It was approaching eleven-thirty when I pulled into the lot which had seemed oversize to me when I drove by that afternoon but right now was jampacked. I had no easy time finding a parking place and settled for one a good walk from the door and counted myself lucky. As I neared the building I heard rock music faintly and then the door opened and as some people came out so did the music, loud but not too loud and well-played by a live combo of drum-bass-guitar.
I was relieved to hear rock rather than country western, and not from my being a supporter or detractor of either cause, but because my experience has been that rock bars run to fewer fights than country western. I don’t really know why. It almost seems the more violent the music, the less violent the crowd. And with the rock bar’s younger patrons you’ll sometimes find a moderate amount of parking lot pot-smoking going on which can make for a scattering of sleepy happy people who seem to spread gentle, passive vibrations through a crowd; in a country bar a similar scattering of drunken unhappy people can send a wave of irritation through a crowd that can result in anything from a scuffle to a brawl.
Which was why when I’d driven around town this afternoon, I kept my eyes open for a place like Bunny’s. A place where I could sit and drink and get quietly drunk and maybe pick up some broad who didn’t have hair sprayed into a style that died in 1961 everywhere else but Iowa.
Wouldn’t have done to choose too high class a bar, either, like the hotel cocktail lounge or something of that sort. Too much chance I could get cornered by some Port City V.I.P. who might get friendly about why-ya-in-town and what-business-ya-in, or worse yet, some Chamber of Commerce smiler full of talk/shit. None of that would do. I wanted to be invisible.
Like my mark was invisible. Like Albert Leroy. That was his name, the mark. Albert Leroy. The man who wore a gray sweater in the summer and got his rocks off watching a Little League ballgame at the park and drinking a soda at the drugstore.
It didn’t make sense, it didn’t make fucking sense. Invisible people nobody wants to kill. Sometimes—like in my case—you get invisible because you want nobody to notice you. But other guys are born that way. Other guys the doctors yank from the womb and can’t see an ass to slap.
This was working on my mind as I walked into Bunny’s. This and the way Boyd was acting, the little things out on the edges of the way Boyd was behaving, the little things out on the borders of the job that made no logical sense.
But sometimes there isn’t anything you can do about a situation. Except forget about it. And go out and get drunk. Or laid. Or both. And hopefully that was what I’d get done at Bunny’s.
Bunny’s was two establishments masquerading as one. Two very different dens of iniquity shared a common roof and served two crowds who peacefully coexisted, thanks to having the bar half in the front of the building, where everything was smoky windows and rock music and laughter and noise, and the quiet cocktail lounge-restaurant area in the back half, separated by a little anteroom that housed joint toilet facilities for both worlds and kept the loudness of the bar out of the lounge and included a side entry for those who wished to totally avoid exposure to the rougher element.
But my first impression was of the bar section, which served that younger, wilder set, with the rock band playing against the wall to my left on a postage-stamp platform in front of a postage-stamp dance floor that was full of moving bodies, with chairs and tiny tables and people all bunched close in listening to the combo and swilling down beer. Everyone was dressed casually, almost sloppy in a careless, campus sort of way, blue jeans everywhere you looked, and the only person in the room who didn’t fit the college-age, college-look was the blonde.
The blonde was sitting in the corner, with a table to herself next to the stage, her eyes on the drummer of the rock combo. She’d been given more breathing room than anyone else around, perhaps out of respect to her beauty. Turned-up nose, flashing white teeth, long-lashed big blue eyes. Hair white blond and patently unreal but beautiful in a plastic sort of way. Stacked but petite. The best overall-one-word description for her was “cute,” but she bore her cuteness in an aloof, almost disdainful way. She was smoking and wearing a dark blue pants suit, the top half of which was folded across her lap and a fuzzy baby blue short-sleeve sweater caressed her bosom; that she wasn’t wearing a bra was obvious, as her nipples were showing through and it was like her breasts were thumbing their noses at all the men in the room. She had a worldliness about her; a subtle hardness in the unlined face that let you know she was older than she at first appeared, that she was a broad over thirty stuck with a lovely but incongruous sixteen-year-old Lolita of a face.
I wanted her.
But then so did every other man in the place, and some of the women too, I supposed. I shrugged to myself and looked around and saw the sign over the double push doors to the left of the bar saying, “To Bunny’s Lounge.” I walked through the doors and into the anteroom and on to the lounge, and it was like walking into another dimension.
The lounge was all reds and browns, the lights low and red-tinted, the walls brown-paneled wood, the carpet a lush, soft red, soft to look at, soft to walk on. The tables in here were just as small but far more spread out, and set mostly for two, occasionally for four. An intimate room, for couples who wanted to be by themselves, maybe eat a quiet meal, sip a few drinks before slinking off to bed somewhere. There were a couple of couples going through such preliminaries right now. Otherwise I had the place to myself.
The kitchen was off to the back, and was probably nothing lavish. Anyway the menu wasn’t, just a modest assortment of steaks, a few seafoods, a few sandwiches, all priced medium to medium high. The hostess, a pretty brunette in a dark pants suit, informed me when she seated me that it was too late in the evening to get a dinner, and nothing was now being served but sandwiches and of course cocktails. I ordered an open face steak sandwich that came with french fries and iced tea and also ordered a gimlet.
I took my time with the food, enjoying the music that was being piped in, Ramsey Lewis-type low-key jazzy Muzak, and only faintly could I hear the pulse of the rock going on in the other room. I sipped my gimlet and then sipped three more and I was feeling good when I left.
Back in the anteroom I stood in my happy glow and happened to notice the wall facing me. I hadn’t seen it when I first came through, as it had been to my back, but the wall was covered by framed pictures. I studied them and realized why the place was called Bunny’s. The pictures were of a pretty, well-built blonde greeting people at the door of one of the Playboy Clubs, with one double-frame showing off two pages from an old Playboy, from one of their “Bunnies of Chicago” spreads. The pretty blonde was in two pictures at the bottom of the double-page spread, one of them in her Bunny threads greeting, another a discreet nude pose, with the girl in bed, mostly covered and wrapped in pink sheets, though one exposed breast, also pink, peeked out at the side. The write-up between the pictures described the blonde as “Pert Peg Baker, cornfed gal from Port City, a dot on the Iowa map,” and went on to say the twenty-year-old girl had gone to high school and junior college in her home town, then trekked to the big city for fame and fortune. The spread came from a Playboy of at least a decade ago, and I vaguely remembered seeing it then. The blonde in the picture was, as you’ve guessed, that same blonde who was sitting aloof in the bar, and was no doubt the exception to the you-can’t-come-home-again rule, as this ex-Bunny had made something out of her small potatoes Playboy fame and fortune.
So I went out to take another long look at her, where she still sat in the corner, watching the combo drummer. I found a stool at the bar and kept watching. I was working a beer down in there among the gimlets and a voice said, “She’s something, isn’t she?”
I looked at him. He was around thirty, kind of bland-looking, short hair, sport coat; like me, he was one of the few business-types in the crowd. I said, “Huh?”
He said, “I said, uh, she sure is something.”
“She’s something.”
/>
“You passing through Port City?”
“Yeah. “
“Salesman?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.” He gulped at his beer and nodded toward the blonde. “I asked around about her.”
‘‘Oh.’’
“She owns this place. Her and another guy own it, anyway. “
“I figured that.”
“Oh, you saw the pictures?”
“Yeah.”
“Good-looking chick. I’d sure like to get some of that.”
“Why don’t you try?”
“Already did.”
“Oh.”
“Zilch, man. Struck out royal.”
“A shame.”
“Yeah, and they told me she puts out.”
“Maybe she’s particular.’’
“Guess with her looks she can afford to be particular.”
“Looks like she’s got a man,” I said, gesturing toward the stage where the band was playing. “For tonight anyway.’’
“Yeah, the drummer, yeah I noticed her looking at him. She and him were talking during the break, When I asked around about her they said she likes younger guys.” He paused. “Hell, I’m just thirty-one. You figure that’s old?”
“No.”
“But I guess it isn’t young either. Hell. She’s nice.”
“She’s nice all right.”
“Younger guys, sheesh. She looks young herself, to me.”
“Not if you look close.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well I guess she would be in her thirties at that. Those Bunny pictures were from a while back.”
“Right.”
“Whatever, she’s nice. Nice stuff.”
“Nice stuff.”
“Well. I’ll see you.”
“See you.”
The guy finished his beer and took off and I stood and watched her some more. I never did get eye contact with her. I wondered if she knew I was watching. I ordered another beer. I wondered if I could get near her. I wondered if that was wise, considering she was probably real well-known around town. I nibbled at the beer. I wondered how she was in bed.
13
* * *
* * *
I WOKE UP the next morning around noon, a sour film lining my mouth, a sour mood lining my brain. The hangover was heavy in me, like thick fluid, and that irritated me. And the bed I woke up in was my own, and that irritated me too. Last night my goal had been to get drunk and laid, and while one out of two may not be bad, tell that to a guy the morning after.
The night before, however, had been something else again. I came home to the YMCA, feeling no pain but still the captain of my own ship—well, first mate, anyway. My hormones were pretty much in check from my bout with Helen what’s-her-name back at the Howard Johnson’s yesterday, and I’d gotten a certain satisfaction out of just standing and mentally feeling up Bunny of Bunny’s. I don’t think Boyd crossed my mind once, or the mark, Albert Leroy, either. Not right then anyway.
To show you how much in control I was, I managed to remember there was no can in my room, that my only source for relief was the communal john on the Y’s dormitory floor where mine and all the other “apartments” were. My bladder was near explosion point and as I pushed open the door and flicked on the light switch, I heard a chorus of voices say, “Hey!” “Watch it!” “What the fuck!”
Automatically I flicked the light switch back off and was wheeling back out the door, my mind clouded but alert enough to know something stunk in Denmark. If I carried a gun, I might’ve reacted real bad. But I don’t, so I didn’t.
Then I got the picture. Quite literally.
On the wall of the large john-room were the silvery, flickering images of a film. A woman in a dark wig and nothing else was sitting on the edge of a bed; she had fleshy thighs and was spreading them, bountiful droopy breasts staring downward at the action. There was no sound, other than that of the eight-millimeter projector clicking and clacking away and some scattered hard breathing from the audience, which I gathered was made up of five or six fellow YMCA residents. Sitting on the floor of the can of the Young Men’s Christian Association, digging the porno.
I laughed and went back outside, getting my key from out my pocket. I was almost down to my room when I heard a voice from behind me say, “Hey man! Hey, Johnson!”
That was the name I was registered under. I turned and said, “Yeah?”
It was the bearded guy, the youngish Gabby Hayes who had checked me in. And by young I mean somewhere between twenty-five and forty, don’t ask me where.
“Say, man,” he said, “go on back in the john and do what you have to.”
I laughed again and said, “Never mind. You boys scared the piss right out of me.”
“That doesn’t offend you, does it?”
“Offend me?”
“Those pornies, I mean. Look, everybody here on the floor knows about it, and I only show ’em because the guys enjoy it. They pitch in and I send for the stuff in the mail. From the back of the men’s mags. I don’t hardly make a cent on it, honest to Christ.”
“Hey. No big deal.”
“No, but it is. I’d get fired if anybody reported this. If any of the guys staying here don’t approve, fine, I’ll stop showing ’em. So if you don’t like it, please say so, okay?”
“Listen, I don’t really care one way or the other.”
He smiled, nodded his shaggy head. “You’re all right, Johnson.”
“Thanks. Look, I wouldn’t mind taking a shower before I turn in. How much longer does the Bijou go on in there?”
“Should be over in five minutes. Can you hold out that long?”
“Sure.”
“Look, I’ll come down to your room and knock when I’ve got everybody out of the john, okay?”
I nodded.
Ten minutes later I was sitting on the bed, shoes off, rubbing my feet, and the knock came-at the door. I got up and opened it and Gabby said, “All clear.”
“Fine.”
“You wouldn’t care for a nightcap, would you?”
If I hadn’t been drunk, it might’ve occurred to me that maybe this guy had in him some of what Boyd was. But I was drunk. So I said, “I already had more than I need, but . . . what the hell.”
“Fine. Come on.”
He had a bottle of whiskey, I didn’t notice what kind, which he poured over ice from a little cooler he kept in one corner of his room. He used water glasses and poured them three-quarters full; a refill would be unnecessary. I sat at the chair at the desk-dresser and he sat on the bed.
“Thanks for understanding about the movies.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not that I’m a sex maniac or anything.”
“Sure.”
“Or those other guys either. It’s just something to do.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Sure.”
“You understand then. That’s good. That’s real good. Because I don’t want anybody getting the wrong impression.”
“Yeah.”
“You a salesman, or what?”
“Yeah.”
“You got a wife?”
“No.”
“Girl friend?”
“A few.”
“More than one, huh? Girl in every port?”
“Here and there.”
“Anything steady?”
“No.”
“Take my advice. Get somebody steady. Listen to me. I’m older than I look, you know. I ran away from home when I was a kid.”
I was too drunk to notice how contrite the guy was getting. If I’d looked at him close I probably would’ve seen tears in his eyes. But I didn’t look at him.
I concentrated on my drinking and several minutes went by before I realized he’d been talking quite a while, talking about God knows what. He was saying, “ . . . bummed around a long time. My folks were dead and buried before I ever
got back home. I was bumming before it was popular. I hitchhiked when it was a way of life, not a damn fad. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sure.”
“No you don’t. You don’t know what I’m saying. You don’t know why I show movies to those guys either.”
“Sure I do.”
“No. You don’t know why I asked you for a drink.”
“Yeah I do.”
“What then?”
“You don’t want to lose your job. You want to make sure I’m okay.”
“You’re okay, I know you’re okay. That’s maybe part of it, I guess, making sure you’re okay, but you still don’t know, do you?”
“Sure I do.”
“You’re a salesman, you say?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Five years.”
“You’re young yet. You thirty?”
“No.”
“You’re young yet. Get another job.”
“What?”
“Get off the road.”
“What?”
“Find somebody. Find some woman. Or somebody.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. If you don’t, you know what happens?”
“No.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Tell me.”
“You wake up old.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right. And you find yourself old and alone and in a room and you die that way.”
I looked at him. For a moment he was Albert Leroy. Sitting on that bed and wearing a gray sweater with diamond shapes on it. For an icy instant he was my mark.
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