Pete Hamill - Loving Women

A tall red-haired woman stepped into the spotlight, dressed from chin to feet in a black satin gown. She wore white gloves up to her elbows. There was no expression on her face. I drained my beer and poured another as she began to move sensuously to the old Ellington tune. The light defined the hard mound of her belly and I forgot Red Cannon for the moment and wondered about the color of the hair between her legs. She did a few gentle bumps and ground her hips, and then she began to peel off the gloves and the crowd roared. Sal said, “It’s like she’s taking a rubber off a dick.” Madame Nareeta moved her naked fingers slowly to the tune, and did a few more bumps and then, still expressionless, put a hand behind her back and shook and shimmied until the gown fell away and she was standing there, still moving slowly to the music, dressed in black bra and black panties and black high-heeled shoes. A roar rose from the dark. My cock was hard. Madame Nareeta’s skin was very white in the pale-blue spotlight and she moved her hands over her heavy thighs, her belly, along the sides of her breasts, her eyes half closed, her tongue moving over her lips. Dixie Shafer whispered to me: “You look too damned sad, boy.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I am.”

Now Madame Nareeta moved her hand behind her back again and the crowd roared and then she unhooked the bra and I wished that Dixie would slide under the table and open my fly.

“You got woman trouble on your face, boy,” she said. “And somethin’ else …”

“A friend of mine died.”

“I heard that.”

“He was my best friend, I think.”

“And what was the woman?”

The crowd roared as Madame Nareeta bent forward, shaking and shuddering, letting the unhooked bra hang loose, then wriggling out of it.

“I don’t know what the woman was,” I said.

“Then you’ll never get over it,” Dixie Shafer said.

Staring at Madame Nareeta I felt like crying. She had little red plastic stars pasted over her nipples, and was dancing with more movement, writhing and bending, while someone yelled from the dark: “What color is your hair , honey?”

And I turned to Dixie and kissed her on the mouth, running my hands through her piled hair, wanting to get lost in her abundance, my cock so hard I thought I would come. She whispered, “Happy Sal’s birthday, sailor,” and the crowd roared as Madame Nareeta stepped out of her panties, wearing only a G-string now, all glittery and promising more.

I glanced over at the bar and my hard-on vanished. Red Cannon was talking to a sailor in uniform. And I saw the man’s face as he turned. Jack Turner. From that first long lonesome bus ride from New York. They watched Madame Nareeta in a clinical way. She was now down on the floor, her legs bent back under her, her crotch aimed at the audience. I finished my fourth beer. And as Madame Nareeta played with her G-string, teasing the roaring crowd about the color of her hair, I got up.

I eased between the packed tables. A lot of sailors and Marines were standing along the back wall. I headed for the bar. Maybe this was foolish. Maybe it made no sense. But it was time for me to do something about Miles.

Jack Turner saw me first.

“Well, hello there, sailor. Long time. How are ya?”

I shook his hand and said hello at the moment that Madame Nareeta flipped the G-string aside. The roar was gigantic. Sailors and Marines stomped on the floor, beat hands and glasses against tables. I leaned past Turner.

“Red,” I said, “I want you outside.”

He didn’t even blink. “Get outta here, boy,” he said, “ ’fore I call yore momma.”

Turner put a hand on my forearm.

“Hey, what’s this all about?”

“It’s none of your business, Jack. This is strictly between me and Red.”

“What you mean?”

“Red killed a friend of mine.”

Red said, “You mean that damned queer ?”

He sipped a drink casually and watched coldly as Madame Nareeta did a farewell bump for the crowd, which was standing and pleading from the hot darkness “more, more, more.” I wished I had words to use against Red Cannon, some amazing set of arguments and lines. I didn’t. So I reached over and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Turner muscled his way between us, his face next to mine, and said in a hard way: “You better leave , sailor.”

Red smiled thinly and put a hand on Turner’s shoulder.

“Leave ’im be, Jack,” he said. “I think mebbe I’d better kick his gahdam ass.”

Then we were bumping our way through the crowd and out past the bouncer to the parking lot. I was suddenly afraid and feeling weak. But it was too late. I led the way. When I turned around to face Red Cannon, he hit me and knocked me down. I felt no pain. Just a whiteness. I rolled, expecting a kick and a stomp and I wanted to protect my balls. The kick never came.

“Better git up, boy,” Red said calmly, “an’ take yo beating.”

I got up and faced him and saw a short, hard-muscled man, his hands held at chest level, his face blank. He looked as if he knew what he was doing, and was going to enjoy it; if I let him, he was sure to give me that beating. I moved away from him, feeling lightheaded, and raised my hands and tried to remember everything I’d ever learned in Brooklyn. I was going to need it all.

He came in a rush and threw another right hand and I bent at the knees to go under it and the punch glanced off the side of my head. I hooked hard to his belly, threw a right that missed, then hooked again and heard him grunt. That one hurt. Now I heard shouts and saw Turner’s anxious face and about six Marines coming from a car and then I got knocked down again. One of the Marines shouted, “Go Navy ! On you ass .” And Red said, “Get the hell out of here, jarhead.” And then I was up and feeling panicky, afraid not of pain but embarrassment, and the fear drove me at Red and I got punched hard in the belly and bent over and punched in the upper arms and heard a voice say: “ Kick his ass, kick his fucking niggerloving ass.” And was punched again and felt nauseated and hit again and then saw Gabree.

The Marine from the Mainside gate.

From the night I took Bobby Bolden to the hospital.

From the night Eden Santana got scared right out of my life.

He was leaning against the hood of a car, watching me take my beating.

I decided not to take the beating. I shoved Red off me and stood up behind a jab and speared him with it. Once. Twice. Again. Backing him up. Then as he came at me I slammed home a right hand, hitting him between the eyes. Blood spurted from his nose. He looked surprised. I stepped to the left and drove a hook to his body, stopped, twisted inside with an uppercut and hit him on the chin and knocked him down.

I wanted to finish him off right there, end my own fear by stomping him into the gravel. But he’d let me up; I had to let him up. There were more Marines watching us and they cheered as Red got up slowly, a small tentative smile on his bloodied face. He came at me and I hit him, knowing now that I had to time my punches to his rush, and then he paused, turned as if quitting, then suddenly rushed again. I stepped aside and he plowed past me into the group of Marines.

That’s when the fight changed.

One of the Marines shoved him. Then another. They formed a circle around him, trapping him, punching him on the shoulders and back, shoving him. He seemed suddenly small and bedraggled and sad. I saw blood leaking from his brow and dripping from his nose.

I looked at Turner.

We didn’t wait.

We rushed at the Marines, and I went crazy, a roar coming from inside me, fighting now without rules, a sailor leaping on jarhead backs to break the circle around another sailor named Red. I ripped an elbow across Gabree’s face, bent him over with a knee in the balls, then kicked him hard on the side of the face. Someone knocked me down with a punch from my blind side. I grabbed a thick-soled boot and pulled and a Marine went down and I stood up and stomped him hard. Red Cannon was fighting two of them, his face a ghastly smear, his shirt torn off his back and I knocked one of them down and then saw Turner on his belly on the ground, not moving, and then there were more Marines coming at me and Red, and I was heaved through the air and bounced off the hood of a car.