If you were a solitary drinker (and more and more people were becoming solitary drinkers) you had less chance of being bothered by Martians in a tavern than anywhere else. There might be a dozen of them about but of you stood bellied up to the bar with a glass in your hand and your eyes closed, you could neither see them nor hear them. If, after a while, you opened your eves and saw them, it didn’t matter because they really didn’t register.
Yes, taverns were doing all right.
8.
Take The Yellow Lantern on Pine Avenue in Long Beach. A tavern like any tavern, but Luke Devereaux is in it, and it’s time we got back to Luke because something big is about to happen to him.
He’s bellied up to the bar, with a glass in his hand. And his eyes are closed so we can look him over without disturbing him.
Except that he looks a little thinner, there’s no great difference in him since we saw him last, which was seven weeks ago. He’s still clean and neatly shaven. His clothes are still good and are in good shape, although his suit could use pressing and the wrinkles in his shirt collar show that he is now doing his own laundry. But it’s a sport shirt and doesn’t look too bad.
Let’s face it; he’s been lucky, until tonight. Lucky in that he had been able to make his original fifty-six dollars, supplemented by occasional small earnings, last him these seven weeks and hasn’t had to go on relief. As yet.
Tomorrow, he had decided, he would.
And he’d made the decision while he still had six dollars left, and for a very good reason. Since the night when he’d got drunk with Gresham and had phoned Margie, he had not had a single, solitary drink. He had lived like a monk and had toiled like a beaver whenever he’d found anything to toil at.
For seven weeks his pride had kept him going. (The same pride, incidentally, had kept him from phoning Margie again as he had drunkenly promised to do that night. He’d wanted to, but Margie had a job and he wasn’t going to see or even talk to her until and unless he himself had one.)
But tonight after the tenth consecutive completely discouraging day (eleven days ago he’d earned three dollars helping a man move a houseful of furniture) and after paying for a frugal meal of day-old buns and discouraged cold frankfurters to eat in his room, he had counted his dwindling capital and had found it to be exactly six dollars, to the penny.
And had decided to hell with it. Unless a miracle happened, and he thought that no miracle was going to happen, he’d have to give up and go on relief within a few more days in any case. If he decided now to go on relief tomorrow he had enough left for one final binge first. After seven weeks of total abstinence and on a not too full stomach, six dollars was enough to get him plenty drunk even if he spent it all in a tavern. Or if he didn’t enjoy the tavern he could spend only part of it there and the rest on a bottle to take back to his room. In either case he’d awaken horribly hung over, but with empty pockets and a clear conscience in going on relief. It would be less unpleasant, probably, with a hang-over than otherwise.
And so, having decided that no miracle could happen to him, he had come to The Yellow Lantern, where the miracle awaited him.
Stood at the bar with his fourth drink in front of him and his hand clasped around it. A bit disappointed that he didn’t feel the first three drinks more. But there was still money for quite a few more—in his pocket, of course; you don’t leave money on a crowded bar and stand in front of it with your eyes closed. And for the same reason, you keep your hand around your glass.
He took another sip from it.
Felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a voice scream, “Luke!” in his ear. The scream could have been a Martian, but not the hand. Somebody here knew him, and he’d wanted to get drunk alone tonight. Damn. Well, he could brush the guy off.
He opened his eyes and turned around.
It was Carter Benson, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Carter Benson, from whom he’d borrowed the use of the shack near Indio where, a couple of months ago, he’d tried to start that science-fiction novel that hadn’t got started and never would get started now.
Carter Benson, nice guy, but looking as prosperous as he always looked and probably still in the chips, and the hell with him, tonight. Any other time okay, but tonight Luke didn’t want even Carter Benson’s company. Not even if Carter bought him drinks, as he no doubt would if allowed to. Tonight he wanted to get drunk alone so he could feel sorry for himself for what was going to happen tomorrow.
He nodded to Carter and said, “The jabberwock with eyes of fame came whiffling through the tulgey wood,” because Carter would see his lips moving but wouldn’t be able to hear a word anyway, so why did it matter what he said? And nodded again before he turned back to his drink and closed his eyes. Carter wasn’t a stupe; he’d get the idea and go away.
He had time to take one more sip from his drink and sigh once more, deeply, in sorrow for himself. And then the hand was on his shoulder again. Damn Carter, couldn’t he take a hint?
He opened his eyes. They were blocked by something in front of them. Something pink, so it wasn’t a Martian. It, whatever it was, was too close to his eyes and made them cross. So he pulled back his head to look at it.
It was a check. A very familiar type of check, although he hadn’t seen one like it for a long time. A check of Bernstein Publishers, Inc., his own publisher as well as Carter Benson’s. Four hundred and sixteen dollars and some cents. But what the hell was Carter showing it to him for? To show off that he was still making money writing and wanted help in celebrating. To hell with him. Luke closed his eyes again.
Another and more urgent tap on his shoulder and he opened them again. The check was still there in front of them.
And he saw this time that it was made out to Luke Devereaux, and not to Carter Benson.
What the hell? He owed Bernstein money, on all those advances he’d had, not the other way around.
Just the same, he reached up with suddenly trembling fingers and took the check, held it at the proper distance from his eyes to examine it properly. It looked real all right.
He jerked back and dropped it as a Martian who was running and sliding the length of the bar as though it were an ice slide slid right through his hand and check. But Luke picked it up again without even being annoyed and turned again to Carter, who was still grinning.
“What the hell?” he asked, this time forming words exaggeratedly so Carter could read his lips.
Carter pointed to the bar and held up two fingers, then mouthed, “Want to step outside?”
It wasn’t an invitation to fight, as, in happier times, that sentence had been when spoken in a bar. It had a new meaning that had developed because of the deafening din that prevailed in post-Martian drinking places. If two people wanted to talk for a minute or a few minutes without having to scream at one another or read lips, they’d step outside the front or back door onto the sidewalk or into an alley, and walk a few paces away, taking their drinks with them. If no Martian followed them or kwimmed suddenly to join them they could talk undisturbed. If a Martian did bother them they could go back inside to the maddening noise and they’d lost nothing. Bartenders understood and didn’t mind people going outside with their drinks; besides, bartenders were usually too busy to notice.
Quickly Luke slid the check into his pocket and got the two drinks Carter’s two fingers had signaled for and then as unobtrusively as possible led the way out the back door and into a dimly lighted alley. And luck, having hit Luke so hard and suddenly, stayed with him; no Martian followed them.
“Carter, thanks a million. And forgive me for trying to brush you off—I was just starting out on a final and solitary jag and—well, skip it. But what the hell’s the check for?”