What I Lived For

MMMMMMMM! You know what this specimen is, honey?--a sweet ol' Freckhead, that's what he is. Ain' he?"

"What?--'Freckhead'--ain' that what I said?"

"You said 'Freckhead.'"

"Say what?"

"'Freckhead.'"

"Nah"--shrieking with laughter, like she's being tickled--"I never did! Never did! 'Freckhead!' Never!"

They were both teasing him, no mercy, Corky loved it. The gorgeous black girl giving off that ripe yeasty-plum scent, the wild-eyed hot-breathed white girl, one on each side of grinning-drunk Corky Corcoran in the Zephir Lounge where somehow they'd wound up, crowded together, arms, legs, thighs, even heads bumping, and Kiki's hair in Corky's face, and Marilee's right breast nudging Corky's arm, squeezed into one of those red leather banquettes along the wall. Practically behind the stoned-looking combo playing--is it disco music from another era?--so loud Corky can hardly register the noise as music, only as percussive waves. The three of them, laughing their heads off. Howling with laughter. Corky's eyes leaking tears, and Marilee's rich deep-bellied shriek, you could tell that girl was colored without needing to look, and you could imagine her shrieking like that making love, Oh man Oh lover Oh like that Oh mmmmmmm just like that. And Kiki, even wilder, she's maybe high on coke, Corky wouldn't doubt, and maybe Marilee, too, along with being, in the parlance of high school circa the mid-Sixties, wasted, smashed, bombed out of their skulls on alcohol. Kiki's got a high-pitched girlish giggle, all elbows and hair and rolling-white thyroid eyes, skinny body and pointed breasts inside some cheap ethnic tunic top, pretty pasty-pale face screwed up like she's in pain, or near to coming, and her rat-frizzed dyed-copper hair like Brillo wire. But Corky's attracted to her, too, not so powerfully as to Marilee but, yes, to Kiki, too, to both girls, damn right.

•

This fantasy playing in lurid Day-Glo colors in Corky's head, as in one of those Cineplex mall theaters, is that these two terrific-looking girls in their mid-20s are going to make love to Corky Corcoran, who's old enough almost to be their father. Yes, the pervert's imagination is careening along at full tilt, he's practically slavering over them, Marilee Plummer on his left, Kiki What's-her-name on his right, big shot at the Zephir where they know his name and lavish tips. What the fuck that he's old enough almost to be the girls' daddy, he's getting to be the age he thought he would never get to be, you never think you're going to get to be, old enough that almost half the world's young enough to be his daughter, Jesus! What's a guy supposed to do, chase after females his age?--try to get it up for females his age? Shit, Corky's out from under that heavy bitch he married not even knowing she was three years older than him. What an asshole, Corky Corcoran, thinking himself so shrewd, such a stud, lucky Charlotte's a rich man's daughter and could tell him go fuck, I don't need alimony from you. So he's a free man now, legally divorced and free and clear, nobody's husband, nobody's stepdaddy needing to feel guilt at another man's kid regarding him with big tearful eyes when he hasn't paid sufficient attention to her or slamming her bedroom door when accidentally--really, accidentally--he's happened to glance inside passing by seeing her half in underclothes or bare-assed or just brushing her hair in that whiplash way of hers you'd think would have loosened half the hairs on her head, or coming out of the bathroom glaring at him pouty-mouthed as if knowing (but how could she know?--fuck, she couldn't) stepdaddy's going to whack himself off inside, the door safely locked, sniffing the dry-sharp smell of her urine the fan hasn't quite carried off. Free and clear and living by himself at 33 Summit Avenue in the prestige neighborhood of Maiden Vale, maybe these two beautiful girls would like to go back there for a nightcap? A night cap or two? In the meantime he's celebrating his freedom, American Express Gold Card covering the Zephir tab he'll be stunned to discover, next month, the fuckers must have padded, overcharged him for drinks and, asshole, he'd encouraged the waitress to calculate her own tip, dumb you because you love all the world, or pretend you do, yes but right now he does love all the world, his arms around these two great-looking girls, his scotch on the rocks going down smooth as if it's the first after a long cruel thirst and not, who knows, the fifth or the sixth, God knows. Asking these two boom-boom girls, "What's happier than a drunk pig wallowing in the muck?" and the girls cry out in unison, "What, Corky--what is?" and Corky says, exploding in laughter so that drinkers at the bar glance around quizzical and smiling, hoping to get in on the joke, "A drunk Irish pig wallowing in the muck."

"Ohhh Freckhead!--I mean Freck-l-head!--are you funny!"

"Ain' he funny? Ohhh I'm gonna wet mah pants!"

Marilee Plummer mimicking a Southern black, comical-sly parody of stereotyped Negro speech, purely good-natured, Corky thinks, and no malice or anger in it, Corky thinks, and Kiki falling in with it, a natural mimic too, the two girls like jazz musicians off on a riff. "Freckhead" veers hilariously close to "Fuckhead"--more squeals, howls--Marilee leans across Corky, squeezing her sizable breast against him, practically in his mouth as she slaps at Kiki, "Girl, you watch yo' mouth! You white girls is all the same: bold an' brazen! This gen-mun here's gonna be shocked, you watch yo' mouth, hear?"

Well, hell, it is funny. At the time.

When, a few hours earlier, he'd picked up these two girls--or had they picked up him?--at some lavish crammed cocktail reception at the Hyatt, or was it the Empire, one of those affairs honoring an outgoing president of some charity organization, or the 50th anniversary of the Union City Arts Council, and up on the dais speaking briefly and wittily there's Mayor Slattery, and one or two beaming officers of the organization, and maybe a vice president from Squibb or Exxon announcing a $5 million subsidy, with much applause and cheering and crowding at the bar, and next thing you know you're slipping out with these two girls who call you Corky and laugh uproariously at your jokes, in your ear, driving (the white Audi, at this time? yes) to a favorite nightclub, a pretense of supper, this terrific jazz combo at the Bull's Eye. Except, how the hell, you who've lived in this frigging city for 40 years and boast you could make your way around it blind somehow take a wrong exit from the expressway, let's go to the Zephir instead, down on Chippewa, it's the Zephir you really meant to go to anyway, why not?

Where they know your name--they're always impressed.

H'lo Mr. Corcoran!

Good evening Mr. Corcoran!

Thank you Mr. Corcoran!

Thank you!

Are Marilee and Kiki impressed, too?--Marilee on Corky's left and Kiki on Corky's right, both girls drinking red wine and leaning across Corky to whisper at each other and dissolve in giggles, and Corky's got his arms looped over both, in play, only in play, you can tell it's play because he's grinning his boyish-affable grin, his arm around Kiki's bony shoulders as a way of covering for his arm around Marilee's warm solid rich-ripe-smelling shoulders. The more he gets to know Marilee Plummer the more he's crazy about her, what a figure, and her hair's in cornrows, numberless cornrows, tiny braids, weird. Corky's never seen cornrows close up before, practically in his nose, and an oily-sweet scent lifting from Marilee's scalp, must take forever to braid hair in such thin braids, and do they grease it, too?--or doesn't Marilee's hair require straightening?--she's got so much Caucasian blood in her, she could almost pass for white. Something exotic like--what?--Spanish, Portuguese. Smoky-creamy skin but with a texture different from Caucasian skin, a thicker skin, doesn't age the same way, fewer wrinkles, creases. The way black boxers can take punches to the face that white boxers, poor saps, can't. The day of the white pro boxer is over forever, Rocky Marciano the last white American heavyweight, never another. "High yellow" is what Marilee Plummer would be called by other, darker blacks, and Corky's wondering, Is that a term whites can use, or is it racist, insulting? He seems to know that Marilee Plummer, seeming at ease with her white-girl friend and her grinning white-man escort, is sensitive about the color of her skin, as about her identity. God, yes. You wouldn't want to cross her.

Strange how, at his age, knowing as many people as he does, so many connections in the Democratic Party and in the business sector and more generally, Corky Corcoran has so few black friends. In truth, no real black friends. God knows, Corky's tried--he really has. At Rensselaer he'd known two or three black guys, the only ones in the school, and he'd gotten along pretty well working in the cafeteria with them (continued on page 154)What I lived for (continued from page 118) but never kept up any contact afterward. And in Union City, over the years. Since the Sixties. It seems if you're white you're always courting blacks and they seem to like you well enough but they never call you back, never invite you over. Except for political connections it's the same thing with Vic Slattery, Vic confessed to Corky. You feel like such a hypocrite.

But Corky in his warm erotic daze isn't thinking much of these matters. Nor seriously listening to Marilee and Kiki chattering across him, their flirty-oblique allusions, teasing-taunting as incomprehensible to his ear as if they were speaking a foreign language, poor Corky in his chic sharkskin Polo suit, metallic midnight-blue Hermès tie, his hard-on the size of a bowling pin draining all the blood from his faltering brain, thus he can't think, isn't trying to think, it's Friday night and he's a free man, a divorced man with no encumbrances save memory--and what's memory if your brain's shut down?--and his American Express Gold Card is his ticket to ecstasy or at least oblivion. How Jerome A. Corcoran of 33 Summit Avenue, Union City, New York, Democratic city councilman and next-in-line president of the council and millionaire businessman-financier has wound up at the Zephir, this overpriced and glitzy-tacky nightspot listening to a combo like Muzak played with air hammers and chainsaws and a lead singer, gravel-voiced, singing bad Lou Reed. His head's not only buzzing from scotch but vibrating and rattling, and these amazing girls on both sides squeezed into the banquette-booth, he'll be unable to recall afterward. Nor will he be able to recall the precise sequence of events that will lead him--no, propel him with vertiginous speed--to the emergency room at Union City General Hospital.

Marilee, Kiki. No need for last names in the Zephir. Sharp, shrewd girls but they know how to play, too. Smart career-oriented girls, grown-up girls. Of that new breed of strong-willed young women masquerading as girls, health club members, some of them bodybuilders and all of them with an eye on the prize, not feminine but female, fashion condoms in their Gucci purses and they know how to ply them. To be frank, Corky would be scared as hell of such women except he's had so much practice handling women. And women are drawn to him. From the age of 14 onward Corky Corcoran has practically had to fend females off, and of course he's a gentleman, too, or has made himself into one, a small price to pay for the prizes a gentleman gets that some crude asshole hasn't a clue he might be missing, like a man who drinks Four Roses instead of Johnnie Walker Red or drives a budget car instead of a really good car hasn't a clue what he might be missing in life, poor dumb prick.

A small price to pay, thinks Corky, dazedly grinning. Lifting his glass--"I'll drink to that!" and Marilee and Kiki raise their glasses, too, drinking to whatever it is they're drinking to.

This, then: Marilee the dusky-skinned beauty and Kiki the pale, frantic beauty are leaning across Corky Corcoran chattering, giggling, making jokes that elude him, maybe involve him but elude him and thus the more hilarious for being uttered in his smiling presence, in his lap you might say--where both girls are leaning familiarly in, thighs warmly aggressive against his. Marilee giving him plenty of her fleshy-doughy breast against his arm. Kiki giving off a stoned radiant heat in his face. Corky's cock is so immense and rock-hard the girls can't seem to keep their hands from brushing against his knees, thighs, crotch, for conversational emphasis perhaps, the way, so seemingly innocently and by chance, a woman will touch a man's arm, or wrist, or lightly tap the back of his hand as she speaks to him, so seemingly innocently and by chance. Oh God, yes. Corky loves 'em, Corky's crazy about 'em, these terrific girls, these grown-up flirty-sexy wild-reckless fantastic girls. Corky doesn't have a clue who they are really, he'd be the first to admit he doesn't have a fucking clue who they are as girls, as women, as fellow citizens, hard to think of them as fellow citizens in fact, like these feminists yammering on about a woman's personhood, a woman isn't just tits and ass and she can fuck and she can serve, Corky's bemused trying to consider a woman's personhood. If it isn't her body, what the fuck is it? Why the fuck is it? Corky doesn't have a clue, but he isn't going to let that worry him, not now, not tonight, fuck that heavy crap, too much talk in the world and too much communication, Corky's thinking, communication of the wrong kind. Corky doesn't know what these girls want out of him, he only knows, or thinks he knows, what he wants of them.

And oh God does he. Does he want it.

Marilee leaning across Corky from the left, Kiki from the right, Corky guesses every guy in the Zephir's staring at him in envy, yes, and they'd be right, poor bastards. It's Marilee whom Corky's most dazzled by, can't keep from sniffing her, Doggy-Corky with his nose alert and sensitive as his prick, his nose is a kind of prick he's thinking, laughing thinking, Christ he's drunk but happy drunk, elated drunk, not mean drunk and certainly not falling-down drunk, Corky'll show 'em. Marilee's bronze fingernails tapping his knuckles so Corky's dying to seize her hand, grab hold and suck at the fingers, her exotic cornrow braids are slithering like snakes in his face, Corky's vision is beginning to go, his eyeballs misting over, Doggy-Corky who'd like nothing better than to poke his avid nose into the crevice of Marilee's neck, a plump dimpled fold of skin, yes, and nuzzle the nape of her neck, and her breasts, he'd like nothing better than to bury his face between those hefty big-girl's breasts, tearing through the silvery-twinkly fabric with his teeth, then down on his knees beneath the table burying his face between her thighs, her bush he knows must be thick, kinky-wiry, very black, and her vaginal lips as fleshy-warm as her lipsticked lips, and her clit that's fat and hard and pumping-hot with blood, he'd guess it's a larger clit than any he'd ever seen or touched or tongued or even imagined, not a Caucasian clit but a black clit, this girl may be high yellow but she is black, black blood in her, that makes a difference, Corky knows. Practically swooning now, panting like an actual dog, not trusting himself to raise his glass to drink, he's in two places simultaneously, crowded in the booth between Marilee and Kiki and also beneath the table with his face between Marilee's fleshy-warm-damp thighs, down there between her legs where she's wet, slick and wet, and he's tonguing her like mad, Corky knows to set the pace, the rhythm, how to vary the rhythm, it's a gradually accelerating rhythm and the pressure of the tongue must increase, he's going to bring off Marilee right here on the sticky red leather banquette amid the air-hammer disco, yes, but they'll stop you, somebody will stop you, no, Marilee won't let Corky stop, Marilee has Corky's head pinioned between her muscular thighs and she won't let him go, leaning back and pushing up into his face, her pelvis rocking like mad, and the rhythm so fast now there's almost no pause between beats, like that weird thing he'd read the other night sleepless and horny: Ten million trillion neutrinos speed through your brain and body in a single instant! One single instant of the unfathomable instants that constitute a life! Almost no pause as Marilee leans back moaning and gasping for breath, digging her bronze-polished talons into Corky's curly hair that's damp with sweat and murmuring "Mmmmmmmm white man, you sure do know how!" Except Corky's so excited he's close to losing it if one of these girls so much as brushes her fingers against his thigh, let alone his crotch. He's fearful he'll come in his pants, and not inconspicuously but with a groan, a sob, a yelp, he's terrified this is going to happen, coming in his pants like a kid, like that time he was sure he was going to come in the confessional, the actual confessional--a nightmare episode that went on and on and on as Father Sullivan interrogated him in pitiless detail about impure thoughts and practices since his last confession the previous Saturday, how many times a night do you commit this impure act, my son? What are the impure thoughts that accompany it, my son? Do you not know that such impure thoughts and acts are like thorns in the heart of Our Savior, my son?--the old beery-breathed priest wheezing and grunting, settling his bulk closer to the confessional grill, insisting Jerome lean his mouth right against the grill to speak directly into his ear, otherwise I can't hear you, my son, you speak so softly, I won't be able to absolve you of your sins, and these are grievous mortal sins, my son. Come closer.

Clos-er.

Thinking of the old priest sobers Corky, for a few minutes at least, he feels the hot-pulsing blood drain out of his cock, his thoughts aren't so muddled, wipes his face with a cocktail napkin: Jesus, sweating like a pig. His hand's steady enough to trust with a glass. And the girls are gaily raising theirs, delicious red wine, sparkling long-stemmed glasses, a toast to you, and to you--and to me.

"Waitress?--another round here."

A good thing Corky's in control of himself again: this flirty Kiki nudging her sharp little chin against his shoulder, her wine-stained tongue protruding between her lips, and she's trailing her long beringed fingers against his belt buckle, the girl is high on something and not just red Bordeaux. Corky's attracted to her, too, Kiki's a physical type like Thalia, tall willowy-thin small-breasted narrow-thighed very young-looking and enormous-eyed girls, hectic nerved-up mannerisms, probably their pulses are faster than the normal pulse, heartbeat faster, the classic ectomorph type, or is it endomorph?--Corky can never keep the two straight, he's a mesomorph.

Meaning square in the middle, thé most common physical type.

Only maybe just a little too short for a man, at five feet nine.

Marilee's a bit calmed, too, admiring Kiki's jewelry, her exotic earrings in particular. Corky's noticed the half-dozen gold studs in the girl's ear, also a cruel-looking gold clamp on the outer whorl of the ear, sort of butch, sexy. Suddenly Corky's enthralled with Kiki's ear, it's so delicate in its contours, so exposed. He says, touching the clamp gingerly with a forefinger, "Honey, this thing must hurt like hell. What is it?"

Kiki shivers, and giggles. The movement of her shoulders--shrinking, combative, provocative--reminds Corky of Thalia. She says huskily, "Well, Corky, maybe I like hurt."

Marilee takes this up, a big toothy smile. "Maybe Kiki likes hurt, ol' Frecklehead, you ever thought of that?"

So. Somehow it happens that Kiki removes the cruel-looking gold clamp from her ear, and Marilee, who is wearing, this evening, big amber rhomboids, eye-catching but conventional earrings, examines it with a bemused expression, and Corky's got to examine it, too. Corky insists on taking it and fumbles to fit it on his own ear, and both Marilee and Kiki are dissolved in laughter, and Corky says, "Hey, gimme a hand, eh?" so Kiki fits, more precisely forces, the clamp on his ear.

And in that instant the clamp's on.

"Oh God."

Pain like a razor slicing the outer rim of Corky's ear. Pain like a flash of lightning blinding him. Pain like a shout, like a scream, like a shriek. Corky yanks at the clamp but it doesn't come off. Goddamn it doesn't come off. He knows he's made a mistake, already breaking into a cold sweat, trying to laugh, muttering, "It's a little tight, it hurts--can you get it off?" Marilee and Kiki see this is sudden, serious business. Mr. Corcoran has gone dead-white in the face and looks as if he's about to pass out. How old is he? they might be wondering. In their 40s men start to have heart attacks.

So, biting their lips to maintain grave expressions, the girls try to pry Kiki's clamp off Corky's ear. His poor right ear. Poor Corky! They take turns, Marilee's long fingernails are impractical for such a task, and Kiki's too nerved-up, breathless. Minutes of mounting pain, agony, pass as the girls tug, twist, wriggle, wrench at the brutal thing, with no luck.

Corky mutters, his face, his entire head, aflame, "Goddamn, gold damn fucking thing, this isn't funny, goddamn get it off. Get it off!" Hearing, he thinks, the girls' muffled giggles, though when he turns to them, tears brimming in his eyes, they look innocent enough, sympathetic and apologetic. Oh so sorry, Corky!--so sorry!

Corky's losing it. Corky's got a temper and Corky's in pain, it's only the outer whorl, the rim, of his ear, but God what pain!--like a torture instrument, like an instrument that's being tightened, so he's sweating like a pig, ashamed and panicked and in utter physical distress that's at the same time laughable distress, porky Corky! And so clumsily on his feet the table's almost overturned. And Kiki's part-filled wineglass goes clattering to the floor, splashing wine on Corky's dove-gray sharp-creased trousers. "Shit," says Corky, and, "Fuck it, get this off," says Corky, and "Goddamn, this isn't funny," says Corky, his eyes leaking tears, his vision shimmering yet he can see, and he'll remember seeing, the bemused faces of other patrons, quizzical glances and concerned frowns and outright smiles, grins. And Corky Corcoran in the most astonishing physical distress, though it's only--what?--a gold clamp of no more than two inches affixed to his ear. His ear!

Corky is tearing so frantically at the thing, Marilee Plummer grabs his hand to prevent him from ripping his very ear off--"Oh, oh! Corky, no!" It's the most sincere she's been all evening, but Corky isn't in a mood to notice. The Zephir manager, who knows Corky Corcoran, or in any case knows him as an occasional free-spending patron of the Zephir, hurries over to see what the problem is and to restrain Corky, who's on his feet staggering blindly and cursing, "Fuck it, get this fucking thing off, this is no joke!"--to the astonishment of other patrons and the surprise of the combo. The Lou Reed imitator actually pauses, frazzled hair like a wig, wasted eyes staring. Kiki is crying, "Oh I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Oh dear!"--but spoils the effect by bursting into laughter and having to hide her face, and Marilee scolds, "Girl! Come on! This is no joke!" But Marilee, too, is biting her lips to keep from laughing. By this time Corky's a man so driven by pain, fury, humiliation, he pushes these cruel girls aside, makes his way blindly out of the lounge hoping to hell among these gaping bemused patrons there's nobody who knows him. He's walking hunched over like an elderly man, fearing total ignominious collapse, his face dead-white and even his freckles bleached out, cheeks glistening with tears as voices call after him--"Corky! Corky!"--but Corky pays no heed, Corky's through with mock sympathy, mock solicitude, he's too distracted by his inflamed ear, the wild throbbing heartbeat in his ear loud as the combo's drumbeat, refuses aid from the Zephir manager who with a straight face offers to get pliers, or maybe a screwdriver would be better to force the clamp off the ear. Corky says, "Get away! Go to hell! Leave me alone!" clutching at his dignity as a man might clutch at a threadbare towel to cover his nakedness in the eyes of strangers. And then he's outside. Reeling, swaying like a drunk except he's stone-cold sober, his knees turned to water and suddenly he's puking out his guts in the parking lot, in no condition to drive himself to the hospital so he limps up the street to a taxi stand and falls into a taxi, asking the driver to please take him fast to Union City General Hospital (which is about two miles away) insisting he isn't having a heart attack, he isn't going to die in the back of the taxi. The driver smells vomit and has possibly seen the flash of the fucking thing on Corky's ear, though Corky's trying his best to hide it, yet not too conspicuously, with his right hand.

And hurrying, limping, head ducked, into the emergency room entrance at Union City General, rushing into bright lights and that unmistakable hospital-disinfectant smell, teeth gritted against the pain in his ear that seems now a virtual blossom of pain, an irradiated tree of pain, Corky's vision blurred as if underwater yet seeing with humiliating clarity the curious, bemused glances of strangers, thank God they are strangers, no one here seems to know who Corky is. Nor does the name Jerome Andrew Corcoran mean anything to the middle-aged nurse-receptionist on duty at the busy hour of 11 p.m. on a Friday in downtown Union City. The woman maintains a deadpan sort of sympathy, Corky stammers explaining the accident, he knows it's trivial but it hurts like hell. A woman friend put the earring on him, and it won't come off.

And then a wait, a wait of how many minutes? Many. The waiting room's already filled when Corky hobbles in, a groaning young man bleeding through a roll of gauze wrapped around his head is carried hurriedly by on a stretcher. Corky's embarrassed at his own problem and spends the 90 minutes pacing and prowling about in the outer lobby, in adjacent corridors, he avoids others' eyes, he shrinks and skulks and ducks around corners, in a men's lavatory he stares astonished at his face that's pale yet mottled, flushed, freckles standing out in comical relief like raindrops tinged with dirt, sweet ol' Frecklehead, Fuckhead, Corky Corcoran. He fills a sink with water as cold as he can get it, dunks his head in it, his red-swollen right ear and that side of his face, teeth chattering, and again desperately and clumsily he tries to work the clamp loose, tries to slide it up, down, considers for a moment actually ripping this part of his ear off, but the pain is so intense he loses his balance, slips, strikes his head hard against the side of the porcelain sink, almost knocks himself out.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck it!"

Not until 12:34 a.m. is Jerome Andrew Corcoran's name called, and at last he's led weakly into an examining room, trying not to wince with pain and even to assume a measure of dignity as a tall lanky bespectacled black intern, young kid no more than 25 or 26, examines the afflicted ear, tugs experimentally at the clamp, maintaining an air of professional decorum no matter what he's thinking, "Hurts, huh? Wow, the earlobe's swollen." Corky has to bite his lip to keep from screaming. The intern insists he lie down on an examining table, try to relax, important to relax, mister, and he and a young Asian nurse work at loosening the clamp. You'd think they might get it off within seconds but in fact it takes minutes as Corky lies with his eyes tight shut leaking tears as what he imagines are surgical instruments are applied to the clamp. By this time Corky's ear has swollen to twice its normal size in reverse proportion to his cock, which has shrunk to half its normal detumescent size, and the pain has become abstract, not an extraneous and accidental factor in his life but a defining element in that life--This is the price you have to pay for being Corky Corcoran. And suddenly the clamp is off.

Corky sits up slowly, tentatively, red-eyed and sniffing. He tries to smile, does in fact smile--"Thanks! I can't tell you how much!" The black intern, the pretty Asian nurse joke with their patient now, treat the injured ear with a smarting disinfectant, damned thing still hurts like hell and feels like it's balloon-size and shredded like raw meat but Corky's anxious to show he's OK now, he's a good sport, his thanks are profuse, he isn't drunk now but indeed stone-cold sober yet he sounds a little drunk, giddy, his voice loud, saying to the intern, "Well, doctor, I bet you've never had to remove one of these goddamned things from anybody's ear before," and the intern says with a grin, "In fact, mister, we remove 'em all the time, from all parts of the body, y'know? It's like an epidemic out there, all kinds of kinky-funky-goings-on." And he and the pretty Asian nurse dissolve in laughter Corky hopes isn't edged with cruelty, Corky hopes isn't at his expense.

As Corky prepares to leave the examining cubicle the intern asks him, "Hmmm, mister, don't you want your earring?" with a curly smile, holding the twisted chunk of metal in the palm of his hand, fucking thing isn't gold or platinum, just some cheaply glittering crap metal now bent nearly flat, hard to comprehend how it could have caused such agony in a grown man. Corky's smiling, Corky's a guy who can take a joke, except suddenly he slaps the black kid's hand and sends the clamp flying--"Don't fuck with me! Just send me the bill!"--charging blind out of the emergency room and out of the goddamned hospital, ol' Freckhead's had enough for one night.

"He'd like to bury his face between those hefty big-girl's breasts, tearing through the silvery-twinkly fabric.