The Brass Bed

14

“Having had two of them,” Harvey said, “I am prepared to say that the drinks are adequate.”

“At a clam per,” I said, “they can afford to be adequate.”

“That’s true,” Harvey agreed. “There is no question that we are paying dearly for reputation and atmosphere, to say nothing of the possible improvisations of Gloria Finch.”

“Diddle Gloria Finch,” I said.

“Well,” Harvey said, “I’ve heard that it can be done, but it would undoubtedly cost more than the fifty clams we have agreed to spend between us.”

We sat at the bar, which was a very fancy bar with extremely efficient bartenders, and all around us was a lot of glass and leather and stuff that may have been made of bronze, and there was a kind of period effect to it all, lush and regal and sort of modified Victorian or something, and the report was that Sylvester was a guy who prided himself on not going too far over on the modern side. This distaste for the modern did not extend, however, to modern prices, and Sylvester’s was a poor place to go looking for a two-bit beer or a four-bit shot, and in fact you would have grown old and gray and eventually quite dead before you ever found them.

There had not been many patrons there when we first came, but we had nursed the two drinks over a considerable period of time, which is only good economics at a clam per, and people had kept coming in and dispersing along the bar and among the tables, and now there were quite a few of them. There was a small orchestra that played smoothly and softly and without distinction, and a number of the men patrons danced with an equal number of women patrons on a small dance floor that required minimum movement and maximum contact. I watched the dancing patrons in the mirror behind the bar, and I began remembering the poem I had recited to Jolly and Fran and Sid at Jolly’s house, the one about the medieval university student who had gone down among the maidens and the dancing feet, but there was a gaiety and abandon in the poem that was lacking in the present reality, and all in all the comparison was unfortunate and did little or nothing to support the spirit of celebration. I ordered third drinks for Harvey and me and kept watching what went on in the glass, and there all of a sudden, was Fran getting closer and closer.

“There’s Fran,” I said.

“Where?” Harvey said.

“In the glass behind the bar.”

He looked and found her and nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s certainly Fran. Do you think she’s seen us?”

“I do.”

“Would you say that she is merely approaching the bar, or would you say that she is approaching us specifically and the bar incidentally?”

“Us specifically.”

“That’s what I thought myself,” he said. “What a shame that I’ve shaved off my whiskers.”

We continued to watch her, and she got up to us and put one arm around Harvey’s neck and the other one around mine.

“Hello, you guys,” she said.

“Greetings,” I said.

“And salutations,” Harvey said.

She turned her head one way and kissed Harvey on the right cheek, and then turned it the other way and kissed me on the left cheek.

“It’s impossible for me to say how happy I am to see you,” she said.

“We are happy to see you too,” Harvey said. “At least I’m happy, and I’m sure I speak truthfully for Felix also. Is it true that you are happy to see Fran again, Felix?”

“I’m happy and delighted,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “I must say that you guys seem very gay.”

“We are,” I said. “We resolved to be gay, and that’s what we are.”

“In fact,” Harvey said, “we are celebrating the temporary termination of bondage.”

“Bondage?” Fran said. “Are you out on bail or something?”

“Not at all.” Harvey spoke with dignity and drained the glass that had contained his third drink. “What I mean is, school is out, and this is a happy occasion that is generally celebrated one way or another by all concerned. When I was a kid, I used to celebrate it by taking off my shoes. Now I celebrate it in the company of a true friend by submitting my throat to Sylvester’s painless butchery.”

Fran snorted, “Well, come and submit it across the room. Jolly’s waiting for us there.”

“Do you mean that you and Jolly are here at Sylvester’s by yourselves?” I asked her.

“Of course not, Felix. It wouldn’t be proper for Jolly and me to come here unescorted, and moreover Sylvester wouldn’t permit it. Sid has come with us, and I can’t understand, anyhow, why you have to be so curious. The point is, you are invited to come and sit with us at our table, and I am here to deliver the invitation.”

“We accept with pleasure,” Harvey said.

“Speaking for myself,” I said, “I decline with regret.”

“Well, that makes no sense whatever,” Fran said. “If you decline with regret, why decline at all?”

“It may have slipped your mind,” I said, “that Jolly has only recently buried a husband, and it is my opinion that a new widow is no asset to a celebration.”

“But you are absolutely mistaken,” she said. “As you surely remember, Kirby never contributed much to a party, and things are likely to go much better and livelier without him.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Isn’t it? Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what the point is.”

“I’ll be happy to. The point is, it seems damn indecent for a live widow to be cavorting around so soon after burying a dead husband.”

“As one who may himself become a dead husband in the future,” Harvey said, “I am inclined to be rather sympathetic to that view.”

“Oh, poop!” Fran said. “I’ve never before heard such nonsense in all my life. If you want my opinion, Kirby has had all the mourning he deserves, and I myself urged Jolly to come out on a party and be gay.”

“Come to think of it,” Harvey said, “Kirby was certainly a fellow who went around hitting far too many people, and I am now in sympathy with your point of view, Fran, as opposed to Felix’s. I am definitely in favor of joining Jolly and Sid.”

“There you are, Felix,” Fran said. “Although you are supposed to be Harvey’s friend, you are depriving him of a simple pleasure because of a perfectly ridiculous personal feeling. What kind of friend is that, I’d like to know.”

“Would it give you pleasure to go?” I said to Harvey.

“It truly would,” he said. “In fact, I see the prospect of an exciting time. I have not shaved since morning, and if the celebration extends itself sufficiently there’s a chance I may be able to produce discernible whiskers before it’s over.”

“Oh, say,” Fran said, “that would be exciting! Felix, you are simply obligated to come, and that’s all there is to it.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll come in order to give pleasure to Harvey, but first I must have another drink.”

“I’m agreeable to that,” Harvey said. “I wouldn’t at all object to another drink myself.”

“I confess that I wouldn’t, either,” Fran said. “We’ll all have one together to prepare ourselves for others that will come later.”

We had the drink and then went over to the table where Jolly was sitting with Sid. Jolly was wearing a black dress that was cut quite low between her small breasts, and she looked very young and a little tired, and this appearance of youngness and tiredness was somehow paradoxical, or at least unusual, and made her strongly appealing.

Sid stood up and made a business of shaking hands. He seemed to have forgotten all about the last thing I’d said to him the morning we last saw each other at Jolly’s.

“How are you, Felix,” he said.

“I’m very lonely,” I said, “and longing for love and comfort.”

“They’re actually celebrating,” Fran said.

Sid scowled briefly at Fran’s remark, and then he signaled a waiter to bring two more chairs, which the waiter did, and we sat down. While the waiter was there, everyone ordered a drink, and Harvey started telling how he was a country boy and was going back to the farm to eat watermelons. I was sitting next to Jolly, and she put one of her knees against one of mine and held it there.

“Isn’t it odd,” she said, “how we just happened to come here the same night and all, especially when neither of us hardly ever comes here at all?”

“It is,” I said. “It’s destiny or something.”

Fran was talking with Harvey, and now she looked at him with an incredulous expression.

“Naked?” she said. “Actually naked?”

“Certainly naked,” Harvey said. “It’s only a lousy little creek with no one around for miles.”

“Nevertheless,” Fran said, “I find it incredible and fascinating that a grown man would swim in anything whatever with absolutely nothing on.” She turned to me. “Tell the truth, Felix. Have you ever swum naked in a creek?”

“As a boy,” I said, “I regularly swam naked in a creek, and as a man I have done it off and on as the opportunities presented themselves.”

“It’s a common practice,” Harvey said.

Sid observed that the conversation was silly, and that started an argument between him and Fran. As usual.

“I suggest we all have another drink,” I said.

“That’s a good idea,” Jolly said. “Let’s all have another drink, as Felix suggests, and then go somewhere else where it’s a little more exciting. I must say that I find Sylvester’s quite dull and disappointing. It’s overrated, that’s what it is.”

“Everyone knows that,” Fran said. “Everyone knows it’s overrated, but everyone keeps coming here just the same. Isn’t that odd?”

“It’s a habit,” Harvey said. “People are creatures of habit.”

Sid had got the attention of a waiter, and everyone began saying that he would have the same as before, and eventually the waiter got it straight as to what it was that everyone had had.

“Does everyone consent to going somewhere else where it is more exciting?” Jolly asked.

“Well,” Harvey said, “I was rather counting on catching Gloria Finch in a late act.”

“Don’t bother, Harvey,” Jolly said. “Gloria Finch is a cow.”

“Is that so?” Harvey said. “She doesn’t look like a cow in her pictures.”

“Her pictures are deceptive. It’s the way they use lights and things. It’s downright criminal the way they use lights and things to make women like Gloria Finch look like they aren’t cows.”

“Is it true that she sometimes improvises on the act in the way of discarding articles of clothing?”

“I understand that it’s true, but I maintain that it is no particular pleasure to see a cow without clothing.”

“That would depend on the cow,” Harvey said, “and I still think it might be interesting to see it.”

“Oh, come on, Harvey,” Fran said, “give it up. Perhaps I can arrange something for you a little later in the evening.”

“In that case,” Harvey said, “I’ll give it up.”

“Well, I’ll be God-damned,” Sid said.

Fran looked at him and started to say something, but at that moment the waiter brought the drinks, and everyone started drinking instead of talking.

“Since it’s agreed that we will go somewhere else,” Jolly said after a while, “it is now necessary to decide where it will be. Does anyone have an idea?”

“I have an idea,” Sid said.

Fran lowered her glass and stared at him for a moment with wide eyes.

“Really, Sid? Is it actually true that you have an idea?”

“I do,” Sid said with dignity. “It is my idea that we should go to Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House.”

“Hallelujah House?”

“That’s what it’s called. The reason it’s called that is because it’s a bar in front and a kind of tabernacle in back. There’s a preacher there who keeps exhorting about the evils of drink, and the thing to do is to drink in the front part and then go back and listen to the preacher, and after the preacher has worked up a good sweat sending you to hell for drinking, it becomes a kind of moral obligation to go back and drink some more in the front room so that he can have another whack at you, and all in all this keeps going on and on, and it’s very good for business. Besides the money he takes up in collections, it’s reported that the preacher gets a weekly salary from the till at the bar.”

“Sid,” Fran said, “you’re drunk on sociable drinks, and there isn’t a word of truth in you.”

“It’s true,” Sid said. “It’s true, and I can take you there to prove it.”

“Yes,” Harvey said, “it’s definitely true. I remember hearing of the place myself, now that Sid has mentioned it, and I admit that I am anxious to go.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fran said. “Imagine old Sid knowing about a place like that.”

“I propose that we leave for the Hallelujah House immediately,” Jolly said. “Do you have your car, Felix?”

“No. We’re in Harvey’s.”

“Well, anyhow, we will have to divide into two groups, and Sid will have to go in the first car in order to guide us.”

“I’ll go with Sid and Fran,” Harvey said, “and Jolly and Felix can follow in my car.”

We finished the drinks and went outside and across the street to the garage where we had left the cars. Jolly and Fran and Sid had come in the Caddy that had been Kirby’s and was now Jolly’s, and Fran and Sid and Harvey got into it. Jolly sat very close to me in the front seat of Harvey’s old crate, and we followed the shining Caddy out into the country to the place that Sid had told us about.