That keeps on, Monday through Friday at five-ten p.m., year in and
year out. He slips in, peers around, has his beer, and pops out. Even
in '33, when we become legitimate, he acts the same way--scared of his
shadow. Except he isn't big enough to have a shadow.
During the war, when we're rationed, I save him his daily glass. He
never fails to come in except for two weeks every summer when he's on
vacation. From 1922 to 1953 he drinks one daily beer.
In thirty-one years, he and I grow older together, and after the first
ten he talks a little so that over a period of time I manage to learn
something about him. That first day he'd come in, he was on his first
job out of college. Well, so was I, only I went to bartending school
to learn how to mix prohibition liquor. But even so, it gave us
something in common, and when he learned we had started life
together--as he put it--he talked a little more.
His name is Pettis. Six months after I learn that, I get his first
name. It's Rabelais, and I could see why he doesn't like it. But when
he breaks down and tells me, he gets real bold and says:
"And what's yours, my male Hebe?"
"Mike Murphy."
"Naturally," he said. He laughs. It is the only time I hear him laugh
in thirty-one years. I can't see anything funny.
He is a draftsman for those old skinflints Cartner and Dillson. When
they die, their sons take over and are even worse. In the depression,
Pettis gets a little shabby but he always has the price of a glass of
beer. In '53 he's at the same desk and doing the same job he started
on in '22.
In '35 he gets married. He tells me so. Tasting his beer, he says,
"I'll be married this time tomorrow." I often wonder what his wife
looks like but I never see her. Not even when it gets decent for
ladies to come in, she never shows. Marriage doesn't seem to change
him; he never looks happier or less shabby or less browbeat.
In '42 I heard his first complaint. By then we're both getting into
our forties and, what with his lack of size and caved-in chest and my
insides all busted up from pre-World War I football, the army doesn't
want us. So he never misses a day except on his vacation.
He says, "I can't get raw materials." About three months later, I
understand what he means when he says, "My hobby is inventing."