"I don't care care if you believe me, it's true." if you believe me, it's true."

Dylan looked at Mingus Rude's lips and eyes, his exact brownness, took it in. Dylan wanted to read Mingus Rude like a language, wanted to know if the new kid had changed Dean Street or only changed Dylan himself by arriving here. Mingus Rude breathed through his mouth and his tongue curled out of one side of his mouth with the effort of a throw. Mingus was black but lighter, a combination. The palms of his hands were as white as Dylan's. He wore corduroys. Anything was possible, really.

A million-dollar kid doesn't belong on Dean Street, Dylan wanted to say. The word million million, even.

Mingus Rude might be insane, Dylan didn't mind.

Two days later he was already playing, standing in the street, a catcher in stoopball, taking a lean on a parked car to let the bus go by. Like he'd been there all along. He caught laconically, perfectly. He might be the Henry of his own block, now transported here-he might be a Henry of the mind, recognizable anywhere. Dylan crept up and sat on Henry's wall and watched, with Earl and a couple girls, younger kids. Mingus Rude was viable, apparently. He'd been folded into the ongoing game while Dylan wasn't looking.

Robert Woolfolk wasn't around. Otherwise the last splendid day had shucked every verifiable kid out onto Dean Street. Two girls turned a rope with three others inside, their knees shining like a bunch of grapes. The empty, blue-tiled school, Public School 38, hummed, just down the block. Nobody looked at it, nobody cared.

"D-Man."

"John Dillinger."

"D-Lone. Lonely D."

Dylan didn't know what Mingus Rude was yelling about, didn't recognize himself in the nicknames.

"Yo, Dylan, you deaf?"

Captaincy was an essence lurking in Henry above all. But one captain needed another, even if inferior, a stooge. Someone had to step up. Dylan had seen Alberto assume it, Lonnie too, once even Robert Woolfolk, to make a lopsided game of punchball, fast dissolved in scowls and a faked limp. Now, at the bright weary end of summer, Henry and Mingus Rude were stickball captains, unexplained. was an essence lurking in Henry above all. But one captain needed another, even if inferior, a stooge. Someone had to step up. Dylan had seen Alberto assume it, Lonnie too, once even Robert Woolfolk, to make a lopsided game of punchball, fast dissolved in scowls and a faked limp. Now, at the bright weary end of summer, Henry and Mingus Rude were stickball captains, unexplained.

Mingus chose Dylan first, over Alberto, Lonnie, Earl, anyone.

"He can't hit," said Henry. It was a reasonably sympathetic diagnosis. Dylan was any captain's problem, a communal drag.

"I got Dillinger," said Mingus Rude coolly. He wrapped and rewrapped the wrist fastener of a Philadelphia Phillies batting glove, teasing reminder of the motherlode of outfits buried in his closet. "Take your man."

That last August afternoon before school began was something like those heartbreaking, dazzling glimpses of the opening credits for Star Trek Star Trek or or Mission Impossible Mission Impossible, before you were commanded to switch the television off and go to bed: it was going to haunt you, play inside your eyelids, after the door was closed, the light extinguished, your pounding rib cage calmed. A summer was unfinished, broken off at the end, a bad splice. Now, Mingus Rude's arrival promised the possibility of another summer another summer, hinged to this one like a door you couldn't look beyond.

The palm-sweaty broomstick was wrapped with new black tape, like the hockey-stick handle.

"Lead off, Dill."

The names, Dylan began to understand, conveyed that he and Mingus were to be one thing to each other indoors, off the street, and entirely another outside. On the block.

Inside, outside, a distinction Dylan understood. Could work with.

Henry pitched. Dylan waved at something barely seen, like a bee overhead. "Ball one," said Mingus Rude, captain, umpire, announcer.

"Ball one?" scoffed Henry. "Dude chased it."

"Doesn't matter," said Mingus. "Too high." To Dylan he said: "Don't swing at that shit." To Henry: "Strike zone." Then back to Dylan, he whispered. "Don't close your eyes."

You evolved in full view and secretly at once, grew bony and hairy, twisted out a baby tooth and spat blood and kept playing, claimed to know certain words the first time you heard them. A day came when you made contact, stung it somewhere not foul, rounded first before the bat clattered to stillness in the street. It was no big thing, you weren't looking for congratulations. Dylan danced off on the manhole cover, second base, daring the throw, the next order of business. Reward for trickling the ball between Alberto's feet. Leading off, batting one thousand one thousand.

Any private thrill was like peeing your pants. Dylan knew to be ashamed of the relief.

He scored on Mingus Rude's own home run. Struck out hyperventilating his next time up. But. Five kids in a batting order and no defense to speak of, you'd get up a hundred times on a night like this. Strike out ninety. Lace it off a lamppost and call it a triple, didn't matter-you could bunt bunt a triple in the dark. The close of this day you'd resist like sleep, like sickness. One kid's mom yelled for half an hour and even then nobody else paid attention, nobody went inside. a triple in the dark. The close of this day you'd resist like sleep, like sickness. One kid's mom yelled for half an hour and even then nobody else paid attention, nobody went inside.

Rachel Ebdus didn't call from the stoop. Dylan Ebdus wondered if Rachel and Abraham were taking the opportunity to kick each other's ass in one form or another.

Given that he was outside outside at this particular moment, Dylan didn't care. at this particular moment, Dylan didn't care.

Didn't give a shit give a shit.

Fuck you know about it, anyway?

If. Mingus Rude was a scant four months older than Dylan Ebdus, but those four months hit the calendar such that Mingus was a grade ahead, had finished fifth grade in Manayunk, Pennsylvania. Like Henry and Alberto, Mingus Rude would start sixth this year, at the Intermediate School 293 annex, on Butler Street between Smith and Hoyt, in the turf of the Gowanus Houses. No-man's-land.

"Dill- icious icious," Mingus called him once as he stood at the plate.

I.S. 293 was a hidden sun drawing kids screaming out of Dean Street's orbit, one by one. If Mingus Rude was four months younger, if Mingus Rude and Dylan Ebdus had been headed to grade five together, if. Then Dylan could have watched out for him, maybe. Kept an eye.

A grade of school was a bridge in mist. No way to picture where it touched land again, or who you'd be when it did.

One stickball game was your whole career, your whole life to this point.

These weren't innings, they were dreams of innings. You couldn't remember who got the last out, you could barely recall the batting order until it was just two guys, Mingus and Dylan. Gus and D-Man. Another kid quit and Henry had to pitch from the outfield. You could do just so much, trap a grounder with your body like a grenade, fish it from behind a tire and lash it toward home base, maybe hit the ass of the guy who'd scored. The pink spaldeen turned black, like a piece of night. Some Puerto Rican guy reparked third base, pissed off at fingerprints. The spaces between outs were like summers themselves.

Public School 38 was on fire. No it wasn't.

If. If Mingus Rude could be kept in this place, kept somehow in Dylan's pocket, in his stinging, smudgy hands, then summer wouldn't give way to whatever came after. If. If. Fat chance. Summer on Dean Street had lasted one day and that day was over, it was dark out, had been for hours. The Williamsburg Savings Bank tower clock read nine-thirty in red-and-blue neon. Final score, a million to nothing. The million-dollar kid.

Your school wasn't on fire, you were.

- and now Major Amberson was engaged in the profoundest thinking of his life and now Major Amberson was engaged in the profoundest thinking of his life she found herself quoting in her hospital bed at Long Island College Hospital on Henry Street, where the television bolted to the ceiling showing she found herself quoting in her hospital bed at Long Island College Hospital on Henry Street, where the television bolted to the ceiling showing Ryan's Hope Ryan's Hope and and The Gong Show The Gong Show had to stand for a hearth, brutally angry and brutally fat Jamaican nurses for her lonely company, her vigil. She'd die in Brooklyn Heights instead of Boerum Hill because Boerum Hill had a jail instead of a hospital- had to stand for a hearth, brutally angry and brutally fat Jamaican nurses for her lonely company, her vigil. She'd die in Brooklyn Heights instead of Boerum Hill because Boerum Hill had a jail instead of a hospital- and Major Amberson realized that everything which had worried or delighted him during this lifetime, all this buying and building and Major Amberson realized that everything which had worried or delighted him during this lifetime, all this buying and building -and not in her bed beneath her parlor ceiling because the oar had dented her, crushed her, folded her like a letter into the envelope of herself, unread for fifty-two years. Unreadable medically now, at the end: she'd watched the interns puzzling at her X rays-how can -and not in her bed beneath her parlor ceiling because the oar had dented her, crushed her, folded her like a letter into the envelope of herself, unread for fifty-two years. Unreadable medically now, at the end: she'd watched the interns puzzling at her X rays-how can this this be nestled beside be nestled beside this this ? How can old Vendle fit into herself, how'd she do it, all these years? Her body was Boerum Hill, just as King Arthur's body had been England. She was all of Boerum Hill's contradictions crushed together: she was the Schlitz can in the brown paper sack sitting in the plaster-and-marble nook for turning coffins in the curve of stairwell in the nineteenth-century town house. She was a jail in the shadow of which boys frolicked. ? How can old Vendle fit into herself, how'd she do it, all these years? Her body was Boerum Hill, just as King Arthur's body had been England. She was all of Boerum Hill's contradictions crushed together: she was the Schlitz can in the brown paper sack sitting in the plaster-and-marble nook for turning coffins in the curve of stairwell in the nineteenth-century town house. She was a jail in the shadow of which boys frolicked. Everything which had delighted him, all this buying and building, that it was all trifling and wasted, for the Major knew- Everything which had delighted him, all this buying and building, that it was all trifling and wasted, for the Major knew- Two visitors had come. Croft, of course, who'd stayed a week in her basement room and visited the hospital every day, plaguing her with small packages of inedible curative food, ferrying in Temporary Kings Temporary Kings and and Hearing Secret Harmonies Hearing Secret Harmonies, the last volumes of the Powell, drawing glares from the furious Jamaicans for rinsing her bedpan in the bathroom and for his earnest, pointless questions regarding her care. Then, at her request, he'd taken the orange cat with him to Indiana. She wished the orange cat luck. It might perhaps serve as conscience for the rural commune, its missing moral center. Croft had shaven or grown a beard-Isabel couldn't focus except on her own irritation, centering somewhere around his mouth. Croft would get the house. He'd sell it, she didn't want to conjecture to whom. Isabel found she couldn't read the Powell now, couldn't make it work, couldn't operate the sentences. She watched The Gong Show The Gong Show instead. There was an act, a comic with a paper bag on his head, whom she rather liked: Take that, Anthony Powell! instead. There was an act, a comic with a paper bag on his head, whom she rather liked: Take that, Anthony Powell!

Isabel's second visitor, Rachel Ebdus, had also brought a book, which Isabel regarded in astonishment: Woman on the Edge of Time Woman on the Edge of Time. Really, imagine calling oneself "Marge Piercy"! Isabel had smiled and turned her wrist as she was learning to do-that small slackening, that relinquishing, rehearsal for the deeper operation-turned her wrist and let the book drop to the floor, then whispered more faintly than was required that Rachel should put it on the bedside table. She enjoyed playing at dying while she was dying. You fool You fool, she'd wanted to say, I don't read women authors I don't read women authors.

Rachel Ebdus had been crying. She and her recluse filmmaker were surely fighting again. The woman had something she wanted to say but Isabel Vendle decided to invoke the petty majesty of the near-dead and prevent her saying it. It's enough that you'll inherit my Dean Street, beatnik child. Don't come here to inter your woes in my dying heart. It's enough that you'll inherit my Dean Street, beatnik child. Don't come here to inter your woes in my dying heart.

Rachel Ebdus was talking but it was as distant to Isabel Vendle as footprints on the moon.

"I might go," she heard the young woman say.

"Yes," Isabel said. "That's best. Go." If Rachel Ebdus were on television singing this song of woe Isabel would have long since "gonged" her- the Major knew that now he had to plan how to enter an unknown country, one where he was not even sure of being recognized as an Amberson the Major knew that now he had to plan how to enter an unknown country, one where he was not even sure of being recognized as an Amberson - - Then she was alone, Rachel Ebdus discouraged, Croft scooted back to Indiana. Boerum Hill was what it was-partial, recalcitrant, corrupt-and whatever it would next become it could manage without Isabel Vendle's help. Let it be carved up, let it be forgotten, let it be forgiven. We must be of the sun We must be of the sun, she thought, irritated at herself for continuing to quote, so late in the game, there wasn't anything here but the sun in the first place, the earth came out of the sun, we came out of the earth there wasn't anything here but the sun in the first place, the earth came out of the sun, we came out of the earth -in her last dream Simon Boerum, the old drunk, came to her and rowed her to the shore of Vendle's Hard, both oars secure in his hand, -in her last dream Simon Boerum, the old drunk, came to her and rowed her to the shore of Vendle's Hard, both oars secure in his hand, so whatever we are, we must come from the sun so whatever we are, we must come from the sun - - Gong!

Fifth grade was fourth grade with something wrong. Nothing changed outright. Instead it teetered. You'd pushed futility at Public School 38 so long by then you expected the building itself would be embarrassed and quit. The ones who couldn't read still couldn't, the teachers were teaching the same thing for the fifth time now and refusing to meet your eyes, some kids had been left back twice and were the size of janitors. The place was a cage for growing, nothing else. School lunch turned out to be the five-year plan, the going concern. You couldn't be left back from fish sticks and sloppy joes. You'd retain at the least two thousand half-pint containers of vitamin Denriched chocolate milk.

Two black guys from the projects, twins, were actually named Ronald and Donald MacDonald. The twins themselves only shrugged, couldn't be made to agree it was incredible.

Chinese kids wouldn't go to the bathroom all day, they lived that much in their own world.

At home, Rachel Ebdus's telephone was ringing unanswered.

You met zones everywhere. The schoolyard was neighborhoods: black, black girl, Puerto Rican, basketball, handball, left behind. Through the Cyclone fence someone had brushed the word FLAMBOYAN FLAMBOYAN in white paint on the stone wall, along with a square box for a strike zone. in white paint on the stone wall, along with a square box for a strike zone.

Bruce Lee was famous now that he was dead.

A game of tap-it-in took place above the ground, in moments. Between jumps you weren't playing. You were inert, copping an attitude.

Black girls had a language of partial words, chants harder to learn than anything in class. There was a general noise at the edges you'd begun to detect, akin to indecipherable ballpoint desktop-gougings. A scribbled voice.

The first few times someone said Hey, white boy Hey, white boy it sounded like a mistake. You had to be guided into the new relation by the girls, the boys were actually a little shy about it. it sounded like a mistake. You had to be guided into the new relation by the girls, the boys were actually a little shy about it.

Wrong sneakers, wrong shoes, wrong length of pants. Highwaters Highwaters.

Where's the flood?

What you laughin' at, fool?

Dang. Boy's laughin' at his own self.

From I.S. 293 or from nowhere, from the projects, older kids bunched at the school entrances and in corners of the yard. Previous fifth graders had been a layer between. Now you were the layer. Robert Woolfolk was among one of those regular bunches, the precocious paper-bag drinkers. Even standing in one place Robert Woolfolk moved like a sprained knee, like he was forever angling a too-small bike around the corner of Nevins. He flashed a smile like a torn photograph, his voice crept around corners in the air. Dylan Ebdus saw in Robert Woolfolk's eyes that same scribbled quality.

Red Hook, Fort Greene, Atlantic Terminals.

You built up associations, which would pass for understanding. Nobody was explaining anything. Fifth grade was an abstract art, painted one frame at a time.

Dylan could still hear the telephone ring from the kitchen while he sat on his stoop, waiting, watching, afternoons sliding to twilight, air chilling so the bodega sitters left their milk crates, shaking their heads, pinching their cold noses, leaving Old Ramirez alone. Dylan and Ramirez were paired in their two doorways, keeping watch, ignoring each other. Dylan watched the traffic trickle down Nevins, watched the mothers walking kindergartners home from the YWCA, counted the buses which drifted like humming loaves to the stoplight, waited, drifted on. Henry's yard was empty, Marilla's yard was empty, somebody saw a rat in the yard of the abandoned house. Bruce Lee and Isabel Vendle were dead and Nixon was strolling on a beach. Nobody moved, nobody played, strange kids walked the block in groups. It was a season of vanishing, of a silence like raw stupidity, like the unbearable ticking silence of a teacher expecting an answer from a kid everyone knew couldn't even say his own name right.

Let Abraham answer the phone, if he could even hear it. Let Abraham say she's not here.

Most days Dylan waited alone until Abraham called him in for dinner. Mingus Rude had other places to go, sixth-grader places, I.S. 293 places-other friends, Dylan guessed, then kept his own guessing hidden from himself. One or two afternoons a week Mingus would lope down the block and raise his hand. His coat was brown corduroy with a sheepskin collar, not the shiny plastic-stuffed bubblecoats every other kid wore. Mingus Rude carried his notebook and textbooks loose under his arm, no bag, and he'd clatter them on the stoop carelessly, expressing something less than utter disdain and more than total mastery.

The comic books Mingus Rude treated as a presence delicately alive, some piece of still-beating flesh he and Dylan might be capable of healing by their absolute fixity of attention, by their reverence. The overlapping storylines were a field of expertise, skully again, all fine print and ritual. Dylan was really horrified to learn he'd let so much time slip past, so much essential cultural history. Forget what you thought you knew. The Silver Surfer, for example, was a situation you couldn't really understand if you came in too late. Mingus only shook his head. You didn't want to try to explain something so tragic and mystical.

New comics arrived at newsstands on Tuesdays. Mingus Rude would have an armload, bought or stolen, Dylan didn't ask. Some were bimonthly, some monthly, you learned by reading the letters page, you built up anticipation for special issues, too, oversized Annuals Annuals and one-time special events like the and one-time special events like the Avengers-Defenders Wars Avengers-Defenders Wars or or Origins Origins. In Origins Origins you learned how superheroes got started, the answer generally being: radiation. In the you learned how superheroes got started, the answer generally being: radiation. In the Annuals Annuals and and Wars Wars you satisfied, at least provisionally, questions of you satisfied, at least provisionally, questions of who could take who who could take who. Hulk and Iron Man would face-off for a page or two, always vowing to settle it for good another time.

Spider-Man's girlfriend, Gwen, had been killed by the Goblin, it wasn't funny in the least. That's why Spider-Man was so depressed all the time.

Captain Marvel wasn't Shazam, it was confusing. He'd been revived to assert a copyright on the name, and nobody could say whether he really fit into the Marvel Universe all that well. DC Comics, Marvel Comics' antithesis, presented a laughable, flattened reality-Superman and Batman were jokes, ruined by television.

In truth, Superman in his Fortress of Solitude reminded you all too much of Abraham in his high studio, brooding over nothing.

Swamp Thing was a rip-off of was a rip-off of Man-Thing Man-Thing, or vice versa.

An uneasiness hung over certain titles. Different artists drew the same characters different ways-you could hurt your eyes trying to account for it, to grant continuity to these hobbled stories. Weaker superheroes were propped up with guest appearances by Spider-Man or the Hulk, confusing chronology terribly. An Einstein could lose his mind trying to explain how the Fantastic Four had helped the Inhumans fight the Mole Men when by clear testimony of their own magazine they were trapped in the Negative Zone the whole time.

The Incredible Hulk, if you followed him closely over time, lost the use of pronouns.

Two afternoons a week, sitting in the dimming light on Dylan's stoop, never discussing fifth or sixth grade, stuff too basic and mysterious to mention. Instead just paging through, shoulders hunched to protect the flimsy covers from the wind, puzzling out the last dram, the last square inch of information, the credits, the letters page, the copyright, the Sea-Monkeys ads, the insult that made a man out of Mac the insult that made a man out of Mac. Then, just when you thought you were alone, Dean Street came back to life, Mingus Rude knowing everyone, saying Yo Yo to a million different kids coming out of Ramirez's store with a Yoo-Hoo or a Pixy Stix, to Alberto fetching Schlitz and Marlboros for his older brother and his older brother's girlfriend. The block an island of time, school a million miles away, mothers calling kids inside, the bus lit inside now, fat ladies coming home from offices at the Board of Education on Livingston Street, their weary shapes like black teeth inside the glowing mouth of the bus, Marilla strolling by a million times singing to a million different kids coming out of Ramirez's store with a Yoo-Hoo or a Pixy Stix, to Alberto fetching Schlitz and Marlboros for his older brother and his older brother's girlfriend. The block an island of time, school a million miles away, mothers calling kids inside, the bus lit inside now, fat ladies coming home from offices at the Board of Education on Livingston Street, their weary shapes like black teeth inside the glowing mouth of the bus, Marilla strolling by a million times singing It's true, hah, sometimes you rilly do abuse me, you get me in a crowd of high-class pee-pul, then you act real rude to me It's true, hah, sometimes you rilly do abuse me, you get me in a crowd of high-class pee-pul, then you act real rude to me, the light fading anxiously, streetlights buzzing as they lit, their arched poles decorated with boomeranged-up sneakers, and Mingus Rude saying, one dying afternoon, eyes never ungluing from a panel in Marvel's Greatest Comics Marvel's Greatest Comics in which Mr. Fantastic had balled himself into an orb the size of a baseball, his tiny face including signature gray temple hair still visible in incredible wrinkled detail, in order to be shot from a bazooka into the vulnerable mouth of an otherwise impervious fifty-foot-tall robot named in which Mr. Fantastic had balled himself into an orb the size of a baseball, his tiny face including signature gray temple hair still visible in incredible wrinkled detail, in order to be shot from a bazooka into the vulnerable mouth of an otherwise impervious fifty-foot-tall robot named Toomazooma, the Living Totem Toomazooma, the Living Totem, "Your moms is still gone?"

"Yeah."

"Dang, man. That's fucked up."

chapter5.

After five weeks he was ready to sell the nudes. They nagged at his mind, they spoke to each other from opposite walls in distorted whispers, they reflected him back to himself like fun-house mirrors, they, along with the ringing telephone, the abandoned kitchen counter, the stale unemptied ashtrays, made the parlor floor of the brownstone seem a skull lacking a brain, an empty skull decorated with memories, deja vu. She wasn't coming back, and his knowledge of it throbbed from the canvases like heat traces.

Erlan Hagopian, an Armenian collector who lived on the Upper East Side, had looked at the paintings two years before. He'd asked to see them after one had been hung in a group show on Prince Street, at Abraham Ebdus's old teacher's request-a request Abraham should have refused, a vanity, a mistake. Hagopian and the Prince Street dealer had come around to Dean Street wanting to see the paintings and also wanting to see the studio. Abraham had refused them that, protecting the film, protecting his secret work, and inadvertently extending the confusion that the nudes were recent, or that his work on canvas continued. It didn't. His larger brushes rotted, not even properly cleaned the last time he'd touched them. That day Erlan Hagopian had made a production of asking the price of the whole roomful, of wanting to be told the number which would need to be written on a check to rob the parlor of its fleshy insulation in one grand gesture. Confident, surely, that it would be denied-the Armenian had read Abraham Ebdus's diffidence at least that well. Perhaps not so well, though, that he'd expected what he got: being refused even one of the paintings. Abraham Ebdus's reward was the sorry, grumbling shake of the Prince Street dealer's sunglass-bearing, golden-maned head. That look was worth any number on a check.

Now, two years later, Ebdus phoned Hagopian directly, knowing that to circumvent the dealer-a secret that wouldn't keep for a so-called New York minute if Hagopian actually purchased any art-was to burn a bridge to his old career, a bridge to SoHo, to Manhattan. Abraham Ebdus would be perfectly glad if the bridge was gone. He'd turned his back on the city which lay across that river and was stalking off in the opposite direction, into a desert of his own making, a desert of celluloid.

Erlan Hagopian, for his own purring reasons, didn't hesitate. He seemed to recognize the logic of Abraham Ebdus's capitulation: Having asked you to set your price for a roomful of paintings you refuse to sell me even one-and in that overcompensating gesture, that childish underestimation of money's force, is the seed of the moment to come, when you will inevitably come begging to sell me the roomful. Naturally.

Perhaps Erlan Hagopian had always wanted to buy a whole roomful of nudes, and now would be able to say he had. Perhaps he bought roomfuls of nudes every week. Perhaps he'd intuited the death of Abraham's career in painting and knew he was collecting a luminous mass tombstone, perhaps Rachel Ebdus was now his mistress, captive in luxury in a Park Avenue penthouse, and the paintings were only the seal on an invisible deal Abraham Ebdus couldn't sense he was making. Anyway, Erlan Hagopian didn't ask to see the paintings a second time. He sent a check, and a truck.

Dylan Ebdus's friendship with Mingus Rude lived in brief windows of time, punctuation to the unspoken sentences of their days. There was no single story: for all he knew Mingus might be off fighting the Mole Men at the I. S. 293 annex, where sixth graders went, while Dylan, in fifth grade, was still trapped in the Negative Zone-it didn't matter, didn't contradict, they weren't the Fantastic Four, after all, just a couple of kids. By the time Dylan saw Mingus again what had happened in between was too much to explain, for either of them. For Dylan sensed that Mingus had his own secret burden, his own changed world beating away under the silence. There was nothing to do but pick up where they'd left off, pool what they still had in common. What was new in the other you pretended to take for granted, a bargain instinctively struck to ensure your own coping on the other end.

In between anything could happen and was beginning to. One example: the day Robert Woolfolk effortlessly corralled Dylan in the schoolyard, by gesturing with his slanted shoulders and saying, "Yo, Dylan, man, let me see you for a minute." See you See you, like Dylan himself was now a bottle of Yoo-Hoo to be gulped or a bicycle to steer around the block forever. Dylan had stepped once, twice in Robert Woolfolk's direction, not understanding how to refuse, and found himself alone with him.

Robert said, sleepily, "I saw them take yo mama outside the house naked naked."

Dylan said, "What?"

"In the truck. They wrapped her all in blankets but they fell off. I saw her hanging out all over the street like a ho ho."

Dylan calculated distances between the spot where they stood and the four exits from the schoolyard, despairing at the emptiness of a November afternoon that had succumbed to the Woolfolk Principle of human desertion. "That wasn't my mother," was what came out of his mouth. It wasn't half an answer to Robert's craziness.

"Came out of your house, man, naked like a witch. Don't lie. They put her in a police truck and took her away."

Now Dylan was baffled. Had Robert Woolfolk seen something Dylan hadn't? He couldn't really be confusing paintings with a person, art handlers with police.

At the same time a glow of fear rose in him, knowing that however muddled, Robert Woolfolk grasped that Rachel was no longer around to kick his ass kick his ass.

Robert went on, in a reasonable tone of commiseration. "Threw her in jail, I expeck. Locked her up for being too motherfuckin' loud and crazy."

"She wasn't naked," Dylan defended, laps behind. "Those were paintings."

"She weren't wearing no paintings when I I saw her. She was hanging out all over the street for anyone to see. Ask somebody if you think I'm a lion." saw her. She was hanging out all over the street for anyone to see. Ask somebody if you think I'm a lion."

"A liar?" In dizziness Dylan wanted to lead Robert Woolfolk back to his home, to show him the trails of dust and shadows of faded housepaint on the parlor walls marking where the nudes had hung, missing pictures of a missing woman, ghosts of ghosts.

"Don't call me no fuckin' lion, man. I'll fuck up fuck up your white ass before I'm done. Show me your hand." your white ass before I'm done. Show me your hand."

"What?"

"Your hand. Right here. Let me show you something." Robert encircled Dylan's wrist with his long fingers and turned it downward-Dylan watching in fascination as though from a vast distance-then curled it in one sharp motion toward Dylan's shoulder blade, so Dylan doubled at the waist, following the line of force. Dylan's knapsack tumbled over his head, notebook pages spilling to the concrete in view between his knees. His face flooded with blood and breath.