by James Jones
Behind him, Minerva heaved the great door shut and dropped the heavy bar back in its brackets.
“Maylon,” Mrs Kipfer said, “I dont think I’ve met your friend?”
“You never pulled that door routine on me before, Mrs Kipfer,” Stark said accusingly. “Almost think this place was illegal, instead of the best whorehouse in Honolulu.”
“Lets not be crude,” Mrs Kipfer said icily, “just because there was a misunderstanding. You know how I feel about that word. I’d hate to have to ask you to leave, Maylon, but I could, much as I would hate to, if you insist on being nasty.”
Stark said nothing stubbornly.
“I think you owe me an apology for that last remark,” Mrs Kipfer said. “Dont you?”
“I guess so,” Stark said irritably. “I apologize.”
“I still havent met your friend,” she said.
Stark introduced them politely, and mock-bowed deeply as he did it, looking more like a recalcitrant small boy than an angry man.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Mrs Kipfer smiled at Prew, ignoring the bow as being beneath comment. “I’m always pleased to meet a new member of the Company.”
“Pleasetomeetyou,” Prew said uneasily, wondering where the hell the women were. He felt awkward before such exquisite manners, and he remembered suddenly bitterly what Uncle John Turner, who had never married, had once told him bitterly. Women run the world, boy. God dealt them all the cards between their legs, he said. They dont have to gamble, like us men, and we mights well admit er. So bitterly the boy, being a boy, could not understand it then.
“I think,” Mrs Kipfer smiled, “that I shall call you Prew. May I?” as she led them from the big wide entryway to the right, on across the narrow hall, and through the doorway to the waiting room.
“Sure,” Prew said, seeing women now at last, not the women he had seen in his mind outside, but still at least women. “Nobody calls me by my first name.”
There were seven of them in the waiting room, one standing with a soldier at the Wurlitzer, two sitting talking to two sailors. The other four were sitting by themselves, three of them the fat gum-cud-chewing cows wearing the one piece short suits and all looking alike, three that would always sit by themselves, not caring, except when they were thrown into action, still not caring, as reserves during the big Payday attack. But the fourth sitting one was not like them; she was a slight brunette wearing the full length gown of the better grade, and sitting very poised and quiet with her hands clasped serenely in her lap, and he found that he was watching her.
He had already seen, with the experienced eye, that the four slim ones, the better grade of which the slight serene brunette was one, all wore full length gowns with the handy full length zippers, separating themselves consciously from the three fat gumchewing ones. He had already deduced, by this, that it was like all the others, this place, no different, pay your three bucks at the window, take your piece and leave, in spite of all he had heard about this one that was the Company hangout being the best. He had seen all that at once, but still he found that he was watching her, who was so obviously different even from the other three of the better grade.
“This is Maureen,” Mrs Kipfer said, as one of the two of the better grade sitting with the two sailors got up and came over to them at the door, a thin, sharp nosed blonde with the dark triangle of hair showing through the thin material of the long blue gown.
“Prew is new here,” Mrs Kipfer told her, “you will introduce him around, wont you, dear?”
“Sure, dear,” the blonde said, huskily sarcastic, and put her arm around Prew’s neck. “Cmon, Babyface. Hello there, old Stark, old kid,” she cried and grabbed for his crotch. “You got a present for me?”
“Watch it,” Stark grinned, ducking back. “Or I wont have.”
Mrs Kipfer smiled sweetly. “Maureen’s our little hustler, arent you, Maureen dear?”
“Thats how I make my livin, dear,” Maureen said sweetly. “I hustle. And I admit it.”
Mrs Kipfer, still smiling sweetly, turned back to Prew. “You mustnt think we’re rushing you, Prew. We want you to look around as long as you like. We want you to be satisfied with your friend. We arent crowded at all tonight, and there is plenty of time, isnt there, Maureen dear?”
“Sure, dear,” Maureen said. “All the time in the world. I cant give you romance,” she said directly to Prew. “But if a good lay is what you want I’ve got it, Babyface. Ask Stark, Stark’s laid me. Am I a good fuck, Stark?” she said, “or not?”
Mrs Kipfer looked as if she were about to vomit. She turned on her heel and went back out into the hall.
“Good,” Stark said. “But mechanical.”
“Why goddam you,” Maureen laughed, triumphantly. She grabbed Stark happily by the arm and pulled him to the Wurlitzer. “Just for that, you can play me some music.”
Mrs Kipfer came back, then, to Prew still standing in the doorway.
“We have so much trouble getting good help anymore,” she said apologetically. “This peacetime draft back home has hurt us terribly over here. You cant know how much. I’m completely helpless, at the mercy of whatever the agency condescends to send me.”
“Sure,” Prew said. “I can see that.”
“Didnt she even introduce you to anyone?” Mrs Kipfer rushed on breathlessly. “Didnt she make you acquainted with anyone?”
“No,” Prew said. “Not to a soul.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs Kipfer said. “Dear, dear. Well, never you mind. I’ll see you are taken care of. You mustnt feel badly.”
“All right,” Prew said. “I wont.”
“Lorene,” Mrs Kipfer called. “Are you busy, dear? Would you mind coming here a moment?
“It was really Lorene,” she said to him, “that I meant for you to meet. She is really a very nice girl, really. That was really what I had planned,” she said apologetically.
“Oh,” Prew said. “Sure.” He wasnt listening to the rest of it, he was watching the slight brunette, she who had been sitting very poised and quiet by herself, get up and come serenely toward them. He caught something about “almost like a daughter” and “hasnt a mean hair on her head,” but he was not really listening. He had found himself watching her before and now he found himself watching her more, while being careful not to stare. Watching her walking he could see the flat triangle of hair under the thinness of the dress, but with her it was not like it had been with Maureen who had been unaware of it completely. This girl was aware of it, aware of him, but she was utterly above it. She was aware of it and she ignored it.
Must be twenty-three or -four, he thought, noticing that she walked very straight and that her hair was done in a circular roll low on her neck and that she had very wide eyes that looked at him serenely openly. She stopped by them and smiled at him and he noticed her mouth was very wide across the thin childishness of her face, he noticed the long lips were very full especially at the corners. She has a beautiful face, he thought.
Mrs Kipfer introduced them formally, and then asked if she wouldnt look after him because he was new here? if she wouldnt show him around?
“Surely,” she said, and he noticed how pleasingly low pitched, how poised her voice was. It was the voice that belonged with the rest of her. “Lets sit down, shall we?” she smiled.
She really has a truly beautiful face, he thought again as they sat down, a tragic face, a face thats suffered, a face you’d never expect to find in this place. Suffering doesnt make whores beautiful, it makes them ugly. But thats because they do not understand the suffering. But she understands it. Such poised serenity as this, the poised serenity I’ve always hunted after for myself and never found, comes only from great wisdom, the wisdom of the understanding of suffering, the wisdom I’ve never been able to acquire, the wisdom that I need, that maybe all men need, he thought profoundly, and that you never guessed would turn up in a whorehouse. That is probably all it is, he thought, just that I am surprised to see a tragically beautiful face
in a whorehouse. That is obviously all it is, he told himself, that and the fact that I am drunk.
“Mrs Kipfer says you are new in Maylon’s Company,” she said, in that low poised voice, that voice of the profoundest wisdom. “Did you just arrive in the Islands? Or did you transfer in from another outfit?”
“Another outfit,” he said, trying to clear the thickness from his throat, sifting his brains to find one thought that was not too stupid to offer up before this wisdom, and failing.
Lorene waited, studying him wide-eyed serenely.
“I been in Wahoo almost two years now,” he said.
“And yet,” she said, “you’ve never been up here before. Thats strange. Isnt it?”
“Yeah,” he said; it was strange, when you thought of it. “You kind of get in the habit of goin places where you already been,” he said, trying to explain, feeling foolish at trying to explain. “I seen the sign plenty times. But I dint know anybody who came here. Till I got in G Company, that is.”
“I’ve been here a year,” she said.
“You have?” he said. “You dont much like it, do you?”
“Oh,” she said, “I dont like it, but I dont mind it. I dont expect to stay here, though. I wont be here all my life.”
“No. Sure not. I mean, why should you? Theres no reason why you should be here at all.”
“Oh, theres a reason. A good reason. I’m not boring you, am I?” she said. “I suppose every whore tells you the same story, dont they?”
“I guess they do,” he said, “come to think of it. Now that you mention it. But with them you never pay any attention. With them you always know it isnt serious.”
“I have it all figured out. I’ve been here one year now, by the end of two years I’ll be ready to leave. I figured it all out before I ever came here.”
“Figured what out?” Prew said, seeing Stark and Maureen coming back toward them from the jukebox.
“How long I meant to stay,” Lorene said, and stopped.
“Oh,” Prew said. “Oh, I see.” He was hoping Stark and Maureen would go right on by, but they didn’t.
“Well I be dam,” Stark said, “look who’s heah. Hello, Princess. I thought you had retired already.”
“Hello, Maylon,” Lorene said serenely. It was, Prew thought, as if she was looking wide-eyedly clear through Stark and seeing all of him.
“You start out at the top, dont you kid?” Stark said to him. “How’d you manage to meet the Princess? just like that?”
“Mrs Kipfer,” Prew told him, feeling suddenly belligerent. “Why?”
“No kiddin?” Stark said, “Mrs Kipfer? She introduced you? Already?”
“Sure,” Prew said. “Why not?”
“Hell, kid, you really rate. It took me three trips down here before I even was allowed to meet her. And two more after that before she’d lay me. And even then she was reluctant. Aint that right, Princess?” he grinned.
“I lay anyone who wants what I’ve got,” Lorene said serenely.
Stark stared at her reflectively. “Damn,” he said, “aint she a Princess, though? She even looks like this Princess Elizabeth in the newsreels. Good bit older, of course, but like her. Every inch a Princess, ’ey Princess? every inch.”
Maureen laughed raucously and Stark grinned at her and winked.
Prew, looking at Lorene, realized suddenly she did look like a princess, Princess Elizabeth or any other princess, he thought, a serene poised princess, incapable of being ruffled, remote from life and men. Especially men, be thought, the thickness coming back in his throat again.
“She does, dont she?” Stark said. “I ask you. Dont she? Princess Lorene, the Virgin of Waikiki. I think I’ll go shake hands with the Mayor,” he said suddenly. “Is the latrine still where it use to be?”
“We never change nothing here,” Maureen said huskily. She grabbed Prew’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Cmon, Babyface. I’ll ‘introduce’ you around.”
Lorene serenely offered no resistance, as Maureen pulled him across the room and sat him in a chair and perched herself heavily on his lap.
“This heres Billy,” she said, nodding at the small, dark, Jewish nosed, feverish eyed girl who had been at the jukebox with the soldier when he came in and was now sitting on his lap.
She turned back to Prew. “Stark says you dears goin to stay all night. You got a bottle, Babyface?”
“Nope,” Prew said, still looking back across the room at Lorene. “No bottle. I thought they dint allow it anyway.”
“They dont,” Maureen said. “Anyplace. But most places they let an all night job sneak one in. Here the old bitch even enforces it on them. We could still sneak one while she’s out in the hall, though. If we had one, that is.”
“You dont like Mrs Kipfer, do you?”
“Like her,” Maureen said. “I love her. She kills me. If it wasnt for her I dont know what I’d do for laughs. Her and her stinking highclass ways, acting like she’s Mrs Stinking Astor.”
“How’d she ever get in this business anyway?”
“Like any of the rest of them. Started at the bottom and worked up to being foreman.”
“She’s got a damn good figure for it.”
“And thats all the good it’ll do you,” Maureen laughed. “You might as well try to make the Queen of England. Listen, Babyface,” she said. “You look artistic, Stark says you a bugler. Imagine something for me. Imagine having your own mother run the whorehouse you work in, can you?”
“No,” Prew said. “I cant.”
“Then you can see what I mean,” Maureen said. “About laughs.” She yawned, almost in his face, and stretched her thin arms. “Lets see,” she said. “Hows our introductions comin? Thats Sandra,” she said, pointing to the other girl who had been sitting with the two sailors when he came in and who was still with them now, a tall brunette who wrinkled her pert nose as she laughed gayly with the sailors, shaking the glistening cascade of long hair whenever she laughed, which was often.
“She’s proud of her long hair,” Maureen razzed, almost indifferently now, from force of habit. “She also says she’s a college grad, some coed school in the Middle West. She’s writin a novel now, about her life as a prostitute, suthin like this Call House Mistress book.”
“Yeah?” Prew grinned.
“Yeah,” Maureen said. “And them other three,” she said, pointing at the three fat, gum chewing ones, “are Moe, Larry, and Curly.”
Prew laughed out loud. “You’re a character yourself.”
Maureen stared at him quizzically. “I’m goin to buy them a checkerboard after Payday, if they promise to quit chewing gum. Theres four or five more back in the second waiting room, if you want to meet them too. But I wouldnt be surprised they all asleep.”
“Dont disturb them.”
“Why now, thank you. Dear,” Maureen said. “Thats sweet of you.”
“Dont mention it.”
“Well,” she said, “do you see anything you like? or not? I aint got all night.”
“I like them all. Especially Moe, Larry, and Curly,” he said, looking back across the room now at Lorene.
“The Princess is purty, aint she?” Maureen said.
“Oh,” he said. “So-so.”
“You mean you think she’ll do,” Maureen said. “You mean she’d be all right. In a pinch. A good hard pinch.”
“Thats it,” Prew said.
Maureen stood up suddenly and smoothed her dress.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Dear,” she minced. “I can plainly see I will be of no use to you much. I seem to lack that virginal quality so profitable in a good whore.”
“Nobody seems to like her around here,” Prew said. “Why is that?”
“Call it professional jealousy,” Maureen said. “For lack of a better name.
“Well,” she said, “much as I hate to dash off I am afraid you must allow me to tear myself away. Much as I adore your company, there is still business to attend to.
Minerva is opening the door to let someone in, and as Mother Kipfer says, business must come before pleasure.”
“Then dont let me detain you,” Prew said, “from your duty.” He grinned, flatly because all this had stopped being funny, but broadly because he liked this one and did not want to hurt her any more than he had to to get free of her.
She flashed him back a grin that understood his own completely, and he watched her teeter on her meatless hips across the room, walking on her spike heels like a small boy on stilts, humpily with the high thin shoulders swaying precariously; him feeling as he watched her a big, great sadness of inevitability like a bugle’s Taps. But underneath this, more urgent and more understandable, the thick chokiness in his throat again as he looked over at Lorene who still sat alone serenely waiting, his blood beating in his eyes because he was free to go back there now.
Then as he got up, from beyond Maureen’s head and shoulders in the doorway, he heard the great door thud shut and the bar drop back into its brackets and then, suddenly, the powerful Brooklynese voice of Pvt Angelo Maggio in all its triumphant glory.
“Well what do you know?” it said, booming in a high thin treble that was a very peculiar sound. “Look who’s here. If it aint my old friend, compatriot, comrade in arms, and Mess Sergeant, Sgt Stark. Fancy meeting you here, of all places in the world. I bet you never thought you’d see old Angelo here, by god, tonight,” the voice accused triumphantly. “Wheres my boy Prewitt?”
“How the hell did you manage to make it into town with money?” Stark’s voice wanted to know.
“Ah,” Maggio’s voice smirked. “It was nothing. It was simple. Anything for a friend, anything for a friend.”
The two of them came through the doorway, an arm around each other’s neck half drunkenly, past Maureen. Maggio pinched her on the bottom deliciously and said, “Hello, my love!” and Maureen laughed and pinched his ear and said “Angelo my Romeo!” Maggio loosed his arm and bowed and Prew saw Mrs Kipfer beaming in at Angelo from the entryway. Stark pulled him back erect and they came on, Angelo waving happily at everybody he could see, the conquering hero come home.