The young man at the end of the bar was not wearing Western clothes. Had he worn no clothes at all he could not have appeared more conspicuous, at least in The El Cantina Bar in Goodtime, Nevada. The El, as the regulars called it, catered to the brightly-clad guests of three dude ranches. There were the ovoid, unhappy women of the Merry Widow Ranch (awaiting divorces); the unhappy, ovoid men of the Triple-Tumblebug Ranch (awaiting divorces); and the querulous, dozing old people, of no particular sex, from the Golden Sunset Retirement Ranch (awaiting death). Amid their orchids, turquoises and clarets, all the hues of a painted sunset, Cal's rumpled grey suit and dirty-white lab coat stood out like a bird-dropping.
- John Sladek, The Reproductive System, p.51 in SF Gateway Omnibus
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