answered the telephone. ‘I’m glad you called,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come over and have a nightcap with me? I’d like to see you.’
She only lived four blocks away.
There was the sound of romance in her voice.
For years they had been on and off casual lovers and she was very good in bed. She had read all of his books and was very intelligent because she never talked to him about them. He didn’t like to talk about his books and she had never asked him anything about them, but they were all there on her bookshelf. He liked the idea of her having all of his books but he liked even better the fact that they had been lovers for five years now and she had never asked him about them. He wrote them, she read them, and they did some pretty fair fucking together.
She wasn’t his physical type but she compensated for it in other ways.
‘I’d like to see you,’ she said on the telephone.
‘I’ll be over in a few minutes,’ he said.
‘I’ll put a log on the fire,’ she said.
He was feeling better now.
Maybe it would all work out.
Perhaps, it wasn’t hopeless.
He put his coat on and started out the door.
Actually, he did nothing because he had been only thinking about all of this in his mind. None of it was real. He hadn’t touched the telephone and there was no such girl.
He was still staring at the torn pieces of paper in the waste-paper basket. He was staring very intently at them as they made friends with the abyss. They seemed to have a life of their own. It was a big decision but they decided to go on without him.
MAYOR
‘Why are hats falling from the sky?’ said the mayor.
‘I don’t know,’ said his cousin.
The man who was without a job wondered if the hat would fit his head.
‘This is serious,’ said the mayor. ‘Let me take a look at that sombrero.’ He gestured toward the hat and his cousin immediately reached to pick it up because he wanted to be mayor himself someday and picking up that hat might get him some political help in the future when his name would be on the ballot.
The mayor might even endorse him and say at a big rally, ‘I’ve been a good mayor and you’ve re-elected me six times but I know my cousin here will be a great mayor and carry on a tradition of honesty and leadership in our community.’
Yes, it was a very good idea to pick up the sombrero.
His future as mayor depended on it.
He would have been an idiot if he’d said, ‘Pick it up yourself. Who do you think you are, anyway? I wasn’t put on this earth to pick up sombreros for you.’
BERRIES
Though it was a hot day, the sombrero was ice-cold. When the cousin touched the hat, he withdrew his hand immediately as if he had touched electricity.
‘What’s wrong?’ said the mayor.
‘This sombrero is cold,’ his cousin said.
‘What?’ the mayor said.
‘It’s cold.’
‘Cold?’
‘Ice-cold.’
The man who did not have a job stared at the sombrero. It didn’t look cold to him. But what did he know? He didn’t have a job. Perhaps if he had a job the sombrero would have looked cold to him. Maybe that’s why he didn’t have a job. He couldn’t see a cold sombrero when he was looking at one.
His unemployment benefits had run out a month before and he was now reduced to eating berries that he found growing in the nearby foothills.
He was very tired of eating berries.
He wanted a hamburger.
HAMBURGERS
An idea took immediate form in the unemployed man’s mind. The sombrero was still lying in the street. The mayor’s cousin had failed to pick it up. He had jumped back as if he’d been stung by a bee when he tried to pick it up.
The sombrero lay there.
Perhaps if the unemployed man picked up the sombrero and handed it to the mayor, the mayor would give him a job and he could stop eating berries and eat a lot of hamburgers instead.
He looked again at the sombrero lying in the street and his mouth started watering at the imagined taste of hamburgers with lots of onions and catsup on them.
He would not let this chance go by.
He might never be employed again if he did not pick up that sombrero and hand it to the mayor.
What was he going to do when the berry season was over?
What a terrible thought.
No more berries.
Even though he hated berries now, they were better to eat than nothing. What was he going to do when they were gone?
This sombrero lying in the street might be his last chance.
CAREER
‘I’ll get the sombrero for you, mayor,’ he said and bent over to pick up the sombrero.
‘No, I’ll get it,’ the mayor’s cousin said, suddenly realizing that if he didn’t pick up that sombrero he might never be mayor.
Who was this unemployed bastard who was trying to pick up the sombrero and ruin his bid for public office? Did he want to become mayor himself? Even if the sombrero was frighteningly cold, he wasn’t going to let this son-of-a-bitch pick it up and become mayor of the town.
Why didn’t I just pick it up in the first place? the cousin thought. Then none of this would be happening. An ice-cold sombrero can’t hurt you. It just surprised him. That was all. He didn’t expect it to be cold, so he had jumped back. Who would have thought that the sombrero would be frozen? Anyone would have been surprised and reacted the way he did.
Suddenly the cousin hated the sombrero for having made a fool out of him. He had to hand that sombrero to the mayor if he ever wanted to be mayor himself. His whole political career would end right then and there if he didn’t get the sombrero to the mayor.
God-damn sombrero!
JOB
When the unemployed man saw that the mayor’s cousin was suddenly very anxious to pick
