Mr. Kelvin Walrus, age 45

Mexican born, Jose Ramirez, sneaked across US border at 10, changed his name. He is a traveling “preacher,” who shakes a tambourine and wears a sombrero but no shoes. He is itinerant and just moves across the USA.

Mickey Woods, age 16

The girl’s breath is like petrified blackboard erasers and her smiles curdle like old cheese. She won’t look you in the eye—only in the jaw. She’s calculating the force would take to knock your teeth out. Her sneakers kick restlessly and she counts tiles on the floor. She is fat and wears bellbottoms. The last time she tried giving herself a home permanent, she let poison fumes into the neighborhood. She wants to send her little sister to Antarctica, her big sister to China, her big brother to Saudi Arabia, her parents to Scotland. And the kids at her school—don’t get started on them. Only Mr. Walrus, the boarder, knows her festering secrets and that she isn’t really a bad girl at heart. It isn’t privacy she wants, or food or water or money or fame. To look into the world through Mr. Walrus’s glasses, and walk the streets with Mr. Walrus’s bare feet, those are all her heart desires.

“That’s final,” Mickey Woods informed her parents. “I’m not going back to school this year. And Jennifer’s not going, either.”

“Now be sensible,” Mrs. Woods said for the hundredth time. “All kids go to school. They don’t just drop out when they don’t feel like it. You start on the glorious path of education, and you finish strong. You don’t think of backing out. Why, you just have to—”

“Well, what happens if I don’t start at Roxbury High instead of South Boston? You gonna send the truancy officers?”

“You have to get an education. Everyone has to get an education,” insisted Mrs. Woods.

Mickey chewed a strand of long black hair and rolled her eyes. “I guess you can send me to juvie, then. But trust me, all my friends say they’re not going back. Everyone’s striking this year and for good reason, I can see!”

“Now, Mickey, that’s no way to talk!” cried her exasperated mother. “Just because someone looks different, you treat them like they don’t deserve to be your friend. You are the most intolerant girl. Haven’t I fed you on books and newspapers about civil rights since you could talk? Now get that smart-girl look off your face and listen to your mother!”

“Yeah, Ma,” Mickey grumbled.

She lit another cigarette and turned off the TV. “Mr. Walrus, did you ever have a girl you thought you’d marry?”

The silent man’s face got chalky white. “Well—now—that’s a mighty personal question. I reckon I did.”

“Why didn’t you marry her?”

“Ah, that would take a hundred years to answer. Clarabelle Rorez was her name, and she swallowed poison for circuses down in Guatemala.”

“Where’s Clarabelle now?”

Mr. Walrus looked so pained that Mickey felt anguish, also.

“A man killed her in the middle of a performance. I ran to save her life, he got to her first.”

Those scars. Mickey stared at them longer than was polite.

What should she say? “I’m sorry. That’s so sad,” was meaningless. That’s what everyone said.

“You should’ve knocked that man’s teeth out,” she said, bitterly.

Mr. Walrus shook his head sadly. “Peace on earth and goodwill to all men.”

“Why don’t you ever wear shoes?” Mickey demanded suddenly.

But Mr. Walrus had heard enough. He hobbled to the door and disappeared and didn’t come back all night.