
disappears. The other walks towards me. Tall. Beautiful.
Her eyes looking at my face.
Ann sits to my rightbeside me on the sofa. Turns
towards me. Her face near mine. [(A clean smell.].)
"What are you..." I start to speak.
"I want to talk to you," she says.
[To me.] We are silent for a second.
"How did you know?"
"I came here to talk to you..”
She pauses. Our eyes embrace.
“Rick, I think we have something special..."
This was right. We would talk to each other. [(It could
have been my idea.].) Her face before mine was the only thing
I wanted to know in the world. I looked at her eyes.
"Yes. Let's talk.” I nodded my head rapidly. . “We
should talk to each other."
I nodded my head rapidly. We would say things to
each other.
"I want to talk to you. I think we have something
special..."

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 But suddenly I noticed that I had to piss. [(Why had I
not realized this earlier?]?) I could barely control the urge.
I stood quickly.
"I want to talk to you," I said, "I really do, but first let me
go to the bathroom. I'll be right back. Just wait here."
Her eyes widened and she sat for a second with her
mouth open.
"Really. I'll be right back."
Where would I find the guest bathroom? I
concentrated on holding the piss inside and walked as fast as
I could across the living room and down a corridor that I
thought led to the bedrooms. There was a partly closed door
to my right. Was this it? Would it be empty?
It was a bathroom, but it was crowded with kids that I
didn't know. [(When had so many other people arrived at the
party?]?) At least they were boys. I went inside and stood
behind a kid who was zipping his fly in front of the toilet. He
had pissed even though there were other people in the
bathroom. Two kids were talking and combing their hair
beside the sink. Would they leave soon? I knew I couldn't
hold the piss inside much longer. Another kid walked into the
room behind me and lit a cigarette. I had no choice.
I stepped in front of the toilet, unzipped my fly as fast
as I could and tugged at my shirt and my undershirt, which
were layered tightly over my underpants. Now that I was
standing in front of the toilet, the urge to piss was irresistible.
My middle finger reached the gap in my underpants and
poked inside. As I yanked my dick through the opening, the
urine squirted out uncontrollably, but instead of the relaxation
I should have felt, my whole body jerked and I almost shouted
[(had I shouted?].?). The warm wet stream was flowing down
my right leg under my suit pants. My sock was soaked in
seconds. I fought to stop the flow, tearing at myselfmy clothes
and spattering urine all around the toilet before I finally hit the
bowlbowel.

278
 ("It's okay. You'll dry it off.") [
(It's not okay.].)
I heard people moving behind me and knew that they
had noticed what had happened and I began to smell wet wool
and piss. They would smell it too. [(Ann would smell it. She
would smell it.].) I finished and looked at the mess around me,
felt the pool of urine in my shoe, the wet wool against the skin
of my leg. Could I wipe it all up with a towel, with one of the
fancy towels hanging over the towel bar on the wall? while
other people were in the room?
("Are you fucking kidding? You have to get out of here.
Now.")
I turned around, stared at the door and with long steps
walked out of the bathroom. From the side of my eye, I could
see a kid beside the sink watching me. My face burned. [(Get
out. Get out.].)
Through the hallway to the living room fast. Ann looked
at me and I looked at her but tried not to see her face.
"I have to go," I said. "I'm sorry. I'll call you."
She would have looked like that if someone had hit her.
[(As if I had hit her, I had hit her.].) I pulled my coat off the
chair in the foyer and went out of the apartment without
slowing my steps.
Would I stand in the elevator next to the elevator man?
Would I stand there stinking? There was no stairway; the
elevator was the only way out.
("You fucking idiot.")
Cold air hit my face like a fist. I walked fast, buttoning
my coat around my neck.
("You fucking asshole.")
The apartment was a long way to the north; could I take
a cab or a bus?
("Yeah right. You're going to sit on a bus smelling like
piss.") . Stinking like a bum.")
Maybe it would dry.
("Maybe it'll freeze, asshole. Maybe your leg will

279
freeze. You can break the pissicles off the bottom of your
pants. That'll be fun. You'll like that, won't you? Yeah, you
fucking idiot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got it made, you jerk.
The world is at your command.")
What would I have said, anyhow? What did I think I
was going to say? [(You can't say that.].) What would I have
done?
It was all stupid. , all of it.
It was impossible.
I would call her later and tell her something. I would
put the suit in the laundry basket and it. It would be dry by the
time I got home and nobody would smell it. In the morning I
would shower.
("You can't do anything about it anyway so just forget
it.")
She's not the most perfect person in the world. She's
too fat. It had to be that way.
Just forget it.
Formatted: Font: Helvetica

280
 War
My left arm pressed against the corner of a cardboard
box and my right arm against the door. Doris sat in front of
me, beside my Father who drove the car. As the world
flashed past the windows, I had glimpses of familiar scenery:
tenements, factories, cranes, power lines, train tracks,
warehouses, parking lots and then the green of emptier
country. I had looked at and understood these things often
before, but now an inner vibration affected my vision and the
landscape I saw seemed different, no longer what it had
been, not the normal world.
"Can you move those boxes so that they don't block
the rear-view mirror?" she told me.
Even though everything was, in itself, the same.
"I can see fine," my Father said.
"You're awfully quiet," she said. "Are you excited?"
"I guess."
I tried hard to notice details, but seeing the particular
parts of things made no difference; these weren't the places
they had been in the past.
"Well say something."
"I guess I'm excited."
What did that mean? Did it mean that I was happy?
"I'm just asking. You can answer a simple question,
you know." She made a small laugh [funny] to show that she
was being friendly.
I twisted into a different position on the seat.
"Are you scared?" she asked me.

281
 Her friendly voice sounded mocking. ["I'm just
teasing."]
"No."
Where were the others? They also had left: done and
comfortable with what would happen. Was that right?
"Well then why aren't you saying anything?"
"I'm just thinking."
"What about?"
"Nothing much."
"You must be thinking about something."
"I'm just a little squished back here," I said. "Do you
think Carl [(Ann]) has started school already?"
"I don't know. Why ask about Carl?"
We wouldn't see each other. Would anyone care
about that? That's just the way it was; I had to live with it.
"What do you think the first thing you'll do when you
get there?"
"Go to the bathroom."
"Ha-ha. Very funny. You're very funny. Always
making a joke out of everything."
The important thing was to act as if I belonged, as if I
were comfortable and knew that what I did was right. Never
worried or wrong. That would be who I was.
The air smelled of plants. I watched the green things
and the other cars on the road with my head pressed against
the window glass, which vibrated from the pulse of the
engine. Sometimes the cars beside us looked as if they
weren’t moving. At other times they went slowly forwards or
backwards while the trees behind them moved very fast.
The passing cars were like the passage of time.
We went by small mountains covered with trees that
changed color in the changing light. What secret places
were hidden there? Then I saw the clock tower. It appeared
in the distance and then disappeared behind a hill that
moved slowly past the car. I tried to see it again, and
suddenly the green sign rushed at my face as it had before

282
and my heartbeat shook my chest. At the end of the exit
ramp, my Father turned the car onto the road between the
farm fields.
"Soon we'll be there," she said.
I had a single room: no roommate. [(Because I would
have trouble doing the work]) but I didn't want a roommate,
didn't want to live with a stranger. [(Would that make me
different?]?)
"We'll need to get you some curtains and find a place
to buy a cheap rug."
Where could you buy stuff here?
"Hello? Are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"Well, you could say something instead of sitting back
there like that."
"Like what?" [(She couldn't do anything now.].)
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know. I'd think you'd have something to say.
What color curtains do you want?"
My Father turned his head.
"Doris," he said, "look in the envelope. Where are we
supposed to go?"
"Where can you buy stuff here?" I asked.
"How do I know?" she said. "We'll just have to find
someplace. There has to be something with all these kids
here."
Should we buy curtains and a rug? Was that right?
We drove past the brown fields. Straw stalks poked
out of the mud. I stared at theThe old farm buildings. They
had been new once; someone had built them carefully, spent
effort planning and constructing them. Then a time must
have come when they lost importance and they had been
allowed to become wrecks. Their paint had been worn away
by the weather, their broken sides had been left unrepaired.
Now they appeared to be partly useful human creations and
at the same time parts of the natural landscape. How long

283
had they been this way? Maybe the farmers had just run out
of money.
We drove past the large village green surrounded by
old-style houses, the church that looked like ones in
Christmas-story books and the other large wooden building
that had a portico with four tall columns. What did people do
here?
"It won't be long now," my Father said.
The car went uphill between the clusters of trees and
pastpassed the houses with their iron fences and careful
decoration, the separate garages that had been carriage
houses, then the stadium with wooden bleachers, and again
my Father had to stop the car at the top of the hill, this time
in a line of cars waiting for the traffic light to let them pass.
He turned and looked at me. He smiled. He was
happy. I felt very glad.
When the light changed color, almost all the cars
including ours went straight through the intersection and
across the Green. I looked out the window and stared at the
large brick building with the Corinthian columns: the old
library, the ugly sofa [(safe],), an open box without a front, a
thin kid with smooth brown skin, the Dean, his eyes wide, his
mouth open. It passed rapidly, and behind it were different
buildings that I hadn't seen the day we walked to the war
monument. There was a handmade sign attached to a piece
of wood stuck in the ground beside the road. The sign said
"Freshman" and something else. As I looked at the letters
the sky tilted and the car shifted underneath me. My Father
drove it into a parking lot and found a space between two
station wagons under the leafy branchbranches of a large
tree. The Country.
Kids and adults walked back and forth in the parking
lot carrying boxes and suitcases, seeming as if they knew
where they were going, but they didn't, did they?
"Let's go inside," my Dad said.

284
 I walked beside him towards a small brick building
with a white-painted front door between two short white
Doric columns. The bricks between the columns and the
door also were painted white, a white so bright that my eyes
hurt when I looked at them. Another handmade sign taped
to one of the columns said, "Welcome Freshman."
"That's you," she said [as if it were something that I
might not know]. She was behind us. "You're a Freshman
now." [Very friendly.]
I had been a Freshman before and now I was a
Freshman again, but this was the last time, and then what?
Would that be my real life?
Inside the building there were more kids and adults,
some standing and talking to one another [(weren't they
strangers?],?), others sitting behind long folding tables with
brown tops. They were smiling, everyone was smiling. I
looked at my Dad.
"Go ahead," he said "I'll wait for you here."
A kid gave me a beige envelope. My name had been
written on it with a laundry marker [(purple ink].).
"Here's your room key and a mailbox key. There's
also an orientation schedule and the name of your advisor.
Remember that there's a cookout tonight for just the class.
[No parents.] Do you need directions?"
I looked at him. He was an older kid, but he was
talking to me.
"No," I said, "I can find it. Thanks."
"Where are we going?" she asked me.
"It's in the other envelope," I said. "You have it."
"Didn't you get directions?"
"I can find it."
"Don't you think you should get directions?"
"I can find it. Let's go."
The room was on the first floor of one of the long brick
buildings beside the grassy rectangle, the Quad, in front of
the library. Parents had parked their cars between the giant

285
trees across from the dormitory entrance [(wheels tearing
the ground],), but my Dad found space to park at the curb
almost in front of the door.
"So here we are," he said.
He waited for me to go into the dormitory first, but as I
walked up the stairs I could feel him close behind me. The
room was L-shaped with two windows in the wall facing the
doorway. Its floor was covered with brown linoleum. I could
smell wax and cleaning fluid in the hot air. There was a
large wooden desk to the right of the door and a beige metal
cabinet next to the desk in the corner of the L. The cabinet
had a mirror over a shelf above some drawers on its right
side and double doors on its left side [(an armoire?].?).
"How are you going to get all your clothes in that?"
she said.
The bed was against the wall across from the
windows. It had a metal frame like a camp bed but a much
thicker mattress than a camp bed. I lay down on it; it was
comfortable.
"Come on. Get up. We have a lot to do and we have
to get back to the City." she said. [(They.] .)
She was measuring the width of one of the windows.
"I guess we should put a carpet in front of the bed, but
we'll have to leave the rest of the floor bare. We won't find
anything that will go around that corner."
"Let's empty the car," my Dad said.
Someone else's Father held the dormitory door open
while I carried two large boxes inside. He was smiling. The
corridor was crowded with kids and smiling parents moving
things, personal things. The parents were talking to their
kids in ways that they might have talked at home and alone
[(they were home].). From what places had all of these
people come? I left the boxes I was carrying on the desk.
My Dad put two more next to them. We put boxes in the
kneehole under the desk and I put a small carton on the

286
shelf of the metal cabinet. Doris hung some clothes in the
armoire and I put my shoes on the armoire floor.
"Take that box off the chair so we can lift it to put
down the rug."
"I'll do it later."
Then we got into the car again and my Dad drove it
away from the campus, past the Green, back down the hill.
"A woman told me it's somewhere here on the right,"
she said.
I looked out the window. There were stores next to
the road in a single-story building that had a parking lot in
front of it. We passed a gas station.
"Here," she said. "Turn here."
A long building had a window display of furniture.
Nobody in the Citycity would buy that furniture: chairs and
tables like the ones in restaurants beside country roads,
lamps made from brown ceramic jugs, sofas with smooth
shellacked wooden arms and rust-colored cushions. Rugs.
The rugs were rolled into tubes and stacked in piles. There
was a sample piece on the floor in front of each pile, pieces
like doormats: a thin rectangle of carpet made of colored
threads with a black rubber back.
"Which one do you want?" she asked me.
I looked at the samples, at each rug as it lay on the
floor between the window wall and the bed. I stood and
looked from the doorway and then from beside the armoire.
"Well? Decide."
"Can I have red?" I asked. [A strange idea.]
(A strange idea.)
"Sure, if that's what you want."
She would never allow a red rug in the apartment.
"I'll take red. Thank you."
She bought short blue corduroy curtains that would
hang from metal rods with rubber ends that you could wedge
into the window frames. They looked queer, but something
had to cover the windows.

287
 I lifted the rug onto my shoulder.
"Are you sure you can carry that?" she said.
I carried it to the car. My Dad rolled down the rear
window behind the driver's seat and we slid it through the
opening so that one end lay on the dashboard in front of the
passenger seat, the middle rested on the seat back and the
other end stuck a short way out the window. Were you
allowed to drive with something sticking out the car window?
"You'd better sit in front," she told me.
We drove back to the dormitory.
I lifted the end of the bed frame and my Dad rolled the
rug open on the floor between the bed and a low bookcase
in front of the windows. Red. Was it straight? He hung the
curtains over the windows while Aunt Doris and I opened
boxes.
"Here's your bedding." She put some sheets and a
blanket on the bed. "Please change the linen occasionally."
"I will."
I made tight hospital corners. Uncle Paul would drop
a quarter onto the bed during inspection. If the quarter didn't
bounce high enough, he would pull the blanket and sheets
off the mattress and drop them on floor: "Do it again."
"I hope you won't live like a slob. Please. I know you.
And Sweetie don't forget to get a haircut. I'm sure there's a
barber in town. I don't want you looking dirty."
"Okay, okay."
It didn't take long to put my clothes into the drawers,
some slacks and two sport jackets into the armoire. [(Was it
right to have them here; would I ever need them?]?) There
wasn't a tie rack in the armoire; where should I put ties?
"Please do your work. Remember how lucky you are
to be here."
They stood beside the car, looking at me.
"I will," I said.
"We love you. You'll be fine."

288
 My Dad hugged and kissed me. He smiled and I
smiled at him.
"How about a hug and kiss for your old Aunt?"
I put my arms around Doris and kissed her.
"I'm so proud of you."
They drove away. Only a few cars remained beside
the curb and between the trees.
I went back into the dormitory. The doors to most of
the rooms were open. Loud music came through one of
them: "ou walk into the room with your pencil..." [I didn't
listen to those songs. They made no sense.]. Kids were
standing in the corridor talking and shaking hands. I
watched a kid with blond curly hair exhale cigarette smoke
as he spoke. He wore loafers but no socks, and a pair of
checked shorts: maroon, green and two hues of blue. The
kid beside him nodded and laughed.
"What room are you in?" someone near my shoulder
said.
The sound made me jump inside. I turned and looked
at him; he was speaking to me. I smiled because I had the
idea that a voice like his could say "golly gee" with perfect
inflection. He smiled back at me.
"107. You?"
"I'm in 112, just down at the enda the hall. I'm John
Styles"
"Richard Frank."
"Pleased tota meetcha."
We shook hands.
"Do you know where we can put empty boxes?" I
asked him.
"Yeah. They said to putem in the basement. You
want help?"
"No, that's okay. Thanks."
"Okay." He paused and looked at me. "Well, seeya,"
he said and walked away.

289
 I opened the door to my room, went inside and put all
the empty boxes in a pile on the carpet in front of the bed.
Then I pushed smaller boxes into larger ones, turning and
crushing them so that they would fit together. It took only a
few minutes to compress all the boxes into a mass that one
person could carry. After I had taken them to the basement,
I arranged stuff in my room: books on the bookshelves, their
edges flush with the front of the shelf, switching the order
until it looked right, blank paper firmly pressed into the front
right corner of the top left desk drawer [(won't stay],), a
school mug for pens and pencils on the desktop the right
distance from the edge. I listened to music playing
somewhere outside the open door: "accept it that soon you'll
be drenched..." One ashtray [(Grandma Kay had stolen it
from a restaurant in Europe]) on the desk to the left and in
front of the mug and desk lamp, another on the bedside
table beside my clock radio, and one of the books they had
asked us to read - Whitehead. I stood in front of the window
and looked at the room.
"Come on. Let's go eat. Time to eat," someone
shouted in the corridor [(someone who knew].).
I took the navy-blue sweater that Grandma Kay had
made for me at the beach out of the third drawer of the
cabinet, put it on, closed the door to my room and followed a
crowd of people leaving the dorm. We went around the right
end of the library. I looked at the buildings, the trees and the
people. A kid with almost shoulder-length black hair was
walking near me. He was wearing an army jacketfield
jacket. It had areas of dark material that were the shapes of
what must have been ripped off insignia and patches.
"Hi," I said to him.
"Hi," he said.
Then he was quiet.
"My name is Richard Frank," I told him.
"John Angelo," he said.
I waited, but he didn't say anything else.

290
 "Seems like some of these people know each other
already. Do you know any of them?" I asked him.
"Naw." He laughed, surprising me. "I don't know
them. Maybe they went to school together."
"Yeah. I guess. Where did you go to school?"
"I was in the military. I mean, I went to school but I
was in the army for four years before I came here."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Wow, that must have been different. How did you
end up in this place?"
"I don't know. They told us to apply to college and I
found the name in a book and applied before I got
discharged and they accepted me. But I'm not stayin. I
don't belong here."
"What? Sure, you belong. Why not?"
"This kind of place isn't for people like me. I gotta get
outa here."
"You don't mean it, do you? They accepted you."
"Yeah. I mean it. I'm leavin."
"But you just got here. You should stay and see what
happens. It'll be okay. You don't know what it's like."
I quickly decided to tell him: "I probably don't belong
here either, but I'm staying."
"Naw. You belong here but not me."
[What did he mean?] ?
"Come on. You gotta go to college. Why not try it?"
Styles was suddenly next to me.
"Hey," he said.
"Hi," I answered.
I started to introduce them to each other but Angelo
had turned around and was walking back in the direction of
the dorm. I pointed at him.
"He says he's leaving."
"I hope it wasn't my breath," Styles said.
I laughed.

291
 "No, I'm serious," I said.
"Yeah, I know. Too bad, but I guess it's a shock after
the army."
They had already met? Had Styles tried to persuade
him to stay?
"He shouldn't leave now," I said. "He just got here.
He's gotta go to college."
"Well, I guess he just feels out of place."
[That didn't matter.] .
"You wouldn't leave, would you?"
"Heck no. I worked too hard to get here," he
answered.
That made me feel embarrassed. I stopped talking.
We arrived at a group of tables covered with purple
paper tablecloths. They were arranged around a long
charcoal-burning grill that had been rolled into the middle of
another quadrangle. I couldn't see a single weed among the
blades of grass. Some kids were standing near the
barbecue, talking and laughing, already drinking from large
waxed-paper cups.
"Seems like some of these people know each other
from before," I said to Styles.
"Preppies," he said.
"Huh?"
"They went to Prep School together. They're the
elite."
He didn't sound as if he believed that they were the
elite. I laughed.
"They're not any better than me or you," I said.
"They're not any better than me."
"Well they think they are."
How did he know that?
"Well fuck them. I don't think they are," I said.
[People(They’re people from nowhere.].)
"Okay," Styles said, "I guess that settles it."

292
 

Dodson, The Cat Bungler, Styles, The Foreigner,

Karp, Babbs and I walked to the Dining Hall. The sky was
almost dark even though it was only five-thirty. I wore the
maroon sweater that Grandma Kay had made at the beach
[(it was still good],), no coat [(like the others].).
"Styles, you joinin the Panthers?" Dodson asked him.
"No, Dodson I'm not joining the Panthers, but I have
to admit those berets are pretty neat. Are you joining the
Panthers? You'd look really special in one of those."
"Yeah, you should get a beret, Foreigner," Dodson
said.
"Shud up Dods. He was talgin to you."
"What did he say?" Babbs asked.
"I think he said shut up," Dodson answered.
"Fuck you Dods. Youer da one wants ta wear one of
dose army hads."
"What did he say?" Dodson asked Babbs.
"He said sewer fun with hairs hose the army fat."
"Babbs you're en esshole," The Foreigner said, and
we all laughed.
"Frankie, are you going to the mixer? Are you guys
going to the mixer?" Styles asked.
"Yeah, I was gunna go," I said. "Any of you going?"
In my second mind I knew that I should stay in the
dorm after dinner and read the book for Clarke's course. It
would take hours to finish that book. It probably wasn't
possible to read the whole thing before Monday.
"Definitely," said The Bungler.
"Bungler's gunna use those smooth moves," Karp
said.
"Bungler, don't spill your beer all over some girl," I
said and laughed, [I wanted(wanting them to know that I
wasn’t clumsy].).

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 Babbs started singing: "She'll never break, never
break, never break that heart of stone. No, no, no, that heart
of stone."
Then we all sang, "Here comes that little girl, I see her
walking down the street."
Bungler turned and walked backwards. He looked at
my eyes, put his right hand over his heart and held his left
hand in a fist under his chin.
"What's different about her?" he was singingsang, "I
don't really know. Better listen little girl, I ain't got no love, I
ain't the kind to meet,"
And we sang, "but she'll never break, never break,
never break, never break this heart of stone."
"Bungler, you're messing up the words," Babbs said.
Bungler looked at him and laughed.
"You won't get no satisfaction that way, Bungler,"
Karp said.
"Neither will you, Fish, that's for damn sure," said
Bungler.
We walked into the dining hall in a jumbled group.
"New?" Styles asked.
"New," Dodson and I said at the same time, and
turned left towards the new dining room, followed by the
others.
I took a tray off the stack by the door to the serving
area and a knife and a fork from the plastic buckets beside
the stack. The tray was damp and the dampness had an
odor [(sour milk].). I stood in line behind Dodson and looked
at the pans of food to see what was being served.
"Why do these fucking trays always smell like spoiled
milk?" Babbs said behind me.
"Welcome to The Cafeteria," said Fish, somewhere
behind him.
"Steak night," Dodson said. "Yesiree, boys are havin
steak."
"Yeah man," Babbs said.

294
 "Say amen," said Styles.
"Styles...," Dodson laughed.
"I hop da forkz don have dat smell on dem."
"It smells like that in the line," the Bungler said.
"Man, that's why I'm not washing dishes," I said.
"Right," said Styles.
I said nothing and didn't look back at him. Instead I
watched my tray as it slid over the stainless-steel tubes that
made a shelf like a track in front of the counter where they
put the pans and plates of food. I tried to imagine the tubes
again as a track but still had to steer the tray so that it
wouldn't fall onto the floor.
("It doesn't matter what you wish: there's still no
connection between the tray and the rails you idiot.")
The workers behind the counter wore white pants and
long white jackets that buttoned up the front all the way to
their necks. They all wore white socks and black shoes.
Nobody would ever wear white socks and black shoes.
They were sweating.
As I watched the worker give Dodson his steak, I
compared the sizes of the pieces of meat left in the pan and
breathed the good grease smell [(still there was sour milk].).
I wanted the one on top of the pile in the corner. Would I get
that one? [(No seconds on steak.].) The worker took
another thick plate from the stack and I felt my shoulder
muscles tighten as he moved his tongs towards the pan.
The tongs passed over the large steak in the corner and
picked up the one next to it. It was okay. It was pretty big.
I looked at his face. "Thanks," I said [(without too
much friendliness].).
He didn't say anything or even look at me.
I pushed the tray farther along the rails that weren’t a
track until it was in front of the baked potatoes and used a
large spoon that had been left on a plate beside the pan to
take two. What else? Salad? Fruit? I took some string beans
[(watery]) mixed with pieces of nut, Gussie carried the food

295
around the grown-up table on a silver tray and the largest
piece of chocolate cake on the shelf [(could get more later],),
which I slid on its thick white plate from behind two other
portions. Then I took a roll that looked like a football and put
it on a small plate from a stack beside the bread basket. The
pieces of butter were in a pan on a pile of thin ice cubes. How
many? Two for the roll. Two for each potato. An extra. Was
that too many? ("Who cares. She isn't here.")
("Who cares. She isn't here.")
"Thank you, Mr. Collings," I heard Styles say
somewhere behind me. [(Who?]?)
"Welcome."
There was a large coffee urn at the end of the counter.
I pulled the handle on the nozzle and let some pour into a
white china cup that had a purple band around its rim. Also a
milk glass? For the cake. I took an empty glass out of a slot
in a green rubber rack and put it on my tray. Did it have any
of the sour wetness on it? It was dry. I smelled it: detergent.
Was dry detergent poisonous? [(A chemical.] .)
("They wouldn't let us be poisoned, you idiot.")
Would they?
Dodson walked slightly in front of me past the tables
near the door to the dining area. There was a table in the
corner by the door that was large enough for all of us and in a
perfect place because, if you sat there, you could get seconds
without walking very far, but it belonged to some kids from a
fraternity. Most of the large tables were owned by groups of
older kids, and even if only a single person were sitting at one
of them and he had almost finished eating, you couldn't use
it.
"What are you doing?"
He stared at me, holding his fork in the air near his
mouth that didn't smile.
"Find someplace else. This table's taken."
Dodson and I walked around the end of a fence-like
wall that divided the room in half. The long table on the other

296
side of the wall where we usually sat was empty [(did we own
it?],?), and we put our trays on it and took chairs next to each
other on the side closest to the kitchen.
"Steak night," I said.
"Boys are haven steak," he said.
We worked on our food as the others arrived at the
table. I sliced through the middle of each potato along its
length and put the halves on their rounded backs in the juice
that oozed out of the steak. Then I lacerated their smooth
bare insides and laid one piece of hard butter on each half.
Were the potatoes hot enough to melt the frozen butter [(no],),
or would the butter chill the potatoes?
("It doesn't matter what you want.")
I ate two watery beans - the string beans would taste
better after they had been soaked in steak juice and butter -
and cut a piece from the end of the steak. As I chewed it, I
watched the butter lying on the potato halves. Had the pieces
softened? I pressed the squares into the cut surfaces of the
potatoes with a fork, crushing them and potato into the steak
juice, breaking both apart. The butter stuck to the fork. I
dragged the tines through the potato to clean them and mix
the butter with the potato.
("Fuck it.")
I gave up trying to improve the food and started to eat
diligently. The food was okay, it was good.
"Foreigner, where's your tea?" Styles asked him. "No
tea tonight?"
"Yeah, where's the tea?" Dodson said.
"You guize can't pud sald in de tea tonight, cauze em
only gettin id lader."
He turned his grinning face to look at us. It was an
aggressive grin [because he had finally found a way to win].
"You mean you don't like salt in your tea?" I said.
"Whad dyou tink? No I don like sald in my tea."
"Dods, he actually doesn't like salt in his tea," I said,
sounding as if I were revealing some new information.

297
 "He always has it though," Dodson said.
"Yeah, well I don hab id tonight, Dods," said The
Foreigner while he chewed a piece of steak.
"Foreigner, how do you chew and talk so well at the
same time like that? Where did you learn how to do that?"
asked the Bungler.
Everyone laughed, including The Foreigner.
There was a way. I would think of a way. I stared at
the timber beams that crossed the room under the raw ceiling
planks of the peaked roof. A ski lodge. I wanted to like it, but
it didn't belong here, looked bad.
"So we're all going to the mixer tonight, right?" the
Bungler said.
"Bungler, did you finish the book for Clarke?" I asked
him.
He laughed.
"Not yet," he said.
"Do you understand it?"
"I guess. Pretty much."
He understood it? That couldn't be true. The book
made no sense, the combinations of words were absurd,
incomprehensible. I read the paragraph for a third time. I had
never seen words combined this way before. They told me
nothing. How could the author believe that people who read
this would understand what he meant?
I held the book in my hand and pointed at a page. I
asked him, "Can you explain this to me: '...relatively
homologous ways to a view of hegemony…subject to
repetition, convergence, and rearticulation…the question of
temporality into the thinking of structure.' What does that
mean?"
"You have to understand it in the context of the
argument."
"Do you understand it?"
This question seemed to annoy him.
"Of course I understand it."

298
 [(He must be lying.] .)
"I don't think this makes any sense at all. It's not
possible."
"Well, just do the best you can with it. [It's your fault
that you don't understand.]"
I was too stupid.
No. It's not my fault, I won't believe that. Anyone
shouldcould see that this isn't communication, it's garbage. If
this jerk has an idea to communicate, he should find language
to express it that can be reliably understood, that can't be
misunderstood.misinterpreted. How complicated can his
thoughts be? This isn’t theoretical physics.
"Bungler," I said, "you really understand that stuff? You
know what those sentences mean?"
"Well, I mean, I know what he's talking about because
Clarke discussed it in class. I don't think you really need to
worry about the way he says it. He's obviously a major bullshit
artist."
"Bungler, who could understand sentences like that?
They're like some secret code."
"Frankie, why are you worried about that crap? It's
Friday night. We're not thinking about some academic
bullshit, we're going to the mixer."
We were supposed to care about it, weren't we? Why
take the class if what the books said didn't matter?
The Foreigner stood up and grinned at us again. "Be
ride backbag," he said.
I watched him walk towards the serving area to get his
cup of tea.
"Styles, quick give me the sugar bowl," I told him.
"Why? What are you going to do?"
"Hand me the salt shaker."
Dodson started to laugh.
I unscrewed the top of the salt shaker and poured a
small amount of salt into the bowl. Then I used my finger to
mix it with the sugar. Would that be enough?

299
 "Frankie, you can't do that," Styles said.
"Why not?"
"Everybody uses that sugar."
"They'll fix it later."
He frowned at me.
"Or I’ll fix it; I'll scoop it out. Anyway, I’ve already done
it."
I looked at the two white powders in the bowl: Itit was
very hard to see the salt. You had to know that it was there
to notice it.
"Quick, put it back. Put back the salt shaker."
We sat and waited without speaking, trying not to
laugh.
"Don't anybody fucking laugh," I said, having to try hard
not to laugh myself.
I filled my glass with milk from the pitcher on the table
and started to eat cake. It's hard to laugh when your mouth is
full of cake.
We sat at the table and pushed food around our plates,
ate pieces of what remained, ate dessert.
"Frankie, he's going to be really pissed," Styles said.
"Why should he be any more pissed than he usually
is?"
Babbs made a snorting noise.
"Shh," said Dods.
A moment later, I saw Foreigner walk past the end of
the table. He would know something was happening because
we were sitting on our seats like a bunch of dummies. I took
another bite of cake and drank more milk and tried not to look
at him directly, but I could still see what he was doing with the
side of my eye.
"Get your tea?" Dodson asked him.
"Godit, Dods, and you're not touching id. Tonide um
having tea and you'r not puttingany shid in id."
The cup landed on the table making a small bang and
clatter. He had covered it with a second saucer. For

300
protection? to keep it hot? to keep it from spilling? Foreigner
banged the chess piece onto the square and grinned at me.
"Go ahead end moof," he said. “I'll bead your ass in
five moofs."
Now we were all looking at him. It was okay. He was
confident and didn't think about what we might have done.
"You got me Foreigner," Dodson said. "Tonight I'm not
putting salt in your tea."
When I heard that, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing
so I tried to make the laugh sound natural, casual. Did it?
The Foreigner grinned.
He pushed the cup towards the fence wall, away from
the rest of us. He slid the saucer top off the cup and dropped
it onto the table, turning his head to grin at us again. My heart
beat faster. He lifted his spoon and filled it from the sugar
bowl. He moved the spoon until it was above the cup. Slowly,
he tilted the spoon and poured the contents into his tea. Then
he dipped the spoon into the tea and stirred it. He grinned at
us. I grinned at him. I had done it.
"Ah," he said, as he lifted the cup towards his mouth.
Would it be enough?
"Ummm," I said, and at the same time Dodson said,
"Ahhh," and Babbs said, "Enjoy."
Before even a second had passed he had pulled his
lips away from his teeth, pushed his tongue out of his mouth
and let the tea fall back into the cup. His eyes bulged: he saw
what had happened.
"Fuck you, Dods," he yelled.
"Dods?" I said.
He stood and dropped the cup onto his tray. I quickly
pushed my chair away from the table and tilted backwards to
avoid being splashed. We were all laughing really hard.
"Thatszit. Um never eading wid you bastards eggen."
He picked up the tray. It shook in his hands making the
cup roll around in the tea and the dishes clatter.
We all stopped laughing; this wasn't happening the

301
right way.
"Come on, Foreigner," I said, glad that I hadn't told him
who had put salt in the sugar. "Sit down."
"No way. Um never eading wid you bastards eggen."
"Come on."
He walked with stamping steps away from the table.
"Hey, Foreigner," Babbs yelled.
"He's not coming back," said Styles.
Was what I had done this time different from what we
had done on other nights? We always put salt in his tea: it
was a game. We all knew that it was a game. It had never
made him angry like this before.
"He'll get over it," I said.
"No he won't," said Styles.



Everyone woreput on jackets and ties, as if they were

in the Citycity, except they looked different from people in the
Citycity.
"Styles," I said, "you look like a car salesman."
"Thanks, Frankie. That's real nice. I really
appreciatepreciate it."
I held a towel around my waist and walked quickly back
to my room, bouncing on my toes so that floor dirt didn’t touch
the bottoms of my feet, although I knew in my second mind
that this was stupid.
(“You’re still stepping on the floor, you idiot”).
Why did I do that?
The door to Babs' and Fishey's room was open. Fishey
was standing in front of his mirror tying a crappy-looking tie.
I went into my room and closed the door. Then I let
myself stand with my feet flat on the rug [(it would be no
cleaner]) and my muscles relaxed. The silence in the room
hummed in my ears, and with it, I heard the quiet sound of a
voice and then another from the hall behind the closed door.

302
I breathed the isolated air and stared at the smooth blanket
on the bed. Blue. It was part of the stillness.
Carefully I dried myself, sprayed my armpits with
deodorant, and thought about what I should wear, although I
had already decided what I would wear because I knew which
were the best clothes. I saw myself as I would look, and
brushed my hair until it was right. Then I began dressing.
After putting on underwear, I slid my arms into the sleeves of
a white shirt made of stiffly starched cotton that had been
folded, unused, in the bottom drawer of the metal cabinet
since I had arrived. It still had the clean dress-shirt smell that
filled the air close around you when you were wearing good
clothes. I sat on the wooden desk chair and put on black
socks: the left sock and then the right. My charcoal-gray pants
had been in the cabinet closet also since the first day, the front
creases still sharp and unwrinkled. I stepped into them
carefully and raised them over my shirttails, smoothing the
material so that it would lie flat underneath the wool pants,
making sure that the shirt buttons entered the pants exactly in
the middle of my waist where my belt would buckle. Then I
threaded the dark-brown leather belt through the loops on the
pants, closed it so that it rested gently against my stomach but
didn’t slip, and put on the brown loafers that I had kept in the
back of the armoire. I looked at them: not too shiny but not
cruddy. Their color matched the color of the belt. They were
perfect. I took a dark-red tie with a pattern of blue lines from
the bottom drawer of the cabinet and put it under my collar,
sliding it up and down until the ends were in the right positions:
after I tied the knot, the outside wider end of the tie had to be
slightly longer than the underneath narrower end, which had
to reach just to the top my belt buckle. How did I know that
the ends were in the right positions before I started tying?
This question made my insides throb. I didn’t want to try to
answer it because the more you thought about something like
thisthat, the less sure you were that you really knew what
initially had made you think of the question.

303
 (“Just tie the tie, you idiot.”)
I took my navy-blue jacket off its hanger in the armoire
and put it on, settling it evenly on my shoulders and, pulling
my shirt cuffs from inside the sleeves down slightly over my
wrists. Finally, I buckled my watch around my right wrist, put
my wallet into the right inside pocket of my sports coat,
cigarettes in the left inside pocket and my keys into my right
pants pocket [(the knife was gone, lost somewhere].).
“Where, where, where.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I picked up a pack of matches that I had left on the
counter above the cabinet drawers and looked at myself in the
mirror. I looked okay.
Styles was standing in the hallway near the door to my
room. He was wearing blue pants with a faint crease pressed
into the legs. They were made of what? His shoes were light
brown and had gold metal buckles [(too large].). Crap. He
looked at me and didn’t say anything.
“I’ll see you at the top of the hill in about an hour,” I told
him. [Would there be time? Would he want to know where I
was going?]
(Would there be time? Would he want to know where
I was going?)
Then he asked me: “Where are you going?”
“Oh, I just have one place to stop first.”
I looked away from his face and started to walk past
him.
“Frankie,” he said, “I thought we decided that we would
all go up there together, didn’t we?”
I stopped walking.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there. I just have one other place
to go.”
“Where’s that?”
[I had to tell him:] .
“AD.”
“You got invited to AD? You got invited there and you

304
didn’t tell us?”
“Well it’s not really serious. I’m not going there to join,
I just want to see it.” [Did that make any sense?]
(Did that make any sense?)
“Frankie, are you going to be a Really Important
Person? You want to be one of those guys? Don’t you want
to stay with us?”
[(Yes. But. Yes.].)
“Oh, don’t worry about it Styles. I’ll see you at the top
of the hill.”
I wanted to stop talking about this.
“We agreed.”
“Come on. We didn’t swear or anything like that. Don’t
worry. I’m going with you. We’re all going together.”
“Frankie, don’t do it.”
“Styles, I’m not doing anything. I’m just going there to
see what it’s like.”
“Right.”
I left the dorm [(feeling bad].).
Instead of crossing the quad, I walked on the sidewalk
beside the road that went around it so that I wouldn’t get my
shoes wet or muddy.
(“I never promised that I would join with them did I? I
only said that I thought offering to join as a group was a good
plan.”)
Past the library: the guy who designed that library had
spent too much time playing with blocks when he was a kid.
So why was I going somewhere else? [(They wouldn’t
want me anyway..) Would they want me? (They wouldn’t.].)
Down the hill toward the Village Green. The protesters
were there: a line of people standing side-by-side around the
edge of the Green. They faced the streets silently, not
moving, staring at the passersby. They did that every Sunday
morning: a protest against the War.
As I got closer, I looked at them looking at me. They
were students but also people from the town. Hippies with

305
long hair. Some professors, probably.
Styles went and stood with them sometimes.
“Frankie, why don’tcha come with me to the vigil
tomorrow?”
“Styles, it’s too early. I don’t want to get up that early
just to stand around [(with a bunch of oddballs]) not moving or
saying anything for an hour. Besides, we’ll miss breakfast.”
“Come on Frankie. You can get up a little earlier and
eat. You’re against the war aren’t you?”
Was it right to be against the war?
“Styles it’s probably gunna rain anyway. You have to
be crazy to stand out there without doing anything.”
“So? You can go in the rain. You won’t melt. Aren’t
you against the War?”
They stared as I walked past them. They saw me in
my jacket and tie and slacks. What did their faces say? “You
are one of them and not one of us and therefore you are
wrong. We are right. We are real people and you are what?”
They knew nothing about me.
Did anyone in the Government actually care that some
students and hippies were standing in the rain and the snow
and whatever else happened every week because they
wanted the War to end?
(“Well, if enough people say ‘no,’ then the Government
will have to listen.”)
That didn’t seem likely. That was the kind of thing they
told you in fifth grade.
I crossed the street at the other side of the Green,
putting the protestors behind my back.
Was everyone who didn’t protest against the War “for”
the War? People talked about the War a lot but not because
they liked it [(not here]) or wanted it.
(“Yeah, that would be great. I could go there and get
killed. Lie in mud. Get bitten by bugs and snakes. Great idea.
It’s important to do that.”)
I laughed a little then looked quickly around to see if

306
anyone might have heard me.
Yes, but was fighting the War a right thing, or was it
wrong?
Two flights of stairs separated by twelve or fifteen feet
of pavement went from the sidewalk to the entrance of the
house. This looked good. [Why?]? The second flight ended
at a portico with four tall fluted Doric columns. As I climbed
the stairs, some kids dressed in city clothes walked out the
door at the back of the portico. Two turned serious faces to
look at me. Were they wondering who I was? Wanting me to
notice them [(because they were important, thinkthought they
were important]?)? A third walked behind, slumping forward
slightly and looking at his feet. He was wearing brown loafers
with tassels.
More people were standing just past the front door in
the foyer. One was a freshman in my humanities seminar who
smoked continually during class and waved his cigarette
around in the air while he talked, which he did a lot. He was
shaking hands with an older kid whose face I had seen
somewhere. The older kid turned, looked at me and smiled.
Who was he?
“Hi, Rick,” he said as if he had been waiting for me to
arrive. How was that possible? Had I forgotten that I knew
him?
“Hi,” I said.
My face, I knew, showed surprise, which was bad
[(which he liked].). I shook his hand.
“Go sit in the living room and we’ll be with you shortly.”
He pointed through a rectangular opening to a large
room with leather-covered armchairs and several sofas.
There were a few people sitting quietly on most of the
chairs. Despite the upholstery, the people looked
uncomfortable. I didn’t know any of them, didn’t want to sit
near any of them [(didn’t want to look like them].).
I took a cigarette out of the package in my pocket, lit it
and leaned against the wall next to the mantel of a large

307
fireplace, wanting to seem bored. [(It didn’t matter that I
touched the wall here.].)
Who was the guy in the foyer? I saw faces from
class, from the dining hall, the faces of people walking on the
campus. A kid gave me a beige envelope. My name had
been written on it with a laundry marker. I looked at him.
The first person I had spoken to at the school. Did he
remember me?
(“No, you idiot. He recognized you because he saw
your picture in the Face Book.”)
He and probably others had learned the names and
faces of the people they had invited to the house. Did they
do this to make you feel welcome? They would say that,
smiling, but in my second mind I thought that they wanted
you to feel something else. My floor advisor was a member
here though. I looked through the arch for his face, but he
wasn’t in the foyer.
The kid from my humanities seminar was saying
something that made the guy from the house laugh. Then
they shook hands and the kid turned around and strolled into
the living room. He was tall and soft looking. I pulled the
black metal screen away from the opening of the fireplace
and flicked cigarette ash into the hearth. He passed me and
I nodded at him, smiling a little. He smiled a little also, but
didn’t say anything and kept walking towards an older kid
standing in front of a pair of doors with glass panes that led
to a porch at the side of the room.
What should I do now? I threw the rest of the
cigarette into the hearth and put my right hand into my pants
pocket. An older kid walked past me and stopped in front of
someone sitting on a leather armchair beside the doors to
the porch. The kid stood, shook his hand and they left the
room [(going upstairs].). Should I take the kid’s seat? If I
took the kid’s seat, it would seem as if I hadn’t been
comfortable standing. I walked to one of the windows at the
front of the room and looked through it between the portico

308
columns at the protesters staring in the direction of the
house.
If the protesters were drafted would they fight? Would
they be Conscientious Objectors or go to prison? [(Not
likely.].). Maybe some.
I looked at my watch. I had to go up the hill, but I
couldn’t just leave here without meeting people. What would
I do if I had to wait longer? How much longer could I wait
and still be on time to meet the others?
“Richard Frank?”
I turned and saw a fat kid wearing a pink tie standing
near the entrance.
“Richard Frank?” he repeated.
I walked towards him.
“Hi,” I said and raised my arm to shake his hand. His
grip was weak and his hand was flabby and damp.
“Hi. Come with me,” he said.
I followed him up two flights of stairs with dark-wood
balustrades to the second floor and down a corridor between
closed varnished woodenwood doors. Each door had a
brass number in italic typeface attached to it. He stopped
beside a door on the left near the end, opened it and then
stepped backward so that I could enter in front of him.
Inside, there was a small room with several chairs
and a leather sofa with fat upholstered arms that were
slightly squished. Two people were in the room, waiting for
us.
“Go ahead and sit down,” the fat kid said behind me.
I walked toward an armchair in the corner next to the
window and sat on it. After a short pause, I lifted my right
leg and rested my calf on my left knee [(be relaxed].). The
fat kid sat on the sofa.
“Hi, I’m Roger Tellis,” said a blond guy sitting on a
chair beside the sofa, “and this is Jonathan Chapman.”

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 He extended his right arm towards a kid sitting in the
corner of the room opposite me. Jonathan Chapman smiled
a little.
“Nice to meet you,” I said and smiled a little at him.
I guessed that they thought the fat guy had already
introduced himself.
(“Maybe he doesn’t have a name.”)
I smiled at him but his face didn’t change and I quickly
looked back at Roger Tellis.
There was a short silence.
“How’s school going?” he asked me.
“Fine,” I said. “It’s good.”
That was probably true because my first semester
grades had actually been okay. Did they care about that?
Was there anything else I should say? No, they would ask
questions. What would they ask me?
More silence. I slid my butt sidewise on the seat.
“What courses have you been taking?” Again it was
Roger Tellis who spoke.
“Oh, I had the Freshman Humanities Seminar and
History of Art and I took Clarke’s history course.”
“He’s really good isn’t he?” Roger Tellis said, seeming
to mean it.
“I guess.”
Could he actually think that? Was he telling me that he
understood those books? Maybe he’s never taken a Clarke
course and is just saying what someone else told him.
Silence. They stared at me.
“Are you thinking of majoring in history?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure. I guess I could.”
This was not what I had expected. What did they want?
“Any interest in political science?”
The door opened and three more people came into the
room. I looked at them. Two sat on the remaining empty
chairs and one sat on the sofa next to the pink-tie kid. They
didn’t speak, so I looked back at Roger Tellis, who was smiling

310
a little.
“Have you ever had Clarke,” I asked him.
Why did I ask him that? He said he thought Clarke is
good. It sounds as if I’m accusing him of pretending to know
what Clarke is like. That was really stupid. I had better wake
up.
“Of course,” he said.
Did he think that there was anything wrong with my
question?
More silence.
The door opened again and another two people walked
into the room. One sat on the arm of the sofa closest to the
door and the other stood next to him.
“This is Hubey Harte, one of our Rush Chairmen,”
Roger Tellis said, looking at the person on the arm of the sofa
[who was very casual].
“Hi,” I said.
He nodded. I waited for him to ask me a question, but
he didn’t say anything. So who was the other guy? His
bodyguard?
My brain began to feel numb. Should I smoke a
cigarette? Nobody else was smoking so I decided not to. I
uncrossed my legs and then crossed them again.
Everyone stared at me silently: an audience. How
many people were in the room now? I looked at each face,
counting in my mind: eight. They sent eight people into the
room to meet me and none of them was saying anything?
They sent eight people into the room to stare at me? This
thought made me grin. I grinned at Hubey Harte, but he didn’t
seem to notice that something was funny. I grinned at the
others, but none of them smiled, not even Roger Tellis. They
just stared at me.
(“What the hell are they waiting for? Do they want me
to do a magic trick?”)
(“Ask a question you idiot.”)
“Are there enough of you left to talk to the other

311
people?” I said.
“Oh sure,” said Hubey Harte, “there’re enough.”
His expression didn’t change.
He looked at Roger Tellis who looked at him but didn’t
speak.
This was bad [(boring],), a moment of nothing that
could fill forever. I looked at my watch, a mistake, but it
wouldn’t make a difference. [(Glad they saw me do it.].) I still
had enough time to get to the top of the hill.
Hubey Harte said, “Thanks for coming,” [(as if I had
given him a signal]) and left the room with his bodyguard.
Then the fat kid left the room without saying anything.
“Do you have any questions?” Roger Tellis asked me.
“No. It’s okay.” (“Fuck you all.”)
“Well, I guess we’re done then. Thanks for coming,”
he said, and he stood and walked towards the door without
saying anything else or shaking my hand. The others followed
him.
“You know how to get downstairs, right?” Jonathan
Chapman said. “I can show you the way out?”
“That’s okay,” I said, “I can find it. Thanks.”
The numbness in my head had gone away. [(Get out
of here.].)
“Okay he said.”
“Bye,” I said. (“Glad to know that you can talk, you
asshole.”)
I didn’t see any of them in the corridor. Possibly, they
were behind me. I walked quickly toward the stairs and down
to the first floor. Before reaching the foyer, I slowed my steps,
not wanting to look as if I were hurrying, wanting to look
relaxed. There were still people standing near the front door,
although the kid who knew my name wasn’t there, which was
good. I smiled at a Freshman walking into the house and went
past him, across the portico, down one flight of stairs and then
the other with my hands in my pockets. [(Casual.].)
It had been bad. [(They thought I was nothing.].) Why?

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Why had they invited me if they thought I was nothing? Had
they invited me because they thought I would be fun to look
at?
(“So what? Who cares? You’re going up the hill to join
with everybody else. That’s what you said you’d do.”)
The protesters were gone. The world felt normal again.
After walking across the Green, I stopped to light a
cigarette and looked at my watch: there was enough time
even though I felt as if I had been in that place forever.
What had they wanted? What had happened?
“Who cares? They can fuck themselves.”
I walked up the hill beside the giant hedge.
(“I hope nobody heard that.”)
I laughed.
We would join together.
My Father had brought me there once many years
before. We had stayed in a small house and played catch in
the front yard. The yard was surrounded by a white fence.
There were orange and yellow leaves on the grass and
blowing through the air around us.
“The summer is over,” he said.
We had walked up the hill together, a very long walk.
“I wonder if it’s changed?” he said.
An enormously tall pine tree grew on each side of the
steps leading to the front door.
“These trees were only about fifteen feet high when I
was here. I have a picture somewhere.”
Four motorcycles were parked in the living room. I
wanted to stay, but my Father thought that we should leave.



The basement was crowded with sweaty people

dancing to jukebox music. You didn’t have to put money in
the jukebox: you could just pick songs and they would play.
People mostly picked Soul Musicsoul music. I hadn’t heard

313
these songs very often before. They were different from the
music that I listened to, but I thought they were okay.
Everyone in the House liked them; the dancers and the people
sitting at the bar in the small room through the doorway
sometimes sang along with them. The house didn’t have any
black members, though. There weren’t many black students
and they didn’t join fraternities. Why? [(They felt apart.].)
I looked up and saw Julian walking towards me.
Because we both had been in Thompson’s history class, I said
hello [(wanting to show that we were all students together and
the same].).
Were we all the same? Julian was smart. When he
spoke I understood that he expected you to notice this. He
didn’t act like black people in the Citycity; he was more like a
Preppiepreppie who studied.
Would he be friendly [(because I really didn’t know
him]?)? Would he think that I was using him to show that I
wasn’t prejudiced against black people?
He stopped walking. His face was usually smooth, but
today he was frowning as if he were concentrating on some
bad thought.
“How’re you doin?” I asked him.
“Okay,” he said.
“Where’re you goin? Are you goin to eat?”
Maybe we could eat lunch together.
“I just ate at the President’s house.”
“The President’s house?”
“Yeah.”
“Really? That’s amazing. What were you doing
there?” Were other students being invited to the President’s
house? [Would I be invited?]
Were other students being invited to the President’s
house? (Would I be invited?)
“They invited me so they could show some rich people
how open-minded they are, and that it’s okay because they
have presentable negroes here.”

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 I stared at him. Had he really said that, said it? Said
sit to me? What should I do?
After a pause I said, “It’s important, though, to be asked
to help the President,” and wondered if there were something
else I could say also.
“Maybe. That’s why I went. I don’t know.”
“Well it is important, and it’s important that you helped
him.” [?](?)
“That’s why I went.”
He looked at his feet.
“Were they nice anyway?”
“Nice?”
“Yeah. I mean were they nice to you?”
Was it okay to ask that?
“Were they nice to me? They were using me. And then
this woman said that it was too hot, and that she was suffering
because of the heat, but I wouldn’t understand because, ‘you
people don’t feel the heat the way we do’.”
“Wait a minute. She said you people meaning you?” I
almost shouted, because how could someone be that stupid?
I almost shouted, because how could someone be that
stupid? That…what?
“Yeah. Me.”
“I mean just like that? To you?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“Oh. That’s really bad.” [
(Should I apologize?]?)
“Yeah. Next time I’m not going.”
“Yeah. That’s really bad.” [
Would there be another time? How could he not go?]?
“Well, I gotta study. I’ll see you later.”
“Frankie.”
He walked past me towards the library. HadDid the
President heardhear what she had said?
“Hey Frankie. Wake up.”
I turned my head. It was Styles.

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 “Frankie are you drunk?” he asked me, sounding as if
he thought that I was.
“No,” I said, “I’ve only had one beer.”
“You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I was just watching them dance.”
“Well you better be careful or you’ll fall off that stool.”
He laughed.
“You’ve only had one beer?” the guy behind the bar
asked me. “You haven’t even gotten started. Here, join us.”
He smiled slightly as he slid off his stool, filled another
large wax-paper cup from the tap and put it on the bar in front
of me.
Join us: a joke?
He had a pale serious face and he wore glasses with
thick black frames.
“Thanks,” I said and sipped some of the cold beer.
The beer from the tap was covered with creamy foam
and tasted better than beer from a can. It was good, but it
made me sleepy. Alcohol always made me sleepy.
After giving me the beer, he sat on the stool again,
leaned calmly against the wall and gazed at the ceiling over
the stairs, sipping from his own cup. He was Martello. He
treated us as friends even though we had only recently met
him; they all treated us as friends.
“Styles, where’s your beer?” I said, wanting to show
that I wasn’t the only one drinking slowly.
“I’ve got some,” Styles said, showing me his cup. “I
don’t drink the way these guys do and you sure can’t either.”
“I’m okay,” I said, [(I’m just like them]) and sipped more
beer, although my brain already felt numb.
“Where’s Dods?” I asked him.
“He’s upstairs losing money he doesn’t have playing
poker,” he said.
“Oh.”
They sat around an oak table in the library and played
poker with dollar bills instead of chips. Where did they get

316
enough money to play poker with dollar bills? Could I do that?
I pulled a cigarette out of the package in my shirt
pocket.
“Do you have a match?” I asked Martello.
“Sure.”
He stood and handed me a pack of matches from the
counter behind the bar.
“Got another cigarette?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said, and gave him one.
I lit my own cigarette and then leaned over the bar to
light his from the same match before I dropped it on the floor,
which was okay to do.
“Hey Marty,” someone standing behind me said, “you
have a beer?”
Martello filled another cup and handed it across the bar
to a tall skinny guy who had one arm around the waist of a girl
wearing tight blue jeans and a shirt with a ruffled front. Her
breasts lifted the shirt noticeably near my arm. I looked at her
face [(to see if she knew that my left arm was nearly rubbing
her breast].). My second mind thought that she was like Ann
in some way. Maybe she was older than the other girls. She
had thick wavy hair that touched the tops of her shoulders.
The guy gave the cup to the girl and shewho took a
drink from it.
“Thanks, but I need two, asshole,” he said.
I stood and slid my stool away from her so that the guy
could reach between us and get the second beer more easily.
[(So that I wouldn’t touch her body.].) Instead of sitting on the
stool again, I leaned against the bar [(better to let the girl have
the stool]) and looked at her face without turning my head.
Would anyone notice me doing this? I had the idea that she
seemed separate from what was happening around her.
Being here meant something different to her than it did to us.
It was too crowded in the small barroom. I picked up
my beer cup and walked through the doorway and across the
dance floor to the jukebox. It was playing another soul song.

317
A lot of the dancing couples pressed against each other: the
girls had their arms around the guy’s necks and the guys had
their arms around the girl’s waists. One guy had his hands on
his girlfriend’s butt. A few of the dancers sang: “…made me
love you…oh…now you’re gone.”
The girls were all different sizes and combinations of
shapes. I watched the butt of a girl dancing with a guy near
the door to the barroom. She was wearing a short skirt and
had good legs with lean thighs. Why was that shape so good?
Her butt swayed back and forth as she danced, slowly back
and forth. As I watched, I had an empty feeling that was
familiar and like a disease. This sick feeling wasn’t just
because of her was it? No, it was because of her but it was
more because of seeing them together. They turned as they
danced so that now I was looking at her profile. I stepped
backwards until I was standing against the wall beside the
jukebox away from the bright light that shone out its front.
They didn’t notice me though; they were looking at each other
and singing softly. How had he met her?
The cigarette was done; I dropped it and walked
around the jukebox to the door of a small bathroom. The
bathroom was empty and I went inside, locked the door and
pulled down my pants so that I could piss. I never just opened
my fly to piss. People had written graffiti messages over the
toilet. One was: Never underestimate a good shit or a
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Who would shit on a toilet three
feet from a room filled with dancing people [(girls]?)? You
opened the door and a foul cloud followed you out of the
bathroom while people watched and breathed your stink.
Another was: The more things change, the more they remain
the same. Was that true?
When I was done, I walked back to the barroom past
the girl with the lean legs who still swayed to the slow beat of
the music, embraced by her boyfriend.
(“That’s just the way it is. Forget it.”)
Styles wasn’t in the barroom anymore. The tall skinny

318
kid and his girlfriend also had left [(gone to his room].).
Instead, a guy with a square friendly face and short black hair
that was either very wavy or almost curly was sitting on the
stool near where the girl had been standing.
“Where’s the Little One?” I heard Martello ask him.
“She’s not here. I had to finish a paper,” the guy
answered.
“Which one is this one?”
“Race and the Progressive Era.”
“Again?” Martello asked him.
The guy laughed.
“Well, it’s a bit different this time, but I’ll grant you I’ve
written about the Progressives before,” he said and laughed
more. He picked at the end of his cigarette with his thumbnail.
“But there’s actually a lot to say about them.”
Martello laughed with him and then looked at me.
“Don’t you need another beer yet? Here, give me that
cup,” he said, reaching across the bar to take my beer cup.
“No. It’s okay,” I said stepping slightly backward. “I’ve
got enough.”
“Mick, get that cup from him and I’ll pour him a fresh
one.”
“No. Really. That’s okay,” I said to the guy.
“Well, okay,” he said, “but that looks old.” He cleared
his throat. “If you’re going to drink, you might as well drink
good beer.”
He smiled and stared at my face, waiting.
I looked at the cup in my hand and then gave it to him.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
Martello took it and threw it into a steel trash barrel and
then filled a new one from the tap and gave it back to the guy
who gave it to me.
“Thanks,” I said, this time to both of them, and drank
more beer [(even though it made my insides feel as if they
were going to explode.] ).
Never underestimate.

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 I wanted to say something else to Mick so I asked,
“What about the Progressives?”
I had read about the Progressives in high school. Who
were they? I should know.
“About a Muckraker named Baker who was one of the
first people to examine race relations after the Civil War. Are
you interested in history?”
“I guess I like fiction better.” I didn’t want to say no.
[Was it right to contrast history and fiction?] “I mean reading
fiction better than reading history.”
I didn’t want to say no. (Was it right to contrast history
and fiction?)
“I mean reading fiction better than reading history.”
“Why?” he asked me.
“Well. Why?”
His question surprised me [did. Did I know the
reason?]. ?.
“I guess because I like the way fiction gives you the
experience of something different, a different reality, that is. I
mean, it’s not just a lot of facts about something.”
“History isn’t just facts. History is an attempt to
understand something that happened and why,” he answered.
“It’s not only narrativea narration of events.”
Obviously he was right [(idiot],), but still it didn’t mean
that there wasn’t a big difference between your perception of
fiction writing and your perception of history writing.
“Yeah, but fiction portrays the feelings and the motives
of people,” I said. That was true. “Historians can’t know that.”
“I don’t know,” he said, “history definitely looks at
people’s attitudes and is very concerned with why things
happen.”
He spoke with seriousness but without worry.
“But it can’t create the actual reality of what happened.
It’s just a guess. It’s just someone’s opinion. And there are
gaps,” I said. [(“Make it clear, you idiot.].”)
“No, often that’s the argument: what was the reality.”

320
 “Huh?”
“Historians want to explain reality and then interpret it.
They do describe or attempt to describe reality whereas the
‘reality’ of fiction is invented.”
Somehow he seemed to have changed the subject, or
what we were discussing had changed.
He drank beer, lit another cigarette and cleared his
throat. I pulled out one of my own cigarettes and passed the
pack to Martello who handed me the matches. I drank more
beer.
“It’s invented, but not unreal,” I said. “It’s not unreal
because the things in the book could have happened or may
actually have happened. And because the author is creating
the story, he can show the motivation and behavior of the
characters in a way that allows him to make statements about
the real world, about real people because we are like his
characters. There’s a subtext.”
“Well I don’t think that historians have to invent
behavior in order to explain it or make a statement about the
real world,” he answered and smiled.
“No. I mean when you read fiction you can feel
something different, you can experience a different world, not
just think about it. You can feel it.”
“Thought versus feeling? If you really want to know the
truth, the best way is to study what people do, isn’t it?”
“Then how do you know how to put what they do
together to make the story?” I asked him. “It’s all assumptions
or conjecture.”
“Because the things they do are related in ways that
become clear, hopefully, when you study them,” he said and
drank more beer.
“No. You’re saying that the truth, a true story, is a story
that’s made up from facts? That there’s no other way to know
the truth?”
He laughed again.
“Well, reconstructed from facts. Not necessarily made

321
up,” he said. “That’s the best way.”
“Well, that’s what I think too, but I think it’s made up
and I have a different concept of facts.”
We both laughed.



There was a little park in front of one of the flat office-

tower facades that enclosed the avenue: a rectangle of grass,
several trees and some bushes. The park was surrounded by
gray stone blocks that made a low fence, easy to step over,
placed to tell pedestrians not to walk on the grass. Two
hippies sat under one of the trees, a girl and a guy, sharing a
cigarette. A worn olive-green canvas backpack lay on the
ground between them. Someone, (the guy [?],?) had painted
a white piece sign on it.
The image of them sitting there stayed in my mind as I
continued walking: long hair held off their faces by colorful
kerchiefs tied around their foreheads.
(“Why can’t she leave me alone about my hair?”)
Round steel-rimmed sunglasses. Beads. Tie-dyed
shirts and torn jeans.
Where did they live? Was all their stuff in the pack,
everything they owned?
(“My hair isn’t very long, it just isn’t short.”)
What did they do all day? What would they do in the
future?
Sandals.
I liked the guy’s sandals and his sunglasses. I wanted
sandals like that but they were expensive.
“What do you want sandals for?” she said.
I had no answer.
I walked faster than the other people on the sidewalk,
squeezing past them and, as I did, I looked at their faces, but
their faces told me nothing.
“That long hair like your friend Matt’s looks dirty.” [Matt

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is dirty.] “I don’t want you walking around like that. What if
someone sees you?”
(“Someone sees me? I am seen?”)
What she means is, ‘“what if someone I know sees
you?’?” If someone she knows sees me with long hair, they
may say bad things about me (her), [, which is what she would
do].).
I began to feel the heat of the sun (and the sidewalk,
and the asphalt and my movement). I didn’t want to sweat
and I thought about not sweating [(which doesn’t make any
difference],), and I walked more slowly.
I should shave my head.
“I was thinking of getting a Mohawk.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A Mohawk haircut. You know, a ridge of hair down the
middle of your head and the rest shaved off.”
“That’s just the kind of thing you would do. Don’t you
dare.”
“You don’t think it would look good? It would be real
short, at least on the sides.”
“What do you think? You have to make a joke out of
everything.”
There was cool, air-conditioned air in the lobby of the
office building. I tried to relax inside my clothes while I waited
in front of a long row of elevators, watching the numbers over
the doors that told you which ones were coming and close to
the lobby. A big slot machine. As I watched, I moved
sideways along the row to get closer to the one I thought
would arrive first. Other people did this too. You had to move
carefully, though, so that you didn’t seem too pushy.
Inside the elevator, people stood with arms and
shoulders touching, but not speaking. Something must have
poked a person next to me, making him turn and glare in my
direction, otherwise the riders stared at the nothing in front of
them.
I got off on the 37th floor, entered the office through

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large double doors at the end of the vestibule and walked past
the receptionist and down the corridor to an area near theits
end where I had been assigned an old green metal desk with
a gray Formica top. Mr. Jones was already sitting at his green
metal desk on the other side of the low partition to my right.
Mr. Jones never said anything unless he had to speak
to Jerry, who was our boss. Other people rarely said anything
to him. He stared at the top of his desk and moved pieces of
paper from one stack to another. I had no idea why he did
this, except that it was his job. Sometimes, I stopped what I
was doing and watched him: the white wrinkled skin on the
backs of his hands, which shook slightly as he lifted a sheet
of paper towards his face so that he could read it, his dark suit,
his very white hair. At noon, he would stop moving pieces of
paper and take his lunch out of a brown paper bag that he had
put in a desk drawer when he arrived at the office. Every day
he ate one sandwich and an apple or an orange. [(What kind
of sandwich?]?)
I had my own paper. My most important job, my only
real job, was to read the Rent Reports and underline the
names of tenants who hadn’t paid their rent. Before I was
allowed to do this, Jerry spoke to me in his office with the door
closed. He showed me a Rent Report and asked me:
“Do you think you can read these reports and underline
the tenants who haven’t paid their rent?”
It obviously embarrassed him to ask me this question.
At the same time, he seemed serious, as if he were doing
something necessary. Was he embarrassed because it was
such a stupid question …
(“Gee Jerry, I don’t know. Read all those words and
figure out who hasn’t paid rent, which is shown with a zero in
the right column?”)
…or was he embarrassed because he was implying
seriously that I might not be able to do it? Maybe he just
thought that I was so sloppy that I couldn’t do the job without
making mistakes.

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 “Yeah, I think I can do that,” I said, smiling a little.
I didn’t want to be rude to Jerry. I liked Jerry. He was
a young guy and he was friendly. He wanted to be Vice-
President of the company, so he never stopped working. The
stacks of paper on his desk were the biggest ones in the
office. Twice I had looked through the open door of the
President’s office; there wasn’t any paper at all on his desk,
nothing but a telephone with several rows of buttons, some
pictures, a fancy clock, and two gold pens in holders attached
to a shiny piece of dark wood. I never saw the President.
There was a telephone on my desk too and it had a row
of buttons on its base, but not nearly as many buttons as the
President had on his phone or Jerry had on his. I liked having
a phone with buttons on it, even though I never needed to call
anyone. Occasionally Jerry called me and one of the buttons
would light up:
“Have you finished the Rent Report for 104666?”
The night before, I had left a Rent Report on the middle
of the gray Formica desktop. I had turned it slightly clockwise
so that it looked as if I had put it there casually, and I had left
a ruler and a pencil side-by-side at different angles on top of
the report. Did it seem as if I were doing real work?
I opened the report and laid the ruler across the first
line. I had already reviewed this page and part of the next,
drawing an arrow to mark the place where I had stopped, but
I wanted to be sure that I didn’t miss a line, and it made me
feel more relaxed to begin at the beginning. In my second
mind I knew this was stupid, but I did it anyway.
People walked back and forth behind me. They talked
quietly and exchanged stacks of paper. I heard Jerry answer
his phone by saying, “Yes sir!” I looked at the clock on the
wall at the end of the corridor: the time had hardly changed.
The minute hand, which moved so fast on other clocks,
seemed stuck between four and five. I stared. Nothing
happened.
Then my phone rang with a noise that made me flinch.

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I turned quickly to pick up the receiver before it rang again.
“Hello.” Did my voice shake? [As if I were guilty of
doing some bad thing.]
Did my voice shake? (As if I were guilty of doing some
bad thing?)
“Have you finished the Rent Report?”
“Almost. I’ll be done in two minutes.”
“Okay. Then, bring it in here.”
“Okay… Bye.”
Was I too slow?
My shoulder muscles tightened and I concentrated my
attention on the last pages of the report. It didn’t take me long
to finish – I could have reviewed all the reports that Jerry gave
me each week in less than one day.
I stood and brought the report into Jerry’s office.
“Thanks,” he said and smiled. “Do me a favor. Take
this document and make one copy. Can you do that?”
He handed me a stack of paper.
“Sure,” I said and smiled too.
“You have to be careful not to skip any pages or get it
out of order.”
“Don’t worry,” I said.
“Okay. Go do it and then bring it back to me and be
careful to keep everything in order.”
I left Jerry’s office with the document. When I returned,
would he check to see that all the pages had been copied and
were in order?
(“Wow. Will I be able to keep all the pages in order? I
don’t know. It’s a complicated job.”)
One of the secretaries was using the copying machine.
Her waist made a thick bulge under her sweater. I stood
behind her and stared at the bulge while I waited for her to
finish. The copy paper smelled like solvent. Was it solvent?
[(What was solvent?]?) Would that be bad? The solvent smell
mixed with a perfume smell and a BO smell: her sweater. I
stepped backward and breathed through my mouth [, eating

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BO and chemical vapor] until she was done. She didn’t look
at me as she walked back to her desk.
Should I start copying sheets of paper from the top or
the bottom of the stack? Which was the right way? If I copied
sheets from the top of the stack, as I finished each page, I
would have to put the copies and the originals in piles face-
down to keep them in order. I looked at the top page. A “1”
was typed on the lower-right corner. I slid it sideways and saw
a “2” typed on the lower-right corner of the next page. I could
watch the numbers to be sure that I didn’t miss a page.
I lifted the cover off the glass top of the machine and
picked up page “1,” but then stopped moving. For a few
seconds, I held the sheet of paper dangling in the air over the
machine [(looking like a pantomime idiot]) while I had the
thought that if, instead, I began copying pages from the
bottom of the stack, I could put the copies and the originals in
piles beside each other face-up. I would still be able to look
at the numbers to see if I had missed a page and also I would
know that the copy and the original matched because they
looked the same.
I put page “1” back on the pile, flipped the pile over and
began copying pages from the bottom. In my second mind I
thought that it was weird to turn pages in this order, an idea
that briefly made my hands clumsy, and I struggled to balance
what had become three stacks of paper on the rim of the
machine.
What if someone came and demanded to use the
machine instead of me? I looked over my shoulder quickly to
see if anyone was walking towards me and then turned my
head back with a jerk because I felt one of the piles start to
slide onto the floor. I began to sweat.
(“Job too tough for you? Now you know why the
secretary has BO.”)
Finally, I finished. I picked up the stack of originals and
tapped first one edge of the stack and then the other on the
glass top of the machine to make the pile into an even

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rectangle. Then I did the same with the copies, but they were
sticky; the pages wouldn’t slide over each other, and I almost
dropped them on the floor.
“Fucking A.”
Without looking to see if anyone had heard me, I picked
up the two piles and walked quickly back to Jerry’s office.
Would he notice that I was sweating?
“Thanks,” he said. “Are they in order? Did you copy
all the pages?”
“Yeah, don’t worry,” I said.
“You didn’t read any of it did you?”
“No. Well the page numbers. But just that.” [?](?)
“Because these are confidential. I should have told
you. You can’t read any of it.”
I made my face look slightly dopey and surprised,
which seemed to satisfy him.
He looked at the piles of paper on top of his desk and I
knew that he was irritated by something.
“I don’t have anything else to give you right now.”
“That’s okay.”
“Wait. Here, take these documents and make sure that
they’re the same.”
He handed me two more stacks of paper.
“And don’t read any of it.”
“Thanks. I won’t.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay. I understand. Honestly.”
(“How the fuck can I tell if they’re the same if I don’t
read them?”)
(“Look at the page numbers, you idiot. There’re always
page numbers.”)
Was looking at the page numbers a certain way to
prove that the pages were the same? Not really.
I walked back to my desk.
(“Wow. Now that you know how to compare two pieces
of paper – without reading them – you have a new job. You’ve

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only been working here three weeks and you’ve already been
promoted!”)
I laughed. Mr. Jones raised his head and looked over
the partition at me but he didn’t say anything.
I put the two stacks of paper face-down on my desk
and began flipping over the sheets and laying them face-up
next to each other and below the originals, comparing what I
saw.
(“Well, Jerry, there aren’t any page numbers, so what
the fuck do you think I should do?”)
“Seller shall…”
“Seller shall…”
I flipped over two more pages:
“…insurance policy… Buyer agrees…”
“…policy… Buyer …”
(“Fucking A. What’s he worried that I will see?)
“…documents… Tax… Mortgage…”
“…Tax … Mortgage…”
“Purchaser… Seller…”
“Purchaser… Seller…”
(“The names of the people making the deal.”)
Who was selling and who was buying. What was being
bought and sold. He thought that I might tell someone. Again
I laughed, but this time more quietly, glancing over the
partition at Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones didn’t hear me, or if he heard me, he didn’t
care about what was making me laugh. He was taking his
lunch out of his desk drawer.
There was no need to look at the clock: it was exactly
noon and time to eat. Quickly I stood, patted the inside pocket
of my jacket to be sure that I had my wallet [(which was stupid
because there was no reason why it wouldn’t be there],), and
started to walk towards the office entrance. After making only
a few steps, though, I stopped, turned around and went back
to the desk. The writing on the top pages of the document
was visible to anyone who passed. I turned the stacks over

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and then left the office, free for an hour.
An empty elevator arrived at the vestibule before I even
had a chance to push the down button [(why?],?), which was
good: I wanted to get to the restaurant quickly so that I might
find a seat without having to wait.
I stepped into the elevator, pressed the button for the
lobby, walked to the back …
(“Move to da rear a da bus”)
…and turned to face the door. It closed and, as it did,
I told myself to relax because, no matter how quickly I wanted
to get out of the building, the elevator would make a lot of
stops before it reached the lobby. Everyone in the building
would be hurrying to get to some lunch place before all the
tables were taken. The elevator began to drop down the shaft;
my shoulder muscles tightenedgot tighter and still tighter as I
waited for it to stop because it definitely would, but it didn’t
until it reached the lobby. I laughed.
There was a small store in the lobby that sold candy,
soda, magazines and junk that people might want while they
were at work, like nail clippers (and deodorant?). I took a
newspaper off a rack next to the cashier, an old guy in dirty
pee-stained pants, paid him and then walked quickly to the
street.
Outside, I turned left and hurried to the corner. As I
walked, the heat in the pavement began to seep through the
soles of my shoes [(hot sand].). At the corner, I turned left a
second time and walked almost another block to the
restaurant where I ate lunch every day. Again, I was lucky: a
waitress immediately took me to a little table against a wall in
the back of the room. I wouldn’t have to wait and I wouldn’t
have to sit at the counter where there was no room to open a
newspaper.
The waitress wore a tight black dress and a white apron
with a lace border. I had seen her every day for about two
weeks but she didn’t seem to recognize me and I didn’t smile
at her. She dropped a menu on the table and asked me what

330
I wanted to drink. I told her Coke and a burger deluxe,
medium-rare, and handed the menu back to her. I ate a
medium-rare burger deluxe every day because burgers and
fries were the lunch foods that filled me up the most and they
were cheap. Anyway, I liked burgers and fries. She wrote my
order on a small pad of green paper and then turned and
walked away. I watched her butt as she squeezed it past
people sitting at other tables.
While I waited for my food, I pulled the knot in my tie
away from my neck, unbuttoned my shirt collar - I wasn’t
sweating that much, was I? - and opened the paper. There
were stories on the front page about the riots across the river,
and pictures of soldiers, looters, cops and burning buildings.
There was a picture of a little kid who was looking over his
shoulder at a group of soldiers walking behind him.
One of the negro kids was watching me. I looked at
him and smiled. Right away, he smiled a big smile and waved
to me.
He held his hands in the air over his head. The cops
had used so many bullets that they needed to borrow more
from the police in a neighboring town (but not a town where
there were riots). Snipers shot at firemen who were trying to
keep the ghetto fires from spreading into other parts of the
city.
The waitress brought my coke. Water had condensed
on the outside of the glass; it was filled to the top with ice
[(leaving less room for Coke].). I liked to drink it when it was
icy cold.
There was also a story on the front page about the war.
Every day the paper had stories about the war and these
stories always were mostly the same: descriptions of rocket
attacks, shelling, helicopter crashes, bombing and burning
villages. They told about soldiers stuck in some
unpronounceable place of no apparent importance or going to
another one, and of the dead and wounded. There were
pictures of soldiers [(kids]) sitting in mud surrounded by

331
garbage. They wore wet ragged uniforms that must once
have been the same as the uniforms worn by the soldiers
across the river. Some lay on the ground with bulky bandages
around their naked chests. They held guns above their heads
and blindly shot over walls. They sat on wooden crates and
ate food out of small containers while their guns lay across
their laps. They smoked cigarettes and their eyes stared.
Officials said the war would be over soon.
The waitress delivered my food. I put the paper on the
table next to the wall and pulled the plate towards me, rotating
it so that the burger was near my left hand, and I inhaled the
warm meat smell. The lettuce didn’t look bad; there was one
really crisp piece that I picked up, folded and laid over the
burger. The best way to fix the food was to put the lettuce on
the meat before the ketchup. I was never totally sure about
the tomato, though. It seemed stupid to put a slice of tomato
on a hamburger and then put tomato ketchup on top of it –
redundant. Sometimes I did that, and sometimes I didn’t, but
I couldn’t figure out which way was right. I liked eating French
fries with ketchup on them too, but ketchup made French fries
very messy to eat unless you used a fork, and, if you used a
fork, juice and ketchup from the hamburger that was on your
fingers got all over the fork making everything you touched
sticky. I just picked up the fries with my fingers and used them
to sweep up ketchup that had dripped onto the plate. I licked
my fingers after each bite and didn’t touch the fork.
The waitress walked past and put the check on the
table and before I even had a chance to think about anything
the food was gone and it was time to go back to the office. I
sucked the last watery drops of coke through the straw. Then
I wiped my hands with the paper napkin, put a tip on the table
and, leaving the newspaper, went to the front of the restaurant
and paid the bill. When I got back to the office, I would wash
the print stains off my fingers, I reassured myself.
On the street, I walked slowly and lit a cigarette. I
thought about taking off my jacket and carrying it, but if I did

332
that, my wallet or cigarettes might fall out of the pockets. I
might not notice and lose my wallet. Also, I might get
newsprint on the jacket. Besides, carrying my jacket would
make my arm really hot and sweaty – I had done it.
Would I be sent to the war? They didn’t send college
kids, only kids from towns and ghettos. What would happen,
though, after I graduated?
I would graduate in a few years, but a year was a long
time. I didn’t have to worry about that now.
I looked at my watch. There were still 15 minutes
before the end of the lunch hour so I decided to cross the
avenue and walk around the block.
What would happen after I graduated? I would have to
find some kind of job, and then they could draft me.
(“You can go to graduate school.”)
That didn’t seem likely; go to graduate school and do
what?
(“Avoid the draft.”)
I looked in the window of a store that sold purses. They
were made of smooth, flawless leather of different dark colors
that glowed in the sunlight. I stopped and stared at the side
of one of the bags and felt as if a hand might sink into its deep
red surface. Were the clasps made of real gold?
What kind of graduate school? Would a graduate
school accept someone like me? I would need to do
something when I finished college.
I would need to earn money.
I passed a store that sold jewelry: thick gold necklaces
and bracelets studded with gems. They lay on cushions
encased in black velvet and were illuminated by spotlights.
The window glass appeared to be several inches thick. A
rioter wouldn’t be able to break one of these windows with a
chair or even a brick.
Why didn’t the rioters come here instead of looting
stores in their own neighborhoods? They definitely didn’t
have really valuable stuff like this in the ghetto, just things that

333
people needed.
The loud sound of a siren reverberated in the spaces
between the buildings, and I could see a crowd filling the
street, rioters running towards me, climbing over parked cars
and smashing their windshields with baseball bats. They set
fire to the trash in the garbage cans on the sidewalk. Some
of the rioters were pushing supermarket shopping carts filled
with groceries and other things: fur coats, purses, golf clubs.
Office workers and shoppers screamed and ran away from
them towards the avenue or into the buildings on either side
of the street.
A man standing next to me had a sledge hammer that
he began to swing at the jewelry-store window.
“Move over, kid,” he said.
I stepped sideways and watched him pound the
window glass. An alarm bell began to clang loudly. I heard
more sirens.
One fire engine and then another sped past the street
corner. Firemen looked out the truck windows at the people
on the sidewalk [(superior stares].).
I lit another cigarette. In a few minutes I was back in
the lobby of the office tower and then back in the office on the
37th floor.
Before going to my desk, I went into the men’s room
and washed my hands. After drying them, I used the damp
paper towel to wipe my face: my forehead and then around
my mouth. I looked at the mirror and inspected my skin: were
there any new zits? My second mind knew that this was
pointless because there were or would be soon, but I did it
anyway. It was cool and quiet in the empty bathroom. I
buttoned my shirt collar and slid the knot in my tie back against
my neck.
The two stacks of paper were where I had left them on
top of my desk; they didn’t seem to have been moved and so
probably nobody had seen their contents. I turned them over
and resumed comparing the pages. What if the same page

334
were missing from each pile because it had been lost before
the document was copied? I couldn’t know that something
was missing without reading what I was comparing, so that
would be Jerry’s problem, not mine. Would I be blamed?
How would I make money after I finished college?
Where would I live?
(“You’ll probably live [(die]) in the jungle.”)
Sleep in the dirt and kill people who were trying to kill
me? I didn’t like that idea. Was I chicken? Was I not
patriotic?
I checked the document as slowly as I thought was
possible without looking as if I were reading it, but before
much time had passed, I was done. When I took it into Jerry’s
office, he gave me a Rent Report to review. He only said,
“here’s another one,” and continued working on something, so
I didn’t get to talk to him.
Slowly, I slid the ruler from line to line, making an “X”
next to the names of the (few) tenants who hadn’t paid their
rent, and, as I did this, I thought about what the President
might be doing. I thought that maybe he didn’t come to the
office because he was somewhere buying and selling
buildings.
He was sitting in a leather armchair in a quiet wood-
paneled library, sipping coffee. The chair had fat padded
arms. He wore a charcoal-gray suit, a white shirt and a dark-
red tie. A thick gold cufflink that fastened the soft cuff of his
shirt at his wrist was visible as he lifted his coffee cup to his
lips.
Two other men sat facing him. One smoked a cigarette
while the other, a very fat man, read a document. The man
who smoked held his cigarette in the air between the tips of
his first two fingers. His other fingers were spread apart and
bent away from the palm of his hand. The fat man wore
glasses with half-moon shaped lenses in gold frames.
The President smiled. His cheeks were smooth,
unblemished. His short gray-streaked hair had been cut very

335
recently.
“Two million is a good price,” he said.
The smoking man looked at him, but didn’t answer. His
face said nothing.
Finally, the clock hands reached five and twelve: the
work day was done and I could leave the office.
On the way to the bus stop, I looked again in the
window of the jewelry store. It was unbroken and the jewelry
was still there.
They were definitely rioting in the wrong
neighborhoods – destroying the places where they lived.
Taking food and TVs from local stores didn’t seem to be really
criminal, though, in the same way that stealing jewelry from a
store in another neighborhood would be.
Several people were already standing at the bus stop
and more arrived soon after I did. Should I wait or walk?
Which would be better: walking home in the heat or riding in a
hot can? There were two buses, one following the other, in
the traffic only a block away, and I moved casually to the place
at the curb where I thought the second bus would stop. Less
than a minute later, its brakes made a squealing noise, there
was a hissing sound and the door opened a few steps from
where I was waiting. After paying the fare, I squeezed past
people standing in the aisle and stood next to a pole near an
open window at the back of the bus, hoping to be cooled by a
breeze.
The bus tilted as it moved away from the curb. I held
the pole and swayed, feeling the wheels rumble over cracks
in the asphalt. It went fast and then slowslowly and then faster
again. My head rocked and the pole pulled against my hand,
and I relaxed until I was able to balance with my fingers barely
touching the metal. I swayed and watched the sidewalk move
past the window, a sidewalk I had seen often before.
Ann and I walked there, alone in the crowd, and she
talked to me. A summer evening.
Then the bus arrived at the stop near the apartment; it

336
seemed as if only a few minutes had passed since I had left
the office.
It was cooler on the street, but still I sweated; when I
was back at the apartment, I would take a shower. [(Would
that be okay?]?)
She was in the apartment, dressing; she met me in the
hall.
“Hi,” I said.
“Give me a kiss and zip me up,” she said.
I did and then started to walk towards my room.
“Where are you going? Don’t you say hello?”
“I said hello. I’m going to take a shower.”
“Why do you want to do that? I’m meeting your Father
and Aunt Joan and the Berkowitzes for a bite at Jimmy’s and
then we’re going to an early movie. Come and have dinner
with us – there’s nothing here.”
“Okay, but just let me take a shower first. I’m sweaty.”
“There isn’t time. You look fine. Come on, we have to
go if we don’t want to be late.”
She walked towards her room.
“But I just got here. Can’t I just take a quick shower?
I’m sweaty.”
“You look fine! Don’t be so fussy all the time! Come
on, they’re waiting for us.”
She went into her room and came out a moment later
with her purse.
We took a cab to Jimmy’s. I sat next to the partly open
window and felt grime in the air blow against my face. I would
get [(more]) zits. Did I look dirty?
“Close that window so my hair doesn’t get messy,” she
said.
They were all standing in front of Jimmy’s when we
arrived.
“Look who I found,” Aunt Doris said, and I said hello
and smiled. I looked at my Father and smiled and he smiled
at me and I shook his [(strong]) hand. Then I shook hands

337
with Uncle Phil and Mr. Berkowitz. Aunt Joan kissed my
cheek; she smelled like Grandma Kay, I thought.
Inside the restaurant, Aunt Doris said hello to Jimmy.
“I hope it’s okay,” she said, “we brought someone else,”
and she looked at me.
He was very young and had thick blonde hair combed
to make a loose pompadour. He wore a caramel-colored suit
and a white silk shirt. The collar and the first button of the shirt
were unbuttoned: his skin was tan, the visible part of his chest,
hairless. Seeing him made me feel dirty. He glanced at me,
kissed Aunt Doris on the cheek and said, “That’s fine. I have
a nice table for you right now.”
“Good,” Aunt Doris said, “because we have to make an
early movie.”
“Don’t worry,” Jimmy said, “we’ll get you there on-time.”
He took a stack of menus from behind a wooden
podium near the entrance and walked past the long bar
towards the tables at the back of the restaurant. The room
was lit by old-looking new brass light fixtures attached to the
dark wood-paneled walls. There were already a lot of people
sitting at tables, drinking and talking and eating. We followed
him to a pair of tables beside the wall. He pushed them
together and made a hand gesture to summon a waiter who
was standing beside the kitchen door.
“Carlos, reset this for seven,” he told him.
“Yes Mr. Jimmy,” Carlos said.
A busboy helped Carlos cover both tables with a single
long white tablecloth and rearrange the dishes, glasses and
silverware, all of which seemed to be done in only a few
seconds. The busboy brought another chair and put it at the
end of the table farthest from the bar. Then, Carlos pulled the
tables away from the wall to make it easier for some of us to
seat ourselves on the banquette.
While Carlos and the busboy did this, I waited next to
my Father to learn where I should sit.
“Why don’t you take off your tie and make yourself

338
comfortable,” Aunt Doris said to me. “You don’t have to be so
formal. Everyone is casual here.”
My Father stepped forward and stood behind the
middle chair facing the wall, so I went and stood behind the
chair at his right nearer the bar. I untied my tie, pulled it from
under my collar, folded it carefully twice and slid it into the left
inside pocket of my jacket. Did it make a bulge? I pressed
my hand against my chest to flatten it. [(That won’t work.].) I
unbuttoned my shirt collar.
“Come on, everybody,” Aunt Joan said, “let’s sit down.”
She sat on the banquette.
“Who’s sitting at the end?” Aunt Doris asked. “Phil, why
don’t you sit there next to Joan.”
Uncle Phil sat on the chair at the end of the table and
the others chose seats. Aunt Doris sat on the banquette
beside Aunt Joan, and Mr. Berkowitz sat facing me [(so he
could talk to my Father].). Then Carlos slid the tables back
towards the wall and Jimmy handed each of us a menu. My
Father sat and so did I, and I unfolded the thick white cloth
napkin that was under my fork and laid it on my lap.
“Some business he has here,” Aunt Doris said. “He
must be raking in the money.”
Carlos filled our glasses with water from a silver
pitcher. He poured the water over the side of the pitcher,
allowing a few ice cubes to fall into each glass. He didn’t spill
any water. My other mind wondered if he could do this
because he had a special kind of pitcher.
“He’s not much older than you are,” Aunt Joan said to
me.
“Is he a fairy?” Mrs. Berkowitz asked.
“Oh no, he’s married,” Aunt Doris said. “He told me he
got married last year.”
“Are you sure? I always thought he was a fairy,” Mrs.
Berkowitz said.
Another waiter arrived and said, “Can I get you
something from the bar?”

339
 Uncle Phil told him, “Gin and tonic.”
Should I ask for an alcohol drink? Would that be
wrong? It probably would be okay to ask for beer, but not
okay to ask for liquor because that was what adults drank.
“Is it okay if I have a beer?” I asked Aunt Doris.
“I don’t see why not,” she said.
After the adults had ordered drinks, I asked the waiter
for a beer.
“I hear you have a good job this summer,” Aunt Joan
said to me. “What are you doing?”
[She didn’t already know?]? (If she didn’t know what I
was doing, how did she know that it was a good job?)
“I’m working for a real-estate company,” I told her.
“Oh, that must be very interesting,” she said.
“That’s a wonderful business,” Mrs. Berkowitz said.
“Stick with that and you’ll make a lot of money.”
“That’s right,” Aunt Doris said. “I think he’s learning a
lot, aren’t you?” she said to me.
“I guess,” I answered.
“Well you must be, aren’t you? We never had
wonderful opportunities like that when I was young. You
should appreciate this chance. Anyway, it’s good for you to
see what it’s like to get up and go to work every day.”
Aunt Joan looked across the table at Mrs. Berkowitz.
“So, Bernice, what’s the news?” she asked her.
“The news? Well did you hear about Mildred’s
daughter?”
Someone at the bar laughed loudly and then shrieked.
I turned my head and saw several brown faces in the
doorway. A crowd of dark-skinned people entered the
restaurant and walked past Jimmy, who stepped backwards
towards the wall. The people at the bar stared at them. A
man and a woman sat at the table next to ours. The man wore
a maroon suit and alligator-skin shoes ofthat were the same
color. His tie had a pattern of maroon and black squares; a
gold pin attached it to his shirtfront. The woman wore a tight

340
black velvet dress and white and black shoes with very high
heels. A necklace made of thick gold cubes rested on the
smooth brown skin above her breasts.
“Get me a gin and tonic, honey,” she said to Carlos.
She looked at me and smiled. I smiled at her.
“Sugar, pass me that menu you have if you’re done,”
she said to me.



For desert, I ate cake with chocolate icing and with it I

had sips of cold milk. I ate big bites, cutting pieces of cake
with the edge of my fork so that [(almost]) each one included
some of the chocolate. While I ate, my mind focused on the
food. After I had finished, I pushed the plate and the empty
milk glass towards the center of the table.
(“Nobody will know about it. Anyway, there aren’t any
real police on campus just college police.”)
What would they do if they knew?
(“But they won’t know. Why would they know?”)
(“Stop thinking about it.”)
I tilted my chair backward onto its rear legs. For a brief
moment, I felt myself falling – was I falling? – my arms flailing,
hands grasping air, my skull striking the floor, the bone
cracking, but then my shoulders gently touched the wall
behind me and I balanced, as I had intended, on the rear legs
of the chair. Had anyone seen me flinch?
I lit a cigarette and watched the others at the table
where we always sat in the old dining room: a large table
beside the door to the serving area.
What would be my reaction? Would I be safe? My
second mind refused to forget.
(“Stop worrying. Just relax. Don’t think about it.”)
Tomorrow I would work all day, I would read the rest of
the book. This semester I would keep up with the
assignments, do a better job [could I?].

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 “Foreigner, cards later?” Dods asked.
“Mebe late,” the Foreigner answered.
“Come on,” said Dods, “you can’t win if you don’t play.”
“I kent do id now, but lader is okay.”
“Why do you play with him?” Styles asked the
Foreigner. “You know he’s only gonna take your money.”
“Yeah, Foreigner, I’m only gonna take your money”
Dods said and grinned at him, “or maybe you’ll get some of it
back.”
“Well see Dods, you esshole.” The Foreigner glared at
Dods. “Don be so shure aboud dat. What time you be dere?”
“Eight?”
“Too early.”
“Nine?”
“Nine, I’ll be dere.”
“Foreigner, you don’t learn from experience.” Styles
said.
“Styles, what are you doing tonight?” Dods asked him.
“I have to work on a paper for Jarrett.”
“Shit,” the Bungler said, “did you see him when that kid
puked out the window? What a dork.”
“Someone puked out the window during class?” I
asked. “That must have been interesting.”
“Yeah. He was probably drunk.”
We all laughed.
“He was drunk in class?”
“Well, drunk or hung over,” the Bungler said. “Or sick,
but I doubt it.”
“He was drunk,” Styles said. “He was sitting slumped
over in his chair and then he got up and almost had to crawl
to the window to vomit.”
We were all laughing.
“And Jarrett, that dork, didn’t know what to do,” the
Bungler said. “He looked at the kid and he looked at us and
he kept talking about colonial families and women knitting
clothes or something like that and everyone in the room was

342
kind of laughing at him. Jarrett looked like he had a turd in his
pants.”
“Knitting clothes? He really said knitting clothes?” I
asked.
“I don’t know. Some shit like that. That’s the way he
talks.”
“Fascinating,” Fishy said.
“Frankie, what are you doing tonight?” Styles asked
me.
“Yeah, Frankie. Another big date?” the Bungler asked.
“Right Bungler,” I said, avoiding his meaning. “Actually
a friend of mine from the City is coming.”
I leaned forward and stretched my arms towards the
table causing the front chair legs to fall on the floor. Then I
crushed the lit stub of my cigarette against a dinner plate.
“I gotta go,” I said, standing.
“Come up to The House later for a beer,” Fishy said.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
I left the dining room and walked across the corner of
the quad. Meet another girl? Then meet another one? The
thought had begun to make me feel tired.
I looked at her: she was small, graceful, serious. She
looked back at me and in her face I saw a question. I kissed
her: slid my tongue over the smooth skin of her barely parted
lips and into her mouth. Would she let me do this? Slowly, I
lifted her shirt, stroked the soft curve of her hip, carefully
pushed my fingers behind the button at the waist of her pants.
She grasped my wrist.
“How do you feel about me?” she asked.
I didn’t try to move. [(How did I feel about her?] ?)
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know what I mean. How do you feel about me?”
Her eyes were staring at my eyes.
“I like you,” I said, waiting. “I like you a lot.”
She rolled away from me.
“Before I met you,” she said “I went out with Cogan.”

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 “What? Who’s Cogan?”
“I went out with the theater grad student.”
I had seen the guy. He was older than most of the
regular students; I had thought that he was an employee. He
had sand-colored wavy shoulder-length hair.
“He forced me. Do you know what I mean?”
“He what?”
“He forced me.”
I didn’t say anything. She was standing and tucking
her shirttails into her pants. She didn’t seem to care that I
could see her underwear.
The sound of music came into the dormitory corridor
through the doorway of the room across from mine. I listened
as I pulled my key out of my pocket.
‘“He forced me’me” and that was all? That was the
end? What was she saying?
“You know what I mean.”
Matt probably wouldn’t be here for another half hour. I
unlocked my door, and left it partly open to show that I was
nearby, then I crossed the hall.
“Is it okay if I come in?” I asked from the corridor.
“Sure. I’m just cleaning up,” Haynes’ voice answered.
Haynes, and maybe his roommate too, had dozens of
albums, all classical music. He had multiple recordings of the
same music made by different orchestras or performers.
“What’s that?” I asked him, pointing at his turntable, a
separate thing that sat on the shelf of the record cabinet
beside a large amplifier with a long row of knobs and buttons.
“Vaughan Williams 6th,” he answered. “In E minor.”
“Oh,” I said, making my voice pompous, “not the 6th in
E major?”
He laughed. “No,” he said. “I don’t have that one.”
“Well, it’s a lot happier than this one.”
He laughed more.
“You don’t like it?” he asked.
Did I like it?

344
 “I guess I like some of the other ones better,” I
answered, unsure.
“Hey,” a new voice said.
Matt was standing in the doorway. I looked at him,
possibly for several seconds, before saying anything. He was
wearing a blue and gray flannel shirt, an old beige suede
jacket and light blue socks that you could see between the
leather bands of his sandals. His hair had grown so that it
touched his shoulders.
“Hi,” I said. “Haynes, I gotta go. Thanks.”
“Okay,” Haynes said, looking at me and then at Matt
and, I was sure, wondering who he was and what I was doing.
As I walked out of the room, I closed Haynes’ door.
Would he notice that I had done that? Would he suspect
something?
“How ya doin man?” Matt said shaking my hand and
hugging me loosely around the shoulder with his left arm.
“Good,” I said, hugging back. “Let’s go inside.”
We went into my room. Before I closed the door, I
looked to the right and the left [(what would I do if someone
had seen us in the corridor?],?), but the corridor was empty of
everything except the quiet sound of Vaughan Williams
coming from Haynes’ room. Carefully, so that it wouldn’t
make a noise, I turned the handle of the second lock above
the knob, knowing in my other mind that double-locking the
door would make no difference to anyone who really wanted
to open it, then I switched on the ceiling light.
“How ya doin?” I asked Matt. “Did you bring it?”
He laughed. “Yeah I brought it. Should we light up?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah man, right now. Don’t want to waste time.
Improve the flying moments.”
“Well should I do anything first? You’re sure it’ll be
okay?”
“It’ll be okay as long as the cops don’t come in.”
“But could somebody smell it? What if somebody

345
smells it?”
“Then I guess we’ll be roommates at the State U.” He
grinned. “If they say something.”
He was serious, I thought, but he didn’t seem afraid.
“I should open the window though, so there isn’t too
much smell.”
I lifted the window several inches. Would air coming in
the window blow the smell through the gap under the door?
“Maybe I should block the space under the door?”
“Sure,” Matt said. He sat on the floor and leaned
against the side of my bed.
[(Did he think I was chicken or being stupid?]?)
I took my towel off the bar on the side of the armoire,
rolled it into a tube and stuffed it into the narrow gap between
the floor and the bottom of the door. [(The floor would make
it dirty.].) Could someone in the corridor see the towel? I
pulled it back a little, looked at it and decided that it was okay.
“Maybe I should turn off the light so that nobody outside
sees it and thinks I’m here?”
I switched off the ceiling light and, instead, turned on
my desk lamp and pointed the bulb at the wall behind it. I
looked around the room: it was mostly dark.
“Here we go,” Matt said. He was holding a skinny
handmade cigarette with twisted ends. “Do you have a
match?”
“Yeah,” I said, and handed him the pack of matches I
was carrying in my pocket. “Are you sure this is okay?”
I sat on the edge of the bed near him.
He laughed. “Don’t worry. Soon you’ll be nice and
mellow.”
He put the joint in his mouth and lit the tip with one of
the matches, drawing a large lung-full of weedy-smelling
smoke that made his eyes water. Without exhaling, he
handed the joint to me.
I held it between my thumb and index finger and stared
at it. Would the smoke force my mind to show me some

346
horrible thing? What could that be?
Matt blew smoke out of his mouth in a sudden gush
and coughed.
“Smoke that thing or give it here,” he said.
I put the end of the cigarette between my lips.
“Get it down deep and hold it there.”
I inhaled and held my breath while he took the joint and
had another drag.
I exhaled.
Nothing.
Matt blew out more smoke and gave me the joint.
“Here take a real good toke and hold it in as long as you can.
Like I did.”
I inhaled more deeply. How long could I hold my
breath? I waited while he watched me and then, feeling light-
headed, released an explosion of air from my chest.
“All right,” he said. “Feel that? It’s good stuff.”
“I don’t feel anything,” I said, coughing.
I examined my thoughts: everything seemed okay.
Matt had another toke and then handed the joint to me
and I took the largest drag I could and held my breath until I
couldn’t resist the need to cough.
We passed the joint to each other twice more; already
there was only a short piece left.
“Do you have another one?”
“Take one last drag,” he said.
“Okay. Do you have another one?”
“No. How do you feel?” he asked me.
“Fine. I think we need more.”
He laughed. “It’s enough. How do you feel?”
“What?”
He laughed.
“Put on some tunes.”
“What? Oh, music. Yeah. I’ll put on some music.”
I stood and walked across the room. I had bought a
stereo with the money from my summer job. The turntable

347
was covered by a hinged plastic lid and it had separate
speakers. I noticed some hazy marks on the lid in places
where I had touched it. The record player and speakers were
made of smooth brown wood. I slid my finger along the edge
of the wood next to the lid.
“What do you want that for?”
“It has great sound.”
“You already have a record player. What a waste of
money.”
“I want a good stereo.”
“Why? Well, it’s your money, if that’s the way you want
to spend it. But if you ask me, it’s crazy.”
Through the lid, you could see the turntable and the
knobs that adjusted the sound, but the plastic wasn’t
completely clear: it had a gray tint.
“Hey, put on some music.”
I looked over my shoulder: “Oh yeah,” I said.
There already was a record on the turntable. I lifted the
front of the lid and switched on the power. The record started
to spin. Lift the lever, raise the tone arm. The cartridge that
held the needle had a turquoise stripe on its back. Swing the
tone arm over the record: it moved several inches past the
dark band around the first track. I pushed it back towards the
edge of the record but had trouble understanding how much
force to use. It stopped over the space between the first and
second tracks. Swing it towards the center and back towards
the edge and back towards the center and back towards the
edge.
(“Stop!”)
It’s okay. Pull the lever, lower the tone arm.
“Wow! That sounds great!” I said. A gorgeous sea of
sound had filled my head.
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna turn it up.”

When the truth is found to be lies

348
 And all the joy within you dies

“The music is inside my head.”

“You better turn it down or we’re gonna get busted.”
“What?”
“It’s too loud. Turn it down or we’re gonna get busted.
Give me a cigarette.”
I lowered the volume a little [(intending]) to make the
sound less loud outside the room but not less loud otherwise.
“Do you have a cigarette?”
I took a cigarette out of the package in my shirt pocket
and put it between my lips. Where were my matches?
“Give it to me and I’ll light it for you,” Matt said. “And
give me another one.”
I handed him two cigarettes. He lit them and gave one
back to me.
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
I sat on the bed.

Most of the time I just let it go by

Now I wish it hadn’t begun
I saw you, yes

I inhaled cigarette smoke: a warm flavorful wind filled

my mouth and swirled inside my chest.
“This is a great cigarette.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“It smells great. Really great. I mean it.”
Matt stood and lowered the volume.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Feeling good?” Matt asked me.
“Yeah, I think so.”
Grandma Kay smoked long cigarettes from beautiful
dark-red packages.
My Father pulled a short cigarette out of a package

349
decorated with a picture of a yellow and brown camel.
I noticed that the music had stopped. Matt put another
record on the turntable.
Grandma Kay had an old picture of him wearing an
army uniform. He and four other men, also wearing uniforms,
were sitting on camels in front of a huge pyramid.
I had his old army hat with the heavy gold eagle on the
front and the brown leather brim that was as smooth as a bar
of new soap. The inside of the hat smelled like his hair.
The music stopped. Matt knelt in front of the crate of
record albums under the end of the plywood counter that I had
made by screwing a board to the top of the college desk.

In a while will the smile

On my face
Turn to plaster?

I thought of myself playing the music, a hard, grinding

harmony.
Matt took two more cigarettes out of the package in my
pocket, lit them both and gave one to me.

Is it strange I should change?

I don’t know

I played effortlessly: a dark-red electric guitar, a skinny

one. I sang the words into a microphone with a good voice.

When I’m sad she comes to me

With a thousand smiles.

I was dressed in faded bell-bottom jeans, a tie-dyed

shirt and old leather boots with scuffed toes. I had long hair,
and I wore sunglasses with gold metal rims.

It’s gettin’ near dawn,

350
 When lights close their tired eyes.

I swayed as I sang and played, the sound coming out

of me, a good sound.
“Gotta go, man,” Matt said.
“What? Already?”
“Yeah. It’s getting late. I gotta get back.”
“It can’t be late yet.”
He laughed. “Well it is. Stay there. I’ll see you soon.”
He was gone.
The music stopped and the room filled with a calming
stillness that made a hissing sound in my ears. Lying on the
bed, I felt time spread and contract around me and I floated in
the darkness.
When I’m sad, she comes to me and smiles.
Someone walked past the door bouncing a ball on the
corridor floor, its noise like a clock ticking seconds, a throbbing
inside my chest.
I noticed that I was very hungry and thirsty.
I stood and opened the window as far as it could go,
then switched on the ceiling light: my vision sharpened. The
air was cold and had an outside smell of leaves and water and
concrete. I lifted the towel off the floor, unrolled it and shook
it with a hard wrist snap. Dirty. They would bring me a new
one (I counted) in two days.
The room was the same as it had been before Matt
arrived, except now there were a lot of records scattered on
the plywood counter [(where they could be scratched]) and
the ashtray was full of cigarette butts. Would someone see
the ashtray and notice the end of the joint? I found it, a small
sliver of paper, and put it in my pocket. I would go and find
some food and throw the butt in a trashcan outside the dorm.
Holding the records by squeezing their edges between
my fingertips, then balancing them with their paper labels
resting on my thumb, I carefully slid each one into its proper
jacket and replaced it in the crate under the counter. Then I

351
turned off the desk lamp and twisted the neck so that the light
was in the right position, pointing at the desk.
The book that had to be finished by the end of the
weekend lay on the desk blotter. I picked it up and opened it:
“…incidents which one lived one by one,” I read.
Tomorrow I would work all day. Could I keep up with
the assignments? I wanted to keep up with the assignments
but, in my second mind, I knew that there were other things
that I would rather do.
“…became curled and whole like a wave which bore
one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash
on the beach."



How had it happened?

On Homecoming Weekend everyone would have a
date – a real date not just a blind date – people would be at
the house with their girlfriends. I didn’t want to be alone
[(different, a nothing, like a fag],), but I had no (real) girlfriend.
Could I invite Ann? Would she come even though we
were now apart and didn’t see each other? When was the last
time I had called her? [(What would it mean if I invited Ann?]?)
Would she speak to me?
“Why don’t you go out with someone else? Give some
other girl a chance?”
Meet another girl. Then meet another one.
“You should be meeting lots of people at your age. See
what they’re like.”
Like what? Like Ann?
“Ann is very nice, but she’s older than you. When she
graduates from college, she’ll be ready to get married and
you’ll be much too young. [(Nothing.].) She’s going to marry
someone older, someone established.”
Sunday evening at five o’clock, as expected, I called
Aunt Doris.

352
 “So, are you doing your work? Is everything okay?”
she asked me.
[(She was waiting for me to tell her that I had been
thrown out of school.].)
“Yeah,” I said.
“Oh, that’s good. What are you doing?”
“Homecoming Weekend is in three weeks.”
Should I have told her about Homecoming?
“That’s nice. Do you have a date?”
“No. I thought maybe I could invite Ann.”
Why had I said that?
“That’s a good idea,” she said, “but if you’re going to do
it, you’d better hurry up and make arrangements. It’s getting
close.”
“You really think so?” I asked her.
“Of course. I think she’d love to come.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Why not? But you’d better call her right
away.”
Somehow I find Ann’s college telephone number and,
without thinking anymore abouttelling myself not to think
before doing it, I call her. Only a few minutes pass before I
am listening to the familiar music of her voice; familiar but
there also is a question in the way she speaks.
“Hi,” I say, “how are you?”
“Okay,” she says, “how are you?”
[(Nothing more.].)
“I’m fine. How’s school?”
“It’s fine.”
Then she is silent. [Why are you calling me?]
“Would you like to come to Homecoming here? Can
you come?”
“Come to Homecoming with you?”
“Yes.”
“When is it?”
“In three weeks. The weekend. The game is on

353
Saturday morning so maybe you could come Friday and
there’ll be a party after the game, if. If you can come.”
“Sure. I guess I can come.”
“Really? You can come?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure. I have to ask my parents, but I’m
pretty sure.”

Then Ann is sitting beside me in the frigid air. She

wears her long cloth coat, a soft scarf and a wool hat. (warm
city clothes). The smooth, even ends of her hair touch her
collar. She is real. Is she real? People in the bleachers
around us scream, laugh and talk in loud voices. They drink
beer from wax-paper cups and wine out of bottles that they
share. Ann is quiet – we are quiet. Later, would we dance to
jukebox music in the house basement?, dance to soul music?
Everyone would be drunk and crazy. Maybe Ann would drink.
I try to cheer with the others, but feel strange, not present in
the usual waydivided between two places at one time,
between two times in one place.
The game [(finally]) ends. We lose. [(Is she sorry that
she came?]?) We begin to walk with the others back to the
house. Is it too far, too cold? We have to go up the hill beside
the high hedge. As we walk, I feel her silence. We pass
between the pine trees and climb the steps leading to the front
door. I hold the door open for her and she enters the foyer,
which already is crowded with people.

Mick is there with the Little One. He is talking to

Martello. They drink beer. The Little One takes a pack of
cigarettes out of her jeans pocket and hands it to Martello.
Dods walks past us carrying a roleroll of duct tape and
two pear-shaped pink balloons the size of grapefruits. They
are tied together at their ends and he is waving them in front
of him as he walks.
“Has anyone seen the Foreigner?” he asks in a loud
voice.

354
 “He went upstairs,” Fishy says. “What’s that?”
“They’re balls for Foreigner. Foreigner needs a set of
balls because he plays cards like a girl.”
People laugh. I want to laugh, but only grin and then
look quickly at Ann who is standing beside me, watching but
not speaking.

“Let me take your coat,” I say to her.

I can’t find aThere is no hanger for her coat in the
closet, so I walk into the library and lay both our coats on a
chair beside the fireplace. [ (Will they be safe there?]?) Then
I go back into the foyer.
What should I say?
“Would you like a beer?” I ask her.
“Okay,” she answers
[(Does she really want to drink beer?]?)
“I’ll be right back,” I tell her.

I walk through the living room and down the stairs that
lead to the basement barroom. Hickey is sitting behind the
bar and, filling cups from the tap.
“Give me two, Hick,” I tell him.
He fills two wax-paper cups, tips them to pour the foam
into the pan under the tap and hands them to me. Through
the door to the dance floor I hear soul music:

Day are getting so lonely, yeah now

Life are getting so blue

I carry them upstairs and, as I cross the living room, I

see her standing calmly in the midst of the foyer crowd. I
pause and watch her. She doesn’t notice me but waits: erect
with her heels together and the toes of her shoes spread
slightly apart, the long thin fingers of one hand resting on the
back of the other in front of her. She wears a smock-like dress
over a shirt like a man’s dress shirt. She appears older than

355
the others, has a different kind of face, a serious face.

I am beside her in the crowd. The kids around us are

in wild motion, almost running despite their formal clothes.
They grab at each other, shout, laugh, plead. Their
expressions are fantastic; they have some knowledge that
must be shared. Two adults, chaperones, stand near us
[confused]. We watch. Ann smiles slightly and speaks to me.
I need nothing more.

I don’t move. [(It is wrong.].)

“Brothers!”
Barton is standing on the coffee table with his arms
raised over his head. He holds a cup of beer and spills some
onto the table and the floor.
“Brothers, please.”
The lower buttons of his shirt are open and his bare
belly bulges over the waist of his pants.
“Brothers, hear me in this solemn moment. Please!”
He spreads his arms in a pantomime embrace. More
beer spills onto the floor.
“Listen to Brother Barton,” someone shouts.
The crowd quiets. I don’t move. [Suspended.].
“Brothers, sons of our dear Alma Mater, our great Alma
Mater, the fount of all wisdom……”
There is laughter.
…“…Well that’s what I’m told.
“Brothers, we gather together here for solace and for
strength in this tragic moment. Yes, in this moment of our
defeat at the hands of those outsiders. Brothers, do I hear an
amen?”
“Amen,” several people shout. Others laugh.
“Take a drink,” someone yells and I sip beer from one
of the cups I’m carrying.
“Please come closer,” Barton exhorts the assembly.
“Come closer where you can feel the spirit and give comfort

356
to your fellow man, to your beloved brothers.”
“And sisters.”
“Mahoney! Watch where you put yoursyour hands!”
Everyone laughs. “Amen,” people shout.
“The spirit is moving him, he’s feeling it,” Babbs yells.
“Take a drink,” several people shout.
“Well he better not feel it in the living room,” Barton
says.
“Yeah!”
“Sermon, sermon.”
“Amen.”
“Take a drink.”
We drink.
“Thank you Brothers, and shut up Babbs. Brothers, our
brave warriors have gone into battle on the autumnal fields
against a godless foe spawned by, by……”
Barton drinks from his cup.
“What?” someone yells.
…“…by an alien Mother, ah, a Mother whose name
definitely must not befoul our lips. They have gone forth to
fight evil for us, in the name of our cause, which is a cause
better than… their cause.”
“Amen, amen.”
“Take a drink.”
“Take two drinks.”
“They fought and fought some more for almost a whole
hour. They fought bravely……”
“And hardly,” Martello says and people laugh.
…“…okay, Martello, except for a few guys who know
who they are and are a disgrace to the glorious uniform they
wear.”
There is loud booing.
“Brothers, it deeply, painfully grieves me that despite
this bravery, yes, this dedication, this readiness, nay
eagerness, to spill their life’s blood upon the autumnal fields,
those assholes lost!”

357
 More booing.
“But brothers,” Barton raises his arms high in the air
and pours beer down the front of his shirt and the front of his
pants, “we have not lost this war! No. No the war is not lost!”
“Amen.”
The crowd cheers and everyone drinks.
“I feel – I know – that we are about to turn the tide……”
There is loud laughter.
…“…Yes we will. Say amen Brothers!”
“Amen.”
“Drink.”
“And say amen again.”
“Amen again.”
“Drink again.”
“This was a mere skirmish, a minor setback on the road
to our ultimate victory, a victory that is, ah, rightfully ours
because...”
Everyone waits while he drinks.
Then Levine asks, “Because why?”
“Levine, don’t be like one of those negative, long-
haired hippies. Are you a commie? Victory will be ours
because we are superior. Victory is our right.”
Everyone cheers even more loudly and drinks.
“Brother Barton has spoken.”
“Amen.”
At ten she is tired, so I take her to the motel. The next
morning, I drovedrive her to the airport in Mick’s car [(wanting
not to think about her],), careful to control my speed.
“It’s amazing how you can keep the car going at exactly
the speed limit,” she said.
The airport wasn’tisn’t very far from school; I would be
back at the house before noon, I hoped.
We drove on the road between the brown fields that
had been and would again be green in the Spring and past
the old farm buildings where the farmers kept their tools.
The Christmas-story church soon would be decorated with

358
holiday lights and, when it snowed, kids would make real
snowmen with carrot noses and cookie eyes on the lawns in
front of the old-style houses.
We crossed the river where the student crew rowed
when the weather was warm, and that might freeze into
blocks of ice when the weather was colder, and before long
we reached the highway along the slopes of the small tree-
covered mountains. Orange, yellow, red, brown leaves were
still attached to some of the tree branches.
Then the road crossed the river again. On the other
side there was a small city with offices, stores and probably
people living in apartment houses, and, beyond that,
industrial buildings and then the airport.
[Needing(Torn, severed, needing to escape],), I
turned the car onto the road under the sign that said
“Departures,” and drove past the parking lot to the terminal.
Ann moved in her seat [(uneasy].). I slowed the car and
stopped it by the curb in front of the terminal entrance. She
waited while I pulled her small suitcase off the backseat and
set it on the curb next to her.
“Goodbye,” I said. “Thanks a lot for coming.”
Then, before I got back into the car and drove away, I
watched her walk alone into the terminal building.
I know she cried.



As the sky outside darkened, I read in my room with

only the desk lamp for light:

“…to work the next day, turning, so to speak,

my back on that station. In that way only it
seemed to me I could keep my hold on the
redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look
about sometimes…”

359
 …but I was distracted by sounds in the dorm corridor,
sounds from a distance that I vaguely noticed were unusual.
I looked up and then back at the book, but only briefly
because someone pounded on my door. “I’m working,” I
shouted at the closed door, and tried again to read, but the
sounds of pounding on other doors and excited voices in the
corridor closer to my room continued to distract me. [(What
were they saying?]?) “Shut up,” I yelled at the door, but the
noise became louder.
Then the door opened. I looked quickly into the
corridor but nobody was there.
“Will you quit screwing around. I’m working,” I yelled
at the empty doorway. “Close the fucking door.”
Someone went running past, but I couldn’t see who
he was, then Haynes appeared.
“CummonC’mon! We’re going to march,” he yelled
and before he had finished his sentence, he rushed away.
“What are you talking about, Haynes. I’m not going
anywhere. I havta read a book.”
I stood up and walked across the room to close the
door, but as I started to swing it shut, Haynes lunged into the
doorway.
“Haynes…”
“CummonC’mon,” he shouted with his mouth only a
foot from my face, “we have to march. He’s dead.”
“What are you talking about? Who’s dead?”
“They killed King.”
“They what?”
“They killed King,” he repeated, stared at me for a
second, and rushed away again.
“Haynes,” I yelled after him, “whatwho are you talking
about? Who? What do you mean march? March where?”
“Frankie, don’t you care about this?” someone to my
right said.
I turned my head and saw Styles.
“Styles, what’s going on?”

360
 “King’s been murdered. We havetahafta do
something.”
I looked at him., “King was murdered? You’re shitting
me? Really?”
“Oh. I didn’t know,” I said.
“Cummon“C’mon.”
“Where are you going?”
“To town. We all have to go.”
“To do what?”
“To protest.”
“Protest to who?”
“Make a statement, Frankie. Let people know that we
care. Are you coming? Good people have to speak up. If
you’re coming then let’s go. I’m going.”
I glanced at the closed book, which I had left on the
desk blotter, then took my jacket out of the armoire, shut my
door and followed him down the corridor to the stairway.
“Styles, that’s bad but what’s the point? Nobody will
care or know. It’s the same as the Peace Vigil.”
“Frankie, don’t be a jerk. If you feel that way then why
are you following me?”
“The war is bad, killingKilling King is bad just like the
war, but the government doesn’t give a shit what you think.
They don’t even know what you think – they don’t wanna
know.”
We left the building through the street-side exit with a
bunch of other people and turned left toward town. More
students and even an adult, maybe a faculty member, came
from the campus and walked towards the green where I
could see that there already was a crowd.
“You hear what they say. They think we’re dirty
unpatriotic kids. They just want us to shut up, get haircuts
and go fight in the army.”
“We have a right to let them know what we think,” said
Styles. “We have an obligation.”
“Right on,” somebody nearby said.

361
 “First they havta notice that we’re here,” I answered.
“If lots of people march, it’ll be in the news.”
“What news? The student newspaper?”
“Frankie, you’re an asshole.”
I didn’t want to argue anymore, to be overheard, to
seem unwilling. We walked in the growing crowd. “Stop the
war,” someone shouted, but most people were silent, and
the silence felt to me like a solemn thing.
The real news would report that we marched if police
attacked us, if some of us were killed. Police attacked King
when he marched and recently had killed a demonstrator
somewhere, a kid [(hadn’t they?]?) but it was ridiculous to
think that the town police would attack a group of students
from the college. I looked across the green toward the Town
Hall where the police station was, but didn’t see anyone
wearing a uniform.
The official, arm extended, pointed a silver pistol at
the man’s head. The man, knowing his fate, waited to die
[wanting it to be finished]. The force of the bullet piercing his
skull bent him sideways and he collapsed onto the ground.
His blood formed a dark puddle on the pavement.
“Shit,” I said, and then [(casually]) looked around, but
despite the silence it didn’t seem as if anyone had heard me.
The darkness was now complete. We marched in the
night, but to where? We had no destination; our goal was
only a wish. People would be murdered and drafted and
sent to fight, and how could anybody stop those things from
happening? We were the targets of powerful others who
couldn’t see us, didn’t notice that we were real, who hated us
and wanted us to kill people in another place who weren’t
real to them either.
“What about the police?” a person not very far in front
of us shouted, and everyone must have heard his voice.
“They’re all over at demonstrations and they have no
problem beating demonstrators, but do they protect them?

362
No. Did they protect King? No. They aren’t acting for
justice, they’re a tool of oppression.”
Other voices made loud sounds of agreement.
“Where is equal justice? Where are equal rights?” he
shouted. “What about the law?”
He wanted to give a speech, I thought, but the crowd
continued moving past him and he must have lost
confidence because he didn’t say anything else.
After a few more minutes, students began walking
back towards us, towards the college, and wandering in the
street. They had reached the far end of the Green and now,
I thought, there was confusion about what should happen
next.
Someone yelled, “Burn your draft cards.”
What would we do? What would we all do when we
reached the end of our time here? We would disappear into
the world.
“Styles,” I said, “let’s go back to the dorm.”
Nobody answered. I turned around in a circle, but I
couldn’t find him in the crowd, so I lit a cigarette and started
to walk alone back to my room.
“Levitate Town Hall,” somebody screamed.



The Summer Theatre people, including girls who went

to a nearby school, lived together in a dormitory. The actors
rehearsed every day while the crew built sets and women
from town made costumes. At night, we ate pizza or
grinders in the living room and learned our lines. Sometimes
Melnik played the piano and we sang old songs. It was
good; I was sorry that it would end soon.
I rode back to the dorm with Lesser and his girlfriend
in Lesser’s car, wanting to relax and enjoy the purple pill:
about an hour before leaving the theatre, I had swallowed a
tab of mescaline that Matt had given me earlier in the

363
summer at his beach house. That day had been hot, but we
didn’t go in the ocean. One of Matt’s college friends had
drowned there; it wouldn’t be safe to swim while we were
tripping. Instead, we went to town and walked around in a
lilac drug haze. Two workers were painting the front of a
grocery store: very bright colors. The fresh paint flowed
evenly off their brushes onto the wood siding. I stared at the
vibrating hues of the paint and watched the faint lines made
by the brush hairs disappear and the wood surface become
smooth.
As I did this, a woman left the store carrying a bag of
groceries and began to walk towards us. A box of chocolate
cookies stuck out of the bag. Were they Mallomars? I stood
still and stared: they crunched when you bit through the
chocolate crust into the soft marshmallow, and then you
tasted the delicious sweetness. I finished it in two bites and
had to have another one. I put the whole second cookie in
my mouth and chewed slowly.
“Hey. CommonC’mon,” Matt said.
“Oh.”
When Matt spoke, the woman noticed us and her face
changed from nothing to hatred. She quickly turned right
and began crossing the narrow street. While she walked,
she looked at us, at me. Then she spit in our direction.
“Scum,” she hissed.
“Hater,” Ball, Matt’s college friend, said loudly.
“Shut up. Don’t say anything,” Matt said. “There are
cops in town. We should get out of here.”
I didn’t care. I was mellow.
“I took some mescaline,” I told Lesser. “I dropped a
tab of mescaline at the theatre.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, and then he said without
apparent interest, “How’s that?”
“It’s good. [(I wanted them to know.].) When I feel like
this I don’t worry about anything.”
“Well you should,” Lesser’s girlfriend said.

364
 What?
Why had she said that? I abruptly felt stiff, heavy, as
if I had been filled with concrete. Why should she care?
What did she mean? My brain, which had been happily
studying the passing trees and campus buildings, suddenly
became alarmed and shouted these questions but formed no
answers.
It was almost dark outside and very dark in the car
[(threatening].). I wanted to be back in the dorm where there
was light, where I could see well and be away from them –
be away from her. Griping the side of the seat, I sat silently,
[(fragile]) unmoving. Then, as soon as we arrived, I thanked
Lesser for the ride. “See ya later,” I told him [(she wouldn’t
know that I was bothered or cared]) and, without looking at
his girlfriend [(who was she?],?), went upstairs.
The second-floor corridor was empty and there was
no sign that anyone was nearby, not even a sound. Several
lights filled the space with a warm yellow-orange glow that
should have felt good but instead seemed mocking. Why? I
went quickly into the room that had been assigned to me and
shut the door. The room was even emptier than the corridor
and I couldn’t fill it. I looked at the school furniture: a bed, a
desk, two chairs. I was losing myself. I didn’t want to be
close to anybody but maybe I would feel calmer if I could see
other people.
I went back downstairs to the living room. There was
a sofa against the wall near the piano; I sat on it and gripped
the arm. Did I look weird? A few people were sitting on the
floor at the other end of the room next to the TV, practicing
their lines. They didn’t notice me. That felt okay.
Was I freaking? Did I need help? Tommy and I had
smoked dope.
“What’s happening?” he said. His voice squeaked.
I told him everything was okay, it would be good.
“No, I don’t like this at all,” he said. “I don’t like this at
all I don’t like this at all.”

365
 I told him that I would sit with him, that he should
relax, that soon he would feel better, but he didn’t feel better.
Who could help? I remembered the name of the
school psychologist and found his telephone number in the
phone book. His wife answered the phone.
“He’s asleep,” she said.
“I need to speak to him,” I told her.
“He’s asleep,” she said again.
“I have to speak to him. It’s an emergency.” [(He
would understand.].)
“I can’t do anything for you. ,” he said. “That’s what
happens when you smoke that stuff. Take him to the
hospital,” he said..”
Maybe I should go to the hospital?
(“Right. That would be smart. Go to a hospital where
they would call Doris and probably the cops.”)
“What did you do now?” she said in her disgusted
voice.
“What did you take? Where did you get it?”
They wore uniforms.
“You’ll have to stay here with us.”
I wouldn’t freak. I would wait. The drug feeling would
wear off [(wasted]) eventually. The important thing was to
not let anyone know that I was messed up. How long would
I have to wait? I couldn’t feel time passing at all, but I knew,
anyway, that time would pass.
What if someone else wanted to sit on the sofa,
where they might be close to me? I could lie on it. Would
people think I was being a pig if I did that? Would someone
ask me to move? I swung my legs onto the cushions and
pushed myself along the surface until I was lying flat. The
arm behind my head hid my face from anyone who might be
in the corner. My feet touched the other arm. This was
better [(safer];); it was okay [(as long as nobody bothered
me].). I rested my hands on my stomach and closed my
eyes, as if I were a dead man.

366
 When the processes of being that create time cease,
the rest of eternity becomes nothing.
I waited.
“Do you want some food?” someone said. “We’re
going for food.”
People moved in and out of the living room while,
neither present nor absent, but in suspension, I lay on the
sofa watching them.
Melnik played the piano. Harmonies flowed from
hisHis fingers made harmonies in lyrical waves that might
have been shapes or colors.
Someone turned on the TV: “Real progress is being
made.”
We were the good guys. Were we the good guys?
Another voice said, “According to the government,
we’re winning. I guess that means the way to win a war is to
get your ass kicked.”
Unhappy laughter.
Pictures of soldiers wearing ragged uniforms sitting in
mud surrounded by garbage. Pictures of dead, destroyed
bodies.
What would I do when I reached the end of my time
here? Would that be my real life?
Soldiers wearing gas masks shot tear-gas grenades
into crowds of students who made peace signs and covered
their faces with handkerchiefs. The police clubbed them,
kicked them.
To protect myself, I wore a motorcycle helmet and a
gas mask. I wore a padded plastic vest under my shirt.
Where would I stand? The soldiers pointed rifles tipped with
bayonets at kids just a few feet in front of them. I would
stand behind a car or between two cars. When the police
charged I would crawl under a car and hide until they had
passed.

367
 Maybe there would be a student revolt? Maybe
workers would support the students by going on strike? It
had happened in Europeother countries.
Before me was an immense sloping plain covered
with ash and sharp stones. The surface changed to soft
sand near the very distant shore where people sat on beach
chairs. The heat was intense; the hot air tasted like chalk. I
struggled to walk on the cutting surface, lowered my bare
feet carefully, transferred my weight gradually. The sky
wasn’t blue. Grit inside my sneakers abraded my skin.
People floated on top of the waves, which were enormous,
bigger than houses, although none of the people seemed
afraid. Suddenly, the surf roared up the slope toward me, a
high rumbling wall coming close and then closer. I should
leave here.
To my right, in the distance, I saw people dressed in
elegant clothes walking in the golden light of streetlamps.
The women wore mink coats and diamond bracelets.
People stepped out of taxicabs and greeted each other with
smiles, handshakes and kisses. They shopped in the stores
that lined the avenue.
Where I was standing, the sidewalks were empty.
There were no lights in the windows of the brownstone
buildings behind me or across the street. The streetlamps,
black iron poles with ornamental curlicues and hooked tops,
were dark and I couldn’t see what was ahead. I should
leave here.
I began to run with long strides that lifted me four or
even five feet in the air. At the end of the street, across a
narrow channel, there was an island and a sunny town of
small white wooden houses. Crowds of people crossed the
channel on a low bridge. The current in the channel was
violent; gigantic waves crashed onto the bridge and
showered me with foam. I was forced to stop and stand on
the shore.

368
 

While we waited, we played poker in the library.

‘Casino Night,’ I thought.
“It’s Casino Night,” I said to the people at the table.
“How many do you want?” Barton asked me.
I looked at my cards and quickly reconsidered their
possibilities. The pair of threes wasn’t very useful without a
face card – even if I pulled another three I could easily be
beaten high. I should draw for an eight-low. There would be
more chances of hitting the low hand. Would an eight-low
be good enough to win? It might be [(I hoped; I doubted],),
maybe with an eight-six.
“Give me two, Reverend,” I told Barton and discarded
a ten and one of the threes.
He dealt me two new cards. I slid them over the
tabletop towards my chest and held them down with my first
two fingers while I lifted their front edges slightly with my
thumbnail. An ace and a seven: an eight-seven low. Would
that be good enough to take half the pot? Yes, it could be;
this was five-card stud. My heart beat faster and I reminded
myself to look calm. What were the others holding?
“How many, Foreigner?”
“Gib me one,” the Foreigner said.
I looked at his face. He must have two pairs, or he
could also be going low – he liked to go low – but he could
have anything.
“What about you, Dods?”
“None for me, thank you, Reverend,” Dodson said.
“Dods, what kind of crap are you holding?” Barton
asked him.
“I’ll show you in a minute. But you’re going to have to
pay to find out,” he answered.
“Shit,” said Karp, who was sitting to Dodson’s left.
“Give me three.”

369
 He obviously had called in the first round with
garbage. Barton dealt the Fish three cards and then dealt
himself two. He put the deck on the table, discarded, picked
up his new cards and laughed. What did that mean?
“Check,” I said and looked at the Foreigner who had
opened the betting.
“Check,” he said.
“Well, it’s up to you, Dods,” Barton said. “This is
going to be good.”
“Reverend, isn’t gambling a sin? Why are you playing
cards?” Dodson asked him. “Well, I guess the way you play
can’t really be called gambling. It’s more like entertainment.”
“We’ll see who’s entertained in a second. Go ahead
and bet.”
“Dollar,” Dodson said and flipped two chips into the
pot.
He watched everyone; he looked at me. I tried very
hard not to let my face tell him anything. Did he know what I
was thinking?
Before Karp could bet, the Ox walked into the library.
“Is it on yet?” Karp asked him in a calm voice. My
second mind had the idea that he was trying to disguise his
thoughts too.
“No. Not yet,” said the Ox.
He picked up a book bag that was on the floor next to
the fireplace.
“Hey, Ox, you’re a philosophy major, aren’t you?”
Dodson asked him. “When is playing cards gambling and
when is it entertainment?”
“It’s gambling because you can lose. Entertainment is
when you enjoy something,”. If you enjoy it, it’s
entertainment too.” he said without turning his head as he
walked past us and went into the study room behind the
library.

370
 “I guess I was wrong, Reverend,” Dods said. “You
are gambling. I’m the one being entertained. And, you’re
going to be punished for your sins.”
The others laughed, but I could only smile.
“Bet Fishy,” Barton said.
“Raise a dollar,” said the Fish with sudden
seriousness and threw four chips into the center of the table.
“Uh oh,” Barton said. “Where did that come from?”
Dods looked at Karp, grinned, looked at the rest of us
and said, “Well well boys and girls, what have we here?
There’s a big fish in the pond.”
“Shit,” said the Foreigner. “I fold.”
“It’s not your turn, Foreigner,” Karp said angrily. “You
don’t want me to do that to you. Shut up until it’s your turn.”
“I’ll Fish,” Barton said. He put another four chips in
the pot.
I stared at my cards. I was sure that Karp wasn’t
bluffing. He believed he had a winner; that’s what he had
been trying to hide. I also thought that Dodson would raise
again. Barton must think so too, so his bet meant that he
had a decent hand. Why else would he have laughed? It
would cost a lot to find out if an eight-seven could win low.
“I fold,” I said and tossed my cards onto the table.
“Gimme a cigarette,” the Foreigner said to me.
I took the cigarette pack out of my shirt pocket,
handed it to him and waited to find out what Dods would do.
He looked at the pot, at Barton, then stared at Fishy.
“I call,” he said. “Seems like there are sharks in the
pond.”
He didn’t raise again. He was worried about the Fish.
“I knew it,” said Barton. “Donkey diddle. Declare.
You’re losing, Dods.”
I watched them pick up their coins and put their hands
under the table. Then each of them lifted a closed fist.
When they all had done that, they opened their hands.

371
 The Fish dropped a dime. Dods laughed: his hand
was empty.
“Shit,” said Barton, who also was holding a coin.
“What do you have?”
“Two pair,” said Karp.
“Me too,” said Barton, obviously relieved. “But I have
ace-high: aces and eights.”
He began to divide the pot.
“Kings and kings,” said Fishy.
“What? You know that’s not funny you asshole.
Lemme see. Don’t do that again if you want to live. I’m not
kidding.”
The Fish showed his four kings.
“You had aces and eights, Reverend?” I said, looking
at his hand.
“Not a very good omen, Barton,” said Dodson,
laughing. “Especially tonight.”
“Yeah,” said Barton. “It’s not funny, and if I were you,
I wouldn’t laugh because wherever we’re going, you’re
getting there first. Rumor has it you’re already in the
military.”
“What did you have, Dods?” the Fish asked him.
“Nine-seven,” said Dods.
A nine-seven. I would have won low with an eight-
seven. I had folded a winning hand.
“Shit, Dods, what were you doing betting on a nine-
seven?” I asked him [(feeling weak and stupid].).
“Bet crazy to win big,” he answered as he and Karp
split the pot.
Was he right? It often seemed that way, but again it
didn’t. The truth was that you never knew what would
happen, how a hand would play, even a good one. That was
the randomness of things.
“CommonC’mon. Let’s go watch in the living
roomlottery,” I said. “We can come back after it’s over.”
“Wad about de chips?” the Foreigner asked.

372
 “Take em or leave em. Nobody will come in here,” I
said [(would they?].?). I balanced a cigarette on top of my
stack; I really hadn’t lost anything, I thought, although my
other mind knew that I had lost at least seven, maybe ten,
dollars.
We went into the living room. People were already
there, sitting on the sofas or on the floor in front of the TV in
the corner.
“What is that crap?” I asked, looking at the screen and
knowing the answer.
An old guy wearing a tuxedo was talking to a very
small man wearing a Nazi army uniform. The guy in the
tuxedo had slightly slurred speech, as if he were drunk. The
Nazi held a cigarette in a cigarette holder and smirked.
“It’s comedy,” said Hickey. “Can’t you hear people
laughing?”
After each of them said something, there was
machine-made laughter – or was it real?
“Why dontcha change the channel?” Styles
suggested. “Maybe it’s on another station.”
“It should be on every channel,” I told him.
Wouldn’t something as important as this be on every
channel?
“Take a lap,” Babbs said.
“Yeah, c’mon Dick, let’s go to the party,” said Barton.
Rozinsky, who was sitting closest to the TV, crawled a
few feet to the set and began changing the channel.
“There it is. Stop.” several people shouted. “It’s
already on.”
A woman sitting at a small table took a piece of paper
out of a blue plastic capsule and handed it to an old guy
wearing a suit and a dark tie. He handed it to another fat old
guy in a suit who attached it to a board next to a number.
The television showed what was on the paper: a date. This
must be the order that people born on those dates would be
drafted next year. Had they already picked my birthday? I

373
waited with tensed shoulder muscles for the TV camera to
show the rest of the board.
“Dods,” I said “did you see our birthday?”
“No, can’t see it.”
Different people continued to pick capsules out of a
large glass or plastic cylinder and hand them to the woman
who opened each one and took out the slip of paper inside.
Before the camera showed the date on the paper I stopped
breathing for a second. Would I draw a high enough number
to be safe? “It’s just a shot away,” I thought and made a
noise like a laugh. Nobody noticed.
“Who are those guys?” someone asked.
“Guest stars,” I said.
“Customers,” Barton said.
We watched and waited. Every few seconds the
camera showed the board again. It showed FEB 12 next to
68 and Alvin White got up, cursed quietly, and left the room.
The old guy attached “MAY 20” next to 183.
“Fuck,” said Babbs, “I’m hosed.”
“You’re going to graduate school, asshole,” Karp said.
“Yeah? Well now I better. I better get in.”
“Speaking of birthdays, are you guys having the
champagne party again?” Rozinsky asked Dods and me.
“That depends on whether or not it’s worth celebrating
after this.” I laughed. “Yeah, we’re having it – us and
Newton, in absentia.”
We waited. I didn’t see my birthday anywhere on the
board.
“Damn,” said Hickey.
His date was picked: 190. Would 190 be safe?
“Hick, you better start learning to march,” Dodson told
him.
“You better start learning to duck,” I said.
“Dods, why are you here? You’re already signed up,”
said Hickey. “Get outta here.”
“Waiting to play cards.”

374
 “I can’t watch this shit anymore,” said Karp. “I’ll find
out what happens later.”
He left the room. So did Styles.
“Keep your hands off the chips,” I shouted at Karp’s
back.
They reached 200 and I began to think that if my
birthday hadn’t already been picked I might be safe. I
continued to stare at the TV screen. The Ox walked in front
of me and blocked my view, making me jump slightly.
“Ox, you want to watch this?” Dodson asked him.
“This isn’t your year.”
“Entertainment,” the Ox answered without turning his
head.
Dodson and I laughed.
Then for me the wait ended: my date was picked and
attached to the board next to 215. Would people with that
number be called? Maybe and maybe not; I couldn’t decide.
“Dods, do you think they’ll go that high? 215?”
“Don’t know. It’s possible,” he said.
“How many people will they need next year? It might
be safe.”
I thought that I sounded as if I were begging.
“Can’t tell. You’ll have to wait and find out. Let’s play
cards.”



Someone’s alarm clock began to buzz; a sharp, nasty

noise.
“Turn that thing off, Barton,” Dods yelled.
“Havta get up.”
“What for?” Dodson groaned, “we’re on strike.”
“We’re always on-strike,” I said.
We laughed. Barton turned off his alarm.
“Barton, what the fuck was that for?” I asked him,
“Don’t wanna miss lunch,” he answered.

375
 “What time is it?” Dods asked.
“11:30,” he said.
“Fuck,” I said, “I’m hungry. We’ll have to move if we
want to make lunch.”
I rolled onto my back, slid my legs out from under the
covers and slowly raised myself off the mattress. Sitting on
the bed, I tried to recall my dream – freezing air, a dark
space – but it was gone; only a vague feeling of
releasedoom remained, tainted byalong with the sour taste
of cigarettes.
Dods walked past me and out the door with his towel
in his hand. I turned my head to look at Barton: he was still
a lump under his sheet. Would I have time to shower and
shave, and then walk to the dining hall before they stopped
serving lunch [uncertain]?? Probably.
I stood, took my towel off the bar attached to the side
of my bureau, picked up my toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving
cream and razor, and went across the hall to the bathroom.
After I had pissed into one of the gigantic marble urinals, I
brushed my teeth. Dod’s reflection walked past me [(done
already]. “).“Seeya down there,” it said. Then I took off my t-
shirt and underwear and stood under the hot rain from the
showerhead that was the size of a salad plate, letting the
water warm my bones. I shouldn’t be slow, though. I
washed with a bar of soap that someone [(always] had) left
in the wire basket attached to the wall, dried myself and
walked to the sink where I shaved [without cutting myself]..
There was no time to pick at the zits, which, anyway, would
make them redder. Would they ever go away?
I went back across the hall and took some clean
underwear, socks and a t-shirt out of the bureau drawer.
Barton was still in bed and he was snoring. As soon as I had
dressed, I strode two steps at a time down the narrow
stairway to the second floor and then down the wide
staircase to the main floor, past the empty library and
outside into the sunshine and humid air. Everyone seemed

376
to have left already. I looked at my watch: it was after noon,
but I would make it.
I lit a cigarette and walked rapidly down the hill on the
empty sidewalk next to the giant hedge. Soon, we all really
would leave, gone to separate places and school would be
done forever. We would become what Davey and Carl and
the others were now, which was what? What was left?
There was no permanence. There was no permanence
except the final end. The present was just a collection of
things that created the impression of time and vanished
instantly into stories we told ourselves. For us, there would
be no more vigils, no more mixers, no more demonstrations,
no more poker games, no more bar debates, no more
brothers, no more House. What would there be? War?
Copying machines? We would be the same as everyone
else. We would have to earn money.
(“That’s just the way it is.”)
At least I wouldn’t have to worry about missing
classes and taking exams and writing papers. Typing and
tearing page after page. Starting over and over. If the
soldiers hadn’t killed those kids and if there hadn’t been a
strike, I probably would have failed all my courses. How
many people had those dead kids saved from being thrown
out of school?
(“The fucking problem was that if you enjoyed what
you were reading, you didn’t read it fast enough and within a
week you were behind and couldn’t catch up.”). I thought of
the book, The Long Fuse.
The kitchen workers were taking away the food when
I got to the dining hall. They ignored me and continued to
remove dishes from the shelves as I picked up a tray and
slid it along the steel rails. I quickly loaded the tray with a
plate of macaroni and cheese, a piece of cake and a glass
for milk, then carried it to our table in the corner. Two of the
Ducks were sitting there; they looked at me when I sat on my
preferred chair and both said “Hi”.hi.” Shortly afterwards

377
they finished eating. “See ya later” they said nearly
simultaneously and walked together towards the door. I was
the last one at the table, but the room was still crowded with
people talking passionately in groups, passing papers to
each other. What was written on the papers? Everybody
knew why we were on strike. What was there to say? What
else could we do? Could we end the war, change the
government?
“Listen up for a second,” an invisible person in the
doorway announced loudly once, quieting the crowd for a
moment, and then a second time, quieting the crowd. “The
College will be sending faculty representatives to the dorms
and fraternity houses at seven tonight to speak to everyone.
Please be there. It’s important. The President asks
everyone to please keep calm and use this as an opportunity
to think about how we can play a constructive role in the
national debate,” he added..”
The roar of voices resumed and I heard some
laughter. Calm didn’t seem to me to be part of the plan; the
people in the dining hall were almost shaking with
excitement, I thought.
I finished eating and lit a cigarette. It would be good
to help with the strike but what could I do? Maybe I could
write something?
(“You’d waste too much paper.”)
I walked towards the dining hall exit and stopped next
to the lounge. There were a lot of people in the lounge
listening to a professor make a speech. He must have been
standing on a coffee table because I could see him clearly
above the heads of the students.
“Who’s that?” I asked a kid near the entrance.
“Green?” he said, his inflection implying that everyone
should recognize Green.
“Who’s Green?” I asked, embarrassed.
“Econ professor. He’s a star.”
[(Star?] ?)

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 “What’s he talking about?”
“How, you know, the economy is based on false
assumptions,” the kid said.
I stood in the doorway, listening: Green sounded like
a rabbi or maybe a minister, I thought.
“What will happen then? What will happen?” he
asked the crowd. “Once everyone has a car, a washing
machine, all the gadgets we love, how will the economy
grow? There’s a limit to what people can consume, a limit to
demand and therefore a limit to what an economy can
supply. There’s a limit to its size.”
The students in the room made sounds of
understanding and agreement. What he said made sense, I
thought, but in my second mind I was certain that he had
overlooked something and that what he was saying was
wrong, stupid even. Economies almost always did
growgrew, didn’t they? I turned around and walked out of
the dining hall and back to the House. Maybe there would
be a card game. Barton was watching TV in the living room
when I got there.
“You missed lunch, you asshole,” I said.
“Getting a grinder from Mamma Mia,” he answered.
“Where’s Dods?”
“I didn’t see him. What are you watching?”
“The Glory Guys. They’ve cut more scenes. The
amazing thing is that even after they’ve cut half the movie,
it’s still the exact same story.” He laughed. “Fits together
well. I wonder how short they can make it?”
“Huntem, killem, credits. If we can find Dods and
maybe one or two others, we can play cards.”
“Maybe latertonight. After I eat, I’m going to drive
over and see Debby.”
I sat on the sofa next to Barton and watched the
movie. A town kid delivered his grinder and, by the time he
had finished eating, the movie was over. The bad guys were
dead again. We sang the movie theme song together.

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 “I’m gonna go,” Barton said.
“Oh, Reverend, there was an announcement in the
dining hall that someone from the school is coming to speak
to us at 7:00, so we all have to be here.”
“What for?” Barton asked.
“Something about the strike, I guess. I guess they
want us to know that they agree with us about the
armyNational Guard killing students and everything, and
want us to keep calm and stick together.” [(Which was
good.].)
“People are sticking together now by all joining the
Guard so they don’t get sent to the war. That’s what I’m
doing. Seeya.”
After he left, I remained on the sofa for a few minutes
and watched the commercials. Did they show real life? The
people who made commercials didn’t seem to
understandknow that soon nobody would buy theirany more
stuff. Except for the sound of the TV, the House was silent.
I stood, lit a cigarette and walked out the front door.
Where should I go? I went down the hill a second
time and walked slowly through town past the police station
in the basement of the Town Hall and past the hotel. At the
street corner, I stopped and stared briefly at the
Administration Building before crossing the road and walking
by it, back uphill. When I reached the gray flagstone terrace
in front of the library, I crossed the road around the quad and
walked on one of the oddly angled paths past the freshman
dorms. At the end of the quad, I re-crossed the road and
descended the stairs that led to the granite memorial at the
edge of the hilltop. The widening wedge of grass on the
hillside made me feel as if I were being sucked into empty
space. I looked across the void and stared at the dark
woods and distant mountains, standing for a long time
without conscious thought among the dead names chiseled
in the granite until I was finally recalled to the present by the
tolling of the chapel bell, a sudden throbbing noise.

380
 Dinnertime wasn’t long afterwards. We sat at our
table, ate and then smoked cigarettes and drank coffee until
we had to go back to the House to hear the faculty
representative.
He was an old guy. He wore a necktie and a tweed
sport jacket, and his pants were baggy and uncreased at the
knees. There weren’t enough chairs in the living room, so
most of us had to sit on the floor to hear him speak.
“It looks like kindergarten,” I said to Dods, who
laughed.
Everyone stared silently at the professor. They
leaned forward to hear what he would say, and; I imagined
that I could feel their desire for something – or was I the only
wanting one?
“Who is he?” I heard Bernstein ask behind me.
“Kreisler,” Style’s voice said. “Anthropology.”
“Hello, I’m Professor Kreisler from the Department of
Anthropology,” Kreisler announced. “I recognize one or two
of you, I think.”
He seemed to be trying to smile.
“Not me,” Bernstein whispered.
“I want to talk to you about what’s happening on
campus. As we all know, a political dispute has intruded into
our community and caused a lot of strong feelings. It’s easy
to lose perspective in situations like this. Society always has
controversies, and we have to deal with that.”
Many of the people in the room looked confused. I
waited to hear what he would say about the murders.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to prevent outside events from
affecting our lives, but we can’t lose sight of why we are
here. No matter what else is going on, we have to remember
that this is a place dedicated to study and learning.”
A few voices tried to interrupt, but they were shushed
by others.
“The College has to preserve its role as a special
place and not let outside forces affect its mission.”

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 This was what he had come to tell us? What he
thought was most important? I stopped listening and,
instead, stared at his person: the curve of his necktie over
his fat belly, his hunched shoulders, his pale skin, his
grimace. He didn’t want to be here; he belonged
somewhere else.
While I was looking at his shoes, which were a dull
brown with scratched toes and worn heels, he stood.
“Please remember this,” he said, and walked towards
the door.
There was no discussion.
“Well golly,” Styles said behind me, “I feel a whole lot
better, don’t you? If someone tries to kill me, I’ll just go in
the library!”
“What the fuck was the point of that?” someone in the
crowd asked.
“He’s reminding us that we’re here to work and
warning us not to get carried away with this strike stuff,” the
Ox answered.
“Is there any beer?” Babs asked.
“Yeah,” a number of people said.
“Does the house have any money?”
“We can do that. Give me five minutes and we’ll be
on-tap,” Rozinsky said.



It ended quickly.
We walked together into the fieldhouse wearing
academic gowns and mortarboard hats while a small
orchestra played marching music. Most of us also wore
black armbands. The fieldhouse had been turned into an
auditorium with rows of white plastic chairs in front of a large
newly constructed dais. The walls were decorated with
purple and white bunting and there were flagpoles standing
beside the staircases at the front corners of the stage. An

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audience of parents stared at us; my Father and Aunt Doris
were somewhere in the crowd. The faculty entered last.
They wore colored robes with long hoods, some trimmed
with fur, and odd-shaped hats. After they all were sitting on
the dais, a fat man dressed in old-style pantaloons, white
stockings, a striped tunic and a tricornered hat pounded the
platform floor with the butt of a long staff that had a huge
gold ornament on its other end, and he shouted in a low
powerful voice: “I declare these proceedings to be open.”
One at a time we crossed the podium, shook hands
with the President and received our diplomas. I switched the
tassel to the left side of my hat and smiled at him, but he
didn’t see me and I felt embarrassed [(I had stolen
something from him].).
There were strangers everywhere in the house after
the ceremony. They carried boxes and furniture to their
cars, talking and laughing as if they were in their own
homes. One by one, I found Styles, Dods, Barton and the
others. I told Dods not to get killed and he said thanks.
Barton and I sang a few lines of the theme song from The
Glory Guys and laughed. I remindedtold Styles to remember
to wear shoes when he came to visit me in civilization. We
all said goodbye, embraced and promised to see each other
soon. Everyone knew that wouldn’t happen, but saying it
made leaving easier.
My Father drove the car. Doris sat beside him on the
front seat and I sat behind her squeezed against the door by
a pile of cardboard boxes that contained my stuff. The car
went across the intersection at the end of the town green
and down the hill, past the houses with their iron fences, the
separate garages that had been carriage houses, and then
the stadium. We drove between the fields and passed the
rotting farm buildings.
“Well, you’ve done it,” Doris said. “Aren’t you proud of
yourself?”
“Uh huh,” I said.

383
 “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing much.”
“You must be thinking about something.”
“I guess I’m wondering about the draft.”
“You’re thinking about that now?”
“I have a high number, but I could get drafted.”
We were all silent for a moment.
“If they call you, you’ll have to go,” my Father said.
“You won’t have a choice.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that now,” said Doris.
“All I know is that you’ve really got it made. When I think of
the wonderful advantages you’ve had and now you can do
whatever you want. I’m very proud of you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The car crossed the bridge and reached the highway.
“Think of it! No more school. It’s time to join the real
world, go out on your own and get a job.”
“I know.”
“What do you think you’ll do? I hope you’ve been
thinking about that.”
“I’m thinking about it.’
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Well enjoy your success; you deserve it. You’ll have
time to decide when we get back to the city. You’ll have lots
of opportunities.”
“I know,” I said.
Formatted: Font: Times

384
 The City
Aunt Doris opened the apartment door and warm air
Aunt Doris opened the apartment door and warm air
with City smells came out of the foyer into the elevator
vestibule: the smells of a past time, a different life. I went
inside and walked through the dark rooms aware of, but
unwilling to name, things I had cared about that were now
gone. When I got to my room, I stood and stared at the dust
motes floating in the sunlight that shined between the slats of
the window blinds.
“Come on. Let’s get these boxes and your clothes
inside and put everything away,” she shouted from the foyer.
“I want all of this stuff put away properly before we do anything
else.”
“Okay,” I answered, and walked back to the elevator
vestibule.
George had helped us bring the boxes and my suitcase
upstairs from the lobby while my Father parked the car in the
garage.
“Remember,” she said, “you’re not living in a dormitory
anymore. College is over. I don’t want you behaving like a
slob.”
“I know,” I said.
It didn’t take much time to put my clothes in drawers
and in the closet. I found space for my books on the
bookshelves, rearranging them until they looked right. I put
my typewriter on a shelf in the closet and closed the door
“close the closet door,” but then decided that it was okay to

385
put it on my desk, so I took it out of the closet and carefully
placed it on the desk blotter. Would she make me move it?
After I had put everything away, I crushed the cardboard
boxes and carried them and my suitcase to the foyer. I slid
the suitcase into its space on the highest shelf in one of the
front closets and carried the flattened boxes through the
kitchen and out the back door to where we left trash.
“Your Father is bringing back deli sandwiches for
dinner. He’s getting you a turkey on rye; I hope that’s alright,”
she said. She was standing behind me.
“That’s fine,” I said, turning to face her.
“And I thought we could go out tomorrow night for a
celebration dinner. Would you like that?”
“That would be great.”
“Maybe your Grandparents will join us.”
“Oh, good.”
“How does it feel to be a college graduate?”
“Fine,” I said and smiled at her until she decided to
leave the kitchen.
I walked back to my room and sat on the radiator box
under the window, resting my back against the side of the
bookcase. What could I do? In a few days, I was going to
visit Mick. After that, I would think of something; there was a
lot of time. I would worry about it later.
It was almost dark outside. I pressed my forehead
against the window glass and watched the cars and cabs and
trucks pass on the avenue below. A taxi stopped next to the
end of the awning over the entrance to the building across the
street and a uniformed doorman opened the door so that a
man and a woman could get in. The cab drove away, to
where? To a party or a restaurant.
“Come on. Let’s set the table,” she said from the
hallway. “Your Father will be here any minute.”
I followed her to the kitchen.
“We can eat in here,’ she said. “Get the placemats.”
I set the table while she made a telephone call: “Oh,

386
he’s thinking about it,” I heard her say.
My Father returned as I was filling water glasses.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi. I got you a turkey on rye. Is that okay?”
“Sure. Did you get potato salad and coleslaw?”
“Of course, and dill pickles.”
“Oh, great.”
I unpacked the food and put the sandwiches on plates.
“Who has corned beef?” I asked.
“I do,” my Father said.
“Put the potato salad and coleslaw in bowls and take
out some serving spoons while I make coffee,” she told me.
In a few minutes, we were sitting at the kitchen table
and starting to eat. I spooned potato salad onto my plate and
put coleslaw on top of the turkey in my sandwich.
“I bet you didn’t get anything like this at college, did
you?” she said.
“No,” I laughed, “but we did have a great place to get
grinders.”
“You’ll be happy to sleep in your own bed tonight, too.”
“Uh huh,” I said, biting into the sandwich.
“So, what are you really thinking about doing?” she
asked me [interested, confidential].
“About what?” I answered.
“You know about what: about a job. What else? It’s
time to make a living and move out on your own,” she was
annoyed. “This is real life now.”
“There’s also the draft. I have to think about that too.”
(“Because I could get killed – that’s what else.”)
“Oh, that. Of course. But you don’t really think you’ll
be drafted, do you? Anyway, you’ll just have to see what
happens. But you should be looking for a job.”
“I know,” I said, wishing she would stop asking me
about jobs.
“So, what are you thinking?”
After a pause, I said: “I guess I thought it might be good

387
to build things, you know, make something.”
“That might be good.”
Her response made me feel a little optimistic.
“I was thinking of applying to architecture school,” I
said.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s much money in that, is there?
Architecture? But there’s a lot of money in real estate. That’s
basically the same thing.”
“I’m talking about designing things.”
“I saw Phyllis recently, and she said that Stan has a
good friend who’s a private developer who buys investment
property. That would be a really good business, and he’s
looking for a young person to help. You could learn the
business.”
“That’s not what I was talking about,” I said and stared
at her.
“Okay,” my Father said, “why don’t we leave this
subject for a while? We just got back from graduation.”
When we all had finished eating, she poured coffee
and I put the dishes in the dishwasher.
“I don’t want any coffee, thanks,” I told her. “I think I’m
going to read in my room, if that’s okay.”
I paused and then asked: “I had bronchitis when I was
a kid, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you had it a few times,” said Doris. “You had to
stay home from school. Why?”
“Did Dr. Allan ever say that I had asthmatic bronchitis?”
“Oh, how could I remember a thing like that? He said
you had bronchitis. You could ask him, but what do you want
to know that for?”
“I was just wondering. He has records, doesn’t he?”
“Of course he has records. You could always ask him
if that’s something you really have to know.”
“Thanks. May I be excused? I want to go read.”
“Sure. Go relax. You’ve earned it. Don’t forget to say
goodnight before you go to sleep.”

388
 “I won’t. Thanks for dinner,” I said to my Dad.
“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling.
I walked to my room, closed the door and sat on the
radiator box. I didn’t have to worry about jobs or the draft right
now, anyway. In a few days, I would visit Mick. We would sit
in his living room and argue with his Father. His Father didn’t
mind, even though he was a professor.
“Relying on oil from other countries limits our energy
supply and makes it vulnerable to disruption.” said Mick’s
Father.
“But nuclear reactors aren’t safe,” I said forcefully.
“People ignore the fact that eventually one will leak or worse.
It’s inevitable.”
I lit another cigarette. He smiled and drank from his
beer can.
“Give me a cigarette,” said Mick. “Do you want another
beer?”
“No, I’m good. Here.”
I handed him my cigarette pack and some matches,
and took a sip of my beer.
“When there’s a nuclear disaster, people will have a
different opinion of nuclear power,” I added.
“Nuclear reactors have been very safe for decades,”
his Father said, “and they don’t pollute.”
“Don’t pollute? What about the nuclear waste?” I
answered. “The waste is dangerous forever.”
“I’m going to bed,” Mick’s Mother said. “You know
where you’re sleeping?” she asked me.
“Yes, thanks,” I answered.
“I’m sorry it’s so crowded in there.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I always sleep great on that
bed. I love sleeping there.”
“Well, okay. Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning”
“Goodnight,” we all said.



389
 If they drafted people with my number, I would have
to have an army physical in the city, and everyone knew that
the City Processing Center didn’t give medical deferments.
To be exempted from the draft there, you would have to be
missing an arm or a leg or be blind. They didn’t pay a lot of
attention to regulation details; they wanted bodies.
I made an appointment to go to a processing center in
a town outside the city and, on the morning of the
appointment, very early so that I couldn’t be late, rode there
on a bus full of sweating people in dingy clothes carrying old
suitcases, shopping bags and bundles wrapped in paper that
they pushed into the overhead rack. Some already seemed
to have decided to stand in the aisle but there still were a
couple of empty seats on the bench at the very back of the
bus beside the toilet. I sat on one, holding my manila
envelope tightly with both hands and hoped that the toilet
didn’t stink and that a really fat person didn’t sit next to me.
Maybe the seat would stay empty. (“Right you idiot.”). I tried
to look large.
The person who sat on it was a short skinny kid
wearing greasy jeans and a t-shirt. He had long dirty hair
and a scar on his face that went from the corner of his left
eye down his cheek and across the side of his nose to the
top of his lip. Mucus ran out of his nose in a stream that he
blotted continually with a dirty handkerchief. He looked truly
bad; I thought that he probably had a switchblade or a razor
knife in his pocket. Would he demand money and threaten
me? On a bus filled with witnesses (who would look away)?
Maybe he would ignore me. I sat very still, not touching him,
my shoulders tight, trying to be invisible (as if that were
possible).
“Where are you going?” he said to me. His voice, I
couldn’t help noticing, was weirdly earnest; it was a nice
voice. He smiled.

390
 The driver started the engine beneath our seats and
the vibrations shook my spine.
“Oh, you know, to see some friends,” I lied, smiling
stiffly back at him. “Where are you going?” I had to ask.
“I’m goin to see my sister. I haven’t seen her in two
years and I want to see her. Do you have a sister?”
The cushion under my butt began to get warmer.
“A sister? Naw, I don’t have a sister.” I smiled,
laughed a little, and started to sweat large drops that ran
down the sides of my face.
Was there a way to end the conversation? Could I tell
him that I had to stand because the seat was too hot?
Would that insult him? I wished that I had brought a book so
I could read and he would have to talk to someone else. I
looked at the nearby people; none of them seemed
interested in knowing him.
“Yeah, my sister’s growin up. Who’s your friends?”
He wiped his upper lip.
“Just some people from school, you know,” I
continued to lie.
“Yeah. Did you go to school there?”
“No. Near there. Do you live there?”
“My Mom and sister. I ain’t finished school yet, but
I’m gonna. I’m gonna live with them. They won’t draft me
cuz of prison, so I’ll be able to finish high school.”
“That’s really good.”
“Yeah, and I really want to get a job to give my sister
some money and help my Mom. Do you have a job?”
“Not yet. But I’m looking.” I smiled at him again.
“It’s hard to find a job, specially if you have a record.
You don’t have a record, do you?”
“No,” I said and laughed a little.
He wiped his nose with the rag and I wiped my face
with my shirtsleeve. A fat woman from somewhere in the
front of the bus squeezed past the people in the aisle and
went into the bathroom. When she opened the bathroom

391
door, the stink of old pee filled my nose. I wondered if he
could smell it?
“You could always join up if you can’t find a job,” he
said. “If you don’t mind people shooting at you. They pay
good money. They’d pay for college if you can go. It doesn’t
scare me if people shoot at me.”
“Yeah? No. I don’t want to get shot at.”
“A guy shot at me once. It didn’t scare me.”
Sweat trickled from my armpits down my sides and
made dark stains in the starched fabric of my shirt under my
arms and at my waist. He wiped his lip with the
handkerchief. Where were we? I looked out the bus
window: we were on the bridge over the river.
There was a flushing noise and the toilet door
opened. The fat woman came out into the aisle followed by
sewage stench. She tried to shut the door behind her but it
didn’t latch; it started swinging back and forth as the bus
swayed on the road, fanning foul air in our direction. No one
nearby seemed to be willing to do something about it.
“Can you reach that door and close it?” I asked him,
taking the risks of making a demand and being in his debt.
He looked at me, then at the door.
“Yeah,” he said and, reaching across the person on
his right, who leaned as far as he could away from us,
slammed the door shut.
“Thanks,” I said.
He told me that his Mother was a waitress and then
he talked about his sister again: that she was smart and
could go to college in a few years so she didn’t have to work
in a diner, and that she was a good girl and everyone liked
her. I listened and nodded. He didn’t mention his Father. I
let him talk, wanting not to say anything and hoping that the
trip would end soon and that the people at the processing
center would follow the rules. What would I do if they didn’t
— something I had been trying not to think about? I would
just have to go.

392
 “Do you think I should do it? Is this stupid?” I asked
my Father.
“I don’t know. You have to decide. If they take you,
you’ll just have to go.”
He had been in the Army; he had gone.
“I know someone who’ll kill people for you.”
“What?”
“I know a guy who’ll kill people for you if you want.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. If you need someone killed they’ll do it.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I don’t need anyone killed.”
“Okay, but you can tell me if you do.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I will.”
The bus stopped at a traffic light and, when the light
turned green, made a right turn. A minute or so later, we
were at the bus station. After the people in the aisle had
gotten off, I followed him to the front and down the stairs. He
paused on the sidewalk a few feet from the door. Was he
going to follow me? To stall, I lit a cigarette and gave him
one. I waited facing him, inhaling smoke and diesel exhaust.
Still, the hot air felt fresher now that I wasn’t sitting on top of
the engine, trapped next to him and the toilet. I felt safer,
even though in my second mind I knew that I might not be
safe at all.
“Thanks,” he said with his earnest voice. “Good luck,
man.”
That was all. He turned and began to walk away.
“You too,” I called after him, relieved and meaning it.
He carried nothing.
I took a map of the city out of the manila envelope
and rotated it in my hands as I looked for the name of a
nearby street so I could orient myself. After checking the
map and looking at the sign on the corner twice, I turned in
the direction that he had gone and began walking to the
processing center, which I knew wasn’t very far from the
station. I passed a couple of liquor stores, a pizzeria and

393
some stores with plywood nailed over their windows, walking
slowly because I didn’t want to sweat more than I already
had (which was ridiculous); there was a lot of time before I
had to be there.
On the next block, I passed a pawn shop and then an
empty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. Despite the
fence, the lot was covered with piles of rubbish that lay
among chunks of broken concrete, pieces of steel rebar,
shards of glass and dozens of used bricks. At the corner I
stopped and checked the map once more, even though I
was sure now where I was. I made a right turn, crossed the
street without looking at the traffic light and, about a half a
block in front of me, saw what had to be the processing
center, a one-story building behind a small parking lot. I told
myself to be calm, confident. I wouldn’t allow them to think
of ignoring the rules.
Inside the glass doors, a kid dressed in an army
uniform was sitting at a green steel desk with nothing on it
but a telephone. The Center was air-conditioned so the air
inside was cool and dry.
“I’m here for a physical,” I said.
He looked at me without answering or turning his
head and pointed backwards with his thumb at a door to his
left. As I walked past him, he continued to stare through the
glass at the empty street outside. He was stoned, I was
sure.
Beyond the door there was a room with rows of
school desks – chairs with rudder-shaped arms – facing a
lectern. Taped to the front of a table next to the lectern there
was a hand-written sign that said “FILL OUT FORM,” with an
arrow pointing up in the direction of a stack of paper and
some old pencils. Another sign on the wall behind the table
said, “NO SMOKING.” Several people were already sitting
silently, waiting for whatever would happen.
I took a form from the stack and, sitting on one of the
school chairs, used my pen to answer a list of questions:

394
name, address, date of birth, citizenship, do you have a
criminal record?
More people arrived, kids (townies). They were
dressed mostly in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers and some
wore baseball hats; one hat had NAPA written on it, another
green one had a picture of a leaping stag embroidered over
the bill. There wasn’t a single black kid in the room. Why
did these kids want to join the army? They didn’t look like
people who thought the war was right. They definitely
weren’t like the construction workers in the city who wore
hard-hats decorated with flag decals and t-shirts printed with
patriotic slogans; the people who had been sent downtown
to attack students protesting the war.
They sat on stacks of cinder blocks next to the
sidewalk, eating sandwiches, drinking beer from cans in wet
paper bags and making loud comments about the passersby
only a few feet in front of them.
“Hey baby. Nice tits. Come and sit in my lap and I’ll
give you something.”
“Look at that faggot. Are you a faggot, sweetie? Kiss
kiss.”
“Man look at that babe’s ass.”
“Listen up,” a loud voice said and I flinched.
A bulky sergeant was standing beside the lectern.
“Take a test paper and don’t look at the questions
until I tell you.”
We had to take a test? I wasn’t expecting that.
Would I be able to answer all the questions or would I look
like an idiot (because I was supposed to be smarter than
townies)?
“Put it face-down on the desk. You have 20 minutes
to complete the test. There’s no talking and don’t, I repeat,
don’t let me catch any of you looking at someone else’s
paper. Everybody shut up and wait for me to tell you to
start.”

395
 A skinny kid in a uniform handed out pencils and
mimeographed test papers. He gave me a test and a pencil
that had most of its yellow skin chewed off. I put the test
face-down on the arm of my desk and watched the sergeant,
who was watching us. His chest looked as if it would
explode through the front of his shirt. What kind of questions
did you have to answer to get into the army? (“Do you like
dope? Do you know anybody who will kill people?”).
“Write your name on the front,” the sergeant said with
a voice that made my desk vibrate.
How could I do that without turning over the test?
“Okay, everybody, start. You have 20 minutes. Keep
your eyes on your own paper.”
I turned the test over and wrote my name on it. Then
I started to read the questions:
Circle the one best answer. A hammer is least like: 1.
a screwdriver; 2. a comb; 3. a file; 4. a drill.
(“You must be fucking kidding.”)
It only took me a few minutes to answer all the
questions. I thought about checking my answers, which
made me almost laugh. Instead, I put my pencil on the desk
and waited for everyone else to finish.
“What are you doing?” His voice boomed from a few
feet in front of me. “Finish the test. No fooling around.”
“I did finish. I finished,” I said in a quiet, unconfident
voice.
He stared at me for a second as if I were lying, then
took several large steps toward me and grabbed the paper.
I waited while he turned the pages.
After a moment, he said, “Okay.”
“You could be a typist,” he added, and put the test
back on the desk.
“Oh?” I responded, not knowing anything else to say.
I sat trying not to look at anyone, trying not to think
about anything, until he bellowed, “Times up. Put your
pencils down. Now! All of you.”

396
 There was the sound of paper being shuffled. A guy
near me dropped his test on the floor and picked it up.
“Take out your IDs,” the sergeant growled. “Bring your
form, your test and your ID and line up by the wall.”
My heart started to beat faster.
(“Just act like you know the rules. You do know the
rules and they have to obey them.”)
I took my birth certificate out of the manila envelope,
and, holding the envelope and the other papers, waited in
line.
In the next room, there were several soldiers and an
older guy wearing a white coat standing behind a row of
tables. It seemed darker there than in the school room, even
though both were windowless and had fluorescent lights.
A soldier recorded my height and weight on a new
form that he gave me to carry. We had vision tests and then
one at a time we sat in a booth wearing earphones so they
could test our hearing. The soldier who took my pulse and
blood pressure didn’t seem to notice that I was having a
heart attack, or he noticed but didn’t care because he knew
they were going to send all of us to basic training regardless
of the medical problems we had.
(“Not if I die here first.”)
Finally, I stood in front of the Doctor. I quickly pulled
the copies of Dr. Allan’s medical notes out of the manila
envelope and put them on his desk.
“What’s that?” he asked me.
“Medical notes,” I answered.
“What for? What do you want me to do with them?”
My intestines rolled around inside my belly.
(“Just take them and read them, asshole.”)
Nearby people stopped what they were doing and
watched us.
“They’re about my asthma,” I told him. (“Which I don’t
have.”)

397
 He took the notes and read them. He looked at the
signature and read them again.
“But this means you’re ineligible. You can’t enlist.”
He sounded confused.
“Yeah, I know.”
He frowned at me for a second, then he wrote
something on the form with my medical results and told a
short soldier who was standing behind him to take me and
my paperwork back to the office. I couldn’t stop myself from
grinning.
Four soldiers were sitting at desks in the office,
typing. They didn’t look at us when we entered. I noticed
that the light had become much brighter again.
“You can sit in that chair,” the short soldier told me,
pointing at an empty desk chair. “It won’t be long.”
He sounded friendly.
“Do you want a Coke and maybe a sandwich?” he
asked me. “We have ham.”
“Sure. Thanks.” I smiled, surprised by his offer and
suddenly noticing that I was very hungry.
“Hey guys,” he told everyone in the room, “this guy
just got himself out.”
That made them all stop typing and turn their heads in
our direction.
“What?” one of them asked.
“Yeah. He brought a medical excuse and the Doc
made him 4F.”
Suddenly, all four of them started talking at once.
“Good going,” one of them said to me, grinning.
“Nice move.”
“Yeah, congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said.



Lou, Barry and their secretary, Mrs. Rosen, shared an

398
office in the corner of space rented by a real-estate
management company. The management-company office
was mostly an undivided windowless room filled with rows of
gray steel desks. Lou and Barry had a separate business
buying suburban apartment complexes with money from rich
investors, including the owner of the real-estate company.
After buying the apartments, they managed them. For
arranging a deal, they received an ownership share and, for
managing the properties, they received fees.
Barry did most of the work. Even though he was a
young guy, much younger than Lou, he was the one who
made most of the practical decisions, it seemed. Barry was
funny and sarcastic. He thought that paying to go to a liberal-
arts college was a waste of money; he had studied business
at a state university. “Whadya get outta that?” he said to me
frequently about my degree. My answers were always vague
and a little stupid. They made him laugh, but I felt superior to
him anyway, which he knew. I liked Barry.
Lou was the one who knew the investors, or that’s what
I thought. He was a large man who liked practical jokes. Barry
told me that Lou wore thermal underwear when it was cold
outside so that he didn’t have to wear an overcoat. During the
winter, he took business contacts for long walks around the
city, supposedly to look at buildings. I liked him too.
I sat at a desk near the door to their office and reviewed
the rent reports. This time, it also was my job to call the people
who were in arrears and ask them when they were going to
pay. As I called, I made notes on the report and afterwards
returned it to Barry.
“Do you think you can talk to the tenants without pissing
them off?” Barry had asked me. “We need them to pay, but I
don’t want to give them the feeling that we’re harassing them.”
“Sure. I’ll just pretend that I’m you, I mean in my head,
and say what I think you’d say.”
“Very funny. Don’t pull any bullshit with them,” Barry
said, “and don’t screw up. The rent pays the bills.”

399
 “I won’t,” I said.
Barry mostly concentrated on business, but he liked to
talk. He always had something to say to me when I was in his
office.
“After we pay down the mortgages,” Barry told me,
“we’ll refinance the properties and use the money to buy more
buildings. When I started a few years ago I had nothing; I
wasn’t a rich kid [like you]. Now I have a business, a nice
house and a wife and two kids.” He grinned at me: “Stick with
us and maybe you’ll be a partner in our next deal.”
“That’s great. Thanks. I really mean it, but I’m just not
sure what I want to do,” I told him.
“Don’t be a schmuck. What else are you gunna do?
Spend money on another degree? You want to get married,
don’t you? If opportunity knocks, open the door.”
When I wasn’t calling tenants or doing errands for Lou
and Barry, I sat at my desk and studied the Shaw alphabet.
The letters made words that looked ancient and mysterious. I
thought it would be fun to be able to write like that. Besides, I
couldn’t read at work and there wasn’t much else to do.
Every day at five o’clock I left the office and rode the
uptown bus among a horde of shoppers and office workers.
After paying my fare, I pushed as politely as I could through
the crowd and stood near the rear door, trying not to rub
against other passengers who tried not to rub against me as
the bus stopped and started and maneuvered through the
traffic. I looked at them. We were all the same, but were we
the same? Together, we lurched from side to side, standing
and holding the smooth steel handles or sitting on the blue
plastic seats. We wore the same kinds of clothes and
displayed the same nothing expressions after spending our
days doing the same sorts of things. We all waited silently for
the bus to arrive at our stops. Did we wait hopefully? What
would we do when we reached our destinations? What were
our destinations? Did we choose them?
“No more school. It’s time to join the real world.”

400
 Was this, then, my real life?
Instead of taking another bus across town, I walked
east to the apartment I rented from people Aunt Doris knew:
the daughter and son-in-law of one of her friends. They
recently had moved out of the city but had left a lot of their
stuff in the apartment: old furniture and even some of their
clothes. First, I walked past apartment houses with awnings
and uniformed doormen. Lining the streets between the
avenues, there were stone townhouses with ornate metal
grills covering tall windows. Then, after a few blocks, the
buildings abruptly changed to brownstone apartments with
garbage cans sitting on the sidewalk beside their entrances.
There were small stores: places that fixed vacuum cleaners,
places that sold old clothes, a cheese shop.
The apartment was half of the first floor of a
brownstone building near the river. I opened the door and
turned on the light in the entryway, a tiny space next to a
closet-like kitchen. There was a bathroom behind the kitchen
and, behind that, a living room and then a small bedroom that
was even narrower than the living room. The apartment was
just a long divided corridor. In the bedroom and at the back
of the living room next to the bedroom, there were windows
covered by rusty steel gates to keep out burglars.
I took off my work clothes, put on a t-shirt and a pair of
jeans and then went into the kitchen to search for food. In one
of the cabinets, I found a can of tuna fish and opened it. I
used the lid to compress the tuna and let the oil drip into the
sink. Then I forked the tuna onto a plate. The heel of a loaf
of bread I had bought the day before was in a bag on the
counter. I put that on the plate too and took the food into the
living room. Even after I had turned on the lamp next to the
sofa, the room was dark; the apartment was always dark. I
sat on the sofa in the twilight and ate the tuna and stale bread.
While I was eating, the telephone rang. I picked up the
receiver:
“Hello,” I said.

401
 “Oh. You’re home.”
It was Doris.
“Uh huh. I’m home.”
“How are you?”
“Fine,” I answered. “How are you?”
“Fine. How was work?”
“It was fine.”
(She really didn’t want to know.)
“I called to see if you’d like to eat dinner with your
grandparents and Aunt Joan and Uncle Phil?”
“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten, and I have something
to do later,” I lied.
“Oh? A hot date?”
“No. But thanks for the invitation.”
Would she ask more hot-date questions?
“Because there’s some big news,” she said.
“Oh? What?”
“Your cousin Kate is getting married. I guess I’m going
to have to find a dress.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Well you could be a little more excited than that.”
“It’s great, but It’s not a surprise,” I said. “I mean,
they’ve been going out together for a long time. Unless she’s
marrying someone else?”
“Ha ha, very funny. (Did she really think so?) Well you
should call and congratulate her and Aunt Joan and Uncle
Phil. He’s a medical student,” she added.
“I know,” I said. “He’s my college classmate.”
“Yes, I know. You’re sure you can’t eat with us?”
“I’ve already eaten and I have something to do,” I
repeated. (Does she hear me?)
“What are you doing?”
“I’m meeting a friend,” I continued to lie.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Something. Maybe we’ll rob a bank.”
“Don’t be smart. I’ve a right to ask what you’re doing.

402
I’m concerned about you. You should be meeting girls and
going out on dates.”
“I am going out on dates,” I lied again, “just not tonight.
Tonight, I’m thinking of robbing a bank.”
“You’re very funny. Always a comedian. Well, you’re
going to miss a good meal.”
“Thanks. Enjoy dinner. Congratulate them for me.”
“Okay but don’t forget to call too.”
“I won’t. Bye.”
“Bye. Love you.”
I hung up the phone.
“Yes, he’s a medical student,” I continued talking, now
to the empty room, “Did you know that he’s going to be a
doctor? Why, yes, dumb as I am, I have noticed that medical
students become doctors, but thanks a lot for reminding me.”
“Unlike you,” I continued to hiss in a whisper, “they’ve
taken advantage of all the wonderful opportunities they’ve
been given. They behave properly and appreciate what’s
been done for them. [They aren’t an embarrassment.] And
now, they’re getting married.”
“Why don’t you give some girl a chance instead of
sitting around in your apartment. Don’t you want to meet a
girl and get married like other people? You know what I think?
I think you’re a fairy.”
My mouth opened, but made no words. I was a fairy?
Did I act like a fairy? Was I a fairy? If she said that again, I
decided, I would kill her.
I sat on the sofa and stared at the dark room (a
vacuum) for unmeasurable minutes. While I sat there, the guy
who lived in the apartment on the other side of the wall came
home. There was some banging of doors and then the music
started: loud rock and roll that might have been playing in my
apartment, always the same songs. “Well I followed her to the
station, with a suitcase in my hand…” He was a big guy, huge.
He regularly threw glasses or bottles and furniture against the
wall. A few nights a week I was woken by his girlfriend’s

403
shrieks. I would lie in bed with a pillow clutched over my head
waiting for something to crash through the wall, or for him to
kill her. As I lay there, I would think that I should call the police,
but I never did because (I was a coward) I knew, if I did, I
wouldn’t be able to walk in or out of the building safely again.
I had asked him once not to play loud music at night; could I
ask him again? While I thought about this the phone rang.
When I answered it, everything around me suddenly
became quiet except for the sound of her voice:
“Rick?”
“Hi,” I say.
I tried to control my breathing.
“How are you?” she asks.
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“How are your folks?”
“Oh, they’re good, thanks. How’s your Aunt?”
“She’s okay.”
Two seconds of silence.
“I was wondering, do you have a bike?” she asks me.
“Yes, I do. I actually bought one last month.” I looked
at the bike leaning against the wall in front of the window.
“What do you want that for? I think you should be
saving money instead of throwing it away on a silly thing like
that.”
“Do you like to ride?” I asked her. “I didn’t know you
liked to bike ride.”
“Yes. I was wondering if you could go for a bike ride
this weekend?”
“With you? That would be great. I’d really like that.
Which day do you want to go?”
“Can you go Saturday?”
“Sure. Sure I can go. Saturday’s fine. Do you want
me to come to your house? I could ride over there.”
“Why don’t we meet at 1:00 on the corner in front of my
house? Is that okay?”

404
 “Sure. That’s fine. I can do that.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then.”
“I’ll see you then. Thanks.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”



It didn’t rain. The sky was a beautiful blue, the air warm
but not humid. I arrived early at the corner near the entrance
to her apartment building and stood watching the door,
waiting.
Within minutes, she appears. She is wearing jeans and
an oxford-cloth shirt with a button-down collar. I’ve never
seen her in clothes like these before. She rolls her bike, a
man’s bike, toward me and smiles. I smile.
“Hi,” she says and I say, “Hi” too.
We both behave as if we have seen each other
recently.
“What do you want to do?” she asks me.
“We should go over to the park. Isn’t that what you
were thinking?”
“Sure.”
“We can ride there and then figure out which way we
want to go. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Should I go first?”
“Go ahead.”
“Watch out for pot holes. There’s a lot of pot holes.”
I stand with one leg on either side of the top tube and
wait for the traffic light at the corner to turn green. When it
does, I start pedaling, first standing for a few seconds, then
sitting. I look quickly behind me: she is there. The street
surface is cratered and there is debris, including broken glass,
in places. I am afraid that one of us will get a flat tire and I go
slowly, carefully picking a route, staying as close to the parked

405
cars as possible.
“Wow. The street is a mess,” I say over my shoulder.
Don’t get a flat tire.”
“I’ll be okay,” she says.
I want to go fast, to ride without worry, (to be beside
her, with her, and to think only of that).
“But it’s a beautiful day,” I say.
“Yes,” she answers.
Cabs, cars and trucks pass, forcing us toward the curb.
The bike wobbles as I steer away from them and then back to
avoid parked cars and holes in the pavement. I look quickly
over my shoulder again. She is close behind me and smiles.
(She is unafraid.) We are forced to stop twice and wait at red
lights, but she doesn’t speak, we don’t talk.
Then we enter the park and before us there is a wide
and nearly empty path that winds among the trees. I slow for
a second and she rolls up beside me, smiling. I smile at her.
We ride together, go faster, weaving easily among the few
obstacles before us, the pavement now smooth. She begins
to speak and I listen to the sound of her voice and her laugh.
The trees are in bloom: clouds of pink blossoms cover their
branches, loose petals litter the ground beneath them. The
petals decorate park benches where old couples and women
with baby carriages sit. We glide past them through the mild
air.
At the end of a broad avenue, a man sells ice cream.
“Let’s get ice cream,” I say.
We stop and stand close to each other, eating vanilla
ice-cream bars covered by thin chocolate shells, and then we
ride again.
“It’s getting late,” she says.
“Are you tired?” I ask.
“A little. Not really, but I have to get back.”
“Why? Let’s keep going a little longer.”
“No. I have to get back,” she says.
I want to say that we have just gotten here, but it is late

406
afternoon.
We leave the park where we entered and pedal slowly
through side streets to her apartment building. At the corner,
we dismount and stand facing each other, holding our bikes.
“Thanks,” she says. “I had a great time.”
“Me too,” I say.
I add quickly, “Why don’t we eat dinner and then maybe
we could go to a movie? Let’s do that.” (like in the beginning.)
“No I can’t,” she says.
“Why not? You can go upstairs and change and then I
can come back and pick you up. Or we can just leave our
bikes and go now.”
As I speak, her presence fills my senses and I have the
intense desire to embrace her, to feel her enclosed in my
arms, her cheek touching my cheek, (for her to be mine and
part of me).
“I can’t,” she says and I know she is seeing someone
else.
“Call me,” she says.



I yawned and looked at my watch: it was almost time

to leave.
“Hey,” Barry shouted from his office, “come in here a
second.”
Now?
“Coming,” I shouted back.
I massaged my eyes with the heels of my hands,
covered the paper on my desk with a rent report, then stood
and went into his office. Mrs. Rosen was talking on the
phone, making notes on a yellow legal pad and smoking.
Lou wasn’t there. I sat on one of the chairs against the wall
facing the end of Barry’s desk.
“You got a cigarette?” he asked.

407
 I handed him a cigarette, took one for myself and lit
them both with the lighter he had given me: a rounded
rectangle of silver embossed with a pattern of leaves.
“I’m gonna quit smoking,” he said. “You should too.”
I thought of Grandma Kay’s cough.
“I guess,” I said, stifling another yawn.
If I quit smoking, then I wouldn’t have any use for the
lighter and I liked the lighter; it was beautiful. I liked having
it, feeling its weight in my hand, sliding my thumb over the
edges and smooth undulations of its surface.
He was about to say something else when his phone
rang. He swiveled his seat towards the wall and answered
it.
“Is it fixed?” he asked.
It had to be Lester.
“Schmuck, they have to fix it by tonight. I can’t have a
whole building without hot water for 24 hours. By tonight!
Tell them if it’s not fixed I’ll rip up the contract and find
someone else. Do I have to fly down there and do it myself?
Do you want to find a new job?”
He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
“What am I going to do with that jerk? I should fire
him,” he said to me.
I smiled.
He was sitting surrounded, as always, by stacks of
documents, which reminded me of Jerry, but Barry wasn’t
like Jerry. He picked up a large manila envelope from the
middle of his desk blotter.
“Do you think you can borrow your Father’s car
tonight?” he asked me.
“Maybe. Why?” I asked, sure that I knew the reason.
“Because we have more contracts that have to be
delivered to the insurance underwriter by tomorrow. The
same place you went a few weeks ago.”
“I have to drive all the way up there again? Now?”
“I hate to make you do it, but it’s important.”

408
 “I couldn’t have done it earlier?”
“Do you have something else to do?”
“No. Eat. Okay. Let me ask.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. We’ll be fucked if we don’t
get this to them on time.”
“I’ll ask.”
I went back to my desk and called the apartment.
After three rings, Aunt Doris picked up the receiver and said
hello.
“Hi,” I said, “how are you?”
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing’s wrong. I called to ask if I can borrow the
car. You don’t need it, do you?”
I knew she didn’t.
“Why? What do you want if for?”
“They need me to deliver some documents to an
insurance company before tomorrow. The only way to get
them there is to drive. Like I did before.”
“Well, I guess so. When will you be back?”
“I don’t know. Probably ten or so.”
“Okay, but call me when you get back. You’ll have to
let the garage know you’re coming.”
“I know. Thanks,” I said, “thanks a lot.”
“Don’t forget to call me. I don’t want to worry.”
“I won’t. Thanks.”
I clicked the button on the base of the phone to switch
lines and dialed the garage number.
“Yeah, garage,” someone answered.
“Hi,” I said. “Can you have the Frank car ready in
about 45 minutes?”
“Who?”
“Frank.”
“Frank? Okay. See ya in 45.”
I walked back to Barry’s office.
“I can do it. Let me have the package so I can leave
now.”

409
 “Great. Thanks.”
He didn’t touch the envelope.
“Do you mind dropping me off on the way?” he asked
me. “My car is at the train station.”
“Where? Oh right. I guess I can. Are you ready to
go?”
“Yeah. Just let me get my jacket and my case.”
I went back to my desk and put on my sport jacket.
Was there anything else I needed to do? No. Barry walked
out of his office and met me in front of the elevator. He
pushed the down button.
“Where’s the package?” I asked him.
“Huh? In my case,” he answered. “I have it, don’t
worry.”
“You were the one who worried that I would lose it last
time.”
He hailed a cab in front of the building entrance and
we got in. The cab ride took about 20 minutes (faster than
going by bus). Barry didn’t talk while we were on the way so
I looked at the people rushing from place to place on the
sidewalk. Ants, I thought. Rich ants. Poor ants. All ants.
Why did they do it? Because they needed something,
wanted something. Was that bad? It was bad if, like ants,
they couldn’t choose. It was bad if they did it because of
fear.
When we reached the garage, even though we were
early, the car was parked beside the office next to the
entrance. Barry paid the cab fare and I went into the office.
“I’m here. Thanks,” I told the guy sitting at the desk.
“Does your Aunt know you’re taking it?” he asked me.
“Yeah, she knows.”
“Okay,” he said. “Key’s in the ignition.”
I got in the car on the driver’s side and adjusted the
seat and the rear-view mirror while Barry put his briefcase on
the back seat and then got in the car next to me.

410
 “You won’t be back too late,” he said as I started the
engine, “but take your time coming in tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I said.
There was a lot of traffic, but I was able to drive fairly
fast once we reached the highway.
Barry looked at his watch.
“I have to be home soon for a camp thing,” he told
me. “They’re having some kind of talent show.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Little kids. Day camp, so they do it early. Screws up
the whole day.”
“Right,” I laughed.
“What deal are the documents for?” I asked him.
“Cluster housing. Next to the last one.”
“Who’s going to manage it?”
“Lester. He can do both.”
“I thought you were thinking of firing him.”
“I just like to bust his balls. I’d never fire him. He’s
my cousin.”
“He’s your cousin?”
“Yeah.”
“But he’s a lot older than you.”
“Yeah, he’s my older cousin.”
“I mean, does he mind that you boss him around?”
“I don’t know. He needs to eat so he better not mind
too much. He’s lucky he has the job.”
The train station was next to the highway. Barry told
me where he had parked his car and I stopped behind it. He
got out, left the passenger door open and took his briefcase
off the back seat. I expected him to hand me the manila
envelope, but instead he gripped the door, leaned forward
and looked at me, grinning.
“That’s it,” he said. “You can go back.”
“What? What do you mean?” I said, (like a dope).
“To the city?”

411
 “There’s no package,” he said still grinning, almost
laughing, “nothing to go to the insurance company.”
A boiling feeling began to surge through my body.
“What are you telling me Barry? That you just used
me to give you a ride home?”
“The trains are delayed. There was an accident and
Beth would be pissed if I was late.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you just tell me that and ask
for a ride?” I yelled at him through the doorway, my hands
strangling the steering wheel, my shoulders shaking.
“Don’t get all bent out of shape. It’s the same
difference.”
“No it isn’t asshole. The difference is I quit.”
“Oh, come on. Have a sense of humor.”
“You may think it’s funny, but I don’t. Close the
fucking door. I’ll pick up my stuff tomorrow.”
“Come on, don’t quit for a thing like this. You don’t
mean it.”
“Let go of the car door.”
“Take the day off. Think it over after you calm down.”
I took my foot off the brake and let the car roll, which
made him step backwards and pull the door nearly shut.
“Goodbye Barry,” I yelled and pressed my foot down
hard on the accelerator for a couple of seconds, then braked
and skidded to a stop. I reached to my right, slammed the
passenger door shut and accelerated again, making the tires
screech on the asphalt.
“I’m not fucking Lester you piece of shit,” I yelled at
the empty passenger seat. “You think that’s funny? To
screw someone that’s helping you? You think Lou will think
that’s funny. (What would he say?) Do you do shit like that
to Lou? Beth would be pissed; that’s your excuse? Oh,
Beth will be pissed so I’ll have to fuck you over.”
I entered the highway going very fast and started to
pass a tractor trailer that was in the middle lane, but as I
overtook it, I saw a police car next to it in the left lane and

412
quickly braked. I let the truck pass me, then gradually
moved behind it into the middle lane. I couldn’t see the cop
anymore; I was sure that he had gone around the truck to
catch me. Carefully, I steered into the left lane: no police
car. I sped up a little, passed the truck and moved into the
middle lane in front of it. A few seconds later, the cop
passed me, again in the left lane; he had chased me in a
circle around the tractor trailer without even seeing me.
I laughed like a maniac.
“Fuck you all,” I shouted. “Fuck every one of you.”
“Be careful you asshole,” I told myself.
I turned on the radio and kept changing the station
until I found one that played weird songs with lyrics in some
foreign language. Then I raised the volume until the sound
made my ears hurt and turned the radio off.
“She never uses the radio, asshole,” I reminded
myself.
Still, sometime she might. I lit a cigarette.
After returning the car to the garage, I walked back to
the apartment instead of taking a bus. The air was cooler
than it had been during the past week. The days were
getting shorter. The Fall was coming.
It was dark when I entered the building and unlocked
the apartment door. No sound came from the other side of
the wall.
“Maybe he’s killed her,” I said very quietly.
After turning on the light in the living room, I lit a
cigarette and stood looking at the telephone.
“This’ll be fun.”
I picked up the receiver and dialed her phone number.
“Hello-oh.”
“Hi,” I said. “I’m back.”
“That was quick. Is everything okay?”
“Well, I didn’t get killed or crash the car. Or get a
ticket.”
“I’m certainly glad to hear it,” she said.

413
 That was her being humorous.
“If you get a ticket or have an accident the insurance
will go up,” she told me.
“Well then I better get killed instead.”
“Don’t talk like that. It’s not funny. I’m glad everything
went well.”
“Not completely. I quit,” I told her.
“What do you mean, you quit? What are you talking
about?”
“I quit. Barry lied about having documents to go to
the insurance company.”
“And you quit your job?”
“Yes.”
“But why? Why would you do something like that?”
“He didn’t have anything to deliver. He lied to get me
to give him a ride home.”
“A ride home?”
“Barry asked me to drop him off because his house is
on the way to the insurance company, but there was nothing
to take to the insurance company. He just wanted a ride
home because the trains are delayed.”
“Oh! That’s terrible!”
“So I quit.”
“But isn’t there something else you can do? Do you
have to quit?”
“What else? I’m not working for him after that.”
“What will I tell Phyllis? Stan just helped get you that
job.”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do? You need a job. That
was such a wonderful opportunity. Can’t you think of some
other way?”
“There’s no other way. I’m not letting him do stuff like
that to me.”
“Well you could just tell him that.”
I didn’t answer.

414
 “What are you going to do? How are you going to
support yourself? I can’t support you.”
“I can drive a cab while I figure it out.”
“You’re going to be a cab driver? Is that the way you
plan on using your education? After all the wonderful
opportunities you’ve had, you’re going to drive a cab? How
are you going to support a wife?”
“I’m not talking about forever. I’m talking about until I
know what to do next.”
“I don’t know. That’s not safe. I don’t like that idea. I
don’t want you doing that.”
“It’s safe.”
“What am I going to tell people? A cab driver!”
“A lot of people drive cabs, a lot of students.”
“I’m sorry. I think you can find another way. I don’t
like this.”
“Well there is no other way.”
“Why don’t you think about it.”
“I’m going to go and find something to eat.”
“Please talk to your Father.”
“Okay. Bye.”



The late shift started at 4:00 in the afternoon. As day

drivers returned to the garage, their cabs were refueled and
parked in a line at the curb outside the entrance. The drivers
went into a small waiting room where a manager, who sat
behind a barred window in the wall, collected their money
and inspected their trip cards. After he had tallied the fares
and counted the cash, he reassigned the cars to waiting
drivers from the next shift.
Only one of the vets was in the waiting room when I
arrived: a guy who, like the others, had been drafted and
sent to the war after leaving school. He had just picked up a
trip card.

415
 “How ya doin, man?” he said to me when I walked
into the waiting room.
“Okay,” I said. “How’re you?”
“I’m good. See ya later?”
“Yeah, see ya later” I answered. “Have a good night,”
I waited at the end of a line of drivers to get my card.
While I waited, I watched the manager, who sucked on an
unlit cigar butt; he must have learned how to do his job by
watching people in the movies act like creeps.
“You have to tip him when you turn in the take or he’ll
make you wait till last and give you a shitty cab,” the vet told
me. “Give him five bucks.”
“You mean I have to pay him to let me work?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not bribing him. That’s not right.”
“You’re gonna be spending a lot of time standing here
if you don’t.”
“I don’t care. I’m not bribing that asshole.”
It took the manager less than a week to make me pay
him. Whenever I stood at the window, he smiled because he
had beaten me, shown me that I was just like the others (that
my principles were bullshit).
When I reached the front of the line, the manager
grinned and handed me a trip card and a car key. I went
outside and found the cab about fifty feet from the garage
entrance, opened the front door and, before getting in,
pressed my palm down on the driver’s seat. Fat asses
bouncing up and down on the seats day and night eventually
made the springs inside poke through the surface padding.
Even though I didn’t feel anything sharp, I took a folding
cushion out of the airline bag I carried, opened it and put it
on the seat. Then I sat on the cushion and shut the car
door. Once I was locked inside the cab, I took my change
dispenser out of the bag and slid its metal cleats into holes
that someone had made in the dashboard. I put the card on
my clipboard and wrote the car’s mileage on it with a pencil.

416
Then I took my transistor radio out of the bag, extended the
antenna and wedged its end under the window handle to the
right of the passenger seat. I slid my hack license, which
displayed my name, number and mug shot, into the holder
mounted on the front of the dashboard, wound the clock in
the meter, and, finally, started the car. It seemed to run
okay. I put it in-gear, steered it into the street and began to
drive towards the office buildings in the center of the city.
Before I had gone three blocks, I spotted a man in a
dark suit standing on the street side of the parked cars,
waving an arm in the air. I stopped the cab next to him and
unlocked the back door so he could get in.
“Hi,” I said. “Where can I take you?”
He wanted to go to an uptown address. As he closed
the door, I turned on the meter.
“I need to be there in less than 15 minutes,” he said.
“There’s gunna be a lot of traffic. I don’t think we can
get there in 15 minutes but I’ll try,” I told him.
“Just hurry up,” he said.
At the corner I began to make a left turn.
“Don’t turn,” he commanded.
“It’ll take longer if I go across here.”
“Go straight. I’ll tell you when to turn.”
“Okay,” I said. (“The traffic is your problem now,
asshole.”)
I drove across the intersection and another twenty
yards before I had to stop. The back of a van prevented me
from seeing the street ahead, but the traffic probably was
blocked by a double-parked delivery truck. While we waited,
I wrote the time and place where I had picked him up on the
trip card. I could hear him moving restlessly on the seat
behind me and, despite the fact that he had chosen the
route, my stomach muscles contracted and I tried (not) to will
the cab forward. As I looked at the back of the van, I
listened to the clock ticking in the meter and the crunching

417
sound of the fare changing. The longer we waited, the
quicker the minutes seemed to pass.
“Why don’t they make these damn trucks stay out of
here when people are trying to get places,” he said.
Finally, the traffic began to move. The cause of the
delay was a hole in the street made by repairmen from the
power company. I followed the van slowly past the hole to
the next intersection and, after several stops and starts, to
the one after that.
“Turn,” he commanded.
I turned left into an open lane, but had to stop at the
next intersection because of a red traffic light. Pedestrians
scurried across the avenue in front of the cab while cars and
trucks sped past them on the street. People seemed to
notice their surroundings only as obstacles, pursuing their
paths with mechanical determination. Did each of them think
that his was the only reality, the only right way to live?
I delivered the guy to his destination in just over 15
minutes. He paid me and gave me an average tip without
saying anything but, “here.” After he had gotten out of the
cab, I wrote the time, the address and the fare on the trip
card. Then I turned on the transistor radio; it was tuned to a
program about the war. I didn’t change the station; I just
adjusted the volume and the position of the antenna, lit a
cigarette and started driving back downtown.
Within less than a minute, I picked up two new
passengers in front of an apartment house: women who
wanted to go to a restaurant in a hotel south of the park.
“Please turn the radio off, driver,” one of the women
said to me and then, to her friend, “I haven’t had a chance to
ask you: how was the march?”
“The strike, you mean? It was very powerful. Very
powerful. I’m sorry you didn’t go.”
“I wish I could have, but I had so much to do. It said
in the paper that a lot of people went.”

418
 “Thousands. So many women that we blocked the
street.”
“Wonderful.”
“That many people supporting women’s rights have to
be heard.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of
sirens. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw two firetrucks
about a block behind me, so I slowed the cab, steered it to
the right and waited for them to pass. As soon as they had
gone by, I accelerated quickly back to the left and followed in
the empty space behind them, which let me go faster for
about half a block.
“Driver, do you think you can be a little more careful?”
one of the women said to me.
“I’m careful,” I answered. “There’s a lot of traffic.”
“That’s not what I mean. Please don’t go so fast.”
“Okay,” I agreed disingenuously.
After leaving them at the restaurant, I picked up a
man who wanted to be driven farther downtown. When he
told me the address, I realized that letting him in the cab had
been a stupid mistake.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Shure um fine,” he answered as he rocked from side
to side on the seat.
“Well, if you feel sick, let me know and I’ll pull over.”
“Um fine. Jus drive.”
I decided that I had no choice but to take him where
he wanted to go and hope that he didn’t vomit.
“Wha’re you? A hippy?” he asked me as if he were
accusing me of being mentally deficient.
“No, I don’t think so,” I answered.
“No? Don care abow peas n love?”
“Peace and love are better than war and hate,” I said
as pleasantly as I could, and didn’t add, “is that what you
like: war and hate?”
“Shure they are.”

419
 I looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror; why
hadn’t I noticed that there was something wrong with him
before I let him in the cab? His suit looked as if he had just
taken it out of a washing machine. What sort of work could
he do?
“I know wha yer doin. Ya thin yer som kina artis. Yer
a painer or ya wanna be a acter. Thas wah yuh are. Ya
wanna be a acter.”
“No,” I answered, hoping that he would stop talking
(and not puke on the seat).
I turned a corner and he fell sideways, hitting his head
against the window, but that didn’t seem to bother him. It
probably was his least useful body part. I was glad that he
didn’t break the window.
“Yeah. Yer pain the ren by drivin a cab n yer a acter
or a pote. Are you a pote?”
I didn’t answer.
“Ware ya go ta skool? Ya jus gradated frum colage
reye?”
“Yes.”
“Ware?”
I told him, thinking the name might shut him up, if he
recognized it.
“Hah. Thas a shit place,” he said. “Wha thay teesh
ya in tha shihole?”
“Most people think it’s pretty good.”
“Yeah? I plied ta be ryter in rezdense thair. Wha a
shihole.”
(“Are you shitting me?”)
“Guess you didn’t get the job, huh?” I said.
“Din wanna work ina shihole like tha.”
“Right.”
“So now yer drivn roun the city trian ta fine yerself.”
“Sure,” I told him.
He didn’t vomit on the seat and he paid the fare. After
I got rid of him, I ate two hotdogs that I bought from a street-

420
corner vendor. Then I continued meandering through the
city until almost two in the morning, at first in dense traffic
and later on empty avenues, smoking, listening to
passengers talk and to talk on the radio. Why hadn’t I told
that drunken prick that he should have been sober when he
had his job interview? (“It’s always like that. You think of
something to say when it’s too late.”)
Two vets were in the waiting room when I entered to
turn in my card and the cash, and to pay the manager. They
were wearing worn army field jackets with the insignia ripped
off. I was wearing a field jacket too, one I had bought at an
army-surplus store. Did they think that I was trying to imitate
them, that I was pretending to have been in the war? Some
of them seemed not to like me but I thought that was
because I hadn’t gone to a public school, which meant that I
was a rich kid, a snob. (Was I a snob?) Everybody wore
army-surplus stuff.
“You comin for a beer?” one of the vets asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just let me cash out.”
We walked several blocks to the east and then, after
a short wait, got on a nearly empty bus that sped uptown,
stopping only three or four times.
“How’d you do?” one of them asked me.
“Not bad. About fifty bucks. You?”
“Okay,” he answered. “About the same.”
“I got a ride off the clock and made an extra twenty,”
the other vet said.
“That’s great,” I said. “Where’d you go?”
“Near the airport. Then I picked up somebody at the
airport who wanted to go downtown, so I didn’t have a lot of
dead time. I only faked two fares.”
“Great night,” I said.
We got off the bus and walked farther east along
empty streets in the silent darkness. A trashcan was lying
on its side near the bar. We carefully stepped around the
spilled contents – used diapers, crushed cans, vegetables

421
coated with coffee grounds – while a chill wind blew soot and
the stink of sour milk and dog shit in our faces.
The bar was several steps below street level in a
brownstone building and had no sign advertising it to
passersby, except a neon light in the shape of a beer bottle
hanging behind a small window next to the door. How had
the vets found this place? Another driver was already inside,
sitting on a straight-backed wood chair at a table with a gray
imitation-marble plastic top. He was drinking beer from a
glass that looked like the ones for milk in the college dining
hall.
“Hi,” he said when he saw us.
“Hi,” each of us answered.
We sat at the table and the bartender brought us
three empty glasses and a pitcher of beer without being
asked or saying anything.
“I can pay tonight,” one of the vets said and put a five-
dollar bill on the table next to the pitcher.
I lit a cigarette.
“Can I have a smoke?” one of the vets asked me.
I passed around the cigarette pack and a book of
matches.
Three old men with short, gray hair and bulky bodies
sat at the bar separated from each other by empty stools.
These same men, and often a fourth, were there most nights
when we arrived, smoking cigarettes and drinking brandy. I
looked at their backs and at the bartender, then stared at the
room, a white rectangle with a linoleum floor and fluorescent
lights, while the vets talked quietly. There were some
framed black-and-white photographs of rural scenes hanging
on the walls; the people in the pictures looked as if they had
lived a hundred years in the past. Occasionally, the men at
the bar spoke in a guttural foreign language. Where were
they from? Did they work?
“What are all of you going to do when you’re done
driving?” I asked the vets, “I mean for a real job?”

422
 “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go for the fire department, or
maybe be a teacher,” one of them answered.
“Why not go to graduate school?” I asked him.
“Naw. My family doesn’t have that kind of money.
Maybe a teacher. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know – something.”
“Are you going to graduate school? You can afford
it.”
“Why do you say that?”
They laughed.
“If I can, then you can.”
“Naw.”
I turned my head and watched the bartender take a
bottle off the shelf and pour himself a drink. He and the men
at the bar had come to the city for what? Why had they left
the places where they were born? Coming here must have
been hard; it forced them to become different people. Had
that been a good thing? They had made a choice, gambled.
I doubted that there was anyone who could have saved them
if they had failed. Had they failed or succeeded?
“Hand me the pitcher,” one of the vets said. I looked
back towards the table, but he wasn’t speaking to me.
“The boats always dock at night,” another vet said.
“I got there at night. We stood on-deck, and watched
the muzzle flashes light up the trees. I was so scared I
almost shit in my pants. Guys were jumping overboard and
the MPs were picking them up in small boats.”
“Yeah, I thought about jumping. I thought if I jumped
they would throw me in the stockade and I would be safe,
but they send those guys out in the boonies first. Anyway,
the MPs beat the shit out of you in the stockade.”
“As soon as I got to camp the sergeant told me to go
up into one of the guard towers. He told me I’d better stay
awake because if I fell asleep they’d kill me first.”
“They send new guys so they don’t lose anybody they
know.”

423
 “There was an M-60 on a tripod up there, but the thing
was I didn’t know how it worked, so I just laid the ammo belt
over the gun and got down as low as I could and hoped
nothing happened.”
They stopped talking.
“Does it ever bother you that me and other people
didn’t have to go?” I asked.
The three of them laughed.
“The only thing that bothers me is that people who
didn’t have to go went anyway,” one of them answered.
I stayed at the bar for about an hour. Then I walked
back to the apartment, hoping that when I got there, the guy
on the other side of the wall wasn’t going berserk.



Kate’s wedding was at a country inn north of the city

in a town that seemed fifty years and fifty miles removed
from the city world. We arrived there in the late afternoon
the day before the ceremony. My Father left me at the place
where I was staying and, after putting my stuff in my room, I
walked to the inn.
When I got there, I stood just inside the front door, not
knowing what to do. The lobby had a slate floor and a low
ceiling supported by unpainted timber beams that must have
been shaped by a hand-held cutting tool. The place
reminded me of the hotel on the village green where I had
stayed with my Father the night before my college interview,
and while standing there I thought again of the other old
town, the one on a hillside by the shore, and of the ship
graveyard, the piers sagging under the waves, the decaying
boats charred by fire: black ships with broken masts
anchored in the dark harbor. Water splashed over the
gunnels. We would capsize or sink, fall into the freezing
water and drown …
“Hi!”

424
 I jumped a little and turned around; it was Kate.
“Hi,” I said and kissed her cheek
“You look like you’re thinking about something very
important.”
“No.” I laughed a little. “I was just wondering where I
should go. How are you?”
“We’re fine! Have you checked in yet?”
“I’m not staying here. I have a room somewhere
else.”
“Oh. Well, welcome anyway. Everyone is having
drinks. Why don’t you go inside?” She pointed past the
reception desk. “I’ll be back in a minute,”
“Okay. Thanks,” I said.
I walked through a rectangular opening at the end of
the lobby and down two steps into a sitting room furnished
with upholstered sofas and armchairs and with oriental rugs
that covered portions of a dark, wide-plank floor. Several fat
logs were burning in a stone fireplace that faced the
entrance. Firelight and dim yellow light from antique lamps
reflected off the polished wood furniture and silver trays of
hors d’oeuvres on tables beside the sofas and chairs.
Twenty or more people were there, drinking cocktails from
short, cut-crystal glasses or champagne from flutes. The
adults, some of whom I recognized, were wearing ties and
sport coats but I saw people from the college dressed in
jeans and sneakers, so I thought it was alright for me to be
there.
Aunt Joan was standing near the fireplace talking to
Mrs. Berkowitz; I walked across the room towards her.
“Don’t you say ‘hello’?” someone to my right said.
I turned my head and saw Aunt Doris sitting on a sofa
with Kate’s cousin, Jean. I stopped in front of them.
“Hello,” I said to Aunt Doris. “Hello, Jean, how are
you?”
“I’m fine,” said Aunt Doris.

425
 “How are you?” said Jean, smiling. “I haven’t seen
you in such a long time. That’s one of the best parts of
family events like this: everybody gets together.”
“It is,” I agreed, and stopped myself from also saying,
“at family events families do get together,” because Jean
was nice and, anyway, I knew what she meant.
“Have you said ‘hello’ to Aunt Joan and Uncle Phil
yet?” Aunt Doris asked me.
“No, I was going to do that just now.”
“How’s your room?”
“It’s fine.”
“I hope you’re comfortable there.”
“I’m comfortable. I mean there’s a bed and a
bathroom, so that’s all I need.”
“It isn’t too far from here, is it?”
“No,” I said, “it’s fine. Thanks.”
“Well go say ‘hello’.”
“Okay. See you later.”
I walked a few more steps across the room to where
Aunt Joan and Mrs. Berkowitz were standing.
“Hi,” I said. “Congratulations. This is really beautiful.
Hi Mrs. Berkowitz.”
“Well hello! I’m so glad you’re here,” Aunt Joan said,
squeezing my shoulders and kissing my cheek. “Have you
seen Kate and everybody?”
“I saw Kate in the lobby. She said she’d be right
back.”
“Oh, good.”
“Sorry I’m just wearing jeans. I haven’t had a chance
to change.” (Was that true?)
“Don’t worry. You look very handsome.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Aunt Doris isn’t too happy about my
hair,” I couldn’t help adding.
“Well it’s your hair and anyway it looks nice.”
“I think so too,” Mrs. Berkowitz said. “I wish I had hair
like that.”

426
 “Thanks.”
I smiled at both of them and wondered if Mrs.
Berkowitz meant to imply that I looked like a girl.
“Is your room okay?” Aunt Joan asked me.
“Oh sure – I mean, it’s not here and it’s a little weird
but it’s fine.”
“Oh. Are you far away?”
“No. Just a short walk.”
“Good. Why don’t you get a drink and have some
hors d’oeuvres? I’m sure you’re hungry. Go say ‘hi’ to your
friends.”
“Good idea. I will. See you later.”
I walked over to the bar, which was at one end of the
room between two French doors. Outside, there was a
flagstone patio, but the doors were shut because it was cold
now: the Fall. Several people from college were standing
nearby drinking beer.
“How ya doin?” I said to them.
“Good,” a couple of them answered. “How’re you?”
“Good,” I said.
They continued talking to each other and I didn’t try to
join their conversation. I knew them from school, but not
well. They were people from the football and baseball
teams, from another fraternity.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked me.
“Beer,” I said, even though in my second mind I
thought I wanted champagne.
“Should I leave it in the bottle?”
“Sure.”
He handed me an open beer bottle.
“Thanks,” I said.
I turned around and saw my Father and Uncle Phil
coming down the steps from the lobby, so I walked towards
them and met them by one of the hors d’oeuvres tables.
“Hi,” I said. “Congratulations, Uncle Phil. This is
really nice,” I said, shaking his hand.

427
 “Thanks, I hope you’re enjoying yourself,” he said. He
smiled.
“Where did you get the drink?” my Father asked me.
“Over there.” I pointed to the bar at the end of the
room. “Do you want me to get you something?”
“No, I’ll do it. Have you seen your Aunt?”
“Yeah. She’s sitting on the sofa near the fireplace, or
that’s where she was a few minutes ago.”
“Well, I think I’ll get a scotch. Phil?”
They walked to the bar. I stayed behind and
inspected the food on the table: a large glass platter of
shrimp arranged in concentric circles around a dish of
cocktail sauce. I put my beer bottle on the table and used a
silver fork to move three shrimp onto a plate from a stack
next to the platter. After doing that, I looked at the plate and
at the platter and at the plate again for several seconds.
Would it be alright to take more? I decided that one more
would be okay just as long as I didn’t walk around with too
much food on my plate. I picked another shrimp off the
platter with my fingers, dipped it in the cocktail sauce and ate
it. Then I spooned more sauce onto the plate and, before
looking to see if anyone was watching me, put another
shrimp from the platter into my mouth, grabbed the beer
bottle and walked (too quickly) towards the other end of the
room.
On a table against the wall opposite the bar, I found a
platter of little hotdogs in little hotdog buns. Beside it was
another platter of something wrapped in bacon. I took two of
those and three hotdogs, ate most of what was on my plate
and drank some beer. Beginning to feel relaxed, I started
moving in the direction of the fireplace because standing by
myself would make me look like a dweeb.
“We meet again.”
It was Doris. Would she complain that I was eating all
the hors d’oeuvres and not talking to anyone?
“What are you doing?” she asked me.

428
 “Just looking around.”
While I waited for her to say something else, it
occurred to me that I hadn’t seen my grandparents.
“Where are Grandma Kay and Grandpa Murry?” I
asked her.
“They’re staying home. Your Grandmother isn’t
feeling well.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“Just a cold. She wanted to make the trip, but I think
it’s better that they didn’t.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, so am I, but that’s just the way it is. Have you
gotten enough to eat?”
She looked at my plate.
“I’ve had some shrimp.”
“Well you should load up on food because I don’t
think you’re invited to the rehearsal dinner.”
She doesn’t think?
“That way you won’t need anything later.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay.”
I finished the beer and ate the rest of the stuff on my
plate. Then, deciding not to worry (“who gives a shit”), I
roamed around the room, eating deep-fried cheese balls,
prosciutto wrapped around little pieces of melon and ovals of
toasted bread covered with crab meat. I got rid of the plate
and just went from place to place picking stuff off the trays.
Nobody seemed to notice.
It wasn’t very long before the guests began to leave.
The people from college went to the wedding rehearsal with
Kate, her boyfriend and their families. My Father and Aunt
Doris went upstairs to get ready to go to the rehearsal
dinner. When the room was almost empty, the bartender
started taking away the glasses and liquor. Before he
finished, I asked him for another bottle of beer, unopened, so
I could carry it back to my room. He gave me one and I put
it in the pocket of my field jacket, then I left the inn.

429
 The room Aunt Doris had found for me was on the
second floor of a wood building that looked like someone’s
house and was only partly a hotel because there was a
police station on the first floor. A cold wind had started
blowing through the town; trying to be warm, I zipped my
jacket and pushed my hands into the pockets of my jeans,
then started walking there. After going several blocks past
old homes with deep porches and red-brick chimneys that
must have belonged to rich people from the city, I turned
right into a side street and went another block to the police
hotel.
The building had only one entrance; to get upstairs I
had to walk through the station waiting room and pass a
window at head-height that was covered by what looked like
bullet-proof glass. I waved at an officer sitting behind the
glass and pointed up to let him know where I was going. He
looked at me for a second without saying anything. “Wha’re
you? A hippy?” I just kept walking.
(“Why are you worried? He can’t arrest you for
having long hair.”)
(“They find a reason. They do what they want.”)
“Almost cut my hair,” I sang very softly as I climbed
the stairs to the second floor.
(“It definitely increases my paranoia.”)
My room was at the end of a short corridor lit by a
single lightbulb screwed into a white porcelain ceiling fixture.
I opened the door with a key like the ones in old movies,
then shut and double-locked it.
“You’re in a police station, you idiot.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
As I unzipped my field jacket, the beer bottle bumped
into the door frame and, hearing that, it occurred to me that I
didn’t have a bottle opener. I pulled the bottle out of my
pocket, put it on the bedside table and stared at it.
“Well, asshole, what are you going to do now?”

430
 While I thought about this, I lit a cigarette. Could I ask
the cop at the desk downstairs for a bottle opener?
(“Maybe he’d trade for a joint.”)
I laughed; I had no dope. It might be okay to ask, I
thought, but I had another idea. I picked up the beer bottle
and walked into the bathroom, where, beside the sink, an
opener was screwed to the wall. (“Just like in every other
old hotel.”)
After pissing in the toilet, I opened the bottle,
undressed, threw my clothes on a chair next to the window
and got into bed with all four pillows piled under my head.
It was dark outside and darker in the room. What
time was it? No time: the time didn’t matter. I had nowhere
to go and nothing to do until the next day. If I wanted to, I
could lie in bed until I had to get ready for the ceremony. I
stretched, drank some beer and smoked. The cigarette tip
made an orange glow in the darkness. Nobody would bother
me here; I could do what I wanted.
Minutes passed. The wind blew against the side of
the house. I finished the beer, lit another cigarette and
stared at the wall.
“Don’t fall asleep.”
I thought about that: the burning cinder at the end of
the cigarette touching the blanket, the blanket smoldering,
the room filling with greasy gray chemical smoke. Suddenly
the bed would explode in a carnival of flames, sucking up the
oxygen in my cell. Everything would burn: the carpet, the
furniture, the paint on the walls. The building would become
a tower of flame. I would burn, the cops would burn. After it
was over, the coroner would ask her to identify my body. I
would be lying on a steel tray in the morgue looking like a
baked apple. “That one’s him,” she would say, pointing at
my remains. “That other one must be some poor person he
killed. It’s so terrible. I feel horrible.”
“Fuck it.”

431
 I turned on the lamp beside the bed, picked up the
book that I had left earlier on the bedside table, and began to
read:

“The body that had been Weston’s threw up its

head and opened its mouth and gave a long
melancholy howl like a dog…”

Why did I like this? It was strange, weirdly repulsive.

“… the piece of ground on which the two men

stood and the woman lay was rushing down a
great hillside of water.”

Maybe repulsive, but I was attracted to it, almost hypnotized

by it.

“Ransom kept his eyes fixed upon the

enemy, but it took no notice of him. Its eyes
moved like the eyes of a living man but it was
hard to be sure what it was looking at…”

The emptiness was perfect, the banality.

“It did not even look in Ransom’s direction;

slowly and cumbrously, as if by some
machinery that needed oiling, it made its mouth
and lips pronounce his name.
“Ransom,” it said.
“Well?” said Ransom.
“Nothing,” said the Unman.
He shot an inquisitive glance at it. Was
the creature mad? But it looked, as before,
dead rather than mad, sitting there with the
head bowed and the mouth a little open, and

432
 some yellow dust from the moss settled in the
creases of its cheeks, and the legs crossed
tailor-wise, and the hands, with their long
metallic-looking nails, pressed flat together on
the ground before it. He dismissed the problem
from his mind and returned to his own un-
comfortable thoughts.
“Ransom,” it said again.
“What is it?” said Ransom sharply.
“Nothing,” it answered.
Again there was silence; and again, about a
minute later, the horrible mouth said:
“Ransom!”
This time he made no reply.
Another minute and it uttered his name
again; and then, like a minute gun, “Ransom...
Ransom... Ransom,” perhaps a hundred times.

It won’t ever let you alone. I put the book on the table
and turned off the light. Nothing, and then I opened my eyes
and it was morning.
The wedding ceremony was brief. After the reception,
I drove my Father and Doris back to the city.
“That’ll be you soon,” she said, being reassuring.
“Oh yeah?”
“It will be. You’ll see.”
We went over the bridge and past the old power
station. The front doors were open and I had a glimpse of
the generators inside.
“I need to tell you. Your Grandmother had to be
admitted to the hospital,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“She has pneumonia.”
“Will she be okay?”
“She’ll be okay. She needs antibiotics.”
“I’ll go see her tomorrow.”

433
 “No. She isn’t ready for visitors.”
“I could just say hello before work.”
“No. Not yet.”
I drove them home, left the car at the garage and
started walking to the apartment, carrying my valise. The air
was damp and cold and it began to rain a little. When I
arrived, I emptied the mailbox in the small vestibule. Usually
nothing interesting came in the mail, but as I unlocked the
front door I noticed an odd-shaped envelope among the
garbage delivered by the mailman and immediately had a
presentiment of doom.
Methodically, without looking at the letter, I closed and
locked the apartment door. I walked into the bedroom, put
the mail and my valise on the bed and hung my sport jacket
in the closet. I unpacked the valise, left my field jacket on a
chair and put my clothes in a laundry bag that was under the
dresser. I put the valise on the floor of the closet and closed
the closet door. Leaving the letter on the bed and the lights
off, I picked up the rest of the mail and dumped it in the
kitchen trash can. I took my toiletries to the bathroom and
used a towel to dry my face and hair. After doing all this, I
sat on the bed until it was almost completely dark. Then,
without looking at the return address on the envelope, I
opened the letter, an invitation to Ann’s engagement party.
Why had she invited me? Who’s idea was it to invite
me?
That’s just the way it is.
I wouldn’t think about it. What was the point? I had
known this would happen since the beginning.



Doris had told me she would have dinner waiting at

six o’clock. At about that time, I double-parked the cab
around the corner from the apartment and went upstairs.

434
 “Hello,” she said and kissed my cheek. “Are you
hungry?”
“Yes, very,” I answered.
“Well, I have a real nice dinner for you.”
“Great. Thanks,” I said.
I put my field jacket on the bench in the foyer (she
wouldn’t care), followed her to the kitchen and sat at the
table. It was set for one person and a plate covered with
aluminum foil was on the placemat. Underneath the foil, I
found a fat piece of meatloaf with gravy, a baked potato and
some peas.
“This looks great,” I said.
“I’ll get you some butter.”
She brought a bar of butter to the table on a small
plate. I slit the potato skin with a knife and pressed two
slices of butter into the potato, then began to eat.
“How is it,” she asked me.
“Really good,” I told her.
“I hope it’s still hot enough.”
“It’s fine.”
“Slow down. You act like you don’t eat anything when
you’re not here.”
“I eat.” (“Sort of.”)
“Kate’s wedding was lovely, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
I stopped eating, put salt and pepper on the potato
and then looked at her.
“How’s Grandma Kay?” I asked.
“She’s okay, but she isn’t ready to leave the hospital.”
“Can’t I go see her?”
“Not now. She doesn’t want any visitors right now.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t feel up to it.”
I ate several more forkfuls of food.
“When will she be ready to go home?”

435
 “I don’t know. The wedding was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
she said again. “Did you have a good time?”
“Uh huh.”
“Kate looked beautiful.”
I nodded.
“Well say something.”
“I’m eating,” I replied and then added with a hint of
humor, “you don’t want me to talk with my mouth full do
you?” Would she understand that?
“It must have been fun to see people from school.”
“Well, I don’t really know them.”
“No? I thought you did. Anyway, I enjoyed getting
away. Would you like more meatloaf?”
“Yes. Please. That would be good.”
She took my plate to the stove.
“Save some room for desert. There’s apple pie.”
“I will.”
“So what have you been doing with yourself since we
got back?”
“What do you mean?”
My insides clenched. Would she make me answer
questions about dates and jobs?
“Nothing much, really,” I said.
“Are you getting out at all?”
She returned the plate to the table and I ate a forkful
of meatloaf.
“Are you?” she said again.
“I was invited to Ann’s engagement party,” I
answered.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Ann is engaged. I was invited to the party,” she
made me repeat.
“Oh! That’s wonderful.”
I looked at her, then said, “Do you think I should go?”

436
 “Of course you’ll want to go. Congratulate her and
her parents for me. You’re not thinking of not going are
you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t you go? It’s very nice of
her to invite you. You’ve known her for years.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Have you seen any other of your friends?” she
asked.
(Other friends.)
“Not really. Nobody’s in the city. You mean from
college or school?”
“Anybody. What ever happened to that David
Levey?”
“He’s in law school.”
“In law school?”
“Yes. Didn’t his Mother tell you?”
“Well I never expected that.”
“He is.”
“Imagine. I remember having to grab him and hold
him against the wall to calm him down when he was little.”
I finished eating. She took the plate to the sink, then
went to the refrigerator and brought a piece of apple pie
back to the table.
“What about your friend who was in the army?
What’s his name?”
“You mean Dodson? He’s in the Marines.”
“Yes I think that’s the one. You don’t know anyone
who was in the war, though, do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“You do? But you don’t know anybody who was
hurt?”
“A couple got killed.” (“I suppose that might have hurt
a little.”)
“Really! Their poor parents. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. But Dodson’s okay.”

437
 She seemed to think for a second, then said, “What
about your other friend? The one whose Father is a
professor.”
“He’s fine.”
“Have you seen him? He’s a nice boy. I like him.”
“Once. He’s in graduate school.”
I finished the pie, drank some water and wiped my
mouth with a napkin.
“I guess you don’t have time for coffee,” she said.
“No. I should get back to work, but thanks a lot. This
was very good.”
I stood and picked up my plate, utensils and the glass
of water.
“Just leave that,” she said, “I’ll get it.”
“Oh, thank you. Well, I guess I’d better go.”
I walked to the foyer, took my field jacket off the
bench and opened the apartment door.
“Don’t you want to use the toilet?” she asked me.
“No. I’m okay,” I said
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry.”
“Well, be careful.”
“I will.”
She stood in the doorway while I waited for the
elevator.
“Stay out of bad neighborhoods.”
“Okay.”
I put on my jacket and listened to the sound of the
elevator motor and the twang of the cables.
“Say ‘hi’ to Grandma Kay for me,” I said. “Tell her I
hope she feels better soon.”
“I will. I love you. You really are wonderful.”
George opened the elevator door and, as I stepped
inside, I looked through the gap between the floor and the
elevator and tried to see into the dark shaft. He closed the
door and the gate, and we went down.

438
 The elevator could go down lower than the first floor
and lower than the basement. What lay beneath? Who
could find it out? The door to the floor below the basement
was made of thick unpainted wood boards. Behind the door,
the corridor was filled with the feeling of a beating heart.
“Goodnight, George,” I said when we reached the
lobby.
“Goodnight,” he said.
I left the building. While I was walking to the cab, a
cockroach ran across the sidewalk in front of me; I stopped
and watched it.
“Ooh, kill it!”
No, I don’t want to kill bugs.
“Better save yourself (Gregor),” I told the roach.
“Nobody else will help you.”



Time passed imperceptibly as I waited in the eternal

twilight of the apartment with the sound of emptiness ringing
in my ears and useless thoughts forcing themselves into my
mind. To suppress the noise, I put a record on the turntable
but the music didn’t change my thoughts and, while I
listened, the old war continued inside me.
“This won’t help, you idiot. ‘But I looked away…’ You
think that will help?”
Still, I listened. Why? (Because you want too.)
“Tried to make me understand…” It can’t happen; it’s
impossible. I couldn’t live that life. In the end, she would
hate me. “…came as no surprise to me…” What did you
expect? You always knew.
Time passed, I listened to the record again, and
eventually it was late enough to dress. First, I showered and
shaved carefully. After shaving, I dried and brushed my hair
until it looked right. Then I put on a pair of jeans, a
laundered, blue oxford-cloth shirt, brown dress shoes that

439
were buffed but not shiny, and my sport coat that had just
been dry-cleaned. I looked okay (but nobody cares).
When I was ready to leave, I stood in front of the stereo
unsure about what to do next, confused, while it played the
record for the third or fourth time: “…it’s all wrong, but it’s
alright…” Should I go? (She doesn’t want me there.) I
smoked a cigarette and stared at the turntable: “Each
memory that has left its trace with me.”
“It’s nothing,” I told myself, “just go.”
I switched off the stereo, put on an old trench coat and,
after looking through the peephole in the front door to be
sure that nobody was in the lobby, walked rapidly to the
street. Then, wanting to arrive late, I went slowly in the
direction of her apartment and immediately stopped seeing
my surroundings.
(“It’s nothing.”)
The air was cold and felt thick. I wandered the wrong
way for a while and had to turn back. Time passed. I
entered her building.
From the corridor, I could hear the sound of excited
conversation in her apartment. Her Mother opened the door.
“Hello.” she said indifferently [you no longer matter].
“Let me take your coat. Don’t hit your head on the
chandelier.”
She is happy; I know she is relieved (because it’s not
me).
The light is very bright, making it hard for me to see.
Ann and I shake hands loosely, she says ‘hi.’ Her hand
slips out of mine, she looks away and walks to the other end
of the room where there are hors d’oeuvres and drinks on a
table in front of the windows. She talks excitedly.
I know none of the guests. They are dressed in suits,
or sport clothes and wear ties. I see him near her: he has
short hair and wears well creased slacks, a sport jacket, a
starched dress shirt, a tie. Very neat. Assured and polite.

440
He is a perfect relic of a past decade. They will live like this,
here in the city.
Blandly, she introduces me to him. She must. He
hardly notices, turns to speak to other guests.
I watch Ann move, almost hop, from place to place.
She is being happy. I ignore this, refuse to acknowledge the
thought. (“This is good,” I tell myself forcefully.) This is what
she should have. He will take care of her. It’s the right
thing.
What should I do? I don’t move. She stays on the
other side of the room with him. What can I think about?
Not Grandma Kay; Grandma Kay is dead. I didn’t visit her.
(“That’s just the way it is: everyone dies, you’ll die too.”)
Your memory will fade away.
“Goodbye,” I tell Ann’s Mother. “Thanks for inviting me.
I have to go to work.”
“Goodbye,” she shakes my hand and smiles slightly.
The door closes behind me and then there is nothing.
I walk back to the apartment through thick gray air. A
car turns the corner in front of me; I see its tires pass my
toes. My body is too big.
(“Nobody gives a shit, asshole. It’s the right thing.
Forget it. Get some food.”)
There was a bakery nearby that sold day-old bread for
almost no money. I bought a loaf and took it back to the
apartment. When I got there, I undressed, put my clothes
away and sat on the sofa in my underwear, smoking and
eating pieces of bread that I broke from the loaf with my
fingers.
After I had been sitting for a while, the phone began to
ring: a piercing noise made more painful by the anticipation
of hearing it over and over again in the otherwise silent
room. Finally, I decided to answer, but I was too late: when I
picked up the receiver, I heard a dial tone.

441
 I lit a cigarette and stared at my bike. Was there a use
for it? No, buying it was a waste of money. What was the
point?
The phone rang again and I answered immediately so I
didn’t have to listen to its noise.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hi, how are you?” she said in a monotone that
conveyed a bad message I had received many times before.
“Fine,” I answered, hoping I was wrong and knowing I
wasn’t. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, I guess.”
“What are you doing?” I asked her, attempting to keep
the conversation pleasant.
“Well, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. What I’m
doing is wondering what’s happened to you.”
“Nothing’s happened to me. I told you, I’m fine.”
“Don’t be a smart Aleck,” she snarled. “Do you think
you could pick up the phone every once in a while and call
me?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. Let me call you tomorrow,” I
said, hopelessly and added the day’s useful lie, “I have to go
to work.”
“Is that what you call it?” She began to yell. “Honestly,
I don’t understand you. You have the best education that
money can buy and what do you do with it? You drive
around in a taxicab like a high-school dropout. Do you just
expect me to sit here and watch quietly without saying
anything? Are you waiting for the world to provide you a
living? Do you think that in a few years anyone is going to
be interested in a cab driver? Maybe you’re just expecting
me to support you for the rest of your life? That’s it, isn’t it?
I’ll tell you, you’ve always been lazy, just waiting for other
people to do everything for you. Well, I’ve got news for you
buster, I’m not standing for it anymore.”
“Okay,” I said, helplessly.

442
 “Okay? Okay? Is that all you have to say, you
ungrateful, rotten thing? You should be up looking for a job
instead of lying around all day like a bum.”
“I wasn’t lying around. I’m not lying around. I work at
night,” I pleaded.
“That doesn’t mean you should lounge around and
sleep all day. Get up and do something,” she shouted.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I’m getting ready to go to work,” I
lied again, beginning not to make sense (which she wouldn’t
notice).
“Remember me? I’m the person who put her whole life
aside to take care of you. You have a lot of nerve, mister.
When you’ve had a chance to think about this, I want you to
call and apologize to me. And I want you to do something
with yourself for a change.”
I heard the sound of her slamming the receiver onto the
cradle – and I breathed.
“Well, fuck you too,” I hissed. “Fuck you all. So which
is it? I don’t know because I’m stupid. Am I ungrateful,
wonderful, rotten or terrific? Am I lazy, a perfectionist or a
slob? Well, let’s see. I don’t close the closet door. My towel
isn’t folded the way God wants it to be folded. And, I didn’t
empty the dishwasher! So that settles it: I’m the worst
person in history.
Well, you know what? I don’t give a shit, so fuck you.
I’m a bad person and you’re the poor unfortunate,
unappreciated woman who got stuck with me and I know
everyone feels sorry for you because it’s your impossible job
to make me do the right thing – whatever that is – but you
know and you’re ready to tell me. Too bad I’m not a puppet
that you can use by sticking your hand up my ass.
“So, you are absolutely right as always! I should be
beaten. Someone should teach me a fucking lesson. I
should be killed.”
“Fuck,” I slammed my fist down on the sofa. “Stop.
Stop eating my brain. I can’t keep doing this.”

443
 Time passed and it became night so I got into bed,
wanting to be in the real dark, the deep dark where all the
noise would stop, but, despite craving oblivion, I continued my
apostrophe.
“Instead of driving strangers around the city, you should
be driving Barry home,” I said with mock sincerity. “You
should marry someone – Doris will be happy to pick – and
make money! Your wife can play cards and you can eat at
Jimmy’s. You’ll take the bus home every day and impress
people by writing things in the Shaw alphabet! It’ll be
great…”
After a while, maybe an hour or two hours, I slept.
Then the music started. “Well I followed her to the
station, with a suitcase in my hand…” It was very loud and I
woke, sweating, my heartbeat shaking my chest. It wasn’t
long before he began breaking things: something thudded
against the wall above my head and she started screaming.
“Bobby! Bobby don’t!”
(“Fucking hell. Kill her or kill yourself and get it over
with.”)
I pulled a pillow over my head, squeezed it against my
ears and remembered times I had seen them in the lobby.
Why did she want him? She was tall, beautiful. Once, she
had knocked on my door and, when I opened it, she asked
me if she could borrow my vacuum cleaner. She was
wearing a negligee.
(“Sorry, I don’t have a vacuum cleaner. Wish I did.
That sound you hear through the wall is a power saw; I do
surgery here to make some extra money. Don’t be alarmed
if you hear people screaming, it’s just my hobby. But while
you’re here, I wanted to ask you if Bobby has a gun that I
can borrow?”)
“Bobby, please. Stop it!”
Something banged against the wall and shattered.
“No,” I said, and again said, “no!”

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 I threw the covers off the bed, stood and dressed as
fast as I could, grabbed my field jacket and left the
apartment and the building, almost running.
“No. This is wrong.”
Without plan or destination, I rushed into the city night.
The sidewalks and streets were empty: no people, no cars.
The sky was pitch-black.
“Evil.”
Gusts of damp, freezing wind blew in my face; I went
faster, trying to make myself warm.
“I have to end this.”
After hurrying aimlessly for some time through narrow
streets past gray sooty buildings with blank windows and
black metal doors, I had to stop because my path was
blocked by the roadway on the riverbank. I stared across it
at the water, which looked like flowing lava.
“I have to leave here.”
A pedestrian bridge went over the road near where I
was standing and I crossed it. On the far side, along the top
of a sheer stone embankment, there was a walkway
bounded on the edge of the wall by a waist-high metal
railing. Standing at the railing, I looked over the brink and
stared at the moving water below. I watched the current
eddy and churn and breathed the smell of the nearby ocean.
“I have to leave this place.”
It had almost happened before. My Father took a towel
and began walking toward the water. I struggled to follow
him, my feet slipping, sinking into the hot sand. The surf
roared up the slope toward us.
“Are you ready?” he asked me. “Let’s go.”
He ran into the ocean as fast as he could and dove
under a wave.
A tugboat came into view, a neat newly painted vessel
riding swiftly on the current towards the sea. As I looked
down from the top of the wall, it approached where I stood
on the embankment and a door opened; light flooded the

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deck and a man strode through the doorway. Without
pausing to look around him, he closed the door and walked
forward to the wheelhouse (determined to be gone).
“Nobody will save you.”
“Why don’t you just jump in? It’s much easier,” my
Father shouted.
"Nobody else. So what are you? Decide because, if
not now, when? What is your real life?”
I leaned over the railing and tried to see the bottom of
the sheer stone façade where it touched the water. As my
body hung above the void, there was a sudden blast of
sound, the deep booming noise of a horn so loud that it
made the ground shake, my skin contract, the railing vibrate
painfully against my palms. I momentarily lost hold of the
metal, swayed over the giddy drop and saw myself fall,
flailing, turning in the air.

I crash through the surface into the underworld of

waters, tumble down, down into the deep, beyond sight,
sound and scent, severed and numb, there to remember the
world I am leaving, the things I have done and the people I
know. In this restless sea of dreams, weeds entwined about
my head, I drift at the base of mountains impelled by a
fathomless current until, at last, the past world is washed
away and I am released and let fall onto some distant shore
to begin anew.

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