Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [116]
His loneliness was complemented now, he was no longer really alone, he could no longer stand to be alone, which is to say, without her. He needed her. It made him think of Billy Lancing, and how much he had needed Billy, and how much Billy had needed him. If it had not been for Billy, Jack would not have been able to understand how he really felt, or understood that he was alone without her. He could say to himself now, coldly, that Billy had died for the love of him; he could take pride in it. He had been loved that much! He did not worry himself with the thought that he never would have died for Billy; he had not loved Billy as much as Billy had loved him, and he knew it, admitted it, and was not ashamed of it. But now he loved Sally that much, and Billy had showed him what it meant.
He looked around the casino. No, not one in sight. No Negroes at The Sands. Only fat white businessmen faking the nigger talk over their cold dice, acting out something they had seen in a movie, or read about in a cheap magazine, but had never seen or felt. Twenty-five-grand-a-year incomes, and blowing a little of the surplus in order to feel like a sport. And gosh, you know who was standing at the table, right next to me? Frank Sinatra! And you should have seen the bets he was fading! Made my three hundred look like nothing. I says to him, “Frank, what do you think about...“...Yeah, like shit you did. You lost your three hundred, or shall we say, hundred and a half, dying over every silver dollar just a little more, sweat running down from your armpits to the place where your belly is cinched in too tight by your belt; your crotch so hot from nervous fear you think you have the crabs; calling out, “Tennessee Toddy, all ass and no body!” to a pair of dice so wet they almost slip out of your fingers; and then go back to your room black with despair because you lost instead of won and last night you put your hand on your boss’s wife’s knee or fucked your secretary, and now wondered if it had been such a hot idea after all, the way she thrashed around and said she loved you and your wife home thinking it was stag only. Or maybe you got yourself a call girl and now wondered when your pecker would start to drip greenish pus the way it had in Germany when you were in the Army. Or maybe you won a lot of money, really a lot, and your wife was with you and you were coming on hip with sunglasses and talk about the odds and what games Scarne recommends, and drinking milk at the tables like a pro, wondering deep inside how you could keep your wife from spending this dough (it was dough or bread, but not money) you had just won and wanted desperately to take out of your pocket and kiss greedily and scream out that you had won, and never wanted to spend because you had nightmares about money...
Or maybe you were just having a good time. Shit.
Jack felt contempt for his patronizing attitude. He had lost his temper at the casino. That was stupid. So there were no Negroes at the hotel. So what? What do I care? It’s not my problem. Why blame it on the customers? They were just assholes, like everybody else.
When Sally finally showed up after having been gone two days and nights, Jack did not ask her where she had been. He shaved, showered, and took her downtown and married her. Just as quickly as he could. She was very quiet, almost wifely, and suggested they fly back to San Francisco right away. On the plane she told Jack she was now just about broke. Her money had been alimony, and now she wouldn’t be getting any. For the last two days and nights she had been in Los Angeles, talking to her lawyer and her ex-husband’s lawyer, trying to get a settlement. But they couldn’t do it, and so she was broke. She looked surprised when Jack laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I have a job waiting for me. It looks like I’m going to need it.” To himself, however, he admitted that he was bitterly disappointed. He wanted to ask her why didn’t they just live together,