I felt a little better as I went back through the front doorway. I said, “Ma, I saw a cockroach. And do you know what was peculiar about it?”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I told her. “That’s the peculiar thing, there was nothing peculiar. Here the ostriches wear hats and the birds have propellers and the streets go nowhere and the houses haven’t any backs to them, but that cockroach didn’t even have feathers.”
“Are you sure?” Ellen wanted to know.
“Sure I’m sure. Let’s take the next rise and see what’s over it.”
We went, and we saw. Down in between that hill and the next, the road took another sharp turn and facing us was the front view of a tent with a big banner that said, “Penny Arcade.”
This time I didn’t even break stride. I said, “They copied that banner from the show Sam Heideman used to have. Remember Sam, and the good old days, Ma?”
“That drunken no-good,” Ma said.
“Why, Ma, you liked him too.”
“Yes, and I liked you too, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t or he isn’t—”