“Isn’t that funny,” Peg said, the fork still in her hand. “I don’t remember writing that.”

“Probably lots you don’t remember about them days.” Francis said. “You was only about eleven.”

“Where did you ever find it?”

“Up in the trunk. Been saved all these years up there. Only letter I ever saved.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It’s a provable fact. All the papers I got in the world was in that trunk, except one other place I got a few more clips. But no letters noplace. It’s a good old letter, I’d say.”

“I’d say so too,” Annie said. She and Billy were both staring at Peg.

“I remember Toronto in nineteen-ten,” Francis said. “The game was full of crooks them days. Crooked umpire named Bates, one night it was deep dark but he wouldn’t call the game. Folks was throwin’ tomatoes and mudballs at him but he wouldn’t call it ‘cause we was winnin’ and he was in with the other team. Pudge Howard was catchin’ that night and he walks out and has a three-way confab on the mound with me and old Highpockets Wilson, who was pitchin’. Pudge comes back and squats behind the plate and Highpockets lets go a blazer and the ump calls it a ball, though nobody could see nothin’ it was so dark. And Pudge turns to him and says: ‘You call that pitch a ball?’ ‘I did,’ says the ump. ‘If that was a ball I’ll eat it,’ says Pudge. ‘Then you better get eatin’,’ says the ump. And Pudge, I.e holds the ball up and takes a big bite out of it, ‘cause it ain’t no ball at all, it’s a yellow apple I give Highpockets to throw. And of course that won us the game and the ump went down in history as Blindy Bates, who couldn’t tell a baseball from a damn apple. Bates turned into a bookie after that. He was crooked at that too.”

“That’s a great story,” Billy said. “Funny stuff in them old days.”

“Funny stuff happenin’ all the time,” Francis said.

Peg was suddenly tearful. She put the fork on the sink and went to her father, whose hands were folded on the table. She sat beside him and put her right hand on top of his.

After a while George Quinn came home from Troy, Annie served the turkey, and then the entire Phelan family sat down to dinner.

VII

“I look like a bum, don’t I?” Rudy said.

“You are a bum,” Francis said. “But you’re a pretty good bum if you wanna be.”

“You know why people call you a bum?”

“I can’t understand why.”

“They feel better when they say it.”

“The truth ain’t gonna hurt you,” Francis said. “If you’re a bum, you’re a bum.”

“It hurt a lotta bums. Ain’t many of the old ones left.”

“There’s new ones comin’ along,” Francis said.

“A lot of good men died. Good mechanics, machinists, lumberjacks.”

“Some of ‘em ain’t dead,” Francis said. “You and me, we ain’t dead.”

“They say there’s no God,” Rudy said. “But there must be a God. He protects bums. They get up out of the snow and they go up and get a drink. Look at you, brand-new clothes. But look at me. I’m only a bum. A no-good bum.”

“You ain’t that bad,” Francis said. “You’re a bum, but you ain’t that bad.”

They were walking down South Pearl Street toward Palombo’s Hotel. It was ten-thirty, a clear night. full of stars but very cold: winter’s harbinger. Francis had left the family just before ten o’clock and taken a bus downtown. He went straight to the mission before they locked it for the night, and found Pee Wee alone in the kitchen, drinking leftover coffee. Pee Wee said he hadn’t seen, or heard from, Helen all day.

“But Rudy was in lookin’ for you,” Pee Wee told Francis. “He’s either up at the railroad station gettin’ warm or holed up in some old house down on Broadway. He says you’d know which one. But look, Francis, from what I hear, the cops been raidin’ them old pots just about every night. Lotta guys usually eat here ain’t been around and I figure they’re all in jail. They must be repaintin’ the place out there and need extra help.”

“I don’t know why the hell they gotta do that,” Francis said. “Bums don’t hurt nobody.”

“Maybe it’s just cops don’t like bums no more.”

Francis checked out the old house first, for it was close to the mission. He stepped through its doorless entrance into a damp, deep-black stairwell. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the darkness and then he carefully climbed the stairs, stepping over bunches of crumpled newspaper and fallen plaster and a Negro who was curled up on the first landing. He stepped through broken glass, empty wine and soda bottles, cardboard boxes. human droppings. Streetlights illuminated stalagmites of pigeon leavings on a windowsill. Francis saw a second sleeping man curled up near the hole he heard a fellow named Michigan Mac fell through last week. Francis sidestepped the man and the hole and then found Rudy in a room by himself, lying on a slab of board away from the broken window, with a newspaper on his shoulder for a blanket.

“Hey bum,” Francis said, “you lookin’ for me?”

Rudy blinked and looked up from his slab.

“Who the hell you talkin’ to?” Rudy said. “What are you, some kinda G-man?”

“Get your ass up off the floor, you dizzy kraut.”

“Hey, is that you, Francis?”

“No, it’s Buffalo Bill. I come up here lookin’ for Indians.”

Rudy sat up and threw the newspaper off himself

“Pee Wee says you was lookin’ for me,” Francis said.

“I didn’t have noplace to flop, no money, no jug, nobody around. I had a jug but it ran out.” Rudy fell back on the slab and wept instant tears over his condition. “I’ll kill myself, I got the tendency,” he said. “I’m last.”

“Hey,” Francis said. “Get up. You ain’t bright enough to kill yourself You gotta fight. you gotta be tough. I can’t even find Helen. You seen Helen anyplace? Think about that woman on the bum somewheres on a night like this. Jesus I feel sorry for her.”

“Where the wind don’t blow,” Rudy said.

“Yeah. No wind. Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Outa here. You stay here, you wind up in jail tonight. Pee Wee says they’re cleanin’ out all these joints.”

“Go to jail, at least it’s warm. Get six months and be out in time for the flowers.”

“No jail for Francis. Francis is free and he’s gonna stay free.”

They walked down the stairs and back to Madison because Francis decided Helen must have found money somewhere or else she’d have come looking for him. Maybe she called her brother and got a chunk. Or maybe she was holding out even more than she said. Canny old dame. And sooner or later, with dough, she’d hit Palombo’s because of the suitcase.

“Where we goin’?”

“What the hell’s the difference? Little walk’ll keep your blood flowin’.”

“Where’d you get them clothes?”

“Found ‘em.”

“Found ‘em? Where’d you find ‘em?”

“Up a tree.”

“A tree?”

“Yeah. A tree. Grew everything. Suits, shoes, bow ties.”

“You never tell me nothin’ that’s true.”

“Hell, it’s all true,” Francis said. “Every stinkin’ damn thing you can think of is true.”

o o o

At Palombo’s they met old man Donovan just getting ready to go off duty, making way for the night clerk. It was a little before eleven and he was putting the desk in order. Yes, he told Francis, Helen was here. Checked in late this morning. Yeah, sure she’s all right. Looked right perky. Walked up them stairs lookin’ the same as always. Took the room you always take.

“All right,” said Francis, and he took out the ten-dollar bill Billy gave him. “You got change of this?” Donovan made change and then Francis handed him two dollars.

“You give her this in the mornin’,” he said, “and make sure she gets somethin’ to eat. If I hear she didn’t get it, I’ll come back here and pull out all your teeth.”

“She’ll get it,” Donovan said. “I like Helen.”