nough to feel reckless. He
throws a fake punch, but he's not really interested. He goes his way, and
I go mine.

I must look pretty bad because a lot of people on the street shake their
heads at me. I walk in the door at home, expecting the worst, but
fortunately Mom is out. Pop just whistles through his teeth.

"That must have been quite a horror picture!" he says.

5

[Illustration: Dave and Tom lunching in meadow above river.]

AROUND MANHATTAN

By the next weekend I no longer look like a fugitive from a riot. All week
in school Nick and I get asked whether we got hit by a swinging door; then
the fellows notice the two of us aren't speaking to each other, and they
sort of sheer off the subject. Come Saturday, I sit on the stoop and
wonder, what now? There are plenty of other kids in school I like, but
they mostly live over in the project--Stuyvesant Town, that is. I've never
bothered to hunt them up weekends because Nick's so much nearer.

Summer is coming on, though, and I've got to have someone to hang around
with. This is the last Saturday before Memorial Day. Getting time for
beaches and stuff. I suppose Nick and I might get together again, but not
if he's going to be nuts about girls all the time.

A guy stops in front of the stoop, and Cat half opens his eyes in the sun
and squints at him. The guy says, "You Dave Mitchell?"

"Huh? Yeah." I look up, surprised. I don't exactly recognize the guy,
never having seen him in a clear light before. But from the voice I know
it's Tom.

"Oh, hi!" I say. "Here's Cat. He's pretty handsome in daylight."

"Yeah, he looks all right, but what happened to you?"

"Me and a friend of mine got in a fight."

"With some other guys or what?"

"Nah. We had a fight with each other."

"Um, that's bad." Tom sits down and has sense enough to see there isn't
anymore to say on that subject. "I start work Memorial Day, when the
beaches open. Working in a filling station on the Belt Parkway in
Brooklyn."

"Gee, that's a long way off. You going to live over there?"

"Yeah, they're going to get me a room in a Y in Brooklyn." Tom stretches
restlessly and goes on: "I suppose you get sick of school and all, but
it's rotten having nothing to do. I'd be ready to go nuts if I didn't get
a job. I can't wait to start."

I think o