Whiskey Tales by Jean Ray

Author:Jean Ray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE CROCODILE

Jack Beamish shoved open the door of the bar, and without even a look around or taking count, ordered whiskey for everyone. The general tide of sympathy flowed toward him like a river to the sea.

“Bill Tuckle is dead,” he said.

A great sigh passed through the room, not that any of us regretted that damned ginger Bill Tuckle, but we sensed that we would have to submit to a story, and the dreams whiskey brings are more poignant than all the stories of all the drunkards in the world.

Tell me truly, can you refuse the splendid joy of telling a tale to the one who offers you fine whiskey, golden as the skin of a lovely island girl, hot as a grilled pepper, yet at the same time, soft as dark velvet?

“Yes,” repeated Beamish, “he parted ways with his skin down a hellish Egyptian backwater.”

“And,” asked one patron ever so politely, “how did he die, the poor dear man?”

“A crocodile …” said Jack.

A collective gasp of horror shook us, for as miserable a scoundrel as was Bill Tuckle, he was still a Christian like you and me, not some dog of a Jew, as that kind of human nourishment I would willingly concede to all the crocodiles and caimans of the tropical waters.

I shared my thought on the matter and everyone gave their approval, except for one little Israelite tailor whom we made concede to reason by massaging his head with a seltzer bottle, and when this utensil broke we substituted a pair of fire tongs that did the trick very well. Forgive me this parenthesis, but I hope to have opened it for the great joy of honorable people who will see how to deal with Jews.

“But,” continued the storyteller, “I did not say that the crocodile ate him.”

“Beamish,” I said with a dignified air, “you should not treat us this way. Though that round of whiskey made you a friend for life to everyone here, you have no right to mock us so.

“If a crocodile is at fault in a fellow’s death, it is because the crocodile ate him, unless the crocodile shot him at close range with a revolver. Yes, no doubt you would have us believe that the crocodile shot him at close range with a revolver!

“You must be mocking us, Jack Beamish, because I’ve never read in any book of these lizards being armed with a Colt or a Webley, not even in the books of that French writer named Paul Bourget, who writes the most bogus things in the world. So Jack Beamish, if you are having one over on these honorable gentlemen, I’ll smack you right in the mouth with my fist to teach you some manners and etiquette.”

Beamish apologized posthaste, said he never meant to say anything so absurd, that he had not even considered it, and his only mistake was making us wait too long for the story. He proposed a second round of whiskey to erase the memory of his impudence.

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