Cave Under the City (10 page)

“I like the heat,” Whitey said. “I'm heading south. If I was south right now, I wouldn't need this coat, I wouldn't need these shoes. Walk on the beach with my pants rolled up. Hungry? Simple. Drop a line in the water and catch a fish. Tired? Sleep on the beach.”

He closed his eyes. “They've got oranges down there like horse balls up here. Pick oranges up off the street and eat them. They just rot otherwise. Cars roll right over them.” He yawned. “Time for a little shut-eye.”

I offered him the cot. “I'll sleep with Bubber.”

“No, I'll sleep on the floor. I'm used to it.” He wrapped his coat around himself and lay down by the door. “Are you going to keep the fire going?”

I went out and got some more wood. In Florida, we wouldn't need fires, not to keep warm. We could run around barefoot. It would be like going to the beach every day. We'd live on the beach. Everything would be there for the taking. All the food we wanted, on the ground and hanging from the trees.

I fixed the stove, “You really going to Florida, Whitey? When are you going?”

“I'm working on a ride. Starkey wants me to go down with him, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a couple of days. We'll take down a truckload of parts, then bring back a load of grapefruit and oranges.”

“Would there be room for us?”

“What?” Whitey was falling asleep. “Sure, I'll ask Starkey. We can all help with the load.”

I pulled the blanket over me. If Starkey said no, we could hide in back of the truck. Why did we have to go with Starkey, anyway? The three of us could go alone. We could hitch rides. Just stand Bubber by the side of the road, and we'd get all the rides we wanted. Maybe we'd stop in Washington on the way and look around for my father.

Tolley.
I heard my mother.
Tolley
… Her voice was weak and distant. Was this another of my crackpot ideas? How could we go to Florida? What about my parents? And my grandmother?

I tossed around, couldn't sleep. Florida … Whitey … the three of us. Three was better than two. Three heads were better than two. Three pairs of hands. We could work. Maybe we'd get a room. Bubber could even go to school. I'd write home—that would be the way to do it. Write and tell them we were in Florida and everything was easy.

26

In the morning Whitey wanted to know where the bathroom was. I slipped out through the hole. “Pick any bush you want.”

He laughed. “You guys—” he said, and shook his head. “Come on. I'll show you something.”

We went into a cafeteria on White Plains Road. We each took a ticket and followed Whitey to the men's room. He took off his coat and sweater. He had on a collarless shirt with cuff links. There was a rip in the seat of his pants. He washed his hands and his face, and combed his hair back till it lay flat and slick on his head. He brushed his teeth with his finger. Then he put his sweater and coat on again.

When he got done, Bubber and I washed. I looked in the mirror and scrubbed at a line of dirt clean around my neck. Whitey lent us his comb. I wet my hair and flattened it the way he did. Bubber's hair was a curly tangle that couldn't be combed.

At the counter, Whitey ordered coffee and a danish. “What do you guys want?”

Bubber ordered the same as Whitey. I felt in my pocket. A nickel was all I had left from yesterday, so I just ordered coffee.

“It's on me,” Whitey said.

“I'm not that hungry in the morning.” I didn't want him to think I was a moocher. We sat down. I put lots of sugar in my coffee and nibbled the raisins that Bubber picked out of his pastry.

Whitey ate fast, then said, “Come on,” motioning to us to bring our cups and follow him. “I'll show you something else.”

We went to the steam table, where you could draw free hot water, and we filled up our cups. Back at our table, we added the free sugar and milk. It tasted watery, but it was sweet and hot. Whitey switched our empty cream pitcher with another table and filled Bubber's cup. Then he sat back and lit his last cigarette. I sat back and looked around the way he did. Around us, people were eating, reading their papers. Nobody paid attention to us. It was nice sitting there, good to have someone else sitting with us. The cafeteria was warm, and it smelled good. The hot water in my belly made me feel full.

“What are we going to do?” I said. We. That sounded good to me.

“Gotta have some money. Gotta have some money.” Whitey was singing, tapping on the table. Then he looked up, snapped his fingers, and winked at me. “Okay, got it. You guys wait right here. I won't be long.” He left the cafeteria.

We sat there, waiting for him. “Where'd Whitey go?” Bubber said.

“Probably to talk to Starkey. We're going to go to Florida.”

“King, too?”

“I don't know.” I hadn't thought about that.

“I can't go without King.”

“Do you know how far Florida is? Do you know what we're going to do down there? We're going to live on the beach. You're going to swim every day, and we're going to eat more and live better, and not have to wear all these clothes. You're not going to need shoes down there.”

Bubber was listening with his mouth open. “We're going to sleep on the beach,” I said. “Maybe we'll get a tent. Or maybe we'll rent a room. A real room, right by the ocean, with beds, and a toilet and running water. Whitey and I are going to get jobs and you're going to school.”

Bubber shook his head.

“No? You want to work, too?”

“I don't want to go to school in Florida.”

“What do you think, it's going to be a vacation forever? Well, that's okay, it doesn't matter that much. Maybe you don't have to go to school. You're going to learn a lot just being around Whitey and me.”

We waited a long time. A girl and a boy came in with their father. They stood at the counter, waiting for their orders. The girl looked around at me a couple of times. I winked at her. I surprised myself. I think she noticed. I'd never winked at a girl before. Maybe I did it because of the way I was sitting, sprawled back like I was Whitey. I only wished I had a cigarette in my hand.

Bubber and I went back and filled up with hot water again. I swaggered a little bit when I went by the girl. The man behind the counter was watching us. I nudged Bubber and we drank up fast and went out.

For a while we stood in the entrance of the cafeteria. The girl came out with her father and brother. I was leaning against the building, my collar up and my hands in my pockets. I felt like Errol Flynn in
Captain Blood.
I looked after them till they disappeared behind the corner.

“I have to go,” Bubber said.

“Then go.” A car went by, and I thought I saw Whitey. He'd do something interesting and different like that, come back for us in a car.
Jump in, Tolman! Come on, Bub. We're on our way to the sunny climes.

Bubber butted me. “Tolley.”

“Can't you hold it?” I didn't want to miss Whitey.

“I'm going to do it in my pants.”

“Go in the cafeteria.” I finally had to go back in with him. “Hurry up,” I said. I was afraid Whitey would come while we were inside. If he was with somebody else, he wouldn't wait.

Outside, I looked up and down the street. Bubber was counting. “Seven … eight … ten … thirteen …”

“What are you counting?”

“People going in.”

“How many?” I didn't care. It was just something to say. But I started counting, too. A fat man went in. “How many now?” I said to Bubber.

“Twenty.”

“Wrong. Twenty and a half.” He didn't get it. “The fat man,” I said. “Twenty and a half.”

“You can't have a half of a person, Tolley!”

It was a dumb conversation. That was the trouble with hanging around with a six-year-old kid all the time. Not that Bubber was dumb, but if Whitey were here, I wouldn't be playing counting games.

“Twenty-one,” Bubber said.

“Twenty-two,” I said.

We got up to forty, people were going in for lunch, and still no Whitey.

“When's Whitey coming?” Bubber said.

“That makes fourteen,” I said.

“Fourteen what?”

“Fourteen times you asked the same dumb question.”

“When's Whitey coming?”

“Fifteen.”

“When's Whitey coming?”

“You'll know he's arrived when you see him coming.”

We waited and we waited. We waited too long. Four o'clock, we were still waiting. I checked the round clock in the window of the shoe store.

“When's Whitey coming?”

I went to the corner and came back. I walked past the shoe store. I told myself not to check the time, but then I looked. He could still be coming. He could be coming right now.

The bells on the church chimed five times. I was standing on the corner near the fire alarm box. He wasn't coming. He'd ditched us. Suddenly I wanted to take the hammer and break the glass and sound the fire alarm. I had to walk away.

Later, we stood outside our house and looked up at the unlit windows. Then I ran in to check the mailbox. It was empty.

That night I dreamed that my father had come back and he was sitting on the cot next to me. He was wearing a long coat like Whitey's and his shoes were covered with paint. I reached out for him. My hand touched cold iron. Next to me, I heard Bubber breathing.

27

It rained steadily for days. Upstairs, water dripped through the holes in the roof and ran down the insides of the walls. Even with the fire going we couldn't dry out the room. It was getting colder and we were sleeping together head to foot on the cot. Some nights I'd wake up with his feet in my face. I'd lie there and listen to his sniffling and the water popping and dripping down the walls.

Where was my father? I was thinking about him again, watching for him every day. I saw him hitchhiking, getting a ride on a truck or in a car, coming closer, coming home.

I didn't feel good a lot of times. My bones ached, and some days I didn't want to get out of bed. Bubber pulled at me. “I'm hungry. You want me to go without you?” I didn't care. Bubber and King went out alone. I had an idea they were begging. Bubber brought me back a roll, a cupcake, a candy bar.

Other days we went out together. On rainy days, people wanted packages carried home. We worked together. Bubber carried packages as big as mine. When we had money, we went to a cafeteria and ordered soup and crackers, then sat there as long as we could. It was hard to stay awake. I'd lean on my elbow and Bubber would put his head down on the table. “I'm not sleeping,” he said. “I'm talking to the table.” If anyone said anything to us, we went someplace else. We weren't the only ones sitting with empty cups in front of us.

We were wet all the time. Bubber sniffled. On the train, he'd found a leather aviator's hat with earflaps. He wore it all the time. He needed a heavy jacket, so did I. We wore sweaters, one on top of the other. The worst thing was the holes in the soles of my shoes. I put cardboard in the bottom, but when it rained my feet got wet.

It rained and rained. The water sat in the cellar. One day it rained so hard, we couldn't stay inside and we couldn't stay out on the street. We stood in hallways for a while, then we went up to the el and asked the man in the coin booth if we could sit in the men's room and wait for our mother. There was a coal stove so it was warm, and we used the toilet.

All day we rode around on the trains. I liked being on the train. We were going someplace, even though we were only going in circles. We rode from the Bronx to Manhattan, over to Brooklyn and Coney Island, then back again. Once you got on the train, you never had to get off. You could go all over the city. If you got hungry, you could stop in a station and buy chocolate from the machine for a penny.

One day, on the way back from Coney Island, we stopped off in Manhattan at the Battery. I wanted Bubber to see the Statue of Liberty, but when we tried to sneak on the Staten Island ferry, we were chased. We ducked back on the train and rode up to the Museum of Natural History. Outside, by the chunk of meteorite that looked like black Swiss cheese, Bubber went around asking people for a nickel so he could call his mother. Then we bought hot dogs and orange soda from a street vendor. In the museum we mainly looked at the Indian exhibits—the Indian long boat and the hut cutaway showing an Indian family around a fire. Then we went to look at the dinosaur bones and the Great Blue Whale that filled up a room as big as the auditorium in school. Bubber fell asleep on the bench in the dinosaur room.

It was late and still raining when we got back to the cellar. King was outside. “Why's he out here?” Bubber said. “Go inside, boy!” When Bubber started to go in, King grabbed his leg. “He doesn't want me to go in.”

Whitey's back, I thought. Then I thought the cops had discovered the cave. I went up on the street level and slipped inside. It was dark, but I could see something had happened. The roof was sagging down like a giant funnel and water was spilling through it into a hole where the floor had been. Underneath, where the cave was, the floor had fallen into the cellar and buried everything.

28

That night the three of us stayed under the stairs in back of the restaurant. In the morning we were out early. For a time we sat in back of a big Camel billboard to get out of the wind. The rain had stopped, but it was cold and the wind howled across the empty lots. It made the telephone poles shake and the grass whistle.

On top of a long empty hill we passed some houses and stores. Bubber stood on a corner with his hand out. I went into a bakery and asked for day-old bread. Begging.

The baker, flour over his face like a clown, said, “Three cents a loaf. Two loaves for a nickel.”

I pulled out my pockets. I tried to look cute like Bubber.

The baker wiped his hands on his white apron. “What do you kids want from me? Nothing for nothing, my mother always said.” Then he went in back. I thought he was going to call the police. I didn't care. I was too tired to run. What were we running for anyway? I couldn't remember anymore. The baker came back with two stale sandwich breads.