A Girl Called Honey

Three

When she awoke she was not alone and for this she was very grateful. The monotonous walls of the hotel room were painted a dull gray that was no color at all and the made her feel trapped sometimes. A few pictures here and there might liven up the walls, and several times she had told herself to tear a picture or two from a magazine and get some scotch tape at Mr. Harris’s drugstore on the corner, but she never remembered and the walls remained as depressing as ever. When she woke up they seemed to hem her in, and when she went to sleep they appeared to be watching her.

But now, now that she was no longer alone upon awakening, the walls were not nearly so hard to bear. Now that there was another warm body beside her own warm body, another human being sharing her bed, now everything was much more pleasant and it was a genuine joy to open her eyes and face the day.

She yawned a luxurious yawn with all her muscles participating. She stretched and yawned again. She closed her eyes and snuggled her face against the pillow that was warm with the cozy warmth of her own body heat.

When she opened her eyes again Richie was still in bed and still had not moved. She put her head on his chest and listened to his heart beating, listened to the rhythm of his breathing and smiled a slow and secret smile to herself. She put out a hand and touched his chest right over his heart, touched him once and just for a moment, and then removed her hand. He didn’t move, didn’t wake up, but he made a small sound through closed lips and he seemed to be smiling in his sleep.

He’s just a little boy, she thought contentedly, and she put her head back on her warm pillow and closed her eyes again and thought about him, her little boy. She was glad that he was the way he was, that he was like a little boy and all afraid of everything and never quite sure what to do. He needed to be taken care of, needed her to hold him and cuddle him and watch him sleep, and for this she was thankful.

She remembered that time, the first time with him, and she remembered how he had been waiting for her when she left the house that night after work was finished. It was 4:30 in the morning by the time she got out of the house and the sun was getting ready to think about rising. The sky was light. The first birds were already out after the first worms and the ground was moist with dew.

She left the house and headed toward Schwerner Boulevard. She had walked maybe thirty yards when she heard a voice, a voice calling “Honey!” It was a few seconds before she realized that the voice was calling her because Honey was only her name during working hours, and that only with customers. Madge and Dee and Joan called her Honour. Terri, who seemed to think her full name was humorous, called her Honour Mercy, sometimes Honour Mercy Bane. She would drawl it out southern-fashion until even Honour Mercy, who thought her name a perfectly sensible one, would find herself laughing.

But now a voice was calling “Honey!” and the Honey it referred to was quite obviously herself. She turned around and got scared for a minute because he was just a foot or two away from her, his eyes very intense, his mouth half-open and scared.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

He seemed frightened by something, but after she took his arm he wasn’t frightened any more. He told her that he had just come to town, that he didn’t know where to go and that he didn’t have any place to stay. She nodded thoughtfully, liking him and feeling sorry for him, and the two of them began walking toward Schwerner Boulevard. She was taking him to her hotel, although she did not know it at the time, and would have been surprised if someone had suggested it to her.

On the way he talked, talked about himself, and from the tone of his voice she got the feeling that he was telling her things he had never told anybody before, telling them to her without knowing why. Her customers often talked to her, sometimes before but more often afterward, but now it was not as if it was a customer talking to her. When the customers spoke she would nod her head and say “Uh-huh” without really hearing a word they spoke, but now she listened to everything he said. It was more like talking with one of the girls in the house but it wasn’t quite like that either.

He told her that he was supposed to be with the Air Force at Scott Air Force Base near St. Louis. He told her that he was AWOL, that he had left without permission and would be punished if they caught him. He did not explain why he had left the base, not that night, although he did tell her several days later, but she knew then that he had done something wrong and that was why he had left.

She was glad to hear his confession. When he told her, she felt a kinship with him — they both had done something wrong and had been forced to run away. Neither of them could go back where they had come from. She was very glad, and when he told her she understood the similarity between them and she hugged his arm tighter.

At the entrance to the Casterbridge Hotel they stood awkwardly for a moment and he shifted from one foot to the other. Then she told him that he could stay with her for the night — or morning, more accurately — because it was no hour to go looking for a hotel room and because the police might arrest him if they found him out on the streets at that hour. He accepted gratefully and they went into the hotel and up the stairs and down the corridor to her little room.

In the room they got undressed and ready for bed and it was very funny to her. They undressed and they were not unaware of each other or embarrassed by each other. They were two human beings undressing and getting ready for bed and it was an extremely natural thing.

She turned out the light and they got into the little bed. It was a small bed and they were very close together and each was very conscious of the presence of the other. At first she lay down with her back toward him, but then she rolled over and let him take her in his arms. He kissed her and he did it very awkwardly because he did not know anything about kissing. It was the one thing she had not shown him that night, and he did it badly as a result, but she didn’t mind because she thought it was cute the way his nose pressed against hers and the way his hands on her back moved shakily and nervously.

Then she showed him how to kiss, how to make his mouth behave the way his mind wanted it to behave, and they lay very still holding each other and kissing each other, lips gentle and tongues explorative. His hands examined her body with a combination of wonder and admiration and he murmured “Honey, Honey, Honey!” into her chestnut hair.

She told him her name was really Honour Mercy, and after that he never called her Honey again but always called her Honour Mercy. He always used both names, but when he said it it never sounded funny the way it did when Terri said it.

They did not make love that night. That is, they did not take possession of one another. In a larger sense they made love much more certainly than two strangers who copulated. They held each other close all night through, and while both of them were far too tired for intercourse, then simple presence together was a full and satisfying act of love.

She had been the first woman for him and she was glad, glad that it had been she who taught him how to love. Other women are generally grateful for a man’s experience rather than for the lack of it, but for her it was the other way around. She had already decided that experience wasn’t particularly important, that one man was quite like another in bed, that the ones who had done the most and bragged the loudest were usually the most disappointing. Men seemed to think that their prowess hinged upon the length of time they could sustain intercourse, and the variations with which they were acquainted.

Other things were more important: the joy Richie took in her body and in his own, the happiness she was able to bring him, the shy smile on his young face and the mistiness in the corners of his eyes, the way he held her hand. Another man, while he knew seventeen variations on the old theme and could sustain the act almost indefinitely, never could make her feel the way Richie did.

And so she was glad she had been the first for him. In another way he was the first for her.

He was the first man she ever slept with.

When she went to work the next day at noon, he took her work for granted just as she took it for granted that he would be there when she returned. The two of them moved into another room on the same floor of the Casterbridge Hotel, a larger room with a double bed, and that night he unpacked his suitcase and hung his Air Force uniform on a hanger in the closet.

They never talked about her work. It was her job, a well-paying job and a job she enjoyed, and in his mind as well as hers it was completely divorced from their life together. He accepted it so completely that it was unnecessary to talk about it. In turn she accepted the fact that he had to stay in the hotel room as much of the time as possible, that he couldn’t get a job or spend much time out of doors because the Air Police might be looking for him. She put in eight hours a day at the house, and during those eight hours he read the paperback novels and detective magazines that she bought for him at the drugstore. She thought now that she would have to remember to get him some more magazines on her way home from work, and reminded herself that she ought to pick up a roll of scotch tape at the same time and put some pictures up to make the room nicer.

She ran her hand over his chest, stroked his stomach, felt him wake up ready for her and wanting her. His eyes never opened but he didn’t have to have his eyes open to reach for her, to hold her and whisper her name and move with her and against her, and love her.

It was over quickly but not too quickly. It was the way it should be, with him still drugged with sleep and her still not fully awake, and when it was over he kept his eyes closed and his heart was beating rapidly and his chest heaving. Then, his eyes still shut, he rolled free of her and lay on his own pillow, face downward this time. Seconds later he was asleep once more.

She looked at him for several minutes, her eyes filled with the love of him and the need for him, her body thoroughly satisfied and her mind happy. She was smiling now without realizing it and the smile remained on her face as she slipped out from under the thin blanket and tiptoed to the bathroom. She showered and stepped out of the shower and dried herself on one of the hotel’s towels, which were too small and not absorbent enough, and reminded herself that she really ought to buy some good towels on sale for 49¢ and it would be worth it to have a towel that really got you dry.

She dressed quickly but carefully. She put on a pair of panties and a bra and a frilly green dress that went well with her hair. The dress was cut low and the bra showed so she slipped out of the dress, shed the bra and put the dress on again. She checked herself in the mirror — her breasts showed a little but not too much and it made her sexy without looking cheap. Madge was very firm on that point. She said that when a man paid ten dollars or more he deserved a girl who looked classy.

When she was fully dressed she looked at the little alarm clock on the night-table. It was 11:45 and she had to hurry. It was time for her to go to work.

If Richie Parsons had one regret it was that he couldn’t sleep fifteen hours a day.

He slept with Honour Mercy. When she came back to the hotel room, at 4:30 in the morning if she was working nights, and at 8:30 in the evening if she was working the early shift, they were together talking and eating and just plain being together until it was time for her to sleep. If she worked the early shift, they went to sleep around three in the morning; when she worked nights, they went to sleep between five and six. When he was asleep it was good because she was in the bed with him, and when they were together it was good simply because it was always good when they were together. But for eight hours every day — and closer to nine hours, what with her leaving a little early and staying at the house a little late — he was alone by himself in the hotel room, alone with some paper-back novels and detective magazines.

Richie never cared too much for reading. The only reason he read the paperback novels and the detective magazines was that there was very little else to do when you were cooped up in a hotel room for eight hours. So he read the novels and magazines and played solitaire. Honour Mercy had brought him a deck of playing cards once, a fancy deck that one of her customers had given her for a joke with a different pornographic illustration on the back of each of the fifty-two cards, and for a time he played solitaire constantly when she was gone. He even made a running game out of it, keeping careful score of how many games he played and how many he won on a scrap of paper, but after a while it became far more monotonous than the paperback novels or the detective magazines. He only knew one game of solitaire and it wasn’t a particularly complex one, so after a week or so he stopped playing.

The pictures on the backs of the cards, which had been a source of interest and amusement for a time, were now too familiar to arouse his attention. The playing cards alone would have driven him insane with desire before he met Honour Mercy, but now that he had a completely satisfactory sexual relationship the pictures were not exciting in the least. He didn’t need pictures any more.

It was twelve-thirty before he got up that afternoon and he wished he could have remained unconscious until half-past-eight when Honour Mercy would come back to the room. But finally he couldn’t sleep any longer and he got out of bed, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went to the bathroom to shave and shower and brush his teeth. He put on a worn flannel shirt and a pair of dungarees and went downstairs for breakfast.

Gil Gluck, who owned the Casterbridge Hotel, also owned a luncheonette around the corner where Richie Parsons had his breakfast each day. If there was one characteristic that distinguished the lunch counter from any other in Newport, it was the fact that Gil Gluck conducted no other sub rosa business there. There were no rooms behind the lunch counter where harlots entertained men, no rooms where men wore green eyeshades and dealt cards around tables, no rooms where bootleg moonshine was sold or white powder peddled. The Canarsie Grille, endowed the name of Gil Gluck’s beloved hometown and spelled “grille” because the sign-painter Gil Gluck had hired was an incurable romantic, dealt solely in such eminently respectable commodities as eggs, wheat cakes, coffee, hamburgers, home fries, coca-cola and the like.

The fact that the Canarsie Grille was plain and simple, a luncheonette, the fact that there was nothing at all illegal in Gil Gluck’s operations either in the luncheonette or in the hotel, was a source of tremendous consternation to the police force of Newport. Time and time again they had pulled surprise raids on first the hotel and then the Canarsie Grille; time and again they had found nothing more incriminating than a roach in a closet or a dirty spoon in a drawer.

Since the roach in the closet was a bewildered cockroach and not the butt of a marijuana cigarette, since no heroin had been cooked in the spoon, there was nothing the police could do. Gil Gluck paid the police nothing, and this bothered them. While metropolitan police, a far more sophisticated breed, would have found a way to squeeze money out of Gil Gluck, come hell or high water, no matter how honest he was, the Newport police cursed softly under their collective breath and let him alone. They also drank coffee there, since Gil was the only man in town who made a really good cup of coffee.

Richie Parsons drank coffee at the Canarsie Grille. He drank it with two spoonfuls of sugar and enough cream to kill the taste of Gil’s good coffee. This bothered Gil, who was justly proud of his coffee. But the fact that Richie always ordered wheat cakes, and licked his lips appreciatively after the first bite, endeared him to Gil.

The fact that Gil was a regular customer of Honour Mercy’s might not have endeared the little bald man to Richie, but it was a fact that Gil Gluck sagely refrained from mentioning to the boy.

Richie finished the last of the wheat cakes and poured the rest of the coffee down his throat. He put the cup back in the saucer, then raised it a few inches to indicate that he wanted another cup. Gil took his cup, rinsed it out in the sink and filled it with coffee. He brought it to Richie, who in turn polluted it with cream and sugar and sipped at it. It tasted good and he took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it to go with the coffee.

When the cop came in and sat down next to him, Richie was suddenly scared stiff.

The cop was a big man. Richie didn’t dare to look at him but he could see the cop’s face out of the corner of his eye. It was composed primarily of chin. Richie could also see the cop’s holster out of the corner of his eye, the black leather holster with the .38 police positive in it. The gun, to Richie at least, was composed primarily of bullets, bullets which could splatter Richie to hell.

Richie sat there on his stool, the cup of coffee frozen halfway between saucer and mouth, the cigarette clutched so tightly between his fingers that it was a wonder it didn’t snap in two. Richie sat there terrified, waiting for something to happen.

Gil Gluck came over and stood in front of the cop.

Gil Gluck said: “What’ll you have?”

“Coffee,” said the cop.

Gil brought the coffee. The cop, who liked coffee and who appreciated good coffee, drank the coffee black and without sugar. He smacked his lips over the coffee and Gil Gluck glowed.

“Nice day,” said the cop.

“If it don’t rain,” said Gil, who had absorbed the subtleties of Kentucky conversation.

“You sure ought to open up a game in that back room of yours,” said the cop, for perhaps the eightieth time. “Be a natural.”

Gil let it ride. “How’s business?”

The cop shrugged. “Usual.”

“Anybody get killed?”

The cop laughed, thinking that Gil sure had a sense of humor. “Usual,” he repeated. “Hold-up over on Grant Street but the jackass who stuck the place up ran out of the store and smack into a cop. He didn’t get ten yards out of the store before he had handcuffs on him.”

“What kind of store?”

“Liquor store,” said the cop. “Grobers package store. Up near Tenth Street on the downtown side. Know the place?”

“Sure.”

“Well, that’s all we had. Oh, there was a jailbreak down in Louisville and we got a few wanted posters on it. And an out-of-state air force base sent down a picture of a deserter they figure headed this way, but that’s just the ordinary stuff. Nothing much is happening in Newport.”

Richie Parsons went numb.

What Richie Parsons did not know, although any jackass ought to have been able to figure it out, was that the out-of-state air force base the cop was referring to was Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Scott Air Force Base would hardly bother sending wanted notices as far as Newport. But to Richie Parsons, who had been born scared, any mention of a deserter was sufficient cause to crawl under the nearest rotting log and await Armageddon.

The deserter that the Wright-Patterson people were looking for was not at all similar to Richie Parsons. His name was Warren Michael Stults, he was twenty-three years old, six foot three and built like a Sherman tank. He was being searched for not only because he had gone over the hill but also because, as a prelude to desertion, he had kicked the hell out of his commanding officer. The commanding officer, bemoaning the loss of three front teeth and a goodly amount of self-respect, wanted to get hold of Warren Michael Stults as soon as possible.

But Richie Parsons did not know this angle.

And Richie Parsons was scared green.

He put money on the Formica top of the counter for his breakfast and edged out of the Canarsie Grille. The familiar skulk was back in his step and the familiar look of barely restrained terror was back on his face. The door stuck when he tried to open it and he almost fainted dead away on the spot. But he got through the door without attracting any attention and scurried around to the hotel.

The cop had noticed him, however. “What’s with him?” the cop wondered aloud after Richie was gone.

“Him?”

“The little guy,” the cop said. “The one who just scurried out of here with his tail between his legs.”

“Oh,” said Gil.

“He new around here?”

“He lives up at the hotel,” Gil said. “Been here about a month.”

“What’s he do for a living?”

“Lives with one of the whores,” Gil said.

“He pimp for her?”

“Must,” said Gil, who couldn’t imagine a man living with a whore and not pimping for her.

“Good for him,” the cop said. “At least he’s making an honest living. It’s guys like you who give this town a lousy reputation.”

Gil smiled — an infinitely patient smile — and filled the cop’s cup with more black coffee.

The hell of it was that he had read all of the books and magazines in the room.

That’s what made it so impossible. Seven hours in an empty hotel room is a bore, whatever way you look at it, but it would have been a lot easier to bear if he had a book or magazine to read. As it was, the room was full of books and magazines but he had read every last one of them.

He couldn’t go out of the room. That much was obvious. He couldn’t go out, not even to the drugstore to buy himself something to read, not even down to the Canarsie Grille later on for another cup of coffee. There were candy bars at the hotel desk, but he was too petrified to chance going downstairs again, so he did nothing but sit in his room in the hotel, going quietly out of his mind.

Newport was not safe anymore. In his mind he saw every policeman in the town studying his picture with interest and devoting every minute of his time to a careful search for Richie Parsons, Deserter. Just as it never entered his mind that the deserter could be anyone but him, it never occurred to him that the Newport police couldn’t care less about an out-of-state deserter, that they got a notice like that every day of every week, and that the cop had mentioned it solely to show what a bore the day was.

Richie knew only that he was a hunted man.

The fact that he remained for seven-and-a-half terror-stricken hours in room 26 of the Hotel Casterbridge is striking testimony to the hold Honour Mercy Bane had upon him. If it were not for her, he would have been on the first bus or train out of Newport. No, that’s not right — he wouldn’t have chanced recognition at the bus or train station, fearing that the police would be watching such areas of escape. He would have hiked clear to the city limits of Cincinnati and then hitched a ride.

But not now. Now he had to wait for Honour Mercy because he could not possibly leave without her.

He got the deck of cards, shuffled them and began to deal out a hand of solitaire. He had to cheat once or twice, but he won three games straight before it became so boring that he couldn’t stand it. Then he ran through the deck and observed the positions of the men and women on the back of each card, trying to take some vicarious interest in their obvious celluloid joy, but they left him cold.

He put the cards down and sat in a chair facing the door. At any moment he expected a knock, but after a half-hour his fear changed its manifestation from nervousness to a strange calm. Instead of fidgeting, he sat stiff as a board and waited for time to pass, waited for it to be eight-thirty and for Honour Mercy to come home so that they could get the hell out of the town of Newport.

He barely moved at all. Periodically he lit a cigarette, periodically he ducked ashes on the rug, periodically he dropped the cigarette to the floor and stepped on it.

And periodically he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

Honour Mercy Bane was tired.

She was tired because, for an early shift, there had been one hell of a lot of action. It had been a back-breaking day which had culminated in a thirty-five-dollar trick at five minutes to eight, and now that she was out of the place she felt she would be happy never to see the inside of a house again.

She was hungry but she didn’t stop for a bite to eat, preferring to wait and have supper with Richie. She didn’t forget to buy magazines and books for him, but she was in such a hurry to get home that she remembered the books and magazines and passed the drugstore anyhow, figuring that she could get them later.

She had to get back to the hotel room in a hurry. She didn’t know why, but she had a strange feeling that the faster she saw Richie, the better.

When she opened the door of the room he straightened up in the chair and his eyes were wide. Before she could say anything, he stood up and motioned for her to shut the door. She did so, puzzled.

“We have to leave,” he said.

She looked at him.

“They’re looking for me,” he said, “and we’ve got to get out of town.”

She nodded. She thought that Madge would be disappointed when she didn’t show up at the house the following day, that Terri would miss her and that some of her steadies would grumble when they discovered she was literally nowhere to be had. But the thought of remaining in Newport never entered her mind.

“Better start packing.”

She got her ratty cardboard suitcase from the closet and spread it on the bed and began filling it with clothes. At the same time, he packed his own suitcase, and the first thing he put into it was his uniform.

She had, fortunately, quite a lot of money. There was good money to be made at a Newport whorehouse and she had been making it. Neither she nor Richie could be classed as a big spender and she had over four hundred dollars in her purse. That, she thought, ought to be enough to last them quite a time.

She packed up her dresses and they were much nicer than the clothing she had carried with her from Clearwater. She didn’t have room for everything in the little suitcase and had to leave some of the dresses behind, but she managed to take along the ones she liked best.

They packed in a hurry. It didn’t take them more than fifteen minutes all told before both suitcases were jammed and lay ready to go. Then she went to Richie and he took her in his arms and held her very close and kissed her several times, his arms holding her firmly and tenderly. When he held her like that, and kissed her like that, he didn’t seem scared at all.

And when he did that, the memory of that last thirty-five-dollar trick was washed out of her system. She completely forgot about it.

Then he let go of her. There would be time later to make love, plenty of time when they were out of Newport and out of Kentucky and away someplace safe. She picked up her suitcase and he picked up his suitcase and they walked out of the room and down the stairs and out of the hotel. If Richie skulked as he walked, his thin body hugging the sides of the buildings they passed, Honour Mercy Bane didn’t notice it.

He would not hitchhike, not with her along, and they were walking to the bus station. She wondered what it would be like where they were going. She had not asked him where they were headed and did not have the slightest idea whether he was taking her north or south or east or west.

She was like Ruth in the Bible that Prudence and Abraham Bane read from every day of their lives. Wherever he took her she would go.