The Cesspool

He led the way to a booth out of earshot of the bar, nervously played with his drink after we were seated.

“This is going to sound kind of silly,” he said eventually. “But I wish you’d tell me all about it.”

I looked at him. “Why?”

His glass moved in faster and wider circles. Without looking at me, he said, “I guess George was right when he said I wanted a vicarious love affair. I can’t help my cesspool of a mind. I have to know about it, Pete. What you said to each other, and what you did, and whether she made little moaning noises. All the gory details.”

The circling glass stopped moving and he looked me straight in the face. “Now tell me to go to hell if you want.”

It was a little while before I made any answer at all. Finally, I said, “It sounds like a kind of teen-age stunt. At least I haven’t described a bedroom scene to a pal since I got out of my teens. But maybe it will be good therapy for whatever’s ailing you.”

So I described everything that happened from the time I entered the front door of the Silk and Satin until I left sometime after midnight. When I finished, Harlan was staring glassily at his forgotten drink and breathing as though he’d just climbed a flight of stairs.

I said, “I’m not proud of the way I acted. But I guess I got rid of a few inhibitions.”

Harlan shook himself from his trance. “When are you going back?”

“I’m like George,” I told him. “At a hundred bucks a night, about twice a year is my limit.”

“Suppose — suppose I paid half of it?”

I frowned at him. “What would you get out of it?”

Not looking at me, he said in a bare whisper, “You’d have to promise to tell me everything that happened again. Every little detail.”

“Hey,” I said, beginning to get a little alarmed at his mental state. “You’re letting this thing become an obsession. I’m not sure what you’re doing isn’t some kind of perversion.”

“Would you if I paid half, Pete?”

“No,” I said. “This thing is getting out of hand. I’m not going to be middleman in some screwy love affair between you and a phantom. You’d better kill your inhibitions by going to see the gal yourself.”

He shook his head violently. “I’m not going to cheat on Janet.”

“Then take what’s bothering you out on her,” I suggested. “Maybe she’d like it. Maybe she’s as inhibited as you are, and would welcome a caveman approach.”

“Don’t be idiotic,” he said impatiently. “Janet’s a nice girl. You couldn’t treat a respectable woman like that.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, “but I’m not pampering your obsession any more. I’m sorry I told you what I did tonight.”

He looked a little embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have made that silly suggestion, Pete,” he said. “Forget it, will you? Let’s have another drink.”

We didn’t discuss Sally any more until the following Tuesday, when George Swift again had a night off. I think Harlan deliberately waited until then to bring her up so that we’d be alone.

He started in a roundabout way by telling me his vacation began June ninth, which was only a week away.

“We’re not going to do much,” he said. “Just drive out to Fire Island a few times.”

“Well, that’s as nice a vacation spot as you’ll find anywhere,” I told him. “You don’t have to drive halfway across the country to enjoy a vacation.”

He said, “I’d like to make it a kind of second honeymoon. We spent our first one at Fire Island, you know. Maybe a honeymoon atmosphere would knock these thoughts about Sally out of my mind.”

“You still letting her bother you?”

He began moving his glass in a little circle on the bar. “You know, Pete, I think maybe if I could actually picture her, I could block her out of my mind. Not knowing what she looks like, she takes so many forms, I’d have to keep my mind permanently blank not to think about her. If I knew, I could just refuse to think about that one mental image.”

“You mean you’re going to see her?”

“Not inside,” he said. “She gets off work at midnight, doesn’t she? I thought maybe I could stand across the street from the Silk and Satin some night and see her when she comes out.”

“A whole shift of girls finish at midnight. You wouldn’t know which was Sally.”

In a diffident tone he said, “I thought maybe you’d be willing to go along and point her out.”

I frowned at him. “We both work till midnight. By the time we got clear up there, she’d be long gone.”

“Tomorrow’s your night off,” he said. “I could arrange to get off early and meet you.”

“Look, Harlan, I only get one night a week, and I don’t want to spend it standing across the street from the Silk and Satin. Even for a friend.”

He was silent for a time. Finally, he said, “This is important to me, Pete. I’d even be willing to pay your way for an evening there. You could walk out with her at midnight, so I’d know which girl she was.”

I shook my head. “I suggested seeing her home last time, and she wouldn’t have any part of it. She said it’s a house policy that the girls never see a customer outside of working hours.”

“She wouldn’t object to your just walking out with her and leaving her in front of the place, would she?”