ady, I drink a pretty good
amount, but you can't blame me.

There was a girl.

I always get a girl someplace. Usually they aren't much and this one
wasn't either. I mean she was probably somebody's mother. She was around
thirty-five and not so bad, though she had a long scar under her ear
down along her throat to the little round spot where her larynx was. It
wasn't ugly. She smelled nice--while I could still smell, you know--and
she didn't talk much. I liked that. Only--

Well, did you ever meet somebody with a nervous cough? Like when you say
something funny--a little funny, not a big yock--they don't laugh and
they don't stop with just smiling, but they sort of cough? She did that.
I began to itch. I couldn't help it. I asked her to stop it.

She spilled her drink and looked at me almost as though she was
scared--and I had tried to say it quietly, too.

"Sorry," she said, a little angry, a little scared. "_Sorry._ But you
don't have to--"

"Forget it."

"Sure. But you asked me to sit down here with you, remember? If you're
going to--"

"_Forget it!_" I nodded at the bartender and held up two fingers. "You
need another drink," I said. "The thing is," I said, "Gilvey used to do
that."

"What?"

"That cough."

She looked puzzled. "You mean like this?"

"_Goddam it, stop it!_" Even the bartender looked over at me that time.
Now she was really mad, but I didn't want her to go away. I said,
"Gilvey was a fellow who went to Mars with me. Pat Gilvey."

"_Oh._" She sat down again and leaned across the table, low. "_Mars._"

* * * * *

The bartender brought our drinks and looked at me suspiciously. I said,
"Say, Mac, would you turn down the air-conditioning?"

"My name isn't Mac. No."

"Have a heart. It's too cold in here."

"Sorry." He didn't sound sorry.

I was cold. I mean that kind of weather, it's always cold in those
places. You know around New York in August? It hits eighty, eighty-five,
ninety. All the places have air-conditioning and what they really want
is for you to wear a shirt and tie.

But I like to walk a lot. You would, too, you know. And you can't walk
around much in long pants and a suit coat and all that stuff. Not around
there. Not in August. And so then, when I went into a bar, it'd have one
of those built-in freezers for the used-car salesmen with their dates,
or maybe their wives, all dressed up. For what? But I froze.

"_Mars_," the girl breat