Mr. Corley strode in and out of the boiler room a dozen times a day, but mostly worked outside. His wife, Helen- Dutch (for Duchess) as she was usually called-worked the inside; keeping track of sales, occasionally taking over a phone, frequently circulating the room to see that nothing or no one got too far out of hand.
Although she was a small woman, her clothes never seemed quite large enough for her. Her round little rear-end was always molded against her skirt, her full little bosom strained constantly against her blouse. She moved around the room pepperily, her voice snappish, her quick movements making her jounce all over. Now and then, she leaned down, her hand resting impersonally (impersonally?) on a guy's shoulder as she lit her cigarette from his or listened in on a call. Occasionally, needing to get off her feet for a moment (or so she said), she sat down next to a guy, butting him over on his packing-box chair with a waspish little fling of her hips.
All day, day after day, the men were her life. All day, day after day, there was the salty talk of men, the rousing sight of men, the harsh-sweet smell of men, the roughly tender feel of men. And then at night, in the in-itself-suggestive hotel room, where even the towels and toilet, the thick tubes of the bedstead, the dangling knob of the chandelier, the table legs- where everything achieved a phallic symbolism- there were no longer any men. There was no man.
Corley and his wife played different roles, but essentially they shared the same life. Yet draining him dry, it simultaneously replenished her. Everything that had been taken from him seemed to have been given to her. And late at night, with Mitch supposedly asleep in the connecting room, they quarreled furiously and fruitlessly.
"Dutch, for Christ's sake…"
"Answer me, damn you! Do you know what this thing's for? Do you know what you're supposed to do with it?"
"Aah, honey…"
"No! No, by God! Don't you love me up unless you're going to go all the way!"
"Dutch, it's this goddamned life! The first good spot I see we'll settle down."
"Balls! What's wrong with this life, anyway?"
"I mean it! I'm taking a regular job!"
"Oh, lay off, for shit's sake! Selling sand on the Sahara- that's a regular job I see you in!"
It was probably true. In the rarefied atmosphere of the fast buck, Corley was slowly strangling, his lungs gradually robbed of elasticity. Yet he knew himself completely incompatible to the valleys, the world below his slippery mountain top. Even as a young man he could not adapt to it, and he was now very far from young.
Mitch changed schools every two months on an average. Being bright and personable, as well as transient, he escaped the authoritative attention which the regular and less-favored students received. After all, he would be moving on in a few weeks. After all, he was well-mannered and smart-far ahead of his grade in some respects. Why bother then, why make things harder for him than they doubtless already were, if he made only token obeisance to curriculum and routine?
That was the way things went until he was in his second year of high school. Then, at last there was a crackdown-a truant officer caught him in an all-day burlesque house-and his derelictions were laid before his parents. They responded typically.
His mother made a dash at him, and jerked him vigorously by the shoulders. She said he needed his little backside blistered and she was just the gal to do it.
His father said a kid's brains weren't in his butt, and the thing to do was reason.
"Now, I want to ask you something, boy," he said, pulling Mitch around in front of him. "I want to ask you something- look at me, boy! I want to ask you just one goddamned question. What do you want to do with your life, boy?"- wag, wag-"what do you want to do with your life? Do you want to get yourself a good education?"-wag, wag-"a good education, boy, or do you want to be a jerk? It's up to you, boy, strictly up to you. You can have an easy chair or a broom, boy. You can loll back in that easy chair in a fine, big office, with a pretty little gal like your mama for a secretary; you can do that, boy,"-wag, wag-"or you can take the broom, and go along the gutter sweeping up horse turds. Now, what's it going to be?"
Mitch made the indicated response. Over his mother's furious protest, his father handed him a fifty-dollar bill. "That represents education, boy. Education is money, money is security. You've learned something here today, boy, and it's already put money in your pocket."
Mitch promptly lost the fifty in a crap game in the bellboys' locker room. Dutch's reaction was typical. Ditto, her husband's."
"Now, goddammit, boy, maybe your brains are in your butt, after all! Goddammit, that old broomhandle's reaching for you already! Boy, boy,"-wag, wag-"don't you know there are people who can handle dice? Don't you know there are people who've educated themselves to make the dice behave?"
"Well… there wasn't anyone like that in the locker room."
"You don't know that, boy, you don't know it. Because you don't know a goddamned thing about dice, and you've just proved it. I say you proved it!"-wag, wag. "You can't see to hit the pot, and you've peed all over your own feet. So you'd better squat on it, boy, squat on that pot! Play it safe or hold your pee until you can find the light switch of education. Otherwise, I fear for you, boy,"-wag, wag. "I say I fear for you. The shadow of the broom is hanging over you, and I can smell those horse turds already."
Mr. Corley died during Mitch's last year of high school. Mrs. Corley shook her son furiously, hugged him frantically, wept wildly and calmly had the body cremated. Back at the hotel, she studied her mirrored reflection for a long time, at last anxiously asking Mitch if he thought she looked to be forty-two.
Mitch thought a little lightness was in order. He said she didn't look forty-two-not a day over forty-one and nine-tenths.
Dutch burst into tears again, looked around for something to throw at him. "What a lousy thing to say! And your poor father lying cold in his grave!"
"You mean hot in his jar, don't you? All right, all right,"- dodging hastily. "Sure, you don't look forty-one, nothing like it. You could pass for thirty-four or -five any day."
"Honest? You're not just saying that?" Her face cleared, then clouded again. "But what am I going to do, for God's sake? I can't work alone. I'll have to hook up with another guy, and how the hell can I do that with you on my hands?"
"Gee," said Mitch, "maybe I'd better jump out a window."