The Man Who Had All the Luck Read Online Free Page B

close off the infant’s wear counter. I think I’ll get a revolving door for next winter. [ Sits ] What you got your hair all slicked for?
    DAVID [ on one knee, examines the spigot which pours slowly ]: Going over to Hester’s in a while.
    J.B.: Dave! [ Excitedly ] Going alone?
    DAVID: Hester’ll be here right away. I’m going to walk back to the house with her, and . . . well, I guess we’ll lay down the law to him. If he’s going to be my father-in-law I better start talking to him some time.
    J.B. [ anxiously ]: The only thing is you want to watch your step with him.
    DAVID [ turns off spigot, lifts up can as he gets to his feet ]: I can’t believe that he’d actually start a battle with me. You think he would?
    J.B.: Old man Falk is a very peculiar man, Dave. Horns sound from the right.
    DAVID [ going right with the can ]: Coming, coming! He goes out as from the back door, SHORY descends the ramp in a fury. He is in a wheelchair. He is thirty-eight but his age is hard to tell because of the absence of any hair on his body. He is totally bald, his beard does not grow, his eyebrows are gone. His face is capable of great laughter and terrible sneers. A dark green blanket covers his legs. He stops at the big doors with his fist in the air. As he speaks the horns stop.
    SHORY: Goddamn you, shut those goddam horns! Can’t you wait a goddam minute?
    J.B.: Lay off, will you? They’re his customers.
    SHORY [ turns ]: What’re you doing, living here?
    J.B.: Why, got any objections? [ Goes to stove, clapping his arms. ] Jesus, how can he work in this place? You could hang meat in here. [ Warms his hands on the stove. ]
    SHORY: You cold with all that fat on you?
    J.B.: I don’t know why everybody thinks a fat man is always warm. There’s nerves in the fat too, y’know.
    SHORY: Come into the store. It’s warmer. Shoot some pinochle. [ Starts toward the ramp to his store. ]
    J.B.: Dave’s going over to see Falk. SHORY stops.
    SHORY: Dave’s not going to Falk.
    J.B.: He just told me.
    SHORY [ turns again ] : Listen. Since the day he walked into the store and asked me for a job he’s been planning on going to see Falk about Hester. That’s seven years of procrastination, and it ain’t going to end tonight. What is it with you lately? You hang around him like an old cow or something. What’d your wife throw you out of the house again?
    J.B.: No, I don’t drink anymore, not any important drinking—really. [ He sits on a barrel. ] I keep thinking about those two kids. It’s so rare. Two people staying in love since they were children . . . that oughtn’t to be trifled with.
    SHORY: Your wife did throw you out, didn’t she?
    J.B.: No, but . . . we just got the last word: no kids.
    SHORY [ compassionately ]: That so, Doctor?
    J.B.: Yeh, no kids. Too old. Big, nice store with thirty-one different departments. Beautiful house. No kids. Isn’t that something? You die, and they wipe your name off the mail box and . . . and that’s the ball game. Slight pause.
    [ Changing the subject; with some relish. ] I think I might be able to put Dave next to something very nice, Shor.
    SHORY: You’re in your dotage, you know that? You’re getting a Santa Claus complex.
    J.B.: No, he just reminds me of somebody. Myself, in fact. At his age I was in a roaring confusion. And him? He’s got his whole life laid out like a piece of linoleum. I don’t know why but sometimes I’m around him and it’s like watching one of them nice movies, where you know everything is going to turn out good . . . [ Suddenly strikes him. ] I guess it’s because he’s so young . . . and I’m gettin’ so goddam old.
    SHORY: What’s this you’re puttin’ him next to?
    J.B.: My brother-in-law up in Burley; you know, Dan Dibble that’s got the mink ranch.
    SHORY: Oh don’t bring him around, now . . .
    J.B.: Listen,