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I had plenty of vocabulary, thanks to all the reading I did, but not much life experience.
“When a man turns sixty-eight,” he said, “he no longer needs vitamins.”
That song still gives me the chills, and I suppose it always will.
Before I tell you about the big-money lottery ticket, and Mr. Harrigan dying, and the trouble I had with Kenny Yanko when I was a freshman at Gates Falls High, I should tell you about how I happened to go to work for Mr. Harrigan.
Henry Thoreau said that we don’t own things; things own us. Every new object—whether it’s a home, a car, a television, or a fancy phone like that one—is something more we must carry on our backs.
“This only proves the old saying that no good deed goes unpunished.
I waited. I wanted to tell him some more, sell him on it—I was just a kid, after all—but something told me waiting was the right way to go.
“I should have known about this. Being retired is no excuse.”
I just read something for free that people pay good money for. Even with the Journal subscription rate, which is a good deal cheaper than buying off a newsstand, I pay ninety cents or so an issue.
“Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” he asked, reading either my face or my mind. “Giving away useful information runs counter to everything I understand about successful business practices.”
“We may be looking at a huge mistake here, Craig, one being made by people who understand the practical aspects of a thing like this—the ramifications—no more than I do. An economic earthquake may be coming.
I made enemies, I freely admit it. Business is like football, Craig. If you have to knock someone down to reach the goal line, you better damn well do it, or you shouldn’t put on a uniform and go out on the field in the first place. But when the game is over—and mine is, although I keep my hand in—you take off the uniform and go home.
Mr. Harrigan must have known he was on borrowed time, because he left a handwritten sheet of paper on his study desk specifying exactly how he wanted his final rites carried out. It was pretty simple. Hay & Peabody’s Funeral
Films are ephemeral, while books—the good ones—are eternal, or close to it.
You know that old saying, “so-and-so’s blood ran cold”? That can actually happen. I know, because mine did. I sat on my bed, staring at the screen of my phone. The text was from pirateking1.
“I suppose, but I’m still a good Catholic. That means I believe in God, and the angels, and the world of the spirit. Not so sure about exorcism and demonic possession, that seems pretty far out there, but ghosts?
“I know, it sucks,” he said, “but you gotta grow up, Craigy. We live in the real world where money talks and people listen. Money changed hands in the Whitmore case somewhere along the line. You can count on it. Now aren’t you supposed to be giving me four-hundred words on the Craft Fair?”
