Free Loser by Jerry Spinelli Page A

from home now. He has a bike, a secondhand yard sale two-wheeler with a junior rattle of its own that reminds him of his father’s car, so he calls it Clinker One. He loves it. He’s allowed to ride it almost anywhere in town, as long as he stays on the sidewalks and walks it across streets. Sometimes he obeys, sometimes not.
    His favorite place to go is the nine hundred block of Willow Street, where he delivered the mail on Take Zinkoff to Work Day when he was seven. The Waiting Man is still there, at the window, staring up the street, his hair longer about the ears, missing more on top. One thing Zinkoff has definitely not outgrown is thinking about the Waiting Man. Sometimes he parks his bike and walks up the street so the Waiting Man will be looking right at him. But even then the WaitingMan doesn’t seem to see him. Sometimes he stands under the window, hoping the Waiting Man will turn his head, at least that. But he never does.
    So fierce is the Waiting Man’s concentration, so endless his patience that Zinkoff half expects the missing-in-action brother to burst into existence one day right there on the sidewalk. Twice, in fact, he dreams that a soldier toting a rifle on his shoulder is walking toward him. The longer the soldier does not really appear, the worse Zinkoff feels for the brother in the window. He cannot believe the world will allow such waiting and wanting to go unrewarded.
    For several excited days he has an idea. He will dress himself in camouflage pants and shirt, pull on some boots and find an old rifle or BB gun somewhere and go walking up Willow Street—just to give the man a moment or two of happiness. But he soon realizes that would be cruel, and he ditches the whole idea.
    Sometimes as he pedals up the nine hundred block the lady with the walker is there on her top step. Whenever she spots him she calls,“Mailman! Oh, mailman!” After a while he always makes sure he has a letter for her, a little note that says “Hi, how are you?” or “I hope you are feeling well.” He’s older now, so his letters don’t have to be nonsense.
    And now there is someone new, a little girl. Her brown hair is always gathered in a puppy tail with a yellow band. Apparently she has only recently learned to walk, because she lurches when she takes a step and her little dumpling knees wobble. She can never get far, however, as she is attached to a leash.
    The leash is a length of clothesline. One end is hooked to a harness which the little girl wears like a strap jacket. Sometimes the other end is tied around an ancient bootscrape, sometimes it’s in the hand of the little girl’s mother, who in warm weather sits on the front steps reading a book.
    â€œI never saw a person with a leash on,” Zinkoff says one day, curiosity drawing him and his bike to the curb. He’s thinking how he would have hated a leash.
    The mother looks up from her book and giveshim a fine smile. “I never did either,” she says. “I lived on a farm and all my mother had to worry about was me being run over by a chicken.”
    Zinkoff laughs. “Does she like it?”
    The mother looks at her daughter. “I don’t think she likes or dislikes it. Yet, anyway. As far as she’s concerned, this is just the way life is. First you crawl, then you get a leash. If she starts to complain, I guess we’ll have to have a chat.”
    â€œShe talks?” says Zinkoff.
    The mother laughs. “About three words. That’s why I win all the arguments. So far.”
    Whenever they are out front, Zinkoff stops his bike to say hello. He finds out that the little girl’s name is Claudia. After a while, Claudia begins to recognize him. She totters out to meet him at the curb, the leash’s limit. She seems to be a giving person. She always reaches down into the gutter and picks up something—a pebble, discarded chewing gum—and holds it out to him.