Now and on Earth Read Online Free

bitey?"
    "Yop."
    "What'd he look like?"
    Mack grinned. "Look like a bitey."
    Then he went out. I have bitten on that joke of his a thousand times, but it is the only one he knows and I think a sense of humor should be encouraged.

    Roberta shut herself up in the bedroom with the kids about nine, and Mom was busy in the bathroom working on her bunions. Frankie was still out, so I had the front room to myself. Not that I minded. I arranged a couple of chairs-one for my feet-just like I wanted them. Then I went around to the liquor store and bought my wine.
    I thought the clerk was rather patronizing; but it could have been my imagination. Wine-drinkers aren't regarded very highly in California-not when they drink the kind of stuff I bought. The better California wines are largely exported. The cheaper ones, sold locally, are made of dregs, heavily fortified with raw alcohol.
    In Los Angeles there are places where you can buy stiff drinks of this poison for two cents and a full pint for as little as six. And you can count as many as fifty addicts in a single block. "Wine-o-s," they are dubbed, and their lives are as short, fortunately, as they are unmerry. The jails and hospitals are filled with them always, undergoing the "cure." A nightly average of forty dead are picked up out of flophouses, jungles, and boxcars.
    So-I got home, sat down with my feet up, and took a big slug. It tasted watery, but strong. I took another slug, and I didn't mind the taste. I was leaning back against the cushions, smoking and wiggling my toes and anticipating the next drink, when Frankie came in.
    She made straight for the divan and took off her shoes. She is the big hearty perfectly composed type, the counterpart of Pop except for her blonde hair.
    "Drunk again?" she inquired conversationally.
    "Getting. Want a shot?"
    "Not that stuff. I've already had three Scotches anyway. 'S'matter? Roberta?"
    "Yes-no. Oh, I don't know," I said.
    "Well," said Frankie. "I like Roberta, and I'm crazy about the kids. But I must say you're a fool. You're not being good to her. She doesn't like things like this any more than you do."
    I took another drink. "By the way," I said. "When is your husband joining you?"
    "I guess I asked for that," said Frankie.
    "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just feeling mean."
    "That wine won't make you feel any better. You'll have the grandfather of all hangovers in the morning."
    "That's in the morning," I said. "Tonight-here's looking at you."
    Frankie snapped open her purse and pitched me a half-dollar. "Go get yourself a half-pint of whisky. It won't tie you up like that wine will."
    I looked at the money. "I don't like to take this, Frankie."
    "Oh, go on. Hurry up and I'll have a drink with you." I put on my shoes and went out. When I came back Frankie was holding a letter in her hand, and her eyes were red.
    "What do you think about Pop?" she asked.
    "What about him?"
    "Didn't Mom show you this letter she got today? I thought she had."
    "Let me see it," I said.
    "Not now. I want to take it back to the bedroom with me. You can read it tomorrow."
    "Look," I said. "Whatever it is, it won't worry me any more to know about it than not to know about it, now that I know there's something wrong. Please don't argue. And if you're going to bawl, go hide some place. I've been laved in tears ever since I came home."
    "You're a dog," said Frankie, wiping her eyes. She chuckled. "Did you hear the one about the rattlesnake that didn't have a pit to hiss in?"
    "Shut up a minute."
    I skimmed through the letter. It didn't say much. They didn't want to keep Pop at the Place he was in any longer. He was-he was too much trouble.
    "We'll have to take him away, I guess," I said.
    "Bring him out here, you mean?"
    "Why not?"
    Frankie gave me a look.
    "All right, then," I said. "What do you suggest?"
    "We can't have Mom live with him. Even if we did have the money for a place in the country and everything."
    "What about his own folks? They've got