“Go it Kid.”
“Go it Herfy.”
There’s a smell of blood in his nose and lungs; his breath rasps. A foot shoots out and trips him up.
“That’s enough, Herfy’s licked.”
“Girlboy … Girlboy.”
“But hell Freddy he had the Kid down.”
“Shut up, don’t make such a racket. … Old Hoppy’ll be coming up.”
“Just a little friendly bout, wasn’t it Herfy?”
“Get outa my room, all of you, all of you,” Jimmy screeches, tear-blinded, striking out with both arms.
“Crybaby … crybaby.”
He slams the door behind them, pushes the desk against it and crawls trembling into bed. He turns over on his face and lies squirming with shame, biting the pillow.
Jimmy stared through the tiny glitter of the dust on the windowpane.
Darling
Your poor mother was very unhappy when she finally put you on the train and went back to her big empty rooms at the hotel. Dear, I am very lonely without you. Do you know what I did? I got out all your toy soldiers, the ones that used to be in the taking of Port Arthur, and set them all out in battalions on the library shelf. Wasn’t that silly? Never mind dear, Christmas’ll soon come round and I’ll have my boy again. …
A crumpled face on a pillow; mother’s had a stroke and next week I’ll go back to school. Darkgrained skin growing flabby under her eyes, gray creeping up her brown hair. Mother never laughs. The stroke.
He turned back suddenly into the room, threw himself on the bed with a thin leather book in his hand. The surf thundered loud on the barrier reef. He didn’t need to read. Jack was swimming fast through the calm blue waters of the lagoon, stood in the sun on the yellow beach shaking the briny drops off him, opened his nostrils wide to the smell of breadfruit roasting beside his solitary campfire. Birds of bright plumage shrieked and tittered from the tall ferny tops of the coconut palms. The room was drowsy hot. Jimmy fell asleep. There was a strawberry lemon smell, a smell of pineapples on the deck and mother was there in a white suit and a dark man in a yachtingcap, and the sunlight rippled on the milkytall sails. Mother’s soft laugh rises into a shriek O‑o‑o‑ohee. A fly the size of a ferryboat walks towards them across the water, reaching out jagged crabclaws. “Yump Yimmy, yump; you can do it in two yumps,” the dark man yells in his ear. “But please I dont want to … I dont want to,” Jimmy whines. The dark man’s beating him, yump yump yump. … “Yes one moment. Who is it?”
Aunt Emily was at the door. “Why do you keep your door locked Jimmy. … I never allow James to lock his door.”
“I like it better that way, Aunt Emily.”
“Imagine a boy asleep this time of the afternoon.”
“I was reading The Coral Island and I fell asleep.” Jimmy was blushing.
“All right. Come along. Miss Billings said not to stop by mother’s room. She’s asleep.”
They were in the narrow elevator that smelled of castor oil; the colored boy grinned at Jimmy.
“What did the doctor say Aunt Emily?”
“Everything’s going as well as could be expected. … But you mustn’t worry about that. This evening you must have a real good time with your little cousins. … You dont see enough children of your own age Jimmy.”
They were walking towards the river leaning into a gritty wind that swirled up the street cast out of iron under a dark silvershot sky.
“I guess you’ll be glad to get back to school, James.”
“Yes Aunt Emily.”
“A boy’s school days are the happiest time in his life. You must be sure to write your mother once a week at least James. … You are all she has now. … Miss Billings and I will keep you informed.”
“Yes Aunt Emily.”
“And James I want you to know my James better. He’s the same age you are, only perhaps a little more developed and all that, and you ought to be good friends. … I wish Lily had sent you to Hotchkiss too.”
“Yes Aunt Emily.”
There were pillars of pink marble in the lower hall of Aunt Emily’s apartmenthouse and the elevatorboy wore a chocolate livery with brass buttons and the elevator was square and decorated with mirrors. Aunt Emily stopped before a wide red mahogany door on the seventh floor and fumbled in her purse for her key. At the end of the hall was a leaded window through which you could see the Hudson and steamboats and tall trees of smoke rising against the yellow sunset from the yards along the river. When Aunt Emily got the door open they heard the piano. “That’s Maisie doing her practicing.” In the room where the piano was the rug was thick and mossy, the wallpaper was yellow with silveryshiny roses between the cream woodwork and the gold frames of oilpaintings of woods and people in a gondola and a fat cardinal drinking. Maisie tossed the pigtails off her shoulders as she jumped off the pianostool. She had a round creamy face and a slight pugnose. The metronome went on ticking.
“Hello James,” she said after she had tilted her mouth up to her mother’s to be kissed. “I’m awfully sorry poor Aunt Lily’s so sick.”
“Arent you going to kiss your cousin, James?” said Aunt Emily.
Jimmy shambled up to Maisie and pushed his face against hers.
“That’s a funny kind of a kiss,” said Maisie.
“Well you two children can keep each other company till dinner.” Aunt Emily rustled through the blue velvet curtains into the next room.
“We wont be able to go on calling you James.” After she had stopped the metronome, Maisie stood staring with serious brown eyes at her cousin. “There cant be two Jameses can there?”
“Mother calls me Jimmy.”
“Jimmy’s a kinder common name, but I guess it’ll have to do till we can think of
