 |
RosettaBooks are available in a number of eBook Formats |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Bang the Drum Slowly
 About the Book
More about Baseball
|
|
|
|
Preview
Chapter 1
Me and Holly were laying around in bed around 10 A.M. on a Wednesday morning when the call come. I was slow answering it, thinking first of a comical thing to say, though I suppose it long since stopped handing anybody a laugh except me. I don´t know. I laugh at a lot of things nobody ever laughs at except her. "Do not be funny," she said. "Just answer it." But I seen her kind of listening out of the corner of her eye.
"Triborough Bridge," I said.
"I have a collect call for Mr. Henry Wiggen from Rochester, Minnesota," said the operator.
"I do not know a soul there," said I, "and I do not accept collect calls under any circumstances." I used to accept a lot of collect calls until I got wise to myself.
Then behind the operator I heard this voice saying, "Come on, Arthur."
Well, there is only one person in this world that calls me "Arthur," and the first thing I thought when I heard it was I got this picture of him in jail in Rochester, Minnesota. Do not ask me why jail, but that was the picture I got, and I said to Holly, "Bruce is in jail in Minnesota," and she sat up in bed, and I said to the operator, "Tell him this better be important."
"Arthur, Arthur," said he, "you must speak to me," and I said I would.
And then it was like speaking to him always is, where all he can say is this one thing his mind might be on, like he might get up in the morning saying, "I must write a postcard home," and says it while dressing, and says it at breakfast, and says it maybe 3 or 4 times all morning, or he says, "Arthur, I must have $20," and says it again all the way to the park and all the time dressing and drilling, and then might say it in the middle of the ball game when you are trying to keep your mind on what you are doing until you finally give him his 20 and he stops saying it and becomes silent, and he said, "You have got to come and see me."
"What did you do?" I said. I still thought he was in jail.
"You have got to come and see me," he said. "I am in the hospital."
"With what?" I said.
"You have got to come and see me," he said.
"I cannot afford it," I said. "I am up to my ass in tax arrears." This was the statement of a true rat, and you can imagine how it must of sounded to him. But I knew nothing of the circumstances at the time. If he had of hung up on me then and there he would of had a right to do so. Yet who could he of called besides me? There was a silence, and I personally cannot stand silence on long distance, especially if I am not sure how deductible it will be, and I said, "Say something! Do not just stand there!"
"You have got to come and see me," he said.
"All he says is I have got to go and see him," I said.
"What did he do?" she said.
"He is in the hospital," I said.
"Then you have got to go," she said.
"I will come," I said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kindle
Sony Reader
Palm Digital
MS Reader
Adobe Reader
Mobipocket