we drove, and down deep at that. At first, we made our way between skyscrapers and stores with signs like Walgreens, O’Malley’s Gentleman’s Tailoring, and Paddy’s Saloon. White men and women in stout but stylish clothes walked the streets. Slowly, the buildings got lower and older and crowded closer together. The signs changed to things like Polanski’s Quality Butchers, Petrovski’s Fresh Fish, and Gutman’s Pawnbrokers. The women weren’t so stylish here. They wore dark skirts with their hair tied up in colored scarfs. Another few blocks and I couldn’t read the signs at all because they were written in swoopy, squared-off script. The men wore black coats and black hats with round crowns here, and most of the women were in black dresses and had dark wigs on their heads. There weren’t any street signs that I could see. But Jack, as usual, knew where he was going.
He turned up a narrow side street that was more mud than cobblestone. Raggedy kids in short pants who had been playing stickball scrambled out of the way, and then ganged up behind to chase after us and cheer, because we were in what was easily the fanciest car on that block. The buildings here were mostly wood: squared-off, three-story clapboardplaces with peaked roofs, dark windows, and faded curtains. They were crowded so close together you could have sat in your kitchen and still snatched a doughnut off the dining room table in the house next door. Smokestacks made a distant, forbidding fence for one side of the neighborhood. There was a smell too, and it was everywhere. I’d never been in a barnyard or outhouse that smelled as bad as that smudged-over, crowded-up, worn-down street.
The roadster splashed through a long set of potholes as Jack drove right up to the street’s dead end. Beyond it was the kind of muddy, open space I’d hesitate to call a field. Heaps of ashes and clinker had been dumped there, making a set of gray and black dunes that stretched to the river. Crows and seagulls traded insults across the ash heaps. More raggedy kids climbed over the piles, calling to each other in raucous games of king of the hill. Jack parked, and I climbed out of the car, stunned. I’d known he came up poor, but I never imagined he came from someplace that made my dust-bowl home seem rich.
Jack wasn’t looking at me. He was walking over to the last of the narrow buildings on the right-hand side of the street. The porch steps creaked as he climbed up to the front door. The screen door squeaked even louder when he pulled it open, and we all followed Jack inside.
The outside stench was replaced by smells of old fish and cabbage. A narrow staircase ran up along the left-hand wall. A dark and dingy hallway ran along the right. As we crowdedinside, its one door opened so a hatchet-faced woman in a sack of a dress could peer out at us.
“Well, Jacob Hollander.” Her words were thick and hard. “You’ve come home, have you? And brought some friends.”
“Looks that way, Mrs. Burnstein,” said Jack. He didn’t look back at her either, just started climbing the stairs and we all followed. Papa touched his hat to the woman. She slammed the door shut.
Jack stopped at the second floor. There was another dark door, with a worn spot on the varnish that made the silhouette for the number seven. A radio on the other side blared hot jazz. There was a thing hanging on the threshold that looked like two little tubes tied together with blue thread. Jack looked at it and a muscle in his cheek jumped. He touched it, and my magic told me something sparked way down inside him. Then Jack shouldered the door open.
The room on the other side was a match for the hallway: narrow, dim, and dingy. Somebody’d tried to make it respectable once. There were lace curtains on the windows, but they were as worn as the carpet on the floor. There was a sort of sitting room with a sagging sofa and a pair of threadbare chairs drawn up to the radiator like it was a
He turned up a narrow side street that was more mud than cobblestone. Raggedy kids in short pants who had been playing stickball scrambled out of the way, and then ganged up behind to chase after us and cheer, because we were in what was easily the fanciest car on that block. The buildings here were mostly wood: squared-off, three-story clapboardplaces with peaked roofs, dark windows, and faded curtains. They were crowded so close together you could have sat in your kitchen and still snatched a doughnut off the dining room table in the house next door. Smokestacks made a distant, forbidding fence for one side of the neighborhood. There was a smell too, and it was everywhere. I’d never been in a barnyard or outhouse that smelled as bad as that smudged-over, crowded-up, worn-down street.
The roadster splashed through a long set of potholes as Jack drove right up to the street’s dead end. Beyond it was the kind of muddy, open space I’d hesitate to call a field. Heaps of ashes and clinker had been dumped there, making a set of gray and black dunes that stretched to the river. Crows and seagulls traded insults across the ash heaps. More raggedy kids climbed over the piles, calling to each other in raucous games of king of the hill. Jack parked, and I climbed out of the car, stunned. I’d known he came up poor, but I never imagined he came from someplace that made my dust-bowl home seem rich.
Jack wasn’t looking at me. He was walking over to the last of the narrow buildings on the right-hand side of the street. The porch steps creaked as he climbed up to the front door. The screen door squeaked even louder when he pulled it open, and we all followed Jack inside.
The outside stench was replaced by smells of old fish and cabbage. A narrow staircase ran up along the left-hand wall. A dark and dingy hallway ran along the right. As we crowdedinside, its one door opened so a hatchet-faced woman in a sack of a dress could peer out at us.
“Well, Jacob Hollander.” Her words were thick and hard. “You’ve come home, have you? And brought some friends.”
“Looks that way, Mrs. Burnstein,” said Jack. He didn’t look back at her either, just started climbing the stairs and we all followed. Papa touched his hat to the woman. She slammed the door shut.
Jack stopped at the second floor. There was another dark door, with a worn spot on the varnish that made the silhouette for the number seven. A radio on the other side blared hot jazz. There was a thing hanging on the threshold that looked like two little tubes tied together with blue thread. Jack looked at it and a muscle in his cheek jumped. He touched it, and my magic told me something sparked way down inside him. Then Jack shouldered the door open.
The room on the other side was a match for the hallway: narrow, dim, and dingy. Somebody’d tried to make it respectable once. There were lace curtains on the windows, but they were as worn as the carpet on the floor. There was a sort of sitting room with a sagging sofa and a pair of threadbare chairs drawn up to the radiator like it was a
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