Cave Under the City Read Free

icebox is in the hall next to the dumbwaiter. Usually my father eats by himself. My brother and I are too hungry to wait. My mother never sits down to eat.
    My father holds a piece of potato in one hand, a piece of bread in the other. While he eats I do my homework. He cracks the chicken bones with his teeth and sucks out the marrow. When I get my homework done I can go outside. Not my brother. They don’t let him out at night by himself, so he never wants me to go.
    He hangs on me and begs me to stay home and play with him. He hangs on my leg like a leech. “Let go of me. Let go, Bubber.” I whisper it at first, because I’m afraid my mother is going to get nervous. Then I forget and yell. Stupid! Because I give my mother a headache. I do a lot of stupid things, like going out and leaving the lights on in the house. They’re always telling me “Electricity costs money.” Or when I’m on the street with Bubber, I forget about him or I tease him till he wants to kill me. But that’s not the worst. Sometimes I’m really unconscious. Last Halloween I started a fire in the house.
    I was having a party with my friends, and I put a paper pumpkin from the five-and-ten in the window with a candle inside. I thought I moved the curtains but I guess not far enough, because they caught fire. I didn’t even know it. We were having a pillow fight on my parents’ bed when my mother’s friend Sylvia walked in. “Boys! Are you blind!” The curtains were burning. “Are you crazy! Don’t you see?” She yanked down the curtains and threw them in the bathtub.
    I really got it when my mother came home. I knew I was going to get it. My mother started in on me, and when my father came home, he finished it. Bubber dived under the covers. I was too old for that. My father slapped at me, and I kept ducking and trying to slip out of his reach.
    â€œWhat do you think?” my father said. “You’re going to burn the house down.”
    â€œNot in the head,” my mother yelled. “In tuchus .” Meaning my behind.
    â€œSay something,” my father said. “Talk. Defend yourself. Do you know how old you are? When I was your age I was working.”
    It’s bad to be hit by your father. It’s the worst thing. It’s worse when you’re wrong. Worse because my father never used to hit.

4
    I woke up in the night. My covers had slid to the floor. I felt around for them and pulled them back. There was a light in the bathroom. I heard the water in the sink, then the scrape of my father’s razor. Why was he shaving in the middle of the night?
    The light turned off and he came out quietly, tiptoeing past me. I caught his hand and he bent down. I smelled the witch hazel he used after he shaved. “You’re awake,” he said. “Good. In a minute I’ll come back to talk to you.”
    I heard my parents talking, their voices like the buzzing of flies. I was drifting off into sleep again when my father sat down next to me. He was wearing his coat and a hat.
    I sat up. “Where are you going?”
    â€œShh. Not far. To Baltimore. I was promised a job. Maybe I’ll be in Washington, D.C. You want me to tell President Roosevelt something?”
    I held his sleeve, then caught his fingers. My hands wanted to keep him there.
    â€œI want you to help your mother and look after your brother. Don’t fight. You’re the oldest. You have to be responsible. You’re the man in the house now. I’m counting on you, Tolley.” He rubbed my head. “You want a kiss good-bye, or do we shake hands like men?”
    We shook hands. His suitcase was by the door with his paintbrushes wrapped in newspaper and tied together with string. The hat made him look like he was gone already. I dug my face into his coat, into the rough, familiar smell of paint and dust.
    My father patted my back. I hung on him. It was dark and I was