Archipelago

by R. A. Lafferty

  The Social Scene shifted to the Binnacle. Stein joined them there. He was an American Sergeant known to the Dirty Fivers.

  “Are you Press too?” Jimmy asked him.

  “Special Services Press,” said Stein. “Why? Are you on a story?”

  “Only the greatest thing since the drying of the flood,” said Jimmy Hansen. “The world's championship is all. Joe Bushmaster the Lion of the South against Hans Schultz the Milwaukee Seidel. Here is an opportunity for you. Imagine that over the byline A. Stein. What is the A. for?”

  “Absalom,” said Stein. “I might as well cover it. Is it here?”

  “At the Harbor House at high noon. But Hans is trying to get high before noon.”

  Stein sought out Casey Szymanski. They had a long talk and Casey became very angry. He also was scared: he was always scared after he talked to Stein. This was a mystery. Then they all went to the Harbor House, and Marie Monaghan joined them there. This was looked upon by many with disfavor. A woman should not be in a contestant's corner during a great contest. It distracts. One of the greatest of the old champions went down to defeat when he had a woman in his corner. But for that, and his death, he might still be reigning.

  Stein intruded himself as the master of ceremonies. This American Sergeant was somehow in Special Services. He gave lectures in the service clubs and he wrote for the army publications. He moved from outfit to outfit, and he had entrée to peculiar colonels and brigadiers.

  But he was competent, and he immediately grasped the essence of Dominion Rules governing beer-drinking contests. There is really little in them that is not covered by common law and common sense. His sharp mind mastered it all in a moment.

  There was some shuffling. Bushmaster used the old trick of not appearing till the very last moment, thinking to make his opponent nervous. If Hans was nervous he did not show it. Stein cut through the chatter ruthlessly and got the thing started on time.

  He performed the Uncapping with a flourish. The contestants fell to it. Bushmaster drank his quart in two shattering gulps, wiped his huge face with the back of his hand, and slapped the table for another. He looked around and grinned with insulting confidence.

  Hans, appearing not to notice his dangerous opponent, drank and gazed at Marie. The boys wanted Marie to sit where she wouldn't disturb him, but he wanted to be disturbed. Hans was in love. But he also knew his business. He was quietly through the first quart and nearly through the second before Bushmaster noticed.

  “What? Is that the second?” Bushmaster asked. “Is it? Are you sure?”

  “That is the second, Joseph,” said Stein. “The Counters have certified it.”

  “It's beautiful to see a man drink like that,” Vincent needled Bushmaster. “Such perfect pacing, unhurried ease, quiet competence, not like a crude amateur who gulps and gasps.”

  Hans was through his second and into his third without a break. Bushmaster gulped his second in two more great draughts and took a pull at his third. Already the more perspicacious could see that he was worried.

  “What's the time?” he called.

  “Nineteen minutes and odd seconds,” said Stein. “You're both a lap ahead.”

  “Watch the spillage,” said Bushmaster. “He rocked the crock twice with his elbow.”

  “We have competent officials here,” said Stein. “We have men to watch the spillage. I must caution you, Joseph, when you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand you may be getting rid of significant moisture. The beer is to be drunk, not wiped off. And you judges,” (that was Tom and Freddy) “must be careful to differentiate between actual spillage and the ambient moisture settling on the glass and dripping on the table. You must definitely see the spillage. Casey, I loved that phrase of Joseph's about Rocking the Crock. Very apropos to our recent conversation.”

  Casey looked sulky. Hans was through his third quart and deep into the fourth so quietly that Bushmaster interposed again: “The count? What's the count?”

  “Fourth working for Schultz; Third for Bushmaster.”

  Bushmaster tried to finish his third with one gulp, but failed and fell to coughing.

  “Caution,” Stein called. “Significant moisture can be lost that way.”

  Bushmaster finished his third and made a slow start on his fourth. Hans went to the john. He had to be accompanied by a judge and one observer from each side; these received instructions from Stein to be sure that nothing was regurgitated or otherwise orally ejected. Nonetheless, Hans returned greatly refreshed and was into his fifth quart so quickly that stark consternation filled the face of Bushmaster.

  There was at this time much activity among the bookmakers. The odds had shifted to Hans Schultz now, though many said that this was fools’ money shifting. Marie was proud.

  “My little red-eyed sweetheart,” she said, “and his first bout under Dominion Rules!”

  Bushmaster went to the john. Returning, he called for a count.

  “The sixth working for Schultz. The fourth for Bushmaster.”

  Bushmaster went through his fourth with a touch of panic, and started the fifth.

  “The time? The time?” he demanded.

  “One hour and sixteen minutes.”

  “I hadn't my five minute warning. I was within five minutes of being counted out.”

  “You were not. Number four was finished in seconds under the hour and fifteen minute mark. No warning was necessary. The officials are adequate. They will see that everything is observed.”

  A debate had broken out among the Bushmaster backers, whether to gain a little time advantage with one or even two more great gulps, or to emulate Hans and sip.

  “If you sip,” said the council of the cooler heads, “you're playing the other man's game. You can't play the other man's game and win. Don't change your style. You're a natural gulper. Better to go down gulping than play the other man's game.”

  “Nobody is going down but that American kraut,” said Bushmaster. He killed number five in a draught of full thirty ounces and sat back shaking.

  “Time?” he called.

  “One hour and thirty-three minutes.”

  “That finished him,” Vincent whispered. “He's scared and he's going to fold. Let me put the needle into him again.” Vincent slapped Bushmaster on the back.

  “Don't annoy the contestants,” Stein ordered.

  “Good old Joe,” said Vincent. “That's the biggest chug-a-lug I ever saw. You must have downed four-fifths of a quart. I don't imagine there's a man in the world who can down a whole Imperial in one.”

  “I can,” said Bushmaster solidly. “I do it all the time.”

  “That I would have to see. I don't believe there's a man alive can do it. You're not trying to pull a no-contest and quit before six?”

  “I never pulled out in my life. I'll still be enjoying it after you put your red-eyed Yankee to bed.” Bushmaster emptied his entire sixth in one long noisy gulp, and even Hans admired. To down an Imperial in one gulp is a feat. Many had heard of it being done at other times and places. Nobody present had ever seen it done before.

  It was one hour and fifty-four minutes. It looked now as if Bushmaster had rallied, and the odds had shifted back to him. But the wiser could see that it was his swan's song, or more properly the gulping of a dying emu.

  All three times in the next hour Bushmaster had to have the five minute warning called to him. At three hours and twenty minutes he had to have the ten second warning called. And at three hours and forty minutes one judge held that there was still discernable liquid to be found in his glass. This brought a stern warning from Stein.

  At the four hour station he was in with a good two minute margin, but the end was near. And Hans Schultz maintained an easy lead, starting his fifteenth as Bushmaster started his thirteenth.

  Bushmaster was game (dead game, said his backers), with the bulldog courage of his forebears, said his backers (some of whom were bulldogs, said Finnegan): but Bushmaster was a sorry-looking oaf now, and at
four hours and twenty minutes there was an inch of beer left in his glass and he could not continue.

  The large man buried his face in his hands for an instant, and then rose ponderously. Everybody shook hands with everybody, and the money began to be paid and collected.

  “And the honor of two nations remains untarnished, but a bit dampened,” said Stein.

  There was a round for everyone, and in the Harbor House that was an event. Bushmaster took only a small stock glass of porter and he used it slowly as if still stunned by the magnitude of the disaster that had overtaken him.

  This had been one of the heroic labors required that one of the Argonauts should do. Had Hans failed, they would all have been destroyed by the furies.

  This is hero stuff? This?

  Yes, yes. Such were the high feats of the primordial heroes and of the early Irish heroes. Do not be fooled by later classical instances. They are derivative.

  The four Dirty Fivers and Marie and Tom and Freddy, went pub-crawling again. They went to the Captain Cook, and to Blarney's, to the Dutchman's, and back to the Commodore. After that they took Hans home to bed, for he was tired. Then the boys went out on the town with Marie.

  6.

  Hans was in love. He was in love with Marie Monaghan. This had come swiftly to him who usually made up his mind slowly on important things. Marie might not have seemed exceptional to anyone else. She had regular, nice features, but her hair was too red and her face was too freckled. She was chubby by contemporary standards, though divine by classical. Hans’ feelings were classical. Marie's eyes were green, but were green eyes classical? Were any of the goddesses green-eyed. You couldn't trust Homer with colors.

  “ — my uncle Homer Hochheimer,” it was Marie speaking in Hans’ mind, “he had a fortune but he missed it because he was color-blind. He had a purple cow and he thought she was black. He kept her till she was fourteen years old and then sold her to the butcher. ‘Man, you're throwing away a fortune,’ the butcher told him when the sale was consummated. ‘You've the only purple cow in the world and you've sold her for a pittance. I'll have a million pounds for her,’ and he did.”

  But to the green eyes, this would have to be solved. The paint is gone these two thousand years from the Greek statues that were colored in their prime, but they were still painted when Pausanes had seen them. Did he call any of them green-eyed? How would he call them green-eyed? Not chloros surely. Chloros was light yellow-green. Nobody would have eyes that were chloros. Prasino was a nice green, but was it classical? What was the Greek word for eyes the color of Marie's? In Romany it was sheleno, Gypsy green. And once in French vair, the green they sang:

  Nicolette had eyes of vair,

  Something, something, yellow hair —

  But vair had become vert with the disintegration of the French soul, and it was no longer the green of the Troubadors: ignorant wise men even said that vair was a shade of gray.

  The Blessed Virgin was red-headed and green-eyed in early Flemish Annunciations. Witches were green-eyed. Lilith who was before Eve was a witch and therefore green-eyed. This would give primogeniture to the green-eyed women of the world.

  Belloc wrote the only stanza to green eyes, this little bit out of all the game-legged verses that have walked on anapest and pentameter on all the lesser subjects.

  “ — Belloc? I mean my uncle Biloxi Brannagan. They called him that because he went ashore then. From his window he could see the top of an old piling and he thought it was the mast of his ship. ‘There's no hurry, she's still there,’ he would say. My aunt Gertrude, she's a Biloxi girl, never did tell him any different. He's still there. He never did catch his ship.’ Marie talked so in Hans’ mind as he waited for her at the Lotus Eaters. Then she came in person and sat down with him.

  “What are you doing, little Hans?” she asked.

  “I'm writing a poem about you. You can't see it. You won't scan and you won't rime; that's the trouble with you.”

  “Shakespeare had the same trouble, Hans dear.”

  “He did not.”

  “My uncle Shakes Pearson had the same trouble. We called him that because he always had them. He entered a jingle contest once. It was put on by a chewing tobacco company and he had to write a limerick. He drank pop-skull whisky and he shook all the time. His verse would go like this: — ‘There was an old lady from Gacko — Who doted on chewing tobacco — ’, then Shakes would get the shakes after so much effort and have to go after more pop-skull. When he got back the squirrels would have eaten what he had written. They lived so far back in the boondocks that they didn't have any paper and he wrote on bark with oak-ball juice.”

  In the company of Shakes Pearson, Hans did not feel so incompetent, so he let go with one of the stanzas he had written:

  The muses sang when Eve was small,

  And they were but diurnal;

  But you were long before them all,

  For you're at least eternal.”

  “You make me seem old,” said Marie. “Am I the eternal one? Well, Shakes would get another piece of bark and start again: ‘There was an old farmer who grew it — And never had leisure to chew it — ’, then Shakes would get them again and go off for more pop-skull. And when he came back it would be as before: the squirrels would have eaten his epic.”

  So Hans read again:

  “I dreamed of you before we met,

  I never was without you;

  And all the masters praise you yet,

  For they all wrote about you.”

  “I thought they were referring to me, Hans, but I didn't know that anyone else knew. Well, Shakes would start another one (all our family are very persevering); ‘There was an old farmer named Glugg — who was always cutting a plug — He'd whittle and whittle — till it was too little — ’, then Shakes would go off for more of the same before he got to the last line.”

  So Hans read more boldly:

  “But here the brighter pearls are strung

  And rings for all your fingers:

  I'll sing you as you ne’er were sung

  By all the Minnesingers.”

  “That's nice, Hans. So Shakes would start another one: ‘When I was a cocky young Jacko — we made our own chewing tobacco — We chopped up old sacks — and boots and boot-jacks — ’, then he'd go off for more of it, and what do you think the squirrels did to his opus while he was gone?”

  “Ate it up. We poets have a hard time.” He continued:

  “And though the globe become a shell

  You still will be the leaven,

  And I'll remember you in Hell

  When you forget in Heaven.”

  “That Swinburnish, which is the next thing to swinish, and untrue, dear,” said Marie. “We shall be together: I have decided that. Well, Shakes killed himself. His is the only blot on our escutcheon. And the only note he left said ‘Miriam’ (I'm name after her), ‘You've got to do something about those damned squirrels.’ She never did know what he was talking about or why he killed himself. I'm the only one in our family who understands these things.”

  “Why didn't the squirrels eat that last note too?”

  “Naturally when they read it they were frightened and ran away.”

  “Are there squirrels in Australia, Marie?”

  “Not that I know of. Are you trying to trap me? If I'd said wallabies I'd have had to explain what a wallaby was. And besides, wallabies can't read, so there goes the story. I have a letter from Loy to Finnegan. I stopped by the house to kiss the boys good morning. They weren't up yet so I brought their mail to them.” This was the letter:

  Cambeltown, New South Wales

  Thursday, February 11, 1943

  John Solli:

  Dear Finnegan:

  Margaret and I will be in town tomorrow. If you haven't any more girls, we'll see you and have a big picnic. And if you do have some more girls, bring them, and we'll get two more boys and join you and Marie and Ha
ns. And bring the other Dirty Fiver that we didn't meet and we'll get him a girl too. No news. The garden I planted in November is all weeds. Papa wouldn't hoe the damned thing. But he killed the fatted calf for his prodigal daughter yesterday.

  Meet us at the train at 7:45 AM (yes, I said AM). I know that you think it's decadent to get up in the morning and I know that you're right. But it isn't necessary that you be wide awake; I like you better the way you are.

  Margie says to tell you that she loves you too. She wants you too now. She switched to you just because I did. But tell Vincent we both still love him also. We love Hans, we love Marie, we love your friend Casey whom we haven't yet met. Meet us tomorrow.

  Love —  Loy Larkin

  Me too —  Margaret Murphey

  7.

  Hans and Marie were still at the Lotus Eaters and it was still afternoon. It could be no other time there. They had been talking for a very long time. “And I am engaged,” said Marie, “And this is the second Thursday of February and the feast of the Apparition, and I will never forget it. Now you have to get me a sparkler, a stunner. What is the brightest thing?”

  “In mineralogy there are five stages of brightness which sound like layman's terms but are precise. They are glittering, gleaming, shining, sparkling, and resplendent.”

  “You are a dirty little pedant. You shall get me a resplendent diamond today, in a ring size seven, and damn the expense.”

  “Have you a family, Marie? Will they be there?”

  “I'm an orphan, but we're a big family. Lots of aunts and uncles.”

  “Will some of your literary uncles be there?”