Rubbers?”
“A book.”
Neal was backing through the window, his feet already in the kitchen sink.
“A book? You really want to go through a window like that? So you can’t see what’s in the room awaiting your arrival with a Louisville Slugger? What book, Neal? Swedish Sex Slaves? Ruby and the Firemen? Like that?”
Neal climbed out. “ Tom Jones.”
He started back through the window, headfirst this time.
“Tom Jones? Is it dirty?”
“Dirty enough, they won’t let me buy it.”
“Are you really this stupid, Neal, or are we just having an off day? Going into an apartment window head in the air like a hanging curveball? You go in like that, you come out on a stretcher, anyone’s home.”
Neal eased his way out. “So will you?”
“What’s so important about this book?”
“David Copperfield read it when he was a kid. You know David Copperfield?”
“Yes, I know David Copperfield. I saw it twice. Freddie Bartholomew and W. C. Fields.”
“Really? W. C. Fields? Who’d he play?”
“I don’t know. Guy who was always broke, owed money.”
“Mr. Micawber.”
“Yeah, okay. Now will Mr. Carey please show me the correct way to enter a domicile via a window, if this literary discussion is over? Or shall I pour tea?”
“I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“The correct way to enter a domicile via a window.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
Feetfirst, facing the window, and swing through. Like you’re on the monkey bars. Then walk purposefully through the kitchen and down the hallway and into the bedroom, which will be on your right. Don’t tiptoe. Tiptoes are for ballerinas and guys who go to jail for B & E. Which you are neither. First thing, grab something that looks pawnable and put it in your pocket. If someone is there and you can’t get out, don’t fight. Let him grab you and call the cops. Levine will be right there to arrest you.
So you’re in the bedroom and the guy is asleep. You put his watch in your pocket and place this nice little mike under the side table. Put the watch back. I said put the watch back. Now go out the way you came in.
Easier than Maloney’s sister. Your old Dad taught you well. Home now for a Swanson’s TV dinner and a book.
Thus, Neal Carey grew up and learned a useful trade.
9
“Today,” said joe graham with his brightest nasty smile, “we are going to play a game.”
“Swell,” said sixteen-year-old Neal, who possessed that finely tuned sixteen-year-old sense of sarcasm.
They were sitting in Graham’s apartment on Twenty-sixth Street between Second and Third. The place looked like an operating room, only smaller. The countertop of the efficiency kitchen glistened and the sink and tap handles shone as brightly as the soul of a seven-year-old Catholic girl leaving confession. Neal could not figure out how a one-armed man could make a bed with hospital corners you could cut yourself on. The bathroom contained a toilet that begged sunglasses, a similarly shimmering sink, and a shower—no bath. (“I don’t like lying around in dirty water.”) Graham had moved in ten years ago because it was an upwardly mobile Irish neighborhood. He had failed to discern that all the upwardly mobile Irish were moving to Queens. They came back to the neighborhood only on Saturday nights to sit in a local tavern and listen to songs about killing Englishmen, sanguinary concerts punctuated by maudlin renditions of the dreaded “Danny Boy.”
On this particular Saturday, an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon, the neighborhood was noisy with the sounds of playing children, old couples returning from their weekly grocery shopping, and neighbors hanging out on the sidewalk enjoying the sun.
Neal would rather have been enjoying the sun, especially in the company of one Carol Metzger, with whom he had planned a stroll in Riverside Park and maybe a movie. Instead, he was cooped up in Graham’s stuffy shrine to Brillo, about to play a game.
“The game
“A book.”
Neal was backing through the window, his feet already in the kitchen sink.
“A book? You really want to go through a window like that? So you can’t see what’s in the room awaiting your arrival with a Louisville Slugger? What book, Neal? Swedish Sex Slaves? Ruby and the Firemen? Like that?”
Neal climbed out. “ Tom Jones.”
He started back through the window, headfirst this time.
“Tom Jones? Is it dirty?”
“Dirty enough, they won’t let me buy it.”
“Are you really this stupid, Neal, or are we just having an off day? Going into an apartment window head in the air like a hanging curveball? You go in like that, you come out on a stretcher, anyone’s home.”
Neal eased his way out. “So will you?”
“What’s so important about this book?”
“David Copperfield read it when he was a kid. You know David Copperfield?”
“Yes, I know David Copperfield. I saw it twice. Freddie Bartholomew and W. C. Fields.”
“Really? W. C. Fields? Who’d he play?”
“I don’t know. Guy who was always broke, owed money.”
“Mr. Micawber.”
“Yeah, okay. Now will Mr. Carey please show me the correct way to enter a domicile via a window, if this literary discussion is over? Or shall I pour tea?”
“I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“The correct way to enter a domicile via a window.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
Feetfirst, facing the window, and swing through. Like you’re on the monkey bars. Then walk purposefully through the kitchen and down the hallway and into the bedroom, which will be on your right. Don’t tiptoe. Tiptoes are for ballerinas and guys who go to jail for B & E. Which you are neither. First thing, grab something that looks pawnable and put it in your pocket. If someone is there and you can’t get out, don’t fight. Let him grab you and call the cops. Levine will be right there to arrest you.
So you’re in the bedroom and the guy is asleep. You put his watch in your pocket and place this nice little mike under the side table. Put the watch back. I said put the watch back. Now go out the way you came in.
Easier than Maloney’s sister. Your old Dad taught you well. Home now for a Swanson’s TV dinner and a book.
Thus, Neal Carey grew up and learned a useful trade.
9
“Today,” said joe graham with his brightest nasty smile, “we are going to play a game.”
“Swell,” said sixteen-year-old Neal, who possessed that finely tuned sixteen-year-old sense of sarcasm.
They were sitting in Graham’s apartment on Twenty-sixth Street between Second and Third. The place looked like an operating room, only smaller. The countertop of the efficiency kitchen glistened and the sink and tap handles shone as brightly as the soul of a seven-year-old Catholic girl leaving confession. Neal could not figure out how a one-armed man could make a bed with hospital corners you could cut yourself on. The bathroom contained a toilet that begged sunglasses, a similarly shimmering sink, and a shower—no bath. (“I don’t like lying around in dirty water.”) Graham had moved in ten years ago because it was an upwardly mobile Irish neighborhood. He had failed to discern that all the upwardly mobile Irish were moving to Queens. They came back to the neighborhood only on Saturday nights to sit in a local tavern and listen to songs about killing Englishmen, sanguinary concerts punctuated by maudlin renditions of the dreaded “Danny Boy.”
On this particular Saturday, an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon, the neighborhood was noisy with the sounds of playing children, old couples returning from their weekly grocery shopping, and neighbors hanging out on the sidewalk enjoying the sun.
Neal would rather have been enjoying the sun, especially in the company of one Carol Metzger, with whom he had planned a stroll in Riverside Park and maybe a movie. Instead, he was cooped up in Graham’s stuffy shrine to Brillo, about to play a game.
“The game
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