Discuss the later happenings of Curtis. He once was lost and in fact had been missing but now is found, and he enters the half-filled bar in regular civilian's clothes, and you can tell by the bobbing of his head that he has been drinking elsewhere. He marches past the tables and stands rigidly before you, saluting and announcing loudly that Private Curtis is reporting for duty, sir! And you, thinking that Curtis has at last done something humorous, move to pour him a whiskey which he drinks in a gulp before repeating the salute, etc., and you say, "Okay, little less funny the second time," and he explains that he is not making a joke but that he has joined the Marines. You ask him if he is aware there is a war on and he says that he is, and that he will sleep well knowing that he's done his part, a phrase that makes you want to drown him, and you tell him that if he's joined the Marines during the bloody reign of the present-day commander in chief he'll quite possibly wind up sleeping a little too well, which he seems to think is in bad taste, and here is something new: Curtis is offended by your vulgarity. Hoping to mend fences, you tell him it's free drinks till closing time, and you wish him luck with every passing shot and he drinks the whiskey but continues to sulk at your insensitive remark. Finally you tickle him under his sickening, gobbly chin and tell him that everything is going to be all right, which is a lie, and which he knows is a lie of the highest order.
It's free drinks till closing time but Curtis passes out hours before that. The child actor comes by to pick him up and you greet him like an old friend (you do not know why you do this). You remember the last time you saw him, when the bar was raided and you gave him a kicking; the child actor does not know exactly what happened that night or who it was that bashed his face but he is aware on a base level that you acted in one unkind way or another — his reception to your hellos is chilly and distant and when you tell him how good it is to see him he merely belches. Now he is struggling to remove the body of Curtis from the room; you are watching him struggle; Simon is standing at your side. Simon served in the South African military as a youth and he shares with you his doubts regarding Curtis's assimilation into the war machine. As you watch Curtis's feet disappear out the door, Simon turns to you and says, "That poor bastard doesn't know what he's in for."
"I hope he dies out there," you say, and you laugh-sputter at the statement because it is a terrible thing to have said aloud and you hope you can play it off as a joke but Simon is staring hard at you, and now he knows for a fact something he has suspected for years, which is that you have a streak of hate in your heart and that it is deep and wide and though you have hidden it, it is unmistakably uncovered now, and he will never feel that previously mentioned fondness for you again, and you can see the words in his eyes as plain as day: I'm going to get you fired from here, mate.
Curtis is gone for five weeks (the child actor is gone for five weeks) but they return together to celebrate his, their return. You learn that Curtis did not go far in the Marines, was in fact kicked out of basic training because he could not shoot straight. "There's something wrong with my eyes. They tell me to shoot sideways," he says. He shrugs and clutches the whiskey you have brought him and when you ask how his feelings are doing he says the same thing he always says about those who reject him: "Fuck 'em in the ass." But you can see that his feelings are hurt and you wonder at the pain of a man stupid enough to be turned away from the Marines during a war.
The child actor has now clearly made up his mind about you and seems to have poisoned Curtis's mind as well, and you have never been so surprised as when they take out their wallets to pay for their drinks. They fan out their cash anticipatory and it seems to you that the world is running backward and you push the money away but they insist on paying and Curtis, looking at you as though you were his oppressor, says, "No more. From here on, we buy our drinks." "Okay," you say in a you-asked-for-it tone of voice, and you tell them the cost of the round and they cannot hide their shock, for it has been so long since they paid for a drink they have forgotten the value of good Irish whiskey and imported beer. They pool their cash and pay out the round (no tip) but you notice that for the next, which they order from Simon, they ask for Pabst in a can and whiskey from the well, and you walk over just in time to cheers them, only you are drinking Jameson, and it is golden blond in the cup whereas theirs looks and smells like dirty gasoline. And you watch their quivering throats as they toss the whiskies back and you can see that their bodies wish to reject the foul liquid but they push the alcohol down into their stomachs and look at each other and shrug.
"It's bad but not that bad," the child actor says.
"It's bad but I've had worse," Curtis agrees.
You drink your Jameson down and your body welcomes it as though it were sunshine in a glass. Curtis and the child actor look at you but do not talk to you; they move down the bar to sit nearer Simon and you notice throughout the night that when these three speak they speak closely, in private, and that their eyes often fall on you: Three people who once liked you, who do not like you any longer.
Discuss your wife. She will not return your phone calls and has moved to Pasadena to live with and be closer to another man. You are at the bar, staring at the telephone and disliking it when Merlin enters for the first time since the party/orgy/bloodbath at Simon's house. The right side of his face is scabbed and he looks to be half starved and you are gladdened by his poor appearance because you have recently had many unpleasant dreams about him and have come to intensely dislike or hate him, and you wonder if he is addicted to drugs or living in his car or has contracted a fatal disease or fallen under the angry spell of a fellow witch-peer? He notices your happy and curious expression and is offended by it; he stands before you, resting his hands on the bar, and says after catching his breath, "You keep thinking about her but she isn't thinking about you. She's glad she isn't thinking about you. You weren't good for her life. Get on with your life. She'll never think about you again if she can manage it." He is exhausted by carrying the burden of these words and he walks heavily to the door, muttering to himself about a need for sleep and relaxation.
You are hurt by these words and you want to slash Merlin's face with a knife for saying them but he is gone and now there is nothing to do but live with them. You call your wife's new phone number and your heart sinks at the sound of another man's voice on the machine, with your wife laughing in the background at his humorous leave-us-a-message comedy routine. You hang up the phone and move to the whiskey assortment and take a short drink of Jameson (you are averaging a mere three or four short drinks per night now) but the taste is so terrible it makes you gag, and you cannot understand it because this has never happened to you before and you look at the bottle and say to its green-glass shoulders, bare and ladylike, "Not you too?"
You hear scuffling and shouting outside and you exit the bar to find Merlin being taken away in a police car; he is looking straight ahead and does not appear to be bothered or surprised by this. Junior is standing at the curb watching the squad car pull into traffic. You approach him and ask what happened and he tells you, "M-m-motherfucker walked out the bar and puked. M-m-motherfucker pulled down his pants and pissed." Junior points out the puddles of vomit and urine and you notice that he too has a damaged face and looks to be enormously fatigued and it occurs to you that perhaps the entire neighborhood, this small and unpleasant mini-version of America, is dying all together in a piece. You mention the theory to Junior but he is uninterested. He asks you for twenty dollars and you say no and he turns and walks away. His elbows are scabbed and he is missing a shoe.