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with me. I have paid for a further week at this lodging, after

which they will find I have no more to give them nor any use for

their hospitality.

What I would ask of you, dear friend, is that in the next

days you will come here to this town, where you would not

want otherwise to journey I’m sure, and collect my remains,

both my own poor person and more importantly the papers

and plans to which with painful care I have devoted so many

years, not to enrich or aggrandize myself, no, but for the

increase of human happiness. What though I have failed? The

plans, the philosophy of Attraction and Harmony, these

remain, and if there is any hope and any justice in this

wondrous world we inhabit, they will lie like seeds through

winter upon winter, to be watered and nourished and grow in

the end.

Well enough of all that, just get here if you can, I’ll probably

be on ice at the morgue on my way to the potter’s field, but if

you get here in time they won’t throw me out. The enclosed for

whatever expenses a simple burial might entail, the rest for your

good self.

You know it’s a funny thing how a plan of suicide simplifies

your life. No reason any longer to pay the rent, answer your

mail, wash, dress, even to eat. It’s a strange relief to know that

you’ve had to make a choice between ham and eggs and flap-

jacks for the last time in your life. But I maunder, my friend,

and it is now time to bid you farewell in this life, and to ask

F O U R F R E E D O M S / 369

your pardon for these obligations I have laid upon you. If you

don’t fulfill them I will be none the wiser, of course, but here’s

hoping.

It was signed “Pancho,” and on another sheet of the same statio-

nery was a note headed To Whom It May Concern, that granted to

Prosper Olander the power to take possession of all his effects and

make such disposition of his remains as he deems appropriate, and this

note was signed Pelagius Johann Notzing, BA, Esq., and was dated

three days before.

“What the hell,” he said aloud. “What the hell.”

Sal Mass was there trying to open her box, standing on tiptoe with

her key to reach it, she’d tried to get a lower one but was told they had

to be assigned in alphabetical order. “What is it?” she asked.

Prosper held out the letter to her and watched as she read it. After

frowning over the first sentences she suddenly gasped, and clutched the

letter to her bosom as though to hush its voice, looking at Prosper in

horror. He gestured that she read on. When she was all done she looked

up again, a different face now.

“That god damn son of a bitch,” she said.

Prosper knew who she meant: not Pancho.

Almost as though they’d instantly had the same idea, or communi-

cated it to each other by Wings of Thought as the ads in The Sunny

Side said, Prosper and Sal together went out of the post office and

toward the Community Center where, unless the sun had stopped

going east to west, Larry would at this time of day be found in the

games room playing pool and jawing.

He was there. He saw Prosper and Sal approaching him and took

the damp unlit cigar from his mouth, grinning appreciatively. “Well if

it isn’t,” he said, but then Prosper had reached him and thrust Pancho’s

letter on him.

“Read this,” he said.

Larry looked it over. “It’s not addressed to me.”

“Just read it.”

They watched him read, the game suspended, Sal with her fists on

her hips.

“Oh jeez,” Larry said. “Oh for cripe’s sake.”

370 / J O H N C R O W L E Y

“You oughta,” Sal said, “you oughta,” but couldn’t think what he

oughta, and stopped.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Larry said. “I had no choice.”

“Don’t give me that,” Prosper said. “We’re quite aware.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Larry said. “That was business and I did

what I had to do.”

Later Prosper would try to think whether he’d actually had Larry’s

own advice in his mind as the next moments unfolded. A little crowd

had gathered. “Somebody ought to punch your nose,” Prosper said.

“Nobody’s punching anybody,” Larry said.

“We’ll see,” Prosper said, with all the implacable menace he could

muster. “Come on.” He whirled and started toward the door, Larry

following him.

“Cut it out,” he called to Prosper. “Don’t be a dope.”

“What are you, a coward? Scared of something?” Prosper said this

in fury straight in front of him as he reached the door of the games

room, grabbed the knob, and pushed it open. Larry was just exiting

behind him when Prosper flung the door shut hard and hit Larry smack

in the face. Then as Larry, dazed, pushed it open again to come after

him, Prosper swung around on his heels and with one lifted crutch

caught Larry a blow on the cheek that made the onlookers now crowd-

ing the exit gasp in horror or amazement.

That was all Prosper was holding in the way of an attack, and set-

ting himself then as firmly as he could, he waited for Larry to fall upon

him. His heart felt like it would tear him apart. Larry, red-faced and

with teeth bared, seemed ready now to do terrible things, but after a

pause he throttled down with awesome effort and backed away; threw

his hand into the air, Aw beat it, and turned back into the Community

Center, pushing through the crowd. Sal came squirming out almost

under his arm, went to Prosper and stood beside him as though to shel-

ter him with her own unassailability. “Bully!” she yelled back.

Ironic cheers for the two of them followed them out into the day.

“You’re going to go?” Sal said. It was she who’d rescued Pancho’s

letter in the donnybrook.

“Of course I am.” His heart still pounding.

“I’ll go too,” she said.

“No, Sal. You don’t need to say that.”

F O U R F R E E D O M S / 371

“Listen, mister. He was my friend too.”

That was true: for all her mocking tone, Sal had sat as quietly as

anyone could have been expected to as Pancho expatiated, and Prosper

thought that was about what Pancho’d mean by a friend. “Well,” he

said. “What about your shift?”

“I’m quitting,” Sal said, “if you want to know. I’m blowing.”

“You are? What about Al?”

“Al and I,” Sal said in that record-played-too-fast voice of hers, “are

quits.”

Prosper slowed down. Sal was about the only Associate around who

had to skip to keep up with him. “What? That’s hard to believe.”

“I know,” said Sal. “People look at the two of us and it’s like the

little man and woman on the wedding cake. How could they be apart?

Well lemme tell you.”

“I figured it was a love match. I admit.”

“To tell you the truth,” Sal said, “it was a kind of marriage of con-