The Collected Stories of Richard Yates Read Free Page B

and didn’t look up. To avoid getting involved with her again, he wandered out to the cloakroom and sat on one of the long benches, where he picked up someone’s discarded overshoe and turned it over and over in his hands. In a little while he heard the chatter of returning children, and to avoid being discovered there, he got up and went to the fire-exit door. Pushing it open, he found that it gave onto the alley he had hidden in that morning, and he slipped outside. For a minute or two he just stood there, looking at the blankness of the concrete wall; then he found a piece of chalk in his pocket and wrote out all the dirty words he could think of, in block letters a foot high. He had put down four words and was trying to remember a fifth when he heard a shuffling at the door behind him. Arthur Cross was there, holding the door open and reading the words with wide eyes. “Boy,” he said in an awed half-whisper. “Boy, you’re gonna get it. You’re really gonna get it.”
    Startled, and then suddenly calm, Vincent Sabella palmed his chalk, hooked his thumbs in his belt and turned on Arthur with a menacing look. “Yeah?” he inquired. “Who’s gonna squeal on me?”
    â€œWell, nobody’s gonna squeal on you,” Arthur Cross said uneasily, “but you shouldn’t go around writing—”
    â€œArright,” Vincent said, advancing a step. His shoulders were slumped, his head thrust forward and his eyes narrowed, like Edward G. Robinson. “Arright. That’s all I wanna know. I don’t like squealers, unnastand?”
    While he was saying this, Warren Berg and Bill Stringer appeared in the doorway—just in time to hear it and to see the words on the wall before Vincent turned on them. “And that goes fa you too, unnastand?” he said. “Both a yiz.”
    And the remarkable thing was that both their faces fell into the same foolish, defensive smile that Arthur Cross was wearing. It wasn’t until they had glanced at each other that they were able to meet his eyes with the proper degree of contempt, and by then it was too late. “Think you’re pretty smart, don’tcha, Sabella?” Bill Stringer said.
    â€œNever mind what I think,” Vincent told him. “You heard what I said. Now let’s get back inside.”
    And they could do nothing but move aside to make way for him, and follow him dumfounded into the cloakroom.
    It was Nancy Parker who squealed—although, of course, with someone like Nancy Parker you didn’t think of it as squealing. She had heard everything from the cloakroom; as soon as the boys came in she peeked into the alley, saw the words and, setting her face in a prim frown, went straight to Miss Price. Miss Price was just about to call the class to order for the afternoon when Nancy came up and whispered in her ear. They both disappeared into the cloakroom—from which, after a moment, came the sound of the fire-exit door being abruptly slammed—and when they returned to class Nancy was flushed with righteousness, Miss Price very pale. No announcement was made. Classes proceeded in the ordinary way all afternoon, though it was clear that Miss Price was upset, and it wasn’t until she was dismissing the children at three o’clock that she brought the thing into the open. “Will Vincent Sabella please remain seated?” She nodded at the rest of the class. “That’s all.”
    While the room was clearing out she sat at her desk, closed her eyes and massaged the frail bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger, sorting out half-remembered fragments of a book she had once read on the subject of seriously disturbed children. Perhaps, after all, she should never have undertaken the responsibility of Vincent Sabella’s loneliness. Perhaps the whole thing called for the attention of a specialist. She took a deep breath.
    â€œCome over here and sit beside