Far Beyond the Stars (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) by Steven Barnes

Author:Steven Barnes [Barnes, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 2000-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

16

1940

IT WAS CLOSE TO ELEVEN by the time that Benny Russell returned home from the Fair. Home was a brownstone walk-up, on East 127th Street, one which might have been comfortable were it shared with his mother and father. But one was dead, and the other gone forever. Benny shared it with his mother's sister Ardelia, a good-hearted woman with an unfortunate addiction to the numbers.

Benny staggered through the front door, feeling unexpectedly weary, calling out: "Ardelia?" and hearing no reply. So—his aunt was still at the policy bank, where she made the majority of her income.

Not a bad business, but an addict like Ardelia needed to put some distance between herself and temptation. Almost any money she made counting slips went right back into her bosses' hands. The rent was currently two months late, and the landlord was screaming bloody murder.

Benny hadn't had time or energy to think about that. He collapsed onto the couch and fell almost immediately into a deep and dream-filled slumber.

* * *

Aunt Ardelia was cooking breakfast by the time he awakened, and the smell of bacon and grits filled the apartment. Benny was suddenly and almost overwhelmingly possessed by a ravenous hunger. He rolled clumsily off the couch and thumped onto the floor.

"Ardelia?" he said, pulling his pants on. He hopped his way into the kitchen in time to watch his aunt crack an egg on the side of the skillet.

Ardelia Mathis was a big, brown woman with a generous figure that still resisted gravity admirably. She gave him a big grin and said, "Sit on down, boy, breakfast be up in just a minute. Now, I 'spect you to tell me all about Mr. Bojangles, or you don't even get a bite!"

That sounded like a good deal to him. So in-between huge helpings of steaming grits, eggs so tender they almost melted in his mouth, and bacon that managed to be both crisp and juicy at the same time, he told her all about the fair …

Except for the Dogon exhibit. For some reason, he couldn't quite remember anything connected with it, and barely recalled that he had gone there at all.

She listened and laughed, and pursed her mouth into an "O" at his description of the Futurama, and swore that she was going to get out there, she really should, and that she would have some money soon because she just knew she was about to hit the number. As she put it, "I just saw a cat get her tail caught in a door, and in Professor Kinder's book, that means my number will be 874." She nodded her head as if this datum was as reliable as the Rock of Gibraltar. "Yes it is."

He sighed. "Was it a male or female cat?" he asked dryly.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Was it male or female? Simple question."

She screwed up her face. "Why, I don't know. And why should I?"

"Well, I read the book too, and as I recall—female cats are 874, but male cats are 875.

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