Free Never Use a Chicken and Other Stories by Jim Newell Page B

ads. We saw them one night while I was watching a ball game on the tube. Two baseball games and a basketball game, to be exact. This time of year there’s at least two sports going on and I switch channels watching parts of different games. So one night while I was switching channels we saw three of those life insurance commercials, one during each game. Louise wrote down the toll-free numbers.
    It took her a while to wear me down. I’m in the age bracket where I could buy the maximum amount of coverage, a hundred grand. So that meant I could buy three hundred thousand in life insurance. Louise figured if I had that much coverage and she was the beneficiary, she wouldn’t worry so much if I went to prison again.
    “Baby, I’m not going to prison again,” I told her.
    “That’s what you said before,” she reminded me.
    She had a point. I had said that. Of course I hadn’t figured on Harry’s stupidity, either. Louise didn’t think Harry was so stupid, and she said so. I didn’t argue. She wasn’t there when his stupidity brought the cops. How could she know? And like I already said, once women get their minds made up, that’s it. She had her mind made up that Harry wasn’t so stupid, and she had her mind made up that I might go back to prison and that I might get killed.
    She also had her mind made up that I was going to get all that life insurance. So she called the toll-free numbers and I went out on a couple of jobs to pay the first premiums. Now if I kick off, she can be comfortable, she says.
    So it wasn’t Louise. But what other woman? I don’t really know any other woman. I don’t know any man who would want me dead, either. Not even Harry. He didn’t get caught and I didn’t rat, even if it was his stupidity that got me caught. So I gave up on the “he” or “she” answer to the “who” question and went back to the “they.” No luck there either. My coffee cup was empty again, so I decided I ought to concentrate on another problem. I had to get out of that mall and get home without getting killed. I also had to do it without the car. Louise could pick it up later when she went to work. She’s hostess at a lounge, a real ritzy place, about five minutes from the mall.
    I decided the safest thing to do would be to take the bus. The bus stop was just outside the north entrance to the mall, the opposite direction from the area where I had left the car. And a number eight bus stopped outside our apartment. If I waited for a number eight, I could ride home surrounded by people. That’s what I did. I had to wait about three-quarters of an hour for a number eight bus, but that was no big deal, either. I had plenty of time. I watched people while I leaned against the wall. I waited three-quarters of an hour. I was looking for anyone who showed any special interest in me. Apart from a couple of giggling teenage girls who seemed to have an interest in any male under forty who happened to cross their line of vision, I couldn’t see that anybody had any curiosity about my being alive at all.
    The bus ride was the same way. Nobody paid any attention to me at all. I made the distance from the bus stop to the front door of the apartment building in something under thirty seconds. Louise was on the phone when I walked in. “Well, tell him to try again,” I heard her say. “I’m not paying for failure.” I heard her slam down the receiver just as I walked from the hallway into the bedroom where the phone was.
    “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in.” She was smiles and hugs and oh, my goodness, what a welcome. I still get excited thinking about it. I managed to forget to ask who was on the phone. She didn’t even frown when I confessed to having forgotten cigars.
    Louise was working three to eleven that evening so I was home alone. There was only one ball game on the television schedule for that evening. Wouldn’t you know, the game was rained out. No domed stadium in that city. I flipped channels but