Write me a Letter

least in the ”low threes,” as the banks put it to anyone checking up on your savings balance, meaning roughly a few hundred bucks. There are a couple of ways of doing this, according to Benny the Boy, one requires a hundred-dollar outlay, the other a measly twenty, but both demand four bank accounts and a lot of well-timed shifting of (imaginary) funds from one to the other. Banks, disgracefully, take anywhere from ten to fourteen days to clear a check; the slower the better, of course, as far as they are concerned, as they have the use of the money during that time and they are the ones who pocket the interest on it. Anyway, Benny once diagrammed for me how to use this delay and by writing checks on the correct account at the right time you can build up a sizable balance in one of them. It would be illegal to draw cash against it, of course, but the balance does exist, and any credit card company checking up would be told so. And voila, there you are, with a wallet full of plastic at last. A free copy of Benny’s diagram can be obtained by dropping a postcard to Yours Truly; please enclose $10.00 for postage and handling. However, I have a sneaking feeling this scheme is out of date by now because due to consumer pressure, the banks have greatly reduced the time they take to clear a check, so you might have to fall back on the old-fashioned but tried and true means of obtaining credit cards—mugging.
    So: a contemptuous bellhop showed us up to our fourth-floor abodes. I was in a single, with a queen-size bed, the kids sharing a double, with a king-size bed, I noticed when I poked my head in to see if they were comfortable. How tempus fugits, even in Canada . In my day, even if you presented a valid marriage certificate at the front desk, along with color photos taken at your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, they’d still put you in one room and the lady in another, and probably on different floors as well, if not different wings.
    I don’t know what the kids did then, although I might have taken a wild guess at it, but I unpacked a few necessities—my nightie, my old teddy, special scalp preparation, and the like—took a quick shower, and then hit the hay. Flying is especially tiring when you know that the only things keeping you up in the ozone layer is your steely will power and continual alertness. I blew Ruth a good-night kiss, then hastily did likewise to Evonne.
    The bedside phone buzzed me out of sleep the following morn; it was half of the lovebirds wanting to know if I was awake.
    ”I am now,” I said. ”See you downstairs for breakfast in half an hour.”
    ”We already had it,” the twerp said. ”We’ve been up for hours. We even went out for a walk, it’s gorgeous out.”
    ”If you’re a caribou,” I said. ‘Anyway, see you up here in an hour for a council of war, OK?”
    She agreed it was OK by them. I got myself together, went down, found the caféteria by following signs that said caféteria, wound up eating pancakes with maple syrup by ordering something called ” crêpes au sirop d’érable ,” had the bill put on my room number, left a U.S. dollar as a tip for the mademoiselle, and got back up to my room just as Curly and Willing Boy were emerging from theirs to look for me. They were attired in daring look-alike outfits of jeans, sweaters, and boots. I was attired in every bit of clothing I’d brought except the nightie. She said they’d been out changing money. I said I’d been eating pancakes. Then we got down to the day’s business.
    After a moment or two of panic, I managed to find the scrap of paper on which I’d written William Gince’s number, or rather the number I hoped was his. Then I inquired of Willing Boy if he knew the name of a big butcher store or a big grocery chain in town.
    ”Provigo,” he said.
    ”I’ll take your word for it,” I said.
    ”Thank you,” he said.
    ”Now here is what you are going to do,” I said. I told him. He got up from the chair by the little desk by the window in which he was slouching and began walking around muttering to himself and waving his hands in the air.
    ”What’s the matter with him?” I asked the twerp, who was on the bed beside me. ”Was it something I said?”
    ”You really are stoopid sometimes,” she said. ”He’s only preparing, don’t you know anything about acting?”
    ”Are you kidding?” I said. ”I’ve walked out in the middle of more plays than you can find rhymes for ‘snow.’ I