Betrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald by Ron Carlson

never been in jail before.” Evelyn said.
    “Say do you folks want to do breakfast at my house?”
    “I don’t think so Ribbo. It’s a bit early. How are the dishes?”
    “I threw them out. I’m doing recycled paper plates now.”
    “Thanks just the same.”
    “Right, well I gotta go then and help with the election. See you later.”
    “Best of luck.”
    “Yeah, well it doesn’t really matter. If the system doesn’t work, there are alternatives you know.” He walked off in a stride very like people who are attempting to continue trucking.

7

    My watch said six-thirty. We went back to the apartment, walking up the stairs through the filmic debris. Empty, the room looked awful, mainly cans and ashes. The worst detail was a purple-red stain growing on the carpet outward from the kitchen. I found an overturned gallon jug of Paisano.
    “Yeech!”
    “Make some coffee, will you Larry?” Eldon said, carrying the chairs back out of the bedroom.
    “Sure.” This is when I reached in the fridge, found an opened, but cold can of coke and took a huge slug, hoping to alleviate the furnace all the beer was making out of my body. There was a cigarette butt in it; I puked into the sink. There are times when I rejoice that I am not my body. After several antiseptic, hot-water minutes I had the kitchen sparkling, and the coffee pot gurgled in my little version of order. I felt better, but I knew there were things unpurged.
    “What are you doing in there?”
    “Cleaning up. Coffee will be ready in a minute.”
    Evelyn went next door and retrieved Zeke, who then slept on our bed. Bunny came back over and handed me a bottle of ginger ale; it wasn’t Right Knight, but it was exactly what I needed.
    Then the four of us sat in the littered front room, as if we were bemused about the hopeless state of domestic help, and tried to sip our steaming coffee. Eldon removed his helmet and his fragile wire glasses and rubbed his eyes. I was always afraid he was going to rub too hard. He told us a little about his book, about one extended metaphor where he compared the Vietnamese with American Indians, but he wouldn’t really go beyond that because, “It’s too depressing.” I told them about my story idea about the rest home. They seemed to like it. Then Evelyn told a very simple reverential story about her husband and how he was killed at a lumber plant in Fredonia, just south of Kanab. He’d been buried in sawdust when a chute broke open. She didn’t say much about it, but the way she talked was beautiful.
    “Why don’t you have a girl?” she asked me.
    “He does, Evelyn.”
    “You do! What’s her name?”
    “Lenore.” Eldon seemed to be answering for me.
    “That’s a lovely name. Are you two serious?”
    “He’s only serious about Scott Fitzgerald.” Eldon pointed to the portrait of Fitzgerald I keep on the wall. “They’re engaged.”
    “Ignore him.” I said. “We were serious.”
    “Oh, you ought to get married.”
    “You think so?”
    “Sure!” Eldon interrupted, “Scott is dead; Lenore has walked out: that leaves Dotty.”
    “Dotty?” Evelyn asked.
    “Dry up, Robinson-Duff.”
    “You see, Evelyn, Larry here is a romantic. He’s very, very different from you or I. Why I might marry an intelligent, beautiful lady (who I might add is in med school), if we were in love. Yes I might. That just shows how stupid, insensitive, and unromantic I am. Larry, here, the romantic on the other hand, prefers instead to marry his dream. You see, he’s …”
    “Robinson-Duff sometimes you talk just like the disabled American Veteran that you are. Perhaps you should replace the helmet, in case I begin hurling my books once again.”
    We heard crying in the other room. Zeke woke from a nightmare. While Evelyn was in the bedroom comforting him, the three of us sat in silence. When she returned we all settled further, realizing we’d broken the night’s back and each minute now was ascension toward morning. Bunny