Read Online The Roy Stories by Barry Gifford - Free Book Online

went into the back to make a phone call. They got along just fine and about once an hour Albert would ask if I wanted something, like a Barq’s or a Delaware Punch, and Dad would rub my shoulder and say to Albert, “He’s a real piece of meat, this boy.” Then Albert would grin so that his mustache covered the front of his nose and say, “He is, Rudy. You won’t want to worry about him.”
    When Dad and I were in New York one night I heard him talking in a loud voice to Dummy Fish in the lobby of the Waldorf. I was sitting in a big leather chair between a sand-filled ashtray and a potted palm and Dad came over and told me that Dummy would take me upstairs to our room. I should go to sleep, he said, he’d be back late. In the elevator I looked at Dummy and saw that he was sweating. It was December but water ran down from his temples to his chin. “Does my dad have a job?” I asked Dummy. “Sure he does,” he said. “Of course. Your dad has to work, just like everybody else.” “What is it?” I asked. Dummy wiped the sweat from his face with a white-and-blue checkered handkerchief. “He talks to people,” Dummy told me. “Your dad is a great talker.”
    Dad and Albert talked right past lunchtime and I must have fallen asleep on the bar because when I woke up it was dark out and I was in the backseat of the car. We were driving across the Huey P. Long Bridge and a freight train was running along the tracks over our heads. “How about some Italian oysters, son?” my dad asked. “We’ll stop up here in Houma and get some cold beer and dinner.” We were cruising in the passing lane in the powder blue Caddy over the big brown river. Through the bridge railings I watched the barge lights twinkle as they inched ahead through the water.
    â€œAlbert’s a businessman, the best kind.” Dad lit a fresh Lucky from an old one and threw the butt out the window. “He’s a good man to know, remember that.”

 
    The Forgotten
    I t was snowing again and Roy couldn’t wait to get out in it. Standing in line with the other second graders, all of them with their coats, mufflers, hats and gloves on, he was impatient to be released for morning recess. Roy had just told Eddie Gray that if the snow was deep enough they should choose up sides for a game of Plunge, when the teacher, Mrs. Bluth, called out to him.
    â€œRoy! You know that you are not supposed to talk while I am giving instructions. You remain here while I take the rest of the class down to the playground.”
    Roy stood still while everyone else filed out of the classroom. As soon as he was sure that they were on their way down the west staircase, Roy walked out of the room and headed in the opposite direction. Nobody was in the hallway. Roy walked down the east staircase to the ground floor and through the exit to the street. Snow was coming down hard and Roy put up the hood of his dark blue parka as he headed north on Fairfield Avenue. He could hear the kids yelling in the playground on the other side of the school.
    At the corner of Rosemont and Washtenaw, near St. Tim’s, Roy passed an old man wearing a brown trenchcoat and a black hat who was holding a handdrawn sign that said, “I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. JOB, 30:28.”
    â€œHow old are you?” the man asked Roy.
    â€œSeven,” Roy answered, and kept walking.
    â€œRead the Bible!” the man shouted. “Don’t forget, like I did!”
    When Roy entered the house, his mother was seated in front of the television set in the living room, drinking coffee.
    â€œIs that you, Roy?” she asked. “I thought you were at school. It’s only a little after ten.”
    â€œThey let us out early today,” he said. Roy went over to where she was sitting. “What’s on?”
    â€œ The Lady from Shanghai . It’s a good one. Rita