Cave Under the City Read Free Page A

scared. What if he got hurt or lost and didn’t come back. I didn’t want to let go. “A good boy. A good boy.” My father squeezed me, then he pulled away and I had to let him go.
    I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see him leave. I heard the door shut. Then his steps disappearing down the stairs. From the main room I heard my mother coughing.
    In the morning my mother was fixing breakfast. I got the milk and the butter from the icebox in the hall. Only a sliver of ice remained. I emptied the tray underneath. “We need ice,” I said.
    â€œYou’ll have to wait for the iceman. Squeeze some oranges.”
    I sliced the oranges, then squeezed the juice. Bubber’s juice had to be strained. He was standing by the window in the other room, playing with a shoe. “Get dressed,” I told him. Then I went to the toilet.
    He was still playing when I came back. I pulled him away from the window. He started to fight me, so I took the shoe away and hit him in the head a couple of times. “Get dressed.” He kicked me in the shin. I was going to really crown him; then I remembered what my father had said.
    My mother left me a quarter for the iceman. She took my brother with her when she left for work. Bubber was dropped off at a neighbor’s who took him to school every morning with her daughter, then brought them back to her house for lunch.
    I looked out in the street. A car passed. Model A. Then a ’32 Dodge. A LaSalle. I couldn’t guess the year. People were going to the train. How was my father going to Baltimore? By train? Was he driving with someone? Was he out of the city already?
    A milk wagon stopped across the street. The milkman jumped out, put a feed bag on the horse, then disappeared into a building with a tray of bottles. I saw my friend George and opened the window. “Hey, George, come on up.”
    â€œI can’t. I have to bring my mother bread so she can make my father’s lunch.”
    I stuck my head farther out the window and watched George disappear around the corner. Across the street I saw a kid standing guard over a pile of stuff—clothes, furniture, a couple of mattresses. “You moving?” I yelled.
    He looked up. “Whaaat?”
    â€œIs it your stuff?”
    â€œNo, it’s my mother’s.”
    I knew what it was. It was an eviction. If you didn’t pay your rent you got an eviction notice. Then the marshal came and they carried all your stuff out to the street. I never saw an eviction on our street before. “You’re lucky,” I yelled. “No school today.”
    The dumbwaiter buzzer sounded. The iceman was in the cellar. I opened the dumbwaiter door, stuck my head in the shaft, and called down my order. I heard the ice drop on the platform, then the box came up. I unloaded the cake of ice and put it in the icebox. I put the quarter in the box. “Okay,” I said, and tugged the rope and the box went down. Then I went to school.

5
    After school I waited outside P.S. 96 for my brother. I went across the street and stood on top of the hill. I liked being up on the tops of things and looking way off. Which way was my father? He’d been gone ten days and we’d only received one postcard with his address in Baltimore. The job, he said, wasn’t going to last, but he was going to look around. He’d heard there was work in Washington, D.C.
    I looked toward downtown. Baltimore was that way, south, past Philadelphia. I looked it up in my geography book, put one finger on New York, my thumb on Baltimore. Lights out, Pop. If I had wings and a propeller I’d fly down there like Lindbergh.
    Hey, Pop, look up, it’s Tolley. How’re things going? You get a good job? When are you coming home? You got some good news, I’ll tell Momma. She needs something to cheer her up. Pop, you hear me? She’s tired all the time and coughing a lot .
    â€œHey, Irv!” He was down