tell me Margaret was “appearing” somewhere, and I really should go. So I’d take her. One time it would be a woman’s club in Towson, another time some Peabody thing, and each of those, so far as the papers went, would be let out with three lines. But the little smile was there. What we talked about, going and coming from those places, I don’t know, and I’ve racked my brains to remember, because after what happened it seemed to me I should. I can’t.
Her parties in the wintertime were given in what was called the Walnut Room, which was just off the lobby, and had been the bar before 1920. In the summer they were given out on the lawn, at the side of the hotel, under the maples. I’ve got to admit, whether it was the afternoon things they gave when we were younger, or the night parties they put on later, they were pretty nice. At first the Rocco Trio, then later the Woodberry Jazzbabies, made the music, and we all had a good time, even when Margaret consented to play. While she was banging out Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, I was feeding America’s Sweetheart No. 1.
But a gray car is a gray cat, and at night I went places that had nothing to do with school kids or Margaret. I’d clean up my algebra around eight or eight thirty, begin to yawn and say I’d just as well take in the picture show. But once out of the house, where I went was an uncertain proposition. Sometimes I’d go to a bowling alley, or maybe I’d slip over to Washington. It wasn’t new to me, as my father had taken me there, to sit in the gallery and look at Congress, or go to the top of the Monument, so I knew my way around. But sliding in Rhode Island Avenue, finding a place to park near the Treasury, maybe taking in a Washington movie, all that was a kick, even if it didn’t mean much. At the same time I was getting a feeling I’d never had before, and it meant business. I began to notice girls. I didn’t notice them the way I noticed Margaret, if I noticed her, like she was a friend in a girl’s dress, but nothing to have ideas about. I had ideas about them, plenty. How to get them, I didn’t know. But getting them was the idea. When Denny hit town that summer, it turned out he’d been thinking along the same line, but he’d learned more tricks than I could have dreamed up in a lifetime.
Not that I’d call him original, or in any way refined. If he could pull some gag and get started with them in a soda fountain, he’d do that, and we’d all four walk out together. Outside, if the best he could think of was to fall in step behind them and fire some crack past their ears, he’d do that. But if he had to, he’d whistle at them, right from the car, and get me to slow down, so we were rolling right beside them. I didn’t enjoy that much, but I’d do it. Whatever we did, a half hour later it was always the same. One of them would be on the front seat with me, and the other back in the rumble with him. He was always trying to sell me the rumble, on account of the “stuff you can get away with back there,” but I figured if it was all that chummy he wouldn’t be so hot to come up front. Nothing ever came of it. We’d go to some picture show, or to some dump on the edge of town, where Denny thought he could get beer but couldn’t, or past East Baltimore, to the beach. The beach, somehow, always seemed as though it was going to work, because at least there were the bay and the sand and the moon. With some of those girls we picked up and another pair of guys I think it might have. Our trouble was we were fifteen years old—or I was, and Denny, though he was nearly sixteen, looked younger.
But Labor Day we got ambitious, and ran down to Annapolis to see what we could see. We kept on over Spa Creek to Eastport, and there we decided to get some gas. And across the street was this pair arguing with a guy in blue jeans. One of them, the one that was doing most of the talking, was dark, I suppose eighteen or nineteen, with a pretty
Her parties in the wintertime were given in what was called the Walnut Room, which was just off the lobby, and had been the bar before 1920. In the summer they were given out on the lawn, at the side of the hotel, under the maples. I’ve got to admit, whether it was the afternoon things they gave when we were younger, or the night parties they put on later, they were pretty nice. At first the Rocco Trio, then later the Woodberry Jazzbabies, made the music, and we all had a good time, even when Margaret consented to play. While she was banging out Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, I was feeding America’s Sweetheart No. 1.
But a gray car is a gray cat, and at night I went places that had nothing to do with school kids or Margaret. I’d clean up my algebra around eight or eight thirty, begin to yawn and say I’d just as well take in the picture show. But once out of the house, where I went was an uncertain proposition. Sometimes I’d go to a bowling alley, or maybe I’d slip over to Washington. It wasn’t new to me, as my father had taken me there, to sit in the gallery and look at Congress, or go to the top of the Monument, so I knew my way around. But sliding in Rhode Island Avenue, finding a place to park near the Treasury, maybe taking in a Washington movie, all that was a kick, even if it didn’t mean much. At the same time I was getting a feeling I’d never had before, and it meant business. I began to notice girls. I didn’t notice them the way I noticed Margaret, if I noticed her, like she was a friend in a girl’s dress, but nothing to have ideas about. I had ideas about them, plenty. How to get them, I didn’t know. But getting them was the idea. When Denny hit town that summer, it turned out he’d been thinking along the same line, but he’d learned more tricks than I could have dreamed up in a lifetime.
Not that I’d call him original, or in any way refined. If he could pull some gag and get started with them in a soda fountain, he’d do that, and we’d all four walk out together. Outside, if the best he could think of was to fall in step behind them and fire some crack past their ears, he’d do that. But if he had to, he’d whistle at them, right from the car, and get me to slow down, so we were rolling right beside them. I didn’t enjoy that much, but I’d do it. Whatever we did, a half hour later it was always the same. One of them would be on the front seat with me, and the other back in the rumble with him. He was always trying to sell me the rumble, on account of the “stuff you can get away with back there,” but I figured if it was all that chummy he wouldn’t be so hot to come up front. Nothing ever came of it. We’d go to some picture show, or to some dump on the edge of town, where Denny thought he could get beer but couldn’t, or past East Baltimore, to the beach. The beach, somehow, always seemed as though it was going to work, because at least there were the bay and the sand and the moon. With some of those girls we picked up and another pair of guys I think it might have. Our trouble was we were fifteen years old—or I was, and Denny, though he was nearly sixteen, looked younger.
But Labor Day we got ambitious, and ran down to Annapolis to see what we could see. We kept on over Spa Creek to Eastport, and there we decided to get some gas. And across the street was this pair arguing with a guy in blue jeans. One of them, the one that was doing most of the talking, was dark, I suppose eighteen or nineteen, with a pretty
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