STORY OF THE DAY

*THE KILLERS BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY* 

In 1920s Prohibition-era Summit, Illinois, hitmen Max and Al enter the restaurant "Henry's Lunch-Room", staffed by George, the owner, and Sam, the cook. They order pork chops and chicken dinners but, learning they are not yet available, settle for ham, bacon, and egg breakfasts. Suddenly, Al takes restaurant patron Nick Adams into the kitchen and ties him up alongside Sam, while Max converses with George and reveals he and Al have been hired to kill Ole Andreson, a Swedish ex-heavyweight prizefighter expected to arrive at the restaurant soon. However, when Andreson does not arrive, Max and Al leave to search themselves. After they depart, George sends Nick to Hirsch's Boarding House, run by Mrs. Bell, to warn Andreson about the hitmen. Nick finds Andreson in his room, but is surprised when Andreson does not react to the news, and simply tells Nick there is nothing that can be done to save him. Nick returns to Henry's Lunch-Room to inform George of Andreson's dismissive reaction; when George no longer seems concerned for Andreson, an unsettled Nick decides to leave Summit.

"The Killers" was written in the 1920s, when organized crime was at its peak during Prohibition. Chicago was the home of Al Capone, and Hemingway himself spent time in Chicago as a young man. When things became too dangerous for the mob, they retreated to the suburb of Summit, where "The Killers" takes place. Not long before the story was written, the Chicago mob had ordered the killing of a popular boxer of the time, Andre Anderson. His killer, Leo Mongoven, went on the run after the killing in 1926 and was captured following a traffic collision that killed Chicago banker John J. Mitchell and his wife in 1927; Hemingway was probably unaware of the accident as his short story went into print. Anderson once defeated Jack Dempsey, likely Hemingway's source for the character of Ole Andreson.

Despite Hemingway's knowledge of organized crime, he omitted much of that background from the story. Hemingway himself said, "That story probably had more left out of it than anything I ever wrote. I left out all Chicago, which is hard to do in 2951 words."

The story includes several instances of the "n-word" as description of the cook, both in the characters' dialogue and from the 3rd person limited narrator. The cook, Sam, is only in this scene, though he is referred to in a scene that follows shortly thereafter.

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia