still as the paint they would become. So tonight she’d be sitting in the nearly stuffed chair by the window, next to the air-conditioning knobs. Big white bosomy blouse she often wore for—was it midweek?—for sitting midweekly, quiet unless addressed.
I think a person ought to keep her feelings fastened to her family and not let them fly about on leafs that got, you said, bugs on them. Ladybugs, mom, the harmless ones, with the tiny black polka dots. I think a person ought to keep her feelings fastened to her family and not let them fly about on leafs that got ladybugs on them. A rose in your room though. That’s nice.
How these designs did date.
SuperCity
by Harry Hershfield. I looked at this one already, Riff reminded himself. The jacket pictured a jazzy riff of buildings, shooting up like rockets yet all atumble. Riff. That’s me, but me is hardly jazzy. I never heard of Elf. Some abbreviation? Published in 1930—do tell—what a year!—by The Elf. Elf? “It will make a better man or woman of you!”
Baloney. Don’t need to heft
Barrett Wendell
again. But he did. It did have heft. It did. And this?
Martin Meyer’s Moneybook
. Here—Riff held the book high so she could see—right on the cover—can’t miss it—in redblackyellow letters like a crowd—mom—listen, the cover says, “Yes, you can earn 10.4% to 23.5% on your savings—federally insured.” A subject I know something … I knew … oh well … What?
Once Around Lightly
? Is that a novel? No, it’s travel. I get it. Around the world on small bills and a single suitcase. Just Riff’s speed. These can’t be leftovers, these books, which the motel has recovered fromits rooms.
How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market
. Oh yeah. Not likely, Mister—Mister Darvas. If you’re so rich whadya writing books for? telling people how to make money too, right mom? if he’s so good why isn’t he still hand-over-fisting it? It was funny, Riff thought, because, in a way, Riff unmade money. He made profits take a trip. Once around lightly.
More swill than the sow can swallow—that much money—mom said, repeating a bit of wisdom from her almanac.
When Riff was a kid,
around the world
meant getting your ass kissed and your cock sucked. He had to watch the way he mouthed his thoughts. Eleanor did dirty well enough but she didn’t like the dirties dirty-worded.
Walter was a traveling cut-rate accountant. He wondered what old law school prof Wendell would think of his job, because he moved from town to town and firm to firm—little loose ones mostly, like buttons about to come off—and cooked books until their figures resembled fudge. He issued statements saying all was well, which it was when he got through erasing and rewriting. Ah, but he loved account books, sheets of green-blue lines like represented rain. He loved pawing through papers, he often told himself, licking his fingers to part sheets—there was nothing lovelier than the lavender and amber and violet of faded inks—or sitting in strange offices where stamps were kept in cigar boxes and stacks of flat nubble-covered ledgers loomed and filing cases opened like fridge crispers. Where he faced row after row of drawers with brass name holders and lovely curved tugs. Where lights hung from their wires beneath green metal shades. A lot of the ledgers were dusty too, like these books. He’d had a good deal of dustpuff practice.
When he had slipped over the line and begun his itinerant practice, he had been cocky about his cut corners, his helpful little cheats. He wanted to brag in bars about it—about his legerdemain—but he knew he didn’t dare, and he couldn’t tellhis mom of course or Kim or Miz Biz or Eleanor either. All that pride like held breath. But the breath that would have gone into boasting began to leak out after a while, because he never made much money at it, his clients stiffed him sometimes, he had to keep changing his firm’s name, and sack his secretary,
I think a person ought to keep her feelings fastened to her family and not let them fly about on leafs that got, you said, bugs on them. Ladybugs, mom, the harmless ones, with the tiny black polka dots. I think a person ought to keep her feelings fastened to her family and not let them fly about on leafs that got ladybugs on them. A rose in your room though. That’s nice.
How these designs did date.
SuperCity
by Harry Hershfield. I looked at this one already, Riff reminded himself. The jacket pictured a jazzy riff of buildings, shooting up like rockets yet all atumble. Riff. That’s me, but me is hardly jazzy. I never heard of Elf. Some abbreviation? Published in 1930—do tell—what a year!—by The Elf. Elf? “It will make a better man or woman of you!”
Baloney. Don’t need to heft
Barrett Wendell
again. But he did. It did have heft. It did. And this?
Martin Meyer’s Moneybook
. Here—Riff held the book high so she could see—right on the cover—can’t miss it—in redblackyellow letters like a crowd—mom—listen, the cover says, “Yes, you can earn 10.4% to 23.5% on your savings—federally insured.” A subject I know something … I knew … oh well … What?
Once Around Lightly
? Is that a novel? No, it’s travel. I get it. Around the world on small bills and a single suitcase. Just Riff’s speed. These can’t be leftovers, these books, which the motel has recovered fromits rooms.
How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market
. Oh yeah. Not likely, Mister—Mister Darvas. If you’re so rich whadya writing books for? telling people how to make money too, right mom? if he’s so good why isn’t he still hand-over-fisting it? It was funny, Riff thought, because, in a way, Riff unmade money. He made profits take a trip. Once around lightly.
More swill than the sow can swallow—that much money—mom said, repeating a bit of wisdom from her almanac.
When Riff was a kid,
around the world
meant getting your ass kissed and your cock sucked. He had to watch the way he mouthed his thoughts. Eleanor did dirty well enough but she didn’t like the dirties dirty-worded.
Walter was a traveling cut-rate accountant. He wondered what old law school prof Wendell would think of his job, because he moved from town to town and firm to firm—little loose ones mostly, like buttons about to come off—and cooked books until their figures resembled fudge. He issued statements saying all was well, which it was when he got through erasing and rewriting. Ah, but he loved account books, sheets of green-blue lines like represented rain. He loved pawing through papers, he often told himself, licking his fingers to part sheets—there was nothing lovelier than the lavender and amber and violet of faded inks—or sitting in strange offices where stamps were kept in cigar boxes and stacks of flat nubble-covered ledgers loomed and filing cases opened like fridge crispers. Where he faced row after row of drawers with brass name holders and lovely curved tugs. Where lights hung from their wires beneath green metal shades. A lot of the ledgers were dusty too, like these books. He’d had a good deal of dustpuff practice.
When he had slipped over the line and begun his itinerant practice, he had been cocky about his cut corners, his helpful little cheats. He wanted to brag in bars about it—about his legerdemain—but he knew he didn’t dare, and he couldn’t tellhis mom of course or Kim or Miz Biz or Eleanor either. All that pride like held breath. But the breath that would have gone into boasting began to leak out after a while, because he never made much money at it, his clients stiffed him sometimes, he had to keep changing his firm’s name, and sack his secretary,
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