The Bachman Books

when he looked-up his eyes were haunted with light, as if the whole man were trapped inside this stinking prison, too deep to get out.

Drake was sitting behind the counter at the rear, next to a two-burner hotplate. One Silex held hot water, the other black coffee. There was a cigar box on the counter with some change in it. There were two signs, crayoned on construction paper. One said:

MENU

Coffee 15c

Tea 15c

All soda 25c

Balogna 30c

PB&125c

Hot Dog 35c

The other sign said:

PLEASE WAIT TO BE SERVED!

All Drop In counter help are VOLUNTEERS and when you serve yourself you make them feel useless and stupid. Please wait and remember GOD LOVES YOU!

Drake looked up from his magazine, a tattered copy of The National Lampoon. For a moment his eyes went that peculiar hazy shade of a man snapping his mental fingers for the right name, and then he said: 'Mr. Dawes, how are you?'

'Good. Can I get a cup of coffee?'

'Sure can.' He took one of the thick mugs off the second layer of the pyramid behind him and poured. 'Milk?'

'Just black.' He gave Drake a quarter and Drake gave him a dime out of the cigar box. 'I wanted to thank you for the other night, and I wanted to make a contribution. '

'Nothing to thank me for.'

'Yes there is. That party was what they call a bad scene. '

'Chemicals can do that. Not always, but sometimes. Some boys brought in a friend of theirs last summer who had dropped acid in the city park. The kid went into a screaming fit because he thought the pigeons were coming after him to eat him. Sounds like a Reader's Digest horror story, doesn't it?'

'The girl who gave me the mescaline said she once plunged a man's hand out of the drain. She didn't know afterwards if it really happened or not.'

'Who was she?'

'I really don't know,' he said truthfully. 'Anyway, here.' He put a roll of bills on the counter next to the cigar box. The roll was secured with a rubber band.

Drake frowned at it without touching it.

'Actually it's for this place,' he said. He was sure Drake knew that, but he needed to plug Drake's silence.

Drake unfastened the rubber band, holding the bills with his left, manipulating with that oddly scarred right. He put the rubber band aside and counted slowly.

'This is five thousand dollars,' he said.

'Yes. '

'Would you be offended if I asked you where-'

'I got it? No. I wouldn't be offended. From the sale of my house to this city. They are going to put a road through there.'

'Your wife agrees?'

'My wife has no say in the matter. We are separated. Soon to be divorced. She has her half of the sale to do with as she sees fit.'

'I see.'

Behind them, the old boozer began to hum. It was not a tune; just humming.

Drake poked moodily at the bills with his right forefinger. The comers of the bills were curled up from being rolled. 'I can't take this,' he said finally.

'Why not?'

Drake said: 'Don't you remember what we talked about?'

He did. 'I've no plans that way.'

'I think you do. A man with his feet planted in this world does not give money away on a whim.'

'This is not a whim,' he said firmly.

Drake looked at him sharply. 'What would you call it? A chance acquaintance?'

'Hell, I've given money away to people I've never seen. Cancer researchers. A Save-the-Child Foundation. A muscular dystrophy hospital in Boston. I've never been in Boston.'