the persistent sensation of there being something inherently wrong with the act.
“What do you do, Joe?”
“Not much.”
“I don’t mean for a living. I mean what do you do? You know what I mean.”
He shrugged. “I live with another guy. I mentioned him. Shank. The guy I was with at The Palermo.”
She nodded.
“You sure you want to know all this? Some of it isn’t pretty. You may want to go away from me. You may not like me as much anymore,” Joe said carefully.
“I want to hear.”
“He sells marijuana,” he said. “He makes a living. He pays the rent, slips me a buck now and then. He supports me, you could say. I don’t cost much. Food, rent, a buck now and then to ball with. Nothing much else.”
“He’s a…pusher?”
“Not a pusher. He buys and sells. You could call him a connection, sort of. Strictly small-time. He makes enough money so that we live. Not in style but we live.”
Anita thought about that. Joe lived because Shank was willing to support him for reasons of his own. By all rules Joe was something contemptible—low, cheap, worthless. But for some reason this did not bother the girl. She judged it unimportant, his earning a living or no.
She felt comfortable with Joe. She could relax with him, a far more important consideration to her.
“So I bum around,” he went on. “With Shank, with other people, by myself. I wander. I look at things. That’s about it, I guess. I smoke a stick here and there, lie around the pad, sit in the park. I’m a waste of time.”
“Could I live with you?”
The question startled her at least as much as it startled him. She hadn’t planned on saying that. She hadn’t even realized it had been on her mind. But it was out now, in the open, and he was staring at her.
“You don’t mean that, Anita.”
“Don’t I?”
“No. Maybe I made it sound like a picnic. You don’t understand. It’s no picnic. It’s a drag, actually. When all is said and done it’s a drag. You come on about split-levels and fractional children and you miss making a lot of important connections. You’re hipped on forests so much you forget how much you hate trees.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s where it’s at. You don’t understand at all. You think this is roses or something. No worries, no sweat. Just dig everything because it’s real. You missed a few changes, Anita. You think I’m here because I love it so damn much. That’s not it.”
“I know.”
“Sure you do. You think it’s a perfect scene. You think it’s free and romantic and wonderful and anybody who works for a living is out of his head. You think you can beat the world by making a scene like this.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He ignored her. “You just don’t understand,” Joe said. “You think I make the let’s-be-beat scene because I like it. I don’t. I don’t like it at all.”
“Then—”
“I make it because there’s no other scene I could make. I make it because everything else is just a little bit worse. Not for the world. For me. Personally. It’s not the world’s fault. It’s my fault and I’m stuck with it.”
“I know,” she said. And when he tried to interrupt her she shook her head. “I understand,” she went on. “But you don’t. You think you’re the only person who thinks your way. Maybe I can’t…can’t make it…either. I don’t know the words yet. I don’t know how to talk the way you talk. Just how to think and even that I’m just learning. I don’t know who I am. But I know who I’m not. There’s a difference. And that’s why I want to come and live with you. Why I still want to. Unless you don’t want me.”
She felt his hand on her arm. She closed her eyes and stopped talking.
“You don’t love me, Anita.”
“Of course not!”
“Then—”
“I don’t love Ray, either. But I could marry him, still without loving him, and the whole world would throw rice at us. Does that make so much more sense?”
“Maybe not.”
“Then why can’t I live with you?”
He smiled gently. “Your grandmother won’t like it,” he said. “Even with a nice Italian boy like me. She won’t like it at all.”
“I’ll tell her I’m taking an apartment with another girl. I’ll tell her something. I don’t care what she thinks. She’ll leave me alone.”
“Ray won’t like it either.”
“He’ll find another girl. One who’ll fit in the split-level a little better. He’ll live.”
Joe Milani had no comment.
“I’m just a virgin,” she said slowly. “I won’t know what to do. But if we go to your place now you can show me, and tomorrow I can move in after I tell my grandmother something. And—”
“Are you very sure, Anita?”
She started to say yes and then she changed her mind. Because she was not at all certain and she saw no reason to conceal her uncertainty from him. “Of course not,” she said. “I’m not certain about anything. I’m all mixed up inside and I’m going to pop any minute. Now stop asking me questions. I know what I want right now. I want you to take me home and make love to me. That’s all I want.”
He stood up, held out a hand for her. She hesitated only for a second. Then she took his hand and straightened up and they began walking out of the park. When Joe and Anita slipped into the small apartment together, he could not help but sense a vague uneasiness.
Shank was there, sitting on his bed, a paperback novel in one hand. His eyes flicked from the book to the girl, then to Joe, and back to the girl. His lips never moved. His eyes somehow signified he recognized and remembered the girl, and was reserving judgment.
“Shank,” Joe said. “Anita.”
That was the introduction. Anita smiled at Shank, hesitantly, and Shank nodded shortly before returning to the book. Joe was disturbed by the feeling he could swing either with Shank or Anita—but the three of them?
“Shank—”
Eyes came up. Hard, cold.
“Could you do a brief split?” Joe said.
“Huh?”
“If I give you a quarter will you go to the movies? A little brother routine. Like that.”
“Oh,” Shank said. “Really?” He stood up, smiled strangely, and closed the novel, tucking it away in his hip pocket. He took out a cigarette and lit it, dropping the match to the floor. “Congratulations,” he said, speaking the words to Joe while his eyes were busy reassessing Anita. He had bold eyes. He stared hard at her breasts and loins until she flushed. Then he smiled, pleased, and headed for the door. He left it open and Joe had to close it.
Then he walked over and put his arm around Anita.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She raised her head.
“Messy,” he said. “Shank can be relatively evil. A mean stud.”
“I don’t like him,” Anita said quietly.
“I do.”
“Because he supports you?”
Joe grinned. “Hey,” he said. “Like let’s not go moralistic, huh? I like Shank. We swing together. I don’t want to throw stones at him, Anita. I’m not entirely without sin, you know, and I don’t want to cast the first one. Or the second. We get along. We share a pad, talk, hit the same sets.”
“I’m sorry.”
He led her over to the bed and they sat down together. He tried to figure out what he should do next. The
