Read Jack and Susan in 1933 for Free Online

police.”
    â€œMa says for me to leave the police alone.”
    â€œIn other circumstances,” said Jack, “I’d agree with your mother, but these are special circumstances.”
    The little boy hesitated.
    â€œIf I could reach into my pocket, I’d give you a dollar,” said Jack, “but I can’t move. Miss Bright, do you have a dollar for this little boy?”
    Four quarters flew over the smoking hood of the car. The little boy gathered them up and ran off. Jack had no great confidence that the police would come before he either froze, perished from some as yet undetected internal injury, or burned to death in a gasoline blaze (if the automobile turned out to be of the sort that exploded).
    â€œI really am very sorry about this inconvenience,” he called out to Susan, who leaned against the locked door of the insurance building with her arms crossed over her breast, both for warmth and to indicate a certain general displeasure with the progress of 1933.
    â€œI really don’t believe you are,” Susan called back testily. “I really do believe that you and your wife would do just about anything to keep me away from Mr. Dodge. Including trying to crush me against the side of a building with your automobile.”
    â€œThat’s nonsense,” said Jack, picking out a large shard of glass that looked as if it were going to come loose from the windshield soon anyway.
    â€œIs it?” said a young woman in a green coat, who had appeared out of nowhere at the side of the wrecked car. “Is it?” she asked again with a wary eye on Jack. “I have seen accidents, in the country and in the city, and this don’t look like any accident I have ever seen.”
    â€œNevertheless,” Jack said to the woman in green, “it is an accident. I was only attempting to take this young lady home.”
    â€œHe said,” called Susan from the recessed doorway, “that if I saw his friend again, he’d have me killed for good.”
    â€œI thought it was something like that,” said the young woman in the green coat. “It always is. Are you all right in there?”
    â€œYes, she’s all right,” said Jack. “She’s perfectly fine, and no one tried to kill her. I, on the other hand, have this steering wheel stuck in my stomach, and I am not fine. And, Miss Bright, if and when the police arrive, I would appreciate your not trying to maintain that this was a murder attempt.”
    â€œIf I had a gun,” said the young woman in the green coat to Jack, “I’d shoot you right here and now.”
    â€œIf I had a gun,” Susan said, “I’d give it to you.”
    A small crowd gathered—a few well-dressed drunken revelers on their way to home and hangovers, a few delivery men, a few children whose parents were home abed, a few men and women lucky enough to have work but not lucky enough to have a holiday, a few indigents on their way from one cold stoop to another. The crowd seemed sympathetic to Susan’s plight, and indifferent to Jack’s. Those who did not look on this accident as an attempted murder were inclined to look on it as a failed seduction. Jack’s only ally was a particularly drunken man in a broken top hat who kept calling out, “Marry the girl, and then she’ll do whatever you want.” Eventually, the police arrived, and tossed the drunken man’s cape over the hood of the car to Susan. She wrapped it around her tightly, and thanked the policeman. Soon a truck from a garage arrived. A chain was attached to the already smashed bumper of Jack’s car, which was pulled free from the facade of the insurance building.
    Four policemen instantly supported Susan away from the recessed doorway, and ignored Jack’s cries. When the automobile was pulled free of the building, the front portion of the car dropped heavily to the ground, and the steering wheel jammed even more