He brought a bottle anyway, and I looked at my watch.
“Well, just one.”
“Was it you?”
“Was it me what?”
I held out my paper cup.
“Weren’t you around here—”
I wiped foam off my mustache.
“Last night?
No, but I wish I had. I’d have caught my bus.
No, I was in the Motor Bar last night at eight. And was still there at midnight.”
He chewed his lip thoughtfully.
“The Motor Bar. Just down the street?”
And I nodded.
“The Motor Bar.
Hm-m-m.” I looked at him.
“Would you like… sure, you would.”
Before I could figure out what he was talking about he went to the back and from behind the beaverboard screen rolled out a big radio-phonograph and another jumbo bottle.
I held the bottle against the light. Still half full.
I looked at my watch.
He rolled the radio against the wall and lifted the lid to get at the dials.
“Reach behind you, will you?
The switch on the wall.”
I could reach the switch without getting up, and I did.
The lights went out.
I hadn’t expected that, and I groped at arm’s length.
Then the lights came on again, and I turned back, relieved.
But the lights weren’t on; I was looking at the street!
Now, all this happened while I was dripping beer and trying to keep my balance on a tottering chair—the street moved, I didn’t and it was day and it was night and I was in front of the Book-Cadillac and I was going into the Motor Bar and I was watching myself order a beer and I knew I was wide awake and not dreaming.
In a panic I scrabbled off the floor, shedding chairs and beer like an umbrella while I ripped my nails feeling frantically for the light switch.
By the time I found it— and all the while I was watching myself pound the bar for the bar-keep—I was really in fine fettle, just about ready to collapse.
Out of thin air right into a nightmare.
At last I found the switch.
The Mexican was looking at me with the queerest expression I’ve ever seen, like he’d baited a mousetrap and caught a frog.
Me?
I suppose I looked like I’d seen the devil himself.
Maybe I had.
The beer was all over the floor and I barely made it to the nearest chair.
“What,” I managed to get out, “what was that?”
The lid of the radio went down.
“I felt like that too, the first time. I’d forgotten.”
My fingers were too shaky to get out a cigarette, and I ripped off the top of the package.
“I said, what was that?”
He sat down.
“That was you, in the Motor Bar, at eight last night.”
I must have looked blank as he handed me another paper cup. Automatically I held it out to be refilled.
“Look here—” I started.
“I suppose it is a shock.
I’d forgotten what I felt like the first time I … I don’t care much any more.
Tomorrow I’m going out to Phillips Radio.”
That made no sense to me, and I said so.