And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks (15 page)

Phillip cashed in a quarter’s worth of pennies, and we started playing pinball machines and shooting down enemy aircraft and looking at the risqué penny movies that depicted women undressing in their boudoirs while mustached men came in from the fire escape. I shoved a nickel in the jukebox and played Benny Goodman’s “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise.”

We left the penny arcade and wandered toward Sixth Avenue. Phil bought some roasted peanuts from
a little Italian and we sat in the New York Public Library park, throwing peanuts at the pigeons. A man in shirtsleeves sat next to us on the bench, reading a Trotskyite pamphlet.

Phil said, “Wherever they send me, I’ll be able to do what I would have done at sea.”

“You know,” I said, “I knew we wouldn’t ship out, because I wasn’t dreaming about the sea.”

“I’ll write poetry,” Phillip said.

There was a movie house on 42nd Street near Sixth Avenue showing Alexander Korda’s production of
Four Feathers
.

Phillip said, “That’s good. Let’s go in and see it.” So we went in and sat in an orchestra seat. Something had gone wrong with the air-conditioning system and it was suffocating in there.

The picture started off with a caption telling of the murder of thousands of British soldiers in the Sudan at the hands of the ruthless Fuzzy Wuzzies. Phillip waved his hand and said, “
They
can murder ’em by the thousands.”

“Yeah,” I said.

There was an ambush scene where you saw British soldiers and Fuzzy Wuzzies hacking away at each other with sabers and knives and much blood. Most of the picture kept reminding us of Al lying in the yard in a pool
of blood, so we couldn’t enjoy it that much. And one of the characters in the story was named Dennison.

We came out of the theater soaking wet with sweat, and it was even hotter outside. It was now about three-thirty. We went into a bar and drank a few glasses of cold beer.

“I’ll have to go soon,” Phillip said.

I said, “What about the museum?”

“That was a good picture,” Phillip said, “but it kept reminding me that my time is drawing near.”

We drank and were silent.

“Well,” he said at length, “let’s go to the museum.”

We went out and hailed a cab.

In the air-cooled museum Phil spent ten minutes in front of a portrait of Jean Cocteau by Modigliani. I wandered off to look at Blume’s vast studies of the decline and fall of the West, with Corinthian pillars fallen and always the same underworld types plotting in cellars while priests wail at the sacrifice and Oriental-looking troops gut the city. Then we both stopped in front of Tchelitchew’s
Cache-Cache
and looked at that for a while.

There was a tall blond fag, wearing a striped polo shirt and tan slacks, who kept looking at Phil out of the corner of his eye. Even when we went downstairs to see the one-hour movie, the fag was sitting just behind us.

The movie was an old Italian film made in 1915 with Eleonora Duse in it. Phillip and I thought she was great. There was something virile in her attitude toward tragedy, as though she were defying God to knock off the chip He Himself had placed on her shoulder.

We went back upstairs to the paintings. I wanted to drink some beer but Phillip insisted on staying in the museum till closing time. I looked around to see if the fag was still tailing Phil, but I didn’t see him.

Phillip again installed himself in front of Modigliani’s portrait and kept looking at it, with a smile on his face.

I said, “Meet me down in the bar on 53rd Street. I’m thirsty.”

Phillip said, “All right,” and I went out of the museum. The blond fag was talking to a young man in the lobby.

In the bar I took a table in the corner and ordered a bottle of Schlitz beer. The waiter brought it and set it down on the white tablecloth. He didn’t like the way I was dressed, and his manner was a bit indulgent. I was wondering why people made such a fuss over clothes, and while I was thinking about these things the idea of the murder kept popping up and down in a steady rhythm.

I got hungry after a while, so I ordered a hamburger steak dinner. The waiter brought over silverware and
a clean white napkin and a glass of water. The place had that brown east-side light in it, like a rathskeller, and it was cool and pleasant. I looked around, and took in all the characters that were in there.

While I was waiting for the hamburger steak, I ordered a double bourbon and drank it down in two gulps. When the food came, I ate loosely and goofily, the way you do when you’ve had too many martinis before dinner.

I was finished and was drinking some beer when Phillip walked in and looked around. I waved at him and he came over.

“I ate,” I said, “I was hungry.”

“Don’t apologize, ghoul. I’m hungry too.”

“Okay,” I said.

Phillip ordered the same dinner plus a bottle of beer, and I ordered another double bourbon.

The waiter was beginning to brighten up to his table. He was beginning to say “Sir,” and before you knew it he had emptied out my ashtray and wiped it clean with a moist towel.

Phillip said, “I’ve got about ten dollars left of my uncle’s money. We might as well spend it all before I give myself up.”

“Fine,” I said.

Phillip finished eating, and paid the check. We went out on 53rd Street and wandered east until we got to Third Avenue. We found a cheap saloon and went in and sat at the bar.

“This is where Don Birnam does all his drinking in
The Lost Weekend
,” I said. “Third Avenue.”

Phillip ordered two whiskeys and we were launched off again. The door of the bar was open, and a cool late afternoon breeze was blowing in.

Phillip was getting very nervous now. He kept saying he’d have to go home soon, and I kept reminding him of Boldieu and his white gloves in
La Grand Illusion
.

Two soldiers were sitting next to us. They looked like they had spent a winter in the North African campaign. One of them was looking at me and finally he leaned over and wanted to know if there were any whorehouses in this town.

I wrote down an address for him. “I’m not sure they’re still operating,” I said, “but try it anyway.”

The other soldier started talking to Phillip and asked him how he liked the merchant marine.

Phillip said it was fine, and a minute later he got up and stuck out his hand to me.

“Well, Mike, so long.”

He took me by surprise. “So long,” I said.

Phillip walked out the door and I followed him, leaving my change and cigarettes on the bar.

We stopped outside the door. Phillip stuck out his hand again. He had some change in it. When we shook hands the coins jingled and a few of them dropped down on the sidewalk and clinked. Phillip opened his hand and let the rest of the money drop down from stiff, dramatic fingers.

“I’ll pick them up,” I warned him.

“Go ahead. So long, Mike.”

“So long, Phil.”

Phillip walked away toward 60th Street and I watched him for a while. I felt like running after him to say good-bye again. He disappeared around the corner walking determinedly, as if he were on his way to work, and I went back inside the bar. I saw the change on the sidewalk and went back outside to pick it up. Then I reentered the bar and ordered a beer and sat in an empty booth.

It was the loneliest beer I ever had.

I finally walked out and there I was, all alone, standing on Third Avenue in the late afternoon. The Elevated roared by overhead, and the big trucks rumbled by. Here I was, all alone, and everything was finished.

I decided right then and there to go off and travel again. I felt like seeing the Pennsylvania hills again, and the scrub pines of North Carolina. I was standing there thinking about this when I saw Phillip returning down Third Avenue, running.

“What’s the matter?” I was running toward him.

He took the bloody handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me.

“What’ll I do with this?” he asked. “Want it?”

“Why?”

“It’s Al’s handkerchief.”

“I know.”

“We’ve got to get rid of it,” he said.

“That’s easy,” I said. I took the handkerchief and dropped it in the gutter. Then we started laughing.

We were both nervous and half crazy, glad to see each other again.

“Let’s go into a bar,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

We went to another saloon on Third Avenue and started drinking again. The bar was full of Third Avenue characters, and the bartender was fat and Irish.

“I gotta go home,” Phillip kept saying. Then he said, “I’m getting sick of my white gloves.” He held up his hands. “I’m weak. The gloves are beginning to chafe.”

I felt so lousy I didn’t say anything. We were just beginning to realize what had happened.

“I’ll walk you home,” I told him.

We had another drink or two and then we were out on the street. I kept saying, “Well ...” and Phillip kept saying, “Well ...” also, and both of us had a lot to say, but there was no room to say it in, we were so tense and close.

We finally reached Central Park South, and there was Phillip’s uncle’s apartment house. We walked up to the entrance and stopped.

Phillip waved at the doorman and then said to me, “He’s a neurotic. Some guy.”

I said, “Yeah.”

We paused and automatically stuck out our hands.

“Well,” said Phillip, “here we go again. See you behind bars.”

“I’ll go and see you,” I said.

“Bring me good books and all that.”

“Yeah.”

We shook hands and patted each other on the shoulders and leered at each other, smiling. Then he said “So long” and I said “So long” and he turned and went into the lobby, and I walked toward Columbus Circle where two big trucks went by that made me want to travel far.

P
HILLIP’S UNCLE FIXED EVERYTHING UP AND HAD
the boy committed to the state nuthouse. I figure he won’t be there more than six months because the uncle knows several doctors on the board who will play ball.

The cops weren’t too pleased about the way I knew about the murder and still didn’t rush to the nearest phone like a decent citizen who are all supposed to be stool pigeons according to the official ruling. Anyway, I don’t like any sort of publicity. So I took a trip out to Chicago for a few weeks to renew some old acquaintances.

That town isn’t what it was. Seems like everybody I used to know there five years ago is either dead, in jail, or in the army. But I ran into a few guys I used to know who were still hanging out in the old spots, around North and Halsted.

When I got back to New York there was a letter from a man in Chicago saying he was a friend of Charley Anderson and would like to see me about a business proposition. There would be something in it for me. It sounded like he had some hot stuff and didn’t know where to take it. There was a phone number in the letter and I called it several times, but did not get the party.

I decided to go up to Al’s place and see Agnes, who had moved into Al’s room after the murder. I found her packing. She was going to leave town the next day.

It seemed a Mrs. Rogers had bought the house from Mrs. Frascati and she was weeding out the disorderly elements. Chris Rivers had been thrown out as a chronic deadbeat and sanitary problem. “She’s going to redeco-rate and raise the rents,” Agnes told me.

“What happened to Hugh Maddox?” I asked.

“He got three years, but may be allowed to join the army later. No one seems to know for certain.”

We thought that over for a while, then Agnes said, “Oh, and another thing. You know I packed Al’s things and sent them off to his brother in Memphis. But the radio was missing. Someone must have gone into the room and taken it. I think it was Bunny, that socialite thief from Boston.”

I said, “Very likely.”

We sat there in Al’s old room and it began to get dark. Agnes was telling a long story about Mrs. Rogers, but I didn’t listen. Finally I got up to go.

“If you get out West, look up my old lady,” I told her. “Just ask anybody where is Mrs. Dennison’s grocery store.”

Agnes said she would do it if she got out to Reno, then we shook hands and said good-bye at the door.

I went to the Three G’s alone and ate dinner.

As I was walking home from Sheridan Square someone stepped out of a doorway and said, “Hello, Will.” It was Danny Borman.

I said, “Well Danny, how are things going, like a house afire, hey?” but he didn’t think that was funny.

We went back to my room and he began telling me what had happened.

He did set fire to the house, and several other houses caught fire, which wouldn’t have amounted to much except that some unpatriotic prick had a lot of gasoline hoarded in his basement. Anyway the fire got so big it set fire to a defense plant and a wing of the plant burned down. Somebody yelled sabotage and the FBI was on the case.

I asked Danny if he collected, and he said yes. He was going to blow town with the money. I didn’t have
the heart to ask him for a cut, and he didn’t try to force it on me.

So we said good-bye and good luck and so forth. Then Danny asked me what had happened with Phillip, and I told him.

Danny thought about it for a minute and said, “Well, he can go into politics when he gets out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He ought to be good at that.”

THE END

Jack Kerouac was drinking and talking in his living room at 271 Sanders Avenue in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, in October 1967. The young poets Ted Berrigan, Aram Saroyan, and Duncan McNaughton were sitting and talking with him; they had come to record an interview for
The Paris Review
. After a question about his first novel,
The Town and the City
, Kerouac remarked, “I also wrote another version [of that story] that’s hidden under the floorboards, with Burroughs. It’s called
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
.”

“Yes,” said Berrigan, “I’ve heard rumors of that book. Everyone wants to get at that book.”

As the exchange attests,
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
had already gained legendary status forty years ago. But when its two authors wrote the text in 1945 they were unpublished and unknown.
Hippos
predated by more than a decade the works that brought
them lasting literary fame—
On the Road
in 1957 for Kerouac and
Naked Lunch
in 1959 for William S. Burroughs. Those books, along with Allen Ginsberg’s
Howl and Other Poems
in 1956, are the flagship works of the Beat Generation and it seems unlikely that anyone reading this book will be entirely unaware of them.