C. M. Kornbluth - I Never Ast No Favours.pdf - C. M. Kornbluth - widez2

I Never Ast No Favors

C. M. Kornbluth

I Never Ast No Favors

Dear Mr. Marino:

I hesitate to take pen in hand and write you because I guess you do not remember me except maybe as

a punk kid you did a good turn, and I know you must be a busy man running your undertaking parlor as

well as the Third Ward and your barber shop. I never ast no favors of nobody but this is a special case

which I hope you will agree when I explain.

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To refresh your memory as the mouthpiece says in court, my name is Anthony Cornaro only maybe you

remember me better as Tough Tony, which is what they call me back home in the Ward. I am not the

Tough Tony from Water Street who is about 55 and doing a sixer up the river, I am the Tough Tony who

is going on seventeen from Brecker Street and who you got probation for last week after I slash that

nosy cop that comes flatfooting into the grocery store where some friends and I are just looking around

not knowing it is after hours and that the groceryman has went home. That is the Tough Tony that I am. I

guess you remember me now so I can go ahead.

With the probation, not that I am complaining, the trouble starts. The mouthpiece says he has known this

lad for years and he comes from a very fine churchgoing family and he has been led astray by bad

companions. So all

right, the judge says three years' probation, but he goes on to say if. If this, if that, environment, bad

influences, congested city streets, our vital dairy industry denuded —such a word from a judge!—of

labor . . .

Before I know what has happened, I am signing a paper, my Mama is putting her mark on it and I am on

my way toChiungaCountyto milk cows.

I figure the judge does not know I am a personal friend of yours and I do not want to embarrass you by

mentioning your name in open court, I figure I will get a chance later to straighten things out. Also, to tell

you the truth, I am too struck with horror to talk.

Oq the ride upstate I am handcuffed to the juvenile court officer so I cannot make a break for it, but at

last I get time to think and I realise that it is not as bad as it looks. I am supposed to work for a dame

named Mrs. Parry and get chow, clothes and Prevailering Wages. I figure it takes maybe a month for her

to break me in on the cow racket or even longer if I play dumb. During the month I get a few bucks, a

set of threads and take it easy and by then I figure you will have everything straightened out and I can get

back to my regular occupation, only more careful this time. Experience is the best teacher, Mr. Marino,

as I am sure you know.

Well, we arrive at this town Chiunga Forks and I swear to God I never saw such a creepy place. You

wouldn't believe it. The main drag is all of four blocks long and the stores and houses are from wood. I

expect to see Gary Cooper stalking down the street with a scowl on his puss and his hands on his guns

looking for the bad guys. Four hours from the Third Ward in a beat-up '48 police department

Buick—you wouldn't believe it.

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We park in front of a hash house, characters in rubber boots gawk at us, the court officer takes off the

cuffs and gabs with the driver but does not lose sight of me. While we are waiting for this Mrs. Parry to

keep the date I study the bank building across the street and develop some ideas which will interest you,

Mr. Marino, but which I will not go into right now.

All of a sudden there is a hassle on the sidewalk.

A big woman with grey hair and a built like Tony Galento is kicking a little guy who looks like T.B. Louis

the Book, who I guess you know, but not so muscular and wearing overalls. She is kicking him right in

the keister, five-six times. Each time I shudder, and so maybe does the bank building across the street.

"Shoot my, dawg, will you!" she yells at the character. "I said I'd kick your butt from here toScranton

when I caught up with you, Dud Wingle!"

"Leave me be!" he squawks, trying to pry her hands off his shoulders. "He was chasin' deer! He was

chasin' deer!"

Thud—thud—thud. "I don't keer if he was chasin' deer, panthers or butterflies." Thud. "He was my

dawg and you shot him!" Thud. She was drawing quite a crowd. The characters in rubber boots are

forgetting all about us to stare at her and him.

Up comes a flatfoot who I later learn is the entire manpower of Chiunga Forks' lousiest; he says to the

big woman: "Now, Ella" a few times, and she finally stops booting the little character and lets him go.

"What do you want, Henry?" she growls at the flatfoot and he asks weakly: "Silver Bell dropped her calf

yet?"

The little character is limping away rubbing himself. The big broad watches him regretfully and says to

the flatfoot: "Yesterday, Henry. Now if you'll excuse me I have to look for my new hired boy from the

city. I guess that's him over there."

She strolls over to us and yanks open the Buick's door, almost taking it off the hinges. "I'm Mrs. Ella

Parry," she says to me, sticking out her hand. "You must be the Cornaro boy the Probation Association

Page 3

people wired me about."

I shake hands and say, "Yes, ma'am."

The officer turns me over grinning like a skunk eating beans.

I figure Mrs. Parry lives in one of the wood houses in

Chiunga Forks, but no. We climb into a this-year Willys truck and take off for the hills. I do not have

much to say to this lady wrestler but wish I had somebody smuggle me a rod to kind of even things a little

between her and me. With that built she could break me in half by accident. I try to get in good with her

by offering to customize her truck. "I could strip off the bumpers and put on a couple of foglights, maybe

new fenders with a little trim to them," I say, "and it wouldn't cost you a dime. Even out here there has got

to be some parts place where a person can heist what he needs."

"Quiet, Bub," she says all of a sudden, and shields her eyes peering down a side road where a car is

standing in front of a shack. "I swear," she says, "that looks like Dud Wingle's Ford in front of Mi/'

Sigafoos' place." She keeps her neck twisting around to study it until it is out of sight. And she looks

worried.

I figure it is not a good time to talk and anyway maybe she has notions about customizing and does not

approve of it.

"What," she says, "would Dud Wingle want with Miz' Sigafoos?"

"I don't know, ma'am," I say. "Wasn't he the gentleman you was kicking from here toScranton?"

"Shucks, Bub, that was just a figger of speech. If I'd of wanted to kick him from here toScrantonI'd of

done it. Dud and Jim and Ab and Sime think they got a right to shoot your dog if he chases the deer. I'm

a peaceable woman or I'd have the law on them for shootin' Grip. But maybe I did kind of lose my

temper." She looked worrieder yet.

Page 4

"Is something wrong, ma'am?" I ask. You never can tell, but a lot of old dames talk to me like I was their

uncle; to tell you the truth this is my biggest problem in a cathouse. It must be because I am a kind of

thoughtful guy and it shows.

Mrs. Parry is no exception. She says to me: "You don't know the folks up here yet, Bub, so you don't

know about Miz' Sigafoos. I'm old English stock so I don't

hold with their foolishness, but——" And here she looked real worried. "Miz' Sigafoos is what they call

a hex doctor."

"What's that, ma'am?"

"Just a lot of foolishness. Don't you pay any attention," she says, and then she has to concentrate on the

driving. We are turning off the two-lane state highway and going up, up, up into the hills, off a blacktop

road, off a gravel road, off a dirt road. No people. No houses. Fences and cows or maybe horses, I

can't tell for sure. Finally we are at her place, which is from wood and in two buildings. I start

automatically for the building that is clean, new-painted, big and expensive.

"Hold on, Bub," she says. "No need to head for the barn first thing. Let's get you settled in the house first

and then there'll be a plenty of work for you."

I do a double take and see that the big, clean, expensive building is the barn. The little, cheap, rundown

place is the house. I say to myself: "Tough Tony, you're gonna pray tonight that Mr. Marino don't forget

to tell the judge you're a personal friend of his and get you out of this,"

But that night I do not pray. I am too tired. After throwing sacks of scratch feed and laying mash around,

I run the baling machine and I turn the oats in the loft and I pump water until my back is aching jello and

then I go hiking out to the woodlot and chop down trees and cut them up with a chain saw. It is

surprising how fast I learn and how willing I am when I remember what Mrs. Parry did to Dud Wingle.

I barely get to sleep it seems like when Mrs. Parry is yanking the covers off me laughing and I see

through the window that the sky is getting a little light. "Time to rise, Bub," she bawls. "Breakfast on the

table." She strides to the window and flexes her muscles, breathing deep. "It's going to be a fine day. I

can tell when an animal's sick to death, and I can tell when it's going to be fine all day. Rise and shine,

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C. M. Kornbluth - I Never Ast No Favours.pdf

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