The actor hadn’t been wasting time even as he talked. He had been acting steadily, standing higher in his body, limbering up, stretching himself, tightening his muscles, lifting his head higher, reaching out with his hands to get the blood circulating a little better, pushing one leg out slowly and tensely, and then the other, and now, now that he was ready to give over, he was truly glad about it, it was certainly the thing to do, and if one were able to know, how would one know it wasn’t the wisest thing he could do? His eyes brightened, his face lost its hopelessness, its wretchedness, its bewilderment and fear and age. He looked young and equal to very nearly anything.
‘Look here,’ he said with a very young voice, not moving but seeming to be in youthful movement. ‘Look here, Mama. It’s twenty-four hours before the funeral. I say why not all of us drive out to a good restaurant some place and have a hell of a lunch, then fly to Reno for some real wild fun, then stop for a while around three in the morning, sleep till noon, fly back, and bury the poor son of a bitch.’
Well, the actor’s wife knew it was coming. She had known it from the first two words he’d said. Her face came alive and she ran to him and said: ‘Oh, Oscar, are you really feeling better? No, I won’t let you do it. We’ll fly home this afternoon.’ And she hugged and kissed him. The actor glanced over at the man and winked. He was O.K. again. He loved it.
‘Go in and tell the widow to shake her fat ass a little,’ the actor said. ‘Let’s get going. This place would make anybody feel sick.’
The actor’s wife ran into the other room to see what was holding up Lucretia, and the woman went to the man and said, ‘I’m so glad you cheered Oscar up.’
The actor went after his wife and the man said, ‘He cheered himself up.’
‘We’re going, aren’t we? We’re going to fly to Reno with everybody, aren’t we? For God’s sake, you’re not going to spoil things, are you? We owe it to poor Lucretia. She needs distraction. We’ll have the nicest time. But why should we wait to eat? Why not eat in Reno?’ She lifted her voice now so the actor would hear: ‘Why not eat in Reno, Oscar? Why not catch the next plane?’
‘O.K.,’ the actor called back, ‘but while we’re waiting for Lucretia to get ready, I’ll have a thick steak—nothing else, so I can eat again in Reno.’
‘We’ll go to that new hotel,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll telephone them now. I want a suite overlooking the river. What’s the name of that river? We can afford it, can’t we?’
‘Sure we can,’ the man said.
Phone calls were made for two steaks, for reservations on the next plane, for three suites one above the other at the new hotel, and then the man telephoned his home.
‘Marta,’ he said, ‘we’re going on a little trip. We’ll be home tomorrow night. How are the kids?’
‘They’re just waking up,’ Marta said. ‘They’re fine. You have a good time with your beautiful wife.’
A Note on the Author
William Saroyan (1908–1981) was an internationally renowned Armenian American writer, playwright, and humanitarian. He achieved great popularity in the thirties, forties, and fifties through his hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. In 1939, Saroyan was the first American writer to win both the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life. He famously refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that “Commerce should not patronize art.” He died near his hometown of Fresno at the age of seventy-two.
Discover books by William Saroyan published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/WilliamSaroyan
Boys and Girls Together
Chance Meetings
The Laughing Matter
Rock Wagram
For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in 1963 by Peter Davies Ltd.
Copyright © 1963 William Saroyan
Used with permission of Stanford University
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The moral right of the author is asserted.
eISBN: 9781448214808
Visit www.bloomsburyreader.com to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers.
Boys and Girls Together Page 14