to see Ron play. And then one nightwe discovered that at eleven o’clock the cashier of the Hilltop Theatre went home and the manager disappeared into his office and so that summer we saw the last quarter of at least fifteen movies and then when we were driving home—driving Brenda home, that is—we would try to reconstruct the beginnings of the films. Our favorite last quarter of a movie was
Ma and Pa Kettle in the City,
our favorite fruit, greengage plums, and our favorite, our only, people, each other. Of course we ran into others from time to time, some of Brenda’s friends, and occasionally, one or two of mine. One night in August we even went to a bar out on Route 6 with Laura Simpson Stolowitch and her fiancé, but it was a dreary evening. Brenda and I seemed untrained in talking to others, and so we danced a great deal, which we realized was one thing we’d never done before. Laura’s boyfriend drank stingers pompously and Simp—Brenda wanted me to call her Stolo but I didn’t—Simp drank a tepid combination of something like ginger ale and soda. Whenever we returned to the table, Simp would be talking about “the dance” and her fiancé about “the film,” until finally Brenda asked him “Which film?” and then we danced till closing time. And when we went back to Brenda’s we filled a bowl with cherries which we carried into the TV room and ate sloppily for a while; and later, on the sofa, we loved each other and when I moved from the darkened room to the bathroom I could always feel cherry pits against my bare soles. At home, undressing for the second time that night, I would find red marks on the undersides of my feet.
And how did her parents take all of this? Mrs. Patimkin continued to smile at me and Mr. Patimkin continued to think I ate like a bird. When invited to dinner I would, for his benefit, eat twice what I wanted, but the truth seemed to be that after he’d characterized my appetite that first time, he never really bothered to look again. I might have eaten ten times my normal amount, have finally killed myself with food, he would still have considered me not a man but a sparrow. No one seemed distressed by my presence, though Julie had cooled considerably; consequently, when Brenda suggested to her father that at the end of August I spend a week of my vacation at the Patimkin house, he pondered a moment, decided on the five iron, made his approach shot, and said yes. And when she passed on to her mother the decision of Patimkin Sink, there wasn’t much Mrs. Patimkin could do. So, through Brenda’s craftiness, I was invited.
On that Friday morning that was to be my last day of work, my Aunt Gladys saw me packing my bag and she asked where I was going. I told her. She did not answer and I thought I saw awe in those red-rimmed hysterical eyes—I had come a long way since that day she’d said to me on the phone, “Fancy-shmancy.”
“How long you going, I should know how to shop I wouldn’t buy too much. You’ll leave me with a refrigerator full of milk it’ll go bad it’ll stink up the refrigerator—”
“A week,” I said.
“A
week?
” she said. “They got room for a week?”
“Aunt Gladys, they don’t live over the store.”
“I lived over a store I wasn’t ashamed. Thank God we always had a roof. We never went begging in the streets,” she told me as I packed the Bermudas I’d just bought, “and your cousin Susan we’ll put through college, Uncle Max should live and be well. We didn’t send her away to camp for August, she doesn’t have shoes when she wants them, sweaters she doesn’t have a drawerful—”
“I didn’t say anything, Aunt Gladys.”
“You don’t get enough to eat here? You leave over sometimes I show your Uncle Max your plate it’s a shame. A child in Europe could make a four-course meal from what you leave over.”
“Aunt Gladys.” I went over to her. “I get everything I want here. I’m just taking a vacation. Don’t I
Ma and Pa Kettle in the City,
our favorite fruit, greengage plums, and our favorite, our only, people, each other. Of course we ran into others from time to time, some of Brenda’s friends, and occasionally, one or two of mine. One night in August we even went to a bar out on Route 6 with Laura Simpson Stolowitch and her fiancé, but it was a dreary evening. Brenda and I seemed untrained in talking to others, and so we danced a great deal, which we realized was one thing we’d never done before. Laura’s boyfriend drank stingers pompously and Simp—Brenda wanted me to call her Stolo but I didn’t—Simp drank a tepid combination of something like ginger ale and soda. Whenever we returned to the table, Simp would be talking about “the dance” and her fiancé about “the film,” until finally Brenda asked him “Which film?” and then we danced till closing time. And when we went back to Brenda’s we filled a bowl with cherries which we carried into the TV room and ate sloppily for a while; and later, on the sofa, we loved each other and when I moved from the darkened room to the bathroom I could always feel cherry pits against my bare soles. At home, undressing for the second time that night, I would find red marks on the undersides of my feet.
And how did her parents take all of this? Mrs. Patimkin continued to smile at me and Mr. Patimkin continued to think I ate like a bird. When invited to dinner I would, for his benefit, eat twice what I wanted, but the truth seemed to be that after he’d characterized my appetite that first time, he never really bothered to look again. I might have eaten ten times my normal amount, have finally killed myself with food, he would still have considered me not a man but a sparrow. No one seemed distressed by my presence, though Julie had cooled considerably; consequently, when Brenda suggested to her father that at the end of August I spend a week of my vacation at the Patimkin house, he pondered a moment, decided on the five iron, made his approach shot, and said yes. And when she passed on to her mother the decision of Patimkin Sink, there wasn’t much Mrs. Patimkin could do. So, through Brenda’s craftiness, I was invited.
On that Friday morning that was to be my last day of work, my Aunt Gladys saw me packing my bag and she asked where I was going. I told her. She did not answer and I thought I saw awe in those red-rimmed hysterical eyes—I had come a long way since that day she’d said to me on the phone, “Fancy-shmancy.”
“How long you going, I should know how to shop I wouldn’t buy too much. You’ll leave me with a refrigerator full of milk it’ll go bad it’ll stink up the refrigerator—”
“A week,” I said.
“A
week?
” she said. “They got room for a week?”
“Aunt Gladys, they don’t live over the store.”
“I lived over a store I wasn’t ashamed. Thank God we always had a roof. We never went begging in the streets,” she told me as I packed the Bermudas I’d just bought, “and your cousin Susan we’ll put through college, Uncle Max should live and be well. We didn’t send her away to camp for August, she doesn’t have shoes when she wants them, sweaters she doesn’t have a drawerful—”
“I didn’t say anything, Aunt Gladys.”
“You don’t get enough to eat here? You leave over sometimes I show your Uncle Max your plate it’s a shame. A child in Europe could make a four-course meal from what you leave over.”
“Aunt Gladys.” I went over to her. “I get everything I want here. I’m just taking a vacation. Don’t I
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