Read Long After Midnight for Free Online Page A

           "You
would," I answered myself.
                 I
stood for a moment longer at the door. Then, slowly, I walked across the small
room and stopped by the cage with the shawl over it. I saw a single word
embroidered across the top of the shawl: mother.
                 I
glanced at Shelley. He shrugged and looked shyly at his boot tips. I took hold
of the shawl. Shelley said, "No. Before you lift it ... ask
something."
                 "Like
what?"
                 "DiMaggio.
Ask DiMaggio."
                 A
small ten-watt bulb clicked on in my head. I nodded. I leaned near the hidden
cage and whispered: "DiMaggio. 1939."
                 There
was a sort of animal-computer pause. Beneath the word mother some feathers
stirred, a beak tapped the cage bars. Then a tiny voice said:
                 "Home
runs, thirty. Batting average, .381."
                 I
was stunned. But then I whispered: "Babe Ruth. 1927."
                 Again
the pause, the feathers, the beak, and: "Home runs, sixty. Batting
average, .356. Awk ."
                 "My
God," I said.
                 "My
God," echoed Shelley Capon.
                 "That's
the parrot who met Papa, all right."
                 "That's
who it is."
                 And
I lifted the shawl.
                 I
don't know what I expected to find underneath the embroidery. Perhaps a
miniature hunter in boots, bush jacket, and wide-brimmed hat. Perhaps a small,
trim fisherman with a beard and turtleneck sweater perched there on a wooden
slat. Something tiny, something literary, something human, something fantastic,
but not really a parrot.
                 But
that’s all there was.
                 And
not a very handsome parrot, either. It looked as if it had been up all night
for years; one of those disreputable birds that never preens its feathers or
shines its beak. It was a kind of rusty green and black with a dull-amber snout
and rings under its eyes as if it were a secret drinker. You might see it half
flying, half hopping out of cafe"-bars at three in the morning. It was the
bum of the parrot world.
                 Shelley
Capon read my mind. "The effect is better," he said, "with the
shawl over the cage."
                 I
put the shawl back over the bars.
                 I
was thinking very fast. Then I thought very slowly. I bent and whispered by the
cage:
                 "Norman
Mailer."
                 "Couldn't
remember the alphabet," said the voice beneath the shawl.
                 "Gertrude
Stein," I said.
                 "Suffered
from undescended testicles," said the voice.
                 "My
God," I gasped.
                 I
stepped back. I stared at the covered cage. I blinked at Shelley Capon.
                 "Do
you really know what you have here,
Capon?"
                 "A gold mine, dear Raimundo !"
he crowed.
                 "A mint!" I corrected.
                 "Endless
opportunities for blackmail!"
                 "Causes
for murderl " I added.
                 "Think!"
Shelley snorted into his drink. "Think what Mailer's publishers alone would pay to shut this bird
up!"
                 I
spoke to the cage:
                 "F.
Scott Fitzgerald."
                 Silence.
                 "Try
'Scottie,' " said Shelley.
                 "Ah,"
said the voice inside the cage. "Good left jab but couldn't follow
through. Nice contender, but—"
                 "Faulkner,"
I said.
                 "Batting
average fair, strictly a singles hitter."
                 "Steinbeck!"
                 "Finished
last at end of season."
                 "Ezra
Pound!"