Switching

I was Either Thinking or daydreaming when last call was announced by Sam One and echoed at the far end of the bar by Sam Three. In obedience to the hokey traditions of Rick's Café Americain, a scratchy disc of As Time Goes By was put on the turntable to signal the end of another drinking day. The clock read 2:10, which meant it was five minutes before two. It is another tradition at Rick's to set the bar clock ahead 15 minutes to create a little leeway for moving drunks out. All the regulars know this gimmick, so it doesn't work; but that doesn't prevent it from being one of Rick's cherished instant traditions, like playing As Time Goes By and hanging huge blowups of stills from Casablanca on the walls and calling all the barmen Sam--this last having a particularly precious embellishment: They are known as Sam One, Sam Three, Sam Five, etc., because someone once described them as an odd lot. (continued on page 250) Switching(continued from page 235)

Rick's has been the city's most popular meat market for the past four months, and four months hence, it will no longer be in existence. That is the mutable way of things in Dallas, city of glass, Nauga-hyde, chrome and caste--a wide and shallow town reflecting exactly the mentality of its inhabitants.

I had drunk enough to be sure I was absolutely sober and to be lamenting the waste of money on hooch that failed to dissolve my crust of devilishly attractive bitterness. I tipped back the last of my Scotch and milk and asked Sam One for another before last call. When he told me that last call had already gone, I opened my eyes wide and demanded to know why nobody had advised me of so significant an event. He sighed operatically and made up another, taking care to label it "a quick one."

I surveyed the bar with that dolefully sardonic expression I effect. Nothing but losers and drunks left at this hour. Two young business types sat arguing stupidly, dressed in that white belt and shoes, double-knit polyester uniform of Centennial primaries common to their class--the clothes that make mid-American businessmen look like ticket agents for minor airlines. Farther down, there were three single males staring at their glasses, not realizing that they had failed to make out for the simple reason that they were Darwinian rejects from the mating process--the kind who buy Chevettes. Near them was a vague man sipping on a drink full of foliage and smiling with his eyes. He obviously did best when the prey was stunned with alcohol and rejection. At the end of the bar was a drunk twit with an eyelash that had come unstuck at the corner. She was still waiting for a guy who had excused himself to go to the men's room over an hour ago. And two stools down from me was a woman in her mid-30s, expensively dressed and a bit lusher than she wanted to be. She appeared a little embarrassed to be sitting there with nowhere else to go.

A sad lot, I evaluated. The culls, the losers, the shucks. And there was I, sitting in their midst. Ironic. Ironic.

An hour before, the bar had been full of action, with its clientele of young lawyers, mercantile types and secretaries; all playing it for less straight than Nature and the Protestant Deformation had designed them to be; all hunting for crotch in this pasteboard jungle of music, laughter, drinking, groping and single-entendre jokes followed by guffaws, not because the mots were bon but because the yakker wanted to prove she/he had got it and was--to that modest extent--with it.

I had hooked an easy fish in the course of the evening, but I let her off the line, out of fatigue and boredom . . . and age. Age looms large with me. Lots of men have trouble with the arrival of male menopause, but with me it's worse. I just cannot accept the idea of being 40. And that's not a good thing, when you're 44.

I downed my Scotch and pushed myself off the stool as I signaled Sam One for my tab.

"There you go, Mr. Lee. Thirteenfifty."

"You took care of yourself, Sam?"

"Yes, sir."

"Wonderful. I have it on excellent authori--one Virgil of woppish ethnic persuasion, who runs tours through the halls of Dis--that the most attractive feature of hell's torment is that the service is compris."

Sam seemed to guess from my tone that this was supposed to be clever, so he made a slight effort toward a laugh but produced only a nasal sigh.

But slight though it was, this sigh had an astonishing effect--the lights went out. Rick's was plunged into total darkness. An instant later, the lights came back on and there was a crash of thunder that seemed to split the tarmac of the parking lot. All the drinkers were startled and frightened, so they laughed.

I went to the window and looked out. A storm had broken over the city and hailstones the size of moth balls clattered onto the parking lot and bounced up to a height of three feet. The tinny rattle of the hail obliterated the sound of As Time Goes By, now playing for its second and last time.

The only warning of an incoming storm had been an odd greenish light at sunset, a kind of bathospheric afterglow. I had noticed it as I dropped into Rick's at 6:30 for one drink before going home.

By the time other customers joined me at the window, the diagonal streaks of hail had stopped and a plump rain was falling, rapidly melting the hailstones almost before they stopped bouncing and rolling.

"O mutability!" I muttered.

"Oh, shit," muttered the woman at my side. She was the comfortable 30ish one I had noticed down the bar.

"Let's hope it's only rain," I said.

"Should I have said, 'Oh, piss'?"

"Metaphor more adroit, if not more tasteful."

One of the customers called back to Sam One, telling him that no Christian man would send people out in shit like this.

"You see?" the woman said to me. "I was right after all."

As everyone drifted back to the bar, Sam Three was quick to explain that he couldn't sell any more drinks without risking his license.

Fine, someone said. Don't sell us another round. Give us another round.

And because most of us were regulars, Sam One shrugged and nodded to Sam Three, who, with cheerless fatalism, began to make everyone another of the same.

"I hope you realize," I said as I took the barstool next to the 30ish woman, "that this yahoo's agreeing with you about the rain's being shit does not constitute proof. The vox populi is almost always the voice of ignorance. Hence, democracy is the least efficient thing since waxed toilet paper. In the case of this particular guy, he's notorious for his inability to distinguish shit from Shinola. It almost ruined his career as a meteorologist."

"He wouldn't make much of a shoe-shine boy, either."

"True. Except in west Texas, where a wedge of dung in the heel of the boot is a status symbol. I like you, madam. You've a nice sense of the ridiculous."

"Thank you. What's that you're drinking?"

"Scotch and milk."

She made a face. "Is it good?"

"I never viewed it as a moral issue."

"You don't seem to think very highly of our fellow drinkers, stranded in Casablanca."

"Oh, they're all right in their way. Just a pack of fools who sit all night on barstools in the vain hope there's a vagrant relationship between romance and getting oneself laid. The type who believe you can find a million-dollar baby in a five-and-ten-cent bar."

"Yeah, I know the type."

And the conversation lay there for a while, as we pushed ice around in our drinks.

"What's your name?" she asked, without looking at me.

"Marvin Lee. And yours?"

"Martha Zinberg."

"You don't look like a Martha."

"Fifteen years ago, I didn't look like a Martha . . . but I'm growing into it. Now, you--you really don't look like a Marvin."

"Thank you. It's odd: Marvin Lee is a patently wimpy name, but Lee Marvin (continued on page 330)Switching(continued from page 250) sounds all sinew and balls."

"Poetry's a funny thing."

"True. I remember giggling all the way through Paradise Lost."

She smiled. "Tell me, do you come here often?"

I laughed. "Why didn't you ask me what my zodiac sign was?"

"I don't understand."

"Don't tell me that 'Do you come here often?' is your best line!"

"Hey, come on. Take it easy. I'm new at this sort of business."

"Ah, the cry of the Sabine women. All right. Yes, I come here often."

"To pick up women?"

"Certainly not! By which I mean . . . of course, what else?"

"Why aren't you after her, then?" Martha indicated the drunk with the adrift eyelash.

"Well, in the first place, she's drunk. And making love to a drunk is a form of masturbation. Only lonelier. And in the second place, she's obviously as dumb as a Sixties liberal. The vital force that might have gone into her brains went into her boobs. So how about you? Did you come here to make out?"

"I thought so. I'm not sure. It's my first time."

"Your first time here?"

"First time anywhere."

"Married?"

"Divorced."

"Recently?"

"Very."

"Children?"

"None. And you?"

"Which?"

"Any of the above."

"Married, yes. And I have produced an F-1--little girl--all sugar and spice and puppy dogs' tails."

"How do you earn your money?"

"I'm a university professor. History of Western Thought. So you can't exactly say that I earn my money. Creating faculty positions is our culture's way of providing for the emotionally underdeveloped."

"That has the sound of a rehearsed line."

"Exactly what it was. What about you, Martha? How do you make your money?"

"I'm a lawyer."

"Oh?"

"Yes. My husband and I were in practice together."

"Zinberg and Zinberg?"

"No. Just Zinberg."

"And that was the problem?"

"Hmm . . . more one of the symptoms. You want to hear about the problems?"

"No."

"In that case, do you want to tell me about your problems?"

"Gladly. My wife is a wonderful human being. My child is a cocktail of beauty and wit. I got tenure two years ago. And I publish articles with machine-like regularity."

"These are problems?"

"If seen from the inside. You see, I always wanted to be captain of a tramp steamer on the South China Sea. Or a novelist. Or a movie actor. Or a farmer in Vermont. What about you?"

"I don't think I ever wanted to be a farmer in Vermont. All my life, I wanted to be a lawyer."

"So you've made out."

"Not tonight, it appears. My first shot at the swinging scene wasn't a screaming success. I realize that zaftig isn't 'in' this season--but still! I mean, come on . . . the air in here was humid with libido earlier on, and some of the boys were too drunk to discriminate. And yet . . . I'm still sitting here. Advise me. What should I do? Green Stamps?"

"Do I understand you correctly? You're asking me for advice on how to get yourself laid?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. I mean--this is my maiden voyage as a matron. First time out since the divorce. Maybe I just want to talk. Share ideas, dreams, wisecracks." She tilted back her head and looked at me narrowly. "Come to think of it, you're probably not the best person to ask for advice. After all, you're obviously not much of an expert in the arts of seduction."

"I resent that!"

"You're still here, aren't you? You didn't find anyone for tonight."

"That's the part I resent."

Martha laughed. "You're sort of fun."

"Golly, am I really? The fact is, I did make out tonight. I ran my patented 'switch' number on a girl and she fell like the Roman Empire in a race with the American dollar. So you see, madam, when you assume that the reason I am here, rather than sweating on the belly of some chick, is because I lack persuasive skills, you are full of shit up to your pink, shell-like ears. You don't mind my waxing poetic, do you?"

"Wax away. Are they really?"

"What?"

"Shell-like?"

"Sure. A conch is a kind of shell, you know."

"Are you drunk, Marvin? You have a very drunk sound."

"Only my mouth is drunk. My mind is pellucid. Hey, what if I had slurred the word pellucid? Wouldn't that have been funny? Say, do you want to hear how I made out or not?"

"Is it still raining?"

"Felines and canines."

"In that case, I'm fascinated." She crossed her legs and assumed an acutely attentive look.

"Ok. Ok, I approached this fish, ran my classic switch number on her and there she was--on the hook. We only had to finish our drinks and in half an hour we'd have been in her apartment, making the beast with two backs. Or the double-thick beast. Or whatever faunal variations our bone structure and imagination permitted."

"So why didn't you?"

"Ah! There you have put your finger on my problem."

"That's my knee. And it's at least a foot away from your problem."

"You see, madam, of late I've discovered--how do you know it's a foot away? You're just guessing. Of late I've discovered that once the hook is set, my interest in landing the fish evaporates. I'm more of a hunter than a killer. It isn't the physical thing that attracts me. It's the constant reaffirmation that I can still get myself laid by young flesh. Does that make sense?"

"Sure. In fact, it's transparent."

"I was afraid of that."

"So how does this classic 'switch' of yours work?"

"Like most landmark discoveries in mankind's rise from the club to the atomic bomb, the switch is based on simple principles. These bumbling butchers around here run the standard, banal dodges. They grope the fish's emotions by tellig her she's beautiful; or they grope her mind by saying she's clever and inter-sting; or they grope her affections by faking a common interest in The Rolling Stones or Fellini or the Mets. I cut through all this tedious persiflage and do a complete switch on these worn ploys. Playing it for bittersweet and tragic, I frankly admit that both she and I are here to get ourselves laid. Then I shake my head and say what a sick and silly thing that really is. Here we sit, so much finer and more sensitive than these animals sniffing at each other all around us. And still we find ourselves in the same meat market with them, victims to social and corporeal impulses we can't fight, even though we know how stupid and ultimately unsatisfying it all is. I sigh and say that at least we can preserve our dignity by not conning each other with shams of love and affection. We can call a spade a spade--this line is a little dicey if the girl is black. So the two of us finish our drinks, looking at the others with scorn. We're a team now. We've both accepted reality, both admitted we're there to get laid. Ergo...."

"And that works, Marvin?"

"More often than not."

"The whole business doesn't sound very romantic."

"The hole business isn't romantic. It's thermochemistry--lubrication, friction and contractions. Like giving blood, or pissing, or taking a vitamin capsule. And, by the way, those are excellent analogs for the three impulses that drive us to sex."

Martha probed the botton of her glass with a plastic swizzle stick. "Would you mind telling me something? Why didn't you take a shot at me? Didn't you notice me sitting there?"

"I noticed you."

"And?"

"Well, you see, I've got this problem. I only target on young fish. In the corners of my mind, I have a notion that youth is a communicable disease you can catch through direct contact."

"Does that ever work?"

"It always works . . . for about thirty seconds."

She took the swizzle stick out and licked at it meditatively. "I don't think it would work for me. Too complicated. Too devious."

"Don't chew on that. Plastic causes cancer." I had swallowed a little too much hooch that night and I began to feel a ghost of nausea in the back of my throat. I must have mistaken it for compassion, because I found myself deciding to play it straight with her. "Martha? I told you about the switch game where I lay it right on the line with the fish. Well, there's a more advanced ploy, one I call the double switch. That's where I tell some bright fish at the bar all about the switch game."

She was silent for a beat. "You're saying that I've just been a victim of the double switch?"

"That's it. It's reserved for the very smartest fish."

"Thanks . . . sort of. But what about your taste for young flesh and the social disease of youth?"

"Do you think I have so little imagination that I'm incapable of lying?"

"I see."

"Like everybody else, I take what I can get. But because you're bright and witty, I thought I'd warn you. Particularly as this is your first night out cruising. Seems only sporting to give you a chance to get away."

"I'm not sure I want to. Do you mind if I ask--do you love your wife?"

"Sure."

"But then . . . why?"

"It's all about being over forty and not being a captain on the South China Sea or a farmer in Vermont. You parked out in the lot?"

"Yes. A cream Mercedes."

"When the rain breaks, I'll follow you to your place."

"Ah. . . ." She put her elbow on the bar and her cheek in her palm, so that she was looking sideways up at me. "May I use the confessional now?"

"Sure."

"We can't go to my place."

"You have a roommate?"

"Sort of. There's my husband and my three children. I don't think they'd understand."

I looked at her for a second, feeling very tired. "You're not divorced."

"No."

"And this isn't your first time out cruising."

"Ah . . . no. Could there be such a thing as a triple switch?"

I rubbed my face to get some of the blur out of my eyes. "Not bad, Martha. Not bad. For a woman who doesn't think she can handle the devious." I pushed off the barstool and went to the window. The rain had just about stopped and streetlights were reflecting in shallow pools faintly opalescent with automobile filth. I couldn't tell if the hail had done any damage to my battered Avanti, but I was sure it had harmed her Mercedes, and that was a comfort.

"Marvin?" She had joined me at the window. "There comes a time when a woman who has been a good wife and a busy mother feels all the time in front of her collapsing, and she realizes that life was that thing that passed her by while she was making plans. You know what I mean?"

"Please don't batter me with your sincerity. My whole life is a celebration of artifice. Down with meaningful relations! Up with the psychological barriers! Bring on the colorful hang-ups!"

She was silent for a moment, then she said, "I see. Well, at least we could console each other by making the beast with two backs. And the double-thick beast. And whatever that other one was. I have enough money for a motel, you know."

"I sat at the table by the window. "I'm sure you have, Martha. If not, we could hock a spoke from one of your car wheels."

She sat across from me. "Your ego's hurt, isn't it?"

"Of course. But that's not it. It would be pointless for us to make it in some motel with cellophane sheets. In the morning, our strongest urge would be to shower the other person's body off our own. We'd have to make up fragile stories for people who no longer believe us. And a week from now, we wouldn't even remember each other's names. We don't have anything to offer each other--nothing we even want from each other. All there is between us is a low background fever of sexual curiosity."

All the while I spoke, she smiled at me with amused compassion, and it was difficult to keep my eyes on hers. I was feeling burned out, vitiated.

Sam Three started up the worn record of As Time Goes By, while Sam One went along the bar telling everyone that it was long after closing and the rain had stopped.

Martha continued to look at me calmly.

"Absolutely pointless, Martha. We probably won't even do very well."

"I know."

I sighed and stood up. "OK. Let's go."

"We'll take my car. You can drive if you want."

"That would be a nice change."

"A sad lot, I evaluated. The culls, the losers, the shucks. And there was I, sitting in their midst."

"I did make out tonight. I ran my 'switch' number on a girl and she fell like the Roman Empire."