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Mary came out of the back room and walked over to Charlie. As she was about to speak, she saw the woman who had just come in. A slight smile rippled across her lips.

“Excuse me a minute”, Mary said to Charlie. She turned to the woman. “Hi. How'd you know just where to go?” she asked with a delighted smile on her face.

“I can always pick out a handsome man when I see one”, she said playfully. “You said he was handsome, didn't you?” The three of them laughed.

Roger looked toward Charlie with a quizzical look. Charlie winked.

“Say, Mary”, said Charlie. “Do you think you could get a date for Roger and myself? You must know a couple of girls in town who would want to go out with two nice looking guys like us”.

Mary pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes in mock consideration, then nodded. “I think I have just the girls you would like”. Mary looked toward the door as two girls entered the bar. “Stay here a minute”, she said as she prodded Charlie's arm to stay him.

“Hello Gina, Fran, how're you?”, Mary said as the two girls were unfastening their coats. “Come this way”, she said, indicating the direction with a slight jerk of her head. She started walking toward the back, past Charlie on whose arm she put her hand again. “I'll be right with you, honey”.

The two girls followed Mary until they all reached one of the tables in the back where three men were seated. The men rose. Mary made introductions and the two girls sat down. Mary made her way back toward Charlie and Roger. Behind her, a waiter walked to the table to take an order from the girls.

“I think I have just the girls for you. I'll call them in a few minutes. They went out a while ago, and I know they're not home yet. Can you wait a few minutes?”

“Sure, sure”, answered Charlie.

“Mary”, called the bartender; as he motioned to the phone.

“What do you say Rog? Can we wait around a few minutes to have some fun?”

“Suppose we can”, said Roger, not really sure if what he thought was happening, was happening.

Mary walked behind the bar and took the phone receiver from the bartender. “Hello, … who?” she said straining her ears against the noise of the room. She put the index finger of her free hand in her ear. “Well, gee, I don't think I can see you tonight. I'm pretty tied up right now. Uhh, yes, I think so. Maybe we can make it soon”. She listened for a moment. “And thanks for keeping me in mind. Sure. What? Okay. Bye”. She hung up the phone and came back to Roger and Charlie.

“Pretty busy tonight, eh?”, said Charlie.

“Just regular. Pretty quiet now, but it was busy before. Probably get busy again later”.

Two men walked in and handed their coats to the hat-check girl. Mary walked over to them; they talked a while, and then walked to the back and sat at a table. As they were being seated, a lone girl walked in. Mary caught her eye with a wave of her hand, and the girl walked toward the back. Mary spoke to her and walked with her to the table with the three men and two girls. The waiter took her order, as Mary walked back toward the bar.

“Phil”, Mary said to the man sitting next to Roger in a bit louder than conversational tone, “aren't you going to buy Claudia some dinner?”

Phil looked at Claudia; she gave an affirmative nod.

“Yeah, sure Mary, get us a table will you?” he said laughing. “Don't want to starve this lovely creature”. The girl remained unaffected by the compliment. Perhaps growing accustomed to meaningless compliments bandied about, presumably to impress or arouse, by people that she came in contact with in her line, they no longer meant anything to her. As well they might not. A man buys pleasure, and yet wishes to feel that it is given to him because of love, by the most gorgeous of women.

“Did you know, Claudia just told me she was in Paris recently, Mary?”, the man said as Mary led them to a back table. “Probably the same time I was. Too bad we didn't know each other then”, he said taking the girls arm. “Did you see the new show that opened in that theater on the Champs Elysee? … oh, what the hell is the name of it?”, continued the conversation, fading from earshot as the couple reached the back of the dining alcove.

As Mary started forward, she made a quick snapping motion of her fingers as she looked up and saw Charlie. She walked to the back of the bar and picked up the phone and dialed a number. She spoke briefly. When she was finished, she made her way back to Charlie and Roger, a hint of a smile on her lips.

“Called two nice girls for you. They said they'd be over in a few minutes, okay?”

“Great. Okay Roger?”

“Sure, sure thing. Great by me”.

As Roger and Charlie stood at the bar, other men, mostly in twos and threes, came in. Mary seemed to know most of them. They ordered drinks and stood at the bar, talking amongst themselves or with other customers they knew. In a short while, the entire bar was filled with men and a couple of women. Men stood in a second row, and against the wall opposite the bar. A couple of girls walked in and room was made for them to sit on stools at the bar. In seconds, their stools were surrounded by vultures about their prey, except it seemed the vultures were really the prey begging to be chosen by the prey.

The two most recently arriving girls were different from the rest of the girls that were already in the bar. Those already there were usual, not common, looking women, representing all types, secretary-looking, sisterly, friendly, all different, yet all sharing in one thing; they were conservative, neatly dressed, not looking to make themselves stand out. The two new-comers were different; they looked hard. One had red hair, the other black. Both wore their hair long, and both had off-the-shoulder dresses. They had hard, coarse looks; their make-up was heavy, over-stated. They sat and drank, and talked to the men who surrounded them, twisting occasionally from one to the other. One of the men next to the redhead slid one hand, knuckles inward, into the upper part of her dress, pulling it away from her body, peering as he did in order to see what treasure the material hid. The redhead lurched back, her movement removing the hand from her dress.

The fellow was persistent. “C'mon, just a little peek”, he said, slipping his hand inside her dress again.

“You gonna stop or do I hit you in the head with this glass?” she said, gritting her teeth behind closed lips as she looked self-consciously to see if others were watching.

The fellow stepped back and with head cocked to one side, surveyed her body as she sat on the stool. His gestures were mostly for affect, to impress the girl and the rest at the bar how calculating and, therefore, how experienced he was at this sort of thing. He was surveying her legs, her rear end. Someone touched his shoulder. It was Mary. She said something to him, pointing to the back, where a girl who had just come in was standing. He put his glass down on the bar and kissing the redhead on the temple, walked to the table area.

The redhead made a face and turned to the fellow who was standing on the other side of her and began talking.

“Boy, this is some place”, said Roger. “There's an awful lot of guys here. What is the big attraction? There aren't many girls”.

“More'll come in later. I guess when they leave their sugar daddies and boyfriends off they come out to have some real fun. You have enough money with you Roger? I mean, you can charge it to your expense account, of course, but you have cash with you, don't you?”

“I have fifty bucks. That should be enough, no?”

“Yeah, yeah. We can have a meal here—I think the girls save their appetite for when they meet guys like us. It's cheaper for them. Then we'll go out somewhere, not late, you have to get that plane in the morning. Probably only need thirty, forty at the most, something like that”.

Roger shrugged.

“What the hell man”, said Charlie, “live it up. You don't get away from Fran and home that often do you?”

“You're right about that”, agreed Roger, with a grave nod of the head. “We'll really live it up tonight. No worries about the house, or the wife, or the daughter, or the anything”. Just then, Roger remembered the scene in the living room the other night, remembered Nancy and her would-be lover. He hoped that Francine, his wife, would be vigilant. Never know what happens to a nice girl these days.

“Roger, Charlie … this is Marie, and Joan”. Mary was standing next to their table with two girls. One had light colored hair, worn down to the shoulder. The other had dark hair, closely cropped in a dutch-boy hair style.

“Well, well”, said Roger, standing to offer his chair, “sit down, sit down. What lovely girls you picked”, he said quickly to Mary, “Couldn't have picked nicer if I did it myself”.

Charlie looked at Roger quizzically. The girls sat.

“Want a drink, girls?” asked Charlie.

“I'll have a scotch and soda,” said Joan who was the light-haired girl, now sitting next to Roger.

“I'll have a martini”, said Marie.

“A martini, a scotch and soda, a scotch and water here, and another scotch and soda there”, Roger said to the waiter.

“Do you fellows come in here often?” asked Marie.

“Well, I come in every once in a while. My friend is from out of town”, said Charlie.

“Oh?”, said Joan, “here on business?”

“You might say that”, answered Roger with a leer in his voice. Charlie and the girls laughed.

“Why don't we order something to eat now, so that we can get quick service and get out of here?” said Joan.

Roger and Charlie felt a jolt of masculine ego shudder through them. How strange that the men thought the women wanted to get out quickly so that they might be with them all the quicker. It would never become apparent that the girls wanted to get the evening's work over with so they could go home to bed—alone. Men have odd notions about women. They are complimented if even the slightest tramp wants them. A man is complimented, is a conqueror. A woman is offended, is conquered. A man is a lover, a woman a tramp, and all stemming from one and the same action. And yet, does not a woman also long for the warmth of a relationship as much as a man.

“Good idea”, smiled Charlie.

They ordered dinner, and as the night drew on, they finished their drinks, their dinner, and left the bar and completed their sordid, calculated business.

It was afternoon now, and the sun reflected from the silvery wings as it does from the glistening ocean on a July day, with the waves lapping at the edge of the beach drawing sand away, then returning it, then drawing it away, then returning it, then drawing … Roger was being lulled to sleep by his own thoughts. His eyelids seemed to have a magnetic attraction for each other. They kept slipping over his orbs, trying to shut him off from the people seated about him; from the sign that lit up NO SMOKING, from the silver wings, from the people standing on the observation platform being blown by the breeze but staying to wave to their loved ones, from the silvery wings with the bouncing fire, from the greyish circle on the forewing where the propellers were spinning …

I'm tired
, Roger thought to himself. He had left Charlie only a few hours ago, left him at the hotel, and now he was on his way home. They hadn't even taken off, yet his eyelids started to close again, and his head started to droop down toward his chest … lower, lower, then it nodded slightly as he caught himself and raised his head. His eyes sleepily, half closed peered about him …

Glad I don't come on these trips often
, he thought.
Lord knows, I couldn't take it … be good to get home and get some sleep … tell Fran-cine I had a late session trying to settle some business matters. Maybe I'll tell her I couldn't sleep all night worrying about her and Nancy. No, I couldn't tell her that
. Roger's head started to nod again.
Nancy
, he thought as his eyelids began to close.
Have to talk to her again. Don't want anything to happen to her. My only child, my Princess. I want her to have everything nice. God!
he said waking himself with the thought and raising his head,
I'd never let my daughter go to New York alone. You can never tell what might happen to her. Jesus, that whole bar was full of hungry guys last night, each one out for all he could get, not caring what happens. What the hell, I don't make a habit of it. And, anyway, the girl I was with was a whore, probably does that sort of thing every night, maybe twice a night. I only get to town once in a while
—
what the hell. But those guys in New York, they're different, they're rotten, smart alecks, take out after any girl, any kind of a girl, any one they see, anytime they can
. Roger's eyes were almost completely closed.
What a rotten hole of a city, full of whores and perverts … glad it's not like that back home. At least you can raise a nice family and live a clean wholesome life, without any of this scum. Got to try and tell Nancy
. His head nodded lower, lower, raising up again
Got to keep her away from all the filth in this filthy world
. Roger's head slumped downward again, but this time he did not raise it. The engines spun faster, the plane skimmed across the runway, lifting toward home. Within, Roger slept the sleep of a man resting from the exertions of a business trip.

MARGARITA

Perhaps because of the cinema, one always thinks of funerals wilting beneath anguished skies pouring rain. Yet, as Margarita's coffin slowly lowers, sun glints from its bronzed surface. The graveyard is alive with graceful trees, the breeze scented with a sweet newly mown pungency. Concentration is difficult at a funeral. One feels a necessity for solemnity, but many thoughts about the departed and the past are interspersed and juxtaposed with distractions, and one feels guilty for this lack of solemn bereavement.

As I gaze down, my head lowered in silence and reverie, the summer morning heat warms my bent neck, beads of perspiration on my forehead, and turns the half moist, recently unearthed dirt from dark chocolate to dry cocoa. My eyes are distracted by my hands throbbing involuntarily by palsy at my sides. I would like to stop their irreverent trembling, for I feel not only old because of them, but embarrassed. But, then, not many people will notice the feebleness of an old man.