One More for the Road Read Online Free Page B

boy,” I said.
    â€œI’m not a boy.”
    â€œNo? God’s forever child then, burning bright! Stay alive. Don’t become too famous.”
    â€œI won’t.” He hugged me and ran.
    Simon Cross. Simon Cross.
    And the war over and the time lost and him vanished. Spend ten years here, thirty there, and just rumors of my wandering genius child. Some said he had landed in Spain, married a castle, and championed dove shooting. Others swore they had seen him in Morocco, perhaps Marrakech. Spend another swift decade and jump the sill into 1998 with a Travel Machine treading useless waters in your attic and all Time on your hands, and book-signing fans pressed close when cracking the silence of forty years, what?!
    Simon Cross. Simon Cross.
    â€œDamn you to hell!” I shouted.
    The old, old man railed back, frightened, hands shielding his face.
    â€œDamn you!” I cried. “Where have you been? How have you used yourself? Christ, what a waste! Look at you! Straighten up! Are you who you say you are?”
    â€œI—”
    â€œShut up! God, you stupid nerveless monster, what have you done to that fine young man?”
    â€œWhat fine young man?” the old, old one babbled.
    â€œYou. You . You were the genius. You had the world by the tail. You wrote upside down backwards and it all came right! The world was your oyster. You made pearls. Christ, do you know what you’ve done?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œYes! Nothing! And all you had to do was whistle, blink, and it was yours!”
    â€œDon’t hit me!” he cried.
    â€œHit you? Kill you, maybe! Hit you! My God!”
    I looked around for a blunt instrument. I had only my fists, which I stared at and dropped in despair.
    â€œDon’t you know what life is, you damned idiot fool?” I said at last.
    â€œLife?” gasped the old, old man.
    â€œIt’s a deal. A deal you make with God. He gives you life, and you pay back. No, not a gift, a loan. You don’t just take, you give. Quid pro quo!”
    â€œQuid—?”
    â€œPro quo! One hand washes the other. Borrow and repay, give and take. And you! What a waste! My God, there are ten thousand people out there who’d kill for your talent, who’d die to be what you were and now aren’t. Lend me your body, give me your brain, if you don’t want it, give it back, but my God, run it to ruin? Lose it forever? How could you? What made you? Suicide and murder, murder and suicide! Oh damn, damn, damn you to hell!”
    â€œMe?” gasped the old, old man.
    â€œLook!” I cried, and spun him to face a shop mirror and see his own shipwreck. “Who is that?”
    â€œMe,” he bleated.
    â€œNo, that’s the young man you lost! Damn!”
    I raised my fists and it was a moment of stunned release. Images knocked my mind: Suddenly the attic loomed and the useless Machine waiting for no purpose. The Machine I had dreamed wondering why, for what? The Machine with two chairs waiting for occupants going where?
    My fists, midair, froze. The attic flashed in my mind and I lowered my fists. I saw the wine on the signing table and took it up.
    â€œWere you going to hit me?” the old, old man cried.
    â€œNo. Drink this.”
    He opened his eyes to the glass in his hand.
    â€œDoes it make me larger or smaller?” he said inanely.
    Alice down the rabbit hole with the DRINK ME bottle that grew her outsize or dwarf-small.
    â€œWhich?” he said.
    â€œDrink!”
    He drank. I refilled the glass. Astounded at this gift confounding my fury, he drank and drank a third and his eyes wet with surprise.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThis,” I said, and dragged him half-crippled out to the car and slung him in like a scarecrow and was off down the road, myself grimly silent, Simon Cross, the lost son of a bitch, babbling.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œHere!”
    We swerved into my front drive. I yanked him inside and