The first time I ran away from home I was five. When you’re a kid, you don’t have much to pack — no jackets, no matching suit pants, no ties — just some marbles, a new harmonica from my Christmas stocking, my pen knife from Uncle Bill, my Mickey Mouse underpants, my toothbrush, and my best Indian and best Cowboy from my Fort Ticonderoga set. I tied up everything in a bandana, like I’d seen in a comic book, and walked out the door. I thought about taking Phantom, my imaginary horse, then decided he could stay in the back yard where he liked the grass. Anyway, I wanted to travel light.

            I was headed off to live next door, with Harry and Mabel Kendall. They didn’t have any kids and I thought they might want one. Mr. Kendall had taught me how to find a magic penny in my shoe and Mrs. Kendall always poured me a glass of milk while I tried to learn the magic. I was pretty sure they would want a good kid, a kid who tried, a kid who wanted to learn magic tricks and drank his milk, and wiped the milk moustache off without being told.

            My mom helped me pack my things, that time. I remember the light bounced off her red nails while she folded my underwear, made sure I had my toothbrush, patted things in place the way Moms like to do. I remember being worried. Why, I wondered, was she helping me pack? What did she know that I didn’t?

            Mabel made me hot chocolate with a marshmallow and Harry told me a story about when he was in the War and found a snake in his bed. Then we called my Mom and then I went home.

 

"Winston," said his sister, "I don't blame you for wanting to marry again.  I don't even blame you for wanting to marry someone young.  Young people have pep.  But marrying someone as young as you tell me this Eloise person is is just asking for a mare's nest."

Woman never could get anything right, Winston thought, then consciously decided to follow Jim Boulton's advice — man was an M.D. even if he was a fool — and not get too angry while there was good food about.  So he deliberately turned his attention to his tunafish sandwich.  It was one of two — Julia had the other — he had made all by himself the proper way: great hunks of tuna and celery with lots of mayonnaise on regular white bread with no lettuce.  He took another bite.

Since Winston was ostentatiously ignoring her, Julia gave a tug to the visor of her blue baseball cap and turned her attention elsewhere.  She glanced down the hill and gathered in the bright blue sky, the green lawn sweeping to the river, the flower beds, excellently ordered, poised for June perfection.  She bit her sandwich, then used the paper napkin to catch the mayonnaise that squirted out onto her chin.

Really.  The man couldn't even make a proper tunafish sandwich.  How could he possibly be a director of a bank?  No wonder the place was in trouble.  She wondered that he had the time to get away for an hour, let alone an entire weekend.  If she had had the directorship . . .

 

This woman on the bus had nails like that, not nails like went into our Dear Lord’s hands, and feet, upon the cross.  I don’t mean that, no I mean

            fingernails.  She had nicely painted fingernails, I noticed, when she reached up her hand to push the tape that signals, “Next stop, please.”  And then she swiveled in that single seat, stood, and pushed her way around my two packages, not looking at me at all, not even so much as the whisper of a glance. But moved her knees, her thighs, her hips, around me, maneuvered, and moved to the back as I, grateful for the opportunity, moved into what I had already begun to call “my seat.”  Which I took, leaving my backpack on, still feeling my shirt sticking to my shoulders, leaning down to move my packages so slightly, ever conscious of the needs of those still standing, their need for space for safe passage, for freedom of movement within their own orbit, except there are now, directly in front of my package, in the aisle, a woman’s legs covered by a stylish beige skirt, topped by a crisp white blouse, a single strand of pearls, a neck with wrinkles giving the lie to the taut face above, a mouth slashed with deep red lipstick, severe blonde hair, and brown eyes filled with hate.  Her voice is a whisper dagger directed to me.  It says

            “Oh please.”  Not the ohplease

            of someone pleading, wanting you to hear this one last thing, the voice of ohplease listen to me just listen I have one more thing to say before you do whatever it is you’re going to do ohplease just listen listen listen to me just this once.  Not that voice.  And not the ohplease

            of someone daring you to do more, the ohpleaseohpleaseohplease do it do it again do it more do it now to me now now now.  Not that voice.  This was the ohplease

            that is ohplease have you ever seen anything like this before, look everyone, look at this person, this seated person, this man person who has taken what is rightfully mine.  Oh puh-leeze, have you ever seen anything so rude, so obnoxious, so odious as someone who would deliberately move into a space I have clearly designated as mine without so much as an Excuse me?  With a mouth stretched thinner than razor blades; with sharp dagger eyes.  I was, of course, reminded of

            the times when other mouths and other eyes had questioned my courtesies, my right to hold their hands, and other parts, I thought lightly, they seemed to think me too hard, too full of strength, too demanding, which, of course, changed when they discovered what my demands really were, are, what I really wanted, then they were usually overcome.  I like to think overcome with joy though, probably, they would disagree.

 

My name is Dinkey Biederman, but you can call me Dink.  Dinky was the name my Dad gave me when I was about six years old, because I was kind of small for my age.  My Dad used to say, “Hey, boy, how’d you get to be so dinky?” And I’d say, “Cause I am.”  And then he’d say, “This’ll make you grow,” and he’d throw me up in the air, and I’d scream and laugh.  He used to do a lot of neat things like that. He died three years ago when I was nine and my little brother, Guff, was three. Like Mom says, it was just one of those things.

Dad was working construction where they were building this skyscraper, and he fell or something and got run over. So, after you’re sad for a while, well, then you have to keep going.

            We were originally from New Jersey, but we moved down South because that’s where the jobs were.  After Dad died we moved back up north to a different part of New Jersey.  Then Mom started going out with Ralph, and then he moved in.  Mom said it was good to have a man around, and after a little bit, it started to be sort of okay, at least for me and Guff. He’s called Guff cause one day when he was little and Mom wasn’t home, he spit up all over the place and Dad threw me a rag and said, “Here, clean all that guff off your brother.” So I called him Guff, and then Dad did, too, and then so did Mom. So even though his official name is Edward Michael Biederman, just like mine is David Christopher Biederman, he’s Guff and I’m Dink.