Place in the City Read Online Free PDF Page A

that.
    â€œThere’ll be a pile of snow in the morning,” Shutzey remarked. Then he looked at his hand, wiped it impatiently on his coat, and drew on a pair of yellow pigskin gloves.
    â€œTo cover the dirt,” the priest said.
    â€œIf yu look that way, Jack.”
    â€œI look straight ahead.”
    â€œAwright—if yu can. Funny though, I like tu stand in the snow like this, stand and feel cold air. Now what the hell’s got me, huh?”
    â€œYou tell me, Shutzey.”
    â€œAhdunno.”
    â€œYou’re not afraid—?”
    Laughing, Shutzey blew out smoke, while frost from his nostrils steamed over his collar. Behind the glow of his cigar, the hard blue outlines of his face stood sharp.
    â€œListen,” he said. “I ain’t afraid, Jack; I ain’t cut that way. I’m in a tough racket, an’ I don’t pack no gat. Aw—wot the hell—”
    â€œWhat’s eating you?”
    â€œLet it ride. You don’t gimme no religion.”
    â€œNo—you’re a Godless man, Shutzey, and a bad one. But I like you.”
    â€œWhy? You goin’ tu reform me?” Shutzey grinned.
    â€œNo—”
    â€œMaybe I’m all bad. All of anything’s nice tu know.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYer a godamn funny priest. Maybe all yer life without a piece. How the hell do yu do it?”
    â€œLike standing in the snow—”
    â€œAwright—I got enough. You go in an’ see the girls, Jack. They been asking about you. Only remember they’re whores. Yu can’t make a nun outa whores.” Shutzey grinned and walked away. He walked like the priest, strong legs and solid on the ground.

I F THE night, the twilight and the snow, had made something of other men, then Shutzey saw it, too. There is a mystery in New York, and no two nights are ever the same.
    He walked aimlessly toward the corner, and out of habit he went into Meyer’s cigar store. Meyer wasn’t there, but the girl was behind the counter, and when Shutzey came in, she stared at him in a way that he understood.
    Then, strangely, his thoughts took an abrupt turn to the priest, and he was saying to himself, “Geesus, Jack, how the hell do yu do it?”
    There was once another girl, and they both wanted her. She was eleven years old, dark, and really very beautiful; but where Jack worshiped her, Shutzey knew his way around. That was a long time back, but now Shutzey thought of it.
    Shutzey knew what cellars were for. One day, in Heckel’s Stationery Store—this long time back—he bought a ring for ten cents. He asked her to walk, and they walked all the way to the river and back.
    â€œWid me,” Shutzey had told her, “you don’t gotta be afraid.”
    â€œI ain’t.” Her name was Alice, and if it was not forgotten, perhaps Shutzey still thought of it as a beautiful name, if he thought of the name in that way at all.
    â€œI kin lick anything.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah. ’At’s why yu kin walk wid me—wherever yu wanna.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI’m pretty strong, ain’t I?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œFeel ’at.”
    â€œIt’s hard, ain’t it?” she said.
    â€œYeah, lemme feel yu muscle.”
    â€œNo—”
    â€œYu lemme take yu someplace, an’ I’ll show yu sumpen.”
    â€œWhere?”
    When he led her to the cellar, she smiled at him in a curiously knowing way, but shook her head. Thinking of it now, Shutzey smiled; the girl behind the cigar counter thought he was smiling at her, and she smiled back at him. But the past still lingered, and staring at the girl behind the counter, Shutzey said: “Gimme La Primadora, dime size.”
    He remembered that finally he had lost his temper, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and said: “God dammit, I’ll show yu,” and even then she wasn’t afraid. She only looked at him,