We'll Always Have Paris by Ray Bradbury Page B

death do us part?’
    ‘Till death do us part.’
    ‘Good.’
    Run, run, hustle, hustle, across the lawn, down the walk, toward the waiting
    ambulance.
    ‘Young man.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Vedanta Temple?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Last year?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Lecture on Great All Accepting Laughter?’
    ‘I was there.’
    ‘Well,
now’s
the time!’
    ‘Oh, yes, yes.’
    ‘To hoot and holler?’
    ‘Hoot and holler.’
    ‘Zest and gusto, eh?’
    ‘Gusto, zest, oh my God!’
    Here a bomb burst in Gerald’s chest and erupted from his throat. I’d never
    heard such jovial explosions in my life, and snort-laughed as I ran alongside Gerald as his
    gurney was hustled and hurried.
    We howled, we shrieked, we yelled, we gasped, we insucked-outblew firecracker
    bomb-blasts of hilarity like boys on a forgotten summer day, collapsed on the sidewalk,
    writhing with comic seizures of wild upchuck heart attacks, throats choked, eyes clenched with
    brays of ha-hee and hee-ha and God, stop, I can’t breathe, Gerald, hee-ha, ha-hee, and God, ha
    and hee, and once more ha-hee and whistle-rustle whisper haw.
    ‘Young man?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘King Tut’s mummy.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Found in tomb.’ ‘Yes.’
    ‘His mouth smiling.’ ‘Why?’
    ‘In his front teeth—’ ‘Yes?’
    ‘A single black hair.’ ‘What?’
    ‘Dying man ate a hearty meal. Ha-ho!’ Hee-ha, oh my God, ha-hee, rush run,
    run rush. ‘And now, one last thing.’ ‘What?’
    ‘Will you run away with me?’ ‘Where?’
    ‘Run off and be pirates!’ ‘What?’
    ‘Run away with me to be pirates.’ We were at the ambulance, the doors were
    flung wide, Gerald was shoved in. ‘Pirates!’ he cried again. ‘Oh God, yes, Gerald, I’ll run off
    with you!’ Door slam, siren sound, motor gunned. ‘Pirates!’ I cried.

Pietà Summer
    ‘Gosh, I can hardly wait!’ I said.
    ‘Why don’t you shut up?’ my brother replied.
    ‘I can’t sleep,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe what’s happening tomorrow. Two
    circuses in just one day! Ringling Brothers coming in on that big train at five in the morning,
    and Downey Brothers coming by truck a couple hours later. I can’t stand it.’
    ‘Tell you what,’ my brother said. ‘Go to sleep. We gotta get up at
    four-thirty.’
    I rolled over but I just couldn’t sleep because I could hear those circuses
    coming over the edge of the world, rising with the sun.
    Before we knew it, it was 4:30 A.M. and my brother and I were up in the cold
    darkness, getting dressed, grabbing an apple for breakfast, and then running outin the street and heading down the hill toward the train
    yards.
    As the sun began to rise the big Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey
    train of ninety-nine cars loaded with elephants, zebras, horses, lions, tigers, and acrobats
    arrived; the huge engines steaming in the dawn, puffing out great clouds of black smoke, and
    the freight cars sliding open to let the horses hoof out into the darkness, and the elephants
    stepping down, very carefully, and the zebras, in huge striped flocks, gathering in the dawn,
    and my brother and I standing there, shivering, waiting for the parade to start, for there
was
going to be a parade of all the animals up through the dark
    morning town toward the distant acres where the tents would whisper upward toward the
    stars.
    Sure enough my brother and I walked with the parade up the hill and through
    the town that didn’t know we were there. But there we were, walking with ninety-nine elephants
    and one hundred zebras and two hundred horses, and the big bandwagon, soundless, out to the
    meadow that was nothing at all, but suddenly began to flower with the big tents sliding up.
    Our excitement increased by the minute because where just hours ago there had
    been nothing at all, now there was everything in the world.
    By seven-thirty Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey had pretty well got
    its tents up and it was time for me and my brother to race back to where the