Boys and Girls Together by William Saroyan Read Free Book Online

more,’ Johnny said.
    â€˜That’s for me.’
    He saw them quickly at the crisp bacon he had given them, and then the boy said, ‘I want some more.’
    â€˜That’s for Papa,’ the girl said.
    â€˜He can make some more. This isn’t Europe.’ He gave the boy some more.
    â€˜You want some more, Rosey?’
    â€˜No, Papa. It’s yours. Johnny’s a bad boy.’
    â€˜O.K. You can have an egg.’
    He broke open an egg and worked the stuff out with a teaspoon into a dish with a little butter in it and set the dish in front of the girl, lifting away her bowl of cereal and eating what was in it, and then eating what was left in the boy’s bowl, too.
    â€˜You’re a garbage can,’ the boy said. He’d gotten that from his mother and he knew the man didn’t mind hearing it whenever he gobbled up their leftovers.
    â€˜It’s good food. Why waste it?’
    He got an egg to the boy, too, and sure enough the going was a little better than it had been for severaldays. They ate all the bacon and all the egg, but hell, there was no use pretending, they weren’t eaters, they just fooled around at it a little three times a day. They didn’t run to it. They looked at it out of the corners of their eyes and never seemed to think much of it.
    The day was a pretty good one, too. It was foggy, of course, as it almost always is in San Francisco, especially out where they were, so near the ocean, but the sun was sending light and heat through the mist, and they could have themselves a time in the yard.
    They went down again and he fetched the morning paper from just inside the metal gate on the sidewalk that locked in the exposed stairway, and then he poured himself a cup of coffee and began to look at the day’s news.
    The boy was the first to come up.
    â€˜Number two,’ he said.
    The man didn’t say anything and the boy went along, singing,
Just a love mess
, which was his version of
Love Nest
.
    The girl was up before the boy had finished.
    â€˜Is it Rosey?’ the boy called out from the bathroom.
    â€˜Yes, Johnny,’ the girl said.
    â€˜What do you want?’
    â€˜Number one or number two?’ the man said to the girl.
    â€˜Three.’
    â€˜O.K. Wait till Johnny gets out of there.’
    Of course the girl didn’t wait, because all she wantedwas to be in there, too, to be near him, to make him angry by getting the glass and filling it with water.
    They were back in the yard again after ten minutes of quiet fighting in the bathroom, and then it was the girl again.
    â€˜When is Mama getting up?’
    â€˜Pretty soon. Go downstairs and play.’
    â€˜All right, Papa,’ but she didn’t go, she sat down in her small chair at the small table and put part of the morning paper that had fallen to the floor on the table in front of her and looked at it.
    Around ten his wife ran naked to the bathroom. On her way back when she saw him in the living-room, standing beside the small piano looking at a book, she waited until he looked up from the book. Then, she lifted her arms, half stretching and half teasing.
    â€˜Get dressed, will you? I’ve got to go upstairs and get to work.’
    â€˜O.K. I’ll only be a minute. You were sweet last night. I mean, the second time when I felt so bad. Do you love me?’
    â€˜If I don’t, we’d better try to find out what it is that’s knocking the hell out of me. I can’t write any more. I don’t even like the
idea
of writing. I can’t read, either. I think all writing stinks.’
    The woman went to the man and wrapped her arms around him, but the man went right on reading.
    â€˜You know what?’ she whispered in his ear. ‘The first one was the best, though. It was the best ever.’
    â€˜Sure it was. Now, will you get dressed? I’ve got to get going.’
    The woman clutched him to confirm what didn’t need to be