He rejoined his handsome, quiet crowd at the counter; in a moment they were talking busily about elliptic functions and Fourier series. Mr. Edel slunk from the place knowing that there was only one court of appeal.
3379 Seneca Avenue turned out to be a shocking slum tenement back of a municipal bus garage. The apartment, Mr. Edel thought,
after his initial surprise, would be one of those “hideaways”— probably a whole floor run together, equipped with its own heating and air-conditioning, plumbing replaced . . . after all, would Foster Senior give a damn about a fancy address? Not that engineer.
But the Foster apartment, or so said a card tacked to a rust-stiffened bell-pull, was only one of a dozen like it on the cabbage-reeking fifth floor. And the paunchy, unshaven, undershirted man who came to the door and stood reeling in the doorway said: “Yah, I’m Ole Foster. Yah, I got a boy in Nixon High. What the crazy kid do now? He’s crazy, that kid. Maybe I get a little drunk sometime, I got a little pension from I hurt my back driving the buses, people don’t appreciate, don’t realize. You wanna drink? What you say you come for?”
“About your son . . .”
“So I beat him up!” the man yelled, suddenly belligerent. “Ain’t I his father? He talks smart to me, I got a right to beat him some, ain’t I? People don’t appreciate . . .”
Old Foster lost interest and, mumbling, closed the door.
Mr. Edel walked slowly down the stairs, not able to forgive, but feeling at least the beginnings of eventual ease from the knowledge of why he was being destroyed.