“No one choose prostitution as their long term career goal. The Prostitutes of Post Office Street is the story of getting out of the rut that falling into the depths of a seedy part of town in a seedy career with a seedy life takes you. A story of overcoming the odds life shoves in front of you and making the most most of one’s time, The Prostitutes of Post Office Street is grade-A reading for any reader seeking a story of rising up.”
— Midwest Book Review
“A
complex and memorable introduction to a place where people live on
terms that are strange to us, at first, and then less strange. And
finally, marvelously compelling.”
—
Kevin McIlvoy, author of Little
Peg and The
Fifth Station
“Raw.
Passionate. Tender. Vulnerable. Carden slips you into the hidden and
wonderfully personal stories of these women and those close to
them.”
— Mari Ulmer, author of
Midnight at the Camposanto
and Cart of Death
The Prostitutes of Post Office Street
Frank F. Carden
Smashwords Edition
Copyright (c) 2009 Skywater Publishing Company
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced in whole or in part
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carden, Frank F. (Frank Frazer), 1932-
The Prostitutes of Post Office Street / by Frank Carden.
p. cm.-(Prose series)
ISBN 978-0-9793081-2-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-9793081-5-4 (e-book)
ISBN 978-0-9793081-8-5 (audio book)
1. Prostitutes-Texas-Galveston-Fiction. [1. Galveston (Tex.)-
History-20th century-Fiction.] I. Title.
PS3603.A734P76 2008
813'.6-dc22
2007028171
Photo Credits
Shutterstock/Patricia Malina, cover
This book is dedicated to BJC.
prologue
Two elongated orange flashes punctuated by blasts came from the dark interior of the liquor store. The glass window shattered to the right of the plains-clothes cop standing in the doorway. Backlit by the street lamp, he fired twice at one of the orange flashes, shutting his eyes just before pulling the trigger. Another shot sounded from the darkness and the wooden door frame splintered. The cop fired twice at the spot of the second flash. Another flash from inside the store, and he felt a hard burning slap against the left side of his neck, partially spinning him. He emptied the last shot in his pistol at a dark form that was falling forward.
"Don't shoot again. Don't shoot again," a voice yelled from the darkness.
The cop dropped to one knee, spinning his pistol's cylinder, trying to shake out the spent cartridges with one hand, as two policemen in dark blue uniforms ran up the sidewalk to shine a light into the store.
"Don't shoot," someone yelled again from the interior.
The uniformed cop flipped the light switch on the door panel.
One man, his hands held above his head stood in an aisle. Two others lay at his feet.
Billy Croft, the wounded cop, pitched forward, his face hitting the wooden floor.
1
In Galveston, early fall of '54, a Gulf breeze rippled the curtains in a house of prostitution at 2705 Post Office Street. A man in coat and tie sat at the long dark mahogany bar, and facing him on the opposite side was a black woman, Colby, the manager of the house. Tall, with slender waist, but well endowed, dressed in a dark blue dress, she looked very much the businesswoman.
"Honey," Colby said, and after placing a shot glass she was polishing in a rack, she put her hand on the man's arm, "It's not going to do you any good to sit there and get drunker. Nothing's going to change."
"Connie's upstairs now, isn't she? With some guy."
"You're making it worse on yourself." Colby frowned and stepped back, saying nothing else.
"I can't help it; I'm in love with her," the man said.
Colby looked at a woman at the other end of the bar for support. But Meg, reading the Lady's Home Journal under a small lamp, paid her no attention, evidently uninterested in the conversation or the man's problems. With dark hair and darker eyes, dressed in a light beige blouse, dark brown skirt, and white pumps, she seemed very much like an attractive housewife having a Coke at the local drug store while she waited on her husband. A glass of ice and water sat in front of her.
Colby shrugged and picked up another drink glass from a small sink and started to polish it while she looked around the dimly lit room. An overhead fan, quietly, rhythmically, sliced through the reluctant air. A jukebox, with Ivory Joe Hunter singing, "I Quit My Pretty Mamma," spun out blue, green, and yellow light that skipped across the dark spiraling crimson designs in the flocked wallpaper and bounced off a small parquet dance floor. The smell of heavy perfume, flowery and musky, of incense, dusky and smoky, and of old and new liquor, sweetly sour, floated on the damp air. Against the back wall stood six slots. A lot of nickels had been dropped into the machines in the early evening, while customers drank, looking over the women, trying to decide which one they wanted, trying to decide if they really wanted to go upstairs.
Connie, in crisp white shorts and blouse, escorted the john she had been with to the front door, and walked into the barroom with a slow swaying motion, which accentuated her hips and attractive long legs. When she saw the man at the bar, she stopped in the middle of the dance floor, placed her hands on her hips, and glared at him. "Go way. You're a pest."
"I've got to see you." He stood, swaying. "I've got sixty bucks for all night."
"Get him out of here," Connie said. It didn't matter if he had hundred-dollar bills stuffed in his underwear, she was not going upstairs with him again. There was nothing worse than having some john fall in love and sit around in the bar, moping every time she went with another man. It wasn't that there was something wrong with him, or that she didn't like him. The fact was she was disgusted with him for getting love and fucking mixed up. Some of the women would do anything, say anything for an all-night trick, but she wouldn't, and she made more than any of them. If a man came in when she was available, he always chose her to go upstairs, always on her terms, because she was the best on the Street, which most johns could sense.
"Let me talk to her," Colby said. "He's a nice man. At least have a drink with him."
"No," Connie said. The man had been in the bar three nights running, and she was tired of it. Over the course of several weeks, he had been upstairs six or so times with her, and she couldn't even remember his name, if she had ever known it, which she doubted. Until she had seen him at the bar, she had certainly forgotten what he looked like. When she came downstairs, she was not going to tolerate some drunk following her around, maybe having a crying jag that would disrupt her business.
"He doesn't want to cause trouble," Colby said. "Men fall in love. They can't help it."
"The only way he can not cause trouble is to get out of here," Connie said. She walked over to a table and with her back to the man, sat down. She shook her head. Good God! Colby, as tough as any of the woman in the house, remained a romantic, twenty-four years old and though she she'd been keeping books in the houses for a number of years, she still professed a belief in true love, always giving advice to the heartbroken johns who came to the houses. How Colby managed to keep from being cynical, Connie didn't know, but she was a special friend.
Meg finally slid off her bar stool. "Come on," she said as she led the man into the front parlor. "Have a seat by the window. You can watch the traffic."
Around two o'clock Saturday morning, Post Office Street had become almost deserted except for two men who had walked from Twenty-fifth Street, the start of the five-dollar red-light district, to Thirty-first, where it ended. The men, one wearing a bright yellow shirt, the other a white one with a red tie, had stopped at several of the twenty or so two-story frame houses along the Street but were unable to find what they were after. They entered 2705 and ordered Scotch on the rocks. With drinks in their hands, the men sat down with Connie and Meg, who had sat down next to her.
"Buy you girls a drink?" Yellow Shirt asked.
"Bourbon and water," Meg said.
Connie shrugged and walked over to the jukebox, which she leaned on, threw her shoulders back, and glanced at the men. It was getting late, and she was not in the mood to talk or to have a drink with a john. If they wanted some action, it was time to get it started.
White Shirt quickly joined her. "Hi. I go by Steve."
"I'm Connie." Men who had some education had told her she had expressive brown eyes that showed a lot of intelligence. They had also said that, although her body attracted them initially, it was her look, her attitude, incongruous and challenging, which brought them back. She wasn't sure why any of this was true, but she didn't doubt it.
Steve backed up, pulled out a cigarette pack, shook it several times but when none came out, pushed it into his pocket then glanced around before asking, "Want to dance?"
"We can," Connie said as Steve selected several numbers from the jukebox, but just as he took her in his arms, the man in the front room came toward them.
"Wait, please," the man said.
Steve glanced at Connie. "What's going on?"
Colby came from behind the bar.
"Nothing." Connie glared at the man. "Push him out the front door."
The man reached for Connie.
"Don't." Colby quickly grabbed his arm. "You better leave now."
"Talk to her for me," the man said.
Colby gently but firmly led the man to the front door. "Go to another house. Do anything you want, but don't come back here."
Shortly Meg, Connie, and the two men walked out of the room and up the stairs.
Back behind the bar, Colby began to place all the clean glasses onto shelves when a blond, blue eyed man in green pants and a white shirt with a Seven-Up emblem above the shirt pocket walked in and sat at the end of the bar.
"Hi, Tommy. Deliveries go okay today?" Colby said and walked over to stand beside him, placing her hand over his.
"Not bad. Though, the season is about over, the joints are still running out of mix in the evening. The more cases I sell, the more I make. Can't complain."
"Honey, don't latch the back door of your apartment. I'll be over, soon as I get off." She looked around carefully before, quickly and lightly, touching her lips to his.
"Okay. You hungry? You want me to pick up something, have something there for us to eat? Maybe a pizza."
"No, sugar, you go on to bed. You got to get up in the morning."
"Hey, it's Saturday. I'm sleeping in. You're the one'll have to get up early."
"It's okay, I don't mind if you want something to eat."
"It's not that. I'm sick and tired of you having to sneak in, then slink out before the sun comes up."
"We've been over that. It's the only way for us to be together."
Colby quickly moved behind the bar when the sound of the front screen door being slammed shut reverberated in the room.
"Hello," she said as a man walked in. He was wearing a loosened red tie and short-sleeved white shirt with the tail hanging out. He grinned at her and walked unsteadily over to sit down at a table.
"All the girls are busy. But they'll be down in a few minutes. You want a drink?" Colby asked as she came from behind the bar.
He stood up and met her at the front end of the bar. "You look like a hot mama to me. How 'bout you and me going upstairs?" The man tried to put his arms around her, pull her to him, kiss her on the lips.
Tommy quickly stood, taking a fast step toward them.
But Colby, smiling, spun deftly out of his arms and stepped behind the bar. "You look like you're ready okay. But I got a boyfriend. What you drinking?"
"Salty dog. Make it with lots of gin and just a little grapefruit juice."
Colby concentrated on making the drink, refusing to look at Tommy, who sat back down.
"I'm looking for my friends. One's wearing a white shirt and red tie like me."
"Yeah, he's here but his time is up. He'll be down quick. You want a woman?" She handed him the drink when he placed some bills on the bar.
"Naw. I already been. Across the street. Just looking for my friend this time." He looked Colby over blatantly, up and down. "You're a sexy looking babe. Maybe I would like something different next time. You ever sell it?"
"Nope, but we got better looking girls here than me. Next time, you come over here first. We'll take care of you."
"Maybe I like the dark stuff."
Tommy slid off his stool and walked out, looking back, frowning at Colby.
"Well, I can't help you there." She smiled. "But down in the next block, the house in the middle, on the other side of the street, is full of dark women."
The two men, with arms around Meg and Connie, strolled into the room.
"You two get something good?' the man asked, finishing his drink.
"Yeah," Steve, the man with Connie, said.
"See you women next time," one said as all three walked down the hall to the front entrance.
"I'm out of here," Connie said as she headed for the back door, out to the alley where her car was parked.
Colby, occasionally glancing at Meg sitting at the bar, picked up the drink glasses, placed them in the sink, and collected and dumped the ashtrays. Finished, Colby stopped beside Meg, and looked at the mailing label of the magazine.
"Yeah, that's right," Meg said. "Mrs. Megan O'Brien-two names, borrowed from two different people, and a title that don't mean a thing."
"Let's go, honey," Colby said. "The night's over."
"Yeah, at last."
In the alley, after Meg had driven off, Colby started her car and looked at the dashboard clock, almost three. It would feel good snuggling up to Tommy, maybe having a quick glass of wine. And he would be in a better mood. He always was when she got into his bed. He was right about being pissed because of what they had to do to be together. She didn't like sneaking out at dawn, so no one would know he had a black woman in the apartment, except there was no other way, not in Galveston. It was a problem, a black woman caring for and going with a white man, but that was the way it was for her. She hadn't planned it, but it happened.
2
Earlier that same evening, a kid with blond hair, bleached white by sun and saltwater, stood at one end of the five-foot long urinal in the Texas Bus Lines station, located four blocks from Post Office Street. The smell of urine and an abrasive disinfectant hung in the heavy air. Sharkskin trousers hugged the kid's hips, while a crimson and white polo shirt, a size too small, with a pack of Camels rolled up in a sleeve, showed off a dark suntan and muscles well defined from pumping iron. A red puckered scar ran across the side of his neck. He looked to be about sixteen. Also standing at the urinal was a slender brown-headed man dressed in black loose fitting trousers and a long-sleeve shirt to match. Purplish light from the ceiling's long neon bulb flashed off his large dark sunglasses when he turned to look at the kid.
"Good-looking pants," the man said.
"Yeah?"
"Where'd you buy them?" the man asked. "They fit well."
"That right?"
"They really show off your good build."
The kid turned toward him, displaying, his arms hanging at his sides.
"Like what you see?" He zipped up.
The man smiled. "Want to go for a ride?"
"Depends. What you got in mind?"
The man reached down and touched the kid.
Springing forward, the kid hammered his fist into the man's stomach. When the man started to fold, he caught the front of his shirt and spun him around, lifting him to his toes. He slammed him against the bricks above the urinal. The man's head bounced from the wall, sunglasses clattering on the concrete floor. The kid released the shirtfront and the man slid downward to sit in the urinal, hands between dangling legs, eyes glazed.
The kid stood over him, waiting. From outside the station, the paperboy, selling the late edition of the Galveston Daily News, yelled, "Panmunjon negotiations go on. Eisenhower frustrated."
"Please, don't hit me again." The man raised one arm to the front of his face, the other still between his legs, a small trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth, down his chin.
"Croft, Galveston PD, vice." The kid jerked a thin black leather folder from his hip pocket, snapped it open to show a small silver badge and a photo ID. "You sonofabitch, you're under arrest."
"Oh. No. Please no."
"We're headed for the station."
"Wait. Please. I'm a LaMarque businessman. It'll ruin me."
"You should have thought of that before you came in here hustling."
"It's my first time." The man's eyes had cleared but were wide, a lot of white showing. "It was just a spur of the moment thing."
"Spur of the moment. Bullshit. Is that why you don't carry a wallet or any ID? Why you only got a five or ten in your pocket?"
The man's head dropped, his eyes closed.
"That why you're wearing those baggy trousers, so you can play with yourself when the action starts."
"I've got a boy and a wife. She doesn't know."
"That's your problem."
"Can't we work something out?"
"Like what?"
"I can pay."
Croft backed up, pulled a small comb from his hip pocket, turned to the mirror, and pushed his hair straight back. He smiled and checked his teeth, then slid the comb carefully back into his pocket before turning around. The man's hands grasped the front edge of the stained urinal.
Unrolling the Camels from his sleeve, never looking at the man, he tapped a cigarette from the package against his thumbnail, studied the end for strands of tobacco then lit it with a silver Ronson. Inhaling, he checked the entrance, blowing smoke in that direction. He slid the package of Camels into his shirt pocket, finally facing the man. "It'll take a lot more than the money in your pocket. I got a partner just outside. He needs something, too."
"I have more. In my car, just a block over."
Croft reached into a stall and grabbed a handful of toilet paper. Raising his right leg, and carefully placing his alligator-skin loafer on the edge of the urinal, the opposite end from the sitting man, he buffed a slightly scuffed spot on the toe. He looked down to check the left one. The water was building up against the man's hip.
"Please, can't we work something out?"
"Let's go to your car. See what you've got." He handed the wadded paper to the man. "Wipe your chin."
3
Without counting, Robert Donald Higgins, shoved the wad of twenties into the cop's hand, one hundred and forty dollars. Robert kept his head down and twisted his upper body toward his car, but from the corner of his eye he could see the face of the man in the maroon and white shirt, who was neither looking at the money or at him. He watched as Croft smoothed the bills, folded them neatly, and slipped them into his pocket.
"Don't come back," Croft said. "You know and I know, I'm doing you a favor. A big one."
Higgins nodded, turned totally, and leaned against his '52 Buick. His hands spread wide on the hood. He knew the cop was right. A thirty-four year old respected, successful businessman, he would be ruined.
"Here's something else. I'm walking away without looking at your license plate. I don't want to know who you are. That's giving you another break."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks." It was only a whisper. He wanted the cop to walk away. Now. Just leave him alone. How much longer he could stand there leaning on the car without collapsing or maybe vomiting, he didn't know.
"Now you listen, this is even more important," the cop said. "Some boy look younger than eighteen, leave him alone. You understand? You get caught in that situation, and you're going to do time. And not just downtown. It'd be the Huntsville State Pen. It would be hell in there for you."
Higgins nodded, barely, and remained leaning on his car.
"You got that?" Croft said.
"Yes, sir."
"You better."
Higgins continued to hold himself up against the car for several minutes, sucking in air, trying to get more oxygen into his lungs. He tried to keep his knees stiff, but several times they almost buckled. His loose-fitting trousers were soaked from the latrine, while his shirt was almost completely wet from sweat. Drops ran down his cheeks and dripped from his chin onto the hood of the car. What if the cop had run him in? What then? It would be the end of his life as he was now living it. He didn't want that to happen. He loved his wife and kid. But she would never, never understand. Of that, he was certain.
It had been his first time in that restroom, but there had been others. A friend had told him it was a good safe place, and the young guys, burned from the sun, and tired from walking on the beach, but excited and frustrated from looking at the girls in bathing-suits all day, were ready for a quick one. It hadn't turned out that way. For God's sake he only went out every four or five weeks. And he'd never been caught before.
After minutes, finally breathing almost normally, he swung around to find that he was alone. Taking two steps, he opened the driver's side door and sat down. The cop was gone, the cop was gone, and he was alone on the deserted side street. Jesus! What if the cop had arrested him? What then? What then?
He finally got the key into the ignition on the fourth try, his hand still trembling. How could he have explained it to his wife? He couldn't have. Starting the car, he gunned the engine, pulling out into the street, and drove over one block to park in an alley. His legs were still shaky when he opened the trunk. He quickly changed trousers and slid into a white shirt, tucking it in. Slipping a tie already knotted over his head, he pulled it up tight around his collar, then ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it.
Three blocks over on Twenty-fourth, he parked in front of the Surf Club.
Inside, sitting at the bar, he held the shot glass to his mouth, pressing it tightly against his lips to keep his hands from shaking, and threw down the double shot of bourbon and ordered another. He breathed deeply, holding his breath for a moment, closing his eyes tightly.
"You okay?" the barmaid asked, sitting the jigger down in front of him.
He stared at her for a long moment, trying to come back to the present. "No, I'm not."
She looked at him but said nothing.
"It's been a long night. Guess I'm just tired." He turned up the glass, and in one swallow, drank half the bourbon. "Yeah, I'm okay, now. The drink helped. Can I buy you one?" He smiled at her, and she responded with one of her own. His smile was sexy and engaging, he'd been told by several of his early girlfriends, and he believed them.
"Sure," she said. "But I don't drink mine straight. I like Coke in my bourbon."
"Fix your drink and keep the change." He emptied his glass and handed her a ten. "I'll see you around."
"Stop by sometime when you haven't had a long night."
He turned at the door and again forced a smile. Outside the night was muggy, yet cool from the Gulf breeze and felt refreshing after the bar's smoky air. As he drove over the causeway toward LaMarque, he was starting to loosen up. The bourbon was helping, but he couldn't get over how it had felt when the cop threatened to arrest him. The pounding against the wall was nothing, the pounding of his heart was everything. Sitting in that latrine, seeing that silver badge, he had panicked, almost leaping up, pushing against the cop and making a dash for the door. While he hadn't done that, he'd almost thrown up. And it wasn't the punch in the gut. He was just absolutely terrified that he was going to be taken to jail and that his name would be in the papers.
That restroom ordeal was the worst experience of his life. It was much worse than how he had felt after going down on a boy he had met at the beach, when he was still in high school. It was exciting the first time he had done it, eagerly, on his knees, pulling down the boy's bathing suit. They were alone at sundown on a deserted west beach and had just gotten out of his car. He'd noticed the bulge in the boy's swimsuit, they'd been talking about screwing girls. After he had started, he'd yanked down his own suit and jerked at his own hard-on. Both had come at almost the same time. The feeling of guilt came later, but it was mixed with a feeling of passion, thinking about doing it again. It was the first time he'd had sex with anyone. Over the years, there had always been a lingering guilt he felt over what he was. And later, some anger that he had to live two lives. But nothing, nothing in his life had pounded him as hard emotionally as the incident in the restroom.
He had continued to date girls after his first experience with the boy on the beach, especially after he enrolled in Texas A&M. But late one night in the showers, he had had oral sex with another student, a friend. After that incident with his buddy, he'd dropped out of school. From that time on, he had sex only with strangers. And he had learned the code. In talking to another man in a fairly private setting, either said something like, "I'd try anything once," and the other said, "Yeah, me, too." Then there was an understanding. Yet, it was the straight men he liked the most. He believed his having sex with someone he'd only recently met, and who he'd probably never see again, had something to do with the occasional guilt he felt for being what he was.
Donald pulled into the driveway of his large, elegantly landscaped brick home, and sat motionless for a long moment. He held up his hand and studied it, but it no longer trembled. Taking a deep breath and grabbing his briefcase, he got out of the car. He stood in the drive and looked at his home, the light in the bedroom window. His wife would be reading, waiting up for him to return from the business meeting. She would be in their big bed, the one they made love in, except lately, hardly at all.
4
Friday evening, a week later, Jeffrey Kurkendall, Vice-President for loans at the First National Bank of Galveston, shoved the throttle of the twenty-eight foot Criss-Craft yacht all the way forward. The big engine roared, spinning the prop faster as it churned the water, leaving a turbulent white wake. The bow rose at an eight-degree angle, the white spray an envelope on both sides, reflecting the light of the bright half moon. Meg held onto his arm, spreading her feet to keep her balance and absorb the shock as the boat sliced through the three-foot swells. He turned toward her and smiled. With the loud hum of the engine and the noise of the pounding water, talking was difficult. They were crossing the bay that separated Galveston Island from Point Bolivar to the east. The Houston ship channel ran up the bay, and they had just crossed ahead of a large cargo ship that had given them a blast on its foghorn. Almost ten o'clock, the last ferry from Pt. Bolivar, heading to Galveston, passed them slowly on their starboard side with only a few cars on the deck.
Jeff, after cruising for another half hour, eased back on the throttle and maneuvered into a cove on the landward side on the peninsula. Several miles in the distance, almost invisible through the tall salt grass, the lights of the one joint on the point shined in the night. Throwing out an anchor, he walked slowly down the steps into the small galley.
"Hi," he said, sitting down on the booth beside Meg, and taking the glass of Wild Turkey 101 and water from her hand. For several minutes they sipped on the same drink.
"We've got the whole weekend, and Monday, too. I've taken a day of vacation," he said. "My wife's in Dallas."
"I'm pleased," she said, placing her hand on his thigh. "Then there's no hurry."
"Not at all."
She leaned her head back against the back of the booth, enjoying the close intimacy. It was a neat, small, clean galley with lots of brass and polished wood, encased in glass windows on three sides. He would have brought aboard all sorts of food: steaks, potatoes, and lettuce for salads. Shrimp, fresh red snapper, and stuffed blue crabs from Johnny Walker's. Eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast. And he would do most of the cooking.
When their drink was empty, she poured in more water and emptied the last of the bourbon from the bottle, scooping in ice from the small bucket. In the lee of the land, the small waves rocked the boat gently, with a light tapping sound. With the light breeze, there were few mosquitoes. Except for the one small overhead lamp, he had turned out all illumination, even the red and green running lights. She leaned against him, feeling his warmth. He placed his arm over her shoulder, pulling her even closer.
"I care for you very much," he said.
It was true, she knew. For over ten years, since she had left the house in Biloxi and arrived in Galveston, they had been going together. It had started when he came into the house, drunk, angry with his wife, hurt she didn't want children, and bought an all-night stay in her bedroom. He had slept till early dawn then started to talk. She listened and held his hand until the sun cracked the horizon. She made love to him like he was her lover, kissing him, caressing him, holding him tight at the crucial time. It was as intense a moment as he'd ever had, he told her. It had been the same for her, for she had never made love to a customer before, ever, and certainly she had never in all the years she had been in the houses allowed a john to kiss her. Kissing was for her lover, not someone paying for her body.
For a while he paid for her time away from the house, the time he spent with her, but that stopped, because she wanted it stopped. Money could not buy what she was giving him, nor the way he made her feel.
During the time they had gone together, he had gone through two wives, and was working on his third. The last was a beauty queen from the University of Houston, twenty-four, half his age, and ten years younger than Meg. And she had a degree.
Jeff stood, retrieved another bottle of Wild Turkey from a cabinet. And sat it on the table. For a while he stood looking out a porthole, watching a distant boat as it moved along the Inter-coastal Canal, with the red port light barely visible.
"We ought to take a trip sometime," he said, not turning to face her.
"I would like that, I would like that very much."
"I do care for you deeply," he said, softly, almost as if to himself, or to his reflection in the window.
He took several steps forward and opened the door to the sleeping compartment, snapping a brass hook onto a ring to hold the louvered door open. The room was dark except for the shaft of illumination falling on the carpeted deck from the small light in the galley. When he turned, he looked at her for a long moment, before taking the drink from her hand.
"I'm leaving, moving," he said, leaning against the galley sink with his hip, again looking out the window. "Going to the First State Bank of Dallas as President. It's a position I've always coveted."
"When?"
"Several weeks. My wife is there now, finding a place."
From the window, rocking ever so slightly, the image of his face watched her. The soft tapping of the small waves continued. Finally he turned and placed the empty glass on the table.
"Would you like another?" she asked.
"Yeah, I would."
He sat down on the bench opposite her when she handed him his drink. Placing his pack of cigarettes on the table, he fished out a gold cigarette lighter and flicked it, watching the small blue flame before letting the cap snap back.
"It's time for you to get out of the business," he said.
Get out of the business? She knew that. One of the oldest women in the houses, she knew that. But what next? When she had first started going with him, she had tried to quit, something he had suggested, working in a grocery store as a checker for ten hours a day, six days a week. That was the best she could do with no education, not even a high school diploma. She took a deep breath, and would not look away, though he had. The job as a checker lasted less than a month, and she was so tired that at the end of most days, she collapsed face down on her bed. Her bath had to wait for the next morning. And that was when she was younger, twenty-four, when they had first started taking weekends together, and she was twelve years younger than his first wife. If she wanted to be with him, and she did, she had to quit the grocery store job, and she did.
"It's been an incredible ten years," he said, watching his finger swirl the ice in the drink. "No one could have made me happier. Every time was like the first."
For some strange reason, he reached up and snapped the light off. As their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, the light of the half-moon reflecting from the water through the windows gave the inside of the yacht a yellow glow. The slight furrows in his brow showed as wiggly lines. His hands now lay on the table, one on the other, the drink pushed aside. She lit a cigarette, using his gold lighter, and inhaled deeply, turning her head to exhale toward the bulkhead, the smoke hitting the wood, rolling upward. She placed the cigarette, its lit end glowing red in the dim light, in the notch of the brass ashtray fastened to the end of the table.
"I've appreciated all you've done," he said. "Every moment you've given me."
With the drink glass sitting in front of her, the thin string of smoke drifting up from the cigarette, and a man across from her she suddenly seemed to no longer know, a feeling that she was sitting at the bar in the house at 2705 came over her, making her want to laugh or cry, maybe both. The sweet feeling of intimacy was dead.
"I'm sorry," he said. "And I know you are, too."
"That it's ended?"
"Yes."
She knew nothing to say that would make it easier for him, or her, or if she even wanted to make it easier for either one of them. For those years, he had been everything in her life. But the thing was if it hadn't been him, it would probably have been no one. Would that have been better, for ten years never having a moment of intimacy? Never enjoying the sweet times they'd had?
"Meg, there is something I've always wanted to ask. It's none of my business, especially not now, but I'd like to know."
"Go on."
"The name O'Brien, how did that come about?"
"Me using O'Brien, how did the name come about?"
"Yes, were you ever married?"
Using her pointing finger, she drew circles in the condensation that had slid down from the glass on the dark mahogany table top, studying the curving lines that sparkled in the moonlight. It had been so long ago, and she had been so young.
"Were you in love with him?"
Who could remember with honesty the intense emotions felt for the first time, when innocence pervaded every moment, every action? Who could compare, without becoming nostalgic, emotional, that young lustful intensity with the satisfying passion experienced by a mature woman? How sweet it was, all the minutes, hours, every minute, every hour, with O'Brien, and with Jeff. It was as if all the moments with the two men, like watercolors, had run together into a sweet soft collage of passion and emotions, but without form, or faces.
"What else is there to say?" she asked.
He picked up the small stem of her cigarette and lit his, something he had always done, as if that act somehow linked the two of them, and maybe it had, at one time. Breaking the seal on the new bottle, he poured a half glass of bourbon and she added the ice. It was something else they had always done, shared the drink, never making two. Of course, they had never dined at a restaurant, or gone to a party at the home of his friends, where such intimacy would have been as awkward as her presence.
"There is something," he said. "I want to talk to you about."
She sipped from the drink before handing it to him.
"On the mainland, in LaMarque, we have several small two-bedroom homes we've foreclosed on. Eight years old, built just after the war, they're in excellent shape and in a quiet residential area. The lawns are well established, with oleanders around the backyard for privacy."
She wished he'd turn the small light back on. Sitting in the dark talking was now not what she wanted to do.
"Ninety-five hundred, that's what they sell for. Fifteen hundred down, and the monthly payments will be about sixty-five. It's a twenty-five year payout."
She reached up and snapped the small overhead light on. In the glare, both blinked. For a long moment, he looked directly at her then glanced away.
"I plan to make the down payment," he said. "I will put the house in your name."
"How long have you been working on this?" she asked.
"Does it matter?"
"For quite a while, I expect," she said.
Finally, he turned to face her.
"This is not easy," he said.
"I don't want it."
"The house?"
"Forget it." She stood and removed a glass from the cabinet, scooped in ice, and poured in bourbon, while she stood above him looking down. Without saying a thing, she walked back into the sleeping compartment and sat down on the three-quarter bed. She sat the drink in a cutout wooden holder and began to undress.
After a moment he sat down beside her. "Meg, I wish you'd reconsider about the house. I want to do that."
In panties and bra she sat quietly, without moving, without turning to face him, not offering her lips. If they kissed, it would be because he forced it.
"I don't want you to do this, if it's just for me," he said. "Unless you really want to make love, I don't want you to do this."
She did not turn toward him. Instead she reached for her drink, holding it against her thigh, thankful for its cold wet feel.
"We could leave now, if you really wanted to. I hope you don't. Making love to you is something that has always meant a lot to me."
Making love? Screwing was now the name for what they might do. Screwing is what a man did to a woman in the houses. Why men went there was something she had always thought about for all the years she had worked there, since she was eighteen, sixteen years. Too, she had wondered why women worked in the houses, why she herself had worked there. Regardless, it seemed to her that men went there for many different reasons, and women worked there for just an many other reasons, yet the truth was, the john and the prostitute were mirror images.
"You could at least talk to me." When she said nothing, he continued. "What we have will stay with us. You must know that, know that I will always care for you."
Meg took a long drink from her glass, placing it back in the holder, not turning to face him. For the man, getting fucked was just a small part of going to the houses, while a need to be loved was probably a bigger part. Making money for the woman was also just a part of it, while a craving to be needed was maybe a bigger part. All the woman she'd worked with gave one excuse or another for being a prostitute, but she doubted any told the whole truth, because she certainly hadn't. One thing most had in common was that feeling of unworthiness, that what they were doing was the only kind of life they deserved. It was hard to shake that feeling, some never did.
"Meg, maybe I should start the engine and head on back. Regardless, I want you to have that house. I want to spend that money on you."
"No."
"No? Absolutely no?"
She remained silent.
"Should we leave now?"
"No," she said. "I think you deserve something." She twisted so her back was to him. He undid the two hooks of the bra, and when it came loose, slid his hands under her arms and grasped both breasts. Her nipples hardened as he softly squeezed with thumb and forefinger. She moaned softly, leaning against him, his white silk shirt warm and smooth against her bare back. The rhythmic tap of the small waves continued against the hull, gently rocking the boat.
5
Later that same Friday night, Connie, wearing a form-fitting but simple, white linen dress, walked into the Moulin Rouge Club. Her only jewelry was a gold choke necklace. The walls of the lounge had flocked crimson wallpaper with pink windmills. She stopped at the jukebox, dropping in a handful of quarters, and selected songs that were slow and romantic, and why romantic songs? That was a mystery. Taking a seat at a small round table next to the parquet dance floor not much larger, she ordered Crown Royal and Seven. On the jukebox Nat King Cole began singing, "Unforgettable."