Ralph

I saw a picture of some bare-chested native ladies in a magazine this kid Bob Carlisle was showing everyone at the park one day, and I saw my mom once when I walked into her room without knocking and she turned away too late, but those weren’t sins, either one, because I didn’t mean to see, but I never saw a boy with breasts before and I couldn’t help staring. It wasn’t something Lou should be looking at though, so I snapped out of it and dragged her back to the wagon.

He wanted to know where we were headed.

“Vacant lot,” I told him.

Lou got in again.

“For bottles?” he said.

I nodded yeah.

He offered us a nickel if we wagoned him there and back. He said he wanted to get some baseball cards at Morgan’s—that’s the drug store just past the vacant lot—and if we took him in the wagon there and back he’d give us five cents.

“Each?” I said.

He asked me if I was out of my mind.

I started leaving.

“All right, all right,” he said.

I stopped. “All right what?”

“A dime.”

I looked at Lou.

She nodded.

I told him okay, deal.

“Lemme put these away,” he said, and started stacking his boxes. I counted seven. Seven boxes of baseball cards.

I don’t get it.

“And put some shoes on,” Lou told him. He was wearing house slippers.

He gave her a look. He had all seven boxes in his arms now, with his chin on top, and he stood there giving Lou a long dirty look.

She looked at me.

I shrugged.

He went inside, looking back at her.

So now we had to wait for him. Then we’d have to wagon him all the way there and all the way back. I wasn’t even sure if we could, he’s so fat. You should see.

But ten cents. That was five empty bottles right there.