Shark Infested Custard (2 page)

       "Would you pick up a girl in a V.D. clinic?" Don asked Hank.

       Hank laughed. "Not unless I was pretty damned hard up, I wouldn't. Okay. I'll show you guys the clipping later. Here's a tougher question. Where's the 'hardest'' place in Miami to pick up a woman?"

       "The University of Miami Student Union," Eddie said solemnly.

       We all laughed.

       "Come on, Eddie," Hank said. "Play the game. This is a serious question."

       "When a man really needs a piece of ass," I said, "any place he tries is hard."

       "That's right," Eddie said. "When you've got a woman waiting for you in the sack, and you stop off for a beer, there'll be five or six broads all over you. But when you're really out there digging, desperate, there's nothing out there, man. Nothing."

       "That's why I keep my small black book," Hank said.

       "We aren't talking about friends, Hank," I said. "We're supposed to be talking about strange pussy."

       "That's right. So where's the hardest place to pick up strange?"

       "At church—on a Sunday," Eddie said.

       "How long's it been since you've been to church?" Hank asked. "Hell, at church, the minister'll even introduce you to a nice girl if you point one out to him."

       "But who wants a nice girl?" Eddie said.

       "I do," Hank said. "In my book, a nice girl is one who guides it in."

       "If that's true," I said, "every girl I've ever slept with has been a nice girl. Thanks, Hank, for making my day. Why don't we give up this stupid game, get something to eat, and go down to the White Shark and play some pool?"

       "Wait a minute," Eddie said, "I'm still interested in the question. I want to know the answer so I can avoid going there and wasting my time."

       "A determined man," Don said, "can pick up a woman anywhere, even at the International Airport. And you can rent rooms by the hour at the Airport Hotel."

       "It isn't the airport," Hank said. "As you say, Don, the airport's not a bad place for pick-ups. A lot of women, usually in pairs, hang around the Roof Lounge watching the planes take off."

       "We give up, Hank," I said. "I've had my two martinis, and if I don't eat something pretty soon, I'm liable to drink another. And on my third martini I've been known to hit my best friend—just to see him fall."

       "Eighty-six the Fuzz," Eddie said. "Tell us, Hank." Eddie poured the last drink into his Dixie cup.

       "Drive-in movies," Hank said.

       "I don't get it," Don said. "What's so hard about picking up a woman at a drive-in, for Christ's sake? Guys take women to drive-ins all the time—"

       "That's right," Hank said. "They 'take'' them there, and they pay their way in. So what're you going to do? Start talking to some woman while she's in her boyfriend's car, while he's got one arm around her neck and his left hand on her snatch?"

       Eddie laughed. "Yeah! Don't do it, Don. The guy might have a gun in his glove compartment."

       "I guess I wasn't thinking," Don said.

       I thought about the idea for a moment. "I've only been to a drive-in by myself two or three times in my whole life," I said. "It's a place you don't go alone, usually, unless you want to catch a flick you've missed. The last time I went alone was to see 'Two Lane Blacktop''. I read the script when it came out in 'Esquire'', and I really wanted to see the movie."

       "I saw that," Eddie said. "Except for Warren Oates in the GTO, none of the other people in the movie could act."

       "That isn't the point, Eddie," I said. "I didn't think the movie was so hot either, although the script was good. The point I'm trying to make is that the only reason I went to the drive-in was to see 'Two Lane Blacktop'', and it didn't come on until one-oh-five a.m. Where're you going to find anyone to go to the drive-in with you at one in the morning? And when I didn't like the movie either, I wanted to kick myself in the ass."

       "I don't think I've ever been to a drive-in alone," Don said. "Not that I remember, anyway."

       "Well, I have," Hank said, "just like Larry. Some movies only play drive-ins, and if you don't catch them there you'll miss them altogether."

       "I've been a few times, I guess," Eddie said, "and you'll always see a few guys sitting alone in their cars. But I've never seen a woman alone in a car at a drive-in, unless her boyfriend was getting something at the snack bar."

       "Let me tick it off," Hank said. "First, if a woman's there, she's either with her parents, her husband, or her boyfriend. Second, no woman ever goes to a drive-in alone. They're afraid to, for some reason, even though a drive-in movie's safer than any place I know for a woman alone. Because, third, a man would be stupid to look for a broad at a drive-in when there're a thousand better places to pick one up."

       "That's the toughest place, all right," I said. "It's impossible to pick up a woman at a drive-in."

       Hank laughed. "No, it isn't impossible, Larry. It's hard, but it's not impossible."

       "I say it's impossible," I repeated.

       "Better than that," Eddie said, "I'm willing to bet ten bucks it's impossible."

       Hank, shaking his head, laughed. "Ten isn't enough."

       "Add another ten from me," I said.

       "I'll make it thirty," Don said.

       "You guys aren't serious," Hank said.

       "If you don't think thirty bucks is serious enough," Eddie said, "I'll raise my ten to twenty."

       "Add another ten," I said.

       "And mine," Don said.

       "Sixty dollars is fairly serious money," Hank said. "That's twice as much dough as I'd win from you guys shooting pool at the White Shark."

       "Bullshit," Eddie said. "We've offered to bet you sixty hard ones that you can't pick up a broad at the drive-in. And we pick the drive-in."

       "You guys really love me, don't you?" Hank said, getting to his feet and rotating his meaty shoulders.

       "Sure we love you, Hank," I said. "We're trying to add to your income. But you don't have to take the bet. All you have to do is agree with us that it's impossible, that's all."

       "What's my time limit, Eddie?" Hank said.

       "An hour, let's say," Eddie said.

       "An hour? Movies last at least an hour-and-a-half," Hank said. "And I'll need some intermission time as well to talk to women at the snack bar. How about making it three hours?"

       "How about two?" I said.

       "Two hours is plenty," Don said. "You wouldn't hang around any other place in Miami for more'n two hours if you couldn't pick up a broad."

       "Let's compromise," Hank said. "An hour-and-a-half, so long as I get at least ten minutes intermission time. If the movie happens to run long, then I get more time to take advantage of the intermission, but two hours'll be the outside limit. Okay?"

       "It's okay with me," I said.

       "Then let's make the bet a little more interesting," Hank said. "For every five minutes under an hour, you add five bucks to the bet, and I'll match it."

       Hank's self-confidence was irritating, but I considered it as unwarranted overconfidence. We took him up on his addition to the bet, and we agreed to meet in Hank's apartment in a half-hour.

       We all had identical one-bedroom apartments, but we furnished them so differently none of them looked the same. I don't have much furniture, but the stuff I've got is unique. On Saturday nights I often get the early Sunday edition of the 'Miami Herald'' and look for furniture bargains in the Personals. That's how I got my harpsichord. It was worth at least $850, but I paid only $150 for it. I can pluck out "Birmingham Jail," but I plan to take lessons if a harpsichord teacher ever moves to Miami. I'm not in any hurry to complete the furnishings; I'm willing to wait until I get the things I want to keep.

       Eddie has a crummy place, a real mess, but his mother drives down from Ft. Lauderdale every month to spend a couple of days with him, and that's the only time it's clean.

       When Don left his wife, he took all of his den furniture, and his living room is furnished as a den. He's got two large comfortable leather chairs, tall, old-fashioned, glass-doored bookcases, and a half-dozen framed prints of "The Rake's Progress" on the walls. When we're watching football and drinking beer in Don's place, it's like being in some exclusive men's club.

       Hank, because he doesn't have an office, has almost a third of his living room taken up with cardboard boxes full of drugs and samples of the other medical products his company manufactures. Hank serves as our "doctor." We get our pain killers, cold remedies, medicated soap, and even free toothbrushes from Hank. Before the strict accountability on drugs started, he could sometimes spare sleeping pills and a few uppers. But not any longer. His company counts them out to him now, in small quantities, and he has to account for the amphetamines he passes out free to the doctors he calls on.

       Hank's apartment is overcrowded with possessions, too, in addition to the medical supplies. Once he has something, he can't bear to part with it, so his apartment is cluttered. On top of everything else, Hank has a mounted eight-foot sailfish over the couch. He caught it in Acapulco last year, had it mounted for $450 and shipped to Miami. Across the belly, in yellow chalk, he's written, "Hank's Folly." He still can't understand how the boat captain talked him into having the sailfish mounted, except that he was so excited, at the time, about catching it. He's so genuinely unhappy now, about his stupidity in mounting a sailfish, we no longer kid him about it.

       When I got to my apartment, I was feeling the effects of the two martinis, so before I took my shower, I put on some coffee to perc. After I showered, I put on a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of tennis shoes. I fixed a very weak Scotch and water in a plastic glass, and carried it with me down to Hank's apartment.

       The other guys were already there. Don, wearing yellow linen slacks and a green knit shirt, was checking the movie pages in the 'Herald''. Eddie wore his denim jacket and jeans with his black flight boots, and winked at me when I came in. He jerked his head toward the short hallway to the bedroom. Hank, of course, was still dressing, and a nose-tingling mixture of talcum powder, Right Guard, and Brut drifted in from the bedroom.

       Eddie grinned, and jerked his head toward the bedroom. "An actor prepares," he said. "Stanislavski."

       "Jesus," Don said, rattling the paper. "At the Tropical DriveIn they're showing five John Wayne movies! Who in hell could sit through five John Waynes for Christ sake?"

       "I could," I said.

       "Me, too," Eddie said, "but only one at a time."

       "If you go to the first one at seven-thirty," Don said, "you don't get out 'til three a.m.!"

       "I wouldn't mind," Eddie said, "if we all went and took along a couple of cases of beer. It's better than watching TV from seven-thirty till three, and I've done that often enough."

       "Yeah," I said, "but you can watch TV in airconditioned comfort. You aren't fighting mosquitoes all night."

       "They fog those places for mosquitoes," Eddie said.

       "Sure they do," Don said, "and it makes them so mad they bite the shit out of you. Here's one. Listen to this. At the Southside Dixie. 'Bucket of Blood'', 'The Blood-Letters'', 'The Bloody Vampires'', and 'Barracuda!'' There's a theater manager with a sense of humor. He put the barracuda last so they could get all that blood!"

       We laughed.

       Eddie got up and crossed to the kitchenette table, where Hank kept his liquor and a bucketful of ice. "What're you drinking, Fuzz-O?"

       "I'm nursing this one," I said.

       "Pour me a glass of wine, Eddie," Don said.

       "Blood-red, or urine-yellow?"

       "I don't care," Don said, "just so you put a couple of ice cubes in it."

       Eddie fixed a scotch over ice for himself, and brought Don a glass of Chianti, with ice cubes.

       "The Southside's probably our best bet," I said. "There'll be fewer women at the horror program than at the John Wayne festival. And besides, there's a Burger Queen across the highway there on Dixie. We can eat something and watch for Hank when he comes out of the theater."

       "Shouldn't one of us go with him?" Eddie said.

       "It wouldn't be fair," Don said. "I don't think he'll be able to pick up any women there anyway, but it would be twice as hard to talk some woman into getting into a car with two guys. So we let him go in alone. As Larry says, we can watch the exit from across the Dixie Highway."

       Hank came into the living room, looking and smelling like a jai-alai player on his night off. He wore white shoes with leather tassels, and a magenta slack suit with a silk blue-and-red paisley scarf tucked in around the collar. Hank had three other tailored suits like the magenta—wheat, blue and chocolate—but I hadn't seen the magenta before. The high-waisted pants, with an uncuffed flare, were double-knits, and so tight in front his equipment looked like a money bag. The short-sleeved jacket was a beltless, modified version of a bush jacket, with huge bellows side pockets.

       Don was the only one of us with long hair, that is, long 'enough'', the way we all wanted to wear it. Because of our jobs, we couldn't get away with hair as long as Don's. Hank had fluffed his hair with an air-comb, and it looked much fuller than it did when he slicked it down with spray to call on doctors.

       "Isn't that a new outfit?" Eddie said.

       "I've had it awhile," Hank said, going to the table to build a drink. "It's the first time I've worn it, is all. I ordered the suit from a small swatch of material. Then when it was made into a suit, I saw that it was a little too much." He shrugged. "But it'll do for a drive-in, I think."

       "There's nothing wrong with that color, Hank," Don said. "I like it."

       Hank added two more ice cubes to his Scotch and soda. "It makes my face look red, is all."