Michael Malone - Weebly

Sammy Smalter didn't drink, had no taste or
tolerance for alcohol, and so on the rare occasions
when he ordered, ordered quixotically by title such
concoctions as Brandy Alexanders and Jack the
Rippers. Returning from his walk by way of the Prim
Minster, he stopped to have a bicentennial special, the
Valley Forge, which appeared to be grain alcohol
poured over a tall glass of crushed ice with a Betsy
Ross flag stuck in it. At Glover's Lane he stopped to
visit A.A. Hayes. He found the editor, drink in hand,
seated in the dark on his porch steps, a southern
custom the expatriate clung to, though none of his
neighbors had adopted it. On Hayes's house was a
placard modeled facetiously on Ernest Ransom's. It
read, BUILT 1948.
"Sit down, Sammy, I'm all alone. And how am I?
Tight as a tick.
And how do I feel about life? About like Moby
Dick. I mean the whale, not the book."
"Mind company? You were reading."
"Just a piece of junk." Hayes held up a paperback,
Heather Should Have Died Hereafter by Ben Rough.