"It was fun," the redhead sighs. "Kicking won't seem the same."
"Quit that kind of work," Rabelais says. "Go to college or something." And he hands each of them a big wad of money.
Downtown we split up, each of us going off somewhere to get the rest we need. I sleep around the clock and a little more. When I wake up I'm the owner of a tavern still, so I figure I'm to be mayor in '54 and congressman in '56. It's a wonderful life for a while. The only thing is that I miss Rabelais coming in at five-ten for his beer.
In '54 I get elected Mayor like he said. My business gets remodelled and all is swell.
Then one night I go to sleep in my new house and I wake up in the middle of the night feeling a cold draft. When I turn over I roll onto a lump in the mattress and I know it was all a dream and I'm Mike Murphy, bartender, again.
The next a.m. I pick up the paper and it's the summer of '53, the day of Rabelais and my thirty-first anniversary and I'm back at the old stand. It was a fine dream, I says, and go to work.
At five-o-nine, though, I can't help looking at the clock. And sure enough, Rabelais comes in, walks up to the bar like he owns it and roars at me, "Two beers, Mike!"
I can't help saying, "Look, haven't we done this before?"
He grins at me. "And we may have to do it again a few times," he says.