Read Online Hazards by Mike Resnick - Free Book Online

of curious about it.
    “For example,” he said, “did Woodrow Wilson keep us out of that little skirmish over in Europe?”
    “For a while,” I said.
    “Good,” he said. “Only problem with all them foreigners is that they speak European and probably don’t believe in God and maybe eat their young, but other than that I can’t see that they’re all that much different from Americans except for being dumber and uglier.” He paused for a moment. “How about the fat guy with the girl’s name?”
    “I ain’t quite sure who you’re talking about, Brother Corny,” I said.
    “You know,” insisted MacNamarra. “He pitches for the Boston Red Sox. Calls himself Dolly or Honey, something like that.”
    “You mean Babe Ruth?”
    “That’s the feller!” he exclaimed. “I sure wouldn’t want to find myself alone in the men’s room with a guy called Babe. Whatever happened to him?”
    “Traded to the Yankees, last I heard,” I told him.
    “Good,” he said. “Ain’t no way Boston was ever going to win a pennant with a fat guy named Babe on the team.”
    “Anything else you got a driving desire to know?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” he said. “You think my Rama and Bella could make it as Floradora girls?”
    “Ain’t no Floradora girls no more,” I told him.
    “Oh?” he asked, looking his disappointment. “What happened to ’em?”
    “Talking pictures put ’em out of business,” I said.
    “Talking pictures?” he repeated, kind of frowning.
    “Like unto Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, but with talking,” I explained.
    He threw back his head and laughed. “Talking pictures!” he guffawed. “By God, I’m gonna like having a son-in-law with a sense of humor!”
    He began telling me about how he still had a pile of money in some Missouri and Oklahoma banks, except for the part he’d invested in Anaconda Copper, and I decided telling him about 1929 would just depress him, so I never brung it up.
    We talked a bit more, and then he led me out to a tiny shed.
    “Good night, Reverend,” he said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to have you joining our little family.”
    I heard a kind of snorting sound from the shed.
    “Uh…I don’t want to sound unduly alarmed, Brother Corny,” I said, “but exactly what is residing in there?”
    “Just Sadie, our pet pig,” he said. “Don’t mind her. She’s a right friendly sort, unless you get her mad.”
    “Maybe I should just sleep in one of the houses,” I suggested.
    “Rama lives in one and Bella lives in the other,” he said. “T’wouldn’t be moral, you spending the night under the same roof with one of ’em until after you’re married.”
    Sadie grunted and the shed shook.
    “Maybe I’ll just sleep on your rocking chair,” I suggested.
    “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “If’n you don’t mind being et alive by bugs and having snakes crawl all over you, I can’t see why it should bother me neither.”
    “On second thought, Brother Corny,” I said hastily, “I can see that Sadie’s a beloved member of the family, and I wouldn’t want her suffering no pangs of rejection.”
    “Well, good for you, Reverend!” he said, slapping me on the back, which was starting to get more than a little sore from all these displays of friendship. “I like the way you think. Hell, build your tabernacle on the property here, and I just might join it. Probably get you three or four Indians, too, provided your religion ain’t got nothing against nudity or cannibalism or virgin sacrifice or any of them other little local customs.”
    I thanked him for his concern and his confidence and his pig, and then I went off to spend the night with Sadie, who truth to tell smelled better and hogged the sleeping area less than some women I could name.
    Came morning I wandered over for some breakfast, and Rama and Bella were all scrubbed up and looking their prettiest, than which not a lot of things and hardly no women were prettier, and