the Bar Studs)

by Levinson, Len

  “It’s kind of you to say that, sir.”

  “You’re an honest, hard-working man. You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

  John smiled. “I doubt that, sir.”

  “It’s the truth. Do you know’ what I do for a living, John?”

  “You have a law firm, sir.”

  “That’s right, and I’ve spent my life keeping people out of jail who really belonged in jail.”

  “Everyone’s entitled to a fair trial, sir.”

  Mr. Wilson chuckled sarcastically. “You’re like a child, John. Suffer little children to come unto me, for thine is the kingdom of heaven. Do you know what that means?”

  “It means that Jesus thought children were special, sir.”

  “No, John. It means that the less you know, the happier you can be.”

  John wrinkled his brow. “I never thought of it that way.”

  Mr. Wilson drained his glass, set it down, and almost tipped it over. His eyes were glazed and his face puffy. “It’s good that you don’t think too much about things, John, my friend. I wish I didn’t think so much.”

  “But you have to think, Mr. Wilson. You have to defend your clients in court.”

  “They’re a bunch of crooks and lowlifes. I detest them.”

  “I suspect you’re a little depressed, sir, but you’ll get over it by morning.”

  “I suspect you’re right.”

  The bellboy, a stout Hispanic man, entered the bar and approached Mr. Wilson. “We have a cab waiting, sir.”

  “Help me stand up there, Pancho.”

  John watched as the bellboy curled his fat arm around Mr. Wilson’s frail chest and helped him off the stool. They walked together toward the door, Mr. Wilson’s long legs wobbly and stumbling.

  “John!”

  “Yes sir.” It was Mr. Dunwoodie again. John walked toward him, forming his bartender’s smile. “More champagne, sir?”

  “No, John. Miss Winchester and I have just decided that we’d like you to attend our wedding.” From his shirt pocket he pulled out a silver pen and a notepad covered with black Moroccan leather. “Would you tell me your home address, please?”

  As John related the information he realized with satisfaction that the Dunwoodie-Winchester wedding would be a significant social event in New York, and that it would be a very great honor to attend.

  Chapter Three

  Adrian slept with his arms around Julie, whose satin back was curved into the front hollow of his body. The dark bedroom was at the rear of the building and only faint sounds of Seventh Avenue traffic could be heard.

  After they had been sleeping for almost two hours there was an additional sound, that of the steel door at the front of the stairs being unlocked and opened. A figure in a long coat stealthily climbed the stairs, entered the office, crossed the kitchen and dining room, and paused at the door to the bedroom. Slowly and silently the door was pushed open, the figure tiptoed to the bed, and looked down for several minutes at Adrian and Julie sleeping together. A sliver of moonlight fell on Sandra Goldstein’s angry face as she reached out and flicked on the lamp beside the bed.

  The light didn’t affect Julie, but Adrian stirred.

  “Get up, you lying son-of-a-bitch!”

  Not yet awake and trying to avoid the light, Adrian buried his face in Julie’s long brown hair.

  “I said get up!” Sandra lost control of herself and savagely whacked the back of her hand across Adrian’s ear. “Get up and get out!”

  Adrian awakened abruptly, and with the instinct of one who had spent time in prison, lunged at Sandra, snatching her wrists in his hands. Then he saw it was she, let go, and fell back against his pillow. “Oh-oh,” he murmured, wiping his face with his right hand.

  Julie opened her eyes, perceived, and made ready to defend herself, since that necessity appeared imminent.

  Sandra’s blood boiled and sputtered in her veins as she stood with her hands on her hips and her torso bent forward. “I want you to get out of here, Adrian,” she said in a tremulous voice, “and I never want to see you again!”

  Adrian felt nauseated. He wanted to apologize and try to explain, but that would be humiliating. “Right now?”

  “Right now!”

  He shrugged nonchalantly, unwilling to let his feelings show. “Would you go to the other room so we can get dressed?”

  Sandra turned, left the room, and slammed the door behind her.

  Adrian looked at Julie. “Well, get your clothes on, kid.”

  When she pushed back the covers he saw her supple body and smelled the scent of their lovemaking.

  “She’s pretty mad, huh?” Julie asked as she got out of bed. “Do you think it might help if I explained to her that we really don’t mean too much to each other?”

  Adrian frowned. Sandra was throwing him out, and now Julie told him he didn’t mean anything to her. “That wouldn’t do any good.” He got out of bed with her and they dressed.

  “Do you have anyplace to go?” Julie asked.

  “Not at four-thirty in the morning. I’ll find a hotel someplace.”

  “You wanna stay at my place?”

  “Do you live alone?”

  “My roommate’s Cindy Johnson, the black waitress.”

  “She won’t mind?”

  “No, I’ve put up with a lot of her boyfriends.” Julie closed her eyes and shook her head. “Gee, Adrian, I’m awfully sorry about this. It’s all my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault, so forget it.” He tucked his chambray shirt into his pants.

  “Do you think you can make up with her?”

  “Fuck her.-” His shock was becoming anger. How could Sandra mistrust him enough to come all the way downtown in the middle of the night to check up on him?

  He opened the door and in his bare feet stormed into the living room, where Sandra was smoking a cigarette and pacing back and forth. She wore her long suede coat and blue slacks with big cuffs.

  He pointed his finger at her face. “You know, you’ve got a lot of fucking nerve busting in on me like this!”

  Her lips trembled. “You bastard, you lie and cheat on me and now it’s my fault for finding out?”

  “I told you that you don’t own me!”

  “All I ever wanted from you was a little loyalty and respect, but you’re evidently not capable of it! All right—if you like little hippie girls so much you can have them, but you can’t have me and the bar, too!”

  “That’s okay with me! I’m sick of your bullshit anyway!”

  She tried to staunch her tears. “You’re just a bum of a bartender and I don’t know what I ever saw in you!”

  “Maybe you’ll remember after I’m gone!” He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his keys, threw them at her, and returned to the bedroom.

  The keys hit her on the stomach and fell to the floor. Her vision became blurred with tears as she bent over to pick them up. It was all over. She couldn’t believe it was all over.

  Julie was buttoning her shirt. “Looks like I’m out of work again,” she said philosophically.

  “You won’t be the only one.”

  Adrian finished pressing, laced on his suede desert boots, and pulled a brown leather suitcase out of the closet. He packed underwear, stockings, his other pair of corduroy slacks, a thick off-white woolen sweater, a few toilet articles, and the two pounds of marijuana he had stashed in the closet. From a wooden coat hanger he took his old Navy pea jacket; he pushed his arms through the sleeves and turned up the collar. “You ready?”

  “My coat’s downstairs.” Her face was pale and her hair tousled. Adrian thought she looked like a child who had just broken a dish.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  In the living room Sandra smoked her second cigarette and sat on the end of the sofa, a ball of wet tissues in her right hand.

  Adrian stood before her, his luggage in one hand and his other in the pea coat pocket. “I’ll come back to pick up the rest of my thing
s,” he told her. He wished this wasn’t happening.

  “Make arrangements with my secretary.” She didn’t even look up at him.

  Adrian turned and walked to the office, with Julie following close behind him. They descended the stairs and entered the restaurant kitchen, where Adrian waited in the darkness while Julie went to the adjacent room and picked her long purple coat off its hanger. Then they walked alongside the bar to the front door and went outside. On the sidewalk Adrian looked back at the bar that bore his name, and shook his head ruefully. He blew it all for a piece of ass.

  “You look pretty miserable,” Julie said as they walked to Sheridan Square. “Are you mad at me?”

  “I’m mad at myself.”

  She hooked her arm in his. “Well, you shouldn’t be. It’s better to be free than on the leash of a fat old lady.”

  “She’s only thirty-eight.”

  “That’s too old for you. You need somebody young and alive like me.” She smiled proudly and turned her face up to him.

  He kissed her nose. “If you say so.”

  “You can stay with me as long as you like and I won’t put you on any leash.”

  On Sheridan Square they found an obese black cabdriver asleep behind his wheel. Adrian knocked on the window. “You working?”

  “Where you wanna go?”

  Adrian looked at Julie. “Tell him.”

  “Three twenty-one East Ninth Street.”

  “Get in.”

  They rode across town on West Fourth Street, passing Washington Square Park on their left. Street lamps glared on the bare branches of trees and bushes, bums lay on benches or the ground, and playground apparatus looked spidery and weird in the shadows. Adrian sat with his knees high in the air and his feet on the suitcase, looking around morosely. He missed his large comfortable apartment already, and he had liked Sandra. He realized he’d really fucked up this time. When they reached Third Avenue and entered the East Village he saw vagrants and winos hanging around street corners or sitting on tenement stoops, and he was assailed by his old fear that he would become an old bum some day. He had been raised in an orphanage, had been his own last resort throughout his life, and knew how deep the bottom was. He regretted playing games with Sandra; it was just plain foolish.

  Julie’s block was lined with decrepit tenement buildings, and a bum was fast asleep on the sidewalk near her stoop.

  “Here we are,” Julie said cheerily. “Home sweet home.”

  Adrian paid and tipped the cabbie, and pulled out his suitcase. Julie walked up the steps of the stoop.

  “The place is a little messy,” she said. “I didn’t realize my boss would be moving in with me.”

  “I’m not your boss anymore.”

  “You can always be my boss.”

  Her apartment was on the third floor and had been a railroad flat before someone knocked down all the walls except one, which concealed the bedroom. The main room was now a spacious hall filled with cheap, flimsy furniture and decorated with posters fixed to the walls with masking tape. It looked disorderly and dirty, and smelled of cheap incense.

  “Here it is,” she said, locking the door behind them. “It ain’t much but it’s all I got.”

  He set down his suitcase and looked around. “You live here long?”

  “About a year and a half. I had an old man but he split for the Coast a few months ago, and then Cindy moved in. She’s probably in there with Jeff.” Julie pointed at the bedroom door.

  “Where are we going to sleep?”

  “In there. My ex-old man left me his king-size waterbed. We can all fit on it.”

  “All in the same bed?”

  “Why not?” She snapped her fingers and rolled her eyes. “These are the Swinging Seventies, Daddy—let it all hang out!”

  Adrian shrugged. “I don’t give a shit.” But he did.

  Julie took off her shoes, opened the door of the bedroom, and tiptoed in. Adrian did the same and followed her. He should have had more sense than fuck Julie in his apartment knowing Sandra had keys and might check up on him.

  Julie pointed to the solitary figure sleeping on the huge waterbed. “Cindy’s alone,” she whispered.

  Adrian nodded, looking around in the darkness. The bedroom was small, its walls were painted a dark color, and the waterbed occupied most of the floor space. Girls’ clothing and underwear were strewn over two wooden chairs, the dresser, and the floor, the musty odor from these garments comingling with the smell of perfumes and cosmetics. He saw Julie undressing, throwing her clothes over a chair, and he began to unbutton his shirt. When she was naked she sat on the waterbed, causing Cindy to roll as if she were floating on the ocean. Adrian stepped out of his pants and approached the bed.

  “You’ve got to take your shorts off,” Julie whispered. “It’s a rule of the house.”

  As Adrian pushed them down, Cindy rolled over and groaned. “That you, baby?”

  “It’s me,” Julie said.

  “Who’s that?” Cindy rubbed her eyes.

  “Adrian.”

  “Adrian from the bar?”

  “Yes.” Julie stretched out on the bed.

  With a jolt Cindy sat up and watched Adrian walk naked to the bed. “Hi, Adrian.”

  “Hello, Cindy. Fancy meeting you here.” He sat on the bed and looked at her.

  “I, don’t want to get personal or nothin’ like that,” Cindy said, “and I don’t want you to feel like you’re not welcome, but what in hell are you doing here?”

  Julie answered for him. “His fat old lady caught us fucking and threw us out. Now we’re all out of work, him included.”

  “You’re spoofin’ me.”

  “I wish I was.”

  Adrian lay beside Julie. “I wish she was, too.”

  “Well,” Cindy said brightly, “we can all go to the unemployment office on Monday and sign up together.” She nudged Julie with her elbow. “So you finally got him, huh? Was he any good?” She smiled lasciviously.

  “He was real good. He even went down on me.”

  Cindy looked over at Adrian. “You did?”

  “I did.”

  “I think that’s wonderful!” Cindy exclaimed. “Hey, why don’t you sleep in the middle, Adrian?”

  Adrian looked at Julie, uncertain of what to do.

  “Go ahead,” Julie said. “We share everything in this house. It’s another one of the rules.”

  The girls tittered and the bed rocked as Adrian crawled between them and lay back. They snuggled against him, Julie’s now familiar body on his right, and Cindy’s tall firm body on his left. Against each of his thighs he could feel their pubic hair.

  “What happened to your old man?” Julie asked Cindy.

  “We had a fight and I threw him out.”

  “What did you fight about?”

  “I don’t know, I was gettin’ tired of him, I guess. I saw my ex-old man Perce tonight and that started me thinkin’. I’m gonna call him tomorrow. Hey, what’s this?” She closed her fingers around Adrian’s new erection.

  “What’s what?” Julie asked.

  “This.” She wiggled Adrian’s cock under the sheet.

  Julie touched it with her fingers. “Oh-oh. Looks like Daddy’s ready to go again.”

  “Do you mind if I help him out?”

  “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with him.”

  “You mind?” Cindy asked Adrian.

  “If it’s okay with her it’s okay with me.”

  Waves crashed back and forth under the thick vinyl as Cindy straddled him and stroked his cock back and forth in the crack of her snatch. “How does that feel?” she asked.

  “Real good.” But he thought too much was happening too fast.

  Julie squeezed against him and licked his ear. “Looks like we’re going to be one big happy family here,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Johnny Mash was awakened shortly before one o’clock in the afternoon by the sensation of being blown. Sunlight streaked
through the Venetian blinds and he looked down to see Dorothy Simmons on her knees beside him, holding his cock with one hand while sliding her mouth up and down. They were on the opened sofabed in the middle of her studio apartment.

  He ran his fingers through her curly black hair. “What do you think you’re doin’?” he asked, a note of menace in his voice.

  She raised her head, and her lips were red from the friction. “The same thing I did last night.”

  “You shouldn’t do things like that without askin’ permission first. What the hell do you think I am, a Popsicle?”

  She smiled. “Well, can I?”

  “Can you what?”

  “Suck your prick?”

  He laughed, slapping the backs of his hands against the mattress. “Go ahead, kid—knock yourself out. It’s Sunday and I feel generous.” Johnny Mash relaxed as she stuffed his cock in her mouth again and began sucking. “You’re gettin’ to be a pretty good blowjob artist,” he told her. “You could probably even make money at it.”

  He came in her mouth and afterwards they screwed for about an hour in a variety of positions, he coming once more and she three times that he could count. Then she excused herself and walked to the bathroom to take a shower. When Johnny Mash heard the rush of water he got out of bed and quickly dressed himself, smoothing down his thick black hair before the dresser mirror. Directly below the mirror was her brown leather handbag, and there was no point asking for a loan if he didn’t have to.

  He opened the brown leather pocketbook, saw a black wallet inside, and pulled it out. In its bill compartment were eighty-five dollars, not as much as he expected. He left her a five-dollar bill and took the rest, folding the money into his pocket with tips he’d received the night before. Inserting the wallet back into her pocketbook, he noticed her wristwatch lying beside a cosmetic jar. He returned the pocketbook to its spot and picked up the wristwatch, bringing it close to his eyes. It was a Longines with diamonds where the numerals should be, and the case and bracelet were 14 karat white gold. He dropped the watch into the pocket of his leather jacket, walked to the door, and left Dorothy Simmons’ apartment.

  He walked to Nathan’s on Sixth Avenue, bought a slice of cheesecake and cup of coffee at the counter, and breakfasted standing against one of the high tables. The large cafeteria was full of Sunday afternoon winos and junkies and he watched the two husky black guards throw out the ones who’d finished eating but were loitering.