From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [220]
“I dont know,” Prew said. “I know that on the bum a lot of good guys went queer, though, because they just wasnt any women. Some of the old timers would take the young kids and train them to be ringtails. Thats what I hate. A kid dont know his own mind. Thats what that fuckin Chief Bugler Houston was—a regular Mister Brown. Thats one reason I got out of the Corps, him and that Angelina of his.”
“Yeah,” the driver said. “And they’ll all do you like that, you give them a chance, dont think they wont, the queer bastards.”
“Where’d you learn to play that bugle?” Angelo asked, “like you do? I never heard no guy could play a goddam bugle like that.”
“I dont know,” Prew said. “I just always could I guess. I always liked it.” He was looking out at the sudden deeper darkness that was Thomas Square.
“Thats where all the cruisers hang out,” the driver said.
“I sure like to hear you play it,” Angelo said. “Its a shame.”
“Lets drop it,” Prew said. “Lets forget it, what do you say?”
“Okay,” Angelo said. “If you say so.”
They lapsed into silence then, the cool tranquillity that was the ride, feeling the driver beside them aching to talk, to advise them, but hating to start it again on his own hook, for fear he would seem anxious to talk about it. They did not give him an opening.
They got out in front of the Moana and were suddenly back inside and part of the heated excitement of Payday.
“We’ll walk down from here,” Angelo said. “We dont want to look too well heeled, ridin up to the door in a cab.” He stopped on the sidewalk to look back at the driver as he swung out from the curb. “Now thats funny,” he said.
“Whats funny, Angelo?”
“If I hadnt of heard that guy talk so, I’d swear that driver was a queer. I can spot them a mile away.”
Prew laughed. “Maybe thats why he hates them. Maybe thats what he’s afraid of.”
“I dont know. But I can sure spot them any more.”
The Waikiki Tavern was crowded, too. A little less raucously, a little more refinedly, but crowded just the same.
“I’ll wait out here,” Prew said. “Till you seef they there.”
“Hell. You been here before, aint you? Come on in.”
“Sure I been here. But I aint goin in broke.”
“You aint broke.”
“I aint got enough to buy a drink, have I? To just walk in and walk through and walk right back out, if they aint there. Not me. I’ll wait out here.”
“Okay. Have it your way. You know what? That cab ride sobered me almost up.”
Angelo went on in through the crowded door. Prew stood out on the sidewalk and leaned against a lamp post, his hands in his pockets, watching the people pass. In the lounge next to the bar proper, under colored light and conversation and clinking glass, the lushhead piano player was playing something classical. It was something he had heard before. He had never heard the name. Several well dressed, cool looking white women passed him, talking excitedly to obviously younger men who looked like doggies.
Thats what you ought to have, Prewitt, he told himself. One of them rich tourist dames. Thats better than these tight-fisted queens. All the money in the world they’ve got. And dont mind spending it. The thought made a small hard excitement in his belly. Then he remembered Lorene down at the New Congress. The small hard excitement turned into a small tight sour knot. I guess that cab ride sobered you up too, he thought, goddam it.
He was considering the question of whether it was legitimate to step out on a woman you loved if she was a whore, provided you only went with tourist women for their money, and