Or do I have to bore us both to tears with like, you know, with like, Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, with like, you know, with like describing it?
God, I hate you and hate them and hate writing.
It's only olives I love.
Olives!
When they come at once and for no cost at all.
MARTIN
ARE YOU A LAWYER? Do you have a degree in the law? Are you a doctor of the law or of the laws? Do you have a doctor-of-the-laws degree? Or a degree in ministering to people in the public? Or in good citizenship or in doing good works or in looking after old ladies in wheelchairs in the street? Because I just told Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, I would go get her somebody to. I just gave my promise to this old lady in a wheelchair who says to me her name is Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, that she can depend on me to come home and get on the phone and go get her somebody to hurry and come keep her from getting herself evicted. Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, says she is getting evicted. She says she has only until this Tuesday at the outside for her to keep herself from being put out in the street as an American patriot evicted. But just so you also know before Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, says any of all of this to me, she says to me mister, mister, mister, come give me some goddamn money. All this other conversation with regard to eviction, it only develops as something which gets itself involved in the situation when I express to this person my policy as far as this, which is say no money to nobody nohow regardless period.
What happened was this.
If you want to hear what happened, it was this.
I was going out of the door out of my building heading for the corner for the mailbox to put some mail down into the mailbox when, boom, where's the marines, because what I notice is this very noticeable young lady I notice walking at me coming at me from the opposite direction going to the mailbox.
Okay, so she is carrying a book.
Which is like this five-alarm firehouse all-points bulletin going wonk wonk wonk wonk down inside of me on account of the fact that I myself am always going around carrying a book with me for the reason that I am always doing everything which I can do for me to entice to myself the attention of the kind of a young lady who would go ahead and give it to a fellow she sees going around carrying around with himself on his person a book with him.
So this young lady, it's, you know, it's like this is a five-alarm firehouse all-points bulletin going off like wonk wonk wonk wonk down inside of me on account of the fact that, first of all, she herself has this book she is carrying around with herself, and second of all, the hair, which, okay, is this pile of light-looking hair piled up on her up on top of her head, plus the final thing, which is this walk she has which is of, I would say, like of, you know, of an irregular-type nature.
So can you take these each of these things which I just took for you and put them all together and go ahead and guess who is all in clover?
No kidding, I am like the Easter parade.
Because this is all it takes at my age for you to decide to make up your mind you are all set to go spend the rest of your life with such-and-such an individual, please God she should just turn out in her own right to be an intelligent and educated person.
So I skip all of the way to the mailbox and get the mail put down into it and then I skip all of the way back trying to catch up with her enough for me to be not too far back behind her when the man named Martin in my building comes pedaling his big tricycle up along to me on the sidewalk from the different opposite direction and he says to me, "So, pray tell, is it hot enough for you today, Gordon?"
Whereas I say to him, "Martin, you could already fry an egg on my head even if all I did so far was just only go to the mailbox with mail for it."
So this man named Martin in my building says to me, "Oh, Gordon, believe me, I have experienced it plenty more terrible than this. You get to be an oldster as old as I myself am, you been through things a lot more terrible than this."
So I says to him, "You said it, Martin." And I says to him, "You certainly hit the nail on the head as far as everything you just said, Martin."
So this man named Martin in my building, he gives a pull on the crouch of his pants and he says to me, "So what is the word as to the little ones in your family from sea to shining sea?"
Sure, sure, the little ones, the little ones, but meanwhile you think this discussion is getting a certain person any closer to his designated quarry?
"Martin," I says to him, "excuse me, Martin darling, but I got to go see a man about a broken horse."
Boy, do I have to give it some skips.
But there she is when I get there — hitchy walk, hair, book — she's there, she's there! — already around the corner and heading downtown.
So I'm skipping to get into better position with regard to a civilized distance behind her when, boom, I hear this like hissing — mister mister mister.
It's this person.
It's this person I told you about.
It's this, you know, it is this Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, which I have been mentioning to you so far over the course so far of this particular experience.
Did I say wheelchair, wheelchair? — hissing mister mister mister at me like this crazy person pinching at me from this crazy-looking wheelchair.