He found out that she called him Oszkár, which was his real name, the name on his birth certificate, the name nobody had used since he was christened, and that when she said it, it sounded like a name that belonged to somebody.
And by the sixth day he had found out that the big black-haired boy on the patched-up Schwinn rode past the corner of Consaul and Front every single afternoon between three-fifty and four-ten, slow, without stopping, the way a cop drives past a house he's been asked to keep an eye on.
The day after Ossie told Zoli Ferko he was staying, nothing happened, and the day after that nothing happened either, which was in some ways worse. Ossie sat on the bench at five to four with his heart going like a sewing machine. Zoli rode past. He did not stop. He did not look over. Lenny and Spud were not with him. Aunt Yolie came out in her hat and sat down and asked if it was late, and the bus came and Pista was not on it, and Ossie walked her home.
On the third day there was a realtor's sign in the Kertesz front yard.
It was not up yet. It was leaning against the porch, waiting, white with red letters: GLASS CITY REALTY, and a phone number, and a space where the SOLD part would go later. Teri had brought it home from an appointment downtown with a man in a brown suit who said the house would go fast, these old Birmingham places always did, young couples liked the woodwork. She leaned it against the porch rail and said they'd put it up after Labor Day, so as not to upset Yolie before they left.
Ossie looked at it for a long time. Then he went inside and did not say anything.
That evening, when he went out back to take the trash to the alley, Zoli Ferko was sitting on the back fence.
He was just sitting there, on top of the chain link, his sneakers hooked in the diamonds, like he had been there for a while and might be there for a while longer. The light was going orange behind the refinery stacks to the south and the whole sky smelled faintly of sulfur and somebody's grill. Ossie stopped with the trash bag in his hand.
"There's a sign," Zoli said.
"It's not up."
"I saw it. You think I can't read?" Zoli looked at the back of the house, at the kitchen window with its yellow curtains, where Teri was moving around doing dishes. "Your mom's selling it."