Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker

by Finder, Henry

  “You were, huh?” said Mrs. Preble. “Well, get that out of your mind. Do you want to leave a great big clue right here in the middle of everything where the first detective that comes snooping around will find it? Go out in the street and find some piece of iron or something—something that doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Mr. Preble. “But there won’t be any piece of iron in the street. Women always expect to pick up a piece of iron anywhere.”

  “If you look in the right place you’ll find it,” said Mrs. Preble. “And don’t be gone long. Don’t you dare stop in at the cigarstore. I’m not going to stand down here in this cold cellar all night and freeze.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Preble. “I’ll hurry.”

  “And shut that door behind you!” she screamed after him. “Where were you born—in a barn?”

  1933

  JAMES THURBER

  A COUPLE OF HAMBURGERS

  IT had been raining for a long time, a slow, cold rain falling out of iron-colored clouds. They had been driving since morning and they still had a hundred and thirty miles to go. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. “I’m getting hungry,” she said. He took his eyes off the wet, winding road for a fraction of a second and said, “We’ll stop at a dog-wagon.” She shifted her position irritably. “I wish you wouldn’t call them dog-wagons,” she said. He pressed the klaxon button and went around a slow car. “That’s what they are,” he said. “Dog-wagons.” She waited a few seconds. “Decent people call them diners,” she told him, and added, “Even if you call them diners, I don’t like them.” He speeded up a hill. “They have better stuff than most restaurants,” he said. “Anyway, I want to get home before dark and it takes too long in a restaurant. We can stay our stomachs with a couple of hamburgers.” She lighted a cigarette and he asked her to light one for him. She lighted one deliberately and handed it to him. “I wish you wouldn’t say ‘stay our stomachs,’ ” she said. “You know I hate that. It’s like ‘sticking to your ribs.’ You say that all the time.” He grinned. “Good old American expressions, both of them,” he said. “Like sow belly. Old pioneer term, sow belly.” She sniffed. “My ancestors were pioneers, too. You don’t have to be vulgar just because you were a pioneer.” “Your ancestors never got as far west as mine did,” he said. “The real pioneers travelled on their sow belly and got somewhere.” He laughed loudly at that. She looked out at the wet trees and signs and telephone poles going by. They drove on for several miles without a word; he kept chortling every now and then.

  “What’s that funny sound?” she asked, suddenly. It invariably made him angry when she heard a funny sound. “What funny sound?” he demanded. “You’re always hearing funny sounds.” She laughed briefly. “That’s what you said when the bearing burned out,” she reminded him. “You’d never have noticed it if it hadn’t been for me.” “I noticed it, all right,” he said. “Yes,” she said. “When it was too late.” She enjoyed bringing up the subject of the burned-out bearing whenever he got to chortling. “It was too late when you noticed it, as far as that goes,” he said. Then, after a pause, “Well, what does it sound like this time? All engines make a noise running, you know.” “I know all about that,” she answered. “It sounds like—it sounds like a lot of safety pins being jiggled around in a tumbler.” He snorted. “That’s your imagination. Nothing gets the matter with a car that sounds like a lot of safety pins. I happen to know that.” She tossed away her cigarette. “Oh, sure,” she said. “You always happen to know everything.” They drove on in silence.

  “I WANT to stop somewhere and get something to eat!” she said loudly. “All right, all right!” he said. “I been watching for a dog-wagon, haven’t I? There hasn’t been any. I can’t make you a dog-wagon.” The wind blew rain in on her and she put up the window on her side all the way. “I won’t stop at just any old diner,” she said. “I won’t stop unless it’s a cute one.” He looked around at her. “Unless it’s a what one?” he shouted. “You know what I mean,” she said. “I mean a decent, clean one where they don’t slosh things at you. I hate to have a lot of milky coffee sloshed at me.” “All right,” he said. “We’ll find a cute one, then. You pick it out. I wouldn’t know. I might find one that was cunning but not cute.” That struck him as funny and he began to chortle again. “Oh, shut up,” she said.

  FIVE miles farther along they came to a place called Sam’s Diner. “Here’s one,” he said, slowing down. She looked it over. “I don’t want to stop there,” she said. “I don’t like the ones that have nicknames.” He brought the car to a stop at one side of the road. “Just what’s the matter with the ones that have nicknames?” he asked with edgy, mock interest. “They’re always Greek ones,” she told him. “They’re always Greek ones,” he repeated after her. He set his teeth firmly together and started up again. After a time, “Good old Sam, the Greek,” he said, in a singsong. “Good old Connecticut Sam Beardsley, the Greek.” “You didn’t see his name,” she snapped. “Winthrop, then,” he said. “Old Samuel Cabot Winthrop, the Greek dog-wagon man.” He was getting hungry.

  On the outskirts of the next town she said, as he slowed down, “It looks like a factory kind of town.” He knew that she meant she wouldn’t stop there. He drove on through the place. She lighted a cigarette as they pulled out into the open again. He slowed down and lighted a cigarette for himself. “Factory kind of town than I am!” he snarled. It was ten miles before they came to another town. “Torrington,” he growled. “Happen to know there’s a dog-wagon here because I stopped in it once with Bob Combs. Damn cute place, too, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you anything,” she said, coldly. “You think you’re so funny. I think I know the one you mean,” she said, after a moment. “It’s right in the town and it sits at an angle from the road. They’re never so good, for some reason.” He glared at her and almost ran up against a curb. “What the hell do you mean ‘sits at an angle from the road’?” he cried. He was very hungry now. “Well, it isn’t silly,” she said, calmly. “I’ve noticed the ones that sit at an angle. They’re cheaper, because they fitted them into funny little pieces of ground. The big ones parallel to the road are the best.” He drove right through Torrington, his lips compressed. “Angle from the road, for God’s sake!” he snarled, finally. She was looking out her window.

  On the outskirts of the next town there was a diner called The Elite Diner. “This looks—” she began. “I see it, I see it!” he said. “It doesn’t happen to look any cuter to me than any goddam—” She cut him off. “Don’t be such a sorehead, for Lord’s sake,” she said. He pulled up and stopped beside the diner, and turned on her. “Listen,” he said, grittingly, “I’m going to put down a couple of hamburgers in this place even if there isn’t one single inch of chintz or cretonne in the whole—” “Oh, be still,” she said. “You’re just hungry and mean like a child. Eat your old hamburgers, what do I care?” Inside the place they sat down on stools and the counterman walked over to them, wiping up the counter top with a cloth as he did so. “What’ll it be, folks?” he said. “Bad day, ain’t it? Except for ducks.” “I’ll have a couple of—” began the husband, but his wife cut in. “I just want a pack of cigarettes,” she said. He turned around slowly on his stool and stared at her as she put a dime and a nickel in the cigarette machine and ejected a package of Lucky Strikes. He turned to the counterman again. “I want a couple of hamburgers,” he said. “With mustard and lots of onion. Lots of onion!” She hated onions. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said. He didn’t answer and she went out.

  He finished his hamburgers and his coffee slowly. It was terrible coffee. Then he went out to the car and got in and drove off, slowly, humming “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” After a mile or so, “Well,” he said, “what was the matter with the Elite Diner, milady?” “Didn’t you see that cloth the man was wiping the counter with?” she demanded. “Ugh!” She shuddered. “I didn’t happen to want to eat any of the counter,” he
said. He laughed at that comeback. “You didn’t even notice it,” she said. “You never notice anything. It was filthy.” “I noticed they had some damn fine coffee in there,” he said. “It was swell.” He knew she loved good coffee. He began to hum his tune again; then he whistled it; then he began to sing it. She did not show her annoyance, but she knew that he knew she was annoyed. “Will you be kind enough to tell me what time it is?” she asked. “Big bad wolf, big bad wolf—five minutes o’ five—tum-dee-doo-dee-dum-m-m.” She settled back in her seat and took a cigarette from her case and tapped it on the case. “I’ll wait till we get home,” she said. “If you’ll be kind enough to speed up a little.” He drove on at the same speed. After a time he gave up the “Big Bad Wolf” and there was deep silence for two miles. Then suddenly he began to sing, very loudly, “H-A-double-R-I-G-A-N spells Harrr-i-gan—” She gritted her teeth. She hated that worse than any of his songs except “Barney Google.” He would go on to “Barney Google” pretty soon, she knew. Suddenly she leaned slightly forward. The straight line of her lips began to curve up ever so slightly. She heard the safety pins in the tumbler again. Only now they were louder, more insistent, ominous. He was singing too loud to hear them. “Is a name that shame has never been con-nec-ted with—Harrr-i-gan, that’s me!” She relaxed against the back of the seat, content to wait.

  1935

  PETER DE VRIES

  FOREVER PANTING

  STILL, I have a certain ramshackle charm. So that when I took her young hands in mine across the restaurant table she did not immediately withdraw from my grasp, nor from the larger, bolder plan of action, which I now proceeded to sketch out for her benefit.

  “What I’m going to do is, I’m going to declare moral bankruptcy,” I said. “I mean, we keep using the term in that sense, why not follow it through? When a man can no longer discharge his financial obligations, we let him off the hook. Why not when he can no longer meet his ethical ones? I have too many emotional creditors hounding me, I tell you! That’s all there is to it. A man simply cannot meet all the demands made on his resources, simply cannot be expected to keep his books balanced. It’s too much. Everybody keeps talking about moral bankruptcy but nobody does anything about it. Well, I’m going to. I’m going to declare it. I’m going into receivership. I’m going to pay everybody so much on the dollar.”

  “In other words, Duxbury,” she said, calling me by my last name as people affectionately do, “you want to tell your wife about us.”

  “I do,” I said, “and I’ve spoken those words only once before in my life.”

  She gazed thoughtfully into her post-luncheon mint, stirring the icy sludge around a bit with her straw.

  “How will you go about it?” she asked, at length. “I mean, how much will you pay everybody on the dollar, as you put it?”

  I frowned into my third brandy as I mentally reviewed the scale of figures I had already more or less worked out. Proclaiming to the world that one is materially insolvent is a serious enough step; posting notice that one is no longer ethically liquid is an even graver one, especially if, as appeared to be true here, one is the first man in history to be doing so in a formal sense. The case would be precedent-setting. It might even become a cause célèbre, with all the attendant widespread publicity that I must be prepared to shoulder and to shoulder alone. I therefore weighed my words carefully.

  “I figure I can pay fifty cents on the dollar,” I said at last. “That will be all told and across the board. It will be divided up as fairly as I know how among the claimants. That is to say, half of what is expected of this man on all fronts is really all there is of him to go around. That’s all there is, there ain’t no more.” Here I paused to ask, “You understand that I am talking about the moral equivalent of money, in the mart of human relationships.” She nodded, sucking up the bright-green cordial with lips pursed into a scarlet bud. “All right, then,” I went on. “I shall continue to make my disbursements—of loyalty, coöperation, et cetera—at that level; I mean, I intend to stay in business as a human being. There will never be any question about that, nor that my wife and family will come first, my friends next, and then such things as obligation to community and whatnot, in the ever-widening circles of responsibilities as one sees them—and prorated as I say.”

  “What about your parents, Duxbury?” she asked, looking up. “You admitted you haven’t been back home to see them in over a year. I don’t like that in a man. A man should be thoughtful and considerate about things like that.”

  “All right, I’ll throw in another nickel for them, so to speak. I mean, I’ll stretch a point in what I’ll give, so the others concerned won’t get less of my time and devotion. But that’s my top figure. More than that can simply not be squeezed out of the orange.”

  “What about me? What do I get?”

  “You get me. A man out from under at last, ready to make a fresh start free and clear. How’s that? Ah, macushla . . .”

  There was a silence, broken only by the hydraulic sounds of the last of the mint going up the translucent straw, which was finally put by with a dainty crimson stain on its tip. “Well, all right,” she said. “I expect you’ll want to get home early tonight and have it out. I’m glad I won’t have to be there,” she added with a little shudder. “I just hope it won’t be like the sordid blowups you can hear through the walls of apartments. The couple next door to mine actually throw crockery at each other.”

  “Love is a many-splintered thing. Heh-heh-heh. Ah, baby, the fun we’ll—”

  “So why don’t you call for the check?”

  I flagged the waiter, still brooding over the various aspects of this thorny problem, which I am sure vexes every man from time to time—just how much of him there is to go around. “As for one’s country,” I said, “that’s all well and good, but I doubt whether in peacetime a man owes it any more than is extorted from him in taxes to maintain God knows what proliferating bureaus and agencies going to make up what is still essentially an eleemosynary goddam government.”

  “You don’t have to swear to show how limited your vocabulary is,” she said, reaching for her gloves and bag with a hauteur well supported by the patrician profile that had from the very first struck me to the heart. She is a tawny girl with long legs and hair like poured honey. In her brown eyes is a vacancy as divine as that left in the last motel available to the desperate wayfarer. My knees turned to rubber as I read the check and produced the forty clams necessary to discharge my immediate obligations. “Keep the change,” I told the waiter in a voice hoarse with passion.

  “If you do have it out at home, then you’ll be able to make it for dinner tomorrow instead of lunch, I expect?” she said, rising as the waiter swung the table aside for her exit.

  “Name the place,” I said, trailing in her wake.

  “The Four Seasons is nice.”

  WHEN I got home, after the usual grimy and spasmodic ride on that awful railroad, my family were already at meat. My wife looked up from a gardening magazine she was reading as she ate, and waved cheerfully. Our sixteen-year-old son was paging through a motorcycle pamphlet over his own heaped plate, while his ten-year-old brother pored, fork in hand, over a comic book. The latter wore a switchman’s cap with the visor behind. Dented beer cans were clamped to the heels of his shoes, and his bubble gum was on his wrist. It seemed as good a time as any to make my declaration. My eighteen-year-old daughter, a free spirit now apparently touring Europe or something, would, I knew, heartily applaud my action, if I could only locate her.

  I helped myself to some food from a casserole keeping warm in the oven and joined them at the table. But I could not eat. Finally, I shoved my plate aside and said, “I have an announcement to make.”

  There was a rustle of turned pages and a nod or two.

  “You have all no doubt read Ibsen’s ‘The Wild Duck,’ ” I said. “That anti-morality play, perhaps his best, in which he makes the point that we cannot always be pressed with the claims of the i
deal. That we should not be forever dunned,” I went on, consulting a frayed cuff on which I had jotted what I could remember of Relling’s crucial speeches in that drama, “forever dunned for debts we cannot pay. Isn’t that fine? Doesn’t that make reasonable sense? All right, then. I take this to mean, therefore, that a person who has reached a certain point in the general drain on his resources may with impunity say, ‘I herewith formally declare myself bankrupt. I am going into moral receivership. Creditors, take note—you will henceforth get so much on the dollar,’ said creditors to include all those reasonably embraced by that corporate term ‘society,’ on whose Accounts Receivable we are all permanently enrolled: family, friends, community, and so on. Now then for the figure I am prepared to give you. The absolute maximum disbursement I can manage is, roughly, fifty cents on the dollar. Put in plain English, this means that in future I shall be half the husband I was, half the father, half the friend, and so on down the line. Well, there it is. What have you to say?”

  My wife dropped her magazine and passed a plate of homemade rolls around the table.

  “Why, if she’s what you want, go to her,” she said. “Go away with her even, for a while, if it will help get her out of your system.”

  I rose and shoved my chair back with a force that sent it clattering to the floor behind me.

  “I wish you’d stop treating me as an individual in my own right,” I exclaimed. “All of you! Nothing is more irritating than that, or more demoralizing. As though a man has to be humored like some damn kid!” With that I flung out of the room, slamming the door after me.

  My resolve to leave was by now quite firm. I marched to my bedroom and, pausing only long enough to stand modestly before a wall glass and say, “You ain’t nuttin’ but a hound-dog,” I packed three bags, which I carried, forever panting, along the corridor and down the stairs to the vestibule. There I momentarily dropped my luggage to recover my wind.