“Like a hole what somebody et the doughnut,” said Mr. Kemper.
“Yeah,” said Mr. Needles.
“Well, then,” said Mr. Kemper, “suppose he would? The next war what he fights in, nobody couldn’t shoot him. Looks like to me he would be still better off.”
“But how about his soul?” said Mr. Needles.
“That guy,” said Mr. Kemper, “he don’t look to me like he even got a soul.”
“But I got a soul,” said Mr. Needles.
“How you know?” said Mr. Kemper.
“Never mind how I know,” said Mr. Needles. “I know, and that’s enough.”
“Well, then, if you know, that’s enough and you ain’t got nothing to worry about. You never hear tell of no soul going out like a hole what somebody et the doughnut, did you? A soul, why that there is something what’s built to last.”
“I know,” said Mr. Needles, “but if I all shrivel up and go away like that, am I dead yet or not?”
“Well, now,” said Mr. Kemper, “that there is a question. It sure is. Of course, if you ain’t there no more, I guess you’re dead legal, all like of that. But are you really dead, let’s see now. I got to think about that.”
“I ain’t even sure I’m dead legal,” said Mr. Needles. “If it ain’t no dead body, how can a guy be dead legal? No coroner wouldn’t give no verdict without no remains.”
“That’s right,” said Mr. Kemper. “It’s funny I didn’t think of that myself. Must of been because I was figuring on this other side of it.”
“What’s that?” said Mr. Needles.
“Suppose after you shrivel up and go out like that,” said Mr. Kemper, “suppose, then, you would start growing again. How about that?”
“What was that again?” said Mr. Needles.
“Suppose,” said Mr. Kemper, talking very slowly and distinctly, “after you went away and you wasn’t there no more, why maybe you got cured of this here disease and begun growing again. How about that? Would you be the same guy or would you be another guy? Or like the fellow says, a couple of other fellows?”
“Holy smoke,” said Mr. Needles. “Holy smoke, I never thought of that.”
“This here,” said Mr. Kemper, “is a very rare case. This here interests me a whole lot.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” said Mr. Needles. “I... I... I don’t like this here. It’s got me worried.”
“Then let’s go down to City Hall, like I said,” said Mr. Kemper, “so we can see what time it is.”
OCTOBER 20, 1929
Dreamland
Vinny felt his mouth go numb as he entered the apartment and saw what was on the table. He stood for a moment moistening his lips as he stared at it.
“Piece of mail for you,” he heard his sister-in-law call. “Looks like a phonograph record.”
“Sure,” he replied, and was surprised at how casual he sounded. “I been expecting it. How’s everything?”
“O.K. Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
He picked up the record, went to his room, and sat down on the bed. He had been expecting it all right. Or hoping for it anyhow. Ever since that day in the store.
He hadn’t covered himself with glory that day, that was a cinch. He just hadn’t had the nerve to make the grade.
He had gone in to make one of those personal phonograph records, a record to send his brother Ike, who had moved to Cleveland. But he had had to wait.
Then the girl arrived. She was a pretty girl, and she sat down so close to Vinny that he could smell the fur of her little summer neckpiece. He wanted to speak to her, to start a little conversation that would lead to his asking her if she didn’t want to go with him and have an ice-cream soda. He opened his mouth to say it was hot, wasn’t it. Nothing came out of it. He tried to catch her eye, so he could shake his head and fan himself a couple of times with his hat. Then he would probably have the nerve to say it was hot. But she didn’t look at him.
Pretty soon the radio announcer came out, with his accompanist and the lady in charge. The girl stood up.
“But I think this gentleman was ahead of you,” said the lady in charge.
“’S all right,” said Vinny. “I’ll wait.”
When she came out she would probably stop to thank him or something for letting her go first. Then he could say it was hot, wasn’t it, a pretty good day for an ice-cream soda.
She came out with her record under her arm, stopped, started to speak, and fled without saying a word.
“It’s your turn now,” said the lady in charge.
He sat down in front of the microphone and took out of his pocket what he was going to say to Ike. He had it all written out, so he wouldn’t get rattled and forget it in front of the machine.
“When the red light goes on,” said the lady in charge, “it’s time for you to begin. I’ll turn it off ten seconds before the record is used up, so you’ll have time to finish.”
“All right.”
The red light.
“Hello, Ike! you old son of a gun; how are you and what do you think of this for pulling a fast one on you? It’s cheaper than calling up on the long-distance telephone, hey, Ike, you old son of a gun?”
It had seemed pretty funny when he wrote it out, but it sounded stale and flat now.
The red light out.
“Well, so long, Ike, this is all they allow me this time and don’t take any rubber nickels.”
“That’ll be seventy-five cents unless you want a package of needles, and that’ll make a dollar.”
“All right. Put the needles in.”
“A dollar, thank you. And now, if you don’t mind writing your name and address here in this book...”
“Aw, never mind about that...”
“Well, we usually ask for the name and address—”
“I know, so you can send me a lot of that advertising junk and—”
He stopped. Looking up at him from the book in a threadlike, feminine hand, were a name and address:
Miss Amy Clarke
130 East 35th Street.
“All right,” he said, and photographed this signature in his mind’s eye as he wrote his own beneath it. A fat chance he would forget it.
“Say,” he said innocently, “I believe I’ll make another record. Just remembered somebody else I want to send one to.”
“Why, surely.”
This time he sat down at the piano. He could play a little, well enough for this job anyhow.
The red light.
He started up “You’re the Cream in My Coffee.” It sounded lousy, but it would give her the idea. Then he stopped singing and turned to the mike. “I’m the guy,” he said with a guarded look at the lady in charge, “that wanted to speak to you today and didn’t. And that you wanted to speak to and didn’t. Believe me, I want to speak to you and if you feel the same way about it, you meet me at the Dreamland dance hall, up on a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, on Saturday night, at...”
He mailed it, then spent three days of agony. Most of the time he felt like a sap, but sometimes he would play with the idea that the girl would go back to the store after she received the record, find the name and address after her own, and mail him a postcard saying “I’ll be there” or something like that.
Now, here it was Saturday night and instead of a postcard there was a phonograph record, addressed in the same threadlike hand.
Trembling he cranked up his phonograph and clipped a needle.
A few bars of piano music. An old tune. Where had he heard it?
A thin, pretty, trembly voice: