Bill, Jerry and I slipped into a booth at the tavern near the plant.
Looking across the table at Jerry, I marveled at how well he was
keeping up the act, the casual off-hours good-fellowship. As for me, I
felt sure my tense nerves were showing.
While Jerry called Bill’s attention to the waitress’ walk, I droрped a
little, fast-dissolving white tablet into Bill’s drink.
As he picked it up and sipped, I felt a qualm which I ruthlessly
stifled. This test _had_ to be made. We--Jerry and I, since I’d taken
him into my confidence as a man I could trust and a wizard at organic
chemistry--had studied the lie soap formula backward and forward. We’d
analyzed samples of it I’d obtained from Grandma, and isolated--or so
we thought--the active ingredients. But we had to know, and we could
hardly experiment on animals.
Bill set down an empty glass. I grew tenser. Jerry inquired, “Another?”
and when Bill shook his head, asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar
question. “So--you’ve decided to quit lushing around, and get some work
done for a change?”
That was one of the trick questions we’d settled on--a variation of
the old “Have you stopped beating your wife?” formula. If Bill had
been quite normal, he’d have answered, “Hell no,” or, “Yeah, guess I
better,” or some answer as jocular and meaningless as the question.
But if our elixir of lie soap worked, he’d answer--with a peculiar,
embarrassed gulp of hesitation: “But I don’t lush around, and I get a
good deal of work done.”
Which was what he _did_ say. Because it was the truth, silly and
pompous as it sounded there and then.
I could see Jerry rallying himself to ask some more telling questions,
and I knew he was feeling an emotion exactly like mine--exultation
curiously mixed with shame.
Both of us realized at that moment, I guess, that it was going to mean
no more friendly kidding over a couple of beers, no more harmless
insults and bragging, no more fish stories.... But of course there’s
always a price.