Kid and his face looked a little more crooked than usual. I thought I saw his knees buckle, but I guess it was my imagination. Well, I wasn't going to let them get away with it and I ran over to this Max to get my Willys back and call off the bout. Well, he just brushed me off and told me that if there was no bout he was going to keep the Willys. I wanted to tie into him right there but I counted the carnies and remembered my glass jaw and decided to think it over. Back in the corner, the Kid told me not to worry as he'd sized up the Kangaroo and decided that he couldn't be too tough as his arms were too short. Besides, he said all he had to do was go three rounds with the beast and we'd have our Willys and a thousand dollars in our boot. Well, I looked at Sidney, and he didn't look so hot to me either and besides he was our only hope. They'd dressed him up in a pair of yellow satin trunks and put a pair of oversized gloves on his tiny arms. Why them arms couldn't be more than fifteen inches long and were about as big as a girl's I'd known back in Sioux City. I even thought I could see the critter smile as they helped him into the ring. Well, I got to feeling pretty confident but still told the Kid to stay away from him and not get hurt. The Kid said sure and the bell rang for the first round. Sidney just stood there and looked at the Kid as he danced around the ring. He didn't seem to have too much fight in him. "Low-cut" started to yellin' and the Kid started showin' off a little. The lights shined down on the Kid as he danced' and the sweat covered the bulging muscles in his arms. It was beautiful. The kangaroo hadn't laid a glove on him and, as the bell sounded, I started to relax a little. The Kid was breathin' pretty hard when he sat down in the comer, but he told me he thought he could knock the kangaroo out if he want- ed to. All the time he's lookin' over at "Low-cut" who's smiling and waving back at the Kid. I told him to be careful and not take any chances but he said he was going to end it all and get on to Sparks for tomorrow's fight. I splashed cold water on his face and begged him not to make things any worse than they were. I figured if that guy named Max wanted to he'd keep the thousand and the Willys and leave the Kid and me with nothing, what with all them carnies to back him up. Well, I begged the Kid not to hurt Sidney and to leave well enough alone, but he said he was going to give the crowd a look at some real fighting. So, when the bell started the second round I was more or less afraid to look 'cause I didn't figure we could win anyway. The second round got pretty wild when the Kid landed a haymaker on Sidney's nose. You know, Sidney just stood there helpless for a minute, them little paws with the oversize gloves on 'em just more or less hanging there. I honest-to-pete think the Kid dazed him. And the second punch the Kid landed would've stopped Marciano. I mean right up from the floor. Well, Sidney looked at the Kid and blinked a little. It's hard to know what kangaroos think but for a while there in the second round, I felt a little sorry for Sidney. The Kid had never seen a kangaroo before and I guess I can't blame him for wantin' to tear Sidney's head off, what with that thousand dollars at stake. The next thing I know the bell is ringing and the second round is over. I thought it went by pretty fast but I'd left my watch in Omaha and couldn't have proved nothing. The crowd was yelling and stamping their feet and "Low-cut" was blowing kisses at the Kid. He strutted out into the ring and raised his arms in victory. He then stoops down through the ropes and "Low-cut" gives him another big kiss on the mouth. The Kid looked pretty good out there; then he dances over and tells me he can do it this round. I was scared to tell him to go ahead and all I could do was give him a drink and tell him to be careful. The bell rang and the Kid spit out his mouthpiece and told me he wouldn't need it. Sidney came hopping out and stood there like he wanted to kiss the Kid or something. Well, the Kid really lambasted Sidney and I guess that was our undoing. Kangaroos can take just so much and when Sidney got hit that last time I reckon he just figured it was time to quit getting the worst of it. The Kid was dancin' around, waving to them broads, and the crowd was yelling for blood. Like I said, I don't know what kangaroos think but old Sidney let the Kid get in close just like he was gonna let the Kid hit him again. Well, Sidney reared back and stood balanced on his tail for a moment. Kind of strange, the kangaroo standing on its tail. I guess the Kid was even a little curious. It looked like if the Kid could hit him now he sure as hell would go down. Well, what old Sidney lacked in arms he made up for in feet. Them feet was as long as those of an old-maid school teacher I used to have. Sidney gave the Kid a quick one-two with his feet and the Kid spun around, his deep-set eyes looking out at somethin' heavenly. His face was frozen in a half-smile that made his crooked features seem unreal. Then the handsome features of his face collapsed and he hit the canvas. Sidney started to hop around the ring, snortin' a little, and them carnies were laughin' and carrying on. The Kid woke up about midnight and after I got him in shape we set out for Sparks on foot. As we walked the Kid tried to laugh it off but we both ended up blubbering to each other. About a half-mile down the road, already soaked with sweat from the hot desert air and with tear-streaked faces, we just about got run off the road by the '38 Willys Overland with this Max and his two giggling dames in it. The Kid promised me he'd never fight another kangaroo and I promised I'd never let him. 14 YESTERDAY'S GHOST YESTERDAY'S GHOST YESTERDAY'S GHOST YESTERDAY'S GHOST By KIT LINFORD They drove past the old stone house many times in the years after they moved away. Each time, Aunt Grace wanted to stop. She wanted to wander through the rooms and remember. Chiri tried to be patient with the old woman. Aunt Grace couldn't go into the house. It belonged to somebody else now. Other people lived there. "They wouldn't care," Aunt Grace would insist petulantly. "Not if I explained who I am and why I want to go through it again." Maybe, Chiri thought, and maybe not. Strangers might not understand. In the long ago, the weathered house had belonged to Chiri's grandparents, Aunt Grace's father and mother. The years had dealt harder blows to the house, if possible, than they had to the family. It was hidden a full lot's length back, away from the street. Front buildings and pathside trees had softened its lines, lending it a mellow dignity, but a few years before, the domineering red brick buildings on each side were torn down. Chiri realized with a pang how ugly and square the house was. "My law," Aunt Grace said huffily, "They might at least have left the trees. The house looks right undressed and sort of like a an upended two-pound cracker box that some child's been coloring gray." For a time Aunt Grace didn't mention going back to the house, until the altered appearance of it no longer seemed strange to her. As a child, Chiri's skipping feet clattered the loosened boards on a long narrow walk that led to the ground-level wooden porch somebody had tacked onto the house as an afterthought. It was a little porch, with two rough-hewn front pillars that held up the slanted roof. As a woman, Chiri saw the walk become concrete, a stiff white stripe that pointed the way to a new-white cement porch. Aunt Grace didn't like the cold whiteness that replaced the mellowed brown and gray wood slats, but by then her people were long gone from the house. Nobody would care whether she liked it or not. A loud "FOR SALE" sign appeared at the front of the lot. It obstructed the former naked view of the worn-out building behind it. It wasn't a house that would attract much attention any more, anyway. The sign screeched in obtrusive red and black letters that the property was now "zoned commercial" thanks to the freeway that would soon lie in front of it, no doubt. All along the former tree-shaded street, things and places Chiri and Aunt Grace knew in the past were ripped out with near heedless abandon. Chiri couldn't remember the clanging old streetcars, but Aunt Grace mourned them. They were the first to go. Other familiar landmarks disappeared under the plodding feet of progress. Shiny gas stations, smelly hamburger stands, and noisy car lots buried old homes and little corner stores in a soon-to-be-forgotten era. Whatever time was left for the old house they loved could be counted in weeks, or perhaps months at the most. Even Chiri left something akin to the pull of her childhood, all mixed up with memories of people she loved and who were gone. Aunt Grace fed the nostalgia unmercifully. She chattered incessantly about the old house, talked constantly about going back to visit it. In her old age, she was growing forgetful, and would repeat the same strain over and over again until Chiri's nerves were ragged. To Chiri, going back to the house would seem like stirring up a sleeping ghost. True, there had been lots of living done in the house, but there'd been lots of dying done there too. And sometimes it was the dying she remembered most poignantly. The dying, and the births, and the hard times. During the miserable depression and war years hidden in the baby-days of Chiri's memory, the house groaned with people. Whenever Grandma and Grandpa's children were hard hit by hard times, they went home to their parents, bringing with them an assortment of wives, husbands, and their own children. The big old house seemed to stretch rooms and expand walls to make room for the influx. 15