Logic : Love is a Fallacy (Part III ) ( On Every Sunday )

                            Recap:

It occurred to me that my father owned a raccoon coat once. If I
gave that one to Petey then I could asked for his girl Polly. This
desire was not emotional but being a lawyer I want a prefect wife
which could suit with my professional and grow up my kids as a
logician. She lack behind in logic but over all she was amazing.
Her eating manners were impressive.

"Look," I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.

"Holy Toledo!" said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. "Holy Toledo!" he repeated fifteen or twenty times.

"Would you like it?" I asked.

"Oh, yes!" he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. "What do you want for it?"

"Your girl," I said, mincing no words.

"Polly?" he said in a horrified whisper. "You want Polly?"

"That's right."

He flung the coat from him. "Never," he said stoutly.

I shrugged. "Okay. If you don't want to be in the swim, I guess it's your business."

I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn't turn awayat all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.

"It isn't as though I was in love with Polly," he said thickly. "Or going steady or anything like that."

"That's right," I murmured.

"What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"

"Not a thing," said I.

"It's just been casual kick -- just a few laugh, that's all."

"Try on the coat," said I.

He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. "Fits fine," he said happily.

I rose from my chair. "Is it a deal?" I asked, extending my hand.

He swallowed. "It's a deal," he said and shook my hand.

(to be continue…)

Max Schulman