Flesh and Blood by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2001-02-19T09:34:01+00:00

The Girl of My Dreams

-

DONALD E. WESTLAKE

Yesterday I bought a gun.

I’m very confused; I don’t know what to do.

I have always been a mild and shy young man, quiet and con-

servative and polite. I have been employed the last five years—

since at nineteen I left college because of lack of funds—at the

shirt counter of Willis & DeKalb, Men’s Clothiers, Stores in Principal Cities, and I would say that I have been generally content with

my lot. Although recently I have been finding the new manager,

Mr. Miller, somewhat abrasive—not to overstate the matter—the

work itself has always been agreeable, and I have continued to look

forward to a quiet lifetime in the same employment.

I have never been much of a dreamer, neither by day nor by

night. Reveries, daydreams, these are the products of vaulting am-

bition or vaulting desire, of both of which I have remained for the

most part gratefully free. And though science assures us that some

part of every night’s sleep is spent in the manufacture of dreams,

mine must normally be gentle and innocuous, even dull, as I rarely

remember them in the morning.

I would date the beginning of the change in my life from the

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The Girl of My Dreams

191

moment of the retirement of old Mr. Randmunson from his post

as manager of our local Willis & DeKalb store, and his prompt

replacement by Mr. Miller, a stranger from the Akron branch.

Mr. Miller is a hearty man, cheeks and nose all red with ruddy

health, handshake painfully firm, voice roaring, laugh aggressive.

Not yet thirty-five, he moves and speaks with the authority and

self-confidence of a man much older, and he makes it no secret

that some day he intends to be president of the entire chain. Our

little store is merely a stopover for him, another rung upward on

the ladder of his success.

His first day in the store, he came to me, ebullient and over-

powering and supremely positive. He asked my opinion, he dis-

cussed business and geography and entertainment, he offered me

a cigarette, he thumped my shoulder. ‘‘We’ll get along, Ronald!’’

he told me. ‘‘Just keep moving those shirts!’’

‘‘Yes, Mr. Miller.’’

‘‘And let me have an inventory list, by style and size, tomorrow

morning.’’

‘‘Sir?’’

‘‘Any time before noon,’’ he said carelessly, and laughed, and

thumped my shoulder. ‘‘We’ll have a great team here, Ronald, a

first-rate team!’’

Two nights later I dreamed for the first time of Delia.

I went to bed as usual at 11:40, after the news on channel six.

I switched out the light, went to sleep, and in utter simplicity and

clarity the dream began. In it I was driving my automobile on

Western Avenue, out from the center of town. It was all thoroughly

realistic—the day, the traffic, the used-car lots along Western Ave-

nue all gleaming in the spring sun. My six-year-old Plymouth was

pulling just a little to the right, exactly as it does in real life. I knew I was dreaming, but at the same time it was very pleasant to be in

my car on Western Avenue on such a lovely spring day.

A scream startled me, and my foot trod reflexively on the brake

pedal. Nearby, on the sidewalk, a man and girl were struggling

.

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