Picking Fights over Strangers over Small Indignities: "King Curtis’s Echo” by Max Thayer,

In the short story, “King Curtis’s Echo”, by Max Thayer, the author mostly focuses on

his revelation that in the spirit of self-preservation, picking fights with strangers over

small indignities, is a bad idea and can have fatal consequences. He does not bring to

light the other obvious point in his tale: possessing people skills to begin could have

prevented the situation altogether. A little tact, patience, and forethought would have

gone a long way in sparing the author the plethora of indignities that he ultimately

brought upon himself.

Approaching the deli patron with a little finesse would clearly have helped Max

Thayer’s cause, but it is obvious that he does not possess such character traits. In the

beginning three paragraphs he talks about overhearing someone else’s conversation and

can’t help but butt in. He yells, from his apartment to the guy on the street. Thayer has

decided that he is right about something and he will prove it. When the man doesn’t

respond to him he runs down to the street level to continue the ...