d see what
happens to your bangbox. I dare someone to put in a nickel; I
double-dare you. That's it--pick a good number from one to twenty and
go back to your stool and sit down. Take it easy, now, Pete. Don't
strain, don't press, no slugging in the clinches, and break clean. The
place needs a good airing, anyway, and the floor could use a new
broom, too. Bubble, bubble, go for double ... no more music. No more
noise. Smoke, you boiler factory, smoke! Hey, somebody, pull that
plug. Not that one, _that_ one. Pull it out. Pull it out! _Pull it
out!_

* * * * *

Finally someone did pull it out, someone chattered excitedly into the
telephone, and I slid out the front door when the fire engines were
wailing blocks away. Coincidence, hey. And cold sober, too. I stood on
the curb and watched the firemen dash in and straggle out. Dirty trick
to break up a pinochle game in weather like this. Four red-eyed
crimson giants snorted and whined their blunt noses back into the
clogged traffic, back to wait another call. Three buses were sentinels
at the safety zone, and one of them took me home to dinner. This was
on a Friday, the night for the Olsens, next door, to have their weekly
sangerbund. When Helen shook me into wakefulness the party was going
strong.

"Pete, will you wake up? You know perfectly well when you hear me!"

Yes, I heard her. "What time is it?"

"Never mind what time it is. You go over there and tell them you're
going to call the police if they don't turn off that radio--"

I yawned. "After two o'clock."

"Almost two-thirty. You just get up and--"

I laughed out loud, as loud as you can laugh at that time of the
morning. "Roll over and go back to sleep," I told her. "They'll shut
it off in a minute."

I shut my sleepy lids and went through the deep breath routine. The
radio stopped. Then an afterthought; this was Friday, and I wanted to
sleep late on a Saturday unsullied and unwelcomed by soap operas.
Another deep breath, complicated by a yawn, and I went back to sleep.

* * * * *

Over our coffee Helen pulled aside the kitchen curtain.

"I thought there was some reason I didn't wake up until ten. Look
across the street," and she pointed.

In front of the Olsen's, a red panel truck, Chuck's Radio Service.
Next door, in front of the Werner's, Harper Radio Parts. In the
Smith's driveway, Rapid Radio Repair.

"What are you grinning at?"