t till clear over at Sixth Avenue. By then everyone
else has got off and the bus driver turns around and says, "Where you two
headed for?"

It's funny, a bus driver asking you that, so I ask him, "Where does this
bus go?"

"It goes from Bellevue Hospital down to Hudson Street, down by the Holland
Tunnel."

"Holy crow!" says Ben. "We're liable to wind up in New Jersey."

"Relax. I don't go that far. I just go back up to Bellevue," says the
driver.

"You think we'd be far from Fulton Fish Market?" I say.

The driver gestures vaguely. "Just across the island."

So Ben and I decide we'll get off at the end of the line and walk from
there. The bus driver says, "Have a nice hike."

"I think there's something fishy about this," says Ben.

"That's what we're going to get, fish," I say, and we walk. We walk quite
a ways.

Ben sees a little Italian restaurant down a couple of steps, and we stop
to look at the menu in the window. The special for the day is lasagna, and
Ben says, "Boy, that's for me!"

We go inside, while I finger the dollar in my pocket and do some fast
mental arithmetic. Lasagna is a dollar, so that's out, but I see spaghetti
and meat balls is seventy-five cents, so that will still leave me bus fare
home.

A waiter rushes up, wearing a white napkin over his arm like a banner, and
takes our order. He returns in a moment with a shiny clean white linen
tablecloth and a basket of fresh Italian bread and rolls. On a third trip
he brings enough chilled butter for a family and asks if we want coffee
with lunch or later. Later, we say.

"Man, this is living!" says Ben as he moves in on the bread.

"He treats us just like people."

Pretty soon the waiter is back with our lasagna and spaghetti, and he
swirls around the table as if he were dancing. "Anything else now? Mind
the hot plates, very hot! Have a good lunch now. I bring the coffee
later."

He swirls away, the napkin over his arm making a little breeze, and
circles another table. It's a small room, and there are only four tables
eating, but he seems to enjoy acting like he was serving royalty at the
Waldorf. When we're just finished eating, he comes back with a pot of
steaming coffee and a pitcher of real cream.

I'm dolloping the cream in, and it floats, when a thought hits me: We got
to leave a tip for this waiter.

I whisper to Ben, "Hey, how much money you got?"

He reaches in his pocket and fishes out a buck, a dime, and a quarter. We