But in less than five minutes he found himself railing to Groff that it wasn't fair, that he'd lost five years of work, that he would have been ready to look for a wife in another three years, a good old-fashioned girl from the New York or Detroit colonies of Syrians, somebody who could cook the old-country food—God, how sick he was of hamburgers and soda pop, sometimes he looked at a hamburger when he thought he was hungry and just put it down and walked away with a pain in his belly.
"So why," he asked indignantly, a little hysterically, "didn't I stay in the colony and eat my mother's cooking? I'll tell you why. Because I wanted to be my own boss, I wanted to be a pioneer, it's no good crowding into the big cities and working for other people. In this country you have to make money to be respected, nobody respects you if you're just a working stiff all your life. So I saved and I bought that place through a broker and I've been slaving for five years, eating the lousy food and thinking about broiled lamb I'm going to eat every day when I find a wife, and then...."
He subsided and the rain drummed down.
They're an emotional people, Mickey Groff thought automatically, and then cursed himself. Damned fool! Here you are thirty years old and you're babbling stereotypes to save yourself the trouble of thinking. Why the hell shouldn't he be emotional with his store washed away? I seem to remember that when Zimmerman slipped the old knife between your ribs with the trick specially printed discount sheet and cost you forty thousand dollars you didn't have, forty thousand dollars for him and Brody to spend on likker and wimmen, forty thousand dollars you might have air-conditioned the plant with for better productivity and fewer rejects, you weren't exactly philosophical about it. Your screams, in fact, were allegedly heard as far west as Council Buffs, Iowa. So less guff, please, about any "they," who exist only in your head, being emotional, or stingy, or stoical, or vindictive or, for that matter, generous and good-hearted. Take 'em as they come, one by one, for what they show they are.
Zehedi was under control again. He said; "That guy's driving too fast."
"Watch out!" Mrs. Goudeket yelled at Dick McCue. "Watch out!" The white posts that marked the sharp left curve loomed big, too big, in front of them. McCue twisted the wheel and stepped on the brake pedal hard and fast. It was nightmarish to feel the rear of the car swivel around; it was uncanny to see the road passing in front of him, defying all his experience of perhaps a hundred thousand miles in a driver's seat. The white center line flashed across his vision and then headlights glared into his eyes; it was the truck that had been following them. The skid continued for an interminable few seconds more; Sharon Froman was screaming in the back seat. The rear of the car jolted down and McCue and Mrs. Goudeket were thrown back against the seat as the front of the car nosed up; metal crunched behind them. Then it all seemed to be over. McCue took a deep breath, turned off the ignition and waited for Mrs. Goudeket to skin him alive verbally.
She said, panting with relief: "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Dick. It must have made you nervous so that happened."
He could have kissed her, hairy mole and all.
"If I'd been driving—" Sharon began coolly from the back.