Women

66

I took Tammie. We got there a little early and went to a bar across the street. We got a table.

"Now don't drink too much, Hank. You know how you slur your words and miss your lines when you get too drunk."

"At last," I said, "you're talking sense."

"You're afraid of the audience, aren't you?"

"Yes, but it's not stagefright. It's that I'm there as the geek. They like to watch me eat my shit. But it pays the light bill and takes me to the racetrack. I don't have any excuses about why I do it."

"I'll have a Stinger," said Tammie.

I told the girl to bring us a Stinger and a Bud.

"I'll be all right tonight," she said, "don't worry about me."

Tammie drank the Stinger down.

"These Stingers don't seem to have much in them. I'll have another."

We had another Stinger and another Bud.

"Really," she said, "I don't think they're putting anything into these drinks. I better have another."

Tammie had five Stingers in 40 minutes.

We knocked on the back door of the Smack-Hi. One of Marty's big bodyguards let us in. He had these malfunctioning thyroid types working for him to keep law and order when the teeny-boppers, the hairy freaks, the glue sniffers, the acid heads, the plain grass folk, the alcoholics-all the miserable, the damned, the bored and the pretenders-got out of hand.

I was getting ready to puke and I did. This time I found a trash can and let it go. The last time I had dumped it just outside Marty's office. He was pleased with the change.