Excerpt

Thirteen Men

“Simon! I demand an invite to Fawn’s East Coast party.”

That’s what she called it as opposed to the West Coast and believe me the West Coast was the end for me.

“ . . . Simon. I’d hate to party crash but I’ll be damned if I should be excluded from the E.C. bash.”

“Your initials of sexual satiety Bartholomew are going to crash land you on your libidinous head.”

“Oh-oh. I sense a verbal bashing when old Bart gets the Bartholomew treatment.”

Bart was a good natured fellow on the surface but as a man with almost half of the proverbial four score under his belt he was as wasted in the “girlie” department as he was with his wallet . . . he had naught a lick of economic self preservation, he, of at least five credit cards run up to the max and making minimum payments thus never reducing the principal.

I attempted to play golf at least once every two weeks, whereas, Bart played at least four to five rounds per week and found his compulsiveness made him wager on every hole. His hobby was extracting a severe monetary toll.

In half way teasing him I asked him to let me take over his finances before he had to file Chapter 7.





Pit Stop



Walter prided himself on his quick read of people.

Today he was going to call these skills into play. He hated the fact that owning a car pitted his unsharpened mechanical wits against a mechanic’s manual and wrenches. In fact, he dreaded the prospect of being at the mercy of workmen with oil under their chewed nails.

His upper middle class educated university generation were more or less obliquely taught not to trust tieless, steel-toed grease jockey’s who slid under cars on faded red dollies doing God knows what. They were of another class. The very idea implied a certain sense of superiority. Was this not dangerous in a republic with democratic ideals that had pulled the privilege plug on the elite of England; did not the revolution of 1776 ban such thoughts?

Well, ban was a rather arguable misnomer. Walter felt, if not guilty, a little uneasy that he should feel so uncomfortable. Even as he eased his one year old 1981 Lincoln Continental onto FREEZE IN SUMMER’S driveway he felt under their spell and control.

. . . yes, America’s royalty reigned and ruled not only in Hollywood, but on used car lots and garages.





Grace is for Dancers



I had heard of the still living legend. He could dance the legs off any two-three girls, and I mean girls under age thirty. He would guide them to the dance floor and sweep them forever to a beat only he and the great jazz drummer, Gene Krupa, heard . . . a man on roller skates possessed until they shook their heads saying “Uncle”. He seemed not to be satisfied until they quit the dance floor and were perspiring. (Ladies, by the way, do not sweat.) He was a proud stallion dancing into eternity where archangels perhaps sang the chorus:

‘We danced to one another’s thoughts.

Then the music stopped that I thought would play a constant melody.’

Bennie, as he was called by everyone, was your basic hoofer, a James Cagney, gone ballroom. Old Bennie . . . point of fact for a social security recipient was considered old when I met him at age 86 . . . and for the next ten years still did a mean shuffle. And I do not mean shuffle board. He would scoff at Florida’s elderly and dismiss them as so much inedible-decayed fruit. “Dried, dead prunes,” he would mutter.