Fat Boy gulped.
"Just wait another day," I said. "We'll have it worked out. Just be patient another day. You can't leave now, not after all your work."
"No, I guess not," he sighed. "I'll stay—until tomorrow."
All night the thought crept through my brain like a teasing spider: What can we do to make him stay? What can we tell him? What, what, what?
Unable to sleep the next morning, I left John to his snoring and went for an aspirin and black coffee. All the possible schemes were drumming through my mind: finding an Earth blonde to capture John's interest, having him electro-hypnotized, breaking his leg, forging a letter from this mythical university telling him his theory was proved valid and for him to take a nice long vacation now. He was a screwball about holes and force fields and dimensional worlds but for that music of his I'd baby him the rest of his life.
It was early afternoon when I trudged back to my apartment.
John was squatting on the living room floor, surrounded by a forest of empty beer bottles. His eyes were bulging, his hair was even wilder than usual, and he was swaying.
"John!" I cried. "You're drunk!"
His watery eyes squinted at me. "No, not drunk. Just scared. I'm awful scared!"