The Man Who Played to Lose

By Larry Harris

Sometimes the very best thing you can do is to lose. The cholera germ, for instance, asks nothing better than that it be swallowed alive....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jovian Press
• Release date: Apr 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781537823737

Book preview

THE MAN WHO PLAYED TO LOSE

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Larry Harris

JOVIAN PRESS

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Copyright © 2017 by Larry Harris

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE MAN WHO PLAYED TO LOSE

THE MAN WHO PLAYED TO LOSE

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WHEN I CAME INTO THE control room the Captain looked up from a set of charts at me. He stood up and gave me a salute and I returned it, not making a ceremony out of it. Half an hour to landing, sir, he said.

That irritated me. It always irritates me. I’m not an officer, I said. I’m not even an enlisted man.

He nodded, too quickly. Yes, Mr. Carboy, he said. Sorry.

I sighed. If you want to salute, I told him, "if it makes you happier to salute, you go right ahead. But don’t call me ‘Sir.’ That would make me an officer, and I wouldn’t like being an officer. I’ve met too many of them."

It didn’t make him angry. He wasn’t anything except subservient and awed and anxious to please. Yes, Mr. Carboy, he said.

I searched in my pockets for a cigarette and found a cup of them and stuck one into my mouth. The Captain was right there with a light, so I took it from him. Then I offered him a cigarette. He thanked me as if it had been a full set of Crown Jewels.

What difference did it make whether or not he called me Sir? I was still God to him, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Did you want something, Mr. Carboy? he asked me, puffing on the cigarette.