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Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 60 the bumper plate like a fireman. I love the two block ride, the wind taking my hair, my arms stretched straight before me, my hands gripping the tailgate. Mr. Wilkes is always out at this time, working his fire, and my father always honks once and waves. "Always wave at Mr. Wilkes," he tells me. "He's one of our neighbors." "He never waves back." "That doesn't matter. He knows what a wave is and he appreciates it." So, I, too, lift a hand toward Mr. Wilkes, who turns his head up a moment and stirs his rake again. It is evening when Mr. Wilkes becomes serious about burn-" ing his garage. Every evening we sit at our dinner table and out the window, across the vacant lot, there he is, raking the debris onto the smoking pile, constantly moving.while the gray smoke falls out down the alley. The old garage doesn't really smell too bad at a block and a half; the woodsmoke is the smell of my neighborhood. ----- = "Poor old coot," my father will say as we eat. "He could haul it all to the dump in one trip. I should probably offer to help him." But, as I lift my fork, I know better. Mr. Wilkes has a pickup like everybody else in our neighborhood. It's a pale International. Mr. Wilkes doesn't want to haul his garage |