Ladies and Gentlemen Read Free Page B

cash.”
    “No, I’ll pay,” he said, then went to his apartment and took the book down. When he turned around, Zach was standing in the doorway, looking at his far wall, which was covered with framed posters of productions The Peanut Gallery had done over the years.
    “
Cool
place,” he said.
    “Thank you.” Applelow looked at the posters. Better days. “Here.” He handed Zach a hundred-dollar bill. “Since I’m warden.”
    “I’m not
that
thirsty.”
    “Break it for me.”
    “What do you like?”
    “What do you drink?”
    “Whatever.”
    “Me too,” Applelow said.
    A few minutes later, the kid came back with a six-pack of Budweiser and handed him the same crisp bill.
    “What’s this?” he asked.
    “I said I had money.” Zach went back to the wall and read the posters. “Are you an actor?”
    “No, I managed that theater company.”
    “What do you do now?”
    “Now,” Applelow said, “I look for work.” Zach turned to him. “We closed down.”
    “Sorry.”
    “It was a good run.”
    Sipping seriously, Zach nodded. “I admire that.”
    “What?”
    “That attitude: Enjoy it while it lasts.”
    “I’d have preferred it lasted a little longer.”
    “Yeah, well, it’s rare, though. That it lasts, I mean. And what you did.”
    Applelow had never thought of anything he’d done as being particularly rare.
    “I’m serious,” Zach said. “You’re the first manager of a theater company I’ve ever met. That’s unique. The job, I mean. I want to do unique things.”
    Unique things, Applelow thought, had put him over a void. He could begin a long, cynical monologue now, but instead finished his beer. “Like what?” he said.
    “I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind joining Special Forces. I’mstrong. I have a high pain threshold. I’m thinking everyone hates America so much now that I’ll always be busy blowing shit up. Plus I’d get to travel. Go to Europe or the Middle East or something. See some action.”
    For a moment, Applelow considered his failure to ever leave the country. Possibly he never would. “Not a bad idea,” he said.
    “I think, though,” Zach continued, “I might go work in a cannery in Alaska. Or fish there. This guy I know at school’s on a king-crab boat every winter break and makes, like, fifty thousand dollars. Can you believe that? Fifty-fucking-grand.”
    “That must be dangerous work.”
    “Extremely.”
    “Plus Alaska’s cold,” Applelow pointed out.
    “Not for long, with all this global-warming shit.”
    “True enough.”
    “ ’Cause nothing lasts,” Zach said.
    “Also true.”
    “Here’s to nothing lasting.”
    They clinked cans.
    “Damn,” Zach said, “you pounded.” He went to the refrigerator, opened another beer, and held it out.
    “Your mother told me that you’re joining the air force,” Applelow said. “Is that not the plan?”
    Zach was looking at the pictures of Applelow’s dead parents now. Of his sister, who’d asked him for financial help with their father’s assisted-living costs, who’d called him a failure when he’d confessed he couldn’t spare a dime. He hadn’t spoken to her in the three years since.
    “No,” Zach said. “I mean, maybe. Between you and me,” he lowered his voice, “I haven’t actually joined yet. That’s just the party line right now. It calms Mom down if she thinks I’ve got a clear direction.”
    “Gotcha.”
    “That’s black hole, by the way.”
    “Black hole?”
    “It’s an expression my journalism teacher uses. It means ‘that disappears,’ i.e., Do not repeat that I haven’t joined the air force.”
    “Understood,” Applelow said, raising the beer. “Black hole.”
    “Plus not everyone’s born with a clear direction. Mom doesn’t get this, of course. Because of my brother.”
    “The famous Aaron.”
    “You’ve met little big bro?”
    “He didn’t live up to the hype,” Applelow said.
    This doubled Zach over. “That shit is
cold
,” he said. They clinked