“I am very happy you have come.”
“Equally,” said the big one.
“Will you have another little cup?”
“Why not?” said the big one.
“With your permission,” said the smallest one.
“Not me,” said the thin one. “It mounts to my head.”
“It is very good,” said the smallest one.
“Why not try some,” Mr. Frazer asked the thin one. “Let a little mount to your head.”
“Afterwards comes the headache,” said the thin one.
“Could you not send friends of Cayetano to see him?” Frazer asked.
“He has no friends.”
“Every man has friends.”
“This one, no.”
“What does he do?”
“He is a card-player.”
“Is he good?”
“I believe it.”
“From me,” said the smallest one, “he won one hundred and eighty dollars. Now there is no longer one hundred and eighty dollars in the world.”
“From me,” said the thin one, “he won two hundred and eleven dollars. Fix yourself on that figure.”
“I never played with him,” said the fat one.
“He must be very rich,” Mr. Frazer suggested,
“He is poorer than we,” said the little Mexican. “He has no more than the shirt on his back.”
“And that shirt is of little value now,” Mr. Frazer said. “Perforated as it is.”
“Clearly.”
“The one who wounded him was a card-player?”
“No, a beet worker. He has had to leave town.”
“Fix yourself on this,” said the smallest one. “He was the best guitar player ever in this town. The finest.”
“What a shame.”
“I believe it,” said the biggest one. “How he could touch the guitar.”
“There are no good guitar players left?”
“Not the shadow of a guitar player.”
“There is an accordion player who is worth something,” the thin man said.
“There are a few who touch various instruments,” the big one said. “You like music?”
“How would I not?”
“We will come one night with music? You think the sister would allow it? She seems very amiable.”
“I am sure she would permit it when Cayetano is able to hear it.”
“Is she a little crazy?” asked the thin one.
“Who?”
“That sister.”
“No,” Mr Frazer said. “She is a fine woman of great intelligence and sympathy.”
“I distrust all priests, monks, and sisters,” said the thin one.
“He had bad experiences when a boy,” the smallest one said.
“I was acolyte,” the thin one said proudly. “Now I believe in nothing. Neither do I go to mass.”
“Why? Does it mount to your head?”
“No,” said the thin one. “It is alcohol that mounts to my head. Religion is the opium of the poor.”
“I thought marijuana was the opium of the poor,” Frazer said.
“Did you ever smoke opium?” the big one asked.
“No.”
“Nor I,” he said. “It seems it is very bad. One commences and cannot stop. It is a vice.”
“Like religion,” said the thin one.
“This one,” said the smallest Mexican, “is very strong against religion.”
“It is necessary to be very strong against something,” Mr. Frazer said politely.
“I respect those who have faith even though they are ignorant,” the thin one said.
“Good,” said Mr. Frazer.
“What can we bring you?” asked the big Mexican. “Do you lack for anything?”
“I would be glad to buy some beer if there is good beer.”
“We will bring beer.”
“Another copita before you go?”
“It is very good.”
“We are robbing you.”
“I can’t take it. It goes to my head. Then I have a bad headache and sick at the stomach.”
“Good-bye, gentlemen.”
“Good-bye and thanks.”
They went out and there was supper and then the radio, turned to be as quiet as possible and still be heard, and the stations finally signing off in this order: Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Mr. Frazer received no picture of Denver from the radio. He could see Denver from the Denver Post, and correct the picture from the Rocky Mountain News. Nor did he ever have any feel of Salt Lake City or Los Angeles from what he heard from those places. All he felt about Salt Lake City was that it was clean, but dull, and there were too many ballrooms mentioned in too many big hotels for him to see Los Angeles. He could not feel it for the ballrooms. But Seattle he came to know very well, the taxicab company with the big white cabs [each cab equipped with radio itself] he rode in every night out to the roadhouse on the Canadian side where he followed the course of parties by the musical selections they phoned for. He lived in Seattle from two o’clock on, each night, hearing the pieces that all the different people asked for, and it was as real as Minneapolis, where the revellers left their beds each morning to make that trip down to the studio. Mr. Frazer grew very fond of Seattle, Washington.
The Mexicans came and brought beer but it was not good beer. Mr. Frazer saw them but he did not feel like talking, and when they went he knew they would not come again. His nerves had become tricky and he disliked seeing people while he was in this condition. His nerves went bad at the end of five weeks, and while he was pleased they lasted that long yet he resented being forced to make the same experiment when he already knew the answer. Mr. Frazer had been through this all before. The only thing which was new to him was the radio. He played it all night long, turned so low he could barely hear it, and he was learning to listen to it without thinking.
Sister Cecilia came into the room about ten o’clock in the morning on that day and brought the mail. She was very handsome, and Mr. Frazer liked to see her and to hear her talk, but the mail, supposedly coming from a different world, was important. However, there was nothing in the mail of any interest.