_MORE STORIES BY R. A. LAFFERTY_ § 185. Golden Gate

"Golden Gate"

1.
When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified
your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite
problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively.
In a way, the next move is up to him.
And it can be a satisfying experience; the more so here, as many would
like to have killed him. And now it is done under the ghastly light, just as
that old devil's tune comes to a climax and the voices have swelled to an
animal roar.
And afterwards an overflowing satisfaction compounded of defiance and
daring; and a wonderful clarity born of the roaring excitement. Not peace, but
achievement. The shadows prowl in the corners like wolves, and one glows like
a lantern.
But Barnaby did not shoot him till Thursday evening. And this was only
Monday, and that state of clarity had not yet been attained.
It was clear to Barnaby that Blackie was really a villain. Not everybody
knew this. A melodrama villain is only black behind the lights. Off stage he
should have a heart of gold. Whether of wrestling match, or afternoon serial,
or evening drama or film, or on the little stage here at the Golden Gate Bar,
the villain should be -- when his role is finished -- kind and courteous,
thoughtful and big-hearted, a prince of a fellow.
That is no myth. Here it was not entirely true.
"I have always suspected," said Barnaby, "that there is some bad in
every villain. I would prove this if only I had proof. Why am I drinking
cider?"
"We always give you cider when you have had enough beer."
"It is a dirty trick, and you are a dirty Irish trickster. Tell Jeannie
to play 'Fire in the Cockleburs.'"
"There isn't any such song, dear."
"I know there isn't, Margaret, but once I asked her to play a song that
wasn't, and she played it."
Barnaby was a confused young man. He was something of a rum-dum as are
many of the noble men of the world. And even with a broken nose he was better
looking than most. He came to the Golden Gate because he was in love with
three wonderful women there.
The Golden Gate Bar is not on the Pacific Ocean. It is on another ocean,
at this point several thousand miles distant. But if the name of fine ocean
were known, people would go there, and range up and down that coast until they
found this wonderful place. And they would come in every night, and take up
room, and stay till closing time.
It is crowded here as it is, The most one can ever get is one wrist on
the bar. All the tables are filled early, and no couple ever has one alone for
long. The relentless and scantily-dressed waitresses double them up. Then they
double them up again as the crowd grows. Soon the girls and ladies have all
the seats, and the men stand behind them at the tables. And later, as the
drinking and singing continue, some of the men sit on the ladies' laps. They
do things like that at the Golden Gate.
Clancy O'Clune, the singing bartender, began this custom. He sang
ballads and love songs to the girls. He wandered as he sang, and picked out
the plainest and shyest and most spinsterish creature he could find. He would
sit on her lap and sing to her; and as soon as her embarrassment had faded a
little, she would join in the fun and sing with the crowd.
Group singing was what brought the crowds to the Golden Gate. For people
love to sing if they don't have to sing alone. Jeannie was marvelous at the
piano, and with her, people would sing all the old ballads: "Tavern in a
Town," "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," "When You Were Sixteen," "Hot Time in
the Old Town."
The Gate was a family place down on the old pier, and the only
drinking spot along the beach where children were admitted. For them was cider
in great steins. The motif was Gay Nineties. There were mustaches and derby
hats. The waitresses were scanty and seductive, and plumed and pretty in some
old dance hall costume fashion. Even the customers liked to dress the part,
and came in vintage gowns and old checkered vests from ancient trunks.
"I know the evil of him is largely compounded of soot and grease," said
Barnaby who was still thinking of Blackie, the villain. "How do we know that
the evil of the devil himself is not so compounded?"
On the floor was sawdust, and the lights were gas lights. The cuspidors
were old brass, and stood up in their glory.
"Has Blackie a name, Margaret, like regular people?"
"Of course he has, dear. He is W.K. Willingsforth."
Now that was interesting. The true name of the Devil was sought by
Faust, as to know it gives a power over him. And to learn it so casualty was
unheard-of luck. And if he had a name, than possibly he had also a habitation
as though he were human.
The lamp lighter turned out the lights in the bar-room and fired the
eerie gas torches it each and of the stage. For every evening was the
melodrama. This was lend and wide, with pistols and boots and whips, and the
bull-roarer voice of Blackie. Clancy O'Clune was the hero. Jenny, bustled and
bosomed, was the thrilling heroine. And Blackie was the villain, that filthy
old snake of a man.
The crowd would howl out "No! No! No!" to his monstrous demands, and
hiss and cat-call. And Jeannie at the piano ran a marvelous accompaniment as
her sister Jenny fluted her outraged innocence and terror.
This was a Monday night that Barnaby first saw the villain. And an odd
passion came on him; for beyond the comic and burlesque he felt a struggle and
a terror. The sandy hair raised on his neck, and he knew the villain for what
he was.
Barnaby sat with a middle-aged couple and drank beer from a pitcher
large beyond all believing.
"We love to come here," said Anne Keppel, "We have so much fun just
watching the other people have fun. This is the only place this old bear will
ever take me. I love to sing, but I wouldn't dare sing anywhere else. He makes
jokes about the ghost of a dead cat coming back, and why does it have to
suffer like that."
"The only place I ever sing," said Aurelius Keppel, "is here and in the
bath tub. In the tub, I have to keep up a great splashing, or this shrew will
beat on the door and announce that the doctor will be here in a minute, and to
be brave. It isn't that I haven't a wonderful voice. It isn't that I haven't a
wonderful wife. But my wonderful wife doesn't appreciate my wonderful voice."
If one is to hate the villain properly, he should love the heroine.
Barnaby loved passionately, but knew only slightly, the heroine, Jenny. A
little better he knew, a little more he loved her sister, Jeannie, the pretty
piano player. But he knew Margaret, the mother of the two girls, quite well.
Margaret was more beautiful than her daughters. She was the tallest and
best liked of those wonderful waitresses. And she was the owner of the Golden
Gate.
And the girls were onto him. "It isn't us, it's mama you like. How does
she do it?"
"I'll tell you. She's younger than her daughters. You're a couple of old
maids. Young and pretty, but still old maids. You're not in your mother's
class."
"Oh, we know it."
But they were no such thing. They were as exciting and heady a pair as
were ever met. jenny, the frail heroine, might toss a man over her shoulder
like a sack and spin away with him. And there was never any telling what
Jeannie would do.
The melodrama was over, and the little stage was dark. And it was then
that Barnaby knew that he must kill the villain.
Clancy O'Clune, still in his hero's habiliments, picked a slightly gray
and quietly amused pretty lady. He sat on her lap and sang to her softly a
goodnight lullaby. Afterwards, Jeannie brought the piano to a great volume,
and everybody sang "We Won't Go Home Till Morning."
But they all went home at midnight when the Golden Gate closed.
And when Barnaby was home, he took out a little six-shot and fondled it
as though it were a jewel.

2.
Now it was Tuesday, the second day of the involvement. Barnaby was
sitting in the company or four sophomores from City College. It is known by
all, though not admitted by all, that sophomores are at the same time the most
ingenuous, ingenious, and disingenuous people in the world. They are a wonder
and a confrontation. Their hearts are ripe and their minds are on fire, and
the door of the whole cosmos is open to them. Now, at the end of their second
spring, they are imbued with clarity and charm.
"A survey reveals that eighty percent of the people believe in Heaven
but only twenty percent in Hell," said Veronica. "That is like believing in up
but not down, in a disc of only one side, a pole with a top but no bottom,
Making Love to Alice Bly, in light but not in darkness."
That one line in the middle was not part of the argument. It was a line
in the ballad that the crowd was singing, and Veronica sang it with them. And
yet it too was part of the argument, for Miss Bly, who looked like an angel,
had roots that went down to Hell.
It was odd that they would be talking of things like that. And only
Barnaby know the reason: that Blackie was so much a Devil that they were
reminded of his homeland.
"If it weren't for the evil in it the world would be a fine place," said
Simon. "But it is only the Evil who do not believe in evil, and only the
Hellish who do not believe in Hell. There's Seven Men Going to the
Graveyard."
"And Only Six are Coming Back," sang Hazel. Then she said, "It is there
like a cold wind, and curls in the corner like a dog. A whole room full of
people can turn evil in a minute. The world grinds and shudders. It can come
like a bolt and stand in the middle of you."
It did come like a bolt and stand in the middle of them, but perhaps
only Barnaby knew what it was and shivered for it. And yet the rest shivered
as with sudden cold. For the Villain had appeared costumed in his villainy,
and the melodrama began.
Once more the short red hair rose on the nape of Barnaby, and the odd
passion came over him. He breathed heavily, as did others in the room. There
was a terror in the comic, and excitement danced like lightning over the
burlesque stage.
And when tile crowd howled "No! No! No!" in simulated fury, it was not
entirely simulated. And there were some who crowed "Yes! Yes!" wickedly
against the crowd; and one of these was Hazel, bright-eyed and panting, as she
felt the evil, like a dog in the corner, rise within her.
So it thrashed to a climax. Did not Jeannie know that the accompaniment

she played on the piano was diabolic? For the temptations of the dark villain
were manifold. But for a word of his, the crippled brother of the heroine
would go to prison; and he withheld the word. But for his testimony, the mine
of the heroine's father would pass into the domain of the Fast Buck Mining
Company, and he would not give the testimony. There was even evidence, clear
to the more perspicacious, that he was himself the Fast Buck Mining Company.
But for him, the dastardly he about the heroine's mother would spread and
spread; and perhaps he would be the one to spread it. There would be no bread
in the cupboard, nor coal in the scuttle, nor milk for the small children. And
against all this only the frail virtue of the thrilling heroine.
"She ought to go with him," said the girl at the next table. "He only
wants her for the weekend. I'd go with him. Yes! Yes!" cried the girl at the
next table.
And then Barnaby knew for sure that the old dark villain had to die.
Now the melodrama was over and the lamp lighter lit the lights again.
The sods rose in a hundred-headed fountain; everybody had a dozen more beers
and sang the ballads of Jeannie. Clancy O'Clune put on his sheriffs badge that
was eighteen inches across, and there was law and order, though a great deal
of noise, in the Golden Gate Bar.
And when the midnight tide pounded under the pier, Clancy came and sat
on the silken knees of a little houri named Maybelline, and sang to her "Good
Night Little Sweetheart."
And after everybody sang "We Won't Go Home Till Morning," they all went
home. Except those who went to the Buccaneer, and the Alamo, and the Town
House, and places like that.

3.
Wednesday morning Barnaby had a breakfast date with Jenny. It may not
have been made clear that jenny was really beautiful. Just how beautiful, it
is impossible to say. Not, perhaps, as beautiful as her sister Jeannie. Not,
certainly, as beautiful as her mother, Margaret. But nevertheless
breath-taking, fantastic, clear out of the world.
But she asked the oddest questions.
"Why don't you work? You're not working today. You didn't work
yesterday. I don't think you even worked Monday."
"Listen," said Barnaby. "You can believe it or not, but before that I
worked for four weeks straight. Naturally I'm entitled to a vacation. How
could I work this week when I've met you wonderful people and have you to
think about? If it wouldn't mike you conceited, I'd tell you how wonderful you
really are."
"No. It won't mike me conceited. Please tell me. I know, of course, but
I like to have people tell me."
"You are just a dream. You are that little heroine all the time. All of
you are wonderful except that villain. I would like to strangle him with my
hands."
"Why, he's the most wonderful of us all, He's a real flesh-crawler. I
know what's the matter. You're jealous because it's really mama you're in love
with. I guess all villains are really marvelous."
"I know a devil when I see one. I'll bring a gun some night and kill
him."
"He says sometimes people do. Not kill him, but shoot at him. Then he
knows he's getting across. But it'd be terrible if something happened to
him."
"It would be grand."
"Don't talk like that, I have to go. I'm glad you asked me, but I'm mad
that you asked Jeannie first. If I'm a dream, why did you ask her first? Now I
have to leave because I'm always so busy. Wait till the waitress goes by, and
then kiss me. Be in tonight and see how pretty I look."

Now it was Wednesday night, the third of the epic. Barnaby was at a
table with three seamen. These were not unknown. Long John in particular was
known all over town. He was not merely lantern-jawed, he was jawed like an
eighteenth-century ship's lantern, copper bound and brass bottomed, and the
nose on him as livid and red as an old beacon at night. His clothing was
beyond description, and the hat on his head older than any man now living in
the world. And most know Benny Bigby and Limey Lynd, the other two. To know
them, however, was not to like them. Benny had a muzzle like a fox and was
always looking over his shoulder. Limey was a cockney dude. They were loud and
obscene. If they hadn't been friends of Barnaby, he wouldn't have liked them
either.
Already, through the early crowd there was running a tide of resentment
toward the seamen; and this only for their insistence that all the songs that
night should be sea songs. Now there is nothing wrong with "As I was A-walking
Down Paradise Street -- With a Ho Ho Blow The Man Down," but it has seventeen
choruses, and when it is sung seventeen times, that makes either two hundred
and eighty-nine or two hundred and ninety-nine. That is too much.
And when another ballad slipped in sideways:
"I only ask you, lack, to do your duty, that is all;
You know you promised that we should be wed,"
they sit in towering silence and would not sing.
"It isn't as though they were high-sea seamen," Blackie, the villain,
said to Clancy O'Clune. "One of them works on a garbage scow, and one on a
pile-driving barge, and one on a ferry boat."
But Barnaby was loyal to his friends, and he considered only the evil
source of the remark. So he also howled for sea songs.
Now the crowd came like snow and filled the room.
"I have been in every Hell Hole of the world," said Long John.
"Zanzibar, Devil's Island, Port Royal (that was before the earthquake),
Oklahoma City, Cote der Pirates, Newport News, Mobile, Alabama; but I have
never seen a more evil looking man. Who is he?"
Barnaby was pleased. He had found a friend. Someone else who hated
Blackie. "That is Blackie, the Villain."
"Ah, Le Noire, I should have known. I heard of him once in Marseille."
And yet that was hardly possible, for neither of them had ever been
there.
The thing about Blackie, is that he was very easy to be afraid of. He
had arms like a python. And if one cannot conceive of a python with arms, no
more can he of Blackie. Barnaby was a handy young man. Though he fought less
than he once did, yet he always won more fights than he lost. He measured
Blackie with his gray eyes, and he knew that he was afraid of him.
"I wonder how it will be when he is dead," said Barnaby. "When the soul
leaves the body, they speak of the Wings of the Dove. With him it will be the
pinions of the vulture."
The little houri named Maybelline came over and made herself acquainted
with Barnaby, and he was entranced with her. And however it happened, she was
soon sitting on his knee, and they were drinking beer from the same mug.
It wasn't as though he weren't still in love with Jeannie, who now
smiled and frowned at him together from her piano.
It wasn't as though he wasn't still in love with Margaret who now wagged
a finger at him from across the room. But an houri is different from other
girls, and when you are entranced, what can you do?
Everybody sang:
"In a cottage down in Sussex
Live her parents old and lame,
And they drink the wine she sends them,
But they never speak her name."

And they sang:
"Shoot me like an Irish soldier,
Do not hang me like a dog."
Everybody sang together the music of Jeannie, and the only lights in the
place were those old gas lights. Something went out of the world with them.
These new lights, they have no smell to them, they have no flicker or real
glow. You can't reach up and light a cigar or dramatically burn a letter. It's
almost as though they weren't alive.
And after a while, Jeannie began to play devil's music, and Evil
uncoiled like a snake and slid into the room. The lights in the world went
out, and the torches were lit in Hell; and the melodrama began on the little
stage. The world shuddered on its axis, and the villain was prince of the
world. Once more the odd passion came on Barnaby. An animal surge went through
the crowd as the noble hero and the trilling heroine and the dark villain
acted out the oldest epic in the world.
"No! No! No!" But tonight virtue would not triumph. The more he was
hissed, the more powerful the villain became. For he also had his supporters,
and now they rose like a ground swell. Virtue was howled down in a crescendo
of devil's music played by Jeannie at the piano.
"O.K." said Jenny, the heroine, "let's go and get it over." So Jenny
went with the evil villain, and everybody laughed as the lights were lit again
with a taper.
Now they all had a dozen more beers and sang:
"Just break the news to Mother,
She knows how dear I love her,
And tell her not to wait for me,
For I'm not coming home."
And the words had a double meaning for Barnaby.
They sang:
"The cook she was a kind old soul.
She had a ragged dress.
We hoisted her upon a pole
As a signal of distress."
And this seemed inexpressibly sad to Barnaby, and not even the houri on
his knees could cheer him up.
For over in the corner was jenny, and she was sitting with Blackie, the
villain, in a condition of extreme friendliness; and for all he knew they were
drinking their beer from the same pitcher.
Then, as the night ran on, Clancy O'Clune picked out an eleven year old
girl who was drinking cider with her father, who was a barber, and he came and
sat on her lap and sang to her "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young
Charms" for a goodnight song.
Afterwards everybody sang "We Won't Go Home Till Morning." And they all
went home at midnight.

4.
Thursday morning Barnaby had a breakfast date with Jeannie, the
outrageously beautiful piano player.
"Did Jenny turn you down? Why did you ask me first today?"
"I always ask you first."
"Jenny says you're mad at her because she's friendly with Blackie.
But he's so nice. Don't you know that? He's one of the nicest men we
ever met."
"He is a devil. He makes my flesh crawl."
"He is supposed to. But only on the stage, He's a consummate actor. I
think that's the word that mama says he is. And mama says for us to keep an
eye on you because you're acting so peculiar. We tell her you only act
peculiar over her. Don't you think we'd make nice daughters-in-law?"
"You would be nice anything, Jennie."
"And don't you wish you were a sultan and could have us all at once?"
"Yes I do. I never thought of it, but that's just what I wish."
"And the houri too?"
"How did you know she was an houri? I thought I was the only one who
knew."
"I'm never sure you're serious. I do have to go, dear. Isn't it too bad
that everyone always has to go all the time? You eat the rest of my jelly and
egg. Kiss me. Good bye."
And it was morning and evening, the fourth day.
And in the evening Barnaby sat with a table full of refinery workers. He
had brought with him tonight his little six shot loaded. And five were blanks
and one was not.
The refinery workers were named Croesus Kahlmeyer, Midas Morressey, and
Money-Bags Muldoon. These are the names that the waitresses gave to them, for
refinery workers are the biggest tippers in the world. They tip lavishly. The
reason they call do this is that all refinery workers get a hundred hours a
week overtime, and the money they make is fantastic.
Gaiety Garrett was waiting their table. The boys all called her Gaiety
Unrestrained. And in a larger sense gaiety unrestrained reigned through the
whole of the Golden Gate.
Now the surf pounded loudly under the pier. It always seemed noisiest
when the melodrama was about to start. For after the hours had passed, the
lamp lighter turned out the lights in the barroom and flared the torches on
the stage. The smell of them came over the room like a weird fog.
Then Barnaby took the little six-shot from his pocket and fondled it.
For the reign of the prince of evil was about to be ended in the world.
And when the melodrama was at its loudest, and the pistols barked, and
the crowd roared like an animal, Barnaby raised his six-shot trembling.
And fired it six times.
It is such a little thing to kill a man and brings so much satisfaction,
you wonder everybody does not do it. It is like walking through green meadows
after an oppressing darkness.
Barnaby relaxed and the short hairs subsided on his nape; for the
passion had left him. Peace came down on him like white snow.
"I have killed the villain," he slid. And he had. The pinions of the
vulture had sounded and the soul of the villain had gone.
But the act was for himself alone. Only he and the victim knew that it
had happened.
For Blackie did not act as though he were killed. He strutted through
the drama to its close while the crowd howled and everyone was happy.
Yet there was no doubt that the villain was dead, for a great clarity
had descended on Barnaby. And Blackie was now more like an odd old friend who
needed a shave, and no more a python or a devil.
Margaret came to the table and she was white faced.
"Don't you ever do a thing like that again. Give me that. How could you
do that to him? We all love you and thought you loved us."
And she looked at him queerly. He liked the way she looked at him: a
sort of wild worry beneath the kindness.
Everybody drank an ocean of beer and sang thousands upon thousands of
songs. And when it was late, Clancy O'Clune went over to Gladys, who wore
glasses, and sat on her lap and sang "Just a Song at Twilight" for a goodnight
song.
And as always they sang "We Won't Go Home Till Morning". And as always
they went home at midnight.

5.
Friday morning Barnaby went to work; but there was only a half day's
work for him. It often happens that a boy will find only a half day's work
after he has laid off for a week and needs it.
And in the afternoon he went to the Golden Gate, which was closed in the
daytime. He went in the back where deliveries were made.
The sour ghost of last night's beer permeated the place. And there was
another ghost there, loud and wailing.
It was a terrible noise, a discordant clanging and chording that was the
saddest thing he had ever heard: the woeful wailing of a soul that has been in
purgatory a long century, and has just been told that it is not purgatory it
is in. It was a hopeless crash filled with a deep abiding sorrow that had once
been hope.
Blackie was playing the piano, and there was torture in his eyes. Yet he
talked happily.
"Hello, Barnaby. I love the instrument. I play it every chance I get.
Yet I am told that I do not play well. Do I play well, Barnaby?"
"No, no, you play quite badly."
Blackie, that old python who needed a shave, seemed discouraged.
"I was afraid you would think so. Yet to myself it is beautiful. Do you
think it sounds beautiful to anyone?"
"No. I don't think it would sound beautiful to anyone in the world,
Blackie."
"I wish it weren't so."
"I shot at you last night, Blackie."
"I know it. Six shots. I knew you would."
"One of them was not a blank."
"The third. I know it would be the third. I dug it out of the plaster
this morning."
"Does anyone else know?"
"No. How would anyone else know? I am going away, Barnaby."
"Where?"
"Kate's Klondike Bar. They need a villain there. Here they are changing
the format. They will call this the Speakeasy. It will be a gin mill with
flapper waitresses like John Held Jr. pictures. They will have a lost
generation motif and sing lost twenties songs. Clancy is practicing 'Star
Dust' all the time. I could stay an as a gangster, but I am better as an old
time villain. The gay days are about over. The Twenties will be the new era of
nostalgia."
"I will not like that."
He went to find Margaret where she was counting her money in a little
room.
"Blackie sis you are going to change this to a Sad Twenties place."
"Yes, dear, the Twenties will be all the rage now."
"I don't remember them like I do the older times. I wasn't even born
yet, in the twenties. Do you remember them, Margaret?"
"Of course I do. It'll be sweet to have them back. We have some
wonderful ideas. The girls play old scratchy records all day long to learn
them."
"Will you still have the melodrama?"
"Well, no. But we'll leave skits. Well, not skits really; we'll have
ukulele players and things like that. You'll like it."
"There's only one thing bothers me."
"What, dear?"
"In the Twenties, how did they know who was the villain?"
"I don't know, dear. Here are the men with the scenery. I have to show
them where to put it."
But that Friday night it wasn't the same. The girls were all dressed in
potato sacks with the belts only three inches from the bottom. Their stockings
were rolled and their knees were rouged; and on their heads were sheath-like
helmets that made them look like interplanetary creatures with the ears
sheared off them. Jenny and Jeannie looked like two peeled onions with not
enough hair on their heads to cover them. Oh, that those breath-taking
creatures should come to this!
They sang "Yes Sir, she's my baby." They sang "Oh you have no idea."
They sang:
"You play the Uke,
You're from Dubuque,
I go for that."
The Speakeasy spoke, but Barnaby could not hear its message. To him it
was dismal and deep. And then the long evening was over and the gin glasses
were empty.
Clancy O'Clune was singing a good night song to a boney flapper.
"Picture me
Upon your knee,
And tea for two,
And two for tea."
But he didn't sit on her lap. All at once none of the ladies were built
like that anymore.
Barnaby went to Blackie's room, Blackie was packing.
"What town is Kate's Klondike Bar in?"
Blackie told him the town. But it shall be told to no one else. If it
were known, people would go there, and come in every night, and take up room;
and it's going to be crowded enough there as it is.
"That isn't very far," said Barnaby. "That's only a couple of hundred
miles. I'll go there and get a job. Then at night I can come in and listen to
them sing, and watch the melodrama."