that shine with a fearful phosphorescence, across the backs of their leather jackets. The steep street is within their ugly estate, a bit of their “turf,” as they term it; an infinitesimal bit, for the Cobras, a powerful cabala, cast owning eyes on acres of metropolitan terrain. I am not brave—au contraire; quite frankly, these fellows, may they be twelve years old or twenty, set my heart thumping like a sinner’s at Sunday meeting. Nevertheless, when it has been a matter of convenience to pass through this section of their domain, I’ve compelled my nerves to accept the challenge.

On the last venture, and perhaps it will remain the last, I was carrying a good camera. The sun was unseen in a sky that ought to either rumble or rain. Rackety children played skip-rope, while a lamppost-lot of idle elders looked on, dull-faced and drooping: a denim-painted, cowboy-booted gathering of Cobras. Their eyes, their asleep sick insolent eyes, swerved on me as I climbed the street.

I crossed to the opposite curb; then knew, without needing to verify it, that the Cobras had uncoiled and were sliding toward me. I heard them whistling; and the children hushed, the skip-rope ceased swishing. Someone—a pimpled purple-birthmark bandit-masked the lower half of his face—said, “Hey yuh, Whitey, lemmeseeduhcamra.” Quicken one’s step? Pretend not to hear? But every alternative seemed explosive. “Hey, Whitey, hey yuh, take-muhpitchawantcha?”

Thunder salvaged the moment. Thunder that rolled, crashed down the street like a truck out of control. We all looked up, a sky ripe for storm stared back. I shouted, “Rain! Rain!” and ran. Ran for the Heights, that safe citadel, that bourgeois bastion.

Tore along the Esplanade—where the nice young mothers were racing their carriages against the coming disaster. Caught my breath under the thrashing leaves of troubled elms, rushed on: saw the flower-wagon man struggling with his thunder-frightened horse. Saw, twenty yards ahead, then ten, five, then none, the yellow house on Willow Street. Home! And happy to be.

1959

The End