145th Street by Walter Dean Myers

your whole thing going on in front of you. I know it’s not like it was but you’re still young.”
    “Who?” Mack spoke without moving.
    At first his father just looked at him, not knowing what his son was getting at. “What you mean who?” his father asked.
    “Who are you talking to?”
    “I’m talking to you, son,” his father said.
    “I’m not your son,” Mack said. “Your son was a ballplayer, wasn’t he? He didn’t have no missing parts, did he?”
    “You’re hurt, but . . .” His father’s voice trailed off. The pain sat between them even as the rain beat down harder, releasing the stench of dog urine from the cracks in the roof.
    The policemen told Mack’s parents that they could either try to pull him down or leave and see if he could be talked down. Mack’s father said he’d stay with him and try to talk him down.
    It was almost dawn when Mack, shaking with cold and the rage of frustration, finally got up and walked to the stairwell. Kitty was sitting on the stairs, a blanket around her shoulders. Mack stopped for a moment and Kitty took his hand. It was trembling as she put it against her face. Without speaking he pulled it away, and, leaning against the sagging banister, went down the stairs.
    “He’s not going to last,” Kitty’s grandfather said later. “The boy has lost his will to live.”
    The first week of February was as cold as it could be in the city without completely freezing over. There was a heavy snow on the weekend that blanketed the block in a crisp white silence. Neon signs that seemed good-humored and inviting during warm weather turned cool and distant.
    Old men and women walked carefully along the slick sidewalks. Younger people leaned into the wind that swirled along the edges of the buildings. In the mornings there were flurries of young mothers taking their bundled children to old mothers who would care for them during the day.
    Mentions of Mack had grown fewer and fewer until the morning Kitty showed up at nine o’clock at Duke’s Barbershop.
    “Why aren’t you in school?” Duke asked.
    “I decided to stay home from now on and take care of Mack,” Kitty said.
    “That’s kind of rough, isn’t it?” Duke said. “You know how important school is.”
    “Not that rough,” Kitty said. “I can handle it. When things get right I’ll go back.”
    “Kitty . . .” Duke took his granddaughter by the hand and led her to one of the barber chairs. He sat her down and took both her hands in his. “Honey, life goes on even when some of us decide to stop and rest along the way. Mack’s young, but he’s a man, and he’s made a decision about his life. If he doesn’t want help you can’t give it to him.”
    “Then why am I going to school?” Kitty asked. “What can I study that’s so important that I’m supposed to leave people who need me?”
    “Girl, you’re smart enough to know everything your grandfather is going to say,” Duke said. “I’ll call his dad and see if he’ll let you come up and see him. From what I heard he’s not eating or anything. But if he won’t see you I think you should go on back to school.”
    “I’m not going to see him,” Kitty answered. “I’m just going to let him know I’m here to take care of him.”
    “You what?” Duke sat down in the other chair. The door opened and Duke told the customer that he was closed.
    Of course everybody on the block soon knew that Kitty was staying home from school. After all the talk about how smart she was there was a lot of surprise and some people were saying that maybe she wasn’t as smart as people thought.
    “You don’t give up your education for some guy who won’t even talk to you,” Peaches said. “And she didn’t go up to his house or nothing. She just put a letter in the window of Duke’s place saying that she was going to be there and waiting for Mack to come to see her.”
    The letter was printed on big cardboard. It wasn’t anything fancy,