"Charlie! Charlie!...fat head barley!" Children circle around him laughing and teasing him like little dogs snapping at his feet.
Charlie smiles at them. He would like to put down his bundle and play games with them,
but when he thinks about it the skin on his back twitches and he feels the way the older boys throw things at him.
Coming back to the bakery he sees some boys standing in the door of a dark hallway.
"Hey look, there's Charlie!" "Hey, Charlie. What you got there? Want to shoot some craps?" "C'mere. We won't hurtya."
But there is something about the doorway—the dark hall, the laughing, that makes his skin twitch again.
He tries to know what it is but all he can remember is their dirt and piss all over his clothes,
and Uncle Herman shouting when he came home all covered with filth,
and how Uncle Herman ran out with a hammer in his hand to find the boys who did that to him.
Charlie backs away from the boys laughing in the hallway, drops the bundle.
Picks it up again and runs the rest of the way to the bakery.
"What took you so long, Charlie?" shouts Gimpy from the doorway to the back of the bakery.
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