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"We're just trying to help."

"I don't want your help," I said.

The car began to back toward me, the boy walking along with the door open. I turned and walked faster in the direction from which I had come.

"Hey, where you going? That ain't polite," the boy cried after me.

I heard the car's tires squeal and the door close as the car spun around. I looked back and saw they were going to pursue me. I broke into a run, but I was unsure of where to go. Every side street looked darker and more desolate than the street I was on. In moments they would be right beside me again, I thought. I looked back and saw the car charging after me, pulling closer. Gasping for breath, I ran faster, not even looking where I was going until I hit somebody hard. He kept me from falling, but held onto me. All I could think was I had run into a trap.

I looked up into the face of an elderly black man who still appeared firm and strong. He had wide shoulders and a thick neck, but his hair was thin, wild and smoke white. He wore a flannel shirt rolled up to his forearms, jeans and a pair of old sneakers. He had been carrying a sack over his shoulder and set it down quickly.

"Whoa," he said. "You'll knock over a building running that fast."

The boys in the car gaped out the windows at us. "She's too young for you, Pop. Give her to us," the driver said.

"Get the hell outta here," the old man told them. "What are you gonna do, call the senior citizen police?" one of the boys teased.

They all laughed.

The elderly man released me. I thought he was going to walk off and leave me, but instead he reached into his sack, fumbled around and then brought his hand out with a revolver clutched in it. I was close enough to see how rusted and old it was, but the boys couldn't tell. He pointed it at them.

"Jesus!"

"Take it easy, Pop. Point that someplace else."

"Take yourselves someplace else," he ordered and pulled the hammer back.

The driver hit the accelerator and the car shot off. We watched them turn a corner and disappear.

"Thank you," I said.

He looked at me with disapproval and shook his head.

"What are you doin' walkin"round here by yourself, girl?" he asked me. "You just lookin' for trouble or what?"

"Oh, no sir. I got lost," I said.

"This ain't no place to get lost." He gazed back up the street. My heart was still pounding. Were they waiting around the corner? He might have been thinking the same thing because when he looked at me again, his face was softer, kinder.

"Come on," he said. "I live in the basement over here. You got any money for a taxi?"

"No sir," I said.

"I got a phone. You got someone to call to come fetch you?"

"Yes sir," I said.

He smiled.

"Go ahead then," he said nodding. "Just after that next building. See that stairway going down? That's my place," he told me and put his old revolver back into the sack. He lifted it over his shoulder and waited. -I couldn't help being afraid.

"You don't' want to go walkin"round here anymore, Missy," he said, "and it's getting cold. I'd like to get into my home, as little as it is," he said.

I nodded at him and followed, looking back once to be sure the boys were gone.

What he called his basement apartment was barely bigger than Beni's and my bedroom. He had a little nook on the right with a sink and a hot plate and a small table. There was a tiny refrigerator on the floor. The room itself had an old sofa, an easy chair, a beat up wooden table, one standing lamp and an oval throw rug with holes in it.