Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale Read Online Free PDF

What warning signs?
     
    A coconut? Holy moly, Jim!
Signs, you know. Like coughing.
     
    I cough my head
off.
     
    Moles that change shape or
color?
     
    You want to see? Jim said
and began unbuttoning his shirt.
     
    No! Ralph said. —No, that’s
all right. I’ll take your word about a thing like that. What about
weight loss? Any weight loss?
     
    Can’t you tell?
     
    So you’ve lost a few
pounds?
     
    A few. So, old dog, your
little honey is hitting town.
     
    Holy moly, Jim. Not so loud.
People could walk in the door any moment. The walls around this
place have ears, I’m here to tell you. I’m not kidding. There’s no
such thing as personal privacy around this place.
     
    Do you love Alice Ann,
Ralph?
     
    What? Ralph said. —Do I love
Alice Ann? Is that the question? What is that, some kind of trick
question? Do I love Alice Ann? Well, what do you think? Sure I love
her. Sure. She’s my wife of almost seventeen years, isn’t she?
We’ve got these two kids, haven’t we? Criminal children, true. But
they’re ours. Living proof, I guess. Of our enduring love, I
guess.
    Do you love the lovely lady
in Montana, too, Ralph?
     
    Holy moly, Ralph said. —I
don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. You’ve never heard me
claim I have all the answers, have you? Things just happen. You
know that. You know. A fellow can just get caught up in events.
Just swept along with the tide, as it were. Through no real fault
or design of his own. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.
Much less have any real sense of direction, or purpose, for that
matter. One sorry foot in front of the other is about the best I
can manage.
     
    Ralph, do you tell the
lovely lady in Montana that you love her?
     
    That’s not a word I, for
one, use lightly. Love is not a word I, for one, throw
around.
    Is she a great piece of ass,
Ralph? Your lovely lady in Montana.
     
    My lips are
sealed.
     
    Does she bang like a screen
door, Ralph?
     
    You better believe
it.
     
    Does she go down like a
submarine, Ralph?
     
    She doesn’t even come up for
air, Ralph said, and laughed.
     
    You really are a romantic
rat, aren’t you, old Ralph?
     
    I try.
     
    On those special tender
occasions, Ralph, do you?
     
    Do I what?
     
    Do you tell her you love her
truly? That you love her more than your wife of nearly seventeen
years, who also happens to be the mother of your two criminal
children.
    I already told you, love is
not a word I toss around.
     
    Do you make her promises,
Ralph? At those tender times.
     
    I never make promises, Ralph
said haughtily, that I can’t keep.
     
    What about in your letters,
Ralph? Do you put it down in black and white? Do you write to her
about the nature of your everlasting true love?
     
    Mostly, Ralph said, if it’s
any of your beeswax, I write about the weather.
     
    The weather, Ralph? What
about that I-dream-of-sucking- your-breasts business, Ralph? Ralph,
does your lovely lady in Montana have those sort of magical breasts
that like great mountains create their own weather? Do those
wondrous breasts create their own rainstorms and springtimes and
months of summer?
     
    1*11 say. She*s got these
breasts that won’t quit. Hey, you’ve been smoking dope already
today, haven’t you? I don’t suppose you have any joints on you, do
you? I don’t suppose you’d be inclined to share, would you? Alice
Ann and Erin put a big dent in my stash last night. And then those
criminal kids found what was left sometime this morning and cleaned
it out. I hardly got a pull off that last poke of dooby. So what
else is new.
     
    So your girlfriend has a
pair of the world’s most amazing breasts, eh, Ralph? Poor old,
rotten, Running Dog Ralph, on the ropes of romance.
     
    What’s a poor fellow to do?
Actually, I don’t write about the weather when I write to her.
Actually, I hardly even give the weather a second thought. Unless
I’m getting rained on or trying to light a cigarette in the wind.
Actually, the