The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up Read Online Free Page B

cigar on the pavement,” said Taylor. “Let it go, old man. Let it go.” Arnold hated being called “old man” by a guy his own age. But he had cut the son slack. Twice. And the problem, as evidenced by the pizza boxes full of cigarette butts, had certainly not gone away. It was the kid’s lucky morning, thought Arnold. He’d let him have a fourth strike. After standing up to all of Yankee Stadium, Arnold had no hankering to duke it out with his neighbour.
    Once he’d gathered up the candy bar wrappers and the Doritos bags and what appeared to be the strap from a woman’s brassiere, Arnold plunged headlong into his weeding. No new tares were actually visible on the surface. He’d been over this ground too many times for that. But he made a point of churning the soil, particularly the moist earth beneath the Japanese maple, because prevention was the best herbicide. First he worked with a spade, then with a short-handled hoe. He lost himselfin the labour. Gardening provided him with the same high that long-distance runners found in marathon training and actors discovered on the stage. The rustle of footsteps in the butterfly hedges took him by surprise. Arnold spun around, brandishing his hoe.
    “Jesus, Mr. Brinkman,” said the trespasser. “You look terrified.”
    The voice belonged to an unfamiliar young woman. She was pudgy, with wide-set eyes and the upturned nose of a German peasant, but she was still of the age at which every girl is gorgeous by default. It was an ephemeral beauty. All long hair and smooth skin. You couldn’t compare it to the high cheekbones and perfectly curved brow that would keep Judith stunning into her seventies. But the girl was eye-catching. Not so different from the hundreds of other large-breasted, bare-armed graduate students and aspiring artists who rolled their eyes at Arnold every day on the streets of Greenwich Village—except that this young woman was standing in his yard. She wore a cream-coloured tank-top and carried a canvas bag over her exposed shoulder.
    “Could you put that down?” she asked. “I’m not a burglar.”
    Arnold tentatively lowered the hoe. He still feared this might be some sort of elaborate con-game or blackmail scheme—he knew they enlisted teenage girls for just such rackets—but at least she didn’t appear to be violent.“Explain yourself,” he ordered.
    “I figured you wouldn’t remember me,” said the girl.
    “I know you?”
    Arnold tried to place the intruder’s face, but couldn’t. Had he taught her? Had she worked at the nursery? At some point, all of his former students and employees had blended into each other. Common wisdom said that when you died, you passed through a tunnel of bright light and encountered everyone you’d ever known. Nobody said what would happen if you couldn’t recognize them.
    “I interviewed you for the N.Y.U. newspaper,” said the girl. “About five years ago. When you gave that talk on ‘living off the land’ in Central Park.”
    “Five years ago,” echoed Arnold. “I think I do remember you.” The truth was he’d not only forgotten the interview, but he couldn’t even remember the lecture.
    “See, I’m not a burglar,” said the girl.
    “Okay, but how did you get in here?”
    The girl smiled mischievously. “Magic.”
    “Would you care to be more specific?”
    “Ladders.”
    Arnold looked in the direction she’d come from. Sure enough, the upper rungs of a ladder protruded above the butterfly hedge. On the top step, surrounded by a tangle of black-eyed Susans, a catbird twitched its long dark tail.
    “I set up one ladder on the sidewalk,” the girl explained. “I carried the other one to the top and put itdown on the opposite side of the fence. Then I just stepped over horizontally. It’s a neat trick I learned in journalism school.” Arnold must have looked puzzled, because the girl added: “I borrowed one of the ladders from the theatre across the street and the other from the