GRADE 8 SUPPLEMENTAL SHORT STORIES

“On the Sidewalk Bleeding”By Evan Hunter

The boy lay bleeding in the rain. He was sixteen years old, and he wore a bright purple silk jacket, and the lettering across the back of the jacket read THE ROYALS. The boy's name was Andy, and the name was written in black thread on the front of the jacket, just over the heart. Andy.

He had been stabbed ten minutes ago. The knife had entered just below his ribs, tearing a wide gap in his flesh. He lay on the sidewalk with the March rain drilling his jacket and drilling his body and washing away the blood that poured from his open wound. He had known terrible pain when the knife had torn across his body, then sudden relief when the blade was pulled away. He had heard the voice saying, 'That's for you, Royal!' and then the sound of footsteps hurrying into the rain, and then he had fallen to the sidewalk, clutching his stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood.

He tried to yell for help, hut he had no voice. He did not know why his voice was gone, or why there was an open hole in his body from which his life ran redly. It was 11.30 p.m., but he did not know the time.

There was another thing he did not know.

He did not know he was dying. He lay on the sidewalk bleeding, and he thought only: That was a fierce rumble. They got me good that time, but he did not know he was dying. He would have been frightened had he known. He lay bleeding and wishing, he could cry out for help, but there was no voice in his throat. There was only the bubbling of blood from between his lips whenever he opened his mouth to speak. He lay silent in his pain, waiting, waiting for someone to find him.

He could hear the sound of automobile tires hushed on the rainswept streets, far away at the other end of the long alley. He could see the splash of neon at the other end of the alley. It was painting the pavement red and green.

He wondered if Laura would be angry.

He had left the jump to get a package of cigarettes. He had told her he would he back in a few minutes, and then he had gone downstairs and found the candy store closed. He knew that Alfredo's on the next block would be open. He had started through the alley, and that was when he'd been ambushed.

He could hear the faint sound of music now, coming from a long, long way off. He wondered if Laura was dancing, wondered if she had missed him yet. Maybe she thought he wasn't coming back. Maybe she thought he'd cut out for good. Maybe she'd already left the jump and gone home. He thought of her face, the brown eyes and the jet-black hair, and thinking of her he forgot his pain a little, forgot that blood was rushing from his body.

Someday he would marry Laura. Someday he would marry her, and they would have a lot of kids, and then they would get out of the neighbourhood. They would move to a clean project in the Bronx, or maybe they would move to Staten Island. When they were married, when they had kids.

He heard footsteps at the other end of the alley. He lifted his cheek from the sidewalk and looked into the darkness and tried to cry out, but again there was only a soft hissing bubble of blood on his mouth.

The man came down the alley. He had not seen Andy yet. He walked, and then stopped to lean against the brick of the building, and then walked again. He saw Andy then and came towards him, and he stood over him for a long time, the minutes ticking, ticking, watching him and not speaking.

Then he said, 'What's a matter, buddy?'

Andy could not speak, and he could barely move. He lifted his face slightly and looked up at the man.He smelled the sickening odour of alcohol. The man was drunk.

The man was smiling.

'Did you fall down, buddy?' he asked. 'You mus' be as drunk as I am.'

He squatted alongside Andy.

'You gonna catch cold here,' he said. 'What's a matter? You like layin' in the wet?'

Andy could not answer. The rain spattered around them.

'You like a drink?'

Andy shook his head.

'I gotta bottle. Here,' the man said. He pulled a pint bottle from his inside jacket pocket. Andy tried to move, but rain wrenched4 him back flat against the sidewalk.

'Take it,' the man said. He kept watching Andy. 'Take it.' When Andy did not move, he said, 'Nev' mind, I'll have one m'self.' He tilted the bottle to his lips, and then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. 'You too young to be drinkin' anyway. Should be 'shamed of yourself, drunk an' laying in an alley, all wet. Shame on you. I gotta good minda5 calla cop.'

Andy nodded. Yes, he tried to say. Yes, call a cop. Please. Call one.

'Oh, you don't like that, huh?' the drunk said. 'You don' wanna cop to fin' you all drunk an' wet in an alley, huh? Okay, buddy. This time you get off easy.' He got to his feet. 'This time you lucky,' he said. He waved broadly at Andy, and then almost lost his footing. 'S'long, buddy,' he said.

Wait, Andy thought. Wait please, I'm bleeding.

' S'long,' the drunk said again. 'I see you aroun,' and then he staggered off up the alley.

Andy lay and thought: Laura, Laura. Are you dancing?

The couple came into the alley suddenly. They ran into the alley together, running from the rain. The boy held the girl's elbow, the girl spreading a newspaper over her head to protect her hair. Andy watched them run into the alley laughing, and then duck into the doorway not ten feet from him.

'Man, what rain!' the boy said. 'You could drown out there.''I have to get home,' the girl said. 'It's late, Freddie. I have to get home.''We got time,' Freddie said. 'Your people won't raise a fuss if you're a little late. Not with this kind of weather.'

'It's dark,' the girl said, and she giggled.'Yeah,' the boy answered, his voice very low.'Freddie ... ?''Um?''You're ... you're standing very close to me.''Um?'

There was a long silence. Then the girl said, 'Oh,' only that single word, and Andy knew she'd been kissed. He suddenly hungered for Laura's mouth. It was then that he wondered if he would ever kiss Laura again. It was then that he wondered if he was dying.

No, he thought, I can't be dying, not from a little street rumble, not from just getting cut. Guys get cut all the time in rumbles. I can't be dying. No, that's stupid. That don't make sense at all.

'You shouldn't,' the girl said.'Why not?''I don't know.''Do you like it?''Yes.''So?''I don't know.''I love you, Angela,' the boy said.'I love you, too, Freddie,' the girl said, and Andy listened and thought - I love you, Laura. Laura, I think maybe I'm dying. Laura, this is stupid but I think I'm dying. Laura, I think I'm dying!

He tried to speak. He tried to move. He tried to crawl towards the doorway. He tried to make a noise, a sound, and a grunt came from his lips. He tried again, and another grunt came, a low animal grunt of pain.

'What was that?' the girl said, breaking away from the boy.'I don't know,' he answered.'Go look, Freddie.''No. Wait.'Andy moved his lips again. Again the sound came from him.'Freddie!''What?''I'm seared.'I'll go see,' the boy said.He stepped into the alley. He walked over to where Andy lay on the ground. He stood over him, watching him.'You all right?' he asked.'What is it?' Angela said from the doorway.'Somebody's hurt,' Freddie said.'Let's get out of here,' Angela said.'No. Wait a minute.' He knelt down beside Andy. 'You cut?' he asked.

Andy nodded. The boy kept looking at him. He saw the lettering on the jacket then. THE ROYALS. He turned to Angela.

'He's a Royal,' he said.'Let's ... what ... what do you want to do, Freddie?''I don't know. I don't want to get mixed up in this. He's a Royal. We help him, and the Guardians'll he down on our necks. I don't want to get mixed up in this, Angela.'

'Is he ... is he hurt bad?''Yeah, it looks that way.''What shall we do?''I don't know.''We can't leave him here in the rain.' Angela hesitated. 'Can we?''If we get a cop, the Guardians'll find out who,' Freddie said. 'I dont know, Angela, I don't know.'

Angela hesitated a long time before answering. Then she said, 'I have to go home, Freddie. My people will begin to worry.'

'Yeah,' Freddie said. He looked at Andy again. 'You all right?' he asked. Andy lifted his face from the sidewalk, and his eyes said: Please, please help me, and maybe Freddie read what his eyes were saying, and maybe he didn't.

Behind him, Angela said, 'Freddie, let's get out of here! Please!' Freddie stood up. He looked at

Andy again, and then mumbled, I'm sorry.' He took Angela's arm, and together they ran towards the neon splash at the other end of the alley.

Why, they're afraid of the Guardians, Andy thought in amazement. But why shouldn't they be? I wasn't afraid of the Guardians. I never turkeyed out of a rumble with the Guardians. I got heart. But I'm bleeding.

The rain was soothing. It was a cold rain, but his body was hot all over, and the rain helped cool him. He had always liked rain. He could remember sitting in Laura's house one time, the rain running down the windows, and just looking out over the street, watching the people running from the rain. That was when he'd first joined the Royals. He could remember how happy he was the Royals had taken him. The Royals and the Guardians, two of the biggest. He was a Royal. There had been meaning to the title.

Now, in the alley, with the cold rain washing his hot body, he wondered about the meaning. If he died, he was Andy. He was not a Royal. He was simply Andy, and he was dead. And he wondered suddenly if the Guardians who had ambushed him and knifed him had ever once realised he was Andy? Had they known that he was Andy, or had they simply known that he was a Royal wearing a purple silk jacket? Had they stabbed him, Andy, or had they only stabbed the jacket and the title, and what good was the title if you were dying?

I'm Andy, he screamed wordlessly. I'm Andy.

An old lady stopped at the other end of the alley. The garbage cans were stacked there, beating noisily in the rain. The old lady carried an umbrella with broken ribs, carried it like a queen. She stepped into the mouth of the alley, shopping bag over one arm. She lifted the lids of the garbage cans. She did not hear Andy grunt because she was a little deaf and because the rain was beating on the cans. She collected her string and her newspapers, and an old hat with a feather on it from one of the garbage cans, and a broken footstool from another of the cans. And then she replaced the lids and lifted her umbrella high and walked out of the alley mouth. She had worked quickly and soundlessly, and now she was gone.

The alley looked very long now. He could see people passing at the other end of it, and he wondered who the people were, and he wondered if he would ever get to know them, wondered who it was on the Guardians who had stabbed him, who had plunged the knife into his body.

'That's for you, Royal!' the voice had said. 'That's for you, Royal!' Even in his pain, there had been some sort of pride in knowing he was a Royal. Now there was no pride at all. With the rain beginning to chill him, with the blood pouring steadily between his fingers, he knew only a sort of dizziness. He could only think: I want to be Andy.

It was not very much to ask of the world.He watched the world passing at the other end of the alley. The world didn't know he was Andy. The world didn't know he was alive. He wanted to say, 'Hey, I'm alive! Hey, look at me! I'm alive! Don't you know I'm alive! Don't you know I exist?'

He felt weak and very tired. He felt alone and wet and feverish and chilled. He knew he was going to die now. That made him suddenly sad. He was filled with sadness that his life would he over at sixteen. He felt at once as if he had never done anything, never been anywhere. There were so many things to do. He wondered why he'd never thought of them before, wondered why the rumbles and the jumps and the purple jackets had always seemed so important to him before. Now they seemed like such small things in a world he was missing, a world that was rushing past at the other end of the alley.

I don't want to die, he thought. I haven't lived yet.

It seemed very important to him that he take off the purple jacket. He was very close to dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, 'Oh, it's a Royal.' With great effort, he rolled over on to his back. He felt the pain tearing at his stomach when he moved. If he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket. The jacket had only one meaning now, and that was a very simple meaning.

If he had not been wearing the jacket, he wouldn't have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife hated only the purple jacket. The jacket was a stupid meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life.

He lay struggling with the shiny wet jacket. His arms were heavy. Pain ripped fire across bis body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm was free and then the other. He rolled away from the jacket and lay quite still, breathing heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sounds of the rain and thinking. Rain is sweet, I'm Andy.

She found him in the doorway a minute past midnight. She left the dance to look for him. When she found him she knelt beside him and said, 'Andy, it's me, Laura.'

He did not answer her. She backed away from him, tears springing into her eyes, and then she ran from the alley. She did not stop running until she found a cop.

And now, standing with the cop, she looked down at him. The cop rose and said, 'He's dead.' All the crying was out of her now. She stood in the rain and said nothing, looking at the dead boy on the pavement, and looking at the purple jacket that rested a foot away from his body.

The cop picked up the jacket and turned it over in his hands.'A Royal, huh?' he said.She looked at the cop, and, very quietly, she said, 'His name is Andy.'The cop slang the jacket over his arm. He took out his black pad, and he flipped it open to a blank page.'A Royal,' he said.Then he began writing.

Source: Diverse Cultures - Short stories by Jean Moore and John Catron, Hodder and Stougjhton, pp. 64-70

The Stolen Partyby Liliana Heker

As soon as she arrived she went straight to the kitchen to see if the monkey was there. It was: what a relief! She wouldn't have liked to admit that her Mother had been right. Monkeys at a birthday? Her mother had sneered. Get away with you, believing any nonsense you're told! She was cross, but not because of the monkey, the girl thought; it's just because of the party.

"I don't like you going," she- told her. "It's a rich, people's party." "Rich people go to Heaven too," said the girl, who studied religion at school."Get away with Heaven," said the mother. "The problem with you, young lady, is that you like to fart higher than your ass."The girl didn't approve of the way her mother spoke. She was barely nine, and one of the best in her class."I’m going because I’ve been invited," she said. "And I’ve been invited because Luciana is my friend. So there.""Ah yes, your friend," her mother grumbled. She paused. "Listen, Rosaura," she said at last. "That one’s not your friend. You know what you are to them? The maid’s daughter, that’s what."Rosaura blinked hard: she wasn't going to cry. Then she yelled: "Shut up! You know nothing about being friends!"Every afternoon she used to go t o Luciana's house and they would both finish their homework while Rosaura's mother did the cleaning. The), had their tea in the kitchen and they told each other secrets. Rosaura loved everything in the big house, and she also loved the people who lived there."I'm going because it will be the most lovely party in the whole world, Luclana told me it would. There will be a magician and he will bring a b monkey and everything."The mother swung around to take a good look at her child, and pompously put her hands on her hips."Monkeys at a birthday?" she said. "Get away with you, believing any nonsense you're told!"Rosaura was deeply offended. She thought it unfair of her mother to accuse other people of being liars simply because they were rich. Rosaura too wanted to be rich, of course. If one day she managed to live in a beautiful palace, would her mother stop loving her? She felt very sad. She wanted to go to that party more than anything else in the world."I'll die if I don't go," she whispered, almost without moving her lips.And she wasn't sure whether she had been heard, but on the morning of the party she discovered that her mother had starched her Christmas dress. And in the afternoon, after washing her hair, her mother rinsed it in apple vinegar so that it would be all nice and shiny. Before going out, Rosaura admired herself in the mirror, with her white dress and glossy hair, and thought she looked terribly pretty.Sefiora Ines also seemed to notice. As soon as she saw her, she said: "How lovely you look today, Rosaura."Rosaura gave her starched skirt a slight toss with her hands and walked into the party with a firm step. She said hello to Luciana and asked about the monkey. Luciana put on a secretive look and whispered into Rosaura's car: "He's in the kitchen. But don't tell anyone, because it's a surprise."Rosaura wanted to make sure. Carefully she entered the kitchen and there she saw it: deep in thought, inside its cage. It looked so funny that the girl stood there for a while, watching it, and later, every so often, she would slip out of the party unseen and go and admire it. Rosaura was the only one allowed into the kitchen. Sefiora Ines had said: "You yes, but not the others, they're much too boisterous, they might break something." Rosaura had never broken anything. She even managed the jug of orange juice, carrying it from the kitchen into the dining-room. She held it carefully and didn't spill a single drop. And Sefiora Ines had said: "Arc you sure you can manage a Jug as big as that?" Of course she could manage. She wasn't a butterfingers, like the others. Like that blonde girl with the bow in her hair. As soon as she saw Rosaura, the girl with the bow had said:"And you? Who are you?""I'm a friend of Luciana," said Rosaura."No," said the girl with the bow, "you are not a friend of Luciana because I'm her cousin and I know all her friends. And I don't know you.""So what," said Rosaura. "I come here every afternoon with my mother and we do our homework together.""You and your mother do your homework together?" asked the girl laughing."I and Luciana do our homework together," said Rosaura, very seriously.The girl with the bow shrugged her shoulders."That's not being friends," she said. "Do you go to school together?'"No.""So where do you know her from?" said the girl, getting impatient.Rosaura remembered her mother's words perfectly. She took a deep breath."I'm the daughter of the employee," she said.

Her mother had said very clearly: "If someone asks, you say you're the daughter of the employee; that's all." She also told her to add: "And proud of it." But Rosaura thought that never in her life would she dare say something of the sort."What employee?" said the girl with the bow. "Employee in a shop?'"No," said Rosaura angrily. "My mother doesn't sell anything in any shop, so there.""So how come she's an employee?" said the girl with the bow. just then Sefiora Ines arrived saying shh shh, and asked Rosaura if she wouldn't mind helping serve out the hot-dogs, as she knew the house so much better than the others."See?" said Rosaura to the girl with the bow, and when no one was looking she kicked her in the shin.Apart from the girl with the bow, all the others were delightful. The one she liked best was Luclana, with her golden birthday crown; and then the boys. . Rosaura won the sack race, and nobody managed to catch her when they played tag. When they split into two teams to play charades all the boys wanted her for their side. Rosaura felt she had never been so happy in all her life.But the best was still to come. The best came after Luciana blew out the candles. First, the cake. Sefiora Ines had asked her to help pass the cake around, and Rosaura had enjoyed the task immensely, because ever one called out to her, shouting "Me, me.!" Rosaura remembered a story in which there was a queen who had the power of life or death over her subjects.She had always loved that, having the power of life or death. To Luciana and the boys she gave the largest pieces, and to the girl with the bow she gave a slice so thin one could see through I t.After the cake came the magician, tall and bony, with a fine red cape. A true magician: he could untie handkerchiefs by blowing on them and make a chain with links that had no openings. He could guess what cards were pulled out from a pack, and the monkey was his assistant. He called the monkey "partner." "Let's see here, partner," he would say, "Turn over a card." And, "Don't run away, partner: time to work now."The final trick was wonderful. One of the children had to hold the monkey in his arms and the magician said he would make him disappear."What, the boy?" they all shouted."No, the monkey!" shouted back the magician.Rosaura thought that this was truly the most amusing party in the whole world.The magician asked a small fat boy to come and help, but the small fat boy got frightened almost at once and dropped the monkey on the floor. The magician picked him up carefully, whispered something in his ear, and the monkey nodded almost as if he understood."You mustn't be so unmanly, my friend," the magician said to the fat boy."What's unmanly?" said the fat boy.The magician turned around as if to look for spies."A sissy," said the magician. "Go sit down."Then he stared at all the faces one by one. Rosaura felt her heart tremble."You, with the Spanish eyes," said the magician. And everyone saw that he was pointing at her.She wasn't afraid. Neither holding the monkey, nor when the magician made him vanish; not even when, at the end, the magician flung his red cape over Rosaura's head and uttered a few magic words . . . and the monkey reappeared, chattering happily, in her arms. The children clapped furiously. And before Rosaura returned to her seat, the magician said:"Thank you very much, my little countess."She was so pleased with the compliment that a while later, when her mother came to fetch her, that was the first thing she told her."I helped the magician and he said to me, 'Thank you very much, my little countess.'It was strange because up to then Rosaura had thought that she was angry with her mother. All along Rosaura had imagined that she would say to her: "See that the monkey wasn't a lie?" But instead she was so thrilled that she told her mother all about the wonderful magician.Her mother tapped her on the head and said: "So now we're a countess!"But one could see that she was beaming.And now they both stood in the entrance, because a moment ago Sefiora Ines, smiling, had said: "Please wait here a second."Her mother suddenly seemed worried."What is it?" she asked Rosaura."What is what?" said Rosaura. "It's nothing; she just wants to get the presents for those who are leaving, see?"She pointed at the fat boy and at a girl with pigtails who were also waiting there, next to their mothers. And she explained about the presents. She knew, because she had been watching

those who left before her. When one of the girls was about to leave, Sefiora Ines would give her a bracelet. When a boy left, Sefiora Ines gave him a yo-yo. Rosaura preferred the yo-yo because it sparkled, but she didn't mention that to her mother. Her mother might have said: "So why don't you ask for one, you blockhead?" That's what her mother was like. Rosaura didn't feel like explaining that she'd be horribly ashamed to be the odd one out. Instead she said:"I was the best-behaved at the party."And she said no more because Sefiora Ines came out into the hall with two bags, one pink and one blue.First she went up to the fat boy, gave him a yo-yo out of the blue bag, and the fat boy left with his mother. Then she went up to the girl and gave her a bracelet out of the pink bag, and the girl with the pigtails left as well.Finally she came up to Rosaura and her mother. She had a big smile on her face and Rosaura liked that. Sefiora Ines looked down at her, then looked up at her mother, and then said something that made Rosaura proud:"What a marvelous daughter you have, Herminia."For an instant, Rosaura thought that she'd give her two presents: the bracelet and the yo-yo. Sefiora Ines bent down as if about to look for something. Rosaura also leaned forward, stretching out her arm. But she never completed the movement.Sefiora Ines didn't look in the pink bag. Nor did she look in the blue bag. Instead she rummaged in her purse. In her hand appeared two bills."You really and truly earned this," she said handing them over. "Thank you for all your help, my pet."Rosaura felt her arms stiffen, stick close to her body, and then she noticed her mother's hand on her shoulder. Instinctively she pressed herself against her mother's body. That was all. Except her eyes. Rosaura's eyes had a cold, clear look that fixed itself on Sefiora Ines's face.Sefiora Ines, motionless, stood there with her hand outstretched. As if she didn't dare draw it back. As if the slightest change might shatter an infinitely delicate balance.

Heker, Lilian "The Stolen Party." Literature for Composition 4th ed. Ed Sylvan Barnet et al. New York: HarperCollins, 1996 613-616

A Whole Nation and a Peopleby Harry Mark Petrakis

There was one storekeeper I remember above all others in my youth. It was shortly before I became ill, spending a good portion of my time with a motley group of varied ethnic ancestry. We contended with one another to deride the customs of the old country. On our Saturday

forays into neighborhoods beyond our own, to prove we were really Americans, we ate hot dogs and drank Cokes. If a boy didn’t have ten cents for this repast he went hungry, for he dared not bring a sandwich from home made of the spiced meats our families ate.

One of our untamed games was to seek out the owner of a pushcart or store, unmistakably an immigrant, and bedevil him with a chorus of insults and jeers. To prove allegiance to the gang it was necessary to reserve our fiercest malevolence for a storekeeper or peddler belonging to our own ethnic background.

For that reason I led a raid on the small, shabby grocery of old Barba Nikos, a short, sinewy Greek who walked with a slight limp and sported a flaring, handlebar mustache.

We stood outside his store and dared him to come out. When he emerged to do battle, we plucked a few plums and peaches from the baskets on the sidewalk and retreated across the street to eat them while he watched. He waved a fist and hurled epithets at us in ornamental Greek.

Aware that my mettle was being tested, I raised my arm and threw my half-eaten plum at the old man. My aim was accurate and the plum struck him on the cheek. He shuddered and put his hand to the stain. He stared at me across the street, and although I could not see his eyes, I felt them sear my flesh. He turned and walked silently back to the store. The boys slapped my shoulders in admiration, but it was a hollow victory that rested like stone in the pit of my stomach.

At twilight, when we disbanded, I passed the grocery alone on my way home. There was a small light burning in the store and the shadow of the old mans body outlined against the glass. Goaded by remorse, I walked to the door and entered.

The old man moved from behind the narrow wooden counter and stared at me. I wanted to turn and flee, but by then it was too late. As he motioned for me to come closer, I braced myself for a curse or a blow.

You were the one? he said finally, in a harsh voice.

I nodded mutely.

Why did you come back?

I stood there unable to answer.

What's your name?

Haralambos, I said, speaking to him in Greek.

He looked at me in shock. “ You are Greek! he cried. A Greek boy attacking a Greek grocer! He stood appalled at the immensity of my crime. All right, he said coldly. You are here because you wish to make amends. His great mustache bristled in concentration. Four plums, two peaches, he said. That makes a total of seventy-eight cents. Call it seventy-five. Do you have seventy-five cents, boy?

I shook my head.

Then you will work it off, he said. Fifteen cents an hour into seventy-five cents makes “he paused-five hours of work. Can you come here Saturday morning?

Yes, I said.

Yes, Barba Nikos, he said sternly. Show respect.

Yes, Barba Nikos, I said.

Saturday morning at eight clock, he said. Now go home and say thanks in your prayers that I

did not loosen your impudent head with a solid smack on the ear. I needed no further urging and fled.

Saturday morning, still apprehensive, I returned to the store. I began by sweeping, raising clouds of dust in dark and hidden corners. I washed the windows, whipped the squeegee swiftly up and down the glass in a fever of fear that some members of the gang would see me. When I finished I hurried back inside.

For the balance of the morning, I stacked cans, washed the counter, and dusted bottles of yellow wine. A few customers entered, and Barba Nikos served them. A little after twelve oclock he locked the door so he could eat lunch. He cut himself a few slices of sausage, tore a large chunk from a loaf of crisp-crusted bread, and filled a small cup with a dozen black shiny olives floating in brine. He offered me the cup. I could not help myself and grimaced.

You are a stupid boy, the old man said. You are not really Greek, are you?

Yes, I am.

You might be, he admitted grudgingly. But you do not act Greek. Wrinkling your nose at these fine olives. Look around this store for a minute. What do you see?

Fruits and vegetables, I said. Cheese and olives and things like that.

He stared at me with a massive scorn. That's what I mean, he said. You are a bonehead. You don't understand that a whole nation and a people are in this store.

I looked uneasily toward the storeroom in the rear, almost expecting someone to emerge.

What about olives? He cut the air with a sweep of his arm. There are olives of many shapes and colors. Pointed black ones from Kalamata, oval ones from Amphissa, pickled green olives and sharp tangy yellow ones. Achilles carried black olives to Troy and after a day of savage battle leading his Myrmidons, he'd rest and eat cheese and ripe black olives such as these right here. You have heard of Achilles, boy, haven't you?

Yes, I said.

Yes, Barba Nikos.

Yes, Barba Nikos, I said.

He motioned at the row of jars filled with varied spices. There is origanon there and basilikon and daphne and sesame and miantanos, all the marvelous flavorings that we have used in our food for thousands of years. The men of Marathon carried small packets of these spices into battle, and the scents reminded them of their homes, their families, and their children.

He rose and tugged his napkin free from around his throat. Cheese, you said. Cheese! Come closer, boy, and I will educate your abysmal ignorance. He motioned toward a wooden container on the counter. That glistening white delight is feta, made from goat's milk, packed in wooden buckets to retain the flavor. Alexander the Great demanded it on his table with his casks of wine when he planned his campaigns.

He walked limping from the counter to the window where the piles of tomatoes, celery, and green peppers clustered. I suppose all you see here are some random vegetables? He did not wait for me to answer. You are dumb again. These are some of the ingredients that go to make up a Greek salad. Do you know what a Greek salad really is? A meal in itself, an experience, an emotional involvement. It is created deftly and with grace. First, you place large lettuce leaves in a big, deep bowl. He spread his fingers and moved them slowly, carefully, as if he were arranging the leaves. The remainder of the lettuce is shredded and piled in a small mound, he said. Then comes celery, cucumbers, tomatoes sliced lengthwise, green peppers, origanon, green olives, feta, avocado, and anchovies. At the end you dress it with lemon, vinegar, and pure olive oil, glinting golden in the light.

He finished with a heartfelt sigh and for a moment closed his eyes. Then he opened one eye to mark me with a baleful intensity. The story goes that Zeus himself created the recipe and assembled and mixed the ingredients on Mount Olympus one night when he had invited some of the other gods to dinner.

He turned his back on me and walked slowly again across the store, dragging one foot slowly behind him. I looked uneasily at the clock, which showed that it was a few minutes past one. He turned quickly and startled me. And everything else in here, he said loudly. White beans, lentils, garlic, crisp bread, kokoretsi, meatballs, mussels and clams. He paused and drew a deep, long breath. And the wine, he went on, wine from Samos, Santorini, and Crete, retsina and mavrodaphne, a taste almost as old as water...and then the fragrant melons, the pastries, yellow diples and golden loukoumades, the honey custard galatobouriko. Everything a part of our history, as much a part as the exquisite sculpture in marble, the bearded warriors, Pan and the oracles and Delphi, and the nymphs dancing in the shadowed groves under Homer's glittering moon. He paused, out of breath again, and coughed harshly. Do you understand now, boy?

He watched my face for some response and then grunted. We stood silent for a moment until he cocked his head and stared at the clock. It's time for you to leave, he motioned brusquely toward the door. We are square now. Keep it that way.

I decided the old man was crazy and reached behind the counter for my jacket and cap and started for the door. He called me back. From a box he drew out several soft, yellow figs that he placed in a piece of paper. A bonus because you worked well, he said. Take them. When you taste them, maybe you will understand what I have been talking about.

I took the figs and he unlocked the door and I hurried from the store. I looked back once and saw him standing in the doorway, watching me, the swirling tendrils of food curling like mist about his head.

I ate the figs late that night. I forgot about them until I was in bed, and then I rose and took the package from my jacket. I nibbled at one, then ate them all. They broke apart between my teeth with a tangy nectar, a thick sweetness running like honey across my tongue and into the pockets of my cheeks. In the morning when I woke, I could still taste and inhale their fragrance.

I never again entered Barba Nikos's store. My spell of illness, which began some months later, lasted two years. When I returned to the streets I had forgotten the old man and the grocery. Shortly afterwards my family moved from neighborhood.

Some twelve years later, after the war, I drove through the old neighborhood and passed the grocery. I stopped the car and for a moment stood before the store. The windows were stained with dust and grime, the interior bare and desolate, a store in a decrepit group of stores marked for razing so new structures could be built.

I have been in many Greek groceries since then and have often bought the feta and Kalamata olives. I have eaten countless Greek salads and have indeed found them a meal for the gods. On the holidays in our house, my wife and sons and I sit down to a dinner of steaming, buttered pilaf like my mother used to make and lemon-egg avgolemono and roast lamb richly seasoned with cloves of garlic. I drink the red and yellow wines, and for dessert I have come to relish the delicate pastries coated with honey and powdered sugar. Old Barba Nikos would have been pleased.

But I have never been able to recapture the halcyon flavor of those figs he gave me on that day so long ago, although I have bought figs many times. I have found them pleasant to my tongue, but there is something missing. And to this day I am not sure whether it was the figs or the vision and passion of the old grocer that coated the fruit so sweetly I can still recall their savor and fragrance after almost thirty years.

Harry Mark, Petrakis. "Ethnic American Literature: A Whole Nation and a People." Ethnic American Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Aug. 2010. <http://ethnicamericanlit.blogspot.com/2007/10/whole-nation-and-people.html>.

Everyday Useby Alice Walker

I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.

Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.

You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.

Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers.

In real life I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.

But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.

"How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door.

"Come out into the yard," I say.

Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.

Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the redhot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.

I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serf'ous way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.

Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.

I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask my why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in '49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.

I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, "Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?"

. She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in Iye. She read to them.

When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.

When she comes I will meet—but there they are!

Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand. "Come back here, " I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.

It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. "Uhnnnh, " is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. "Uhnnnh."

Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears.

"Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with "Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin.

"Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without mak' ing sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.

Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie.

"Well," I say. "Dee."

"No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!"

"What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know.

"She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."

"You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born.

"But who was she named after?" asked Wangero.

"I guess after Grandma Dee," I said.

"And who was she named after?" asked Wangero.

"Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as far back as I can trace it," I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches.

"Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are."

"Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say.

"There I was not," I said, "before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?"

He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head.

"How do you pronounce this name?" I asked.

"You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero.

"Why shouldn't 1?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you."

. "I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero.

"I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again."

Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was, so I didn't ask.

"You must belong to those beef cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakim" when they met you, too, but they didn't shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up saltlick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.

Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)

We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and com bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't effort to buy chairs.

"Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it crabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it.

"This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?"

"Yes," I said.

"Un huh," she said happily. "And I want the dasher, too."

"Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber.

Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.

"Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash."

"Maggie's brain is like an elephant's," Wangero said, laughing. "I can use the chute top as a centerpiece for the alcove table," she said, sliding a plate over the chute, "and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher."

When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt ftames on the ftont porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Stat pattetn. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had wotn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jattell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's unifotm that he wore in the Civil War.

"Mama," Wangro said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"

I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.

"Why don't you take one or two of the others?" I asked. "These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died."

"No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine."

"That'll make them last better," I said.

"That's not the point," said Wangero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imag' ine!" She held the quilts securely in her atms, stroking them.

"Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come ftom old clothes her mother handed down to her," I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.

"Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom.

"The ttuth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she matties John Thomas."

. She gasped like a bee had stung her.

"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."

"I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been saving 'em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will!" I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old~fashioned, out of style.

"But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!"

"She can always make some more," I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt."

Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not under.stand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!"

"Well," I said, stumped. "What would you do with them7"

"Hang them," she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts.

Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other.

"She can have them, Mama," she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."

I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.

When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did some.thing I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open.

"Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee.

But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim~a~barber.

"You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car.

. "What don't I understand?" I wanted to know.

"Your heritage," she said, And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it."

She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin.

Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” BowNET.org. Ed. Joy McDermott. 2006. 18 Jan. 2008http://www.bow.k12.nh.us/jmcdermott/everyday_use__by_alice_walker.htm.