Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [41]
One of the girls on the bed, Mona, looked over at him and smiled cutely. “Got a bug in your ear?”
“Let’s turn on the radio and dance or something,” Jack said to her. “Let’s do something.” He wanted to get it over with, like a job of work or a fight.
“It’s not even dark out,” Mona said. Primly, he thought. As if dancing in the daytime was square.
“Let’s go get some Chinese food and go to a nightclub,” Mona said. She threw her comic book fluttering across the room. “I already read the goddam thing.”
“I’m sick of Chinese food,” Denny said. He was standing in front of the mirror over the sink, inspecting his teeth.
“You hardly ever eat Chinese food,” Sue said. She was the brighter of the two, Jack thought; something about her eyes, a glint, something. He decided she had some sense. To Jack she said, “Every time we go to a Chinese restaurant he eats a hamburger or something. Honest to Christ.”
Denny said calmly, “Listen, I’ve puked more Chinese food than you ever ate.”
Mona laughed sharply. “I bet you have. You’re a real puker. Mister Puke, that’s you.”
“Stick your nose up my ass, and I’ll blow your brains out,” Denny said without turning his head.
Mona grinned at Jack. “He’s so salty. Do you have a suit?”
Jack admitted that he did. His clothes were in a quarter locker at the bus depot.
“Let’s get dressed up and go someplace really expensive,” Mona said. “All we ever do is go to crappy joints.”
“That sounds good,” Jack said. “I’ll get a room here in the hotel and take a shower and change.” He got up and swallowed off his whiskey. It was not hitting, but he did not expect it to, yet.
Sue leaned forward and whispered into Mona’s ear. Mona’s calm and serious eyes were on Jack as she listened to the secret message. She whispered back to Sue and said, “I’ll go with you.”
“We’ll see you guys in about an hour,” Denny said. He and Jack looked at each other. “Hey, baby; good to see you.” It was almost embarrassing. Denny really appeared happy about the whole thing. As if they had been old and dear friends, instead of poolhall buddies who happened to run into each other in another poolhall.
Jack and Mona left the hotel and went up Market toward the bus depot. The street was heavily crowded with people just getting off work, and with soldiers, sailors, Market Street bums, and shoppers. Mona walked beside Jack with her hand on his arm. He faintly disliked this gesture of too-sudden intimacy; he did not like people touching him. He was used to it; people always seemed to want to touch a boxer as he was entering or leaving the arena, especially leaving, if he had won, and it was a little disgusting, like the old woman who had gotten into his dressing room once in Phoenix and wanted to pay him five dollars to watch him take his shower.
“Look at all the goddam squares,” Mona said to him. In the twilight her face was harsh and pretty, her mouth slightly twisted in disgust. They were all alike. They were hip and anybody who worked for a living was square. Especially anybody over thirty. But then he felt a little that way himself, only not as hip and square; something else, something they didn’t have words for. He really did not understand people who worked for a living. But he did not really dislike them, only the ones who tried to push him around. And there weren’t very many of those.
When they got inside the bus depot, Mona said, “I wish to God I was going someplace. I hate bus depots. They always make me think I’m not going anyplace. I want to go to New York or LA or something. Don’t you?”
“I just came from LA,” Jack said.
“By bus?” Mona looked imperious, as if there was no question of going anywhere by