Do we get any schnapps, mommy? cried the little girl.
It’s ginger snaps, you dope! yelled the boy.
Well, at the bottom of the basket, wrapped in a wet napkin, they finally found the bottle of schnapps. It was from Utrecht, Holland, year 1926. To the three bears, however, it was just a bottle of schnapps. Now bears, as you know, never use corkscrews, so it was quite a job to get the cork out…
You’re wandering, said MacGregor.
That’s what you think, I said. Just hold your horses.
Try to finish it by midnight, he rejoined.
Much sooner than that, don’t worry. If you interrupt again, though, I will lose the thread.
Now this bottle, I resumed, was a very unusual bottle of schnapps. It had magic properties. When each bear in turn had taken a good swig, their heads began to spin. Yet, the more they drank, the more there was left to drink. They got dizzier and dizzier, groggier and groggier, thirstier and thirstier. Finally the polar bear said: ‘I’m going to drink it down to the last drop,’ and, holding the bottle between his two paws, he poured it down his gullet. He drank and drank, and finally he did come to the last drop. He was lying on the floor, drunk as a pope; the bottle upside down, the neck half-way down his throat. As I say, he had just swallowed the very last drop. Had he put the bottle down, it would have refilled itself. But he didn’t. He continued to hold it upside down, getting the last drop out of that very last drop. And then a miraculous thing took place. Suddenly, little Goldilocks came alive, clothes and all, just as she always was. She was doing a jig on the polar bear’s stomach. When she began to sing, the three bears grew so frightened that they fainted away, first the grizzly bear, then the polar bear, and then the Teddy bear…
The little girl clapped her hands with delight. And now we’re coming to the end of the story. The rain had stopped, the sky was bright and clear, the birds were singing, just as always. Little Goldilocks suddenly remembered that she had promised to be home for dinner. She gathered up her basket, looked around to make sure she had forgotten nothing, and started for the door. Suddenly she thought of the cow-bell. ‘It would be fun to ring it just once more,’ she said to herself. An with that, she climbed on to the stool, the one that was just right, and she rang with all her might. She rang it once, twice, three times—and then she fled as fast as her little legs would carry her. Outside, the little fellow with the dunce cap was waiting for her. ‘Quick, get on my back!’ he ordered. ‘Well make double time that way.’ Goldilocks hopped on and away they raced, up dell and down dell, over the golden meadows, through the silvery brooks. When they had raced this way for about three hours, the little man said: ‘I’m getting weary, I’m going to put you down.’ And he deposited her right there, at the edge of the woods. ‘Bear to the left,’ he said, ‘and you can’t miss it.’ He was off again, just as mysteriously as he had come…
Is that the end? piped the boy, somewhat disappointed.
No, I said, not quite. Now listen … Goldilocks did as she was told, bearing always to the left. In a very few minutes she was standing in front of her own door.
‘Why, Goldilocks,’ said her mother, ‘What great big eyes you have!’
‘All the better to eat you up!’ said Goldilocks.
‘Why, Goldilocks,’ cried her father, ‘and where in hell did you put my bottle of schnapps?’
‘I gave it to the three bears,’ said Goldilocks dutifully.
‘Goldilocks, you’re telling me a fib,’ said her father threateningly.
I’m not either,’ Goldilocks replied. ‘It’s the God’s truth.’ Suddenly she remembered what she had read in the big book, about sin and how Jesus came to wipe away all sin. ‘Father,’ she said, kneeling before him reverently, ‘I believe I’ve committed a sin.’
Worse than that,’ said her father, reaching for the strap, ‘you’ve committed larceny.’ And without another word he began to belt and flay her. ‘I don’t mind your visiting the three bears in the woods,’ he said, as he plied the strap. ‘I don’t mind a little fib now and then. But what I do mind is not to have a wee drop of schnapps when my throat is sore and parched.’ He flayed her and belted her until Goldilocks was just a mass of welts and bruises. ‘And now,’ he said, putting in an extra lick for the finish, ‘I’m going to give you a treat. I’m going to tell you the story of the three bears—or what happened to my bottle of schnapps.’
And that, my dear children, is the end.
The story finished, the kids were hustled off to bed. We could now settle down comfortably to drink and chew the fat. MacGregor liked nothing better than to talk of old times. We were only in our thirties but we had twenty years of solid friendship between us, and besides, at that age one feels older than at fifty or sixty. Actually, both MacGregor and I were still in a period of prolonged adolescence.
Whenever MacGregor took up with a new girl it seemed imperative for him to look me up, get my approval of her, and then settle down for a long, sentimental talk-fest. We had done it so many times that it was almost like playing a duet. The girl was supposed to sit there enchanted—and to interrupt us now and then with a pertinent question. The duet always began by one of us asking if the other had seen or heard anything recently of George Marshall. I don’t know why we instinctively chose this opening. We were like certain chess players who, no matter who the opponent may be, always open with the Scotch gambit.
Have you seen George lately? says I, apropos of nothing at all.
You mean George Marshall?
Yeah, it seems ages since I’ve seen him.
No, Hen, to tell you the truth, I haven’t. I suppose he’s still going to the Village Saturday afternoons.
To dance?
MacGregor smiled.. If you want to call it that, Henry. You know George! He paused, then added: George is a queer guy. I think I know less about him now than ever.
What?
Just that, Henry. That guy leads a double life. You ought to see him at home, with the wife and kids. You wouldn’t know him.
I confessed I hadn’t seen George since he got married. Never liked that wife of his.
You should talk to George about her sometime. How they manage to live together is a miracle. He gives her what she wants and in return he goes his own way. Boy, it’s like skating on dynamite when you visit them. You know the sort of double talk George indulges in…
Listen, I interrupted, do you remember that night in Greenpoint, when we were sitting in the back of some gin mill and George began a spiel about his mother, how the sun rose and set in her ass?
Jesus, Hen, you sure think of strange things. Sure, I remember. I remember every conversation we ever had, I guess. And the time and place. And whether I was drunk or sober. He turned to Trix. Are we boring you? You know, the three of us were great pals once. We had some good times together, didn’t we, Hen? Remember Maspeth—those athletic contests? We didn’t have much to worry about, did we? Let’s see, were you tied up with the widow then, or was that later? Get this, Trix … Here’s this guy hardly out of school and he falls in love with a woman, old enough to be his mother. Wanted to marry her, too, didn’t you, Hen?
I grinned and gave a vague nod.
Henry always falls hard. The serious sort, though you’d never think it to look at him … But about George. As I was saying before, Hen, George is a different guy. He’s at loose ends. Hates his work, loathes his wife, and the kids bore him to death. All he thinks of now is tail. And boy, does he chase it! Picks ‘em younger and younger all the time. The last time I saw him he was in a hell of a mess with some fifteen year old—from his own school. (I still can’t picture George as a principal,
