Besides, I felt he was too big for me.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “So don’t worry.”
“I’m worried? I’m not leaving. I’m not worried.”
“When Folsom comes, ask him to call, will you?”
“St Louis,” said the big one. “Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Yes,” I said. “Frankly, yes.”
It was now a good time to leave because what I had said made him open his mouth in sheer wonderment I nodded and turned but then he thought of a way to revive his spirits.
“You gonna go like that and no instructions about this cat?”
I turned to look back and he was just pointing his finger at the cat The cat sat, hunched, and its eyes gleamed as it watched the finger.
I was wishing he wouldn’t think of anything else to do. I don’t really like cats and I didn’t feel then, or any other time, like Saint Francis or Sir Francis, or whatever his name was, who loved all those creatures-and why in hell couldn’t that cat sit someplace else, like on the roof.
“Now you leave her alone,” said the bartender. “Tell him, Mister St. Louis.”
“Nice gray cat,” said the big one, and all his brother apes were watching. “Nice and gray, this one. Not yellow at all.”
I don’t take that kind of thing up. It doesn’t make me feel self-conscious and besides, why should I be at the beck and call of every punk who gets his kicks that way. But this time I had to take it up somehow.
“Leave her alone,” I said, “before she eats you up.”
“To save you the trouble?” and he poked his finger at the cat.
This cat had been made very nervous by now. She whipped at the finger and dug in fast, so when the big one yanked back he did most of the work himself. He let out a terrible yowl and his finger had two smart, red lines in it, deep and straight, with a lot of blood.
The cat jumped off the jukebox, made way station on top of the guy’s head, catapulted across to the bar from there, and disappeared. It was very funny.
“Yes sir,” I said, “You got to watch those gray ones,” and on that note I was meaning to leave.
When the big one jumped me.
He tried to, at any rate. But if nothing else, I am fast, and-of no less importance-the bartender tripped him. The big one clattered all over the floor and while I stepped back some three pack members jumped up from the table.
I was badly worried, wishing quickly that I were the cat, until I got the picture. The other three piled all over the big one, yanked him up, bundled his arms, sweated and strained, and then when the big one relaxed a little the one on the right said, “You better get out, St. Louis. While the gettin’ is good.”
The big one looked choked and much more dangerous now than before.
“You don’t know Paul when he gets this way,” said the one on the right. “Walk, while the walking’s good.”
I walked. I knew it did not make a good impression but neither did anything else. The whole West Side set-up stunk and I had to find Folsom.
I never did. He had been and gone in a couple of places, checking, they told me, and making everyone nervous. Nothing else had been happening. I went back to the club to see how the headman would feel about this.
Upstairs, in the room, there was just the kid with his do-it-yourself book and the telephone next to him. There had been no calls and I was interrupting him. Lippit, he said, was getting a work-out.
I went downstairs and looked for Lippit. Why should he have to pay for his work-out when he could get it for free, just running his business this particular morning?
I got routing instructions at the desk and went on my way.
The first door said “Physical Culture.” There was a long guy ahead of me, with the big feet of the thin type and the loose sweatshirt to round out the bony structure. He went in before I got there and when I got there a transformed type came out. This one was tall, too, but he groaned with muscle. I felt that my jacket was much too loose.
“That was fast,” I said to him. “This is a miraculous place.”
He didn’t understand a word of what I said and just grunted. The next door said “Members Only.”
It had a pneumatic gadget on top which made the door very hard to open. The door jumped out of my hand and another muscle man came out. My jacket felt like a tent.
“How long have you been a member?” I asked.
“I just joined, sir.”
“Miraculous place.”
He didn’t understand a word of what I said, either.
The next door said “Shoes Off,” so I took my shoes off. I figured, what the hell, it might have said “Heads Off.”
An athlete walked by, springy as a cat, and he looked me up and down.
“What’s the matter,” he said. “You ashamed of your toes?”
“I certainly am not ashamed of my toes, and why…”
“Take your socks off. Around here, we all take our socks off.”
I took my socks off and wondered how many more doors there would be and what I would do with an armful of clothes once I went through the last one.
Then it said “Massage.”
I figured, what the hell, I’ll first try it with clothes on. There was a bald Finn with large, hairless arms, and now he looked me up and down.
“What are you trying to do, sir,” he said. “Are you trying to give somebody athlete’s foot?”
I explained I was trying to find Mister Lippit, nothing else.
“Around here you will please wear clomps,” he said. “We all do.”
He gave me a pair of clomps which was a wooden shoe-type effect which went “clomp” when you tried to walk.
I figured, what the hell, this one at least didn’t ask me to take off anything.
“And Mister Lippit,” he said, “is in the swimming pool.”
So, the next door said “Swimming Pool.”
I walked in and an Australian with glistening skin and a whistle around his neck came over and looked me up and down.
“What are you trying to do, crush somebody’s toes?” he said.
“I’m looking for Mister Lippit. All I…”
“Please take off those watchamercallems.”
“Clomps?”
“Yes.”
I now carried two socks, four shoes, and felt unsteady on the wet tiles. There had been entirely too much talk about feet I was getting self-conscious, as if I were bare-toed in a bowling alley.
“Mister Lippit,” said the lifeguard, “is working out in Lane Five.”
My toes curled temporarily and then I went to the other side of the pool. Lippit was swimming along the edge.
He had a breast stroke which kept his head above water and which pushed him along at a go-stop-go clip. I waited for him at the end of the pool. He saw me stand there and touched the rim.
“Hi. Okay?” Swish.
He made a very smart turn, a big wave, and I saw the back of his head taking off in the other direction.
It was now a matter of walking along the side of the pool, timing the conversation to his go-stop-go cycle, and to keep holding on to all the socks and shoes I was carrying. My fingers felt twisted.
“Walter. You can hear me?”
“Yes. Okay?”
“Yes. It went okay. Equipment is all shot to hell.”
