Arriving at his uncle’s house, Joey was annoyed to discover that no one had bothered to get the shelving materials. “How do you expect me to build them for you, when there’s no brackets or wood?”
“We thought you’d have all that kind of thing,” his mother said.
Looking down at her from his position standing on a chair, measuring tape in hand, he asked, “Ma, I ride a motorbike. Where the he…um, heck would I put the stuff?”
“Joey!” his mother said, nodding in Simon’s direction. “Young ears. Anyway I don’t know why you have to ride that bike. It’s so dangerous. I can’t sleep at night with the worry that you’ll end up in a road accident or something. Oy, every time I hear an ambulance going past…” She put a hand to her chest and sighed.
Joey had heard the speech many times before; he knew
