Daniel watched for another moment, then shook his head. "Shouldn't think about food. Haven't put nothin in the stomach for some time now. Hairy Carey."
"Pork shop an chickens an libber an — "
"That's what the booze'll do to you, right there." Daniel turned to point at Cervantes, who grinned.
"Donnydonny, my gooboddy. We take care take care."
"Slow down, Cervantes. But he's the best goddam sumbitch around. Aintcha buddy?"
"Ohyes, Donnydonny."
Daniel sat back down. "Man I served with, was lost when we took a shell off Tarawa. Went overboard. He's been callin me ever since, callin from the dead. He's out there in the fourth dimension." Daniel dropped his head forward into his hands and sighed. "Jeez, I'm burnin up with a fever."
"Take a dreeng, Donnydonny. You torsty, yes?"
Daniel ignored his friend. "See, usually he comes in loud and clear, his voice callin to me from out there. But this mornin I can't seem to make him out, it's like he's callin from underwater. Gurgles."
"He drowned, didn't he?"
"I suppose. But he always talked clear before. I can't understand it." He rubbed his eyes and pulled a paperback book out of his bag.
"Say, Philly, you look this here over and then tell me if you believe it." He passed it across Cervantes to Brian. Beyond the Mind, by Dr. Milton Shopenhauer. Case histories and commentary. "Look it over and then tell me what you think." He eased his head back into his hands.
When he got really liquid, Brian's father heard freight trains. Steam-driven freights rolling across the plains, rolling through small towns thousands of miles away. "At first it's not even a sound," he'd say, chin lifted, eyes closed in concentration, "it's a slight movement, a thickening in the night air about your ears. Stronger then, a wind blowing far off, then deeper, and there's a tingling up your legs and it turns to water, streams of water gathering into a rushing river, cascading down and suddenly all around you, shaking you, like the engine is driving the blood through your veins and it's shaking you, taking you, taking you along with it wherever it's going and Lord God you want to go, you want to but you're rooted to the ground and the power rattles down through your body into your feet again, out of you, and the train tears off, tears away with that long, moaning wail and it's water, and it's wind, and it's a slight thickness in the air and then it's gone and left you, stranded in the still, cold night." It always gave Brian a shudder when the old man heard his trains. He'd keep his eyes closed for a long while, as if still listening, and sometimes he'd fall asleep like that, sitting chin up at the bar, listening.
Brian opened to the middle of the book. The usual amazing feats and astonished friends. A story about a shopkeeper in Belgium who had ESP and was examined by a lot of scientists and made the papers once or twice and then died, still minding the store. He was psychic but not too bright.
Daniel sighed and passed the Thunderbird down for last hits. When it came back to him he took care of the last drops and arced it over the wall.
"Wonder if I hit them squirrels."
"Hey, Daniel Boone." Brian figured he might as well get it over with.
"Huh?"
"I believe it."
"Huh?"
"The ESP. I believe it. But what good does it do you?"
Daniel smiled. "Pittsburgh, it's our link with the next world. I was an atheist till I tumbled onto the fact that I had it. I believe that when you die you go into the fourth dimension. Only a few people can use their brain power to break into it while they're still alive. Pioneers."
"Oh." It didn't exactly answer his question, but it would do.
"Hey," said Cervantes to Brian, "you know Misser Horse? Misser Horse he lib oberdere, berry big mon you know, lib in a cossle, noosepaper, berry big. I lob him berry much, he gib me chob ohyesohyes."
"Say, Cleveland," called Daniel, "you ever fight? You got a nice little built on you, fella your size."
"Nope. Not in a ring or anything."
Daniel shook his head. "That's why the game is finished, can't get a white kid to put on the gloves."
"Did you fight when you were a kid?"
"Sure. I had a couple bouts when I first come out here. Saw some pretty good people come up. I dropped Blinky DiPersio in the second round once, left hook and down he goes. I was heavyweight then, you believe it? S'what the sauce will make of you. Blinky, he gone on to fight some of the great ones. Those were hungry days, hungry fighters. But now, you can get by on welfare, why beat your brains out? It's dead." He shook his head as if his dog or grandmother had passed away. "Dead." He began a yawn that ended as a minor dry-heave.
"Cleveland," he said, "you wouldn't happen to have fortythree cents would you? We need forty-three cents to make us another quart."
It seemed like the sociable thing to do. Brian counted out his change and added it to what Daniel had given to Cervantes.
"That's real Christian of you, son. Any preferences?"
Brian said no and Cervantes headed off into town.
"Mostly I was a sparrin partner," said Daniel. "Worked with that fella I was lookin for earlier, Stuffy. He was California light-heavy champ, way back when, could have gone all the way if they'd known how to handle him. The drink done him in. Tradin too many punches might have softened his head some, but it was the drink, the drink that finished Stuffy." Daniel started coughing, his eyes bugging and the veins standing out on his forehead. He bent forward to catch his breath.
"Committin suicide."
"Maybe you ought to hang the bottle up for a while."
Daniel ignored the advice. "What you want to do, Cleveland, is thumb on down the road to Ventura. Gonna have a big fight card there Friday night. The fella that operates the concession will be hiring lots of people, you could get on easy. Tell him Daniel Boone sent you. They got Windmill White headlining the card, they'll need some extra hands."
Cervantes came back with another bottle of Thunderbird in a paper sack. Daniel opened it and passed it down. Brian swallowed hard. He wanted some of his forty-three cents out of it.
"If you're going to drink," the old man always used to say, nodding into life between the regulars who steered him home, "you might as well do the full job of it. Keep the edges off, keep the fire going inside. Put a few under the belt and it's a warm current I'm riding on, warms the blood, sets it traveling. Your blood sits still and you're a dead man." The old man put more and more drink between himself and the cold, slept later and later into the day, until in dead of winter he stumbled out from the watch shack to answer the siren moan of the midnight freight that always slowed as it rolled through the yard. They found him outside Chicago, stiff in the corner of an empty boxcar. It was the farthest west he'd ever been.
"Hey there."
Two men were standing behind the bench, grinning. Both had wiry, nervous bodies, bodies like TV bowlers. One had a big gap in his front teeth and a brush cut, complete with butch wax.
"Name's Pete," he said to Brian, winking and offering his hand.
The other man's grin ticked on and off his face. In fact his whole self was caught up in quivers and shakes. Both men wore short-sleeved cotton shirts and looked like they had slept in beds the night before.
"Mind if we join you?"
"Pete an Misser Miles Misser Miles!" Cervantes was beaming, excited to have more company. "Seedown goomorning seedown!"
They sat by Daniel at the other end. It was a four-man bench and things were a little cozy with five. Daniel made the formal introductions.
"This here is Sneaky Pete and Mr. Miles. That young fella on the other side of the bench is — what was it?"
"Oklahoma."
"Right. Oklahoma."
Brian traded nods with them.