In the Land of the Living Read Online Free PDF Page B

fancy envelope with VE-RI-TAS spelled out on three little books on a crimson crest. “Harvard,” his father said. “A groyser tzuleyger now, I guess.” A big shot. And when Isidore came back to Cleveland in the summer, he didn’t call to tell his father he was back in town. He was free. He would let his hatred wrestle his father’s hatred in some realm of eternal hatred, some rank of the inferno cold and dark forever.

2.
Of Isidore’s Quest for a Damosel for to Make a Home and How He Grew Nigh Weary of It, and Also of His Dolorous Advision at Night and How He Rove Himself through the Thigh
    PHONY HARVARD HIPPIES with their daddies’ money in their wallets and their prep school degrees. He saw them watching him from the table by the window. He saw them sneering and sniggering. Yeah, I serve you lunch in the dining hall. Yeah, I do your dishes, and so what? You think you’re better than me? That makes me better than you, you shitheads. He would rip their heads off and drink their blood. He’d crack their skulls and grease the skids of his own career with their spinal fluid. He’d—
    “And you ordered a roasted chicken?” the waitress said.
    “Yes, please,” Isidore said.
    “I’ll be right back with that.”
    “Thank you very much,” he said.
    James’s girlfriend, Joyce, a girl from Smith, spilled a glass of water all over the table. James said they were living in the age when all the heroes had been destroyed. John F. Kennedy was dead. Joyce and James seemed to be having another fight.
    “What do you know about heroes?” Joyce said. “Your hero is Burt Lancaster.”
    “An imaginary hero is as good as any in this day and age,” James said. James was another Cleveland Jew without any money. They were dishwashers living in the basement of Dunster House. But five more years and they’d be golden, they’d be doctors.
    Joyce had brought along a friend from Smith named Danielle. She’d been advertised as good-looking, and in fact she wasn’t bad. She liked to talk on and on about Bull Connor and the South. At least she cared, which was better than the last girl. But she was one of these girls who puckered her lips knowingly and nodded slowly like she was bringing everybody else the news, news that was by now old.
    Isidore drank up two beers and felt he would fall asleep. He let his arms and legs fall where they would and wondered if he had mono.
    “You’re really a great big teddy bear, aren’t you?” Danielle said.
    “Oh, sorry,” Isidore said, and pulled his legs together under the table and crossed his arms.
    “A great big teddy bear.”
    “Uh,” he said.
    When Joyce burst into tears and climbed over James and out of the booth, James clutched his head in both hands and, his black hair standing up in a sheaf, chased after her.
    “That was awkward,” Danielle said.
    “Uh, happens a lot with those two,” Isidore said.
    “Hey,” she said. “You’re pre-med, aren’t you? Would you look at my hand? I was on vacation in Florida and I fell on it. That’s what I get for trying to play volleyball for the first time!”
    “You know, they don’t teach much about volleyball injuries in organic chemistry.”
    “That’s okay. Do you think it’s sprained?”
    He took her hand. “Not really swollen. Does it hurt?”
    “A little, when I move it like this.”
    He saw very clearly what she was up to, but he tapped the back of her wrist. “Well, it’s not broken at least.”
    “James told me about you,” she said. “He’s very impressed with you.”
    She wore her brown hair in a bob swept across the top of her head and hairsprayed perfectly round and wore thick, dark eyeliner or eye shadow or whatever it was and dark mascara, which he liked. A pointy bra with fairly big breasts underneath and good thick thighs you could bounce a coin off.
    “Darn that Florida sun,” she said, scratching at the neck of her sweater. “That darn volleyball game gave me a sunburn, too.”
    “Well, I’ll