Gentlemen, he said to us, I have heard the bad news. According to my doctor, my liver is Dunkirk. He's told me that I've downed my last. He even brought in a specialist, who confirmed the toxicity of my X-ray. Its all gone to shit.
Oh, we thought, the shame! Our leader, the owner of our resting place, had been stopped from drinking by diagnosis. But what he said next sealed our fates in the afterlife: I expect you to honor our pact, he said, and to honor it this afternoon.
We laughed. Death to us, though we certainly found ourselves aging, was still a metaphor. But not to Marty, who had us in years and in gallons consumed. He produced four vials from his pocket and placed them on the bar.
Three of these contain tap water, he said. The other is pure tetraethyl pyrophosphate. Colorless, odorless, and generally fatal. You will each take one vial and empty its contents into my last glass of Bushmills, which I will now pour.
He did so, a double.
Within an hour, he continued, I'll be dead, and youll all be culpable. Yet none of you will be. Its not murder if you have the consent of the murdered. Or maybe it is. Regardless, we need to assume we wont get caught. But once this pact is sealed in embalming fluid, you must all promise to follow me when your own day comes.
We promised what Marty asked, though not without some subtle tears, because we understood that a strange combination of whimsy and duty had now bound us all to the same end. But before that happened, we agreed that the club shouldnt die with us. For every light extinguished, another would flicker on. Our shining white city of the mind would burn for generations. Marty downed his final whiskey, patted us each on the back in return for the favor of merciful death, and walked slowly toward the door. He turned and waved, silhouetted in the arch by the late-afternoon sun, and went home to his bed. Ronald was there at the bar
The guy with the ponytail said, Yes, I was.
Stopping in for a shot after band practice. We knew him to be a young man of the neighborhood, resolute in character and ethical in judgment. He had discovered our club, as sometimes secrets slide off drunken tongues, particularly when trusted bar regulars are talking. He agreed that day to take Martys place. And two years later, when Mickey Lasker got the news from his doctor, Will, our monkey-film expert, took the night off from spinning records at Medusas and became one of us. He, too, had learned of the club late one night, by accident, and he, too, is a forgotten genius of the North Side. Scott Silverstein joined the fold soon after upon the unfortunate demise of Leonard Loveless, former drama critic for the lamented Chicago Daily News. The papers all said that Leonard passed of natural causes. But we knew that he had drunk and died.
Now we say goodbye to Johnny Quinn, a man of independent judgment who never crossed a picket line. Barely ten hours ago, we stood at Martys and one of us slipped him the drops that caused him to breathe his last. And like those before him, he drifted off with grace.
Francis Carmody opened a cabinet and a record player slid out on a tray. He pulled a 45 out of a sleeve. That, Carlos decided later, is when things really got weird.
The room had grown excessively warm. It smelt sour and gassy. Francis put a record on the player and hustled to the front of the room, where the other members of Martys Drink or Die Club were standing. Theyd linked arms, and they gestured for Carlos to join them. The song started, so they didn't notice too much when he didn't. They sang along with the record:
I've been a wild rover for many a year
And I spent all my money on whiskey and beer,
And now Im returning with gold in great store
And I never will play the wild rover no more.
And its no, nay, never,
No nay never no more,
Will I play the wild rover
No never no more.
The song made no sense to Carlos, but as the men sang, it was obvious that it moved them deeply. When they reached each chorus, he could barely make out the words over their blubbering. This made Carlos very uncomfortable. Men in his family didn't show emotion like this, not even in private after midnight. The song, mercifully, came to its final verse.
I'll go home to my parents, confess what I've done,
And I'll ask them to pardon their prodigal son.
And if they forgive me as oft-times before,
Sure I never will play the wild rover no more.
And its no, nay, never,
No nay never no more,
Will I play the wild rover
No never no more.
They unlocked arms and Francis just kept talking.
Boys, he said, Johnny Quinn is forgiven all his sins, if he ever committed any. I only hope that you will have the same mercy on me. For I cant imagine my tenure on this soil will last much longer. I can feel myself fading even now.
Blow it out your hole, Ahab, said the ponytailed guy.
I grow old, I grow old, said Francis. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. With your indulgence, Im going to play one more record. As you all know, I was once a featured performer at the Hanging Moon on North Avenue, back in the time when songs had lyrics you could understand. The great Moses Asch himself, of Folkways Records, recognized my talents, and I made this recording. When you hear it, I want you to remember the words, and remember me by them.
Do we have to? said the monkey man.
You do, said Francis. I'd like to think it was Martys inspiration for our club.
He put the record on. Carlos heard tinny banjo music and a voice that sounded nearly forty years younger. But it was definitely Francis. The song went:
Play that banjo long and loud
And raise your glasses high,
Sing about the life I loved
And how I chose to die,
Praise me like the king I was
And not the rook or pawn,
Embrace your sin and drink your gin
And remember that Im gone.
Even over the music, Francis talked. Its a particularly melancholy moment for me, he said. So many friends lost. So many millions of words. So much profundity. And now I alone remain of that first generation as the final distillation of a way of life. When will it end? One doesn't know. But one does know that young Carlos here has borne witness to our ritual.
Indeed! said the monkey man.
As such, in our tradition, we should nominate him to take Johnnys place.
No way, Carlos thought. This wasn't even something he wanted to understand.
But, said Francis Carmody, Carlos has shown us nothing to indicate that he possesses the intellectual integrity to fulfill the bylaws of Martys Drink or Die Club. Agreed?
Agreed! said the other members.
Therefore, Francis said, as is our tradition, we offer young Carlos a choice: Main'tain silence about what he knows, or die.
Carlos slowly backed away from them, toward the door.
Francis held up his glass. He indicated to the others that they should stand. Do you accept our terms, young man?
I gotta go, Carlos said.
He ran for the door and flung it open, and as he escaped, he heard Francis Carmody say, Do not betray us, Carlos! Well find you!
It was early November. The night felt crisp and cutting. Carloss head should have been a fog, but as he ran out of Francis Carmodys backyard and down the side streets toward Clark, he felt nothing but clarity. Maybe hed go back to Truman College after all, get that two-year degree and then see what was possible. But hed never go back to Martys again.
The digital bank clock said 1:15. Just then, the Number 22 came, as if sent by the bus fairy. Carlos got on and slid his card through the reader. His Uncle Germans place was just fifteen blocks up in Rogers Park; hed get there by closing time no matter how slow the bus ran. German always had a pot of menudo going this time of night. Carlos could already feel it, warm and fresh and greasy, in his stomach.