Flood OLD MR. FLOOD A TOUGH SCOTCH-IRISHMAN I KNOW, Mr. Hugh G. Flood, a retired house-wrecking contractor, aged ninety-three, often tells people that he is dead set and determined to live until the afternoon of July 27, 1965, when he will be a hundred and fifteen years old. “I don’t ask much here below,” he says. “I just want to hit a hundred and fifteen. That’ll hold me.” Mr. Flood is small and wizened. His eyes are watchful and icy-blue, and his face is red, bony, and clean-shaven. He is old-fashioned in appearance. As a rule, he wears a high, stiff collar, a candy-striped shirt, a serge suit, and a derby. A silver watch-chain hangs across his vest. He keeps a flower in his lapel. When I am in the Fulton Fish Market neighborhood, I always drop into the Hartford House, a drowsy waterfront hotel at 309 Pearl Street, where he has a room, to see if he is still alive. Many aged people reconcile themselves to the certainty of death and become tranquil; Mr. Flood is unreconcilable.
