◆ SpookStack

0-19 (Rav, 0-15-96) AKennedy’s Arithmetic wa ——= bv Jimmy Breslin a mB -k, ! : a7 a \ Old men. Old men sitting on the pearl gray ienevine snate tunding forward when the door is 1 Pee ee vpened. Bending forward andl then stopping when the hottom of the stomach hunches up against the ! thighs, Old men cmbarrassed because their bodies { won't more. Old men getting red in the face, grunt: : ing, teaching for the felt strap by the window and ' hoisting themsclves up. Bent over, stiff-legged, yester- day's whisky in their faces, coughing phicgm into their fists from the effort of breathing and getting out of a car, they come onto the sidewalk, straighten up and walk into a building from which they contro{ a world fennee seme thin the tempics from their short haircuts Crowded in oe the open aisle around the little bar in the barren re- . freshment car of the 5:29 to Huntington. Crowded | together and drinking beer out of big wax cups of martinis out of small wax cups. Drinking and smok- ‘ ing cigarettes and the heat of the crowded tailroad - car making .them sweat. They fook at the young office girls and make noises like a Siamese cat and say their favorite one-line attempts at humor. The | | that is riiming Gul trom anGer tacm. | And the young old men, White scalp showing at / j { | and, one after another, they say the same thing with their own endings to the “Would you believe?” They langh inte their drinks in wax cups. They look at the young girls closely and they try to impress them. There is more to it than sex, Every day, they ate losing the world of the young girls and they try to hokl onto it with their eyes and their one-line jokes and every day they are losing. Fvery day that they go home and eat and fall asleep in front of the tele- 1 lines arc al} from television commereiais or situation ! comedies and one of them says, “Would you believe?” going to a golf course as if it were a church, and polishing a car, and then going to a how: abe oa talking about the same things that thee cea aot - last week. The young old men together and drinking in | one part of the room and rememberit (aes! | and the right field wall at Ebbets ho the : women, their bodies coming apart fram having too ' vision and then get up in the morning and go to work on johs they don’t like. Every day that they spend | t {many children, talking with the first old-lady-stories ' of operations coming inta the conversation. Young old men: poor bastards who lost 20 years watching television; living on an old timetable which says they should inherit from the old men. Hat there is to be nothing Ic{t to inherit becanse everything is changing. " By 1968, the voting population of this country will , consist 35 per cent of people 26 and under. lw 1972, ' fend of its voters at age “: / ee a] Pa! ie Pat ie GP SIBET [MER ire ae a obert Kennteds's bennde fideotead aith the folded Le a ANS sheevot paper he held. On the top of the sheet, in - IBM electric typewriting, were the words, “FRANK J. ! VIOLA, BRONX POSTMASTER.” He unfolded the sheet, There was a biography of Viola put into - the form of remarks. Kennedy folded the sheet again and stood quietly. Around him, in the gloom of the lobby of the Bronx Main Post Office, the old ones and the young old ones stood in a semi-circle. i ' A man was at a microphone addressing the _ people. “He'll make you a very, very fine postmaster i 9@€ which the Bronx can he very proud,” the man said, _ lapel, stood | Frank J. Viola, x* carnation in his ; th. F The Washington Post and Times Herald The Washington Daily News Poet = lw York Times : New York World aes a =a " Journal Tribune ___{ cal : The Baltimore Sun : Ss DEG Mv 1966 The Worker womens AOD The New Leader —_ “Phe Wall Street Journa) et an —— The National Observer i. Poople’s World as ‘gt “pee a wen ee age gi Noraticn En PAGE - eel . . > .