Dreams from Bunker Hill Read Online Free PDF Page A

because she was certain her husband would never permit it, but she urged me to come often to the Follies to watch her perform. She loved my letter. She was deeply moved by it. She would treasure it always.
    I unfolded the letter and pressed it to my face, breathing the fragrance of her gardenias. I pressed my lips into it and gurgled gratefully. Da, da, da I murmured. Oh Ginger Britton, how I love you! Da da da.
    I was in the first row of the Follies Theater when the curtain rose for the burlesque show. She entered the stage with the full cast and I sank gratefully into my seat. I had come with plans: to whisper to her, to wave, to toss her a kiss, but as I looked around, every face was the face of her husband, and I lost courage. Then I looked up at her face. She was smiling down at me. She recognized me. I knew that she recognized me, and there was an intimacy about her smile that thrilled me, and I waved two or three fingers in a cowardly acknowledgment. Then she entered her specialty routine, twirling midstage, then bending backward to look at the audience between her legs, and from that position she turned her face to me and smiled emphatically. I looked about nervously. The customers ignored me except a man two aisles back, a black man, rugged, tough, unsmiling, staring straight at me. I sensed trouble, got up and walked out. The black man was either her husband or another fan who had written her.

Chapter Five
    On the way back to Bunker Hill I went through Pershing Square. It was a warm night and the park was brilliant beneath the street lamps. People sat on park benches enjoying the cool tranquillity after a hot day. In the center of the square was a park bench occupied by chess players. There were four players on either side of the long table, each with a chessboard in front of him. They were playing rapid transit chess—eight players matching their skills against one man, an old man, a raucous, insolent, brilliant man in shirt sleeves, dancing about as he moved from player to player, making a chess move, delivering an insult, then moving on to the next player. In a matter of minutes he had checkmated all eight of his opponents and snatched up a bet of twenty-five cents for his victory. As the disgruntled players moved away, the old man, whose name was Mose Moss, shouted out,
    “Who’s next? Who thinks he’s a great chess player? I’ll beat any man here, any two men, any ten men.” He whirled and looked at me.
    “What are you standing there for?” he shouted. “Who the hell do you think you are? You got two bits? Sit down, and put it up, you smart-ass kid. I’ll beat your britches off!”
    I turned away.
    “That’s it!” he sneered. “You fucking coward! I knew you was yellow the minute I laid eyes on you!”
    By now another group of chess players had taken seats around the long table. There were seven of them. I had not played chess in two years, but I had been a good chess playerat Colorado, and had even won a tournament at the chess club. I knew I could hold my own against this garrulous, insulting old bastard, but I didn’t know if I could win against his scatological attack. He slapped me on the back.
    “Sit down, sonny. Learn something about chess.”
    That did it. I dug a quarter from my pocket, slapped it on the table, and sat down.
    He beat me and the others in ten moves. We, the victims, rose from the table as he gathered up the quarters and jingled them in his pocket.
    “Is it over?” he asked. “Have I won again?”
    I dug out another quarter, but the other players had had enough. Mose Moss sat across from me and we began to play. He lit a cigarette.
    “Who taught you this game, kid? Your mother?”
    “Your move,” I said. “You sonofabitch!”
    “Now you’re sounding like real chess player,” he said, moving a pawn. He beat me in twelve moves. I plumped down another quarter. He beat me again quickly, decisively. There was no way I could defeat this old man. Then he began to toy