The door’s big, wide and tall, built for somethin’ a lot bigger’n people. No knob, handle… nothin’, it’s OK though, you don’t have to open it, you just walk through it.”
“Push it open you mean?”
“Nope, walk through, you’ll see! So there you are; you’re on this big porch that runs across the front of the building, if that’s what it is? Because if you go to the end of the porch to look down the side of the building, there’s nothin’ there! It’s like a false front for a western movie set, there’s nothin’ back there. Nothin’ at all! No supports, no framin’, nada! The front of the building feels thin as a razor blade but it won’t cut you. You can reach around the corner but you hand just touches somethin’ smooth. If you lean out over the rail and look at the backside of the thing it’s like a big mirror. It’s mighty strange, partner! There’s nothin’ there but them things that pass for grass and trees in that place. It looks just like the forest out front. Oh yeah, and that’s another thing, the porch or whatever it is, it ain’t sittin’ on the ground; damn thing’s up in the air maybe two feet or so and that grass stuff flows along under it. Yeah, flows, sorta’ like water! It’s like one of them sea anemones or somethin’ and it moves, but it all goes the same direction and the leaves or tentacles or whatever the hell they are, wave around. The tree things don’t come nearer than about fifty or sixty feet to the place and they get too dense to see through pretty quick. They move around too, just slower than the grass things. They look a lot like the grass but bigger, darker.
“In the middle of the porch there’s a set of three big, wide steps that go down to a few inches above that grass stuff. There ain’t no sidewalk or nothin’, but floatin’ in the air out there is this glowin’ sign that says ‘Keep Off the Grass!’. There’s two more of them glowin’ signs on the posts on each side of the steps and they tell you, “Danger! Do Not Leave the Porch!
“I got told later that them signs always read in the language of the reader no matter who or what they are and no one who has ever left that porch has ever come back. If you just stand and listen you can hear all sorts of strange sounds out in that forest, if that’s what it is. Me, I’ve never even thought about goin’ out there.”
“Well, did you ever go in?”
“I’m comin’ to that.”
“Good, good!” I said, “How’s your drink?”
“Getting’ on towards gone, I allow I’m gonna’ need a refill soon.”
“Me too.” I said and held up two fingers to the barkeep. This time, I put out a twenty. The Round Tuit was still lying where I had put it down. We finished the drinks we had; the new ones arrived, we had a quiet look in each other’s eyes, raised our glasses took a sip and he continued…
“So, like I said, you walk through the door. The place ain’t to big considering the size of some of the ahh… patrons. Coat rack along the wall by the door had some mighty interesting duds on it and not just a few unusual guns and stuff hangin’ on pegs or standin’ in wall racks. Did I mention that you check your jewelry, uh, …guns at the door?”
“Ah… no you didn’t.”
“Well you do, be sure you do! Then you got to find a seat that fits you.”
“A seat that fits?”
“Yeah, because there are seats for different sizes and shapes of bodies and places to stand for things that don’t sit. There are even perches for the things like birds.”
“Birds come to this bar and they tell stories?”
“They’re probably not birds, but they sorta look like birds. I’ve seen two or three different kinds of ‘em now. “So, anyhow the bar’s this big horseshoe coming off the back wall with barstools of various sizes and heights around it. There’s a huge 3-D TV screen on the back wall and others on both side walls. That’s where you see whoever’s telling the story. The rest of the time it shows the places where everyone comes from. I even saw places on earth I’d never seen, but there was also pictures on my ranch so I knowed that’s where it had to be. Some of the stuff that goes by up there is totally unbelievable; ’ceptin’ that when you take into account that you’re at Tuit’s, you know it has got to be real.
“On the left side of the room there’s some big standup tables for the things that don’t sit. Over on the right side are tables more like what we’re used to and things that sit, earthmen and such go there. Some of the barstools will fit us too.
“Up in the corner on the front wall on that side are the perches.”
“Perches, that’s where the bird things go?”
“Yup, just like in a henhouse or a pigeon coop, only bigger but the things up there don’t look much like any bird you ever saw. Like I said, I’ve seen several kinds now”
“And they’re not pets?” I venture.