“What do you suppose he is? He might be something very rare! How’m I going to find out? You think we ought to go back and ask one of the zoo men?”
“Umm, nah,” I say, chewing. “Probably find him in the encyclopedia.”
Ben squats on a log, and the log rolls. As he falls over backward I see two more lizards scuttle away. I grab one. “Hey, look! I got another. This one’s bigger and browner.”
Ben is up and dancing again. “Oh, boy, oh, boy! Now I got two! Now they’ll be happy! Maybe they’ll have babies, huh?”
He overlooks the fact that I caught this one. Oh, well, I don’t want a lizard, anyway. Cat’d probably eat it.
Ben takes it from me and slips it in the lunchbox. “I’m going to call this one Big Brownie.”
Finally he calms down enough to eat lunch, taking peeks at his catch between mouthfuls. As soon as he’s finished eating, he starts hustling to get home so he can make a house for them. He really acts like a kid.
We get on the subway. It’s aboveground—elevated—up here in the Bronx. After a while I see Yankee Stadium off to one side, which is funny because I don’t remember seeing it when we were coming up. Pretty soon the train goes underground. I remember then. Coming up, we changed trains once. Ben has his eye glued to the edge of the lunchbox and he’s talking to Redskin, so I figure there’s no use consulting him. I’ll just wait and see where this train seems to come out. It’s got to go downtown. We go past something called Lenox Avenue, which I think is in Harlem, then Ninety-sixth Street, and then we’re at Columbus Circle.
“Hey, Ben, we’re on the West Side subway,” I say.
“Yeah?” He takes a bored look out the window.