And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks (3 page)

I asked Hugh what was new and he said the FBI was looking for him.

“Yeah?” I said. “What for?”

“It must be about the draft. That’s the only thing I can think of. They were asking about me down at Pier 32. Nobody knows my address down there.”

“Well what is your draft status?”

“I don’t know exactly. You see, I gave them an address care of somebody else and this girl moved after that, and when they came to my new address the janitor thought that they were from the finance company and told them he never heard of me. Then I moved out of that place without leaving a forwarding address because I owed a month’s rent.”

“What was your original classification?”

“It was 3-A, but my wife and I are divorced since then. That’s two years ago.”

Hugh is a longshoreman, about thirty, and Irish. He has one of the small rooms on the top floor next to Rivers. He comes from a rich family but doesn’t keep in touch with them anymore.

“Well what are you going to do?”

“I’m going down and see them. No use trying to get away from those guys. I may get three years out of this.”

“Oh just explain to them it’s all a mistake.”

“It’s not so simple as that. Jesus, I don’t know what the fuck’s going to happen.”

“What you need is a lawyer.”

“Yeah, and pay him with what?”

The conversation was taking a turn I didn’t quite like.

Someone stood up and said he had to go. Al jumped up and said, “Well if you must,” and everybody laughed. Jane Bole dragged Tom Sullivan to his feet and said, “Come along dear.”

They all left except Hugh, Bunny sulking because Al hadn’t asked her to stay.

On the way out, Chris Rivers sidled up to me and borrowed a quarter. He could never work himself up to ask anyone for more than fifty cents.

Hugh stayed about ten minutes, looking gloomy and rehashing his problem.

Al said, “Well I guess it will turn out all right.”

Hugh said he didn’t know what the fuck was going to happen. “And don’t say anything about this to Mrs. Frascati. I owe her a month’s rent.” Then he left to keep a date with his girlfriend.

“Thank God,” said Al. “A little peace at last. Why, those people woke me up at twelve o’clock and they’ve been here ever since.”

I sat down in the easy chair and Al sat on the bed.

“Now I want to tell you about the amazing thing that happened last night.”

“Yes,” I said, rubbing my hands together.

“Well, when we got up on the roof, Phillip rushed over to the edge like he was going to jump off, and I got worried and yelled at him, but he stopped suddenly and dropped a glass down. I went over and stood on the edge with him and said ‘What’s the matter?’ and started to put my arm around him. Then Phil turned around and kissed me very passionately, on the mouth, and dragged me down with him on the roof.”

I said, “It looks like you’re getting there, after four years. Well go on—what happened then?”

“He kissed me several times, then suddenly he pushed me away and got up.”

So I said, “Yeah, well what happened then?”

“Well, then Phil said ‘Let’s jump off the roof together, shall we?’ And I said ‘What’s the point in that?’ and he said ‘Don’t you understand? After this we have to ... it’s the only thing left. Either that or go away.’”

So I asked Al, “What did he mean by that? Go away where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere, I guess.”

“Well Al, you should have said at that point, ‘Okay dearie, let’s fly to Newark tonight.’”

Al was very serious about all this, although it seemed pretty ridiculous to me. I’d been hearing about it since I met him.

Al said, “Well, I didn’t have money, for one thing.”

I jumped up. “Oh you didn’t have money, hey? Do you expect to have money sitting on your ass? Go to work in a shipyard. Hold up a store. Here you’ve been waiting four years for this opening, and now—”

“Well, I’m not sure I want to.”

“You’re not sure you want to what?”

“Go somewhere with him now. I’m afraid there would be a reaction and I wouldn’t accomplish anything.”

I went over to the fireplace and banged my hand on the mantelpiece.

“So you want to wait. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—waiting till you’re dead. Do you know what I think? I think this whole Phillip complex is like the Christian heaven, an illusion born of a need, floating around in some nebulous misty Platonic nowhere, always just around the corner like prosperity, but never
here
and
now
. You’re afraid to go away with him, you’re afraid to put it to a test because you know it won’t work.”

Al flinched and shut his eyes and said, “No, no, it’s not true!”

I sat down in the chair and said, “But seriously, Al. If you did go somewhere you might succeed in making him. After all, that’s what you’ve been after these four years.”

“No, you don’t understand at all. That isn’t what I really want.”

I jumped up again, sneering. “Oh, so this is a case of Platonic love, hey? Nothing so coarse as physical contact, hey?”

“No,” said Al, “I do want to sleep with him. But I want his affection more than anything. And I want it to be permanent.”

“God give me patience,” I said. “Patience I need.” I tore at my hair and a little tuft of it came out. I made a mental note to go to 28th Street and buy some Buno hair tonic. It’s got Spanish fly in it and there’s nothing like it to stop falling hair.

“Now listen,” I said. “I’m going to say it again and I’m going to say it slow: Phillip isn’t queer. He might sleep with you, which I doubt altogether, but anything permanent is impossible. Unless of course it’s just friendship you want.”

I walked over to the window and stood with my hands clasped behind me like a captain on the bridge of a battleship.

Al said, “I want him to love me.”

I turned around and took a toothpick out of my shirt pocket and started digging at a cavity. “You’re nuts,” I said.

“I know he’ll come around to my way of thinking in time,” Al said.

I pointed my toothpick at his chest. “Get yourself some scratch and he’ll come around tonight.”

Al said, “No, that isn’t the way I want it.”

“What you want is impossible.”

“I don’t see why it should be.”

I said, “Well of course he isn’t influenced by money at all, you’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”

“Well, he is, but he shouldn’t be. I don’t want to admit that he is.”

I said, “Facts, man, it’s time to face facts.” I took on a bourgeois
père de famille
tone. “Why don’t you make something of yourself, something he’d be proud of and look up to. Look at you, you look like a bum!”

He had on an English tweed suit looking like it had been slept in for years, a cheap Sixth Avenue shirt, and a frayed Sulka tie. He looked like a Bowery character.

I went on, “Now I have it from reliable sources that there is at the present time a tremendous shortage of drugs in this country owing to the war. Marijuana is selling for fifty cents a stick whereas before the war it was ten cents a stick. Why don’t we cash in on this situation, get some seed, and start a marijuana farm?”

“Well,” he said, “now, that sounds good to me.”

“You can buy the seed in bird stores. We can sow it out in the country somewhere and come back in a couple of months and harvest our crop. Later on when we build up a bankroll, we can buy our own farm.”

We talked over this idea for some time. Al said he would go down and get some seed next day.

We went out to eat at Hamburger Mary’s and he started rehashing the Phillip question. What did it mean when Phillip said this and should he call him up tonight or just go downtown without calling, was Phillip really in love with Barbara and if so should he do anything to break it up. So I ate my food and said, yes, why not, no, go ahead, and stopped listening to him. Like I say, I’d heard all this for years.

After dinner I said good night and walked down to the bar where I worked as a bartender.

The place where I worked is called the Continental Café. It is open all the way across the front in summer, with doors that fold back. There are tables where you can sit and look at the sidewalk if you want to. There are several waitress / hostesses who will let you buy drinks for them. Inside is the usual chromium, red leather, and incandescent lights.

As I walked down the bar I noticed a fag, a couple of whores with two Broadway Sams, and the usual
sprinkle of servicemen. Three plainclothes dicks were drinking scotch at the far end of the bar.

I took off my coat and transferred everything from it to my pants pocket. I found an apron with a long string so I could loop it around and tie it in front. Then I stepped behind the bar and said hello to Jimmy, the other bartender, who was already there.

These three dicks said “Hello, kid” when they saw me. They had Jimmy waiting on them hand and foot, asking for scotch and cigars and lemon peel in their drinks and more soda and more ice.

I went up to the other end of the bar and waited on two sailors. The jukebox was playing “You Always Hurt the One You Love,” and one sailor said, “Hey Jack, how come that machine never plays what I want?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “People are always complaining about it.”

I could hear the detectives at the other end of the bar handing Jimmy a lot of horseshit about how he was a swell guy and so was the boss a swell guy and he ought to treat the boss right. These three were always in the place, sopping up free drinks because the boss thought they would help him out in case of trouble.

One of the sailors asked me where all the women were in this town, and I said they were in Brooklyn,
hundreds of them on every corner. Then I started to tell them how to get there and they were so dumb they didn’t understand me, but they left anyway. I took their glasses off the bar and sloshed them through dirty water and they were washed.

At this point, a man came in who was about fifty years old and was dressed in slacks and a light-gray coat and gray hat. He looked like a man of some intelligence and wealth. His eyes were bloodshot and he had been drinking quite a bit, but he had himself under good control. He went down to the other end of the bar near the detectives and ordered scotch.

I was mopping up the bar when I heard an argument down at the other end of the bar. This guy in the gray suit was arguing with one of the waitresses, or rather he was kidding her, and she was getting mad about it.

Then one of the detectives went over and called the guy a prick and told him to get the hell out of the bar.

The guy said, “Who are you?”

One of the cops gave him a shove and a second cop gave him another shove, just like a relay team, until they had him behind the phone booth. Then they pinned him against the wall and began slugging him methodically. They must have hit him about thirty times and the guy didn’t even raise his hands. His knees buckled, so they took him and threw him into a chair.

After a few seconds, the guy started to come to, and he raised his hands like a man pushing covers off his face. At that one of the cops scented danger and hit him again, knocking him off the chair onto the floor. Then the other two helped him up and dusted off his clothes and found his hat.

One of them said, “Jesus, who hit you, Mac?”

The man’s eyes were glazed. He looked like a case of light concussion to me. He looked blankly at the detective who had helped him up and said, “Thank you.”

The cop said, “Any time, Mac.”

The cop with the hat put it on the guy’s head. He grabbed him by the collar at the back and by the belt. Then he shoved him to the front of the bar and gave him a push which sent him across the sidewalk into a parked car. He bounced off the car and looked around with that glazed expression, then staggered off in the direction of Sixth Avenue.

The cop came back from the door laughing like a schoolboy. The other two cops were leaning against the end of the bar.

“Let’s have another scotch, Jimmy,” said the cop who had thrown the guy out. Everybody in the bar was laughing.

Jimmy took his time about getting the scotch. I
could see by his face he felt more like serving those bastards a Mickey.

About fifteen minutes later the guy in the gray suit came back with a cop. The three dicks were still sitting there, but he couldn’t identify them. He just insisted to the cop that he had been beat up in this bar.

I saw one of the plainclothes men give the cop the high sign, and the cop said, “Well, what do you want me to do about it, mister? You say yourself the guy ain’t here. Are you sure you’ve got the right place?”

“Yes, I’m perfectly sure. And if you won’t do anything, I’ll find someone that will.”

He was calm and dignified in spite of the beating he’d taken. He was smoking a cigarette and did not touch his swollen jaw and lips, nor call attention to his injuries.

The cop said, “Well what do you want me to do? You’ve had too much to drink, mister. Why don’t you go home and forget about it?”

The guy turned around and walked out.

The owner had come down from his apartment upstairs and the cops were telling him what had happened. He said, “You guys better not be here. That prick looks like he will cause some trouble.”

So the three of them left, looking a little worried.

It wasn’t long before the guy was back, with five plainclothes men. They took the license number of the
joint, talked to the owner awhile, and left. After that there wasn’t much business.

Just before closing time a bunch of sailors walked by the place and I heard one of them say, “Let’s go in here and start a fight.”

The boss jumped up and said, “Oh no you don’t,” and closed the door in their faces.

After Jimmy and I got the bar cleaned off and left for the night, we saw the sailors slugging each other outside. One of them was laid out on the sidewalk. Jimmy said, “Look at that,” and then we walked toward Seventh Avenue.

Jimmy began talking about how the cops beat that guy up. “I been around a lot,” he said, “and I done a lot of things, but I never got so callous I could stand around and enjoy seeing something like that. Those morons in the bar laugh and think it’s funny until it happens to them.