Assorted Prose Read Free

out. Since you don’t know your way around yet, I suggest some place in downtown Anywhere.
    See you then,
Ralph Jones
    J UNE 4, 19—
    “H ANK ”—
    Sorry you saw fit to skip our appointment. I waited it must have been three hours, but I guess in vain, which doesn’t matter to me, who loves nothing more than to sit idle for a stretch in the middle of a day. No hard feelings, no doubt you’re keeping pretty busy with the Does.
    Would it suit you better in front of the First Peoples Bank some noon? So you won’t have any excuse this time, in front of the First Peoples Bank with the big cardboard check for $6.98 made payable to Anyone U. Wish and signed O. U. R. Depositor.
    There’s an interesting story behind that. Without knowing, you might think it was
Mr
. Depositor, but then Olive always
was
mannish, so you aren’t too far off. Her place on the south edge of town was a farm when she was a little girl and when her father died so young, she was leftwith the land. Selling it off, piece by piece, offended her memory of her Dad (not that he had ever had a kind word for her when he was living—always wanted a boy) and it seemed the only way she could make it up to him was to become more like him, using his expressions of speech, getting his old furniture down from the attic and sitting in it, wearing plain clothes, and eventually just using her initials. Erasing her sex, as it were. But don’t go saying I said she’s a fool. Every acre she sold, she got hard money for—some think she loves a dollar more than is healthy. That $6.98 to her wasn’t what a nickel would be to you or me. To me, at any rate. Maybe you’re another of those whose sending our mean national income spiralling up, causing inflation. (joke).
    Anyway you can bet that $6.98 meant a lot to Anyone Wish. He just can’t hold a steady job, though he has an uncanny way with the mechanical aspect of things. Ever since a kid he’s been willfull. “Short, shortsighted, and short-tempered” is what they say of him. He does these odd jobs when he isn’t sick, or sleeping—we often wonder if there’s a difference, though to be fair, as a youngster, he was puny. The $6.98 must represent something he fixed around the old Depositor house. God knows it’s been falling down for years. It’s almost disrespectful to her deceased father, the way Olive has let the upkeep of that place go hang.
    That’s
one
reason why she
might
have written him that check. There’s some local speculation about that. It doesn’t seem natural, for a woman to coop herself up thirty years and never take a fancy to a man, even a sorry little scrap of rag like Mrs. Wish’s youngest boy.
    In strict confidence,
“Ralph”
    P.S. See you soon. I’ll be wearing an everyday suit and have regular features.
    J UNE 7, 19—
    S MITH:
    Let’s be on the level with each other. Your snippy postcard about waiting by the bank rings about as true as a zinc penny. Saying that everybody you saw looked alike is almost an insult, which better not get around town, which it won’t, thanks to my good offices. I don’t suppose you’d say that
Jane J. Doe
looks like everybody else. Or is it Mary you’rechasing? Reports differ. You live your own life, but it isn’t smart (not to mention the ethics of it, I’ll leave that to Parson Brown, not that he’s any saint) to cross me now, when there’s a storm brewing and you’ll need every friend you can rummage up.
    The Does aren’t too popular around here. John is more than a bit “uppity” and there is an opinion that he gets far too much publicity for the size of his hatband, with the rest of us being called in for just an occasional insurance ad or “SatevPost” cover. What’s so average about the name Doe anyway? And we aren’t too happy about the way he’s treated little Mary Smith either. But you pick your own friends, and if I’m not among them O.K., but let’s not play the hypocrite Henry. You better see me promptly—your true ally