The

The The Self-improvement of Salvador Ross by Henry Sleesar.

Salvador Ross, too poor, too scrawny, and spanned by the only girl he had ever loved,

ran into more of his usual look on Friday afternoon at the bottling plant.

He slipped in a sticky pool on a runway and dropped 15 feet to the cement floor. His right leg was broken and he went cursing in an ambulance

to the city hospital. They put him in a ward next to a wheezing old man with pneumonia.

When an intern began poking at him the next morning, he yelled, and he told the intern,

hospital, old man and bottling plant, to go to hell.

He was calmer the next day, his young broken nose bottling plant to go to hell.

He was calmer the next day, his young broken-nosed face graven against a pillow like some

bushy-haired gargoyle.

Then the old man began muttering complaints.

You ain't so bad, Sal said.

You should only break a leg like me, pal.

You'll know what trouble is.

Broken leg?

The old man wiped his mouth contemptuously.

Listen, I'll trade you that broken leg any time.

You just ask me."

Sal grinned.

All right, so I'm asking.

You give me that little cold of yours.

...