Dave at Night

  Solly was at the stove, looking for matches. I picked up the oilcloth with the carving inside and went into the front room to see the photographs. With the blanket wrapped around me, I felt like an Indian chief. A cold, shivering one.

  The biggest picture was of a woman with frizzy hair, a long nose, and a lopsided smile. I liked the smile. She wasn’t just smiling at the camera, she was smiling because something was funny. A minute ago she had been laughing her head off and she was still smiling when the photographer took the picture. Next to it was a picture of a boy on a pony.

  Papa once had our pictures taken like that. I’d kicked my pony, hoping he’d gallop.

  “How about some chicken soup?”

  “Okay.” I went back to the kitchen.

  Solly put a light under a pot and then sat down at the table. “So why are you telling fortunes on Stanton Street?”

  I didn’t want to talk about how I’d messed everything up. “I changed my mind about staying at the HHB. I ran away for good.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “You ran away with a tablecloth?” He pointed to it in my lap.

  “It’s not a tablecloth. I mean, it is, but it has something in it.” I didn’t show him.

  He went to the stove to ladle out my soup. “Let it cool a minute.” He sat down across from me. “Nu? So what are your plans?”

  I shrugged. “Can I stay here tonight?”

  “Certainly. I’ll set you up in front of the stove. You’ll sleep like a baby.”

  At least he was better than Aunt Sarah and Aunt Lily.

  “More soup?”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  He brought it to me and sat down again. He was silent for a minute, and then he snapped his fingers.

  Bandit squawked, “Oy vay! Gevalt!”

  Solly said, “That paskudnyak did something, no?”

  I shrugged again, looking down at his linoleum. I looked up. He was watching me, concentrating on me. His expression was more serious than usual, almost completely serious. He was worried about me.

  I decided to tell him what had happened. It couldn’t hurt. I had nothing to lose. I unfolded the oilcloth so Solly could see the carving.

  He reached for it, then stopped. “May I?” I nodded, and he picked it up. He studied it and ran his fingers over the wood. “This is a work of art, Daveleh.”

  Now why did that make me cry? He says the carving is a work of art, which I knew already, and I start crying my head off. “My papa made it,” I managed to get out. And then I felt worse. For some reason I felt like Papa died yesterday instead of almost two months ago.

  “Oy vay! Oy gevalt!” Bandit squawked.

  I finally caught my breath. “Mr. Doom—the paskudnyak—stole it from me.” And I told him the whole story—about my things in the suitcase, about the beating and taking Mr. Doom’s glasses, about getting the key to the cabinet, about the twins being beaten up too. I even told him about Mr. Doom’s speech before he beat me up and before he beat the twins up.

  He said “Oy vay” once or twice, but mostly he listened. When I told what happened today, it didn’t sound like I loused up so much. It sounded more like I got unlucky with the maid being late and Mr. Doom being early.

  “So that’s why I tried to find you,” I finished. “To stay somewhere tonight.”

  “I knew that stinker was a paskudnyak. Your soup is cold. I’ll get you more hot.” He went to the stove. “You want to live there because of your buddies?” He went into the next room, probably his bedroom.

  “Uh-huh. And the art teacher is going to give me special lessons.”

  He came back with a jacket and pants and got dressed. “The alrightniks could fix the superintendent,” he said, “but they’d meddle and make something else worse, and I don’t want to give them the satisfaction. I have a better idea since you told me the paskudnyak is interested in high society.” He got his hat from the piano and started for the door. “I’ll be back soon. No, wait.” He took a plate and silverware off the shelf over the stove. “When you finish the soup there’s chicken in the pot. Help yourself. Bandit will keep you company.” He left.

  Chapter 37

  I FINISHED THE soup. There wasn’t much flavor left in the chicken, and it was like eating a towel, but I ate it anyway. My eyes stung from crying so much. Maybe Solly’s idea, whatever it was, would help me. I was too tired to wonder about it.

  After I ate, I wandered back to the piano. I leaned over the books to press a few keys. It sounded jangly, and I wished I knew how to play. I picked up one of the books on the bench, The Prophet, by somebody named Kahlil Gibran. I read a sentence about love and secrets of the heart. Not interesting. I picked up another book. I and Thou by Martin Buber. I put it down too and yawned.

  I fell asleep on the couch and didn’t hear Solly come back. In fact, I didn’t hear anything till morning when Bandit’s squawking woke me.

  Sun streamed in the front room window. I was warm and dry on the couch cushion in front of the stove. Solly must have moved me.

  He was at the table, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. He didn’t know I was awake, so I could watch him. He nodded at something in the paper, and his cheeks jiggled.

  He had been kinder to me than anybody else, even though he wouldn’t let me stay with him. He’d given me a lot of reasons for not letting me stay, but he’d never said he didn’t want me. I hadn’t believed his reasons, because everyone I knew had reasons for not taking me. And everybody’s reasons boiled down to not wanting me. But maybe Solly was different.

  “Solly?” I said. My voice sounded husky. “If you thought you could keep me, would you want to?”

  “You’re awake, Daveleh? Good morning.” He sipped his coffee. “I thought you wanted to stay at your HHB.”

  That wasn’t an answer. Yes, it was. He didn’t want me.

  He shook his head. “No, I should answer. You asked a good question. If I could adopt you, boychik, and I had a signed letter from a higher authority that I would stay healthy, I would want to. I would like to find out if everybody I raise turns into an alrightnik.”

  “Oh.” I leaned back on the couch cushion. I felt like crying again. I wanted to thank him, but I didn’t know what to say. So instead I asked, “What’s an alrightnik?”

  He put down his cup. “An alrightnik is somebody who forgets that he wasn’t born a doctor or a judge or a businessman. He forgets that a lot of people made it possible for him to get so high-and-mighty.”

  I understood. Mr. Doom was an alrightnik. It was better to be a gonif like Solly.

  I stood up and went out to the toilet in the hall and waited behind two other people to get in.

  When I came back, Solly said, “Boychik, you want a slice of rye bread? An apple? A cup of tea?”

  I nodded. “What time is it?” It could be afternoon. It could be next week.

  “A quarter to nine.”

  Mr. Cluck would have started his morning lecture. Mike would already have drawn a few violins. This afternoon I would have been in Mr. Hillinger’s special art class.

  Solly stood at the stove, making my breakfast. “Odelia Packer will be here at nine-thirty.”

  “She will?”

  He carried a plate to the table. “Eat. I’ll pour your tea. Should I put honey in it?”

  “Why is she coming?”

  “We’re taking you to your HHB in style. Honey?”

  I nodded about the honey. Yesterday I would have thought Solly was taking me back to get rid of me, like Aunt Sarah and Aunt Lily had tried to. Now I just wondered what he had up his sleeve.

  My clothes were draped over the oven. I got into them. They were dry and warm and even stiffer than usual.

  “We’re going to settle that paskudnyak.”

  I grinned. “How?”

  “You’ll see. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Is Irma Lee coming?”

  “Her mama didn’t say.”

&n
bsp; I looked down at myself. It was hard to wrinkle an HHB jacket, since it was mostly made of iron, but I had managed. It was full of wrinkles, except for the spots that were covered with caked mud. My knickers were just as bad, plus they had a rip in the side. “You don’t have any boy’s clothes, do you?”

  “No, Daveleh. Eat your breakfast.”

  Irma Lee had said I looked swell in pajamas. Maybe she’d think I looked swell in mud.

  At twenty-five after nine Solly, Bandit, and I went downstairs to wait for Mrs. Packer. To keep me warm, Solly had lent me his other suit jacket, the one he wasn’t wearing. It covered my muddy jacket and knickers, but it had a brown stain on the lapel, and it was much too big.

  I had the carving under my arm, but I’d left the oilcloth on Solly’s kitchen table. He’d promised to return it to Mrs. Cohen and to tell Aunt Lily and Aunt Sarah that I’d gone back to the HHB. I said he should tell my aunts that I found a million-dollar bill on Delancey Street and had moved into the Waldorf.

  It was warm for December, and it was sunny. The snow had turned to slush, but my feet were dry in Aunt Lily’s galoshes.

  While we waited I started thinking. Except for Papa, nobody had ever been as kind to me as Solly. He’d even missed his gonifing last night because of me. I thought about who was nice—Solly, the nurse, Irma Lee—and who wasn’t, which was a longer list. My relatives, for example. Gideon, for example. He had no good reason for leaving me behind, for leaving me to be given away like a used undershirt.

  I imagined him at the HHB. He’d have been bully chopped meat. I grinned, but then I stopped grinning in surprise. I was being an alrightnik about Gideon! Well, not exactly, but close. To get along at the HHB, you had to be tough, a rascal. You had to be like me, which Gideon wasn’t.

  Moe and the other bullies were Gideon’s age. He wouldn’t be able to handle them, no matter how much of a genius he was. If he lived at the Home, they’d cream him over and over again.

  Solly said, “Are you warm enough, boychik?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It would be worse for me too with Gideon there. I would try to help him, and I would feel terrible that he had given up his chance to live with Uncle Jack. Even though I would have stayed with him if Uncle Jack or another relative had picked me instead. We were different, so it wouldn’t be right for us to act the same identical way.

  Gideon hadn’t just left me here either. He’d gone on writing to me every week, even though I’d never written back. He’d given me Papa’s carving, which had always been his most treasured—

  “There it is,” Solly said.

  I owe Gideon a letter, I thought. I could send him some drawings too.

  Solly’s watch said it was five to ten. As soon as I saw the Cadillac I got scared. Maybe they wouldn’t settle Mr. Doom and he would settle us.

  I thought people would stare when the chauffeur opened the door for us, but they didn’t. Well, one person did—a girl, about three years old, who was standing near the curb with both fists stuffed in her mouth. Everyone else acted like they rode in chauffeured limousines three times a week.

  We got in, and there was Irma Lee, sitting on one of the jump seats and smiling at me. She was wearing a blue coat, white gloves, and a round little blue hat. I couldn’t imagine how she could look prettier.

  “Get in, boychik.”

  I took the other jump seat, and held the carving on my lap. Solly sank into the upholstery next to Mrs. Packer.

  “Mama says we’re going to scare the pants off your bad old superintendent,” Irma Lee said before the chauffeur even closed the door behind us.

  Mrs. Packer laughed. “Baby girl, we are going to scare him and hope his pants stay right where they should be.”

  On the way uptown, Irma Lee held Papa’s carving on her lap and examined it, saying “ooh” and “ah” every so often, and laughing at the monkey on the leopard’s back. When she was done, she said, “Mama, look,” and gave it to Mrs. Packer. Solly told them my papa had done the carving, and Mrs. Packer said it was no wonder I was interested in art.

  Irma Lee started telling me something. I think it was about a cousin of hers who was an aviator. I couldn’t pay attention. I kept worrying. How were an old man, a bird, a lady, and a little girl going to scare Mr. Doom?

  We turned onto 136th Street. There was an inch of snow on the ground up here. A rope hung from my tree, and I wondered how it had gotten there. Then I knew. My buddies had snuck out last night and put it there in case I came back. They were the best.

  We turned onto Amsterdam Avenue and drew up in front of the Humble House of Buddies. The chauffeur opened the car door.

  We walked up the brick path to the door. The path was slick from melting snow. I almost slipped and dropped the carving.

  Solly held the door open for us. This was it.

  Chapter 38

  THE LOBBY WAS empty. “Where do we go, boychik?” I pointed to Mr. Doom’s office. The door was shut as usual. We walked toward it. Mrs. Packer’s heels clacked on the tiles and echoed off the walls.

  Solly knocked, and Mr. Doom rumbled that we should come in. I got ready to run. Solly put his arm around my shoulder.

  There he was—Mr. Doom—huge as ever, mean as ever. He looked up and saw me. His left hand went up to hold his glasses in place. He smiled a fake smile. “Dave! We’ve been so worried.” He stood. “Thank you for bringing Dave home,” he told Solly. “Excuse me for a moment.” He went to the phone on the wall and told the operator to call the police station.

  He was going to have me arrested! I tried to get away, but Solly held me tight.

  Mr. Doom said into the telephone, “Please tell Officer Kelly that our boy came home. He’s with me right now, safe and sound.” He hung up and came around the desk to shake Solly’s hand.

  “Mazel. Mazel tov,” the parrot squawked.

  Mr. Doom backed up a step. “Beautiful bird. I love birds. You are Dave’s . . . ?” He paused, waiting for Solly to answer.

  “His grandpa.”

  “And these . . .”—he nodded at Mrs. Packer and Irma Lee—“. . . are your maids?”

  How could Mrs. Packer scare him if he thought she was a maid?

  Irma Lee started giggling. Mrs. Packer looked like she was trying not to laugh. I didn’t see what was so funny.

  Mr. Doom continued. “I’m surprised you left Dave with us if—”

  “I’m not a rich man,” Solly said.

  Mr. Doom frowned, trying to figure it out. Then he gave up the riddle. “Dave, why did you run away?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Take off your coat, son.” He reached for Papa’s carving. “I’ll hold this.”

  I hugged the carving tight against my chest. He wasn’t getting it.

  “Gozlin! Holdupnik!” Bandit squawked.

  Mr. Doom shrugged. “I just don’t want you to get overheated. Mr. Caros—”

  “Gruber. Solomon Gruber. And my boss here is Mrs. Odelia Packer.”

  “Odelia Packer! The Odelia Pa—” Mr. Doom rushed at her. “Madam, I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize you.” He straightened his suit jacket. “I’m honored to have you as a guest. Wait till I tell Mrs. Bloom! She reads to me about your salons. Did Baron Rothschild . . .” He held out his hand, which Mrs. Packer didn’t take.

  “Mr. Gruber has told me shocking things about the institution you run here,” Mrs. Packer said.

  “Mada—”

  “If something happened to me, and my baby—my daughter had to live in a place—”

  “God forbid something should—”

  “I would be spinning in my grave. Spinning! Inedible food! The poor boys are freezing to death. And their precious . . .”—she reached for Papa’s carving; I let her have it—“. . . keepsakes are taken from them.”

  “Mada—”

  “Mr. Gruber would care for his grandson himself, but his health is too uncertain . . .”

  Was this part true? I thought of how out of breath he got from climbing
stairs, and how slowly he always walked. I looked at him, but I couldn’t tell. He was too busy being a gonif, nodding seriously at everything Mrs. Packer said.

  “Madam, I deeply re—”

  “Mr. Gruber handles my charitable work.” She turned to Solly. “I believe a board of directors oversees . . .”

  Solly said, “I saw Norman Rosen yesterday, just a few hours before Daveleh came, dripping—”

  “Sir! I never intended . . . If I had only known . . .” Beads of sweat were gathering on Mr. Doom’s forehead.

  “Mr. Gruber can speak to Mr. Rosen tomorrow and tell him what happened—”

  “No, madam! He can’t—I mean, he mustn’t. The boy will be treated . . . Dave . . .” He smiled at me. He was begging. “I meant no harm. I thought—”

  “You stole my papa’s carving and called him a bum.” It felt grand to tell him off. “You’re the bum, you’re the thief, you’re the paskud—”

  “Enough, boychik. Mr. Bloom gets the idea.”

  Mr. Doom crouched in front of me. “Dave, will you accept my sincere, my sincerest apologies?”

  “Oy vay,” the parrot squawked. “Gevalt!”

  There was nothing sincere about him. “Just stay away from my things, and leave us elevens alone.”

  Mrs. Packer waved her hand. “Mr. Gruber and I know how difficult it is to run a large institution. Never enough money, never enough help . . .”

  Mr. Doom nodded as she spoke. “Never enough money,” he echoed. He stood up. “Madam, if you would interest yourself in our mission, to bring up these chil—”

  “Mr. Gruber?”

  “Since Dave was here, I didn’t feel right about suggesting a donation, but I think they could use a new furnace.”

  For a second Mrs. Packer looked blank. Then she chuckled. “A new furnace.”