Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

by Spider Robinson

  So by nine o'clock Callahan had already had to sweep the shattered glasses out of the fireplace to make way for incoming shipments, leaving Tom Hauptman to cover the bar, and more people were coming in all the time.

  Nearly everyone had come in costume, lending a surreal air to a bar that's never been what you'd call mundane. There were four guys in gorilla suits playing poker in the corner, five or six sheeted ghosts doing a shuffle-off-to-Buffalo through the press of the crowd, and seventeen assorted bug-eyed monsters and little green men scattered here and there. I was profoundly glad to see that Eddie had finished his mourning and put away his grief; he had showed up in black-face and the most disheveled suit I'd ever seen, announcing, "I'm Scott Joplin—lookit my rags." Doc Webster had dressed up as Hippocrates and was instantly dubbed "Hippo-Crates" (having been forced to use a tarpaulin for a toga); Long-Drink McGonnigle appeared in an ancient frockcoat with a quill pen in the breast pocket, introducing himself as "Balzac—Balz to you;" Noah Gonzalez and Tommy Janssen had teamed up as a horse with a head at both ends because neither of them wanted to be the . . . aw, you get the idea. Callahan himself was dressed up as a grizzly bear, which suited his huge Irish bulk well, but he kept wincing when jostled, explaining to anyone foolish enough to listen that he was "a b'ar tender." Me, I was dressed as a pirate with a black eyepatch and the name of a certain oil company painted across my chest.

  I was watching the tumult and enjoying myself hugely, trying to guess the identity of friends through their masks, when I spotted one very familiar face unmasked.

  It was Mickey Finn.

  I hadn't seen Finn for quite a spell, since he moved up to the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada to do some farming, and I was delighted to see that he'd made the reunion.

  "Finn!" I hollered over the merry roar. "This way."

  Another human might not have heard me, but Finn looked up right away, smiled across the room at me, and started working his way toward the bar.

  There's some machine in Finn, the way he tells it, but I think there's a lot of human in him too. He could easily have put a hand through the wall, but he was extremely careful not to discommode anyone on his way to the bar. I looked him over as he approached, noted his workshirt, sturdy coveralls, and worn boots, and decided he was making a fair adjustment to his life of exile as a Terran. Wrinkles on either side of his smile said that it was no longer such an alien expression to him as it had once been.

  He reached me at last, shook my hand gravely and accepted a glass of rye from Tom Hauptman. He offered Tom the traditional one-dollar bill.

  "No thanks, Mr. Finn," Tom told him. "Mike says your money's no good here."

  Finn smiled some more, kept the bill extended. "Thank you, sir," he said in that funny accent of his, "but I truly prefer to pay my own way."

  I shook my head. "If you're gonna be human, Finn, you're gonna have to learn to accept gifts," I told him.

  He sobered up and put away his money, nodding to himself as much as to me. "Yes. This is a hard learning, my friend. I must not refuse a gift from Mr. Callahan, who gave me the greatest gift—my free will."

  "Hey, Finn, don't take it so hard," I said quickly. "Accepting a gift graciously is something a lot of humans never learn. Why should you be more human than Spiro Agnew?" I leaned back against the bar and took a sip of Bushmill's. "Come on, loosen up. You're among friends."

  Finn looked around, his shoulders relaxing. "Some of these are unfamiliar to me," he said, gesturing toward the crowd.

  "Lot's of 'em are strangers to me too," I said. "Let's amble around and get to know some of 'em. But first, tell me what you've been doing with yourself. How's life in Canada?"

  "I am doing well," Finn said, "and I am also doing good, I think."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Jake my friend,"' Finn said earnestly, "the Gaspe is one of the biggest paradoxes on this continent: some of the richest farmland, and some of the poorest farmers. In addition to making my own living, I have been trying to help them."

  "How do you do that?" I asked, interested.

  "In small ways," Finn replied. "I see further into the infrared than their eyes can see; I can evaluate soil at a glance and compute yield, evaluate their growing crops much better than they, suggest what to plan for. That taught them to listen to my opinions, and of late I have been speaking of the necessity for alternate means of distributing their goods. It goes slowly—but one day those frozen acres will feed many hungry people, I hope."

  "Why, that's just fine, Finn," I said, slapping him on the back. "I knew there was work for a man like you. Come on, let's meet some of the old-timers." Finn, being as tight with his words as some gents are with their money, nodded briefly and we plunged into the thick of the crowd.

  I spotted four tables pushed together near the fireplace, at which were seated the Doc, Sam Thayer, and a whole bunch of apparent strangers in assorted odd costumes. Best of all, Callahan was standing nearby—it seemed like a great place to start. I steered Finn in that direction, collecting a couple of chairs on the way and signaling Callahan to join us. When he saw Finn his face lit with pleasure, and he nodded.

  As we sat down, one of the unfamiliar gents, dressed as a shepherd, was just finishing a plaintive rendition of "I Know I'll Never Find Another Ewe," and was applauded by a chorus of groans and catcalls.

  "Better take it on the lamb, Tony," Doc Webster suggested.

  "Where there's a wool, Thayer's away," agreed Sam, rising as if to leave. One of the boys removed his chair with a thoughtful expression, and he sat back down rather farther than he had intended. Callahan lumbered up and appropriated the chair, the head of his bear-costume under his arm, and Sam promptly sat on Bill Gerrity's lap. This is funnier than it sounds, because Bill is a transvestite and was done up as Marilyn Monroe that particular night (while Callahan's is certainly not the only bar where Bill can indulge his peculiarity, it's the only one where he doesn't have to put up with the annoyance of being propositioned regularly-—and Bill is not gay). As Sam was dressed as Mortimer Snerd, the effect was spectacular, and those around the room not otherwise occupied cheered and whistled. One of the gorillas in the corner looked up from his cards and scowled.

  I glanced around the table, taking inventory: a fire-man, a five-foot-seven duck, two bug-eyed monsters (one purple and tentacled, one green and furry) and one Conan the Barbarian. "Hey, Mike," I called to Callahan, "introduce me and Finn around and we'll swap stories." Callahan nodded and opened his mouth, but the Doc put a beer in front of it. "I bear beer, bear," he announced, and another groan arose.

  "Okay," I said. "I'll start the ball rollin' myself. Howdy folks, I'm Jake. This here's Mickey Finn." Various hellos came from the group, and a pretzel landed in my drink.

  "I've heard of you, Mr. Finn," said the shepherd, grinning. "They say you're hell to drink with."

  Obviously the shepherd hadn't heard about this Mickey Finn, and I glanced at Finn to see how he'd take it. I needn't have worried—apparently he had been hanging around Callahan's Place long enough.

  "You'll make me feel sheepish, sir," he said with a straight face, "if you take my name too litter-ally. Very baaadly indeed, for I would fain have fun with a fine Finn fan."

  Callahan and I guffawed, and Doc Webster's jaw dropped. "Lord God," the Doc expostulated, "I'm going to hang up my puns, I swear."

  "A hypocritic oath," said the duck, and the Doc heaved a bag of beer nuts at him. "Duck, duck, the Doc," Callahan and I crowed together, and the table broke up.

  "Look, Jake," said the shepherd when the commotion had died down, "what you said about swapping stories sounds good to me. As we introduce ourselves, let's explain what brought us here to Callahan's. I know some of you boys must have stories I'd like to hear—nobody seems to come here without a reason. What do you say?"

  We all looked around. "Suits." "Okay by me." "Why not?" There was no apparent reluctance—Callahan's is the place you went to first because you needed to talk about your troubles—and th
e first time is always the hardest. "Fine," said the shepherd. "I guess I ought to start." He took a glass, rilled it up and wetted his whistle. He was about my age, with odd streaks of white hair on either temple that combined with his classical shepherd's garb made him look like a young Homer. His features were handsome and his build excellent, but I noted with surprise that his left earlobe was missing. There was a scar on his right shoulder, nearly hidden by a deep tan, that looked like it had been put there with a crosscut saw.

  "My name is Tony Telasco," he said when he had swallowed. "I give lectures and slide shows and make speeches, and sometimes I go to jail, but I used to do a lot of things before I came to Callahan's. I was a transcendental meditator for awhile, staring at my navel. Before that I was a junkie, and before that I was a drunk and before that I was a killer. That was right after I was a kid.

  "See, the thing I really am is a Vietnam veteran."

  There were low whistles and exclamations all around.

  I was in my first year of college (Tony went on) when I got that magic piece of paper from my draft board. Business Ad majors just weren't getting deferments, and so I had the classic three choices: go to jail, Canada, or Vietnam.

  Which wasn't a lot of choice. Make no mistake, I was scared spitless of Vietnam—I watched television. But I was scared and ashamed to go to jail, and scared and incompetent to emigrate. To be brought into a strange country to fight would be tough, but to move into one myself and make a living with no skills and no degree looked impossible to me.

  So 'Nam seemed to be the lesser of three evils. I never made a moral decision about the war, never questioned whether going there was the right thing to do. It was the easiest. Oh, I knew a few guys who went to Canada, but I never really understood them—I liked America. And I knew one fellow in my English class who went to jail for refusing to step forward—but his third day there they found him on the end of his bed-sheet, a few inches off the floor, his cellmate apparently asleep.

  And so I found myself in the Army. Basic was tough, but tolerable; I'd always liked physical exercise, and I was in pretty good shape to start with. It was a lot rougher on my mind.

  The best friend I made in Basic was a guy named Steve McConnell, from California. Steve was a good joe, the kind of guy really good to have with you in a rugged situation like Basic. He had a knack for pointing out the idiocies of military life, and a huge capacity for enjoying them. Kind of a dry sense of humor—he didn't laugh out loud, in fact he hardly ever laughed aloud, but he was perpetually amused by things that drove me crazy. Like me, he'd sort of drifted into the Army, but the more he thought about the idea, the less he liked it. Neither did I, but I didn't see anything I could do about it. We spent hours peeling potatoes together, discussing war and women and the Army and women and the Communist Menace in Southeast Asia and women and our D.I. Steve was an independent thinker—he didn't hang out with the other blacks in our outfit, who had cliqued up in self-protection. That can be tough for a black man in the U.S. Army, but Steve cut his own path, and chose his brothers by other criteria than the shade they were painted. I don't know why he and I were so tight—I don't know what his criteria were—but somehow we were so close I got the idea I really knew him, understood where he was at.

  I was as surprised as anyone when he finally made his stand.

  There comes a day, see, when they line you up on a god-awful cold February morning and truck up a couple of coffin-sized cartons. The D.I.'s are clearly more pretentious than usual, projecting the air that something sacred is about to happen. By Army standards they're right.

  What happens is, you get to the head of the line and throw out your hands and one huge mother of a sergeant flings a rifle at you as hard as he can—you've been Issued Your Rifle, and mister, God have mercy on you if you drop it, or fumble your catch and let part of it touch the ground. Worse than calling it a "gun." A few guys do catch copper-plated hell for having fingers too frozen to clutch, and you spend your time on line furiously flexing your fingers and praying to God you won't blow it.

  Steve was right in front of me in line, and curiously withdrawn; I couldn't get a rise out of him with even the sourest joke. I chalked it up to the cold and the solemnity of the occasion, and I guess I was part right.

  All at once it was his turn and the big sergeant selected a rifle and pressed it to his chest and straight armed it with a bit extra oomph because he was from Alabama and I prayed Steve would field it okay and he just simply side-stepped.

  It was just like that: one rushing second and then time stopped. Steve pulled to his left and the rifle cart wheeled past him and struck earth barrel-first, sank a motherloving three inches into the mud, the stock brushing my knee. All around the parade ground people stopped cursing and joking and stared, stared at that damned M-l quivering in the mud like a branch planted by an idiot, stared and waited for the sky to fall.

  The big sergeant got redder than February wind could account for and swelled up like a toad, groping for an obscenity that could contain his fury. As he found it, Steve spoke up in the mildest voice I ever heard.

  "I'm sorry, sergeant," he said, "but I can't take that rifle."

  I thought the sergeant might actually have apoplexy. "That is the weapon I have issued you, boy, and you will take it! Get it out of the mud, now!"

  Steve shook his head calmly. "Can't do it. That thing kills people, sergeant, and I do not accept delivery."

  The sergeant suddenly became just as calm as Steve, a scary transition to witness. He pulled his sidearm and aimed it directly at Steve's navel. "This thing kills too, private. Pick up that rifle."

  I looked at Steve, paralyzed by his crazy stunt. He was plainly scared to death, and I was as sure as he that he was about to die. Pick it up, Steve, I prayed. You don't have to use it now, just pick the goddamned thing up.

  "Sergeant," he said finally, "you can make me pick it up, but you can't ever make me use it. Not even with that automatic. So what's the point?"

  The sergeant glared at him a long moment, then holstered his .45 and waved over a couple of corporals. "Take this goddamn nigger to the guardhouse," he snarled, and bent over the carton again. Before I had time to think he heaved a rifle at me, and I made a perfect catch. "Next!" he bellowed, and the line moved forward. I found myself in barracks, looking at my new rifle and wondering why Steve had done such a crazy thing.

  I went off to 'Nam soon after that—tried to get word to Steve in the stockade, but it couldn't be done. He got left behind with the rest of America, and I found myself in a jungle full of unfriendly strangers. It was bad—real bad—and I began to think a lot about Steve and the choice he had made. I couldn't tell the people I was fighting from the people I was fighting for, and the official policy of "kill what moves" didn't satisfy me.

  At first. Then one day a twelve-year-old boy as cute as Dondi took off my left earlobe with a machete while I got some K-rations out of my pack for him; The kid would have taken off my head instead of my ear, but a pretty tight buddy of mine, Sean Reilly, shot him in the belly while he was winding up.

  "Christ, Tony," Sean said when he'd made sure the kid was dead, "you know the word: never turn your back on a gook."

  I was too busy with my bleeding ear to reply, but I was coming to agree with him. Just as 'Nam had been easier than jail, catching the rifle easier than refusing to, killing gooks was easier than discussing political philosophy with them.

  A week later it got to be more than easy.

  Sean's squad had been sent upriver to reconnoiter, while the rest of us got our breath back for the big push. I was on sentry duty with a fellow whose name I mis-remember—not a bad guy, but he smoked marijuana, and I'd been raised to think that stuff was evil. Anyway this particular day he smoked a couple of joints while we sat there listening to jungle sounds and waiting for relief so we could eat. It made him thirsty, so I offered to spell him while he went to the river for a drink. He slipped into the jungle, walking a little unsteadily.

&
nbsp; A minute later I heard him scream.

  It was only fifty yards or so to the river, but I came circumspectly, expecting to find him dead and the enemy in strength. But when I poked my rifle through the foliage, there was nobody in sight but him. He was on his knees with his face buried in his hands. Oh Jesus, I thought, what a time to freak out. I started to swear at him, and then I saw what he had seen.

  It was Sean, floating lazily against the bank with his fingers and toes dangling from a sort of necklace around his throat and his genitals sewed into his mouth.

  A friend, a man who had saved my life, a guy who wanted to be an artist when he got home, carved up like a Christmas turkey by a bunch of slant-eye monkeys—it became much more than easy to kill gooks.

  It became fun.

  The rest of my tour passed in a red haze. I remember raping women, I remember clubbing a baby's skull with a rifle butt to encourage a VC sympathizer to talk, I remember torturing captured prisoners and enjoying it. I remember a dozen little My Lais, and I remember me in the middle with a smile like a wolf. Fury tasted better than confusion, and this time it was easier to kill than to think.

  I don't know what would have happened to me if I'd come home kill-crazy like that. God knows what happened to the ones that did. But two weeks before I was due to go home I got a letter from a friend in the States, a supply corporal back at boot camp.

  Steve McConnell had died in military prison. He "fell down the stairs" and broke nearly every bone in his body, but it was the ruptured spleen that killed him. There had been no inquiry; the official verdict was "accidental death." As accidental as Sean's—except our side did it.