One to Count Cadence

by James Crumley

  “Aaiiieeee,” she giggled, taking her glasses off. “Take business to Chew Chi’s.” She sat her glasses back on her face as if they might protect her as Trick Two sat down.

  “Too early,” said a heart-faced girl behind the bar. Her smile exposed a front tooth circled in gold-fill which formed a small, white heart on her tooth. She and two other girls gave everyone a cold, thick San Miguel and a utilitarian tumbler of such thickness it might be used for anything from weapon to anchor — and it was. Beers were neatly poured, then Morning pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket, and began:

  “In so much as this is a world we didn’t make, filled with dangers we refuse to understand, we of Trick Two do hereby withdraw ourselves from the arms race, the space race, and the human race for these next three days; and being the finest of fellows, comrades and carousers, humbly raise our glasses in defiance and bow our heads in shame, and here do solemnly swear (or affirm) to drink until the moon falls from the heavens, the heavens on our heads, or we, fat chance, on our asses.

  “Agreed?”

  “Aye!”

  “I shall read the roll of the honored and infamous alike.”

  “Thomas Earl Novotny,” Morning intoned.

  “Aye,” growled Novotny, then stood and poured the beer down his throat.

  (Novotny, the cowboy, hated the Army so bad that when he made Specialist Fifth Class he would change out of uniform rather than eat in the NCO mess area. But he was a good soldier. Perhaps he just didn’t like people telling him what to do.)

  “John Christopher Cagle.” He choked halfway down, but finished his glass.

  (Cagle, the monkey, the dancer, the nervous mover. His father was a chaplain, a major in the Air Force who believed, according to Cagle, God to be a combination between General Eisenhower and General Motors. “That Great Used Car Salesman in the sky,” Cagle used to sing. He had been expelled from Indiana University his senior year for trying to break into the Kinsey Institute of Sexual Research’s pornographic collection, and had been in trouble ever since. The Company had long since given him up so long as he hurt no one but himself and his eyebrows. His greatest triumph came when he returned from thirty days’ leave in Japan. He stepped off the plane wearing a Japanese private’s uniform, carrying a samurai sword and sporting a goatee. But he never told anyone how he got on that plane.)

  “Doyle Quinn.”

  “Ha!” Quinn shouted, “Now the serious drinkin’ begins!” and tossed down his beer.

  (Quinn. His steady shack, Dottie the bowlegged whore, cared for him and hid his shoes so he would be faithful, but nothing worked, so she tried suicide from the second floor of a nipa hut and became Dottie the bowlegged whore. But none of this made the slightest impression on Quinn. He was a sly, dark Irishman from the City, tough and wild, never caring if the sun came up. A false tooth set in his jaw had been broken in a fight, leaving only the gray, metallic core, and Quinn didn’t bother to have it fixed. Born to streets and alleys, poverty and race riots, his laughter had acquired a stony, mocking edge to it which said, “I’ve seen the whole mess and I don’t give a shit for it, so let’s have another.”)

  “David Douglas Franklin.”

  “Ha!” he snorted and snarled like his idol, Quinn.

  (His parents thought they had brought the wrong baby home from the hospital, and in shame never had another. Mr. Franklin was a typewriter repairman and his wife cashiered in a restaurant in Bristol, Connecticut, and their son had an IQ upwards of immeasurability. They prevented him from reading until he was four by slapping the Reader’s Digest out of his hands. They thought he wanted to tear out the pages. They hid him in a back room when friends came to play bridge because he always won. Once they discovered that he wasn’t a freak, Franklin went on display throughout the neighborhood. He finished eight years of school in two, then missed four years because he wouldn’t go, then two more because he failed when they made him attend school, but managed to finish with his original class which was all he wanted, anyway. His father’s finest moment came as he decked the school psychologist for suggesting that the child might have family troubles. I once heard Franklin say, “I rather be dumb than have acne.”)

  Morning called the rest of the names, and they drank. Samuel Lloyd Levenson, the Jewish weasel, red-headed, freckle-faced, giggler, always naked in the barracks, but he would make it. William Frank Collins, he was called Mary, crewcut, pug-nosed American boy, mild segregationist, biology teacher, husband and father from Florida. Carl Milton Peterson, our kid, known as the Gray Ghoul for his thin, shallow face and mild manners, son of a Bemidji, Minnesota service station owner. Richard Dale Haddad, looked Jewish, had an Arabic name, but claimed to be Spanish, he was an operator, a big man in the blackmarket, balding at twenty-three like any other good young executive. Then Morning called my name, then his, and after he drank, he passed the list to me, and I called the names and we drank, and we all called the names until they answered no more.

  * * *

  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 delica
te 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.

  Then she flipped over and threw herself against me, her body skittering across mine, and clamped her mouth to mine, splitting my teeth with her tongue, her tiny hands clutching our faces together. I could feel the expectant hunch of her on my stomach, but she was too short to breach the gap. She sprayed kisses over my face, in my ears, warm and flickering like the summer rain. But her head crept slowly down my chest as her rocking crotch searched, found and took me as if I were the gift, and cradled me preciously. She sat up and back, her hands on my chest, and gave as much as she took.

  The motion was slow and easy for a time, graceful in her control, then faster. She closed her eyes, then bared her teeth, then faster, her hands sliding against my chest. And faster still, her toes dug into the mattress, riding in quick little punches. She grabbed my neck, pulled my face to her, to the small hot slaps of her breasts. My body bent in a circle, a hard, fleshy ring around her, and she the tiny missing link completing the arc — and she pumped like a runner’s heart. I understood about the silver, the quick sliding silver, and that single hoping arm reached and all my blood fled to my feet in the wake of her motion, then exploded up the aching chimneys of my legs.

  I lay empty, only now aware of her greedy contracting spasms, wondering if she had really had a climax. (In the months to come I understood that she always did, and always would. She liked to fuck. She wasn’t obsessed with it, or manic about it, she just liked it. She was obsessed with movies. She always cried afterwards, thinking GIs expected it. I never heard one complain, though, now that I think about it. Maybe she knew more than we thought.)

  I woke when she climbed off the bed. Her eyes were puffy, but she smiled like a child on her birthday.

  “I ride on top,” she said, ” ‘Cause… cause you too… big.” She meant heavy. “And so you can watch in mirror.”

  My back ached, I was nearly raw and my head still hurt, but it had been a long time since I felt quite so good. I had forgotten how nice love without complications can be.

  “I forgot to look,” I said from the bed, watching her prop one foot on the wall and pee in the sink. I had to laugh.

  “You should look,” she said when she finished. “Room is fifty centavos more for mirror.” She turned around. “How come you laugh?”

  “Because you’re beautiful.”

  “You put me on.”

  “No. Never.”

  “TDY not pretty.”

  “No. But you’re beautiful.”

  “What you mean?”

  “Beautiful like God, like an angel.”

  “Shame,” she said, but she smiled.

  “And I promise to look in the mirror next time.” She laughed.

  As I dressed an afternoon thunder shower flashed heavy rain in the sun. I opened the shutters, and smoked, waiting. The rain eased into large, splattering drops against the bright washed green of the vine, then ended with a roll of thunder like applause after a fine performance, and TDY and I left.

  The world sparkled, spotless in the slanted rays of the sun. Water splashed like laughter from the glimmering puddles in the bronze street as calesa ponies sauntered past, and beggar boys marveled at the tickling ooze of mud between their toes as shy-eyed gum-and-flower girls disapproved from shaded doorways. They were happ
y, so easily impressed by a passing storm. Even TDY giggled and danced around me, splattering my unconcerned pants.

  * * *

  “What took you so long, man,” Morning asked as TDY and I met Novotny, Quinn, Cagle and him on our way to the apartment.

  “He sleep long time,” TDY answered for me.

  “Not too long, I bet, with that little Indian around,” Novotny said, laughing. Quinn reared his head, rolled his eyes and spit wild snorts of laughter after the racing black clouds. Cagle grinned sleepily, then shut his eyes and leaned against the wall.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And thanks, too. I think I’ll pass out again…”

  “That’s for sure,” Quinn interrupted.

  “… so I can wake up all over.”

  “She’s something else,” Morning said, rubbing his hand down her back and across the pout of her butt. “Pure silver under there. Pure.” TDY laughed and arched against his hand, purred and tilted back her head. Morning asked if she wanted a beer.

  “I go home, Joe. Clean up house,” she said. “See you Mr. Moustache,” she said, switching her butt against my leg. She pulled one end of it. “You tickle pussy sometime, huh?” She giggled and skipped down the street.

  “Okay, where’s home for that sweet little girl?” I asked. “Just in case you guys aren’t around when I ah, pass out.”

  “She keeps the apartment for us,” Morning explained. “We bought her.”

  “Like a vacuum cleaner?”

  “No, man, like a maid.” Morning said that TDY had been a calesa-girl, the lowest class whore, and Haddad had fucked her one night, realized what a gold mine she was, and convinced the Trick to buy her from the pimp she belonged to. Haddad provided the financing for half of his usual ten percent, persuaded TDY, then installed her a maid-of-all-tricks in the apartment which the Trick already rented in Town. The Trick kept her in food, clothes and money. She in turn kept the place clean and was available to any member without clap, when she wasn’t at the movies. No one ever made her miss a movie. Cagle had tried once, and she cut him off for a month.