{"id":13288,"date":"2013-05-01T12:54:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T16:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=13288"},"modified":"2013-05-01T12:55:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T16:55:50","slug":"story-up-my-sleeve-1-farewell-my-lovely-appetizer-by-s-j-perelman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/story-up-my-sleeve-1-farewell-my-lovely-appetizer-by-s-j-perelman\/","title":{"rendered":"Story Up My Sleeve #1: “Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer,” by S.J. Perelman"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Don’t know what this is? See the <\/em>Story Up My Sleeve<\/a> background<\/a>.]<\/em><\/span>
\n\"S.J.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Any customers?”<\/p>\n

“A woman by the name of Sigrid Bjornsterne said she’d be back. A looker.”<\/p>\n

“Swede?”<\/p>\n

“She’d like you to think so.”<\/p>\n

I nodded toward the inner office to indicate that I was going in there, and went in there. I lay down on the davenport, took off my shoes, and bought myself a shot from the bottle I kept underneath. Four minutes later, an ash blonde with eyes the color of unset opals, in a Nettie Rosenstein basic black dress and a baum-marten stole, burst in. Her bosom was heaving and it looked even better that way. With a gasp she circled the desk, hunting for some place to hide, and then, spotting the wardrobe where I keep a change of bourbon, ran into it. I got up and wandered out into the anteroom. Birdie was deep in a crossword puzzle.<\/p>\n

“See anyone come in here?”<\/p>\n

“Nope.” There was a thoughtful line between her brows. “Say, what’s a five-letter word meaning ‘trouble’?”<\/p>\n

“Swede,” I told her, and went back inside. I waited the length of time it would take a small, not very bright boy to recite “Ozymandias,” and, inching carefully along the wall, took a quick gander out the window. A thin galoot with stooping shoulders was being very busy reading a paper outside the Gristede store two blocks away. He hadn’t been there an hour ago, but then, of course, neither had I. He wore a size-seven dove-colored hat from Browning King, a tan Wilson Brothers shirt with pale-blue stripes, a J. Press foulard with a mixed-red-and-white figure, dark blue Interwoven socks, and an unshined pair of ox-blood London Character shoes. I let a cigarette burn down between my fingers until it made a small red mark, and then I opened the wardrobe.<\/p>\n

“Hi,” the blonde said lazily. “You Mike Noonan?” I made a noise that could have been “Yes,” and waited. She yawned. I thought things over, decided to play it safe. I yawned. She yawned back, then, settling into a corner of the wardrobe, went to sleep. I let another cigarette burn down until it made a second red mark beside the first one, and then I woke her up. She sank into a chair, crossing a pair of gams that tightened my throat as I peered under the desk at them.<\/p>\n

“Mr. Noonan,” she said, “you — you’ve got to help me.”<\/p>\n

“My few friends call me Mike,” I said pleasantly.<\/p>\n

“Mike.” She rolled the syllable on her tongue. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that name before. Irish?”<\/p>\n

“Enough to know the difference between a gossoon and a bassoon.”<\/p>\n

“What is<\/em> the difference?” she asked. I dummied up; I figured I wasn’t giving anything away for free. Her eyes narrowed. I shifted my two hundred pounds slightly, lazily set fire to a finger, and watched it burn down. I could see she was admiring the interplay of muscles in my shoulders. There wasn’t any extra fat on Mike Noonan, but I wasn’t telling her that. I was playing it safe until I knew where we stood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n[source<\/em><\/a>]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Don’t know what this is? See the Story Up My Sleeve background.] “Any customers?” “A woman by the name of Sigrid Bjornsterne said she’d be back. A looker.” “Swede?” “She’d like you to think so.” I nodded toward the inner office to indicate that I was going in there, and went in there. I lay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,3448,37,105,713],"tags":[945],"class_list":{"0":"post-13288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-story-up-my-sleeve","8":"category-onlineworld","9":"category-short-fiction","10":"category-humor-writing_cat","11":"tag-sj-perelman","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3sk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13288"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13309,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13288\/revisions\/13309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}