As Mr. Sills puffed his pipe, looking amused and a little worried, Andy loaded up. After memorizing his first three stops, he tucked his route map in his front pocket, then started running up the street to the house two up from his own, then across the street to hit three houses in a row, and that was it for Rand Street. He hooked right on Ontario, dropping off two more papers, then turned on Argyle with his wrist cocked. A stray cat hissed and scrambled out of his way. An old car belched greasy gray smoke. The ground was clotted with trash, cat shit and crumpled newspapers, shreds of the wax-paper stamp bags that dope came bundled in, even, sometimes, a needle or syringe. There were runners on every corner, some of them no older than he was, keeping their eyes open for customers or cops.
Andy ran down Argyle Street, then two left turns and he was on Malta, and his right-hand bag was empty. He reached into his backpack for another bundle, moved it into his left-hand bag, did Malta Street, then raced back up Ontario to his house. In his head, he heard the voice of Jim McKay, the ABC’s Wide World of Sports announcer. Young Andy Landis is in position to shatter the world record for the mile . . . I’ve never seen anything like this kind of speed and determination. This young man is surely one to watch.
He sprinted across Kensington, where the sidewalks were still mostly empty and the stores still hid behind metal grates. Past the Spanish restaurant with the Dumpster, the one where he’d found the chunk of brick, but they didn’t take a paper, so Andy didn’t have to look. Down Willard. Up Madison. Down Jasper Street to East Hilton, up Kensington again to Allegheny, then Wishart. Even here, where everything was asphalt and concrete, with a damp breeze blowing from the Delaware River. He could smell spring and see patches of green grass growing in the abandoned lots, weeds pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalks, and he felt like he’d found what he was meant to do with his life—to run along streets, throwing the elastic-banded rectangles of newsprint so they landed in the center of the stoops, moving faster than the guys on bikes, faster than the cops cruising by in their cop car. This was the thing he’d been born for, meant for, made for. Sweat streamed down his cheeks; his blood hummed in his veins; his heart beat hard, steady, and strong. He wanted to run forever.
“Easy there!” called Mr. Sills, who was sitting in his truck with the windows open, sipping from a coffee cup, when Andy came back for the last bundle. “Don’t want to give yourself a rupture!”
Andy waved, grinning, and then he was off again, the air warm on his cheeks, past a bunch of girls whose bare legs flashed in their denim shorts, feeling like with every step he was slipping out from underneath something—his fight with Ryan Peterman, who hadn’t spoken to him since what Andy had come to think of as the Day of the Coat; his mother not letting him see his grandparents; the way the lunch ladies would look when they gave him an extra scoop of spaghetti or mashed potatoes; the fact that his Toughskin corduroys were already too short, exposing a few inches of ankle. The way it felt on the playground, where the kids had started splitting into groups, black on one side, white on the other, and Andy wasn’t ever sure where he should be. The way it felt when every other kid at the father-son Sunday-morning Mass and pancake breakfast had a father except him.
Up Allegheny, over on F Street, down Westmoreland, almost bumping into an old guy walking a poodle. “Sorry!” he called over his shoulder, and the guy said, “Watch it, Roger Bannister,” and Andy knew without being told that Roger Bannister was a runner, just like him.
He was almost sorry when he delivered his last paper, on Clearfield Street, near McPherson Square, which was allegedly a park but actually an open-air drug market where his mom had warned him to never ever go. He saw more dope-trash and needles on the street, plastic bags blowing by, bundled-up homeless people lying on the benches or in the round concrete tunnel that was meant for little kids to climb through. He stood with his head down, hands on his knees, sweat pattering onto the pavement, catching his breath, and then he heard a car behind him toot its horn, and it was Mr. Sills in his blue truck. “Come on, Flash,” he said. “How about I treat a working man to breakfast?”
Normally Andy would have just shaken his head. Even though Mr. Sills was allowed in their house—he’d actually been the one who’d found them their new place, a row house in a different part of Kensington, right down the street from where he lived—Andy spoke to him as little as possible. Once, at school, a teacher had asked if he’d be interested in the Big Brother program, where he’d be paired with a man who would take him places, movies and museums, things like that. Andy had said, “No, thank you”—he knew what Lori would have to say about him spending time with, and maybe telling their business to, a stranger. But he thought sometimes that his mom let Mr. Sills hang around to be a kind of Big Brother, a man he was supposed to respect and look up to, a role model, quote-unquote. He didn’t want that, didn’t want some strange man telling him what to do or, worse, acting as if he was Andy’s father, so he was polite to Mr. Sills and never anything more than that.