town put it, “ le dessert du moment .”
So, while he continued to date fairly regularly, going out dancing or catching a movie, he found spending a whole night with them to be what those pretentious British girls might have labeled an existentially empty event. He didn’t quite know what to call it. All he knew was that when he woke up with some new girl sleeping beside him, either in his flat or hers, he often felt substantially less whole, as though he was losing a piece of himself through every encounter, slowly dissipating, dissolving, bits of him vanishing into the vacuum of the world, and, with every conquest, becoming in some manner more hollowed out. It was exactly the opposite feeling he had expected to feel with these sorts of heady, libidinal victories. He had been raised to believe they would provide him with some sense of validation; that’s what he’d gathered from the way his uncles had talked about women (“babes,” “honeys,” “broads”) when the men took him hunting up in northern Michigan. They’d boozily spit out ribald stories of stag parties and bawdy burlesque shows involving generous fat-bottomed and bosomy women who would put two tits in your face for a quarter but whose names no one could ever recall.
The emptiness was easy to shake off and move on from, but it had its effect. He had lately found himself less inclined to chase the pretty smiles of Paris and spent more time wandering the streets alone, eating in the bistros and reading the paper or sitting up late with a book, a Herman Wouk novel, Hemingway’s Nick Adams tales, or a collection of Stephen Crane. He was not lonely, but he had grown isolated. He was ready for something different. Perhaps that was why he was here, he thought, glancing around the bar, waiting for his charismatic new friend who seemed like the sort who would come primed with volumes of trivial anecdotes, personal connections, and pertinent intelligence.
The couple sitting at the bar to the right of Will had been busily necking since he got there, and although it was still early, there was already a man at a table nearby apparently asleep though still upright in his chair. The sleeping man’s head bobbed, either along with the music or simply out of reflex, it was impossible to tell. Will finished his Pernod and put out his cigarette and was rising to leave when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Hullo, hullo,” said Oliver with a smile. “Sorry we’re late. William, I’d like you to meet Boris and Ned.” He nodded to the odd couple standing beside him. One of them—Will guessed it was Boris because the man looked like a parody of a Russian brute—loomed at a height Will guessed to be somewhere north of six foot six. This Boris was a lantern-jawed man with a chest as broad as a Klondike bear’s and shoulders so wide they blocked Will’s view of the rest of the bar. His features wore an unpleasant expression as if his face had been shoved into a dingy, wet dishrag. The woman standing beside him was as short as Boris was tall, maybe five feet at best. She wore her hair in a short brown bob, and her vulpine face held the same dismal, distasteful scowl as the Russian’s. She was puffing a nickel cigar that made her look like an ornery cowboy from some old Walter Brennan oater. “Boris’s real name isn’t actually Boris,” explained Oliver with a chuckle, “but it suits him to a T, don’t you think? On the other hand, Ned here really is named Ned. Ha ha. She looks meaner than she is, Will, I promise, though I warn you she is an absolute terror at dominoes—play that woman at your own risk. So, then”—he leaned over conspiratorially toward Will—“did you bring that knife?”
Will was about to answer when Ned tugged at Oliver’s sleeve and pointed to the neighboring table.
“Oh my, look! There’s Jake!” Oliver shouted, grabbing Will by the arm and leading him over to where the sleeping man was still bobbing his head. “Jake, old man!
So, while he continued to date fairly regularly, going out dancing or catching a movie, he found spending a whole night with them to be what those pretentious British girls might have labeled an existentially empty event. He didn’t quite know what to call it. All he knew was that when he woke up with some new girl sleeping beside him, either in his flat or hers, he often felt substantially less whole, as though he was losing a piece of himself through every encounter, slowly dissipating, dissolving, bits of him vanishing into the vacuum of the world, and, with every conquest, becoming in some manner more hollowed out. It was exactly the opposite feeling he had expected to feel with these sorts of heady, libidinal victories. He had been raised to believe they would provide him with some sense of validation; that’s what he’d gathered from the way his uncles had talked about women (“babes,” “honeys,” “broads”) when the men took him hunting up in northern Michigan. They’d boozily spit out ribald stories of stag parties and bawdy burlesque shows involving generous fat-bottomed and bosomy women who would put two tits in your face for a quarter but whose names no one could ever recall.
The emptiness was easy to shake off and move on from, but it had its effect. He had lately found himself less inclined to chase the pretty smiles of Paris and spent more time wandering the streets alone, eating in the bistros and reading the paper or sitting up late with a book, a Herman Wouk novel, Hemingway’s Nick Adams tales, or a collection of Stephen Crane. He was not lonely, but he had grown isolated. He was ready for something different. Perhaps that was why he was here, he thought, glancing around the bar, waiting for his charismatic new friend who seemed like the sort who would come primed with volumes of trivial anecdotes, personal connections, and pertinent intelligence.
The couple sitting at the bar to the right of Will had been busily necking since he got there, and although it was still early, there was already a man at a table nearby apparently asleep though still upright in his chair. The sleeping man’s head bobbed, either along with the music or simply out of reflex, it was impossible to tell. Will finished his Pernod and put out his cigarette and was rising to leave when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Hullo, hullo,” said Oliver with a smile. “Sorry we’re late. William, I’d like you to meet Boris and Ned.” He nodded to the odd couple standing beside him. One of them—Will guessed it was Boris because the man looked like a parody of a Russian brute—loomed at a height Will guessed to be somewhere north of six foot six. This Boris was a lantern-jawed man with a chest as broad as a Klondike bear’s and shoulders so wide they blocked Will’s view of the rest of the bar. His features wore an unpleasant expression as if his face had been shoved into a dingy, wet dishrag. The woman standing beside him was as short as Boris was tall, maybe five feet at best. She wore her hair in a short brown bob, and her vulpine face held the same dismal, distasteful scowl as the Russian’s. She was puffing a nickel cigar that made her look like an ornery cowboy from some old Walter Brennan oater. “Boris’s real name isn’t actually Boris,” explained Oliver with a chuckle, “but it suits him to a T, don’t you think? On the other hand, Ned here really is named Ned. Ha ha. She looks meaner than she is, Will, I promise, though I warn you she is an absolute terror at dominoes—play that woman at your own risk. So, then”—he leaned over conspiratorially toward Will—“did you bring that knife?”
Will was about to answer when Ned tugged at Oliver’s sleeve and pointed to the neighboring table.
“Oh my, look! There’s Jake!” Oliver shouted, grabbing Will by the arm and leading him over to where the sleeping man was still bobbing his head. “Jake, old man!
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