by David Rhodes
“Well, I don’t know,” said Al.
“You’re both chicken,” said Earl. “You’re yellow.”
This taunt, which by itself has probably been responsible for more misdeeds among young people than any other, cut them to the quick. It’s a wicked threat, one which almost anyone can wield with the same weight, one which is secretly used against oneself with terrible consequences. Its seriousness can never be overlooked—the weapon of self-destruction, yet the foundation of noble action.
“He should have to go out and get his own corner,” said Marty.
“We won’t hurt his cat,” said Al, as though complimenting their higher motives.
The next morning at the pickup place, July in his usual morning grogginess didn’t have any reason to expect that it would be different from any other Tuesday. There was a heavy overcast, and with melted snow on the street, his cat had gone back down beneath the platform. The sun was just beginning to come up and the streets and buildings were either gray or blue. He carried his bundles off a little way from the rest, cut one open with his knife and stuffed the papers into his carrier bag. Then, picking up the other by the strings, he set off for Pine Street, every once in a while taking a paper in to a shop owner just opening up.
It was a good morning. The paper he carried made it seem like any minute the secret Communists in the country would make their play. “Commies arrested,” shouted July, and stood back, making change as fast as he could with both hands while they grabbed papers from the stack on the sidewalk and talked quietly, seriously among themselves—not wanting to jolt the lull of the morning. He went two blocks more, over to 14th Street, and sold all the papers from the first bundle. Then he hurried up to Broad Street in case Billy Casey wouldn’t have come out today. He hadn’t, and July rushed over and stood where Billy would have stood if he hadn’t been drinking and sleeping through the alarm clock, on a corner where he could go out into the street if need be and hit everyone for four blocks west of City Hall who was heading over there to get on the L or the Crosstown or the Frankford.
When, about nine thirty, he’d sold all but a dozen papers he went to breakfast. In the diner he sold two more to Mac Shempt and Morris Walter, the two policemen who had long ago carried the angry girl from the open diner on 15th Street. As he chewed his toast he saw Earl Schmidt across the street, but thought nothing of it.
“Hello, July,” said a voice beside him and he turned back to the counter just as a man he recognized sat down. He wore a suit, and clean, pressed white cuffs reached out over his thick wrists. The wedding ring on his left hand was studded with jewels. His smart overcoat hung next to the door. With a quick second-thought movement as natural as blinking, he reached down with a paper napkin from the dispenser and rubbed away a spot of soiled water on his pants leg and tossed it on the floor just as the waiter arrived. The slight fragrance of the cologne added just that final touch to the almost too pure smell of cleanliness. It was in this man’s character to be completely at home in a diner of the kind July frequented to save money, without compromising either his opinion of himself or his mannerisms. His hair was thin and beginning to gray, yet his face was clearly too heavy and firm to be very far into its fifties. His eyes were solemn, but his large hands, which seemed always to be moving and gesturing as he talked, could only be remembered as jovial.
“Scrambled eggs,” he said. “Three of them, mixed with cream, four pieces of toast, sausage, a large glass of orange juice, tea with lemon, and while I wait I’ll have a roll—that one there, in fact,” and he pointed inside the display case to a jam-filled pastry which made July’s mouth water though he’d already finished eating his full meal. “Oh, yes, and get this fellow anything he wants.”
Behind the counter, Dwane Burt was pulling out a roll and at the same time trying to gather up the old plates, napkins, water glasses and ketchup bottles that the big man kept shoving over to clear everything away from the counter in front of him.
“Nothing for me, Dwane,” said July.
The man frowned and looked petulantly at the roll, then at July. “Give that one to July,” he said. “It looks a little pale outside the case. I’ll have the one in the corner. No—the other one.”
“Thanks,” said July.
“People have to eat,” he said, and in an aside to the waiter added a half-portion of hash browns and ketchup to be set beside the scrambled eggs.
“OK, Mr. Carroll,” said Dwane, and went away into the kitchen.
“Your cat . . . Where’s your cat? Bring him in here and we’ll get him some cream. What’s his name, anyway?”
“Bu-u-tch,” said July, his mouth full.
“An appropriate name, if I do say so. Where is he, did you say? Outside? Bring him in by all means. Wait—Dwane will bring him in. That was certainly a good roll—how about another?” July’s was not yet half finished. “Of course, mouth too dry. Dwane! Hey, Dwane!” Dwane stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Something to drink here. What will it be? Chocolate milk by all means. A glass of chocolate milk . . . two glasses! And another roll if you please—the same kind.” Everyone else in the diner was looking at them, but he seemed not to notice and went on waving his fork and talking.
“It was too wet for him,” said July when he got a chance. “He doesn’t like to get wet, so he stayed home.”
“Home,” said Carroll. “And where’s home? That is, where do you live? Perhaps I know some people in your neighborhood. I know thousands of people, or at least they know me. It’s a pity your cat isn’t here. I like animals, and would have a hundred myself if Rose wasn’t allergic to them. They make her sneeze, don’t you know. Very curious. So where do you live?”
“Oh, clear over on the south side,” said July, as he’d learned to say whenever he was asked, unless, that is, he was on the south side (which he rarely was), when he’d answer something different. Carroll’s food arrived and was set before him steaming up from the plate. With the fork he’d been holding ever since it was put in front of him, he dove into the eggs and potatoes, taking two bites of toast for every one of anything else, complaining, “Toast must be eaten quickly. Darn stuff gets cold too fast.” Between mouthfuls, when his fork was empty, he would wave it around in small circles. He continued: “The south side. I know that neighborhood. What street do you live on? Parnassus, perhaps. Say, we need some more food here. Dwane! What’ll it be? Oh, never mind, waffles then. Waffles, Dwane, two plates. Hurry! So I was saying, what street was that you said?”
“Parnassus.”
“Here, have some of this toast. It’s beginning to get cold. Take the jelly too. I detest these little packages. Who wants to take the time to open them?” He shoved two pieces of toast over at July, and six packages of grape jelly. “Parnassus, huh? What block?”
“Sixteenth.”
“Parnassus doesn’t have a sixteenth block,” he said, swinging the fork. “Therefore, you’re lying. Take my advice, never lie unless you know it can’t be found out. Otherwise, tell ’em the truth or clam up. Where’re the waffles anyway? Don’t use a spoon to spread jelly. My God! Here, Dwane, bring a clean knife. Heavens. And tea. Do you like tea?”
“No,” said July.
“You’ll grow into it. Excuse me, these sausages are getting cold.” He forked them in separately, chewing each about four times before swallowing. July couldn’t help but feel a little smug sitting there next to him, thinking everyone’s eyes were on them, and that he must be quite a fellow to have such an opulent friend. The waffles arrived. Mr. Carroll deftly flopped two of them over onto the second plate and set it before July. The syrup arrived in a glass pitcher with a flat metal finger which kept it closed when not in use. More milk arrived in Dixie cups. July began pouring the syrup.
“No, wait!” exclaimed Mr. Carroll. “Butter first. Always butter first—tastes too dry without it. Here, take these.” He slid over a handful of butter pats. “Dwane, bring some more butter, please. It’s a shame your cat isn’t here. Anything interes
ting in the paper?”
“Commies arrested,” said July.
“In other words, you don’t know.”
“I never read them,” said July. Then shoved his mouth full again. He wasn’t really hungry, yet the idea of something free, the tiny hunger that he did have, the taste of the syrup and a desire to be able to keep up with Mr. Carroll kept him at it.
“I never read them either when I sold papers: just look at the headlines and get an idea of what the first-page features are about. That’s all you need. Then I got a job digging ditches. Here, look.” He put down his fork, wiped off his hands with two napkins, pushed his sleeve back several inches and held out his hands and wrists for July to inspect. “See, the left arm is bigger, hand and everything. Comes from digging ditches. Everyone told me then, ‘Hey, Frank, don’t dig ditches. Let’s go to the tavern. Let’s go get some girls. Working’s for clods. Let’s go down to Atlantic City.’ But they did and I didn’t, and sometimes when they’d see me down in some ditch they’d holler, ‘Keep it up, chump.’ But after I had earned the money I wanted, I quit and went into business. The first years were hard and nobody knew me ‘cause I had my nose to the grindstone all the time and hardly ever came out of the store. But I stuck it out. Everyone said, ‘There’s no money to be made in selling furniture—like yesterday’s newspaper.’ But now they look at me and what do they see?”
July looked at him with his mouth full, and lifted his eyebrows a little.
“They see this suit, worth over three hundred dollars. They see my house and my wife—Miss New Jersey, 1936. They see, in short, what they wanted to be but didn’t have the stamina to work for. Dwane, cream for this tea, please.”
July glanced outside and saw Earl Schmidt still standing across the street. He didn’t think anything of it.
“What does your father do?”
July had learned to avoid telling anyone about his parents being dead, because every time he did the person he was talking to would retreat as if in revulsion. But he had a strong desire to tell Carroll, and also a slight fear that if he said his father was a worker in the General Electric factory, Carroll would twirl his fork, looking up to the ceiling, and say, “Montgomery, Montgomery in the factory, let me see. Montgomery—no, I don’t believe so. You must be lying again. There’s no Montgomery there. In fact, no one whose name even begins with an mo. You’re lying again. Very stupid.”
“My father was a mechanic and welder,” said July. “He had his own garage bigger than four of these rooms. My mother was so beautiful that men used to sit all afternoon outside the garage just hoping they might be able to see her.” Tears had formed in his eyes, and he blushed. Carroll’s hands stopped moving and he turned and stared at him, almost frowning. At first July couldn’t look back.
“Look,” said Carroll softly, but very firmly, “some things you have to learn to keep to yourself after you get older—things that are better left unsaid. But just between the two of us, everything I have—all of it—I’d turn over at the drop of a hat for a chance to see my folks again, just to see them setting the table in our kitchen and have Mom scolding him for not wanting to use the matched silverware unless we had company. Any of us would. But it can’t be done—not in this life at least; so the only thing we can do is make the most of it we can, without them. Let’s get out of here.” He took out his billfold, and without hesitating over the bills—as though he’d decided the day before yesterday what he was going to take out—he plucked up a five and laid it on the counter.
They walked down to the corner together and then parted ways. Just before he got into his car Franklin Carroll said, “Say, that kid over there across the street isn’t following you, is he?”
“No,” said July. “At least, I don’t think so—or if he is I have no idea why.”
“Ugly-looking kid just the same. Say, next week. What do you say about eating here again? Same time. And bring your cat . . . Butch. Yes, bring Butch.”
“We’ll see,” said July. “But thanks.”
“Phooey.” The door slammed and the Cadillac pulled out into the traffic lane and bullied its way down the street by means of its two chrome bullet-shaped bumper extensions.
July went toward Rittenhouse Square, as good a place as any to come upon late risers—people who didn’t have to work and at about ten thirty would come wandering out of their apartment buildings slightly inebriated and hoping the day would get over with quickly. These people, if you could get close to them and talk softly, would usually buy a paper if for no other reason than to have the human experience of placing a dime in a warm hand and getting something in return. July sold out there, and began walking on Spruce toward a neighborhood grocery store where cat food was cheap. He was thinking about Mr. Carroll.
Passing Jack’s Place, he was thrown bodily into a small alleyway by unseen hands which had grabbed him from the back. Without turning around, he ran, hearing two or three pairs of feet behind him. “Get him! Get him!” Directly ahead was a wooden wall eight feet tall. It occurred to him that he was trapped, but he was too afraid to accept it and only slowed down enough to bring his movements more under his control, as though he intended running on through the oak boards. Using his speed as a lever, he jumped against the surface of the wall as though there were a ledge to support him, grabbed hold of the top and scrambled over, never seeing who it was behind him, and lit out for home.
“Did you see that!” exclaimed Al, looking up at the wall. “He just went right over it. How’d he do it?”
“Easy,” said Earl, walking back and forth, smacking his fists together. “He used his momentum for a lift up.” He kept pacing back and forth, muttering loudly. “He’s had military training. That’s an old Marine trick. We simply didn’t realize what we were up against. Don’t worry, we’ll get him—now that we know what kind of intelligence we have to cope with. We may be forced to carry weapons.”
“Do you really think he’s had military training?” asked Marty.
“No doubt about it. Marines. He’ll be tough to take. Most likely he’s had ‘touch kill’ training as well.”
“Touch kill!”
“That’s a special hands-and-feet combat fighting. Very deadly. Worse than karate.”
“Really?”
“Sure, much worse. But don’t worry, I know the technique of it, and though very deadly, it’s useless against a front-on upward thrust attack—like a fast uppercut or knee. But it might be good to carry weapons, just in case. Maybe he’s got a shiv and knows how to use it. Anyway, I’ve got a plan.”
“Beat it, boys, that’s a private yard,” came a man’s voice from above, and they ran back out onto the street.
By the time July got back to City Hall he’d calmed down pretty much, and was maybe even a little exhilarated at having gotten away so easily. But he was frightened as well. Once on the landing of the L he’d seen a mugging, in which two younger men had put a strangle hold on someone and taken his money. In Fairmount he’d seen two guys fighting with chains and automobile aerials. And once right in front of the pizza shop on Market a man had pulled a black taxi driver out of his car and beat him with a piece of pipe. But despite this, he’d convinced himself that nothing was liable to happen to him because he was only twelve. Now he knew that wasn’t true. He wasn’t safe. Someone—more than one—had tried to mug him. It was the only explanation he could imagine. He thought of the voice: “Get him! Get him!” and shuddered.
“Somebody tried to mug me,” he told Charlie in the change booth. But he noticed, sadly, that Charlie was drunk.
“What’d ya expect?” came yamming out of the cage. “Just what the hell’d ya expect? Who said you’d be safe—walking around like some street urchin? The police, now, tell the police. Ha! You know what they do when someone calls in to complain of being robbed or for murder? Someone like you or me? They tell ya to stuff it.”
“I’ve got to hurry,” said July. “Thanks for the dollars.”
“It’s people like us
who haven’t got a chance. They make it so whatever we do there’s always ...”
July walked away. It took him nearly a half-hour of waiting around before he got the chance to get back underneath the platform to his cement room. As soon as he was out of the light and into the darkness he felt a peacefulness overtake him. He knew he was safe.
He closed the door carefully and lit his lamp. Butch’s eyes were green inside his box. He carried the light back and sat down. “Someone tried to mug me today as I was going after cat food,” he said. Butch came out and jumped up on him. “How would you like to be mugged, huh? Answer me that. ‘Pull over there, cat. Your money or your life.’ How would you like it?” Butch sat on his leg and looked at him as though he would neither like nor dislike it—just that it would be beneath him.
Later that night July went out and bought a hamburger and french fries to go, with an extra helping of ketchup to dip the ends of the fries in, and a small cup of milk with a lid, which was put into the white paper sack along with the rest so that it would lose its chill before he got back. He went to the bathroom in City Hall for what he hoped would be the last time that night and went down to his room and ate dinner with his cat, who patiently lapped up the warm milk with his small sandpaper tongue.
The following morning, upon waking up, he felt sure that the experience of the day before was behind him. The memory of the voice—“Get him! Get him!”—was like something out of a dream and had no more right to his conscious attention than did any other blurb from a nightmare. He gave Butch the last ten swallows of milk, wound his alarm clock and mentally said good morning to all of his pictures while he dressed. No matter how cold it was up on the street, it was never less than about forty-five degrees in his room. Butch was reluctant, but with coaxing was talked into joining him. They were a little late in getting to the pickup. Most of the boys had already left. It was mid-March and the days were becoming noticeably longer and less mean. On a clear morning like this one the sun seemed to be up a whole hour earlier than just a month ago. Earl Schmidt, Al and another boy were the only ones still there and were talking quietly together. July had an urge to go up and tell them of how he’d almost been mugged the day before, but they obviously were talking privately and looked as though they wouldn’t like being disturbed. He picked up his two bundles, carried them aside and cut one open.
