The Ninth Wave (18 page)

Mike remembered the name. The relay team had broken the world's record
and he could remember the faces of the men in the pages of the "Los
Angeles Times."
"You don't have to prove anything to me," Mike said. "I believe you." He
pushed the heap of credentials back with the golden key glittering on top,
but Allbright did not pick them up. "You want a drink?" Mike asked.
"Of course. Larry," he yelled to the bartender, "bring us three beers." He
turned back to Connie and Mike. "I only drink beer. That is after the
first three or four days of a bat. At first I drink whisky to get me up
on the level I want to maintain, then I coast along on beer. You know,
that's the real secret of being a drunk. Those people that are always
passing out, stumbling around. They aren't real drunks. They drink
too much too fast and they don't really like being drunk; they don't
understand it. The secret is to get just enough booze into your system
so you're not sick and still not sober. Then you glide along on that
amount. You have to calculate how much alcohol your system is burning
up and then replace that. Once you have yourself really boozed up it is
surprising how little it takes. I calculate for myself; I've got a high
metabolic rate, that is about three beers an hour. But most people when
they get tight feel so good that they think that more will make them feel
better, and they take some more and they get sick or pass out." He stopped
and laughed. "I talk a lot don't I? That's all right; people should talk
more. They don't want us to talk. Those people in Washington and New York
don't want us to talk, they just want us to read the crap they put in
the papers. They're afraid we'll talk and discover what they're doing to
us. Get married, screw your heads off, have big families, they say, but
don't talk. Just read our newspapers, read what we write for you. Work
eight hours a day, raise a family so Roosevelt can get their ass shot
off in a war. Well, not me. I come down here and talk. I find things out."
"Are you married?" Mike asked.
"It's funny," the man said ignoring Mike's question, "when I get drunk
I never think of running off to a woman, I never think of sex. It's kind
of pure asceticism; the only kind of anchorite we have today is the real,
systematic drunk. It's a calling." He paused. "What did you say?"
"I asked it you were married."
"Sure I'm married. Got a fine wife and three kids . . . all boys. Pillar
of the community. Wife from a rich San Francisco family. Look, I'm a
respectable man. I could go up to the Palace Hotel or the St. Francis
and walk in the men's bar and I would know half the people there. They
would all be friends of mine. Dull, silly bastards though. I wouldn't
want to see them. They hate me, I hate them." He paused a moment, a look
of recollection went over his face. "I fooled them all. They all
thought I married the girl for her money and that she married me for
my body. They were right that far. But I beat 'em at their own game. I
borrowed twenty thousand from my wife's father. Went into the stock and
bond business. Aimed at the small buyer, delivered sales in beautiful
envelopes by motorcycle messenger. I've got business all over San
Francisco and the Peninsula. God, how it grieves my wife to see her
name on cheap, loud little motorcycles. You ever seen one? Allbright is
painted on the side-car."
Mike had seen dozens of them.
"Oh, I've made lots of money and they all hate me for it. I don't give a
damn. Every few months I go on a bat; come down here and get drunk and
then wander around talking to people like those men at the bar. Look,
I could do anything. I could be a successful politician, a writer, a
businessman, a flyer. But hell with it. Them and their lousy world. All
I want to do is just to be left alone and have the chance to talk with
people like those over at the bar."
Connie's eyes glowed with admiration. Mike looked at her and then back
at Allbright.
"You're talking to the wrong people, friend," Mike said. "We'd like to
be in the world you're running away from."
"Not me. I wouldn't," Connie said. "If I were a man I'd do just what
you're doing, Mr. Allbright. Really I would."
"I just wanted to come over and puncture your balloon," Allbright said. "I
saw you were college kids thinking you were doing something daring and I
wanted to give you the other side. I'll go back to my buddies now. Back
to that snug world of the alcoholic." He did not stand up. "It surprises
you to hear a drunk talk about drunkenness, doesn't it? You think I ought
to be ashamed of it. But it's a calling, a dedication. And I'm dedicated
to it. When I get drunk I practice it twenty-four hours a day. Never have
to sleep, hardly eat anything. Just drink my three beers an hour and talk
with my friends. I'm not apologizing for it; I'm proud of it.
"I'll tell you what it's like," he went on. "It's like one of those
motion pictures you see of people underwater; everything is slowed down
and wavy, big black figures that look dangerous turn out to be nothing
but harmless little fish. And everything has its edges softened, turned
green and soft." He picked up his glass of beer, held it up before
them. "All of that comes out of this glass. That god damned miserable
world of Montgomery Street and Pacific Heights and stocks and bonds and
a clinging bitchy wife and snot-nosed kids are all washed away by the
bubbling beer. It's all gone. All of that dirty rotten system." He smiled
benignly at Connie and Mike. He poked his finger into the glass of beer,
held the wet finger up in the air. "Here is the only reality left in a
god damn phony world." He put the finger in his mouth and licked it clean.
"You're right," Connie said. "You've got more courage than most of us. The
rest of us are all wrapped up in habits and mores and customs. We're
frightened. We just go along doing what we are told and never stop to
take a hard look at our lives or at our culture."
She said it like a prepared speech that a person might prepare for a
college recitation, but her eyes were liquid with intensity.
"You're right," Allbright said and his face broke out in a grin. "You're
absolutely right." With his hand he rubbed at a corner of his eye,
disturbed the triangle of white sleep so that it came to rest on the
bridge of his nose. He gulped the rest of the beer down and ordered
another round.
"See, I could be a success if I wanted to," he went on. "But not on their
terms. That's not being a success, that's being a god damned slave. I've
escaped them; they can't catch me in their lousy system." His voice
went crafty. "And if they push me too far, or if the booze starts to
wear out or my kidneys or bladder give out there's always a way out."
"There is?" Connie asked.
"Sure there is," he said and his voice swooped up in triumph. "I'll
just step off the Golden Gate Bridge and end it all. It's as simple as
that. Or as complicated as that. You're not really free unless you have
the courage to take your life . . . if you know you have that courage
then you can live a free life. I mean a really free life."
Connie's eyes glowed with admiration. She licked her lips.
"You shouldn't talk like that," she said. "You have so much to
contribute."
"Contribute? Contribute to who?" Allbright asked. "My wife who is a
crazy bitch, my kids who don't have a clue to what is going to happen
to them, my lousy father-in-law? Larry, bring us another round. And
make mine a muscatel boilermaker." He looked at Mike. "When I talk
my metabolic rate goes up. Have to stoke away more booze to keep the
alcohol content up. That's the art, see . . . just keeping the alcohol
level at the right place."
"Yes, you told us that before," Mike said.
Allbright looked slyly at Mike and when Mike stared back at him he winked.
When the waiter brought the drinks, Allbright took a gulp out of his
glass of beer and then poured the glass of muscatel in the beer. The
heavy wine swirled redly through the yellow bubbles of the beer. Allbright
mixed it with his finger until the glass was an even pink color.
"Connie, we have to go," Mike said.
"Right now?" Connie asked.
"Right now."
"Where are you golng?" Allbright asked.
"Down the Peninsula to Palo Alto," Mike said.
"I'll go with you," Allbright said. He raised his hand as if to stop a
protest. "Now don't get me wrong. I'm no bore. I'll just ride along with
you and when I get to Palo Alto I'll visit some friends. I've got friends
all over. Couple of nice bars down there where I know everybody. I'll
spend a day or two down there. You won't be stuck with me. That's what you
thought, eh?" he pointed a gleeful finger at Mike and chuckled. "Well,
you're wrong; I just want a ride. I don't give a damn where I go. Booze
is my friend, understand? I don't care where I wind up. Don't worry about
money either. I've got plenty." He took out his wallet and showed them
a sheaf of twenty-dollar bills.
Allbright got up and went to the bar. He ordered another muscatel
boilermaker and drank it off. When he came back his walk was unsteady;
as he sat down his hand pawed the air in slight searching jerks as he
felt for the chair.
"O.K. Let's go," Allbright said.
"This is fun," Connie said.
They went out and got in Connie's car and Mike drove. As they drove
along, Allbright told them about how he had broken training during the
'32 Olympics and wound up-with half of the relay team in a Mexican
whorehouse in Tijuana. The coach found them and drove them back to
Los Angeles with their heads hanging out of the car, changed them into
running clothes and broke the world record.
Suddenly, through the haze of beer and wine, something came to Mike. It
was at the very edge of his mind, it lacked words, but it was sharp and
clear cut. Somehow the idea would give part of the final answer, would
shape-up confusion. He looked over at Allbright and Connie. He licked
his lips and when he came to Tenth Street he turned right and went out
Van Ness instead of heading for the Bayshore.
"First world record, betcha, that was ever broken under the influence
of alcohol," Allbright said. "Betcha. But it was fun."
"All that honor at an early age is probably what made it possible for
you to rise above the clamor of the crowd now," Mike said. "You've been
on top and you know how little it means."
Connie looked sharply at Mike. He stared back at her and what he had to
do became sharper. He felt uncertain, at the edge of a great risk. His
stomach knotted.
"That's it," Allbright said. "That is absolutely it. I've been on
top of their god damned world. I know that all those honors and laurel
wreaths and gold watches and newspaper clippings don't mean a damned
thing." Allbright twisted his head and looked at Mike. "Mike, that was
very clever of you to see that. You're all right, Mike."
Mike drove slowly for a few more blocks. Connie looked out the window
and then turned to Mike, her face questioning. Mike knew he could wait
no longer.
"Allbright, you're a liar," Mike said softly. "A god damned drunken
liar. I don't believe a thing you've said."
Allbright's head jerked sideways and he stared across at Connie, then
at Mike for a moment. Then stiffly he grinned.
"I don't care if you believe me or not," Allbright said. "What difference
does it make to me?"
"Don't talk to him like that, Mike," Connie said.
"All that crap about being a Phi Beta Kappa and being an Olympic champ
and running a stock and bond business," Mike said softly, turning the
words over carefully on his tongue. "All that was crap. Anyone can buy a
Phi Beta Kappa key in a pawn shop and have an identification card made
up in any peenny arcade that says you are Jack Allbright and then all
you have to do is look up his records in an old newspaper and no one
can ever tell the difference."
"Mike, shut up," Connie said. "Also watch where you drive. You're almost
to the Golden Gate turnoff. You're going the wrong way."
The two men ignored her.
"A year or two ago, Mike, I would have cared," Allbright said. "But now
it doesn't bother me a bit. I don't care if you believe me or not." He
grinned out the window, hummed a tune under his breath. After a second
he dug his wallet out of his pocket, pawed through the contents. "But
just to show you, Mike, here is a solid gold ticket admitting me to any
athletic contest that Dartmouth ever plays. Is that proof?" He handed
the shining flat piece of gold over to Mike.
Mike looked at it quickly and threw it back on Allbright's lap.
"Don't be silly, Allbright," Mike said. "You could have one of those
made up as easily as not. Why, Jesus, any jeweler would make you one if
you had the money. Who are you trying to kid?"
"No one, damn it," Allbright said. The grin was gone from his face
and his eyes were trying to focus. "I don't care if you believe me or
not." His voice shook very slightly, however. "You're like the rest of
them out there." His hand smeared over the window, taking in the entire
world outside the automobile. "You don't bother me, though. What do I
care if you believe me or not. What difference does it make?"
"And all that crap about going to the Palace Hotel and being welcomed
with open arms," Mike went on, talking very softly. "Look, Allbright,
every bum in the Last Chance would tell you the same thing if you asked
him . . . big man once . . . disgusted with it all . . . rummies are
the only good people . . . anything to keep them from facing the fact
that they can't resist that awful temptation in the morning to ease the
headache and stomachache and heartache by pouring a glass or two of beer
into their belly. Every rummie has the same story, Allbright."
"Yes, sure, maybe so. Maybe they do, but I'm different," Allbright said
and his voice was becoming shrill. "I've really got the money, I really
was a champ, I've really got the motorcycles with my name on them."
Allbright's hands ran over his clothing as if he were searching for
some absolute means of identification. "I don't care what the rest of
the rummies say. I tell you that I'm telling the truth."
"Sure, sure," Mike said, his voice heavy with disbelief.
"Don't talk to him like that," Connie said again.