Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 11, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 March 1936 — Page 19

MATtCH 24, 1936

"Today's True Story — MOOD INDIGO By Charles McGuirk

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HELLO, Bartender. Scotch and soda, please. Oh, I don't care. Any good brand. I wouldn't know the difference. Like most people, I drink lor the effect. When I'm low, I like to feel high and a drink or two helps you to forget your troubles. They look different through the bottom of a glass. I

Have one with me? I’m sorrv because I hate to drink alone. But , that's all right. Weil, here’s to you. May your tomorrows be as successful as your yesterdays—if your yesterday’s were successful. Hah! That's good! The idea ol mixing plenty of water with whisky is British, isn’t it? The v/ater weakens the liquor and gives you the choice of getting either jingled or tight. I'd hate to get tight. I’m after a jingle, just a jingle. I want to forget that friendship passes and love, when it is finished, flies out of the window. a a it THIS Is a nice, quiet bar. Just enough soft lighting so you can see everything but not too distinctly. That’s good psychology. A man usually drinks to keep from seeing too distinctly. Some things look better in twilight. You can imagine them to be the way you want them to be. Give me another drink, please, with plenty of soda. It will be the seventh in the last two hours and I don’t even feel them. Isn’t this what you bartenders call the quiet hour? Between lunch and cocktail time? No customers, Well, that suits me because I feel like talking. And bartenders are the world’s best listeners. This is about a girl I’m in love with. The funny thing about it is that up to day before yesterday I thought she was in love with me. I was so sura she was, I never even thought about her being through. It’s kind of hard to get used to. And kind of painful. Let me have another Scotch, please. No so heavy on the soda. Her name’s Bette. Nothing romantic about that, is there? Sounds like a plain common sense girl, the kind you know will always be there when you need her. It’s the kind that finds one man and never thinks of looking at another. It’s the damnedest feeling when you learn that a girl like that isn't like that at all! Yeh. a a a YOU know, when you look at those little lights through the bottom of your glass, you can see a hundred colors. Red and blue and green and yellow. They're different. Say! Maybe I'm wrong about Bette. You don’t know how I wish I were! You sec? I’ve known Bette four years. I thought I knew her better than I did any one else in the w orld. But I didn't. I suppose no man ever really knows a woman, especially when he loves her. That’s what they say, don't they? A man and a woman never can really know each other because they view life from different angles. I’m crazy to be still in love with her. But there’ll never be another woman like her in my life. She was not only my sweetheart. She was my pal. a a a MAYBE that’s what made Bette change. Maybe she saw too much of me. I can understand that. She certainly saw plenty because I was with her every minute I could spare. Why, up to day before yesterday, I couldn't imagine being able to get along without her. And maybe I can't. Yes. I know it's empty. Fill it again. Not too much soda. Thanks. That’s fine. Yeh. I’m the kind of guy who has to have a. pal. One of those incomplete individuals who can’t stand alone. I hfve to share things. If I get a break, I have to tell somebody about it. When I get a punch in the nose, I have to have sympathy. Maybe that's because I was never without a pal in my life —till now. Even before I met Bette. Even before I came to New York, I had a pal. Name's Tom. His last name wouldn't mean anything to you. You don't know him. Chances are you never will. But Tom and I were inseparable all our lives. Went through school and college together. When we were \ ,-aduated, we got jobs with the same outfit in Chicago. a a a THERE'S nothing incomplete about Tom. He carries his own world right along with him. And if people don’t like either him or it. he says, "To hell with them!” You could maroon Tom on an island in the South Pacific with a gun and he wouldn't even ask for a hula dancer. "Look,” he'd always say to me when he was kidding me about not even wanting to be alone. "You came into the world alone, didn't you?” "Sure,”.l’d say. "And you’re going out of the world alone, aren’t you?” "Yep.” I’d admit, kind of doubtful because, up to day before yesterday, I hated the idea of dying, though now I don’t mind it so much. I'll bet there's a lot erf things worse. "Well. then, what do you have to have anybody else for?” What's that? Sure. I’ll have a drink on the house. Nice of you to ask me. You're having one, too, aren’t you? Well, mv advice to you is to make it small with lots of water in it. The water cuts down the whisky’s strength, though the liquor I've drunk since repeal don't, seem to have the kick the prohibition liquor had. Just a dash of water in mine. Well, here's regards. May you never need a friend. Because you never can find a friend when you need one. Say, I'm not borrowing you, am I? I suppose you have to listen to conversations like this 365 times a year. Maybe that's why bartenders take a couple of days off every once in a while and go on bats. Sort of washes these things away. Well, as an old radio star used to say, thanks for listenin’. a a a FUNNY thing. When I got this New Year offer three—no, four

years ago, I held off taking it for two months because I didn’t want to leave Tom Honest! I didn’t want to be alone. I was going to turn the offer down flat until Tom showed me what a damn fool I'd be. That’s the only reason I came to New York at all. "Listen, sap.” He said. “You're acting like an old woman. Why, New York's the greatest town in the world. Say you don't meet anybody for a little while. What of It? Some day you will. You'll meet another guy you’l! get along with fine. Or better yet, maybe you'll met a girl. And if you do, it will be curtains for me. You'll never even think of me. Wait and see.” I thought he was wrong for a long time after I got here. Jeez, I thought I’d go nuts! I lived at a hotel and every day I suppose I saw a million people there and in the subway and on my way to work. And I didn’t know a soul. Not a soul, mind you. I used to wander all over the town. I'd go clown to the ghetto and the Bowery and up around 14th-st. I'd tramp through the Forties and Fifties. I used to like to be around the Forties when the shows were letting out. I'd mooch along, watching the jewelled women and the men in their evening dress. And I'd like to see them until it occured to me that I didn’t know a single soul among them. Then I used to go back to my room and read or play solitaire or write Tom. I used to write Tom at least once a week. Some times, twice or three times. I'd tell him all about the job and what I was doing and what I wasn’t doing. I'd tell him where I'd been and all the people I didn’t meet. I’d tell him what a lousy, lonesome town New York was. ana And then I met Bette. At one of those informal office receptions that are always happening in New York. She was the boss’s secretary, and they tell me she was good. She would be. She was good at everything she ever did. And she’s a looker. Black hair. Kind of pale. Eyes like Haile Selassie’s, liquid and sad and, come to think of it, merciless. No. I didn’t mean that. I’m just feeling bitter. Let me have another drink, please. Don't put water in it. I’ll have the water on the side. That’s right. Here’s looking at you. a a a SOMETHING went out of me to reach Bette, and something came from her and reached me. I know what it was now. You see, I was like a kid who's been lost a long time and finally finds his mother again. She took Tom's place as my pal. And what a pal she was! We went everywhere together. She had a little apartment and every once in a while she’d cook dinner down there. It was only a step from that to falling in love. And we fell hard. Both of us. She pushed Tom right out of my life. I went on writing him whenever I thought of him. But that wasn’t often in those days. And then I quit writing him altogether because I practically forgot him. I'll bet I haven't written him twice in the last year. Still, when I got his wire telling me he was on his way here to New York to work, I was tickled to death. You can see how that was, can’t you? I'd told Bette a lot about Tom and I was glad that now the two people I thought most of in the world were going to meet. It made Bette sore when I told her he was coming. She said she had heard so much about him that she was all set to hate him. Nobody, she said, could be as swell as I was always saying Tom was. Or if he was, he shouldn’t be alive. Let me have another drink. Just a dash of soda. I felt that last one. a a a TTTELL, Bette didn't hate him. v V The three of us went every place together, aqd I was never so happy in my life. I could see how well those two Mked each other. I mean I thought I could. I didn't really see until the day before yesterday. Then I got off early and I thought I’d sneak up to the apartment and surprise her. I surprised her. all right. And Tom, too. I found them in each other's arms. Have you a telephone here? If I'll just sit down in that booth What's that? You mean to say over there, the waiter will bring a telephone and plug it in? Why, that’s just what they do in pictures! It’s an improvement. If prohibition did nothing else, it made palaces out of saloons. Thank you, waiter. Let's see. R—H4 Hello! Bette? Bette, this is Jim. Yeh. Your husband—once. Bette, you noticed, didn't you, that I'd taken some of my clothes. I'm going to send for the rest a little later. Not right away. I don't need them. —Sure I'll explain. That's why I'm calling you. You see, Baby, after seeing —what I saw, I knew you and I were washed up. I thought this was the best way to do it. Get out without a lot of conversation. —No. Baby. —Because there isn’t anything to talk over. I know how you feel about • Tom. Os course not! Why should I blame you? People can't control love. I just happens to you and when it does, it's just too bad. —I know you do. Baby. —No. I'm not sore!—No, I don't hc f e you. I —Oh, stop erving I'm nil right. I'm fine! Goodbve— Darling. God! Alone. All alone. Waiter! Bring me a Scotch, please. No. not a scotch and soda. Scotch straight. No, I don’t want any water on the side. To hell with water! .(THE END)

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

egatva'deat?—adorned ) well, cashing in on my \N "THE <SABB CF "THE WITH VlSmua HOOPLES, * y/k ENALTEP CUSTODIAN OF / tD SUGGEST "THAT, INSTEAD CP \ THE GOLDEN CPESCENT y FESTOONINGi YOUVR 56 INCHES OF THE CXVLS IMPRESS YOUNG MICHAEL \ GEE-CAW, IT WOULD BE MOPE WITH MY IMPORTANCE i'TO THE "POINT IF YOU'D HANG |jj|X_i WHEN HE ARRIVES! % THREE BALLS OVER THE PROMT I ©1946 BY NEWSSERVICE. INC. T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF, j

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—

DRUG SIGREAND m " WELL ' I ’ LL CMLMR 6^.I KWCM/....8UT IF /_ "( MOM, FRECK... KEEP OSI K GET' THE HAVE "TO / BUT, 1 IT'S "THE !/THAT'S (IT BRINGS MOM RELIEF, / '( GIV'NG HER THAT MEDICINE ts GETIWAT I HAVE YOU ONLY MONEY ( IT'LL BE WORTH A l

WASHINGTON TUBBS II

/HELLO, THAT YOU, SNAKE EYE? LULU BEul\ HSAYS TO 60 TO BLAZES. NO GAMBLING' AND AS FOR. YOUR DEMON DESPERADO, MAGLEW —HO HO WE JUST LEARNED THAT HE'S '

ALLEY OOP

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

“LET ME SEE-I SHOULD RNCW THE OW , 1 MUST PEMEYV2ER VVE.S . S PRINCE'S V\f\NOWR\T\N6 \ I'VE SEEN . M\6TER XTO HER ’.V. —OF ALL

THE TARZAN TWINS

_________________ _____________ _ __ _____ _________ _____ __ •> —”

With their enemy Intamo out of the way, the runaways resumed their perilous march toward the hut where Bulala awaited the cannibal cooking pot. Around the great pot the savages were engaged in a frenzied dance to the wild, throbbing rhythm of tom-toms.

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Fortunately the blacks were so absorbed in their beastly festivities that the boys were able to proceed uninterruptedly to the very door of Bulala’s hut. No guards watched him, for the Bagallas could not conceive of any one fleeing into the demon-infested jungle night.

—By Ahem

BNV; I DONT \ / THERE VOU ARE- \ f OH, I'VE BEEN =IT FELLERS, V YOUNG HEROES \ FAMOUS SEVER*. 11 7T TO KEEP IN DARING RESCUE TIMES BUT IT'S || -IF MY OF FRIEND~TH' ALLUS SUMPM f -R KNEW I ONLY CHANCE 1 THAT UADDA / * DROWNDED, EVER WAD TO GET \ BEKEPQUEX / y'D WORRY MV SAME AND V LIKE THIS J -I - L WOULD'N . PITCHER IN TH' N—WED TOGO /[ PAPER,AND WE / / ****- lE-I'D have /\ gotta keep rr J / (f|

THEPE'. SFE MOO. ANYONE ELEE , LUCRECE ,MA\L TVMS • ANO YEE. COOLO TELL EOT VJYVKT FPANZ. INFORM MY 60ARO THAT I YOUR TO ■£>££ r ~ SERViCE. INC. V. M. REC. U. 8.

“W ? e have come to save you!” Doc whispered into the darkness. Bulala was astounded. He crept forward and began to kiss the hands of the white boy in happy gratitude until Doc was forced to command him to hurry. Then they gave him his allotment of weapons.

OUT OUR WAY

NEWSPAPER? HERE'S A PAGE OnK' C ( UNLESS I MISS MY GLIEES, MR,MAGLEvA story. PUNKy MAGLEW HAS l WILL SEE A EOLDEN opportunity to ; FLED TO MEXICO fWE MADE IT TOO J- I r~"' . iMaKE fools Q‘ us. /?■■■,, HOT FOR HIM, DON'T WORRY,-HE’LL hk ylFv T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. lEA

—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Warily they crept along the rear of the deserted huts and came to the village gates, which they found secured by a chain and an oldtime slaver's padlock. Here, it seemed, they were doomed to failure. “Now, smarty,” Dick muttered; “try your fancy magic on that!”

-COMIC PAGE

—By Williams

—By Blossec

—By Crane

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—By Martin