Short Stories: Five Decades Read Online Free PDF

up his glass and let the whisky slide down his throat in a smooth amber stream. “Don’t talk like that, Geary,” he said. “I don’t want to hear nothin’ about taxicabs. I am busy drinkin’ with friends.”
    “You dumb Wop,” Geary said.
    “That is no way to talk,” Elias said, going over to Geary purposefully. He cocked his right hand and squinted at Geary. Geary backed off, his hands up. “I don’t like to hear people call my friend a dumb Wop,” Elias said.
    “Get back,” Geary shouted, “before I brain yuh.”
    Pinky ran up excitably. “Lissen, boys,” he screamed, “do you want I should lose my license?”
    “We are all friends,” Palangio said. “Shake hands. Everybody shake hands. Everybody have a drink. I hereby treat everybody to a drink.”
    Elias lumbered back to Palangio’s side. “I am sorry if I made a commotion. Some people can’t talk like gentlemen.”
    “Everybody have a drink,” Palangio insisted.
    Elias took out three dollar bills and laid them deliberately on the bar. “Pass the bottle around. This is on Elias Pinsker.”
    “Put yer money away, Elias.” Geary pushed his cap around on his head with anger. “Who yuh think yuh are? Walter Chrysler?”
    “The entertainment this afternoon is on me,” Elias said inexorably. “There was a time I would stand drinks for twenty-five men. With a laugh, an’ pass cigars out after it. Pass the bottle around, Pinky!”
    The whisky flowed.
    “Elias and me,” Palangio said. “We are high class spenders.”
    “You guys oughta be fed by hand,” Geary said. “Wards of the guvment.”
    “A man is entitled to some relaxation,” Elias said. “Where’s that bottle?”
    “This is nice,” Palangio said. “This is very nice.”
    “This is like the good old days,” Elias said.
    “I hate to go home.” Palangio sighed. “I ain’t even got a radio home.”
    “Pinky!” Elias called. “Turn on the radio for Angelo Palangio.”
    “One room,” Palangio said. “As big as a toilet. That is where I live.”
    The radio played. It was soft and sweet and a rich male voice sang “I Married an Angel.”
    “When I get home,” Elias remembered, “Annie will kill a pedigreed pigeon for supper. My lousy wife. An’ after supper I push the hack five more hours and I go home and Annie yells some more and I get up tomorrow and push the hack some more.” He poured himself another drink. “That is a life for a dog,” he said. “For a Airedale.”
    “In Italy,” Palangio said, “they got donkeys don’t work as hard as us.”
    “If the donkeys were as bad off as you,” Geary yelled, “they’d have sense enough to organize.”
    “I want to be a executive at a desk.” Elias leaned both elbows on the bar and held his chin in his huge gnarled hands. “A long distance away from Brownsville. Wit’ two thousand pigeons. In California. An’ I should be a bachelor. Geary, can yuh organize that? Hey, Geary?”
    “You’re a workin’ man,” Geary said, “an’ you’re goin’ to be a workin’ man all yer life.”
    “Geary,” Elias said. “You red bastidd, Geary.”
    “All my life,” Palangio wept, “I am goin’ to push a hack up an’ down Brooklyn, fifteen, sixteen hours a day an’ pay th’ Company forever an’ go home and sleep in a room no bigger’n a toilet. Without a radio. Jesus!”
    “We are victims of circumstance,” Elias said.
    “All my life,” Palangio cried, “tied to that crate!”
    Elias pounded the bar once with his fist. “Th’ hell with it! Palangio!” he said. “Get into that goddamn wagon of yours.”
    “What do yuh want me to do?” Palangio asked in wonder.
    “We’ll fix ’em,” Elias shouted. “We’ll fix those hacks. We’ll fix that Company! Get into yer cab, Angelo. I’ll drive mine, we’ll have a chicken fight.”
    “You drunken slobs!” Geary yelled. “Yuh can’t do that!”
    “Yeah,” Palangio said eagerly, thinking it over. “Yeah. We’ll show ’em. Two dollars and