THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF MYRON
                       BLUMBERG, DRAGON 

  

   by Mike Resnick 

  

     Sylvia's always after me. 

                             # 

     "It's a skin condition," she says. 
     "It's a wart," I say. 
     "It's a skin condition and you're going to the doctor and 
don't touch me until he gives you something for it." 
     So I go to the doctor, and he gives me something for it, and 
she makes me sleep in the guest room anyway. 

                             # 

     "Myron, you're green," she says. 
     "You mean like I don't know the ropes, or you mean like I got 
ptomaine poisoning from your tuna salad?" I ask. 
     "I mean like you're the same color as the grass," she says. 
     "Maybe it's the lotion the doctor gave me," I say. 
     "It doesn't come off on your shirts," she says. 
     "So maybe it all dried up," I say. 
     "Maybe," she says, "but stay in your room when I have the 
girls over for mah jong." 

                             # 

     "I told you not to smoke in bed," she says. 
     "I know," I says. 
     "Well, then?" she says. 
     "Well then, _what_?" I say. 
     "Well then why are you smoking in bed?" she says. 
     "I'm not," I say. 
     "Then how did your pillow get scorched?" she says. 
     "Not from the passion of your love-making, that's for sure," 
I say. 
     "Don't be disgusting," she says. 
     Then I belch, and out comes all this smoke and fire, and she 
says if I ever lie to her again she's going to give me a rolling 
pin upside my head, and then she walks out of the house before I 
can tell her I haven't lit up a cigarette in four days. 

                             # 

     "It looks like a cancerous growth," she says. 
     "It's just a swelling," I say. "There must be a busted spring 
in the chair." 
     "You should see a doctor," she says. 
     "Last time you sent me to a doctor I turned green," I say. 
     "This time you'll see a specialist," she says. 
     "A specialist in swellings?" I ask. 
     "A specialist in tails," she says. 

                             # 

     "Well?" she asks. 
     "Well what?" 
     "What did he say?" 
     "He says it looks like a tail," I say. 
     "Hah!" she says. "I _knew_ it!" 
     "I wonder if our insurance covers tails," I say. 
     "Is he going to amputate it?" she asks. 
     "I don't think so," I say. "Why?" 
     "Because even if our insurance covers getting rid of tails, 
it doesn't cover growing them," she says. "What am I going to do 
with you, Myron? We've got a bar mitzvah to attend this Saturday, 
and you're green and all covered with scales and you keep belching 
smoke and fire and now you're growing a tail. What would people 
say?" 
     "They'd say, 'There goes a well-matched couple'," I answer. 
     "That is _not_ funny," she says. "What am I going to do with 
you? I mean, it was bad enough when you just sat around the house 
watching football and reading _Playboy_." 
     "You might fix some dinner while you're thinking about it," I 
say. 
     "What do you want?" she asks. "Saint George?" 
     I am about to lose my temper and tell her to stop teasing me 
about my condition, when it occurs to me that Saint George would 
go very well with pickles and relish between a couple of pieces of 
rye bread. 

                             # 

     It is when my arms turn into an extra set of legs that she 
really hits the roof. 
     "This is just too much!" she says. "It's bad enough that I 
can't let any of my friends see you and that we had to redecorate 
the house with asbestos wallpaper" -- it's mauve, and she _hates_ 
mauve -- "but now you can't even button your own shirts or tie 
your shoes." 
     "They don't fit anyway," I point out. 
     "See?" she says, and then repeats it: "See? Now we'll have to 
get you a whole new wardrobe! Why are you doing this to me, 
Myron?" 
     "To _you_?" I say. 
     "God hates me," she says. "I could have married Nate Sobel 
the banker, or Harold Yingleman who's become a Wall Street big 
shot, and instead I married you, and now God is punishing me, as 
if watching you spill gravy onto your shirt for 43 years wasn't 
punishment enough." 
     "You act like _you're_ the one who's turning into a dragon," 
I complain. 
     "Oh, shut up and stop feeling sorry for yourself," she says. 
She holds out the roast. "It's a bit rare. Blow on it and make 
yourself useful." She pauses. "And if you breathe on me, I'll give 
you such a slap." 
     That's my Sylvia. One little cockroach can send her screaming 
from the house. She sees a spider, she calls five different 
exterminators. God forbid a mouse should come into the garage 
looking for a snack. 
     But show her a dragon, and suddenly she's Joan of Arc and 
Wonder Woman and Golda Meier, all rolled into one steel-eyed 
_yenta_ with blue hair and a double chin. 

                             # 

     "Where are you going?" she says. 
     "Out," I say. 
     "Out where?" she says. 
     "Just _out_," I say. "I have been cooped up in this house for 
almost two months, and I have to get some fresh air." 
     "So you think you're just going to walk down the street like 
any normal person?" she says. "That maybe you'll trade jokes with 
Bernie Goldberg and flirt with Mrs. Noodleman like you always do?" 
     "Why not?" I say. 
     "Well, I won't hear of it," she says. "I'm not going to have 
the whole neighborhood talking about how Sylvia Blumberg married a 
_dragon_, for God's sakes!" 
     I figure it is time to make a stand, so I say, "I am going 
out, and that's that!" 
     "Don't you speak to me in that tone of voice, Myron!" she 
says, and I stop just before she reaches for the rolling pin. She 
pauses for a moment, then looks up. "If you absolutely _must_ go 
for a walk," she says, "I will put a leash on you and tell 
everyone you are my new dog." 
     "I don't look very much like a dog," I say. 
     "You look even less like Myron Blumberg," she answers. "Just 
don't talk to anyone while we're out. I couldn't bear the 
humiliation." 
     So we go out, and when Mrs. Noodleman passes by Sylvia tells 
me to hold my breath and not exhale any fire, and then we come to 
Bernie Goldberg, who is just coming home from shopping at the 
delicatessan, and Sylvia tells him I am her new dog, and he asks 
what breed I am, and she says she's not sure, and he says he 
thinks maybe I am imported from Ireland, and then Sylvia yanks on 
the leash and we walk to the corner. 
     "He's still looking at you," she whispers. 
     "So?" I say. 
     "I don't think he believes you're a dog." 
     "There's nothing we can do about that," I say. 
     "Yes there is," she says, leading me over to  a fire hydrant. 
"Lift your leg on this. That will convince him." 
     "I don't think dragons lift their legs, Sylvia," I say. 
     "Why do you persist in embarrassing me?" she says. "Lift your 
leg!" 
     "I can't," I say. 
     "Whoever heard of a dragon that couldn't lift its leg?" she 
insists. "You don't have to do anything disgusting. It's just to 
show that know-it-all Bernie Goldberg." 
     I try, and I fall over on my side. 
     "What good are you?" demands Sylvia, as Bernie stares at me, 
blinking his eyes furiously behind his thick bifocals. 
     "Help me up," I says. "I'm not used to having all these 
legs." 
     "Myron," she says as she drags me to my feet, "the situation 
is becoming intolerable. Something's got to be done before you 
make me the laughing-stock of the entire neighborhood." 

                             # 

     "This is the last straw!" she says, ripping open the 
envelope. 
     "What is?" I ask. 
     "The state has refused to extend your unemployment benefits. 
They don't care that you're a dragon, as long as you're an able- 
bodied one." She glares at me. "And you're going through twenty 
pounds of meat a day. Do you know how much that costs?" 
     I shrug. "What can I say? Dragons get hungry." 
     "Why are you always so selfish, Myron?" she says. "Why can't 
you graze in the back yard like a horse or something?" 
     "I don't think dragons like grass," I say. 
     "And that's it?" she demands. "You won't even try?" 
     "I'll try, I'll try," I say with a sigh, and go out to the 
back yard. It doesn't look like Caesar salad, but I close my eyes, 
lean down, and open my mouth. 
     Sylvia hides me in the basement just before the fire 
department comes to save what's left of the garage. 

                             # 

     "You did that on purpose!" she says accusingly after the 
firemen have left. 
     "I didn't," I say. "It's just that my flame seems to be 
getting bigger every day." 
     "While our bank account is getting smaller," she says. 
"Either you get a job, or you'll have ask your brother Sidney for 
a loan." 
     It is an easy choice, because when Sidney dies they will need 
a crowbar to pry his fingers off the first dollar he ever made, 
and every subsequent one as well, so I go out to look for work. 

                             # 

     You would be surprised at how difficult it is for an honest, 
industrious dragon to find work in our neighborhood. Stuart 
Kominsky puts me on as a sand-blaster, but when I melt the stone 
he fires me after only half a day on the job. Herbert Baumann says 
maybe I could give kids rides on my back when he reopens the 
carnival, but it is closed until next spring. Phil Rosenheim, 
who has never struck me as a bigot before, says he won't hire 
anyone with green skin. Muriel Weinstein tells me she'd be happy 
to take me on just in case some out-of-town dragons come by to 
look at some of her real estate listings, and she'll call me the 
moment that happens, but somehow I know that she won't. 
     Finally I latch on with Milt Fein's heating company. Winter's 
coming on and he's short-handed, and when a furnace goes out he 
pays me seventeen dollars an hour to go to the scene and breathe 
into the vents and keep the building warm until he can get there 
and solve the problem. The first week I make $562.35, which is 
more than I have ever made in my life, and the second week we are 
so busy I get time-and-a-half on the weekend and take home almost 
seven hundred dollars, and Sylvia is so happy that she buys a new 
dress and dyes her hair bright red. 

                             # 

     And just when I am thinking that things are too good to last, 
it turns out that things _are_ too good to last. 
     One day I start breathing into the ventillation shaft in an 
office building, and nothing happens, except that Milt Fein lays 
me off. 
     Two days later I wake up and I have hands again, and the next 
morning most of my scales are gone. 
     "I knew it!" screams Sylvia. "You finally find something 
you're good at, and then you decide not to be a dragon any 
longer!" 
     "I didn't exactly _decide_," I say. "It just kind of 
happened." 
     "Why are you doing this to me, Myron?" she demands. 
     "I'm not doing anything," I say. "I seem to be _un_doing." 
     "This is terrible," she says. "Look at you: you're hardly 
green at all. Why does God hate me so?" 

                             # 

     Four days later I am the old Myron Blumberg again, which as 
you can imagine is quite a relief to me. Two weeks after that, 
Sylvia packs up her clothes and the portable TV and the Cuisinart 
and leaves without so much as a good-bye note. The divorce papers 
arrive six weeks later. 
     I still get cards from her every Yom Kippur and Chanukah. The 
last time I hear from her she has married a gryphon. Sylvia, who 
hates snakes and can't stand to be stared at. 
     Boy, do I not envy _him_. 

                             -The End-