Free Boswell by Stanley Elkin Page A

bought eggs. I got a paper and read the gossip columns. I looked longingly at a picture of a presidential dinner party; the Belgian Ambassador was smiling, his ear cocked aristocratically toward the lips of the woman next to him, the wife of the British Prime Minister. Prime Ministers are prime, I thought.
    I crumpled the paper and shoved it away from me. What time was it? There was no clock in Penner’s furnitureless, wardrobeless, eggless world. I had forgotten to look when I was in the street. My arm ached. When would Penner be back? I didn’t even know where he worked. He was “not far.” Yeah, me too.
    I went to the window. A lady was passing in the street with a green laundry bundle under her arm. I opened the window. “Lady, what time is it?” I called.
    She passed by without answering, without stopping, without even looking around, as though strangers shouting to her from windows for the time of day were one of the hazards of city life she had been prepared for. Meet overtures with silence. Better than judo.
    “Thank you, lady, and the same to you.”
    I thought I might go out and spend some more of my ten dollars, buy some elegant little something for the man who has nothing, but my heart wasn’t in it. Or I might pretend to rent a room someplace. I had heard that landladies were supposed to be talkative. My heart wasn’t in that, either. Where was my heart, anyway, I wondered. Let Penner come back. We young men could talk over our plans.
    I heard the same light footstep in the hall I had heard earlier. It came right up to Penner’s door. Then someone was saying words into Penner’s woodwork. “Marty? Marty? Are you there? It’s me.”
    “Come on in, it’s not locked,” I said, using Penner’s favorite ploy—a lie, incidentally, as I discovered at feeding time.
    A girl came in. A pretty little thing, but pale and frail-looking, whose passion brought on asthma attacks.
    “Where’s Marty?” she asked, surprised.
    “Not far,” I said.
    “Are you his friend?”
    “Like a brother,” I said.
    “Is Marty coming back soon?”
    “Have a seat,” I said. “We’ll wait for him together.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Jim Boswell.”
    “I don’t remember Marty talking about you.”
    “I don’t remember Marty’s talking about you.”
    “Oh,” she said, “I’m Alice. I’m Marty’s friend.” I didn’t believe that one, I can tell you.
    “Listen,” she said, “are you very close to Marty?”
    “Not far.”
    “Tell him not to do it.”
    “He wants to do it,” I said. “His heart’s set on doing it. You know how Marty is.”
    “It will ruin his life,” she said.
    “He doesn’t think so,” I said curtly.
    “You sound like you think it’s a good idea,” she said sadly.
    I shrugged.
    “I don’t understand how a friend of Marty’s could feel that way,” she said.
    “Marty thinks it will be fun,” I explained.
    She looked at me curiously. I had probably made a mistake.
    “Does Marty know you’re here?” she said suspiciously. “I could call him,” she threatened. “Who are you?”
    “Alice, I told you. I’m Jim Boswell.”
    “I’ll come back later,” she said, “when Marty’s here.” She moved toward the door uneasily.
    “Alice,” I said sharply, “please sit down. I want to talk to you.”
    “I think I’d better come back later, Mr. Boswell.”
    “All right,” I said, “but it’s silly to be shy. I know about last night. It was me who called. Didn’t Marty tell you that?”
    She turned, troubled and unconfident.
    “I don’t think it was very nice—what Marty did.”
    “What did he do?” she asked in a dry voice.
    I remembered the hand over the mouthpiece. “He threw you out,” I said.
    Alice came back to the chair, and sat down. “I thought it was a woman,” she said quietly. She started to cry.
    “Oh, don’t do that. Alice? Please don’t cry.”
    I moved over to her chair. One hand was across her eyes. I leaned down toward her. “Please,