“I’ll get the next round,” I said, and signaled to the bartender. “I feel like getting drunk tonight.”
“You and me both. We’re lucky we ran into each other. I hate drinking alone, don’t you?”
“Worst thing in the world.”
“Hate doing anything alone, matter of fact.”
“I had to fly that mother-fuckin’ airplane alone,” I said.
“What kind of plane did you fly, Will?”
“The P-38. The Lightning,” I said. “Bartender, another round here, please.”
“That’s a pretty plane,” Bobby said. “That’s the one with the tail like this, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, with the twin booms.”
“Yeah, that’s a great airplane.”
“A great airplane,” I said. “How come you didn’t get into an Army band?”
“Not good enough, I guess,” Bobby said, and shrugged. “You’ve got to realize the Army had its pick of some of the best musicians in the country. They were drafting guys from Benny Goodman’s band, Glenn Miller’s, even Al Di Luca’s — which happened to be the band I was playing with before they grabbed me. I’m sure you’ve heard of him,” he said, and laughed.
“Everybody’s heard of Al Di Luca,” I said.
“Certainly. So with all those musicians going in, there just weren’t enough Army bands to go around. Really, Will, you can’t win a war by sending people out to play ‘American Patrol.’”
“Here we go,” I said. “Drink up, Bobby.”
“Here’s to Al Di Luca,” Bobby said, “wherever he may be.”
“And here’s to...” I started, and shook my head.
“Yeah?”
“No,” I said, and drank.
“Have you got a quarter?” Bobby asked.
“Let me see.” I took out my change and spread it on my palm. Bobby picked up a quarter, and then went over to the jukebox. By the time he returned, I’d finished my drink and ordered another one. A hooker came over to chat with us about the weather, and Bobby matter-of-factly asked her how much it cost for the night and she told him it would be twenty-live dollars but that she didn’t French. If he wanted somebody who Frenched, he was barking up the wrong tree. He told her to go peddle her ass someplace else, and then ordered another drink and angrily said, “High-class whore, working a bar on Stony Island Avenue. What’s so special about her mouth, would you mind telling me?”
“They’ve been spoiled,” I said. “Too many servicemen around.”
“I’d rather go home and jerk off than risk getting a dose from something like that,” Bobby said.
“You and me both,” I said.
“Besides, there’re too many nice girls in Chicago.”
“Right.”
“Have you got a girl, Will?”
“Not here.”
“Where?”
“New York.”
“That’s a long way off.”
“Not even a girl, really.”
“What then, a boy?” Bobby said, and laughed.
“Not a girlfriend, I mean. Just somebody I was fucking steady.”
“What’s her name?”
“Well,” I said, and shrugged.
“Listen, I’m not going to dash down to New York and call her,” Bobby said, and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Dolores,” I said.
“I knew a girl named Dolores in Georgia. Dolores Greenberg. I suspect she was the only Jew in the state. She was fabulous in bed.”
“So was mine.”
“Do you think maybe all Doloreses are marvelous in bed?”
“Maybe so.”
“Or maybe it’s just you and I who’re marvelous, and we made them look good.”
“Maybe, who knows?”
“Are you finished with your scotch? We’d better order another round.”
“Must be a hole in this glass,” I said.
“Listen,” Bobby said, and put his hand on my shoulder again, “why are we wasting a fortune for liquor here when I’ve got a bar full of the stuff at home? Why don’t we go up there, listen to some records, and drink all we want to, without having to call the bartender every two minutes. What do you say?”
“Well,” I said, “we’re here now, we might as well stay.”
“I’ve got some really good records,” Bobby said. “I don’t know if you dig jazz or not, but I’ve got stuff that goes all the way back to Jimmy Blythe and King Oliver. What do you say?”
“Well, it’s kind of late,” I said. “I thought maybe I’d have a few more drinks and then head home.”
“Why? Is your Daddy waiting up for you?” Bobby said, and laughed.
“It isn’t that,” I said, “but we’re here now, what’s the sense moving?”
“Come on up to my place,” Bobby said.
We were facing each other now, we had turned our stools to face each other, our knees touched, our eyes met.
“Come on,” he said.
He put his hand on mine.
“Come on.”
I woke up to brilliant sunshine.
I was naked.
There were tiny spatters of blood on the sheet.
I could hear the shower running someplace in the apartment. I got out of bed and picked up my undershorts rumpled on the floor, and pulled them on and put on my pants and shirt and jacket and stuffed my tic into the pocket and hurriedly put on my socks and did not bother to lace my shoes.
In the street outside, I ran.
I kept looking back over my shoulder.
From a telephone booth on Cottage Grove, I placed a call to Dolores in New York, hoping I would catch her before she left for school. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?” she said.
“Dolores? This is Will.”
“Will! Where...?”
“Dolores,” I said, “Dolores, I... I need you. Will you marry me, Dolores?”
“Yes,” she said.
November
It had been snowing heavily since four o’clock. A huge Election Day bonfire had been set in the middle of Sixty-third Street, and from Jackson Park, where I waited for Rosie, I could see the flames leaping up against the falling snow. There was a sharp wind blowing in off the lake. Sparks raced into the sky like incandescent flakes, and the marchers around the fire struggled to hold onto their makeshift signs as they bravely chanted their election slogan into the wind, “We Want Harding, We Want Harding!” Farther up the street, a second fire flared in the late afternoon darkness, and another chant joined the first, so that they merged bipartisanly in the blinding snow, “Harding, Cox, Roosevelt, Coolidge,” one becoming the other, indistinguishable.
I had come directly from the mill, telling Nancy beforehand that I might be home late tonight as I wanted to stop by the polls to see how heavy the voting was. I would not be old enough to vote until January, but she knew I was keenly interested in this presidential election, and readily accepted my alibi. From Joliet, I had called Rosie and asked her to meet me in Jackson Park at five o’clock, and she had said, “In this storm, Bert?” and I had answered, “Yes, Rosie, in this storm.” I stood hatless on the edge of the park now, my hair blowing, the snow thick underfoot and swirling in the air, clinging to my coat. My gloved hands were in my pockets. I was cold, and I was wet, and I had no stomach for this tryst, but it was something that had to be done, and I aimed to get it done today.
When we were relieved by the 5th Division in October 1918, and I received Nancy’s letter in Montfaucon, I got drunk with a worldly French corporal who told me he would never understand the American attitude toward marriage and sex, making it sound as if one were quite naturally exclusive of the other. He told me that no Frenchman in his right mind would dream of a life that did not include a garçonièrre and a pretty little lady with whom to share it on a rainy afternoon (he was, significantly, from Paris and perhaps his description of the French ideal did not apply to places like Les Eyzies or Vence). But he told me that before the war he had known at least half a dozen married American businessmen who had become utterly demoralized after falling in love in Paris. Since falling in love, and being in love, and making love were to the corporal the very essence of life, he could not fathom what seemed to him a juvenile, unrealistic, totally unsatisfying, and uniquely American approach to sex. He had demonstrated his premise by picking up two out of the three tavern whores and taking them both off to bed, he being a married man with four children, the youngest of whom was almost my age.