Time Travelers Strictly Cash (2 page)

His other professional gift is for tact and delicacy. He did not glance at the calendar, he did not pause in his dance, he did not so much as frown. But I knew that he knew.

Then the dance whirled him away. I spun my chair around to the bar and gulped whiskey. Eddie brought “Tricky Fingers” to a triumphant conclusion, hammering that final chord home with both hands, and his howl of pure glee was audible even over the roar of applause that rose from the whole crew at once. Many glasses hit the fireplace together, and happy conversation began everywhere. I finished my drink. For the hundredth time I was grateful that Callahan keeps no mirror behind his bar: Behind me, I knew, Doc Webster would be whispering in various ears, unobtnisively passing the word, and I didn’t want to see it.

“Hit me again, Mike,” I called out.

“Half a sec, Jake,” Callahan boomed cheerily. He finished drawing a pitcher of beer, stuck a straw into it, and passed it across to Long-Drink McGonnigle, who ferried it to Eddie. The big barkeep ambled my way, running damp hands through his thinning red hair. “Beer?”

I produced a very authentic-looking grin. “Irish again.”

Callahan looked ever so slightly pained and rubbed his big broken nose. “I’ll have to have your keys, Jake.”

The expression one too many has only a limited meaning at Callahan’s Place. Mike operates on the assumption that his customers are grown-ups—he’ll keep on serving you for as long as you can stand up and order ‘em intelligibly. But no, one drunk drives home from Callahan’s. When he decides you’ve reached your limit, you have to surrender your car keys to keep on drinking, then let Pyotr-who drinks only ginger ale-drive you home when you fold.~

“British constitution,” I tried experimentally. “The lethal policeman dismisseth us. Peter Pepper packed his pipe with paraquat . .

Mike kept his big hand out for the keys. “I’ve heard you sing ‘Shiny Stockings’ blind drunk wouthout a single syllabobble, Jake.”

“Damn it,” I began, and stopped. “Make it a beer, Mike.”

He nodded and brought me a Löwenbráu dark. “How about a toast?”

I glanced at him sharply. There was a toast that I urgently wanted to make, to have behind me for another year. “Maybe later.”

“Sure. Hey, Drink! How about a toast around here?”

Long-Drink looked up from across the room. “I’m your man.” The conversation began to abate as he threaded his way through the crowd to the chalk line on the floor and stood facing the deep brick fireplace. He is considerably taller than somewhat, and he towered over everyone. He waited until he had our attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen and regular customers.” he said then, “you may find this difficult to believe, but in my youth I was known far and wide as a jackass.” This brought a spirited response, which he endured stoically. “My only passion in life, back in my college days, was grossing people out. I considered it a holy mission, andl had a whole crew of other jackasses to tell me I was just terrific. I would type long letters, onto a roll of toilet paper, smear mustard on the last square, then roll it back up and mail it in a box. I kept a dead mouse in my pocket at all times. I streaked Town Hall in 1952. I loved to see eyes glaze. And I regret to confess that I cOncentrated mostly on ladies, because they were the easiest to gross out. Foul Phil, they called me in them-days. I’ll tell you what cured me.” He wet his whistle, confident of our attention.

“The only trouble with a reputation for rudeness is that sooner or later you run short of unsuspecting victims. So you look for new faces. One day I’m at a party off campus, and I notice a young lady I’ve never seen before, a pretty little thing in an off-the-shoulder blouse. Oboy, I sez to myself, fresh blood! What’ll I do? I’ve got the mouse in one pocket, the rectal-thermometer swizzle stick in the other, but she looks so virginal and innocent I decide the hell with subtlety, I’ll try a direct approach. So I walk over to where she’s sittin’ talkin’ to Petey LeFave on a little couch. I come up behind her, like, upzip me trousers, out with me instrument, and lay it across her shoulder.”

There were some howls of outrage, from the men as much as from the women, and some giggles, from the women as

much as fmrnthe men. “Well, I said I was a jackass,” the Drink Said, and we all applauded.

“No reaction whatsoever do I get from her,” he went on, dropping into his fake brogue. “People grinnin’ or growlin’ all round the room just like here, Petey’s eyes poppin’, but this lady gives no sign that she’s aware of me presence atall, atall. I kinda wiggle it a bit, and not a glance does she give me. Finally 1 can’t stand it. ‘Hey,’ I sez, tappin’ her other shoulder and pointing, ‘what do you think this is?’ And she’ takes a leisurely look. Then she looks me in the eye and says, ‘It’s something like a man’s penis, only smaller.’

An explosion of laughter and applause filled the room.

“… wherefore,” continued Long-Drink, “I propose a toast to me youth, and may God save me from a relapse.” And the cheers overcame the laughter as he gulped his drink and flung the glass into the fireplace. I nearly grinned myself.

“My turn,” Tommy Janssen called out, and the Drink made way for him at the chalk line. Tommy’s probably the youngest of the regulars; I’d put him at just about twenty-one. His hair is even longer than mine, but he keeps his face mowed.

“This happened to me just last week. I went into the city for a party, and I left it too late, and it was the wrong neighborhood of New York for a civilian to be in at that time of night, right? A dreadful error! Never been so scared in my life. I’m walking on tippy-toe, looking in every doorway I pass and trying to look insolvent, and the burning question in my mind is, ‘Are the crosstown buses still running?’ Because if they are, I can catch one a block away that’ll take me to bright lights and safety-but I’ve forgotten bow late the crosstown bus keeps running in this part of town. It’s my onJy hope. I keep on walking, scared as hell. And when I get to the bus stop, there, leaning up against a mailbox, is the biggest, meanest-looking, ugliest, blackest man I have ever seen in my life. Head shaved, three days’ worth of beard, big scar on his face, hands in his pockets.”

Not a sound in the joint.

“So the essential thing is not to let them know you’re scared. I put a big grin on my face, and I walk right up to him and I stammer, ‘Uh… crosstown bus run all night long?’ And the fella goes … ” Tommy’ mimed a ferocious looking giant with his hands in his pockets. Then suddenly he yanked them out, clapped them rhythmically, and sang, “Doo-dah, doo-dah!”

The whole bar dissolved in laughter.

“… fella whipped out a joint, and we both got high while we waited for the bus,” he went on, and the laughter redoubled. Tommy finished his beer and cocked the empty. “So my toast is to prejudice,” he finished, and pegged the glass square into the hearth, and the laughter became a standing ovation. Isham Latimer, who is the exact color of recording tape, came over and gave Tommy a beer, a grin, and some skin.

Suddenly I thought I understood something, and it filled me with-shame.

Perhaps in my self-involvement I was wrong. I had not seen the Doc communicate in any way with Long-Drink or Tommy, nor had the toasters seemed to notice me at all. But all at once it seemed suspicious that both men, both proud men, had picked tonight to stand up and uncharacteristically tell egg-on-my-face anecdotes. Damn Doc Webster! I had been trying so hard to keep my pain off my face, so determined to get my toast made and get home without bringing my friends down.

Or was I, with the egotism of the wounded, reading too much into a couple of good anecdotes well told? I wanted to bear the next toast. I turned around to set my beer down so I could prop my face up on both fists, and was stunned out of my self-involvement, and was further ashamed.

It was inconceivable that I could have sat next to her for a full fifteen minutes without noticing her-anywhere in the world, let alone at Callahan’s Place.

I worked the night shift in a hospital once, pushing a broom. The only new faces you see are the ones they wheel into Emergency. There are two basic ways people react facially to mortal agony. The first kind smiles a lot, slightly apologetically, thanks everyone elaborately for small favors, extravagantly praises the hospital md its every employee.

The face is animated, trying to ensure that the last impression it leaves before going under the knife is of a helluva nice person whom it would be a shame to lose. The second kind is absolutely blank-faced, so utterly wrapped up in wondering whether he’s dying that he has no attention left for working the switches and levers of the face-or so certain of death that the perpetual dialogue people conduct with their faces has ceased to interest him. It’s not the total deaniination of a corpse’s face, butit’s not far from it.

Her face was of the second type. I suppose it could have been cancer or some such, but somehow I knew her pain was not physical. I was just as sure that it might be fatal. I was so shocked I violated the prime rule of Callahan’s Place without even thinking :about it. “Good God, lady,” I blurted, “What’s the matter?”

Her head turned toward me with such elaborate care that I knew her car keys must be in the coffee can behind the bar. Her eyes took awhile focusing on me, but when they did, there was no one looking out of them. She enunciated her words.

“Is it to me to whom you are referring?”

She was not especially pretty, not particularly well dressed, her hair cut wrong for her face and in need of brushing. She was a normal person, in other words, save that her face was uninhabited, and somehow I could not take my eyes off her. It was not the pain I wanted to take my eyes from that it was something else.

It was necessary to get her attention. “Nothing, nothing, just wanted to tell you your hair’s on fire.”

She nodded. “Think nothing of it.” She turned back to her screwdriver and started to take a sip and sprayed it all over the counter. She shrieked on the inhale, dropped the glass, and flung her hands at her hair.

Conversation stopped all over the house.

She whirled on me, ready to achieve total fury at the slightest sign of a smile, and I debated gvng her that release but decided she could not afford the energy it would cost her.

“I’m truly, truly sorry,” I said at once, “but a minute ago you weren’t here and now you are, and that’s the way I wanted it.”

Callahan was there, his big knuckly hand resting light as lint on my shoulder. His expression was mournful. “Prying, Jake? You?”

“That’s up to her, Mike,” I said, holding her eyes.

“What you talkin’ about?” she asked.

“Lady,”! said, “there’s so much pain on your face! just have to ask you, How come? If you don’t want to tell me, then I’m prying.” She blinked. “And if you are?”

“The little guy with a face like a foot who has by now tiptoed up behind me will brush his blackjack across my occiput, and I’ll wake up tomorrow with the same kind of head you’re gonna-have. Right, Eddie?”

“Dat’s right, Jake, “the piano man’s voice came from just behind me.

She shook her head dizzily, then looked around at friendly, attentive faces. “What the hell kind of place is this?”

Usually we prefer to let newcomers figure that out for themselves, but I couldn’t wait that long. “This is Callahan’s. Most joints the barkeep listens to your troubles, but we happen to love this one so much that we all share his load. This is the place you found because you needed to.” I gave it everything I had.

She looked around again, searching faces. I saw her look for the prurience of the accident spectator and not find it; then I saw her look again for compassion and find it. She turned back to me and looked me over carefully. I tried to look gentle, trustworthy, understanding, wise, and strong. I wanted to be more than I was for her. “He’s not prying, Eddie,” she said at last. “Sure, I’ll tell you people. You’re not going to believe it anyway. Innkeeper, gimme coffee, light and sweet.”

She picked somebody’s empty from the bar, got down unsteadily from her chair, and walked with great care to the chalk line. “You people like toasts? I’ll give you a toast. To fivesight,” she said, and whipped her glass so hard she nearly fell. It smashed in the geometrical center of the fireplace, and residual alcohol made the flames ripple through the spectrum.

I made a small sound.

By the time she had regained her balance, young Tommy was straightening up from the chair be had placed behind her, brushing his hair back over his shoulders. She sat gratefully. We formed a ragged half-circle in front of her, and Shorty Steinitz brought her the coffee. I sat at her feet and studied her as she sipped it. Her face was still not pretty, but now that the lights were back on in it, you could see that she was beautiful, and I’ll take that any day. Go chase a pretty one and see what it gets you. The coffee Seemed to help steady her.

“It starts out prosaic,” she began. “Three years ago my first husband, Freddie, took off with a sculptress named, God help us, Kitten, leaving me with empty savings and checking, a mortgage I couldn’t cut, and a seven-year-old son. Freddie was the life of the party. Lily of the valley. So I got myself a job on a specialist newspaper. Little businessmen’s daily, average subscriber’s median income fifty kay~ The front-page story always happened to be about the firm that had bought the most ad space that week. Got the picture? I did a weekly Leisure Supplement, ten pages every Thursday, with a… you don’t care about this crap. I don’t care about this crap.

“So one day I’m sitting at my little steel-desk. This place is a reconverted warehouse, one immense office, and the editorial department is six desks pushed together in the back, near the paste-up tables and the library and the wire. Everybody else is gone to lunch, and I’m just gonna leave myself when this guy from accounting comes over. I couldn’t remember his name; he was one of those grim, stolid, fatalistic guys that accounting departments run to. He hands me two envelopes. ‘This is for you, ‘he says, ‘and this one’s for Tom.’ Tom was the hippy who put out the weekly Real Estate Supplement.

So I start to open mine-it feels like there’s candy in it-and he gives me this look and says, ‘Oh no, not now.’ I look at him like huh? and he says, ‘Not until it’s time. You’ll know when,’ and he leaves. Okay, I say to myself, and I put both envelopes in a drawer, and I go to lunch and forget it.