The Ferrari in the Bedroom Read Online Free PDF Page A

Smythe was taken in or not. I’ll never know. Maybe he was one of Nature’s noblemen. Anyway, he said:
    “Sonny, can you read that sign?” He pointed to a poster extolling the virtues of Eastman roll film. I read the first line. He stopped me with: “Charles, give the boy a camera. Mr. Neff, you have a precocious nephew.”
    “Yeah.” Lefty used his favorite word.
    Five minutes later we were on the bus home, with a brand-new leatherette-covered, gold-colored genuine Eastman Brownie, Anniversary model, with a roll of free film.
    “Well, kid, ya got a camera,” Lefty said to me as we got off the bus. “Now don’t forget, I get to use it whenever I want, right?”
    After I got home I carefully hid the camera in the coal bin and two days later announced that I had, astoundingly, found a camera, fully loaded, while on the way home from school. The family was rocked! It was a windfall of stupendous proportions. I was questioned sharply as to where and how the find was made. I carried it off flawlessly, now a hardened prevaricator.
    I spent hours peering through the viewfinder, stroking the leatherette hide of my beautiful camera, clicking its shutter and pretending to take pictures long after the reel of film had been shot, by my father of course, at the Company Picnic. No camera I shall ever own will ever be as beautiful as that camera. Somewhere along the years it disappeared, but I’ve never forgotten it.
    We sat, Clarence and I, for a long moment after I had finished the story. The Christmas tree glowed cheerily on into the night.
    “Yes, I see what you mean. That must have been a beautiful camera,” said Clarence softly, still in the mood of my tale of Evil.
    “You know, Clarence, there are times when I fear every knock at the door, that one day an official of the Eastman Company will present himself, with an officer of the law. But I don’t regret it. I would do it again.”
    Clarence drained his glass in a salute. “Well said.”
    I nodded.
    Long after Clarence had driven out into the night I sat and toyed with my new Instamatic, planning future compositions; greater shots than before, then went up to bed. It was a good Christmas.

3
An Independent Survey
Today Announced…

    News item:
    TOKYO (UPI)
Honda Motors announced today that they are experimenting with a device to deal with the problem of drunken driving. It consists of a specially-treated platinum alloy disc which when fitted in the center of the steering wheel, detects the presence of alcohol on the breath of the driver, causing a relay to be actuated which prevents the car from starting. A prototype is under construction and will be tested shortly. Honda did not say what would happen if someone else in the car, say a mother-in-law in the back seat, had been drinking. They did say that results of their test would be announced as soon as available.
    Well, I guess it had to come. In this age of Total Nervousness the car that comments on the personal habits of its driver was obviously a logical development. Not that I’m in any way, shape or form an advocate of drunken driving. On the contrary, I agree with any judge who really nails a guy who’s been lappin’ up the soup and kicking around 400mean horsepower in addition. It’s just that being told by your hardtop GT that you’ve made a horse’s ass of yourself tonight smacks of further evils to come. Why stop with drunken driving? I say. How far can this thing go?
    Well, anyone who has really done a hell of a lot of crosscountry driving knows damn well that drinking is only one source of big trouble when it comes to the Clobbering scene. For example, how about battling with the wife? I would like to know the statistics on that one alone, just how many guys have powdered a safety island right in the middle of making the final crushing point in a screaming argument with the old lady over why the hell he acted like he did at his sister-in-law’s house last night. With neck bulging, eyeballs