by Gore Vidal
“I guess,” said Collins with a wink, “that Anne will be Jim’s date. If that’s all right.”
Emily laughed and both of them watched her breasts shake. “Why, if it’s all right with you, it is with me.” And she looked at Collins, lips parted seductively. Then she turned to Jim. “I’m sure you’ll like Anne. She’s a lot of fun.”
The Alhambra was a large dance hall on a side street, with a bright neon sign which flashed on and off above the mock-Moorish door.
Inside, the hall was crowded and dim. A small band played swing.
A gray-haired woman in a black evening dress led them to a table. Collins greeted her warmly. She looked at him blankly and left.
“Old friend of mine,” said Collins. “I used to come in here a lot last year. She always remembers me.”
A waiter came over and after a short discussion they ordered rye. Meanwhile, Emily made an unconscionable amount of conversation. “I expect to see Anne any minute now. She’s the fastest dresser I’ve ever seen for a woman. And then we live just a few blocks from here.”
“Yes?” Collins was alert.
“Just a few blocks,” repeated Emily. Then: “Anne is really such a clever girl. Why, she even used to do modeling work.”
“She must be real pretty,” said Jim, forcing excitement.
Emily nodded. “Anne is good-looking. She’s one of the most popular girls in the office. She and I date together all the time and I’m sure that the fellow with me is always wishing he was with Anne.” This was an excellent opening for Collins to protest. He protested. Emily continued. “She’s younger than I am. She’s twenty and I’m twenty-two. How old are you, Colly?”
“Twenty-five,” lied Collins and he pulled his chair nearer hers.
Emily looked at Jim. “I’ll bet you are not a day over twenty,” she said with a grin.
Jim nodded solemnly. “That’s right.” Now that false ages had been established all around, the evening assumed direction.
Finally, Anne arrived. She was small and thin and she wore a brown dress. She looked about her uncertainly until she saw Emily. Then she hurried over, smiling, posing. Emily introduced everybody and then, as she was a little drunk, she introduced everybody a second time. This proved funny.
While Anne laughed, Jim decided that she was indeed pretty, though nearer thirty than twenty. Not that it made the slightest difference to him.
“And so you’re Jim,” said Anne after she had taken a drink and the excitement of her entrance was gone.
“That’s right. Emily’s been telling us a lot about you.”
“Flattering, I hope?” At times Anne sounded like an English movie actress. Like her friend, she had a good deal of small talk.
“We work in an office in a department store. I file things and Emily types and does things like that. Are you from the South?”
He nodded and she made up a funny sentence with “you-all” in it and everybody laughed and then Emily and Collins got up from the table and announced that they were going to dance. So Jim invited Anne and all four of them went out onto the dance floor. Jim made an effort to dance well. There were so many things to be proved this evening.
Anne pressed close to him, her cheek against his; he could smell powder and soap and perfume. Once he looked down at her and saw that her eyes were closed.
Collins came by with Emily. “Hey, Jim,” he said. Anne opened her eyes and Jim moved a few inches away from her.
“Yes?” said Jim.
“Emily here’s suggested we go over to their place for a while. They’ve got liquor over there and a radio and we can dance where it won’t be so crowded.”
“That’s a good idea, Emily,” said Anne brightly.
They went back to their table, paid the check, gathered coats, and left the Alhambra. Though the night was cold, Jim was sweating from whiskey.
In a side street they stopped before a small apartment house. Emily opened the door. At the top of two flights of clean and carpeted stairs, Emily showed them into an apartment consisting of a sitting room, a small kitchen, and a bedroom. The door to the bedroom was open and Jim could see twin beds inside.
“Home,” announced Emily, turning on the radio while Anne disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a bottle of rye and some glasses. “Get some ice, will you, Emily?”
Emily went into the kitchen, followed by Collins. Anne put the glasses down on the table and Jim stood beside her, awkward, unsure of himself.
“Let’s dance,” she said, when she had arranged the glasses on a table. He held her away from him, but she pressed close. He was ill at ease. He wanted desperately to be carried away by the music and the whiskey and this girl, but all he could think of was the flecks of dandruff in her hair.
He heard a laugh from the kitchen. Then Collins and Emily came into the sitting room. Both were flushed and Collins’s eyes were bright. Emily put a bowl of ice cubes on the table and Collins produced a bottle of soda water.
“Let’s all have a drink,” said Emily. They all had a drink. Collins proposed a toast to Emily and she graciously proposed one to him. Jim and Anne toasted each other. Jim was drunk now. His eyes refused to focus. Everything was suddenly warm and cozy and intimate. Boldly he put his arm around Anne and they sat down on a couch, side by side, and watched Collins and Emily dance.
“You really dance well,” said Anne. “You must’ve taken lessons. I never took any lessons but I picked up a lot from the girls I knew in school. I went to a secretarial school and we used to have a lot of dances. I enjoyed them so much. And that’s where I learned how to dance.”
He wanted to keep her talking. “Did you always live in Seattle?”
She scowled to show that this was a question which troubled her. “Yes, I’ve always lived here but I don’t like it. You see, I want to travel. I’ve always wanted to travel. That’s why I envy you men on ships, you get to travel so much and see so many things.”
“Where would you like to go?” As Jim held her, he was pleasurably astonished at his own bravery. She moved close to him.
“Everywhere,” she said. “But mainly I want to see Southern California. I want to go to Hollywood. You know, I think I’d like to be in the movies.” She said this in a low voice, confidingly.
“I guess a lot of people do.” Jim had read a few movie magazines and he had been impressed by the difficulties movie stars encountered in becoming movie stars.
“I know,” said Anne. “But I think I’m different. No, really. I’m serious. I think I’m going to be famous. Why, even when I was younger and saw people like Jean Harlow on the silver screen I knew that would be me one day. But for now I got to work in an office and I don’t know when I’ll be able to get to Hollywood. But I’ll get there someday. I just know it.”
“You’ve certainly got ambition.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of that! Just think what it’d be like to wear all those pretty clothes and have men with mustaches and tweed suits take me out to eat in those expensive places with palm trees.” She stared into space, her mouth open with longing for this other life.
Jim muttered soothing things, aware that Collins and Emily had disappeared. The door to the bedroom was still open, and he could see Collins in his shorts approaching Emily, who lay naked on one of the beds. Emily giggled. Jim looked away, blushing.
“What’s the matter?” Anne abandoned her Hollywood vision. Then she saw what was happening in the bedroom. She giggled, an echo of Emily.
“You’re only young once,” she said. Jim looked at her and saw that her eyes were bright, shiny, bestial. He had seen the same look in Collins’s eyes, in Emily’s eyes, yet not in Bob’s eyes. He was repelled. But Anne, unaware of his response, put her face so close to his that he could smell the whiskey on her breath. “My, but they’re having fun!” Her body was against him now and he could feel the
rapid pounding of her heart.
“I’ll bet they’re having a good time,” she repeated. “You’re only young once, that’s what I say.” She kissed him. It was a wet and tongue-involving kiss. He pulled away. Aware of his withdrawal, she started to cry. “I used to be in love, too,” she said, missing the point. Between small actress sobs, she said that she understood the way he felt and she knew that what she was doing was terribly bad but she was lonely, without anyone to care for her, and God knows they were only young once.
He made himself kiss her, his mind full of memories and half-forgotten fears. With an effort of will, he tried to melt the fear in his stomach. Gradually, desire began. He was startled but pleased. Soon he would be ready. But suddenly she stood up and said brightly, “I better take my dress off. Don’t want to get it rumpled.”
She went into the bedroom. He followed her to the door and stood watching Collins and Emily on the bed. Neither of them seemed to care if they were observed or not. They were involved in the intricate act of becoming one. Fascinated, Jim watched them. They made primitive noises and writhed blindly, according to the mindless ritual of the sexes. Jim was frightened, unready for this.
Anne appeared, and posed for him without her clothes. He stared, fascinated. He had never seen a naked woman before. She walked toward him. She put out her arms. Involuntarily, he backed away.
“Come on in, Jimmy,” she said and her voice was high-pitched and artificial. He hated her then. He hated her passionately. This was not what he wanted.
“I got to go,” he said. He went into the sitting room. She followed him and he found himself staring at her again and this time he compared her with Bob, and found her wanting. He no longer cared whether or not he was different from other people. He hated this woman and her body.
“What’s the matter? What did I do wrong?”
“I got to go.” He couldn’t say anything else. She started to cry. Quickly he went to the door and opened it. Just as he left, he heard Collins shout to Anne, “Let the queer go! I got enough for two.”
Jim walked a long time in the cold night and wondered why he had failed so completely in what he had wanted to do. He was not what Collins had called him. He was certain of that. Yet why? At the moment when what should have happened was about to happen, the image of Bob had come between him and the girl, rendering the act obscene and impossible. What to do? He would not exorcise the ghost of Bob even if he could. Yet he realized that it would be a difficult matter to live in a world of men and women without participating in their ancient and necessary duet. Was he able to participate? Yes, he decided, under other circumstances. In any case, the word Collins had shouted after him was hardly apt. It couldn’t be. It was too monstrous. Yet because it had been said, he could never see Collins again. He would jump ship and go…where? He looked down the dark empty street, searching for a sign. Just opposite him was a movie house. “Yesterday’s Magic, starring Ronald Shaw,” proclaimed the marquee in unlit lightbulbs. He thought of Hollywood, recalling Anne’s voice droning on wistfully about the movies. That did it. At least he would get there before she did. Obscurely pleased at this small vengeance, he returned to the hotel.
The bald-headed man was still behind the desk. “You’re a sailor. I can tell. Me, I was a sailor but I don’t follow the sea no more. No, no more of that for me.” Jim went to his room and tried to sleep, tried to forget what Collins had called him. He slept and he forgot.
CHAPTER
4
I
OTTO SCHILLING WAS HALF-AUSTRIAN and half-Polish. He was blond with a brick-red face, much lined from weather. He was tennis instructor at the Garden Hotel in Beverly Hills.
“You were a sailor, yes?” Otto’s accent was thick, though he had been in America half his life.
“Yes, sir.” Jim was nervous. He needed this job.
“When did you leave ship?”
“Last December.”
Otto looked thoughtfully out the window at his kingdom, the eight clay courts which adjoined the hotel pool.
“That was six months ago. You have been in Los Angeles since then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have been what?”
“Working in a garage mostly.”
“But you play tennis, yes?”
“Yes, sir. I used to play back home at school.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“You think you know enough to help around here? Roll courts, be ball boy, string rackets…you can do this?”
“Yes, sir. I talked to the guy who was here before and he told me what the work was and I know I can do it.”
Otto Schilling nodded. “I take you on trial. That boy was here before was lazy. You better not be lazy. You get twenty-five a week, but I make you work hard for all that money. If you’re any good, you help me give lessons. Maybe I let you give lessons, if you play good. You play good?” His wide blue eyes looked at Jim.
“I was pretty good,” said Jim, trying to sound both modest and informative.
Otto nodded approvingly. He did not share the American passion for modesty. When he had been singles champion of Austria, there were those who had thought him conceited. But why not? He had been a great player. “You will live in the hotel,” he said finally. “Go see Mr. Kirkland, the manager. I call him on the phone now. You start in the morning, seven-thirty o’clock. I tell you what to do. Maybe I play with you and see what you know. Go on now.”
Jim murmured “Thank you” and left the tennis house. On his right was a large swimming pool edged with imported beach. Prosperous-looking men and women sat beneath umbrellas, while several young girls were photographed by a sinister-looking cameraman. Jim wondered if the girls were movie stars, and if so, who they were. But they all looked alike, with white teeth, bleached hair, slim brown bodies. He recognized no one.
Jim climbed the steps to the Garden Hotel, a large, rambling, white stucco building set among palm trees. After six months of uncomfortable rooming houses, he was delighted at the thought of living here, if only temporarily. He was quite used by now to being transient. He took it for granted that his traveling would not end until he found Bob. Then they would work out some sort of life together, though precisely what that life would be he left deliberately vague. Meanwhile, he took what work he could find, and lived happily in the present. Except for the golden image of Bob beside the river on that sunshine day, he was without history. In memory, his father was a dim blur; his mother, too; both gray, shadowy. The sea was dark and vaguest of all. Everything forgotten except Collins and the two girls in their Seattle apartment. Only that night was vivid in his memory. With an effort, he tried not to think of it as he hurried up the steps to the Garden Hotel.
Mr. Kirkland’s office was large and modern and looked much more expensive than it actually was. So did Mr. Kirkland. He was a short man whose real name was probably not Kirkland. He affected a British accent, while his clothes and manner were exquisite and discreet, except for the large diamond he wore on the little finger of his left hand, an outward and visible sign of sudden rise and of unfamiliar affluence.
“Willard?” the voice was sharp.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Schilling sent me to you.”
“You’re going to be ball boy, I understand.” Mr. Kirkland pronounced the title as though it were an accolade. “As such, you will be paid twenty-five dollars a week. Quite a large amount for a young boy, but I trust you will work for it to the best of your ability.” Jim recognized a speech that had been made before. “We here at the Garden Hotel like to think of ourselves as a family, in which each one must do his part, from myself”—he smiled tightly—“on down.” He looked at Jim. “You start work as of tomorrow morning. I suppose you gave your references to Mr. Schilling. Ask the housekeeper in the servants’ wing to assign you a room.” With a nod, Mr. Kirkland ended the interview and Jim depart
ed.
The lobby of the hotel was large with square marble pillars, which pretended to hold up the lozenge-patterned ceiling. The floor was carpeted in royal red. Behind a plywood desk simulating mahogany, clerks in formal clothes received guests, simulating welcome. Bellboys in livery lounged on a bench at the front door, waiting to carry bags and run errands. The lobby was usually a busy place, for there was always someone arriving or departing. Jim found the magnificence awesome and the bored air of the bellboys infinitely sophisticated. Perhaps one day he would be as casual.
Jim crossed the lobby, conscious of his shabby suitcase. He approached one of the bellboys and asked uncertainly, “How do I get to the employees’ wing?”
The young man looked at him with slow boredom. Then he yawned and stretched. “I’ll take you back.” They went from the lobby to the famous tropical garden, which gave the hotel its name. Dazzled by color, Jim followed his guide through the artificial jungle.
“What’s your job?”
Jim told him.
“An outdoor boy! So where you from?”
Jim decided to be impressive. “Nowhere. I been to sea.”
The young man was respectful but inquiring. “To sea where?”
Jim was offhand. “Caribbean, Pacific, Bering Sea, all over. I been around.”
“I guess you have. So what’re you doing here?”
Jim shrugged. “Killing time. What else?”
The young man nodded and thoughtfully scratched one of a number of pimples.
Jim was assigned a small room overlooking the parking lot. The housekeeper was pleasant and the bellboy promised to show him the ropes. The thing was done. He now had a small place in the world of others.
* * *
—
In Southern California September was not much different from any other month. The weather was clear and bright and there was no rain. According to the newspapers there was a war in Europe, but Jim was not quite sure what it was all about. Apparently there was a man named Hitler who was German. He had a mustache and comedians were always imitating him. At every party someone was bound to give an imitation of Hitler making a speech. Then there was an Englishman with a somewhat larger mustache and of course there was Mussolini but he didn’t seem to be in the war. For a while it was very exciting, and there were daily headlines. But toward the end of September Jim lost interest in the war because there had been no battles. Also, his days were now occupied teaching tennis to rich men and women who were not very interested in the war either.