Free B Is for Beer by Tom Robbins Page B

brother so as to claim his share of an inheritance. Also aboard that same flight, there ’s a second woman, a physician, a noted specialist, who’s traveling to Seattle to perform a surgery that will save an infant ’s life.
    “The airplane itself is neither good nor evil, is it? It ’s a vehicle, a neutral, unattached object, kind of like a knife that can be used for peeling turnips in an orphanage or for slicing off a man’s ears. Many things in life are like that, including, and perhaps most especially, people ’s political and religious beliefs—but that ’s a subject for a much later day. What you need to remember now is that matters are very 105
     
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    seldom all black or all white. They can even be both at the same time.”
    The fairy looked to see if Gracie was taking any of this in. She pointed again at the village of Pimple-on-Chin.
    “You’ve just witnessed how beer can contribute to vile behavior. If one is rude, beer can make one ruder; if one is a slob, it can make one sloppier; if one is mean, it can make one meaner; if one ’s dumber than one looks… well, you get the picture. Beer can lead weak men to think they’re mighty, and foul-mouthed women to believe themselves amusing and hip. Worse, if one is cursed with an addictive personality, it can bring on the serious disease of alcoholism.
    “On the other hand, you’ve learned that every day, beer helps millions to be glad and dizzy, and that once in a great while it can lead to a brush with the Mystery.” She paused, as if to reflect. “As long as there are those who seek contact with the Mystery, no matter how misguidedly and crudely they go about it, I suppose there ’s still hope for the human race.”
    Pausing again, as if to permit her words to sink in, the pixie gestured toward one end of the village. “There ’s something 106
     
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    else. You see that beer garden that ’s closest to the water? Yes?
    Can you make out that soldier in uniform who’s sitting alone at the bar, staring at the river? At sunset, he ’s expected to rejoin his regiment, and they’ll march off in the night to fight a bloody battle in some stupid war that in the end will benefit nobody but the rich and powerful, and maybe not even them.
    The soldier has been contemplating making a run for it, but fear has held him back.
    “Okay, now do you see that other fellow who’s just rather awkwardly, hesitantly approached a table of young women and asked one of them to dance?”
    Gracie did see him, though she was still stealing glances at the sky, looking for that airplane.
    “That guy is desperately in love. He wishes to ask the girl to marry him, but so far he ’s been too timid to pop the question.”
    While they stood spying on the scene at the beer garden, the soldier nonchalantly slipped off of the bar stool and very slowly made his way, in a zigzag route, to the river’s edge.
    When, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder, he was confident none in the noisy crowd was looking his way, he stepped out 107
     
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    of his boots and slid into the water, slid so smoothly he made scarcely a ripple. He swam, unobserved, to the other shore, which was heavily wooded.
    Meanwhile, the shy man had drawn his beloved off of the dance floor to a relatively quiet corner beside some rose bushes. He was down on one knee before her.
    “You see,” said the fairy, “the beer has dissolved enough of their fear to allow the men to act. Now, many would call this ‘false courage,’ and they might be right. But there are times, I think you’ll agree, when false courage is better than no courage at all. At least, tomorrow morning the soldier will wake up alive in his forest hideout rather than lie cut down like a barley stalk on a senseless, soon-to-be-forgotten battlefield.
    “And before Christmas, our other man will be walking down the aisle with the girl he adores, instead of weeping alone in an empty room while she weds another, less