Columbus Day comes up as cold as Christmas. I listen to the weather
forecast the night before, to see how it’ll be for the beach. “High winds,
unseasonably low temperatures,” the guy says. He would.
I get up at eight-thirty the next morning, though, figuring he’d be wrong
and it would be a nice sunny day. I slip on my pants and shirt and go
downstairs with Cat to have a look out. Cat slides out and is halfway down
the stoop when a blast of cold wind hits him. His tail goes up and he
spooks back in between my legs. I push the door shut against the icy wind.
Mom is sitting in the kitchen drinking her tea and she says, “My goodness,
why are you up so early on a holiday? Do you feel sick?”
“Nah, I’m all right.” I pour out a cup of coffee to warm my hands on and
dump in three or four spoons of sugar.
“Davey, have you got a chill? You don’t look to me as if you felt quite
right.”
“Mom, for Pete’s sake, it’s COLD out! I feel fine.”
“Well, you don’t have to go out. Why don’t you just go back to bed and
snooze and read a bit, and I’ll bring you some breakfast.”
I see it’s got to be faced, so while I’m getting down the cereal and a
bowl, I say, “Well, as a matter of fact, I’m going over to Coney Island
today.”
“Coney ISLAND!” Mom sounds like it was Siberia. “What in the world are you
going to do there in the middle of winter?”
“Mom, it’s only Columbus Day. We figured we’d go to the aquarium and
then—uh—well, fool around. Some of the pitches are still open, and we’ll
get hot dogs and stuff.”
“Who’s going? Nick?”
“Nick wasn’t sure—I’ll stop by his house and see.” I’d just as soon steer
clear of this “who’s going” business, so I start into a long spiel about
how we’re studying marine life in biology, and we have to take some notes
at the aquarium. Mom is swallowing this pretty well, but Pop comes into
the kitchen just then and gives me the fishy eye.
“First time I ever heard of you spending a holiday on homework. I bet they
got a new twist palace going out there.”
I slam down my coffee cup. “Holy cats! Can’t I walk out of here on a
holiday without going through the third degree? What am I, some kind of a
nut or a convict?”
“Just a growing boy,” says Pop. “And don’t talk so sassy to your mother.”
“I’m talking to you!”
Pop draws in a breath to start bellowing, but Mom beats him to it by
starting to wheeze, which she can do without drawing breath.
Pop pats her on the shoulder and gives me a dirty look. “Now, Agnes,
that’s all right. I’m not sore. I was just trying to kid him a little bit,
and he flies off the handle.”
_I_ fly off the handle! How do you like that?
I give Mom a kiss. “Cheer up, Mom. I won’t ride on the roller coaster.
It’s not even running.”
I grab a sweater and gloves and money and get out before they can start
anymore questions. On the subway I start wondering if Mary will show up.
It’s almost two months since we made this sort of crazy date, and the
weather sure isn’t helping any.
Coney Island is made to be crowded and noisy. All the billboards scream at
you, as if they had to get your attention. So when the place is empty, it
looks like the whole thing was a freak or an accident.
It’s sure empty today. There’s practically no one on the street in the
five or six blocks from the subway station to the aquarium. But it’s not
quiet. There are a few places open—merry-go-rounds and hot-dog shops—and
tinny little trickles of music come out of them, but the big noise is the
wind. All the signs are swinging and screeching. Rubbish cans blow over
and their tops clang and bang rolling down the street. The wind makes a
whistling noise all by itself.
I lean into the wind and walk up the empty street. My sweater is about as
warm as a sieve. I wonder if I’m crazy to have come. No girl would get out
on a boardwalk on a day like this. It must be practically a hurricane.
She’s there, though. As soon as I turn the corner to the beach, I can see
one figure, with its back to the ocean, scarf and hair blowing inland
toward me. I can’t see her face, but it’s Mary, all right. There isn’t
another soul in sight. I wave and she hunches her shoulders up and down to
semaphore, not wishing to take her hands out of her pockets.
I come up beside her on the boardwalk and turn my back to the ocean, too.
I’d like to go on looking at it—it’s all black and white and thundery—but
the wind blows your breath right back down into your stomach. I freeze.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come on a day like this,” I say.
“Me too. I mean I was afraid _you_ wouldn’t.”
“Mom and Pop thought I was crazy. I spent about an hour arguing with them.
What’d your mother say?”
“Nothing. She thinks I’m walking alone with the wind in my hair, thinking
poetic thoughts.”
“Huh? What for?”
Mary shrugs. “Mom’s like that. You’ll see. Come on, let’s go home and make
cocoa or something to warm up, and then we’ll think up something to do. We
can’t just stand here.”
She’s right about that, so I don’t argue. Her house is a few blocks away,
a two-family type with a sloped driveway going down into a cellar garage.
Neat. My pop is always going nuts hunting for a place to park.
Mary goes in and shouts, “Hi, Nina! I brought a friend home. We’re going
to make some cocoa. We’re freezing.”
I wonder who Nina is. I don’t hear her mother come into the kitchen. Then
I turn around and there she is. Holy crow! We got some pretty beat-looking
types at school, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a beatnik
mother.
She’s got on a black T-shirt and blue jeans and old sneakers, and her hair
is in a long braid, with uneven bangs in front.
Mary waves a saucepan vaguely at us both and says, “Nina—Davey—this is my
mother.”
So Nina is her mother. I stick out my hand. “Uh—how do you do?”
“Hel-looo.” Her voice is low and musical. “I think there is coffee on the
stove.”
“I thought I’d make cocoa for a change,” says Mary.
“All right.” Nina puts a cigarette in her mouth and offers one to me.