CHAPTER ONE
‘Who is that old geezer?’Leonides Manuel Molygruber slowly straightened up andlooked at the questioner. ‘Eh?’ he said.‘I asked you, who is that old geezer?’Molygruber looked down the road to where an electric-ally propelled wheelchair was just going into a building. ‘Ohhim!’ said Molygruber expertly expectorating upon the shoeof a passing man. ‘He's a guy that lives around here, writesbooks or something, does a lot of stuff about ghosts andfunny things, and then he does a lot of writing about peoplebeing alive when they're dead.’ He snorted with superiorknowledge and said, ‘That's all rot you know, not a bit of sense in that rubbish. When you're dead you're dead, that'swhat I always say. You get them there priests come alongand they say you've got to do a prayer or two and thenperhaps if you say the right words you'll be saved and you'llgo to Heaven, and if you don't you'll go to Hell. Then youget the Salvation Army come along, they make a hell of aracket of a Friday night, and then fellows the likes of mehave got to come along with our little barrows and sweepup after them. They're there yelling and banging theirtambourines or whatever you call the things, shoving themunder the noses of passers-by, screeching out they wantmoney for the work of God.’ He looked about him and blewhis nose on the sidewalk. Then he turned to his questioneragain and said, ‘God? He never done nothing for me—never—I got my own bit of the sidewalk here which I've got11
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