Velocity

We’re not a damn sports bar.”
    Having heard this before, Billy tried to move the discussion along: “To our customers, the drinking is a kind of ceremony.”
    “Beyond ceremony. It’s an observance, a solemnity, almost a kind of sacrament. Not to all of them, but to most. It’s communion.”
    “All right. So were they talking about Big Foot?”
    “I wish. The best, the really intense barroom talk used to be about Big Foot, flying saucers, the lost continent of Atlantis, what happened to the dinosaurs—”
    “—what’s on the dark side of the moon,” Billy interjected, “the Loch Ness monster, the Shroud of Turin—”
    “—ghosts, the Bermuda Triangle, all that classic stuff,” Jackie continued. “But it’s not like that so much anymore.”
    “I know,” Billy acknowledged.
    “They were talking about these professors at Harvard and Yale and Princeton, these scientists who say they’re going to use cloning and stem cells and genetic engineering to create a superior race.”
    “Smarter and faster and better than we are,” Billy said.
    “So much better than we are,” Jackie said, “they won’t be human at all. It’s in Time or maybe Newsweek, these scientists smiling and proud of themselves right in a magazine.”
    “They call it the posthuman future,” Billy said.
    “What happens to us when we’re post?” Jackie wondered. “Post is toast. A master race? Haven’t these guys heard of Hitler?”
    “They think they’re different,” Billy said.
    “Don’t they have mirrors? Some idiots are crossing human and animal genes to create new… new things. One of them wants to create a pig that’s got a human brain.”
    “How about that.”
    “The magazine doesn’t say why a pig, like it should be obvious why a pig instead of a cat or a cow or a chipmunk. For God’s sake, Billy, isn’t it hard enough being a human brain in a human body? What kind of hell would it be a human brain in a pig body?”
    “Maybe we won’t live to see it,” Billy said. “Unless you’re planning to die tomorrow, you will. I liked Big Foot better. I liked the Bermuda Triangle and ghosts a lot better. Now all the crazy shit is real.”
    “Why I called,” Billy said, “is to let you know I can’t make it to work today.”
    With genuine concern, Jackie said, “Hey, what, are you sick?”
    “I’m kind of queasy.”
    “You don’t sound like you have a cold.”
    “I don’t think it’s a cold. It’s like a stomach thing.”
    “Sometimes a summer cold starts that way. Better take zinc. They’ve got this zinc gel you squeeze up your nose. It really works. It stops a cold dead.”
    “I’ll get some.”
    “Too late for vitamin C. You gotta be taking that all along.”
    “I’ll get some zinc. Did I call too early, did you close up the tavern last night?”
    “No. I went home at ten o’clock. All that talk about pigs with human brains, I just wanted to go home.”
    “So Steve Zillis closed up?”
    “Yeah. He’s a reliable boy. That stuff I told you, I wish now I hadn’t. If he wants to chop up mannequins and watermelons in his backyard, that’s his business, as long as he does his job.”
     
    Tuesday night was often slow in the bar business. If the traffic grew light, Jackie preferred to lock the tavern before the usual 2:00 A.M. closing time. An open bar with few or no customers in the wee hours is a temptation to a stickup artist, putting employees at risk.
    “Busy night?” Billy asked. “Steve said after eleven it was like the world ended. He had to open the front door and look outside to be sure the tavern hadn’t been teleported to the moon or somewhere. He turned off the lights before midnight. Thank God there aren’t two Tuesdays in a week.”
    Billy said, “People like to spend some time with their families. That’s the curse of a family bar.”
    “You’re a funny guy, aren’t you?”
    “Not usually.”
    “If you put that zinc gel up your nose and you don’t feel any better,” Jackie said, “call me back, and I’ll tell you somewhere else you can stuff it.”
    “I think you’d have made a fine priest. I really do.”
    “Get well, okay? The customers miss you when you’re off.”
    “Do they?”
    “Not really. But at least they don’t say they’re glad you’re gone.”
    Under the circumstances, perhaps only Jackie O’Hara could have made Billy Wiles crack a smile.
    He hung up. He looked at his watch. Ten-thirty-one.
    The “associate” would be here in less