Read Harpo Speaks! for Free Online Page A

dealer, and I had more than one pan swiped out from under me by bigger kids.
    After a freeze they would hoist the Ice Flag in Central Park, which told the city the pond was okay for skating. Nobody was happier to see the flag than I was. I was probably the best singlefoot skater in New York City.
    Our family’s total sports equipment was one ice skate, which had belonged to Grandma, and which Grandpa kept as a memento, like the old harp. And as the harp had no strings, the skate had no straps. I had to improvise with twine, rope, old suspenders, elastic bands, whatever I could find.
    I spent many hours on the frozen pond in Central Park, skating gimpily around the edge of the ice on my one left-foot skate. I spent many more hours sitting on the ice, freezing my bottom where my pants weren’t patched, tying and splicing and winding, in the endless struggle to keep the skate lashed to my foot.
    Oddly enough, winter had fewer hardships for me than summer did. I could always find a warm spot somewhere when it was cold. But when the city was hot, it was hot through and through, and there was no cool spot to be found.
    The only relief was temporary, like a chunk of ice from the loading platform of the ice works. That was a blessing to hold and suck on, but it didn’t last long. What to do then? Only one thing to do then-go for a swim in the East River. But the way we had to swim, off the docks, was exhausting and we couldn’t stay very long in the water.
    You can always spot a guy who grew up poor on the East Side by watching him go for a swim. When he gets in a pool he will automatically start off with a shallow kind of breast stroke, as if he were pushing away some invisible, floating object. This was a stroke you had to use when you jumped in the East River. It was the only way you could keep the sewage and garbage out of your face.
    One way of keeping your mind off the heat was making horsehair rings. We used to sneak into the brewery stables and cut big hanks of hair from the horses’ tails, then braid them into rings. Horsehair rings were not only snazzy accessories to wear, three or four to a finger, but they were also negotiable. They could be swapped for marbles or Grover Cleveland buttons, and they were handy as ransom when you were ambushed by an enemy gang.
    Then, suddenly one summer, rings and marbles became kid stuff to me. I found out how to use the city transportation system for free, and I was no longer a prisoner of the neighborhood. My life had new horizons. I, a mere mortal, could now go forth and behold the Gods in Valhalla-which is to say, the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds.
    Trolleys were the easiest way to travel without paying. You just hopped on board after a car had started up, and kept dodging the ticket taker. If the ticket taker caught up with you, you got off and hopped on the next trolley to come along. It was more sporting to hang on the outside of the car, but you took a chance of being swatted off by a cop.
    It wasn’t so easy with elevated trains. You couldn’t get on an El train without giving a ticket or transfer to the ticket chopper at the platform gate. To swindle the ticket chopper took a good deal of ingenuity, involving old transfers, chewing-gum cards (which happened to he the sane size as tickets), some fancy forgery-and for me, thanks to Grandpa’s training-sleight of hand.
    Once a year the city would change its system of tickets and transfers, trying to cut down on the number of free riders. But they never came up with a system that couldn’t somehow be solved by us kids.
    Thus I was now a man-about-town. In my travels I found out, in the summer of 1903, how to watch the Giants play for free. That was the only sure way to beat the heat in New York. When John J. McGraw and his noble warriors took the field in the Polo Grounds, all the pains and complaints of the loyal fan faded away, and he sweltered in blissful contentment.
    I was a loyal fan but I could never afford,