Art didn't know. He had been driving along and--that was it. The car
was in the garage with nothing left between the radiator and the
firewall and Freddie was trying to get something out of the insurance
company. Fat chance, too, with that bunch of pirates. We'd all had
experience with that sort of thing, hadn't we? Why--someone at the
other end of the bar wanted some service and Art left. I sat back and
began to add two and two. I got five.
Art came back and grinned at me. "You're not going to like this,
Pete."
"What won't I like?"
"This," and a man in coveralls shouldered me aside and set a cobra on
the bar in front of me, a snake with a twelve inch tube. Art went on
to explain: "They're giving me a loaner until my own set gets back and
they don't want to plug it in the usual place until they get a chance
to completely check the wiring. Okay?"
It had to be okay. It wasn't my place of business. I moved down a bit
and watched the serviceman plug it in. He tried the channels for
clarity and without warning flipped the volume control all the way
over and the whole building shook. I shook, too, like a bewildered
Labrador throwing off an unwanted splash of icy water. The top of my
head lifted from its moorings and shifted just enough for me to name
that infernal serviceman and all his issue. He just sat there and
grinned, making no attempt to tone down the set. Then I said what I
thought about his television, and the set went quiet. Like that.
It began to smoke and the serviceman began to shuck tools from his
box. Art opened his mouth to yell and I walked out the front door.
The High Hat, right across the street, would serve to keep me warm
until the smoke and profanity was cleared and Art had the repairman
under control.
I knew it! They had a jukebox inside the door with the same twenty top
tunes of the week, the same gaudy front with the same swirling lights
and the same tonsillectomied tenors. I shuddered as I eased by, and I
murmured a heartfelt wish over my shoulder, something about the best
place for that machine. I ordered a beer, a short one. The barkeep, a
pleasant enough fellow, but with none of Art's innate joviality, rang
up the dime.
"You didn't happen to pull the cord out when you walked by, did you?"
"Pull the cord out of what?"
He didn't bother to answer, and went over to the machine. That was the
first I realized the music had stilled. He clicked the switch on and
off a few times with no result, and went to the telephone, detouring
by way of the cash register to pick up a coin. Thoughtfully sipping my
beer I heard him dial and report a jukebox out of order. Then a relay
clicked in the back of my head.
Could all this be a coincidence? Could be.... Couldn't be! The beer
grew warm in my hand as I remembered. Every time I'd wished, really
really wished, something had happened. Now that I had time to think it
over I remembered that red rotor spinning madly past my eyes, that
horrible hatred and afterward, that sated sense of fulfillment....
Better have another beer and forget it, Pete. Better make it two
beers. Maybe three.
The High Hat sold me a lot more than two beers, or three. When I left
there, although I was walking a mental chalkline I had a little
trouble lighting a cigarette in the chill breeze. I didn't bother
going back to Art's. Art was all right, and there was no sense in
making trouble for a pal. Harry, now. He was a stinker. Go put the
needle in Harry, two blocks away.
While Harry was drawing the beer I walked string straight to the
jukebox, clicked in a quarter, and stalked back to the barstool. Turn
your back, Pete, just as though you didn't know perfectly well what
was going to happen. Now take a tasty sip of your beer, wait for the
noise to start.... Take a deep breath, now; Pete Miller, saviour of
man's sanity. I closed my eyes and pretended to be covering a yawn.
"Tubes," I whispered, "do your stuff. Blow that horn, Gabriel--go
ahead and--blow!"
The jukebox moaned as far as the first eight bars; I got my quarter
back from a puzzled Harry; I listened to Harry call his repairman; I
finished my beer; I got outside and almost around the corner before I
began laughing like a hyena; I got to bed snickering and went to sleep
the same way; and I woke up with a headache.
Hammering presses the next day I treated with the contempt of long
practice. One single theme kept rolling around like a pea in a
washtub; just what had happened to that television set and those
jukeboxes? And what had made a fairly new eight-cylinder almost
disintegrate, apparently on command? Agreed, that coincidence has a
mighty long arm, but hardly long enough to scratch its own elbow.
Forty years old and a superman? One way to find out. Let's go at this
cold sober. Let's scratch this shiny new rubber band until it snaps.
* * * * *
At three-thirty I was first in line at the timeclock, second out the
gate, and fourth or fifth to line up at the National Bar. "Aspirin and
ginger ale," I ordered, and got a knowing grin from the barkeep.
Laugh, buddy. You may think I feel bad now, but wait and see what
happens to your bangbox. I dare someone to put in a nickel; I
double-dare you. That's it--pick a good number from one to twenty and
go back to your stool and sit down. Take it easy, now, Pete. Don't
strain, don't press, no slugging in the clinches, and break clean. The
place needs a good airing, anyway, and the floor could use a new
broom, too. Bubble, bubble, go for double ... no more music. No more
noise. Smoke, you boiler factory, smoke! Hey, somebody, pull that
plug. Not that one, _that_ one. Pull it out. Pull it out! _Pull it
out!_
* * * * *
Finally someone did pull it out, someone chattered excitedly into the
telephone, and I slid out the front door when the fire engines were
wailing blocks away. Coincidence, hey. And cold sober, too. I stood on
the curb and watched the firemen dash in and straggle out. Dirty trick
to break up a pinochle game in weather like this. Four red-eyed
crimson giants snorted and whined their blunt noses back into the
clogged traffic, back to wait another call. Three buses were sentinels
at the safety zone, and one of them took me home to dinner. This was
on a Friday, the night for the Olsens, next door, to have their weekly
sangerbund. When Helen shook me into wakefulness the party was going
strong.
"Pete, will you wake up? You know perfectly well when you hear me!"