Page 44 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

in bed”, “NO sitting on cars”, “NO staying late after school”,
“NO coming in the house before 5 o’ clock”.”

Those were the days when families stayed together NO
matter what. Divorce was unheard of. So to make sure chil-
dren didn’t provoke their parents any more than necessary,
there were lots of rules, plenty of “no’s”.

Harry’s apartment was different from the ones the other
kids lived in. They had to climb stairs to their apartments.
Harry lived in a ground floor walk-up, with its own private
entrance, three steps from the street. Inside, there was a hall-
way with three more steps and then another door into the
apartment. There was a narrow stoop outside that was used
for sitting or playing curb ball. Sometimes in summer, Harry
suspended a blanket over the edges of the stoop to make a tent.
In rainy weather, he and his friends set up a card table in the
hallway and played Monopoly.
Those were the days when the milkman left three quarts
of milk outside the front door every other day. Hardly any-
one locked their doors. Sometimes, especially at dinnertime,
people mistook Harry’s apartment for the dentist’s office next
door. Patients would walk right into the kitchen while they
were eating dinner. Once, their dog — a mean old fox terrier
mutt — flew into a frenzy and bit one of the intruders on
the ankle. The incident was reported to the authorities and
the dog was taken away. Harry’s parents had to pay a fine to
get the dog back. They were told if the dog bit anyone again
she would be taken away and destroyed, which Harry thought
wasn’t very fair since the dog bit everyone, even family mem-
bers, and anyway, she was just doing her job.

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