It's like this, cat

ner and goes to the same school. Anyhow, one hot Saturday morning Nick turns up at my house as if nothing h

s just as well, because I wouldn't have. I don't hang around his house after school much anymore, either. School lets out, and there's the Fourth of July weekend, when we go up to Connecticut, and pr

"Dear Dave, The guy I work for is a creep, and all the guys who buy gas from him are creeps, so it's

thing to do, so I might as well go see. He said he was going to work in a

m going, because she gets worried about me going too

klyn, with the streets all running in circles and angles, and the people all giving you cockeyed directions. What with no bikes allowed on parkways, and skirting

ven so some cop yells at me. You'd think

th Street, and nobody yells at me, and I go over to the air pump and fi

" I

shoulder to see if his boss is around, I

et way out h

stcard, and I figured I cou

el better. He says, "You'r

steaming up. "What d'ya want, kid

ing air, but Tom speaks up.

ably worse than any other kind. He motions me off like a stray dog. I don't want to get Tom in any

his face looks closed, like not

earch wasted. I still don't know where Tom lives, so I don't know how I can get a hold of him agai

s can drive you wild. I only break one good vase and a bottle of salad oil. Salad oil and broken glass are great. In the afternoons I go to the swimming pool and learn to do a jackknife and a backflip, so Pop will

d tea. One weekend my real aunt comes to visit and sleeps in my room, so

tcard one morning. It's from Tom: "Day off next Tuesday. If you feel like it, meet

gh to find, pacing up and down the boardwalk like a tiger. We say "Hi" and so forth, and I'm all read

r for a while till last week, and we got in an argument, and I guess she's m

ing up, but I don't mind. Anyhow, she does show up. It can't have bee

on top of her head, and a mighty good figure. She asks me where I ran into Tom, and we tell her all about Cat and the cellar at Number Forty-six, and I tell them both about

and eat a hot dog and swim some more. When I come back, I see Tom and Hilda just coming out of the water,

nt a smoke, and I say No. It's nice to be asked, though. We watch Tom, who is swimming out past all the other peopl

l always go till they blow the whistle. A

o say to that, so I

metimes the day before an exam he'd be sitting around for hours, buying people cokes and acting as if he hadn't a care in the world. So

re I thought he'd been before he turned u

see him in the restaurant, and then fairly often we had dates after I got off work. He has people out in the Midwest somewhere-a fathe

ves a lot of questions unanswered. The first one that comes

tion, for some reason. Tom and a couple of other boys who were left in the dormitory over the holidays got horsing around and had a water fight. The college got huffy and wrote t

llege began needling him for the water-fight damages, as well as second-semester

t same afternoon he went into the office and told the dean he was quitting, and he packed his stuff and l

d job, and they could forget about him. Then h

are. What do

. Everyone I know, their life goes along in set periods: grade school, junior high, high s

got to go to college now to get anywher

ly laugh. "I wish I could persuade him to go back. But it's not so easy. I guess he's got to

our stomachs. "I just hope that sour grape at the filling station gives me a good recommendati

o the ladies' room. She doesn't act coy about it, the way mo

again I'm sort of surprised, because

nice,

"I don't know why she wastes her time on me. I'll never be any

lawyer. Maybe he'd know how you go about getting

ll tell you to quit hanging around with

sually make a point of not letting his nose into my personal affairs, because I figure he'

uying a Belafonte record he didn't like. Another time playing ball I cracked a window in a guy's Ca

my dad, you kn

"If he's such a drug on the market, why

O.K.,"

n our clothes and head for the subway. Tom and Hild

the dishes and Pop is reading the paper

mean I met him this spring when I was hunting for Cat, and this guy

his paper and takes off h

illing station and Hilda and NYU, and I'll say one thing for Pop, when he finally settles down to l

's name and address, or is

were at the beach. He's at a Y

me on his next day off. Meanwhile, I'll bone up on City

a book on the subject. Then he goes back to his ne

" I say and s

cat of yours makes a practice of introducing you to the underworld in