realm, theologized with exquisite distinctions: 'Now wait a minute, I didn't say I was a good Mormon, I said I was a Mormon and that's what I am, a Mormon. I never said I was a good Mormon, I just said I was a Mormon, my mother was a Mormon and my father was a Mormon, and that makes me a Mormon but I never said I was a good Mormon—'
Distinguo, rolled the canonical thunder; distinguo.
Demurely a bonneted lassie shook her small-change tambourine beneath his chin and whispered, snarling: 'Galardo lied.'
Admit it; you were startled. But what need for the bartender to come running with raised hand, what need for needle-trader to your left to shrink away, the L.D.S. to cower?
'Mister, that's twice you let out a yell, we run a quiet place, if you can't be good, begone.'
Begob.
'I ash-assure you, bartender, it was—unintenable.'
Greed vies with hate; greed wins; greed always wins: 'Just keep it quiet, mister, this ain't the Bowery, this is a family place.' Then, relenting:
'The same?'
'Yes, please.' At 10:15 the patient lassie jingled silver on the parchment palm outstretched. He placed a quarter on the tambourine and asked politely: 'Did you say something to me before, Miss?'
'God bless you, sir. Yes, sir, I did say something. I said Galardo lied; the Seal is holy to the Serpent, sir, and to his humble emissaries. If you'll only hand it over, sir, the Serpent will somewhat mitigate the fearsome torments which are rightly yours for snatching the Seal from the Altar, sir.'
[Snatchings from Altars? Ma foi, the wench is mad!]
'Listen, lady. That's only talk. What annoys me about you people is, you won't talk sense. I want to know who you are, what this is about, maybe just a little hint about your mathematics, and I'll do the rest and you can have the blooming Seal. I'm a passable physicist even if I'm only a technician. I bet there's something you didn't know. I bet you didn't know the tech shortage is tighter than the scientist shortage. You get a guy can tune a magnetron, he writes his own ticket. So I'm weak on quantum mechanics, the theory side, I'm still a good all-around man and be-lieve me, the Ph.D.'s would kiss my ever-loving feet if I told them I got an offer from Argonne—
'So listen, you Janissary emissary. I'm happy right here in this necessary commissary and here I stay.'
But she was looking at him with bright frightened mouse's eyes and slipped on down the line when he paused for breath, putting out the parchment palm to others but not ceasing to watch him.
Coins tapped the tambour. 'God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.'
The raving-maniacal ghost of G. Washington Hill descended then into a girdled sibyl; she screamed from the screen: 'It's Hit Parade!'
'I like them production numbers.'
'I like that Pigalle Mackintosh.'
'I like them production numbers. Lotsa pretty girls, pretty clothes, something to take your mind off your troubles.'
'I like that Pigalle Mackintosh. She don't just sing, mind you, she plays the saxophone. Talent.'
'I like them production numbers. They show you just what the song is all about. Like last week they did Sadist Calypso with this mad scientist cutting up the girls, and then Pigalle comes in and whips him to death at the last verse, you see just what the song's all about, something to take your mind off your troubles.'
'I like that Pigalle Mackintosh. She don't just sing, mind you, she plays the saxophone and cracks a blacksnake whip, like last week hi Sadist Calypso—'
'Yeah. Something to take your mind off your troubles.'
Irritably he felt in his pocket for the Seal and moved, stumbling a little, to one of the tables against the knotty pine wall. His head slipped forward on the polished wood and he sank into the sea of myth.
Galardo came to him in his dream and spoke under a storm-green sky:
'Take your mind off your troubles, Edward. It was stolen like the first penny, like the quiz answers, like the pity for your bereavement.' His hand, a tambourine, was out.
'Never shall I yield,' he declaimed to the miserable wretch. 'By the honneur of a Gascon, I stole it fair and square; 'tis mine, knave! En garde!'
Galardo quailed and ran, melting into the sky, the altar, the tambourine.
A ham-hand manhandled him. 'Light-up time,' said Sam. 'I let you sleep because you got it here, but I got to close up now.'
'Sam,' he says uncertainly.
'One for the road, mister. On the house, t/p-sy-daisy!' meaty hooks under his armpits heaving him to the bar.
The lights are out behind the bar, the jolly neons, glittering off how many gems of amber rye and the tan crystals of beer? A meager bulb above the register is the oasis in the desert of inky night.
'Sam,' groggily, 'you don't understand. I mean I never explained it-'
'Drink up, mister,' a pale free drink, soda bubbles lightly tinged with tawny rye. A small sip to gain time.
'Sam, there are some people after me—'
'You'll feel better in the morning, mister. Drink up, I got to close up, hurry up.'
'These people, Sam [it's cold in here and scary as a noise in the attic; the bottles stand accusingly, the chrome globes that top them eye you]
these people, they've got a thing, The Century of—'
'Sure, mister, I let you sleep because you got it here, but we close up now, drink up your drink.'
'Sam, let me go home with you, will you? It isn't anything like that, don't misunderstand, I just can't be alone. These people—look, I've got money—'
He spreads out what he dug from Ms pocket.
'Sure, mister, you got lots of money, two dollars and thirty-eight cents.
Now you take your money and get out of the store because I got to lock up and clean out the register—'
'Listen, bartender, I'm not drunk, maybe I don't have much money on me but I'm an important man! Important! They couldn't run Big Maggie at Brookhaven without me, I may not have a degree but what I get from these people if you'll only let me stay here—'
The bartender takes the pale one on the house you only sipped and dumps it in the sink; his hands are iron on you and you float while he chants:
'Decent man. Decent place. Hold their liquor. Got it here. Try be nice.
Drunken bum. Don't—come—back.'
The crash of your coccyx on the concrete and the slam of the door are one.
Run!
Down the black street stumbling over cans, cats, orts, to the pool of light in the night, safe corner where a standard sprouts and sprays radiance.
The tall black figure that steps between is Galardo.
The short one has a tambourine.
'Take it!' He thrust out the Seal on his shaking palm. 'If you won't tell me anything, you won't. Take it and go away!'
Galardo inspects it and sadly says: 'Thiss appearss to be a blank washer.'
'Mistake,' he slobbers. 'Minute.' He claws in his pockets, ripping.
'Here! Here!'
The lassie squeaks: 'The wheel of a toy truck. It will not do at all, sir.'
Her glittereyes.
'Then this! This is it! This must be it!'
Their heads shake slowly. Unable to look his fingers feel the rim and rolled threading of the jar cap.
They nod together, sad and glitter-eyed, and The Century of Flame begins.
Virginia
