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John sees Roy emerging from the pile with some friends, his shirt ripped but himself looking in fine spirits.

After Roy leaves, a gang fight breaks out on the rockpile, and boys start hitting each other and throwing rocks and cans and whatever else they can get their hands on. He knows he couldn't really stop him from going, but at the same time feels responsible. John doesn't tattle on Roy because he feels an allegiance to his brother, but he feels uneasy about letting him go. Roy goes anyway, leaving John alone on the fire escape to continue working on his homework. He warns him that his mother could come home at any time, and even more worryingly, his father is going to be home soon. A few of his neighborhood friends pass by under the fire escape, and he tells his older brother John that he's going to go with them. She's always warned them not to go messing around on the rockpile, but now that she's gone, Roy feels inspired to do just that.

John and Roy sit on the fire escape where, if she wanted to, she could peek out the window and check on them. One afternoon, Elizabeth goes over to their neighbor Sister McCandless's apartment to chat.

For him, the possible consequences of playing there outweigh any pleasure he might find. Among these stories, the narrator recounts one told by Roy and John's Aunt Florence, who lives in the Bronx, that the rockpile exists because "without it the subway cars underground would fly apart, killing all the people." Unlike Roy, Roy's brother John has little interest in the rockpile. The mystery of the rockpile fills Roy with curiosity, which is amplified by the supernatural stories the adults tell about it, somewhat in an effort to deter the children from playing on it. On their block, emerging from the ground of a vacant lot between two houses, there is a large rock formation upon which neighborhood boys play and tend to get rowdy. Their family lives in the far northern part of Manhattan, only a short walk from the Washington Bridge, which crosses to the Bronx. The story takes place in and around the apartment of Elizabeth and Gabriel and centers on the actions of their sons, Roy and John.