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opening, unfurling bright leaves against the dark mass of fir and spruce. The Ottawa would be thick and sandy with runoff, the first brood of blackflies rising along replete streams.
    And where was Mick Heaney now? Hard to imagine he still existed in the world.
    â€œJoe!”
    Joe looked around. The Little Priest had set down his grip on the pavement and was pulling out his handkerchief. Dabbing his face, he looked young and frightened. “I guess I don’t want to be a priest after all. I want to go home, Joe. Can’t we just go home?”
    â€œWhere? Where’s home?”
    The Little Priest gazed at him helplessly.
    â€œListen,” Joe said. “Don’t worry about the priesthood. You’re not even a scholastic yet. No one’s rushing you. You’ve got three years of novitiate.”
    â€œI don’t care. I want to go home.” His lower lip was trembling, and he stuttered his words.
    â€œMother’s gone. There’s not home no more.” And if you’re going to cry , Joe thought, cry now. Cry in front of me, not in front of them. I won’t hold it against you, but they will.
    â€œW-we can log next winter. I’d help you with the business.”
    â€œWe’re here, Tom. You must give the place a try.”
    â€œYou’ll leave me and I’ll never see you again.”
    â€œAw, sure you will. Come on. You’re just tired. Here, let me.” Joe reached down for his brother’s grip. The Little Priest grabbed it and held on for a second, then gave it up, and they continued along the road. Joe saw the campus gates up ahead.
    â€œC’mon, Priesteen.” Joe smiled. “You’ll probably be Pope someday. Pope Priesteen the First — wouldn’t that be something?”
    ~
    After helping Tom unpack his things in a stark white cell, Joe said goodbye to his brother out on the Fordham lawn, where a bunch of boys were choosing sides for a game of baseball. In the Pontiac they’d played shinny when the wind blew the frozen bays clear, but never baseball. It was one of the rituals the Little Priest would have to learn.
    They shook hands and then Tom turned away quickly, trying to hide his tears. Joe clapped him on the back and tried to say something funny, but his throat had seized up again. He turned and started walking across the dense, springy carpet of lawn. For a long time he could hear the players’ shouts and the crack of the bat when someone hit the ball, but he didn’t look back. He forced himself to notice the milky scent of clipped grass, the mustiness of elms still damp from a night’s rain, the clatter of traffic along the Fordham road. The world operated through a kind of massive carelessness, it seemed. Part of being strong was being able to walk away when you had to. When there was no other choice.
    He didn’t look back once.
    ~
    New York seethed with buying and selling, a grammar of shouts and argument backed by a chorus of screeching trolleys. From Grand Central Depot Joe walked over to Third Avenue and caught the El to 14 th Street, where he bought two hot dogs with mustard from a street vendor and stood on the sidewalk munching, his grip between his feet. The danger was lively, intriguing, and he felt as spirited as a trotting horse.
    Instead of catching a car along 14th he began walking west towards the Hudson. Was this how their father had felt after leaving them?
    Weightless. Empty. If he threw himself under a streetcar the world would go on making noise.
    A peddler was hawking hats from a stack. Joe tried hats on until he located a straw boater that fit. He paid two dollars for it and put it on at a rakish tilt, the way he’d seen other fellows wearing their straws.
    It was a long way out to the river. The last blocks were mangy and bleak, with four-horse drays and motor trucks jerking in and out of warehouses, metal wheels clattering over cobblestones. There were slaughterhouses in the