You want
to be Benedict Arnold, don't you?"
"No."
"Sure you do. Certainly you do. C'mon, now, let's go," I said. "In the first place,
I'm not going away anywhere, I told you. I'm going home. I'm going home as soon as you
go back to school. First I'm gonna go down to the station and get my bags, and then I'm
gonna go straight--"
"I said I'm not going back to school. You can do what you want to do, but I'm not
going back to chool," she said. "So shut up." It was the first time she ever told me to shut
up. It sounded terrible. God, it sounded terrible. It sounded worse than swearing. She still
wouldn't look at me either, and every time I sort of put my hand on her shoulder or
something, she wouldn't let me.
"Listen, do you want to go for a walk?" I asked her. "Do you want to take a walk
down to the zoo? If I let you not go back to school this afternoon and go for walk, will
you cut out this crazy stuff?"
She wouldn't answer me, so I said it over again. "If I let you skip school this
afternoon and go for a little walk, will you cut out the crazy stuff? Will you go back to
school tomorrow like a good girl?"
"I may and I may not," she said. Then she ran right the hell across the street,
without even looking to see if any cars were coming. She's a madman sometimes.
I didn't follow her, though. I knew she'd follow me, so I started walking
downtown toward the zoo, on the park side of the street, and she started walking
downtown on the other goddam side of the street, She wouldn't look over at me at all, but
I could tell she was probably watching me out of the corner of her crazy eye to see where
I was going and all. Anyway, we kept walking that way all the way to the zoo. The only
thing that bothered me was when a double-decker bus came along because then I couldn't
see across the street and I couldn't see where the hell she was. But when we got to the
zoo, I yelled over to her, "Phoebe! I'm going in the zoo! C'mon, now!" She wouldn't look
at me, but I could tell she heard me, and when I started down the steps to the zoo I turned
around and saw she was crossing the street and following me and all.
There weren't too many people in the zoo because it was sort of a lousy day, but
there were a few around the sea lions' swimming pool and all. I started to go by but old
Phoebe stopped and made out she was watching the sea lions getting fed--a guy was
throwing fish at them--so I went back. I figured it was a good chance to catch up with her
and all. I went up and sort of stood behind her and sort of put my hands on her shoulders,
but she bent her knees and slid out from me--she can certainly be very snotty when she
wants to. She kept standing there while the sea lions were getting fed and I stood right
behind her. I didn't put my hands on her shoulders again or anything because if I had she
really would've beat it on me. Kids are funny. You have to watch what you're doing.
She wouldn't walk right next to me when we left the sea lions, but she didn't walk
too far away. She sort of walked on one side of the sidewalk and I walked on the other
side. It wasn't too gorgeous, but it was better than having her walk about a mile away
from me, like before. We went up and watched the bears, on that little hill, for a while,
www.en8848.com
but there wasn't much to watch. Only one of the bears was out, the polar bear. The other
one, the brown one, was in his goddam cave and wouldn't come out. All you could see
was his rear end. There was a little kid standing next to me, with a cowboy hat on
practically over his ears, and he kept telling his father, "Make him come out, Daddy.
Make him come out." I looked at old Phoebe, but she wouldn't laugh. You know kids
when they're sore at you. They won't laugh or anything.
After we left the bears, we left the zoo and crossed over this little street in the
park, and then we went through one of those little tunnels that always smell from
somebody's taking a leak. It was on the way to the carrousel. Old Phoebe still wouldn't
talk to me or anything, but she was sort of walking next to me now. I took a hold of the
belt at the back of her coat, just for the hell of it, but she wouldn't let me. She said, "Keep
your hands to yourself, if you don't mind." She was still sore at me. But not as sore as she
was before. Anyway, we kept getting closer and closer to the carrousel and you could
start to hear that nutty music it always plays. It was playing "Oh, Marie!"