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newspaper that was stuffed into the broken cellar window.
    “Your father broke that,” Louie said.
    “I know,” Benjy said, watching the dog cross the driveway, then disappear into the coolness of the lilac bushes that bloomed at the edge of Klubocks’
    yard.

    SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 19
    “He was drunk,” Louie said.
    “I know.” Some things just couldn’t be bluffed.
    “Your father’s always drunk,” Louie said, watching him.
    “Not all the time.”
    “Do you hate your father?” Louie asked suddenly.
    “Why, do you hate yours?”
    “Yes!” Louie said, and Benjy laughed. “He makes my mother cry. Sometimes the phone rings and she picks it up, but nobody’s there. Just some breathing. My father said she likes the calls. He said she likes men to look at her and call her up, and she always cries when he says that.”
    Louie’s small round face moved in close to Benjy, who stiffened back.
    The dog was growling in the lilac bushes. Now Mrs. Klubock’s music sounded heavy and sad. He thought he heard squealing tires.
    Louie was telling him how they might have to move to Arizona because of his father’s swollen hands and knees. His mother had cried because all her life she was scared of snakes. She said a lady in Arizona was going to the bathroom once and she heard this splashing noise in the toilet and she jumped off the seat and this ten-foot rattlesnake was swimming in the pee water. “You think that’s true?” Louie asked, his eyes suddenly raw and watery. “You think a snake can come up the toilet like that?”
    Benjy leaned forward, looking toward the white blur turning the corner of the driveway. It was the same man he had seen in the woods. His chest was heaving, and his face was fiery red, and the cuffs of his pants flopped with mud.
    “Is that your father?” Louie asked as the man stumbled down on one knee, then scrambled frantically to his feet with a backward glance.
    “No!” Benjy said, his eyes wide with fright.
    The lilac bushes quaked with the dog’s barking. A horn sounded on the next block, a long steady blare.
    “Don’t tell them niggers I’m here, boys,” the man panted as he ran behind the house.
    “What’re niggers?” whispered Louie.
    “A Negro,” Benjy hissed, eyes shifting between the road and the back of the house. “A black man and he’s got a knife!” he whispered.
    “He’s got a knife!” Louie wailed, bolting off the steps into his house.
    The music wrenched to a stop. Moments later, Mrs. Klubock held up Louie to her kitchen window. “See,” she said loudly. “It’s only Benjy!”
    “A nigger’s gonna come,” Louie wailed. “The man said so, and he’s got a knife!”
    “No, no. It’s only Benjy,” she soothed, putting the boy down, then coming back to the window. “I’m surprised at you, Benjy. Scaring Louis like that!
    I think Mr. Klubock’s right. I think it’s about time you hung around with boys your own age and left Louis alone!” She slammed the window shut on Louie’s screams. The dog’s barking had subsided into a low steady growl.
    Benjy sat frozen on the step. He sat for a long time, staring up at the Klubocks’ kitchen window. In its reflection was the crooked chimney of his 20 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS
    own house. He scratched a bite on his arm and the little hairs bristled. He slid to the end of the step and glanced around the corner of the house, relieved to see no one there. He ran inside and locked the door. He turned on the television and sat on the couch, his knees drawn to his chin. The house filled with strange crackling, scratching, moaning voices. He turned the volume up as loud as it would go and stared at the familiar faces on the screen. As the scratching grew louder, he felt himself grow smaller and tighter. Once, a few years ago, his father had broken into the house and crawled into his bed. All night long, his father held him in his arms, until morning, when his mother threw his father out of the house. She