While Mortals Sleep_ Unpublished Short Fiction - Kurt Vonnegut [72]
Gino came out of my apartment, carrying two lamps. “Back from the bank, Nicky?”
“They’ll only lend me half, Gino. Can you beat it? They want me to put up four thousand, too.”
“A nice wad, four thousand,” said Gino.
“Peanuts!” said Nicky. “The owner’s been making ten G’s, even though he doesn’t advertise or make a decent cup of coffee or try new flavors or—” He stopped short, and his enthusiasm decayed. “You know,” he said flatly, “the stupid things businessmen have to do to make a thing go. Well, the hell with it, anyway.”
“Just forget the ten thousand a year,” said Gino.
An hour later, as I climbed into the cab of the truck and started the engine, Nicky came running out of his apartment. “Shut off the motor!”
Obediently, I did. “For the last time, Nicky, I can’t even afford the ten you already owe me.”
“I don’t need it,” he said.
“Given up? Good. I think you’re wise.”
“Someone else put up the money as a silent partner. The bank told him about me.”
“Who put up the dough?”
“He wants to be known only as a friend of opera,” said Nicky triumphantly. “Just like the artists in the old days, I’ve got a patron.”
“First patron of art in history to underwrite a doughnut manufacturer.”
“That’s not the point!”
“Nicky,” called Gino from his basement door. “What are you yelling about?”
Nicky looked at him sadly, ashamed. “I’m in business, Maestro.”
“You’ve got to suffer to be great,” said Gino.
Nicky nodded. “I’ll use another name. It wouldn’t do to use the name of Marino.”
“I should say not,” said Gino.
“Jeffrey,” said Nicky thoughtfully, “George B. Jeffrey.”
“Get out there and sell, George,” said Gino.
While my new life never came in contact with Nicky’s new life, I had only to pick up a paper to see that he was still in business. He had a small ad in almost every issue, and I was amazed by the variety of things he had to say in favor of doughnuts.
“Maybe we should make a point of going over and buying some,” said Ellen, my wife, at breakfast one morning. “Maybe he’s hurt that we haven’t.”
“Nothing would hurt him more than if we showed up there,” I said. “He’s humiliated enough, without his old friends looking in on him. The time to visit him is when this is all behind him, when he’s either made a pile or been cleaned out, and is back studying with Gino.”
That morning, which was about six months after Nicky’d decided to prostitute himself, I was waiting for a bus by a stoplight, and it seemed to me that someone had his car radio turned up annoyingly loud. I looked up from my paper to be surprised by a doughnut six feet high, with four wheels, a windshield, and bumpers.
Inside sat Nicky, his head back, his white teeth flashing, singing. The mad joy of the song got through to me, even if the melody didn’t. “Nick, boy!” I called.
The song stopped, and he became glum, sardonic. He waved, and opened the side of the doughnut. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift downtown.”
“Don’t go out of your way. Your shop’s just down three blocks, isn’t it?”
“I have business downtown,” he said gloomily.
I found that inside the doughnut was a jeep, the back of which was filled with racks of doughnuts, iced in many colors. “Mmmmm. Don’t those look good!”
“All right, rub it in.”
“They really do look wonderful.”
“In six more months I sell out, and if anybody ever offers me a doughnut, I’ll break his back.”
“You sounded happy enough back there by the light.”
“Laugh, clown, laugh.”
“Through the tears, eh? Business that bad?”
“Business! Who wants to talk about business?” said Nicky.
“How’s music?”
“Haaaah, music. Gino says the security is helping.”
“Good boy! So you’re getting security.”
“A little—some, maybe. Gino wants me to take my money and get out.”
“But you said you were sticking with it another six months.”
“Trapped,” he said bitterly. “My partner, the great friend of opera, fixed things so I can’t sell without his permission. Lord! What a babe