“Sign your name, young Miss Wilson?”
“Do it, honey.”
She signs.
“And I hope this signature will be worth something to me one day,” Henry says.
“The way she’s going it’ll be worth much more than mine in a few years.”
“Thank you, Henry,” the girl says.
They go.
“What’s he do?” I say.
“Mark Wilson?”
“The aviator?”
“The playwright. He’s good for two of your most successful plays in town today and maybe six more on the road. He’s worth millions.”
“I don’t know his work.”
“Comedies. Domestic entanglements. I stand in back in all his shows free. Fast-paced hysterical sellouts every night. Don’t kid me.”
“He didn’t say anything funny. But this seems to be a good spot for you here. Fifty-seventh near Seventh. Right out in front. Awning protection if it rains. Plaza Hotel just as good?”
“Central Park exit, mornings around twelve. One of the best.”
“And the best?”
“Why tell you? Information like that’s worth money and I’m grooming my own man. Somewhere in the forties off Broadway, but you’d never find exactly where in twenty years. You’ll sign now so I can be on my way?”
“One condition. You tell me what month it is and let me borrow your pen.”
He gives me a slip of paper on top of a cardboard the same size and his pen. Then he grabs them out of my hands before I can sign when he sees two women entering the restaurant. “Lisa Galivanti,” he says.
“Yes. I know you?”
“I know of you, Miss Galivanti. Could you sign your name for me please? I’m Henry Wax.”
“I don’t give my autograph to anyone, Mr. Wax.”
“I’m all right. Presidents have signed for me.”
“I wouldn’t even sign it for a president once.”
“You and this guy ought to get together.”
“I know him and we have got together. Hello, John.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t shake hands with strangers.”
“God, you’re so stupid sometimes. How have you been?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak to strangers either.”
“Who’s your friend?” the woman she’s with says.
“Like to come in and have a bite with us?” Lisa says.
“I’m not properly dressed. No tie.”
“I’ll get them to let you in without one.”
“I’ve no shirt under the coat.”
“You can wear a busboy’s jacket.”
“I always looked very bad in a busboy’s jacket without a tie.”
“Will you please sign this, Miss Galivanti? Your signature’s very important to me.”
“Sign it for him, Miss Galivanti,” I say.
“You know I never sign. I hate the word autograph. I think it demeans the person who asks me to sign.”
“This is a signature, not an autograph,” Henry says. “Your signature. I’ve thousands. It’s my business and pastime. I sell the famous and save the to-be’s and you’re famous.”
“He just got Mark Wilson’s,” I say.
“Mark’s? Well if Mark can sign and John says I should sign, I’ll do it this one time.”
“You’re a good one to stick around with,” Henry says, patting my back.
“Will you join us, John?” Lisa says.
“No.”
“Pill.”
“Thank you, Miss Galivanti,” Henry says. “Thanks very much. This one makes my day.”
They go in.
“You turned down something like that?” Henry says. “If you can then I shouldn’t feel so bad about your turning me down before. She’s one of the hottest. If I could get her name a dozen times today I’d get it and tomorrow and the next day too.”
“I’ll give you her old letters to me if you want.”
“They have her signatures on them?”
“Several with her first name. Mostly with her nick and pet names. Lots of O’s and X’s though and sometimes very spicy stuff. Highly commercial. She’s a good writer too.”
“I’ll just take the parts where her signatures are. I’ve my reputation also and don’t feel like branching out. Have any of those? First and last names both?”
“With dates. Canceled checks. Duplicates of old income-tax forms. Legal documents with both our names, I’m afraid. Marriage license. Divorce decree. They ought to be worth a bundle to you.”
“Send them to me and I’ll give you fifty cents apiece for them and I’ll pay the postage.”
“I told you I’d give them away.”
“Come on, you could use the money. And this will inspire you to dig up them all. Been with any other famous people where you have their signatures with dates?”
“Few.”
“Anything you got. Same fee goes all around. For the blurred ones I can only give a quarter. Here’s my address. And ten to fifteen cents for Galivanti’s handwritten first or pet names with or without the letters attached. Though to save postage you should scissor the signatures off, but leaving as much blank space around them as you can.”
“Anybody ever ask you for your signature?”
“Another collector once. Young. Thought I’d be famous for what I do. I’m the best at this, but that doesn’t rate me, though he didn’t have the head to know. Want to sign up now for the future?”
I sign.
“Date too.”
Today’s date.
“And don’t go into my trade, you hear? You’ll kill me off.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what value my signature has for you in the next twenty years.”
“You’ll know.”
I go. He stays.
MILK IS VERY GOOD FOR YOU
It was getting fairly late in the evening for me so I asked my wife if she was ready to leave. “Just a few minutes, love,” she said, “I’m having such a good time.” I wasn’t. The party was a bore, as it had been from the start. Another drinking contest taking place in the kitchen, some teachers and their husbands or wives turning on in the john, Phil somebody making eyes at Joe who’s-it’s wife, Joe trying to get Mary Mrs. to take a breath of fresh air with him as he said while Mary’s husband was presently engaged with someone else’s sweetheart or wife for a look at the constellation she was born under, and I felt alone, didn’t want to turn on or drink another drink or walk another man’s wife through the fresh air for some fresh caressing. I wanted to return home and my wife didn’t as she was aching to turn on or drink with some other man but me and most especially to walk in the fresh air with Frank whatever his name was as Frank’s wife had just taken that same stroll with Joe after Joe had learned that Mary had promised herself tonight to the dentist friend accompanying her and her husband to this house, so I decided to leave.
“Goodbye, Cindy,” I said.
“Leaving now, love?”
“Leaving now, yes, are you going to come?”
“Not right this moment, Rick, though I’ll find some way home.”
“Take your time getting there,” I said, “no need to rush. Even skip breakfast if that’s what you’ve mind to—I’ll see to the kids. Even pass up tomorrow’s lunch and dinner if you want—things will work out. In fact, spend the weekend or week away if you’d like to—I’ll take care of everything at home. Maybe two weeks or a month or even a year would be the time you need for a suitable vacation, it’s all okay with me, dear,” and I kissed her goodbye, drove home, relieved the babysitter who said “You needn’t have returned so early, Mr. Richardson, as the children never even made a peep. I like babysitting them so much it’s almost a crime taking money for the job.”
“So don’t,” I said, and Jane said “Well, that wasn’t exactly a statement of fact, Mr. Richardson,” and pocketed her earnings and started for the door.
“Goodnight,” I said on the porch, “and I really hope you don’t mind
my not walking you home tonight. I’m really too beat.”
“It’s only two blocks to the dorm, though I will miss those nice chats we have on the way.”
Those nice chats. Those tedious six-to-seven minute monologues of Jane’s on her boyfriends’ inability to be mature enough for her or her inability to be unpretendingly immature for them or more likely she telling me about her schoolwork, no doubt thinking I’d be interested because I teach the same subject she’s majoring at in the same school she attends. “Tonight,” Jane said, “I especially wanted your advice on a term paper I’m writing on the father-son if not latent or even overt homosexual relationship between Boswell and Johnson, since it’s essential I get a good grade on my paper if I’m to get a B for the course.”
“Bring it to the office and I’ll correct and even rewrite a few of the unclearer passages if you want.”
“Would you do that, Mr. Richardson? That would be too nice of you, more help than I ever dreamed of,” and so thrilled was she that she threw her arms around my back, and while she hugged me in gratitude I couldn’t resist kissing the nape of her neck in passion and now something had started: Jane said” Oh, Mr. Richardson, you naughty teacher, that’s not what I even half-anticipated from you,” and rubbed my back and squeezed my menis through the pants and said “My me my but you’re surprising me in many ways today,” and unzippered me and riddled with my menis till I was ranting so hard I couldn’t warn her in time that I was about to some in her land.
“What funky rickety gush,” she said. “Do you have a hanky?”
“I’m sorry. And I think I also spoiled your pretty skirt.”
“This dinky old thing? Here, let me clean you off properly.” And still in the dark of my porch she squatted down and wiped me dry with a hanky and then wobbled up my menis and before I could say anything rational to her, such as this was an extremely indiscreet setting for a young woman from the same college I didn’t as yet have tenure at to be living read to the man whose children she just babysat for, I was on the floor myself, her south never letting go of my menis as I swiveled around underneath her, lowered her panties, stack my longue in her ragina and began rowing town on her also, slowly, loving the gradually increasing pace we had tacitly established when Jane said “Go get the flit, Mr. Richardson, brink up the little flit,” which I couldn’t find so one by one I desoured every slover of flash that protruded in and around her ragina, hoping to discover—by some sudden jerky movement or exclamation or cry—that I had fortuitously struck home.
“That’s it,” she said, “right there, that’s the little devil, you’ve got him by the nose,” and after several minutes of us both without letup living read to one another, we same at precisely the same time.
“Now for the real thing,” Jane said, “though do you think we’re in too much light? Screw it, nobody can hear us, you and Mrs. Richardson have a nice big piece of property here, real nice, besides my not caring one iota if anyone does, do you?” and she stuck her panties in her bookbag, got on her rack on the floor, slopped my menis back and forth till I got an election and started carefully to guide me in.
“Rick, you imbecile,” my wife said. “I can hear you two hyenas howling from a block away.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Richardson,” Jane said, standing and adjusting her skirt.
“Good evening, Jane. Did the children behave themselves?”
“Angels, Mrs. Richardson. I was telling Mr. Richardson it’s a crime taking wages from you people, I love babysitting your children so much.”
“I told her ‘Well don’t take the money,’” I said.
“And I said ‘That wasn’t exactly a statement of fact, Mr. Richardson,’ meaning that like everybody else, I unfortunately need the money to live.”
“And what did you say to that?” Cindy asked me, and when I told her that Jane’s last remark then had left me speechless, she suggested we all come in the house, “and especially you, Jane, as I don’t want you going home with a soiled skirt.”
We all went inside. Cindy, getting out the cleaning fluid and iron, said “By the way. You two can go upstairs if you want while I clean Jane’s skirt.”
“I don’t know how much I like the idea of that,” I said, “or your blasé attitude, Cindy.”
“Oh it’s all right, Mr. Richardson. Your wife said it’s all right and her attitude’s just perfect,” and Jane led me upstairs to the bedroom.
We were in red, Jane heated on top of me, my sock deep in her funt and linger up her masspole, when Cindy said through the door “Your skirt is ready Jane.” “Is it?” Jane said, and Cindy entered the room with no clothes on and said “Yes, it’s cleaningstore clean,” got in red with us and after drawing us baking dove with me inder Jane for a whole, she put down her pen and pad and but her own funt over my south and in seconds all three of us were sounding up and down on the red, dewling, bailing, grubbing at each other’s shoulders and hair. “Oh Rick,” Cindy said, “Oh Mr. Richardson,” Jane said, “Oh Janie,” both Cindy and I said, “Oh Mrs. Richardson,” Jane said, “Oh Cindybee,” I said. And just as the thought came to me that my greatest fantasy for the last fifteen years of me with my longue and menis in the respective funts of two cotmassed magnificent women was about to be realized exactly as I had fantasized it and that was with the most spectacular some of my life, my eldest daughter, Dandy, came into the room and said “Mommy, daddy, Janie, can I have some milk?”
“Go back to bed,” Cindy said.
“I want some milk too,” Beverly, my other daughter, said.
“There is no milk,” Jane said. “I drank it all.”
“You did what?” Cindy said. “You did what?”
“Drank it all.”
Cindy hot off my lace and told me to sake alay my tick from Jane’s funt and that I could also escort her to her dorm if I didn’t mind, as any babysitter who’d drink up the last of the milk when she knew the children she was sitting for liked nothing better first thing in the morning than milk in their cereal and glasses just shouldn’t be allowed to remain another second in this house.
“How much milk was there?” I said.
“A quart at least,” Cindy said.
“Two,” Jane said, “—but two and a half to be exact. I simply got very thirsty and drank it all, though in several sittings.”
Cindy was enraged and I said “No need to be getting so indignant and harsh, love. So the young lady got thirsty. So it was an act of, let us say, imprudence.”
“I want some milk,” Dandy said. “Me too,” Beverly said. “Drink some water if you’re thirsty,” Jane told them. “Drink water nothing,” Cindy said. “Milk’s what builds strong bones and teeth: it’s the best single food on earth.” “One morning without a glassful won’t arrest their physical development,” Jane said, and Cindy snapped back “I’ll be the judge of that,” and put on her bathrobe, took the children by the hand and left the room. She was saying as she went downstairs: “The nerve of that girl. Two quarts. That cow. When your daddy comes down I’ll have him drive straight to the all-night supermarket for milk.”
“I want some now,” Dandy said. “Me too,” Beverly said. “I have to go,” I said to Jane.
“You don’t think we can just finish up a bit?”
“The girls want their milk and Cindy’s about to explode even more.”
“You realize it was only this seizure of thirstiness I had. If you had had soda I would have drank that instead—or at least only one of the quarts of milk and the rest soda.”
“Cindy won’t have soda around the house. Says it’s very bad for their teeth.”
“She’s probably right.” Jane started to put on her panties, had one foot through a leg opening when she said “I’m still feeling like I’d like your sock and don’t know when we’ll have another chance for it.”
“I have to go to the market, Jane.”
“Your wife has a nice funt too. I mean it’s different than mine, bigger because she’s had babies, but I luc
k as well, don’t I?” I said I thought she was very good, very nice. “And I know what to do with a menis when ic’s in my south. I think I excel there, wouldn’t you say?”
“I really don’t know. This is kind of a funny conversation.”
“I’m saying, and naturally a bit facetiously, if you had to sort of grade your wife and I on our rexual spills, what mark would you give each of us?”
“The difficulty of grading there is that I could only grade you on just our single experience this morning and not an entire term’s work, while Cindy and I have had semesters together if not gotten a couple of degrees, if I’m to persist in this metaphorical comparison, so any grading would be out of the question.”
“So grade on just what we’ll call our class participation this morning.”
“Then I’d give you both an A.”
“You don’t think I deserve an A plus?”
“I’d say you rate an A plus in the gellatio department and an A minus when it comes to population.” “And your wife?”
“Just the reverse, which comes to a very respectable A for you both.”
“I was sort of hoping for an A plus. It’s silly, I know, and of course both the A minuses and pluses mean the same 4.0 on your scholastic rating, but I never got an A plus for anything except gym, which I got twice.”
“Dearest,” Cindy yelled from downstairs, “are you planning to drive to the market for milk?”
“In a second, love. I’m dressing.”
“Daddy,” Dandy said, “I’m starving, I want milk,” and Beverly said “Me too.”
“Those are precious kids,” Jane said. “And even though Mrs. Richardson is mad at me, I still like her a lot I think she’s very knowing, if not wise.”
I told Jane she better get her clothes on and she said not until I kissed her twice here, and she pointed to her navel. “That’s ridiculous,” I said, and she said “Maybe, but I insist all my clovers leave me with at least that. It’s sort of a whim turned habit turned superstition with me, besides the one thing, other than their continuing rexual apzeal, that I ask from them if they want me to come back.” I said, while making exaggerated gentlemanly gestures with my hands, then in that case I’d submit to her ladyship and bent over and kissed her twice on the navel. She grubbed my menis and saying ic wouldn’t take long and fiting my sips and clicking my beck and fear, didn’t have much trouble urging me to slick ic in. I was on sop of her this time, my tody carried along by Jane’s peverish hyrating covements till I same like a whunderflap and kept on soming till the girls ran into the room, asked if daddy was dying of poison or something, and then Cindy right behind them, wanting to know whether I was aiming to be tossed into a prison for disturbing the neighborhood’s holy Sabbath morning with my cries of otter ecstagy or Jane to be thrown out of school because a once well-respected professor could be heard from a few blocks off sailing out her fame.
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