And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks (11 page)

I began opening the packages and pulling the stuff out. There were several beautiful thick steaks, some bleu cheese, fresh and moist, a small bag of apples, a long piece of Italian bread. I held out the apples and said, “These go very well with cheese.”

Ryko was sitting down on the couch, and he said, “Yeah.”

Phillip came back with a corkscrew. I said, “Let me do that,” and took the bottle between my knees and opened it, which made a loud pop.

Phillip said, “Hasn’t Al gotten back with the ice yet? What’s the matter with him?”

Helen was sitting there smoking, with her legs crossed so that you could see her thighs. I sat down and rubbed her leg. Phillip asked her for a cigarette and she gave him one, holding the package at arm’s
length. He took it and said, “Thanks.” She didn’t answer and turned her head.

At this point, Al came in, pushing through the half-open door with his shoulder, rushed over to the basin, and dropped a large piece of ice wrapped in newspapers into it. He stood there rubbing his numb hands together. Then he playfully tried to place his cold hands on Phillip, who twisted away.

I said, “Where’s the seltzer?”

Ryko got up and said he would go out and get the seltzer. So I went over to the basin, chopped up the ice with a throwing knife I used for all purposes, and put ice into five glasses. Then I poured a slug of Dubonnet into each glass. By the time I had finished with this, Ryko was back with the seltzer. I squirted seltzer into each glass.

“Everybody help themselves,” I said and grabbed myself the glass that had the most Dubonnet in it. I also grabbed a glass and handed it to Helen. I was thirsty from working all day, and I refilled my glass before anyone else had hardly started.

I paused in the middle of my second glass and said, “Who’s going to cook this steak?”

Al said he would cook it. There was a gas stove in the hall on the top floor.

Phillip said, “Mother Allen is so reliable.” Then he picked up a steak without any paper on it and started out the door beckoning with his hand that had the steak draped over it.

Al picked up the other steaks and some butter and bounded out after him.

I finished my drink and poured another one. Ryko was reading T. S. Eliot on the couch, and I began to neck with Helen and feel up her leg. She didn’t have any slip on, but she stopped my hand before I could get it all the way up.

After a few minutes Phillip came down and sat on the floor with his
Europa
.

I said, “You ought to read the whipping scene in that book. It’s the only good thing in it.”

Ryko said, “Is Al all alone up there?”

Phillip said, “How should I know? I’m not there, am I?”

Ryko got up.

“Where you going?” I asked.

He said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and help,” and he went out.

A minute later Phillip snapped his book to and went back upstairs.

I poured a weak Dubonnet for Helen and a strong one for myself. I was making sure I got enough.

Finally, Ryko came down with the first piece of steak on a plate. He placed it on the arm of my chair and said, “Isn’t it a bitch?” and I said, “Yeah.”

I didn’t see a knife around, and my throwing knife isn’t sharp enough to cut anything with, so I tore off a piece of steak for Helen and one for myself. Ryko tore off a piece too, and we all started to eat. Mine wasn’t salty enough, so I went over and got some salt from on top of the icebox.

While I was getting some salt, I unwrapped the bread and wrenched a piece off, then I offered the loaf to Helen and Ryko with one hand while I crammed in a mouthful with the other hand. I was feeling a little tight, and very hungry.

At this point, Al and Phillip arrived, Al carrying a big frying pan with two steaks sizzling in it. He set the pan down on the electric plate to cool. Then he made Phillip a drink and handed it to him.

When the pan had cooled, Al placed it on the floor and he and Phillip sat down cross-legged facing each other with the steaks between them. Then Phillip started to growl like a leopard, picked up a big piece of steak, and tore at it with his teeth. Al reached for Phillip’s steak, and Phillip made a clawing motion with his hand, growling and snarling. The steak blood ran down their chins and dripped on their legs.

I said to Ryko, “Did you see those pictures in
Life
of the lion that killed his brother over a piece of steak? It shows first the steak thrown into the cage, then one lion grabs it in his teeth and starts dragging it away toward a corner, then the other lion rushes over and tries to grab the steak, and the first lion clouts him one alongside the head—broke his neck. Last scene you see the lion rolled over on his back with his legs up in the air,” and I stuck my hands up in the air and waved them to show how dead the lion was.

Ryko said, “Yeah? Must have been good.”

I now decided I’d better get into the lion game if I was to get my steak, so I began to growl and snarl and ripped off a piece of steak. Everybody but Helen was growling, and I think Phillip growled the best.

The steak was gone, so I brought out the cheese. I’d had enough of the lion stuff by now. We ate the cheese and Italian bread and the apples, which is a marvelous combination. Then we sat back and lit cigarettes and finished up most of the Dubonnet.

Helen was sitting on my lap and I began to get a hard-on. Ryko kept looking at her legs from across the room.

“You’re a sweet kid,” I said in her ear.

We sat around a while longer, and then finally Helen got up and said she had to go back to Queens, pulling
her dress down and twisting it around and smoothing it out.

“Leave the door open,” Al said. “We need some air in here.”

In the hall I asked Helen if she would meet me in Chumley’s on Monday night, and she said, “Yes, if you’re alone,” and went down the stairs.

I went back into the room and started walking around. I had on my old seersucker coat that had a hole in the elbow, no bigger than a dime. Phillip suddenly stuck a forefinger in the hole and ripped down. The whole sleeve came off from the elbow down. So then Al leaped in like a jackal and began ripping the coat off my back. The coat was so old it tore like paper. Soon it was hanging on me in shreds.

So then I took off what was left of the coat and sat down and began tying the pieces together in a long rope. Phillip helped me and then Al began to do it, too. We made one long rope out of the whole coat and strung it around the room like a festoon. The four of us sat there looking at it.

After a while Phillip wanted to go out and drink in a bar. I decided not to go along, because I knew that the expense would fall on me. Ryko said he wanted to go to a whorehouse and Phillip said, “Yes, Dennison, why don’t you treat us to a whorehouse?”

I said, “What’s the matter with you young fellows, can’t you get women for yourselves?—all those Washington Square college girls over there walking around with the juice dripping down their legs. Why, when I was your age, I was like a young bull. If I had a mind to it, I could tell you stories that’d make your cock stand.” I limped over like an old man and dug Phillip in the ribs and cackled.

Then I straightened up and dropped the old-man act and said to him, “Why don’t you lay Barbara?”

“I don’t know. She’s a virgin.”

Al said, “Well, Phillip, I don’t think you want to lay her.”

Phillip looked at Al. “It’s not that. She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s all mixed up.”

Ryko said from across the room, “You’ve been necking with her for months. Why don’t you just up and fuck her?”

Al ignored this remark and looked at Phillip seriously. “I don’t see why you always have to get in these complicated emotional entanglements with women. Why can’t you develop a simple attitude toward them?”

Yeah
, I said to myself,
why can’t we do away with women altogether
.

Aloud I said, “Al’s right, my boy.” I assumed a Lionel
Barrymore tone of voice. “Women, Phillip, are the root of all evil.”

We heard some tittering out in the hall, and a dollar bill all crumpled up sailed into the room and bounced on the floor at Ryko’s feet.

“Whorehouse money,” a girl’s voice said.

Ryko said, “It’s Janie.” He jumped up on his feet. “And Barbara too.” He started toward the door and we heard feet running down the stairs. “Where are you going?” Ryko yelled. “Hey!”

Phillip and Al were on their feet. Al was looking at Phillip indecisively. Ryko was out in the hall and a moment later we heard him yell, “Hey Phil, come on before they skip. They’re running out on the street.”

Phillip went out the door and Al hurried after him. I got up and strolled out to the head of the stairs.

Phillip was hollering to Ryko, who was now down at the street door, “Do you see them?”

Ryko yelled back, “No, I can’t see them. They’ve gone toward Seventh Avenue.”

Al said, “Well, if they’re gone, I guess we’d better forget about it.”

Phillip turned irritably. “Go to hell, you old fairy,” he said and started running down the stairs.

Al hesitated a moment without looking at me, then ran down after them in long jumps over the steps.

I went back into the room and went to the window. Ryko was standing on the corner below, yelling at Phillip to hurry up. Then they disappeared around the corner, and I saw Al following swiftly, in his long, bounding walk.

I finished the last half inch of Dubonnet, closed the door, and sat down in the chair to smoke. I was thinking it was about time to brush my teeth when the buzzer rang. It was Phillip and Al.

Phillip said, “How about loaning me five dollars?”

“What for?” I asked.

“I gotta get a taxi and follow those wenches.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m sorry Phillip, but you catch me at a bad time.” The whole thing seemed silly to me and I didn’t like his tone, which was rather peremptory.

He said, “You’ve got it. Come on, let me have it.”

I said, “I’m sorry,” cold and dry.

He saw I meant it and got up. “Well, if you won’t lend it to me, I guess I’ll have to get it from somewhere else.”

I said, “Very likely.”

Al had been sitting there all the time without saying anything. Phillip walked out, and Al said good night to me at the door.

P
HILLIP AND
A
L CAME BACK FROM
D
ENNISON’S AND
Phillip said he couldn’t borrow any money from him. I was sitting on Betty-Lou’s bed, talking to her and admiring her Oriental-looking nightgown. I had been telling her how unhappy with Janie I was, and every now and then I’d take her hand.

“Well,” I said, “let’s go back to George’s. They may be there.”

“Who are you trying to find?” Betty-Lou asked.

“Some friends,” I said and got up off the bed.

Al started talking to Betty-Lou, and she was just about ready to climb out of bed and play the hostess when Phillip walked out the door and Al and I followed.

We found Barbara wandering up Seventh Avenue.

“Where’s Janie?” Phillip said. “What are you doing?”

Barbara was a little drunk and she said “George’s,”
so we all went to George’s and there was Janie, with a sailor buying her scotch and sodas. Both Barbara and Janie were dressed in their best, and both of them were a little drunk.

“You bastard,” was the first thing Janie said to me, and then we had a few drinks and decided to run down to Minetta’s.

The sailor was still standing around. He was looking at me. “What’s the story?” he said.

“She’s my wife,” I said, and we all left.

On the way to Minetta’s Al had to walk a few feet behind everyone because Janie and Barbara wouldn’t let him walk with us. So he just followed in his long, loping stride, like a shadow.

We got to Minetta’s and sat down at two different tables. Janie wouldn’t let Al sit with her, and Barbara was sitting at Joe Gould’s table with five or six other Minetta characters, so Al sat down at a table by himself.

Phillip was sitting next to Barbara and occasionally leaning his head on her shoulder. Then he suddenly got bored with the conversation there and walked to the bar alone, leaving Barbara with Joe Gould and the others. Al was right at Phillip’s side and ordered two drinks.

Janie and I were sitting in a sort of sullen silence. I was sore at her because she wouldn’t let Al sit with us. “The goddamned queer,” she kept saying, and I kept
saying, “So what, he’s a good guy,” and she kept answering to that, “Shut up, queer.”

Then Phillip came over from the bar with a glass in his hand and sat down with Janie and me. Al hovered nearby and I smiled encouragingly to him. He edged over slowly and began pulling up a chair next to Phillip.

“Go away, you,” Janie said, and Al backed off and went over to the bar. But in a minute he was back, hovering around our table like an anxious waiter.

Nobody said much of anything, except Barbara, who seemed to be having a good time listening to Joe Gould and basking in the suggestive dialogue around her.

Then Phillip wanted to go elsewhere, and Janie wanted to go home, although I wanted to stay and drink up the whole place. Janie had a lot of money with her, she had just cashed a trust-fund check. We finally started to get up, but then Phillip sat down again, so I ran over to the bar and ordered some drinks.

At this point, a bunch of Minetta characters had run out on Minetta Lane and started to conduct a ballet in front of the place. Phillip went out and sat down to watch, cross-legged in the middle of the little street. Al sat down beside him in the same fashion to watch also, turning occasionally and commenting to Phillip.

Meanwhile, Janie and I did some more drinking, and then a guy came up and started to talk to Janie
about his art. He found a receptive listener, because Janie herself did a little painting, and pretty soon he was inviting her up to his studio to see his cubist work. She agreed to this. Then the artist got pretty bewildered because Janie told Phillip, Barbara, and myself to come along and see this guy’s studio.

So we all trooped out with Al shadowing us and went down the street. A bunch of other people had somehow joined forces with us, and by the time we got into the artist’s studio there were at least ten of us, including Joe Gould and his cane.