Callahan's Secret (8 page)

“I was coming offstage. The Purple Cat, over in Easthampton. Tripped over a cable in the dark. Knew I was going down, tried to get her out from under me. The stage there is waist-high, her head just cleared it and wedged in under the monitor speaker. Then my weight came down on her…” I was sobbing. “… and she screamed, and I..

Long-Drink wrapped me in his great long arms and hugged tight. I buried my face in his shirt and wept. Someone else hugged us both from behind me. When I was back under control, both let go and I found a drink in my hand. I gulped it gratefully.

“I hate to ask, Jake,” Callahan rumbled. “I’m afraid I already know. Is there any chance she could be fixed?”

“Tell him, Eddie.” But Eddie wasn’t there; his piano stool was empty. “All right, look, Mike: There are probably ten shops right here on Long Island that’d accept the commission and my money, and maybe an equal number who’d be honest enough to turn me away. There are maybe five real guitar-makers in the whole New York area, and they’d all tell me to forget it. There might be four Master-class artisans still alive in all of North America, and their bill would run to four figures, maybe five, assuming they thought they could save her at all.” Noah Gonzalez had removed his hat, with a view toward passing it; he put it back on. “Look at her. You can’t get wood like that anymore. She’s got a custom neck and fingerboard, skinnier’n usual, puts the strings closer together-when I play a normal guitar it’s like my fingers shrunk. So a rebuilt neck would have less strength, and the fingerboard’d have to be handmade. .

I stopped myself. I finished my drink. “Mike, she’s dead.” Long-Drink burst into tears. Callahan nodded and looked

sad, and passed me another big drink. He pouied one for himself, and he toasted the Lady, and when that barrage was over he set ‘em up for the house.

The folkn treated me right; we had a proper Irish wake for the Lady, and it got pretty drunk out. We laughed and danced and reminisced and swapped lies, created grand~ toasts; everyone did it up nice. The only thing it lacked was Eddie o,n the piano; he had disappeared and none knew where. But a wake for Lady Macbeth must include the voice of her long-time colleague-so Callahan surprised us all by sitting down and turning out some creditable barreihouse. I hadn’t known he could play a note, and I’d have sworn his fingers were too big to hit only one key at a time, but he did okay.

Anyhow, when the smoke cleared, Pyotr ended up driving better than half of us home, in groups of three-a task I wouldn’t wish on my senator.

I guess I should explain about Pyotr….

The thing about a joint like Callahan’s Place is that it could not possibly function without the cooperation of all its patrons. It takes a lot of volunteer effort to make the Place work the way it does.

Some of this is obvious. Clearly, if a barkeep is going to allow his patrons’to smash their empties in the fireplace, they must all be responsible enough to exercise prudence in this pursuit-and furthermore they must have better than average aim.. But perhaps it is not obvious, and so I should mention, that there is a broom-and-scoop set on either side of the hearth, and whenever an occasional wild shard ncochets across the room, one of those broom-and-scoops just naturally finds its way into the hands of whoever happens to be nearest, without anything being said.

Similarly, if you like a parking lot in which anarchy reigns, with cars parked every which way like goats in a pen, you must all be prepared to pile outside together six or ten times a night, and back-and-fill in series until whoever is trying to leave can get his car out. This recurring scene looks rather like a grand-scale Chinese Fire Drill, or perhaps like Bumper Cars for Grownups; Doc Webster points out that to a Martian it would probably look like some vast robot orgy, and insists on referring to it as Auto-Eroticism.

Then there’s closing ritual. Along about fifteen minutes before closing, somebody, usually Fast Eddie Costigan the piano player, comes around to all the tables with a big plasticlined trash barrel. Each table has one of those funnel-and-tincan ashtrays; someone at each table unscrews it and dumps the butts into the barrel. Then Eddie inserts two corners of the plastic tablecloth into the barrel, the customer lifts the other two corners into the air, and Eddie sluices off the cloth with a seltzer bottle. Other cleanup jobs, mopping and straightening and the like, just seem to get done by somebody or other every night; all Mike Callahan ever had to do is polish the bartop, turn out the lights and go home. Consequently, although he is scrupulous about ceasing. to sell booze at legal curfew, Mike is in no hurry to chase his friends out, and indeed I know of several occasions on which he kept the Place open round the clock, giving away nosepaint until the hour arrived at which it became legal to sell it again.

And finally, of course, there’s old Pyotr. You see, no one tight drives home from Callahan’s bar. When Mike decides that you’ve had enough-and they’ll never make a Breathalyzer as accurate as his professional judgment-the only way in the world you will get another drink from him is to surrender your car keys and then let Pyotr, who drinks only distilled water, drive you home when you fold. The next morning you drive Pyotr back to his cottage, which is just up the street from Callahan’s, and if this seems like too much trouble, you can always go drink somewhere else and see what that gets you.

For the first couple of years after Pyotr started coming around, some of us used to wonder what he got out of the arrangement. None of us ever managed to get him to accept so much as a free breakfast the morning after, and how do you buy a drink for a man who drinks distilled water? Oh, Mike gave him the water for free, but a gallon or so of

water a night is pretty poor wages for all the hours of driving Pyotr put in, in the company of at least occasionally troublesome drunks, not to mention the inconvenience of spending manynights sleeping on a strange bed or couch or floor. (Some of the boys, and especially the ones who want to get pie-eyed once in a while, are married. Almost to a woman, their wives worship Pyotr; are happy to put him up now and then.)

For that matter, none of us could ever figure out what old Pyotr did for a living. He never had to be anywhere at any particular time next morning, and he was never late arriving at Callahan’s. If asked what he did he would say, “Oh, a little bit of everything, whenever I can get it,”, and drop the subject. Yet he nçver seemed to be in need of money, and in all the time I knew him I never once saw him take so much as a peanut from the Free Lunch.

(In Callahan’s Place there is a free lunch-supported by donations. The value of the change in the jar is almost always greater than the value of the Free Lunch next to it, but nobody watches to make sure it stays that way. I mind me of a bad two weeks when that Free Lunch was the only protein I had, and nobody so much as frowned at me.)

But while he is a bit on the pale side for a man of Middle European stock, Pyotr certainly never looks undernourished, and so there was never any need for us to pry into his personal affairs. Me, I figured him for some kind of a pensioner with a streak of pure altruism, and let it go.

He certainly looks old enough to be a pensioner. Oh, he’s in very good shape for his age, and not overly afflicted with wrinkles, but his complexion has that old-leather look. And when you notice his habit of speaking into his cupped hand, and hear the slight lisp in his speech, and you realize that his smiles never seem to pry his lips apart, you get the idea that he’s missing some bridgework. And there’s something old about his eyes….

Anyway, Pyotr was busier than usual that night, ferrying home all the casualties of Lady Macbeth’s wake. It took

quite a while. He took three at a time, using the vehicle of whoever lived furthest away, and taxied back for the next load. Two out of every three drunks would have to taxi back to Callahan’s the next day for their cars. I was proud of the honor being paid my dead Lady. Pyotr and Callahan decided to save me for last. Perhaps on the principle that the worst should come last-I was pissed, and at the stage of being offensively cheerful and hearty. At last all the other wounded had been choppered out, and Pyotr tapped me on one weaving shoulder.

“So they weld-well bell, hi, Pyotr, wait a half while I finish telling Mike this story-they weld manacles on this giant alien, and they haul him into court for trial, and the first thing he does, they go to swear him in and he swallows the bailiff whole.”

Mike had told me this gag, but he is a very compassiotiate man. He relit his cheroot and gave me the straight line, “What’d the bailiff do?’

“His job, o’course-he swore, in the witness. Haw hew!” Pyotr joined in the polite laughter and took my arm. “Time to bottle it up, Pyotr you old lovable Litvak? Time to scamper, is it? Why should you have to haul my old ashes, huh? Gimme my keys, Mike, I’m not nearly so drunk as you think-I mean, so thunk as you drink. Shit, I said it right, I must be drink. All right, just let me find my pants-“

It took both of them to get me to the car. I noticed that every time one of my feet came unstuck from the ground, it seemed to take enormous effort to force it back down again. A car seat leaped up and hit me in the ass, and a door slammed. “Make sure he takes two aspirins before he passes out for good,” Callahan’s voice said from a mile away.

“Right,” Pyotr said from only a few blocks distant, and my old Pontiac woke up grumbling. The world lurched suddenly, and we fell off a cliff, landing a million years later in white water. I felt nausea coming on, chattered merrily to stave it off.

“Splendid business, Pyotr old sock, absolutionally magnelephant. You drive well, and this car handles well on ice, but if you keep spinning like this we’re going to deed up in the itch-mean, we’ll rote off the ride, right? Let’s go to the Brooldyn Navy Yard and try to buy a drink for every sailor on the U.S.S. Missouri-as a songwriter I’m always hoping to find the Moe juiced. Left her right there on the bartop, by all the gods! Jus’ left her and-turn around, God damn it, Heft my Lady back there!”

“It is all right, Jake. Mr. Callahan will leave her locked up. We will wake her for several days, correct Irish custom, yes? Even those not present tonight should have opportunity to pay their respects.”

“Hell, yeah, sure. Hey! Funeral. How? Bury or cremate?”

“Cremation would seem appropriate.”

“Strings? Gearboxes? Heavy metal air pollution? Fuggolf. Bury her, dissolve in acid,’ heave her into the ocean off Montauk Point and let the fish lay eggs in her sounding box. Know why I called her Lady Macbeth?’

“No, I never knew.”

“Used to sneak up and stab me inna back when didn’t expect it. Bust a string, go out of tune, start to buzz on the high frets for no reason at all. Treacherous bitch. Oh, Lady!”

“You used each other well, Jake. Be glad. Not many have ever touched so fine an instrument.”

“Goddam right. Stop the car, please. I want to review inputs.”

“Open the window.”

“I’ll get it all over the-“

“It’s raining. Go ahead.”

“Oh. Not sure I like Finn’s magic. Have to pay attention to notice it’s raining. Right ho. Oh.”

Eventually the car stopped complaining and rain sprinkled everything but Pyotr and me and then my house opened up and swallowed me. “Forget aspirins,” I mumbled as my bed rushed at me. “Don’ need ‘em.”

“You’ll be sorry tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry now.”

The bed and I went inertialess together, spun end over end across the macrocosmic Universe.

I was awakened by the deafening thunder of my pulse.

I knew that I was awake long before I had the power to raise my eyelids. I knew it because I knew I lacked the imagination to dream a taste like that in my mouth. But I was quite prepared to believe that the sleep had lasted at least a century; I felt old. That made me wonder if I had snored right through the wake-the wake! Everything came back in a rush; I flung open my eyes, and two large icicles were rammed into the apertures as far as they would go, the points inches deep in my forebrain. I screamed. That is, I tried to scream, and it sounded like a scream-but my pulse sounded like an empty oil tank being hit with a maul, so more likely what I did was bleat or whimper.

Something heavy and bristly lay across me; it felt like horsehair, with the horse still attached. I strained at it, could not budge it. I wept.

The voice spoke in an earsplitting whisper. “Good morning, Jake.”

“Fuck you too,” I croaked savagely, wincing as the smell of my breath went past my nose.

“I warned you,” Pyotr said sadly.

“Fuck you twice. Jesus, my eyelashes hurt. What is lying on me?”

“A cotton sheet.”

“Gaah.”

“You should have accepted the aspirins.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t get hangovers.”

Pyotr made no reply.

“Damn it, I don’t! Not even when I was a lush, not the first time I ever got smashed, not ever. Trick metabolism. Worst that ever happens is I wake up not hungry-but no head, no nausea, no weakness, never.”

Pyotr was silent a long time. Then, “You drank a good deal more than usual last night.”

“Hell, I been dninker’n that. Too many times, man.”

“Never since I have known you.”

“Well, that’s true. Maybethat’s… no, I’ve fallen off the wagon before. I just don’t get hangovers.”

He left the room, was gone awhile. I passed the time working on a comprehensive catalog of all the places that hurt, beginning with my thumbnails. I got quite a lot of work done before Pyotr returned; I had gotten halfway through the hairs on my forearms when he came in the door with a heavily laden tray in his hands. I opened my mouth to scream, “Get that
food out of here!”-and the smell reached me. I sat up and began to salivate. He set the tray down on my lap and I ignored the pain and annihilated bacon, sausage, eggs, cheese, onions, green peppers, hot peppers, bread, butter, English muffms, jam, orange juice, coffee, and assorted condiments so fast I think I frightened him a little. When I sank back against the pillows the tray contained a plate licked clean, an empty cup and glass, and a fork. I was exhausted, and still hurt in all the same places-that is, in all places-but I was beginning to believe that I wanted to live. “This is crazy,” I said. “If I am hung over, the concept of fo
d ought to be obscene. I never ate that much breakfast in my life, not even the morning after my wedding night.”