“Gordon,” his wife yells downstairs from the bedroom, he thinks, and he says “Yeah?” and she says “If you’d like to pay me a visit, this might be a good time,” and he says “Why not,” looks at the clock, has about an hour before he has to pick up the kids, “I’ll be up soon,” and she says “If it’s any problem — I don’t want to push you — don’t bother; I’ve plenty of work to do too,” and he says “No, just that I’m this moment involved in something; give me a few minutes,” and she says “I’ll be here.”
Thinks of Vera. He once said something, he forgets what, something about she was skinny, and she grabbed him in a headlock, threw him to the ground — how old could he have been: eight, nine? — sat on top of his chest and slapped his face and said “Don’t ever call me that again.” His cheek stung, he thought maybe he could buck her off him; if he hadn’t doubled over laughing like a jerk right after he’d said it, she never could have got his arms around his head and thrown him. How come none of his friends or hers don’t jump in and stop her or tell her to get off? She held her hand out flat and said “You want it again? So say you won’t say what I said for you not to,” and he said “I’m sorry, I don’t fight with girls so I’m not fighting back,” and she said “You’re not fighting back because you know I’d lick you to kingdom come,” and he thought “lick,” he’d heard how some of the older boys used it, he ought to too with her but that might make her madder and she had him on his back, where, if he couldn’t buck her off, she could really hurt him bad before he got up, slapping again, pulling his hair and kicking him in the nuts when he was starting to get up. She was taller and older, but he hadn’t thought she was as strong as she showed. He said “I just don’t fight with girls, and you’re not a better fighter than me, but let me up, I think you already tore my pants, and my mom’s going to kill me,” for now one of his knees hurt as if it had got scraped through the pants. “If anyone tore your clothes, you did it to yourself for what you said to me, you anus,” and she got off him. He stood up, looked at his friends, one staring seriously at him, other two laughing, probably at what she just called him, he said “She thinks she’s so tough with”—he was going to say “her big filthy trap”—“but she isn’t,” and walked away, didn’t look at his pants till he was in his building’s vestibule, thought why’d she call him an anus? He thinks he knows what it is but what’s it got to do with everything else that happened and all she did? His pants were ripped in a way where he knew his mother couldn’t just sew them, they’d have to be taken to the tailor to weave and that cost a fortune. He washed his knee, put some hydrogen peroxide and a Band-Aid on the cut, changed into another pair of pants, and brought the ripped ones to his mother and said he tore them and put his finger in the hole. She said “How?” and he said he was playing statues on a stoop, “I know it was a stupid thing to do and I won’t do it again, but I fell off it to the sidewalk when I had one foot up and the person who was ‘it’ told us to freeze.” Sometime later Vera was wearing a skirt and socks and a friend of his said someone had told him she had no underpants on and was completely naked underneath and that she also had hair there, “a little of it, like a Hitler mustache, but some.” “How’s he know?” and his friend said “Because he was behind her in their building when she was walking up a steep flight of stairs today and she bent over for something, maybe just to show him, and he saw it. Let’s pretend we’re fighting, you get me on the ground or me you, we’ll roll her way and under her skirt and see,” and he said “Suppose she sees us and minds?” and his friend said “She won’t know, we’ll be fighting and rolling and not paying any attention to her, our eyes looking like we hate each other till we get underneath her skirt.” They did that. “You little pimp.” “You little dick,” the words were all rehearsed, grabbed each other, fell to the ground, started rolling her way. “What do you think you’re doing?” she said, they continued rolling, she jumped aside, they changed directions and rolled together where she now was. She said “You’re both asking for it if you don’t stop.” They couldn’t because they were rolling too hard now, and she kicked him in the head and his friend in the back but probably had aimed at his head. He didn’t know what kind of shoe she had on, but it made a gash in his head. He was bleeding all over the place, someone offered him a dirty hanky to stop it, somebody else some bunched-up tissues, he held the tissues to the cut and went home and into the bathroom and put a towel to it. His mother came in and said “Oh my God,” and he said “Don’t worry, Mom, I was running down the block and tripped and hit my head against a streetlight but I’ll be all right, it’s already starting to stop.” She called his uncle, who was a doctor in Washington Heights, and his uncle said it didn’t sound bad enough to drive down for — he wasn’t unconscious, not even dizzy, and the blood didn’t seem to be gushing — just press some sterile gauze to it till the bleeding stops, then ice and later antiseptic on it and if it seems more than a superficial cut and doesn’t stop bleeding in about fifteen minutes, he’ll drive down and sew it up. It didn’t stop for half an hour, but he didn’t want any needles and thread in his head so told his mother not to call his uncle back. About a year later Vera’s dad got a good job in an Ohio factory, and they moved out there.
Feels the scar from the kick, thinks of Horace. Horace was a little kid, about three, standing behind him in the middle of the street when he swung a broomstick at a ball in a stickball game and hit him in the head. Horace went down, he thought he’d killed him, his eyes were closed and he didn’t move except for a little hand-wiggling, some boys ran under Horace’s windows and yelled “Mrs. Rich, Mrs. Rich, Gordon hit Horace’s head with a stick and he’s bleeding badly, he might be dead.” She stuck her head out the window, a car was coming down the street and the boys flagged it down. A man got out and said “I’m a fireman, I know how to take care of things like this.” Other cars were honking behind his. “Lift the kid to the sidewalk so we can pass,” one driver yelled. Mrs. Rich was screaming from her window, then yelled at the fireman “Don’t touch him, nobody move him, back up if you got to go anyplace, I’ll be right down.” She was a big strong woman with a tough mouth, and Gordon thought she’d grab him and swing him around and then slap the hell out of him. She went straight to Horace, listened for his breathing, said to Gordon “Run to your father in the pharmacy and have him give you some boxes of cotton and bandages and also to call Roosevelt for an ambulance, I already did.” The fireman opened Horace’s eyes, looked at them and let them close. “They’re starting to move normally,” he said, “he’ll be okay.” Police and an ambulance were there, and Horace was sobbing by the time Gordon got back with the cotton and bandages, Gordon’s dad called the hospital that night and was told Horace had gone home, he called Mrs. Rich and she said no bones broken, no concussion, just a deep crack in his forehead that took twelve stitches to close. “If you have no objections, Doc, and from someone who’s been a good customer of yours too, I’d like to send you the hospital bill.” He said “If it’s a lot and I’m not covered, maybe we can split it half and half, because though Gordon should have looked around before he got up to swing, your son shouldn’t have been so close to home plate,” then put on Gordon, who apologized as he’d been told to. He saw Mrs. Rich about a week later coming home from shopping, waved in an embarrassed way and wanted to quickly pass her or cross the street but she said she’d like to speak to him. He went over to her, thinking she might drop her bags and maybe smack him. She said “I know how you still feel bad, I would too, since Horace still gets terrific pains in his head and has trouble with his eyes seeing. But I’m not blaming you for what you did; kids aren’t smart your age and accidents happen.” If she had got angry he was ready to say what his father had said to his mom, that what was a three-year-old kid doing in the street without any adult supervision? He felt awful every time after that when he saw Horace with this big bandage and then an ugly scar on his forehead and later on glasses, with the scar getting smaller and smaller it seemed, though he didn’t know and never asked anyone if the accident could have had anything to do with the glasses. Then Mrs. Rich got married and they moved away, and he only thought of Horace maybe every couple of years and usually when he crossed the street near the manhole cover where that home plate was.