Stanley Elkin - Boswell

I started to cry. Break his back. I was some guest. The host doesn’t like it when his guest steals his food? Break his back. Blind him with a punch. The Social Boswell. Bosill. Bosbad. I had to replace the eggs, put back the Bible, make the bed.

I straightened the room and went out into the street. Penner hadn’t said anything about a key so I left the door slightly ajar. Nobody breaks into an open room. What if one did? Penner’s room would break a thief’s heart. It had broken mine, Boswell, the Egg Stealer’s.

I cursed myself for the cab and the flamboyant tip. Bosbad the Show-Oaf. I would have to get some money, but I knew even as I walked around looking for likely cars that I wasn’t up to the car-lift. It was light out and there were people on the street and how could I be sure of picking the right car and even if I did what if it belonged to some housewife with a lot of packages? She’d either give me a dime or call a cop. I walked down the unfamiliar street, cold and desperate but certain nevertheless that something would happen simply because I needed something to happen. I had been outside for about twenty minutes when I realized that it was all pretty ridiculous. I was forced to a revision of my theory. Things happen all right, but they are unexpected things. No prayer is answered.

It was too cold just to walk. I went into a bar where about half a dozen men sat drinking and talking. The bartender looked up at me and nodded. I stood just inside the bar and smiled back at him, trying to convey that I was neither a drinking man nor a talker, just a guy trying to warm up, neighbor. I exaggerated my discomfort by giving myself great hearty whacks with my palms. I embraced my shoulders, I shook my head, I brr-rr-rrr-ed through my lips, I clonked imaginary snow from my imaginary boots. “I’m back, Martha,” I called to myself, “the colt’s foaled, the sow’s pigged, the hen’s chickened.” “You come in here, Sam,” I called to myself from the kitchen, “and take some hot cocoa.”

“Cold are you, big fella?” the bartender said.

“Witch’s tit weather, mister,” I said.

“Have a shot. Warm yourself.”

“Too cold yet,” I said.

A couple of men looked around at me, then turned back to their drinks. One of them whispered something into the ear of an old man who sat beside him. With painful jerks the old man turned on his stool to look at me.

“He’s big. He’s big,” he said in a loud voice.

“Shh. Daddy,” the man who had whispered said.

“All I said is he’s big. He is big,” the old man said again.

“My father is impressed with your size, sir,” the man explained.

“I’m big,” I said agreeably.

All the good little men in the bar looked around at me.

“You think he’s a Polack?” the old man asked his son.

“Shh. Daddy!”

“Your Polacks are big men,” the old man said. He turned to look at me again. “Are you a Polack, sir?” he said.

“No, sir,” I said. “I’m so big because I work out in a gym.”

“How’s that?” he asked.

“I lift the weights,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed, “a weight lifter. All those fellows are muscle-bound.” He turned to his son. “Some wiry fella could kick shit out of him.”

“Just a moment, sir,” I said, inspired.

“How’s that?”

“That’s the biggest fallacy in the world,” I said.

I walked over to the old man, took my coat off and rolled up my sleeves. I turned around slowly in front of the old man. Everybody in the bar was watching me. “Do I look muscle-bound?” I appealed. “It’s the biggest fallacy in the world. ‘Intelligent lifting creates strength without giving the appearance of crippling, freakish muscular definition,’” I said as if I were quoting.

“Just look how cold he was,” someone down the bar said. “Sluggish blood. Muscle-bound blood. It don’t circulate fast enough.”

I looked at the man sternly. “Do you say I’m not strong?” I asked him.

“No. My God, anybody could look at you and tell you’re strong. Hell yes, you’re strong. Sure you’re strong. I’d never say you wasn’t strong. I’m just thinking about what my cousin told me who’s a doctor. He once proved to me scientifically that pound for pound the strongest human being is a kid. If a kid was as big as a man he’d be dangerous he’d be so strong.”

“Well, how come they ain’t dangerous when they grow up?” the old man’s son said. “Kids grow up, don’t they?”

“Ah,” the man down the bar said, “there’s where you miss the point. It’s a question of ratio. My only point is it’s not just size.”

The old man asked if he could buy me a drink.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, “but I’m in training for the Olympics.”

“Going to beat the Russkies, hey?”

“I’m sure going to try, sir,” I said.

“I still say it stands to reason if a man is bigger than another man he’s got more power,” the old man’s son said.

A couple of others agreed with him and I sensed my opening. “No, the doctor’s right,” I said, indicating the man at the other end of the bar.

“How’s that?” the old man’s son said, hurt because he had been defending me and I had abandoned him.

“Well, power has nothing to do with size,” I explained. “Size is just weight. Look, there are several men here. Now it stands to reason that all you men taken together have more size than I do, isn’t that so?” I asked this of a man who had as yet taken no part in the conversation.

“You’re bigger than any man here,” the man said.

“Taken together, I said.”

“Oh, yeah, taken together.”

I turned to the old man’s son. “Well, if you have more size than I do, then if your argument is right you ought to have more power than I do, too. But I say you don’t. I say that even though you have more size you don’t have more power. We’ll arm wrestle. I’ll bet I can beat any two of you at once.”

“How you going to do that?” the bartender asked.

“Well, I’ll sit here with my elbow up on the bar and two of you try to pull it down so that my arm touches the bar. If you can’t do it, I win. How about that, Doctor?” I asked the man down the bar. “Is that a fair test?”

A man on the other side of the old man’s son looked at me. “You want to bet us, is that right?”

“I believe in my strength,” I said.

“How much are you betting?” the man said.

“You say.”

He got off his stool and stood by the bowling machine. He signaled for the other men to collect around him. They had a conference, and then the man stepped from the group and came toward me. “We bet ten dollars,” he said, “but you’ve got to whip four of us.”

“One against four?” I said. “Aren’t you ashamed to come up against me with four helpers?”

“Oh, come on, fella,” the man said. “You’re a hustler. Do I look like a jerk? A guy comes in and says he bets he can beat two men, he knows he can beat two men. It’s a trick.”

“It’s no trick,” I said. “It’s strength.”

“Strength or trick, what difference does it make? If you suggest the bet it’s because you know you can win it. All I want to do is even up the odds. I’d say if you’re prepared to take on two of us you’re probably prepared to take on three of us, in a re-match. What I’m saying is let’s save us all some time and start with four right away. You might even be able to do it against four, but that’s where the bet comes in. I don’t think you’re that strong.”

There is such a thing in this world as counter- hustling. This man was a counter-hustler.

I didn’t know if I could beat them. There was no trick. I needed the money. Penner needed eggs.