"Hate to be b-blunt with you, Dan'l — " said Mr. Miles, his voice rattling inside him and escaping like the bleat of a cartoon lamb, "but you w-wunt have sumn to drink would you? I swear I'monna shake to pieces I don't get sumn under my belt."
Daniel upped with the quart. "Just one whiff in the air and they gather like sharks."
"Ah, you're my man." Mr. Miles closed his eyes and took it like medicine. "Gah-dam I needed that. Evy mornin this week I had these f-fuckin shakes. Chriseawmighty."
Sneaky Pete wasn't drinking.
"Misser Miles Misser Miles you nee a shabe you know you know, you goolookin honsome mon you use a shabe."
"I need more'n a shave, Cervantes. Christ, two tickets for driving while impaired this month, they tell me on the hill I get one m-more, drunk or no, it's my license." A shudder hit him in the breastbone. "Oh shit, I got em bad."
"Give him your makins, Cervantes," said Daniel. "A smoke'll calm him down. Roll yourself one, Miles."
"Hahl I couldn't roll down a hill this mornin, Dan'! much less no cigarette."
"Roll one for Mr. Miles, buddy."
"Misser Miles? You lib up on the moanton, m'hmn ohyes, you got tot big ronch yes?"
"Hardly, Cervantes."
"Ohyes. Ri' nex to me, I got big ronch too m'hmn. I got seben-honrid-bee-yon heads of cottles."
Pete remarked that that was a lot of bull and Mr. Miles made the mistake of giggling, starting shudders through his body. The bag traveled up and down the bench once, skipping Pete. Cervantes gave Miles a cigarette. He had a hard time holding still for a light from Daniel and had to concentrate to keep it from slipping through his fingers. He choked on the first drag.
"Say, Oklahoma," called Daniel, "this your first time to the Coast?"
of "Yuh.
"How you like it?"
"So far so good," said Brian.
Daniel laughed. "I remember when I first come out here, come for fame and fortune. I was gonna be the next Tarzan. Johnny Weissmuller had just turned in his water wings and I was all set to fill his moccasins."
"Give us your yell," asked Pete. "Your Tarzan yell."
"It's too early. I'd have the vice squad down on us. Yeah, I had all the qualifications. Big, good-lookin, could swim like a fish-"
"Didn't your teeth tend to rust?"
"I had my originals then, Pete, had my ivories. I had everything but the breaks."
"Then you switched to boxing," said Pete, "and you got em. Break your nose, break your jaw, break your — "
"One phone call, one photograph in the right hands and Maureen O'Sullivan would've been washin out my leopardskin B.V.D.'s down by the river. Would've hit it big."
"Could you play-act, Dan'!?"
"Act, hell. For what? Me Tarzan, you Jane?"
"With me," said Sneaky Pete, "it was oranges. My older brother and me, we worked at this filling station, and he'd always be sending off for brochures about business opportunities out here. Used to hide from the boss down in the grease pit, read about our future. I remember the one that hooked us, can still see the picture in my head. Pretty girl standing under this tree just drippin with big fat oranges. 'Money does grow on trees,' it said, 'in the Golden State.' " Pete laughed and scratched his scalp.
"So what happened?"
"What ever happens? We came, we saw, we got nowhere. My brother's been in and out of Folsom, if he takes another jolt it'll be a long one. To this day he can't stand anything to do with oranges. He'd get whattayoucallit, scurvy, before he'd even look at one.
"Yeah, it was oranges brung me out here."
They looked to Mr. Miles.
"I was born here," he said. "Just a little after my family come from Arkansas. My mother was eight months and counting when they piled everything on the Ford and started west. Nineteen thirty-one.
"Somebody told em they could eat in California."
Mr. Miles shivered as if the recollection chilled him.
"And how bout you, young fella?" called Daniel. "What's your excuse?"
Brian shrugged. "Where else is there to go?"
The men all laughed, Cervantes the hardest though he had no idea of what they were talking about.
"Sometimes," said Daniel Boone staring out over the water, "I get the feeling that if I concentrated, I could just drift on west, out across the ocean, past all the limits, into another dimension."
"More p-power to you, Dan'l. When you leavin?"
"Who could concentrate with a bunch of beach rummies around him? Sides, I got to take a piss."
"Well you better walk back to the bus station," said Pete, "cause I think that's Cramer in the squad car parked behind us and he'll bust you for exposure if you whizz over the wall. Mean bastard, that one."
"I tell you," said Daniel, creaking to his feet, "they wear a man down." He shook his head to clear it and headed into town.
"Old Dan'l," said Miles when he was out of earshot. "Man wasn't born, he was fermented."
"Bet he's got the happiest body lice in town, though. Only fella I know can match him for alcoholic content is that old Stuffy."
"Stofey, he can no be fine," blurted Cervantes. "He no be here no there no anywhere this morning. He disappear tot Stofey."
"Oklahoma," said Pete, "you haven't seen an old wreck, looks like he used his head for a croquet mallet, big old green overcoat, smell'd gag a maggot? Talks like water going down a drain?"
"Nope. Who is he, anyways? Daniel asked after him too."
"Well, he's usually down here by now, this is his bench. Just an old fighter gone to the bottle. He's sort of an institution down here."
"How'd he lose his speech?"
"It's sort of like what happened to our Mexican friend here, only in reverse. They both started out talkin normal, 45 rpm, and then when they burnt out their fuses Cervantes pushed up to 78 while Stuffy dropped to gg. If you could listen slow enough and deep enough you might be able to make out words when he talks. Mostly people just give him a nickel and pass on by. Or hold on to the nickel and cross the street."
"Man is all w-wino and a yard wide. Three generations of k-kids've had Stuffy pointed out to them for a bad example. Don't know what the town would do without him."
"Maybe they'd start pointin at you, Miles."
"Shit. Wouldn't be surprised, things keep up the way they been."
The patrol car screeched away.
"Bye-bye, Cramer. You going to work today?"
"Maybe yes maybe no. Got a h-half-hour to think about it. What about you?"
"Didn't you hear? I been laid off. Got daylight to bum."
"Any idea when they'll call you back?"
"Maybe Daniel can predict it for us. He hit you with that brain-wave stuff, Oklahoma?"
"Yuh. Said somebody was calling him from the dead."
Pete giggled. "He's probably picking up radio stations on those metal choppers of his."
"Things give me the h-heebie-jeebies."
Daniel came back, wearing a white apron and a broad grin.
"What he do over there, give you a job washin dishes?"
"Nah. I didn't quite make it to the facilities. And Sam, he wouldn't hold still for a hamburger, but I got him to give me this apron. Pissed all over my front." Daniel frowned. "And it's all your fault, Cervantes, you hadn't got that beer last night. It's the beer makes you piss."
"Ohyes Donnydonny ohyes m'hmn. Beers."
"Cramer went, huh?"
"He got tired of waiting for you to flash your ID there, Dan'l. Took off up the hill in a big hurry. Maybe he got an emergency call."
"Good riddance. I get bad brain waves from that cop."
"You still on that kick?"
"Pete, if you could concentrate — " Daniel closed his eyes and held his head with his fingertips "I could put you in a deep trance."
"You hand him that b-bottle he can put himself in a deep trance."
Daniel's head slumped into his hands. "Six thousand comedians out of work."