AN INTERLUDE

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood. I like to dwell on this period when things were taking shape because the order, if it were understood, must have been dazzling. In the first place there was Hymie, Hymie the bull-frog, and there were also his wife's ovaries which had been rotting away for a considerable time. Hymie was completely wrapped up in his wife's rotting ovaries. It was the daily topic of conversation; it took precedence now over the cathartic pills and the coated tongue. Hymie dealt in “sexual proverbs”, as he called them. Everything he said began from or led up to the ovaries. Despite everything he was still nicking it off with the wife – prolonged snake-life copulations in which he would smoke a cigarette or two before un-cunting. He would endeavour to explain to me how the pus from the rotting ovaries put her in heat. She had always been a good fuck, but now she was better than ever. Once the ovaries were ripped out there'd be no telling how she'd take it. She seemed to realize that too. Ergo, fuck away! Every night, after the dishes were cleared away, they'd strip down in their little bird-like apartment and lay together like a couple of snakes. He tried to describe it to me on a number of occasions – the ways she fucked. It was like an oyster inside, an oyster with soft teeth that nibbled away at him. Sometimes it felt as though he were right inside her womb, so soft and fluffy it was, and those soft teeth biting away at his pecker and making him delirious. They used to lie scissors-fashion and look up at the ceiling. To keep from coming he would think about the office, about the little worries which plagued him and kept his bowels tied up in a knot. In between orgasms he would let his mind dwell on some one else, so that when she'd start working on him again he might imagine he was having a brand new fuck with a brand new cunt. He used to arrange it so that he could look out of the window while it was going on. He was getting so adept at it that he could undress a woman on the boulevard there under his window and transport her to the bed; not only that, but he could actually make her change places with his wife, all without un-cunting. Sometimes he'd fuck away like that for a couple of hours and never bother to shoot off. Why waste it! he would say.

Steve Romero, on the other hand, had a hell of a time holding it in. Steve was built like a bull and he scattered his seed freely. We used to compare notes sometimes sitting in the Chop Suey joint around the comer from the office. It was a strange atmosphere. Maybe it was because there was no wine. Maybe it was the funny little black mushrooms they served us. Anyway it wasn't difficult to get started on the subject. By the time Steve met us he would already have had his workout, a shower and a rubdown. He was dean inside and out. Almost a perfect specimen of a man. Not very bright, to be sure, but a good egg, a companion. Hymie, on the other hand, was like a toad. He seemed to come to the table direct from the swamps where he had passed a mucky day. Filth rolled off his lips like honey. In fact, you couldn't call it filth, in his case, because there wasn't any other ingredient with which you might compare it. It was all one fluid, a slimy, sticky substance made entirely of sex. When he looked at his food he saw it as potential sperm; if the weather were warm he would say it was good for the balls; if he took a trolley ride he knew in advance that the rhythmic movement of the trolley would stimulate his appetite, would give him a slow, “personal” hard-on, as he put it. Why “personal” I never found out, but that was his expression. He liked to go out with us because we were always reasonably sure of picking up something decent. Left to himself he didn't always fare so well. With us he got a change of meat – Gentile cunt, as he put it He liked Gentile cunt. Smelled sweeter, he said. Laughed easier too… Sometimes in the very midst of things. The one thing he couldn't tolerate was dark meat. It amazed and disgusted him to see me travelling around with Valeska. Once he asked me if she didn't smell kind of extra strong like. I told him I liked it that way – strong and smelly, with lots of gravy around it. He almost blushed at that. Amazing how delicate he could be about some things. Food, for example. Very finicky about his food. Perhaps a racial trait. Immaculate about his person, too. Couldn't stand the sight of a spot on his dean cuffs. Constantly brushing himself off, constantly taking his pocket mirror out to see if there were any food between his teeth. If he found a crumb he would hide his face behind the napkin and extract it with his pearlhandled toothpick. The ovaries of course he couldn't see. Nor could he smell them either, because his wife too was an immaculate bitch. Douching herself all day long in preparation for the evening nuptials. It was tragic, the importance she gave to her ovaries.

Up until the day she was taken to the hospital she was a regular fucking block. The thought of never being able to fuck again frightened the wits out of her. Hymie of course told her it wouldn't make any difference to him one way or the other. Glued to her like a snake, a cigarette in his mouth, the girls passing below on the boulevard, it was hard for him to imagine a woman not being able to fuck any more. He was sure the operation would be successful. Successful! That's to say that she'd fuck even better than before. He used to tell her that, lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. “You know I'll always love you,” he would say. “Move over just a little bit, will you … there, like that… that's it. What was I saying? Oh yes… why sure, why should you worry about things like that? Of course I'll be true to you. Listen, pull away just a little bit… yeah, that's it… that's fine.” He used to tell us about it in the Chop Suey joint. Steve would laugh like hell. Steve couldn't do a thing like that. He was too honest – especially with women. That's why he never had any luck. Little Curiey, for example -Steve hated Curiey – would always get what he wanted… He was a born liar, a born deceiver. Hymie didn't like Curiey much either. He said he was dishonest, meaning of course dishonest in money matters. About such things Hymie was scrupulous. What he disliked especially was the way Curiey talked about his aunt. It was bad enough, in Hymie's opinion, that he should be screwing the sister of his own mother, but to make her out to be nothing but a piece of stale cheese, that was too much for Hymie. One ought to have a bit of respect for a woman, provided she's not a whore. If she's a whore that's different. Whores are not women. Whores are whores. That was how Hymie looked at things.

The real reason for his dislike, however, was that whenever they went out together Curiey always got the best choice. And not only that, but it was usually with Hymie's money that Curiey managed it. Even the way Curiey asked for money irritated Hymie – it was like extortion, he said. He thought it was partly my fault, that I was too lenient with the kid. “He's got no moral character,” Hymie would say. “And what about you, your moral character?” I would ask. “Oh me I Shit, I'm too old to have any moral character. But Curley's only a kid.” “You're jealous, that's what,” Steve would say. “Me ? Me jealous of him ?” And he'd try to smother the idea with a scornful little laugh. It made him wince, a jab like that “Listen,” he would say, turning to me, “did I ever act jealous towards you? Didn't I always turn a girl over to you if you asked me? What about that redhaired girl in S.U. office… yon remember … the one with the big teats? Wasn't that a nice piece of ass to turn over to a friend? But I did it, didn't I? I did it because you said you liked big teats. But I wouldn't do it for Curiey. He's a little crook. Let him do his own digging.”