The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [102]
Wilson was feeling exceptionally good. The whisky had filled his body with a rosy sense of complete well-being, and vague lewd sensual images stroked his mind. His groin was filling, becoming tumescent, and his nose quivered with excitement as he remembered the fermy sweating smells of a woman in heat. "They ain't anythin' Ah wouldn' give to be lovin' it up with a woman now. Time Ah was workin' as a bellboy at the Hotel Main in town, they was a girl there she was workin' as a singer in some little old band that'd come to town, and she used to keep ringing for me to bring her up some drinks. Well, Ah was a young kid then, an' Ah was kind of slow to catch on, but they was one day Ah went up to her room and they she was bare-ass naked, an' jus' waitin' for me. Ah tell ya, Ah didn't go down and tend to business for all of three hours, and they wan't hardly a goddam thing she wouldn' do for me." He sighed, and took a long drink. "Her and me jus' loved it up eveh afternoon for all of two months, and she tol' me they wan't a man could equal me." He lit a cigarette, and his eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. "Ah'm a good fella, anybody'll tell ya that. They ain't a damn thing Ah cain't fix, not a single piece of machinery eveh been able to lick me, but Ah'm a sonofabitch comes to women. They's lots of women tol' me they neveh found a man like me." He ran his hand over his massive forehead and through his pompadour of golden hair. "But it jus' plays hell on a man when he ain't got a woman." He took another drink. "Ah got a girl waitin' for me in Kansas don' know Ah'm married. Use to fool aroun' with her when Ah was at Fort Riley. That little ole gal writes me letters all the time, Red'll tell ya 'cause he been readin' 'em to me, and she's jus' waitin' for me to come back. Ah keep tellin' mah old woman that she better stop writin' me those kind of naggin' letters about the kids and why Ah don't send more money home, or Ah'm damn sure not gonna go back to her. Shi-i-i-it, Ah like that ole gal in Kansas better anyway. She cooks a meal for me that's fitten for a man to eat."
Gallagher snorted. "Fuggin cracker like you, all you got time to do is screw and eat."
"What the hell's better?" Wilson asked mildly.
"A man can't get ahead, that's what," Gallagher said. "You work your ass off, you want something for it." He held his face numb. "I got a kid coming, probably being born right now while I'm drinking, but I never had a fuggin break, that's the goddam truth." He gave a little moan of anger, and then leaned forward tensely. "Listen, I remember there was times when I'd be going out alone for a walk and. . . I'd. . . I'd see things, and I'd know I was going to be something big." He paused bitterly. "But there was always something screwing me up." He stopped angrily, as if looking for words, and then looked off moodily.
Red was feeling very drunk and very profound. "I'll tell you guys something. . . none of ya are ever gonna get anything. You're all good guys, but you're gonna get. . . the shitty end of the stick. The shitty end of the stick, that's all you're gonna get."
Croft let out a roar of laughter. "You're a good bastard, Gallagher," he shouted sullenly, clapping him on the back. He felt a vast explosive mirth which embraced everything. "An' you're jus', jus' an old cock-hound, Wilson. You're the goddamnedest ole lecher. . ." His voice was thick and the others, even in their drunkenness, looked at him uneasily. "I bet you were born with a stiff rod."
Wilson began to cackle. "Ah've suspected it mahself." They laughed together violently, and Croft shook his head as if to halt the uproarious whirl of his head. "I'm going to tell you men something," he said. "You're all good guys. You're all chicken, and you're all yellow, but you're good guys. They ain't a goddam thing wrong with you."