344
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Where do you want to
go,
Sonny?"
"I want to join the anny. Or the
navy,
I don't care.
If
I say
I'm old enough, they'll believe me."
Then I got mad. It was because I was so scared. "You must be
crazy. You goddamn fool, what the hell do you want to go and
join the
army
for?"
"I just told you. To get out of Harlem."
"Sonny, you haven't even finished
school.
And if you really want
to be a musician, how do you expect to study if you're in the
army?"
He looked at me, trapped, and in anguish. "There's ways. I
might be able to work out some kind of deal. Anyway, I'll have
the G.!. Bill when I come out."
"If
you come out." We stared at each other. "Sonny, please. Be
reasonable. I know the setup is far from perfect. But we got to do
the best we can."
"I ain't learning nothing in school," he said. "Even when I go."
He turned away from me and opened the window and threw his
cigarette out into the narrow alley. I watched his back. "At least, I
ain't learning nothing you'd want me to learn." He slammed the
window so hard I thought the glass would fly out, and turned
back to me. "And I'm sick of the stink of these garbage cans!"
"Sonny," I said, "I know how you feel. But
if
you don't finish
school now, you're going to be sorry later that you didn't." I grabbed
him
by the shoulders. "And you only got another year. It ain't so
bad. And I'll come back and I swear I'll help you do
whatever
you want to do. Just try to put up with it till I come back. Will you
please do that? For me?"
He didn't answer and he wouldn't look at me.
"Sonny. You hear me?"
He pulled away. "I hear you. But you never hear anything
I
say."
I didn't know what to say to that. He looked out of the window
and then back at me. "OK," he said, and sighed. "I'll try."
Then I said, trying to cheer
him
up a little, "They got a piano
at Isabel's. You can practice on
it."
And as a matter of fact, it did cheer him up for a minute. "That's
right," he said to himself. "I forgot that." His face relaxed a little.
