The Man Who Had All the Luck Read Online Free PDF

everything, but without a forearm?—Zero!
    SHORY [ to PAT, of DAVE]: Are you going to settle this or is he going to get himself murdered in that house?
    PAT: Who? What house? [ Recalling. ] Oh yes, Dave . . .
    SHORY [ to J.B.]: Oh yes, Dave! [ To PAT.] You’re his father, for G...!
    DAVID: All right. I got enough advice. Hester’s coming here right away and we’re going over to the house and we’ll talk it out, and if . . .
    SHORY: His brains are busted, how are you going to talk to him? He doesn’t like you, he doesn’t want you, he said he’d shoot you if you came onto his place. Now will you start from there and figure it out or you going to put it together in the hospital? [ Pause. ]
    DAVID: What am I supposed to do then? Let him send her to that normal school? I might never see her again. I know how these things work.
    SHORY: You don’t know how these things work. Two years I waited in there for a boy to ask for the job I put up in the window. I could’ve made a big stink about it. I was a veteran, people ought to explain to the kids why I looked like this. But I learned something across the sea. Never go lookin’ for trouble. I waited. And you came. Wait, Davey.
    PAT: I’m inclined to agree with him, David.
    DAVID: I’ve been waiting to marry Hester since we were babies. [ Sits on a barrel. ] God! How do you know when to wait and when to take things in your hand and make them happen?
    SHORY: You can’t make anything happen any more than a jellyfish makes the tides, David.
    DAVID: What do you say, John?
    J.B.: I’d hate to see you battle old man Falk, but personally, Dave, I don’t believe in waiting too long. A man’s got to have faith, I think, and push right out into the current, and . . .
    PAT [ leans forward, pointing ]: Faith, David, is a great thing. Take me for instance. When I came back from the sea . . .
    DAVID: What time you got, John . . . excuse me, Dad.
    J.B.: Twenty to eight.
    DAVID [ to SHORY]: You giving me that shirt or must I push you off that chair?
    PAT [ continuing ]: I am speaking, David. When I came back from the sea . . .
    SHORY [ pointing at AMOS]: Before you come back from the sea, you’re going to kill him, running his ass off into the snow.
    PAT: Kill him! Why it’s common knowledge that pacing is indispensable for the arches. After all, a pitcher can have everything, but if his arches are not perfect . . . ?
    SHORY: Zero!
    PAT: Before I forget, do you know if that alcohol can be used for rubbing? [ Indicates the drum. ]
    DAVID: There’s only a couple of drops left.
    AMOS: You sold it all today? [ Joyously to PAT.] I told you he’d sell it all!
    DAVID: Don’t go making a genius out of your brother. Salesman hooked him. He bought alcohol in April when the sun was shining hot as hell.
    AMOS: Yeah, but look how it froze up today!
    SHORY: He didn’t know it was going to freeze.
    J.B.: Maybe he did know. [ To DAVE.] Did you, Dave?
    DAVID [ stares into his memory ]: Well, I . . . I kinda thought . . .
    PAT [ breaking in ]: Speaking of geniuses, most people didn’t know that there are two kinds; physical and mental. Take pitchers like Christy Matthewson now. Or Walter Johnson. There you have it in a nutshell. Am I right, J.B.?
    SHORY: What’ve you got in a nutshell?
    PAT [ the beginnings of confusion, his desire to protect AMOS and himself against everyone, tremble in him ]: Just what I said. People simply refuse to concentrate. They don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing in their lives.
    SHORY [ pointing to DAVID]: Example number one.
    PAT [ rises to a self-induced froth of a climax ]: I always left David to concentrate for himself. But take Amos then. When I got back from the sea I came home and what do I find? An infant in his mother’s arms. I felt his body and I saw it was strong. And I said to myself, this boy is not going to waste out his life being seventeen different kind