The Ladder Salesman
Advise me where I may have such a ladder. When would you use it? This very night; for love is like a child That longs for everything it can come by. —Shakespeare, William. “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” Act 3, Scene 1. I usually ignore my answering machine for hours, sometimes days, but when I heard, “It’s urgent,” I thought better. After all, it was kind of urgent the day she mentioned that her boyfriend of seven years had shot himself in the head. This time it was two tickets at the Fox. “Don’t you want to see Johnny Mathis?” “No thanks.” “Come on,” she said. “I’m not in the mood.” “Please?” “Why did you wait to the last minute?” “Well . . . nobody else could go.” She needed someone to go with her since her brand-new car is, and always will be, asking for someone else to drive it. Of course, she’s blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other, especially when drinking. “Don’t you want to see Johnny again?” she said in her plaintive tone. “He is...