The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze Read Online Free PDF Page A

am thinking of Theodore Badal, himself seventy thousand Assyrians and seventy million Assyrians, himself Assyria, and man, standing in a barber shop, in San Francisco, in 1933, and being, still, himself, the whole race.

Among the Lost

    At a table in a far corner of the room Paul smoked a cigarette, looking into
New Bearings in English Poetry
, absorbing random phrases,
accuse him of sentimental evasions . . . meditations upon a deterministic universe. . . . Hardy’s great poetry . . . the impulse . . . Ezra Pound . . . Hugh Selwyn Mauberly
. . . .
    He slipped the small book into his coat pocket and walked beyond the swinging doors, into Number One Opera Alley. Red, the bookie-clerk was telling a fellow how once, three years ago, he had been stabbed by a crazy Russian who had lost twenty dollars on the ponies. A month in the hospital, Red said. We didn’tprosecute because it would have given the “Kentucky” a bad name. The Russian cried and said he would never come down to Third Street again, so we let it go at that. For a while they thought I was going to die.
    He grinned tightly, smiling. This place is like home, he said. The boys caught him at the
Examiner
corner. My friends, all the boys who know me. They were going to kill him.
    Red looked around to see if anyone was listening. Do you know, he said, when I was in the hospital I worried about that crazy Russian? He came into this place all of a sudden and started to make bets, the craziest bets you ever did see a man make, long shots, impossible horses. I told him once or twice to take it easy, but he was out to make a killing. Then he went broke and sat on that bench over there, looking at me. I could tell he was going nuts, but I didn’t know he had a knife. I thought he might make a pass at me and I would let him have one on the chin. When the races were over and all the fellows had beat it, he was still sitting on the bench, looking at me. Then I
knew
he was nuts. He got me right below the heart, but do you know, after he had stuck the knife in me, I began to worry about him. I had an idea I would get over the wound all right, but this nut, this Russian, the way he looked after he had done it. He began to jabber in Russian, and then he beat it down the alley, with Pat and Brown chasing him.
    Paul went over to Red. You never told me thatstory, he said. What did you think, right after he stabbed you?
    I didn’t think anything, Red said. I began to swear because I had planned to go out to the beach with my wife that night. It made me sore because I wouldn’t be able to go out to the beach. I knew it was a cut that would send me to the hospital, and I began to swear.
    Through the swinging doors Paul returned to the table in the corner, waiting for Lambough. Smithy, whose neck was as fat as his head, walked among the card tables, crying out every now and then, Seat here for a player . . . one more seat. Paul watched the men coming and going, counting their nickels, talking to themselves, the way it is with petty gamblers. He opened the book again, coming upon
existlessness, modulation, shift of stress and rhyme
. Then he rose and sauntered about the room, studying the men and remembering fragments of their talk.
There is a horse in the seventh at Latonia, Dark Sea. I like Foxhall. Yesterday, three winners, but I was broke. A small fortune
.
    The small Irish waiter, called Alabama, was carrying coffee to a table, looking dully at nothing and asking: How many sugars?
    Paul stood in the smoke, waiting for Lambough. It was almost eleven and the appointment was for ten-thirty. Paul handed his package of cigarettes to a thin consumptive Jew. Take several, he suggested, and the Jew smiled and asked how it had been with Paul.
    Graceless, said Paul. The Jew groaned and lit a cigarette.
    I sell flowers in the streets, he said, and there is a law against it. Saturday night they took me to jail. I just got out. Two nights. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.