Drink for the Thirst to Come (38 page)

He drank off the pint. “I think I’ve adjusted damned well for a dead man, eh? A man who should be dead, anyway, which, according to him, is the same thing.”

I nodded.

“Now that’s a true story,” he said.

I didn’t doubt it. And I didn’t tell Cordwell that night but the little man seemed to have come to appreciate the value of that missed delivery over Belgium. I think he had liked the play. Maybe he had appreciated the night, the roof, the tree, the street, the Lion.

I wanted to tell that to Cordwell. I didn’t. After John died in the ’90s, I told Colin.

Colin is now the Eighth Earl of Muffington, but only behind the bar. He has that .30-caliber round but doesn’t much look at it. The Shakespeare troupe nested a while in John’s pub, under John’s tree. Then it grew and moved on. It and I are doing fine, just fine, thank you very much. And that about Dresden, for cripes sake. I do not believe. Not that.

THE LAST SCOOT AT SKIDOO’S TAP

 “No fangs.” The old guy’s voice was sandpaper and whiskey. I awoke. “Fangs are whatchacallit?”

I didn’t know.

“Literary conceit is what you call it.” His laugh was a rusted screen door. “I knew that all along,” he said. “See? Stories about them,” he pointed at my book, “they’re based on Lord Byron. I know that, but you?”

I was surprised to hear Byron and
literary conceit
from…

His throat cleared deep into his chest. Booze was on his breath, his clothes; it seeped from his skin. “Lots of
conceits
over them. Coffins? Sometimes. Stakes, crucifixes?” He snorted. “And garlic. Who likes garlic anyway? That about blood? Well, there’s blood and then…” A passing truck wiped out the rest; the lights caught a tobacco-brown smile among gray whiskers. No fangs. Then it was just road hum and the dark.

“That about being invited? That’s halfway right.”

“What?”

“‘What?’ Being invited’s what. What it is, is it’s
you
who needs an invitation. You see?”

I said nothing.

“No? Don’t mind if I sit here, do you?”

He already was seated and I hated sleeping away a night on a long ride.

“Something else.” He dropped his voice. “They float, the real ones. Flames on black water.” He pointed again. The cover of the book was lurid elegance, silk, flesh, fangs and a discrete drop of blood. “Other than that, that book could be about the guys. Old friends.”

I’d grabbed the book from a rack in the terminal in Pittsburg before boarding. Had me asleep before the Interstate. I was dead to the world when the old guy got on, I guessed at some middle-of-the-night place between Youngwood and Mount Pleasant. He was my seatmate now and we were far west of Philly.

“A long time ago,” he started, “oh, the names are changed, like they say. ’Course, you know that.”

I knew I’d hear his story. I did. I’ll tell it my way.

Brewer. Nice place. Red brick everywhere. A hard working town now out of work. A mountain, river and rail yards. The rails come from everywhere. They funnel into the valley between Nesquala Ridge and Mount Bohn, run through town, screw up everything, then sort themselves at the yards. The yards were miles of steel and rolling stock, engines, switches, and depots. They stank of creosote, coal dust, and smoke. The men who worked the yards were seen only at a distance.

“They were, therefore, very small men,” he said. “When they got close, they became fathers, uncles, brothers. See?”

I did. He—
they
—were kids then. The kids came from what he called the East End. Proud of it, too. Called themselves
Enders
.

“The End’s where people lived when they couldn’t live anywhere else. Not much to be proud of, I guess. Still.”

The rest hung.

The End was east of the yards. Stenawatt High School was at the top of Spring Road. Named after someone. Spring covered a hell of a hill. At the bottom it leveled out at the Pacific Theatre. Just past the theater were the yards.

“During the War, the yards worked forever. After? Not so much.” A rusty chuckle rumpled the last couple words.

Spring Road ran beneath the yards through a subway underpass. Back in the sun, the road climbed a steep quarter mile.

“‘The Nutcracker,’ Keegan called it for reasons obvious.”

Skidoo’s Tap sat on the western top of Nutcracker Hill. Two floors of Pink PermaStone, fake stone in genteel colors. “Some people’s idea of class.” A snort. “Hiding the brick is as common as coal soot in Brewer. Pitiful, but Skidoo’s had a thing: electric eye doors going in and out, a very big deal in Brewer, 1954. Sucked us in, anyway!”

Turn right onto Thorne Way where Spring topped the Nutcracker and it was a short block to a place the old guy called “Chucky B’s.” I didn’t ask. Figured I’d find out.

Past Skidoo’s and Thorne, Spring ran a mile of rolling dips up and down and finally down to the river. This was the West Side—the nice side—of town.

“The guys always pedaled like hell down Spring from the End. Hit level at the Pacific full-throttle, make the light, you hump through the subway quick as
that
!” His fingers snapped. His breath came heavy, telling it. “You did not want to be under there too long.” Phlegm cracked. “We all knew that. Even before that day.” He laughed another whiff of booze my way. “Smelled like dusty fart in there, see?”

The subway was a half-mile of burn-out lamps. Exhaust from cars, buses, flatbeds out of Lieberknecht Mills filled the space from the vaulted ceiling down. Spilled fuel and oil, animal or industrial waste, dissolved ash and cinders leeched from the yards above. The stuff oozed through cracks in the ceiling. The ooze hung in gray stalactites or ran phosphorescent ribbons down the walls or lay curled in shit-pile stalagmites in the gutters.

“Who knew what the hell was in there? We never stopped to look. The guys pumped and set up a howl going through. The ‘Ender Holler,’ Keegan called it. Sometime a pretty note, sometime a long bad scream. Anyway, hump through, you made the Nutcracker easy as pie. Coming out, making that hill sometimes…” He stopped for a breath. “Sometimes it was beautiful, busting the ’Cracker. So perfect. Times a guy wouldn’t break a sweat or even have to stand on his pedals. Push it right, you float over the top, Earth drops away, your head’s light, and for a second you’re
Destination Moon
. Weightless, you know?” He took another breath. “That day, it was beautiful. The ’boes on Skidoo’s corner hooted and smacked each other. Celebrating.”

“’Boes?” I said.

“’Boes! Hoboes up from the jungle, far end of the yards out by Chucky B’s. Must have felt they got a workout just watching us five float the ’Cracker that day. ’Boes. Cripes, listen. You’ll catch hold.”

As he told it, Skidoo’s electric eye door opened that day. “Out sucks dead smoke, old breath, stale beer,” he said. “Then Short Draw and Daryl, they tumble out with it, rolled down the three concrete steps onto hot pavement. PD, who’s waiting with the bikes, about crapped himself. The ’boes, they scatter. Halfheart’s last out the door and he’s onto the tussle. A mess of pups dumped out a box! Shorty and Halfheart untangle. Daryl lays dead. A little blood, mainly nose blood, that was common blood for him and didn’t need a tussle to get it going,” he said.

“Shorty and Halfheart shook him. To bring him back up, you know? Finally, the kid
whoofs
one big stinking burp and his eyes flop open. Cripes! Halfheart yips like a girl. Shorty blurts something Indian and let go. He’s fast. PD crabs backward till he runs into some hobo’s standing-there legs. He’s screaming ‘Oh God, oh God. Sorry, sorry! I’m sorry!’ PD was always sorry.

“And Daryl? Daryl lays white eyed.”

I got another whiff of Greyhound America as the old guy leaned close. “Eyes, see, Daryl’s eyes are like the Martian cave-woman in
Rocketship X-M
. Blind white, you see?”

I did not.

“Yeah. The movie. She wakes up and there she is, a Martian surrounded by Earth guys, our heroes. Her eyes are all whites. Bugging out. At us, us Earth guys, see? Suddenly
we’re
the monsters from outer space. You get it? The guys from Earth! Guess that was us for Daryl at just that minute. Monsters. You get it?”

“No.”

“No. Too young. Well, the guys were nose-on to a pair of round blank eyeballs. That’s strange enough. Then the blue parts wiggle to the surface, like rising from the deep.

“Halfheart’s squeaky, ‘You see that? You seeing this?’ Squeaking.

“Shorty whispers something, ‘
mucking-doggie
,’ sounds like. It’s
Lenni Lenape
, which is what he halfway is, and has no translation.

“Later, PD says it was like seeing your answer float up in the Magic 8 Ball. You know what
that
is, right?”

I nod, forgetting the dark.

“Right?” he says. “Hey. You interested?”

Except for road hum, the bus is quiet. We’re awake, so’s the driver. We’re rolling through the wildest of Pennsylvania’s mountains. “I’m interested. And?”

“Yes, yes, and. And I thought you were dead to the world like everyone. And later, the ones who’re left later, they agree: this is
the
big thing. All their lives, nothing’s going to touch this. See? Being an Ender is to face an assumption one day. What is that assumption? That assumption is: nothing happens. Well, the usual tragedies. But this? Forget kids, weddings, going to jail, going to war,
this
would be
the
memory.”

I ask. “What the hell are a bunch of kids doing in—”

“In Skidoo’s Tap, a bunch of kids? What’re a bunch of kids doing in Skidoo’s Tap? That, yes?”

“That.”

“I was about to say. Running a scoot, we kids were. ‘A scoot?’ you ask, all in innocence. Wrong question, I reply. What question should you ask, I ask?”

“What?”

“‘What?’ No. ‘Who?’ is your question. ‘Who the fuck were you?’ you should ask.”

I say nothing.

“Since you ask, I’ll say what. First, we were Enders, which, as mentioned, involves some assumptions. Still, we’re kids and not allowed in a bar, not legally anyway. This is Pennsylvania, after all. Also, Skidoo hates us. That, second, is one of our assumptions. What did we think he hated about us in particular? We’re uninvited kids is what. See? Poking somewhere we’re not supposed to be, that’s the nutshell of being an Ender. And, third.”

There was a moment.

“Third, we were different. Different, yeah, from everybody else in the world. Who isn’t? Anyway, we’re young. We’re stupid. Dumb enough to think we’d beat the assumptions. Stupid, thinking that scooting places none of our business would make us…” Another pause. He put his stink inches from my face. “We were stupid because we were, okay?”

A moment. “So, ‘Who?’ you finally ask.” He sounded more relaxed. “By name there was
Halbherz
. That’s German. Written down it looked like it should be ‘half heart’ so everyone called him Halfheart, which sounded like ‘Hey fart!’ the way the guys said, which he hated. Halfheart’s old man had been a Kraut. Mean as a snake but dead by this time and thus a good Kraut, but who cared? Though
that
is a story by itself! Halfheart said he was glad his old man was out of the way and nobody even wondered if that was true or not. Short Draw told him once, ‘Half Heart? That could be an Indian name. If you want.’

“Halfheart said he didn’t.

“‘Just an offer,’ Shorty said. ‘Wouldn’t be a very
good
Indian, anyway. Name of Half Heart.’ He wasn’t pissed, he was just making a point.

“That was
Short Draw
, our name for him, or Shorty. Shorty was known as Little Beaver by others. Why? He was little and he was an Indian. Outside of us and some others his name was Roscoe Beverage, which nobody called him except teachers but which is why all our guys called him Short Draw in honor of a nickel beer or for when the bartender didn’t give your Yuengling an honest pull.” He laughed that same in the chest creak. “Keegan said that. Halfheart thought that was about the funniest damn thing ever said. Laughed and laughed till someone, Keegan probably, told him ‘Fuckin’ don’t
die
, will you!’ Shorty was only half an Indian on his mom’s half but he also looked like Red Ryder’s kid buddy, Little Beaver, so that all came together.

“There was
Daryl
who was Daryl or sometimes Darly, and if you knew Daryl you’d know why. The guys sort of
had
to be his friends. Lanky, doofus, hair every which way, big apple in his Adams, big feet, glasses of course, ears. Said things over and over.

“There was PD. Pete Durance. It was Peter, but who wants his guys calling him Peter? So PD it was. Sounded like Petey the way it was said.

“And there was Keegan, Jackie Keegan. There had been his brother, Rory. But Rory. Rory was dead that summer. Which is the point.

“That’s it, the guys, and at this time they’re all about to make the big fucking move!”

“Big move?”

“The big
fucking
move. The move to Stenawatt High is the big fucking move.”

“Which one are you?” I ask.

He sucked air. Let it out. “‘Which one?’ Which one? Huh. You figure it, which one. Now for your scoot. A scoot is this.”

“It’s going someplace where you’re not supposed to go. Right?”

“Going a place you’re not supposed to. Right. You’re learning. East Enders west of the tracks, they’d be going to Pendora for baseball. That’s okay. Maybe to the CYO dances at St. Maggie’s. Okay too. They might go to Mostly’s for pop, funny books or whatever. Truth told,” he said, “Mostly’s had nothing on a half-dozen fountain stores up the End, but summer days, the guys stopped at Mostly’s for a Pepper or to snake a look at the funnies before heading up Thorne to Chucky B.”

“What is that? Chucky?”

“Chucky B, Chucky B. Hold on about Chucky B, I’m about to get there.” Another rusty laugh. “‘Plenty ’a room for us all,’ Keegan’d say, ‘no waitin’ at the Chuck!’ Then, Keegan, he’d smack someone, Halfheart or Shorty, up the back of the head, punch PD in the arm or Daryl, whoever was around. They loved it. But I’m talking scoots.” He stopped. “So, you tell me. What’s Chucky B’s?” he asked.