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Show in my father's house/ 188 me go selling, and she made Danny come home before dark. But she had no money for school clothes and baseball uniforms and we all had to go to the dentist that year, so after awhile she relented to our pleas and vows to stay on the right side of the tracks and to steer clear of the Kodiak Lounge. We were a partnership again, selling until sunset and topping off the day with lemon ice cream or two-for-a-nickel doughnuts. Often we stopped to place pennies on the railroad tracks, covering our ears as the whistle blared; then running to pick up the thin hot ovals of copper. "It's illegal to deface money, you know," said Danny, his eyes glinting. "Aren't you afraid to be arrested?" I asked him with the old familiar lurch in my heart. He shook his head. "Naw. I'm not afraid of them." We walked to the phone booth in the Commercial Hotel, and pounded in the right spot until the operator came on. We begged mother to let us see a movie before coming home. After some coaxing and several fervent promises she gave in and we sat in the Hunter Theater our empty stomachs rumbling until Danny bought popcorn. Sometimes he left me alone and went to sit with his friends. "What's the lodge?" I asked him one night as we walked home, I associated 'lodge' with 'lounge' and imagined all sorts of dark and shocking things going on in the smoky, roped-off area. I wondered if people sometimes got naked and were thrown out as in the Kodiak. |