He hobbles over to the counter and stares at the bartender, a tear welling in his left eye. “Listen, sir. I know you are a good man. You love your wife dearly, you walk your children to school every day, and you pay your taxes.”
“Uh…”
“That is why I ask of you, good man, to never, ever serve me again. I am battling alcoholism, and it is no easy fight. If you refuse to serve me every single time I come here, I promise to reward you with one hundred dollars at the end of the week. Deal?”
The bartender scratches his head, but being a keen businessman and knowing a good investment when he sees one, he accepts the offer. “Deal.”
“Thanks, man.” The alcoholic exits the bar, satisfied.
The next day, the alcoholic walks into that same bar. He heads up to the counter and asks for a shot of whiskey.
“Sorry, lad,” the bartender replies. “I promised not to serve you.”
The alcoholic chuckles. “What? Whom the hell d’you promise that to?”
“Er, to you, sir.”
“That’s horseradish! Look, I don’t know how much money you’re being offered to deny me this, but I can pay you double that amount.”
The bartender, again, being a wise businessman, raises an eyebrow. “That would be two hundred dollars at the end of the week.”
“Two hundred it is!” The alcoholic slams his fist on the counter for the sake of little besides being dramatic. “Now pass me a scotch, will ya?”
An hour of drinking later, the alcoholic staggers out the door into the cold of the night, and the bartender grins at his business well made.
The following day, the alcoholic hurries through the door of the bar, wearing a mortified expression and some dusty clothes. “What have you done?! I told you not to serve me!”
“I’m sorry, sir. You offered a higher amount yesterday, and I simply couldn’t help myself.”
“Oh god, oh my god, oh Jesus… You don’t understand, I woke up inside a trash can in an alley just an hour or so ago—I don’t remember anything. No one’s returning any of my calls. I’m afraid I did something terrible yesterday. You’ve got to stop me, please, I implore!”
The bartender twirls his mustache. “Well, if you were to pay me more than you promised to yesterday, which was two hundred…”
“I’ll pay you four hundred, then! Just don’t let me get anywhere near a drink again!”
“Alright, bud.”
The alcoholic leaves the bar again, and the bartender smiles in approval.
On the evening of the proceeding day, the alcoholic bursts into the bar, insanity flashing across his glassy eyes. He looks the bartender dead in the eye and nearly screams, “Whiskey!”
The bartender shakes his head grimly. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t do that—”
“Eight hundred!” the alcoholic smashes his fist into the counter again. “Just give me a fucking whiskey, ya cunt!”
“Aight man, it’s your funeral,” says the bartender, pouring a glass of fine whiskey.
With sunlight flooding the establishment, the alcoholic again walks through the door, looking even more disheveled. “Sweet mother of Christ, what did I tell you?!”
“I apologize candidly, sir. You keep doubling your promise each time, and I’m incapable of feeling any remorse; I’m in this purely for monetary gain, you see.”
“Well then, just so you know, whenever that version of me walks in here offering to up the ante, he’s lying. Don’t trust him.”
“Right. But, uh, I’m only gonna do that if you double the price again.”
“Urgh, fine. Whatever. Sixteen hundred, is it?”
“Indeed. Nice doing business with you.”
The alcoholic walks outside again, seeming a little more cheered up.
By eventide of the morrow, as expected, the alcoholic bursts through the wall of the bar, sending dust and debris to every corner of the room. He leaps to the counter and screeches, “WHERE’S ME FUCKING USQUE YE DOBBER?!”
The bartender sighs. “Nope. Can’t.”
“GIVE IT TO ME! NOW!”
“I’ve been told not to trust you.”
“THIRTY-TWO HUNDRED QUID! SIXTY-FOUR! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT! TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX! FIVE HUNDRED AND TWELVE!”
“We don’t… I don’t take quids, mate. And again, I’m not going to serve you. You can’t bribe me.”
“Then I have no other choice.” The crazed alcoholic pulls out a revolver and, with a swift motion, sets it against the bartender’s temple. The bartender begins sweating nervously. “This is all very simple, Mr. Pollington,” says the lunatic. “You serve me a whiskey, I walk out of here without leaving a trace. You refuse, and… well, someone’ll have to clean up that mess.” He pushes the revolver deeper into the flesh, and the bartender restrains a gasp between his labored breaths. “Now, I don’t know which one you personally wish to pick, Mr. Pollington, but I know that your wife will be very happy to hear you didn’t choose the latter. Either way, I’d suggest making your move right about now.”
The bartender sends a shaking hand towards a glass, fills it to the brim with strong, harsh whiskey, and places it on the counter.
“Ah,” the alcoholic says, retrieving the gun to his pocket. “Wise choice, Mr. Pollington. Very wise indeed.” He gulps down the drink and throws it onto the floor, where it shatters into a thousand shards. “Another.”
The bartender, visibly shaken, pours him another glass and sets it on the counter. The alcoholic once again quaffs it in a blink of the eye, then smashes it into the floor. “Another!”
He suppresses a whimper as he pours the maniac a third whiskey, which he again downs instantly and smashes into the floor. “Another one, Mr. Pollington!”
Ten or twelve shots later, the floor is nearly covered in broken glass. The bartender is whimpering, and the alcoholic is laughing maniacally, smashing the glasses and watching the bartender dance behind the counter like a circus monkey, ferreting about for whiskey bottles.
“I… oh my god, I… I’ve run out, sir. I’ve no more whiskey left,” the bartender whimpers after a few more rounds.
“Hmm,” the alcoholic mutters, now much more wobbly than before. “Very well then. You’ve been a… good, er… yeah.” He turns around and stumbles across the bar. “I’ll be sure to… come arou—” The alcoholic retches, then throws up on the glass-covered floor. He wipes the vomit from his lips and heads on into the dark streets of the night.
The bartender, fatigued and terrified, steps to the side then collapses.
When he wakes up, the bar is still empty, the night is still dark and the floor is still covered in dust, vomit and broken glass. The bartender gets on his quivering feet with a grunt and checks the time. It’s 4:37 AM. He scrambles to the telephone on the wall and dials frantically.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I… There was a man here, a few hours ago. He threatened me with a gun, and, and…”
“No.”
“P-pardon?”
“Let’s try again.”
An alcoholic walks into a bar. He hobbles over to the counter and stares at the bartender, a tear welling in his left eye. “Sir, you must help me. I’m in a terrible condition—alcohol is ruining my life in every way imaginable. You know your spirits, good man; surely you know the solution to all this!”
The bartender’s eyes brighten, and a smile curls his wrinkled face. He crouches behind the counter and pulls out a tiny cubic capsule, no more than a millimeter in radius. “One cubic micrometer,” he says, shaking the capsule. “A trillionth of a milliliter; around four-fifths of a picogram of pure, distilled, unadulterated antialcohol.” He pours a small glass of whiskey and places it on the counter. “When in contact with a similar amount of alcohol…” He drops the capsule into the liquid, which after a few moments acquires a soft white glow. “…the two should annihilate and emit about… 34 calories worth of radiant energy.”
The alcoholic eyes him, confused.
“E=mc².”
“Oh. I see.”
The bartender pulls out a bowl filled with these capsules. “All you have to do is swallow these pills every so often and your alcoholism should gradually evaporate, like, uh, fine wine.”
The alcoholic grabs the bowl and places it in his pocket. “Thank you so much! I-I don’t know how I could ever repay—”
“A hundred dollars.”
“Ah, yes, that should do.” He slides a one hundred dollar bill across the counter and leaves the bar, satisfied.
The next day, the alcoholic returns to the bar, looking distressed. The bartender raises an eyebrow. “Well?”
“Hmm?”
“Did they work?”
“Oh, yes. Wonderfully. I no longer crave alcohol, not even the slightest. The antialcohol did its job immaculately, but, er… well…” He pulls up his shirt, revealing a bright light shining through his stomach. “I just can’t get enough of ‘em. I’m afraid my addiction has simply transformed into antialcoholism. I understand you’ve some solution to this plight as well?”
“Well, surely!” The bartender pulls out a glass filled with a transparent, viscuous liquid. “One pint,” he says, shaking the glass. “An eighth of a gallon; around four-elevenths of a kilogram of pure, distilled, unadulterated antiantialcohol.” He grabs another glass, one filled with capsules of antialcohol, and places it on the counter. “When in contact with a similar amount of antialcohol…” He pours the antiantialcohol into the second glass, which very quickly shines a brilliant white glow that only grows brighter and brighter with time. “…the two should annihilate and emit about… uh… what is it… three megatons of TNT?”
“Three… three megatons of TNT?!”
The light emanating from the glass turns blinding, and a hot aura manifests around it.
“No, no, sorry—six megatons of TNT. ‘Cause you’re counting both the antialcohol and the antiantialcohol.”
The glass shatters, and the liquid inside seethes and levitates into the air.
“Are you… are you being serious?!”
“Quite so. I have just placed both of us in immediate mortal danger, which we have little to no chance of eluding. I’m inclined to offer an apology, but as I said before, I am incapable of feeling any remorse.”
The counter is engulfed in flames, and a red hue paints the corners of the room.
“What? When did you say that?”
“Oh, you’re not the same guy? Sorry, let me explain:”
And so, during the next two seconds, the bartender hastily tells:
“An alcoholic walks into a bar. He hobbles over to the counter and stares at the bartender, a tear welling in his left eye. ‘Listen, sir. I know you are a good man. You love your wife dearly, you walk your children to school every day, and you pay your taxes.’ ‘Uh…’ ‘That is why I ask of you…’”
But near the end, he notices that there’s a recursion in the story. If he is to formally and rigorously explain the entire situation, he would need to repeat it infinitely many times! But wait, he thinks—if I used a supertask, such that after each recursion I tell the story twice as quickly as I did the previous recursion, it would only take me another two seconds to tell the entire thing! And so, using this oddly familiar strategy, he recounts the entire anti-anti-joke, recursions and all, in a mere 4 seconds.
“Oh,” exclaims the antialcoholic. “I get it now! Thank you, Mr.—”
And then the comedic duo went