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Show One Problem Karl kept one cannon on the front porch, one on the back, on the front porch looked like a baby Howitzer, about f. three feet high and four feet long, and he kept it pointed slightly left, toward the second story of the fiaxxaKKHxaxifcExaJbeasx brown, wooden flat across the street, where the Puerto Ricans just moved in. They were the newest in the neighborhood. He just wanted to let them know. Most the xkKXKaHH time, during the day, he kept the thing covered with a gray tarp. He wasn't a total jerk. The Karaasi canned in the back looked like something you'd fire a midget out of at the circus, just a tube on a turret. V/ith that thing Karl claimed he KHX could drop a M H » ball in the bay, twenty-four city blocks north. "One problem with that, Karl," I said to him. A lot of people were afraid to talk to Karl because of all his guns, but he liked me, he liked me better than anybody else in my family. L sly "What's that?" he said, His red and grayAwas coming out from under his wool cap ina in all directions and he didn't have his top four front teeth. "What if you miss:" He spit then grinned, held up his right hand that only had the last two fingers. "That." Fourth of July Fourth of July. The Puerto Ricans put out axfiag flags, one of the U.S. and one of Puerto Rico, but that was good enough. Karl turned the Howitzer so it HHH pointed between houses. Then, after supper, he got some boards out of the basement and made a ramp down his back steps. Then he brought out a low cart, just some boards on an axle, and made CAMvcm Karl Jr. help him nudge the KX the circus -mmtt^ onto it. They pulled the cart out front. Karl went back in the house and came out with his buckskins on, leather boots, coon skin cap. He had an American^fiagx that'he gave to Karl Jr. and then dragged the canruVidown to Howie's driveway and tksn out into the street. He put Karl Jr. out in front with the flag and then his twin daughters, 6e<rw3 and Maggie. Maggie was a cripple from birth and walked with a bad limp. That's the way they went, up and down the street, with the niggers drunk and hooting and the whites |