A Diet of Treacle Read Free Page A

things the least bit rough, for that matter, because the combination of his cold, black eyes in a cold, white face coupled with his showing of six inches of cold steel was enough to warm any of the girls he met. And he liked the way they responded after he showed them the knife. Sometimes he would display the knife to a girl already willing to yield to him.
    Friendship, a name, sex and marijuana—these were the gifts of the Ramblers. They were the gifts Shank wanted, too, and he indulged himself for the next two-and-a-half years. He dropped out of high school as soon as he passed the compulsory education age limit and he lived on the streets with his friends. His home was a place to eat breakfast at mid-morning and to sleep at night. He ate the rest of his meals at lunch counters on Fifth Street and spent the rest of his time doing next to nothing.
    Shank was nineteen when his girl announced she was pregnant.
    She wasn’t simply a nice roll in the hay, this girl. She was two years younger than Shank, a virgin when he’d met her, a pretty half-Mexican of almond-shaped eyes and a full-blown figure. She slept with him when he wanted her and spent time with him when he tolerated her presence.
    At no time did she expect Shank to marry her; she knew better. Neither did she want to have a baby, so she asked him to give her money for an abortion. There was this doctor a friend of hers knew, she explained, and he would perform an abortion for two hundred dollars.
    Shank considered the matter quite carefully. An abortion cost two hundred dollars, but a plane ticket to New York City cost less than half that sum. Simple economics, and a long-present desire to live in New York, influenced Shank to board a plane three days later as he wondered how long it would be before his mother missed the hundred and fifty dollars he had stolen from her.
    He never left New York thereafter. A day after his arrival he settled in a single room on Rivington Street on the Lower East Side, a roach-infested cell without a sink and featuring one sagging bed for furniture. The condition of the room could not repel Shank as long as it rented at four dollars a week.
    Still, money threatened to be a problem. The thought of a job occurred to him and he went so far as to buy a paper to glance through the classified section. He noted the jobs he thought he might be able to obtain, their hours, pay and type of work, and he promptly rolled up the paper and flipped it out the window. That was the last he thought about jobs.
    A day or so later he drifted west to Greenwich Village and wandered around. He met a girl who managed to deploy him into a conversation. She was several years older than he, and a little overweight. She thought Shank interesting. He thought her stupid.
    But before night sank into morning he had borrowed ten dollars from her, bought half an ounce of marijuana, taken her back to his room and made hectic love to her. Then she hurried back to the Bronx where she lived with her mother and father. When she returned the next afternoon he threw her out. She tried a second time, so he showed her the knife and explained in a confidential tone if she ever annoyed him again he would stick the knife in her stomach. As he pointed out the risk, his eyes were half-closed and his lips slightly curved. The plump girl tried to laugh, but it emerged as a hiccup.
    He never saw her again.
    At first Shank missed the Royal Ramblers. He made vague overtures to the neighborhood gang but they were Puerto Ricans, so he made no supreme efforts to work his way in. Besides, he was older than they were.
    By the end of the first week New York began to bore him. He took what marijuana he had left, cut it with a sack of Bull Durham, rolled the result and peddled it at half-a-buck a cigarette. This gave him a little more capital, but money remained tight. The upshot was that he went down to the draft board to enlist. He could never determine just why he tried to join the army. In