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gave the swing chain such a yank that Palmer was thrown like a bronco rider onto the ground. Arthur Dodds took off, braying, “I’m a wringer, I’m a wringer! I’m gonna get me a pigeon and wring ’im!”
    And he did.
    As Palmer later heard the story, Arthur Dodds made a real nuisance of himself that day. He kept darting onto the field to chase wounded pigeons, only to be chased away himself by the realwringers. Arthur Dodds, like Palmer, was only six years old at the time.
    Finally he got what he wanted. A shot bird, instead of falling onto the soccer field, made it to the picnic area before it came down. Arthur saw and lit out after it. He heard a woman screaming. The bird had fallen right into the pink-fringed stroller where her baby was sleeping.
    By the time Arthur got there, the pigeon was on the ground and being chased around the picnic tables by half a dozen squealing toddlers. Arthur joined the chase. The bird flapped up onto a table. People screamed. Hot dogs flew. Arthur lunged across the table, knocking drinks, smashing pickled eggs, and snatched the pigeon by the legs in a bowl of chicken salad. According to the story, Arthur threw his arms into the air like a boxing champion and crowed, “Got me one!” Then, right before the gaping eyes of the picnickers, he wrung its neck.
    Arthur Dodds wasn’t finished. So proud was he of his dead pigeon that he took it home, wrapped it in newspaper and hid it under his bed. For almost a week he charged kids a quarter apiece for a look. Then his mother started to smellsomething, and pretty soon that was that.
    Palmer smelled something too, something about his father when he would return from Pigeon Days. As often happened, Palmer would wind up in his father’s lap. It was his favorite place in all the world, where he was safe from everything. But on those days he could smell the gray and sour odor of the gunsmoke. The closer he nuzzled into his father’s shirt, the more he could smell it.
    Then he began smelling the gray and sour odor even when his father wasn’t there, even when Pigeon Day was over. It might happen in the morning as he sat in school, or at night as he lay in bed. It could even happen in his father’s lap in the middle of winter, when the shotgun had been locked away for months.
    The smell was sure to come on his birthday. It did not spoil his birthday, as it did not spoil his father’s lap, but it changed those things so they did not feel quite as good as before.
    Other things changed. Arthur Dodds became Beans, and Beans was joined by Billy Natola, who became Mutto, and by a new, very tall boy in town known only as Henry. Palmer wanted to join them,but they said he was too small and too young and that he had a funny first name and that he played with girls, little ones at that.
    Which wasn’t true. The older he got, the less he had to do with Dorothy Gruzik. When he went off to first grade, he left her behind on her front steps, clutching a doll. In second grade he said to the guys, “She’s my neighbor, that’s all. I can’t help that, can I? And anyway, what do I want with a first grader?” But they weren’t listening.
    Palmer invited them to his eighth birthday, but no one came. So his mother stormed across the street and dragged Dorothy to the dining room table, and his mother and father and Dorothy sang “Happy Birthday” to him, and his mother had a big smile but her eyes were red.
    That was the summer that Palmer’s family went on a vacation trip. They stopped in the big city for a day. From the tourist information center they got a map and gave themselves a walking tour of historic places.
    Pigeons were everywhere: sidewalks, ledges, steps. Palmer even saw one crossing a street with a crowd of people on a green light, just another pedestrian. They strutted boldly, those pigeons,going about their business, pecking here, pecking there. They did not seem in the