Ed Lacy - The Woman Aroused

It took a half hour for the records to play and then I rested for a few minutes, put on another ten records and danced again. By this time I was wet with sweat and so tired I could hardly move. I put the records away, went upstairs. Outside, it was turning light and I drank a glass of milk, spilled some in Slob's saucer—he was my cat and on the town for the night—and threw myself across the bed. I intended to get up in a few minutes, take a shower and dry off under the sun lamp. The next thing I new, the shrill sound of the doorbell cut into my sleep, seemed to drill through my head. I sat up, saw it was nearly nine.

For a moment I sat there, listening to the bell, wondering who it was, my mind still full of sleep. Then I jumped out of bed, ran to the door. Of course it had to be Flo and I felt like a louse for not calling her. There was a great heavy wooden door, ceiling high, across the front of the living room. It had once been the garage doors, and in this a smaller door had been cut. I flung this open and stared pop-eyed at a plump man in an army uniform, gold major leafs on his shoulders, several bright ribbons on his chest. For a moment we stared at each other, he ran his eyes over my smelly sweat suit and then he suddenly laughed. He said, “Well by Christ I'm glad to see something that hasn't changed. Knew I could count on you, George, to be an institution.”

“Well for—Hank Conroy!” I said as if I didn't believe my own voice. “Where did you drop from?”

“From Frankfort. Landed at 4 a.m. Going to let me in?”

“Sorry,” I said as he walked by me and I closed the door. I'd last seen Hank in 1942 when he came in on a ten-day leave after graduating officer school. Now he stood in the center of my living room, looking about slowly, as if seeing it for the first time, and I thought he was going to cry.

He said, “Ah, George, you don't know how good it is to see you, this room. New York's frightened the pants off me, but you—this room—the house—you're all a wonderful reminder that some things in this world of confusion are still the same. George, you're the goddam backbone of something or other.”

“Hank, carrying a load?”

He took off his hat, opened his jacket and sat down. His hair was still thick and heavy. “Drinking doesn't do me any good anymore, George. Odd, I killed time at LaGuardia, then wandered around downtown, not wanting to wake you. And here you are, up and dancing. Same old George.”

“That's me, the pillar of 74th Street. Come in the bathroom while I take a shower.”

I showered and he sat on the clothes hamper and talked. He'd been in Africa, Italy, and France. Hank had returned to the States once in '45, then back to Italy and Germany. We'd been friends since high-school and I looked at his lined and worried face, his graying hair (and he was five years younger than I—and such important five years when you reach my age), and I wished to hell I hadn't been exempt. No matter what they beefed about, the raw deals they got, the guys in the service had been places, seen things—their life had been shaken... while I had been 41 years old at the start of the war and oh, so necessary to the war effort (whatever that was) because I was editing the house organ of an oil company, doing a job that meant nothing except buttering the conceit of my bosses and the stockholders.

As I dried myself, wondering what Italy and Africa was like, I asked, “Out of the army, Hank?”

“Will be in a few days.”

“Somebody forget to tell you the war was over four or five years ago?” I asked, powdering my toes.

He shrugged his plump shoulders. “No. Don't think I've been through combat, hell, and all that. I haven't, but somehow the war turned out to be the only real thing in my life, and I tried to hang onto it. Only I got sour on the idea of living like an English Sahib in Germany and...”

He was staring at me sadly and I stopped powdering myself, asked what was wrong. “George, you're wonderful! Still using one kind of powder for your toes, another to dust your crotch, and a third for under the arms. My God, you don't know how I'm trying to get a hold of something, of my old life.”

“Got a job in the hopper?” I asked, slipping on a silk bathrobe.

“Oh, I'll get back to selling, I suppose,” Hank said.

We went back to the living room and I stepped into the kitchen, put on the electric coffee percolator, was halving grapefruit, when he called me.

He was standing in the living room next to the heavy woodwork that had once been a door leading to the upstairs apartment, before I had the wall filled in. He pressed part of one of the wooden panels, which slid back, showing an empty space. We used to call it the “hideaway” when we were kids.

Hank said happily, “Imagine, this still being here—still working.”

“Bet I haven't opened that panel—or thought of it—in fifteen years,” I said.

“Remember when this was the garage and the big car was here? We'd sit in the front seat and imagine we were racing like hell along some dark road, every yegg in the world after us, and then we'd jump out and put all sorts of crazy documents in the panel? Had some great times then.” Hank pressed the top of the panel and it slid back into place again. “Like a movie,” he added.

There was something a little slobbering and queer about him and I said rather sharply, “The corn-flakes company will still send you secret rings for box tops.”

He lit a cigarette, sat on the couch. “George, why is it when we grow older instead of getting smarter, we get more stupid? Why do we lose the simplicity and happiness we once held in childhood?”

“What happened, Hank, the army make you a philosopher?”

“Don't laugh it off, as we grow older we become full of sour bitterness. Too bad humans don't age for the better, like wine. The wine of humanity is pretty thin and watery.” He blew out a fairly decent smoke ring, watched it dissolve in the air, asked, “Own the oil company yet?”

“Nope. Still editing the 'Sun, published every month by the Sky Oil Company, Inc.,' and it's still as corny as it sounds.”

“And you still wear conservative suits by Brooks Brothers, custom-made shirts with stiff tab collars, Bronzini ties, make a ritual of powdering your crotch, of blending your tobacco. You take in the dance recitals, and quietly read your Times in the evening over the pre-dinner cocktail, which can only be ordered at certain bars. George, you're so wrapped up in yourself, you give so much attention to George, I envy you.”

“And I still have my little bouts with Flo—might as well make a complete inventory. Want breakfast?”

Hank shook his head.

“Then take some coffee with me.”

“I'm full of coffee. George, do me a favor.”

“Certainly,” I said, wondering how much of a bite he was going to put on me. I didn't have any money in the bank but I could always borrow a couple of hundred.

He pulled a thick white envelope out of his pocket. “Hold this for me.”

I took the envelope. It was open and full of twenty dollar bills. “What's this, black-market loot?”

“No, saved it from my salary. There's $7,000 there. Keep it in your bank for me.”

“Why don't you open an account tomorrow? I mean I don't like to hold money—you know how the green slips through my hands. What's the gimmick?”

“I'm married to the world's greatest bitch,” Hank said softly. “That's why I came home—I'm going to get a divorce, soon. I don't want Lee—that's the 'little woman'—to know about this. She's... well, I know why she is what she is, but she's... well, greedy wouldn't start to describe her. She's money-crazy. In fact, she's downright crazy. You see she... oh, it's quite a mess. No sense involving you in it.”