Great American Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

by Paul Negri

  In the long nights when there was little to do father had time to think. That was his undoing. He decided that he had in the past been an unsuccessful man because he had not been cheerful enough and that in the future he would adopt a cheerful outlook on life. In the early morning he came upstairs and got into bed with mother. She woke and the two talked. From my bed in the corner I listened.

  It was father’s idea that both he and mother should try to entertain the people who came to eat at our restaurant. I cannot now remember his words, but he gave the impression of one about to become in some obscure way a kind of public entertainer. When people, particularly young people from the town of Bidwell, came into our place, as on very rare occasions they did, bright entertaining conversation was to be made. From father’s words I gathered that something of the jolly inn-keeper effect was to be sought. Mother must have been doubtful from the first, but she said nothing discouraging. It was father’s notion that a passion for the company of himself and mother would spring up in the breasts of the younger people of the town of Bidwell. In the evening bright happy groups would come singing down Turner’s Pike. They would troop shouting with joy and laughter into our place. There would be song and festivity. I do not mean to give the impression that father spoke so elaborately of the matter. He was as I have said an uncommunicative man. “They want some place to go. I tell you they want some place to go,” he said over and over. That was as far as he got. My own imagination has filled in the blanks.

  For two or three weeks this notion of father’s invaded our house. We did not talk much, but in our daily lives tried earnestly to make smiles take the place of glum looks. Mother smiled at the boarders and I, catching the infection, smiled at our cat. Father became a little feverish in his anxiety to please. There was no doubt, lurking somewhere in him, a touch of the spirit of the showman. He did not waste much of his ammunition on the railroad men he served at night but seemed to be waiting for a young man or woman from Bidwell to come in to show what he could do. On the counter in the restaurant there was a wire basket kept always filled with eggs, and it must have been before his eyes when the idea of being entertaining was born in his brain. There was something pre-natal about the way eggs kept themselves connected with the development of his idea. At any rate an egg ruined his new impulse in life. Late one night I was awakened by a roar of anger coming from father’s throat. Both mother and I sat upright in our beds. With trembling hands she lighted a lamp that stood on a table by her head. Downstairs the front door of our restaurant went shut with a bang and in a few minutes father tramped up the stairs. He held an egg in his hand and his hand trembled as though he were having a chill. There was a half insane light in his eyes. As he stood glaring at us I was sure he intended throwing the egg at either mother or me. Then he laid it gently on the table beside the lamp and dropped on his knees beside mother’s bed. He began to cry like a boy and I, carried away by his grief, cried with him. The two of us filled the little upstairs room with our wailing voices. It is ridiculous, but of the picture we made I can remember only the fact that mother’s hand continually stroked the bald path that ran across the top of his head. I have forgotten what mother said to him and how she induced him to tell her of what had happened downstairs. His explanation also has gone out of my mind. I remember only my own grief and fright and the shiny path over father’s head glowing in the lamp light as he knelt by the bed.

  As to what happened downstairs. For some unexplainable reason I know the story as well as though I had been a witness to my father’s discomfiture. One in time gets to know many unexplainable things. On that evening young Joe Kane, son of a merchant of Bidwell, came to Pickleville to meet his father, who was expected on the ten o’clock evening train from the South. The train was three hours late and Joe came into our place to loaf about and to wait for its arrival. The local freight train came in and the freight crew were fed. Joe was left alone in the restaurant with father.

  From the moment he came into our place the Bidwell young man must have been puzzled by my father’s actions. It was his notion that father was angry at him for hanging around. He noticed that the restaurant keeper was apparently disturbed by his presence and he thought of going out. However, it began to rain and he did not fancy the long walk to town and back. He bought a five-cent cigar and ordered a cup of coffee. He had a newspaper in his pocket and took it out and began to read. “I’m waiting for the evening train. It’s late,” he said apologetically.

  For a long time father, whom Joe Kane had never seen before, remained silently gazing at his visitor. He was no doubt suffering from an attack of stage fright. As so often happens in life he had thought so much and so often of the situation that now confronted him that he was somewhat nervous in its presence.

  For one thing, he did not know what to do with his hands. He thrust one of them nervously over the counter and shook hands with Joe Kane. “How-de-do,” he said. Joe Kane put his newspaper down and stared at him. Father’s eye lighted on the basket of eggs that sat on the counter and he began to talk. “Well,” he began hesitatingly, “well, you have heard of Christopher Columbus, eh?” He seemed to be angry. “That Christopher Columbus was a cheat,” he declared emphatically. “He talked of making an egg stand on its end. He talked, he did, and then he went and broke the end of the egg.”

  My father seemed to his visitor to be beside himself at the duplicity of Christopher Columbus. He muttered and swore. He declared it was wrong to teach children that Christopher Columbus was a great man when, after all, he cheated at the critical moment. He had declared he would make an egg stand on end and then when his bluff had been called he had done a trick. Still grumbling at Columbus, father took an egg from the basket on the counter and began to walk up and down. He rolled the egg between the palms of his hands. He smiled genially. He began to mumble words regarding the effect to be produced on an egg by the electricity that comes out of the human body. He declared that without breaking its shell and by virtue of rolling it back and forth in his hands he could stand the egg on its end. He explained that the warmth of his hands and the gentle rolling movement he gave the egg created a new centre of gravity, and Joe Kane was mildly interested. “I have handled thousands of eggs,” father said. “No one knows more about eggs than I do.”

  He stood the egg on the counter and it fell on its side. He tried the trick again and again, each time rolling the egg between the palms of his hands and saying the words regarding the wonders of electricity and the laws of gravity. When after a half hour’s effort he did succeed in making the egg stand for a moment he looked up to find that his visitor was no longer watching. By the time he had succeeded in calling Joe Kane’s attention to the success of his effort the egg had again rolled over and lay on its side.

  Afire with the showman’s passion and at the same time a good deal disconcerted by the failure of his first effort, father now took the bottles containing the poultry monstrosities down from their place on the shelf and began to show them to his visitor. “How would you like to have seven legs and two heads like this fellow?” he asked, exhibiting the most remarkable of his treasures. A cheerful smile played over his face. He reached over the counter and tried to slap Joe Kane on the shoulder as he had seen men do in Ben Head’s saloon when he was a young farm-hand and drove to town on Saturday evenings. His visitor was made a little ill by the sight of the body of the terribly deformed bird floating in the alcohol in the bottle and got up to go. Coming from behind the counter father took hold of the young man’s arm and led him back to his seat. He grew a little angry and for a moment had to turn his face away and force himself to smile. Then he put the bottles back on the shelf. In an outburst of generosity he fairly compelled Joe Kane to have a fresh cup of coffee and another cigar at his expense. Then he took a pan and filling it with vinegar, taken from a jug that sat beneath the counter, he declared himself about to do a new trick. “I will heat this egg in this pan of vinegar,” he said. “Then I will put it through the neck of a bottle
without breaking the shell. When the egg is inside the bottle it will resume its normal shape and the shell will become hard again. Then I will give the bottle with the egg in it to you. You can take it about with you wherever you go. People will want to know how you got the egg in the bottle. Don’t tell them. Keep them guessing. That is the way to have fun with this trick.”

  Father grinned and winked at his visitor. Joe Kane decided that the man who confronted him was mildly insane but harmless. He drank the cup of coffee that had been given him and began to read his paper again. When the egg had been heated in vinegar father carried it on a spoon to the counter and going into a back room got an empty bottle. He was angry because his visitor did not watch him as he began to do his trick, but nevertheless went cheerfully to work. For a long time he struggled, trying to get the egg to go through the neck of the bottle. He put the pan of vinegar back on the stove, intending to reheat the egg, then picked it up and burned his fingers. After a second bath in the hot vinegar the shell of the egg had been softened a little but not enough for his purpose. He worked and worked and a spirit of desperate determination took possession of him. When he thought that at last the trick was about to be consummated the delayed train came in at the station and Joe Kane started to go nonchalantly out at the door. Father made a last desperate effort to conquer the egg and make it do the thing that would establish his reputation as one who knew how to entertain guests who came into his restaurant. He worried the egg. He attempted to be somewhat rough with it. He swore and the sweat stood out on his forehead. The egg broke under his hand. When the contents spurted over his clothes, Joe Kane, who had stopped at the door, turned and laughed.

  A roar of anger rose from my father’s throat. He danced and shouted a string of inarticulate words. Grabbing another egg from the basket on the counter, he threw it, just missing the head of the young man as he dodged through the door and escaped.

  Father came upstairs to mother and me with an egg in his hand. I do not know what he intended to do. I imagine he had some idea of destroying it, of destroying all eggs, and that he intended to let mother and me see him begin. When, however, he got into the presence of mother something happened to him. He laid the egg gently on the table and dropped on his knees by the bed as I have already explained. He later decided to close the restaurant for the night and to come upstairs and get into bed. When he did so he blew out the light and after much muttered conversation both he and mother went to sleep. I suppose I went to sleep also, but my sleep was troubled. I awoke at dawn and for a long time looked at the egg that lay on the table. I wondered why eggs had to be and why from the egg came the hen who again laid the egg. The question got into my blood. It has stayed there, I imagine, because I am the son of my father. At any rate, the problem remains unsolved in my mind. And that, I conclude, is but another evidence of the complete and final triumph of the egg—at least as far as my family is concerned.

  THE KILLERS

  Ernest Hemingway

  THE DOOR of Henry’s lunchroom opened and two men came in. They sat down at the counter.

  “What’s yours?” George asked them.

  “I don’t know,” one of the men said. “What do you want to eat, Al?”

  “I don’t know,” said Al. “I don’t know what I want to eat.”

  Outside it was getting dark. The streetlight came on outside the window. The two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end of the counter Nick Adams watched them. He had been talking to George when they came in.

  “I’ll have a roast pork tenderloin with applesauce and mashed potatoes,” the first man said.

  “It isn’t ready yet.”

  “What the hell do you put it on the card for?”

  “That’s the dinner,” George explained. “You can get that at six o’clock.”

  George looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter.

  “It’s five o’clock.”

  “The clock says twenty minutes past five,” the second man said.

  “It’s twenty minutes fast.”

  “Oh, to hell with the clock,” the first man said. “What have you got to eat?”

  “I can give you any kind of sandwiches,” George said. “You can have ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver and bacon, or a steak.”

  “Give me chicken croquettes with green peas and cream sauce and mashed potatoes.”

  “That’s the dinner.”

  “Everything we want’s the dinner, eh? That’s the way you work it.”

  “I can give you ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver——”

  “I’ll take ham and eggs,” the man called Al said. He wore a derby hat and a black overcoat buttoned across the chest. His face was small and white and he had tight lips. He wore a silk muffler and gloves.

  “Give me bacon and eggs,” said the other man. He was about the same size as Al. Their faces were different, but they were dressed like twins. Both wore overcoats too tight for them. They sat leaning forward, their elbows on the counter.

  “Got anything to drink?” Al asked.

  “Silver beer, bevo, ginger ale,” George said.

  “I mean you got anything to drink?”

  “Just those I said.”

  “This is a hot town,” said the other. “What do they call it?”

  “Summit.”

  “Ever hear of it?” Al asked his friend.

  “No,” said the friend.

  “What do you do here nights?” Al asked.

  “They eat the dinner,” his friend said. “They all come here and eat the big dinner.”

  “That’s right,” George said.

  “So you think that’s right,” Al asked George.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?”

  “Sure,” said George.

  “Well, you’re not,” said the other little man. “Is he, Al?”

  “He’s dumb,” said Al. He turned to Nick. “What’s your name?”

  “Adams.”

  “Another bright boy,” Al said. “Ain’t he a bright boy, Max?”

  “The town’s full of bright boys,” Max said.

  George put the two platters, one of ham and eggs, the other of bacon and eggs, on the counter. He set down two side dishes of fried potatoes and closed the wicket into the kitchen.

  “Which is yours?” he asked Al.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Ham and eggs.”

  “Just a bright boy,” Max said. He leaned forward and took the ham and eggs. Both men ate with their gloves on. George watched them eat.

  “What are you looking at?” Max looked at George.

  “Nothing.”

  “The hell you were. You were looking at me.”

  “Maybe the boy meant it for a joke, Max,” Al said.

  George laughed.

  “You don’t have to laugh,” Max said to him. “You don’t have to laugh at all, see?”

  “All right,” said George.

  “So he thinks it’s all right.” Max turned to Al. “He thinks it’s all right. That’s a good one.”

  “Oh, he’s a thinker,” Al said. They went on eating.

  “What’s the bright boy’s name down the counter?” Al asked Max.

  “Hey, bright boy,” Max said to Nick. “You go around on the other side of the counter with your boy friend.”

  “What’s the idea?” Nick asked.

  “There isn’t any idea.”

  “You better go around, bright boy,” Al said. Nick went around behind the counter.

  “What’s the idea?” George asked.

  “None of your damn business,” Al said. “Who’s out in the kitchen?”

  “The nigger.”

  “What do you mean, the nigger?”

  “The nigger that cooks.”

  “Tell him to come in.”

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Tell him to come in.”

  “Where do you think you are?”

  “We
know damn well where we are,” the man called Max said. “Do we look silly?”

  “You talk silly,” Al said to him. “What the hell do you argue with this kid for? Listen,” he said to George, “tell the nigger to come out here.”

  “What are you going to do to him?”

  “Nothing. Use your head, bright boy. What would we do to a nigger?”

  George opened the slit that opened back into the kitchen. “Sam,” he called. “Come in here a minute.”

  The door to the kitchen opened and the nigger came in. “What was it?” he asked. The two men at the counter took a look at him.

  “All right, nigger. You stand right there,” Al said.

  Sam, the nigger, standing in his apron, looked at the two men sitting at the counter. “Yes, sir,” he said. Al got down from his stool.

  “I’m going back to the kitchen with the nigger and bright boy,” he said. “Go on back to the kitchen, nigger. You go with him, bright boy.” The little man walked after Nick and Sam, the cook, back into the kitchen. The door shut after them. The man called Max sat at the counter opposite George. He didn’t look at George but looked in the mirror that ran along back of the counter. Henry’s had been made over from a saloon into a lunch counter.

  “Well, bright boy,” Max said, looking into the mirror, “why don’t you say something?”

  “What’s it all about?”

  “Hey, Al,” Max called, “bright boy wants to know what it’s all about.”

  “Why don’t you tell him?” Al’s voice came from the kitchen.