Hot Night in the City

in the dramatic last scene of the Foreign Legion game, if those idiots hadn't shut off the water!

'My goodness, you were thirsty. Want some more?'

'No, thank you.' It was hard to remember to be rude.

'You're sure?'

She sat across from me at the little table set for two. 'Here, before I forget it.' She placed a nickel beside my napkin.

'No, I don't want it,' I said, pushing it back to her.

She cocked her head. 'Don't try to tell me that a little boy can't find something to do with a nickel.'

'No, my mother said I wasn't to take money from you unless I did an errand or something in return.'

'Oh, I see. Well... you just put the nickel in your pocket.'

'No, I don't want it.'

'Now, you just keep it until I think of something you can do later.' She pushed the nickel back to me.

I didn't touch it.

She held out the plate of cookies to me, and I lowered my head and stared at the tabletop. Finally she put one on my plate. I didn't look at it.

'Would you like to wash up, John-Luke?' she asked.

'Only my mother calls me that.'

'What?'

'Only my mother calls me that.'

'Oh... I'm sorry. I... Well, would you like to wash up? You look a little... dusty.' She smiled sweetly.

I touched my forehead and felt the grit of the sand through which I had crawled all the way back to Sidi-bel- Abbes. Having someone who wasn't my mother tell me that my face was dirty embarrassed me intensely— something left over from the time two young, syrup-voiced social workers swooped down on our apartment to see if my mother was taking proper care of us. They asked Anne-Marie and me if any men had been sleeping at our house, and one of them made me stand in front of her while she checked my hair for nits. I was so outraged that I snatched my head away from her and told her to go to hell, and the two do-gooders made little popping sounds of surprise and indignation and said they'd never seen such a badly brought up child. After they left, Mother told me that I had to be polite to social workers, or they'd write up a bad report, and the three of us would have to run away to avoid their taking us kids away from her. So it was all right for her to lose her temper and give social workers hell, but I couldn't do it. Was that it?

I got up and went over to the McGivney's kitchen sink. In the little mirror over it, I could see that my face was dirty and streaked with rivulets of sweat. I was embarrassed, so I snatched the faucet on angrily, and the water came squirting out of a little flexible thing at the end of the spigot and splashed onto my pants, making it look as though I had pissed myself, and then I was really embarrassed. To cover my discomfiture I quickly soaped up my hands and scrubbed my face hard, then I splashed water into my face, but I couldn't find anything to wipe it on, so I just stood there at the sink, dripping, the soap stinging my eyes, like some sort of helpless thing. Like her husband. Jeez!

Then I felt her press a towel into my hand. I scrubbed my face dry and sat back at the table, hard, very angry.

'You're not going to eat your cookie, John-Luke?'

'I don't want it.'

'Suit yourself. But they're sugar cookies. Your favorites.'

'Oatmeal cookies are my favorites. The kind my mother makes.'

'...Oh.' There was hurt in her voice. 'I just thought you might be hungry.'

'My mother feeds us real well.'

'I didn't mean to suggest... I'm sure she does.'

Actually, I was still thirsty enough to down that milk in two glugs, but I sat there in silence, frowning down at the little embroidered tablecloth I supposed she had put on just for me.

She made a little sound in the back of her throat, then she said, 'Poor boy: You're unhappy, aren't you.'

'No, I'm just... awful busy.' I meant, of course, with my games, trying to get my fill of games before school started and I became two digits old and had to start looking for work, but she took it a different way.

'Yes, I was talking to Mr Kane, and he told me how you're always doing odd jobs to help your mother out. She must be very proud to have a good boy like you.'

I said nothing.

'I hope you don't mind if I ask, but... your father, John-Luke. Is he dead?'

I don't know what made me say what I said then. A desire to shock her, I guess. 'No, he's not dead. He's in prison.' It would be more than twenty years before I discovered that I had unknowingly told her a truth that my mother had kept from us.

She drew a quick breath. 'Oh! Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. I was just... oh, that's too bad. You poor boy.' She reached towards me, but I twisted away.

'No, we're proud of him! They put him in prison because he was a spy against the Redcoats! They're going to hang him next month, but he doesn't care. He's only sorry that he has but one life to give for his country!'

'...Wh... what?'

'Look, I'm going home.' I started to rise.

'No, please don't go.' She stood up and hugged me to her. I turned my head aside, so as not to have my nose buried in her soft stomach. 'You poor, poor boy. You've had lots of troubles and worries in your young life, haven't you? No wonder you're all nervous and worked up. But I know what will calm you and make you feel better.' She opened a drawer and took out the brush that had white hairs trailing from the bristles, her crazy husband's hair, and she started towards me. I jumped up, snatched the door open, and plunged clattering down the stairs, the stair rail squeaking through my gripping hand.

By the Labor Day weekend that marked the beginning of school, I had squeezed the last drops of adventure and danger out of that summer's game of single-handedly defending Pearl Street and, by extension, the world from Nazi invasion. As a sort of farewell tour, I was mopping up the last of the Strong Troopers at the end of our back alley, where I had not been since the day I had fled down Mrs McGivney's stairs to avoid the touch of that repulsive hairbrush, the squeaking handrail rubbing the skin off the web between my thumb and forefinger and leaving a scab that took forever to heal because I kept popping it open by spreading my hand too widely: a child's curious fascination with pain.

Wounded though I was in both legs, one shoulder, and the web between my thumb and first finger, I managed to crawl from the shelter of one stable doorway to the next, making the sound of ricocheting bullets by following a guttural krookh with a dying cheeooo through my teeth, as Nazi bullets splintered the wood close beside my head with a tap-tap-tap sound of a coin against glass— what? I almost looked up, but I converted the glance into a frowning examination of the space around me, searching for snipers, as I didn't want her to know I had heard her summons. Satisfied that there were no Nazi snipers on the rooftops, I made an intense mime of drawing a map on the ground. Again she tapped her three urgent taps, and I could imagine her looking down on me. I hunched more tightly over my map. She tapped again, but this time there were only two clicks, then she stopped short. That missing click told me that she suddenly knew I could hear her, and I was ignoring her on purpose. I kept my head down, knowing that if I looked up I would see her there, her eyes full of sadness and recrimination.

Miserable, and angry for being made to feel miserable, I pretended to see an enemy soldier down the alley. I shot at him with my finger then ran off in pursuit until I was out of Mrs McGivney's sight.

For the rest of the time we lived on Pearl Street, I kept out of the back alley that had been the principal arena for my story games. A couple of times I caught a glimpse of Mrs McGivney scuttling across to Mr Kane's late in the evening, but I always avoided her. I never saw her hero husband again.

That next week I went back to school: a new grade, a new teacher, a tough old overdressed orange-haired bird of the no-charm, no-nonsense school who saw through the indifferent, wise-guy posturing I had assumed for self-defense. She arranged for me to take a series of IQ and aptitude tests that led to special tutoring and, in time, to a pattern of scholarships and an academic career that eventually carried us out of Pearl Street. My mother's ship came in at last.

I am now considerably older than Mrs McGivney was when I first responded to the rap of her nickel against