“You look beautiful, Honest,” he said to her.
“Oh, Tom, I am so big now. I am ashamed.”
He put his hand on her great haunches and said, “You’re a nice big.”
“I’m ashamed to walk down the bar.”
“You do it beautifully. Like a ship.”
“How is our friend?”
“He’s fine.”
“When am I going to see him?”
“Any time. Now?”
“Oh no. Tom, what was Willie talking about? The part I couldn’t understand?”
“He was just being crazy.”
“No, he wasn’t. It was about you and a sorrow Was it about you and your señora.”
“No. Fuck my señora.”
“I wish you could. But you can’t when she is away.”
“Yeah. I found that out.”
“What is the sorrow, then?”
“Nothing. Just a sorrow.”
“Tell me about it. Please.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“You can tell me, you know. Henry tells me about his sorrows and cries in the night. Willie tells me dreadful things. They are not sorrows, so much as terrible things. You can tell me. Everyone tells me. Only you don’t tell me.”
“Telling never did me any good. Telling is worse for me than not telling.”
“Tom, Willie says such bad things. Doesn’t he know it hurts me to hear such words? Doesn’t he know I’ve never used those words and have never done a piglike thing nor a perverted thing?”
“That’s why we call you Honest Lil.”
“If I could be rich doing perverted things and be poor doing normal things, I would be poor.”
“I know. What about the sandwich?”
“I’m not hungry just yet.”
“Do you want another drink?”
“Yes. Please, Tom. Tell me. Willie said there was a cat in love with you. That isn’t true, is it?”
“Yes. It’s true.”
“I think it’s dreadful.”
“No. It’s not. I’m in love with the cat, too.”
“That’s terrible to say. Don’t tease me, Tom, please, Willie teased me and made me cry.”
“I love the cat,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I don’t want to hear about it. Tom, when will you take me out to the bar of the crazies?”
“One of these days.”
“Do the crazies really come there just like ordinary people come here to meet and have drinks?”
“That’s right. The only difference is they wear shirts and trousers made out of sugar sacks.”
“Did you really play on the ball team of the crazies against the lepers?”
“Sure. I was the best knuckle-ball pitcher the crazies ever had.”
“How did you get to know them?”
“I just stopped there one time on the way back from Rancho Boyeros and liked the place.”
“Will you really take me out to the bar of the crazies?”
“Sure. If you won’t be scared.”
“I’ll be scared. But I won’t be too scared if I’m with you. That’s why I want to go out there. To be scared.”
“There’s some wonderful crazies out there. You’ll like them.”
“My first husband was a crazy. But he was the difficult kind.”
“Do you think Willie is crazy?”
“Oh no. He just has a difficult character.”
“He’s suffered very much.”
“Who hasn’t? Willie presumes on his suffering.”
“I don’t think so. I know about it. I promise you.”
“Let’s talk about something else, then. Do you see that man down there at the bar talking to Henry?”
“Yes.”
“All he likes in bed are piglike things.”
“Poor man.”
“He’s not poor. He’s rich. But all he cares for is porquerías.”
“Didn’t you ever like porquerías?”
“Never. You can ask anyone. And I’ve never done anything with girls in my life.”
“Honest Lil,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Wouldn’t you rather have me that way? You don’t like porquerías. You like to make love and be happy and go to sleep. I know you.”
“Todo el mundo me conoce.”
“No, they don’t. They have all sorts of different ideas about you. But I know you.”
He was drinking another of the frozen daiquiris with no sugar in it and as he lifted it, heavy and the glass frost-rimmed, he looked at the clear part below the trapped top and it reminded him of the sea. The frappéd part of the drink was like the wake of a ship and the clear part was the way the water looked when the bow cut it when you were in shallow water over marl bottom. That was almost the exact color.