Midnight Cowboy

by James Leo Herlihy

  The woman looked at him, eyebrows raised and mouth open in disbelief. “You’re hopin’ to get a look at what?”

  “The Statue of Liberty,” he said, putting out a smile to dazzle the moon. He had a way of twitching his mouth slightly that made the smile appear to be involuntary; this somehow increased immeasurably its worth.

  The rich lady met his eye and held it like a man. “It’s up in Central Park takin’ a leak,” she said. “If you hurry, you’ll make the supper show. Now get lost.” Her voice was harsh and loud.

  But then, just as she walked away, Joe’s second rich lady winked at him. And she smiled in a distinctly provocative way. Perplexed, he watched her shimmy away up Lexington Avenue in her tight black dress and pink high-heeled shoes, the little dog racing to keep pace with her.

  At the traffic light she looked back, held the cowboy’s eye for the count of four, smiled, and then stooped to pick up the dog and disappeared around the corner, mouthing elaborate baby talk at the tiny beast trapped in the crook of her arm.

  Joe hurried to the corner, where he could see her waiting for him under the canopy of an apartment house. The lady, confident that he was following, proceeded into the building.

  In a moment, Joe passed through a pair of solid-gold doors—perhaps not solid-gold, but covered with some gold-colored metal that made you feel once you’d passed through them that money was no longer a problem. He stepped into a carpeted elevator, where the rich lady was looking straight ahead of her as if she had no notion of his existence. But the minute those doors had made their soft, expensive little kllooosh sound of closing, Joe’s lips were being licked by the long tongue of the rich lady, who was also rubbing her stomach against his. Then, even though she was a very large person, she smiled as if she were very small, and said, “Hi.” Joe shivered.

  The poodle yapped, there was another kllooosh, and they stepped off the elevator into a private apartment with fluffy white carpets.

  The rich lady took hold of his hand. “I got to make a couple phoney-phones,” she said, pulling him along behind her toward a white-and-gold desk where there was a telephone. Dialing with one hand, she unbuttoned Joe’s trousers with the other and began to work with the zipper.

  The entire episode was taking place with a speed and style far more amazing than Joe’s best fantasies.

  “Cass Trehune,” said the rich lady into the telephone, her left hand by now busy inside Joe’s trousers. “Any messages? Who is this? Imelda? Hello, sweetheart. Anything for me? Needleman, right. Got it. How long ago? I said when. Okay, what is it, the Murray Hill five? No, no, never mind, I’ve got it. I’ve got it. Imelda, I’ve got the damn thing, honey, you know? Thanks! Bye.”

  Still holding the receiver, she disengaged the connection with her thumb. Then she looked down to examine what she had found with her left hand. “Ye gods!” she said, impressed, and hung onto it as she dialed the Murray Hill number.

  “Mr. Needleman, please.”

  There was a pause in which she let go of Joe, lifted her skirt, turned around and backed against the front of him, guiding his arms around her waist.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Palmbaum, what are you doing there? Fine thanks. Sensational in fact. Put Morey on, would you?” There was another pause: She put her ear in Joe’s mouth. “Oh stop oh God,” she said, “I can’t stand that, I just die. Morey?” Her voice went soft and sweet: It seemed to be luring some small child into a gas chamber with promises of candy. “Aw, Morey. Hi-ee. I got your call. I was walking Baby. No, sweety, I haven’t been out but just that once. I mean, himth got to do himth goody-goodth, right? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did walk him once earlier. About three. But, sweety, I checked with the service and there wasn’t a thing, honest. Well, you didn’t leave a message, did you? All right! That’s what I said! Oh, now you’re making me mad. Mad and sick. I’m gonna hang up and then I’m gonna heave all over this rug. Morey, you make me quite annoyed, do you know that? All you think is just one thing about me, so how would you like to go screw yourself?”

  She giggled and continued: “Of course I don’t mean it, old goosey. Now looky, when can you get here?” She turned her face toward Joe and put her tongue deep into his mouth. There was no passion in the act; she seemed more to be motivated by some clinical curiosity about the shape of his back teeth. Then, withdrawing the probe quickly, she spoke again into the telephone. “Okay, if you say so, but I’m very disappointed.” She winked at Joe and showed him a hand on which fingers were crossed. “What I’ll do, Morey,” she said, “I’ll nap for an hour or so, then maybe fix a little TV dinner here and take a long time getting dressed, you know, kill time. Right? All righty, doll, midnight at Jilly’s, here’s a big wet one.”

  She made an obscene sound into the mouthpiece and concluded the call in baby talk. “No, you can only have one! And I love you terrible much, too.”

  Then she hung up and turned her full and considerable attentions onto Joe Buck.

  The event that followed took place in three rooms, and most of it was witnessed by the little white poodle. Commencing at the desk, the action moved on to a cocktail table, two chairs and a pouf. Then, as it proceeded to the kitchen drainboard, the poodle lost interest and left the room. A few minutes later, Joe and the rich lady repaired to the bedroom. Finding the bed occupied by the dog, they made use of the floor.

  Soon they fell asleep there on the fluffy white carpet, and while they napped, darkness fell.

  Joe awakened to an odd sensation: It seemed to him the dog was nibbling at his toes. Gently he withdrew his foot. Then he felt a human hand on his ankle. He opened his eyes and found the nibbler to be the rich lady herself. He sat up and reached for her, but she rose playfully to her feet and ran naked out onto the terrace. He followed, amazed anew at the size of the woman and delighted to discover that the place of his first employ ment was an actual penthouse. He chased her about the terrace until she allowed herself to be caught leaning breathless against a low wall that protected her from a drop of some fifteen stories.

  “Sssh!” she said, looking upward, her forefinger against her lips. “Star light star bright first star I see tonight wish I may wish I might have the wish I wish tonight; there!” Now she was bending over the wall, her belly resting on top of it in a way that invited Joe to step up behind her.

  “Oh, oh, ooh,” she said, “I’m so afraid, I’m so afraid, I’m so afraid of heights.”

  Joe had one of her buttocks in each of his hands, enjoying their doughy pliability. “I won’t let you git away from me,” he said, taking one slow, deep, final step toward the rich lady.

  “Ye gods!” she cried out. “What are you doing, that’s a terrible thing to do, I’ve never heard of such a …” And then she stopped talking.

  Joe took one long north-to-south look at the great island of Manhattan, and then he happened to look upon himself, here on the roof of one of its tall buildings, under the stars, naked, joined to a woman, and he was moved deeply by a sudden keen awareness of the moment. It was as if he himself were one person and the one he dreamed of being were another, and these two had been traveling separate paths until here and now, on this terrace and on this night, the two were merged. He paused in his activity to contemplate the marvel of this meeting with himself, and his eyes filled over with tears. He was having a moment of happiness.

  And then the rich lady moved in a way that caused his attention to return to the matter at hand.

  5

  Now Joe’s first assumption about Cass Trehune’s financial condition had been based somewhat recklessly upon two factors: the tininess of her dog—it must cost a fortune to keep the little thing breathing—and the number and size of the rhinestones at her wrists, which he mistook for diamonds. The estimate had been further sustained by another shaky notion: that anyone living in a penthouse had to have even more money than an archbishop.

  Therefore, at a few minutes past eleven, while Cass was showering in preparation for her midnight rendezvous with Mr. Needle
man, Joe consulted himself in the bedroom mirror.

  “Say, Cass,” he rehearsed aloud, “I want to tell you I’ve had as good a time here tonight as I’ve ever had! And that’s a goddam fact. It’s why I hate to bring up this business thing, ha ha.”

  Judging this to be a fairly poor beginning, he stopped and began on a new tack. “Hey! You beautiful thing!” He leaned with both hands on the dressing table and swung his eyes onto the image in the glass. “Can you let: me have twenty?” “Oh, sure, baby!” said a little voice in his mind, “Take fifty! Although God knows you’re worth a hundred.”

  He pursed his lips and sent a kiss into the mirror, and then smiled at it again.

  Cass came tiptoeing in from the bathroom, fully made up but still naked. In some curious mood of after-bath modesty, she held a towel front of her. “Don’t look,” she said, heading for the closet.

  “Say, Cass,” said the cowboy, “I, uh, sure have enjoyed bein’ here tonight.”

  “Me, too, lover,” came the voice from behind the closet door.

  “Believe it’s as fine a time as I’ve had in my life!”

  A moment later, a tower of black bugle beads and ivory came backing toward him. “Zip this thing, will you, Tex?”

  Joe zipped her dress for her. Then he said, “You know, Cass, I’m in, uh, well, to tell you the truth, I’m in business.”

  “Oh, poor you,” she said, seated at the dressing table, spraying her hair with lacquer. “Morey’s got terrible ulcers.”

  “Mm.” Joe thought for a while. Then he said, “Well, I don’t know what kind of business Morey’s in, but I’m in a different business myself.”

  Cass seemed preoccupied. “You’re plenty different’n Morey,” she said, “in lots o’ other ways, too. Believe you me.” She studied herself in the glass. Finding some flaw in her mouth, she picked up a lipstick tube.

  “Matter of fact,” Joe said, wondering whether or not he could get the next words out, “I’m a—hustler.”

  There!

  “Hm,” she said, stretching her upper hp across her teeth and smearing it with orange. “Herson zodda meg a livig.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  She relaxed her mouth and replaced the cap on the lipstick. “Said, a person’s got to make a living.”

  Joe laughed. “You sure you heard what I said?”

  Cass gave no answer to this. But Joe was encouraged when she rose from the dressing table and went to a chest of drawers where she took out a gold lamé evening bag. “Scuse me, hon,” she said. “ ‘Fraid I’m only half here. Maybe you ought to run on along.”

  She opened the evening bag. Joe was thrilled. He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to hide his pleasure by fooling with the tops of his boots. From the corner of his eye, he saw her come toward him and stop, lowering the bag to a level with his eyes.

  It was wide open, and it was empty.

  “Tex,” she said, “could you let me have a little coin for the taxi-waxi? I didn’t get to the bank this afternoon.” She cupped his chin in her hand and looked down at him seductively. “You’re such a doll!” she said. “I hate money, don’t you? God, it’s been fun. Why don’t you take this phone number anyway?”

  The shock went deep, but Joe’s recovery was quick. He laughed weakly and said, “Funny thing you mentioning money. I’ze about to ask you for some.” He started to cover this request with another small laugh, but the sound froze in his throat along with the air in the room and everything else in the place. There was a long dangerous moment of locked eyes.

  Finally, in an impassioned whisper, the woman, still holding his chin, said, “You want money from me, hunh? You asking me for money, is that it? Is that what you’re doing, asking me for money?” For Joe an act of speech would have been impossible, but apparently Cass found some answer in his eyes. “You prick!” she said, hurting his chin. “You bastard! You sonofabitch! You think you’re dealing with some old slut? Look at me: thirty-one! You think ‘cause you’re hung you can get away with this crap? Well, you’re out of your mind. I am a gorgeous chick, thirty-one, that’s right, you said it! I’d like to kill you in cold blood.”

  Tears suddenly squirted from her eyes. Then she screamed and threw herself on the bed, saying I’ve never in my life and other phrases that could not be understood because some of her fingers were in her mouth.

  Joe got to his feet. He had no notion of what to say or do. He lit a cigarette, put the match in an ash tray, and pulled a lot of smoke into his lungs. He stood over the woman, studying her body for some clue as to how he might behave. Her bare shoulders heaved with sobs, giving her the look of a bleached whale in its death throes. It amazed him that sadness could so increase a person’s bulk.

  “Hey,” Joe said, sitting on the bed next to her. “Hey, Cass!” He put his hand on her back, rocking her gently to and fro. “Did you think I meant that? About the money? Why, that wasn’t nothing but a big joke! Shoot, and here I thought you had a wonderful sense of humor, shows how wrong I was.”

  Then he got up, pretending to dismiss her. “Ah! You just putting on. You not crying atall. Now how much taxi fare you want?” He took out his money, the entire wad. “What d’you need, sweetheart? Five? Ten? Come on, now, name it, damn ya.”

  He bent over, holding the money in front of her face. “Open y’eyes! Look here! Would I be askin’ you for money with a wad like that riding on my ass? Use your head! Christ, I’m from Houston Texas, lady, my daddy’s an oilman! I never had to borrow nothing in my life. Now will you quit bawlin’?”

  The sounds of her misery increased. He gave her a handful of tissues from the bedside stand. She clutched these to her face, but still the weeping continued.

  Then very quietly, into her ear, he said, “Hey.” He touched her cheek. “You are a gorgeous-lookin’ piece, Cass. Gets a guy all horny just lookin at you.”

  She opened her eyes. Joe nodded. “It’s a fact,” he said.

  Then he took a twenty-dollar bill and pushed it into the crevice between her breasts: “There you go.”

  Cass Trehune sat up and blew her nose.

  6

  Leaving Cass’s place, Joe went to a nearby saloon for a drink of liquor. He was tired and his brain was fogged. His thoughts kept going back to that terrible woman in the Texas whorehouse, Tombaby’s mother. He didn’t know why this hag’s face kept flitting through his mind, but it did, over and over again.

  He took a second drink of liquor, hoping the stuff would rinse his brain, help him to think more clearly. Then he walked for a while, looking at the street signs but giving no real thought to the direction he was taking. At midnight he found himself in another saloon, a great warehouse-sized place called Everett’s on Broadway near 40th Street. A TV set and a juke box, braying at one another like electronic lunatics, bounced their noises off the gritty tiled floor and against the high tin ceiling of the place, setting up an ungodly racket, but none of the twenty or more customers at the bar appeared to notice.

  Joe swallowed two more straight shots of rye, chasing them down with beer. Then he lit a cigarette and cast his eyes about in search of a mirror in which he might begin to see something that made sense to him. Juanita Barefoot had by this time moved into his mind on what seemed to be a permanent basis. She squatted there gesturing at him like a devil chairing a meeting in hell. He could see her mouth going, could hear even the sound of her voice, but the words themselves were indistinct. He found a small mirror on the cigarette machine, and, buying an unneeded package of Camels, he looked into his weary eyes, thinking still of Juanita. She was the one put this entire goddam New York notion in his head in the first place, so if she had any advice to pass out …

  Advice.

  He had to have some advice, that was all there was to it. The thought became an obsession: He wouldn’t do another thing in this town until he’d found someone who knew the ropes and could give him some guidance.

  Returning to the bar in this new frame of mind, Joe found he was being looked at b
y a person who had arrived in his absence. This was a skinny, child-sized man of about twenty-one or twenty-two who had taken the seat next to him.

  Catching Joe’s attention, he grinned and made a small wave of the hand.

  “Excuse me for starin’,” he said in a New York accent, “I was just admirin’ that colossal shirt.” His head bobbed in approval. “Yeah, that is one hell of a shirt. I’ll bet you paid a pretty price for it, am I right?” He spoke in a gravelly whisper in which Joe heard a definite note of conspiracy. Without even considering the matter, he was certain this kind of speech went hand in hand with a knowledge of the underworld.

  “Oh, it ain’t cheap” Joe said modestly. He put his fists on his hips and looked down, appraising himself. “I mean, yeah, I’d say this was an all right shirt. Don’t like to, uh, you know, have a lot of cheap stuff on my back. Right?”