Africans. Thatâs what I said.â
âWhat did she say?â
âClean the bathroom.â
âShe let you come out, so thatâs okay,â I said.
âYou were talking to the old man?â
âYeah.â
âWhat did he say?â
âHe told me about a dream,â I said.
âI think you take him too serious,â Loren said.
âYeah, maybe.â
Me and Loren walked along the park, and he was talking about the two of us going to the movies later in the week. We both liked the movies and picked four that we wanted to see.
The whole time I was talking to Loren, I was thinking about Mr. Moses and the dream that got away from him. I had never lost a dream like that. I had never really had a dream that was so much a part of me as the old manâs dreams. But I was thinking that there were things that were getting away from me, and people I thought I knew who now werenât so clear. Mr. Moses never asked me anything about myself, but I wondered what he knew.
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âHe can live in the streets for all I care,â Reuben said.
âWell, I donât want him living in the streets,â Mom said. âWhatever heâs doing, heâs my son. And heâs going to be my son for as long as I am alive.â
They were talking about Ty. He hadnât been home for two days. The police hadnât come to the house, so I thought he was okay, but I wasnât sure. Reuben was acting like he didnât care.
I knew my brother, at least I had thought I knew him before he started acting so strange. Now every night I would wake up, turn on the light, and look at his empty bed. I wanted to hear him grunt and pull the cover over his head, the way he did sometimes, or ask me if I wascrazy waking him up in the middle of the night. I wanted him to be the old Ty, acting like he was tired of me hanging around him all the time. The thought of Ty living on the street gave me a nervous feeling inside. But it was almost as if I was the one who wasnât home, instead of him.
Mr. Moses had said that there were no homeless people, just people who werenât in their homes. I liked that, but I didnât know if it made a real difference. I thought Mr. Moses was not in his home, and now Ty wasnât in his.
I heard Mom talking on the phone to Ira. Ira played saxophone when he could find work, and sometimes he taught or drove a cab. Mom told Ira that Ty was running the streets and asked him to give her a call if he saw him.
When Mom was happy, her voice sounded full, like it was coming toward you right from her mouth. But when she wasnât happy, you had to lean forward to hear her. I had to lean forward a lot after Ty left.
âHeâs got a good home, and heâs got a good life,â Reuben said. âIf he donât want to be in it, itâs because heâs just dumb.â
Bum. Come. Dumb. Fum. Gum. Hum. I didnât want to hear Reuben talk like that about Ty.
âHeâs living in a fantasy, a dream world,â Reuben said.
âReuben, the boyâs all right,â Mom said. âTy is agood, decent young man.â
I wondered if Ty was living in a dream world. And if he was living in a dream world, did he know about dreams, like Mr. Moses knew about them? I was beginning to think a lot about the old man. I thought that I could be thinking about him because I didnât want to think about Ty or the little pieces of my life that seemed to go floating around the house. There was a warm feeling to Mr. Moses, a feeling that made me think he liked people a lot, maybe even liked me and Loren. It was good the way he talked to me and called me Mr. David. There were things I didnât know about him. He was probably too old to know good, even if he wasnât hundreds of years old the way he said he was. Him being that old didnât make any sense, but it didnât mess with me, not like Reubenâs not making sense tightened my
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