Mr. Vertigo Read Free

man had legs, he could piss standing up.”
    “I know your story, son. So you don’t have to invent any tall tales for me. I know how your pa got gassed over in Belgium in ‘seventeen. And I know about your ma, too, and how she used to turn tricks over in East Saint Louis for a buck a tumble, and what happened to her four and a half years ago when that crazy cop turned his revolver on her and blew off her face. Don’t think I don’t pity you, boy, but you’ll never get anywhere if you dodge the truth when you’re dealing with me.”
    “Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants. If you’ve got all the answers, why waste your breath telling me things you already know?”
    “Because you still don’t believe a word I’ve said. You think this stuff about flying is a lot of hot air. You’re going to work hard, Walt, harder than you’ve ever worked before, and you’re going to want to quit on me almost every day, but if you stick with it and trust what I tell you, at the end of a few years you’ll be able to fly. I swear it. You’ll be able to lift yourself off the ground and fly through the air like a bird.”
    “I’m from Missouri, remember? They don’t call it the Show-Me State for nothing.”
    “Well, we’re not in Missouri anymore, my little friend. We’re in Kansas. And a flatter, more desolate place you’ve never seen in your life. When Coronado and his men marched through here in 1540 looking for the Cities of Gold, they got so lost that half of them went insane. There’s nothing to tell you where you are. No mountains, no trees, no bumps in the road. It’s flat as death out here, and once you’ve been around for a while, you’ll understand there’s nowhere to go but up—that the sky is the only friend you have.”
    It was dark by the time we pulled into the station, so there was no way to vouch for the master’s description of my new home. As far as I could tell, the town was no different from what you’d expect to see in a little town. A trifle colder, perhaps, and more than a trifle darker than what I was used to, but given that I had never been in a little town before, I had no idea what to expect. Everything was new to me: every smell was strange, every star in the sky seemed unfamiliar. If someone had told me I’d just entered the Land of Oz, I don’t think I would have known the difference.
    We walked through the station house and stood outside the door for a moment scanning the dark village. It was only seven o’clock in the evening, but the whole place was locked up, and except for a few lamps burning in the houses beyond, there was no sign of life anywhere. “Don’t worry,” Master Yehudi said, “our ride will be along any minute.” He reached out and tried to take hold of my hand, but I yanked my arm away before he could get a firm grip. “Keep your paws to yourself, Mr. Master,” I said. “You might think you own me now, but you don’t own squat.”
    About nine seconds after I uttered those words, a big gray horse appeared at the end of the street pulling a buckboardwagon. It looked like something from the Tom Mix western I’d seen that summer at the Picture Palace, but this was 1924, for Christ’s sake, and when I caught sight of that antiquated vehicle rumbling down the street, I thought it was an apparition. But lo and behold, Master Yehudi waved when he saw it coming, and then that old gray horse stopped right in front of us, sidling up to the curb as gusts of steam poured from its nostrils. The driver was a round, chunky figure in a wide-brimmed hat whose body was wrapped in blankets, and at first I couldn’t tell if it was a man, a woman, or a bear.
    “Hello, Mother Sue,” the master said. “Take a look at what I found.”
    The woman gazed at me for a couple of seconds with blank, stone-cold eyes, and then, out of nowhere, flashed one of the warmest, friendliest smiles I’ve ever had the pleasure to receive. There couldn’t have been more than two or three teeth jutting from