Cave Under the City

by Mazer, Harry;

  I sat up. “Where are you going?”

  “Shh. Not far. To Baltimore. I was promised a job. Maybe I’ll be in Washington, D.C. You want me to tell President Roosevelt something?”

  I held his sleeve, then caught his fingers. My hands wanted to keep him there.

  “I want you to help your mother and look after your brother. Don’t fight. You’re the oldest. You have to be responsible. You’re the man in the house now. I’m counting on you, Tolley.” He rubbed my head. “You want a kiss good-bye, or do we shake hands like men?”

  We shook hands. His suitcase was by the door with his paintbrushes wrapped in newspaper and tied together with string. The hat made him look like he was gone already. I dug my face into his coat, into the rough, familiar smell of paint and dust.

  My father patted my back. I hung on him. It was dark and I was scared. What if he got hurt or lost and didn’t come back. I didn’t want to let go. “A good boy. A good boy.” My father squeezed me, then he pulled away and I had to let him go.

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see him leave. I heard the door shut. Then his steps disappearing down the stairs. From the main room I heard my mother coughing.

  In the morning my mother was fixing breakfast. I got the milk and the butter from the icebox in the hall. Only a sliver of ice remained. I emptied the tray underneath. “We need ice,” I said.

  “You’ll have to wait for the iceman. Squeeze some oranges.”

  I sliced the oranges, then squeezed the juice. Bubber’s juice had to be strained. He was standing by the window in the other room, playing with a shoe. “Get dressed,” I told him. Then I went to the toilet.

  He was still playing when I came back. I pulled him away from the window. He started to fight me, so I took the shoe away and hit him in the head a couple of times. “Get dressed.” He kicked me in the shin. I was going to really crown him; then I remembered what my father had said.

  My mother left me a quarter for the iceman. She took my brother with her when she left for work. Bubber was dropped off at a neighbor’s who took him to school every morning with her daughter, then brought them back to her house for lunch.

  I looked out in the street. A car passed. Model A. Then a ’32 Dodge. A LaSalle. I couldn’t guess the year. People were going to the train. How was my father going to Baltimore? By train? Was he driving with someone? Was he out of the city already?

  A milk wagon stopped across the street. The milkman jumped out, put a feed bag on the horse, then disappeared into a building with a tray of bottles. I saw my friend George and opened the window. “Hey, George, come on up.”

  “I can’t. I have to bring my mother bread so she can make my father’s lunch.”

  I stuck my head farther out the window and watched George disappear around the corner. Across the street I saw a kid standing guard over a pile of stuff—clothes, furniture, a couple of mattresses. “You moving?” I yelled.

  He looked up. “Whaaat?”

  “Is it your stuff?”

  “No, it’s my mother’s.”

  I knew what it was. It was an eviction. If you didn’t pay your rent you got an eviction notice. Then the marshal came and they carried all your stuff out to the street. I never saw an eviction on our street before. “You’re lucky,” I yelled. “No school today.”

  The dumbwaiter buzzer sounded. The iceman was in the cellar. I opened the dumbwaiter door, stuck my head in the shaft, and called down my order. I heard the ice drop on the platform, then the box came up. I unloaded the cake of ice and put it in the icebox. I put the quarter in the box. “Okay,” I said, and tugged the rope and the box went down. Then I went to school.

  5

  After school I waited outside P.S. 96 for my brother. I went across the street and stood on top of the hill. I liked being up on the tops of things and looking way off. Which way was my father? He’d been gone ten days and we’d only received one postcard with his address in Baltimore. The job, he said, wasn’t going to last, but he was going to look around. He’d heard there was work in Washington, D.C.

  I looked toward downtown. Baltimore was that way, south, past Philadelphia. I looked it up in my geography book, put one finger on New York, my thumb on Baltimore. Lights out, Pop. If I had wings and a propeller I’d fly down there like Lindbergh.

  Hey, Pop, look up, it’s Tolley. How’re things going? You get a good job? When are you coming home? You got some good news, I’ll tell Momma. She needs something to cheer her up. Pop, you hear me? She’s tired all the time and coughing a lot.

  “Hey, Irv!” He was down below me in the street. “Piano lesson, today? Do re mi fa …” Except for Irv’s mother, everyone in his family played an instrument. Me, I played the radio. If I could play something, though, it wouldn’t be the violin or the piano. It would be something big like a trombone or a tuba. Some afternoons in the Coops there was music coming out of every single window. It sounded like an orchestra, like the whole house was practicing, everyone trying to drown everyone else out. If I played the tuba, I’d drown them all out.

  “Hey, Irv, meet you at the first candy store, later.”

  Isabelle Arnow looked up. I didn’t see her till it was too late. She was going by with one of her friends. Was I screeching? What did I sound like? I thought I sounded like a bird. Not too smart, not too suave. Isabelle! Oh, Isabelle’s nice. I don’t talk to her, but I look at her a lot. When I’m behind her I look at her neck and the backs of her arms. She has dimples in both elbows. I haven’t gotten up the nerve to talk to her yet, but I will one of these days.

  I waved to her. Suave, like a movie star, Ronald Colman or Errol Flynn. Isabelle nudged her friend and whispered in her ear. She might have smiled, but she was too far away to tell.

  Later, I met my friends at the first candy store. Irv was reading the paper and Chick was shadow-boxing with George. Irv’s father was on the corner talking to another man. Mr. Horowitz was short, like Irv, with glasses and the same round face. “Hello, Holtz. Where’s your father these days?”

  “Is this Holtz the painter?” the other man said. “Is your father working? I don’t see him around. Where is he?”

  “Baltimore.”

  “Is he working?”

  “Who?”

  “Am I talking about Rockefeller? I asked you, is your father working?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “You see,” the other man said. “That’s what I’m telling you, Horowitz. You want to work? A little ambition, that’s all that’s needed. There’s no depression. It’s a word the newspapers made up. It’s in your head. That’s where the fight has to be won. What did President Roosevelt say? We only have to fear—” He turned to me. “What’s the rest of it?”

  “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  “Very good, Holtz. A smart boy. A plus. You see, the schools are doing their part. Now if we all did our parts … if everyone believed, had confidence, spent their money. Money, buying, spending, that’s what makes work.”

  “Nothing’s going to help,” Irv’s father said. “Roosevelt is sticking plasters on a sinking ship. Capitalism is on its last legs.” Irv’s father talked with both his hands. He was always arguing. “Once the workers in this country unite—”

  George grabbed me from behind and dragged me back.

  “Hey, you big ape, let go. It’s interesting.”

  He yanked my ear. I gave him an elbow in the gut. Chick, George, and I started to spar around. George had a couple of Baby Ruths. One he ate in front of us. He was a pig. Last summer, Irv and I stopped talking to him completely. We agreed he was a self-centered, egotistical, selfish, ignorant jerk, but when school started we were friends again.

  “Who wants some?” George peeled the second candy bar.

  Chick took a piece and so did Irv, but I refused. “Eat it yourself, you fat cow.”

  “Thanks.” He stuffed his mouth. “When are you going to treat, Tolley, or are you too cheap? You guys want to go over to Woolworth’s and get
some jelly beans? Of course, nothing for Tolley.”

  “If I want anything, I’ll get it for myself.”

  “What are you going to pay for it with? You don’t have any money. I heard your family’s on relief.”

  “Hey! You want something, big mouth? You working for a fat lip?”

  “You want your head handed to you?”

  “How’d you like my fist down your throat?”

  “How’d you like a pocket full of teeth?” He grinned at me. “So, when are you treating, Holtz? Where’s the do-re-mi?” He pushed me. I pushed him back.

  Mrs. Russo tapped on the window of the candy store. “Get away from the front of the store! And, you, put the paper down.” She slid the small glass window open wider and pointed to the Daily News Irv was reading. “Pay for it or put it back. This is not the public library.”

  “Excuse me, lady.” Irv folded the paper, neatly tapping it together, then put it back on top of the pile.

  “Two cents and the paper is yours.”

  “No, thanks,” Irv said. “I only read The New York Times.”

  “Nate!” Mrs. Russo bawled for her son. “I’ve got a few big mouths out here that need to be shut up.”

  George pawed the ground. “Come on, Nate. Nate! Nate! Come and get us.”

  We were looking for Nate to come out the door, but instead he came charging around the corner and took us by surprise.

  “Chickeeee!” We scattered. But then Chick lost his glasses and he turned back. Nate took a swipe at him. Chick went flat to the sidewalk, then jumped straight back between two parked cars.

  “Look out!” A Coca-Cola truck slid up and double-parked behind Chick. “Behind you, Chick!”

  He was trapped. It looked like there was only one way out, straight into Nate’s hairy arms. Chick didn’t hesitate. He dove under the truck and slid out the other side.

  Nobody was in our apartment when I got home. Bubber should have been waiting by the stairs. I looked for him downstairs in the hall. “Bubber?” I ran out into the court. “Bubber!” My voice climbed up and down the walls.

  “Is that you, Tolman Holtz?” Mrs. Chrissman looked out the window of her apartment. Bubber was with her; Murray, too. “There you are. Come up here.” She was waiting for me on the landing. “Where have you been? Your little brother has been sitting here for an hour. The door is locked. He doesn’t have a key. He doesn’t have a place to go to the toilet. Who’s supposed to take care of him? Your poor mother is in the hospital and you’re out having a good time.”

  “My mother is in the hospital?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Unconscious, a lot you care. She’s been walking around with pneumonia. The hospital called me. I had to go down three flights of stairs to the phone. I almost had a heart attack. They took your mother from work in an ambulance. It’s in her chest.”

  I got out my key and opened our door.

  “What are you going to do now?” Mrs. Chrissman said. “Wait a minute, I’m still talking to you. Who’s going to take care of you?”

  “We’ll go to my grandmother,” I said.

  “Good. I was waiting to hear you say it. That’s what they said from the hospital. Your mother said you should go to your grandmother. Are you listening to me? I don’t want any monkey business. I have enough of my own to think about.” She went back to her apartment and shut the door.

  6

  We climbed the stairs to the train. I had two cents in my pocket, not even enough for one fare. People were coming off the train and the gate was open. I glanced at the man in the change booth. When he wasn’t looking we slipped through.

  I stood on the platform and watched for the train. Bubber walked around. A woman stopped to talk to him; she opened her purse, and he came back smiling, with a nickel in his hand.

  “What did you say to that woman?” I took the nickel from him. “Did you ask her for money?”

  “She just gave it to me.”

  “We don’t take money from strangers. How many times did Momma tell you?”

  “I didn’t take it. The lady gave it to me.”

  The train came into the station. It made the platform shake. I held on to Bubber’s hand. We moved up to the first car, where we stood next to the motorman’s booth and watched the tracks merging and dividing, the lights turning from red to green. We rolled past Pelham Parkway station, Bronx Park East, East 180th Street, and then the long, wide, screechy turn by the Coliseum.

  We saw the river below, the water spilling out around the icehouse. It was like being on the top of a roller coaster. At Jackson Street the train went down to ground level, past the place where men were loading beef carcasses into trucks. Then the street came up on both sides of us and we were underground. The noise was so bad Bubber put his hands over his ears.

  A man sat nearby, wearing a long overcoat. Under his feet there was a heavy metal toolbox. A mechanic, like my father, only my father’s tools were paintbrushes and cans of paint and linseed oil.

  The train went faster under the ground. The lights flashed by. I thought about being rich and coming home with my pockets full of quarters, taking them out, one at a time, and piling them in front of my mother.

  Bubber nudged me. 86th Street. Grandma’s station.

  The entrance to Grandma’s building was like a castle, with heavy wooden doors and long stained-glass windows. Inside, it was dark, and there were big chairs where nobody ever sat, and flags on the walls, and a shield and spears. Bubber stood in the empty fireplace.

  We went up three marble steps, then down a narrow corridor. Bubber ran ahead to push the buzzer. We could hear it ring inside. We waited, but my grandmother didn’t come.

  “Maybe she’s asleep. Ring it again.”

  Bubber gave the bell another jab. She was always here. My grandmother never went out. She always dressed the same way, a kerchief and a wide apron that smelled like cookies. I never saw my grandmother with a coat on. I pushed the buzzer again. Maybe she was getting deaf. I leaned on the door and it swung open.

  My grandma’s door was never left open. Bubber ran past me. “Buba?” he called. It was dark inside, and there was a smell like something stale. Then Bubber came running out of my grandmother’s bedroom.

  “Buba’s dead.”

  I went slowly to the room. There was a screeching in my head. I was afraid to look.

  My grandmother was lying on her bed. Her mouth was soft and sunken and her nose was like the beak of a bird. Without her kerchief she looked like an old man. Her hands were folded on her breast the way I’d seen dead saints and kings in pictures.

  I’d never seen a dead person. I’d seen dead cats and dead dogs. Dead animals stank and they got bloated. Once I’d seen a dead horse lying on its side in the street. It still had on the straps and harness, and its feet stuck in the air.

  “Buba?” Her hand jerked. I jumped back. Sweat popped out all over me. She snorted a couple of times. Bubber was behind me in the hall, breathing like a dog. “Buba’s not dead,” I said. “She’s sleeping.”

  Her eyes rolled up in her head. “Chillun,” she mumbled. She held my hand. Her hand was hot and dry. Bubber climbed up on the bed. She moaned. Her eyes kept closing. “Yuh muddah … tell yuh muddah …”

  “Buba, I thought you were dead,” Bubber said.

  “Shhh,” I said.

  My grandmother motioned to her lips. “Wet my lips, child.” I ran for a glass of water. She drank it with her hand covering her mouth. She didn’t have her teeth in.

  “Momma’s sick,” Bubber began.

  I put my hand over his mouth.

  “Tell Momma … tell yuh muddah …” Her eyes closed again.

  We went out of the room. Bubber was breathing hard again. “Are we going home now? When’s Momma going to be there?”

  “I don’t know. Leave me alone.” How sick was my grandmother? How sick was my mother? How was I going to find my father? I didn’t have enough carfare to get home. And I was hungry. I was expecting to eat here. I
looked in the icebox and all the cupboards. A lot of pots and empty jars. In a bag I found some old potatoes with skinny white sprouts growing out of them like dead men’s fingers. Even the glass cookie jar that always held my grandmother’s famous raisin cookies was empty.

  In a drawer I found a pencil and paper. “Are you going to write Daddy and tell him Momma is sick?” Bubber said.

  “What are you worrying about? Momma is coming home tomorrow and Buba is just tired.”

  I jabbed black dots across the paper, then joined two dots in the middle. “Your turn.” The idea was to keep joining lines and not give the other side a chance to make a box.

  “When are we going to eat?” Bubber said.

  “When Buba wakes up.”

  Bubber sniffed. “I smell potatoes.” I smelled them, too. Potatoes and onions. My stomach growled.

  In the other room I heard my grandmother stirring. I handed Bubber the pencil. “Your turn.” I went to see my grandmother. Bubber followed me.

  My grandmother was standing by the bed, holding on to the post. Her feet were bare. When she saw me, she covered her mouth and said something that I couldn’t understand. “You want me to get you something, Buba?”

  She shook her head and went to the bathroom. When she came out she had her teeth in.

  “Go home, go home. I told you children to go home. I don’t want you to get sick. I have a cold.”

  “Buba, I’ll go shopping for you.”

  “For what? I don’t want anything. I’m not hungry. I just need to rest. Tell Momma I’m just a little tired. I don’t want her to come, she has enough. Tell her my neighbor looks in on me. Now, go home. Go home.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to tell her my mother was in the hospital. I was afraid I’d make her sicker.

  “Go, go,” my grandmother said, “what are you waiting for? I’m all right. I told you, take the little one out before he gets sick.”

  We left. On the way home, I bought two penny candy bars. When we got to the station, I put Bubber’s nickel in the slot and pushed him ahead of me under the turnstile.