Smokin’ Sal’s Saloon. A regular little wildcat,
looks about sixteen. Sweet sixteen. A real beauty. Though she has got a bad
bite.”
No one wanted to touch this one; you hated to think what
old Dexy might be talking about.
“Can’t hardly sleep, what with her bad bite, and all. Of
course, she’s such a sweetie-pie it seems a shame to sleep anyhow. Yuh know
what I mean?”
After Dexy had left, Eddie ordered a round. When I asked
him about the chores back at the guesthouse, he asked me “What chores?”
“Ah, gosh, Dexy’s okay,” said Leary. “Only he’s not what
you’d call real sensitive, that’s all. You know he’s got nothing but respect
for Lek, Eddie. It’s just his way.
“Anyway, he must be getting friggin’ soft: here he is
talking about seeing this young kid at Sal’s, he sounds like it’s some kind of
heavy date or something. That’s not like Dexy. Gosh. Usually he won’t spend
more than one night with the same girl. It’s like policy. Doesn’t even want to
spend a whole night with the same girl, usually. Says he likes ‘short-times’—
no time to get bored, he says. And you don’t have to wait for the toilet in the
morning, besides.”
“He’s an emotional retard,” was Eddie’s opinion.
II.
I hadn’t seen
Boon Doc’s that crowded in a long time. Just about all the regulars were there,
plus any number of strange faces all told, there must’ ve been a dozen people,
easy. And that’s not counting Doc’s girls. There were seven of these specimens
— Big Toy, Dinky Toy, Keeow, Nid, Noi, Boom, and Sue-wang, and they looked great
that night, all decked out in their party togs. You could see half of them were
getting pissed, though none of them normally drank except maybe for Big Toy,
who had a nervous condition. But it was a party, after all, and Doc was nowhere
to be seen, so let the good times roll, why not?
We were there at Doc’s invitation. The first drink had
been on the house, and the food was free. Not only that, but Happy Hour was
being extended right through till closing time, according to the announcement
scrawled on the big card behind the bar.
FIRST DRINK FREE
ALL YOU CAN EAT,
NEVER MIND DINKY TOY
COOKED MOST OF IT
HAPPY HOURS TILL
1:00
HAPPY HOURS FOREVER!
AND BEST WISHES
ALWAYS, MY FRIENDS
Had Doc come into an inheritance, or what?
It was seven o’clock, and the party had been in full swing
for a couple of hours already. The only thing was, our host hadn’t yet made his
appearance, and we were all still in the dark as to what the big occasion was.
Why had Doc decided to blow the air-conditioning repair fund on this lavish
soiree?
Dexy was there, and he’d brought Number Thirty-seven from
Smokin’ Sal’s with him. This represented a departure from established
procedure. It was not conventional for habitues of Boon Doc’s to bring their
little doxies to Happy Hour, especially if these doxies gave every appearance
of being sweet sixteen and hardly ever even kissed, maybe. It was bad for the
morale of Doc’s girls, for one thing. For another, it simply wasn’t done,
Besides all that, as Leary pointed out, Dexy never took
girls out Why is anybody gonna take any broad out when they ain’t nothin’ but
life-support systems for pussies, anyhow? Right? So after twenty minutes or
half an hour there’s nothin’ you can do with them, and they’re going to be
cluttering up the head in the morning besides. Did we know what he meant?
Yet there he was—there she was—and he’d introduced
her to most of us as “Little Miss Thirty-seven, here, from Smokin’ Sal’ s
Saloon: ain’t she a beauty?” You had to suspect he was relatively serious about
her, as well, or he probably wouldn’t have bothered introducing her at all.
I didn’t hear anyone else refer to her as “#37”. In fact,
nobody said much of anything to her — she didn’t speak English, not beyond the
most basic Bargirl English, anyway, and she didn’t come across as a
looks about sixteen. Sweet sixteen. A real beauty. Though she has got a bad
bite.”
No one wanted to touch this one; you hated to think what
old Dexy might be talking about.
“Can’t hardly sleep, what with her bad bite, and all. Of
course, she’s such a sweetie-pie it seems a shame to sleep anyhow. Yuh know
what I mean?”
After Dexy had left, Eddie ordered a round. When I asked
him about the chores back at the guesthouse, he asked me “What chores?”
“Ah, gosh, Dexy’s okay,” said Leary. “Only he’s not what
you’d call real sensitive, that’s all. You know he’s got nothing but respect
for Lek, Eddie. It’s just his way.
“Anyway, he must be getting friggin’ soft: here he is
talking about seeing this young kid at Sal’s, he sounds like it’s some kind of
heavy date or something. That’s not like Dexy. Gosh. Usually he won’t spend
more than one night with the same girl. It’s like policy. Doesn’t even want to
spend a whole night with the same girl, usually. Says he likes ‘short-times’—
no time to get bored, he says. And you don’t have to wait for the toilet in the
morning, besides.”
“He’s an emotional retard,” was Eddie’s opinion.
II.
I hadn’t seen
Boon Doc’s that crowded in a long time. Just about all the regulars were there,
plus any number of strange faces all told, there must’ ve been a dozen people,
easy. And that’s not counting Doc’s girls. There were seven of these specimens
— Big Toy, Dinky Toy, Keeow, Nid, Noi, Boom, and Sue-wang, and they looked great
that night, all decked out in their party togs. You could see half of them were
getting pissed, though none of them normally drank except maybe for Big Toy,
who had a nervous condition. But it was a party, after all, and Doc was nowhere
to be seen, so let the good times roll, why not?
We were there at Doc’s invitation. The first drink had
been on the house, and the food was free. Not only that, but Happy Hour was
being extended right through till closing time, according to the announcement
scrawled on the big card behind the bar.
FIRST DRINK FREE
ALL YOU CAN EAT,
NEVER MIND DINKY TOY
COOKED MOST OF IT
HAPPY HOURS TILL
1:00
HAPPY HOURS FOREVER!
AND BEST WISHES
ALWAYS, MY FRIENDS
Had Doc come into an inheritance, or what?
It was seven o’clock, and the party had been in full swing
for a couple of hours already. The only thing was, our host hadn’t yet made his
appearance, and we were all still in the dark as to what the big occasion was.
Why had Doc decided to blow the air-conditioning repair fund on this lavish
soiree?
Dexy was there, and he’d brought Number Thirty-seven from
Smokin’ Sal’s with him. This represented a departure from established
procedure. It was not conventional for habitues of Boon Doc’s to bring their
little doxies to Happy Hour, especially if these doxies gave every appearance
of being sweet sixteen and hardly ever even kissed, maybe. It was bad for the
morale of Doc’s girls, for one thing. For another, it simply wasn’t done,
Besides all that, as Leary pointed out, Dexy never took
girls out Why is anybody gonna take any broad out when they ain’t nothin’ but
life-support systems for pussies, anyhow? Right? So after twenty minutes or
half an hour there’s nothin’ you can do with them, and they’re going to be
cluttering up the head in the morning besides. Did we know what he meant?
Yet there he was—there she was—and he’d introduced
her to most of us as “Little Miss Thirty-seven, here, from Smokin’ Sal’ s
Saloon: ain’t she a beauty?” You had to suspect he was relatively serious about
her, as well, or he probably wouldn’t have bothered introducing her at all.
I didn’t hear anyone else refer to her as “#37”. In fact,
nobody said much of anything to her — she didn’t speak English, not beyond the
most basic Bargirl English, anyway, and she didn’t come across as a
Similar Books
