Part 5 (2/2)

”It's hard to tell, really. These Jewish girls all look alike to me, you know, at least the ones on Miami Beach. She'd had a nose job but they took off too much, as they usually do. Somehow, that Irish -rtrouss- nose never quite fits aJewish face. If you'd studied as many mug shots as I have the last few years you'd know what I mean. She had nice hair, though, black, long, and straight down her back-- almost down to her a.s.s. She wore round, lightly tinted blue gla.s.ses, and a full-length granny dress. She had a weight problem, I think--at least her face was chubby--but she was fighting it. She hardly ate anything at all at dinner.”

”What did they feed you?”

”Whitefish, with the heads on and all, some kind of meat and tomatoes and cheese ca.s.serole, and a Caesar salad. I didn't eat any whitefish. I don't like to see a fish with the eye staring up at you, and I was afraid of bones. Besides, by the time dinner was served, I was a little looped.

”Irv, you see, likes to drink, but I could tell he isn't allowed to have very many unless there's somebody else around. As soon as I'd drink half my drink, and it was Chivas and soda, too, he'd say, 'Let me freshen that for you, Doctor,' and he'd whip over to the bar. He'd add a couple of jiggers to his gla.s.s, too, except that he was drinking a full drink every time, not half-a-drink like me. The old lady noticed it, too, but she couldn't say anything to him with me there. Old Irv was really putting the stuff away.”

Larry sipped his coffee, and said: ”He's a retired furrier, about fifty-five or -six, somewhere in there.”

”What about the girl? s.h.i.+rley?”

”Under thirty. I don't know how much under thirty, but she was definitely under thirty, and she was unhappy about the situation, the date. I knew she wanted to go out, to get away from her parents, but there wasn't anyway to work it. And after dinner, once I started to play snooker, I didn't want to go out anyway. Irv is a good player, and he beat me the first game. But I beat him the second two games. His problem, he doesn't play enough with other people. He probably practices a lot, and you know how it is when you practice, you try a lot of shots you wouldn't consider seriously in compet.i.tion because they're too risky. So he would try some of these risky shots, and he missed a lot. I haven't played any snooker for four or five years, and I didn't really get my eye back until the middle of the second game. I wish I'd known about the snooker table, I'd have taken my own cue stick along...”

I laughed. ”s.h.i.+rley would've appreciated that,” I said. ”Bringing your cue stick along on a first date.”

Larry laughed. ”Yeah. But what I mean is the way it worked out.”

”Did s.h.i.+rley play, too?”

”No. She just sat in one of the high chairs and watched. She didn't say anything then, and before dinner and during dinner she didn't really get a chance to say anything. Her mother talked all the time, a real brittle woman, with a head of bleached blonde hair that looked like it was carved out of sandstone. You knew how hard it was by just looking at it.”

”What did she talk about?”

”In a couple of weeks or so, all three of them are going on an around-the-world cruise. She talked about that. For the last year-and-a-half s.h.i.+rley's been in Israel, living on a kibbutz. When they went to visit her there, Irv and Helen, they were so appalled by the living conditions they brought s.h.i.+rley home. The water was alkaline, they had outside johns, the food was bad, the place was unsanitary, and they worked the s.h.i.+t out of poor s.h.i.+rley. They had her running a buzz saw, making furniture. s.h.i.+rley, I gathered, didn't want to come home, although she didn't say anything at the table. But this 'round-the-world trip is supposed to be a present to make up for it. That was the implication, anyway. s.h.i.+rley hardly opened her mouth, but she looked at me a lot.

”Then, on purpose, but trying to pa.s.s it off, Helen, Mrs. Weinstein, said that the cruise would be a honeymoon gift for s.h.i.+rley, if she wanted to take advantage of it.”

”That was pretty blunt, Larry. Did they think, all this time, that you were Jewish?”

”I think so, yes. Irv didn't care, but Helen stiffened up when I finally said I was a Catholic. And it upset Helen, too, when I said that I thought they were all Catholics and that that's what they'd told me at Electro-Date.”

”They didn't tell you that at Electro-Date.”

”I know, but that's what I said. Can you imagine some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d getting married and having mother- and father-in-law along in the same cabin for three months?”

”They'll find someone. He's got money, this guy.”

”Irv's got money all right. He's rich, man. And a d.a.m.ned good snooker player. Why don't you and I got out for snooker some night? Did you ever play it?”

”I used to, but I don't even know where there's a table in Miami.”

”We could play over at Irv's. He said to call him any time I wanted to play. But that's out, I suppose. I'm not interested in the girl, and if I went back, it might give her a false idea.”

”Did you get a chance to talk to her alone? You said she didn't talk much, but you haven't told me anything she said.”

”Well, we didn't talk alone until I actually left. When I got ready to leave, her mother called her into the kitchen for a minute, and Irv went to get my coat. I'd taken it off when we played snooker, and left it in the rec room. When I opened the front door, s.h.i.+rley said, 'I'll ride down to the lobby with you.'

”We got into the elevator, and about the sixth floor she pulled out the red emergency k.n.o.b and stopped the elevator. I was still a little high, and when the elevator stopped suddenly that way I lurched against the wall. She looked into my eyes, through those blue-tinted gla.s.ses of hers, and said: 'Are you circ.u.mcised, Larry?'

”'No.' I said.

”'Let me see it,' she said.

”1 took out my c.o.c.k and showed it to her. She looked at it for a long time, as though she'd never seen a dong before, at least an uncirc.u.mcised dong, and then said, 'I don't care.'

”What do you mean,' I said, 'you don't care?'

”I mean,' she said, 'that it doesn't matter to me whether you're circ.u.mcised or not.”

”She was propositioning you, Larry. That is, she was telling you that she was available.”

”I know that, Hank. I put it away, zipped up, and took the elevator off emergency. It really turned me off, man, not that I was turned on by her in the first place, but it was all so weird, standing there with half-a-buzz on, you know, with my dong out, and the way she stared at it. Maybe a soft, uncirc.u.mcised p.r.i.c.k isn't a beautiful thing to see, but it's mine, you know, and that curious, scientific look she had, the blue-tinted gla.s.ses, the way she leaned over, with her hands on her hips--I don't know, Hank, Ijust don't know. For a moment there, it scared me. I had a funny feeling, or a premonition, that it would never get hard again.

”Anyway, when we got down to the lobby, I gave her a good-night kiss, a long s...o...b..ry one. And she responded, too. But there was nothing there, man, nothing. My b.a.l.l.s were ice cubes. So much for the first date. I think I'll put down about thirty-five bucks for this one on my expense account, and call it a night.”

Larry rose, and picked up his white jacket. He put his rolled white tie into the left jacket pocket.

”Something's wrong with the computer at that electronic dating service,” I said. ”You couldn't have been matched any worse if you'd picked up a lez at a gay bar.”

”I know. Tomorrow I'm going to call Electro-Date and raise holy h.e.l.l. Even though I'm not a Catholic I said I was a Catholic and I'm ent.i.tled to either a Catholic or to someone who has lied about it the way I did.”

I laughed. ”Say that again.”

Larry grinned. ”I can't.”

After Larry left, I thought about this strange evening for a few minutes, and then went to bed myself. The dating service didn't enter my thoughts again until I ran into Larry with his second date at Don's birthday party a week later.

That's when I met Jannaire.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

There were more than twenty cars parked on Don's lawn and along the curb and on neighboring lawns by the time I got to his house for his birthday party. The quiet of the suburban neighborhood was bothered by gibbering drums which pulsed above the shattering rise and fall of voices from the poolside patio. I learned later that some maniac had given Don a birthday present of three LPs of the authentic tribal drums of Africa.

Clara Luchessi, in a losing effort to keep as many people out of her house as possible, had centered the festivities around the pool and patio. The bar, the tables loaded with catered food, and even two green-and-white striped tents, with extra swimming trunks and bikinis, one tent marked HE and the other SHE, as dressing rooms, were outside. There were no emergency latrine facilities at poolside, however. One still had to go inside the house to use the john, or else pee in the pool.

There was a lopsided pile of birthday presents on a card table at the far end of the pool. I added mine to the pile and checked the birthday card again to make certain the tape would keep it secure on the package. My present to Don was in poor taste, but it wasn't really for Don's benefit-- it was for Clara's. I had found a used copy, almost in mint condition, of George Kelly's -Craig's Wife-, in Maggie's Old Book Shop, and I had talked Maggie into giftwrapping it for me. Don would read the play and laugh, knowing it was ajoke. But if Clara read it, she might, quite possibly, take some of the pressure off Don around the house.

The soft night air was muggy, with the humidity at ninety percent, according to my car radio, but a warm heavy breeze huffed across the patio from the flat green fairway beyond the back of the house. Don's backyard pool was merely an easy lay away from the No. 8 green of the Miccosukee Country Club. Around the edges of the yard, and along the fairway border, Clara had placed lighted candles. They were upright in sandfilled paper sacks, and the surprisingly good light made the faces of the guests slightly distorted because they were lit from below. There was a strong electric light above the bar, however. The bartender, Joe T., or Jotey, as he was called, was a black man who bagged groceries regularly at the Kendall Kwik-Chek. All four of us guys had hiredJotey as a bartender at one time or another for parties because he had surprisingly good judgment. If someone was about to get overloaded, Jotey would gently taper him off by reducing the alcoholic content of his drinks. Moreover, because Jotey didn't have to go to work at the Kwik-Chek until ten a.m., he would come back willingly, early the next morning following a party and clean everything up for an extra ten bucks.

”Mr. Norton,” Jotey said, as I reached the bar; ”a J.B. and soda.” He grinned, and handed me my drink.

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