Cave Under the City

by Mazer, Harry;

  Two more times over the roof with him? “Forget it.” I turned the radio on low and we got on our parents’ bed.

  15

  The next day it was raining and we didn’t go out. I didn’t even go down to check the mail. When my father got my letter he’d call. I kept listening for the phone in the hall downstairs, but it didn’t ring all day.

  The next morning was Friday and it was still raining, and for no reason I felt good. Maybe because it was Friday. My father was going to finish work today and be here tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. Once he got my letter he’d jump on the first train and come straight home.

  For breakfast, I made the last of the oatmeal, then we went downstairs to wait for the mail. I was a little jumpy going by Mrs. Chrissman’s door. I could hear Murray and his mother yelling at each other.

  “Wear your rubbers,” Mrs. Chrissman said.

  “It’s not raining, Mom.”

  The mailbox was empty, but it was still early. I saw the mailman going into section Z. Bubber and I waited in the hall. When Murray came bouncing down the stairs, we ducked under the stairs. Then Mrs. Engel, our downstairs neighbor, stood right in front of where we were hiding and looked into her mailbox. She opened her umbrella and went out.

  When the mailman came, we were in another part of the hall. I heard him opening the boxes. One key he carried on a long chain opened all the boxes. I heard the mail drop into the slots, then the doors were banged shut.

  I told Bubber to wait while I checked our mailbox.

  “What are you doing, boy?” Mr. Brooks, the janitor, was standing by the stairs, smoking a cigarette. Narrow face the color of prune juice. Mr. Brooks was nobody to fool with. He was skinny, but all muscle, strong from all the barrels of ashes and garbage he lifted. He was strict, didn’t allow any chalking on his buildings or ball playing in the courts. Once he’d chased Bubber right into the house for playing ball in the hall.

  “You expecting a letter?” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Open the box, then. You got the key. Maybe Uncle Sammy is sending you a lot of money.” He smiled, flashed gold.

  I opened it. There was a letter.

  “Where’s your father? I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  “Working.”

  “That’s good. Where’s your mother? Haven’t seen her lately.”

  “She’s sick.”

  “Oh, that’s it. I seen you come home with the groceries. You taking care of your mother? That’s a good boy. You won’t have your mother forever.”

  I ran upstairs. The letter was from the hospital. I was afraid to open it till I was inside our apartment. It was from my mother, but it was somebody else’s handwriting.

  “My dear children, did you hear from Daddy? Is he home? Why hasn’t he come to see me yet? I wrote him the first day I was here.

  “I can’t even write this letter, I’m so tired and weak. A kind lady is helping me. My precious children, don’t worry. I’m going to be all right. If Daddy’s not home today, I’m sure he’ll be there tomorrow. Meanwhile, I want you to be good and don’t aggravate Buba. She’s not used to young children.”

  I read the letter over again. She didn’t say anything about coming home. She didn’t know Buba was sick and we were alone.

  The bell rang, someone kicked the door. It was Bubber. I let him in. He kicked at me, then ran and hid in the closet.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You left me downstairs. You forgot me.”

  “I just came up for a second.” I put the letter in my back pocket. Bubber was hiding in Momma’s bathrobe. “Okay,” I said, “okay.” I patted him on the back.

  After a while he quieted down. “Did a letter come?” he said.

  I showed him Momma’s letter. “Daddy’s coming. She wrote him.” But if my mother wrote him the day she got sick, why wasn’t he here already?

  I went and looked out the window. Should we wait here for him? What if he didn’t come today? Should we go back to my grandmother’s? What if he was coming off the train right now? What if Grandma was still sick and didn’t want us? Should I tell her Momma was sick, too, and in the hospital and we didn’t have anyplace else to go? That might make her feel worse. And what if my father came and we weren’t here? But he’d know we were at my grandmother’s. I could leave him a note.

  There was a knock on the door, a loud knock. Someone was really banging on the door. “I know you boys are in there. Open up!” It was the man in the plaid jacket again.

  16

  We went out the window and over the roof. It was still raining. We went back to the burned-out restaurant. I didn’t know where else to go. I wanted to stay near our house in case my father came. Later, maybe, if we had to, we’d go to my grandmother’s. I went down into the cellar on the dumbwaiter, then rode Bubber down. He didn’t like the dark, but he liked the room I’d found.

  He sat on the springs. “Are we going to sleep here?”

  I looked at the stove. I looked at the little window. I looked at the dirty walls. I thought about my parents. Maybe a letter had come. Yeah, and maybe McKenzie’s man was sitting right by the mailbox. Or was he on the stairs by our apartment? Or on the next landing, where he could watch and not be seen? Or did he have a skeleton key, and was he inside our house right now, waiting for us?

  “This will be our cave,” Bubber said. He held his hands over the stove like there was heat in it. “This is where we’ll cook.” He bounced on the springs. “And we’ll sleep on this good bed.” Then he got up and “poured” himself a cup of cocoa, sipped it, then blew on it. “It’s too hot. You want a marshmallow in yours, Tolley?”

  That’s one thing about my brother, he has a terrific imagination. I get caught up in the worry of things. But not Bubber. He can be a baby sometimes, but he makes himself at home wherever he is.

  Stay here? It was just a dirty storage room in a cellar. How were we going to stay here? What if we made a fire and somebody saw our smoke? What if they saw us going in and out? But then I shut up my dumb, practical mind. If Bubber said it was a cave, then let it be a cave. Our cave. A cave under the city.

  We could stay here tonight, maybe even for a couple of nights, just till my father came home.

  17

  We slept together on the bare springs that night. Every time Bubber moved I woke up. I heard the trains going by and thought about my mother and my father. Was she better? Was my father closer? Was he home yet? What if he was home and we weren’t there? He’d think we were with my grandmother, but I hadn’t left him a note. McKenzie’s man had come too fast.

  In the morning, Bubber found a piece of a Tootsie Roll in his pocket, covered with lint. We sat on the springs, taking turns sucking it. Bubber made loud smacking sucks. “What are you doing?”

  “Sucking a lollipop.” He licked his lips.

  “What flavor?”

  “What flavor is yours, Tolley?”

  “Lemon.”

  “Mine is lemon, too.”

  I yawned. He yawned. I crossed my legs, he crossed his. Why was he copying me? I didn’t want him doing everything I did. My mother was always telling me I had to be a good example to Bubber. I wasn’t that good. I didn’t want to be that good.

  “If you could wish anything you wanted, Tolley, what would you wish first?”

  “Momma to be out of the hospital.”

  “What would be your next wish, Tolley?”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Bacon and eggs. I’m hungry.”

  “You think you’re the only one?” I looked up the dumbwaiter shaft. “Come on, let’s go.”

  I sent Bubber up first and then he helped me come up. It was just as hard as it had been the first day. “We need a ladder.”

  “Poppa’s got lots of ladders.”

  My father kept his ladders chained in the carriage room. He wouldn’t like it if I carried one of his ladders all the way over here.

  From the outside, I looked for our
window in the cellar room. It was just a small square hole in the wall. You couldn’t even see the chimney hole. We explored through the weeds and the high grass. There were trails crisscrossing through the empty lots. I found a chair with three legs and carried it back. Behind a store by the restaurant we found an open faucet. Bubber put his mouth to it and drank. Then I drank. We played around with the water for a while, piled some rocks near it and made a little pool.

  Bubber found wild grapes. The vines were crawling all over. Sour grapes and full of tiny seeds. I put a bunch of grapes in my mouth, ate them, seeds and all.

  Bubber stuck out his tongue. “What color is my tongue, Tolley?”

  “Green, with white polka dots.”

  “Stop it. Your mouth is purple.”

  “Let me see your tongue again.”

  He stuck it out.

  “You need a doctor.”

  He spit a seed at me. I spit ten at him. Every time he spit one at me, I spit ten at him. I hate to admit it, but I was enjoying myself.

  “Stop it,” he said finally.

  “You started it.”

  “Who’s the baby now, Tolley?”

  All day I thought about going back to our apartment. What if my father was there already? But what if McKenzie’s man was waiting for us? It was safer in the lots, where we could disappear into the high grass or duck back into the cave.

  An old Christmas tree with all the branches lopped off was leaning against an apple tree. I climbed it and shook down a bunch of yellow apples. Bubber watched me bite into one. “You just ate a worm, ugh.”

  “You want the other half?”

  “Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.” Bubber filled his pockets.

  Coming down the tree, I got my brilliant idea.

  We carried the Christmas tree back and dropped it down the shaft. Then we climbed down. It made a perfect ladder.

  Later it started to rain again, so we stayed inside the cave and ate the rest of the apples.

  18

  I woke up and lay there, looking up at the window square. Black square. Blackness all around me. How late was it? I listened and didn’t hear anything. Was my father home? Was he looking for us? Was he sleeping in the house? It was too quiet. No traffic, no trolley cars, no trains. The newspapers we were sleeping on had slid off. I picked them up and covered Bubber. Then I went out.

  There was nobody on the street. The air smelled wet like the ocean. Fog stuck to everything, the lights and the light poles and buildings. Far away I heard engines and foghorns.

  A car passed, its lights poking at the fog. I stayed close to buildings. The only sound was the slap of my shoes. I saw the lights of an approaching car and hid till it passed. Then a cat scared me. I kicked at it. I thought it was going to jump on my back.

  In our building I checked the mailbox. The light wasn’t good and I had to feel around in the box. There was a postcard. I put it in my pocket and went quietly up the stairs.

  At our door, I slid the key carefully into the lock, the tumblers fell, the door clicked open. I remembered nights I was supposed to be home early and came in late, sliding in like a snake, praying my parents were asleep. Was my father sitting up in the living room, waiting for me now?

  The apartment was empty. A little light came in from the street. The pipes rattled. I tiptoed through both rooms, opened all the closet doors, then shut them again. I even looked under the bed. Then I went into the bathroom and turned on the little light over the sink and read the postcard. It was from my father.

  It was a picture postcard. The Capitol on one side. And on the other there was just room for a couple of lines. “Dear Family, Job ended in Baltimore. Looking for work in D.C. I miss my boys and my dear wife. Morris Holtz.”

  I turned the postcard over and over again. The picture on one side and three stingy lines on the other. Like every word cost him a dollar. “Looking for work in D.C.…” Where was his address? Where was he staying? Did he have my letter? And my mother’s? Where was I going to write him now? How was I going to tell him what had happened?

  I saw my scared face in the mirror. I hit my head against the wall, made my brains rattle. I had to think and I couldn’t think. What was I going to do? Should we go to my grandmother’s? Should we stay here? Should we stay where we were? I didn’t want to go out again. I was home, it was warm here and our beds were here, and everything was nice.

  I went from one room to the next, from one side of the apartment to the other. On the floor near the door, I saw a piece of paper and picked it up. Notices from the landlord were slipped under our door. I went to the window with it. The paper had an official-looking seal on the top. “Subject: Brothers, Tolman and Robert Holtz.…” I didn’t read the rest of it. It was McKenzie again.

  I spread out a blanket and started throwing in things we could use. Clothes, another blanket, candles, cans of food, a pot and a frying pan, and a kitchen knife. I found a box of wooden matches, sugar and salt, and a tin of Dutch cocoa. My father’s tools were in the back of the closet. The toolbox was too heavy to carry, but I took a hammer and some nails and the saw he kept on the shelf, oiled and wrapped in newspapers.

  Even Bubber’s rabbit. Momma had made it for him when he was little. It used to be yellow and furry with two red-button eyes. Now it was mangy, only one eye left, and the insides coming out of the nose. Bubber still slept with it. I threw it in and tied the four corners of the blanket together.

  The last thing I did was write a note.

  “Dear Pop, Bubber and I are all right. We are not far away. We have a place to sleep and we are waiting for you to come home. Your son, Tolley.”

  I put the note in the corner of the picture that hung in the hall. It had an old-time country scene with cows and farm women in long dresses gathering grain. That was where my parents always left notes for each other.

  Outside, I threw the bundle over one shoulder and walked that way for a while, and then threw it over the other shoulder. Something sharp dug into my side. Tolley … I heard my mother’s voice. What are you doing? You’re going to live in a hole in the ground? Where’s your common sense?

  Was this one of my stupid things? I stopped to get my breath. A dog came at me out of a dark alley. I heard the chain and his nails on the cement. I ran. Farther on, I leaned against a car. My eyes shut. Tolley …

  Leave me alone, Momma. I just want to be someplace.

  A man came out of the fog. I didn’t move. I was so tired I didn’t care. He could have murdered me and I wouldn’t have moved. I was leaning against the car’s fender and he walked right by me and didn’t say a word.

  When I came to the edge of the lot, I threw the bundle over. Then I slid over the side, fell straight down into the bushes, and lay there. I heard a milk wagon pass, heard the steady clop clop clop of the horse’s hooves. The foggy sky was going soft and gray. A bird on a telephone pole sang. Sang and sang, the same thing, over and over again. Tolley, what are you doing? … Tolley, what are you doing? … Tolley …

  19

  Bubber wasn’t in the cellar room. “Bubber?” I couldn’t see anything. I felt the bed. I felt under the newspapers. “Bubber.” I could hardly say his name. I struck a match. Then another one. They kept going out. I felt around the cot again. I heard something, the sound of breathing, that dog’s breath. Bubber was underneath the bed. He lay in the dirt staring at me.

  I lit another match. “What are you doing?” There were cobwebs on his face. “I just went to get our stuff from the house.”

  He stared at me. “What do you want?” I said. “I’m here. What did you wake up for, anyway?”

  “Is Momma home?”

  I pulled him out. “Not yet.”

  “Is Poppa home?”

  “No!”

  His arms fell to his sides and he started to cry. I hated him when he cried. He cried with his eyes shut and his mouth open with drool coming out of it. “What can I do about it? Wipe that drool off your face. Here’s your stupid rabbit.”

  Bubber
held the rabbit on his lap and he was talking to it silently, just moving his lips. He shook the rabbit’s head and it talked back to him. I was sure they were talking about me. “What did you say?”

  Bubber shook his head. “Rabbit says.”

  “What does rabbit say?”

  “Tolley’s too rough. Tolley tore my ear off.”

  “I did not. That rabbit was torn when I got it.”

  Bubber put his arm around the rabbit. “Rabbit doesn’t like Tolley’s loud voice. He says poor Bubber woke up and mean Tolley was gone.”

  “Okay, next time I’ll wake both you and your rabbit up. Neither of you is that perfect, either. How about all the times I had to look for you?”

  “What times?”

  “What times! What have you got, a mind or a hole in your head? You’re always wandering off. ‘Where’s Bubber? Tolley, go find Bubber.’ I don’t get mad at you and hide under the bed and not talk.”

  “You hit me.”

  “When?”

  “All the time. You yank my arm. You push me.”

  “Not that hard.”

  “It hurts, you always hurt me.”

  “I don’t do it on purpose.”

  “It hurts!”

  “Forget it, will you! From now on, you be the big brother. I resign.” I lay down, pulled a blanket over me. “Big brother Bubber, where are you? I’m hungry. I have to go doo-doo.”

  Bubber pushed me. “Stop it.”

  “That hurts. You hurt me. You always hurt me.”

  “Don’t!” Bubber put his hand over my mouth.

  “Big Brother Bubber.” I popped my finger in my mouth. “I want some bread and butter. Butter, Bubber, for your baby brudder.”

  He pulled the finger out of my mouth. “No sucking, you dope.”

  “I’m hungry,” I whined. “Feed me. Feed meee.” I threw myself around. “Tolley’s little tummy hurts.”

  “I don’t say that, you liar.” He whacked me.

  “Owwww! Bubber hit me. Bubber hit me. Owwww! Feed me. You’re supposed to take care of me.”

  He got the can of salmon. “Where’s the can opener?”