She had asked Jack the same question at Julian’s little bar just off Seventh Avenue, earlier that evening. “Why do we do it, Jack? Throw our lives away?” she said.
“We like to,” he shrugged. “We all have martyr complexes.”
“We give away the best part of ourselves—our youth and our health are all just given away. Free.”
“What sort of profit did you expect to make on them?” he said. “You want to get paid for being young and healthy?”
Laura glared at him. “That’s not what I mean—”
“If you’re not giving, you’re not living, doll,” he said. “I quote the sob columns. Give yourself away, what the hell. What’s youth for? And health? And beauty, and the rest of it. Keep it and it turns putrid like everything else. Give it away and at least somebody enjoys it.”
“Jack, you know damn well I mean wasting it. Wasting it all day long on costume jewelry or a push-button elevator or a slide rule. God, when I think of what you—”
“Don’t think of all the fine things I could have done with my life, Mother,” he pleaded. “You give me the shudders. I’m not happy, but I’d be worse off trying to live straight. I like men. My office is full of them.”
“You hate your work.”
“I never have to think about it. Purely mechanical. I just sit there and flip that little slip stick and I say, ‘Evens, Johnson is straight. Odds, he’s queer. If Johnson is queer on Tuesday—according to the slide rule—I make it a point to give him a kind word.”
“Johnson is straight and you know it. Every man in your office is straight Why do you torture yourself?”
“No torture, Mother. When the whole world is black, pretend it’s rosy. Somewhere, in some little corner. If everybody’s straight, pretend somebody’s gay.”
“That’s a short cut to the bug house.”
“I wouldn’t mind the bug house. If they’d let me keep my slip stick.” He laughed to himself and leaned over the bar to order. “One whiskey and water,” he said.
“How about you, Mann?” Julian asked.
“Nothing.”
“Are you on the wagon?” Laura was stunned. When he nodded she said, “Just a beer for me. I’m drinking too much anyway.” Then she smiled. “You’ll never last, Jack. You know what you need?”
“Do I know? Are you serious?” He grinned at her, but it was a pained smile.
“You need a real man,” Laura said softly. “Not a bunch of daydreams at the office. That’s enough to drive anybody nuts. You worry me, Jack.”
“Good.” He smiled and squeezed her arm. “Now I’ll tell you what I really need.” He looked at her through his sharp eyes set in that plain face Laura had come to love and find attractive. “I don’t need a man, Laura,” he said. “I’m too damn old to run after pretty boys anymore. I look like a middle-aged fool, which is exactly what I am. When Terry left me, I was through.”
“Do you still love him? Even after what he did?”
“I won’t talk about him,” he said simply. “I can’t. But he was the last one. The end. I want a woman now. I want you, Laura.” He turned away abruptly, embarrassed, but his hand remained on her arm.
Laura was touched. “Jack,” she said very gently. “I’m a Lesbian. Even if you renounce men, I can’t renounce women. I won’t even try.”
“There was a time when you were willing to try.”
“That was a million years ago. I wasn’t the same Laura I am now. I said that before I even met Beebo—when another girl was giving me hell, and I was new to the game and to New York and so afraid of everything.”
“So now you know the ropes and you’re absolutely sure you’d rather give your life away to the goddamn tourists and a woman you don’t love than come and live with a man you do love.”
“Jack, darling, I love you, but I don’t love you with my body. I love you with my heart and soul but I could never let you make love to me.”
“I could never do it, either,” he said quietly. “You’re no gayer than I am, Laura. If we married it would never be a physical union, you know that.” Somewhere far back in his mind the sweet shadow of that little dream child hovered, but he suppressed it, lighting a cigarette quickly. His fingers shook.
“If it wasn’t a physical union, what would it be?” Laura asked. “Just small talk and community property and family-plan fares?”
He smiled. “Sounds a little empty, doesn’t it?”
“Jack,” Laura said, speaking with care so as not to hurt him, “you’re forty-five and life looks a little different to you now. I’m only twenty-three and I can’t give up my body so casually. I could never make you promises I couldn’t keep.”
“I wouldn’t ask that promise of you, Laura,” he said.
“You mean I could bring girls home? To our home, yours and mine? Any girls, any time? And it would be all right?”
“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “If you fell in love with somebody, I’d be understanding. I’d welcome her to the house, and I’d get the hell out when you wanted a little privacy. I’d keep strict hands off and just one shoulder for you to cry on. As long as you really loved her and it wasn’t cheap or loud or dirty, I’d respect it.”
He knocked the ashes off the tip of his cigarette thoughtfully. “…Only,” he said, “you’d be my wife. And you’d come home at night and tuck me in
