Michael Malone - Weebly

herself, she always insisted on an audience, even if she
could find no one better than her sleeping husband, Joe.
Smalter, of course, was a bachelor and had no bed
partner.
"It'll never work." He grimaced. "Sweetheart,
look…Look, sweetheart. You'd never know if I was
coming through this door at night or not.…No." Smalter
ran his hands through his wreath of hair, fluffing it out in
yellow tufts. "No. You'd always be waiting for that call
saying I was on a slab in some morgue with a card tied
to my toe, and my face…a mess of blood and
bones….My face…shot away.…My face…a
scrambled plate of spaghetti…My face…Oh, to hell
with it. Enough for tonight."
Mr. Smalter ripped a page from the typewriter on
his desk. He brushed his teeth and took his pill and
thought of Mrs. Haig taking hers. He bent over ten
times, occasionally touching his toes. He flipped off the
desk light, flipped on the bed light, slid wider the
covers, and opened his Browning to "Andrea del
Sarto."
The light burned long after clouds had rolled over