Read Online Have a NYC 3 by Peter Carlaftes - Free Book Online Page B

never shrinks. ‘Help, please somebody help me; they always make me shrink more in jail . . . ’ You can hear his voice even over the police sirens. Well, what do you think? Is he going to be on Oprah next?”
    This time the young man addresses the question directly into the elderly gentleman’s face. The latter does not cringe but turns his wire-rimmed bifocals at him.
    â€œOf course, he knows what he’s doing. He knows we’re living in an expanding universe, and he’ll be back tomorrow and the day after, until he’ll appear as a balloon in Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade along with other icons of our infinitely varied civilization. After all, he seems to be commuting between the Met Museum and the Museum of Natural History, at least for now, until he has a museum of his own dedicated to his shrinking body.”
    The lines are delivered in the tone of an experienced salesman rather than that of a teacher. Then silence. The young man drops his broad shoulders on the back of the bench.
    â€œYou don’t say.”
    â€œThat’s right, I don’t.” The bifocals switch back to the Times .
    â€œWhat I’m saying is that what you really want to say is you want dick.” The young man announces wearily to the ashen sky.
    â€œThanks, I already have one,” the older man also speaks into the air as if addressing an invisible bird. But he does take his eyes off The New York Times in his hand without, however, lowering it.
    â€œWiseguy.”
    â€œQuestion the virtue of wisdom?”
    â€œThat’s not the question. How much do you have on you?”
    â€œDick?”
    â€œYeah. That’s my name. What’s it going to be? Yes or no?”
    â€œNo comment.”
    â€œYou mean you want it.”
    â€œI told you I have one already.”
    â€œWhat you’ve got is not a dick, but worn-out pisser. And it can’t even piss any more.”
    â€œGood enough for me.”
    â€œThat’s sick. You mean you go down on yourself?”
    â€œVery ingenious. You must be an off-off-Broadway producer.”
    â€œThat’s sick. You hang in the closet and jerk off over you face.”
    â€œSounds like quite a feat, don’t you think?”
    â€œSick, that’s what I think.
    â€œI didn’t say how I used it.”
    â€œUsed what? The closet?”
    â€œNo, my dick.”
    â€œYou didn’t?”
    â€œNo, I didn’t.”
    Pause. The young man spreads his legs a little wider before he speaks again.
    â€œOkay, wiseguy, just give me twenty.”
    â€œTwenty what?”
    â€œWhat? Twenty kisses on my ass . . . Come to think of it, that’ll be extra.”
    Without looking at the young man the older gent looks around to see if there were any witnesses to the statement. No one in earshot.
    â€œTwenty bucks? What for?”
    â€œMy time. You’ve taken up twenty dollars worth of my time already.”
    â€œAnd you fifty of mine.”
    â€œWiseguy again. Dick or no dick, you’ve got to pay.”
    â€œThis is a public bench.”
    â€œNot talking about the bench but my time.”
    â€œYou seem to have plenty to spare.”
    â€œThat doesn’t give you the right to abuse it.”
    â€œWhat? The bench?”
    â€œEnough of this. I have no time for people who’re just looking.”
    â€œWhat? Looking at the lawn? The pigeons?”
    â€œJust move on, you jerk.”
    â€œThat a threat?”
    â€œGo and jerk off somewhere else. But first the twenty.”
    â€œYou’re mugging me.”
    â€œI never use force. Hardly ever. Instead I call the cops.”
    â€œWho? What are you going to tell them? I stole from you?”
    â€œWorse. You offered twenty for a feel. To a normal young man on his way to work, you creep.”
    â€œThis bench is big enough for the two of us.”
    â€œGo tell someone else on another bench. In the meantime I may be losing business.