Dr. Puck continued down the boardwalk, drawn by the music which must certainly be emanating from a saloon.
He could now make out the tune of the piano, deafened though it was by the rowdy singing: Buffalo Gals. These players only ever know three songs. Perhaps some day he will retire as a saloon player and allow the crowd to marvel at the catalog of songs he could produce off the top of his head. The piano, loud and jarring as it was, was barely audible over the din of the inner saloon, shouts, screams, cat calls, fist fights, arguments, clinking glasses, smashing glasses, darts, boots, forks and knives, and the light scampering of feet of various vermin. On top of all that, several tables were filled with groups who insisted on singing their own songs, above the volume of the piano: drinking songs, fighting songs, tearjerker songs, maudlin songs. A singing crowd was likely to be loose with their money.
Dr. Puck was in his element.
He slipped amongst the unruly patrons to make his way to the bar at the back of the saloon. A dark smoky mirror loomed over the bar back, festooned with myriad bottles of various sizes, shades, and makes. He admired the glassware, then his gaze drifted to a nearby chalkboard which read:
PUNCH……………..…...penny
STAB…………………..….nickel
EYE GOUGE …....…… quarter
BIG JOB ………….…..….dollar
Hanging down both sides of the dusky mirror were dark dried items which Dr. Puck at first assumed to be dried mushroom caps, until he noticed a metal hoop stuck through one and realized they were, in fact, strings of human ears.
Oh dear, he mumbled to himself well below the general din of the establishment, and seemed not to have been overheard by the hard-looking barmaid with a face like an alabaster hatchet who leaned toward him with an intense stare in place of an introduction or order request.
And a splendid evening to you, my good woman, he began—only remembering halfway through that his mustache was in particularly bad shape, but tried not to allow it to throw off his patter. Might I trouble you for a sloe gin fizz in a tall glass?
Nope, she said.
You don’t have any sloe gin?
We got gin, but it ain’t slow or fast, just is. And we ain’t got nothin fizzy neither.
I see. But you do have gin.
Course. You particular on type? she asked.
I am particular on price.
Which way?
How’s that now? he asked.
She leaned back and gave Dr. Puck a once over. Well, she said, folk like yeself could go either way. Might want cheap, might want . . . not so cheap. So which way is it?
Cheap, he said.
She nodded once, her tongue stuck into her cheek. Thought’s much. We got Silver Star for a dime, and Horton’s and Juniper Juice is both a nickel a glass, or ye can take a pull on the barrel for a penny.
The barrel?
She nodded her head toward the area behind him. He turned to notice for the first time a large cask with ten hoses emerging from near the bottom. A group of disheveled revelers took turns swigging from the hoses before passing to someone else.
A penny a pull, she said. S’much’s ye can swallow in a single breath, and don’t try nothin funny, or ye’ll get a duke to the temple. Hear me?
A penny a pull, not bad. What is the drink itself then? Whisky? Gin? Ale?
Whatever’s left over from the night before, she answered blandly.
He licked his lips. I see, he said. I believe I will try my luck with a glass of the Horton’s. He fished through his coin purse for a nickel.
Suitcher self, she said and poured from a tall pale blue bottle with beveled corners into a greasy-looking glass. She pushed it toward him with a chapped finger, then pulled the nickel back toward herself, bit it, then chucked it into a tin cup. Dr. Puck was formulating a quip regarding the biting of the nickel but she had already turned and moved on to other customers.
The gin tasted like liquid tin with just a hint of a floral afternote. Possibly geranium. There were tiny bits of something floating around in the liquid. It burned his chest like it was molten lead as it made its way down. Not bad, he said to nobody in particular. He wiggled a few fingers before his eyes. His vision seemed mercifully unaffected. Really altogether not bad.
His feet were throbbing from his trek through the woods. Every stool at the bar was filled. One stool, however, was filled by a drunk passed out on the bar. Dr. Puck sidled in behind the sleeping beauty. The patrons on each side of the slumbering drunk were engaged in conversation with folk nearby. The sleeper seemed alone. Dr. Puck squinted up at another chalkboard listing the cuisine offered by the saloon kitchen that evening, meanwhile slipping one foot behind a leg of the stool and tugging ever so gently. The key was to look like you were otherwise engaged. The drunk as the stool slid out, bending in the middle like a swayback nag, yet still his chin remained on the lip of the bartop. Dr. Puck took another sip of his gin, shivering slightly, then pulled again with his foot, this time with enough moxie to clear the bar. More of a yank than a pull, if truth be told. The drunk collapsed to the floor like waterlogged scaffolding. As the drunk hit the floorboards the stool shot out into the crowd. A giant with a brick red beard and a pink union suit covered by denim overalls emerged from the rabble clutching the stool in a single meaty hand. He brushed the drunk to one side with his boot, then sat down at the bar.
Dr. Puck grimaced.