The Horse is Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

drive with it in the steering wheel." Nemiroff started the car and tried the wheel. He could barely move it but there was just enough play in the wheel to steer it backward, since he couldn't turn around. "I'll just have to drive home backward," he said. Nemiroff put the car in reverse and started to back his way home. 
    "I'll call the garage," Nemiroff offered.
    "Why didn't you call the garage last night?" she asked.
    "It was too late."
    "It's too late for you, you schmuck." She was frantic. "Get her out of that car. I have shopping to do." A final blow on Nemiroff's head, and she left Nemiroff was sound asleep when his mother came in the next morning. "Nemiroff," she shouted, "get out of that bed."
    He rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. "I still have fifteen more minutes to sleep."
    "You'll have fifteen more minutes to live if you don't get out of that bed," she said. She was even angrier than usual, so Nemiroff got out of the bed.
    "What's the matter?" he asked, and then realized he shouldn't have.
    "What's the matter you want to know?" She was beating him over the head as she talked, driving each word deep into his skull. "What's the matter?" she said. Nemiroff tried to stave off the blows. "Nothing's the matter. It's every morning I get up to use the car and find a girl in there with her foot caught in the steering wheel." She had him backed into a corner. "With no pants on yet"
    "Oh, that." Nemiroff tried to be nonchalant.
    "Yes, that"
    "Well, she's stuck," he said.
    That's an answer? She's stuck?" She smacked him on the head again. "Why can't she go home like a normal person?"
     
    When Nemiroff arrived at camp, Uncle Bernie was calling a special counselors' meeting to order. Nemiroff parked the car and ran over to the meeting. He got there just before Uncle Bernie silenced everyone with a shrill blast on his whistle. Nemiroff knew that only a stupid Jew would stand there and blow on that goddamn whistle.
    Uncle Bernie was the owner and director of Camp Winiruck. The first piece of equipment he had bought after opening the camp was his whistle. A shiny silver whistle that was guaranteed to break any eardrums within a mile. Uncle Bernie was never without the whistle. He cherished it like some men might cherish a beautiful woman. The whistle was his symbol of authority, and he wore it like a god. Nemiroff was convinced that without his whistle, Uncle Bernie would be mortal just like everyone else.
    Uncle Bernie insisted on silence the second the whistle blew. A person would be better dead than to be caught talking after the whistle. Uncle Bernie always had something important to say after the whistle blew. Like sit down, or shut up. Once, when someone was heard whispering after the whistle, Uncle Bernie made the entire camp sit for the rest of the day and practice keeping quiet when the whistle blew. Uncle Bernie enjoyed these little sessions. That's why he would never just casually blow on his whistle. Instead he would try to sneak it into his mouth when nobody was looking and hope to catch some poor slob talking. No one was ever safe from the whistle.
    Uncle Bernie had started Camp Winituck about fifteen years before. When he started, Uncle Bernie was poor and Camp Winituck looked like a poorly run concentration camp. Now Uncle Bernie was rich and Camp Winituck still looked like a poorly run concentration camp. He prided himself on never putting a penny into it that he didn't have to.
    Uncle Bernie appeared to be a confident and assured man to Nemiroff. This fascinated Nemiroff because he knew that Uncle Bernie was Jewish, so he couldn't think of any reason why he should be either confident or assured.
    But Uncle Bernie was not always that way. In fact, Uncle Bernie had grown up in intense fear of everything around him. He was afraid of cars, people, dogs, even the dirty old man who sold pornographic books at the candy store. But most of all, Uncle Bernie was afraid of subways. The noise they made was enough to