CHEESEBURGERS F—-LANH—K Bob GreenePublished by Kodansha Publishers Ltd., 12- 21, Otowa 2-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112, and Kodansha International Ltd., 17-14, Stowa I-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo I1Z. Printed in Japan. Copyright © 1985 by John Deadline Enter- prises, Inc. Englishdanguage reprint edition with Japanese annotations rights artanged with Sterling Load Literistic, Inc. through Tuttle- Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo. ISBN 4-06-186050-X First edition, 1989 Sixth printing, 1993 CONTENTS Party Line 7 The Most Famous Man in the World 12 Born Too Late 33 Cut 38 A Testing Time 48 The ABC’s of Courage 58 One Night with You 68 RLP. Blinky 81 The Coolest Guy in the Room 86 Strangers on a Plane 96 King of the Campus 105 Never Travel for Food 110 Top Dogs 115 Mother and Child 120 The Woman in the Photograph 125 Confessions of a Middle-Aged Man 135Stranger at the Table 140 Louisville Slugger 145 Wanna Party? 150 Memories Are Made of This 155 Grandma at the Playboy Club 165 Why Fathers Are a Cut above Their Sons 170 Streep 175 Set Point 189 Book 'Em 194 Wedding Story 204 The Strange Case of the Beatles’ Bedsheets 208 Notes 213 Party Line On a recent Sunday afternoon, just after lunch, Vic Larson picked up the telephone in his house, which is in Park Ridge, Illinois. Larson’s intention was to call a friend. But when he held the receiver to his ear, he did not hear a dial tone. What he heard instead were voices. Maybe a dozen voices talking intermittently, sometimes talk- ing all at once. Larson thought about hanging up, but for some reason he did not. He stayed on the line. It did not take him long to figure out what was go- ing on. Because of some kind of glitch in the telephone company’s computer system, people from all over the area were picking up their phones and dialing into this one circuit. They found themselves talking not with the people they had intended to call—but with this random group of strangers. Vic Larson joined in the conversation. He is ?