“Hey Leo!” he sang out, and the boldness of his own voice surprised him. “Hey Leo, w’ea d’yuh live?”
He heard an answering voice and almost immediately after, a door splayed out a fan of light.
“C’mon in.” Leo stepped out.
“Leo!” David would have hugged him if he dared. “Yuh called me?”
“Yea, it begun to rain, so I come back. Didn’ wanna get me skates all rusty.”
“Gee, I’m glad I comm home!” David followed him into the kitchen.
“I wuz just wipin’ ’em.” Leo sat down on a chair, picked up an oily rag at his feet and began vigorously polishing the various parts.
“Yuh all alone.” He found a seat against the wall.
“Sure.”
“Hoddy yuh ged in yuh house?”
“W’it’ a key, hodja t’ink?”
“Gee!” admiringly. “Yuh god a key of yuh own ’n’ ev’y t’ing?”
“‘Course. See dat shine?” He lifted the gleaming skate.
“Gee, you know how.”
“Yuh do dis ev’y day, dey never get rusty on ye.”
“No. But look w’ad I brung ye, Leo.” Heart leaping with delight he held out the two candies.
“Gee!” Leo hopped up with alacrity. “W’ot kind?”
“A emmend an’ pineapple.”
“Oh, boy! Bot’ of ’em fuh me?”
“Yea.” He found himself regretting he had not accepted the other tid-bits his aunt had offered him.
“Yer a nice guy!” Leo set the chocolates on the table. “W’edja git ’em?”
“Aintcha gonna ead ’em?” He asked eagerly.
“Naw, I’m savin’ ’em fuh later. I wanna eat sumpt’n else foist.”
“Oh! My a’nt ga’ me ’em — Gee! I fuhgod tuh tell yuh. She owns a kendy staw.”
“No kiddin’! W’ea does she live?”
“Wey down in Kane Stritt. But you c’n go easy — yuh god skates.”
“Sure let’s go dere sometimes — maybe we c’n cop a whole box of jelly beans. D’ja get any gum drops?”
“No,” self-reproachfully. “I coulda — Gee!”
“Dey’re good.” Leo had put down the skates and gone over to the bread box on a shelf beside the sink. “Me fuh sumpt’n t’ eat.” He drew out a loaf of bread. “Want some?”
“I ain’ so hungry.” He felt suddenly shy. “Id’s oily yed.”
“Wot of it?” He began undoing the printed waxed-paper about the bread. “I eats w’en I wants tuh.”
“Awri’.” Leo’s independence was contagious.
“Got sumpt’n good too,” he promised, going over to the ice-box. “Sumpt’n we don’ have ev’y day.”
While Leo ferreted among the dishes, David stole blissful glances about him. It gave him a snug, adventurous feeling to be alone in a whole house with someone so resourceful as Leo. There were no parents to interfere, no orders to obey — nothing. Only they two, living in a separate world of their own. Nor were goyish kitchens so different from Jewish ones. Like his own, this too was a cubical room with stove, sink and washtubs flush against the walls. And the walls were green, and the white curtains, hanging from taut strings across the window-frames, sere with too much washing, and the flowered linoleum, scuffed like his own. Both were equally scrubbed and tidy, but where David’s kitchen had a warm tang to its cleanliness, Leo’s had a chill, flat odor of soap. That was all the difference between them, except perhaps for a certain picture in the shadowy corner at the further end of the room — a picture that for all of David’s staring would not take on a reasonable shape because the light was too dim.
“Is she got a reggiler big canny staw?” Kneeling before the ice-box, Leo had been buttering bread. And now he pushed several objects from a large platter onto a small one. “Ice-cream poller too?” He arose.
“My aunt? Naa. She god just a—” He broke off, gaped at what Leo had placed on the table. In one of the plates was a stack of buttered bread, but on the other, a heap of strange pink creatures, all legs, claws, bodies—“Wod’s dat?”
“Dese?” Leo snickered at his surprise. “Don’tcha know wat dis is? Dem’s crabs.”
“Cre—? Oh, crebs! Dey wuz green-like, w’en I seen ’em in a box on Second Evenyeh—”
“Yea, but dey a’ways gits red w’en ye berl ’em. Dey’re real good! Gonna eat some?”
“Naa!” His stomach shrank.
“Didntcha ever eat ’em?”
“Naa! Jews can’t.”
“Cheez! Jew’s can’t eat nutt’n.” He picked up one of the monsters. “Lucky I ain’ a Jew.”
“No.” David agreed vaguely. But for the first time since he had met Leo, he rejoiced in his own tenets. “Hoddayuh ead?”
“Easy!” Leo snapped off a scarlet claw. “Jist bite into ’em, see?” He did.
“Gee!” David marveled.
“Here’s some bread an’ budder,” Leo offered him a slab. “Yuh c’n eat dat, cantchuh? It’s on’y American bread.”
“Yea.” David eyed it curiously on accepting it. Unlike his own bread, this slice was neither drab-grey nor brown, but dough-pale and soft as paste under the finger tips. Where the crust on the bread his mother bought was stiff and thick as card-board, this had a pliant yielding skin, thin as the thriftiest potato paring or the strip one unwound from a paper lead-pencil. And the butter — he tasted it — salt! He had never eaten salt butter before. However, pulpy and briny though the first mouthful was, there was nothing actually repulsive about it—
“We c’n eat anyt’ing we wants,” Leo informed him sucking at a crushed red pincer. “Anyt’ing wot’s good.”
“Yea?” While he rolled the soggy cud about in his cheek, his eyes had lighted on the picture again, and again were baffled with shadow.
— A man. What? Can’t be.
“An’ I et ev’y kind o’ bread dey is,” Leo continued proudly. “Aitalian bread-sticks, Dutch pummernickel, Jew rye — even watchuh call ’em, matziz — matches—” He snickered. “Dey’re nuttin but big crackers — D’ja ever eat real spigeddi?”
“No, wod’s dat?”
“De wops eat it just like pitaters. An’ boy ain’ it good!” He rubbed his belly. “Could eat a whole pailful by me-self. We usetuh live nex’ door to de Aglorini’s — dey was Aitalian—”
— Like my picture too — in my house — with the flowers. Is something else if you know. Have to know or you can’t see.—
“An’ Lily Aglorini usetuh bring in a big dishful fuh me and de ol’ lady. Dat wuz w’en me ol’ lady give ’em cakes when she woiked in a ressarran’. On’y wot cheese dey put in — Holy Chee! No wonner guineas c’n faht wit’ gollic bombs!”
— A man, for sure now. Has to be. Only his guts are stickin’ out. Burning. Gee what a crazy picture. Even mine ain’t so. But get mad if I ask—
“Wisht me ol’ lady could make real Aitalian spigeddi — Hey!” He demanded abruptly. “Wotcha lookin’ at?”
“N-nott’n!” David dropped guilty eyes. “W’ad’s-” (—Don’t, don’t ask him!) “Gee!” He felt the shooting warmth of his own flush and stopped confusedly. (—Dope! Next time listen!)
“Wot’s wot?” he demanded staring at him with a wide-mouthed, suspended grin.
“A — yea!” Again, as on the roof, he found a convenient switch. “But I don’ know hodda say. My modder, she says it— on’y id’s Jewish.” He grinned deprecatingly.
“Well, say it!” impatiently.
“W’ad’s a orr — a orrghaneest? Dat’s how she says id.”