Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

“Money always matters. We don’t have that much.”

He laughed again. “I wasn’t talking about the money.”

She looked up at him uncomprehendingly and flushed again, but it was not a flush of anger. Her expression was uneasy, her lips were moving, making silent little formations, and she said nothing. He leaned against the refrigerator, cleaning his fingernails with the knife. He was amused. No, not amused. He was exultant. It was not that his thoughts were triumphant. That would imply an enemy defeated. It was his emotions that were triumphant. It was a strange feeling, one that he could not remember having had ever before. He wanted to laugh, but not at Helen. He wanted to laugh because, suddenly, for the first time since adolescence, there was something else to do besides wait for tomorrow.

He threw back his head and laughed.

“What’s the matter with you?” Helen asked.

He closed the knife and put it in his pocket. “Let’s go to bed,” he said.

“What?”

“Let’s go to bed.”

“It’s dinner time.”

“Now.”

“The dinner will burn.”

“We’ll go to a restaurant.”

“No. Don’t be silly.”

He stepped toward her and, putting one arm behind her knees, scooped her into his arms.

“Don’t be silly,” she repeated.

He kissed her and laughed again.

Later, in the Italian restaurant around the corner from their apartment, they ate spaghetti and drank chianti with it, and he talked while she listened, holding her head Dropped in her hands. Her hair was hanging loose around her face and she had put on a sweater to replace the blouse he tore in the bedroom. He wore a white shirt that was rumpled and open at the collar.

They drank chianti and he talked. He told her about how it was to work at an advertising agency. He told her that it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to write, really write, the way it could be done.

She listened silently. Her eyes were darker than usual and sleepy and she looked bedraggled, but she listened.

He told her about how he felt when he read good writing. He explained how he felt when he read a novel by a man younger than he. He said there were so many things he wanted to do.

After he had talked and after the chianti was gone, they went home and slept.

The next night he came home excited. They had dinner and then he said he wanted to go out.

“Why?” she asked.

“I just need to get out.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Just out. Someplace wild.”

She looked down at her plate and didn’t answer.

“I want you to come with me,” he said.

“Where will we go?”

“Someplace wild. Someplace where people are.”

They went out together. They went on the subway and they didn’t dress well. He didn’t want to be watched, he wanted to watch.

They wandered. Finally there was a place, a bar, he liked. There was a name above the door, but he could not pronounce it. The windows were too dirty to see through. Inside, a juke box with broken glass was singing in Spanish. There were tables, to the left of the door, but no one sat there. They sat on stools at the bar, both men and women, and those who could not find stools, stood, leaning against the counter, drinking, talking to someone, or maybe just looking in the mirror that faced them.

When they went in, there was an almost imperceptible pause. They were seen, but Talent could not have pointed to anyone and said, “Why are you looking at me?”

The hum of conversation solidified and they were not being watched. They walked the length of the room and found one stool at the end. Helen sat on it and he stood beside her. The bartender drew two beers when they ordered, and cut the tops off with a spatula and slid them across. He stood there until Talent put a dollar on the bar and then he made change and went away.

“I’m afraid in here,” Helen whispered.

“Don’t be.” He sipped at his beer. “Just mind your own business and they’ll mind their’s. They just don’t like people who come slumming.” He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did.

There was a girl. She wore a blue rayon cocktail dress and plastic shoes that were meant to look like glass slippers. He thought about her, about the story of her. There were three men with her. He wondered whether they would fight for her, share her, or simply drift away because it was too much trouble.

He put down his glass and said he had to make a trip to the mens’ room. When he returned, a dark man who was handsome was talking to Helen. He was leaning with one elbow on the bar, talking quickly, smiling. Talent heard him say, “Come on. It won’t hurt you.”

“Please go away,” Helen said.

“You heard her,” Talent said.

The dark man leaned back flat against the bar and smiled. “Who are you?”

“I said to go away,” Talent said.

“Tell me who you are and we will talk about it.” The man spoke perfect English, but with a lilting accent.

“I’m with the lady.”

“She didn’t say so. She was alone.”

“I’m saying so. You heard me.”

The bartender pretended not to see them. People close to them began edging away, not looking at them directly.

“He’s my husband,” Helen said.