Short Stories: Five Decades Read Online Free PDF Page B

seventy-fi’ cents a day for life. Yeah. We’ll fix ’em. Come on, Elias!”
    Elias and Palangio walked gravely out to their cars. Everybody else followed them.
    “Look what they’re doin’!” Geary screamed. “Not a brain between the both of them! What good’ll it do to ruin the cabs?”
    “Shut up,” Elias said, getting into his cab. “We oughta done this five months ago. Hey, Angelo,” he called, leaning out of his cab. “Are yuh ready? Hey, Il Doochay!”
    “Contact!” Angelo shouted, starting his motor. “Boom! Boom!”
    The two cars spurted at each other, in second, head-on. As they hit, glass broke and a fender flew off and the cars skidded wildly and the metal noise echoed and re-echoed like artillery fire off the buildings.
    Elias stuck his head out of his cab. “Are yuh hurt?” he called. “Hey, Il Doochay!”
    “Contact!” Palangio called from behind his broken windshield. “The Dawn Patrol!”
    “I can’t watch this,” Geary moaned. “Two workin’ men.” He went back into Lammanawitz’s Bar and Grill.
    The two cabs slammed together again and people came running from all directions.
    “How’re yuh?” Elias asked, wiping the blood off his face.
    “Onward!” Palangio stuck his hand out in salute. “Sons of Italy!”
    Again and again the cabs tore into each other.
    “Knights of the Round Table,” Palangio announced.
    “Knights of Lammanawitz’s Round Table,” Elias agreed, pulling at the choke to get the wheezing motor to turn over once more.
    For the last time they came together. Both cars flew off the ground at the impact and Elias’s toppled on its side and slid with a harsh grating noise to the curb. One of the front wheels from Palangio’s cab rolled calmly and decisively toward Pitkin Avenue. Elias crawled out of his cab before anyone could reach him. He stood up, swaying, covered with blood, pulling at loose ends of his torn sweater. He shook hands soberly with Palangio and looked around him with satisfaction at the torn fenders and broken glass and scattered headlights and twisted steel. “Th’ lousy Company,” he said. “That does it. I am now goin’ to inform ’em of th’ accident.”
    He and Palangio entered the Bar and Grill, followed by a hundred men, women, and children. Elias dialed the number deliberately.
    “Hullo,” he said, “hullo, Charlie? Lissen, Charlie, if yuh send a wreckin’ car down to Lammanawitz’s Bar and Grill, yuh will find two of yer automobiles. Yuh lousy Charlie.” He hung up carefully.
    “All right, Palangio,” he said.
    “Yuh bet,” Palangio answered.
    “Now we oughta go to the movies,” Elias said.
    “That’s right,” Palangio nodded seriously.
    “Yuh oughta be shot,” Geary shouted.
    “They’re playin’ Simone Simon,” Elias announced to the crowd. “Let’s go see Simone Simon.”
    Walking steadily, arm in arm, like two gentlemen, Elias and Angelo Palangio went down the street, through the lengthening shadows, toward Simone Simon.

Main Currents of
American Thought
    F lacker: all right now, Kid, now you’d better talk,” Andrew dictated. “Business: Sound of the door closing, the slow turning of the key in the lock. Buddy: You’re never going to get me to talk, Flacker. Business: Sound of a slap. Flacker: Maybe that’ll make you think different, Kid. Where is Jerry Carmichael? Buddy: (Laughing) Wouldn’t you like to know, Flacker? Flacker: Yeah. (Slowly, with great threat in his voice) And I’m going to find out. One way or another. See? Business: Siren fades in, louder, fades out. Announcer: Will Buddy talk? Will Flacker force him to disclose the whereabouts of the rescued son of the railroad king? Will Dusty Blades reach him in time? Tune in Monday at the same time, etcetera, etcetera …”
    Andrew dropped onto the couch and put his feet up. He stretched and sighed as he watched Lenore finish scratching his dictation down in the shorthand notebook. “Thirty bucks,” he said. “There’s another