PARTISAN REVIEW
335
"What the hell does he mean by eleven and a half? I'm no
typist."
"Stop crying. I can't stand the sight of you crying."
"I'm not crying."
"Yes, you are. I'm tired. Let's take a cab all the way home. We
can afford it. He said twenty-five. With his paw on my ass, he says,
twenty-five. 'Twenty-five, dear.' Jealous? Mrs. Stanger digs you.
You should fuck her or something, if you haven't already. I hate you."
"You acted badly. Stop crying."
"I'm sorry 1 acted badly. There's a cab. Kiss me. Tomorrow
I'll
buy three pairs of shoes."
1 kissed her in the cab, then asked, "Did you like Stanger's paw
on your ass?"
"I liked the way you told me to get my coat in front of every–
body. But if you ever do that when we're with human beings, Phillip,
I'll do something you won't forget. Twenty-five. Hee hee."
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."
11
The cab went west to Fifth Avenue, then north, then west
through Central Park. The trees, lacerated by lights, seemed to fly
into the cab and about our heads, and Mildred leaned back, giving
herself to the trees and to me, and her pants tangled on ankle, but I
couldn't get it out of mind and up again for naked traffic until she
whispered, sliding down to the floor, whispering, "Twenty-five," into
my crotch, and saying, "Kootchie kootchie." Then, at our place,
t~e
driver waited, a head on a leather jacket, with smoke sliding and
twining up like hair from his invisible cigarette, and the whole cab
shuddering in idle. His photo looked down at us in the back, smiling,
Nunzio Salazar, machismo-fascismo moustache, number 999327, ap–
proves of it, and then Mildred's legs seemed to lift from my ribs like
wings, and she said, "Oh," and came. I was satisfied. A sentimental
man prefers happiness to truth. And I did prefer it. Her dear, lovely
cheek on my shoulder, and the fingering of my lank silk as I fingered
sticky leaves, peeling away singles for the fare, then twice as many
for the tip. Mildred jerked. "Don't be a fool. We live in this town."
Half as many for the tip.
