602: For the first . . .
Where Do You Stop? Chapter 16
16
FOR THE FIRST SEVERAL BLOCKS of my ride to Marvin’s, what I saw was familiar, but then I crossed a narrow concrete road and found myself in territory previously unknown to me. The road cut across the grid of streets and avenues at an angle. It was made of rectangular concrete segments joined, or separated, by seams of tar that projected upward a bit above the concrete and made my Superba’s tires thumpa-thump every ten feet or so.
Between the two sides of this road, there was a clear and evident difference. On the northern side there were no tall trees, just some of the scrub oak that had given the place its name and some stunted pine trees with skinny limbs and ragged needles, not much more than shrubs. The housing blocks were rectangular, arranged in a regular grid. There were no exceptions to this grid beyond the slanting line of the concrete road that marked its edge. The houses were similar, and the yards around them were small.
The streets were numbered, not named. This was remarkable to me. I knew that streets in cities were numbered, or at least that some were. I think I had the idea that the streets in cities were numbered because there were too many to name. One could run out of suitable names for streets pretty quickly, but, as Miss Rheingold had pointed out, there was no end of numbers. In the parts of Babbington I knew, the streets had names, and even I was aware of the way their names individualized them. History and anecdotes hovered around them. An aura emanated from their signposts, the invisible equivalent of the comforting aureole surrounding street lamps on a misty night. Everything in the Babbington I knew radiated its past like that. There seemed to be no past to these numbered streets or, by extension, to the whole of Scrub Oaks.
How many dogs did I see? I have a memory of a dog at every house, barking dogs on long tethers. There were no sidewalks. The edges of the yards just sloped into the road. The streets were narrow, paved with tar, and badly paved at that, rippled with little thank-you-ma’ams over which I bounced. I enjoyed that. I remember small children, too young for school, leaning against mailboxes, door frames, fences, and parked cars, one sucking his thumb, another chewing a bit of her dress, another eating a banana, watching with shy eyes while I passed on my Superba. All of these children were black—I would have said “Negro” then—and the fact that they were all black struck me as remarkable and puzzling, but the thought never occurred to me that I was as remarkable and puzzling to them.
There was a swing set in the front yard at Marvin’s house; he’d used it as an identifying feature when he gave me directions. There was a Studebaker in the driveway—a four-year-old Champion two-door sedan. Had they bought it at Babbington Studebaker? They must have. Did Guppa know the Joneses, then? Had he sold their car to them? Had he been here? I used to help Guppa with the research for his Studebaker selling, sometimes filling out the cards he kept on prospects. He considered everyone a prospect. There were many cards for Joneses. Had I filled out a card for Marvin’s family?
I walked my Superba up the driveway, put the kickstand down, and went to the front door. Something good was cooking. I wasn’t sure what, but it smelled good, and it made me hungry.
[to be continued]
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