LITMIR.BIZ

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down the street. If, as he suspected, he had lost his mind and was living in some internal world, then insanity wasn’t as bad as he thought. He could think of worse scenarios, far worse. He stretched his neck a little to see a green truck pulling up to the curb in front of the houses across the street. An ice truck. A real ice truck! Just like Gramps described. And there were kids chasing behind and reaching into the bed to scoop up ice chips to suck on, just like he said. Clearly, he could see a man with white hair and a black, long-sleeved shirt sitting behind the wheel of what had to be at best a door-less 1930 model truck. It looked like an antique Ford.

      Toby scooped the hamburgers onto the buns. “Anything on the burgers?”

      “Just ketchup,” Gary said, watching the truck pull ahead a few houses.

      Toby set the hamburgers in front of him and a bottle of ketchup. More coffee?”

      “If you don’t mind,” he said, wincing against the cuts inside his mouth.

      Toby picked up the cup and carried it around to the urn. “So where you staying?”

      “I’m still looking. Any suggestions?”

      “Matter of fact, my sister Elsie rents out rooms. Nice place, not fancy, but nice. Only a couple of streets over.” He set the fresh coffee on the table and sat on a counter stool across from Gary. “I can’t say for sure if she’s got any open now, but no harm trying. Just tell her it’s me that sent you.”

      “Thanks, I will.”

      “Things are tough all over, but Roosevelt’s gonna straighten it all out yet, wait and see.”

      “Him or the war?”

      “What’s that?” he said, leaning forward and cupping his hand behind his ear.

      “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

      “Been awhile since the Crash. I kinda thought by now things would come around, but--”

      “That would’ve been…how many years ago now?”

      “Ten years this October. How could anybody forget! Of course, then you had to be just a kid.”

      “I should know anyway. You’ll have to excuse me. I had an accident. It left me a little bent out of shape.”

      “Bent out of-- hey, that’s pretty good, saying it that way. College talk?”

      “You could say that.”

      Toby lit a cigarette. “I noticed you looked kinda rough when you came in. What happened… and what’s your name anyway?”

      “Gary Tyler.”

      “Tyler…Tyler… Any relation to Bill Tyler, William Tyler? Used to run a garage up on Cherry Street?”

      “No, not that I know of.”

      “Nice guy. Real nice guy. Moved away a couple of years ago, Arizona, I heard. For his health. TB, I think… So what happened, you get run over by a car or somethin’?”

      Gary wiped ketchup from his fingers. “I stepped in where I didn’t belong and a gang of guys let me know it. They took everything except what’s in my pockets and my little package here.”

      Toby looked him over. “Gotta watch those toughs… Those the only clothes you got, what’s on your back?”

      The door squeaked open and Toby spun around on his stool. “Sebastian,” he said, rolling his eyes up. “Running a little late today?” he said, uncrossing his legs getting up and moseying around behind the counter.

      Sebastian settled himself on a stool near the door and folded his hands in front of him. “Late, early, what difference does it make?” he said. “Yesterday, today, tomorrow, before you know it we’re all in the marble orchard pushing up daisies and making the worms fat.”

      “Thanks, I needed some cheering up,” Toby said. “The usual?”

      “If it’s beef barley, yeah, and make sure it’s hot.”

      “How much do I owe you, Toby?” Gary asked, rising and moving over to the cash register.

      “Thirty-five centavos.”

      Gary slipped the silver dollar from his pocket and laid it on the counter.

      “This’d burn the asshole out of the Devil himself,” Toby said to Sebastian, setting the steaming bowl of soup before him and coming over to the register, where he picked up the coin, pressed the levers that popped open the drawer and dropped it in. “And sixty-five centavos change.”

      “About your sister’s place?”

      “Oh, that, yep.” He took the stub pencil from behind his ear, licked the tip, drew a sketch on a napkin and wrote down the address. “Big white house on the corner, with a big porch, green trim and a little white fence in front. You can’t miss it.”

      “I’d hate to go up to the door looking like this,” Gary said, not unmindful of Sebastian giving him the once-over twice-over. “Is there a clothing store close by?”

      “Out the door, steer right and straight toward downtown. Follow your nose and you’ll come to it. Before you get to it is a second-hand store, if that suits your pocket book better. Should have most anything you want.”

      “Thanks,” Gary said, heading out, his package firmly tucked under his arm.

      Toby called after him. “I don’t know who this Greg Norman guy is, but I’ll be damned if I let anybody put his name on my shirt or anything else I paid for.”

       Chapter 11

      

      Two meager light bulbs did little to dispel the deep gloom of the store, and probably nothing could have masked the stuffy odor of old clothes jammed tight on floor racks so closely spaced you could barely move between them. A diminutive man barely five feet tall, with a gray mop of hair and a ragged mustache to match, seemed to materialize from nowhere.

      “Yes, sir, can I help you?” he asked, shuffling up behind Gary and rubbing his hands together as if washing them.

      “I need something presentable and cheap,” Gary said, a little dismayed by what he was seeing as he browsed through the clothes.

      “I don’t have cheap but I do have inexpensive. There’s a difference, you know,” the old man said, his blue, marble eyes glistening behind his wire-rimmed glasses, and commenting on every article of clothing that Gary touched. “Guaranteed, like new… ahh, now that one is beautiful,” he said, dragging out the ‘beautiful,’ and gesturing with clasped hands toward a suit Gary was holding up to catch the light. “Just came in yesterday. So good I almost hate to sell it… but a good looking boy like you, such big shoulders… I give you a bargain price, special, you can’t beat it, if you take it right now.” His puckered mouth made his mustache droop when Gary squeezed the suit back into the rack.

      Finally, after much pondering, Gary picked out a tweed jacket and dark brown trousers. He set his package aside and slipped on the jacket. “Looks all right to me,” he said, tugging at the sleeves. “What do you think?”

      “Ahh, very nice, very nice. Fills your shoulders out, too. Perfect.”

      Gary held the pants against his own. “I don’t think I have to try these on, do you?”

      “Shirts you need now, too, to go with it. Over here,” he said, tossing the clothes over his arm and hobbling between the racks to a shelf along the wall. “Beautiful selection here, look yourself, you see.”

      Gary selected two white shirts and the old man laid a yellow-and-brown striped tie across the jacket. “See how nice this goes with it? Very nice, but not as nice as with the suit over there you saw I would give you a good price on.” He shrugged.

      “Maybe

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