Rance had put on his own suit coat and was at the register back of the counter, taking out two five dollar bills.
“Cal-eye-for-nee, here Ah go—” he caroled, and then paused, obviously at a loss for a second line.
“Right back home to Hartville, Mo!” Luke supplied.
Rance stared at him in open-mouthed admiration. “Hey, guy, did you think uh that jest like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Say, you oughta be a writer, or somethin’.”
“I’ll settle for being something,” Luke told him. “By the way, anything I should know about this job?”
“Nah. Prices are on the wall there. Everything that ain’t in sight’s in the ’frigerator there. Here’s the five and thanks to hell and back.”
“Good luck,” said Luke. They shook hands and Rance went out singing happily, “Cal-eye-for-nee, here Ah go—right back home to…”
Luke spent ten minutes familiarizing himself with the contents of the refrigerator and the prices on the wall. Ham and eggs looked to be the most complicated thing he might have to prepare. And he’d done that often enough for himself at home. Any writer who is a bachelor and hates to interrupt himself to go out to eat becomes a fairly good short order cook.
Yes, the job looked easy and he hoped the boss would change his mind about closing the place. Ten bucks a day, with his meals furnished as well, would be plenty for him to get along on for a while. And with the pressure off maybe he could even start writing again, evenings.
But business, or the lack of it, killed that hope long before the afternoon was over. Customers came in at the rate of about one an hour and usually spent fifty cents or less apiece. A hamburger and coffee for forty cents or pie and coffee for thirty-five. One plunger brought the average up a little by shooting ninety-five cents for a hamburger steak, but it was obvious, even to a non-businessman like Luke, that the take wasn’t covering the cost of food plus overhead, even if his own pay was the only item of overhead involved.
Several times Martians kwimmed into the place, but, as it happened, never while a customer was eating at the counter. Finding Luke alone, none of them tried to do anything seriously annoying and none stayed longer than a few minutes.
At a quarter of five Luke wasn’t hungry again as yet but decided he might as well save a little money by stoking up for the evening. He made himself a boiled ham sandwich and ate it. Made himself another, wrapped it and put it into the pocket of his coat hanging on the wall.
As he put it there his hand encountered a folded paper, the handbill that had been given to him on the street earlier in the day. He took it back to the counter and unfolded it to read while he had a final cup of coffee. “BEAT THE DEPRESSION WITH A NEW PROFESSION,” the handbill told him. And in smaller type, “Become a Consulting Psychologist.” Neither heading was in flagrantly large type. And the body type was ten-point Bodoni with wide margins; the effect as a whole was very conservative and pleasing for a handbill.
“Are you intelligent, presentable, well-educated—but unemployed?” the handbill asked him. Luke almost nodded a yes before he read on.
If you are, there is an opportunity now for you to help humanity, and yourself, by becoming a consulting psychologist, by advising people how to remain calm and to stay sane despite the Martians for however long they stay.
If you are properly qualified, and especially if you already have a fair lay knowledge of psychology, a very few lessons, perhaps as few as two or three, will give you sufficient knowledge and insight to help first yourself and then others to withstand the concerted attack upon human sanity which is being made by the Martians today.
Classes will be limited to seven persons, to permit free discussion and the asking of questions after each class. The fee will be very moderate, five dollars per lesson.
Your instructor will be the undersigned, Bachelor of Science (Ohio State, 1953), Doctor of Psychology (U.S.C., 1958), subsequently with five years’ experience as an industrial psychologist with Convair Corporation, active member of American Association of Psychologists, author of several monographs and of one book, You and Your Nerves, Dutton, 1962.
And a Long Beach telephone number.
Luke read it again before he folded it and put it in his pocket. It didn’t sound like a racket—not if the guy really had those qualifications.
And it made sense. People were going to need help, and need it badly; they were cracking up right and left. If Doc Forbes had even a piece of the answer—
He glanced at the clock and saw that it was ten minutes after five, and was wondering how late “the boss” might be, and whether or not he should just lock the door and leave, when the door opened.
The middle-aged stocky man who came in looked at Luke sharply. “Where’s Rance?”
“On his way back to Missouri. You the owner?”
“Yeah. What happened?”
Luke explained. The owner nodded and came around the counter. He opened the register, read Rance’s note, and grunted. He counted the cash in the register—it didn’t take long—and pulled a strip of paper out of the side to check the reading on it. He grunted again and turned back to Luke.
“Business really that lousy?” he asked. “Or did you drag down a few bucks?”
“Business was really that lousy,” Luke told him. “If I’d taken in even ten bucks I might have been tempted. But not when I took in less than five. That’s less than my minimum price for being crooked.”
The owner sighed. “Okay, I believe you. Had your dinner?”
“Had a sandwich. And put another in my pocket.”
“Hell, make a few more. Enough to last you tomorrow. I’m going to close up now—what’s the use of wasting an evening?—and take home what grub’s left. But it’s more’n my wife and I can eat before it starts to spoil.”
“Thanks, guess I might as well,” Luke said.
He grade himself three more cold sandwiches and, when he left, took them along; they’d save him from having to spend money for food for another day.
Back in his room, he carefully locked the sandwiches in the tightest closing one of his suitcases to protect them from mice and cockroaches—if there were mice or cockroaches around; he hadn’t seen any yet, but he’d just taken the room that morning.
He took the handbill from his pocket to read it again. Suddenly a Martian was perched on his shoulder reading it with him. The Martian finished first, howled with laughter, and was gone.
It made sense, that handbill. At least enough sense to make him want to gamble five dollars on one lesson from the psychology prof. He took out his wallet and counted his money again. Sixty-one dollars; five more than he’d had left after paying a week’s room rent this morning. Because of his lucky break at the lunch counter, he was not only richer by that five bucks, but he’d had to spend no money on food today nor would he have to spend any tomorrow.
Why not gamble that five bucks and see if he could parlay it into a steady income? Hell, even if he never followed through and made any money out of it, he might get five bucks’ worth of information on how to control his own temper and his own reactions toward the Martians. Possibly even to the point where he could try writing again soon.
Before he could weaken and change his mind he went to the telephone in the hall and dialed the number on the handbill.
A calm, resonant male voice identified itself as that of Ralph Forbes.
Luke gave his own name. “I’ve read your handbill, Doctor,” he said, “and I’m interested. When are you holding your next class, and is it filled yet?”