The Wild Boys Read Online Free PDF Page A

of Greenfield. There are so few of them and they are all so distinguished. Well some years ago in Buffalo New York I had written down the address of Abraham L. Greenfield and showed it to a nigra cab driver.”
    “I think you got the wrong number boss.”
    “The address is correct driver.”
    “I still think you got the wrong number boss.”
    “Shut your black face and take me where I want to go.”
    “Yahsuh boss. Here you are boss. Niggertown boss.”
    “And that’s where we were right in Niggertown.”
    “Yes sir. Right in Niggertown sir.”
    “So I get out and knock on the door and an old coon comes to the door with his hat in his hands.”
    “With his hat in his hands sir.”
    “Good evening Massa and God bless you” he says.
    “Is your name Greenfield?” I ask him.
    “Yahsuh boss. Abraham Lincoln Greenfield.”
    “Well it turns out he was one of our old house niggers.”
    “One of your old house niggers sir.”
    “He invited me in and served me a cup of coffee with homemade caramel cake. He wouldn’t sit down just stood there nodding and smiling … The right kind of darky.”
    “The right kind of darky sir.”

And Bury the Bread Deep in a Sty
    Audrey was a thin pale boy his face scarred by festering spiritual wounds. “He looks like a sheep-killing dog,” said a St Louis aristocrat. There was something rotten and unclean about Audrey, an odor of the walking dead. Doormen stopped him when he visited his rich friends. Shopkeepers pushed his change back without a thank you. He spent sleepless nights weeping into his pillow from impotent rage. He read adventure stories and saw himself as a gentleman adventurer like the “Major” … sun helmet, khakis, Webley at the belt a faithful Zulu servant at his side. A dim sad child breathing old pulp magazines. At sixteen he attended an exclusive high school known as The Poindexter Academy where he felt rather like a precarious house nigger.Still he was invited to most of the parties and Mrs Kind-heart made a point of being nice to him.
    At the opening of the academy in September a new boy appeared. Aloof and mysterious where he came from nobody knew. There were rumors of Paris, London, a school in Switzerland. His name was John Hamlin and he stayed with relatives in Portland Place. He drove a magnificent Dusenberg. Audrey, who drove a battered Moon, studied this vast artifact with openmouthed awe, the luxurious leather upholstery, the brass fittings, the wickerwork doors, the huge spotlight with a pistol-grip handle. Audrey wrote: “Clearly he has come a long way travel stained and even the stains unfamiliar, cuff links of a dull metal that seems to absorb light, his red hair touched with gold, large green eyes well apart.”
    The new boy took a liking to Audrey while he turned aside with polished deftness invitations from sons of the rich. This did not endear Audrey to important boys and he found his stories coldly rejected by the school magazine.
    “Morbid” the editor told him. “We want stories that make you go to bed feeling good.”
    It was Friday October 23, 1929 a bright blue day leaves falling, half-moon in the sky. Audrey Carsons walked up Pershing Avenue …
“Simon, aime tu le bruit des pas sur les feuilles mortes
?” … He had read that on one of E. Holdeman Julius’s little Blue Books and meant to use it in the story he was writing. Of course his hero spoke French. At the corner of Pershing and Walton he stopped to watch a squirrel. A dead leaf caught for a moment in Audrey’s ruffled brown hair.
    “Hello Audrey. Like to go for a ride?”
    It was John Hamlin at the wheel of his Dusenberg. He opened the door without waiting for an answer. Hamlin made a wide U-turn and headed West … left on Euclid right on Lindell … Skinker Boulevard City Limits … Clayton … Hamlin looked at his wrist watch.
    “We could make St Joseph for lunch … nice riverside restaurant there serves wine.”
    Audrey is thrilled of course. The autumn