* * * * *
You know how it is? Double bourbons and keep them coming. And after a
while the bartender stops bringing me the ginger ale because gradually I
forget to mix them. I got pretty loaded long before I left New York. I
realize that. I guess I had to get pretty loaded to risk the pension and
all.
Used to be I didn't drink much, but now, I don't know, when I have one
drink, I get to thinking about Sam and Wally and Chowderhead and Gilvey
and the captain. If I don't drink, I think about them, too, and then I
take a drink. And that leads to another drink, and it all comes out to
the same thing. Well, I guess I said it already, I drink a pretty good
amount, but you can't blame me.
There was a girl.
I always get a girl someplace. Usually they aren't much and this one
wasn't either. I mean she was probably somebody's mother. She was around
thirty-five and not so bad, though she had a long scar under her ear
down along her throat to the little round spot where her larynx was. It
wasn't ugly. She smelled nice--while I could still smell, you know--and
she didn't talk much. I liked that. Only--
Well, did you ever meet somebody with a nervous cough? Like when you say
something funny--a little funny, not a big yock--they don't laugh and
they don't stop with just smiling, but they sort of cough? She did that.
I began to itch. I couldn't help it. I asked her to stop it.
She spilled her drink and looked at me almost as though she was
scared--and I had tried to say it quietly, too.
"Sorry," she said, a little angry, a little scared. "_Sorry._ But you
don't have to--"
"Forget it."
"Sure. But you asked me to sit down here with you, remember? If you're
going to--"
"_Forget it!_" I nodded at the bartender and held up two fingers. "You
need another drink," I said. "The thing is," I said, "Gilvey used to do
that."
"What?"
"That cough."