The Woman Aroused

dull of course—but it was the sort of thing stockholders could read with ease and not become disturbed, one way or the other. There were always a lot of pictures, an easy-on-the-eyes format, and we were constantly patting somebody on the back. Editing a house organ is horribly frustrating work if you take the job seriously, or kid yourself that it is keeping you from that “serious writing.” Happily, I had no need to fool myself... I knew I'd never get around to any real writing. My salary was peanuts for the type of company we had and the rag we published, but I played that smart—using our budget mostly to get good photographers and artists, to “pretty up” the book. With my oh-so-correct address and cool manner—as if I was doing Sky Oil a terrific favor by editing their magazine, plus a conscientious assistant editor named Harvey Harris who did most of the writing—we came out once a month and nobody worked very hard. Harvey and I had a perfect understanding. He was an eager beaver who only wanted to be left alone, do his work. We wrote speeches for the big shots now and then, carried fairly intelligent and educational articles on oil and selling, never forgot the stockholders, and in general were... “mild” would describe the Sun best. In return for his hard work, I let Harvey have the out-of-town trips, which he enjoyed, and since both he and our stenographer were writing like mad, trying to get a break in the slicks, our office always had a hum of activity. All in all, it was about as good as any job can be.

     I listened to the radio for a while, gave Slob chopped kidneys for lunch, and it was a few minutes after three. I was bored and considering whether I should wake Stella and take her home, or lock the door, put the money in the panel, and go to bed with her. I kept thinking of Flo and how ludicrous my explanations would seem if she should return and find Stella in the bedroom. I decided to wait till four, then take Stella home. I sat around, reading some old copies of Dance magazine. When the bell rang and I opened the door, Joe came breezing in, held up his wrist watch, said, “Only ten to four. Not bad time, hey kid?” He threw his overcoat on the couch, started opening a package. “Where's the doll?”

     “In the bedroom, sleeping.”

     “Puts down some fine stuff, doesn't she?” he said, as I knew he would.

     “Stop it. Where the hell have you been?”

     “Tell you in a minute. Hey doll, come see what poppa's got!” Joe yelled. Stella came out of the bedroom looking bleary-eyed. Joe put an arm around her, slapped her loudly on the backside and she said sharply, “Damn it, cut that out.”

     “Wait till you sec what I got,” he said, tearing open the package. He held up the biggest bottle of whiskey I ever saw. “This is a half a gallon.”

     “Never saw that before,” Stella said, yawning. She started for the bathroom but Joe stopped her, said proudly, “Read this—name of the store.” He pointed to a little blue sticker on the back of the bottle.

     She said, “Washington, D.C.... For Christsake!”

     “That's me,” Joe said happily. “Took a cab out to the airport, grabbed a plane to Washington. Got the bottle from a barkeep I know down there. What the hell, all I have to do is show the airline my travel card—charge it to the company as an inspection trip.”

     “Big shot,” Stella said, impressed. “Now let me go to the John, I'm too big to wet myself.”

     Joe and I went to the kitchen for ice and ginger ale. I asked, “You actually fly to Washington and back?”

     “Sure, had to get a bottle,” Joe said, a little too casually. He was so very pleased with himself. “Raining down there. Listen, well have a couple drinks, then I'll take Stella home—if she doesn't live in Brooklyn. Then we call for the kid's aunt and uncle, take them out to King of the Sea for a shell dinner...”

     “We?”

     “Come along, I got to take them out, and the simple bastards drive me crazy. We'll ditch 'em right after we eat. Okay, pal?”

     We sat around and Joe told a couple of jokes he claimed to have heard on the plane—every place he went he seemed to hear dirty jokes, old and stupid ones. Stella didn't say much, went to work on the bottle, she was trying to get tight again. She seemed a bit bored with us. But when Joe took her home, she gave me a big smile as we shook hands, squeezed my hand.

     I could do much worse than Stella.

     I straightened up the house a little, was changing my shirt, when I heard a cab stop. Joe came in, said, “That was luck, only lived on 83rd and Columbus. Not bad, may give her another tumble some day. Come on, the cab's waiting.”

     Joe lived in a renovated railroad flat on 55th Street and Second Avenue. His sister and brother-in-laws, whose names I never did get straight, were a couple of fat hicks, with plain faces that looked pretty blank and suspicious. Joe gave me a big introduction as though I was the head of Sky Oil, and pointed to a framed copy of the article I had written about him. It hung on the wall beneath a heavy, gold-framed picture of his dead wife: a pert, pretty, young woman, with a pug nose and big, interesting eyes.

     Joe went to the bathroom to run an electric razor over his face, and the aunt who had a sloppy bosom—even for a woman her age —said to me, “We must seem so stupid to you, Mr. Jackson—making a mistake of a whole month. My! So silly, but we were just sure Walt was coming home today.”

     I didn't say anything as to whether she was or wasn't stupid, and after waiting, for me to make some remark, she added, “Walt is such a little fellow to be in the army.”

     “Make a man of him,” the uncle chimed in. A few more veins in his thick nose and it would be mistaken for a surrealist painting.

     Over the small noise of his razor Joe yelled, “Best thing in the world for the boy. Shame folks forget about the boys holding our first line of defense—now. No welcome parades or nothing for Walt, like they had after the war.” He put his razor down, stepped into the living room, as if to emphasize the point.

     “No bonus from the states, either,” the uncle added.

     “Yeah, but at least he'll go to college under the G.I. Bill,” Joe said. His voice softened and he looked up at the picture of his wife in the hideous frame. Joe said with sincere tenderness, “That's the thing Mady wanted most—see the kid through college.”

     “My little baby sister,” the aunt said.

     “Way prices are, it would have been an awful squeeze on my salary,” Joe went on softly. “There was Walt, 17, would of been drafted anyway. I had some inside dope from one of the big shots in the office who has his ear open in Washington, that they weren't going to extend the GI Bill. So I said, 'Walt, smart thing is to get in now. You'll come out still a kid, and you can go to the Wharton School of Finance, Harvard, any place you like for four years. World's your oyster.' Walt took my advice and I'm sure glad. And I bet... so is Mady.”

     We all looked up at the picture for a moment as though we expected Mady to talk or smile. The uncle said, “Walt grown any? Always was so small, like his dear mother.”

     “Well he looks heavier. Didn't I show you this picture?” He ran into the bedroom, came out with a snap of a sharp-faced kid, his hat at a rakish angle.

     “Looks fine,” the aunt said. “Glad there was no real trouble over there, now he's coming home safe and sound.”

     “Don't know why we got our boys all over the world,” the uncle said, handing the photo back to Joe. “What they doing in Germany but protecting a lot of Jew-bastards.”

     His wife turned on him. “You stop that talk, and on Sunday too. Told you about swear words—like bastard.”

     “Let me tell you, wasn't for kids like Walt, Joe Stalin would be in France by now. Walt is putting the fear of God in the Reds,” Joe said, going back to the bathroom.

     I listened to the buzz of the razor, thought of Walt. Joe was funny with his son. He was strict with the kid, and although Joe would stay away from the house for days—with his women and bottle-emptying—long as the kid was home he never brought a bottle or a girl in the house. The boy called me Uncle George and once or twice I took him to the movies. He was a shy, moody kid, about five feet tall, and considering the way he was more or less dragged up, he'd turned out pretty well. At first I thought the army might make him more moody, but from the letters that Joe always read me, the kid seemed to take to army life. In one sense it was a break: Joe would never have put him through school.

     We went out and had a lobster dinner and it was all very dull. Joe told them they could have the apartment for the night, we were going to sleep in a Turkish bath. But when we dropped them off, I gave the cabbie my address and Joe said, “What's the matter? Come on to the baths. I got to sweat out all the booze, be in shape for the morning.”

     “I'll skip this one. I'm too tired.”

     “First time I ever saw you turn down the baths.”

     I wanted to go but where do you leave an envelope with seven grand in a Turkish bath?

     Once in the house I put the money behind the panel, cleaned up the place, changed the sheets, fed the cat, and went into a sound sleep. The next thing I knew the alarm was ringing.

     After dressing and shaving I bought the Times and a scratch sheet at a stand three blocks from the house, walked over to Fifth and took a bus downtown. I had the scratch sheet open inside the Times. Salad Days was running at 6 to 1, Henderson had liked her. But there was a horse named Sad Gal at 3 to 1. I thought of Stella and that was enough “hunch” for me. At Radio City I got off and walked over to a luncheonette on 6th Avenue (who calls it the Avenue of the Americas?), had my orange juice and coffee and crisp toast. As I finished my coffee the counterman said, “Anything else, Mr. Jackson?”

     “Sad Gal in the fourth,” I said, pushing change for the breakfast toward him, and two singles.