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money; for
all I knew I had a million pesos. I threw money at her. We rushed back to
dance. A
greater crowd was gathered in the Street. The cops looked as bored as usual.
Dean s
pretty Venezuelan dragged me through a door and into another strange bar that
apparently belonged to the whorehouse. Here a young bartender was talking and
wiping
glasses and an old man with handlebar mustache sat discussing something
earnestly. And
here too the mambo roared over another loud* speaker. It seemed the whole
world was
turned on. Venezuela clung about my neck and begged for drinks. The bartender
wouldn t give her one. She begged and begged, and when he gave it to her she
spilled it
and this time not on purpose, for I saw the chagrin in her poor sunken lost
eyes. Take it
easy, baby, I told her. I had to support her on the stool; she kept slipping
off. I ve never
seen a drunker woman, and only eighteen. I bought her another drink; she was
tugging at
my pants for mercy. She gulped it up. I didn t have the heart to try her. My
own girl was
about thirty and took care of herself better. With Venezuela writhing and
suffering in my
arms, I had a longing to take her in the back and undress her and only talk
to her this I
told myself. I was delirious with want of her and the other little dark girl.
Poor Victor, all this time he stood on the brass rail of the bar with his
back to the counter
and jumped up and down gladly to see his three American friends cavort. We
bought him
drinks. His eyes gleamed for a woman but he wouldn t accept any, being
faithful to his
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wife. Dean thrust money at him. In this welter of madness I had an
opportunity to see
what Dean was up to. He was so out of his mind he didn t know who I was when
I peered
at his face. Yeah, yeah! is all he said. It seemed it would never end. It
was like a long,
spectral Arabian dream in the afternoon in another life Ali Baba and the
alleys and the
courtesans. Again I rushed off with my girl to her room; Dean and Stan
switched the girls
they d had before; and we were out of sight a moment, and the spectators had
to wait for
the show to go on. The afternoon grew long and cool.
Soon it would be mysterious night in old gone Gregoria. The mambo never let
up for a
moment, it frenzied on like an endless journey in the jungle. I couldn t take
my eyes off
the little dark girl and the way, like a queen, she walked around and was
even reduced by
the sullen bartender to menial tasks such as bringing us drinks and sweeping
the back. Of
all the girls in there she needed the money most; maybe her mother had come
to get
money from her for her little infant/ sisters and brothers. Mexicans are
poor. It never,
never occurred to me just to approach her and give her some money. I have a
feeling she
would have taken it with a degree of scorn, and scorn from the likes of her
made me
flinch. In my madness I was actually in love with her for the few hours it
all lasted; it was
the same unmistakable ache and stab across the mind, the same sighs, the same
pain, and
above all the same reluctance and fear to approach. Strange that Dean and
Stan also failed
to approach her; her unimpeachable dignity was the thing that made her poor
in a wild
old whorehouse, and think of that. At one point I saw Dean leaning like a
statue toward
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her, ready to fly, and befuddlement cross his face as she glanced coolly and
imperiously
his way and he stopped rubbing his belly and gaped and finally bowed his
head. For she
was the queen.
Now Victor suddenly clutched at our arms in the furor and made frantic signs.
What s the matter? He tried everything to make us understand. Then he ran
to the bar
and grabbed the check from the bartender, who scowled at him, and took it to
us to see.
The bill was over three hundred pesos, or thirty-six American dollars, which
is a lot of
money in any whorehouse. Still we couldn t sober up and didn t want to leave,
and
though we were all run out we still wanted to hang around with our lovely
girls in this
strange Arabian paradise we had finally found at the end of the hard, hard
road. But night
was coming and we had to get on to the end; and Dean saw that, and began
frowning and
thinking and trying to straighten himself out, and finally I broached the
idea of leaving
once and for all. So much ahead of us, man, it won t make any difference.
That s right! cried Dean, glassy-eyed, and turned to his Venezuelan. She
had finally
passed out and lay on a wooden bench with her white legs protruding from the
silk. The
gallery in the window took advantage of the show; behind them red shadows
were
beginning to creep, and somewhere I heard a baby wail in a sudden lull,
remembering I
was in Mexico after all and not in a pornographic hasheesh daydream in
heaven.
We staggered out; we had forgotten Stan; we ran back in to get him and found
him
charmingly bowing to the new eve ning whores, who had just come in for night
shift. He
wanted to start all over again. When he is drunk he lumbers like a man ten
feet tall and
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when he is drunk he can t be dragged away from women. Moreover women cling to
him
like ivy. He insisted on staying and trying some of the newer, stranger, more
proficient
senoritas. Dean and I pounded him on the back and dragged him out. He waved
profuse
good-bys to everybody the girls, the cops, the crowds, the children in the
street outside;
he blew kisses in all directions to ovations of Gregoria and staggered
proudly among the
gangs and tried to speak to them and communicate his joy and love of
everything this fine
afternoon of life. Everybody laughed; some slapped him on the back. Dean
rushed over
and paid the policemen the four pesos and shook hands and grinned and bowed
with
them. Then he jumped in the car, and the girls we had known, even Venezuela,
who was
wakened for the farewell, gathered around the car, huddling in their flimsy
duds, and
chattered good-bys and kissed us, and Venezuela even began to weep though not
for us,
we knew, not altogether for us, yet enough and good enough. My dusky darling
love had
disappeared in the shadows inside. It was all over. We pulled out and left
joys and
celebrations over hundreds of pesos behind us, and it didn t seem like a bad
day s work.
The haunting mambo followed us a few blocks. It was all over. Good-by,
Gregoria!
cried Dean, blowing it a kiss.
Victor was proud of us and proud of himself. Now yo-a like bath? he asked.
Yes, we all
wanted wonderful bath.
And he directed us to the strangest thing in the world: it was an ordinary
American-type
bathhouse one mile out of town on the highway, full of kids splashing in a
pool and
showers inside a stone building for a few centavos a crack, with soap and
towel from the
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attendant. Besides this, it was also a sad kiddy park with swings and a
broken-down
merry-go-round, and in the fading red sun it seemed so strange and so
beautiful. Stan and
I got towels and jumped right into ice-cold showers inside and came out
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