Regiment of Women (3 page)

The motive for Charlie's furtiveness was soon apparent. Cornell should have known better. A stern voice spoke to the back of his head.

“Georgie, I want a word with you.”

He rose and, on weak ankles, followed Ida Hind into her office, across and down the corridor.

Ida was cleanshaven, skull as well as face, and the latter was naked even of eyebrows. Sometimes while dictating, Ida gave Cornell the treat of watching her apply the electric razor. If he had had to localize his hatred for Ida, he might have done it in her ears, which projected obscenely from her head at 85-degree angles.

Ida now reached down inside the collar of her turtleneck sweater and relieved an itch in the area of the clavicle.

“Georgie,” she said, staring with her lashless eyes, “what am I going to do with you?” After she shaved, Ida washed her entire head with alcohol. She glistened.

“Call my analyst,” he answered indignantly. “Go ahead. That's where I was.”

“I've done that already, Georgie. And do you know what Dr. Prine told me?” Ida paused to let the foreboding establish itself. Cornell could happily have lighted her with a match when she was wet with alcohol. “I'll tell you. ‘Georgie Cornell is hopeless, I'm afraid.' That's a direct quote. ‘He's beyond the reach of effective therapy.'” Ida did something with her throat. “That's what Dr. Prine told me, and I am telling it to you now, not to be cruel—please believe me when I say that, Georgie—but because I think the time has come to face facts and not to sweep them under the carpet any more.”

Cornell crossed his legs the other way, and Ida did not fail to mark the movement. She was a notoriously horny devil, but too much of a pro to bed any secretary of hers. However, Cornell had no other defense except weeping, and it was too early to use that.

“Georgie,” said Ida. She came around in front and leaned her behind against the rim of the desk. She clutched the right lapel of her tweed jacket. Cornell sat below her, peeping up under his false eyelashes.

“What I have to suggest,” Ida said, “is nothing terribly drastic. But I think a little transfer might be the answer to both our problems—I mean, the problem we share. Namely, that the present job doesn't seem to jibe with what either of us needs. As it happens, an opening has fortuitously, uh, opened up. Now don't scream before you hear me out. Stanley—you know old Stanley.”

Cornell could not long endure Ida's browless stare. He was alternating between the colored book jackets on the shelves to left and right and the window behind the desk with its yellow smogscape.

“Stanley?”

“Stanley, our old Stanley,” Ida said impatiently.

“Stanley the janitor?”

“Stanley the custodian,” said Ida. “He is leaving us for a well-deserved retirement.”

That was good news. Perhaps now the roller-towel in the men's lounge would be changed more frequently. Stanley was supposed to be an old boy friend of Eloise Huff's. He had got the sinecure when she was done with him. That must have been years ago. Now Stanley was an ancient harridan, slumped over his mop.

But suddenly the pitiful image was flushed from Cornell's mind.

“Oh, no,” he moaned. “Oh, no.”

Ida's voice, hitherto drifting, at once came into sharp focus.

“Georgie, it takes you two days to type a letter, all week to find a contract in the files. You are habitually late in the morning, and you leave as early as you can in the afternoon. About the only good thing that can be said is that you aren't insolent. In fact, you are rather sweet. That's why I haven't even considered firing you. I want you to understand that, Georgie, though I have been under considerable pressure to do so. I realize that your fecklessness is due to your personal problems. You are distracted. You stare into space when you are being addressed. In fact, you're doing it now.”

Ida leaned forward and put a hand on each of Cornell's shoulders, looking into his face. He was forced to stare back. Her head was like a bowling ball.

“I have been more than patient,” Ida said solemnly. “So much so, in fact, that there has been some talk.” She laughed with a certain brutal sound. “If you get what I mean.” She pushed him back and herself away, with a great shove.

Cornell made a tactical simper, mainly to relieve his own embarrassment. He loathed being talked to confidentially about himself, unless he was paying for it, as with Dr. Prine, and thus retaining his self-respect.

“Well,” Ida went on, “you
are
an attractive boy, dear, and I'm a normal woman.” She smirked vainly. “And then some.”

“I
am?
” Cornell was trying to hide his repugnance, but his gorge rose. Now was the time to sob, and he did so.

“I don't want to be a janitor and clean toilets!”

“Now, now, none of that,” said Ida. “You promised to let me explain. I'm not asking you to take a cut in pay. Not all the job is in the rest rooms by any means. The offices are mopped and dusted, and you can choose your own time for that: either before working hours, in the morning, or just after everybody leaves at the end of the day. It amounts to only an extra hour or so. As to the lounges, they are quickly managed: only three basins and three stalls in each.” Ida winked horribly. “You will do the women's john too. When it's empty, of course! Throughout most of the body of the day your time will be your own. You'll be on call for paper or soap, but otherwise you can occupy yourself as you see fit. Stanley has made an entire fleet of model ships from toothpicks in his spare moments over the past twenty years. He has a little work-nook in the corner of the custodian's closet—have you ever seen it?”

Ida turned to a shelf. “Here's a Roman trireme that I think is rather cunning.” She picked it up gingerly and handed it to Cornell. “Easy, now. The glue is probably brittle.”

Even as she spoke, one of the tiny oars came loose and fluttered to the floor. Cornell bent over to fetch it, and as he came up he saw Ida trying to see his breasts through the neck of his blouse. This event, combined with her earlier reference to the gossip which linked them, suggested he might through sexual means cause the whole matter to be drastically reconsidered.

He returned the oar and the model galley, allowing his hand to linger against hers. He could feel his tears drying on his cheeks. It was time to squeeze out more. He put his face into his lap. He was certain that Ida had enough of the brute in her to be made lustful by a man's weeping. He was right.

“Come on, now.” She put her hands onto his shoulders again, then soon slid them down his arms.

But the door was flung open at that point, admitting some old, whory-looking type with teased hair, heavy orange pancake makeup, and green satin over soccer-ball breasts.

Ida pushed Cornell away so vigorously that he and his chair almost toppled over.

“Wallie!” she cried.

The newcomer glared redly at Cornell.

Ida said guiltily: “I've got one sick secretary on my hands, Wallie.”

Cornell realized this was Wallace Walton Walsh, the has-been novelist. And was he old! The troweled-on pancake was badly eroded. Vultures had left tracks at the corners of his eyes, porters had abandoned steamer trunks underneath. Heavy, flabby arms like whole liverwursts in the foolishly sleeveless dress, varicose veins below the skirt. Imagine a man of his age wearing satin. It was almost too disgusting to be pathetic.

Walsh clopped to the desk on his platform shoes and rooted furiously through the papers there.

“Where's my book?” he demanded, big breasts swinging, old chins wobbling, crimson mouth like a burst pomegranate, the teeth behind it a false blue-white.

Ida rummaged in a drawer and found a thick, tattered manuscript secured by a rubber band. The title page showed an enormous coffee stain. Walsh ripped his property from Ida's clutch, at which shock the rubber band broke and he was left holding front and back sheets as the inner pages fell into a heaped mess on the floor.

Walsh squatted and gathered them up, a grotesque spectacle. He rose and screamed.

“Six months! You've kept this six months.”

Ida remained cool. “A letter is on its way to you right now. I'm afraid the situation has changed in the past few years, Wallie. We can't give most of our fiction away, and you know, we have to face the fact that publishing is after all a business.” Her voice trailed off.

Walsh slapped her face.

Even with a reddened cheek Ida retained her composure.

“That wasn't necessary, Wallie.”

“Oh,” Walsh screamed, “go to hell, go to hell!” He broke down for an instant and smeared his makeup with distraught fingers. Recovering, pointing the handful of loose manuscript at Cornell, he said: “And take that little tart with you.” He marched out on heels which, Cornell noticed, were badly run over. Also, his slip was showing about an inch and a half. What an old horror he was.

Ida lowered her shaved head. “Once we were lovers, you know. That's the tough aspect to this.” She breathed dramatically. Her face, where it had been struck, was now in full flush. Walsh had a spongy-looking but large hand. “What can you say to someone like that?” said Ida.

She plunged her arm into a lower drawer and withdrew a flat bottle of either gin or vodka, most likely the latter because it was odorless. Ida had a boozer's reputation but you never smelled anything on her. She tipped the bottle up and swallowed mournfully.

“Georgie, this would never have happened if you had got that letter out.” She tossed the exhausted pint into a rosewood waste-basket. “Nuff said. Get your In-box cleaned up today. Tomorrow you report to Stanley, who will show you the ropes.”

When Cornell returned to the cubicle, Charlie said: “Don't tell me: you got canned. You've been asking for it, old buddy.” He dramatically turned his stout back to Cornell. “I can't stand losers.” Then he peeped over the shoulder of his infamous cardigan. “I can let you have a few bucks.” He swiped back the tangled mess of his fright wig and swung halfway around. “Hell, man, lots of guys have been fired in their time. I have myself, and more than once.”

Cornell told him about the transfer. Charlie scratched his fat nose.

“Well, it's not the end of the world.” He slapped his knee. “I got an ideal How about feeding with me tonight?”

Cornell thought about it for a decent interval. He had not had a date with a woman in ages, but he did not want to advertise his loneliness.

At last he said: “I'll have to make a call first.”

“Don't cancel anything,” Charlie said earnestly. “I meant if you were free. I want to talk over something.”

Cornell felt a little rotten. Charlie, he suspected, had not had a date for the past ten years.

“No, no, that's O.K. I just remember she changed it to tomorrow night. She couldn't get tickets for tonight.” He tried to think of a show in case Charlie asked him about this hypothetical engagement.

But Charlie did not. He said: “Oh, swell. You'll have to take potluck, though.”

Cornell had been to Charlie's place a couple of times before. Charlie's meals were none too delicate.

“Don't go to any special trouble,” Cornell said. “This news has taken away my appetite anyhow. I'd quit if I had the guts. But jobs are hard to get nowadays. Before I came here I was out of work for three full months, and the economic situation has got worse since then.”

Charlie turned sardonic. “Well,” he said, “it's still better than hustling.”

Cornell said bitterly: “I don't know if it is.”

“Oh, I can assure you of that.” Charlie gave Cornell a meaningful look.

Cornell's new pantyhose were sagging. He lifted his fanny off the chair and hiked them up. Charlie was still staring at him when he looked back.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Cornell asked archly. He knew Charlie was trying to distract him from self-pity.

“Whoring,” said Charlie. “Real lowdown and dirty street-walking. I've done it.”

“Sure you have.”

But Charlie did not smile. “Ten years back, during the Depression. Talk about being degraded. You tell yourself that your customers are even lower than you, but you don't really believe it down deep. I never had any illusions about my beauty, and when I was younger I had some skin trouble on my face, turned out to be an allergy to hormone creams.” Charlie looked at his belly. “My figure was better then, but not much. You wouldn't believe how much business I did, though. Handsome, well-dressed women would pass up the other fellas, who were some of them pretty teenagers, and take me. You explain it. I couldn't.”

“Charlie,” Cornell chided him, “you're making all this up.”

However, the story did succeed in raising Cornell's spirits. Charlie was good at that. He took nothing seriously and had no pride, but his heart, behind the cynical armor, was soft as nylon fleece.

“I wish I was,” said Charlie, shrugging dolefully. “That wasn't exactly my high point in life. I was rolled a couple times before I learned how to take care of myself. You know, they stay dressed and fool around while you get your clothes off, then grab your purse and run out of the hotel. What are you gonna do? Go to a cop? Or you'll pick up a cop, some plainclothes bitch from the Vice Squad. With your pants around your ankles, she'll flash a badge. Payoffs are what they're usually after. They're all crooked. And then there's the real mean type who will pocket your evening's take and run you in anyway. Who're you going to appeal to? It's her word against yours in court.”

Cornell began to believe this, and was stunned.

“Believe me,” Charlie said, “I've seen all sides of a man's life and most of them are shit.”

Cornell sighed. “What's the answer then?”

Charlie produced a ghastly sort of grin. “Keep your powder dry. Whimpering won't help.” Suddenly, though, he looked vulnerable. “I used to cry a lot. Then one day I saw myself in the mirror.” He grinned again, this time in better humor. “Can you imagine how I look crying? Like beads of grease on a ham. I realized at that moment I was not just another pretty face.”