‘He never told me that. He never told me anything about it.’
‘Everything he did from then on was to save you from knowing. If I ever told you this when he was alive, he would have had my life.’
My eyes were getting so used to the dark now, I could almost see myself in the mirror, and I saw I still had the black hat on. I took it off and started wiping it around so it would be the way my father liked it. Then I couldn’t help it. I crumpled it up and squeezed it as tight as I could in my hands and held it that way, and it felt good.
Flanagan said, ‘That’s how it is with some men. There’s only one woman in the world for them, and if it’s the wrong one, no matter. They call their curse a blessing and carry it inside of them to the grave. That was your father.’
I said, ‘He was all right.’
Flanagan said, ‘He wouldn’t want you to end up the same as she did. Let me tell you what to say now.’
‘No. He was all right.’
‘Then listen now.’
I said, ‘No. You don’t understand. You just don’t understand.’
‘Have you gone crazy? You’ll do the way I say!’
Somebody knocked on the double doors and said, ‘Hey, you guys,’ and Flanagan jumped up and said, ‘Right away! He’ll be feeling better right away!’
Then he got me by the shoulders and started shaking me so my head rocked. ‘Listen to me!’ he said into my ear. ‘Listen to me!’
I said, ‘No. I want to tell them what happened.’
‘What are you saying?’
I had the hat squeezed tight in my hands. I said, ‘I want to tell them what really happened.’
‘Oh, Jesus, you’re crazy! Do you hear? You’re crazy for sure!’
But I wasn’t. It was only that I saw everything straight now, and how my father took that beating from Al Judge because, the way he looked at it, it was coming to him. All his life, he took what was coming to him and never said anything about it because he was that kind of a guy.
Flanagan didn’t understand. He just didn’t understand that even if my father was dead, it was the most important thing in the world that people mustn’t think he was a bad guy. Because he wasn’t.
He wasn’t like that at all.
He was all right.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1948 by Stanley Ellin
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN:
This 2014 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Head of Zeus
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781784089573
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