Free The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage Page B

used to call a tomato.
    Let me hear from you soon, as I’ll have to invite someone else if you really can’t make it.
    All the best,
    Andy
    ¶
    Dear Peg,
    Thank you for your note. I was already aware that I was a great disappointment to Papa and that you were a little princess. You are so disagreeable that I am sorry I ever wrote. Prior to reading your charming note, with its references to my intellectual capacities and my physique, there existed a large number of delightful pictures of you at all stages of childhood, including one on a pony. If you’d like me to send you a box with all the itty-bitty pieces, just let me know.
    Your brother,
    Andy
    ¶
    The scene: a wide river, sluggish, muddy, some kind of estuary. It is in Africa probably. On both sides of the river, or estuary, a sandy desert stretches away as far as the eye can see. No trees, not even palm trees, dot the landscape. In the beginning, a group of children, boys and girls, dressed in sailor suits and pinafores, are playing, or attempting to play, in the sand. But the sand is extremely fine and dry, almost a dry powder, and they are able to construct only formless piles like anthills. In the face of repeated failures, sweating in their city clothes, the children become quarrelsome and listless, some one and some the other, the quarrelsome ones striking the listless ones sharply in the face or dumping handfuls of hot sand down their shirts, the listless ones lying down in the sand, weeping softly. (They will remember this later.) The grown-ups, meanwhile, men and women whose children these presumably are, also dressed in dark city clothes, the men with top hats and canes, the women with parasols and bustles and exaggerated bosoms, stand in little clusters on the bank, cluster in little stands there, like trees in a landscape without any, and discuss whether the darkish things they see far out in the river are logs, almost submerged after months in the water, or crocodiles. The discussion is tedious, anfractuous, inconclusive. In their heart of hearts, they all, adults and children, would like just to dive in and get it over with.
    ¶
    Dear Anita,
    What a terrible misunderstanding. I feel like a complete fool. You can well believe I had no idea you and Rick were back together. But if that’s really what you want, what can I do except wish you both all the best? I had meant to write a letter of tender reminiscence about a time that I foolishly thought was important to us both. It hurts me that you say it made you feel pawed. I’ll not write again.
    Andy
    ¶
    paint thinner
    tile mastic
    ant poison
    garbage can
    interior white
    I write like my mother
    post office
    light bill
    courthouse
    pills
    stay home
    read
    go somewhere
    so. comfort
    food
    ¶
    Dear Dahlberg,
    First you accuse me of rejecting your work out of anti-Canadian prejudice, and now you tell me that thanks to being published in
Soap
you were finally able to get laid. What do you expect me to do with this information?
    Andy
    ¶
    GET READY TO BOAST TO YOUR FRIENDS! 125 S. Spalding St. Three-story five-unit traditional style bldng. Two units available. Each unit 2 bdrm 1 bath. Distinctive arched doorways. Some new wndows. New paint last year. Conveniently located in quiet neighborhood near Interstate. Lighted parking. LIVE FIRST MONTH RENT FREE wth 1 yr lease. $110 + utils.
    ¶
    Dear Jolie,
    I have been having some kind of trouble with my eyes. They are bloodshot, and the slightest glare is painful. It seems to me the whites have acquired a yellow cast that makes me look like a drunk.
    *
    The sun has finally reappeared, having used its two weeks absence to move farther to the south than when we last saw it. With the elm tree gone, there is now nothing to prevent it blazing in through the living room windows for the better part of the day. See above.
    *
    I don’t talk to anyone for days on end. At the grocery store this morning, when I reached the checkout counter and asked the girl for a pack of