A Fatal Glass of Beer by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page B

of Fields’s Fields for President. Fields signed with a flourish and the man went back to his seat, examining the signature.
    “Book sold like hotcakes,” Fields confided in me as we hit another small pocket of turbulence and I wished I had gone with Gunther.
    We hit frequent turbulence. None of it seemed to register on Fields, who never fastened his seat belt.
    “No one buys hotcakes,” Fields said almost to himself. “People buy cars, cans of tuna, millions of bottles of beer and scotch, hats, bacon and eggs, but not hotcakes. You can get them free at Shrine breakfasts and Sundays at church socials. You can make them at home for practically nothing. No one buys hotcakes and no one bought my book. Damned funny book too. You should read it.”
    “I will,” I said, feeling decidedly queasy.
    “A small libation will help your distress,” Fields said.
    What the hell. I took the cup, sipped at the gin. He urged me on. I finished the drink and handed him the cup.
    “There,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Feel better?”
    I felt worse, but I said, “much better” and closed my eyes.
    Fields had brought a copy of Dickens’s Great Expectations and as I sat back in fear, he chuckled.
    “Read this book maybe six times,” he said. “Scene of Pip describing his home life is one of the great comic monologues of all time. ‘Connubial missile.’ Says his parents used him as a ‘connubial missile,’ throwing him at each other. Strikes me as a proper use of a child.”
    I grunted.
    In the waiting area of Midway Airport in Chicago I felt sick. The martini had definitely not had a curative effect on my stomach. I left Fields to fend for himself, talk to passersby who recognized him, sign his name, and generally pontificate. After a few minutes in the men’s room, I felt a little better and returned to Fields well before our plane was due to leave. He had purchased a newspaper, the Chicago Sun , and was reading the sports page.
    “Says here,” he said as I sat next to him, “Phil Rizzuto, the Yankee shortstop, is going in the navy. Plan is to replace him with George “Snuffy” Sternweis. Snuffy Sternweis, great name. Doomed to success.”
    “You’re a baseball fan?” I asked, not really wanting to talk or look over at him and his thermos.
    “A fan of the odd,” he said. “Sports figures, particularly baseball players, have great names. Dizzy and Daffy Dean. Grover Cleveland Alexander. Boxers don’t come close. They’re always called ‘Killer’ or ‘Battler’ or ‘Hurricane.’ An occasional gem will emerge from one of the minor sports like football or tennis. Bronco Nagurski, Jinx Falkenberg.”
    I nodded. We got back on the plane in the middle of a Fields monologue about a kumquat farm he once owned in Florida.
    “Not far from Homosassa,” he said. “Crop flourished, then in one night, every damn kumquat was eaten by the alligators. I fenced it in and turned it into an alligator farm. Once had to wrestle one of the filthy beasts. I considered it a draw. We both lived. Couldn’t get the smell of alligator out of my clothes for a week. Sold the ugly lizards to a shoe company, a luggage company, and a woman’s handbag company. Made a tidy profit. Donated some of it to an organization dedicated to the eradication of all animals known to have and capable of killing human beings. Would have given them more if they could have taught the beasts to confine their attacks to Methodists.”
    Fields slept all the rest of the way to Philadelphia, clutching his thermos to his breast, snoring loudly. He had put a white salve on his nose and declared that he almost felt as if he were in a barber chair before he closed his eyes and was asleep instantly.
    When we landed I was hazy from lack of sleep. Fields woke with a smile, stretched, wiped the salve off with his handkerchief, and declared that he was hungry “as an alligator deprived of kumquats or human appendages.”
    “Philadelphia,” he declared as we