The Ninth Wave Read online

  "What is your name, mister?" Mike asked.

  "Allbright, Jack Allbright. You don't believe me. I'll show you." He reached in his pocket for his wallet. He brought the wallet out and laid it on the table and then stopped. "I don't care if you believe me or not. Why should I try to prove anything to you? What difference does it make?" He laughed delightedly, but he proceeded to take out a card and some pictures of himself in shorts and T-shirt, his face contorted, breaking a tape with his chest. He rummaged around in one of the compartments of the wallet and took out a Phi Beta Kappa key on a fine gold chain. He pushed all of it over toward Mike.

  Mike remembered the name. The relay team had broken the world's record and he could remember the faces of the men in the pages of the "Los Angeles Times."

  "You don't have to prove anything to me," Mike said. "I believe you." He pushed the heap of credentials back with the golden key glittering on top, but Allbright did not pick them up. "You want a drink?" Mike asked.

  "Of course. Larry," he yelled to the bartender, "bring us three beers." He turned back to Connie and Mike. "I only drink beer. That is after the first three or four days of a bat. At first I drink whisky to get me up on the level I want to maintain, then I coast along on beer. You know, that's the real secret of being a drunk. Those people that are always passing out, stumbling around. They aren't real drunks. They drink too much too fast and they don't really like being drunk; they don't understand it. The secret is to get just enough booze into your system so you're not sick and still not sober. Then you glide along on that amount. You have to calculate how much alcohol your system is burning up and then replace that. Once you have yourself really boozed up it is surprising how little it takes. I calculate for myself; I've got a high metabolic rate, that is about three beers an hour. But most people when they get tight feel so good that they think that more will make them feel better, and they take some more and they get sick or pass out." He stopped and laughed. "I talk a lot don't I? That's all right; people should talk more. They don't want us to talk. Those people in Washington and New York don't want us to talk, they just want us to read the crap they put in the papers. They're afraid we'll talk and discover what they're doing to us. Get married, screw your heads off, have big families, they say, but don't talk. Just read our newspapers, read what we write for you. Work eight hours a day, raise a family so Roosevelt can get their ass shot off in a war. Well, not me. I come down here and talk. I find things out."

  "Are you married?" Mike asked.

  "It's funny," the man said ignoring Mike's question, "when I get drunk I never think of running off to a woman, I never think of sex. It's kind of pure asceticism; the only kind of anchorite we have today is the real, systematic drunk. It's a calling." He paused. "What did you say?"

  "I asked it you were married."

  "Sure I'm married. Got a fine wife and three kids . . . all boys. Pillar of the community. Wife from a rich San Francisco family. Look, I'm a respectable man. I could go up to the Palace Hotel or the St. Francis and walk in the men's bar and I would know half the people there. They would all be friends of mine. Dull, silly bastards though. I wouldn't want to see them. They hate me, I hate them." He paused a moment, a look of recollection went over his face. "I fooled them all. They all thought I married the girl for her money and that she married me for my body. They were right that far. But I beat 'em at their own game. I borrowed twenty thousand from my wife's father. Went into the stock and bond business. Aimed at the small buyer, delivered sales in beautiful envelopes by motorcycle messenger. I've got business all over San Francisco and the Peninsula. God, how it grieves my wife to see her name on cheap, loud little motorcycles. You ever seen one? Allbright is painted on the side-car."

  Mike had seen dozens of them.

  "Oh, I've made lots of money and they all hate me for it. I don't give a damn. Every few months I go on a bat; come down here and get drunk and then wander around talking to people like those men at the bar. Look, I could do anything. I could be a successful politician, a writer, a businessman, a flyer. But hell with it. Them and their lousy world. All I want to do is just to be left alone and have the chance to talk with people like those over at the bar."

  Connie's eyes glowed with admiration. Mike looked at her and then back at Allbright.

  "You're talking to the wrong people, friend," Mike said. "We'd like to be in the world you're running away from."

  "Not me. I wouldn't," Connie said. "If I were a man I'd do just what you're doing, Mr. Allbright. Really I would."

  "I just wanted to come over and puncture your balloon," Allbright said. "I saw you were college kids thinking you were doing something daring and I wanted to give you the other side. I'll go back to my buddies now. Back to that snug world of the alcoholic." He did not stand up. "It surprises you to hear a drunk talk about drunkenness, doesn't it? You think I ought to be ashamed of it. But it's a calling, a dedication. And I'm dedicated to it. When I get drunk I practice it twenty-four hours a day. Never have to sleep, hardly eat anything. Just drink my three beers an hour and talk with my friends. I'm not apologizing for it; I'm proud of it.

  "I'll tell you what it's like," he went on. "It's like one of those motion pictures you see of people underwater; everything is slowed down and wavy, big black figures that look dangerous turn out to be nothing but harmless little fish. And everything has its edges softened, turned green and soft." He picked up his glass of beer, held it up before them. "All of that comes out of this glass. That god damned miserable world of Montgomery Street and Pacific Heights and stocks and bonds and a clinging bitchy wife and snot-nosed kids are all washed away by the bubbling beer. It's all gone. All of that dirty rotten system." He smiled benignly at Connie and Mike. He poked his finger into the glass of beer, held the wet finger up in the air. "Here is the only reality left in a god damn phony world." He put the finger in his mouth and licked it clean.

  "You're right," Connie said. "You've got more courage than most of us. The rest of us are all wrapped up in habits and mores and customs. We're frightened. We just go along doing what we are told and never stop to take a hard look at our lives or at our culture."

  She said it like a prepared speech that a person might prepare for a college recitation, but her eyes were liquid with intensity.

  "You're right," Allbright said and his face broke out in a grin. "You're absolutely right." With his hand he rubbed at a corner of his eye, disturbed the triangle of white sleep so that it came to rest on the bridge of his nose. He gulped the rest of the beer down and ordered another round.

  "See, I could be a success if I wanted to," he went on. "But not on their terms. That's not being a success, that's being a god damned slave. I've escaped them; they can't catch me in their lousy system." His voice went crafty. "And if they push me too far, or if the booze starts to wear out or my kidneys or bladder give out there's always a way out."

  "There is?" Connie asked.

  "Sure there is," he said and his voice swooped up in triumph. "I'll just step off the Golden Gate Bridge and end it all. It's as simple as that. Or as complicated as that. You're not really free unless you have the courage to take your life . . . if you know you have that courage then you can live a free life. I mean a really free life."

  Connie's eyes glowed with admiration. She licked her lips.

  "You shouldn't talk like that," she said. "You have so much to contribute."

  "Contribute? Contribute to who?" Allbright asked. "My wife who is a crazy bitch, my kids who don't have a clue to what is going to happen to them, my lousy father-in-law? Larry, bring us another round. And make mine a muscatel boilermaker." He looked at Mike. "When I talk my metabolic rate goes up. Have to stoke away more booze to keep the alcohol content up. That's the art, see . . . just keeping the alcohol level at the right place."

  "Yes, you told us that before," Mike said.

  Allbright looked slyly at Mike and when Mike stared back at him he winked. When the waiter brought the drinks, Allbright took a gulp
out of his glass of beer and then poured the glass of muscatel in the beer. The heavy wine swirled redly through the yellow bubbles of the beer. Allbright mixed it with his finger until the glass was an even pink color.

  "Connie, we have to go," Mike said.

  "Right now?" Connie asked.

  "Right now."

  "Where are you golng?" Allbright asked.

  "Down the Peninsula to Palo Alto," Mike said.

  "I'll go with you," Allbright said. He raised his hand as if to stop a protest. "Now don't get me wrong. I'm no bore. I'll just ride along with you and when I get to Palo Alto I'll visit some friends. I've got friends all over. Couple of nice bars down there where I know everybody. I'll spend a day or two down there. You won't be stuck with me. That's what you thought, eh?" he pointed a gleeful finger at Mike and chuckled. "Well, you're wrong; I just want a ride. I don't give a damn where I go. Booze is my friend, understand? I don't care where I wind up. Don't worry about money either. I've got plenty." He took out his wallet and showed them a sheaf of twenty-dollar bills.

  Allbright got up and went to the bar. He ordered another muscatel boilermaker and drank it off. When he came back his walk was unsteady; as he sat down his hand pawed the air in slight searching jerks as he felt for the chair.

  "O.K. Let's go," Allbright said.

  "This is fun," Connie said.

  They went out and got in Connie's car and Mike drove. As they drove along, Allbright told them about how he had broken training during the '32 Olympics and wound up-with half of the relay team in a Mexican whorehouse in Tijuana. The coach found them and drove them back to Los Angeles with their heads hanging out of the car, changed them into running clothes and broke the world record.

  Suddenly, through the haze of beer and wine, something came to Mike. It was at the very edge of his mind, it lacked words, but it was sharp and clear cut. Somehow the idea would give part of the final answer, would shape-up confusion. He looked over at Allbright and Connie. He licked his lips and when he came to Tenth Street he turned right and went out Van Ness instead of heading for the Bayshore.

  "First world record, betcha, that was ever broken under the influence of alcohol," Allbright said. "Betcha. But it was fun."

  "All that honor at an early age is probably what made it possible for you to rise above the clamor of the crowd now," Mike said. "You've been on top and you know how little it means."

  Connie looked sharply at Mike. He stared back at her and what he had to do became sharper. He felt uncertain, at the edge of a great risk. His stomach knotted.

  "That's it," Allbright said. "That is absolutely it. I've been on top of their god damned world. I know that all those honors and laurel wreaths and gold watches and newspaper clippings don't mean a damned thing." Allbright twisted his head and looked at Mike. "Mike, that was very clever of you to see that. You're all right, Mike."

  Mike drove slowly for a few more blocks. Connie looked out the window and then turned to Mike, her face questioning. Mike knew he could wait no longer.

  "Allbright, you're a liar," Mike said softly. "A god damned drunken liar. I don't believe a thing you've said."

  Allbright's head jerked sideways and he stared across at Connie, then at Mike for a moment. Then stiffly he grinned.

  "I don't care if you believe me or not," Allbright said. "What difference does it make to me?"

  "Don't talk to him like that, Mike," Connie said.

  "All that crap about being a Phi Beta Kappa and being an Olympic champ and running a stock and bond business," Mike said softly, turning the words over carefully on his tongue. "All that was crap. Anyone can buy a Phi Beta Kappa key in a pawn shop and have an identification card made up in any peenny arcade that says you are Jack Allbright and then all you have to do is look up his records in an old newspaper and no one can ever tell the difference."

  "Mike, shut up," Connie said. "Also watch where you drive. You're almost to the Golden Gate turnoff. You're going the wrong way."

  The two men ignored her.

  "A year or two ago, Mike, I would have cared," Allbright said. "But now it doesn't bother me a bit. I don't care if you believe me or not." He grinned out the window, hummed a tune under his breath. After a second he dug his wallet out of his pocket, pawed through the contents. "But just to show you, Mike, here is a solid gold ticket admitting me to any athletic contest that Dartmouth ever plays. Is that proof?" He handed the shining flat piece of gold over to Mike.

  Mike looked at it quickly and threw it back on Allbright's lap.

  "Don't be silly, Allbright," Mike said. "You could have one of those made up as easily as not. Why, Jesus, any jeweler would make you one if you had the money. Who are you trying to kid?"

  "No one, damn it," Allbright said. The grin was gone from his face and his eyes were trying to focus. "I don't care if you believe me or not." His voice shook very slightly, however. "You're like the rest of them out there." His hand smeared over the window, taking in the entire world outside the automobile. "You don't bother me, though. What do I care if you believe me or not. What difference does it make?"

  "And all that crap about going to the Palace Hotel and being welcomed with open arms," Mike went on, talking very softly. "Look, Allbright, every bum in the Last Chance would tell you the same thing if you asked him . . . big man once . . . disgusted with it all . . . rummies are the only good people . . . anything to keep them from facing the fact that they can't resist that awful temptation in the morning to ease the headache and stomachache and heartache by pouring a glass or two of beer into their belly. Every rummie has the same story, Allbright."

  "Yes, sure, maybe so. Maybe they do, but I'm different," Allbright said and his voice was becoming shrill. "I've really got the money, I really was a champ, I've really got the motorcycles with my name on them." Allbright's hands ran over his clothing as if he were searching for some absolute means of identification. "I don't care what the rest of the rummies say. I tell you that I'm telling the truth."

  "Sure, sure," Mike said, his voice heavy with disbelief.

  "Don't talk to him like that," Connie said again.

  The car started up the soaring concrete ramps that led to the Golden Gate Bridge approach. The traffic thickened as cars swept in off the various approaches, melted into a stream of cars. The fog lights made everyone's skin turn yellow and coarse; in some peculiar cosmetic fashion seemed to underline every facial gesture.

  Connie jerked her head, stared at Mike and her eyes were already bulging, as if she sensed what would come. Mike fought down the doubt, kept his voice steady.

  "And the biggest lie, the easiest one, is all that crap about committing suicide when this hard world gets too much for you," Mike said. "You've just heard about Schopenhauer someplace and use that as a smart little argument to entertain yourself and the other rummies."

  "You're wrong. That's the part I believe the most," Allbright said. He leaned forward to see across Connie and his face was working, lips quivering. "That's what I really believe."

  "Prove it," Mike said softly.

  They came to the toll plaza, Mike paid and they drove on.

  There was a sudden stillness in the car, broken only by the whirr of tires on the concrete of the bridge. The other cars pulled away from them and they were moving by themselves. The red cables of the bridge came thickly down out of the high fog, the supporting wires hung tautly and the blackness below the bridge was so solid, so endless, so deep that it seemed to hold up the structure.

  "Prove it?" Allbright asked. He grinned fiercely, defiantly and then, as if some inner thought had gripped him, his face went smooth and flat. "How?" he said in a distant voice.

  "The only way you can prove something like that is by doing it," Mike said. "There are some questions which only allow of one answer. This is one. There is only one way to prove it." Mike paused for a moment and then went on in a more jovial tone. "When I think of all that crap you were handing out in that bar. God, I have to laugh. You were really a kick.
Tap any one of those rummies on the shoulder and ask him to talk and he would have given just the same kind of a song and dance that you did."

  "I don't know about them," Allbright said in a voice that would'have been a scream if it had not been so shrill and thin. "But I wasn't lying. I was telling the truth."

  "Mike, will you stop this?" Connie said and her voice was pleading.

  In the bar, Allbright's face had been round, fattening, relaxed and soft. Now it seemed as if the flesh had melted from his face. His cheekbones stood out, his jaw muscles were taut. Under the yellow light there was something skull-like and gaunt about him. As they moved toward the center of the bridge, the fog began to thicken. The bridge appeared insubstantial, tattered by white fog. Far away, the blobs of rear lights wavered and grew dim. Their car was alone, suspended in the fog.