Cave Under the City (6 page)

“Yes, I am dead,” I said. I sat there, blowing on my hands and wondering how I was going to get back up again.

13

It was dark in the cellar. No lights, no windows. It smelled like dead cats. I couldn't see anything. I felt around, moving cautiously. Then I heard a scratchy, creaking noise and I saw light. Skinny stabs of light, punching at me in the dark.

Then it was black.

Then the light started again. This time it went on and on. Something cold brushed against my cheeks. I backed toward the elevator shaft. The light exploded around me. It darted and danced and swung around the cellar. I saw a door swinging open.

Then it was black again. Then light. Then black, then light again. The door swung open and shut. I saw a tiny room, a cot and a stove and a broken window.

I looked into the room. It was empty. Whose cot was it? Who lived here? The wind came through the broken window and slammed the door shut. I yanked it open. “Bubber,” I called. I ran back to the dumbwaiter. “Bubber, I'm coming up.”

I got on the elevator and grabbed the rope, but my hands were too sore to pull. “Bubber, you've got to help me.” I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking whoever lived there was somewhere in the dark watching me. “Bubber. Listen. When I pull down on the rope, you hang on and don't let go. If you let go, I'll kill myself.”

“I can't.”

“You have to.” I pulled down the rope as hard as I could and lifted myself a little. “Hang on, Bubber. Hang on.” He just had to hold it long enough for me to get another grip, but he couldn't and I fell back. My hands were burning. The cellar was light again. “Bubber, listen to me. Snag the end of the rope over something. Anything. The edge of the frame. Just don't let go.”

I wrapped my hands in my shirt and tried again. “Snag it,” I yelled, and got another grip. I went up. “Once more.” I got my arm over the edge and hung on. Bubber grabbed my shirt and pulled me out. I blew on my hands. I felt the blisters coming. “Good boy,” I said.

14

I was afraid to go back to the apartment. For a while we watched a baseball game at the high school. There was a crowd in the stands. Bubber poked around, picking up candy papers and sniffing them. I didn't say anything till I saw him licking the papers. Then I made him stop because it looked so queer.

We hung around the stores, looking at food in the windows. It's the worst thing you can do when you're hungry. All those cakes and bread and apple strudels. Bubber pestered me to buy something. “What am I going to buy it with?” I had three cents in my pocket. We went into a candy store and I bought three pretzel sticks and divided them. Then I asked the man for a glass of water.

I drank half and passed it to Bubber. “Can I have more, please?” Bubber said.

The man filled the glass. “That's it. First water on the house. Next time, a penny a glass.”

In a butcher shop, meat hung in the window. I wished I could go to Dave, the butcher on our street, and buy lamb chops. Dave the butcher was young. His hair fell in his face and he had gold teeth. “For you,” he'd say to my mother when he brought out a piece of meat. “This is just for you, beautiful. A beautiful piece of meat.” Then he'd wink at me. “Am I right?”

I remembered the smell in the house when my mother seared the meat in the pot, then added onions and potatoes and carrots and stewed it slowly. And the good feeling of fat and meat in my belly.

A woman in a dark coat came out of a store. “Carry your bundles, lady?”

She pushed two heavy grocery bags into my arms and marched off. She lived three blocks from the store, on the second floor. By the time she unlocked the door, my arms felt like they were falling off. I set the bags down on the kitchen table. Something good was cooking. Everything in the apartment was clean and warm.

She tied on an apron, looked at the bags on the table, and then gave me a dime. “Is that your little brother?” Bubber was just standing there. “You want a dime, too? Give me a smile,” she said. He smiled at her. “What a sweet little boy.” And she gave Bubber a dime, too.

We bought a quart of milk and a box of sugar cookies and stood in an alleyway and ate everything.

When it got dark we went home. A woman passed, carrying a fish wrapped in newspaper. “Go home, children,” she sang. “Your mother is waiting for you.”

We didn't go directly into our building. What if the man in the plaid jacket was waiting for us in the hall? We went into the next building and climbed the stairs to the roof. The wind was whistling around the chimneys. Between the two buildings, there was a narrow space, a quick step across. I went first and put out my hand to Bubber.

He shook his head.

“I won't let you fall. Just don't look down.”

So he looked down and then I looked down—six stories of brick wall to the cement alley below. I hopped back and forth a few times. “See. It's easy.” I went back and forth again. “Come on.”

He shook his head.

“You're not going to fall. I've done it a million times.”

He kept shaking his head.

“All right, wait a minute.” I found a piece of clothesline, tied one end to a pipe on my side and the other end on his side. I crossed back. “Hold the rope,” I said. “Cross.” I was so sick of waiting for him I grabbed his hand and yanked him over. He came flying across, and I went over backward with him on top of me. He started to cry. It was a dumb thing to do, but I'm just not patient enough.

“Come on,” I said, “stop bawling. You did it.”

Bubber sat up and looked around.

“You want to do it again?”

He shook his head. “N. O.”

In the house, we took our shoes off and sat on the floor so we wouldn't scrape the chairs. We ate a can of beans in the dark, with just the light from the stove. I was worried about the people downstairs and Mrs. Chrissman next door. I wanted to go down to check the mail, but I was afraid she'd see me. I could go out the window again and over the roof. “I'm coming, too,” Bubber said. He didn't want to stay in the house alone.

Two more times over the roof with him? “Forget it.” I turned the radio on low and we got on our parents' bed.

15

The next day it was raining and we didn't go out. I didn't even go down to check the mail. When my father got my letter he'd call. I kept listening for the phone in the hall downstairs, but it didn't ring all day.

The next morning was Friday and it was still raining, and for no reason I felt good. Maybe because it was Friday. My father was going to finish work today and be here tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. Once he got my letter he'd jump on the first train and come straight home.

For breakfast, I made the last of the oatmeal, then we went downstairs to wait for the mail. I was a little jumpy going by Mrs. Chrissman's door. I could hear Murray and his mother yelling at each other.

“Wear your rubbers,” Mrs. Chrissman said.

“It's not raining, Mom.”

The mailbox was empty, but it was still early. I saw the mailman going into section Z. Bubber and I waited in the hall. When Murray came bouncing down the stairs, we ducked under the stairs. Then Mrs. Engel, our downstairs neighbor, stood right in front of where we were hiding and looked into her mailbox. She opened her umbrella and went out.

When the mailman came, we were in another part of the hall. I heard him opening the boxes. One key he carried on a long chain opened all the boxes. I heard the mail drop into the slots, then the doors were banged shut.

I told Bubber to wait while I checked our mailbox.

“What are you doing, boy?” Mr. Brooks, the janitor, was standing by the stairs, smoking a cigarette. Narrow face the color of prune juice. Mr. Brooks was nobody to fool with. He was skinny, but all muscle, strong from all the barrels of ashes and garbage he lifted. He was strict, didn't allow any chalking on his buildings or ball playing in the courts. Once he'd chased Bubber right into the house for playing ball in the hall.

“You expecting a letter?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Open the box, then. You got the key. Maybe Uncle Sammy is sending you a lot of money.” He smiled, flashed gold.

I opened it. There was a letter.

“Where's your father? I haven't seen him for a while.”

“Working.”

“That's good. Where's your mother? Haven't seen her lately.”

“She's sick.”

“Oh, that's it. I seen you come home with the groceries. You taking care of your mother? That's a good boy. You won't have your mother forever.”

I ran upstairs. The letter was from the hospital. I was afraid to open it till I was inside our apartment. It was from my mother, but it was somebody else's handwriting.

“My dear children, did you hear from Daddy? Is he home? Why hasn't he come to see me yet? I wrote him the first day I was here.

“I can't even write this letter, I'm so tired and weak. A kind lady is helping me. My precious children, don't worry. I'm going to be all right. If Daddy's not home today, I'm sure he'll be there tomorrow. Meanwhile, I want you to be good and don't aggravate Buba. She's not used to young children.”

I read the letter over again. She didn't say anything about coming home. She didn't know Buba was sick and we were alone.

The bell rang, someone kicked the door. It was Bubber. I let him in. He kicked at me, then ran and hid in the closet.

“What's the matter?”

“You left me downstairs. You forgot me.”

“I just came up for a second.” I put the letter in my back pocket. Bubber was hiding in Momma's bathrobe. “Okay,” I said, “okay.” I patted him on the back.

After a while he quieted down. “Did a letter come?” he said.

I showed him Momma's letter. “Daddy's coming. She wrote him.” But if my mother wrote him the day she got sick, why wasn't he here already?

I went and looked out the window. Should we wait here for him? What if he didn't come today? Should we go back to my grandmother's? What if he was coming off the train right now? What if Grandma was still sick and didn't want us? Should I tell her Momma was sick, too, and in the hospital and we didn't have anyplace else to go? That might make her feel worse. And what if my father came and we weren't here? But he'd know we were at my grandmother's. I could leave him a note.

There was a knock on the door, a loud knock. Someone was really banging on the door. “I know you boys are in there. Open up!” It was the man in the plaid jacket again.

16

We went out the window and over the roof. It was still raining. We went back to the burned-out restaurant. I didn't know where else to go. I wanted to stay near our house in case my father came. Later, maybe, if we had to, we'd go to my grandmother's. I went down into the cellar on the dumbwaiter, then rode Bubber down. He didn't like the dark, but he liked the room I'd found.

He sat on the springs. “Are we going to sleep here?”

I looked at the stove. I looked at the little window. I looked at the dirty walls. I thought about my parents. Maybe a letter had come. Yeah, and maybe McKenzie's man was sitting right by the mailbox. Or was he on the stairs by our apartment? Or on the next landing, where he could watch and not be seen? Or did he have a skeleton key, and was he inside our house right now, waiting for us?

“This will be our cave,” Bubber said. He held his hands over the stove like there was heat in it. “This is where we'll cook.” He bounced on the springs. “And we'll sleep on this good bed.” Then he got up and “poured” himself a cup of cocoa, sipped it, then blew on it. “It's too hot. You want a marshmallow in yours, Tolley?”

That's one thing about my brother, he has a terrific imagination. I get caught up in the worry of things. But not Bubber. He can be a baby sometimes, but he makes himself at home wherever he is.

Stay here? It was just a dirty storage room in a cellar. How were we going to stay here? What if we made a fire and somebody saw our smoke? What if they saw us going in and out? But then I shut up my dumb, practical mind. If Bubber said it was a cave, then let it be a cave. Our cave. A cave under the city.

We could stay here tonight, maybe even for a couple of nights, just till my father came home.

17

We slept together on the bare springs that night. Every time Bubber moved I woke up. I heard the trains going by and thought about my mother and my father. Was she better? Was my father closer? Was he home yet? What if he was home and we weren't there? He'd think we were with my grandmother, but I hadn't left him a note. McKenzie's man had come too fast.

In the morning, Bubber found a piece of a Tootsie Roll in his pocket, covered with lint. We sat on the springs, taking turns sucking it. Bubber made loud smacking sucks. “What are you doing?”

“Sucking a lollipop.” He licked his lips.

“What flavor?”

“What flavor is yours, Tolley?”

“Lemon.”

“Mine is lemon, too.”

I yawned. He yawned. I crossed my legs, he crossed his. Why was he copying me? I didn't want him doing everything I did. My mother was always telling me I had to be a good example to Bubber. I wasn't that good. I didn't want to be that good.

“If you could wish anything you wanted, Tolley, what would you wish first?”

“Momma to be out of the hospital.”

“What would be your next wish, Tolley?”

“What's yours?”

“Bacon and eggs. I'm hungry.”

“You think you're the only one?” I looked up the dumbwaiter shaft. “Come on, let's go.”

I sent Bubber up first and then he helped me come up. It was just as hard as it had been the first day. “We need a ladder.”

“Poppa's got lots of ladders.”

My father kept his ladders chained in the carriage room. He wouldn't like it if I carried one of his ladders all the way over here.