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I was pretty sure I could.
    Mona came back with a pint of ale. “How much is it?” I asked, reaching for my pockets.
    Mona looked momentarily confused. “Don’ya wanna run a tab?”
    “You’re going to let me?”
    “Sure. Why not?” Mona shrugged. “Anyways, it’s a buck-fifty if you wanna know.”
    “That’s very reasonable,” I said, taking a sip.
    Well, the price may have been reasonable, but the beer sure wasn’t. I’d once made a plastic container full of beer from a kit called Homebrew and was almost hospitalized for my efforts. This stuff was a notch or two below Homebrew quality-wise. I involuntarily made a face.
    Mona scowled. “I don’t know what it is,” she said.
    “You told me it was beer.”
    Mona laughed, a pretty sound, though slightly rough, like the lightest grade of sandpaper. “I mean, I don’t know why it tastes like that. That’s what I was doin’ in the cellar, checking the keg and the pipes and all. They seem okay. It’s not very good, is it?”
    Mona seemed so saddened by this that I lied. “Well, it’s not going to take the Gold Medal from an International Jury of Beer-Tasters, but I mean, it’s drinkable.”
    “Bullshit!” shouted Little Bernie. “The jerk sent a bunch of that swill down here and I said, ‘Like, no fucking way!’ Right back up the spout with that horse-piss!”
    “Maybe my stomach’s not as sensitive as you,” I said, adding, “As yours.”
    “Sensitive!” shouted Little Bernie. “I haven’t been sensitive since the jerk was weaned!”
    Big Bernie nodded. “He’s not a sensitive guy. But he’s my buddaroony!” Big Bernie gave his gut a little pat.
    “You stayin’ in town?” asked Mona.
    “Just outside town. You know Harvey Benson?”
    Mona thought about it briefly. “Nope.”
    “Anyway, I’m staying at his place. Couple of miles that way.” Even though I’d said “that way” I hadn’t pointed, because I’d lost my sense of direction. “Down the road.”
    “Uh, yeah.” Mona nodded and scratched her stomach. Her hand had doubled back through the arm-hole in order to do this, pulling the material out and leaving an entire breast exposed.It bounced up and down as she scratched.
    “I know Harvey Benson,” said the Indian, Jonathon. “He lives in the old Quinton place.”
    “Oh!” said Mona, surprised. She leveled a look at me. “You stayin’ out there?”
    “For a couple of months. While I work on my second novel.”
    “Are you a writer?” This was the response I’d wanted, but the source was Little Bernie.
    “I try,” I answered anyway.
    “I’m thinking about writing a book,” Little Bernie announced. “Sort of a book about food, written from the stomach’s point of view. You figure something like that would sell?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I’d have a chapter called ‘Steak: Cook It or Lose It.’ Like the jerk is always ordering his steak rare! What does he think I’m doing, building a fucking cow down here?”
    “Well …”
    “Hey, jerk, what was that stuff you had one time?”
    “You mean steak tartare?” Big Bernie supplied.
    “Yeah! Now this was a pleasant fucking surprise! Raw fucking meat! Up the spout with that doo-doo!”
    “Give it a rest, Little Bern,” said Mona. She turned back to me. “So how long you been out there?”
    “Just got in last night.”
    Mona nodded and reached into her shorts pockets for a pack of cigarettes. She smoked a brand popularly believed to be a favorite among truckdrivers and shipyard workers, although I suspect that even they won’t touch them. Once she had the cigarette going she nodded again, vaguely this time, and said, “That must be pretty inneresting.”
    “Living at Harvey’s?”
    “Bein’ a writer. What do you write? Articles for magazines or sumpin’?”
    “Novels.”
    “Biographies,” said Mona. “That’s what I read. And I don’t much care who they’re about, neither, could be Harry S. Truman or Marilyn Monroe or some bugger in