Free IBID by Mark Dunn Page A

desire to see him again and perhaps renew the ties that bound the two in their youth. There is no evidence that Jonathan ever replied, although Mildred’s letter is preserved in Jonathan’s papers, a hint of the fragrance she atomizedupon it still lingering upon the page.
    January 24, 1919
    Dear Jonny,
    Once we were young and gay and life held such wonderful promise for us both. Then you went away to college to learn Latin and history and commerce, and I pined miserably until Clyde rescued me from my pit of self-pity and asked for my hand. Oh, Jonny, HAD I ONLY WAITED FOR YOUR RETURN! But where was the assurance that we would pick up where we left off when you, with diploma in hand and a bit more tuft upon your chest, finally strode back into Pettiville and back into MY LIFE? Especially after you took up with that prostitute and had all the tongues in town wagging from the SCANDAL of it, and it seemed that your reputation would be forever PUSTULED AND SCROFULOUS itself from the association. Do you blame me, Jonny? Had I a choice? With Clyde’s arms opened wide, his warm smile inviting me to share my life with one so kind and gay and morally unimpeachable?
    For, yes, Clyde did treat me well. He gave me a beautiful little girl, Clydette. He gave me a spinet piano and a new living room suite with beautiful appointments. He never found need for the arms of other women.
    He did, however, drink. Too much. He drank so much that his liver SHRIVELED UP AND DIED and he was forced to submit to an operation that would end his life after three short days, because the odds were too great that his body would ever accept a transplant from a monkey, much less a liver lifted from the body of a chimpanzee named BOPPO which Dr. Blantonconfessed after the deed was done and the brown hepatic slab securely fixed in its new home, was a heavy drinker himself! Yes, my Clyde traded his cirrhotic human liver for an EQUALLY CIRRHOTIC PRIMATE ONE! Or perhaps one even more diseased than his own, for Boppo had a thirst for Brandy Melange that was nearly UNQUENCHABLE!
    All this leaving me with a dead monkey-livered husband and murdered hope.
    That is, until I read that you too had suffered tragedy and now lay sprawled single upon the marital bed. Until I came to know the hard facts about this bumpy road we call life. Facts acknowledged by us both. Fate has dealt each of us a losing hand, Jonny. But the game doesn’t have to be OVER. We are permitted another deal, count on it. Yet we must move quickly. That quicksilver dealer of second chances will clear the table and depart if we tarry.
    Shall we play that other hand? Shall I see you again, you successful entrepreneur, you! I have heard of your grand business plan. You will wave your magic wand in the marketplace and men will be wiped clean of the noisome odors of hard labor and sporadic ablutions, and I desire that a wand be waved over me as well. By your hand. Bringing me back THE LIFE I ONCE LIVED. When we were both young and you made me laugh and feel beautiful and much loved.
    Am I wrong to write to you in this way? If so, please forgive my effrontery.
    Yours,
    Mildred
    I have no way of knowing if Jonathan ever responded to her offer, even with only a polite decline. Mildred moved to Boston in the mid-twenties and lived there until her death in 1975 when she was struck by a school bus. Ironically, the fatal accident took place at the height of the citywide donnybrook over court-ordered bussing.
    2. Izzy and Moe shot straight with their new employee; he was hired because they thought the extra leg would bring in a few extra customers. Several years later the Pettiville haberdashers would be famously confused with federal agents Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith who became celebrated during Prohibition for donning elaborate disguises to infiltrate speakeasies and bootlegging operations. As a result, Izzy Feldbaum received a bullet in the spleen courtesy of a Capone caporegime who had mixed up his Izzies.