Wally stopped. He thought about crossing the street for a long time, standing there in the snow.
Then he went and sat on the other end of the bench.
Russ didn't look at him. His sweatshirt was getting wet on the shoulders. He had his hands jammed into the front pocket and his face was red, and Wally didn't know if it was from the cold.
"He's not coming out," Russ said, after a while. "He's gonna sit at the bar till close. He does that when they lose."
"Oh."
"It's fine. I got a key."
"How far is it?"
"Kinnickinnic and Russell. It's like a mile." Russ wiped his nose on his sleeve. "It's fine."
Wally sat there. The snow came down. A Number Fifteen bus went by and didn't stop, because nobody waved it down, and threw slush across the curb.
"I live on Ward Street," Wally said. "It's sort of on the way."
Russ looked at him then, for the first time, a long suspicious look.
"So we could walk," Wally said. "If you want. Or not."
They walked. They didn't say much. Wally took off his scarf at the corner of Kinnickinnic and handed it over, and Russ looked at it for a second like it might be a trick, and then put it on, and they kept going. It was a red and white scarf that Busia had knitted, with a Polish eagle on each end, and it looked ridiculous with Russ's sweatshirt, and Russ didn't say anything about that, which told Wally more than anything else had about how cold he was.
The Kubiaks lived over a shoe repair shop that had gone out of business. There was a plywood sign in the shop window that said FOR LEASE and a staircase on the side of the building with an outdoor light that didn't work. Up at the top, through the window, Wally could see the blue flicker of a TV left on.