“Sure, sure. But—you know what you got to do in the end anyway, don’t you?”
Gallagher clutched his glass, leaned over and glared at the bartender, whose face was pitted and laced with a thousand burst blood vessels and so could not look anything but sincere.
“What—what have I got to do?” Gallagher asked, poising the rim of the glass approximately one-sixteenth of an inch from his lower lip.
The bartender permitted the vaguest suggestion of the inscrutable to disorganize his features, shrugged in an expression of inevitability and walked over to wait on a thin man with spectacles who had walked in quietly.
When the thin man had downed his drink, said “Ah” discreetly and left, Gallagher assumed a hangdog look. His ice cubes were wilting again.
“Do I have to?” he said, plaintively.
“What else—sit here all night?”
There was acerbity in Gallagher’s voice. “No, by God, if that’s your attitude. I’ll go elsewhere for my refreshment.”
“Now, now, I didn’t mean anything wrong. Get loaded to the teeth if that’s what you want. You pay your money, I’ll fix the booze. I only meant, well, you asked advice.”
“I did no such thing. You’re too used to lushes and their problems. I was only edifying you with what I took to be a charming story in the modern vein—no beginning, no end: all middle—together with the proper ironical twist. Solly—” Gallagher softened, “—I suppose I’ll have to, won’t I?”
“Yeah,” the bartender said slowly, reaching over and turning his television back on, only without the sound.
“She’s still there, you know that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I’ll have to face them all, every one, and it’ll be godawful. Lord! Anne will come over and kiss my cheek, damn her, and the old bat’ll say, ‘John, we’re so sorry you were detained. A pity, my boy. You missed the party and the opening of the goddamn presents.’ Then what’ll I do?”
“It’s a tough life sometimes, Mr. Gallagher. Next year you’ll forget all about this.”
“ ‘Our first Christmas, darling.’ Rats. Okay, Solly, here’s your ducats. I’m in your debt, Daddy-O. Never would have had the guts to go back without some help.” Gallagher stumbled slightly as his foot missed the lower stop to the bar; he felt a rush of dizziness and stood still for a few moments.
“You okay, Mr. Gallagher?”
“Touch of jungle fever, Pops. It’ll pass. She’s a wonderful girl, Solly, really. Wouldn’t ever do this for nobody but Anne; you got to remember that. For Anne: upward, onward, into the lions’ den, into the mouth of—Jesus! Well, Merry Christmas, old poop. If I don’t come out of it alive you can tell your grandchildren you murdered the sweetest guy you ever knew.”
The bartender smiled openly. “Good night, Mr. Gallagher. You’re doin’ what any red-blooded man would do. Merry Christmas!”
Gallagher turned to wave and knocked into a table, upsetting two chromium chairs and a false candle. At the noise the unattractive red-headed woman sat bolt-upright and shrieked: “All right, all right, leave me alone for two minutes, will you!” and closed her eyes.
Gallagher went out the door.
Two hours later he came back in the door.
His suit was a bit more wrinkled than it had been; his handkerchief dangled from its pocket and his tie was loosened and pulled down. There was no order to his hair. His glasses had slid on his nose. He looked displaced.
The bartender did not seem happy to see him.
“Shut up,” he said to the bartender and went back to his stool. Everything was the same in the big room. The woman still sat straight up and her eyes were still shut. There was a 21-inch view of the Santa Claus parade on the TV and the two chairs had been set aright.
“Chickened out, huh? You still got time, you know.”
Gallagher was quiet for a while, merely sitting, with his chin cupped in his hands. After a time he said: “On-the-rocks, Petronius. And get out the weeping vase.”
“Bad?”
“Oh no, not really. No worse than any run-of-the-mill public hanging.” He got a glimpse of his tie in the violet-tinted mirror that never flattered him anyway and started to make adjustments, but the knot wouldn’t slide so he gave it up.
“No, Solly,” he said, “I didn’t lose my nerve. Never was a stouter soldier in the face of doom, s’help me. But it wasn’t any use.”
“Mean she wasn’t there—went out to look for you!”
“About your sense of humor—she was there, all right. With bells on.”
“Yeah?”
“Let me paint you a canvas, Solly. It isn’t a pretty picture, but you might be impressed. Like Goya? He might have captured some of it; not all, for damn sure. Maybe Dali. Anyway—” here Gallagher disposed of one half of his drink “—I jump in the car all full of Yuletide forgiveness and superhuman understanding, see? I barrel a cool seventy all the way down Sunset and over to their place. I don’t think, I don’t remember. Not even hurt! I pull in the driveway, next to this Cadillac and that Cadillac—a whole fleet of ’em, Solly. I look like a bum: already it starts. You don’t drive a Caddie, do you?”
The bartender shook his head imperiously. “I favor a Dodge, Mr. Gallagher. Good dependable trans—”
“Don’t. Well, the place you’d think would be blazing with lights, but she’s darker than a tomb when I got out. Across the street I could hear ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,’ and I swear to you it sounded like a dirge! Now get this: I was going to dash in with my usual devil-may-care likeable grin that’s so winning, chuck the old lady under the chin, tell ’em a tall tale and scoop Anne up. Fair, Solly? More than fair, considering I’d rather have been in Mouse Breath, Idaho.”
Horns had begun to honk along the boulevard outside, and the sounds filtered through the padded leather doors. Gallagher’s head ached.
“I was going to apologize, even.”
“Don’t feel bad about it. I’ve apologized to my wife once in a while. You get over it afterwards.”
“Wait, now, you haven’t come to the good part yet. I knocked nimbly on the door, without hesitation, mind you, and I think I whistled a carol while I waited. Then the door creaks slowly open and there’s this woman all dressed in black with a pale face, glaring at me. Who is it?”
“The housekeeper?”
“Good try. No; it’s Mrs. Henderson. She looks me up, she looks me down, and I thought for a minute she was going to vomit. ‘Merry Christmas, John’ she said. Then Milly steps up and takes my coat and silently I follow Mrs. Henderson down the dark hall to the living room. And there—oh God, give me another drink, will you.”
Gallagher had little color left in his face, and his hands trembled. The bartender poured a light one.
“There they all are, Solly, every one of them, sitting there in that room. Uncle Fred, Aunt Billie, the Johnstons, this uncle, that: the place is crawling with them. And there in the center, on the big throne, is the old man in his soup & fish, looking just like somebody had given him the job of dissecting a cockroach.”
“What about your wife?”
“Magnificent! She’s sitting on the arm of that chair with a mildewed handkerchief in her fist, eyes red, jaw slack, expression accusatory and bewildered and hurt more than you could ever know. You get the tableau, Solly?”
“Dirty rotten shame, Mr. Gallagher. Must have been rough.”
“I’d rather be on the first wave at Iwo any day. But remember, no one’s saying a bloody word. All just sitting around, with only the Christmas tree lights on, just sitting and staring at me.”
“What did you say to them?”
“I said, ‘Anyone for tennis?’ but it didn’t go over so good. Anne too, the worst of them; especially when she heaves that sob and turns her face. Weh! The old man coughs and says: ‘Too bad you got tied up, Jack, you missed a fine time. Oh well, couldn’t be helped I suppose?’ He knew damn well where I had been, even if Anne had cooked one up. Even I could
smell me. But that’s what the slimy old poop said. Thank God he didn’t smile!”
“I wonder what I would have done . . .”
“You’d have wished them a Merry Christmas. Right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s what I did. I said ‘Merry Christmas, everybody’—and then, one by one, the crows got up and walked over and planted a kiss on my cheek. Yeah! The kiss of death, Solly—I shook in my boots, all the time trying to shoot a glance Anne’s way. Think she’d see me? Hell no. Then I make the rounds of the boys, pumping their fishy hands. So far, so ghastly.”
The bartender didn’t seem to notice the fat man who had taken a seat over in a dark corner. The fat man drummed his fingers a while, walked up to the far side of the bar and then went away.
Gallagher tapped his glass on the counter nervously. “Still not the worst, though. We come now to the pièce de résistance. After the unholy ritual, where nobody said anything but mumble, I put on a grin and went over to the punch bowl and got some goo. I got back, the waxworks was still in session. I looked forward to a beautiful evening. Then—the meat-axe right between my eyes.”
“What happened?”
“Fragile, delicate Mrs. Henderson waddled over, looked me right in the teeth and made a gesture with her finger over to the tree. There were all the presents, Solly, all unwrapped and out and the wrapping piled neatly to one side. All, that is, except mine. Mine they’d left, and they were stacked at the foot of the tree, gaily bedecked in ribbons red and green.”
The bartender shuddered visibly. “Oh no, Mr. Gallagher!”
“Oh yes!” So I opened each present, one by one, Solly: a pipe from Cousin Albert, a dressing gown from Auntie Cora, a leather traveling kit from whoozis. I smile, I say ‘Wonderful’ and the word echoes in the silence. I go over and peck Aunt Lucy and shake hands with Uncle Fred, and I open another present and another one and—forever and ever!
“Last, of course, they fork over a big package and I open it. From Anne—mine to her were still home, see. A sport coat I’d had my eye on for months but couldn’t ever afford. Anne’s blubbering by this time, naturally, and dabbing at her eyes quietly. ‘Thanks, darling.’ I didn’t try to kiss her. Hit me again.”
The bartender did not go light on this one. He went very heavy.
“Hope I’ve not bored you. There’s only one more part, and that’s it, but it’s quite a refinement. While I’m standing there with the sport coat hanging from my arm, looking stupid and feeling like a sex murderer in front of an all woman jury, then I get it. Anne leaps up out of the stillness, looks at me a minute and says, ‘Oh, Jack, why did you have to spoil everything?’ Up to her room or someplace, like a shot. The old man shifts in his chair and tells me: ‘Pity, Jack my boy. Anne had a surprise all planned out. She was going to drive you to Malibu or some-such right after our little party. Too bad.’ ”
In putting his head on his arms, Gallagher hit his glass which overturned.
“Tune in tomorrow, folks, for the next episode of John’s Second Wife,” he said thickly.
The bartender said nothing. He looked embarrassed, somehow, and he turned his TV on again.
Then Gallagher’s head snapped up and pivoted towards the corner. He looked as if he’d suddenly remembered an appointment. “Solly,” he said, “would you please tell me why you haven’t done anything about that young lady over there?” He pointed in the direction of the red-headed woman, who did not stir.
“Her? I asked her hours ago if she was with anybody, but she said no, to leave her alone. Cold sober then, so—live and let live tonight, I say.”
“Well, but, hold on, man—poor dear girl must be lonely. Wait! Two birds with one stone. I’ll share my unhappiness with a kindred spirit.”
Gallagher winked, then began to walk unsteadily to the woman’s table. He sat down and said some things to her, but the woman kept saying “Go away, will you, will you please” so after a while he got up and took some bills from his wallet. He gave the bills to the bartender.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
“Same to you, Mr. Gallagher. Don’t worry, it’ll all work out okay, you’ll see.”
“Yeah.”
Gallagher smiled and made his way to the door, went back for his glasses but he had put them in his pocket so he smiled again at the bartender and walked outside.
There wasn’t anyone waiting for him.
Moon in Gemini
Charles Beaumont and J.E. Tomerlin
Outside, the street was filled with light; bright hot midsummer sunlight, and it made Jodi dizzy. It caused her eyes to pinch together, smarting. But this was not the first time she had been made dizzy going from the tomb coolness of Penn station to the city’s afternoon glare, so she blinked a few times and pushed on through the big glass door.
There were many people downtown on the streets. A shining river of people, all hurrying, all bound for destinations. Faceless big-city people, baked lobster red in the sun or turned the color of wet paste. Jodi felt herself caught up, like a leaf tossed into a fast current, and soon she was hurrying along with the people.
But no one looked at her, as she expected they might; and this was, at first, a little disappointing. There were no rude stares: for that matter, no motherly smiles either. It wasn’t any different at all. They just hurried along.
And Jodi thought, They don’t know, any of them. Know or care or even think about it. They have no idea—why, they’ve got a mother in their midst!
The phrase reminded her of Jim, and as she walked fast she thought of just how he might say it: “A mothah in theiuh mid-sst!” And how he’d break into a grin afterwards, much more like a college sophomore than a dignified office manager.
Her eyes adjusted to the bright city dazzle, and now the warmth that passed through her clothes and touched her skin felt good. She walked a full block before realizing it was in exactly the opposite direction she had wished to go.
She broke from the clot of hurrying people, and started back. For no particular reason, though: there was over an hour to kill. An hour before she would meet Jim at Child’s for lunch; and then, the ride back home on the train. Hours and hours, almost the whole day away from Mother Hilton.
That made her feel even better. It was the first afternoon she’d had alone with Mark, actually the first! It would, of course, be Mark; it couldn’t be anything but a boy. She knew. Certain exceptionally intuitive women know these things, that’s all. Mother Hilton could rave on as much as she wanted to about the chances of its being a girl. As much as she wanted to: she was wrong, wrong, in spite of her years of experience.
Jim, I’ll tell you the truth. I came to have lunch with you because your mother is driving me crazy. Now don’t look so alarmed. I hate her. But no more than she hates me. What? You thought we were getting on so wonderfully? Well, that’s how much you know. Your darling mother would hate anybody you married—that’s what she doesn’t realize. Listen to me. It’s very simple. She’s always had you, you see, and now she doesn’t want to lose you. You marry somebody, she loses you. Of course it’s foolish, but that’s the way mothers are, that’s their nature. All mothers are insane. Or at least they get that way. Want to know something else? I could have taken the 10:20 and got here right on time. But if I’d been left alone another hour—just one more hour—with Mother, I would have gone quietly, calmly crazy. That’s how wonderfully we’re getting on, my darling husband!
Jodi stopped in a doorway so she could taste the words. She wished she could record them and take the recording home and play it to herself every night. She thought briefly of going to some company and getting it done. But the thought passed. It was childish. Besides, Jim might get hold of it. . .
She looked into the window of a surgical supply store, and the wavery ghost of a woman looked back. A woman with a rather attractive face—certainly not bad, anyway—framed in shoulder-length hair the color of roasted chestnuts. Fine wide eyes, a little puzzled always, and
a full mouth pulled up at the corners now, as if in amusement.
Pretty good for six months along, Jodi thought and grinned. Then she saw the man inside looking at her. She glanced down at her stomach and a warm red came to her cheeks, because the man was actually staring, or half-staring. Not rudely. So she turned and reentered the bright flow of people.
She wants to eat us up, Jim. Really. Believe me. She says she’s just visiting, but you watch! That visit will last a long time. First it’s to take care of me until Mark’s born. Next it’ll be to do what she can to take the burden off my shoulders once the baby is here. And after that, she’ll think of something. Oh, they’re clever! She’ll wait till Mark is healthy, then she’ll set about driving us apart so she can have not only you but our little boy too! Just look at the row we had last night—don’t you really know who caused it? Don’t you?
Poor Jim. He’d just stand there pop-eyed, with that agonized, hurt, utterly bewildered look plastered all over his face. “Jodi!” he’d say, like Moses or somebody. “Jo-di!”
Grown men shouldn’t have mothers, Jodi thought. She remembered the black satin woman who’d sat next to her on the train. A miserable creature, unquestionably a mother. She’d so wanted to be alone, to think; naturally it was her luck to sit next to a phrenologist, or whatever it was palm-readers called themselves. Such a delightful woman. The way she’d taken Jodi’s hand and studied it, like a map . . .
You’re by nature very quiet and reserved, aren’t you honey? Sensitive, easily hurt. But you keep your little hurts to yourself. Oh yes, and you treasure your own personal thoughts. Sometimes that’s very good, because it can give you a lot of secret satisfaction; but it can be bad, too, because you’re more likely to let little differences grow into important problems. Oh yes, and you fear physical pain.
A Touch of the Creature Page 6
