The people of Beer World are named Buck, Mike, Al and Mac. There are no Algernons in Beer World, no Marmadukes, no Gaylords. Beer World has hair on its chest.
Yes, there are a few women in Beer World. They are named Gladys, though there is one named Elvira. You have seen the woman who brings a tray of beer to Buck, Mike, Al and Mac while they are sitting in the beer parlor in their mackinaws being rugged and jolly? Of course you have seen her. That woman is Gladys.
You may also have seen Buck recently having his beer at a distinctly sissifed ski lodge in company with a lissome young woman. That woman is Elvira. Buck sometimes takes Elvira to these sissy places in order to experience the perfection of beer without sweating.
Buck often feels guilty after these perspiration-free outings with Elvira, for in Beer World it is man’s duty to heave and grunt until his pores open and let the honest body juices cascade freely. Only then does he truly deserve beer. Beer is the reward for manly toil in Beer World.
How often have you seen Buck, Mike, Al and Mac exhausted at the end of an honest day’s work on the firing squad, sleeves rolled up, shirt collars opened, perspiration dampening their cheeks as they labor to rid the world of malcontents, looters and sissies—how often have you seen them joyfully throw down their tools as the sun sets, embrace each other merrily and tramp over to Gladys’s place for their beer?
Now comes beer time. The beer has been created for Buck, Mike, Al and Mac in recognition of their labor, in recognition of all they do. The beer is for them. Not for Algernon. Not for Marmaduke and Gaylord. Someone will object that we never really see the boys putting in a full day’s work on the firing squad, that all we ever see are the final few executions at sunset. But of course; in Beer World, sunset is the only time of day. The sun stands eternally in the setting position. Shortly after Buck, Mike, Al and Mac throw down their rifles, or their scythes or their big tractor-trailers, and receive their beer from Gladys, they tramp out into the sunset again and finish building a skyscraper so they can throw down their rivet guns and march back to Gladys’s place for another round of well-earned beer.
Why does Buck occasionally sneak away to sissified places with Elvira to drink his beer in dry clothing? Surely Buck would rather be with Mike, Al and Mac arriving at Beer World’s cottage by the lake in their plaid fishing shirts.
Of course Buck would. It is much more fun racing to the refrigerator with Mike, Al and Mac and discovering four bottles of chilled beer than it is sitting across a table from Elvira. Is Buck—let us phrase the question as delicately as possible—is Buck soft on women?
The question is often raised by Mike, Al and Mac when they are all having dinner together in order to deserve a beer, or jogging twenty miles together just at sunset in order to earn the right really to enjoy a beer. Once they even asked Doc—Beer World’s psychiatrist—to put Buck on the couch, give him a bottle of beer and find out if he was really one of the boys.
Doc had just finished whipping a massive superego down to size and was headed to Gladys’s place for his beer when he conducted the examination. He pronounced Buck a perfectly normal beer guy with a slight woman problem.
It seems Buck had a mother, which is very rare in Beer World. In his youth, “Old Moms,” as Buck called her, used to send him to the corner saloon to buy her what she called “a bucket of suds.” “Old Moms” had since been deported under Beer World’s rigid legal code, which denies citizenship to most women, especially if, like “Old Moms,” they sit around the house in dresses made from flour sacks drinking beer out of tin buckets.
The law was necessary because people like “Old Moms” created a bad image of Beer World, which wanted to be viewed as a sweaty but clean-cut place full of boys whose beer had fewer calories and whose mothers, if they must have mothers, wouldn’t be caught dead wearing flour sacks. In short, Buck felt bad about the old lady’s deportation; when he took Elvira out for beer, he was really taking out his mother who had learned to dress expensively and to drink her beer out of a glass.
Elvira actually despises beer and would much prefer a drink with Amaretto in it, but doesn’t dare order it for fear Buck would accuse her of not being one of the boys and walk out of her life forever. The women of Beer World do not have much opportunity to get out for a good time. Elvira has often asked Gladys to go out and have some Amaretto with her, but Gladys is afraid that if the boys learned about it they would call her a sissy.