Read Online Sailor & Lula by Barry Gifford - Free Book Online Page A

up for the cold weather. I guess they figured me for a bum or head case, seein’ as how I was so filthy and dressed wrong. Then I thought of you and headed for your house. Only it wasn’t your house really, it was in this cold, dark New York City, and it was a long way there.
    â€œI was strugglin’ ever’ step of the way. Pushin’ through the crowds. There was more and more people and the sky seemed like it was daytime, only it was dark, too. You were livin’ in some big buildin’ and I had to go up lots of stairs, but finally I found where it was. You let me in only you weren’t real pleased to see me. You kept sayin’, ‘Why’d you come to see me now? Why now?’ Like it’d been a long time since we seen each other.”
    â€œOh, baby, what an idea. I’d always be happy to see you, no matter what.”
    â€œI know, peanut. But it wasn’t all like you were so unhappy I was there, just you were upset. My bein’ there was upsettin’ to you. You had short hair, too, and chopped off in front. You had some kids there, little kids, and I guess you’d got married and your husband was comin’ home any minute. I tell you, Lula, I was shakin’ wet. All this black sweat was pourin’ off me, and I knew I was scarin’ you, so I took off. And then I woke up, sweatin’, and a couple minutes later you come in.”
    Lula slid her head up to Sailor’s chest and put her arms around him.
    â€œSometimes dreams just don’t mean nothin’? What I think, anyway.
Stuff come into your mind you don’t got no control over, you know? It just come in there and ain’t nobody knows for sure why. Like I dreamed once a man stole me and locked me in a room in a tower with one tiny window and there was nothin’ but water outside? When I told Mama about it she said it was somethin’ I remembered from a story I heard as a child.”
    â€œWell, I ain’t upset about it, darlin’,” said Sailor. “Just give me a odd feelin’ there a minute is all.”
    Lula lifted her head and kissed Sailor under his left ear.
    â€œDreams ain’t no odder than real life,” she said. “Sometimes not by half.”

THE POLISH FATHER
    Johnnie Farragut sat on a bench in Jackson Square watching a pair of tourists take photos of one another. The couple spoke a language Johnnie did not recognize. Croatian, maybe, he thought, although he didn’t know what Croatian sounded like. The man and woman were short and stout, probably in their thirties, though they looked older. Their clothes hung loosely from their bodies, obviously not having been tailored to order. After several turns each of posing and shooting, which entailed a considerable amount of heated discussion and dramatic gesticulation, the couple left the park.
    As they waddled away, arguing in their grumbling language, Johnnie was reminded of a man who had lived down the street from him for a while when he was a boy. The man, whose name Johnnie could not remember, was Polish, and he had two sons, both round-faced, straw-haired kids a few years younger than Johnnie. There was no mother with the family, just a nice old grandmother who spoke only Polish. She and Johnnie would always nod and smile to each other whenever they passed on the street. The father was also round and fat, and he was bald and wore small, wire-rimmed glasses. His kids’ faces were always dirty and it seemed as if they were always eating something: apples, cake, candy bars.
    The Polish father was building a boat in his yard. Every evening Johnnie heard the man pounding nails into the frame. Many of the neighbors complained about the noise, but the construction continued without respite during the year and a half or so that the Polish family lived there. In his room late at night, Johnnie could hear the hammering and sawing. From what he’d seen of it, Johnnie thought it was to be a