The Zebra Derby

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

chapter seventeen

I packed my clothing in my suitcase and closed the lid. Nebbice sat in the love seat brooding over a newspaper. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider, Asa?” she said.

“No,” I answered definitely. “I’m leaving, and if you try to tie me to the bed again, I’ll scream.”

“Oh, go on, then,” she snapped. “Who cares?” She rustled the newspaper irritably.

I picked up my suitcase and walked to the door. “Good-by, Nebbice. It was fun while it lasted, but I’m afraid it was never meant to be. We are worlds apart, Nebbice. There is a—”

“Oh, get going, mealymouth,” she snarled.

“—gulf between us that cannot be bridged. Although I have found in you much to admire, there is—”

The door burst open and Alaric ran in. “I’ve got it, Asa,” he cried. “At last I’ve got it. I know what we’ve been doing wrong.”

“I got a letter from Yetta Samovar this morning,” I said. “I’m going.”

“It’s so obvious,” said Alaric, “that I’m embarrassed to admit it. It’s been staring us in the face all along.”

“My mind is made up,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“A blind man could have seen it.”

“It’s no use. You can’t stop me this time.”

“Listen,” said Alaric. “What was everybody afraid of during the war? I’ll tell you: they were afraid that after the war was over men would be selling apples on the streets. The energies of the whole nation were directed to preventing men from selling apples on the streets. Selling apples on the streets became the great national bugaboo, a coast-to-coast phobia. Whatever happened, people said, men would not sell apples on the streets.

“So today there isn’t a single man selling apples on the streets. An entire phase of our national economy is absolutely untouched, a whole industry ignored.”

“Gee,” I said, “that’s right. A blind man could have seen it.”

Alaric slapped me on the back. “It’s waiting for us, Asa. A whole great virgin market waiting to be sewed up. We’ll do it right, Asa. We’ll sell apples as nobody has sold apples before. We’ll have non-upsettable applecarts made of plastic. We’ll have the most complete stock this city has ever seen—Jonathans, Winesaps, Delicious, Northern Spies, Baldwins, Yakimas, russets, Gravensteins, greenings, Duchesses, Roman beauties.”

“A veritable cornucopia,” I breathed.

“Say, that’s good, Asa. The Cornucopia Mobile Apple Emporium. We’ll have a big neon cornucopia made—red, blue, yellow, and green. We’ll clean up. And the beauty part of it is that our investment will be so small.”

“I have no more money,” I said.

“That’s all right,” said Alaric. “We’ll sell your car. It looks just like the 1942 model anyway.”

“The man came and took it back this morning.”

“Oh. How about your bonds?”

“Those went for the Torch of Learning Mobile Culture Emporium.”

“Your mustering-out pay?”

“Whitefish.”

“Your savings?”

“Lamps.”

“Not all of it?”

“Cooky cutters.”

Alaric sat down on the love seat. He turned to Nebbice. “Do you still want him?” he asked.

“No. Let the jerk go.”

“You’ll probably never find another.”

“I’ll take cold showers,” she said.

“It is not without a sense of sorrow,” I said, “that I take my leave.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.