![]() The juke kept playing “I’ll Never Smile Again.” Sots blubbered in their Schlitz.Īfter Last Call, when the only lights burning in the pawnshop were the little Christmas bulbs at the back to discourage burglars, Jacob threw a brick through the window and ran away with the Remington under his arm. It was of a piece with its surroundings, plopped between a check-cashing place and a Salvation Army store that smelled like old gym socks: Dead fighters struck old-fashioned stances in flyblown frames behind the bar. Jacob drank six jiggers of Four Roses in a joint down the street called Ted’s Last Chance. The buzzer let him out, blowing a raspberry. He’d packed it for muggers he hadn’t expected to need it indoors even in that neighborhood. He groped under the counter and lifted a short-barreled revolver into line with Jacob’s chest. The muscles in the proprietor’s face shut down. “Just for that, ten, you son of a bitch!” Jacob scooped out his Army. Now you want a deal just ’cause you wasn’t smart enough to dodge the draft. ![]() All them free ham steaks and gasoline to burn while us Home Fronters had to hoard stamps to buy baloney and drive clear out to Coney Island for a little sun, which I think was rationed too. “Can’t a veteran get a break?”Ī tongue came off a tooth with a sharp snick. Now it hung loose around the belly and cinched tight at the shoulders. His suit was the one he’d worn to basic training, and it was out of fashion even then, but it had fit. They had a wizard effect or had, before the parades on Fifth Avenue lost their novelty. Jacob wished he’d worn his uniform and medals. Comes with a case, pebbled-black fabric with chromium latches. Or Flemish, which no one speaks a hundred yards outside the borders. If it made the papers there, it was in French. “Last year sometime I was in Brussels, waiting for my orders to ship home. The uninformed were the second-class citizens of the postwar world. There it was again, that accusatory coda: It was in all the papers. She pawned it to keep him in straw to weave baskets. Fergus Tunn, the poet? FBI tagged him for writing Nazi propaganda. “Do you know why she didn’t redeem it?” He had a sudden doubt about the mechanics of the machine. “That’s less than I gave the dame who brought it in.” Jacob was half surprised his eyeshade didn’t fly off his head. The man behind the counter registered funny-papers astonishment. “I’ll give you twenty-five.” He could get a used Underwood from the Business Exchange for less but it must be the Remington. “I wouldn’t pay that for a brand-new machine!” The proprietor reached up to adjust a pair of glasses he wasn’t wearing, squinting past the visitor’s shoulder in the direction of an item he knew was there. “What are you asking for the typewriter in the window?” “Yes-s?” A slight hissing at the end, as if the man had drawn in too much breath for just that one syllable and the rest had to escape. The colors were faded and the corners curled inward. The cardboard recruiting poster on a shelf behind him might have been merchandise, or it might have been stood up there by a previous owner and forgotten: The snarling German soldier wore a spiked helmet from two wars ago. He stood behind an old-fashioned wooden counter that reached to his sternum. His red bow tie was so surrealistically crooked it might have been tied that way deliberately. The proprietor was an anachronism in green felt sleeve-protectors, black unbuttoned vest powdered with gray ash, and a green eyeshade that turned his long narrow face the color of a pickle. That was something new in the world of retail. There was a pause, then a buzz and a clunk, and he pulled the door open. A tin sign in the barred window told him to ring the bell. Jacob tugged on the handle to the door of the shop. ![]() Together we will change the face of literature.” All I ask is a cleaning now and then, a little light oil, and I will serve you faithfully forever. “I will never skip a space or type above or below the line. “My keys will never tangle or stick,” it said. It looked proud and disdainful, a prince in exile. In a pawnshop window it was absurdly out of place, surrounded by egg-beaters and pocket watches, bouquets of fountain pens, a Chock full o’Nuts coffee can filled with wire-rimmed spectacles tangled inextricably like paper clips, a full set of the World Book Encyclopedia (outdated emphatically by events in Munich and Yalta). The typewriter-for that’s all it was, despite the trimmings-compared to his old gray Royal standard like a spaceship parked next to a hay wagon. One, the tabulator (largely useless except to accountants), was labeled SELF STARTER. It had four rows of black-and-silver keys, but three keys were enameled in ruby red. The Remington Streamliner portable was black, glossy, curved, with a sleek low profile like a Cadillac roadster.
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