Read Ebook: Juke-Box by Kuttner Henry Moore C L Catherine Lucile Marchioni M Marco Enrico Illustrator

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Ebook has 218 lines and 8316 words, and 5 pages

He ignored her. He went on to the bar and ordered another drink.

"Look, Austin," he said. "That juke-box you got back there. Is it working all right?"

Austin squeezed a lime. He didn't look up.

"I don't hear any complaints."

"But--"

Austin slid a replenished glass toward Foster.

"Excuse me," he said, and went to the other end of the bar.

Foster stole a look at the juke-box. It sat against the wall glowing enigmatically.

"I don't exactly know what to think," he said to no one in particular.

A record started playing. The juke-box sang throatily:

The truth was, Jerry Foster was feeling pretty low in those days. He was essentially a reactionary, so it was a mistake for him to have been born in an era of great change. He needed the feel of solid ground under his feet. And the ground wasn't so solid any more, what with the newspaper headlines and new patterns for living emerging out of the vast technological and sociological changes the mid-Twentieth Century offered.

You've got to be elastic to survive in a changing culture. Back in the stable Twenties, Foster would have got along beautifully, but now, in a word, he just wasn't on the ball. A man like that seeks stable security as his ultimo, and security seemed to have vanished.

The result was that Jerry Foster found himself out of a job, badly in debt, and drinking far more than he should have done. The only real advantage to that set-up was that alcohol buffered Foster's incredulity when he encountered the affectionate juke-box.

Not that he remembered it the next morning. He didn't recall what had happened for a couple of days, till Sammy looked him up and gave him nine hundred dollars, the result of Helping Hand coming in under the wire at Oaklawn. The long shot had paid off surprisingly.

Foster instantly went on a binge, finding himself eventually at a downtown bar he recognized. Austin was off duty, however, and Betty wasn't present tonight. So Foster, tanked to the gills, leaned his elbow on polished mahogany and stared around. Toward the back was the juke-box. He blinked at it, trying to remember.

The juke-box began to play "I'll Remember April." The whirling confusion of insobriety focused down to a small, clear, cold spot in Foster's brain. He started to tingle. His mouth formed words:

"Remember April--Remember April?"

"All right!" said a fat, unshaven, untidy man standing next to him. "I heard you! I'll--What did you say?"

"Remember April," Foster muttered, quite automatically. The fat man spilled his drink.

"It isn't! It's March!"

Foster peered around dimly in search of a calendar.

"It's April third," he affirmed presently. "Why?"

"I've got to get back, then," said the fat man in desperation. He scrubbed at his sagging cheeks. "April already! How long have I been tight? You don't know? It's your business to know. April! One more drink, then." He summoned the bartender.

He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a man with a hatchet. Foster, blearily eying the apparition, almost decided to get out in search of a quieter gin-mill. This new figure, bursting in from the street, was a skinny blond man with wild eyes and the shakes. Before anyone could stop him, he had rushed the length of the room and lifted his hatchet threateningly above the juke-box.

"I can't stand it!" he cried hysterically. "You spiteful little--I'll fix you before you fix me!"

So saying, and ignoring the purposeful approach of the bartender, the blond man brought down his hatchet heavily on the juke-box. There was a blue crackle of flame, a tearing noise, and the blond man collapsed without a sound.

Foster stayed where he was. There was a bottle on the bar near him, and he captured it. Rather dimly, he realized what was happening. An ambulance was summoned. A doctor said the blond man had been painfully shocked, but was still alive. The juke-box had a smashed panel, but appeared uninjured otherwise. Austin came from somewhere and poured himself a shot from under the bar.

"'Each man kills the thing he loves,'" Austin said to Foster. "You're the guy who was quoting Omar at me the other night, aren't you?"

"What?" Foster said.

Austin nodded at the motionless figure being loaded on a stretcher.

"Funny business. That fella used to come in all the time just to play the juke-box. He was in love with the thing. Sat here by the hour listening to it. Course, when I say he was in love with it, I'm merely using a figure of speech, catch?"

"Sure," Foster said.

"Then a couple of days ago he blows up. Crazy as a loon. I come in and find the guy on his knees in front of the juke-box, begging it to forgive him for something or other. I don't get it. Some people shouldn't drink, I guess. What's yours?"

"The same," Foster said, watching the ambulance men carry the stretcher out of the bar.

"Just mild electric shock," an intern said. "He'll be all right."

The juke-box clicked, and a new record swung across. Something must have gone wrong with the amplification, for the song bellowed out with deafening intensity.

Deafened, fighting the feeling that this was hallucination, Foster found himself beside the juke-box. He clung to it against the mad billows of sound. He shook it, and the roaring subsided.

"'Chlo-eee!'" the juke-box sang softly and sweetly.

There was confusion nearby, but Foster ignored it. He had been struck by an idea. He peered into the phonograph's innards through the glass pane. The record was slowing now, and as the needle lifted Foster could read the title on the circular label.

It said, "Springtime in the Rockies."

The record hastily lifted itself and swung back to concealment among the others in the rack. Another black disc moved over under the needle. It was "Twilight in Turkey."

But what the juke-box played, with great expression, was: "We'll Always Be Sweethearts."

After a while the confusion died down. Austin came over, examined the phonograph, and made a note to get the broken panel replaced. Foster had entirely forgotten the fat, unshaven, untidy man till he heard an irritated voice behind him say:

"It can't be April!"

"What?"

"You're a liar. It's still March."

"Oh, take a walk," said Foster, who was profoundly shaken, though he did not quite know why. The obvious reasons for his nervousness, he suspected, weren't the real ones.

"You're a liar, I said," the fat man snarled, breathing heavily in Foster's face. "It's March! You'll either admit it's March, or--or--"

But Foster had had enough. He pushed the fat man away and had taken two steps when a tingling shock raced through him and the small, cold, spot of clarity sprang into existence within his brain.

The juke-box started to play; "Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative."

"It's March!" the fat man yelped. "Isn't it March?"

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