Potatoes Are Cheaper by Max Shulman

Author:Max Shulman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Chapter Eleven

At last came Sunday, November the 8th, 1936, Libbie’s wedding day. I put on a big smile in honor of the occasion but I’ll be honest with you: inside I was dying, really dying, on account of this terrible tragedy that just happened about me and Bridget. I mean this was a new tragedy, on top of all the others I already told you.

What happened was two days before Libbie’s wedding Bruce Albright limped up to me on campus and gave a smirk and said, “Hey, Morris, take a look at my sweater.”

“Never mind the cute tricks,” I said. “If you want to hit me, hit me.”

“I don’t want to hit you,” he said. “Just look at my sweater is all.”

I looked. “So?” I said.

“Notice something missing?” he said.

“What?” I said.

“My frat pin,” he said. “Guess who’s wearing it?”

“You’re lying!” I hollered, but I knew he wasn’t.

“No, Morris,” he said. “Bridget is mine now, so what do you say we shake hands and show there’s no hard feelings?”

“Shove it,” I said. I’m not known for good sportsmanship. I walked away from Bruce and went and wrote a note to Bridget and put it in her P.O. box. Here’s what I said:

Dear Bridget,

I love you and I always will. That’s why I think you should know that Bruce Albright screws chickens and his father is a famous abortionist.

Sincerely

Morris Katz

So I got in a final zinger, but a fat lot of comfort that was. I was really in the crapper this time, no question. Here was Bridget wearing that putz’s pin, and there was Crip still laying in a cast in Rochester and God knew when he’d get loose, and I couldn’t find anyone else to write me a poem or any safe place to steal one. So what did that leave? Gloom and misery, that’s what.

Still, this was no time to be kvetching around with a long face. It was Libbie’s wedding day after all, even if she was getting stuck with a wrongo like Jonathan so, as I say, I put on a big smile and squared my shoulders and tried not to look how I felt. And actually—you’ll excuse me but I got to say it—I did look pretty damn good. I’m not bragging; it was my cousin You-Know-Who’s tux that did it. This was the first time in my life I’d ever worn a tux and I learned a big lesson: If you want people to think you got the world by the ass, put on a tux. Somehow it makes you seem tall and high-class and what they call debonair, even when you’re five feet six with a hook nose and a broken heart.

Anyhow here it was Libbie’s wedding day at last. The ceremony was set for 5 P.M. so we got to the Lowry Hotel around three-thirty and Ma lined us up in the lobby and gave everybody their assignment. Libbie was to go to the room where brides get dressed and wait for Ma to come and help her.

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