THE STAIRS© Tom Scocca, 2025 This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, and events is entirely coincidental, with the exception of the events in Chapters One and Two, which happened more or less as written, on the line between Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, on Memorial Day weekend in 1999. 9. “There isn't any subway stop on 75th Street,” I said. I leafed through my Marble City atlas to West Marble, where the street numbers go up that high, laid it down open on the bedroom floor, and slid it over to Maxine. I had to steer it around paper plates of pizza. Mom had brought the pizza when she came home from work. Emily left, but Maxine had asked if she could stay for dinner. Half the pizza had clams on it. That's a way they make pizza in Marble City, and that was the half my slices came from. The other half had sausage, for Theo. The two of us have some of our stronger differences of opinion about pizza. Maxine was having one slice with clams and one slice with sausage. She leaned over the atlas to look. “The Eagle Avenue line has a stop at 74th,” she said. “That's the closest anything gets.” “If the squirrel had meant 74th, she would have said that,” I said. “She wasn't the most cooperative squirrel,” Maxine said. “Who knows what she meant?” “How would we get all the way over to West Marble, to 74th Street or 75th Street or anywhere?” Theo said. “We have to ask Emily to take us wherever we go.” “Is there something up that way we could say we want to see tomorrow?” I asked. “That's where Shinter's is,” Maxine said. “Eagle and 74th Street.” “What's Shinter's?” Theo asked. “What's Shinter's?” Maxine echoed. “Oh, right. You guys didn't move here till after the holidays. Shinter's Departmentorium is the biggest store in Marble City, except maybe some of those warehouse stores down in New Marble. It takes up two entire blocks. Every December they shut down 74th Street for their Electrified Yuletide Garden.” In our six months, we had learned our way around most of the college area and a lot of Old Marble, but we'd only gone up into the rest of West Marble a few times. In the atlas it was a merciless-looking straight grid of streets, block after block after block. When we'd been there, I'd seen how the buildings were taller and the sidewalks were fuller than they were in our nearby part of the city, let alone how it had been in Turfburg. “Would Emily take us there?” I asked. “She should,” Maxine said. “There's a bookstore to keep her busy, and we could tell her we wanted to go on our own around the toy floor. Or the archery range.” “Archery range?” Theo perked up. “It's a very big store,” Maxine said. She thought for a second. “Emily might not let us go off and shoot bows and arrows alone, though. Toys is a safer bet.” “I want to shoot a bow and arrow,” Theo said. Getting to Shinter's sounded worthwhile, whether it had anything to do with the squirrel's directions or not. “Let's try it tomorrow,” I said. “Toys. Not archery.” Find other chapters of The Stairs here. EASY LISTENING DEP'T.Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive! SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of a sandwich selected from Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, published in 1912 by Cassell and Company, London, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all. SALAD SANDWICHES. Prepare the bread in the usual way, and have ready some mustard and cress, watercress, all well washed and dried; put them into a bowl with mayonnaise sauce, and when ready for serving, spread the salad neatly between the bread. SALAD SANDWICHES (another way). Take some thin slices of bread. Butter these slightly, and just before they are to be eaten lay between two of them a little salad, washed, dried, and tossed lightly in mayonnaise sauce. Press the sandwiches closely together, cut them into small neat pieces, and serve. SALAD SAUCE. Take the yolks of two eggs boiled hard, a dessert-spoonful of grated Parmesan cheese, a little made mustard, a dessert-spoonful of tarragon vinegar, and a large spoonful of ketchup. When well incorporated, add four spoonfuls of salad oil and one spoonful of elder vinegar. Beat so as to incorporate the oil with the other ingredients. This mixture must not be poured upon the lettuce or vegetables used in the salad, but be left at the bottom, to be stirred up when wanted. This method preserves the crispness of the lettuce. Observe that the liquid ingredients must be proportioned to the quantity of vegetables used. SALAD SAUCE, MAYONNAISE. Put the yolk of an egg carefully freed from the white into a basjn, and take away the speck. Beat the yolk lightly, add a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper, pour some oil upon it, drop by drop at first, and at the same time beat the sauce lightly and quickly. When it begins to thicken slightly increase the quantity of oil, and continue beating until it forms a thick, smooth, yellow paste. Add gradually as much white-wine vinegar as will suit the palate. The quantity required will, of course, vary considerably, according to individual taste. The correct proportion is one tea-spoonful of vinegar to eight of oil. Keep the sauce in a cool place till wanted. A little tarragon vinegar will greatly improve this excellent sauce. If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net . SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
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