Boys and Girls Together by William Saroyan

gate’s locked. Let me call them.’
    â€˜O.K.’
    The woman brought the telephone from the hall into the kitchen and set it down in front of her on the table. After a moment she was talking to the girl. It seemed that the retired villain was tired, but it also seemed that his wife might be able to win him over to the idea.
    â€˜She’s asking him. I
do
hope they’ll do it. It’ll be such fun and we’ve got three more bottles of Scotch.’
    The retired villain didn’t think he was up to it, so then the woman mentioned that her friends in New York were flying in in the morning and they could all meet for lunch and shopping and cocktails, then dinner and a lot of drinking and talking somewhere. The wife of the retired villain took the matter up with him again, and then she said they’d telephone the airport and a hotel in San Francisco and call right back.
    â€˜They’ll come,’ the woman said. ‘I know they will. I’ll wear my new dress and you shave and put on your dark suit. Don’t get too drunk to drive to the airport. Maybe you’d better start shaving now, so I can get in there and bathe. We’ll start drinking when they get here.’
    â€˜O.K.’
    He finished his third drink and went into the bathroom to shave. He was in the shower when the woman said: ‘They’re coming. They’ll be at the airport at one-fifteen. If they miss that plane, they’ll be there at two-fifteen. Now hurry, so I can get in there.’
    â€˜O.K.’

Chapter 19
    He was driving to the airport to get them, shaved, in his dark suit, and just beginning to feel the three drinks he’d had before the shower and the two after. He felt pretty good.
    The way I’ll do it is this, he said, almost out loud. I’ve got the money I won this afternoon. I’ll bet half of it back tomorrow. If I lose, I’ll bet the rest of it back. If I win, I’ll stop for the day. The next day I’ll do the same. I think I’ll win. All I’ve got to do is guess right. I’ll bet them across the board, so if I don’t guess
exactly
right, I’ll still win, or break even. I was always lucky and I’ll be lucky tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, too. I’ll never stop being lucky. I always liked to write but I didn’t like it any more than I liked having fun. I know I ought to work harder, but why should I? I don’t feel like it. A lot of the boys whowork harder but aren’t lucky don’t do as well as I do. They just work harder and get less because they’re not lucky. Most of them show it, too. They look like hell and you know they feel worse. They never have any real fun, either. They never have the time or energy to have any. They get serious about their work when they aren’t lucky and they get old fast and die without
ever
having any real fun. What for? So a handful of critics who aren’t lucky and probably never took a chance on anything in their lives can sit down and say their writing stinks. Not that it doesn’t. What else could it do, written by writers who aren’t lucky, who never took a chance on anything? It stinks all right, but they worked hard at it, hoping it wouldn’t stink, or maybe that it would stink so badly somebody would invent a new scheme of measurement and come to the conclusion that because it stinks so badly it
is
great. A writer who isn’t lucky can probably find comfort in thinking like that. Maybe the stuff will be so ungame, so dull, so tiresome, so hopeless as to be great. Any unlucky writer can ask, What’s greatness? And answer to suit himself. I’m lucky, though, and I don’t have to do that. All I’ve got to do is stop worrying about the kids. They’re hers and they’re mine and worrying isn’t going to do them any good. All worry can do is spoil my luck. It’s been spoiling it for seven years as it is, but it’s not too late.