"The cruiser got you."

Ralph struck himself in the brow. "That was my father. A car suddenly pulled up, and it was my old man of all people! He didn't recognize you, and I didn't tell him."

"Sure about that?" Hauser peered at him like a movie detective grilling a suspect.

Ralph had enough of this. "Look, you prick." He poked Hauser's chest with two knuckles. "I got you out of a jam that I had nothing to do with, so don't come around here and give me any shit."

This sent Horse into retreat. He backed up against the side of the garage, saying humbly: "Appreciate it, Sandifer. You're a real good man."

Mollified, Ralph said: "Let's forget it. The money's back and you're clear."

Hauser's mouth sagged. "But I tell you this: I can't ever go back to that job again. I can't show up there tomorrow. I'd give it away for sure. That's the way I am. I can't hide nothing."

Ralph sought to pass this off with a jest. "Bragging or complaining?"

"I'm serious."

Bored, Ralph looked at the tiny tree he had planted near the garage last spring. It had been dead all summer. On the annual Arbor Day every student was given a little sapling to take home and put into the ground. Ralph's never took root though he faithfully carried out the planting instructions on the mimeographed slip included and religiously supplied water. Hauser and most other guys used their baby trees for whip-fights or re-creations of the duels between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, dropping the shredded results in the gutter.

"Well," Ralph said, "let's go down to Elmira's and have a Coke or something." He started to walk away, but Horse did not follow, so he came back. "Look, if you feel that way, why don't you make a clean breast of it to Bigelow? After all, he's got his money."

"I could easier cut my throat. No, I'm finished." He looked accusingly at Ralph. "I don't get no allowance like you, Sandifer. My old man don't give me the sweat off his balls."

"I only get fifty cents, and I work damn hard for that." Nevertheless, Horse made him feel guilty. "If you want to cut grass, you could take over some of my customers to tide you over. Like Leo Kirsch. You can have Leo. Or I got an idea: we could become partners and split all profits. With two of us, we could mow a lawn in half the time. We could take on more customers, and both of us would make at least as much as I do alone. Then when the fall settles in, we'll rake leaves, and shovel snow in the wintertime. Maybe wash windows for spring housecleaning."

Hauser was sneering. "Maybe you like nigger work, but it's not for me."

Ralph was miffed. "Well, you wanted my advice."

Hauser made his mouth into an O. "Since when? I came over here to do you a favor, Sandifer. There ain't nothing you can do for me."

"Screw you."

"Now you're being childish," said Horse. "What I wanted to tell you was Bigelow will need a new delivery boy, and you can be it if you go over there after school tomorrow."

"You serious? You giving it up?"

"I told you I was. You calling me a liar?"

Ralph looked at his feet. "Nice of you, Hauser."

"It beats cutting grass. I generally raked in three, maybe three and a half a week. He pays two-fifty, and then sometimes you get tips or they let you keep the deposit on the returned bottles. And you get stuff at Christmas, though not always money. Get a rear basket for your bike, along with the front one you already got, so you can take a couple sacks at the same time. It's two hours a day, and four on Saturday afternoon. If you ain't delivering he will want you to carry stock up from the cellar, but I always took it easy on that. Told him I was ruptured."

"I might just go over there," Ralph said. "I was thinking of going out for football, but I'm too light."

"Yeah," said Hauser, who though husky had little interest in sports. "At Christmastime you generally get something from most of them. Maybe a little hard candy at least." He spoke sadly.

"I guess you'll miss it," said Ralph. "Sorry how it worked out."

Hauser suddenly stared at him in defiance. "Don't bleed at the asshole for me. I'll get by all right. I got what it takes."

"Come on," Ralph said expansively. "Let's go down to Elmira's. It's on me."

"Jesus," said Horse. "I never thought I'd see the day when you'd spring for anything. Bet the moths will fly out when you open your pocketbook."

Ralph was happy to see that Horse had regained his pride in spite of all. He had despised the hysterical figure of the night before.

After a dinner of stewed chicken and noodles, and an apple pie he had timed so it would come fresh and hot to the table, where his mother ate one stout wedge, and then another, with alternate forkings of rat-trap cheese, Leo let the dishes soak in the sink and took his long leisurely postprandial defecation while reading the newspaper supplement called This Week. He used the basement facility, which was situated within a compartment of rough boards in the corner near the coal bin. His mother never came down cellar, so he left the door open. When he looked up from the paper he had a view of the furnace and beyond it the standing pool of water that had leaked through the concrete-block walls during the last rainstorm: beneath it was a clogged drain.

He had left the undeposited money on his dressertop all night while he slept more soundly than usual, not for once being awakened by his mother's midnight retching. When he awakened in the morning and dressed, returning the small change and keys to his pants pockets, he saw the bills, which the night's rest had caused to straighten from a wad into a sloppy pile. He felt a certain resentment, as if they had been forced upon him against his will. He took the stack by one end and slapped it irritably upon the dresser, raising some dust. It was housecleaning day.

After he had prepared and delivered to her bed his mother's breakfast of four soft-boiled eggs broken over fragments of toast and crumbled bacon, a mug of hot water and lemon for her bowels, he went into his room, rolled the bills tightly again, and put them into his pocket. They were still there, in the pants that now lay around his ankles as he sat upon the commode.

He did not consciously think of them, yet it was they that distracted him from the articles in This Week, of which he had read two as well as a page of jokes with so little attention that he could not have described the subjects thereof or have retold the jokes as it was his practice to do on Mondays to customers at the lot. Leo had to get his material from such sources; he did not have Buddy's talent for original wit.

Finally he gave up, flushed the toilet, went out, and looked at the water on the floor. It had dwindled somewhat in recent days owing to evaporation, leaving a white ring to mark the circumference of the original collection. The wall nearby was stained with damp. He suspected the tree roots again had broken through the drainpipe that ran between the cellar and the sewer under the street, but to have a plumber verify that with his "snake" would cost at least a dollar and a half and to have him grind the pipe free might go as high as five dollars. And the water did no harm where it was.

Leo toiled up the steep steps, which took more effort than usual; the money seemed to weigh him down. He emerged into the kitchen and gazed negligently at the sinkful of soapy water and dishes. Normally he would deal with that before going outside, in good weather, or to his room in bad, and having his session with the young girls in the rotogravure section. Today however, in a renegade mood, he continued past the sink and through the dining room into what his mother called the parlor. As usual she was lying there on the davenport.

"Hi, Boy," said the parrot, then leaped from the perch to the wire wall of the cage, turned itself upside down, and began slowly to descend with fastidious claws. Leo inserted his index finger through the wires, and Boy halted his downward progress to rub the side of his beak against it. But had Leo rubbed Boy, the bird would have nipped him. Boy, a tyrant, had to take the initiative. Leo respected that, however, as a note of pride on the part of a totally dependent creature who furthermore lived in a prison. He could not have tolerated an obsequious pet.

He had not looked directly at his mother, who no doubt would speak soon enough, in complaint or with some importunity. He kept his shoulders stiff as he claimed the rotogravure section and walked from the room. Only when he reached the back door did he relax, yet he could hardly believe he had got away scot-free. Perhaps she had fallen asleep. As he turned the key in the door he kept locked against tramps, he heard the horrible gurgling cough for which she had been noted for years and which the doctors said issued from no organic cause. He plunged onto the back steps to escape its vile sound, walked across the lawn that Ralph had mowed the day before, and sat on the cracked wooden cover of the disused cistern under a large old elm that had been dying for years of the blight but so slowly that half of it was still in leaf-luckily, the half that shaded the cistern.

Leo lived in the old part of town. His next-door neighbor's garage had been converted from a barn. When Leo was a boy his father had kept chickens in a henhouse, now gone, at the bottom of the property, which extended for about a hundred fifty feet, beyond which was empty land full of the goldenrod and ragweed that tormented the asthmatic.

Instead of perusing his favorite section, with its pictures in brown monochrome, Leo let it fall from his slack hand and told himself uncompromisingly that tomorrow morning he must return the money to the cashbox in the safe. If he did this before Buddy reached the lot, the explanation, if required, would be simple. He had deposited precisely the amount for which there were sales records; he had left in the box that for which there were none.

Having made the decision, Leo was almost overwhelmed by a sense of well-being. He rose from his seat as if inflated, bent to retrieve the roto section, sat down again, and leafed through it. No bathing beauties were therein; it was too late in the season. But there was a picture of a thin, lank-haired girl in a tartan skirt and saddle oxfords, holding a sphere about the size of a coconut, with a caption that read: "Thelma Wilhelm, Washburn freshman, shows ten-pound ball of tinfoil she's been collecting since 1936. When it reaches basketball size, says the fifteen-year-old, she'll sell it, giving proceeds to Community Chest."

A pity he had sold his own tinfoil ball to the junkman. He could otherwise have offered it to Thelma to incorporate into hers. Leo adored the earnest good will of young girls.

Dear Miss Wilhelm: Under separate cover please find my contribution to your worthy efforts in behalf of charity. You are a fine, upstanding young person. I trust you do not smoke tho, and you get your cigarette foil from father, uncle, etc., and other adults. A Friend The thought of Thelma opening the package with a little chirp of pleasure, and cupping his silver ball in her slender white hands on which the nails were all chewed, was very erotic to Leo.

He sat there on the cistern cover, enjoying a nonphysical orgasm that violated no laws, and when he heard a shout from behind, his reaction was guiltless.

He turned and saw Jim Plum, his neighbor, waving at him with a sickle. He waved back with the roto section. On that encouragement, Plum came over. He was a medium-sized man, but lumbered when he walked as if he were much heavier.

"How you doin', fella?" he asked.

"I can't complain," said Leo.

"Smell the skunk last night?"

"Can't say I did."

"Dog must of got after him. Ever had a dog that got sprayed by a skunk?" Plum was a genial man whose questions however had a certain belligerency about them. He toyed with the sickle as if he might give Leo a taste of it unless he got the expected answer.

"No, I never."

"You wash him in tomato juice."

"Is that a fact," said Leo.

"Some people say milk, but they're wrong. No soap will touch it, for sure. I don't know about turps. But tomato juice's the ticket."

"Pretty expensive, I bet," said Leo.

"Depends on the size of your dog. A fox terrier will take a whole number-ten can. Now, you got a collie, you need a lot more."

"I bet," said Leo, shaking his head dolefully.

"But you got to do something," Plum said, rubbing his buttock with the back of the sickle blade. "He'll stink so much you can't bear him around. I never owned a dog myself. You know who told me that? A boogie. They know everything about dogs. You ever know any colored people, Leo?"

"There's one down at the lot."

"I've known quite a few in my time," Plum said, propping one foot in a high-topped shoe onto the cistern cover alongside Leo and leaning over him in amiable menace. "I don't mind saying I learned a lot from 'em. You know, they'll eat carp, when nobody else will touch it. The secret is you pull out the mud vein, then you got something that tastes as good as bluegill or perch. I never eat any kind of fish myself. Life's too short for that."

Plum had a way of talking with special enthusiasm of things he did not do.

"What's your favorite food?" he asked. "Steak or roast beef?"

"Roast beef, I guess."

"Then steak, and then?"

Leo said: "Roast pork would have to come in there."

Plum frowned. "Not ham? Covered with pineapple pieces and cloves? Man, that's eating, for my money. Then you got sandwiches from it at night, with lots of mustard. Next morning, a big fat slice with your eggs! The ham what am, like they say."

Leo was getting uneasy with Plum hanging over him. "That what you had for dinner, huh?"

Plum backed away and raised his eyebrows. "The fact is, we had chicken."

"Me too."

"I be damned," said Plum. "That's a coincidence for you. Like old Hoover used to say, a chicken in every pot. I read Roosevelt and Eleanor eat wieners now and again. You can't tell what's in a sausage though; might be a rat fell in the grinder, for God's sake."

Leo wrinkled his nose.

Plum said: "But you don't think of that if you're in a ballpark, and the hotdog guy comes around and you eat one, you want another. He laughed at this folly. "I haven't seen a ballgame in six-seven years though." Still smiling, he said: "How's Sandifer these days?"

Plum did not like Buddy. Though Leo lived next door, Plum had acquired his last car at a lot in neighboring Oldenburg, where he ran a radio-repair shop.

"He's always treated me all right."

"Ever see his latest floozy?"

Leo made a stern mouth. "That's none of my business, the way I see it."

"She lives in the second-floor-back over on Myrtle, just off Chandler. I delivered a set across the street there the other day and saw him come out. Then later I see this blond head at the window."

Leo said in a dampening tone: "We sold her a machine. He was dropping it off."

"He drove away in a car. If he delivered one for her, who drove his over?"

"Jack did and then walked home for lunch. He lives over that way."

Plum said: "That was four o'clock or so."

In the first place Leo was exasperated by having to tell the lie; then to have it questioned was unfair in the extreme.

"Jack left it there at lunch. Buddy picked it up later. I picked Jack up at his house and took him back to the lot."

Plum was not insensitive. "Don't get me wrong, Leo. I'm not grilling you. It's just with that bird's reputation..."

Throughout the years Leo had always got unwanted information about Buddy's love life by such means, and while always publicly denying its authenticity, he invariably accepted it privately as truth. The resulting tension was very unpleasant, and it was never relieved by any personal knowledge: not once had he seen Buddy in a compromising situation.

He rose from the cistern. "You sure couldn't prove it by me."

Plum looked kindly at him. "You know, Leo, you've got a clean mind. You're too decent a human being to maybe know how rotten some people are."

Plum had embarrassed himself by making this statement, he whose usual role was to relate facts with which he had no personal connection to someone for whom they had no use. "I have to take the little lady for a spin," he said abruptly, turned, and lumbered towards home.

Leo was touched by Plum's opinion, but wondered whether the theory held water. He actually knew a great deal of dirt, though he never sought it out nor did he pass it on. For example, he knew what had inspired Plum's bias against Buddy. Dave Hunnicut, who owned the Flying Red Horse station, had told Leo that in 1937 Buddy had put the blocks to Plum's wife. "She's a nympho," said Hunnicut, leaning close and giving Leo the benefit of his halitosis.

Leo rarely saw Grace Plum though she lived next door. She worked in a beauty shop in the city, taking an early streetcar every morning. At Xmas time, according to Plum, she got a lot of nice gifts from her clients, some of whom were well-to-do. Unless it rained, Plum always took her for a ride of a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes they would stop for a game of Tom Thumb golf, then get grilled-bratwurst sandwiches at the cafe nearby and bring them home for supper. That was all Leo knew about the Plums' home life, and it was rather more than he knew about the Sandifers'.

Leo's period of recreation having reached its end, he got up from the cistern and headed inside to vacuum the house from top to bottom. For a few precious hours the roar of the old Hoover would obscure his mother's sounds. At the back steps he lifted the lid of the garbage can and dropped in the rotogravure section, the only part of the paper that he did not preserve for the basement collection which would in time be sold to the junk dealer.

The picture of What's-her-name and her tinfoil ball fell face down upon the broken eggshells and the blackened starfish of a banana skin. Leo was ruthless after he had had his way with a girl.

He crept quietly along the hall to the closet which held the vacuum cleaner, hoping to get it out and running before his presence was detected. Nevertheless the parrot heard him cross a loose floorboard and screeched: "Bum!" He waited for his mother's ax to fall, but apparently she was still dozing on the weight of her enormous dinner, at which she had devoured the entire chicken except the drumstick he had served himself, three helpings of noodles, two of pie. She ate like a laborer, spent most of her day on sofa or bed, and still had the figure of a young girl. Perhaps her nocturnal vomiting provided the answer.

Leo had equipped the vacuum with an extension cord which, added to the long wire that unwrapped from the hooks on the handle, gave him twenty feet to play with, so that he could plug it into a hall socket and enter the living room with the machine already whirring and nod and smile while his mother's mouth worked inaudibly. Before the development of this technique he had been at her mercy; he did not have the stomach to throw the switch once she had begun to talk. Though, in truth, it was all the same to her whether she could be heard or not.

She had been a different woman when his father was alive. His father had been the talker. Funny, Leo had no precise memory of what his father had talked about, but it was always good-natured and often accompanied by a finger in the area of his bellybutton, followed by a little popping vibration of his father's lips. His father would also address him with joke names like "Schnickelfritz" or "Buster Brown," and sometimes from no other motive than high spirits give him a penny for jawbreakers. Leo usually salted these coins away, but he would come around with his tongue stuck in his cheek and say something so his father could suggest: "Better finish the candy before trying to bejabber."

In those days his mother did all the housework. Sometimes she would take a moment in the late afternoon just before supper to pedal a roll through the player piano, though she never sang. She was up in the morning before everybody else, and stayed up at night until all were in bed. She knitted mufflers, crocheted doilies, canned every variety of fruit and vegetable, and baked all the bread and cake they ate. In the spring she cleaned the wallpaper of every room in the house with that pink putty that soon turned black. When repapering was called for, she did that as well, first soaking the old layer with a sponge and then stripping the plaster bare with a triangular scraper. She would set up a pasting rig like a professional, boards across sawhorses, shoot the roll along it, mark, cut, and slap on the flour-and-water mix with the big white-bristled brush; then climb the stepladder and drop the segment along the wall. On the finished job you could not see where the patterns joined unless you went right up to the seams.

In her day she never had the electrically powered instrument now wielded by Leo. His mother did the job with a carpet sweeper, and better than he, as she had been a better cook, a better housekeeper all around; indeed a better person until his father had fallen off the roof, because she had a job commensurate with her talents and interests.

Whereas Leo had felt misplaced all his life. What was he doing selling used cars? He was no extrovert like Buddy, and his interest in money was rather in saving what he had than in making more, the reverse of the salesman's proper mystique.

While vacuuming each Sunday, Leo simultaneously carried out the accumulation of trash from his soul, cleaning it for another week of balanced existence. Why was his sex life confined exclusively to writing imaginary notes to schoolgirls? Why did he have no friends and furthermore feel no need to have any? Why was he without hobbies and avocations? For he was aware, from articles in This Week as well as the attitudes of such associates as Jack his co-worker and Plum the neighbor, that the way he lived might seem restricted, even bleak, to others; to some who were not aware that he supported his mother, perhaps even downright odd. But if you had no friends, there were fewer persons to speculate on such matters.

If you had short-lived, fantasy relationships with females, you spent no time or money; and if they were with teen-aged girls, the make-believe was not rich enough to distract you from reality. Leo feared the consequences of even imagining an association with, say, a Grace Plum, in whose large breasts and deep hips one might disappear as if in quicksand. Therefore he sensibly averted his eyes when he saw her come out to sunbathe attired in shorts and halter.

As to hobbies, he had scarcely enough leisure in which to perform his tasks.