The Amboy Dukes Read Free Page A

can’t,” he said. “I went with Mom once to the relief office when they were first opened, and the lady said that they only took in a couple of people who were on relief and let them live there and that where we lived wasn’t so bad as other people’s. Now,” he sighed, “it’s all filled up and Mom ‘n’ Pop are making too much money, so they can’t live there even if there was an apartment.”
    Alice attempted to understand what Frank had told her. “You mean,” she said, “that first we didn’t have enough money and now we have too much?”
    “Something like that.”
    “So what’re we supposed to do? I hate it!” she exclaimed. “I hate it like poison!”
    “Stop it, baby.” Frank pressed her hand. “We’re supposed to have a good time. Look, it’s all the same the rest of the way up. So if we get off at the next stop I’ll take the bus back with you to Radio City, and then we’ll be riding nearer the water and we can watch the boats instead of these lousy houses. We have just as much fun as these people,” Frank bragged without conviction. “Most of them don’t have any fun, and they’re sissies who ride around in the backs of their automobiles, and what fun is that? It’s more fun to drive a car, and you watch,” he added, “as soon as I can get a license I’m going to get us a car and we’ll go out to the country and every place. You’ll see.”
    Frank extended his hand to help Alice from the bus, and they waited for the light to change so that they might cross the Drive.
    “Let me count the floors in this house.” Alice motioned to the apartment house on the corner. “Five”—she nodded and her lips moved as she counted—“twelve, fifteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. Twenty-three floors.” She turned triumphantly to Frank. “At last I was able to count to the top of a house. The light’s changed.”
    Frank led her across the street, and they strolled to the bus stop. Alice was busy counting the floors of another apartment house, and her face was radiant as she informed him that this building was taller by five stories. But Frank stared moodily at his shoes and did not answer her.
    “I said this is a taller house,” she repeated.
    “Who cares?” he replied irritably.
    The ride back was a silent one. For a few minutes Alice was dispirited, but this new world was too exciting for her to remain depressed, and soon her face shone again with excitement and joy. Frank’s right arm was draped casually across the back of the double seat, and to Alice’s exclamations he replied with a grunt.
    The bus maneuvered into Fifty-seventh Street and lumbered toward Fifth Avenue. In the smart shop windows Alice saw the postured mannequins wearing furs and gowns with a grace that no girl or woman could ever hope to equal. In their inanimate yet superior faces were fixed for all time the expressions of women accustomed to the adulation of many men, and these slender inanimate dolls seemed to Alice to have partaken of more wonderful experiences than would ever befall her. For at least they were privileged to wear gowns, wraps, and furs whose soft luxury she could never hope to know.
    Too quickly the bus was at Fiftieth Street, and again Frank extended his hand to her as she stepped from the bus to the sidewalk. Alice thanked him, and Frank nodded absently. She looked at her brother, only five years older than she and still so many more years apart in thought, action, deed, and experience. Frank had always been bitter, but that was because they had been poor; but even in his bitterness he had been her friend, and Alice still remembered the days when they had sat together on the fire escape and he had read stories to her and they had conjectured and argued as to how the hero was going to escape in the next episode of the serial they were following at the New Singer. He had looked after her and they had talked and wondered about many things. And then Frank had become fourteen and