Free The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont

ordinarily not have the courage to even dream of doing and saying. I had absorbed, presto , sufficient of the miracle drug by the time the clock got to three AM., to do something I guess I'd wanted to do in the back of my mind for a long time. My voice was loud and clear and charged with insinuation. Everybody looked up.
    "Dammit, Lewis," I said, pointing directly at him, "in order to be a member in good standing of this Society, you've just got to say something interesting. A guy simply doesn't look as inscrutable as you do without having something on his mind. You've listened to our stories. Now how about one of your own?"
    "Yeah," joined Monteverdi, "Ed's right. You might call it your dues."
    Jackson looked pleased and put in: "See here, Lewis, you're a newsman, aren't you? Surely you have one halfway diverting story." "If it's personal," I said, "so much the better. I mean, after all, we're a Brotherhood here."
    And that started it. Pretty soon we were all glaring at poor Dick, looking resentful and defiant.
    He then surprised us. He threw down the last of his drink, ordered three more, stared us each in the face one by one and said:
    "Okay. All right. You're all just drunk enough to listen without calling for the boys in white, though you'll still think I'm the damndest liar in the state. All right, I admit it. I do have something on my mind. Something you won't believe worth beans. And let me tell you something else. I'm quitting this screwball racket, so I don't care what you think."
    He drained another stein-full.
    "I'm going to tell you why as of tomorrow I start looking for some nice quiet job in a boiler factory. Or maybe as a missionary."
    And this is the story Dick Lewis told that night. He was either mightily drunk or crazy as a coot, because you could tell he believed every word he said.
    I'm not sure about any of it, myself. All I know for certain is that he actually did quit the game just as he said he would, and since that night I haven't even heard his name.
    When my father died he left me a hundred and twenty-two dollars, his collection of plastic-coated insects and complete ownership of the Danville Daily Courier . He'd owned and edited the Courier for fifty-five years and although it never made any money for him, he loved it with all his heart. I sometimes used to think that it was the most precious thing in life to him. For whenever there wasn't any news--which was all the time--he'd pour out his inner thoughts, his history, his whole soul into the columns. It was a lot more than just a small town newspaper to Dad: it was his life.
    I cut my first teeth on the old hand press and spent most of my time in the office and back room. Pop used to say to me, "You weren't born, lad, you appeared one day out of a bottle of printer's ink." Corny, but I must have believed him, because I grew up loving it all.
    What we lived on those days was a mystery to me. Not enough issues of the Courier were sold even to pay for the paper stock. Nobody bought it because there was never anything to read of any interest--aside from Dad's personal column, which was understandably limited in its appeal. For similar reasons, no one ever advertised. He couldn't afford any of the press services or syndicates, and Danville wasn't homebody enough a town to give much of a darn how Mrs. Piddle's milk cows were coming along.
    I don't even know how he managed to pay the few hands around the place. But Dad didn't seem to worry, so I never gave the low circulation figures a great deal of thought.
    That is, I didn't until it was my turn to take over.
    After the first month I began to think about it a lot. I remember sitting in the office alone one night, wondering just how the hell Dad ever did it. And I don't mind saying, I cussed his hide for not ever telling me. He was a queer old duck and maybe this was meant as a test or something.
    If so, I had flunked out on the first round.
    I sat there staring dumbly at the expense account and