Surprised, Ralph looked at him for a moment, trying to read something behind the reddened eyes. Then he took the beer from the unsteady hand.
“Thanks.” He opened it and tossed the ring and tab onto the car’s cluttered floor. The can’s icy sweat seeped between his fingers as he tilted his head back and swallowed.
The bitter liquid pulsed down his throat and completed a circuit somewhere inside him. “God, that’s good.” Another swallow stoked the little fire. Exactly what I needed, thought Ralph. He was pleasantly amazed at the potency of its effect on him. “What kind is this?”
“Good stuff, huh?” Blenck pulled at his own can, then mumbled some Teutonic-sounding brand name. “This isn’t that pale Colorado sugar-water all those pansy college kids and movie stars drink. This is real beer. Put hair on your chest, as my old man used to say.”
He had never thought about Blenek having a father. Ralph sipped meditatively at the beer. But then everybody has one. More beer deepened this vision. And mothers. And grandparents, and old friends they see or don’t see anymore. He gazed over the rim of his beer can at Blenek. It suddenly seemed as if the corpulent operations chief, and everyone else in the world, had an enormous cavern he dragged around behind him everywhere he went. He drained the can and let it slide from his fingers. It bounced on the edge of the seat and fell with the others.
Blenek pulled another can free and handed it to Ralph, then took the last one for himself. The small percussive sound of the opening cans stood out again the night’s silence.
Ralph wiped his damp upper lip with the back of his hand. “So you know about that stuff, huh? That beer they sneak into your kitchen when you’re not around?”
“Oh, sure.” Beer gurgled inside the can as Blenek gestured with it.
“Suspected somebody was screwin’ around a long time ago. Never caught ’em, though. They’re pretty sneaky about it.”
“Ever tell anybody about what you knew was going on?”
“Naw. I figured, what’d be the point? The only ones who could do something about it are probably the ones doing it in the first place. You know—the general and his staff assistants.” Blenek tilted the can into his mouth for several seconds, then lowered it.
“What about the other watchers?” said Ralph. “Why didn’t you tell them?”
“Tell them?” Blenek guffawed into his beer can. “Most of ’em already know! Jeez, you’d have to be really pretty dumb not to know about it. I mean, free beer showing up in your fridge is pretty obvious.”
“Oh? Yeah, I guess maybe it is.” More beer slid into his stomach, but instead of connecting with his nervous system and lighting things up the way the first can had done, this one produced a slight fog around his mind. Pretty strong stuff, he thought, whatever it is. He tilted the last of it out and dropped the empty can with the rest.
“How come—” He groped for words. “How come nobody ever did anything about it, though? I mean, why didn’t they stop drinking it, at least?”
“Stop drinking it?” Blenek goggled at him from across the car seat. “What the hell for?”
“Well, there’s something wrong with it, isn’t there? They put something in it, don’t they?”
“Whaat?” Slowly, Blenck’s head moved from side to side. “Wow, Metric, you sure got some wild ideas. You mean, like putting salt-peter in prisoners’ food or something? That’s, uh, pretty crazy if you ask me. It’s just ordinary beer they put in the ’frigerators. There’s nothing wrong with it. Just beer, is all.”
Ralph frowned as he watched the other lean over the back of the seat and snag another six-pack. There was most of a case sitting on the car’s back seat. “How would you know?” he said at last.
“Man, I’ve drunk plenty of beer in my lifetime. If anybody added anything to it, I’d know. Believe me.” With a flourish he ripped the tab from another can. “Most of the watchers prob’ly figure that if the people who run this place want to stock free beer in the fridge, it’s fine with them. What’s to complain about? Kind of like a fringe benefit, you know? Me, I just like a better kind of beer. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I guess. Wait a minute. No—nothing.” Ralph lifted his hand to rub his forehead and discovered he had a half-full can of beer in it and no memory of how it got there. The dots of moisture on the smooth cylinder glinted like jewels in the moonlight that came through the windshield. In two gulps he had drained the can. He had never drunk beer this fast before, but now it just seemed to fall without effort into a hole inside himself. It must be the stress, he told himself. The desert’s horizon beyond the base tilted for a few seconds, then settled down.
“ ’Nother one?” Blenek’s can-laden hand came into view.
Ralph took it and tugged it open. The pleasantly sour foam spilled across his tongue. He leaned back into the seat and closed his eyes. There was no point, he decided, in telling Blenek all that happened, and was still happening. That was all in another universe, far from this cozy alcoholic communion. Respite, he thought vaguely. Time out. He had read once of how the soldiers in the trenches of World War 1 had sung and jollied around between charges at the enemy a few hundred yards away. Now he understood that. Now he felt free to savor this little piece of time, no matter what terrors he had already gone through and what even worse ones still lay ahead.
The empty cans were two layers deep on the car’s floor when Blenek held up an unsteady finger. “Lemme show you somethin’.” He tilted in front of Ralph and opened the glove compartment.
“Wha’s that?” said Ralph thickly. Filling the compartment was a rectangular piece of electronic equipment with dials and switches studding its front panel. A momentary flash of paranoia bubbled inside him.
“CB.” said Blenek. “Citizen’s Band radio. Big fad for ’em a while back. Lots of people were stickin’ ’em in their cars, chatting back and forth with each other as they drove along. Now it’s back to mostly truckers and a few lonely old geezers like me.”
A pang of shame hit Ralph, partially sobering him. Who could tell what private sorrow Blenek was drowning out here in the darkness all these nights?
Blenek switched on the equipment and fiddled clumsily with the now softly glowing dials. Voices crackled out of a speaker somewhere on the dash. Disembodied truck-drivers warned each other about speed traps on the highways. A couple of kids swapped details about their radio equipment—much talk of diodes and transistors. Other voices came and went, flying through the dark air. Ralph listened and watched through half-shut eyes. Too much of that damn beer, he thought dimly.
“Here.” Blenek had pulled a microphone on a coiled cable from the glove compartment. “Say something. See if anybody wants to talk to you.”
He took the mike, hesitated for a moment, then pressed the button on the side. “Does anybody—” He spoke slowly and carefully. “Does anybody out there know what’s going on? Anybody? Anywhere?”
“What a weird question,” mumbled Blenek from somewhere beside him.
No answer came. Ralph dropped the mike and looked across the seat.
Blenek had fallen asleep, his head resting against the top of the steering wheel. With a fumbling hand Ralph switched off the radio. The glowing dials lapsed back into darkness. A couple of empty beer cans tumbled to the ground as he opened the door and got out. Under the stars’ gaze he reeled back to his apartment.
After relieving his aching bladder, he made his way to the kitchen and discovered that the stove’s little clock still read three a.m. He leaned across the cold burners and brought his ear up against the clock’s face. There were no tiny mechanical sounds. Stopped, he thought, straightening up. Dead. He wobbled into the living room and collapsed on the couch. For a moment he thought of Sarah and felt alone and forsaken. At last he fell asleep and dreamed again about the slithergadee.