Read Online Place in the City by Howard Fast - Free Book Online

face, caressed her cheeks slowly and softly. “Baby,” he said, “I got the license. I got a friend who’ll marry us tonight, maybe in an hour. Why don’t you?”
    â€œDanny—”
    â€œWe love each other, don’t we? Sure I know you’re Jewish. But I’m not going to stop loving you. It’s not easy come and easy go with me.”
    â€œI know, Danny.”
    â€œSo what? I want to marry you. I love you. I got enough money to make it easy for both of us, and Timy says he’ll put me on the ticket for the assembly next fall. That means I’m going up. Up and up, baby, right to the stars. I’m going to put you where you deserve to be. I’m going to make you the wife of a senator, the wife of a governor, and after that, who knows what? Look at me. Do I look good to you? Well, I’m your own Danny, and I’m going where you want me to. There’s no limit. Alice baby—marry me tonight.”
    â€œAll right, Danny.”
    â€œI got the ring here—what do you think of that? Maybe I didn’t know you’d say yes? Maybe I didn’t! Well, listen, we got time to get it done, and then have a little supper of our own. Then I got to rush over to the club for a little while, not for long, but I got to show my face. You know how Timy is about me. I show my face there for maybe an hour or two, and meantime you go home and fix things. You don’t need to tell them all, and if they yell, let ’em. I pick you up later, and we shoot over to the best hotel. Then we’ll figure things out from there on.”
    â€œBut, Danny—school tomorrow.”
    â€œDon’t you worry about that. Maybe I don’t want my wife to work. You just let me do things from here on. Geesus, baby, I love you.”
    â€œI know, Danny.”
    Later, when it was over, it was terribly difficult for her to realize the fact. She stood in the snow with the tall, slim boy next to her, and he was her husband. It was nice, awfully nice, but it was hard to get used to. Not all at once, anyway. She had to stare quite a while at the gold band around her finger.
    Even when they were eating, opposite one another, all she could say was, “I’m married, aren’t I, Danny?”
    â€œYou’re my wife.”
    â€œIt’s hard to believe, it happened so quickly. Like becoming another person all in a moment. Now what will we do?”
    â€œBe happy.”
    â€œThat’s right, isn’t it, Danny? We do have to be happy. That’s our right, and nobody can take it away from us, can they, Danny?”
    â€œNobody.”
    She stared at him, and then she stared at her ring. Things could happen so fast that you couldn’t quite understand them. But there was the ring on her finger, and in fact she was Danny’s wife.

W HEN Timy left Mary White alone in the back room of Kraus’ saloon, she was frightened. No reason to be, no good reason, because nothing could happen to her now that hadn’t happened before; nevertheless, she was frightened. After all, a stag was a stag, no more than that; and men were the same all over. She thought she knew men; how could you be a whore for any length of time without getting to know men? Yet she didn’t hate them. True, most men weren’t good, but then again, most men were not bad. Most men had too little in them to be either really good or bad; and if they did not have a burning desire for women, they would have nothing at all. So why should she be afraid?
    Men were men; they came and they went, and all the time they were no more than pale slides on the screen. You didn’t love them, but how could you hate them?
    She walked over to the window, discovered that she was trembling. Timy had tossed a pack of cigarettes on the table, and now she went to the table and lit one. It trembled in her hand. Well, if anything, she was worried about the children. She always worried about them when she