three-car parking lot came on; Bobby and the girls grew sudden shadows much longer than they were.
“Why’d you do that, stupid old Bobby Garfield?” Dina asked. “They were pretty.”
“They’re bad luck,” Bobby said. “Why aren’t you at home?” Not that he didn’t have a good idea; it was flashing in their heads like the beer-signs in Spicer’s window.
“Mumma-Daddy havin a fight,” Dianne said. “She says he got a girlfriend.” She laughed and her sister joined in, but their eyes were frightened. They reminded Bobby of the littluns in
“Go home before it gets all the way dark,” he said.
“Mumma said stay out,” Dina told him.
“Then she’s stupid and so is your father. Go on!”
They exchanged a glance and Bobby understood that he had scared them even more. He didn’t care. He watched them grab their jump-ropes and go running up the hill. Five minutes later the cab he’d called pulled into the parking area beside the store, its head-lights fanning the gravel.
“Huh,” the cabbie said. “I dunno about taking any little kid to Bridgeport after dark, even if you do got the fare.”
“It’s okay,” Bobby said, getting in back. If the cabbie meant to throw him out now, he’d better have a crowbar in the trunk to do it with. “My grandfather will meet me.” But not at The Corner Pocket, Bobby had already decided; he wasn’t going to pull up to the place in a Checker. Someone might be watching for him. “At the Wo Fat Noodle Company. That’s on Narragansett Avenue.” The Corner Pocket was also on Narragansett. He hadn’t remembered the street-name but had found it easily enough in the Yellow Pages after calling the cab.
The driver had started to back out into the street. Now he paused again. “Nasty Gansett Street? Christ, that’s no part of town for a kid. Not even in broad daylight.”
“My grandfather’s meeting me,” Bobby repeated. “He said to tip you half a rock. You know, fifty cents.”
For a moment the cabbie teetered. Bobby tried to think of some other way to persuade him and couldn’t think of a thing. Then the cabbie sighed, dropped his flag, and got rolling. As they passed his building, Bobby looked to see if there were any lights on in their apartment. There weren’t, not yet. He sat back and waited for Har-wich to drop behind them.
The cabbie’s name was Roy DeLois, it was on his taxi- meter. He didn’t say a word on the ride to Bridgeport. He was sad because he’d had to take Pete to the vet and have him put down. Pete had been fourteen. That was old for a Collie. He had been Roy DeLois’s only real friend.
They passed The William Penn Grille. Bright light streamed from every window and the street was lined with cars on both sides for three blocks, but Bobby saw no crazy DeSotos or other cars that felt like thinly disguised living creatures. The backs of his eyes didn’t itch; there were no black threads.
The cab crossed the canal bridge and then they were down there. Loud Spanish-sounding music played from apartment houses with fire escapes zig-zagging up the sides like iron lightning. Clusters of young men with gleaming combed-back hair stood on some street-corners; clusters of laughing girls stood on others. When the Checker stopped at a red light, a brown-skinned man sauntered over, hips seeming to roll like oil in gabardine slacks that hung below the waist-band of his bright white underwear shorts, and offered to wash the cabbie’s windshield with a filthy rag he held. Roy DeLois shook his head curtly and squirted away the instant the light changed.
“Goddam spics,” he said. “They should be barred from the coun-try. Ain’t we got enough niggers of our own?”
Narragansett Street looked different at night—slightly scarier, slightly more fabulous as well. Locksmiths . . . check-cashing services . . . a couple of bars spilling out laughter and jukebox music and guys with beer bottles in their hands . . . ROD’S GUNS . . . and yes, just beyond Rod’s and next to the shop selling SPECIAL SOUVENIRS, the WO FATNOODLE CO. From here it couldn’t be more than four blocks to The Corner Pocket. It was only eight o’clock. Bobby was in plenty of time.
When Roy DeLois pulled up to the curb, there was eighty cents on his meter. Add in a fifty-cent tip and you were talking about a big hole in the old Bike Fund, but Bobby didn’t care. He was never going to make a big deal out of money the way
“I don’t like leaving you off here,” Roy DeLois said. “Where’s your grandpa?”
“Oh, he’ll be right along,” Bobby said, striving for a cheerful tone and almost making it. It was really amazing what you could do when your back was against the wall.
He held out the money. For a moment Roy DeLois hesitated instead of taking the dough; thought about driving him back to Spicer’s, but
Roy DeLois finally took the crumpled dollar and the trio of dimes. “This is really too much,” he said.
“My grandpa told me to never be stingy like some people are,” Bobby said, getting out of the cab. “Maybe you ought to get a new dog. You know, a puppy.”
Roy DeLois was maybe fifty, but surprise made him look much younger. “How . . .”
Then Bobby heard him decide he didn’t care how. Roy DeLois put his cab in gear and drove away, leaving Bobby in front of the Wo Fat Noodle Company.
He stood there until the cab’s taillights disappeared, then began walking slowly in the direction of The Corner Pocket, pausing long enough to look through the dusty window of SPECIAL SOUVENIRS.The bamboo blind was up but the only special souvenir on display was a ceramic ashtray in the shape of a toilet. There was a groove for a cig-arette in the seat. PARK YOUR BUTT was written on the tank. Bobby considered this quite witty but not much of a window display; he had sort of been hoping for items of a sexual nature. Especially now that the sun had gone
