THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY By Mark Twain ONCE there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demands were; and he always learned his book, and never was late at Sabbath school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgment told him it was the most profitable thing he could do. None of the other boys could ever make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie, no matter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie, and that was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simply ridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had, surpassed everything. He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to take any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the other boys used to try to reason it out and come to an understanding of him, but they couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. As I said before, they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was "afflicted" and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed any harm to come to him. This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were his greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday-school books; he had every confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive, once; but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever he read about a particularly good one he turned over quickly to the end to see what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of miles and gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that good little boy always died in the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all his relations and the Sunday-school children standing around the grave in pantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, and everybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard and a half of stuff in them. He was always headed off in this way. He never could see one of those good little boys on account of his always dying in the last chapter. Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday-school book. He wanted to be put in, with pictures representing him gloriously declining to lie to his mother, and her weeping for joy about it; and pictures representing him standing on the doorstep giving a penny to a poor beggar-woman with six children, and telling her to spend it freely, but not to be extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of him magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay in wait for him around the corner as he came from school, and welted him over the head with a lath, and then chased him home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as he proceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to be put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a little uncomfortable sometimes when he re ...

1. THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY
By Mark Twain
ONCE there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens.
He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and
unreasonable their demands were; and he always learned his
book, and never was late at Sabbath school. He would not play
hookey, even when his sober judgment told him it was the most
profitable thing he could do. None of the other boys could ever
make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie, no
matter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie,
and that was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he
was simply ridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had,
surpassed everything. He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he
wouldn't rob birds' nests, he wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-
grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to take any interest in any
kind of rational amusement. So the other boys used to try to
reason it out and come to an understanding of him, but they
couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. As I said before,
they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was
"afflicted" and so they took him under their protection, and
never allowed any harm to come to him.
This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they
were his greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He
believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday-school
books; he had every confidence in them. He longed to come
across one of them alive, once; but he never did. They all died
before his time, maybe. Whenever he read about a particularly
good one he turned over quickly to the end to see what became
of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of miles and gaze
on him; but it wasn't any use; that good little boy always died in
the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all
his relations and the Sunday-school children standing around

2. the grave in pantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that
were too large, and everybody crying into handkerchiefs that
had as much as a yard and a half of stuff in them. He was
always headed off in this way. He never could see one of those
good little boys on account of his always dying in the last
chapter.
Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday-school book.
He wanted to be put in, with pictures representing him
gloriously declining to lie to his mother, and her weeping for
joy about it; and pictures representing him standing on the
doorstep giving a penny to a poor beggar-woman with six
children, and telling her to spend it freely, but not to be
extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of him
magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay
in wait for him around the corner as he came from school, and
welted him over the head with a lath, and then chased him
home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as he proceeded. That was the ambition
of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to be put in a Sunday-school
book. It made him feel a little uncomfortable sometimes when
he reflected that the good little boys always died. He loved to
live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature about
being a Sunday-schoolbook boy. He knew it was not healthy to
be good. He knew it was more fatal than consumption to be so
supernaturally good as the boys in the books were; he knew that
none of them had ever been able to stand it long, and it pained
him to think that if they put him in a book he wouldn't ever see
it, or even if they did get the book out before he died it wouldn't
be popular without any picture of his funeral in the back part of
it. It couldn't be much of a Sunday-school book that couldn't
tell about the advice he gave to the community when he was
dying. So at last, of course he had to make up his mind to do the
best he could under the circumstances -- to live right, and hang
on as long as he could, and have his dying speech ready when
his time came.

3. But somehow, nothing ever went right with this good little boy;
nothing ever turned out with him the way it turned out with
boys in the books. They always had a good time, and the bad
boys had the broken legs; but in his case there was a screw
loose somewhere, and it all happened just the other way. When
he found Jim Blake stealing apples, and went under the tree to
read to him about the bad little boy who fell out of a neighbor's
apple-tree and broke his arm, Jim fell out of the tree too, but he
fell on him, and broke his arm, and Jim wasn't hurt at all. Jacob
couldn't understand that. There wasn't anything in the books
like it.
And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in the
mud, and Jacob ran to help him up and receive his blessing, the
blind man did not give him any blessing at all, but whacked him
over the head with his stick and said he would like to catch him
shoving him again, and then pretending to help him up. This
was not in accordance with any of the books. Jacob looked them
all over to see.
One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog that
hadn't any place to stay, and was hungry and persecuted, and
bring him home and pet him and have that dog's imperishable
gratitude. And at last he found one and was happy; and he
brought him home and fed him, but when he was going to pet
him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off him except
those that were in front, and made a spectacle of him that was
astonishing. He examined authorities, but he could not
understand the matter. It was of the same breed of dogs that was
in the books, but it acted very differently. Whatever this boy
did he got into trouble. The very things the boys in the books
got rewarded for turned out to be about the most unprofitable
things he could invest in.
Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some
bad boys starting off pleasuring in a sail-boat. He was filled

4. with consternation, because he knew from his reading that boys
who went sailing on Sunday invariably got drowned. So he ran
out on a raft to warn them, but a log turned with him and slid
him into the river. A man got him out pretty soon, and the
doctor pumped the water out of him, and gave him a fresh start
with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick a-bed nine
weeks. But the most unaccountable thing about it was that the
bad boys in the boat had a good time all day, and then reached
home alive and well in the most surprising manner. Jacob
Blivens said there was nothing like these things in the books.
He was perfectly dumbfounded.
When he got well he was a little discouraged, but he resolved to
keep on trying anyhow. He knew that so far his experiences
wouldn't do to go in a book, but he hadn't yet reached the
allotted term of life for good little boys, and he hoped to be able
to make a record yet if he could hold on till his time was fully
up. If everything else failed he had his dying speech to fall back
on.
He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for
him to go to sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a ship captain and
made his application, and when the captain asked for his
recommendations he proudly drew out a tract and pointed to the
words, "To Jacob Blivens, from his affectionate teacher." But
the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, and he said, "Oh, that be
blowed! that wasn't any proof that he knew how to wash dishes
or handle a slush-bucket, and he guessed he didn't want him."
This was altogether the most extraordinary thing that ever
happened to Jacob in all his life. A compliment from a teacher,
on a tract, had never failed to move the tenderest emotions of
ship captains, and open the way to all offices of honor and
profit in their gift -- it never had in any book that ever he had
read. He could hardly believe his senses.
This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came out

5. according to the authorities with him. At last, one day, when he
was around hunting up bad little boys to admonish, he found a
lot of them in an old iron foundry fixing up a little joke on
fourteen or fifteen dogs, which they had tied together in long
procession and were going to ornament with empty
nitroglycerine cans made fast to their tails. Jacob s heart was
touched. He sat down on one of those cans -- for he never
minded grease when duty was before him -- and he took hold of
the foremost dog by the collar, and turned his reproving eye
upon wicked Tom Jones. But just at that moment Alderman
McWelter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the bad boys ran away,
but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence and began one of
those stately little Sunday-school book speeches which always
commence with "Oh, sir!" in dead opposition to the fact that no
boy, good or bad, ever starts a remark with "Oh, sir!" But the
Alderman never waited to hear the rest. He took Jacob Blivens
by the ear and turned him around, and hit him a whack in the
rear with the flat of his hand; and in an instant that good little
boy shot out through the roof and soared away towards the sun,
with the fragments of those fifteen dogs stringing after him like
the tail of a kite. And there wasn't a sign of that Alderman or
that old iron foundry left on the face of the earth, and, as for
young Jacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last
dying speech after all his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it
to the birds; because, although the bulk of him came down all
right in a tree-top in an adjoining county, the rest of him was
apportioned around among four townships, and so they had to
hold five inquests on him to find out whether he was dead or
not, and how it occurred. You never saw a boy scattered so.*
Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but
didn't come out according to the books. Every boy who ever did
as he did prospered except him. His case is truly remarkable. It
will probably never be accounted for.

6. 4H DA(;OlllmTO (;11,11 1.111'/'/111.. ,/,
Dagoberto Gilb 1950-
Born in Los Angeles, Dagoberto Gilb put himself through
college with a variety of pari
time jobs, earning a B.A. and M.A. in philosophy and religion
from the University of'
California at Santa Barbara. He then spent sixteen years as a
construction worker and C:lI"
penter, taking time off every few months to write. Gilb's
collection of stories, The Magic (1'
Blood (1993), won a number of awards, including the
PEN/Hemingway Award for first tic-
tion. His novel The Last Known Residence ofMickey Acuna was
named a "Notable Book of the
Year" by the New York TimesBookReview in 1994. Gilb has
taught at universities in Texas,
Arizona, and Wyoming; he is now on the faculty of Southwest
Texas State University, in
San Marcos.
~-~
Love in L. A.
Jake slouched in a clot of near motionless traffic, in the peculiar
gray of con-
crete, smog, and early morning beneath the overpass of the
Hollywood Freeway
on Alvarado Street. He didn't really mind because he knew how
much worse it
could be trying to make a left onto the onramp. He certainly
didn't do that every
day of his life, and he'd assure anyone who'd ask that he never

7. would either.
A steady occupation had its advantages and he couldn't deny
thinking about that
too. He needed an FM radio in something better than this '58
Buick he drove.
It would have crushed velvet interior with electric controls for
the L. A. summer,
a nice warm heater and defroster for the winter drives at the
beach, a cruise con-
trol for those longer trips, mellow speakers front and rear of
course, windows that
hum closed, snuffing out that nasty exterior noise of freeways.
The fact was that
he'd probably have to change his whole style. Exotic colognes,
plush, dark night-
clubs, mai tais and daiquiris, necklaced ladies in satin gowns,
misty and sexy like
in a tequila ad. Jake could imagine lots of possibilities when he
let himself, but
none that ended up with him pressed onto a stalled freeway.
Jake was thinking about this freedom of his so much that when
he glimpsed
its green light he just went ahead and stared bye-bye to the
steadily employed.
When he turned his head the same direction his windshield
faced, it was maybe
one second too late. He pounced the brake pedal and steered the
front wheels
away from the tiny brake lights but the smack was unavoidable.
Just one second
sooner and it would only have been close. One second more and
he'd be crawl-
ing up the Toyota's trunk. As it was, it seemed like only a
harmless smack, much
less solid than the one against his back bumper.

8. Jake considered driving past the Toyota but was afraid the
traffic ahead
would make it too difficult. As he pulled up against the curb a
few car lengths
ahead, it occurred to him that the traffic might have helped him
get away
too. He slammed the car door twice to make sure it was closed
fully and
to give himself another second more, then toured front and rear
of his Buick
for damage on or near the bumpers. Not an impressionable
scratch even in
the chrome. He perked up. Though the car's beauty was
secondary to its abil-
ity to start and move, the body and paint were clean except for a
few minor
,II
,'/lIlbolop..'Yuj .','bON /'let/oil 4jj
.1111/1.5.This stood (1111 ilS OIiC of his few clearcut
accomplishments over the
'I';II'S.
Bcfore he spoke to the driver of the Toyota, whose looks he
could see might
1
II'('scnthim with an added complication, he signaled to the
driver of the car that
III him, still in his car and stopped behind the Toyota, and
waved his hands and
~ho()khis head to let the man know there was no problem as far

9. as he was con-
1('I'IH.:d.The driver waved back and started his engine.
"It didn't even scratch my paint," Jake told her in that way of
his. "So how 5
,CHIdoin'? Any damage to the car? I'm kinda hoping so, just so
it takes a little
Illore time and we can talk some. Or else you can give me your
phone number
IIOWand I won't have to lay my regular b. s. on you to get it
later."
I le took her smile as a good sign and relaxed. He inhaled her
scent like it was
('bm air and straightened out his less than new but not unhip
clothes.
"You've got Florida plates. You look like you must be Cuban."
"My parents are from Venezuela."
"My name's Jake." He held out his hand.
"Mariana."
They shook hands like she'd never done it before in her life.
"I really am sorry about hitting you like that." He sounded
genuine. He fon-
dled the wide dimple near the cracked taillight. "It's amazing
how easy it is to
put a dent in these new cars. They're so soft they might replace
waterbeds
soon." Jake was confused about how to proceed with this. So
much seemed so
unlikely, but there was always possibility. "So maybe we should
go out to break-
fast somewhere and talk it over."
"I don't eat breakfast."

10. "Some coffee then."
"Thanks, but I really can't."
"You're not married, are you? Not that that would matter that
much to me.
I'm an open-minded kind a guy."
She was smiling. "I have to get to work."
"That sounds boring."
"I better get your driver's license," she said.
Jake nodded, disappointed. "One little problem," he said. "I
didn't bring it. 20
I just forgot it this morning. I'm a musician," he exaggerated
greatly, "and, well,
I dunno, I left my wallet in the pants I was wearing last night. If
you have some
paper and a pen I'll give you my address and all that."
He followed her to the glove compartment side of her car.
"What if we don't report it to the insurance companies? I'll just
get it fixed
for you."
"I don't think my dad would let me do that."
"Your dad? It's not your car?"
"He bought it for me. And I live at home."
"Right." She was slipping away from him. He went back around
to the back
of her new Toyota and looked over the damage again. There was
the trunk lid,
the bumper, a rear panel, a taillight.
"You do have insurance?" she asked, suspicious, as she came
around the back
of the car.

11. "Oh yeah," he lied.
"I guess you better write the name of that down too."
10
15
25
434 SANDRA ClSNJo'IU IS ( ,'('mlt/II Nil 1.1/.1'1Nt/lilt'
He made up a last name and address and wrote down 1he
nall1eor an inslIl
ance company an old girlfriend once belonged to. lIe considered
giving a n'al
phone number but went against that idea and made one up.
"I act too," he lied to enhance the effect more. "Been in a
couple of movies."
She smiled like a fan.
"So how about your phone number?" He was rebounding
maturely.
She gave it to him.
"Mariana, you are beautiful," he said in his most sincere voice.
"Call me," she said timidly.
Jake beamed. "We'll see you, Mariana," he said holding out his
hand. Her
hand felt so warm and soft he felt like he'd been kissed.
Back in his car he took a moment or two to feel both proud and
sad about
his performance. Then he watched the rear view mirror as

12. Mariana pulled up
behind him. She was writing down the license plate numbers on
his Buick,
ones that he'd taken off a junk because the ones that belonged to
his had
expired so long ago. He turned the ignition key and revved the
big engine and
clicked into drive. His sense of freedom swelled as he drove
into the now mov-
ing street traffic, though he couldn't stop the thought about that
FM stereo
radio and crushed velvet interior and the new car smell that
would even make
it better.
(1993)
Questions for Discussion and Writing
1. Write a character sketch ofJake. Consider his conversation,
actions, motives,
wants, accomplishments, and ethics, as well as his car, clothes,
age (as you fig-
ure it), and any other traits that you find relevant.
2. Does Jake have anything in common with his Buick? How
about Mariana and
her new Toyota? Does she share any attributes with her car?
3. What do you think the title means?
4. How does the last paragraph capture the essence ofJake's
character?
I 11.. I
Sandra Cisneros 1954-

13. Sandra Cisneros, the daughter of a Mexican father and a
Mexican-American mother,
grew up with her six brothers in the ghetto neighborhoods of
Chicago. She attended
Loyola University and went on to earn a master of fine arts
degree at the University of
Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she started writing sketches
about her childhood as a
poor Latina. She developed these into the book The Houseon
Mango Street (1983), a
prize-winning collection of more than forty short narratives.
Cisneros has also written
several books of poetry; a second collection of stories, Woman
Hollering Creek (1991);
and a novel, Caramelo(2002). "Geraldo No Last Name" is the
twenty-fifth story in her
1983 collection.
---
,11I1!JIIIII,I!,:yoJ'.l,j!JuI'1 Fielioll 435
Gt.'raldo No Last Name
"he mct him at a dance. Pretty too, and young. Said he worked
in a restau-
111111,hut she can't remember which one. Geraldo. That's all.
Green pants and
"'ulllnlay shirt. Geraldo. That's what he told her.
nd how was she to know she'd be the last one to see him alive.
An acci-
oI,'nl, don't you know. Hit and run. Marin, she goes to all those
dances.
I Jptown. Logan. Embassy. Palmer. Aragon. Fontana. The

14. Manor. She likes to
cI.lI1l'e.She knows how to do cumbias and salsas and rancheras
even. And he
IIliSjust someone she danced with. Somebody she met that
night. That's right.
That's the story. That's what she said again and again. Once to
the hospital
!lmple and twice to the police. No address. No name. Nothing in
his pockets.
in't it a shame.
Only Marin can't explain why it mattered, the hours and hours,
for somebody
she didn't even know. The hospital emergency room. Nobody
but an intern
working all alone. And maybe if the surgeon would've come,
maybe if he hadn't
II1Stso much blood, if the surgeon had only come, they would
know who to notify
IIndwhere.
But what difference does it make? He wasn't anything to her. He
wasn't her 5
hoyfriend or anything like that. Just another brazer who didn't
speak English.
.Iust another wetback. You know the kind. The ones who always
look ashamed.
And what was she doing out at three A.M.anyway? Marin who
was sent home
with her coat and some aspirin. How does she explain?
She met him at a dance. Geraldo in his shiny shirt and green
pants. Geraldo
going to a dance.

15. What does it matter?
They never saw the kitchenettes. They never knew about the
two-room flats
and sleeping rooms he rented, the weekly money orders sent
home, the currency
exchange. How could they?
His name was Geraldo. And his home is in another country. The
ones he left
behind are far away, will wonder, shrug, remember. Geraldo---
he went north. . .
we never heard from him again.
(1983)
I
I
Questions for Discussion and Writing
1. Why was only one intern working in the emergency room?
Why didn't the
surgeon come? Why are these facts included?
2. In the next-to-Iast paragraph, who is the "they" who never
saw the kitchenettes
and never knew about Geraldo's life? What is the point of this
paragraph?
3. How would you describe the tone of the final paragraph? In
what way does
this paragraph sum up the story's main themes?
4. Write a paper in which you contrast the reactions of Marin
with those of the

16. unnamed narrator. Can you separate the two?
5. Write an essay from Geraldo's point of view. Let him speak
for himself. What
does he have to say about his life and what happened to him?
I I
1
"How to date a brown girl (black girl, white girl, or halfie)"
by Junot Diaz
Wait for your brother and your mother to leave the apartment.
You've already told them that you're
feeling too sick to go to Union City to visit that tia who likes to
squeeze your nuts. (He's gotten big,
she'll say.) And even though your moms knows you ain't sick
you stuck to your story until finally she
said, Go ahead and stay, malcriado.
Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. If the girl's
from the Terrace stack the boxes
behind the milk. If she's from the Park or Society Hill hide the
cheese in the cabinet above the oven,

17. way up where she'll never see. Leave yourself a reminder to get
it out before morning or your moms
will kick your ass. Take down any embarrassing photos of your
family in the campo, especially the
one with the halfnaked kids dragging a goat on a rope leash.
The kids are your cousins and by now
they're old enough to understand why you're doing what you're
doing. Hide the pictures of yourself
with an Afro. Make sure the bathroom is presentable. Put the
basket with all the crapped-on toilet
paper under the sink. Spray the bucket with Lysol, then close
the cabinet.
Shower, comb, dress. Sit on the couch and watch TV. If she's an
outsider her father will be bringing
her, maybe her mother. Neither of them want her seeing any
boys from the Terrace-people get
stabbed in the Terrace-but she's strong-headed and this time
will get her way. If she's a whitegirl you
know you'll at least get a hand job.
The directions were in your best handwriting, so her parents
won't think you're an idiot. Get up
from the couch and check the parking lot. Nothing. If the girl's

18. local, don't sweat it. She'll flow over
when she's good and ready. Sometimes she'll run into her other
friends and a whole crowd will show
up at your apartment and even though that means you ain't
getting shit it will be fun anyway and
you'll wish these people would come over more often.
Sometimes the girl won't flow over at all and
the next day in school she'll say sorry, smile and you'll be
stupid enough to believe her and ask her
out again.
Wait and after an hour go out to your corner. The neighborhood
is full of traffic. Give one of your
boys a shout and when he says, Are you still waiting on that
bitch? say, Hell yeah.
Get back inside. Call her house and when her father picks up
ask if she's there. He'll ask, Who is
this? Hang up. He sounds like a principal or a police chief, the
sort of dude with a big neck, who
never has to watch his back. Sit and wait. By the time your
stomach's ready to give out on you, a
Honda or maybe a jeep pulls in and out she comes.

19. Hey, you'll say.
Look, she'll say. My mom wants to meet you. She's got herself
all worried about nothing.
2
Don't panic. Say, Hey, no problem. Run a hand through your
hair like the whiteboys do even though
the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa. She
will look good. The white ones are the
ones you want the most, aren't they, but usually the out-of-
towners are black, blackgirls who grew
up with ballet and Girl Scouts, who have three cars in their
driveways. If she's a halfie don't be
surprised that her mother is white. Say, Hi. Her moms will say
hi and you'll see that you don't scare
her, not really. She will say that she needs easier directions to
get out and even though she has the
best directions in her lap give her new ones.
Make her happy.
You have choices. If the girl's from around the way, take her to

20. El Cibao for dinner. Order
everything in your busted-up Spanish. Let her correct you if
she's Latina and amaze her if she's
black. If she's not from around the way, Wendy's will do. As
you walk to the restaurant talk about
school. A local girl won't need stories about the neighborhood
but the other ones might. Supply the
story about the loco who'd been storing canisters of tear gas in
his basement for years, how one day
the canisters cracked and the whole neighborhood got a dose of
the military-strength stuff. Don't
tell her that your moms knew right away what it was, that she
recognized its smell from the year the
United States invaded your island.
Hope that you don't run into your nemesis, Howie, the Puerto
Rican kid with the two killer mutts.
He walks them all over the neighborhood and every now and
then the mutts corner themselves a cat
and tear it to shreds, Howie laughing as the cat flips up in the
air, its neck twisted around like an owl,
red meat showing through the soft fur. If his dogs haven't
cornered a cat, he will walk behind you
and ask, Hey, Yunior, is that your new f***?

21. Let him talk. Howie weighs about two hundred pounds and
could eat you if he wanted. At the field
he will turn away. He has new sneakers, and doesn't want them
muddy. If the girl's an outsider she
will hiss now and say, What a f*** asshole. A homegirl would
have been yelling back at him the
whole time, unless she was shy. Either way don't feel bad that
you didn't do anything. Never lose a
fight on a first date or that will be the end of it.
Dinner will be tense. You are not good at talking to people you
don't know. A halfie will tell you
that her parents met in the Movement, will say, Back then
people thought it a radical thing to do. It
will sound like something her parents made her memorize. Your
brother once heard that one and
said, Man, that sounds like a whole lot of Uncle Tomming to
me. Don't repeat this.
Put down your hamburger and say, It must have been hard.
She will appreciate your interest. She will tell you more. Black
people, she will say, treat me real bad.

22. That's why I don't like them. You'll wonder how she feels about
Dominicans. Don't ask. Let her
speak on it and when you're both finished eating walk back into
the neighborhood. The skies will be
3
magnificent. Pollutants have made Jersey sunsets one of the
wonders of the world. Point it out.
Touch her shoulder and say, That's nice, right?
Get serious. Watch TV but stay alert. Sip some of the Bermüdez
your father left in the cabinet,
which nobody touches. A local girl may have hips and a thick
ass but she won't be quick about
letting you touch. She has to live in the same neighborhood you
do, has to deal with you being all up
in her business. She might just chill with you and then go home.
She might kiss you and then go, or
she might, if she's reckless, give it up, but that's rare. Kissing
will suffice. A white girl might just give
it up right then. Don't stop her. She'll take her gum out of her
mouth, stick it to the plastic sofa
covers and then will move close to you. You have nice eyes, she

23. might say.
Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips,
because, in truth, you love them more
than you love your own.
She'll say, I like Spanish guys, and even though you've never
been to Spain, say, I like you. You'll
sound smooth.
You'll be with her until about eight-thirty and then she will
want to wash up. In the bathroom she
will hum a song from the radio and her waist will keep the beat
against the lip of the sink. Imagine
her old lady coming to get her, what she would say if she knew
her daughter had just lain under you
and blown your name, pronounced with her eighth-grade
Spanish, into your ear. While she's in the
bathroom call one of your boys and say, Lo hice, loco. Or just
sit back on the couch and smile.
But usually it won't work this way. Be prepared. She will not
want to kiss you. Just cool it, she'll say.
The halfie might lean back, breaking away from you. She will
cross her arms, say, I hate my tits.

24. Stroke her hair but she will pull away. I don't like anybody
touching my hair, she will say. She will act
like somebody you don't know. In school she is known for her
attention-grabbing laugh, as high and
far-ranging as a gull, but here she will worry you. You will not
know what to say.
You're the only kind of guy who asks me out, she will say. Your
neighbors will start their hyena calls,
now that the alcohol is in them. You and the black boys.
Say nothing. Let her button her shirt, let her comb her hair, the
sound of it stretching like a sheet of
fire between you. When her father pulls in and beeps, let her go
without too much of a good-bye.
She won't want it. During the next hour the phone will ring.
You will be tempted to pick it up.
Don't. Watch the shows you want to watch, without a family
around to debate you. Don't go
downstairs. Don't fall asleep. It won't help. Put the government
cheese back in its place before your
moms kills you.