David A. Ross has been writing short stories since the age of seven. In 2003 he published a cllection of stories, poems and vignettes entitled, Sacrifice and the Swet Life (Escape Media 2003). Contained on these pages are three short stories (unabridged) as they appeared in that collection.
"The Grand Prize Game" was written when the author was in his twenties. It is the story of how an unwilling TV clown and a callous director deal with the accidental death of an innocent immigrant girl that occurs before millions of viewers on daytime live television.
"The Grand Prize Game"
He was a noontime Bozo, a local television star. He’d succeeded where his predecessor, Uncle Bucky, had failed—partly because of his ludicrous costume, partly because of his clumsy slapstick, and partly because he’d never tried to convince his lunchtime audience that they ought to like tuna fish better than peanut butter and jelly.
The costume itself was a flailing mass of red, white, and blue. The shoes were more than a foot long and flat as pancakes. The red bulbous nose made his voice sound absurdly nasal when he announced at the beginning of each show, “Hey, Mister Bob, it’s time for Bozo’s Bigtop!” Looking like the quills of a porcupine, flaming crimson hair erupted from the clown’s temples and the back of his skull. His white face extended over his smooth brow and covered his otherwise baldhead.
Marty Crackenbush had performed in the role of Bozo for five years. Every weekday morning he dutifully went to the television studio where he did his make-up and donned the buffoon’s costume. And when the studio audience had been sufficiently warmed-up by Fred Caster (Candy the clown) and Seth Cooper (Poopy the clown), Bozo would make his appearance to the frenzied delight of over two hundred screaming kids. Joey LaBella’s four-piece marching band blared out the show’s theme music as Bozo danced idiotically, his oversize shoes slapping out the downbeat as he kicked.
Bob Barth was the show’s MC and ringmaster. He was also the show’s director and Marty’s boss. A huge man with a massive head, his sagging jowls wiggled comically whenever he talked sternly to Crackenbush.
To Marty, it seemed like he was forever on Barth’s shitlist. The director was never satisfied, no matter how enthusiastically the audience responded, no matter how high the ratings flew. Sitting dreamily at his home in Cottonwood Estates, Marty replayed the tongue-lashing he’d taken from the verbose director just the day before.
Penny Crackenbush stood before her husband, ready to present their three children for inspection before sending them off to the bus stop. Her blond hair falling uncombed around her neck and shoulders, her chubby cheeks scrubbed and florid, she burst uninvited into her husband’s thoughts.
“What’s up, Bozo?”
Nothing much. I was thinking about Barth.”
“Nothing much is right,” she agreed.
“We had it out again yesterday. He seems to think some of my jokes are off color.”
“I think your jokes are great, dad,” chirped his oldest daughter Sally.
“Thank you, honey. I have a feeling you aren’t the only one who appreciates them.”
“Barth’s taste is strictly in his mouth,” said Penny.
“He’s an evangelist,” said Marty. He took a sip of his orange juice. “The ratings are spectacular. The kids love me. That’s all that counts, right? I never listen to Barth anymore. Nobody does. If I listened to him, I’d probably end up like Uncle Bucky.”
“Oh, Marty, don’t even say that in jest,” moaned Penny.
“Who’s Uncle Bucky?” asked Raymond, their youngest child. “Is he one of my uncles?”
“No, son.” said his father. “Uncle Bucky was a clown. Just like me. He used to be on TV.”
“How did Uncle Bucky end up?” Raymond persisted.
“Uncle Bucky died, son.”
“You’re not going to die, are you daddy?”
“Not like Uncle Bucky.”
Raymond had a look of genuine concern on his cherub face. His two older sisters had a vague recollection of the deceased noontime comedian, but to the little boy, Uncle Bucky remained a frightening enigma.
Buck Shaw (Uncle Bucky) was the recognized standard of failure in the local broadcasting community. He was an obsequious little man who’d failed as a disc jockey on more than one radio station. He’d then tried his luck as a TV newscaster. Again failure. He’d known that the lunchtime show was his last chance in broadcasting and had loyally, if unwisely, listened to the instructions of his inept director, Bob Barth. His ratings plunged, and the station canceled the show, along with his contract, after only three months. Two weeks after Marty Crackenbush debuted as Bozo, Buck Shaw blew his brains out in frustration. Bob Barth had been too busy to attend the funeral.
Marty had been a writer for the ‘Uncle Bucky Show.’ He now recalled a conversation that he’d overheard between Shaw and Barth just before the show’s cancellation. Marty had been discussing script changes with the director when Buck Shaw danced into his office, smiling confidently, without reason. Marty remembered desperately wanting to be anywhere else; he sensed that Barth was about to bury Uncle Bucky.
“You sent for me, Bob?” said Shaw, flashing his perfect teeth.
“Yes, Buck. Pull up a chair.”
The noontime star conveyed an uneasy expression as he sat.
“Have you watched the video tape of yesterday’s show?” Barth asked.
“No, Bob, I haven’t. Is something wrong?”
“Is something wrong?” the director shouted. “Buck, you hardly cracked a smile the entire half hour!”
“I don’t think it was that bad,” said Shaw quite casually.
“It was bad,” he affirmed. “If you don’t believe me, ask Crackenbush. Better yet, watch the tape yourself!”
The director glared at Shaw as he waited for some sort of explanation that would excuse the poor performance. But Shaw knew that no matter what he might say, it would make no difference to the director. “Bob, I’ve had a lot of problems in my personal life lately.”
“Your personal life is your own business, Shaw. Personally, I don’t give a shit. So don’t tell me about your fucking problems. They have no place on this show. Those kids don’t understand problems…”
“I’m sorry, Bob.”
Barth slammed his fist down on Marty’s desk as he bellowed, “Ratings, Shaw! Look at your ratings!”
It had been five years since the Uncle Bucky tragedy and Bozo had been very good to Marty. As a result of the show’s success, he and Penny had finally been able to buy their dream home in Cottonwood Estates, an upper class housing development. Bozo now drove a Porsche, and Penny had an SUV to haul the kids from one activity to another. But success had come neither easily nor quickly for Marty and Penny. During the first eight years of marriage they’d lived paycheck to paycheck, as Marty struggled to make a name for himself in writing and broadcasting. Likewise, ‘Bozo’s Bigtop’ had climbed slowly to popularity during the course of the show’s first year. Uncle Bucky’s suicide had cast a pall over noontime TV in general, and it was no small credit to Marty Crackenbush that he’d been able to lift that cloak of morbidity.
After the children were out the door, Penny returned to the breakfast nook. “You’re the reason for the show’s success, Marty,” she encouraged. “You write the material. You keep the cast together. You’re the glue, even if Barth takes the credit.”
“You know it. I know it. The sponsors know it. Everybody knows it. That’s just it! But Barth is Gary Salinger’s man.” Salinger was the show’s producer.
“Working for Barth is such a pain in the ass,” he complained.
“Maybe if you talked to Salinger privately. You know, tell him how it really plays out. Maybe he’d let you direct the show yourself.”
“That’s not the way it works—not by a long shot. Barth has an in somewhere high up.”
“Seems a shame that your career has to drag as a result of nepotism.”
“Tell me about it. I saved Barth’s ass after Shaw’s…washout. I was the one who rescued noontime for the station.”
That was no exaggeration. But it had been something of a coincidence. A year after the show’s debut, Marty had conceived a segment called ‘The Grand Prize Game’ in which two child contestants were selected from the studio audience by a drawing of ticket stubs. The two contestants, one boy and one girl, then competed for prizes by dropping ping-pong balls into a succession of buckets, each one further away and more difficult to hit. The contestants were given a prize for each successful toss. There were six buckets in all; and if the youngster was skilled enough, or just plain lucky enough to make it all the way to bucket number six, then he won a shiny, red bicycle with streamers coming out of the handle grips. Nobody ever went away empty-handed. If the contestant was so inept that he couldn’t hit the first bucket, (which was virtually right under his runny little nose), then Bozo helped. Marty had never really understood the reason behind the game’s popularity, but he was smart enough to realize that it was responsible for the show’s popularity, and for his success. And he would surely take all the success that came his way.
The set was a colorful menagerie of cloth, cardboard, and plywood. A canopy with huge red and white stripes extended over the stage, which had been constructed of particleboard painted white. At stage-left was a backdrop on which pictures of various circus animals were painted: a golden lion, a silly looking tiger whose stripes were much too orange, a horse with a shaggy mane, a two-humped camel, and a bloated pachyderm. Various props that were used during the show were stacked downstage: a play schoolhouse, a toy fire truck, a couple of seltzer bottles, and the buckets for the Grand Prize Game. At stage right was the bandstand where Joey LaBella’s ridiculous little orchestra sat when they weren't marching round the Bigtop. Rows of stage lights hung overhead, and three television cameras were positioned at strategic angles. At nine o’clock in the morning, the bleachers were empty.
As he pondered ‘Bozo’s Bigtop’, Marty could not help thinking about Joey LaBella. The bandleader was without musical talent. He was a humorless little man who walked unevenly. A large scar bisected his forehead, and he had a nose that arrived everywhere he went two minutes ahead of him. He played the trombone, the bass drum, and the high-hat all at once. Beside himself, his band consisted of a clarinet player, a trumpet player, and a very sexy female flautist. Joey tended to mumble and swear a lot, so Marty avoided speaking with him whenever possible.
After several minutes on the set, Marty left the darkened stage and headed for his dressing room. It usually took him two hours to apply his make-up and put on his costume. There was never much script to memorize; most of the skits and games were either highly improvised or repetitive. Bob Barth insisted that they stick with proven favorites.
He flipped on the light in his small dressing room and sat before the mirror. He began to apply his make-up, and as the white-faced image with the huge smiling lips, the flaming crimson hair-quills, and the bulbous nose began to materialize, Marty silently wondered just how he had come to depend on this noonday clown for reward and recognition.
As he walked down the hallway toward the restroom, his ivory colored bare feet pattered across the cold linoleum. The baggy, blue, pajama-like pants of his costume flapped against his legs and ankles as he walked. “Hey, Marty,” called Seth Cooper, as the clown passed the open door of Poopy’s dressing room. “Come in here. I want you to meet somebody.”
Marty peered inside the dressing room. Seth was sitting before his lighted make-up mirror completing the transformation from everyday man into Poopy the clown. There were several others in the dressing room as well, including Fred Caster and Joey LaBella. Marty stepped inside.
“Marty, this is Mr. Gustav Wojtas and his family. They’re from Hungary. They’re acrobats—billed as the Flying Wojtases. They’ll be performing on today’s show.”
Marty shook Mr. Wojtas’ hand as he looked with reservation at the three leotard-clad acrobats. Beside Gustav, a man of at least fifty, there was a younger man and a girl. The girl had a nice body—petite and muscular, like a dancer. As an acrobat she was believable: the men were not. Gustav was a victim of middle age paunch; the younger man, his son, apparently harbored an uncontrollable appetite.
“How do you do, Mr. Bozo,” Gustav said. “I am happy to make the acquaintance of a star such as you. This is my family. My son, Vytas. And my very beautiful daughter, Corina.” Marty wasn’t sure, but he thought the girl had winked coyly at him as her father introduced them. And he almost burst out laughing as he sized up Vytas Wojtas, his jellyroll waist dripping over his hipbones. He didn’t even look flabby-strong. “We do acrobatic stunts,” informed the elder Wojtas.
“If you do acrobatics, why do you call yourselves the Flying Wojtases?” asked Marty.
“Yes, the Flying Wojtases,” reiterated Gustav, not really understanding the question. “We like to perform in America very much.”
Marty had eyes for Corina. He silently flirted with the girl as the others chatted.
“Hey, Mr. Bob, it’s time for Bozo’s Bigtop!”
The children in the studio audience screamed with glee as Joey LaBella’s band struck up the brassy intro-music, and Bozo kicked and danced, his slapping shoes fanning the air. Colored lights flashed red, yellow, and green, adding to the carnival mystique; and Candy and Poopy rallied around Bozo as Mr. Bob finally called the crowd to order.
“How is everybody feeling today?” asked Bob Barth, the familiar ringmaster.
“Fine!” came the resounding answer.
“And who’s your favorite clown?”
“Bozo!” the studio audience blared on cue.
The camera moved in for a close-up of Bozo’s face. “That’s me!” Marty chortled. Joey LaBella’s four-piece band played ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ as Candy, Poopy, and Bozo ran to join Mr. Bob. After more dancing one of the cameramen signaled Bob Barth to move to a commercial.
“And we’ll be right back after this message. Watch!”
Bob and Marty left the stage so that Candy and Poopy could set up the first skit. It was to be a joke on Bozo. Candy had a beautiful bouquet of flowers—tulips—and Poopy had mischievously sprinkled the blossoms with pepper. They meant to convince the gullible Bozo that he had hay fever.
Bozo walked innocently onstage.
“Hi, Candy. Hi, Poopy. What are you doing?”
Sniggers came from the children in the audience, and Bozo regarded the camera with a dumbfounded look on his face.
“We picked these beautiful flowers for you, Bozo,” Candy said.
“For me? Oh, gosh, golly, gee-whiz. You guys didn’t have to do that for old Bozo.” Marty took the flowers and began to admire them. He put them to his nose, took a sniff, and then let out a highly exaggerated sneeze. The children roared, and Bozo looked at them in mock surprise.
“Gee, Bozo, what’s the matter?” asked Poopy.
“I don’t know,” answered the clown.
“Let me smell them,” offered Candy. He took the bouquet and sniffed the flowers with his long blue nose. Of course, as the children knew, the pepper had already been sniffed by Bozo. Candy sighed wistfully. “What a beautiful scent!” he said.
Bozo looked at the clown skeptically. “Let me have those!” he commanded. He raised the corolla to his big red honker and sniffed, unaware that Poopy had again dusted the petals with black pepper. Again the exaggerated sneeze. Again, giggles from the children.
“Bozo,” said Poopy, “you must have hay fever.”
“Hay fever?” questioned the clown.
“You know, when flowers make you sneeze.”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Bozo. “Do you really think so?”
“No doubt about it,” Poopy confirmed.
“That’s terrible,” said Bozo. “You mean I can’t smell flowers without sneezing?”
Both perpetrators shook their heads in sympathy with the clown’s plight.
Just then, as if by design, the peppershaker fell onto the floor through a hole in Poopy’s pocket. The children gasped, but Poopy pretended not to notice. Bozo distracted the clowns and inconspicuously picked up the shaker. He gave the kids a big wink as Mr. Bob came onstage and, on a pretense, called Poopy and Candy over to him. As the two clowns conferred with the ringmaster, Bozo loaded the bouquet with pepper. The children hummed with anticipation. When Candy and Poopy returned, Bozo was ready for them.
“So, do you guys really think I have hay fever?” he baited. “Flowers never made me sneeze before.”
“Oh, it’s hay fever all right, Bozo,” said Candy. Both clowns nodded in agreement.
“Why don’t you guys take another sniff?” urged the clown.
The children snickered, but the two clowns acted as innocently as they possibly could. Both lowered their heads and sniffed the tulips, and each sneezed loud and long as Bozo held up the peppershaker for all to see. Realizing the star clown had discovered their deception, Candy and Poopy ran helter-skelter across the stage as the maladroit Bozo gave chase. The audience applauded wildly as the band began to play.
Cut to commercial break.
When they returned, Bozo and Mr. Bob were standing at center-stage. Mr. Bob smiled a knowing smile.
“Bozo, we have a very special treat for our audience today.”
“Is that right, Mr. Bob?” Bozo regarded him with interest.
“A very talented group of acrobats has come all the way from Hungary to entertain us today. So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please give a Bigtop welcome to the Flying Wojtases!"
The crowd applauded, and the band started to play as the unlikely acrobats came onstage. First, fat Vytas climbed onto a balance beam. He steadied himself as his graceful sister leapt up behind him. Vytas carefully lowered himself to one knee and extended his arms. Corina crept up behind him. Cautiously, she climbed onto her brother’s shoulders. When both were convinced that she was securely balanced—her toes curled round his collarbone like a bird’s feet around its perch—Vytas slowly raised himself. The crowd held its breath. They gasped as Vytas’ knees began to buckle, and they let out a joint sigh of relief as he regained his balance.
Marty watched from the wings as Corina stood confidently on top of her brother’s shoulders. Her eyes looked straight ahead; her expression was one of total concentration.
Once the couple’s position was established, Gustav mounted the beam behind them. Quite careful not to disturb the concentration of either his son or daughter, he finally reached a position directly behind Vytas, and he knelt on one knee behind his son. With a look of determination on his face, he began to lift both son and daughter into the air. His face turned red as a radish; his eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets from the strain of their combined weight. The crowd remained silent with anticipation. Finally, once Gustav had lifted both bodies even with his chest, Vytas stepped gingerly onto his father's shoulders. But as he did, Gustav winced with pain, and Vytas faltered. Standing on top of her brother’s shaking shoulders, Corina also lost her balance. With a look of panic on her face, she waved her arms frantically in large sweeping circles. The hush of the studio audience was deafening, the moment of expectation unending.
As if trying to preserve some useless dignity, the girl gave only a faint cry as she fell to the floor. She hit the painted particleboard with a thud.
“Oh, shit!” said Marty from the wings.
Barth immediately gave the signal for the people in the control room to cut to a commercial. He directed Candy and Poopy to center stage to divert the attention of the audience. Several stagehands immediately ran to the aid of the Flying Wojtases. Barth and Crackenbush remained in the wings. They did not want to draw attention to the catastrophe with their presence. Marty strained to get a glimpse of Corina as she lay motionless on the stage, but he could see only the backs of the stagehands as they bent over the girl. A moment later, one of the stagehands ran off-stage into the wings. Marty caught his arm as he ran by. “Is she hurt badly?” he asked. “Worse,” said the pale young man. “She’s dead.”
Corina’s body lay on top of a stretcher just off-stage, as a group of paramedics hunched over the corpse trying to breath, shock, and inject life back into it. Her father was off to one side, crying hysterically. With a numb expression on his red face, Vytas tried to console the elder Wojtas.
Barth approached Bozo. “Goddamn live television!” he spat. “As if Shaw’s suicide wasn’t enough…”
“Look at them,” said Marty, referring to Gustav and Vytas.
“We’ve got to go on, you know,” said Barth.
“How do we go on after this?”
“You’re the master of improvisation, Crackenbush,” he said sarcastically.
“Bob, you make me sick,” said Marty.
“Look,” whispered the director, “the audience doesn’t know she’s dead. You’ll just have to fake it, Marty.”
“What do we do next?” Marty asked.
“The Grand Prize Game,” directed Barth.
“Hey, boys and girls, do you know what time it is?”
Joey LaBella’s band sounded even flatter than usual as they played the theme music for the show’s highlight. Bozo stepped up to the big drum that held the day’s ticket stubs. He drew numbers until he’d selected one eligible boy and one eligible girl. The two children came onstage as the rest of the audience clapped.
“Girls first,” said Bozo as he half-heartedly handed the ping-pong ball to the nine-year-old. The little girl stepped up to the line and dropped the first ball into bucket number one. The band played a fanfare for success, and Poopy came onstage carrying the little darling’s first treasure—a large doll that ate, talked, and wet. The child beamed as she held out her hand for the second ball. As she prepared to make her second toss, Marty heard Gustav Wojtas backstage, wailing with grief.
Eagerly, the contestant tossed the ping-pong ball into bucket number two, and this time she received a toy ironing set. When she missed bucket number three, Marty was silently relieved. She went off-stage as a twelve-year-old boy toed the stripe and waited for Bozo to hand him the ball. Confidence beamed on the face of the tow-headed youngster; he was sure he could win the bike.
“All right, son,” said Bozo. “You’re a big fella. You can win that bike. Let’s see if you can go all the way!”
The boy made the first three buckets easily, then the fourth. He concentrated very hard on bucket number five. At this point, he’d lost interest in the mediocre prizes; bucket number five was merely a stepping-stone to a chance at the big prize: the bicycle. Squinting, he tossed the ball for number five. It first bounced upward then landed squarely in the pail. The crowd clapped as Poopy bestowed a radio-controlled racing car on the boy.
But the boy hardly noticed the toy car as he focused his attention on the remaining bucket. The crowd grew quiet as he prepared to toss. He crouched down, scrunched up his face and forehead, and let the ping-pong ball fly, but it bounced defiantly off the rim of the bucket. Bozo approached.
“Too bad,” Bozo consoled. “You came so close.”
“I wanted to win,” whined the child.
“We can’t always have everything we want,” said Bozo peevishly.
“This game is fixed,” said the boy.
“Be a good sport now and go back to your seat. Look at all the nice toys you’ve won.” Sullenly, the child went back to his seat, toting the five gifts. Then, the band struck up the music that signaled the end of the show, and Bozo weakly went through the motions of the customary finale—a march to the beat of Joey LaBella’s bass drum. On Marty’s lips was the taste of a salty tear.
He’d been drinking alone in the relative darkness of José Charon’s Cantina ever since four o’clock. It was now seven-thirty as he ordered yet another scotch and water from the female bartender that had been serving him all afternoon. She looked at him sympathetically as she put a fresh glass before him and collected the empty one.
“For everybody’s favorite clown, you look mighty glum,” she said.
“So you recognize me,” he said.
“My kids watch you everyday. Would you mind giving me an autograph?” She handed him an order pad and a pencil. “My younger one wouldn’t know the difference, but my older one would never forgive me if I told him I met Bozo and didn’t get his autograph. You know how they are.”
“Sure,” said Marty. “What are your kids’ names?”
“Jason and Jessica.”
The bartender watched with interest, her eyes following the contours of Marty’s penmanship as he signed his name.
“Is everything okay? I don’t mean to be nosy, but you look awfully down in the dumps.”
“There was an accident on our show this afternoon. A very nice girl was killed when she fell off a balance beam.”
The bartender covered her mouth and gasped softly. “You mean right on the air?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so,” said Marty.
“That’s awful. I mean, all the children who saw it…”
“I don’t think they realized what happened,” he said.
Staring into his glass, oblivious to his surroundings, Marty conjured up the image of Corina Wojtas’ dead body as it had lain upon the stretcher backstage after the show. Immediately after the finale, he’d hustled backstage. He’d expected the corpse to be removed, but it was not. He stopped to look at the dead girl, her neck broken and twisted, her lips still parted ever so slightly, reminding him of the astonished cry that had come from the depths of her reservation as she fell. Devastated, Gustav Wojtas huddled in a corner. His son Vytas paced back and forth, searching for redemption from his grieving father.
“It wasn’t my fault. I swear it wasn’t!” “Your sister is dead,” said Gustav with scorn in his voice. “Shut up, before I smack you silly.”
Marty knew that he should probably call Penny to let her know where he was. She was probably worried sick by this time. But he could not bring himself to leave the cold anonymity of the bar—not yet. He took another sip of his drink as he thought about the young boy who had appeared so eager to conquer the string of prize-yielding buckets. The boy had shown no hesitancy whatsoever; he’d not been moved one inch off center by the tragedy. He’d stepped up to the line and held out his hand for the ping-pong ball. He’d tossed one ball after another into the succession of buckets. He was a normal kid. Probably quite like Sally or Colleen or Raymond. The Grand Prize Game was a big hit. Nobody ever went away empty-handed; nobody ever failed completely. Marty suddenly felt nauseous. He laid two twenty-dollar bills on the bar and walked outside. He wanted to go home.
“Who’s your favorite clown?” he shouted to Raymond from the front door of his house.
“Bozo!” screamed the child as he ran to his father’s open arms.
“That’s me!” cried Marty. He hugged the five-year-old.
Penny came out of the kitchen to greet him, a look of concern on her face. She kissed him hello, and smelling the liquor on his breath, she wrinkled her nose. “Where have you been all this time, Marty? I’ve been worried. I thought you were in a wreck or something. I was ready to call the police.”
“I was in a wreck, but not with the car,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you see the show today?”
“I didn’t watch, but the kids told me about it. What happened?”
“She fell off a balance beam and broke her neck, that’s all.”
“Did she die, daddy?” asked Raymond.
“I’m afraid so, son.”
“Just like Uncle Bucky died?”
“Not exactly, no.”
He walked into the living room and sat down heavily on the sofa. Raymond sat on his father’s lap. The two girls lay sprawled on the floor in front of the TV screen, their homework spread out in front of them. Penny sat beside him. The girls were engrossed in the comedic antics of Robin Williams, and they paid no attention to their father, the clown. Raymond looked up at Marty and said, “That boy almost won the Grand Prize Game, huh, dad? I wish he’d made it to bucket number six. I wanted him to win the bike.”
“He wasn’t a very nice boy,” Marty said.
Raymond burped obnoxiously and his sisters sent a look of reprimand his way.
“I tried to keep your dinner warm,” said Penny to Marty. “Come into the kitchen,” said Penny to Marty. “Come into the kitchen and have a bite to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said. “It’s been a tough day. I think I’ll just go to bed.”
Marty got up from the couch and walked into his bedroom. He undressed and crawled between the cool sheets. From his bed he could hear the sounds of his family as they rolled through their evening routines.
