“LET’S OFFER A BONUS,” she said when we were in bed, “payable to the individual realtor who sells the place. Maybe it will get them to start bringing more people out here.”
“It’s only been five days,” I said, “and they’ve already brought one nutcase out to look at it.”
She gave me a look. “The realtors like to say that it only takes one person, the right one, but if they’re not bringing lots of people out here we’re never going to see the right one, the one who is fool enough to actually buy the place.”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? Offer a bonus.”
I didn’t mention the fact that in five days I had learned to look at the hotel with the eyes of a potential buyer. When it first went on the market it looked quite good to me; I thought that I could see the work we had put into it, the money we had poured into it, the years of effort. Now it looked like an old wreck in need of paint — shabby, tired, and weatherbeaten — and I was beginning to feel that no one would be fool enough to buy it.
BALDY SAID, “Time for another entry in the Catalog of Human Misery, don’t you think, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“Here’s one. You’re sitting at the kitchen table waiting for your son to come home for dinner. Got the picture, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“Instead, there is a knock at the door. It’s the cops. You know what’s coming, don’t you, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re right. Your son and four of his friends walked into a store — a convenience store, a bodega, a deli, any kind of store will do, right, Bob?
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t matter what kind of store — and after they walked in they couldn’t think of anything better to do, so they decided to throw a scare into the owner, a person of a different race. Any race will do, as long as it’s a different race, right, Bob?”
“Yeah.”
“They knew how to scare a shopkeeper, because they’d seen how it’s done. They’d seen it on TV, and they’d seen it in the movies. Be a gangster, be a tough, be a killer. Talk the talk. Walk the walk. Exhibit the attitude. They were only acting, just playing a part, but damn, they were good at it. They were so good at it that the shopkeeper pulled his gun from under the counter and shot your son dead. That’s entertainment!”
There was a long pause, and then he said, “Good night, boys and girls. Stay in the cave. It sucks outside, and the rain it raineth every day.”
[to be continued]
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