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<h1><span style="font-size: 173%">8</span></h1>
<div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><ANTIMG src="images/image08.png" width-obs="524" height-obs="450" alt="Illustration: Dave and Mary buying tickets to West Side Story." /></div>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The regular park man got sunstroke or something,
so I earned fourteen dollars raking and
mowing in Gramercy Park in the middle of August.
Gramercy Park is a private park. You have
to own a key to get in, so the city doesn’t take
care of it.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Real paper money, at this time of year especially,
is very cheering. I head up to Sam Goody’s
to see what records he’s got on sale and what
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characters are buying them. Maybe I’ll buy
something, maybe not, but as long as I’ve got
money in my pocket, I don’t feel like the guy
is glaring at me for taking up floor space.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Along the way I walk through the library,
the big one at Forty-second Street. You go in by
the lions on Fifth Avenue, and there’s all kinds
of pictures and books on exhibit in the halls,
and you walk through to the back, where you
can take out books. It’s nice and cool, and nobody
glares at you unless you either make a lot
of noise or go to sleep. I can take books out of
here and return them at the Twenty-third Street
branch, which is handy.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sam Goody’s is air-conditioned, so it’s cool too.
There are always several things playing on different
machines you can listen to. Almost the
most fun is watching the people: little, fat, bald
guys buying long-haired classical music, and
thin, shaggy beatniks listening to the jazz.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go to check if there are any bargains in the
Kingston or Belafonte division. There’s a girl
standing there reading the backs of records, but
I don’t really catch a look at more than her shoes—little
red flats they are. After a bit she reaches
for a record over my head and says, “Excuse me.”</p>
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<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Sure.” Then we catch each other’s eye and
both say, “Oh. Gee, hello.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well, we’re both pretty surprised, because this
is the girl I met out at Coney Island that day with
Nick when I had Cat with me, and now we’re
both a long way from Coney Island. This girl
isn’t one of the two giggly ones. It’s the third,
the one that liked Cat.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We’ve both forgotten each other’s names, so
we begin over with that. I ask her what she’s been
doing, and she’s been at Girl Scout camp a few
weeks, and then she earned some money baby-sitting.
So she came to think about records, like
me. I tell her I’ve been at Coney once this summer,
and I looked around for her, which is true,
because I did.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s a big place,” she says, smiling.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Say, you live out there, don’t you? How come
you get all the way in here by yourself? Doesn’t
your mom get in a flap? Mine would, if she knew
I was going to Coney alone.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary says, “I came in with Mom. Some friend
of hers has a small art exhibition opening. She
said I could go home alone. After all, she knows
I’m not going to get lost.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say, “Gee, it’d be great to have a mother
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that didn’t worry about you all the time.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Oh, Mom worries.” Mary giggles. “You
should have heard her when I said I liked <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Gone
With the Wind</span></span> and I didn’t like <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Anna Karenina</span></span>.
I pretty nearly got disowned.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What does she think about science fiction?”
I ask, and Mary makes a face, and we both laugh.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I go on. “Well, my mom doesn’t care what I
read. She worries about what I eat and whether
my feet are wet, and she always seems to think
I’m about to kill myself. It’s a nuisance, really.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary looks solemn all of a sudden. She says
slowly, “I think maybe it’d be nice. I mean to
have someone worrying about whether you’re
comfortable and all. Instead of just picking your
brains all the time.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This seems to exhaust the subject of our respective
mothers, and Mary picks up the record
of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> and says, “Gee, I’d like to
see that. Did you?”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I say No, and to tell the truth I hadn’t hardly
heard of it.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“I read a book about him. It was wonderful,”
she says.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Who?”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Bernstein. The man who wrote it.”</p>
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<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“What’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> about, him?” I ask
cautiously.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“No, no—he wrote the music. It’s about some
kids in two gangs, and there’s a lot of dancing,
and then there’s a fight and this kid gets—well,
it isn’t a thing you can tell the story of very well.
You have to see it.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This gives me a very simple idea.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why don’t we?” I say.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Huh?”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Go see it. Why not? We got money.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So we do,” she says slowly. “You think they’ll
let us in, I mean being under sixteen?”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">You know, this is the first girl I really ever
talked to that talks like a person, not trying to
be cute or something.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We walk around to the theater, and being it’s
Wednesday, there’s a matinee about to start. The
man doesn’t seem to be one bit worried about
taking our money. No wonder. It’s two dollars
and ninety cents each. So we’re inside with our
tickets before we’ve hardly stopped to think.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly Mary says, “Oops! I better call
Mom! Let’s find out what time the show is over.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We do, and Mary phones. She says to me, “I
just told her I was walking past <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span>
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and found I could get a ticket. I didn’t say anything
about you.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Why, would she mind?”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mary squints and looks puzzled. “I don’t
know. I just really don’t know. It never happened
before.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We go in to the show, and she is right, it’s
terrific. I hardly ever went to a live show before,
except a couple of children’s things and something
by Shakespeare Pop took me to that was
very confusing. But this <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">West Side Story</span></span> is clear
as a bell.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">We have an orangeade during intermission,
and I make the big gesture and pay for both of
them. Mary says, “Isn’t it wonderful! I just
happened to meet you at the beach, and then I
meet you at Goody’s, and we get to see this show
that I’ve wanted to go to for ages. None of my
friends at school want to spend this much money
on a show.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“It’s wonderful,” I say. “After it’s over, I’m
going back to buy the record.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So after the show we buy it, and then we walk
along together to the subway. I’ll have to get
off at the first stop, Fourteenth Street, and she’ll
go on to Coney, the end of the line.</p>
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<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It’s hard to talk on the subway. There’s so
much noise you have to shout, which is hard
if you don’t know what to say. Anyway, you
can’t ask a girl for her phone number shouting
on the subway. At least I can’t.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">I’m not so sure about the phone-number
business either. I sort of can’t imagine calling
up and saying, “Oh, uh, Mary, this is Dave. You
want to go to a movie or something, huh?” It
sounds stupid, and I’d be embarrassed. What
she said, it’s true—it’s sort of wonderful the way
we just ran into each other twice and had so
much fun.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So I’m wondering how I can happen to run
into her again. Maybe the beach, in the fall.
Let’s see, a school holiday—Columbus Day.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The train is pulling into Fourteenth Street.
I shout, “Hey, how about we go to the beach
again this fall? Maybe Columbus Day?”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“O.K.!” she shouts. “Columbus Day in the
morning.”</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“Columbus Day in the morning” sounds loud
and clear because by then the subway has
stopped. People snicker, and Mary blushes.</p>
<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">“So long,” I say, and we both wave, and the
train goes.</p>
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