The Catcher in the Wry

The Putrid way I really am, if you've got to know, is slightly maraschino. That's what my kid brother, Otto, calls it. He's a real gone brat, Otto; I mean, he really is. Slightly precocious for four-and-a-half, going on five, but then, who isn't? Like the time he was watching me slick up for a date and puts his arms akimbo (I like that word; I really do) and cocks his corny little pointed head and sneers:

"Oh, boy, big deal! Going to a dance at the youth centerl Rowdy-dow! Watch those mad kissing games like Spin The Bottle or something! What gives, Lothario, you never hear of borrowin' a pettin' buggy and takin' a dame to a passion pit? Some day I got to have a little talk with you, son."

Four-and-a-half years old. I mean, what are you going to do? Kids are just hip these days.

And like the time my old man catches Otto perusing the big, leather-bound volume of Fanny Hill. Otto, that wacky child, he says: "Not bad, Pops; a little slow in spots but not bad at all. You understand, I couldn't wait for them to bring out the quarter edition."

He sends me, that Otto; he really does. But this isn't all about my boy-brother, of course. I just got a bad habit of rambling. I mean, the main drag in this bit is the slightly juvenile condition I mention in the first sentence and which, after shocking hell out of you right off, shall from here in be nameless, as I am aware it is a fairly degrading situation to be in, for a lad my age and background. So, when even my kid brother, Otto, twitted me about it, I got pretty depressed.

I was standing in front of the mirror, squeezing pimples like a madman and looking at myself and thinking about it. I got a bad habit of thinking about things like this at times like this at times like that, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I even talk to myself; I really do. Like:

"Look, Wally, you little slob," I say. I really do. I get all puked-up about it. "Something's got to be done. You want to get all frustrated and neurotic and repressed? You want to wind up a fruit or something?" I bore down on it and it was real depressing and all but it did some good. It really did.

That same clay I raised the weekly allowance check my old man gives me, three or four figures, I forget which; I'm really lousy at math. I must admit that was a pretty frumpy trick to do of course and the old boy no doubt would flip and take away my charge account at De Pinna's but what the hell, you're only young and–well, the corny way I was–once.

So, anyhow, I took this loot and hopped the five-fifteen to New York and hired a suite at the Vinoy-Plaza. That's the high-type stash, if you really must know, where movie stars and maharajahs stay. Of course, I put on the dog right off. I mean I didn't let their big, fat gold-braided doorman stare me down or anything, like he does most people. What I really felt like doing, if you've got to know, was slipping that old boy a real fast goose. I didn't, of course, because that kind of crap is kid stuff.

Anyhow, I called Room Service right away and had them send up a double chocolate almond frosted float, like it wasn't anything at all. I really did.

When the bellhop brought it up I saw right away that he was just an arrogant looking little goop, only slightly older than me and this encouraged me to get right to the business at hand, so to speak.

Digging into the pile of goo they sent up, just as though I did this every day in the week, without looking at the bellhop, I said:

"Uh, what does a guy do in a stash like this all by himself on a lonesome night? I mean, I don't dig this solitaire bit, y'know? You got any suggestions?" I came right out with it, real worldly and all. I even surprised myself.

I got all set to tee off on him, of course, in case he laughed or tried any of his patronizing crap but he didn't. You could have knocked me over with a nasal spray if he didn't turn out to be a real right guy, real round.

"Well, sir," he said, deferentially. I'm not trying to show off my vocabulary oranything, understand; that's really the only way I can describe how he said it. "Well, sir, if you'd care for some feminine companionship, it might could be arranged. For a smidgeon of cash, of course."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, gulping like a juvenile delink on his first mugging. I have the crazy habit of gulping like a goldfish when I'm emotionally involved, like they say. "Some feminine companionship is just what I would care for." I buffed my nails on my lapel. So I get chocolate goo on it, what the hell?

To cut a lot of boring crap short, he calls this number and there's a conversation like it's in code or something, which I don't dig and then the bellhop says: "It's all set, sir. She'll be here in about twenty minutes."

"Gee, thanks," I said. My hands started sweating. They do that pretty often. Ol' Sweaty-Hands-Wally, my kid brother, Otto, calls me. But I'll grow out of it, my dermatologist says.

"Of course, sir," the bellhop went on. "This is a high class du—I mean, hotel and all, and these ladies aren't mere creatures of the evening, as the saying goes. A thing like this should be done right and all. I mean, a man always courts a lady fair much better when both of them have a full stomach–you should pardon the expression–and a few lightly intoxicating beverages under the belt, dontcha know?"

That's exactly the way he said it; I wouldn't give you any crap. I figured right away he was no ordinary bellhop but some future ambulance chaser or State Department employee working his way through grade school or something with this job.

I couldn't let him think I didn't know how to handle things like this, of course. I mean, I hate to have people think I'm ignorant or something. I said:

"Certainly, my good man." I hate people who pull that my-goocl-man-routine with their lessers, but I was a little excited. "You may order dinner. Let's have some baked brisket of pheasant under glass, some horse derves, some of that flaming Armenian crap,–what do they call it, Shish-Ker-Plop or something?–and top it all off with some Baked Florida. You know? And, oh, yes. For the before dinner drinks, jig up a couple of pussy cafes and afterward, some Grand Mariner or something and—"

He held up a hand. "One moment, sir, if you'll be so kindly. I–ah–hate to bring it up, but these things run a little high. I wouldn't want you embarrassed just in case you are presently a trifle low on the wherewithal. You dig?"

"You mean money?" I felt like a clod, coming right out with it. It sounded very depressing and all but I've got a habit of not beating around the shrubbery, things like that. "Hell, I'm loaded with loot. I got a little over a grand. You don't have to worry."

He blanched. That's the only way you can describe it, archaic as it sounds. He really did. "A–a–a grand? You mean only one?" He looked like he was going to puke on the rug or something. No kidding. Then he choked out: "Excuseme, young sir, but it's a good thing 1 asked. You see, the young lady I called, her fee is five hundred. This suite here is three fifty and the food—"

He stopped and I guess he saw that I was fixing to go off to some lonely place and shoot my poverty-stricken self or something for being a real stupid little slob.

His tone became gentle. "There, there," he said. "Don't let a little thing like this here, now, shortness of funds, which I'm sure is only temporary, bother you. We'll merely shave the expenses a mite."

With that, he hikes to the phone, gets Room Service and says: "Hey, Joe, send up two orders of the number ten chow, a pint of bar rye and some beer chasers."

Then he hangs up and dials an outside number. "Hi, Sugar," he says, real cool and all. "Me again. Slight change of order. Slight mistake in the amount of oneymay the umpchay can afford. Send Mabel, not Gwendolyn."

The truth is, there's no sense in boring you with any more dialogue between me and this corny bellhop type. The fact is, he sent up the liquor and all and a couple of cornbeef on rye with some cheesy looking salad on the side and then my feminine companion arrived.

Wow.

That's all I could think of when this creature, Mabel, hip-rolled into the room. I mean, she was slightly not a beast. I felt my eyes bugging and the long hairs crawling at the nape of my duckcut, as they say in the corny paperbacks. I mean she was stacked. Like silver dollars in a Vegas joint. My God, the way she looked at me and all, like she was starving and I was a creamed-chicken-on-toast, it would melt the what-chamacallits off a brass monkey or something.

"Hello, dolling," she said, real theatrical and I almost swooned. I have this habit of almost swooning when a woman looks at me like that.

She came toward me and I backed up to the wall. I wasn't really scared; that knocking that sounded like my knees was really a percussion artist practicing in the next room. Then she chucked me under the chin and said:

"Well, we're a little–shall we say–young? Aren't we? Your–ah–initial performance, shall we say, dolling?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said without thinking. Then I could have kicked myself. "I mean, no, ma'am," I said. "I'm an old roui from Roanoke. Har-de-har-har. 1 mean, really, I am."

The musky scent of her wreathed about me, like they say. She must've been drenched in this Schlemiel #5 or something. I know this sounds real corny and all that I should be so affected but that's the lousy way I am with perfume.

Anyhow, one thing led to another, we had a shot of liquor, we ate the corned-beefs and took a couple of Turns and first thing you know I'm sitting next to her on a love seat.

There is a big silence until she blurts: "My, gawd, kid, so what are you trembling?"

"I–I–I have this habit, if you really want to know," I told her, "of getting cold at times like this. Not really cold, lady, you understand. Just shaky. An old complaint left over from my cub scout days; those chilly pup tents and the malaria, you know."

"You poor dolling!" She gets up and approaches the rye and beer on the dresser. "I know what'll fix that up. You ever drink a Depth Bomb?"

"Oh, sure," I said, wondering what kind of crap she was talking about and all. "They serve 'em all the time at the Gay Blades roller rink."

"Ho-ho-hoo-ha!" she laughs. I mean she broke up, but actually, even though it wasn't that funny, believe me.

I watched her pour a shot of rye and then, honest to God, this is what she did: she dropped the whole thing, shot glass and all, into the glass of beer.

"Here, honey," she crooned. "Drink this. Drink it nice and fast and I'll fix you another. It'll make you feel real good."

She was wrong, though. It didn't. It tasted like–well, you got an imagination. Anyhow, I felt nothing. But I took the second one, like she said. And then we sat there, her looking at me and me pushing back my cuticles, which is a lousy habit I have when I got nothing else to do. It was pretty depressing and all, because the point is. I figured any minute I was supposed to get real goaty or something and the truth is, all I wanted to do was get out of there and run like hell to watch the pigeons feeding in Times Square, which always calms me no end when I'm feeling restive, if you've got to have it spelled out for you.

But I didn't do that, of course. All of a sudden somebody dropped an atom bomb or something and the whole room took a fast swing around my head. I mean,I didn't move or anything, the pukey room did. It was pretty awful.

The next thing I knew, like mad I was practising what I'd read in that mail-order book I'd sent away for,What Every Young Man Should Know About the Art of Love and Courtship and All. I mean, I had this Mabel chick by one arm and I was chewing my way up the other like crazy, after kissing her hand and all. Looking back on it, now, I guess it was all pretty slobbery, but there I was, anyhow.

Then I'm trying to do what they call burrowing your mouth in the swanlike column of her pulsing slim throat and that kind of corny bit. Finally, I've got a half nelson on her and all and I'm a little confused because I think maybe I'm only ten again and wrassling with the girl next door, because suddenly she yanked away screaming:

"Down, Rover, down!"

I heard somebody huffing and puffing like a calliope, only now I know that was me, of course, registering my corny torrid feelings and she was backing off from me, a look of pure horrified alarm on her pretty face with the lipstick on it all crooked, now. Then I lurched–or was it lunged?–at her and that was when she kicked the stupid ottoman in front of me and I went over it and landed on my conk and that was all she wrote.

Well, the way it winds up, if you've really got to know the sordid facts, I come to and Mabel is gone and so is the pint of rye and my wallet with the loot in four figures. And one thing I but definitely learn is what a hangover is, on account of I had one, the biggest friggin' one there is, if you want to be technical about it.

Of course, I call the management and register a corny complaint and what do you think he said? I know that's a crappy thing to ask because you couldn't possibly have any idea what he said, but in a story like this, you've got to keep the corny suspense right up to the end. Anyhow, he said:

"Look, Buster, leave me clue you into a few things. This ain't the Vinoy-Plaza, as you seem to think. It so happens you're residing for the night in the Bowery Arms, where a two bit dame and a kid in a fancy monkey suit checked you in, drunk as hoot owl. And if this is a pitch leading up to the fact you can't pay your tab, why why—"

I hung up. Who has to take that kind of crap? Who did he think he was, anyhow? I saw, of course, looking around me, now, what I'd overlooked in my hungover confusion–that I was in a different place.

Well, the upshot is. I finally call my old man and have him come down and bail me out. It was a fairly degrading situation, of course, but the old spook took it pretty fair. He was slightly p.o.'d, of course, about me raising the check and losing all that loot but he finally simmered down. He said most kids my age got over Fool's Hill, wherever that is, some time or another and what the hell, the reform schools are full enough without getting excited over a little frolic.

The thing I have to hand him. though, he never did tell the humiliating part to my little brother. Otto, that crazy kid. So, naturally, the child doesn't dig that his great big brother is still–well–the putrid way I slightly am, if you must be nosy.

Mabel hip-rolled into the room she was slightly not a beast.