Two crazy fellows⁶⁰

Last night, after six and a half miles, I was returning at one-thirty in the morning near the Grand Central Parkway. A car came slowly toward me. I was going away, but it went right against the red light. I said, “O God, what is he doing?”

The driver was smoking and his wife was sitting beside him. The man leaned out the window and said to me, “Please come near me. I shall not harm you. You don’t have to be afraid.” It was a very respectable looking couple, so I went over to the car. The man said, “Tell me, why are you running at this hour?”

I said, “I like it, I enjoy it.”

The man said to his wife, “Every day I also run at this hour and you call me crazy. Now, here is somebody else who is running.”

The lady said, “Yes, another crazy fellow like you!” Then she said to me, “Young man, go home and sleep. If you don’t sleep, you will die soon. But if you don’t run, you are not going to die soon.”

The man said, “It is better to die sooner than to live with a wife like you.”

The lady pushed her husband and knocked his cigarette out of his mouth. It fell down on the street, coming very close to my leg. But fortunately it didn’t hit me.

I started laughing, and then both of them started laughing and laughing. Finally they said to me, “Thanks a lot.”