The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy [45]
"And another small one"
"Gold Label?"
"Please."
I was a curious little boy. Sent to the proper places. And went to most improper ones. Secret and sinful and I even worked once. I think it is quite a common thing, start at the bottom. He, ha, haw, eke. But when you have so many problems it's not easy to be distracted into the past. I was a spoiled child I should suppose. Quickly given to lies. And gross falsehoods to teachers, mostly out of fear I guess. But what would I have done without the odd lie these days. I remember a teacher telling me I pouted and was ugly. Which wasn't true. I was an extremely handsome, curious child. Teachers are insensitive to true beauty.
"What's your name?"
"Gertrude."
"May I call you Gertrude?"
"Yes."
"Gertrude, will you give me another Gold Label and a pint of porter?"
"Yes."
I went to a proper preparatory school, preparing for college. I never felt that these schools were good enough for me. I was aloof. Never seeking friends. But my silence was noticed by the teachers and they thought that I was a shifty article and once I heard them telling very rich boys to stay away from me because I wasn't a good influence. Then I got older and bolder. A wanton girl who had pock marks on her face and stubs of hair all up her legs when I thought girls' legs were always nice and smooth, took me into the city from the suburbs where I lived and we drank in bars. When she felt all pally and possessive and sensing my reserve and fright she said that I ought not to wear a striped tie with a striped shirt and I kept saying to myself, hiding the hurt, that I just put on the shirt quickly and the tie in a rush. And when we went home together on the subway train she slept with her head on my shoulder. I felt embarrassed because she looked old and tough. A girl who ran away, was expelled from schools and smoked when she was twelve. And me, I was always somehow getting to know these girls, not out of sex or sin, but because their souls were fetched up out of them by dismal sodas and dances and they would see me with my big, shrewdless eyes and come and invite me to sneak a cigarette or drink.
"Gertrude, you're very good behind the bar. I want a really big lash of Gold Label.
Gertrude smiled at Kathleen.
I was nineteen and older and in a sailor suit and back in Virginia and Norfolk. On leave I would go to the libraries because in behind the stacks I could escape. Sunny days meant nothing to me. And I made a trip to Baltimore. Into a strange boarding house on a dry cold New Year's Eve. The wind blowing. My room had no windows. Just an open transom. All the time I was in that part of America I felt the closeness of the Great Dismal Swamp and broken boards and peeling signs and road houses isolated with greed and silence, drink and snakes. I walked about the city, lost and trying to get it. Put it in one spot and look at it and stand there with all Baltimore around me where I could pick it up in my hand and take it away. But move on and up and down and around each street and find it blank and unimportant without the rest. I went into a bar, crowded and dark, tripping over people's legs. Voices, sighs and laughs and lies and lips and teeth and whites of eyes. Secrets of shaved armpits and the thin, small hair on women's upper lips showing through tan powders. All these breasts slung in rayon cradles. I pushed through elbows to the bar and sat on a red and chromium stool. Sitting beside me, a girl in a black, ungainly dress. Down on her leg I saw net stockings. Curious girl with large brown eyes in her round face of rough skin and thin lips. Here in Baltimore. Sitting, searching at a bar. There was a dreadful fight And the abuse. Cheapskate, tough and wise. And bastard. There are babes present, buddy. I'd like to see you do it, who's pushing who, come outside, say, watch your language, no cheap son of a bitch, hit him for Christ's sake, hit him. In the middle