William Kennedy - Legs

Himself.

No one else had the power to change the life at hand.

How does a mythical figure ask a lady to dance? As if Jack didn't have enough problems, now he was faced with this. Moreover, when he has a choice of two ladies, which one does he single out to be the first around whom he will publicly wrap what is left of his arms as he spins through waves of power, private unity, and the love of all eyes? These questions shaped themselves as wordless desires in Jack's head as he read his own spoken words about his own mythic nature.

When Hubert came back with four copies of the Daily News, everyone at the table opened to the first of a three-part interview with Jack by John O'Donnell. It was said to be Jack's first since all his trouble, and he corroborated that right there in the News very bold type:

"I haven't been talking out of vanity-the fact that I've never given out my side before would show pretty clearly that I'm not publicity mad."

Reasonable remark, Jack. Not publicity mad anymore. Too busy using interviews like these to generate sympathy for your cause, for the saving of your one and only ass, to worry about publicity for vanity's sake. Jack could be more pragmatic, now that he's a myth. But was he really a myth? Well, who's to say? But he does note a mythic development in his life in that bold, bold Daily News type:

"Here's what I think. This stuff written about me has created a mythical figure in the public mind. Now I'm Jack Diamond and I've got to defend myself against the mythical crimes of the mythical Legs. "

Legs. Who the hell was this Legs anyway? Who here in the Rain-Bo room really knows Legs?

"Hello, Legs."

"How ya doin', Legs?"

"Good luck on the trial, Legs."

"Glad to see you up and around, Legs."

"Have a drink, Legs?"

"We'd like you to join our party if you get a minute, Mr. Legs."

Only a handful in the joint really knew him, and those few called him Jack. The rest clustered 'round the mythic light, retelling stories of origins:

"They call him Legs because he always runs out on his friends."

"They call him Legs because his legs start up at his chest bone."

"They call him Legs because he could outrun any cop at all when he was a kid package thief."

"They call him Legs because he danced so much and so well."

Shall we dance! Who first?

"This is a good interview, Jack," said Marcus. "Good for the trial. Bound to generate some goodwill somewhere."

"I don't like the picture they put with it," Alice said.

"You look too thin. "

"I am too thin," Jack said.

"I like it," Kiki said.

"'I knew you would," Alice said.

"I like it when your hat is turned up like that," Kiki said.

"So do I," Alice said.

" Find your own things to like," Kiki said.

Who first?

Dance with Alice and have the band play "Happy Days and Lonely Nights," your favorite, Jack. Dance with Marion and have them play "My Extraordinary Gal," your favorite, Jack.

"Is it true what he says there about Legs and Augie?" Kiki asked.

"All true," Jack said.

"As a matter of fact I was never called Legs until after that Little Augie affair. Look it up and see for yourself. It don't make much difference, but that's a fact. My friends or my family have never called me Legs. When the name Legs appeared under a picture, people who didn't know me picked it up and I've been called Legs in the newspapers ever since."

O'Donnell explained that Eddie Diamond was once called Eddie Leggie ("Leggie," a criminal nickname out of the nineteenth-century slums) and that somehow it got put on Jack. Cop told a newsman about it. Newsman got it wrong. Caption in the paper referred to Jack as Legs. And there was magic forever after.

"I didn't know that," Kiki said. "Is it really true, Jackie?"

"All the garbage they ever wrote about me is true to people who don't know me."

The music started again after a break, and Jack looked anxiously from woman to woman, faced once again with priority. Did his two women think of him as Legs? Absurd. They knew who he was. If anybody ever knew he was Jack Diamond and not Legs Diamond, it was those two ladies. They loved him for his own reasons, not other people's. For his body. For the way he talked to them. For the way he loved them. For the way his face was shaped. For the ten thousand spoken and unspoken reasons he was what he was. It's wasn't necessary for Jack to dwell on such matters, for he had verified this truth often. What was necessary now was to keep the women together, keep them from repelling each other like a matched pair of magnets. This matched pair would work as a team, draw the carriage of Jack's future. Fugitive Kiki, wanted as a Streeter witness, needed the protection of Jack's friends until the charge against her went away. She would stick, all right. And Alice? Why, she would stick through anything. Who could doubt that at this late date?

A voluptuous woman in a silver sheath with shoulder straps of silver cord paused at the table with her escort. "This one here is Legs," she said to the escort. "I'd know him anywhere, even if he is only a ridiculous bag of bones."

"Who the hell are you?" Jack asked her.

"I saw your picture in the paper, Legs," she said.

"That explains it."

She looked at Alice and Kiki, then rolled down the right strap of her gown and revealed a firm, substantial, well-rounded, unsupported breast.

"How do you like it?" she said to Jack.

"It seems adequate, but I'm not interested."

"You've had a look anyway, and that counts for something, doesn't it, sweetheart?" she said to her escort.

"It better, by God," said the escort.

"I can also get milk out of it if you ever feel the need," she said, squeezing her nipple forward between two fingers and squirting a fine stream into Jack's empty coffee cup.

"l'll save that till later," Jack said.

"Oh, he's so intelligent," the woman said, tucking herself back into her dress and moving off.

"I think we should order," Kiki said. "I'm ravished."

"You mean famished," Jack said.

"Yes, whatever I mean."

"And no more interruptions," said Alice.

Jack signaled the waiter and told him, "A large tomato surprise."

"One for everybody?"

"One for me," Jack said. "I have no power over what other people want. "

The waiter leaned over and spoke into Jack's face so all could hear. "'They tell me you've got the power of ten thousand Indians."

Jack picked up his butter knife and stared at the waiter, prepared to drive the blade through the back of that servile hand. He would take him outside, kick him down the stairs, break his goddamn snotty face.

"The way I get it," the waiter said, backing away, speaking directly to Jack, "you know it all. You know who the unknown soldier is and who shot him."

"Where do they get these people?" Jack asked. But before anyone could respond, the waiter's voice carried across the room from the kitchen, "A tomato surprise for the lady killer," and the room's eyes swarmed over Jack in a new way.

Jack straightened his tie, aware his collar was too big for his neck, aware his suit had the ill fit of adolescence because of his lost weight. He felt young, brushed his hair back from his ears with the heels of both hands, thought of the work that lay ahead of him, the physical work adolescents must do. They must grow. They must do the chores of life, must gain in strength and wisdom to cope with the hostile time of manhood. The work of Jack's life lay stretched out ahead of him. On the dance floor, for instance.

He started to get up, but Alice grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear: "Do you remember, Jack, the time you stole the fox collar coat I wanted so much, but then I took it back and you insisted and went back and stole it all over again? Oh, how I loved you for that."