Jazz Age Ch. 08 - 11

At the end of the block, Jack climbed into a taxi and gave the driver an address in the Fifties. Now he was thinking of last summer on the Sound, Harry Gorham's boat in Glen Cove, the two girls from Stamford, blonde hair, blue eyes, YOU REMIND ME OF MY MOTHER, the hell she did, he couldn't say what his mother looked like, not one of those ladies playing Mah Jongg, the blonde with fine hair, much finer than Gorham's blonde, not honey-colored, more sandy than honey-colored, an absence of blood in the face, I don't like the sun, she said, then why come out in a bloody boat? an attempt to be vivacious, the pink tongue wagging as she cocked her head to one side, wiggling her arms and hips like some stuffed doll in a puppet show, but he didn't like blondes anyway did he? not that kind, rather have a platinum girl if she's to be a blonde at all, platinum girl dressed in silver with an insolent mouth, her eyes laughing at him...

* * *

His name was Jack Bishop, born in the year 1895 in Hell's Kitchen. Unknown mother. Unknown father. Raised in St.Columba's Orphanage on Houston Street. Pissed in the East River for the first time at the age of eight. God help the East River.

* * *

He left the taxi in front of O'Malley's Eatery on 53rd Street. More speako than eato. A knock on the door, an eye at the hole, then a blast of noise as he walked through the entrance into the large room. The smoke hovered under the ceiling like a cloud of poison gas. The table at the left was occupied by two men and two girls, the girls in cloche hats, thin bare arms, one of the men drinking, the other with an arm around the shoulders of his girl. The men had slick dark hair, dark and slick, shining. The checkered tablecloth covered their knees, soiled at the edges, at least that edge, a brown stain, maybe gravy from the last stew on the table. Jack looked at the bare arms of the girls, the smooth flesh. The girl on the left now looked at Jack as he stood there with his head turning, his eyes roaming, his head turning again. What was he looking for? The girl's eyebrows shifted up and down. The boyo on her left now leaned in closer to breathe in her scent, breathe out his whiskey breath, the man with a drink at his mouth, his nose in the glass, his moustache rubbing against it. This one had red cheeks. The red lipstick of the girl across the table, the one still looking at Jack, her lips puckering, pursing, opening and closing. Where's her drink? She wants her drink now. She raised the glass to her lips, held it there with a limp wrist, her sharp elbow on the edge of the table, her head still turned to look at Jack, now turning again, saying something, the words lost in the noise, in the uproar...

Hububadub, Jack thought, his eyes on the girl on the left again, the arm around her shoulders, her sugar daddy no doubt, the flush in the jocko's face, his eyes on her neck, his hand now clutching her shoulder, breathing in, breathing out, the girl sipping her drink as she ignored him, ignored his breathing, the whiskey smell of him, the sweat on his pink forehead...

Some one shouted: "Horses, horses!"

A ripple of laughter...

Jack turned away, looked now at the table on the right, more smoke here, one of the men drinking, his eyes half closed as if he was about to drop off to sleep. The girl across the table from him wore a blue silk blouse and she was also drinking. The other girl was in the midst of a kiss, her right hand lifted to hold the man's chin, the man bending over as he stood beside her chair, his black hair catching the light, his black hair as slick as the others. The table here was crowded with dishes, crumbs between the dishes on the checkered tablecloth that hid the knees of the girl in front, the girl with her head back as she drank, her wrist bent. The other girl's red mouth pulled away from the face of the man bent over her, her white teeth gleaming as she smiled. The man on the right was drinking again, his mouth open. Now the other girl was getting kissed again, her white throat exposed as he bent over to kiss her mouth.

Jack turned away. Why was he here? He thought: I don't know why I come here. He looked at the girl again, the one with her arm raised as she drank, the blue silk blouse, her head tossed back, the line of her throat, her eyes closed as she poured the gin down her gullet, not like the other one, the other one was kissing, this one was drinking, and at the tables behind her the others were drinking, the men drinking, the women drinking, the booze flowing in and endless river out of the bottles into the glasses into the open mouths and then down the gullets and into the stomach and guts and into the kidneys and down the bladders to be pissed out again and returned to the lakes, the rivers, the sea...

Someone shouted at him: "Jack! Over here, Jack!"

Over there at the far right, a corner table under a mirror, three young men in business suits, one of them with an arm raised, his mouth open as once again he called out to Jack: "Over here, Jack!"

He walked toward them. Did he know them? The one with his arm raised looked familiar. Yes, it was Charlie Muth. Damn it, it's Charlie Muth, same face, filled out a little, clean, but sure it's Charlie Muth.

"Jack!" Charlie said.

Charlie rose up, put his arms around Jack, a laugh, Jack putting his arms around Charlie. "Hey, Charlie."

"How are you, Jack? Old Jack."

Jack sat down. In front of him, the edge of the wooden table was chipped. No checkered tablecloth here. He looked at the other three, Charlie and his two friends, all of them with red faces above their white collars.

Charlie said: "Jack and me were in the trenches together."

Jack drank with them. Irish whiskey. The others were already drunk, red-faced, eyes rolling, laughing. Charlie talked about the booze, this booze, other booze, rum-running. "I know a fellow in Detroit expects to make a million running booze across the water."

"Nah," one of the others said.

"Sure, why not?" the other one said.

Charlie slid an arm around Jack's shoulders. "Great to see you, Jack. You come here a lot? I don't get up this way too much."

Charlie talked about the war, France, the others talking. Jack just sat and watched them. Pals they were. Just pals talking about the war, except maybe Charlie and Jack were the only ones who'd been in it over there. The others here but not over there. The crappy uniforms that were too hot in summer. The girls. Then it was the French girls against the American girls. "Hey, the war wasn't too bad," Charlie said with a laugh.

Jack remembered France, the 7th Machine Gun Battalion, 3rd Division under General Joseph T. Dickman, the first American troops to meet the Germans, said encounter taking place at Chateau-Thierry on the Marne river.

"Rat-tat-tat," Charlie said.

The job they had was to hold the bridges. That was in May. In June they were next door to the blood and shit of Belleau Wood.

"Rat-tat-tat," Charlie said.

Jack closed his eyes. He never liked looking at dead bodies, all the dead bodies over there, dead bodies in a muddy hole, on the wire, one time just sitting against a tree, a Kraut with half his head blown away, you could see the brains inside.

Suppose you took the brains out of a man, what was left of him? He remembered the leaving, the train station, the straw hats the women were wearing, the long dresses, how they waved white handkerchiefs at the boys hanging out the train windows, the mothers, the sisters, the girlfriends, all those women on the platform waving at them while he had no one not even a girl because his girl had moved west with her folks, no one at the station to wave a white handkerchief at him, then the next thing he knows he's behind a machine gun at Chateau-Thierry, the sandbags all around them, him on the ground on his side with his head against a stone wall, his eyes on the sights, the other man Nunzio from Brooklyn, the blanket screen in front of them, the barrel of the gun through a hole in the blanket, Nunzio telling him some crazy story about a girl in Paris, and after Chateau-Thierry they were in Belleau Wood, on the ground between the dead trees, all the dead trees in Belleau Wood, he'd never seen so many dead trees before, the smoke hovering over them, the chatter of the machine guns almost casual now, casual chatter, one machine gun talking to another machine gun, and in his nose the stink of death, the smell of old shit and new shit, and then later on Nunzio on a stretcher in a trench, Nunzio dying, the bandage around his head useless because he was dying anyhow, the medic bending over Nunzio but you could see it was useless, a shell overhead, another shell, two rats running along the line of the wall as Nunzio finally lay dead with his mouth open...

Charlie said: "Hey, let's have a party. Next week's my birthday, but who says I can't have a party now? I know a swell place. Come on, it's on me, fellas, it's on me, Charlie Muth's paying the freight, isn't he?

The four of them left the speako, then piled into a taxi on the street. Charlie gave the driver an address in the Village.

"What a swell place," he said to Jack. "You ever been to Mrs. Colley's? It's the best damn whorehouse in New York!"

* * *

So there they were inside Mrs. Colley's living room, Jack and Charlie Muth and Charlie's friends Ricky and Ted, the young men boisterous as Mrs. Colley looked them over, her kohl-ringed eyes gauging, estimating, predicting, offering them drinks, have some whiskey, boys, and before long the girls moving in on the men, a redhead named Iris, a blonde named Lucy, the smell of perfume in the room.

Jack pondered the mystery of whores, always a mystery to him these girls who lived like hothouse flowers waiting for the bees to arrive, what had they been like as little girls? what would they be like as old women? they're all pretty aren't they? Charlie bought drinks for everyone, his cheeks pink as he celebrated his impending birthday with Mrs. Colley, his glass lifted in a toast. Ricky sat down at the piano and he started playing with two fingers, one of the girls hanging on his shoulders, Ted standing beside the piano with his eyes rolling as he sang a song about bluebirds on a blue mountain. The noise was awful now. More girls were coming down the stairs to enter the living room, two more blondes weaving from side to side, their eyes on the young men, on Mrs. Colley, on Jack who sat alone with a cigar and a drink in his right hand. They looked at Jack but he shook his head. Charlie waved a cigar at Jack. "Here's mud in your eye," Charlie said. "Old Jack, here's mud in your eye." Was he cockeyed? Jack suspected Charlie was three sheets to the wind. AIN'T WE GOT FUN? Charlie had the blonde Lucy now, his arm around her waist as he pulled her onto his knee, Lucy laughing, her legs in silk stockings flashing as she almost fell over.

Now they wanted music on the phonograph. Where was Mrs. Colley? Mrs. Colley was gone. Iris said she'd put something on the machine. She opened the top, cranked the machine, put on a recording. In a moment the music came out of the horn, Nora Bayes singing "Prohibition Blues". The booze flowed. Jack told himself he'd had enough to drink, the hell with Charlie Muth's birthday, the birthday was next week anyway and he didn't like birthdays, he never celebrated his own birthday, hey that girl has pretty legs, doesn't she? and then he turned his head without purpose and there suddenly was a new girl coming down the stairs...

She wore a red silk dress, ruffles on the side, thin shoulder straps, the dress reminding him of a girl in Paris, but this one was something else, a marvel, a startling beauty, dark hair, dark eyes, a face like a Madonna, slender, the body lean under the dress, thin ankles, Jack twisting in his chair, she's too pretty isn't she? maybe 5000 years ago she'd be an Egyptian queen. Then he told himself he was acting crazy, she was a whore wasn't she? she wouldn't be here unless she was a whore, she was a whore like the others, the redhead, the blonde sitting on Charlie Muth's lap, Jack thinking about the whores he'd known in Kansas City and Chicago and New York and Paris and once in Reims behind the ruins of the cathedral, the girl bending over a stone bench in the middle of a cemetery, and for some reason him thinking about the orphanage while he did it, the old crow who ran the place telling him when he left how he'd been brought in by a foreign woman she wasn't sure what kind, but anyway he was raised Catholic wasn't he? so what was he doing giving it to this French girl in the middle of a cemetery behind one of the greatest cathedrals in Europe? the old Reims cathedral blasted up now by the German artillery, the great grey stones all around it but the wreck still standing, the girl cursing as he stared at one of the cracked tombstones...

"You haven't been here before, have you?"

It was the girl on the stairs, the girl in the red dress who had now approached Jack, now standing in front of him, her dark eyes on him, her face, the face of a Madonna, her red lips. She sat down next to him and he could smell her perfume.

"First time here," he said.

He wondered how long she'd been at it. Her wrists were as fine as her ankles, perfect bones, a perfect face...

"My name's Rita," she said. "What's yours?"

"Jack."

"John?"

"Just Jack."

"I like that better. John is too formal."

What kind of job could she have if she wasn't a whore? She couldn't work as a waitress somewhere, or maybe she could be an office girl, a typewriter girl, a telephone girl, a chambermaid, except 5000 years ago she'd have been the Queen of Egypt for sure, what did he know about it, he was crazy, they were in New York and not Egypt weren't they? So he said: "Is Rita your real name?"

She smiled at him. "Yes it is."

Charlie Muth had his hands on his girl, the blonde Lucy, his hands on her back, then one hand on her breasts, the girl giggling as he tickled her armpit. The redhead walked back to Ricky, wiggled her hips, teasing him, asking him to stand up.

Now Mrs. Colley appeared at the doorway, looking in on the living room, smiling at the young people, the Turkish cigarette dangling from one corner of her red mouth. Charlie Muth shouted: "Hey, Jack, you okay?" Now the redhead walked off with Ricky, Charlie standing, Charlie patting the blonde's buttocks, Charlie waving an arm at Jack. "Have another drink, pal."

Rita said: "Would you like to come upstairs with me?"

They walked out of the room together, then Rita climbed the stairs, Jack following on the stairs with his eyes on her ankles, her thighs, her hips...

* * *

Jack and Rita in her room. The phonograph was still playing downstairs in the living room, the singing voice audible up here. The light in Rita's room was dim, pink, the moment awkward as she asked for the money. Not really asking, just saying: "Business before pleasure, if you don't mind."

He could tell her Charlie Muth was paying, but he didn't. Then abruptly there was a knock on the door, Rita answered it, someone whispered to her. She closed the door, turned to Jack, told him his friend was paying. "I'll give you the money back," she said.

Jack sat on the bed, his head shaking. "Keep it."

He was rattled by her eyes, those beautiful dark eyes, the way she looked at him, the way she looked at anything, the Queen of Egypt mesmerizing anything she looked at.

Rita said: "What kind of work do you do?"

Jack shrugged. "Right now I'm selling pencil sharpeners."

"Pencil sharpeners?"

"That's right. That's what I'm doing right now."

"I suppose some people find them useful."

"Some people. Me, I don't like pencils that much."

She laughed. "Are you married?"

"What do you think?"

She looked at him, studied him. "No, you're not married. Were you in the war?"

"Sure." He thought of Charlie in the speako. Rat-tat-tat. "Where are you from?"

She laughed again. "Oh, I'm from everywhere I guess. My folks were in a circus and that's where I grew up. Travelling around, you know. No, I'm only fooling. I'm from Easton, Pennsylvania."

Jack thought about her in a circus, in a ring, maybe helping the lion tamer, the man with the whip and the black hat, Rita wearing a uniform with spangles.

Rita said: "What's it like in Paris?"

"Beautiful."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really beautiful."

Jack was still sitting on the bed. Rita stood near the bureau, undressing as he watched her, slowly peeling her clothes off. The music from downstairs was audible again, a woman's voice. He looked at Rita's expensive underwear, her back, her legs, the underwear falling away, only her shoes and stockings now, pink garters, standing with her back to Jack, showing him her buttocks, then turning, her breasts, her nipples, her belly, the dark patch.

Jack told himself she was more beautiful than ever.

Rita said: "Don't look so serious."

She seemed amused. Or maybe she was acting. Jack said nothing. He just looked at her.

"Don't you like me?" she said. "Why don't you take your clothes off?"

Now she was on the bed with him, her hands on his body, Jack watching her. They don't kiss, do they? He heard the phonograph again, the music from downstairs, Dolly Kay singing "Wabash Blues", as he lay on his side, Rita's hands on his back, their bodies entwined. Then he was on top of her, her legs apart, Jack mounting her, his cock sliding into the sweetness. The bed creaked. He moved in and out, slowly, as slowly as possible because he wanted it to last forever. They changed positions again, Rita straddling him, Jack closing his eyes. Her body moved up and down, her breasts moving, her face turned away as if she didn't want to look at him.

Jack said: "Look at me."

She looked at him, riding him, moving up and down until he couldn't hold back any more, until he spurted inside her, erupted like a wild thing.

Her mouth looked wet as she ran her hands over his chest. Jack groaned because at that moment she looked so beautiful.

"Wasn't that good?" she said.

"Where am I?"

She laughed. "You're in New York, honey. It's 1929 and you're in New York."

--END OF JAZZ AGE--