One More for the Road Read Online Free Page A

bookshop, and my signing a small novel for an even smaller group when the explosion occurred. Which hardly describes the force with which it slammed me back on my inner wall.
    It began when I glanced up and saw this old, old man swaying in the doorway, dreading to enter. He was incredibly wrinkled. His eyes were broken crystal. Saliva brimmed his trembling lips. He shook as if lightning struck him when he gaped his mouth and gasped.
    I went back to signing books until an intuitive cog slipped in my head. I glanced up again.
    The old, old man still hung there like a scarecrow, framed against the light, his head thrust forward, eyes aching for recognition.
    My body froze. I felt the blood run cold along my neck and down my arms. The pen fell from my fingers as the old, old man lurched forward, giggling, hands groping.
    â€œRemember me?” he cried, laughing.
    I searched the long frazzled gray hair that blew about his cheeks, noted the white chin stubble, the sun-bleached shirt, the half-soiled denims, the sandals on his bony feet, then up again to his demon eyes.
    â€œDo you?” he smiled.
    â€œI don’t think—”
    â€œSimon Cross!” he exploded.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œCross!” he bleated. “I am Simon Cross!”
    â€œSon of a bitch!” I reared back.
    My chair fell. The small crowd fell back, too, as if struck. The old, old man, riven, shut his eyes, flinching.
    â€œBastard!” Tears leaped to my eyes. “Simon Cross? What have you done with your life!?”
    Eyes clenched, he lifted his gnarled and shivering hands, palms out, horribly empty to wait for my further cry.
    â€œSweet Jesus,” I said. “Your life. What did you do to it?”
    With a great thunderclap my memory reversed to forty years lost, forty years gone, and myself, thirty-three, at the start of my own career.
    And Simon Cross stood before me, nineteen years old and handsome to the point of beauty with a bright face, clear and innocent eyes, an amiable demeanor, his bones relaxed within his flesh, and a bundle of story manuscripts under his arm.
    â€œMy sister said—” he began.
    â€œI know, I know,” I interrupted. “I read your stories last night, the ones she gave me. You’re a genius.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say that,” said Simon Cross.
    â€œI would. Bring more stories. Without looking I can sell every one of them. Not as an agent, but a friend to genius.”
    â€œDon’t say that,” said Simon Cross.
    â€œI can’t help myself. Someone like you lives once in a lifetime.”
    I riffled through his new stories.
    â€œOh, God, yes, yes. Beautiful. Sell them all, and take no commission.”
    â€œI’ll be damned,” he said.
    â€œNo, blessed. Genetically blessed, by God.”
    â€œI don’t go to church.”
    â€œYou don’t need to,” I said. “Now, get out of here. Let me get my breath. Your genius is blasphemy to plain dogs like me. I admire, envy, and almost hate you. Go!”
    And he smiled a bewildered smile and got out, left me with his white-hot pages burning my hand, and within two weeks I had sold every one of these tales by a nineteen-year-old man-child whose words walked him on water and flew him midair.
    The response quaked the earth across country.
    â€œWhere did you find this writer?” some said. “He reads like the bastard son of Emily Dickinson out of Scott Fitzgerald. You his agent?”
    â€œNo. He’ll need no agent.”
    And Simon Cross wrote a dozen more stories that leaped from his machine into print and acclaim.
    Simon Cross. Simon Cross. Simon Cross.
    And I was his honorary father, visionary discoverer, and envious but forgiving friend.
    Simon Cross. And then, Korea.
    And him standing on my front porch in a pure salt-white sailor’s suit, his face still unshaven, his cheeks sunburned, his eyes drinking the world, a last story in his hands.
    â€œCome back, dear