him, he found instructions for the building of a crystal radio set at a cost of sixty-five cents. He was saving his money.
Of course we had our problems. When his friends were around he tended not to want me to be with them, but I understood that, even as I complained and pestered him. It was a matter of principle with me to pester Donald and his friends. Of course they were not without resources in dealing with this. They knew my weaknesses, that, for instance, if anyone around me cried, I cried too. It was true, I caught crying as if it were a communicable disease, I couldn’t help it, I was a walking dust mop of emotions. Donald pretended to cry to get rid of me. In fact, he had refined the art of it by only threatening to cry, holding his arm up to his eyes and issuing one preliminary sob and peeking out from under his arm to find me biting my lip,my eyes filling, ready to bawl for no reason, not even knowing what the matter was, the pain, but only that whatever it was, it was overwhelming and impossible to endure. I was burdened with this terrible affliction, just as my friend Herbert from Weeks Avenue had crossed eyes, or a little boy who played in my park had inward-turning feet. There was nothing to do but hope to grow out of it, this awful teariness. First it would hit me in the throat. Then it affected my ability to see, I had to close my eyes. It was a form of shyness or sorrow for the world’s hard life. Sometimes my brother and his friends Bernie and Seymour and Irwin would, all together, pretend to cry; and I would be made so tearful by this mass assault that even knowing they were teasing me and even after having them emerge from their pretense laughing and jolly, I would find myself uncontrollably sobbing, as if a substantive wrong had taken place, like a bashed thumb or a cut, or the loss of something precious. And then, of course, it took forever to wind down, a trail of heartbreaking hiccuppy sobs issuing from me for several minutes as I went about my business.
Weakness and insufficiency seemed always to be my lot. I suffered from dust and pollen, colds, coughs, flus. At times of seasonal change I more or less lived in bed. All of this led, without my understanding it, to a crisis in my relationship with my brother. My parents concluded one day that Pinky, our dog, would have to be gotten rid of because I was allergic to her.
I t was her hair that was the problem, not her character. She shed her white hair on the rugs and on the furniture. Donald would not believe this was a reason for losing his dog forever. “You don’t like her,” he said to our mother. “That’s what this is all about. You never have liked her.”
“That’s a false charge,” my father said, coming to my mother’s defense. “On occasion she has saved Pinky’s life.” Hehad us there. One day the dog had come up from the basement and my mother had noticed, as none of us did who were Pinky’s champions, that she was dragging herself about with uncommon listlessness. My mother saw a speck of something green on the tip of Pinky’s nose. “Oh my God,” she said, “this stupid dog has eaten rat poison.” Quickly she whipped up a couple of raw eggs in a bowl and put the dog and the bowl in the grass yard, a tiny patch on the south side of the house under the windows of Donald’s room. Pinky slurped up the eggs and vomited, as my mother had expected she would, and thus her life was saved.
But the argument continued for several days. During this time we had reason to reflect on our history with this dog. She had been run over several times, and was no worse for wear. The green-poison story had become famous, although, as my mother told it to our neighbors, she did not want to admit that anything resembling a rodent could have needed the serious attention of a poison in our basement, and so she had represented that Smith had left open a can of some sort of janitorial substance of industrial strength and this was what the
Of course we had our problems. When his friends were around he tended not to want me to be with them, but I understood that, even as I complained and pestered him. It was a matter of principle with me to pester Donald and his friends. Of course they were not without resources in dealing with this. They knew my weaknesses, that, for instance, if anyone around me cried, I cried too. It was true, I caught crying as if it were a communicable disease, I couldn’t help it, I was a walking dust mop of emotions. Donald pretended to cry to get rid of me. In fact, he had refined the art of it by only threatening to cry, holding his arm up to his eyes and issuing one preliminary sob and peeking out from under his arm to find me biting my lip,my eyes filling, ready to bawl for no reason, not even knowing what the matter was, the pain, but only that whatever it was, it was overwhelming and impossible to endure. I was burdened with this terrible affliction, just as my friend Herbert from Weeks Avenue had crossed eyes, or a little boy who played in my park had inward-turning feet. There was nothing to do but hope to grow out of it, this awful teariness. First it would hit me in the throat. Then it affected my ability to see, I had to close my eyes. It was a form of shyness or sorrow for the world’s hard life. Sometimes my brother and his friends Bernie and Seymour and Irwin would, all together, pretend to cry; and I would be made so tearful by this mass assault that even knowing they were teasing me and even after having them emerge from their pretense laughing and jolly, I would find myself uncontrollably sobbing, as if a substantive wrong had taken place, like a bashed thumb or a cut, or the loss of something precious. And then, of course, it took forever to wind down, a trail of heartbreaking hiccuppy sobs issuing from me for several minutes as I went about my business.
Weakness and insufficiency seemed always to be my lot. I suffered from dust and pollen, colds, coughs, flus. At times of seasonal change I more or less lived in bed. All of this led, without my understanding it, to a crisis in my relationship with my brother. My parents concluded one day that Pinky, our dog, would have to be gotten rid of because I was allergic to her.
I t was her hair that was the problem, not her character. She shed her white hair on the rugs and on the furniture. Donald would not believe this was a reason for losing his dog forever. “You don’t like her,” he said to our mother. “That’s what this is all about. You never have liked her.”
“That’s a false charge,” my father said, coming to my mother’s defense. “On occasion she has saved Pinky’s life.” Hehad us there. One day the dog had come up from the basement and my mother had noticed, as none of us did who were Pinky’s champions, that she was dragging herself about with uncommon listlessness. My mother saw a speck of something green on the tip of Pinky’s nose. “Oh my God,” she said, “this stupid dog has eaten rat poison.” Quickly she whipped up a couple of raw eggs in a bowl and put the dog and the bowl in the grass yard, a tiny patch on the south side of the house under the windows of Donald’s room. Pinky slurped up the eggs and vomited, as my mother had expected she would, and thus her life was saved.
But the argument continued for several days. During this time we had reason to reflect on our history with this dog. She had been run over several times, and was no worse for wear. The green-poison story had become famous, although, as my mother told it to our neighbors, she did not want to admit that anything resembling a rodent could have needed the serious attention of a poison in our basement, and so she had represented that Smith had left open a can of some sort of janitorial substance of industrial strength and this was what the
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