Дэймон Найт - Orbit 4

“Neither did I,” Sour John told him. “And how did you solve the problem?”

“By a fine little trick, John. You’ll see it worked if you follow me around through the night.”

McSkee had left off eating. But he continued to drink while he indulged in girls, and in fighting and roistering, and in singing. His girly exploits are not given here; but there is a fruity listing of them on the police blotter of that night. Go see Mossback McCarty some night when he is on desk duty and he will get it out and let you read it. It is something of a classic around the station house. When a man gets involved with Soft-Talk Susie Kutz and Mercedes Morrero and Dotty Peisson and Little Dotty Nesbitt and Hildegarde Katt and Catherine Cadensus and Ouida and Avril Aaron and Little Midnight Mullins all in one night, you are talking about a man who generates legends.

McSkee did stir things up around town, and John Sourwine stayed with him. John fit in with McSkee well. There are many who would not.

There are persons of finely-tuned souls who cringe when a companion becomes unusually boisterous. There are those who wince when a hearty mate sings loudly and obscenely. There are even those who attempt to disassociate when the grumblings of the solid citizenry rise to a sullen roar; and who look for cover when the first little fights begin. Fortunately, Sour John was not such a person. He had a finely-tuned soul, but it had a wide range.

McSkee had the loudest and most dissonant voice in town, but would an honest friend desert him for that?

The two of them cut a big swath; and a handful of rough men, rubbing big knuckles into big palms and biding their time, had begun to follow them from place to place: men like Buffalo-Chips Dugan and Shrimp-Boat Gordon, Sulphur-Bottom Sullivan, Smokehouse, Kidney-Stones Stenton, Honey-Bucket Kincaid. The fact that these men followed McSkee angrily but did not yet dare to close with him speaks highly of the man. He was pretty woolly.

But there were times when McSkee would leave off his raucous disharmony and joyful battling, and chuckle somewhat more quietly. As—for a while—in the Little Oyster Bar (it’s upstairs from the Big Oyster).

“The first time I put the trick to a test/’ McSkee confided to John, “was from need and not from choice. I have incurred a lot of ill will in my day, and sometimes it boils over. There was one time when a whole shipful of men had had enough of me. This time (it was far away and long ago in the ancient days of small sail) I was shackled about the ankles. and weighted and dropped overboard. Then I employed the trick.”

“What did you do?” Sour John asked him.

“John, you ask the damnest questions. I drowned, of course. What else could any man do? But I drowned calmly and with none of that futile threshing about. That’s the trick, you see.”

“No. I don’t see.”

“Time would be on my side, John. Who wants to spend eternity in the deep? Salt water is most corrosive; and my shackles, though I could not break them, were not massive. After a long lifetime, the iron would be so eaten through that it would part with any sudden strain. In less than one hundred years, the shackles gave way, and my body (preserved in a briny fashion but not in the best of condition) drifted up to the surface of the sea.”

“Too late to do you any good,” Sour John said. “Rather a droll end to the story, or was it the end?”

“Yes, that is the end of that story, John. And another time, when I was a footsoldier m the service of Pixodarus the Carian (with his Celtic Mercenaries, of course)—”

“Just a minute, McSkee,” Sour John cut in. “There’s something a little loose about all your talk, and it needs landmarks. How long have you lived anyhow? How old are you?"

“About forty years old by my count, John. Why?”

“I thought your stories were getting a little too tall, McSkee. But if you’re no more than forty years old, then your stories do not make sense.”

“Never said they did, John. You put unnatural conditions on a tale.”

McSkee and Sour John were up in night court, bloodied and beatific. It was only for a series of little things that they had been arrested, but it was really to save them from lynching. They had a palaver with all those fine officers and men, and they had much going for them. Sour John was known to them as an old acquaintance and sometime offender. It was known that John’s word was good; even when he lied he did it with an air of honesty. After a little time was allowed to pass, and the potential lynchers had dispersed, Sour John was allowed to bail them both out on their strong promise of good behavior.

They swore and forswore that they would behave like proper men. They took ringing oaths to go to their beds at once and quietly. They went on record that they would carouse no more that night; that they would assault no honest woman; that they would obey the quirks of the laws however unreasonable. And that they would not sing.

So the police let them go.

When the two of them were out and across the street, McSkee found a bottle handy to his hand on the sidewalk, and let fly with it. You’d have done it yourself if you’d been taken by a like impulse. McSkee threw it in a beautiful looping arc, and it went through the front window of the station house. You have to admire a throw like that.

We record it here that they are not patsy cops in that town. They are respectable adversaries, and it is always a pleasure to tangle with them.

Oil again! And pursued by the Minions with shout and siren! It was close there! Half a dozen times it was close! But Sour John was a fox who knew all the dens, and he and McSkee went to earth for the while.

“The trick is in coming to a total stop,” said McSkee when they were safe and had their breath again. They were at ease in a club less public than Barnaby’s Barn and even smaller than the Little Oyster. “I tell you a little about it, Sour John, for I see that you are a man of worth. Listen and learn. Everyone can die, but not everyone can die just when he wants to. First you stop breathing. There will be a point where your lungs are bursting and you just have to take another breath. Do not do it; or you will have the whole business to go through again. Then you slow your heart and compose your mind. Let the heat go out of your body and finish it.”

“And then what?” Sour John asked.

“Why, then you die, John. But I tell you it isn’t easy. It takes a devilish lot of practice.”

“Why so much practice for a thing you do only once? You mean to die literally?”

“John, I talk plain. I say die, I mean die.”

“There are two possibilities,” said Sour John. “One is that I am slow of understanding. The other is that you are not making sense. On other evidence, I know the first possibility to be impossible.”

“Tell you what, Sour John,” said McSkee, “time’s running short. Give me twenty dollars and I’ll overlook your illogic. I never did like to die broke, and I feel my time is upon me. Thank you, John! I had a full day, both before and after I met you, and a full night that is nearly over. I had a pleasant meal, and enough booze to make me happy. I had fun with the girls, especially Soft-Talk Susie, and Dotty, and Little Midnight. I sang several of my favorite songs (which are not everybody’s favorites). I indulged in a couple of good solid fights, and I’ve still got bells ringing in my head from them. Hey, John, why didn’t you tell me that Honey-Bucket was lefthanded? You knew it, and you let him sneak the first punch on me.

“It’s been fun, John. I’m a boy that gets a lot out of this game. I’m a real juicy one, and I try to jam everything into a day and a night. You can get a lot into a period if you heap it up. Now, let’s gather up what’s left in the bottles, and go down to the beach to see what we can provoke. The night needs a cap on it before I go to my long slumber.”