Too Many Crooks, Playboy, August 1989
Travelers Far and Wee, Science Fiction Stories, May 1960
U
The Ultimate Caper, New York Times Magazine, May 11, 1975
V
Veronica, The Vincentian, May 1951
W
Walking Around Money, Transgressions, 2005
The Winner, Nova 1, 1970
The World’s a Stage, Playboy, July 1984
Sorry; I have no space left for advice.
Just do it.
1951
Veronica
He could run but he couldn’t hide—
His name was William. He would have liked to be called Bill, or even Will. But he was one of those poor unfortunate boys with too many brains and too little muscle. In school work, he was superb; but in sports or fights he was somewhat less than terrible. This affliction cost him many bruises, both physical and mental. But the worst thing of all was his name. The others had tired of calling him “sissy” and “baby,” so they decided to give him a name that would fully express their scorn of his intelligence and lack of physical ability. Accordingly, he was dubbed, for all time, Veronica.
Veronica lived in constant fear. He always went to the school bus at a dead run, with shouting fiends chasing him with insensate glee. He always sat directly behind the bus driver and, when the bus stopped at his corner, was always out and away like a flushed quail. In school, he was always dodging guided missiles ranging from wads of paper to geography books. The noon recess was his worst enemy. During this time, lie avoided the playground as though it were Hades itself. He might even have preferred Hades.
Veronica’s worst tormenter was a charming boy variously called Peter by his mother; Mr. Austin by the teacher; and, for no known reason, Tinker by the other boys. Tinker’s favorite sport was to get on the school bus behind Veronica and, with a few well-placed shoves, punches, and kicks, force the unfortunate one to the back of the bus, where he was subjected to varied and ingenious tortures known to all and sundry as innocent fun or boys will be boys. By a strange, warped fate, Veronica and Tinker got off the bus at the same stop, along with four other young sadists.
On one particular day, when Veronica had received, among other things, a bloody nose, from his recreations in the back of the bus, he was given an extra indignity. He was forced to carry the other five boys’ books from the bus. His own were already out the window, so that the load was not too heavy. While the other boys stood behind him, to make sure lie didn’t balk. Tinker stepped out in front of him, gave him an elbow in the stomach, and said, “Wait’ll a man gets off, Veronica.” After which, he stepped grandly from the bus.
At that very moment, something snapped inside Veronica. With a healthy heave he sent the assorted books crashing down on Tinker’s grandiose head, and followed them personally, in a flapping nosedive. The two boys landed in a heap, and an enormous cloud of dust rose to cover the proceedings for a moment. No one on the entire bus moved. They were all so surprised at the suddenness and the identity of the attacker. Even the bus driver sat stock still, his mouth hanging open. Never in his entire career had he seen anyone leave the bus in this high-dive manner. He sat there, trying without success to figure out just how it had been done, and then finally got dazedly to his feet, and looked out the window at the fray. That was when he got his big surprise.
But if you think the onlooker’s surprise was great, imagine the surprise of friend Tinker for, as the dust rose gracefully from the combatants, there was Veronica, sitting astride the prostrate Tinker, pounding away with his left fist at Tinker’s face, which he kept exposed by the simple expedient of holding in his right hand most of Tinker’s hair.
After a moment, Tinker’s four horsemen arrived on the scene. With difficulty, they dragged Veronica off the now unconscious Tinker, and held him securely. Veronica gave no resistance. His fight was finished; his honor saved. His opponent lay, vanquished, on the gory field of battle. Veronica was satisfied. Then someone hit him in the face.
That was when Veronica started fighting. He wrenched his right arm free, and slammed the boy holding his left arm twice in the nose. By that time, the other boy had the idea, and immediately let go of the arm to sit on the ground and hold his nose.
Veronica threw his fists about with wild abandon. He felt a piercing pain in his stomach and head, coupled with a whole series of pains that seemed to cover every inch of his body. Once, he found himself on his back, with several dark shapes above him. Using all his energy, he slashed out mightily with his feet and saw sunlight once more. Another time, he realized that he was on his feet again, with a hank of someone’s hair in his left hand. Without clearly realizing it, he pushed down with his left hand, at the same time sending his knee whistling upward. The result was a solid crunch, a muffled ouch, and a loose handful of hair.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the fight was over. Veronica looked about himself wonderingly. About a half a block down the street, three boys ran with the speed of a hunted fox, and, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, a fourth boy crouched under die bus, still holding his nose. On the ground, arms outstretched, face to the sun, was Tinker. Veronica looked at the bus driver, who was still hanging halfway out the window, and said, softly, calmly, and with utmost dignity, “You may drive on, now.”
The driver didn’t say, “Yes, sir.” Instead, he leaped from the window to the driver’s seat in one bound, hitting his head in the procedure, and drove off without even closing the bus doors. He drove three blocks in first, and didn’t let one child off in eight blocks, for which act he heard long and loud when he returned to the garage that night.
When Veronica reached home at a walk for the first time in his school career, he was just beginning to understand what had happened. He had beaten up all the tough guys, not one at a time, but all together. He couldn’t understand it, but lie didn’t let that worry him. He’d beaten them, his future was secure, and he felt very happy about the whole thing.
When his mother caught sight of him, she didn’t quite share his joy. She was used to the normal amounts of cuts and bruises, but nothing like the mess that walked up the porch steps, and said, with her son’s voice, “I won, Mom.”
Mom had difficulty staying vertical. She grasped the porch-rail firmly, and said to the tattered, smeared wreck before her, “William!”
William looked up at her with shining eyes, and said, “My name’s not William, Mom.” For the first time he was proud of that nickname. “It’s Veronica.”
That was when Mom fainted.
My Father’s Chair
Uncertainty reigned his heart.
I got home late from work Tuesday. My sister was in the kitchen, preparing supper, just like every other Tuesday; my mother was at a meeting, just like every other Tuesday; but one thing was different. My father was in bed. He wasn’t pale; if anything he was too red. He looked exhausted, wornout. The first thing f thought of was his heart. He had had a heart attack the day after Christmas in ’47. I stood there, at the foot of the bed, listening to my sister rushing around the kitchen heating soup and looking at my father stretched out on the bed.