Page 288 - What They Did to the Kid

276 Jack Fritscher

their house. The twenty bucks for my room was the price of admis-
sion to their floorshow.
“Who earns the money that buys your beer?”
“Do me a big favor, Joey. Take the money. Run off to Florida.”
“Don’t tempt me twice.”
“Take the money and run off.” She taunted him beyond belief.
Her body had given out before his, earning him her undying
resentment.
“Money I don’t need,” Joe said. “I can go out and earn it.”
“Take it anyway. Go ahead.” Louisa became grand. “I’ll get a
room by myself.”
“Kid, are you looking for women?” Joe said to me. “Forget it.
Queenie’s worse than when she was sixteen. She was frustrated then.”
“I should have gone out and had some drinks by myself tonight.”
“Oh mother, you talk like a lady with a paper nose.”
“Oh you, you’re so funny.” Louisa turned, her face flushed under
the thick permanent swirls of her very fixed black hair. From her
depths she shot tremendous strength to her middle finger, thrusting
it manfully in Joe’s face. “Take that,” she said and turned to her beer.
Joe reeled. “Women don’t give men the finger.”
“What planet are you on?” Louisa said.
Joe fell into a kitchen chair and put his head in his big arms on
the table. I sat quietly across from them, sorry for him at the mercy
of her change-of-life. She had taken away his part. She had gestured
like a man. He was a handsome middle-aged man with big-nosed
Balkan features and a drayman’s pride in his body. It had given him
three sons and he knew how to strut. His hard high chest had not
softened over his strong belly, and Louisa maybe shunned him, but
he had heat, he jibed at her, at the house where the girls knew all the
tricks. He was a proud man. He worked. They owned a brick house.
They had cars. He was not falling apart. She was enjoying falling
apart. She had gestured like a man, not graciously like the nice old
lady, refinished with a doll-face of her choice, that his old age had
envisioned for itself.
Joe raised his head from his arms. He grimaced at her. “Nyaaa,”
he bleated.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK