“Bertha. You have to massage her with a club in order to keep her from beating your brains out. She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just the way she’s made. She can’t help it. When you see she’s getting her fist cocked, you beat her to the punch. That’s all. I’m going to sleep again. Don’t bother to waken me. You go ahead and get some sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to call her again?”
“After a while.”
Roberta smiled somewhat wistfully and said, “You’re a funny boy.”
“Why?” I asked, settling myself back on the bed.
“Nothing,” she said, and walked back to her room.
It took me ten or fifteen minutes to get back to sleep. I must have slept for a couple of hours. When I wakened, I rang Bertha Cool again.
“Hello, Bertha. This is Donald.”
“You damn little whippersnapper! You dirty little upstart! What the hell do you mean by pulling a stunt like that. I’ll teach you to hang up on me! Why, dammit, I’ll—”
“I’ll call you back in a couple of hours,” I said, and hung up.