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  A couple of guys roll up the rug and people start dancing as the drums get louder, pulling at my sleeves and hair and everything else on me to move or sing or dance. I close my eyes for a minute, just listening to the sounds around me. It could be New York, but it sounds more like Africa.

  Every spring

  They sprout like toadstools

  In the key of heat

  Over Egypt and Khartoum and the rain in Brazil

  Drum rain beating on the heads of

  birds

  And umbrellas while the sky goes

  Clean white empty trumpet beating

  RED out of the sky

  And we’re moving into it or is the

  beat moving us

  “Yeah?” I hear someone say.

  What?

  “Keep going.”

  I’m sitting on the stoop outside Les and Bo’s with no idea how I got there. And a guy is sitting there looking at me. Was I talking out loud? I feel my cheeks go hot. “I’m . . . I don’t know. Just—”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “What’s your name?”

  His face is tough and leathery like a wolf and he has dark hair and eyes and a black leather jacket. Not Kerouac, but . . . could be. Almost? For some reason I’m blanking on his name. Guy? Gil? I could swear I saw him outside The Scene.

  If he’s who I think he is, he grew up here in the Village. Why can’t I remember his name?

  They have these contests at The Scene. The poets stand up one by one and say their best poems, and the winner gets a pot of money and sometimes gets his book published. I think this guy won the night I walked by The Scene because they were carrying him out on their shoulders, shouting and singing.

  It has to be him but I can’t ask.

  “Okay, don’t tell me,” he says.

  “No, just—sorry,” I say. “I must have come down here—I was looking for my notebook.”

  He nods and reaches into his shirt pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Then he reaches behind his back and gets a notebook, holding it out to me.

  “Hey, thanks.” I take the notebook.

  Gregory. Gregory Corso? That would be unbelievable. Even I wouldn’t believe it. Corso handing me a notebook so I can write a poem?

  They say he lived with his uncle and ran away all the time and for a while, he was in prison. That’s where he fell in love with poetry and turned into a writer.

  “Are you—”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Not who you think I am,” he says.

  “Gregory—”

  “That’s what you think?”

  I look at him, trying to decide.

  “Well, are you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Well,” I say, “I’m not who you think I am either.”

  “But you do have a name, don’t you?”

  “Ruby.”

  “Ruby, huh? Nice name.”

  I don’t say anything. I’m still trying to figure out who he is.

  “So, Ruby. You gonna finish that poem or not?”

  I open the notebook and see his handwriting, scrawling over the pages. I want to read all of them but of course I can’t, so I flip through instead until I find a blank page. My poem is sounding dumber and dumber the more I think about it, but if a cat like that hands you a notebook you have no choice but to write it down. I try to remember what I was saying, and more important, what it felt like at Les and Bo’s. When I’m done writing, I look up to see him staring out at the street.

  He looks over at me.

  “Read it.”

  I think, are you kidding? Are you nuts?

  “Come on, Ruby. Read it to me.”

  This can’t be happening, just can’t be. Famous people don’t just talk to kids. Do they?

  “It’s not ready,” I say.

  He turns away without answering and pulls out a cigarette.

  I want to ask him to read something of his but how can I? This is all just so weird. I skim through his notebook, trying not to let him see. But I can tell he’s looking at me.

  The sound of drums rolls out from a window somewhere above us and my heart starts beating fast.

  “Anyway,” I say. “I—don’t mean to bug you.”

  And then it gets even weirder because he holds out his hand, and I give him the notebook. Then he opens it.

  And reads.

  8

  Silky

  I REALLY SHOULDN’T call it reading because it’s more like he starts speaking silk to me. Not French, not English, not anything you’d recognize. Just a whole other language, skimming the air between us like a banner.

  There’s something about India and the fingernail of Malaya, and then the Korea Ti-Pousse Thumb, whatever that is. Salamanders, Moon Spots, the backs of mountains, kines, and balconies (kines?). It’s a road poem, but more like a bird is writing it; through Nebraska, Atlantis, and swans of balls, which sounds like it should be “ball of swans” but isn’t.

  I want to look up kine and Ti-Pousse Thumb, but we don’t have a dictionary at home and I have to wait until Monday to see the one at Blue Skies. I can’t ask what it means because I don’t want to look stupid—but I’m starting to wonder if Corso really did write this poem.

  I want to say Kerouac wrote it but I know this guy isn’t him. I mean, he just doesn’t . . . look like Kerouac. He’s too . . . I don’t know. His eyes aren’t big enough and he doesn’t have those boots, not the ones I think Kerouac wears. In fact, he’s wearing sneakers and they have lots of holes in them.

  “Now it’s your turn.” He closes the notebook.

  “I told you I’m not ready.”

  “Just tell me something,” he says. “I don’t care what it is.”

  If he would only tell me his name. But I’m starting to think he gets asked a lot and doesn’t want to say. It has to be Gregory Corso. Just does.

  I tell him about the fruit store and Little Nell and Mrs. Levitt, and he seems like he’s really listening, even though people are snaking around the stairs the whole time going into Les and Bo’s.

  “Well, hey,” he says. “That’s rough.”

  “Tell me about it!”

  “You like poetry?” he asks. “I mean writing it.”

  “Well—yeah, I mean, I’m not a real poet—like you,” I say.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, I mean—I don’t know—”

  The door behind us opens, and a blond in black pedal pushers and a sleeveless leotard pokes her head out. Her hair is teased up high in a beehive and she has long, dangly earrings like a movie star. “There you are,” she says, smiling. One of her front teeth is chipped but that doesn’t make her look bad. In fact, it makes her more interesting.

  Maybe-Gregory doesn’t answer but that doesn’t seem to bother her. She eyes me up and down, scoots over, and wraps herself around him.

  I turn away and get up, thinking I’ll go back inside.

  “Where you off to?” he asks.

  The woman buries her head in his neck.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve got to find my brother.”

  “Lou,” he says. “This is Ruby.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Got the man on her tail,” he says. “Trying to make her go to school.”

  Lou glances at me, not like she’s interested or anything, but trying to pretend she is to make him happy. “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m tryin’ to help her out here. So she won’t have to go.”

  “What d’you mean?” Lou asks, wrinkling up her nose. “Doesn’t she have to?”

  “She learns over at Blue Skies.”

  “Blue Skies?”

  “Here’s
what I’d do,” Maybe-Gregory says. But then he doesn’t say anything.

  “What?” I say.

  “Like Gandhi,” he says. “Yeah.”

  “Gandhi?”

  “Like he would, like . . . a hunger strike.”

  “She can’t do that,” Lou says. “She’s just a kid.”

  “She can if she has to,” he says.

  “Didn’t you go to school?” I ask.

  “I did when I had to. But what you need is something else,” he says. “They call it a cause célèbre.”

  “A what?”

  “You get all these people behind you. Make sure everyone knows about it and people read about you in the paper. Then the social workers have to back down.”

  “Why would they want to read about me?”

  “A kid your age on a hunger strike? They’ll be crazy for it. And you’ll have that lady running.”

  “Yeah, but—how long would I have to go without eating?”

  “Long as it takes.”

  I can barely go a minute.

  “You can have water,” he says.

  Great.

  I run my hands along the banister, thinking about Gandhi. Sky told us about him once, which I only remember because he was playing a record from India. I know that’s where Gandhi is from and that he was pretty much the reason India got to be independent. I think it was because he was always on a hunger strikes, but how did he do it? They don’t get a lot to eat in countries like that anyway, so maybe he was used to it.

  Lou seems to be done pretending she’s even interested. She nibbles at Maybe-Gregory’s ear like it’s a cookie and I rub my eyes, looking out at the street. By now all the streetlamps are on, and the music floating from the windows above us is getting louder.

  “Doin’ anything on April 12?” Maybe-Gregory asks.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you,” he says.

  I don’t want to tell him it’s my birthday. So I just ask him why.

  “We’re doing a reading at Chumley’s.”

  That’s the bar by the Edna St. Vincent Millay House. It was a speakeasy during Prohibition when you couldn’t have liquor because it was against the law. So you went there if you wanted alcohol. I have no idea why they call it a speakeasy, except maybe it was easy to ask for a drink. There’s no sign on the door and they still have a tiny glass window so people can check you out before letting you inside.

  “I can get you in,” he says. “If you want.”

  Is this really happening? A Beat poet is inviting me to a reading on my birthday. Could I really go to Chumley’s? I try to imagine Sophie’s face when I tell her. She’s absolutely going to die.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure,” I say like it was nothing, but my heart’s going so fast I’m sure he can hear it. Could I really get in that place? What do I tell Nell and Gary Daddy-o? Can I get Ray to take me? Or just close the door of my room and sneak out?

  “Come on home with me, baby,” Lou is saying, and this time the guy looks like he might be listening.

  “Um—what time?” I say.

  “Don’t know,” he says. “Just—night.”

  Lou pulls him to his feet and he waves, following behind her as she pulls him downstairs. The door opens, and four or five people come out holding beer cans. I know Ray is still upstairs but Gary Daddy-o probably went home and by the time I see him, he’ll already have heard everything from Little Nell.

  You’ll have to go to school, she’ll say. You’ll have to do whatever they want. And if they think we’re bad parents, there’s nothing we can do.

  A cause célèbre, I think, but there’s got to be something better than a hunger strike. But what am I talking about? I just met someone amazing and he read me his poetry. He might know Kerouac, too. Of course he knows him. And he invited me to Chumley’s! Which would make Levitt crazy, of course. When you pass by and they open the door, the smell of beer is so strong it’s like you’re drinking it. That would melt her, I think, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. But of course, she won’t melt, which means I’ve got to think of something.

  I sit on the stoop again, leaning against the banister. I’ve had some doozies in my life but this is the craziest.

  And even crazier, that poem I just wrote?

  It’s in this guy’s notebook. So if I want to remember it exactly like I wrote it, I have to go to the reading.

  Right?

  9

  Remember This

  Grimy. Dark. Sticky floor and rotting garbage. Levitt is writing notes to herself, swiveling her head as she moves through our house from one room to the next. She thinks I don’t know what she’s writing but I can see every word. Nell-mom is sitting at the kitchen table tugging at her hair, which is what she always does when she’s nervous. She was supposed to do the dishes this morning but I guess she forgot, and I’ve been at Blue Skies all day so I couldn’t get to them either. But dishes are the least of it.

  Someone told Levitt where we lived, which made her pretty mad to begin with because she figured out I gave her the wrong address. She came in here looking for trouble and from her point of view, I guess, it’s easy to find it. I think Ray spilled syrup this morning, and the kitchen floor is so sticky you can barely put your foot down without losing the sole of your shoe. No one’s taken out the garbage for a few days and of course Ray has to leave a trail of clothes wherever he goes.

  That’s the grimy part and there’s also a dark part—but that one’s not our fault. If you’re facing the back alley it’s going to be dark, because the windows are narrow. That’s the way they liked them in the nineteenth century when this place was probably built.

  Levitt’s found her way into the bathroom. She looks up at the ceiling, which is cracked and peeling, and at the rusty smudges in the toilet and tub. The faucet is going drip, drip, drip, so I reach over and turn it off. That helps a little. Now we’re off to the bedrooms. Mine is the smallest in the house and looks even smaller because it’s black. It barely has room for a bed and dresser so I share the hall closet with my mom. I think it’s the coolest room in the house because it looks out over a cobblestone walk and has a poster of Natalie Wood and James Dean in Rebel without a Cause, leaning in close like they’re about to kiss.

  Ray’s room is bigger but he’s older and you know how that goes. Besides it’s not all that big and has clothes and sheet music everywhere. It’s like the rest of the house has little pockets of Ray, and then this is the Ray CENTER, where everything he’s ever worn or touched is all over the place, like it’s been through a Ray Volcano.

  Now Levitt’s in the front room where Nell-mom and Gary Daddy-o sleep. There’s a chair, closet, and foldout sofa, plus a dresser in the corner by the radiator. It’s funny how something can look pretty good until you see it with someone else’s eyes.

  I’m looking at the cream-colored shawl draped over the couch with a row of fringes along the bottom half. It has bright red roses wrapped in green leaves, and when Nell-mom is in a good mood she drapes it around her waist and dances flamenco with Gary Daddy-o. But Levitt doesn’t see the shawl. She’s looking at the worn-out cushions and the spot where Solange threw up on the rug. She pulls out her notebook and scribbles something in it and the way she scribbles makes me want to shiver. I’d hate to read that notebook cover to cover, with all the notes about dirty dishes and rusty toilet bowls. But I know someone is reading it every day.

  She turns to me. “Where is your brother, Ruby?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Do you know, Mrs.—Miss—”

  Levitt walks into the kitchen again, looking at Nell-mom, who still isn’t talking.

  “Mrs.,” I say.

  “Yes. Well—by the way. I meant to ask you—”

  “Excuse me,” Nell-mom says, unfolding her long legs and standing up. Levitt watches her expectantly but Nell-mom won’t eve
n look at her. Instead, she goes into the bathroom, shutting the door.

  “Well,” Levitt says, looking at me.

  “Well what?”

  She folds her arms and stares at the floor. “You know, Ruby, I haven’t been on this job very long. In fact, I only started a few months ago.”

  I feel my heart pounding and remind myself to breathe, nice and easy. “Yeah?”

  “So I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing, you know what I mean? Because I know . . . you love your mom and your mom loves you. I just want—you know it’s my job to be sure you’re safe.”

  “Well, you can see I am,” I say.

  “Really, Ruby? Are you sure?” Her eyes widen as she leans over and touches my cheek, and I can see her hands are shaking. For a split second I think she really cares about me. But instead of making me feel better, it makes me feel worse.

  “Listen,” I say, stepping back and away from Levitt. “I have to take out the garbage.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Levitt says. “Can I help you?”

  I don’t answer and pull the bag out from under the sink. It’s full to overflowing and I have to walk slowly so it doesn’t fall apart. Levitt holds the door open so I can bring it outside and watches me dump it in the can at the bottom of the stairs. I turn back and walk up again, and as she moves back to let me inside the house I feel she’s relaxing a little, and it’s going to be okay.

  And it would have been.

  Because you can’t take someone’s child away just because the house is a mess. But when Nell-mom comes out of the bathroom, Levitt is standing there, and something about the set of her mouth makes my heart start pounding again.

  “How long have you and your husband been together?”

  “What?”

  “I said, how long have you been married?”

  “I don’t know.”