At high noon: Cagle, Morning, Novotny, Quinn, a one-legged guitar player and pimp named Dominic who claimed to be a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, a Filipino homosexual hairdresser called Toni dressed in full drag, and me, who claimed by this time to be the last survivor of an Apache attack on Fort Dodge, Iowa. The other guys had platoons of empty bottles doing drill before them, while I couldn't even keep my scraggly squad in a good line of skirmishers. I thought those other bastards had been stealing my bottles just to emasculate me, but I couldn't catch them. The faster I drank, the further behind I got, and while my nose was nearly in my bottle, the others were too sober to trust. I suppose I did well, considering I took on the Trick's hard-core Townies. San Miguel ran about fifteen percent alcohol, and took getting used to.
At least I wasn't the only drunk. Peterson had simply dived out of his stool at 1015. Novotny took his money, and carried him out to a calesa. Outside he found Collins throwing up in the street, so he sent them off to the Trick's apartment to sleep. Levenson had roared away to the Factory for a quick three-peso piece, with Franklin right behind him. Haddad had gotten angry at Mama-san because she wouldn't let him do another flamenco on the bar like he did last Roll Call, so he left too, stamping and clapping and shouting Olé.
Finally the rest of us counted up our bottles, paid and said goodbye to Morning's two Filipino friends. As I stepped into the sunlight, the heat, the brilliance, knocked me silly. It was the light of the day that would never be night. Nothing, not the hand of God, nor the mere spinning of the earth, could put out that fire in the sky. We wandered down the street, the middle of the street, dodging our way through the sea of dusty gold.
"Sgt. Slag," Quinn said, "you look a little bit drunk."
"Nonsense, knave. It's these chuckholes in the highroad which cause me to use this particular peculiar gait. Chuckholes, my fellow. Indeed."
He laughed wildly, almost braying, his tooth flashing like a spark, and slapped me on the back.
"Avast there mate."
He laughed again. "You're okay for a fuckin' college guy. You might make it."
"And you also, kind squire, are a fine bit of a gentleman, a yeoman tiller of the soiled and a reveler."
We turned a corner somewhere. I could see the world. A wrinkled old woman, her graying hair wrapped into a bun, tended two baskets by the edge of the sidewalk. She squatted motionless, sucking on a black cigarette, the fire in her mouth, taking smoke with each breath of air. One basket held baluts, the nearly-hatched duck eggs which Filipinos considered delicious, and the other, small ears of corn toasted on coals.
"Haven't we met somewhere before, young lady. Perhaps Newport. Or was it Saratoga?" I was saying as Novotny came back to get me.
"Not her, man. She's worn out." The old woman hadn't moved. Smoke wisped around her small leathery nose each time she breathed.
"Ah, but she's beautiful. Don't you see? There's character in that face, those delicate wrinkles cut by the sharp knife of time. The dignity of age… 'It little profits that an idle king,/By this still hearth, among these barren crags,/Met with an aged wife…'"
"You buy balut," she asked suddenly, the con shining in her eyes as she looked up.
"Yes, mother, those who hustle, live. Yes." I paid twice the price, and walked away with Novotny, the egg warm and firm in my hand, begging to be thrown.
"You drunk?" he asked.
"I?"
"What are you going to do with that? Not going to eat it, huh?" he asked as I pitched the egg in the air.
"I had to lose my cherry sometime," I answered, tossing it higher and higher. It broke in my hand and a warm, stringy fluid dripped between my fingers. I squeezed it and the juice spat on the street and rolled up a fine film of dust. In my hand the shell pieces revealed the yellow, matted feathers of the stillborn duckling. I picked the shell away. The body lay in my hand like the victim of a shipwreck. I dropped the mess in the gutter and wiped my hand on my pants.
"What's all that about?" Novotny asked.
"Huh? Oh, it was a symbolic expression of the nihilism inherent in all human searches for pleasure, coupled with the paradox that pleasure is the basis of conservatism, the enemy of nihilism."
"Bullshit."
"Exactly."
He and I caught up with the others at the Keyhole, a quiet, dark bar with a few cushioned lounge chairs. I sat down in one, drank two more mouthfuls of beer, then passed out.
I awoke on my face. A button on a lumpy, raw-cotton mattress bit into my cheek. As I rolled over, I saw myself in a large mirror which hung at an angle over the narrow bed. Also reflected was a small naked girl sitting backwards on a chair next to the bed.
"Hey," she said, smiling, "you wake up now, huh? Good. Time to go soon. Good you wake up now."
"Who're you?" My head hurt and I was still whoozy.
"TDY."
"Huh?"
"TDY. Temporary Duty. Tanduay Rum. TDY. Best puck in all Town. You look in billfold."
I did, expecting all my money to be gone. All but ten pesos of it was and there was a folded note. "Dear Fucking Newguy: Sleeping in the streets, bars, or latrines of Town is expressly forbidden by CABR 117-32. There was a party at the apartment, so you couldn't sleep there. I took your money. The room is paid for. The Alka-Seltzer is for your stomach and head – TDY for your soul. When you're ready she'll show you the way to the apartment. Good Morning."
I looked up. TDY was standing next to the bed, holding the foil package like a gift in front of her hairless crotch. Her smile had a what-the-hell reflection in her eyes, and her body was young and slim; but she wasn't attractive, or even pretty or cute. I wondered if Morning was playing a joke. Me, sleep with that obviously disease-infested child. Why her feet were even dirty. And she had no clothing that I could see except for a soiled, limp blue dress hanging on the doorknob like a dishcloth. No shoes either.
"You like TDY, yes?"
"Yes, but I like Alka-Seltzer too." I climbed off the bed, took the packet from her, and went to the sink. The room was small, square and furnished with a bed, chair, sink and the mirror. A single unscreened but shuttered window exposed a length of cracked, vine-crawling wall. The room was stripped for action. I took the seltzer, washed my face and walked back to the bed to put my boots on.
"We puck now," she said, laying her small hand against my shirt. "Joe Morning say TDY no have heart of gold, but silver pussy." Her hand slipped under the knit shirt and lay flat against my stomach. It seemed so tiny, so painfully childlike. I was ready to react if she tried to grab my crotch as if it were a moneybag, but she did not stir. Just that tiny hand warm against my belly. "We puck now?" It was not a question of time she was inquiring about, but of her and me and the universe. She undressed me, then with a giggle pushed me on the bed, turned me over when I bounced, and jumped astride my back. She lay there for several minutes, quivering, rubbing her belly on my butt, kneading the muscles of my neck and shoulders, and whispering small kisses across my back. She stayed that way until a sweat broke between us. Each time I tried to turn over, she bit me, not playfully but hard, then continued. Then she turned me over, lay on my chest with her back, and began all over again. She placed my hands on her little breasts and held them and rubbed them and shivered against them. She caught my cock between her legs and held it. The sweat broke sooner this time, and when it did, she slid and moaned and moved and held me tighter between her legs. Her body was so small against mine, and in the mirror, it seemed most deliciously black on the white space of me. My hands looked like water-whitened jellyfish stinging at her breasts.