‘Something like that, yes. I wonder whatever became of it.’
‘It closed this very year. The Flange, that was the guy who ran it, retired to Brentford in England to pursue a sacred quest of his – to create The Lounge Room of Christ, to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus.’
‘That is, perhaps, a little bit more than I can take in at the moment. Although I do think he might have talked about that. Although it’s getting a bit hazy now. But then, I suppose it was over eight years ago.’
The barman went off to serve some normal people. I picked up a copy of American Hero Today magazine from the bar top and gave its cover a good looking over. It was the March edition for nineteen seventy-seven. I gulped down some more Kentucky bourbon and made a mournful face. What was I going to do now? Where was I going to go? I supposed I could assume that Papa Crossbar wasn’t going to have me killed. But, I supposed also, that it was he who had done this to me somehow. Through voodoo? I didn’t know, but somehow. But perhaps I was free of him. Because what was I going to do, expose him? Tell everyone what I knew about him?
What, a mad boy with a defective memory? The more I thought about this, the more it all fell into place. In a weird and twisted fashion.
And I wondered, and I feared, too, just what had been happening during these missing years. Was most of the world now dead? How far had the bad things gone? I rubbed my hands at my temples. If I wasn’t careful, I might soon become a truly mad boy.
And mad boy? Had I aged? That was an interesting one. I took myself off to the toilet, which hadn’t really changed much. But for the bowl of flowers and the nail brushes. I examined myself in the mirror. I hadn’t changed at all. Which meant that although nearly nine years had passed for the rest of the world, they had not done so for me.
So what did that make me? Something special? Someone special? I liked the idea of that. Although I suppose I had always considered myself to be someone special. So this was confirmation, really, wasn’t it? In fact, perhaps God had done this, and not Papa Crossbar. I liked the idea of that.
And I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. ‘I am really, truly messed up here,’ I told it. ‘My thinking is all out of kilter. I’m lost and alone and falling to pieces.’ And I gazed some more at my reflection. But my reflection did not have anything to say on the matter, so I returned to the bar.
The barman was awaiting my return.
‘That’s him,’ he said to the fellow standing beside him. A burly, useful-looking fellow dressed in a doorman’s livery.
‘I don’t want any trouble,’ I said. ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go.’
‘I don’t want you to go,’ said the useful-looking one. ‘I have a message for you.’
‘You do?’ I said, reseating myself. ‘Do you think you might pass it to me, along with the double bourbon on the rocks that you have most generously purchased for me?’
‘That, I think, can be done.’ The useful one nodded to the barman, who returned to his place behind the bar and did the necessary business.
‘I’ll have the same,’ said the useful one. And the same was also dispensed.
My drink was pushed in my direction and I gratefully accepted it.
‘Drink up,’ said the fellow, and I did so. ‘Now then,’ said the fellow. ‘The message.’
And I said, ‘Yes, go on please, the message?’
‘Your name is?’ asked the fellow.
‘Tyler,’ I told him, and he nodded.
‘Tyler, yes, it is you. He said that one day you would return here and that you would probably be rather confused. And that I was to give you this.’ And he withdrew from an inner jacket pocket a very dog-eared envelope. ‘I’ve carried it with me since nineteen sixty-nine. He said you’d come back sooner or later and now you have.’
‘Who said I’d come back?’ I asked.
‘Mr Ishmael,’ said the fellow. ‘Oh, and he said that the future of humanity rested upon you receiving this letter. And that I wasn’t ever to open it, just wait until you turned up and give it to you.’
I looked this fellow up and down. ‘And he told you that, and you have had the letter in your possession for all these years and never opened it to see what was inside?’
The fellow nodded. ‘That is so.’
‘And you really never opened it?’
‘No,’ said the fellow. ‘Never, ever, I swear.’
‘But why?’
The fellow made the face of fear. ‘Have you ever met Mr Ishmael?’ he asked.
44
I took the envelope from him and he sighed. Deeply. Very deeply, he sighed. And then he made a joyful face and shouted, ‘I am free! I am free!’ And he ran from the hotel bar. Somewhat madly.
Leaving his drink. To which I helped myself.
‘I shouldn’t let you steal his drink,’ said the barman, ‘but I will turn a blind eye to it if you let me see the contents of that letter. That doorman has sat on that letter for so long, like a lady hawk on a nest. It’s nearly driven him insane. But he wouldn’t open it. He’d been told not to and he did what he was told. Have you ever met this Mr Ishmael character?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have.’
‘So open up the letter, let’s have a look.’
I glanced up at the barman. ‘If you will stand me drinks in this bar until I want no more, I will.’
‘It’s a done deal.’ The barman stuck out his hand for a shake and I shook it.
‘Then let’s have a look inside,’ I said. And I opened the envelope. There was a sheet of paper inside, good quality vellum. And a message, handwritten, upon it.
Dear Tyler (it read)
If you are reading this, then it means that you survived your encounter with Papa Crossbar. And if this is the case, then it means that I chose wisely when I chose you. I have orchestrated your life since you were a child, and for one purpose only: that together we may thwart the plans of the Evil One. You and I, together. Do not return to England. Feel free to call your family and tell them that you are alive, but do not return to England. Your future lies here. There is much that I will explain to you, but not yet. You will not know at this moment what you should do next. So have a drink and give it a moment and it will come to you. As if delivered. As if it was meant to be. I enclose a one-hundred-dollar bill. Use it unwisely.
Yours sincerely
Mr Ishmael
And there was a one-hundred-dollar bill enclosed in the envelope.
The barman examined it. ‘It’s real,’ he said. ‘Real as real.’
‘And why wouldn’t it be?’ I asked him.
‘Well.’ The barman took up the letter again. Because he had been reading it with me. ‘This is pretty far-out stuff. You coming in here, thinking it’s nineteen sixty-nine. And this letter. I mean, “thwart the plans of the Evil One”. That’s not the kind of line you hear every day. Except, perhaps, down on East 2001 Street, the Science Fiction Quarter.’
‘There isn’t really a Science Fiction Quarter in New York, is there?’ I asked the barman.
‘No, not really,’ he said.
‘I thought not.’
‘It’s in San Francisco.’
‘And that’s not true either, is it?’
The barman shook his head. ‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘I was just trying to big-up my part a bit. If you are some kind of Saviour of All Mankind, then just being in the same room as you and talking to you is probably going to be one of the most significant things in my life.’
