Boys and Girls Together Read Free

had as a matter of fact asked Ellen to come over after dinner and she had forgotten all about it, so now here they were all set to start drinking and they wouldn’t be gone until after midnight.
    â€˜Hi, Ellen, hi, Charley,’ she called out suddenly. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

Chapter 4
    â€˜Well, how’s the writing game?’ Charley Flesch said.
    â€˜I’m practically retired. You know how it is with women who are supposed to look after your kids. First, they’re wonderful, and then all of a sudden they’re a bigger problem than the kids, a bigger problem than the bride, a bigger problem than marriage itself. You know you ought to fire her, but you don’t do it, because you don’t want to have to do all that work yourself, but the bride keeps telling you every night in bed what a dog the woman is with the kids, how she pretends to love them but actually hates them, how she keeps trying to teach them her idea of manners, how she is for ever comparing them with her own grandchildren who are so much more intelligent and handsome and well-behaved, and how she secretly slaps them because the little boy himself told her so, and then at last you give her a bonus and send her away, and that’s what happened three months ago. So naturally I’ve been out of touch with the writing game. How are things in the barber game?’
    â€˜You’d think it was the same thing,’ Ellen said. ‘You’d think being a barber and being a writer was the same kind of thing.’
    â€˜Shut up, please,’ Charley said cheerfully. ‘I’m drinking and I’m happy. I know being a barber isn’t thesame as being a writer, but neither is being anything else. Am I right, Dick? And since nothing is the same as being a writer, it’s just as much fun for a writer to compare notes with a barber as it is with anybody else.’
    â€˜Except maybe with another writer,’ Ellen said.
    â€˜No,’ Charley said. ‘Dick don’t like talking to other writers. How do I know? I read it in one of his books, the one you gave us for Christmas, Dick, It’s right in there some place. You come right out in there some place and say you don’t give a shit for writers. Pardon the expression, Ellen.’
    â€˜You just shut up or talk clean,’ Ellen said. ‘Just don’t get too smart just because Dick’s not like other famous people.’
    â€˜Shut up, for God’s sake,’ Charley said. ‘I was only quoting Dick. Am I right, Dick? I never knew writers used words like the words barbers use, but I know different now. I know at least one writer who uses the words barbers use. Dick is the one who said he don’t give a shit for writers. It wasn’t me.’
    â€˜Now you just stop it,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s one thing for Dick to write something and another for you to say it. He probably meant something you don’t understand.’
    â€˜What did you mean, Dick?’ Charley said.
    The man laughed, although he wished to God Daisy hadn’t gone to work and asked them over tonight, because here they were, like two earnest and comiccharacters in a bad movie, each of them a little too impressed by his name because it was so often in the papers and because a name in the papers signified so much to them, and he said, ‘To tell you the truth, you’re
both
right about that crack I made, but let’s talk about something that makes sense. Ellen, tell me about Ronald and Greta.’
    â€˜Oh, they’re the same as ever. God, the things they say, the things they do. Greta gets up from her nap this afternoon and says, “Mama, why do girls have those?” You know what she means—up here—so I been reading them damn books that tell you all about everything and I figure I’ve got to tell her the real reason, but I just can’t remember it, so finally I tell her it’s so you can