Short Stories: Five Decades by Irwin Shaw Read Free Book Online Page A

the vouchers and the bank’s sheet into an envelope for his income-tax returns.
    “Hit it out, Charlie!” a boy called on the field. “Make it a fast one!”
    Andrew felt like going out and playing with them. He changed his clothes and put on a pair of old spikes that were lying in the back of the closet. His old pants were tight on him. Fat. If he ever let go, if anything happened and he couldn’t exercise, he’d blow up like a house, if he got sick and had to lie in bed and convalesce … Maybe Dusty has a knife in a holster up his sleeve … How to plant that? The rent, the food, the piano teacher, the people at Saks who sold his sister dresses, the nimble girls who painted the tin gadgets in his father’s shop, the teeth in his father’s mouth, the doctors, the doctors, all living on the words that would have to come out of his head. See here, Flacker, I know what you’re up to. Business: Sound of a shot. A groan. Hurry, before the train gets to the crossing! Look! He’s gaining on us! Hurry! will he make it? Will Dusty Blades head off the desperate gang of counterfeiters and murderers in the race for the yacht? Will I be able to keep it up? The years, the years ahead … You grow fat and the lines become permanent under your eyes and you drink too much and you pay more to the doctors because death is nearer and there is no stop, no vacation from life, in no year can you say, “I want to sit this one out, kindly excuse me.”
    His mother opened the door. “Martha’s on the phone.”
    Andrew clattered out in his spiked shoes, holding the old, torn fielder’s glove. He closed the door to the dining room to show his mother this was going to be a private conversation.
    “Hello,” he said. “Yes.” He listened gravely. “No,” he said. “I guess not. Good-bye. Good luck, Martha.”
    He stood looking at the phone. His mother came in and he raised his head and started down the steps.
    “Andrew,” she said, “I want to ask you something.”
    “What?”
    “Could you spare fifty dollars, Andrew?”
    “Oh, God!”
    “It’s important. You know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. It’s for Dorothy.”
    “What does she need it for?”
    “She’s going to a party, a very important party, a lot of very big people’re going to be there and she’s sure they’ll ask her to play.…”
    “Do the invitations cost fifty dollars apiece?” Andrew kicked the top step and a little piece of dried mud fell off the spiked shoes.
    “No, Andrew.” His mother was talking in her asking-for-money voice. “It’s for a dress. She can’t go without a new dress, she says. There’s a man there she’s after.”
    “She won’t get him, dress or no dress,” Andrew said. “Your daughter’s a very plain girl.”
    “I know,” his mother’s hands waved a little, helpless and sad. “But it’s better if she at least does the best she can. I feel sorry for her, Andrew …”
    “Everybody comes to me!” Andrew yelled, his voice suddenly high. “Nobody leaves me alone! Not for a minute!”
    He was crying now and he turned to hide it from his mother. She looked at him, surprised, shaking her head. She put her arms around him. “Just do what you want to, Andrew, that’s all. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
    “Yeah,” Andrew said. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I’ll give you the money. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
    “Don’t give it to me if you don’t want to, Andrew.” His mother was saying this honestly, believing it.
    He laughed a little. “I want to, Mom, I want to.”
    He patted her shoulder and went down toward the baseball field, leaving her standing there puzzled at the top of the steps.
    The sun and the breeze felt good on the baseball field, and he forgot for an hour, but he moved slowly. His arm hurt at the shoulder when he threw, and the boy playing second base called him Mister, which he wouldn’t have done even last year, when Andrew was twenty-four.

Second Mortgage
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