“You ever been there?” Bryan asked.
“Never. But I hear it’s mighty nice down there.”
“Yeah, it is,” Bryan said.
“Mighty nice,” I said.
Bryan stared first at me and then at David. There was a pained, perplexed and uncomprehending look on his face. Not the faintest spark of intelligence flared in his humorless eyes; he was as stupid as an oyster. Immediately (because I’ve always enjoyed trying to fathom the laborious thought processes of the intellectually underprivileged), I began amusing myself with fantasies of what he was possibly thinking (for lack of a better word). It seemed to me that Bryan felt he had stumbled upon a pair of Martians and was now ponderously debating whether he should squash us flat or attempt to learn our language. As he continued to stare at us, trying to understand the tight little smiles on our faces, the forbidding postures (backs rigid, arms folded across our chests), the seeming foolhardiness with which we were exercising our territorial imperative and protecting our turf from invasion, something vaguely resembling comprehension glimmered in his eyes. Expanding his private Martian reverie, Bryan was now doubtless weighing the possibility that our weaponry was far more sophisticated than his own. Was it not entirely possible that we were carrying death-ray guns that could reduce him to ashes on the spot? How else explain our reckless challenge to his superior strength? Were we crazy or something? Ah-ha, Bryan’s eyes seemed to say. That’s it. If they’re not afraid of me, they’ve got to be nuts. And if they’re nuts, I don’t want nothing to do with them. (Duh, Bryan, very good, Bryan.)
Satisfied that he had tumbled to our secret, he promptly turned to Sandy again, one elbow on the table, grin widening as he prepared to launch into the second stanza of his seduction attempt, a tone poem that was interrupted by the untimely approach of the waiter. Sloshing foam and dripping perspiration, the waiter plunked four mugs of beer onto the tabletop and asked, “All on the same check?”
“Our friend here is paying,” David said.
“Are you? Gee, thanks,” Sandy said.
“Say, thanks a lot,” I said.
“Huh?” Bryan said, and the waiter handed him the check.
“How much do you weigh?” I asked Bryan.
Bryan, frowning, staring at the check, said, “Two fifty-three.”
“I guessed two-forty.”
“Give the man a kewpie doll,” David said.
“Listen, whyn’t you guys take a walk?” Bryan said.
“Snowing out there, Bryan,” David said.
“Get our little bootsies wet,” I said.
“I want to talk to the lady here,” Bryan said.
“Go right ahead.”
“Don’t mind us.”
“We’ll just sit here and drink our little beersies,” I said.
“Where’d you find these two guys?” Bryan asked Sandy.
“Are you a ski club or something?” David asked.
“What do you mean?”
“All the people in green derbies.”
“The hate are just for fun,” Bryan said. “We’re down from Snowelad for the race tomorrow.”
“Oh, are you racing?” I asked.
“No, but his motor’s running pretty fast,” David said, and Bryan shot him a warning look. I was, along about then, beginning to marvel at our audacity. Bryan was a very large person with a very small intelligence. Bryan was a dope, in fact, and I have always tried very hard to avoid contact with dopes. In my opinion, the dopes of the world are directly responsible and accountable for plague, pestilence, famine, warfare, racial strife, alienation, venereal disease, the high price of wheat, and the election of Richard M. Nixon. I have been known to cross deserts in the blistering sun rather than risk confrontation with a dope. So here we were in a sawdust saloon with a terrible rock group knocking down the walls, slurping beer and listening to a brainless jock pitching at Sandy while we sniped from the rooftops. What we were doing was dangerous. I began to realize just how dangerous it was, and felt a small tremor of excitement.
“... minute you came in the door,” Bryan was saying.
“Really? Why, thank you very much,” Sandy said.
“Whyn’t you finish your beer there, so we can dance?”
“Well, I like to sip beer slowly,” Sandy said.
“What do you do for a living, Bryan?” David asked.
“I break horses.”
“In half?” I said.
“Ever break a quarter horse in half?” David asked.
“You get an eighth of a horse that way,” I said.
“What I do is I take wild horses and break them to the saddle,” Bryan said.
“I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world,” David said.
“Wild horses couldn’t force me to do that,” I said.
“It’s fun,” Bryan said, and once again dismissed us and turned to Sandy. “I’ll bet you’re a secretary or something back East,” he said.
“How’d you guess?” Sandy asked.
“Just knew it right off.”
“She works for the U.N.,” David said.
“No kidding?”
“That’s right,” I said. “She’s the Secretary General.”
“Generally in charge of the secretarial pool,” David said.
“Not to mention the beach,” I said.
“We’re trying to have a conversation here,” Bryan said, and glared at us. But the chatter was beginning to reach him; he knew we were putting him on but he didn’t know exactly how, and there was a vague uneasiness in his eyes. For a moment, I began to believe that the mild-mannered mathematicians of the world could actually triumph over the brutes and beasts without resorting to bear traps and boiling oil — but the odds changed quite suddenly. Bryan’s two friends were somewhat bigger than he was. Wearing the same green derbies and red swimming trunks over green ski pants and green turtlenecks, they materialized at the table and one of them said, “Howdy, Bryan, who’s your friend?”
“Hello, Duke. This here’s Sandy.”
“Nice to meet you, Sandy,” Duke said. He had straight blond hair and light blue eyes. His nose had been broken more than once, either in barroom brawls or rodeos.
The fellow with him, dark-haired with small brown pig eyes and razor nicks on his throat and chin, reached across the table, took Sandy’s hand, and said, “Let’s dance, Sandy.”
Sandy yanked her hand back. “I’m busy,” she said.
“What with?”
“With me, Hollis,” Bryan said.
“That right?” Hollis asked.
“No, that’s wrong,” Sandy said. “I’m busy with my friends.”
“These little fellers your friends?” Hollis asked. The pair of them, Duke and Hollis, were standing at the corner of the table between Bryan and me, and casting very large shadows indeed. Hollis grinned down at me, and said, “Any friends of Sandy’s is friends of mine,” and extended a thick, beefy hand. “I’m Hollis,” he said. “This here’s Duke.”
“I’m Peter,” I said. “That there’s David,” and took the extended hand, fully expecting to retrieve it all mangled and bent. But men who are confident of their power rarely display it in meaningless shows of strength. Hollis shook my hand like a proper gentleman, and then reached across the table and offered David the same open palm.
“Hello, David,” he said, “I’m Hollis.”
“Nice to meet you, Hollis.”
“My pleasure,” Hollis said. “This here’s Duke.”
“Howdy, David and Peter.”
“Howdy, Duke,” I said.
“Getting mighty crowded around here,” Bryan said.
“Now, that ain’t sociable, Bryan,” Hollis said. “Besides, these two gentlemen here was just now preparing to leave. Ain’t that right, boys?”
“No,” David said, “that ain’t right, Hollis.”