Флетчер Флора - Wake Up With a Stranger

“All right. It’s agreed, then, that we’ll go just to see what it’s like.”

As it developed, the friend’s car was available, and Buchanan and Corey drove out to the Blue Bam the next Saturday night on what was really, Buchanan kept telling himself, a kind of mission. Unfortunately, the management of the Blue Barn was not aware of their status as missionaries, which should have exempted them from certain obligations, and it was made clear to them at once that they would buy drinks or get out.

“It’s all right,” Corey said. “They’re not very strong drinks, anyhow, and you can sort of nurse yours along.”

What he didn’t say, however, is that the strength of a drink is relative to the resistance of the drinker, and Buchanan, having had no practice, had practically no resistance. He tried to nurse the first drink according to instruction, but it was the policy of the management to serve fresh ones at fairly short intervals, with or without a specific order, and after a while it began to seem imperative for the sake of appearances to empty some of the glasses on the table in order to get them out of sight. This he set about doing with the assistance of Corey, but they never seemed quite to catch up, and when eleven o’clock came, time for the first show, he was considerably more vulnerable to the corruptions of his mission than it is safe for a missionary to be. The M.C. was truly a disgusting fellow with no claim on Christian charity, and the first dancer, billed as Nanette the Naughty, was only a mild threat to asceticism. But when Trixie came gliding into light to the roll of a drum in an ice-blue satin gown, it was for Buchanan, though he had it to learn, a triumph of flesh in an hour of ruin. She was a slim and sinuous temptress with short curly hair that was almost white, and she gave the impression of being little more than a physically precocious child. Actually, though this was something else that Buchanan did not know, she was fully ten years older than she looked and had never been a child at all. She filled him at sight with a flaming and holy desire, at once with a need to save her from her sordid life. By the time she had finished removing the ice-blue gown, he was committed to a farce and assured of his shame.

“What a rotten crime!” he said, panting a little with an emotion that had nothing to do with his expressed indignation.

“Crime?” Corey said, failing for the moment to readjust to a missionary status. “What’s a crime?”

“Her dancing like that. A young, pretty girl like her in front of all these men.”

“Oh, that. Well, yes, it is, of course. It’s a downright crime.”

“I must talk with her, Corey. I simply must.”

“I don’t know that I’d do it, if I were you, Buchanan. These girls are pretty expensive when you get to fooling around with them.”

“What in heaven’s name do you mean? Are you suggesting that I want to... to buy favors from this girl?”

“No, no. Not at all, Buchanan. I only mean that the management expects you to buy them drinks and all if they sit with you at a table.”

“I don’t intend for her to sit with me at a table. I must talk with her privately.”

Corey, who was not exceptionally charitable and had read, besides, Somerset Maugham’s story of Sadie Thompson, looked at Buchanan with a growing and perhaps excusable cynicism. Buchanan, who had not read the story or even seen Jeanne Eagles in the movie, was nevertheless sensitive to the look and its implications.

“Is it your opinion that I am basely motivated in this matter?” he said.

“To tell the truth,” said Corey, getting directly to the point, “it’s my opinion that you’re drunk.”

Which was true. Buchanan was quite drunk from trying to catch up, but he was also more than that. He was exhilarated and inviolable and filled with holy fire. Rising unsteadily, he looked down for a moment at Corey with imperious contempt, and then, without a word, he turned and made his precarious way among the tables toward the door through which Trixie had gone with a twitch of her rear in the completion of her act. Beyond the door was a short and narrow and dirty hall with an exit at the far end and four other doors spaced along it, two on each side, and in the hall, lounging indolently, was a man with incredible muscles inside a soiled white shirt.

“Where the hell you think you’re going, sonny?” he said amiably.

Buchanan replied with dignity that he wanted to speak with Miss Trixie.

“I don’t know, sonny,” he said. “I’ll see what she says.”

He went back to one of the doors and knocked on it and talked through it and then returned to Buchanan.

“She says it’s okay to come in, sonny,” he said. “Have fun.”

Buchanan, scorning to draw inference from implication, went to the door and also knocked.

“It’s not locked, lover,” a rather brassy voice said.

Trixie had risen from a worn red couch to welcome him, and the only change she had made in her costume since leaving the spotlight was to remove the last two ounces of wispy material from here and there. She had, of course, no way of knowing that Buchanan was a fool, and, proceeding on an assumption to which she was certainly entitled by circumstances, she was simply prepared to supplement her income as she had supplemented it many times before in the only way she knew that did not involve prolonged drudgery. Moreover, having other things to do before her one o’clock show, she did not intend to waste time. In brief, Buchanan was quite probably one of the weakest protagonists of light against darkness since the time of Zoroaster. Afterward, sobered and revolted and terrified by an instantaneous conviction of mortal sin, he wondered why he had not noticed earlier that her feet were dirty.

“Bitch,” he said. “Dirty bitch.”

She was speechless for a minute with astonishment and fury in succession, and then her voice returned with a hiss.

“What the hell’s the matter with you? What kind of talk is that, I’d like to know. You come back here, you bastard, you get what you want, and then you call me names. Give me my money and get the hell out of here and don’t ever come back.”

“Bitch!” he said. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!”

She leaped at him and raked fingernails down his face, and he slashed back at her in a kind of blind hatred. She fell back on the couch and cursed and began to scream. Turning to escape, he ran into the arms of the muscled man of the hall, who began without delay to beat him without mercy. Agent of his corruption, witness to his humiliation, the Blue Barn Jezebel watched and laughed and cursed and jeered. Eventually, he was hauled to the door at the end of the hall and thrown out onto the ground. He lay for a minute or two without moving, tasting his blood in his mouth, and then he dragged himself to his feet and limped painfully around to the gravel parking area. Five minutes later Corey came out of the Blue Barn in a hurry and joined him.

“For God’s sake, what did you do in there?”

Buchanan sobbed and shook his head and said nothing.

“Look,” Corey said, “you’ve got to tell me what happened. Why did they want to know who we are and where we came from?”

Then Buchanan was really terrified.

“You didn’t tell them!” he gasped. “Oh, God, you didn’t tell them!”

“What would you have done with a big gorilla looking down your throat and threatening to tear you to pieces if you didn’t?”

“Oh, God!” Buchanan sobbed. “Oh, merciful Christ!”

Later, in his room at the college, trying desperately to be rational about it, he decided that the management of the Blue Barn was certainly in no position to invite the attention of the authorities or the wrath of the college officials. As a matter of fact, the existence of the Blue Barn was precarious and could hardly have survived a charge of corrupting embryo ministers, but he failed to take into proper account the vindictiveness of Trixie. On Monday a crudely spelled and printed note was received by the dean, and within the hour following, Buchanan was summoned and charged. Although he lied heroically, it was to no avail, for Corey in a separate session had told a conflicting story. Buchanan was flayed with Christian wrath and salted with Christian scorn, and he was sent smarting to his room to await the coming of his father.