The Listener Read Online Free PDF Page B

do without that. She thinks money in the bank’s somethin’ everybody should have. Why? Money’s made to spend and have a good time on. But not Fran. Come to think of it, she ain’t so pretty anymore. Gettin’ old, though she’s only thirty. Maybe that’s old for a dame, I guess. And she’s always readin’ and listening to newscasts. Hates sports. Ain’t that somethin’?
     
    “What do I get? I can tell you this: I get more than the schoolteachers, even if I’m only a factory stiff! Yes sir! Think that one over. Is Fran satisfied? Oh no. Not my old girl. She wants me to go to this automation school the factory has. Learn somethin’, she says. And she shoves her damn books at me from the library. You know somethin’? Women make me sick. Always tryin’ to be bigger than they are, and not the way you think, either! They never know a guy don’t have a chance these days.”
     
    The warm and mutely lit room was silent. Tab glared at the curtain. “One of those headshrinkers, huh? Listen and then write books about us poor jerks who never had a chance. What’m I here for? Well, I’ve had all there is. I’m pullin’ out. I’m on my way, and Fran and the kids can go on Welfare. Why not? That’s what taxes are for, ain’t they? Anyway, the way they’re throwin’ the atom bombs around, there won’t be no world soon, anyway. Or maybe it’s the hydrogen bomb. Or missiles. So why not live it up? Well, Fran seems to know what I’ve got in mind, and she says, ‘Go to that place Mr. Godfrey built’. I say no, and she begs and cries, and what the hell can you do with women? Hey, are you a priest back there? I hear you’re a Jew. Know what I think about Jews? There’s this guy in the Army
     
    Hell, who cares? I’m filled right up to here, never havin’ a chance or anythin’. One guy tells me the Jews’ve got the whole money cornered. And the factory’s full of niggers and Puerto Ricans. A white man don’t have a chance these days.”
     
    He scowled surlily at the curtain. “Maybe you’re thinkin’ about the bonus I got from the state. That wasn’t Fran’s business. Had a good time on it; four hundred dollars. A guy’s got a right to have a good time once in his life, don’t he? What’ve I got to live for? Bet you never saw a lathe or a saw or a hammer in your life. What do you guys know about workin’? I work forty hours a week, and then I fall on my face.” He paused, then grinned sheepishly. “Hell, my dad worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. The sucker. Wonder how he did it. Yeh, I wonder how he did it. Did you ever work twelve hours a day?”
     
    The silence of the room appeared to enlarge and to hold him. He rubbed his jaw. “Hell, Fran ain’t a bad kid. I’m not complainin’. It’s just I never had a chance. Maybe Fran didn’t, neither. She worked, too, in this diner. And now there’s these kids. Molly’s kind of cute, but the two boys just yell all the time.” He laughed shortly. “Just like me and my brothers yelled. No wonder Dad and Mom used to clip us.
     
    But Molly’s kind of cute. She was real cute in that Christmas bit at St. Aloysius. An angel. She looks kind of like Fran. Yeh. Come to think of it, women don’t have such a hot time, do they? They get pretty and then they marry — ”
     
    He looked at the curtain. He was a big and burly young man; he stood up, his hands hanging at his sides, his face thrust forward. He said softly, “And then they marry jerks like me. That’s what they do. They marry jerks like me.”
     
    His face changed, became heavy and sober. He rubbed his chin again. He said, “Poor Mom. Poor Fran. Poor Molly.” He moved toward the curtain and said earnestly, “But I guess you don’t have a mother now, do you, and I guess you don’t know about women.”
     
    The curtain did not move. He looked at it uncertainly. Then he cried out, “Why don’t you talk? Why don’t you tell me what to do? I’ve got Fran and Molly, haven’t