She pushes me toward the playground gate. Go. She picks up Malachy and waddles off. My father’s friend, Mr. MacAdorey, is outside our building. He’s stand- ing at the edge of the sidewalk with his wife, Minnie, looking at a dog lying in the gutter.There is blood all around the dog’s head.It’s the color of the blood from Malachy’s mouth. Malachy has dog blood and the dog has Malachy blood. I  pull  Mr. MacAdorey’s  hand. I  tell  him  Malachy  has  blood  like the dog. Oh, he does, indeed, Francis. Cats have it, too.And Eskimos.All the same blood. Minnie says, Stop that, Dan. Stop confusing the wee fellow. She tells me the poor wee dog was hit by a car and he crawled all the way from the middle of the street before he died.Wanted to come home, the poor wee creature. Mr. MacAdorey says,You’d better go home, Francis. I don’t know what you did to your wee brother, but your mother took him off to the hos- pital. Go home, child. Will Malachy die like the dog, Mr. MacAdorey? Minnie says, He bit his tongue. He won’t die. Why did the dog die? It was his time, Francis. The apartment is empty and I wander between the two rooms,the bed- room and the kitchen.My father is out looking for a job and my mother is at the hospital with Malachy. I wish I had something to eat but there’s nothing in the icebox but cabbage leaves floating in the melted ice. My father said never eat anything floating in water for the rot that might be in it. I fall asleep on my parents’ bed and when my mother shakes me it’s nearly dark.Your little brother is going to sleep a while. Nearly bit his tongue off. Stitches galore. Go into the other room. My father is in the kitchen sipping black tea from his big white enamel mug. He lifts me to his lap. 20