The Puzzle King by Betsy Carter Read Free Book Online Page B

apprentice. It meant that someone had chosen him above everyone else. It meant that he could quit his newsboy job and that he got paid to draw. He told Christina that when he studied the word
apprentice
through squinted eyes, it looked to him like
a prince
. “That’s what I feel like,” he’d said. “Imagine, earning ten dollars a week to draw sketches.” He didn’t mention that he also had to make Mr. Wade’s coffee, throw away his garbage at night, and wash up his dried wads of spitting tobacco.
    “You are my prince,” Christina had said. She squeezed his arm a little too hard. It was the kind of thing she usually did in public. It made him uncomfortable, how she tried to claim him in physical ways, always grabbing his elbow or ringing her arm through his. She had taken to call him “My Prince” or “the Prince.” Pissboy told him this was a girl he could go all the way with. Simon didn’t doubt it, but something held him back. Maybe it was that boys two or three years older than he was were getting married at eighteen or nineteen, and having babies and pinching pennies just to make ends meet, and it seemed that was how it would always be for them. Or maybe it was the way Christina did fluttery things with her tongue when they kissed that made him think about moths flapping around in his mouth. When they got that close, he could feel her breasts against him like small squishy birds. No, more like mice. He thought about how he would draw the mice with their sharp noses and inquisitive little eyes. Somethingwas wrong with him. All head. No heart. Why couldn’t he just feel things the way other people did? Why did he always piece together how his feelings would look? Pissboy was right about one thing: He sure was an oddball foreigner.
    It was a good thing Arthur Wade kept Simon as busy as he did; there was no time to worry about things like that. Mostly, when Simon came into the office—actually a back room painted dark blue that faced into a sunless courtyard—Arthur Wade would dangle a sheet of paper over his head, holding it as if it were a dead cockroach. Then he’d say something like: “P.U. See if you can turn this piece of crap into money.” Simon’s job was to do preliminary sketches or scripts for Arthur Wade. “Just give me a rough copy, I’ll do the rest,” he’d told Simon. “I’ll throw in twenty-five cents extra for anything you do that our customers end up using.”
    Businessmen paid Arthur Wade to design show cards advertising their products. They would write the words they wanted him to illustrate, or depending on the client, they would give him an image and ask him to write the words. “See what you think, Wade,” said one of those customers, Mr. Hofsteder, one afternoon, handing over his copy. “I’m hoping you can do something with it.” Arthur Wade read the wispy script on the page and looked up with a big smile. “Mr. Hofsteder, it is an honor for me to work with you. This will warm the hearts of everyone who reads it.”
    Hofsteder was a flat-nosed man with slits of brown eyes that seemed to sink into his raw-boned cheeks. The more Arthur Wade flattered him, the wider Hofsteder’s tobacco-stained smile became. Arthur Wade offered him a cigar then told him a joke whose punch line he whispered. Simon saw him look in his directionand heard him say something about not wanting to upset the Yid. Simon was sure he misheard, that Arthur Wade must have said that he didn’t want to upset the kid. Mr. Hofsteder’s cheeks flushed as he glanced at Simon, and then he punched Arthur Wade in the arm. “You’re a corker, Wade,” he said. “Have you heard the one about … ?” And there was more whispering.
    As soon as Hofsteder walked out the door, Arthur Wade turned to Simon and said in his wheezy voice, “Now there’s the kind of sucker who’s going to make me a rich man. Here, see what you can whip up out of this little turd.”
    “ MY PAPA IS GOING TO BUY ME A PAIR OF