stood before the head. My cock was tinier than I’d ever seen it — I imagined a cork inside it, blocking the flow. Diplomatically, Angie started to whistle. I moaned with relief as the urine started to flow, aiming for a rust streak at the back of the bowl.
“So,” he said. “You’re staying here.”
As if I had a choice. “Uh-huh,” I said.
“Good, I’m glad.”
“Where were you last night?”
He turned around to look at me. I was through pissing and shook myself, tugged the zipper. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” I said meekly, but Angie just laughed.
“I got home three hours ago. Don’t tell your grandmother.”
“Didn’t she wake up when you got home?”
“Nah. I’m always quiet.” He finished shaving, filled the sink with cold water, and splashed his face. He rubbed it with a towel, and I noticed the furrow of eyebrow across his forehead. It was one thick line of hair, unbroken over the bridge of his nose. The hair on his head was silver but the brows were jet black. Looking him in the eye was like looking at a cobra.
With wet hands he rubbed his scalp and began combing his thick hair straight back. A grin tugged a corner of his mouth. He knew how good he looked.
I asked, “How can you get into bed with her and not wake her up?”
He shut the water off. “My room’s at the other end of the hall.” He flicked the comb through his hair once more and put on a plaid sport shirt. He rubbed my hair and turned to leave the bathroom, buttoning his shirt.
“Did you have a fight with her?” I asked.
“What?” His voice was shrill.
“I mean, how come you have different rooms?”
He tilted back his head and let out a howl. “The questions you ask!” he said. “I say she snores. She says I snore. That’s how come.” He reached into his shirt pocket and gave me a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum with three sticks left. “See you later,” he said as he left, laughing.
When I was through washing my face and brushing my teeth I went downstairs, where Connie sat with another woman.
“He finally got up,” the woman announced, as if I’d kept her waiting.
Connie said, “This is my friend Grace Rothstein from next door.” We exchanged stares. I even sniffed the air, sensing an enemy. She lowered her head and bared large, rodentlike teeth. She was ten years younger than Connie, tall and whipcord lean. Her hair was bleached an outrageous blond.
“Coffee,” Connie said to me, moving to pour it. I’d hardly ever drunk it — my mother used to say it was bad for me. I felt flattered and doused it with sugar, pouring from a glass cylinder that obviously had been swiped from a diner.
“Where’s Vic?” I asked.
“At graduation practice,” Connie said.
“Where’s Angie?”
“He has a plumbing job today, with Freddie Gallo. You didn’t meet Freddie yet.”
“Eh, I don’t know how they work when they stay out late like that,” Grace said.
“My husband never needed a lot of sleep.”
“Thank God for that, Con, he never got any. My Rudy, he’s always there, even when I don’t want him.”
They cackled. I sucked down the last of my coffee. There was a thick, sluggish trail of sugar at the bottom of the cup. I stuck my finger in it.
“How come you and Angie have your own rooms?”
Grace cackled with renewed vigor but Connie fell silent. She hissed something at Grace before turning to me.
“That don’t concern you,” she said.
My ears grew hot. “I’m sorry. My mother and father had the same room,” I explained lamely, sucking my finger.
“Ahh!” Grace exclaimed, prodding Connie’s side, “The Irish, they like that!”
Grace got up from the table and reached for an upright rolling cart that had been leaning against the table. “What else besides the spinach?”
“Nothing. My husband will get the bread.”
“Eh. He’s good for something.”
Grace grunted her good-bye and left. We heard the cart wheels bang as she dragged the thing up the cellar steps. Connie moved to the stove.
“She’s Italian,” Connie said. “She married a Jew.”
I didn’t even know what a Jew was, but I knew what “Irish” meant and asked what Grace’s crack about them had meant.
Without turning to face me Connie said, “My friend’s a little crazy.”
“She was talking about my mother.”
“Yes.”
“What did my mother ‘like’?”
Connie’s face was flushed. “Your father,” she answered. “Don’t make me explain Grace. Here, take more coffee.”
“No, thank you.”
“All right, I’ll make you an egg.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s crazy, everybody’s hungry when they get up in the mor —”
A gigantic engine roar from the street interrupted her. I jumped with fright but Connie didn’t flinch.
“That’s Johnny,” she said. “He’s gonna give us all heart attacks.”
“Johnny who?”
“Johnny Gallo. Your grandfather’s buddy’s son. He plays with his car every day. You’ll meet Freddie later. Go meet Johnny now.” She pointed toward the cellar door.
Grateful for the dismissal, I cut through the furnace room, where strings of peppers hung drying. From the back door a set of steps led to the long driveway, bounded on the other side by Grace’s house.
Directly across the street from where my father had dumped me was a black car surrounded by a halo of bluish smoke. Its hood was open, and a young man hunched over the engine. It roared again, seemingly of its own accord. A fresh spout of smoke surrounded the car.
By this time I was coughing. Johnny noticed me and killed the motor from where he stood.
“Bet you’re Vic’s nephew, the kid whose old man run off.”
“My father’s on a trip,”
