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LAST DRINK BIRDHEAD: GENE WOLFE</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Gene
Wolfe's entry for the Jeff Vandermeer's <i>Last Drink Birdhead
</i>appeared in 2009 and has not been collected elsewhere.</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%">SUMMARY:</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Originally
designed to answer the challenge “Who or What is Last Drink
Birdhead? He, she, or it,” in 500 words or less proposed by Jeff
Vandermeer, Wolfe's entry in the volume begins with some background
on Damon Knight's Milford Writers Conference.</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Wolfe
begins by claiming that bartenders are “the great modern models of
probity”, but that the modern mind has been made suspicious by
government pronouncements and network news broadcasts. He claims
that we are furthermore distrustful of anything avowed by a writer of
fiction: “I am one and I encounter the prejudice daily,
particularly from my wife.”
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Wolfe
identifies the cocktail as a “forgotten” beverage and claims
there was a time, “not so remote as mead but almost as remote as
bath-tub gin, when everyone over the age of ten drank cocktails.”
He lists several, such as the Rob Roy and the Pink Lady, and claims
he still harbors an affection for the French Seventy-five, but no
longer orders it, “and the reasons should be obvious.” He goes on
to ask “What bartender today can compound an Up in Mable's Room?
What bartender would try (½ rye whiskey, ¼ gin, ¼ honey)? I've
been writing a book about a pirate, but I give you my word that I'll
never sample the Yo Ho (equal parts rum, Captain Morgan's spiced rum,
and apple brandy.)”</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Wolfe
goes on to say that Damon Knight “(equal parts author, editor, and
critic)” always ordered a White Piano whenever he was asked what he
wanted to drink before he had made up his mind. When the bartender
claimed he didn't know what it was, Damon would proclaim, “Well,
I'm not about to drink your first one!” before ordering whatever
drink he had decided upon. Gordon Dickson and Harry Harrison observed
this, and Gordon told Wolfe about the following prank they played on
Knight.</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> They
entered a bar before cocktail hour and ordered White Pianos, and when
the bartender confessed he didn't know how to make it, they told him
it was a drink of equal parts sloe gin and milk with a teaspoonful of
sugar. They tipped him well and complemented the drink, repeating
this process several times.
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> “They
took Damon to their favorite bar; and while he fooled around with the
bobbing-head bird that had shared a last drink with the guy passed
out in the corner, Gordie ordered beer, and Harry wine. You can
imagine the rest. The moral of this little story is that we must
never, ever deceive innocent bartenders. Or borrow other people's
toys without asking. Providence will accord justice to them both.”</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%">COMMENTARY</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Until
the last few paragraphs, this is a rather simple and uncomplicated
tale. Stylistically it is interesting how Damon Knight is described
just as Wolfe describes the cocktails, with his ingredients in
parenthesis after his name. However, once again Wolfe-as-narrator
steps in and leaves us hanging. How did Damon react when the
bartender produced a drink which he knew to be fake? Did he explode
after tasting the tart Sloe gin? Certainly he must have. What did the
passed out man do when he awoke to see Damon playing with his
bobbing-head bird? Clearly Wolfe saved the image of Last Drink
Bird-Head for this denouement, yet we are left guessing as to how
exactly justice was served. Did Damon assume that the bartender was
dishonestly trying to fake his way through the drink, given the first
line of the story, which labels them as the height of honesty? Is
the toy Wolfe mentions a double entendre referencing Damon's tactic
of buying time by shaming the bartender for his own amusement besides
the simple bobble-head bird of the drunken man (who was probably
awoken by the ruckus)?
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> Sloe
gin is another forgotten cocktail in the vein of the others that
Wolfe mentions. Sloes are ripe English berries which are fairly
astringent and reputedly taste terrible. Sloe gin is supposed to be a
very tart beverage, and one can imagine Damon's reaction in receiving
a drink he knows to be of his own invention to buy time as if it were
real.</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%">UNANSWERED
QUESTIONS:</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> What
does Sloe Gin taste like with milk and sugar? This might be one
Wolfe question the brave can answer on their own.</p>
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<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%"> How
true is this story?</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%">CONNECTION
WITH OTHER WORKS:</p>
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<font color="#00000a"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span lang="en-US"> Occasionally,
Gene inserts himself into his fiction and recasts simple life events
as narratives, such as in “Houston, 1943” and “How I Got Three
Zip Codes.” However, this is probably more essay than fiction,
despite the Wolfe tendency to leave us to create the ending. Damon
Knight plays a narrative role in Wolfe's Sherlock Holmes pastiche,
“The Rubber Bend”, and has always been listed as a huge influence
for his role in both publishing </span></font></font><font color="#00000a"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span lang="en-US"><i>Orbit</i></span></font></font><font color="#00000a"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span lang="en-US">
and for giving Wolfe practical suggestions which actually improved
his stories, specifically in the structure of “Trip, Trap.” It
was Knight who grew Wolfe from a bean one night, after all.</span></font></font></p>
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