Read Online Callahan's Secret by Spider Robinson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Spider Robinson
Tags: Speculative Fiction
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coffee.
“Mary is your-“
“Lady Sally and I have always been real proud of her,” he said contentedly, puffing on that miserable stogie.
“Why the hell didn’t she ever come around here before?” I asked. “All these years-“
“Well, she couldn’t, Jake. She lived too far away, and she used to work nights. Until Sal retired. .
You burn your tongue when you drink Irish coffee too fast, so I burned my tongue. So I had another to keep my
tongue numb, and then another, and I started having so much fun that the idea sort of caught on generally, and that’s more or less how Mike and I and about a dozen of our friends eventually ended up naked in the rain on Callahan’s roof, me for the second time that night.
Do you know, from that day to this, rain won’t land on me-or any of us that were there-unless we ask it to?
CHAPTER 2
Pyotr’s Story
TWO TOTAL DRUNKS in a single week is much higher than average for anyone who goes to Callahan’s Place-no pun intended.
Surely there is nothing odd about a man going to a bar in search of oblivion. Understatement of the decade. But Callahan’s Place is what cured me of being a lush, and it’s done the samelor others. Hell, it’s helped keep Tommy Janssen off of heroin for years now. I’ve gotten high there, and once or twice I’ve gotten tight, but it’s been a good many years since I’ve been flat-out, helpless drunk-or yeari~ed to be. A true drunk is a rare sight at Callahan’s. Mike Callahan doesn’t just pour his liquor, he serves it; to get pissed in his Place you must convince him you have a need to, persuade him to take responsibility for you. Most bars, people go to in order to get blind. Mike’s customers go there to see better.
But that night I had a need to completely dismantle my higher faculties, -and he knew that as I crossed the threshold.
Because I was carrying in my arms the ruined body of Lady Macbeth. Her head dangled crazily, her proud neck broken clean through, and a hush fell upon Callahan’s Place as the door closed behind me.
Mike recovered quickly; he always does. He nodded, a nod which meant both hello and something else, and glanced up~and down the bar until he found an untenanted stretch. He pointed to it, I nodded back, and by the time I reached it he had the free lunch and the beer nuts moved out of the way. Not a word was said in the bar-everyone there understood my feelings as well as Callahan did. Do you begin to see how one could stop being an alcoholic there? Someone, I think it was Fast Eddie, made a subvocal sound of empathy as I laid the Lady on the bar-top.
I don’t know just how old she is. I could find out by writing the Gibson people and asking when serial number 427248 was sent out into the world, but somehow I don’t want to. Somewhere in the twenty-to-thirty range, I’d guess, and she can’t be less than fifteen, for I met her in 1966. But she was a treasure even then, and the man I bought her from cheated himself horribly. He was getting married much too quickly and needed folding money in a hurry. All I can say is, I hope he got one hell of a wife-because I sure got one hell of a guitar.
She’s a J-45, red sunburst with a custom neck, and she clearly predates the Great Guitar Boom of the Sixties. She is handmade, not machine-stamped, and she is some forgotten artisan’s masterpiece. The very best, top-of-the-line Gibson made today could not touch her; there are very few guitars you can buy that would. She has been my other voice and the basic tool of my trade for a decade and a half. Now her neck, and my heart, were broken clean through.
Long-Drink McGonnigle was at my side, looking mournfully down past me at the pitiful thing on the bar. He touched one of the sprawled strings. It rattled. Death rattle. “Aw,” he murmured.
Callahan put a triple Bushmill’s in my hand, closed my fingers around it. I made it a double, and then I turned and walked to the chalk line on the floor, faced the
“Mary is your-“
“Lady Sally and I have always been real proud of her,” he said contentedly, puffing on that miserable stogie.
“Why the hell didn’t she ever come around here before?” I asked. “All these years-“
“Well, she couldn’t, Jake. She lived too far away, and she used to work nights. Until Sal retired. .
You burn your tongue when you drink Irish coffee too fast, so I burned my tongue. So I had another to keep my
tongue numb, and then another, and I started having so much fun that the idea sort of caught on generally, and that’s more or less how Mike and I and about a dozen of our friends eventually ended up naked in the rain on Callahan’s roof, me for the second time that night.
Do you know, from that day to this, rain won’t land on me-or any of us that were there-unless we ask it to?
CHAPTER 2
Pyotr’s Story
TWO TOTAL DRUNKS in a single week is much higher than average for anyone who goes to Callahan’s Place-no pun intended.
Surely there is nothing odd about a man going to a bar in search of oblivion. Understatement of the decade. But Callahan’s Place is what cured me of being a lush, and it’s done the samelor others. Hell, it’s helped keep Tommy Janssen off of heroin for years now. I’ve gotten high there, and once or twice I’ve gotten tight, but it’s been a good many years since I’ve been flat-out, helpless drunk-or yeari~ed to be. A true drunk is a rare sight at Callahan’s. Mike Callahan doesn’t just pour his liquor, he serves it; to get pissed in his Place you must convince him you have a need to, persuade him to take responsibility for you. Most bars, people go to in order to get blind. Mike’s customers go there to see better.
But that night I had a need to completely dismantle my higher faculties, -and he knew that as I crossed the threshold.
Because I was carrying in my arms the ruined body of Lady Macbeth. Her head dangled crazily, her proud neck broken clean through, and a hush fell upon Callahan’s Place as the door closed behind me.
Mike recovered quickly; he always does. He nodded, a nod which meant both hello and something else, and glanced up~and down the bar until he found an untenanted stretch. He pointed to it, I nodded back, and by the time I reached it he had the free lunch and the beer nuts moved out of the way. Not a word was said in the bar-everyone there understood my feelings as well as Callahan did. Do you begin to see how one could stop being an alcoholic there? Someone, I think it was Fast Eddie, made a subvocal sound of empathy as I laid the Lady on the bar-top.
I don’t know just how old she is. I could find out by writing the Gibson people and asking when serial number 427248 was sent out into the world, but somehow I don’t want to. Somewhere in the twenty-to-thirty range, I’d guess, and she can’t be less than fifteen, for I met her in 1966. But she was a treasure even then, and the man I bought her from cheated himself horribly. He was getting married much too quickly and needed folding money in a hurry. All I can say is, I hope he got one hell of a wife-because I sure got one hell of a guitar.
She’s a J-45, red sunburst with a custom neck, and she clearly predates the Great Guitar Boom of the Sixties. She is handmade, not machine-stamped, and she is some forgotten artisan’s masterpiece. The very best, top-of-the-line Gibson made today could not touch her; there are very few guitars you can buy that would. She has been my other voice and the basic tool of my trade for a decade and a half. Now her neck, and my heart, were broken clean through.
Long-Drink McGonnigle was at my side, looking mournfully down past me at the pitiful thing on the bar. He touched one of the sprawled strings. It rattled. Death rattle. “Aw,” he murmured.
Callahan put a triple Bushmill’s in my hand, closed my fingers around it. I made it a double, and then I turned and walked to the chalk line on the floor, faced the
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