From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [229]
“Hell, I don’t know. Just let them talk. Thats what I do. You think I argue with them? Like hell I argue with them. I just listen and nod my head and let it go and ask them for me a nuther drink.”
“All right. I’ll try that. You know what I feel like?”
“No. What?” Angelo said indifferently. He was leaning on the radio cabinet, tapping nervously with his fingers, his black eyes snapping with the liquor.
“I feel just like some young dame that a cocksman has been working on. I know how a woman feels now. I can sympathize with them.”
Angelo laughed explosively. “Would that make me a whore then, wouldnt it?”
Prew grinned. “Listen, dont tell me if you dont want to, but did this guy ever try anything else on you? He ever try to pogo you?”
Angelo nodded sideways and looked away. “He said something about it a couple times, just kidding sort of, but I got pissed off and blew my top and threatened to beat him up. He quit that.” The tiny Maggio scowled fiercely, but there was no comedy in it. “I could do it too, buddy. I pick me up a chair or a pool cue like with that fucking Bloom.”
“I guess I just aint cut out for this kind of life,” Prew said.
Angelo shook his head. “Sometime I feel like I’m livin on top a powder keg their gonna blow any minute. You pay for everything you get in this world, man.”
“I’ve heard a lot of talk about ‘great love’ between homos, but I aint never seen it. I think its more like hate, probably.”
“I dont care what it is. Long as I can keep that income. So take it easy, will you?”
“Sure. I dont want to mess you up.”
“Boy,” Maggio said, “I’m going to get drunkern a fiddler’s bitch. I mean.” He looked over at the clock. “Reveille,” he said. “Reveille or no Reveille,” he said.
Hal came in then from the kitchen, carrying two crystal champagne glasses. Tommy came behind him, carrying two more.
“Sorry we have no tray,” Hal smiled. “But at least the glasses are right. You cant drink champagne cocktails from a water glass.”
Maggio took a glass and winked secretly at Prew.
“I suggest,” Hal said, “that you all get out of those clothes and be comfortable. Since we are all among friends anyway. Arent we?”
“I agree,” Tommy said fervently. He handed Prew a glass and set his own down and began to take his clothes off. He took off everything but his shorts and then sat down and picked up his drink. In contrast to Hal’s deep tan Tommy was as white as milk except for the rings of tan above his collar and on his forearms. It gave him an unpleasant half-fried look.
“I know you dogfaces never wear shorts,” Hal smiled. “I have a pair of trunks I keep for Tony to go swimming, but I havent anything for you.”
“Thats okay,” Prew said. “I’d just as soon keep my pants on.”
Hal laughed merrily, quite good humored again.
They sat around that way, four men baring their bodies to seek what coolness that came through the outside screen door. Someone looking through the glassed in bay would probably have felt a renewing sense of human warmth at seeing four bare-chested men, relaxing, holding glasses, talking in a friendly way.
“This is what I always wear at home,” Hal said, flicking a fold of the pareu idly. “Its in keeping with the Hawaiian tradition, dont you think? Of course, the beachboys all wear trunks now, but they used to wear the pareu. That was before the missionaries, of course. In Tahiti they still wear it, but, alas, there is as little use for a French tutor there as there is in France.”
“When was you in France?” Prew said.
“I’ve been in France off and on for fifteen years,” Hal smiled. “When I tutored in New York I used to save all my money until I had enough for an extended trip, then I’d go to France and stay, until my money ran