suggested authority nonetheless.
“No, sir.” Guitar answered him over his shoulder.
“Then what, pray, are you doing out here in the streets at this time of day?”
Guitar shrugged. “We just took a day off, Mr. Tommy.”
“And your companion? Is he on sabbatical too?”
Guitar nodded. Hospital Tommy talked like an encyclopedia and Guitar had to guess at most of his words. Milkman kept looking at the cars going by.
“Neither one of you appears to be having much fun on your holiday. You could have stayed in the halls of academe and looked evil.”
Guitar fished for a cigarette and offered one to Milkman. “Feather made me mad is all.”
“Feather?”
“Yeah. He wouldn’t let us in. I go in there all the time. All the time and he don’t say nothing. But today he throws us out. Said my friend here is too young. Can you beat that? Feather? Worrying about somebody’s age?”
“I didn’t know Feather had so much as a brain cell to worry with.”
“He don’t. Just showing off is all. He wouldn’t even let me have a bottle of beer.”
Railroad Tommy laughed softly from the doorway. “Is that all? He wouldn’t let you have a beer?” He rubbed the back of his neck and then crooked a finger at Guitar. “Come over here, boy, and let me tell you about some other stuff you are not going to have. Come on over here.”
Reluctantly they stood up and sidled closer to the laughing man.
“You think that’s something? Not having a beer? Well, let me ask you something. You ever stood stock still in the galley of the Baltimore and Ohio dining car in the middle of the night when the kitchen closed down and everything’s neat and ready for the next day? And the engine’s highballing down the track and three of your buddies is waiting for you with a brand-new deck of cards?”
Guitar shook his head. “No, I never…”
“That’s right, you never. And you never going to. That’s one more thrill you not going to have, let alone a bottle of beer.”
Guitar smiled. “Mr. Tommy,” he began, but Tommy cut him off.
“You ever pull fourteen days straight and come home to a sweet woman, clean sheets, and a fifth of Wild Turkey? Eh?” He looked at Milkman. “Did you?”
Milkman smiled and said, “No, sir.”
“No? Well, don’t look forward to it, cause you not going to have that either.”
Hospital Tommy drew a pinfeather toothpick from under his smock. “Don’t tease the boy, Tommy.”
“Who’s teasing? I’m telling him the truth. He ain’t going to have it. Neither one of ’em going to have it. And I’ll tell you something else you not going to have. You not going to have no private coach with four red velvet chairs that swivel around in one place whenever you want ’em to. No. And you not going to have your own special toilet and your own special-made eight-foot bed either. And a valet and a cook and a secretary to travel with you and do everything you say. Everything: get the right temperature in your hot-water bottle and make sure the smoking tobacco in the silver humidor is fresh each and
A few men passing by stopped to listen to Tommy’s lecture. “What’s going on?” they asked Hospital Tommy.
“Feather refused them a beer,” he said. The men laughed.
“And
“No baked Alaska?” Guitar opened his eyes wide with horror and grabbed his throat. “You breaking my heart!”
“Well, now. That’s something you will have—a broken heart.” Railroad Tommy’s eyes softened, but the merriment in them died suddenly. “And folly. A whole lot of folly. You can count on it.”
“Mr. Tommy, suh,” Guitar sang in mock humility, “we just wanted a bottle of beer is all.”
“Yeah,” said Tommy. “Yeah, well, welcome aboard.”
“What’s a baked Alaska?” They left the Tommys just as they had found them and continued down Tenth Street.
“Something sweet,” answered Guitar. “A dessert.”
“Taste good?”
“I don’t know. I can’t eat sweets.”
