her. Esther sees nothing wrong either.
'Raoul the television writer can produce drama devious enough to slip by any sponsor's roadblock and still tell the staring fans what's wrong with them and what they're watching. But he's happy with westerns and detective stories.
'Slab the painter, whose eyes are open, has technical skill and if you will 'soul.' But is committed to cheese Danishes.
'Melvin the folk-singer has no talent. Ironically he does more social commenting than the rest of the Crew put together. He accomplishes nothing.
'Mafia Winsome is smart enough to create a world but too stupid not to live in it. Finding the real world never jibing with her fancy she spends all kinds of energy - sexual, emotional - trying to make it conform, never succeeding.
'And on it goes. Anybody who continues to live in a subculture so demonstrably sick has no right to call himself well. The only well thing to do is what I am going to do now, namely, jump out this window.'
So speaking Winsome straightened his tie and prepared to defenestrate.
'I say,' said Pig Bodine, who'd been out in the kitchen listening. 'Don't you know life is the most precious possession you have?'
'I have heard that one before,' said Winsome, and jumped. He had forgotten about the fire escape three feet below the window. By the time he'd picked himself up and swung a leg over, Pig was out the window. Pig grabbed Winsome's belt just as he went over the second time.
'Now look,' said Pig. A drunk, urinating below in the courtyard, glanced up and started yelling for everybody to come watch the suicide. Lights came on, windows opened and pretty soon Pig and Winsome had an audience. Winsome hung jackknifed, looking placidly down at the drunk and calling him obscene names.
'How about letting go,' Winsome said after a while. 'Aren't your arms getting tired?'
Pig admitted they were. 'Did I ever tell you,' Pig said, 'the story about the coke sacker, the cork soaker and the sock tucker.'
Winsome started to laugh and with a mighty heave, Pig brought him back over the low rail of the fire escape.
'No fair,' said Winsome who had knocked the wind out of Pig. He tore away and went running down the steps. Pig, sounding like an espresso machine with faulty valves, joined the pursuit a second later. He caught Winsome two stories down, standing on the rail holding his nose. This time he slung Winsome over a shoulder and started grimly up the fire escape. Winsome slithered away and ran down another floor. 'Ah, good,' he said. 'Still four stories. High enough.'
The rock 'n' roll enthusiast across the court had turned his radio up. Elvis Presley, singing Don't Be Cruel, gave them background music. Pig could hear cop sirens arriving out in front.
So they chased each other up down and around the fire escapes. After a while they got dizzy and started to giggle. The audience cheered them on. So little happens in New York. Police came charging into the areaway with nets, spotlights, ladders.
Finally Pig had chased Winsome down to the first landing, half a story above the ground. By this time the cops had spread out a net.
'You still want to jump,' Pig said.
'Yes,' said Winsome.
'Go ahead,' said Pig.
Winsome went down in a swan dive, trying to land on his head. The net, of course, was there. He bounced once and lay all flabby while they wrapped him in a strait jacket and carted him off to Bellevue.
Pig, suddenly realizing that he had been AWOL for eight months today, and that 'cop' may be defined as 'civilian Shore Patrolman,' turned and raced fleetly up the fire escape for Rachel's window, leaving the solid citizens to turn their lights off and go back to Elvis Presley. Once inside, he reckoned he could put on an old dress of Esther's and a babushka and talk in falsetto, should the cops decide to come up and inquire. They were so stupid they'd never know the difference.
V
At Idlewild was a fat three-year-old who waited to bounce over the tarmac to a waiting plane - Miami, Havana, San Juan - looking blase and heavy-lidded over the dandruffed shoulder of her father's black suit at the claque of relatives assembled to see her off. 'Cucarachita,' they cried, 'adios, adios.'
For such wee hours the airport was mobbed. After having Esther paged, Rachel went weaving in and out of the crowd in a random search-pattern for her strayed roommate. At last she joined Profane at the rail.
'Some guardian angels we are.'
'I checked on Pan American and all of them,' Profane said. 'The big ones. They were full up days ago. This Anglo Airlines here is the only one going out this morning.'
Loudspeaker announced the flight, DC-3 waited across the strip, dilapidated and hardly gleaming under the lights. The gate opened, waiting passengers began to move. The Puerto Rican baby's friends had come armed with maracas, claves, timbales. They all moved in like a bodyguard to escort her out to the plane. A few cops tried to break it up. Somebody started to sing, pretty soon everybody was singing.
'There she is,' Rachel yelled. Esther came scooting around from behind a row of lockers, with Slab running interference. Eyes and mouth bawling, overnight case leaking a trail of cologne which would dry quickly on the pavement, she charged in among the Puerto Ricans. Rachel, running after her, sidestepped a cop only to run head on into Slab.
'Oof,' said Slab.
'What the hell's the idea, lout.' He had hold of one arm.
