Equally illusory, I am hoping, is my reservation for a sure seat, next performance, in the electric chair which now seems so certain after the merest formality of a trial.
Actually I am, or was, nothing but a very normal, average—upper middle average, that is—sort of a guy. I have always been friendly, sociable, kindly, lovable to a fault. So how did lovable, kindly old I happen to get into such a bloody mess?
I simply helped a little old lady cross the street. That's all.
All right, I admit I was old for Boy Scout work. But the poor old bat did look mighty confused and baffled, standing there on the corner of York and Grand Avenue, looking vaguely around.
So, "What the hell," I said to myself; and, to her, "Can I help you, Madam?" I had to cross the street anyway. Traffic being what it was, I figured I'd feel a little safer with her for company. It was silly, of course, to think that a poor old lady on my arm would ever inhibit the Grand Avenue throughway traffic but I tried it. Good job I did, too.
It was an early fall afternoon, a bit before rush hour. I had knocked off work early. It was too nice a day for work and besides the managing editor had fired me again. I had nothing better to do, so I thought I'd wander over to Maxim's for a drink or two. Then, on the corner, I found the old lady.
She was a pretty sad-looking old lady. Matter of fact she was—just standing there, not even trying—the worst-looking old lady I ever saw. She looked, to put it kindly, like a three-day corpse that had made it the hard way after a century of poor health. First I thought, hell, I'll give the old bag of misery a boost, shove her under a bus or something. It would be the decent, kindly thing to do.
I spoke, tentatively. She half-turned and looked up at me from her witch's crouch. The eyes in the beak-nosed, ravaged ruin of a face were big, luminous, a glowing green. They clearly belonged elsewhere and there was a lost, appealing look in them. There was a demand there, too.
"I—uh—that is, would you care to cross with me, Madam?" I asked her.
She took my arm. There was a moment's lull in the wake of a screaming prowl car. I muttered a word of prayer and we were off the curb. The old hag was surprisingly quick. It looked as though we were going to make it. Then, three-quarters across, I came down with a rubber heel in an oil slick just as a roaring, grinding cement-mixer truck was coming down on me like an avalanche. My feet went up. I gave the old witch a shove clear and shut my eyes for fear the coming sight of smeared blood and guts—my own—would make me sick.