seemed to be a jumble of small pieces, and as I gathered them together, tried to think, I knew I was in my room, but it was dark, and I was across my bed, fully dressed—even to my shoes.
The banging was somebody knocking on my door and it sounded so loud... as if I was in the middle of an echo chamber.
The banging grew louder and I called out, “Flo? Flo? Who is it?” But my mouth was two layers of horrible smelling cotton and no words came out. I stood up stiffly, waited for the room to settle down, and started for the door. It was fortunate the room was tiny, I couldn't take more than a few steps and even that little effort made me faint. I managed to open the door.
Joe was standing there. A Joe looking cheerful, drunk, and sleepy. He's been up all night, or all week, judging by his eyes. He stepped in and I shut the door, the sound of it nearly slicing my head in half. Joe opened his coat, pushed his hat back, and looked at me as I sat on the bed. He made a face, opened the window and the cold air was a life-saver. For a while he stood there, without speaking, then he sat on the one chair, pulled out a pack of butts, lit one for me. The smoke was smooth as velvet and felt wonderful in my throat and nose.
Finally I asked, “What's the visit for?”
Joe blew out a cloud of smoke, glanced around the room, said, “What a trap.”
“How did you find me?” I asked, the question sounding absolutely stupid.
“Looked in the office files. You been worrying me, boy.”
“So I been worrying you. Glad you didn't go up to the house.”
“I was up there a few days ago. She said you didn't live there no more. A foreign doll, and what a sex-boat. Came to the door with just a slip on and is she....”
“Stay away from there, Joe, stay away from her!”
“What's the matter, she turn out to be too powerful for you? Georgie boy, what's wrong? Haven't been yourself for weeks.”
“And when I was myself, what was I? Joe, I was the guy wanted to go through life playing it safe, I wouldn't play unless I had a pair, backed up. Only you can't live like that, you got to go for the inside straights sometime, it seems.”
“Buck up. What's the matter?”
“Matter? Nothing! I'm just dandy, simply ginger- dandy!”
Joe shook his head. “Boy you look like hell. And something is sure wrong. George, you're a guy with class, a fashion-plate, and look at you now... living in this flea-bag, clothes wrinkled to hell and dirty. And you smell like a sewer—an old one. And there's something awful wrong when a guy making over a hundred a week starts borrowing a buck here and there. Not that I mind, you understand, but it's a sign something is screwy. Then you had some kind of a fuss with old man Henderson, Jake says you been asking some odd questions, and finally, a couple of weeks ago when you were up to my place, you were packing a gun.”
“I was not.”
“Stop it, I felt it when we horsed around at the door.”
“It was a toy gun, a gag.”
Joe moved his chair closer. “Georgie, we been pals for a long time. Christ, you're the best friend I have in the world. I want to help you. If it's dough, I ain't no mint, but Walt and me been making a bit of folding dough. If a couple of hundred, maybe a grand....”
“Thanks, Joe, but it wouldn't solve anything. I'm in a first class mess. I'm the fox who was outfoxed... hopelessly.”
“Don't be a blip,” Joe said loudly. “Hell, as an executive you know there's, no such thing as a problem that can't be licked—everything's in transit, what you can't lick today, you will tomorrow. Now, what's with you and this doll?”
I started telling him about Lee, and as I talked I sobered up, began to think straight—very straight. I told him everything, except about the note and the seven grand. My story was I felt sorry for Lee, wanted to help her, couldn't resist keeping her, so I started giving her a hundred a week and now was afraid to stop. I talked through four cigarettes, and when I finished, Joe said, “What's the great problem? I'll go talk to her, knock some sense in her head.”
“Joe stay away from her... stay away. You cant talk to her she's like a... a moron. All she's good for is a tumble in the hay.”
Joe looked wide awake as he said, “Think of having a babe like that, a doll that's strictly a sex machine. And is she built for it! Georgie, was she really something?”
“She's evil. May not be her fault, but she's evil. Forget her, somehow I'll solve things. She's too much for any man. In bed she's very very good, terrific, but she's also expensive and...”
Joe stood up, took out his wallet. “I knew she was all sex the first time I saw her. Georgie, you're in rough shape. Here's fifty bucks, go to the baths, steam out the booze, eat a couple good meals. And don't worry, let me handle this doll. Never saw a babe with big shakers I couldn't talk into anything I wanted.”
I jumped to my feet, said as fiercely as I could, “Joe, as your friend, I'm asking you,
“Relax, Georgie, let me handle this...”
“Damn it, Joe, don't go near her! Don't...
Joe pushed me, gently, and I fell back on the bed. He held me down with a fat hand, said with great enjoyment in his patronizing voice, “Take it easy, Georgie, ain't no doll too big or hot for me. Get some sleep, take in the baths, then cut into a steak. Take Flo out to supper, or something. And Merry Christmas. See you at the office.”
I called to him at the door, “Look, Joe, I'm telling you to stay away not because I ever intend to go back to her again, but I'm thinking of you.”
Joe chuckled.
“Look, if you really want to help me, just mind your business. And leave your cigarettes, that's the only real help you can give me.”
He tossed the pack at me, winked, and was gone.
I lit a cigarette, propped a pillow under my head, and felt very tired and happy. I'd finally pulled out from under.
Joe was like a child, like me, I suppose. Giving him the sex bait, telling him
Okay, I couldn't take any more, and in a sense I
* * *
And that's the way it turned out. It's been over three months since that Christmas day and I've stopped giving Lee money, in fact I never go near the house. Joe seems cheerful around the office, winks at me a lot—whatever that means—and is a little tight with money. I lend him a few bucks now and then.
I'm back at the Hotel Taft, my pre-supper cocktails, and I rent a dance studio whenever I'm in the mood. Soon I'll tell Joe to move Lee to his apartment, and then things will be as before. Flo and I are sparring, have been through two “grand reunions” already. As a salve to my conscience, I've started a series of ads in German papers, to find Lee's folks, if she has any, which will be the only solution for her and not much of a one at that.
Of course things, for me, will never quite be in the same rut they were before. I carry on quite a correspondence with Eddie, who seems to be comfortable and healthy in Rome. And I realize now how right he was—I was the naive one. In this day and age you can't live without rooking your neighbor.
Here's Lee, terribly wronged by an entire nation and part of our army, and Eddie, wounded here and abroad by fascism, and even that poor Porto Rican he killed— what made him attack Eddie for a few lousy bucks? This is the era of fear and the fast buck, and look what it did to me; money made me rook poor Lee, slip her to a good-natured dope like Joe, made me try to blackmail a sweet old man like Henderson. And the fast buck turned Walt from a shy schoolboy to a tin-horn racketeer. It seems to me that as long as the fast buck makes this a dog-eat-dog world—if you'll pardon the trite expression (and you will, won't you?)—we have to follow petty lives. Like Flo and myself... our silly life of little spats and petty victories. Flo and her inane sublimation to style: when she dies they'll put a clothes hanger on her grave instead of a tombstone. And myself—what's my out, my escape valve? I'm trying to con my way through life, duck responsibilities—and in a way I can't be blamed; the dizzy pursuit of the fast buck makes for some cockeyed responsibilities these days.
But you see what it all adds up to: we're not really living. We straitjacket our lives with misery and stupidity, then spend our free time looking for an escape. We think we're living, yet in reality we're merely killing time. As I said, I wanted to go through life with a sure pair backed up... and all the time I've been dealing myself out of the game.
The End
