door' and bless me, I couldn't.
Ever been to Jamaica?'
'Not recently, no.'
'Probably you're used to palm trees and coconuts and all that sort of thing, in California and all.,' thought it was wonderful.
Bought a pink bathing suit with flowers on it and everything.
Tried to get Henry to come down there with me but he said there was no culture, which I don't think is true, they did have | some kind of a little museum or something.' 3 'You get along with Henry?'
'Oh, sure thing,' said Bunny, reared back in his chair. 'We were roommates. Freshman year.'
'And you like him?'
'Certainly, certainly. He's a hard fellow to live with, though.
Hates noise, hates company, hates a mess. None of this bringing your date back to the room to listen to a couple Art Pepper records, if you know what I'm trying to get at.'
'I think he's sort of rude.'
Bunny shrugged. 'That's his way. See, his mind doesn't work the same way yours and mine do. He's always up in the clouds with Plato or something. Works too hard, takes himself too seriously, studying Sanskrit and Coptic and those other nutty languages. Henry, I tell him, if you're going to waste your time learning something besides Greek – that and the King's English are all I think a man needs, personally – why don't you buy yourself some Berlitz records and brush up on your French. Find a little cancan girl or something. Voolay-voo coushay avec moi and all that.'
'How many languages does he know?'
'I lost count. Seven or eight. He can read hieroglyphics.'
'Wow.'
Bunny shook his head fondly. 'He's a genius, that boy. He could be a translator for the UN if he wanted to be.'
'Where's he from?'
'Missouri.'
He said this in such a deadpan way I thought he was joking, and I laughed.
Bunny raised an amused eyebrow. 'What? You thought he was from Buckingham Palace or something?'
I shrugged, still laughing. Henry was so peculiar, it was hard to imagine him being from anyplace.
'Yep,' said Bunny. 'The Show-Me State. St Louis boy like old Tom Eliot. Father's some kind of a construction tycoon – and not quite aboveboard, either, so my cousins in St Lou tell me.
Not that Henry will give you the slightest clue what his dad does.
Acts like he doesn't know and certainly doesn't care.'
'Have you been to his house?'
'Are you kidding? He's so secretive, you'd think it was the Manhattan Project or something. But I met his mother one time.
Kind of by accident. She stopped in Hampden to see him on her way to New York and I bumped into her wandering around downstairs in Monmouth asking people if they knew where his room was.'
'What was she like?'
'Pretty lady. Dark hair and blue eyes like Henry, mink coat, too much lipstick and stuff if you ask me. Awfully young. Henry's her only chick and she adores him.' He leaned forward and lowered his voice. 'Family's got money like you wouldn't believe. Millions and millions. Course it's about as new as it comes, but a buck's a buck, know what I mean?' He winked. 'By the way.
Meant to ask. How does your pop earn his filthy lucre?'
'Oil,' I said. It was partly true.
Bunny's mouth fell open in a little round o. 'You have oil wells?'
'Well, we have one,' I said modestly.
'But it's a good one?'
'So they tell me.'
'Boy,' said Bunny, shaking his head. 'The Golden West.'
'It's been good to us,' I said.
'Geez.' Bunny said. 'My dad's just a lousy old bank president.'
I felt it necessary to change the subject, however awkwardly, as we were heading here towards treacherous waters. 'If Henry's from St Louis,' I said, 'how did he get to be so smart?'
This was an innocuous question but, unexpectedly, Bunny winced. 'Henry had a bad accident when he was a little boy,' he said. 'Got hit by a car or something and nearly died. He was out of school for a couple years, had tutors and stuff, but for a long time he couldn't do much but lie in bed and read. I guess he was one of those kids who can read at college level when they're about two years old.'
'Hit by a car?'
'I think that's what it was. Can't think what else it could've been. He doesn't like to talk about it.' He lowered his voice.
'Know the way he parts his hair, so it falls over the right eye?
That's because there's a scar there. Almost lost the eye, can't see out of it too good. And the stiff way he walks, sort of a limp. Not that it matters, he's strong as an ox. I don't know what he did, lift weights or what, but he certainly built himself back up again. A regular Teddy Roosevelt, overcoming obstacles and all. You got to admire him for it.' He brushed his hair back again and motioned to the waiter for another drink. 'I mean, you take somebody like Francis. You ask me, he's as smart as Henry. Society boy, tons of money. He's had it too easy, though. He's lazy. Likes to play.
Won't do a thing after school but drink like a fish and go to parties.
Now Henry.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Couldn't beat him away from Greek with a stick – Ah, thank you, there, sir,' he said to the waiter, who was holding out another of the coral-colored drinks at arm's length. 'You want another?'
'I'm fine.'
'Go ahead, old man. On me.'
'Another martini, I guess,' I said to the waiter, who had already turned away. He turned to glare at me.
Thanks,' I said weakly, looking away from his lingering, hateful smile until I was sure he had gone.
'You know, there's nothing I hate like I hate an officious fag,' said Bunny pleasantly. 'You ask me, I think they ought to round them all up and burn them at the stake.'
I've known men who run down homosexuality because they are uncomfortable with it, perhaps harbor inclinations in that area; and I've known men who run down homosexuality and mean it. At first I had placed Bunny in the first category. His glad-handing, varsity chumminess was totally alien and therefore suspect; then, too, he studied the classics, which are certainly harmless enough but which still provoke the raised eyebrow in some circles. ('You wrant to know what Classics are?' said a drunk Dean of Admissions to me at a faculty party a couple of years ago. Till tell you what Classics are. Wars and homos.' A sententious and vulgar statement, certainly, but like many such gnomic vulgarities, it also contains a tiny splinter of truth.)
The more I listened to Bunny, however, the more apparent it became that there was no affected laughter, no anxiety to please.
Instead, there was the blithe unselfconciousness of some crotchety old Veteran of Foreign Wars – married for years, father of multitudes – who finds the topic infinitely repugnant and amusing.
'But your friend Francis?' I said.
I was being snide, I suppose, or maybe I just wanted to see how he would wriggle out of that one. Though Francis might or might not have been homosexual – and could just as easily have been a really dangerous type of ladies' man – he was certainly of that vulpine, well-dressed, unflappable sort who, to someone with Bunny's alleged nose for such things, would rouse a certain suspicion.
Bunny raised an eyebrow. 'That's nonsense,' he said curtly.
'Who told you that?'
'Nobody. Just Judy Poovey,' I said, when I saw he wasn't going to take nobody for an answer.
'Well, I can see why she'd say it but nowadays everybody's gay this and gay that. There's still such a thing as
