V.

Standing before his old door he knocked, though knowing from the sound of it (like we can tell from the buzz in the phone receiver whether or not she's home) that inside was empty. So soon, of course, he tried the knob; having come this far. They never locked doors: on the other side of this one he wandered automatic into the kitchen to check the table. A ham, a turkey, a roast beef. Fruit: grapes, oranges, a pineapple, plums. Plate of knishes, bowl of almonds and Brazil nuts. String of garlic tossed like a rich lady's necklace across fresh bunches of fennel, rosemary, tarragon. A brace of baccale, dead eyes directed at a huge provolone, a pale yellow parmigian and God knew how many fish-cousins, gefulte, in an ice bucket.

No. his mother wasn't telepathic, she wasn't expecting Profane. Wasn't expecting her husband Gino, rain, poverty, anything. Only that she had this compulsion to feed. Profane was sure that the world would be worse off without mothers like that in it.

He stayed in the kitchen an hour, while night came along, wandering through this field of inanimate food, making bits and pieces of it animate, his own. Soon it was dark and the baked outsides of meats, the skins of fruits only highlighted all shiny by light from the apartment across the courtyard. Rain started falling. He left.

They would know he'd been by.

Profane, whose nights were now free, decided he could afford to frequent the Rusty Spoon and the Forked Yew without serious compromise. "Ben," Rachel yelled, "this is putting me down." Since the night he was fired from Anthroresearch Associates, it seemed he'd been trying every way he knew to put her down. "Why won't you let me get you a job? It is September, college kids are fleeing the city, the labor market was never better."

"Call it a vacation," said Profane. But how do you swing a vacation from two dependents?

Before anyone knew it there was Profane, full-fledged Crew member. Under the tutelage of Charisma and Fu, he learned how to use proper nouns; how not to get too drunk, keep a straight face, use marijuana.

"Rachel," running in a week later, "I smoked pot."

"Get out of here."

"Wha."

"You are turning into a phony," said Rachel.

"You're not interested in what it's like?"

"I have smoked pot. It is a stupid business, like masturbation. If you get kicks that way, fine. But not around me."

"It was only once. Only for the experience."

"Once I will say it, is all: that Crew does not live, it experiences. It does not create, it talks about people who do. Varese, Ionesco, de Kooning, Wittgenstein, I could puke. It satirizes itself and doesn't mean it. Time magazine takes it seriously and does mean it."

"It's fun."

"And you are becoming less of a man."

He was still high, too high to argue. Off he rollicked, in train with Charisma and Fu.

Rachel locked herself in the bathroom with a portable radio and bawled for a while. Somebody was singing the old standard about how you always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn't hurt at all. Indeed, thought Rachel, but does Benny even love me? I love him. I think. There's no reason why I should. She kept crying.

So near one in the morning she was at the Spoon with her hair hanging straight, dressed in black, no makeup except for mascara in sad raccoon-rings round her eyes, looking like all those other women and girls: camp followers.

"Benny," she said, "I'm sorry." And later:

"You don't have to try not to hurt me. Only come home, with me, to bed . . ." And much later, at her apartment, facing the wall, "You don't even have to be a man. Only pretend to love me."

None of which made Profane feel any better. But it didn't stop him going to the Spoon.

One night at the Forked Yew, he and Stencil got juiced. "Stencil is leaving the country," Stencil said. He apparently wanted to talk.

"I wish I was leaving the country."

Young Stencil, old Machiavel. Soon he had Profane talking about his women problems.

"I don't know what Paola wants. You know her better. Do you know what she wants?"

An embarrassing question for Stencil. He dodged:

"Aren't you two - how shall one say."

"No," Profane said. "No, no."

But Stencil was there again, next evening. "Truth of it is," he admitted, "Stencil can't handle her. But you can."

"Don't talk," said Profane. "Drink."

Hours later they were both out of their heads. "You wouldn't consider coming along with them," Stencil wondered.

"I have been there once. Why should I want to go back."

"But didn't Valletta - somehow - get to you? Make you feel anything?"

"I went down to the Gut and got drunk like everybody else. I was too drunk to feel anything."

Which eased Stencil. He was scared to death of Valletta. He'd feel better with Profane, anybody else, along on this jaunt (a) to take care of Paola, (b) so he wouldn't be alone.

Shame, said his conscience. Old Sidney went in there with the cards stacked against him. Alone.

And look what he got, thought Stencil, a little wry, a little shaky.

On the offensive: "Where do you belong, Profane?"

"Wherever I am."