They Walked Like Men

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It was Thursday night and I’d had too much to drink and the hall was dark and that was the only thing that saved me. If I hadn’t stopped beneath the hall light just outside my door to sort out the keys, I would have stepped into the trap, just as sure as hell.

Its being Thursday night had nothing to do with it, actually, but that’s the way I write. Fm a newspaperman, and newspapermen put the day of the week and the time of day and all the other pertinent information into everything they write.

The hall was dark because Old George Weber was a penny-pinching soul. He spent half his time fighting with the other tenants about cutting down the heat or not installing air conditioning or the plumbing’s being on the fritz again or why he never got around to redecorating. He never fought with me because I didn’t care. It was a place to sleep and eat occasionally and to spend what spare time I had, and I wasn’t fussy. We thought an awful lot of one another, did Old George and I. We played pinochle together and we drank beer together and every fall we went out to South Dakota for the pheasant hunting. But we wouldn’t be going this year, I remembered, because that very morning I had driven Old George and Mrs. George out to the airport and had seen them off on a trip to California. And even if Old George had stayed at home, we wouldn’t have been going, for next week I’d be off on the trip the Old Man had been after me to make for the last six months.

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