As we ride through Brooklyn the wind belts us around from both sides andright in the teeth. But the sun's beginning to break through, and it'seasy riding, no hills.
This part of Brooklyn is mostly rows of houses joined together, or lowapartment buildings, with little patches of lawn in front of them. There'slots of trees along the streets. It doesn't look anything like Manhattan,but not anything like the country, either. It's just Brooklyn.
All of a sudden we're circling a golf course. What d'you know? Right inNew York City!
"Ever play golf?" The wind snatches the words out of my mouth and carriesthem back to Mary. I see her mouth shaping like a "No," but no sound comesmy way. I drop back beside her and say, "I'll show you sometime. My pop'sgot a set of clubs I used a couple of times."
"Probably I better carry the clubs and you play. I can play tennis,though."
We pass the golf course and head down into a sort of main street. Anywaythere's lots of banks and dime stores and traffic. Mary leads the way. Wemake a couple of turns and zigzags and then go under the parkway, andthere's the ferry. It's taken us most of an hour to get from Mary's house.
I'm hoping the ferry isn't too expensive, so I'll have plenty of moneyleft for a good lunch. But while I'm mooning, Mary has wheeled her bikeright up and paid her own fare. Well, I guess that's one of the things Ilike about her. She's independent. Still, I'm going to buy lunch.
The ferry is terrific. I'm going to come ride ferries every day it'swindy. The boat doesn't roll any, but we stand right up in front and thewind blows clouds of spray in our faces. You can pretend you're on afull-rigged schooner running before a hurricane. But you look down at thatchoppy gray water, and you know you'd be done if you got blown overboard,even if it is just an old ferryboat in New York harbor.
The ferry ride is fast, only about fifteen minutes. We ride off in StatenIsland and start thinking where to go. I know what's first with me.
I ask Mary, "What do you like, hamburgers or sandwiches?"
"Both. I mean either," she says.
The first place we see is a delicatessen, which is about my favorite kindof place to eat anyway. I order a hot pastrami, and Mary says she neverhad one, but she'll try the same.
"Where could we go on Staten Island?" I say. "I never was here before."
"About the only place I've been is the zoo. I've been there lots of times.The vet let me watch her operate on a snake once."
This is a pretty surprising thing for a girl to tell you in the middle ofa mouthful of hot pastrami. The pastrami is great, and they put it on aroll with a lot of olives and onions and relish. Mary likes it too.
"Is the vet a woman? Aren't you scared of snakes?"
"Uh-un, I never was really. But when you're watching an operation, you getso interested you don't think about it being icky or scary. The vet is awoman. She's been there quite a while."
I digest this along with the rest of my sandwich. Then we both have apiece of apple pie. You can tell from the way the crust looks--browned anda little uneven--that they make it right here.
"So shall we go to the zoo?" Mary asks.
"O.K." I get up to get her coat and mine. When I turn around, there she isup by the cashier, getting ready to pay her check.
"Hey, I'm buying lunch," I say, steaming up with the other check.
"Oh, that's all right." She smiles. "I've got it."
I don't care if she's _got_ it. I want to _pay_ it. I suppose it's a sillything to get sore about, but it sort of annoys me. Anyway, how do youmaneuver around to do something for a girl when she doesn't even know youwant to?
The man in the deli gives us directions to get to the zoo, which isn'tfar. It's a low brick building in a nice park. In the lobby there are somefish tanks, then there's a wing for birds on one side, animals on theother, and snakes straight ahead.
We go for snakes. Mary really seems to like them.
She says, "The vet here likes them, and I guess she got me interested. Youknow, they don't really understand how a snake moves? Mechanically, Imean. She's trying to find out."
We look at them all, little ones and big ones, and then we go watch thebirds. The keeper is just feeding them. The parrot shouts at him, and thepelican and the eagles gobble up their fish and raw meat, but the vulturejust sits on his perch looking bored. Probably needs a desert and a dyingLegionnaire to whet his appetite.
In the animal wing a strange-looking dame is down at the end, talking to asleepy tiger.
"Come on, darling, just a little roar. Couldn't you give me just a softone today?" she's cooing at him. The tiger blinks and looks away.
The lady notices us standing there and says, "He's my baby. I've beencoming to see him for fourteen years. Some days he roars for mebeautifully."
She has a short conversation with the lion, then moves along with ustoward the small cats, a puma and a jaguar. She looks in the next cage,which is empty, and shakes her head mournfully.
"I had the sweetest little leopard. He died last week. Would you believeit? The zoo never let me know he was sick. I could have come and helpedtake care of him. I might have saved his life."
She goes on talking, sometimes to herself, sometimes to the puma, and wecross over to look at two otters chasing each other up an underwatertunnel.
"What is she, some kind of nut?" Mary says. "Does she think this is herprivate zoo?"
I shrug. "I suppose she's a little off. But so's my Aunt Kate, the one whogave me Cat. They just happen to like cats better than people. Kate thinksall the stray cats in the world are her children, and I guess this onefeels the same way about the big cats here."
We mosey around a little bit more and then head back to the ferry. I makegood and sure I'm ahead, and I get to the ticket office and buy twotickets.
"Would you care for a ride across the harbor in my yacht?" I say.
"Why, of course. I'd be delighted," says Mary.
A small thing, but it makes me feel good.
Over in Brooklyn I see a clock on a bank, and it says five o'clock. I dosome fast calculating and say, "Uh-oh, I better phone. I'll never make ithome by dinnertime."
I phone and get Pop. He's home early from work. Just my luck.
"I got to get this bike back to this kid in Coney," I tell him. "Then I'llbe right home. About seven."
"What do you mean _this_ bike and _this_ kid? Who? Anyway, I thought youwere already at Coney Island."
I suppose lawyers just get in the habit of asking questions. I startexplaining. "Well, it was awfully cold over in Coney, and we thought we'dgo over to Staten Island on the ferry and go to the zoo. So now we justgot back to Brooklyn, and I'm downtown and I got to take the bike back."
"So who's 'we'? You got a rat in your pocket?"
I can distract Mom but not Pop. "Well, actually, it's a girl named Mary.It's her brother's bike. He's away in college."
All I can hear now is Pop at the other end of the line, laughing his headoff.
"So what's so funny about that?"
"Nothing," he says. "Nothing. Only now I can see what all the shouting wasabout at breakfast."
"Oh."
"O.K. Now mind you get that girl, as _well_ as the bicycle of the brotherwho goes to college, home safe. Hear? I'll tell your mother you narrowlyescaped drowning, and she'll probably save you a bone for dinner. O.K.?"
"O.K. Bye."
Him and his jokes. Ha, ha, ha. Funny, though, him worrying about megetting Mary home safe, when her own mother doesn't worry any.
We start along toward her house slowly, as there's a good deal of trafficnow. I'm wondering how to see Mary again without having to ask for hernumber and phoning and making a date. Something about telephoning I don'tlike. Besides, I'd probably go out to a pay phone so the family wouldn'tlisten, and that'd make me feel stupid to begin with.
Just then we start rounding the golf course, and I whack the handle bar ofmy bike and say, "Hey, that's it!"
"What's it?"
"Golf. Let's play golf. Not now, I don't me
an. Next holiday. We've gotElection Day coming up. I'll borrow Pop's clubs and take the subway andmeet you here. How about ten o'clock?"
"Hunh?" Mary looks startled. "Well, I suppose I could try, or anyway Icould walk around."
"It's easy. I'll show you." The two times I played, I only hit the balldecently about four or five times. But the times I _did_ hit it, it seemedeasy.
We get to Mary's house and I put the bikes away and give her back herbrother's jacket. "I guess I'll go right along. It's getting late. See youElection Day."
"O.K., bye. Say--thanks for the ferry ride!"
15
Cat eating turkey neck from bowl on floor.]
DOLLARS AND CATS