Флетчер Флора - The Brass Bed

“I’ve been thinking that I might go fishing in the river again,” Harvey said.

“When did you think you might go?” I said.

“Well, tomorrow is Friday, and I thought I might go out tomorrow afternoon and come back Sunday. Do you have anything planned for this weekend?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Would you care to come fishing in the river with me?”

“Now that you’ve asked me, I believe I would.”

“That’s wonderful, old boy. I’ll buy a case of beer, and you can buy one, and we’ll have a very good time.”

“All right. A very good masculine time.”

“To be sure. There is no good time quite so good as a very good masculine one.”

“Are you ready to go now?”

“You haven’t finished your steak. Is something wrong with it?”

“Not at all. It’s an excellent steak, but I’m not hungry.”

“That’s too bad. I’ve been meaning to tell you that you look rather under the weather. Peaked, if you know what I mean. What you need is to go fishing in the river and have a good masculine time, and it may be Providence that I was sent around to suggest it. Do you believe in Providence?”

“Not much. Do you?”

“As a mathematician, I can’t believe in it seriously, but sometimes I believe in it for convenience.”

“Why can’t a mathematician believe in Providence?”

“Come to think of it, I don’t really know. It just seems to be contrary to general practice. Shall we go?”

We got up and went over to the counter and paid for the food and said goodbye to Nick and Irene.

“Don’t forget our arrangement,” Harvey said to Irene.

She showed her many good teeth and said she would be certain not to forget, and we went out and walked back along the street toward my place, and at the corner above it Harvey stopped, and I stopped with him, and we stood there listening to the cicadas and thinking that it would now very shortly be dark. That’s what I was thinking, and I’m sure Harvey was thinking the same small thing, because there is a feeling about such matters at such times.

“Well, goodbye,” he said.

“Aren’t you coming up to the apartment?” I asked.

“No, I think not. I think I’ll go along home.”

“You’d better come up and help me drink the two cans of beer that are left.”

“You drink them both. They’ll relax you and make you sleep well.”

“All right.”

“Don’t forget about the fishing tomorrow.”

“I won’t forget.”

“If you see Jolly, tell her hello for me.”

“I won’t see her.”

“Well, just in case you do.”

“In case I do, I’ll tell her, but I won’t.”

“Goodbye again, old boy.”

“Goodbye.”

He walked away, and I watched him for a minute, and I felt very affectionate toward him, in spite of his calling me old boy so much, and then I went on to the apartment.

I turned on the light and sat down in front of the typewriter and tried to think of a way to make the novel go, but I couldn’t, and it came into my mind that I had a great deal of trouble making many things go, and this seemed to be one of my faults. I got up and turned off the light and lay down across the bed. I could see Jolly quite clearly with her fine black eye, and I could hear her small and wistful voice saying softly that everything would be so very simple if only Kirby would die. The cicadas were sad sounding, and I was lonely, and it got dark.

The next day I had another try at the novel, and this time it went a little better. I got the duchess in and livened things up considerably, and I worked along until sometime between noon and one o’clock, and altogether I must have done a couple thousand words or more. Then I decided I’d better get some food to take to the river fishing, and so I walked down to a grocery store a couple blocks away and bought some bread and beans and coffee and some cornmeal to fry the fish in. A few minutes after I got back to the apartment, the telephone rang in the other room. I went in and answered it, and it was Harvey.

“Hello, old boy,” he said. “This is Harvey.”

“How are you, Harvey?”

“Oh, fine. And you?”

“I’m all right. I just went down to the grocery store and bought some stuff for the fishing.”

“Did you buy the beer?”

“No. I thought we could stop and pick it up on the way.”

“Good. We can do that, all right. I’ll bring the ice chest. I have a very good one, you know. We can also stop on the way and have some ice put in it.”

“What time do you want to leave?”

“Well, that’s actually what I called to tell you. I won’t be able to get away until after five o’clock. Do you consider five o’clock too late?”

“It doesn’t matter, Harvey. Any time you can make it.”

“I’ll probably be at your place about five-thirty. Is that all right?”

“That will be fine, Harvey.”

“That’s settled, then. I made some dough balls after I left you yesterday. I did an exceptionally good job of it this time, if I do say it myself.”

“Good for you.”

“You’ll remember we had trouble with them last time. They wouldn’t stay on the hook.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“They’re excellent this time, though. Springy. You can bounce them just like a God-damn pingpong ball.”

“That’s the way they need to be. Good and springy.”

“They’re very tempting to catfish, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’ll see you about five-thirty, then.”

“Right. Five-thirty.”

“Goodbye, old boy.”

“Goodbye, Harvey.”

I got my box of fishing stuff out of the closet in the other room and started looking at the trot line to see if it was in good shape, and it seemed to be. Crossing to the window on the other side of the room, I looked down into the side yard and began watching the activities of a red squirrel down there on the grass. Squirrels were plentiful and quite tame on the campus of the college and in the neighborhoods all around, and pretty soon another one came along and joined the one I was watching, and so I started watching both of them. They were lively and quick and seemed to be in high spirits, and I thought that the life of a squirrel must be an unusually good life in spite of being short by our standards. I was aware that I ought to be thinking instead about the goliard and the duchess on the chance that they might bring me in a little money, but I was now reluctant to think about them, the fine inspiration of the morning having passed, and this delinquency was beginning to make me uncomfortable and somewhat depressed when someone knocked on the door. I turned around and said that it was all right to come in, but then I wasn’t so sure that it was all right after all, because it was Jolly who came.

She closed the door and walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “I walked all the way, and I’m quite hot, and I would like very much to have a drink.”

She was wearing a straw hat with a wide brim and a pale blue dress and pale blue shoes that matched the dress exactly and were apparently made of exactly the same material, except for the parts that were made of leather, and what the material looked like to me was a kind of very fine denim, but it was probably something much better and more expensive.

“All I have is a can of beer,” I said. “It’s a full half-quart that Harvey Griffin left here yesterday.”

“That sounds good,” she said. “I’ll have that.”

I got the beer and took it to her, and she took a long drink from the can.

“It’s quite a long walk,” she said.

“From your house?”

“Yes.”

“About three miles, as a matter of fact. Why didn’t you drive?”