may consider it a loan, payable without interest when your circumstances are comfortable. It’s what I’d hope someone might one day do for my own son.” He slid off the stool.
Brun was surprised at how short the man was, not more than five-seven, though he stood very straight. “Let us not discuss it further, Brun. The Y is just a short way down the block. I’ll take you there and get you your room.”
Brun figured if the man tried anything funny, he could handle him. Fitzgerald was not only small, but slender, and clearly not heavily muscled. And behind those fine Southern manners, there was such a tiredness about him. What if the guy really was on the level? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to sleep that night in a YMCA bed than in a hayloft, or between rows of corn?
Brun slid off his stool, and said, “Are you local? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Half-hearted chuckle. “One must consider a little turnabout to be fair play, isn’t that so? No, I live in Buffalo, New York. I’m here to investigate certain prospects for my employer.”
“But you don’t hail from New York. Not the way you talk.”
Fitzgerald pulled himself even straighter. “No, of course not. I’m proud to say I hail from Maryland. My family there goes back to the sixteen hundreds.”
And
, he said without actually saying it, every one was a fine and upstanding gentleman, or a noble and gracious lady. Which Brun thought probably went a long way toward explaining his appearance. Trying to live up to that sort of heritage every minute of every day
would
get to be exhausting. Maybe better to have at least a few horse thieves among the heroes in your ancestry.
In the end, Brun’s concern turned out to be unnecessary. His Southern-gentleman benefactor walked him up to the desk at the YMCA, put down a dollar and a half (twenty-five cents off for a week’s payment in advance), then bid him good-bye and wished him good luck. As he left, he pressed three dollar-coins into Brun’s hand. “A young man looking for work needs to eat well,” said Fitzgerald. “You will make a far better impression if you don’t look as if you’re starving. And…” That tired little laugh again. “Your piano teacher just might expect you to pay for your lessons.” Brun watched him out the door, then took the key from the bald, scaly-faced little desk clerk, went up to his room, stripped down, wrapped a towel around himself, and walked down the hall to the bath room.
With some reluctance, Brun admitted to himself that the bath actually did feel good, cold though it was at that hour. And the bed was far more comfortable than the floors of the freight cars he’d stretched out on for the past couple of nights. He fell directly into a heavy sleep, so satisfying that when a bell commenced a terrible clanging, he managed to bury his head under the pillow and put the noise aside. But a while later, a steam whistle showed no mercy whatever, just blasted the boy up and out of bed. The clanging, as Brun shortly found out, was the courthouse bell, which rang six days a week at six in the morning. The whistle came from the MoPac railroad shop, and blew seven.
Brun yawned and stretched, then pulled the chamber pot from under the bed and relieved himself. Too early to go talk to Mr. John Stark, so the boy wandered down to the communal room and sat through morning prayer service, not out of piety or anything resembling sincere interest, but because it was the price of the Y’s egg and pancake breakfast, payment in advance. The boy’s attention wandered; he gazed out the open window at the growing crowd along Ohio Avenue. A man working a slow route on a horse cart called out, “Rags! Old iron! Bottles!” The junkman stopped long enough to say a word to a colored man playing an accordion on a street corner, then dropped a coin in the musician’s cup. Which set Brun to thinking about the change he’d gotten in tips the night before at Boutell’s. He’d never
Brun was surprised at how short the man was, not more than five-seven, though he stood very straight. “Let us not discuss it further, Brun. The Y is just a short way down the block. I’ll take you there and get you your room.”
Brun figured if the man tried anything funny, he could handle him. Fitzgerald was not only small, but slender, and clearly not heavily muscled. And behind those fine Southern manners, there was such a tiredness about him. What if the guy really was on the level? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to sleep that night in a YMCA bed than in a hayloft, or between rows of corn?
Brun slid off his stool, and said, “Are you local? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Half-hearted chuckle. “One must consider a little turnabout to be fair play, isn’t that so? No, I live in Buffalo, New York. I’m here to investigate certain prospects for my employer.”
“But you don’t hail from New York. Not the way you talk.”
Fitzgerald pulled himself even straighter. “No, of course not. I’m proud to say I hail from Maryland. My family there goes back to the sixteen hundreds.”
And
, he said without actually saying it, every one was a fine and upstanding gentleman, or a noble and gracious lady. Which Brun thought probably went a long way toward explaining his appearance. Trying to live up to that sort of heritage every minute of every day
would
get to be exhausting. Maybe better to have at least a few horse thieves among the heroes in your ancestry.
In the end, Brun’s concern turned out to be unnecessary. His Southern-gentleman benefactor walked him up to the desk at the YMCA, put down a dollar and a half (twenty-five cents off for a week’s payment in advance), then bid him good-bye and wished him good luck. As he left, he pressed three dollar-coins into Brun’s hand. “A young man looking for work needs to eat well,” said Fitzgerald. “You will make a far better impression if you don’t look as if you’re starving. And…” That tired little laugh again. “Your piano teacher just might expect you to pay for your lessons.” Brun watched him out the door, then took the key from the bald, scaly-faced little desk clerk, went up to his room, stripped down, wrapped a towel around himself, and walked down the hall to the bath room.
With some reluctance, Brun admitted to himself that the bath actually did feel good, cold though it was at that hour. And the bed was far more comfortable than the floors of the freight cars he’d stretched out on for the past couple of nights. He fell directly into a heavy sleep, so satisfying that when a bell commenced a terrible clanging, he managed to bury his head under the pillow and put the noise aside. But a while later, a steam whistle showed no mercy whatever, just blasted the boy up and out of bed. The clanging, as Brun shortly found out, was the courthouse bell, which rang six days a week at six in the morning. The whistle came from the MoPac railroad shop, and blew seven.
Brun yawned and stretched, then pulled the chamber pot from under the bed and relieved himself. Too early to go talk to Mr. John Stark, so the boy wandered down to the communal room and sat through morning prayer service, not out of piety or anything resembling sincere interest, but because it was the price of the Y’s egg and pancake breakfast, payment in advance. The boy’s attention wandered; he gazed out the open window at the growing crowd along Ohio Avenue. A man working a slow route on a horse cart called out, “Rags! Old iron! Bottles!” The junkman stopped long enough to say a word to a colored man playing an accordion on a street corner, then dropped a coin in the musician’s cup. Which set Brun to thinking about the change he’d gotten in tips the night before at Boutell’s. He’d never
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