"Cheap. Slut.
Puta." I hate thees city."
"Well, you ..
"Iss not my fault I don' speak such good English. I learn Spanish. I know real Spanish, very high Spanish, very good school Spanish. But Spanish iss no good here. You speak Spanish here, you are a foreigner. But thees is my country, too, no?
I am American also, no? Puerto Rico is American, noes ver dad But Spanish no good. Spanish here minns puta. I hate thees city."
"Angelica ..
"You know something? I warm to go back the islan'. I warm to go back there an' never leave. Because I tell you. There I am poor, but there I am me. Angelica Gomez. Me.
An' there is nobody else the whole worl' who iss also Angelica Gomez. Only me.
An' here, I am not me, I am only dirtee Spanish Puerto Rican spic!"
"To some people," Hawes said.
Angelica shook her head.
"I am in big trouble now, no?" she said.
"Yes. You're in very big trouble."
"Si. So what happens to me now? I go to prison, hahi Maybe worse if thees Kassim dies, hah? An' why do I cul him? You want to know why I cut him? I do it becausc he forgets one thing.
He forgets what everybody else it thees city forgets. He forgets that I am me, Angelic~ Gomez, an' that what is me is private an' nobody car touch unless I say touch. Me.
Private." She paused.
"Why they cann let a person be private? Goddamn, why they cann leave you alone?"
She seemed suddenly on the verge of tears. He reache~ out to touch her hand, and she shook her head instantly and violently.
He pulled back his fingers.
"I am sorree," she said.
"I will not cry.
One learns fas in thees city that it does no good to cry, no good at all." She shook her head.
"I am sorree. Leave me alone. Pa favor. Leave me alone. Please. Please."
He rose. Virginia Dodge had turned her attention bad to the desk. She sat quite silently, staring at the bottle in front of her.
Casually, Hawes walked to the bulletin board near the light switch. Casually, he took a pad from his back pocket and began writing into it.
The boys had got an early start.
It was only 6:25, but the boys had been at it since 3:30 when their last class-a boring lecture in Anthropology- had let out. This was Friday afternoon and after a hard week of listening to lectures and scribbling down notes, the boys owed it to themselves to throw down a few college-manly drinks.
They had started with beer at the fraternity house across the street from the college. But some stupid frosh pledge had stocked the refrigerator the week before and then forgotten to replenish the dwindling supplies. There were only two dozen cans of beer on ice, and that was barely enough to get the boys under way. And so they'd been forced to leave the intimacy of their private diggings in search of liquid refreshment elsewhere.
They had left the frat house, wearing the uniforms which identified them as true scholars. The uniforms consisted of trousers belted in the back and pleat less in the front and cuff less at the bottom. White button down shirts topped the trousers. Silk-rep ties curled beneath the collars of the shirts, knotted in the front, fell in slender splendor to the simple punctuation of gold clasps.
Dark sports jackets, vented in the rear, with unpadded shoulders, three buttons and sleeves and lapels pressed to roll, man, roll, completed the costume. The boys were hatless and coat less They all wore crew cuts
By the time they reached the third bar, they were hopelessly crocked.
"One day," Sammy Horn said, "I am going to walk into that rotten Anthropology course and rip off Miss Amaglio's blouse.
Then I'm gonna deliver a lecture on the mating habits of the Homo sapiens."
"Who in the world," Bucky Reynolds said, "would ever want to rip off Miss Amaglio's blouse?"
"Me, that's who," Sammy said.
"And deliver a lecture on the mating ..
"All the time, he's got sex on the brain," Jim McQuade said.
"Zing, zing, zing, sex, sex, sex."
"Right!" Sammy said emphatically.
"Damn right."
"Miss Amaglio," Bucky said, pronouncing the name with great care but nonetheless having a little difficulty with it, "strikes me as being a dried-up old septic tank, and I am surprised-to tell you the truth, Samuel, I am profoundly surprised that you are harboring dark thoughts of planking her. I am truthfully and profoundly surprised by your lecherous thoughts. Yes."
"Screw you," Sammy said.
"All the time sex on the brain," Jim said.
"I will tell you something," Sammy said, his blue eyes very serious behind his black rimmed bop spectacles.
"Still water runs deep. That is the God's honest truth, I swear to God."
"Miss Amaglio," Bucky said, still having trouble with the name, "is not still water, she is stagnant water. And I am greatly astounded-astonished, I say-to discover that you, Samuel Horn, could even entertain notions of .
"I am," Sanuny admitted.
"That's indecent," Bucky said, ducking his blond crewcut head, and then shaking it mournfully, and then sighing.
"Obscene."
He sighed again.
"But, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind a little piece of that myself, you know? She has a very foreign sexy-type look, that wench, even though she is about four thousand years old."
"She isn't a day over thirty," Sammy said.
"I am willing to bet my Phi Beta Kappa key on that."
"You haven't got a Phi Beta Kappa key."
"I know, but I will have one someday, and every red-blooded American boy knows that a Phi Beta Kappa key is truly the key to the pearly gates. And I'm willing to bet it. And I'll even give away the secret of the secret hand, shake if Miss Amaglio is a day over thirty."
"She's Italian," Jim said from out of nowhere. When Jim got drunk, his face simply fell apart. It seemed to hang without support from somewhere in outer space~ His eyes swam socket less His lips moved without muscular volition.
"She is indeed," Bucky said.
"Her first name is Serafina."
"How do you know?"
"It's stamped on my program card.
Serafina Amaglio. Beautiful."
"But what a deadly bore, Jesus," Jim said.
"She has a very healthy bosom," Sammy observed.
"Very. Healthy," Bucky agreed.
"Spanish girls have healthy bosoms," Jim said from left field.
"Also."
"Here's to Serafina Amaglio," Bucky said, lifting his glass.
"And to Spanish girls," Jim said.