Time Travelers Strictly Cash

by Spider Robinson

  I mean, anything can happen in Callahan’s Place—granted. But the Place itself is supposed to be immutable, unchanging, at least in my mind. “What the hell is that doing there?” I yelped.

  A man can live his whole life long without ever being granted a straightline like that. Callahan blinked and answered at once, “Oh, just reflecting awhile, I guess.”

  Eddie and I, of course, briefly lost the power of speech, but the little piano man managed to express an opinion of sorts—and, behind the bar, his spitting image did likewise.

  We examined the thing together. It was held in place by four clamps that resisted our every attempt to pry them loose—Callahan bent two pry bars all to hell in the attempt. The graffiti seemed unharmed beneath the mirror, as far as we could see, but we could not uncover them. There was no clue as to who might have installed the thing, or why.

  “Must have been done overnight,” Callahan said. “It sure wasn’t here when I left.”

  We kicked it around for awhile, but even a quart of Tullamore Dew failed to shed any light on the mystery. But it did kill most of the afternoon, and finally Callahan glanced up at the Counterclock over the door and tabled the subject. “Sooner or later some joker’ll come ’round with a bill for it,” he predicted, “and we’ll use him to pry it off the wall with.” And he busied himself opening up cases of glasses, barely in time. The regulars began showing up, and the glasses started hitting the fireplace. The more inventive the theory offered for the mirror’s appearance, the more glasses hit the fireplace. Almost, I suspected Callahan of arranging the novelty himself in secret: for it tripled his average take and generated some fearsomely bad jokes. Nobody even missed my guitar or Eddie’s piano.

  Because of the commotion the mirror caused, I nearly failed to notice the newcomer. But on account of the mirror itself, I could hardly help it.

  I became at least peripherally aware of any unfamiliar face in Callahan’s Place. But when this guy appeared four seats down from me, next to Tommy Janssen, I heard him tell Callahan that “Dr. Webster said to say he sent me,” so I knew he belonged some way or other. I glanced, saw no urgent need or pain in his face, and put him out of my mind. Things happen in their own good time at Callahan’s.

  And as I started to turn back to Long-Drink McGonnigle, I did the first and only triple-take of my life.

  In the mirror, the chair next to Tommy was empty.

  By this point in the day, my adrenals were not only out of stock, they were running out of room to file the back orders. So I can’t claim any credit for the fact that I kept my composure. But I converted the triple-take into a headshake so smoothly that Long-Drink offered to connect me with a chiropractor and bought me a “neck-unstiffener” besides. When Callahan delivered it, I caught his eye and winked. One eyebrow rose a quizzical half-inch, and I nodded to the mirror, thanking Long-Drink effusively (and sincerely) the while. Pokerfaced, Callahan turned back to the mirror, stood stock-still for a second, and then went back to his duties, no more chalant than ever. But as his reflection nodded imperceptibly at mine, I noticed him take a couple cloves of garlic out from under the bar and place them unobtrusively by the cashbox. As long as the guy doesn’t order a Bloody Mary, I thought, and wondered if any of the firewood came to a point.

  By unspoken mutual consent, Mike and I restricted ourselves to watching the stranger as the night wore on. He didn’t look much like my notion of a vampire; I’d have taken him for a Democrat. He was of medium height and weight, with few distinguishing features: no long pointed canines, no pointed ears—just a small keloid scar on his left cheek. And yet somehow there was a…a lopsidedness to him, an indefinable feeling of wrongness that nothing appeared to justify. His hair was parted on the right, like a Jack Kirby character, but that wasn’t it. When I saw where he kept his wallet I thought I had it: he was lefthanded. One of the determined ones who even has his jacket cut so the inside pocket is on the right—for from that place he soon removed a quart-sized flask and offered it to Tommy Janssen, saying something I couldn’t hear.

  Callahan clouded up—does a hooker welcome amateur talent?—and began to descend on the stranger like the wolves upon the centerfold. But before he got there Tommy had thanked the guy and taken a hit, and as Callahan was opening his mouth Tommy suddenly let out a rebel yell that shattered all conversation.

  “Waaaaaaa-A-A-A-A-HOO!”

  Everybody turned to see, and the only sound was the lapping flames in the fireplace. Tommy’s face was exalted. The stranger smiled a strangely lopsided smile and offered the flask to the nearest man, Fast Eddie. Eddie glanced from the flask to the stranger to the transfigured Tommy and took a suspicious snort from it.

  Before my eyes, Eddie’s forest of wrinkles began smoothing out one by one. The face revealed was undeniably human.

  It smiled.

  Long-Drink McGonnigle could contain himself no longer. Snagging an empty glass, he shouldered past me and held it out to the stranger, who smiled benevolently and poured an inch of amber fluid. Drink raised it dubiously to his nostrils, which flared; at once he flung the stuff into his mouth.

  His eyes closed. Wax began to drip out of his ears. He screamed. Then he extended a tongue like the one on an old cork boot and began to lick the bottom and sides of the glass.

  Callahan cleared his throat.

  The stranger nodded, and held out the flask.

  Callahan held it like a live grenade, and inspected Tommy, Eddie and Long-Drink. All three were still paralyzed, smiling oddly. He shrugged and drank.

  “Say,” he said. “That tastes like the Four-Eye Monongahela.”

  A gasp went up.

  The stranger smiled again. “Exactly what I thought, the first time I had anything like it.”

  “Where’d you get it?” Callahan inquired eagerly.

  “Liquor store.”

  “What is it?” the barkeep burst out incredulously.

  “King Kong,” the stranger said.

  “King Kong?” Callahan exclaimed.

  “What’s that, Mike?” I asked. “I don’t know it.”

  “I only had it once,” Callahan said. “Years ago. It was gimme by some fellers who was camped out in a Long Island Railroad yard. One swallow convinced me not to go on the bum after all.” He looked down at the flask he still held. “It is the backwards of this stuff.”

  “I assure you,” said the stranger, “that that is King Kong. I bought it in a standard liquor store, transferred it to a flask and brought it here straightaway, unadulterated, just as it came out of the bottle. Nothing has been added or removed.”

  “Impossible,” Callahan said flatly.

  “Truth.”

  “But this stuff tastes good. In fact, ‘good’ ain’t even the word. I never had none o’ the true Four-Eye, but a feller-that-had told me if I ever did, I’d know it. And this stuff fits that description.”

  “De gustibus non es disputandum,” the stranger observed. “The point is, I’ve got four quarts of this stuff out in the car, and I’m willing to trade ’em.”

  “How much?” Tommy, Fast Eddie and Long-Drink chorused, showing their first signs of life.

  “Oh, not for money,” the stranger demurred. “I’ll swap even, for five quarts of your worst whiskey.”

  “Huh?” “Huh?” “Huh?”

  “What’s the catch?” Callahan asked.

  “No catch. You line up five quarts of whiskey—and I demand pure rotgut. I’ll match them with five quarts of my King Kong…precisely like this one,” he added hastily. “Sample them all you wish. When you’re satisfied, we all go home happy. Think of me as a masochist.”

  “It helps,” Callahan admitted. “All right, bring on your sauce.”

  The guy excused himself and headed for the parking lot, and an excited buzz went round the room. “Whaddya think, Mike?” “Think it’s really the Four-Eye?” “What was it like, Eddie?”

  The last-named groped for adequate words. “Dat incestuous child is de best oral-genital-c
ontacting booze I ever drank,” Eddie said approximately.

  “I dunno from Four-Eye,” said Long-Drink reverently, “but it’s for me.”

  Tommy only eyed the flask. His face was wistful.

  The stranger returned with the additional four quarts, and beheaded all four flasks. “Sample up,” he urged, and a stampede nearly began. Callahan filled his great lungs and bellowed, and all motion ceased at once.

  “I will sample the hooch,” he said flatly.

  Amid a growing hush, he bent to each flask and sniffed. Then he placed his tongue over the end of one, inverted it, and put it down again.

  “Yep.”

  He repeated the procedure with the second.

  “Yep.”

  The third.

  “Yep.”

  The fourth.

  His face split in a huge grin. “Yes sir.”

  Pandemonium broke loose, a hubbub of chatter and speculation that sounded like a riot about to happen. The roar built like a cresting tsunami, and then was overridden by an enormous bellow from Callahan.

  “If we can have some order in here,” he roared, “there’ll be drinks on the house for as long as this stuff holds out.”

  Sustained standing ovation.

  When it had died down, the big Irishman turned to the stranger. “I don’t believe I got your handle,” he said.

  “Bob Trevor,” is what I thought he said.

  “Bob,” Callahan said, “I am Mike Callahan and I believe I owe you some nosepaint. What’s your pleasure?”

  “Oh,” Trevor said judiciously, “I guess Tiger Breath’d do just fine.”

  Another gasp of shock ran round the room.

  “Tiger Breath?” Callahan cried. “Why, the only use for that stuff is poison ivy of the stomach. Tiger Breath’ll kill a cactus.”

  “Nonetheless,” Trevor insisted, “it’s Tiger Breath I’m bargaining for. Have you got any?”

  Callahan frowned. “Hell yeah, I got a couple gallons in the back—I use it to unplug the cesspool. But that stuff’s worse’n King…worse’n King Kong’s supposed to be.”

  “Whip it out,” the stranger said.

  Shaking his head, Callahan lumbered out from behind the bar and fetched a half-keg from the back. Its only markings were four Xs (a nice classical touch, I thought) and a skull and crossbones. People made way for him, and he set it on the bar.

  “You’re welcome to all of it,” the barkeep declared.

  Trevor unstopped the bung. A clear ten feet away, a fly intersected an imaginary circle drawn round the bunghole. The fly went down like a shot-up Stuka, raising a small cloud of sawdust from the floor when it hit. The nondescript stranger tilted the barrel, and the slosh sounded like a dangerous animal trying to get out. He poured a sip’s worth into an empty glass; the drops that spilled ate smoking holes in the mahogany bar-top. Tiger Breath is industrial-strength whiskey, and it tastes like rotten celery smells. It is perceptibly worse than King Kong.

  He sniffed the bouquet with obvious relish, and puckered up. As the first load went past his tonsils his face lit from within with a holy light, a warm soft glow like a gaslight jack-o’-lantern. His pupils opened to their widest aperture and I saw his pulse quicken in his throat. His smile was a beatitude.

  “Done,” he said.

  He and Callahan shook hands on it, and the rest of us marched as one man to the bar and held out our glasses. Callahan returned to his post and began measuring out shots of Trevor’s mystery mash, and not a word was spoken nor a muscle moved until two flasks were empty and the last glass full. Then Callahan’s voice rang out.

  “To Bob Trevor.”

  “To Bob Trevor!”

  And we drank.

  At once, my eyes (which are rated 20/20) clicked into true focus for the first time in my life, my I.Q. rose twenty points, and my cheeks buzzed. A thin sheen of sweat broke out over every inch of my body. My powers clarified and my perceptions sharpened; my pulse rate rose high and stabilized; the universe took on a crisp, brilliant presence; and none of these things was anything more than incidental to the TASTE, oh god the taste…

  There are no words. “Rich” is pitifully inadequate. “Smoky” is hopelessly ambiguous. “Full” is self-descriptive, semantically meaningless, and “smooth” is actually misleading. It felt, to the tongue and to the taste buds, like I imagine a velvet pillow must feel to the cheek—and it kicked like a Rockette. It enobled the mouth.

  It was the Wonderbooze.

  I gazed at my fellows—and knew them at once in a new and subtle and infinitely compassionate way, and knew that they now knew me too. We began to speak, within an empathy so profound as to be nearly telepathy, leaping a million parsecs and a hundred years of intellectual evolution with every fragmented sentence, happily explaining the alleged mysteries of life to each other and sorrowing cosmic sorrows. Men wept and laughed and embraced each other, and never a hail of more scrupulously empty glasses hit the fireplace. I found a new reason to admire Callahan’s custom: it would have been sacrilegious to use those glasses again for a lesser fluid.

  As the conversations gained depth and profundity, Long-Drink and I stepped up to Trevor and smiled from our earlobes, “Brother,” said the Drink, “let us assist you.”

  “Why, thank you,” he said, smiling back.

  Drink and I picked up the half-keg between us and poured his glass full of Tiger Breath. Trevor drank deep, and since we already had the keg in the air it seemed foolish not to top off his glass, and then it seemed reasonable to line up some glasses for him and fill those so we wouldn’t have to keep shouldering the keg, and in the end we poured six glasses full to be on the safe side, and sure enough he drank them all. So to be polite Drink and I had Callahan pour us some more of his King Kong, although it was the sort of booze that left no need for a second snort, and we sipped while Trevor gulped, and it got pretty drunk out. I remember walking over to where the fly lay dead on the sawdust, dipping my finger into my glass and letting a drop of Wonderbooze fall onto the fly. At once he rose from the floor in a series of angry spirals, spraying sawdust, and I swear he shouldered me aside on his way out the door. The conversation got a little hard to follow, then. I sort-of remember the Drink insisting that a close analysis of Stephane Grappelli’s later music clearly proved that infinity is translucent; I vaguely recollect Callahan challenging us to name one single person we had ever met or heard of that wasn’t a jackass; I believe I recall Fast Eddie’s reasoned argument for the existence of leprechauns. But the next stretch of dialogue I retain in its entirety.

  Trevor: “Who’s that stepping on my fingers?”

  Me: “That’s you.”

  “Oh. That’s all right then. Beer for ev’body, on me. Gotta celebrate.”

  Callahan nodded and began setting ’em up.

  “Fren’ly place,” Trevor went on. “Helpful fellas. Hardly seem backwards atall.”

  “Naw,” I agreed. “Strange, yes. Backwards, no.”

  “Strange?”

  Callahan began passing beers around, and I snagged one. “Sure. Li’l green men. Time travelers. Anything can happen in Callahan’s joint. But not backwards. This guy here, now,” I pointed at Long-Drink, “this long drink o’ beer here, did you know sometimes at midnight he turns into a driveway?”

  The punchline, of course, was that the Drink works as a night watchman two nights a week, and turns into the driveway of K.D.C. Chemicals at midnight on the dot. But I never delivered.

  “Mmmm,” mused Trevor. “Like to see that. Wha’ timesit?”

  And Drink and I, not thinking a thing of it, gestured with our beers at the Counterclock.

  The ’Clock has always seemed to suit Callahan’s Place perfectly. I don’t know where Mike got it, and I’ve only seen one other like it, in the New York apartment of a lovely lady named Michi Stasko, and I don’t know where she got hers either. What it is, it runs in reverse. I mean, the numbers are reversed—1, 2, 3, 4, etc.—and run counterclockwise from 12, and the works
are geared to run in reverse accordingly. It’s a rather elaborate jape, but like I say it suits the Place, and if you hang out long enough at Callahan’s you often have to stop and transpose in your head to make sense of a normal clock. Doc Webster has gone to the extent of having a mirror installed in the inside-cover of his pocket-watch so he can tell the time at a glance. Apparently Trevor just hadn’t notice the Counterclock over the door until now, and I always enjoy observing people’s first-time reactions to it. But I’d never witnessed so spectacular an effect before.

  Trevor saw the clock; his eyes widened to the size of egg yolks and the blood drained out of his face. He let out a hell of a yell, backed off two paces, raced up to the bar and vaulted it, plunging headfirst into the mirror.

  I mean into the mirror.

  He had disappeared into it up to the hips and was still in headlong flight when Callahan’s meaty hand trapped a flying ankle and yanked backwards, hard. Trevor came sailing back out of the mirror and into the real world like a dog jerked from a pond by its leash, and he dangled upside down from a fist the size of a catcher’s mitt, swearing feebly. The big barkeep was expressionless, which is his scariest expression.

  “You owe me ten bucks for them beers,” he said quietly.

  I don’t care how drunk you are; if a chair bites you on the leg, you sober up at once. Your mind is perfectly capable of fighting off your own bloodstream if it must. It’s an emergency system, beyond volitional control, and it doesn’t care if it makes your head hurt. I found myself sober, at once.

  But it probably didn’t help Trevor any to be upside down. Clearly, his first action showed confused thought. He reached into his right hand pocket with his right hand, and pulled out and gave to Callahan a bill.