And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks (10 page)

Allen got back just before five o’clock and showed us a ten-dollar bill.

“Well, well,” Phillip said, “don’t tell me you made all that.”

Al showed us two pawn receipts for two small brilliants. Phillip wanted to know where Al had gotten the brilliants.

Al said, “I did a paint job for old Mrs. Burdett while she was out with her dog, and I found these in a dresser drawer. Her two cats were watching me.”

“You mean that old Mrs. Burdett from Memphis you always have tea with when you run out of money?”

“Yes,” said Al, “an old friend of the family’s.”

“Well, nice going,” Phillip said. “Now let’s spend it.”

“No ship?” Al inquired brightly.

Phillip said, “Tomorrow’s another day.”

We stopped first at the Anchor Bar and each had a whiskey and soda. The place was jammed with seamen
who had gotten jobs during the day and who were drinking and loading on for the long voyage.

We decided to go and see a French picture on Times Square and took the subway. When we got there we looked around until we found an Italian spaghetti joint and went into it.

Al and I ordered two bottles of beer and Phil ordered a sherry. He had bought a
P.M.
and was looking at the military map as he drank his sherry and talking about the front. Then our spaghetti arrived. I went over to the counter and got a big shaker of paprika to put on my meat sauce.

After we’d finished eating, Phil pushed the shaker of paprika to Al across the table and said loudly, “Come on, Allen, let’s see you eat a spoonful of this stuff. Keats did it.”

Al said, “Well, I don’t know,”

“It cleans out your stomach,” Phil was saying, so that the people at the next table heard him. “It’ll be good for your ulcers. If Keats did it, why don’t you?”

So Al took a large spoon that you eat spaghetti with and shook some red paprika into it. Then he took in the whole mouthful and held it in his mouth. His eyes began to water and he was trying to smile.

“Here,” said Phillip, pushing a glass of water across the table, “take water with it. Makes it worse.”

I handed Al some bread and said, “Take bread and get the pepper down.”

“Water makes it worse,” Phillip insisted. “Bread is a compromise.”

So Al drank the water, and the tears were running down his cheeks, he was burning so much. Every now and then he’d shake his head and say “Whoo!” and then smile at Phillip. It was very annoying and I insisted that Al take bread.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said, but they didn’t listen.

So Al went on saying “Whoo!” and smiling at Phillip, just like an idiot who is burning at the stake and smiles and shakes his head and says “Boy! This hurts!” to his tormentors.

Finally the incident sort of spoofed out, and we got up and Al paid the check.

As we were walking out of the joint, Phillip picked up a long reed of macaroni from the cook’s display in the window and carried it out like a cane. When we were on the sidewalk, he put the end of the reed against his fly and it looked just like a shimmering spurt of piss. Men going by in the evening rush stared until they saw it was only macaroni, and they moved on without a pause. Women turned their heads away and pretended not to notice. Phillip walked toward the Apollo
theater holding it against his fly and looked like a guy who was taking a piss as he walked.

Al bought the tickets and we walked into the Apollo theater. We went upstairs to the balcony so that we could smoke as we watched the movie.

Just at the alcove to the right of the balcony, there is usually a group of fags hanging around, looking half of the time at the picture and the rest of the time along the balcony seats for any good prospects. They were standing there giving us the side glance as we came up the stairs, when Phillip ran up to the sand jar and began holding the macaroni to his fly and shaking it in the sand, so that it looked like he was pissing diffusely into the sand jar. The fags glided away like crayfish.

We went down and got seats in the first row of the balcony and lit up cigarettes.

Port of Shadows
is about a French army deserter who is in Le Havre, trying to skip the country. Everything is set, he has a passport and is on a ship, when he gets the idea to go back and see his girl once again before he sails. The result is a gangster shoots him in the back and the ship sails without him. The last scene shows the ship sailing out of Le Havre without him.

During the showing of the picture Al, who was sitting between Phillip and me, was very quiet. When
it was over I turned to him and asked him how he’d liked it.

“It’s the best picture I ever saw,” he said, and I noticed his eyes were moist.

We sat through another picture, a British film, and in the middle of it Al went out and came back five minutes later with three cartons of cold chocolate milk. Phillip grabbed his carton and drank it up without speaking. I thanked Al for mine.

After the show, we came out of the theater and walked toward Eighth Avenue to have a few drinks.

At the corner of Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street, a thin old man with white hair had stationed himself in the middle of the sidewalk and was looking up at the sky with clasped hands. Every now and then, someone would stop and look up. When they saw nothing was there, they walked on without any comment or change of expression. Mostly they just walked by and didn’t see him. I guess he was praying.

We went into a bar on Eighth Avenue near 43rd Street. There were some greasy, shady-looking characters in dark suits, a gambler with a loud tie and a diamond ring, several whores, a sprinkle of fags, and crowds of servicemen. Against this backdrop the young servicemen looked jarringly out of place, as though they had invaded a foreign country or some ruins.

We stayed there for a while, drinking beer because we didn’t feel like getting drunk, then we left and took the subway down to Washington Square. Al was a little uneasy at this point because he knew he would not be welcome at Apartment 32.

When we got there we found Janie and Barbara. They had just had a cup of coffee at the Waldorf Cafeteria after waiting for Phillip and me for hours, and now they were in an unfriendly mood.

“Where the hell have you been?” Janie wanted to know.

I sat down in a chair with the cat in my lap, Phil sat on the couch beside Barbara, and Al sat on the white hassock in the middle of the room and smiled all round. When Janie went into the kitchen to get food for the cat, Al jumped up and said, “May I help you?”

I turned on the radio to some loud dance music because everybody was being so unpleasant and tense. Barbara was sulking, and Phil was thumbing through a copy of Faulkner’s
Sanctuary
. I lay down on the other couch and started to take a nap.

I woke up just in time to hear Janie yell “Go home!” and throw a book at Al. It hit him on the shoulder. Barbara was already gone home and Phillip was stretched out on the couch. The bedroom door slammed after Janie.

Al looked down questioningly at Phillip.

“You might as well,” Phillip said.

Al said, “Well, good night,” and walked out of the apartment.

I went into the bedroom and closed the door after me.

“Him out there,” Janie said when I started undressing, “you’d better watch out for him.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Phillip.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“You know why he wants to ship out with you, don’t you?”

I threw my pants on the chair and said, “No, why?”

“Because he’s a queer and wants to make you.”

“What?” I said.

“Don’t ‘what’ me. Some night at sea when he jumps on you, you’ll know what I was talking about.”

I sighed, shook my head, and gave her a pitying look.

She said, “Ramsay Allen knows him better than you do, so go ahead and be a know-it-all.”

“You’re nuts,” I said.

“You’ve been living with me for a whole year, you’ve been promising to marry me, I’ve been giving you money, now you start hanging around with a bunch of queers and don’t come home at night.”

“So that’s who’s been buzzing in your ear,” I said, “Ramsay Allen. Don’t you know he’d say or do anything to break up this trip?”

Janie started to yell. “First thing I’ll know you’ll be a goddamned queer yourself. Maybe you are already.”

I said, “What makes you believe anything that Al tells you?”

“You’ve been laying this Helen bitch, you’ve been giving her money but you never give me anything.”

I said, “Who gave you
that
idea?”

“You think I’m stupid,” she said. “You think I don’t know what’s going on around here.”

“Well, what?”

“You’re going to go to Reno with that gambler Dennison, that’s what. You think you’re going to get rid of me, but you won’t get away with it.”

I said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

Then I turned quickly sideways as she brought her knee up to my balls. She followed up by punching me on the side of the face with her hard, thin knuckles. So I k-norcked her one with the palm of my hand.

There was a small table by the side of the bed that had a big ashtray heaped with cigarette butts and ashes on it, and books, papers, an alarm clock, empty glasses, bottles of perfume, nail files, a deck of cards, and a container of talcum powder. Janie hit the edge of the table
on her way down and tipped it over so that the contents spilled all over her. She was lying there spitting out cigarette butts, with ashes and talcum powder all over her face and her dress up over her knees.

“You bastard!” she screamed. “You’re trying to mar my beauty!”

So I went out into the other room.

Phillip was sitting up on the couch. “Darling,” he said in a loud voice, “I can’t hide my love any longer.”

I said, “Shut up, for Christ’s sake.”

From the bedroom we could hear sobs.

After a while I went back to Janie. She was still sitting on the floor so I slung her up on the bed and started kissing her.

A few minutes later she got up and fixed her face. She came back on the bed with me and said, “When you get back from this trip, we’ll get a new apartment.”

The next morning Phillip and I managed to get up fairly early, and Janie, now at peace with both of us, fried a bacon-and-egg breakfast and then sent us off. She was going to spend the day cleaning up the apartment.

Just before closing time at the Union Hall, Phil and I got our ship. It was the S.S.
Harvey West
, a Liberty ship, and it was laying over in Hoboken.

“Report tomorrow morning at eight o’clock,” said the dispatcher, “and bring all your gear.”

We went back into the office and picked up our job slips.

“Well,” said Phillip, “this is it.”

“Yeah,” I said, “let’s celebrate.”

F
RIDAY NIGHT AFTER WORK
I
MET
H
ELEN AND WE
went back to my apartment. But Al, Phillip, and Ryko were waiting on my doorstep. I said hello to Al and looked at Mike and Phillip in disgust, without saying anything.

Phillip said, “Well, we’re shipping out tomorrow. We’ve been assigned to a ship and report at the pier tomorrow morning.”

I said, “Can I count on that? I’m getting sick of these abortive departures.”

“This is for sure. Now in view of the fact that we are leaving, why don’t you make a generous gesture and take us all to dinner?”

“If I could be sure you were really going I’d take you to the Colony—since I can’t be sure, we will
compromise and eat here.” I started upstairs with Helen and they all followed.

Helen sat down in the easy chair before Phillip could. I went over to the desk and got a piece of paper. “I’ll make out a list,” I said.

“How about some steak?” said Al. “I saw some on Bleecker Street.”

“Okay,” I said. “And get a quart of Dubonnet and seltzer water.” I wrote the items down. “Some bleu cheese, Italian bread, butter, apples, and don’t forget to get some ice for the Dubonnet.” I handed Al the list.

“How about some rum?” said Phillip.

“No,” I said. “Dubonnet is a better summer drink. Besides, I don’t want to spend the money.”

Phillip said, “Don’t be bourgeois, Dennison. After all, we’re shipping out tomorrow. You may never see us again.”

“I’m the later bourgeois Rimbaud,” I said. “And if you don’t come back, I’ll always remember you just the way you look now.”

I gave Al ten dollars. Phillip started to rummage through my bureau drawer and said he wanted to put on some shorts.

“Yes,” said Al, leaping up, his joints creaking audibly, “a wonderful idea!”

I kept a sharp eye on Phillip until he had fished out two pairs of the shorts I used occasionally to work out in a gymnasium. He handed Al a pair of the shorts, and they changed right there in the middle of the room.

Helen said, “Don’t mind me, fellows.”

I said, “Do you guys intend to go out on the public streets dressed like that?”

Al said, “Of course.”

I turned to Ryko. “You better take the ten dollars and do the shopping. These two imbeciles will get picked up for indecent exposure.”

Ryko took the ten dollars and the shopping list and they all left. “Don’t forget the ice,” I said as they walked out the door.

I gave my full attention to Helen, but she kept saying the others would be back any time and I said that didn’t make any difference to me. And she said, “After all,” coyly, and I got disgusted.

Phillip came back after a few minutes with a small package containing the wine.

I said, “Where’s the ice? Where’s the seltzer? That stuff isn’t fit to drink without seltzer and ice.”

Phillip said, “Oh I sent Al to get the ice. It comes in big heavy chunks, you know. Ryko is getting the rest
of the stuff.” He was rummaging through the desk drawer. “Where the hell’s the corkscrew?”

I told him there wasn’t one, he’d have to borrow it from the landlady, so he went upstairs.

Someone kicked at the door. I opened it and there was Ryko with packages in both arms. He said, “Jesus, I was embarrassed walking around with those two guys in their shorts. I thought the Bleecker Street wops would start something. They were whistling at them.”