The Brook's Brothers and Roy Rogers

The man in the hat put on his Brook’s Brothers suit, slipped on his Roy Roger’s, the one he’d won at the New Testament fair, and left the house, lean-to house. Today was the day he was to have his yearly physical, which included a barium enema and a test for jimmy-leg, which he suspected he might be afflicted with, given the shaking in his leg, his leftmost leg. His rightmost leg was straight as a pin so he worried naught about it, the rightmost leg. He knew that he was far better off than the legless man, who had two dummy-legs, or the shamble leg man who had shimmying-legs.

In his rucksack he put: two issues of National Geographic, a back-issue of Roy Roger’s magazine (purchased from a catalogue designed for people looking for back issues of Roy Roger’s magazine) a pealed and cored apple, a wedge of cheese, a napkin neatly folded in half, a package of Wriggle’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum, one piece of foolscap, lined, his toothbrush (should he need to stay overnight in the hospital), a dog-eared copy of Narcissi and Goldman, seven sucking-stones, each with its own identifying mark should he accidentally suck one when he should be sucking another (each stone according to its place in the sucking-line, which he knew by rote), a penknife with two blades, and a shoehorn made from a wood burl (fashioned into a shoehorn with his penknife).