Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [32]
That s all right, said Bobby. Don t worry about me.
Depression or no depression, I think the membership committee ought to draw the line somewhere, said Julian. I don t mind Jews or Negroes, or even a few people with leprosy. They have souls, the same as you or I. But when a man goes to his club he likes to think he s going to associate with human beings, and not some form of reptile life. Or is it insect? Turn around, Herrmann, till I decide just what you are. Have you got wings?
Don t worry about me. I ll get by.
That s just the trouble, said Julian. We ought to have state cops stationed at the club entrance, just to keep people like you away.
It s a good thing we didn’t have state cops here last night. As it was it s a wonder somebody didn’t send for them. Or the God damn marines or something.
There you go, talking about the war again, said Julian. You never got over that God damn war. That s your trouble. You don t hear Whit, or Froggy
That s all right, said Bobby. When there was a war, I was in it. I wore a uniform. I wasn’t one of these God damn slackers playing sojer boy at some college. Lafayette or Lehigh or wherever it was. S.A.T.C. Saturday Afternoon Tea Club. Yes, sir. When old Uncle Sam needed me, I heeded the call and made the world safe for democracy, and when the war was over I stopped fighting. I didn’t do like some people that put on a uniform back in 1917 and then did their fighting by throwing drinks around in the presence of respectable people at a country club, thirteen or fourteen years after the war was over. Nineteen-thirty. That s what some people are. Veterans of 1930. The Battle of the Lantenengo Country Club Smoking Room. Surprise attack.
The others were laughing, and Julian knew he was coming off a very bad second best. He finished his drink and rose to go. Not driving you away, are we? said Bobby. Julian looked at Whit, deliberately turning his back on Bobby. Something wrong with the can, Whit? Or don t you smell it?
Whit gave a neutral smile. Going in? he said. Let him go, Whit, said Bobby. You know how he is when be has a drink in his hand. Of course you’re safer when it s a cocktail. There aren t any lumps of ice in a cocktail to give you a black
Well, bye bye, said Julian. He walked out of the locker room, but as he left he heard Bobby say in a very loud voice, loud enough not to be missed by Julian: Say, Whit, I hear Harry Reilly s thinking of buying a new Lincoln. He doesn’t like that Cadillac he bought last summer. The locker-room loved it. Julian walked on, through the smoking-room, through the dining alcoves, out to the dance floor, through to the foyer at the foot of the stairs. That was where you waited for your lady. Julian said hello and good evening to a great many people, and waved especially gayly to Mildred Ammermann, who was giving tonight s dinner. She was a tall, toothy girl, captain of the women s golf team. Her father was a drunken rou?quite rich in real estate, and nominally a cigar manufacturer. He never came to the club except on nights like this, when Mr. and Mrs. Ammermann would entertain a few of their her friends at a smaller table. Mildred, towering above Losch, the club steward, and pointing, daintily for her, with one finger as she held a small stack of place-cards in her left hand, apparently was one woman who had not heard about the business of the night before. It was axiomatic in Gibbsville that you could tell Mill Ammermann anything and be sure it wouldn’t be repeated; because Mill probably was thinking of the mashieniblick approach over the trees to the second green. Julian derived some courage from her smile. He always had liked Mill anyway. He was fragmentarily glad over again that Mill did not live in New York, for in New York she would have been marked Lesbian on sight. But in Gibbsville she was just a healthy girl. Good old Mill. What are you thinking? said Caroline, suddenly standing beside him. I like Mill, he said. I do too, said Caroline. Why, did she do something or say something?
No. I just like her, he said. I ve been learning