They headed toward the crowded bar, but someone called out.
"Livingston, old man."
This was a fat older man sitting at a booth to the left, and he was with another older man who was thin.
"Oh, hi, Mr. Boosterman," said Livingston.
"Get over here, boy," said the fat man.
Livingston and Harry went over to the table. Both of the older men were smoking cigars, and they had highball glasses in front of them.
The one who had called was bald and his pink face seemed about to burst from inside like a balloon. The thin one's face was the color of a damp fog on a winter morning. They were aged perhaps somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five.
"Who's your pal, Livingston?" said the fat man.
"This is my friend the noted author Harry Beachcroft," said Livingston. "Harry, this is Mr. Boosterman and Mr. Pickles."
"Hello," said Harry.
"Did you say Harry Beachcroft?" said Mr. Boosterman.
"Yes," said Livingston.
"Jesus Christ," said Mr. Boosterman. "Did you hear that, Pickles?"
"I did indeed," said the thin man.
"Not the author of Dead Man on a Merry-Go-Round?" said Mr. Boosterman.
"Yes," said Harry.
"And Dead Dames Don't Blather?"
"Yes," said Harry.
"Set Sail for Surabaya?"
"Yes, that was me," said Harry.
"Good God, sir, it is an honor to meet you," said the fat man. "I would rise to shake your hand, but unfortunately my girth would make it awkward, stuffed into this booth as I am."
"That's quite all right, sir," said Harry.
"You and Livingston must join us for a libation."
"Well, uh," said Harry.
"Why not?" said Livingston. He squeezed down into the booth next to Mr. Boosterman, and Harry slipped in on the side of Mr. Pickles.
"The Far Side of Hades," said Mr. Boosterman, "now there was a good novel!"
"Thanks," said Harry.
"Three Cheers for the Damned," continued Mr. Boosterman, "that was a rousing epic."
"Thanks again," said Harry.
"But you seem so young," said Mr. Boosterman. "I should have imagined you to be in your fifties at least."
"At heart I am in my fifties," said Harry.
"Ha ha," said Mr. Pickles. "I myself felt quite ancient even in the first grade."
"Who was it said age is just a number?" said Mr. Boosterman.
"A very wise fellow," said Livingston.
Another old man appeared at the table, carrying a tray and with a napkin over his arm.
"Drinks, gentlemen?"
"Yes, Claude," said Mr. Boosterman, "two more of the same for me and Mr. Pickles, and whatever our guests are having."
"My usual Cutty and soda with no ice, please," said Livingston. "What are you having, Harry?"
"I guess I'll have what you're having," said Harry. He might as well get drunk, or drunker. What was the point of sobriety at this juncture?
They sat and Mr. Boosterman named more of Harry's novels, even ones Harry had forgotten he'd written, which, he reflected, is easy to do when you've churned out one every two or three months over the course of a dozen years. The drinks came, and they drank, and the conversation shifted away from Harry's books, and after a while Harry thought, so, this is the way the upper crust live, or at least the way some of them do. They sit in their clubs and drink and talk superficially and state opinions on various subjects. The only real difference between these men and the clientèle of his own local tavern Bob's Bowery Bar was money.
This seemed almost a profound insight, and he made a mental note to put it in his work in progress (working title: A Cloudy Day in Newport), a novel of anomie and despair among the moneyed élite, which thus far he had based only on Hollywood movies and the novels of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and John P. Marquand, from the Cholly Knickerbocker column in the Journal-American, and from New Yorker stories he would read or skim in the public library. He didn't consider this lack of first-hand knowledge of his subject cheating;
after all, what did Shakespeare know about the royal court of medieval Denmark, or of the great families of Italy, or of ancient Rome, and no one ever called Shakespeare a phony or a poseur. It occurred to Harry that perhaps he should pay closer attention to the conversation at the table, and maybe he would pick up some good material, but the problem with that idea was that the conversation was boring, so much so that he forgot each drawling sentence or sentence fragment as soon as it was spoken, and then he realized further that he had in fact never been so bored in his entire life, not forgetting his wretchedly unheroic wartime service typing up requisitions in triplicate at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
"What do you think, Mr. Beachcroft?" said Mr. Pickles.
"Um, well, that's hard to say," said Harry, having not the slightest idea of the topic in question.
"But you are an author," said Mr. Pickles. "An intellectual."
"Well, I'm not so sure about the intellectual part," said Harry.
"You are far too modest," said Mr. Boosterman. "No one could write a searing novel like Sideshow Sally and Jimmy the Geek and not be an intellectual."
"Or Two Tickets to Tehatchapee," said Livingston. "You want searing? That book seared like a hot poker."
"It did indeed," said Mr. Boosterman. "So, please, Mr. Beachcroft, we implore you, in the words of the Bawdy Bard, to 'unmuzzle your wisdom'."
"Well, I would," said Harry, "but."
"But what?"
Should he just admit that he had been paying only the vaguest attention to a word that had been said since he and Livingston had seated themselves here fifteen minutes or a half hour ago? But such an admission might cause ill feeling.
Fortunately, Harry's dilemma was solved by his bladder, as he suddenly realized that he actually did need to go to the lavatory.
"Gentlemen, I will give you my thoughts on this subject, but first I am afraid that I must answer a call to nature. So if you could perhaps direct me to the men's room?"
"I'll show you, buddy," said Livingston.
"If you could just give me directions," said Harry, who had always felt awkward going to the men's room with other men.
"No, I have to go also," said Livingston.
"Oh, okay."
"Right, come with me," said Livingston. "Gentlemen, if you will excuse us."
"Hope it all comes out okay," said Mr. Boosterman.
"Don't forget to give it that one extra wag," said Mr. Pickles.
"Ha ha, come on, Harry, let me be your guide," said Livingston. He shoved himself out of the booth, and Harry did as well.
"Hurry back, Mr. Beachcroft," said Mr. Boosterman. "I really want to hear your opinion on this matter."
"Um, uh," said Harry.
"Let's go," said Livingston. "I really gotta go."
They set off once again through the barroom, and Livingston put his mouth close to Harry's ear.
"I tend to forget how soul-crushingly deadly those guys are, but then I talk to them again, and it all comes rushing back to me. Come, we must make our escape."
"Okay, but I really do have to pee."
"So also I, but then we should bolt this popsicle stand posthaste."
"Where to?" said Harry.
"Does it matter?" said Livingston. "As a man once said, I think it might have been me, but I'll say it again: anywhere but here. This place is okay in small doses, but there's too many of these drudges here. Follow me, we'll go take a slash, and then high adventure awaits."
Adventure? Harry had written about adventure in dozens of novels and stories and serialized novellas, but he could not say he had even once experienced what might reasonably be called adventure. Would he experience it this night? And if he did indeed experience it, would he live to transform it into salable fiction, perhaps even into art?
He followed Livingston through the smoke-clouded room, full of babbling bores and the reekings of tobacco and liquor and leathery colognes.
"Oh, by the way, Livingston."
"Yes, Harry."
"What was it those guys were asking me about, anyway?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Okay, down this hallway for the pisser. Come on."
Harry followed Livingston down another dim hallway, hung with faded and dingy portraits of tedious tosspots of the past.
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