The General Zapped an Angel: New Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction by Howard Fast Page B

and a splendid character actor. Bert Avery asked me if I had just driven down from Connecticut.
    â€œYes. Thank heavens I am here. It was cold and lonely up there.”
    â€œWere they taking it up?”
    â€œYes—from the hillsides, you know, and then behind me on the Saw Mill River Parkway. They had taken out most of New Rochelle, from the shopping center right back in.”
    â€œIrv Goldstein flew up from Miami,” Finney said sadly. “His was the last flight. They had taken up most of Florida. I’ve had good times in Miami; some don’t like it, but I always have, for it is a fine place of loose-living, easygoing people. But it is flat, you know, oh, devilishly flat, and Goldstein says that they were rolling it up from the north, just nasty and uncaring, the whole length of the state rolled up like an old piece of carpet.”
    â€œGoldstein said it looked like the moon underneath,” Bert Avery added, “with craters and things like that that had been covered over, I guess the way you have a lousy floor on a stage so you carpet it, and what the hell, it’s a few hundred dollars more, and that’s not going to make the difference between closing first night or running for a decent while.”
    â€œYou are a fine manager,” said Finney. “You are a gentleman at it. It is an honor to work for you.”
    Robert came over with another whiskey sour for Bert Avery, listened to the last of our conversation, and then asked whether we did not think that they might be putting it away and saving it for another performance.
    â€œSomewhere else?” I thought about it for a moment. “Then they would be changing the cast, wouldn’t they?”
    â€œThat’s very sad, sir.”
    â€œThe kids come to the theater with joy,” Finney observed, “but in all truth it’s a sad profession. One day you look up at the scenery, and it looks just as shoddy as all hell, and damnit, you say to yourself, has it always been this way, or is it turning lousy or is it inside of my own aching head?”
    â€œAll of them,” Avery agreed.
    I finished my drink and went over to the pool table, where Steve Cunningham was making one of those damned impossible cushion shots and no one was even breathing.
    Of course, people never behave the way you expect them to, and these were all people who knew about it, and as a matter of fact, there was Goldstein standing very close to Cunningham, his eyes fixed upon the ball as if nothing in the whole world was as important as gauging the angle of ball to cushion and ball to side pocket; and yet they all had relatives, children, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers; but against all of that, the same thing had apparently brought them here as had brought me.
    Cunningham made his shot, perfectly, ball to cushion to pocket, and there was a whisper of approval but no applause. I nudged Goldstein.
    â€œHungry?”
    He nodded.
    â€œThey have soup and sandwiches upstairs, I hear.”
    â€œAll right.”
    We climbed the stairs to the dining room, picking a quiet corner table. The room wasn’t empty, but then neither was it crowded—oh, maybe a dozen members eating or simply relaxed and talking. One of them had lit a cigar, and I saw Goldstein frowning in disapproval. I agreed with him. There was an unwritten rule that while a cigarette or a pipe was proper at the table, cigars were to be taken to the lounge where one could have coffee or brandy or whatever one wished. I saw no reason to break the custom tonight, and I guess we were both rather pleased when one of the waiters came over and whispered something to the member, who then nodded and put the cigar out. Our own waiter said to us:
    â€œI’m afraid there’s very little choice at this point. The soup is canned. We have ham sandwiches or ham and Swiss, but only white bread, which you can have toasted. We also have some Canadian cheddar and Bath