The following is from the authors story, Joeys Birthday Outing. The reader wont want to miss the ending.

"Where we going, Daddy?"

Joey grips his daddy's big right hand, looks up at his face, and squints in the bright early afternoon sun.

"Where would you like to go, son?" The father leans to his left and spits a dark wad of tobacco juice at the curb. Joey feels his daddy's right hand tug him toward the street. As soon as the missile splatters over the curb and sidewalk, Joey spits at the curb. He cups his right hand over his eyes to block the sunlight and watches his daddy use the stump of his left arm to wipe tobacco juice off his chin.

"I don't know, Daddy." Joey looks down at the red outline of Mickey Mouse on the front of his white polo shirt. His concentration wanders, and he watches a yellow butterfly meander jerkily toward a bush in the parkway.

"Another hot day. Must be at least a hundred and ten again. How does it feel to be six years old today?"

"I don't know." Joey kicks at a small rock, sending it bounding along the sidewalk against the white marble side of the First National Bank building.

The father's stump of his arm whips up and wipes his perspiring forehead. It reminds Joey of a windshield wiper on a car.

"Let's go swimming, Daddy."

"Swimming?"

"Let's go to Riverside Park and go swimming," Joey smiles, remembering the Fourth of July, when his daddy walked him, his brother, and his sister to the Riverside pool. He fondly recalls setting off some firecrackers.

"Why are you walking crooked, Daddy?" Joey looks up into his daddy's face.

"It's the heat." He knows its the four bottles of ale he drank before going to the Sisters Convent to take out his son for his birthday. He tries to halt his weaving and walk straight.

"Howd you lose your arm, Daddy?"

"Playing baseball." He leans his head to the left again to spit. The tobacco juice lands squarely on the sidewalk, splattering beads of dark fluid in all directions. Joey spits again in imitation.

"Howd you hurt your arm playing baseball, Daddy?"

"Ball hit my arm."

"Will it ever grow back?"

"Arms don't grow back."

Joey stretches his neck forward to study the stump.

"Why won't it grow back, Daddy?"

"I don't know. It just won't."

"Where we going, Daddy?"

"The YMCA. We can watch the boys swim."

"Watch the boys swim? Why, Daddy? I want to go swimming at Riverside."

Joey kicks at an RC Cola bottle cap and watches it carom into the street and get flattened under the wheel of a brown pickup truck.

"Riverside is too far. We'll go to the YMCA. It's only a couple more blocks."

"What does YMCA stand for, Daddy?"

"Young Men's Christian Association."

"What does that mean?"

The father stops for a traffic light, still clutching Joey's hand.

"Why aren't you standing still, Daddy?" Joey watches his Daddy's shadow drift about on the sidewalk as they wait for the light to turn green.

His father's only answer is another missile of tobacco juice into the street. It narrowly misses a passing car. Joey spits into the street and holds his breath to avoid breathing in the car's exhaust.

"Are we almost there, Daddy?"

"Just another block."

"Sister Mary John says I'm going to start the first grade in September, Daddy."

"You're getting to be a big boy, Joey."

"Aren't you hot wearing that coat and tie, Daddy?" He feels his daddy's hand lurch to the left and then veer back to the right.

"It keeps me cool. My long-flannel underwear also keeps me cool." The father laughs and sends another shot of tobacco juice toward the curb. Joey's effort lands short.

"How does your long underwear keep you cool when it's so hot?" Joey shades his eyes from the sun with his right hand.

"When I sweat, it moistens the long flannels, and that keeps me cool."

"Doesn't that hat make your head hot, Daddy?"

"It keeps me cool by preventing the sun from hitting the top of my head."

Joey glances up at his daddy's dirty-looking gray hat. He thinks it looks awfully hot. He wouldn't want to wear a hat on a hot day.

The light changes and the father leads Joey across the street. Minutes later they are walking up some concrete steps.

"Is this the YMCA, Daddy?"

"Yes, son."

"I don't want to watch somebody else go swimming, Daddy. I want to go swimming myself."

"You can't swim at the YMCA unless you're a member."

"What does that mean, Daddy?"

"We're not members, so we can't swim here. We can just watch."

Joey feels his father's hand lead him in a weaving path across the lobby. They stop at a desk where a man wearing a cap with a green visor looks down at some papers.

"We want to go up to the pool and watch them swim," the father says.