“We eat pretty well,” Denny said. “I think we eat pretty well.”
“The lack of privacy would drive me up the wall!”
“You know,” Kid said, “that’s a funny thing about privacy. If there’re two or three people in a room, it’s really hard to be by yourself. If there’re nine or ten, especially if you’re all living together, if you want to be alone, all you have to do is think I want to be alone and everybody else has somebody to pay attention to, and you’re alone. I had two roommates in an apartment my first year at Columbia; we had four rooms and it was really impossible. A couple of years later I spent December, January, February and March in three rooms on East Second Street in New York with about ten guys and ten chicks. Cold as a motherfucker, and we were in there all day. All we did is eat, ball, and deal dope: Nicest time of my life.”
“Really?” Then she said, “If it was, how did it compare to this?”
“This is not the nicest time in my life. But there’ve been others a hell of a lot worse.”
“We got all sorts of good stuff to eat,” Denny said. “You hungry? I bet I can fix some stuff up for you?”
“Thanks, babes. But I just finished lunch.”
“We were a lot cleaner there,” Kid said, “maybe because there were a few more girls around.”
“Male chauvinist pig,” Lanya said dryly. “Import a lot of slave labor to wash the dishes and—”
“I’m not a male chauvinist pig,” Kid said. “I’m a commie faggot pervert.”
“There’s nothing to stop you from being both.”
“Everybody cleaned. Just like here. We made people take their shoes off when they came in the door. New York slush. It’s just nice with more girls.”
“You’re preaching. That all may be, but it’s not here. I can just manage to resist inviting you to come live with me and be my loves.”
“I guess with the place you got, you wouldn’t want to come live here,” Denny said. “But you could stay for a while.”
Raven suddenly stuck his bushy top-knot over the edges. “Hey, Lady, if they don’t want to come live with you, I’d be glad to. I’m clean, I’m friendly. I do a lot of the cooking around here, too; I’m a pretty good lay—”
“Get the fuck out of here, cocksucker!” Kid said loudly, leaning forward.
“Sure.” The top-knot disappeared. “Thought I’d make the offer.”
“And don’t let anybody else up here. We’re busy, huh?”
“Okay,” from below. Bolts and nuts rattled.
“Oh, there’re other reasons I don’t move you in.”
“I guess Madame Brown wouldn’t like it,” Denny said.
“She might not,” Lanya said. “But I wasn’t thinking of that. I just feel I need a place to retreat. Where I can go lick my wounds; when I get wounded.”
“Cool,” Kid said.
“Are you afraid of us?” Denny took his hand, which had been between her thighs, away.
“Yes.” She took his hand and put it back. “But you keep things interesting. I don’t know why I should be…oh, nonsense! I can think of four hundred reasons why I should be—or reasons why other people would say I should be. My own? I suppose I’m doing it to find out what they are. Pretty defeatist, huh? Okay, I’m just doing it to find out.”
“I guess,” Denny said, “it’s pretty—”
“…he up there?” someone said.
“He’s busy. You can’t go up there.”
“I only want to talk with him a minute!”
“I said he’s busy, man. You can’t—”
“Look, lover, I can see the tops of their heads from here so he can’t be doing anything that complicated.”
Kid went over to the loft edge. “Bunny?”
“Now, you see—” Bunny came forward—“he hasn’t even taken off his clothes. Hi there! It’s—ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta!—me.” Bunny’s arms extended straight up, fell; with them fell Bunny’s smile. “You’re supposed to be in charge here, Kid. Have you seen Pepper?”
“Yeah, he’s been around.”
“Hi, Bunny.” Lanya leaned over the edge. So did Denny.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Bunny shook a finger at her. “You know what they say, dear; one at a time, and slowly. Hello.” That was to Denny, who was grinning. “What a charming overbite you have,” and looked back at Kid: “I approve. You all can’t be about to do what I thought you were. Can I come up and sit a spell?”
“We probably were,” Lanya said. “But come on.”
Bunny raised a platinum brow, forehead wrinkling—or crumpling. “I don’t understand these modern relationships. Beneath my glittering exterior, I’m just a sweet, old-fashioned girl. No offense, dear,” and nodded at Lanya. “Now—How am I supposed to negotiate this?” Bunny grasped the supporting beam, “Oh, it isn’t that hard.” Head and scrawny throat (in a black jersey turtleneck gone limp), cleared the mattress. “Now how do I get the rest of the way?”
“Here.” Denny kneeled up and grabbed Bunny’s shoulders.
“Oh, watch it, oh watch it, watch it now, I…Oh!” Bunny settled on the loft edge, black jeans bunched a little at the waist. “…Thank you! Well, I must say this is rather cozy. You said Pepper was around? I can’t tell you what a load that lifts from my frazzled and distorted little brain. You know, he was staying at my place; a few days ago he disappeared. Again. Well, you know I worried. He’s managed to take care of himself one way or the other these past twenty-nine years without spending too much of that time in jail—did you know he told me he was once arrested for displaying himself in public? Isn’t that quaint? But I heard you were running a nest and so I thought I’d take a look-see before I made up my mind whether or not to go frantic with grief.”
“He’s around,” Kid said. “But I don’t know if he’s here just now. You want to take him back with you? That’s fine with me.”
Bunny’s pupils rolled up. “Oh, I’d give my eye teeth to have him back.” Bunny’s nails, their pearl polish chipped, strayed on the bright beads that circled the small, dark shoulders. “But then, I’m not going to try and make the poor baby do anything he doesn’t want. It isn’t good for him. He’s got to learn to do what he thinks best. If I go directing his whole life—and you wouldn’t believe how much he wants me to; he practically demands I make everything resembling a decision for him—he’ll never grow up. One has to be responsible to the people one loves, whichever way they let one.” Bunny, hands folded, pale and knobbly, frowned from one to the other. “Three of you? Darlings, that’s going to be so much work! Well, you’ll have each other to lean on in times of crisis.” The frown changed; the hands broke. “You say I can take him away? He hasn’t gotten into any trouble around here, has he?”
“Naw,” Kid said. “But I had to make loud noises at someone trying to give him a rough time.”
“You did?” Bunny pulled back. “Not only do you write beautiful poems, you have a poetic soul! I knew it, I knew it when Pepper first introduced us. That’s why I came; because you had a poetic soul.” Bunny pulled back further. “Tell me. In that fifth poem. On page seventeen. ‘Mab’; now I don’t understand the title, and I don’t know if I want to, but did I detect a fleeting reference to…me by any chance?”
“Yeah,” Kid said. “Probably. I was sitting in the John at Teddy’s when I wrote it. You were outside dancing.”
“Ahhhh!” Bunny exclaimed with clasped hands and lowered eyes. “That’s just the most exciting…Oh!” Suddenly Bunny’s hand swirled up and overhead. “Of course, that’s nothing to you, dear!” It landed on Lanya’s knee. “I mean you’re practically the Dark Lady of the Sonnets.” Now Bunny leaned forward: “Darling, don’t make him miserable.” Bunny’s hand moved on to brush Denny’s shoulder. Denny frowned at it. “You too. Be kind to him.” Bunny turned once more to Kid. “You’re doomed to tragedy, you know. The ones of us, like you and I, with the Ipana smile, we always are. I mean who could possibly love us? And just because our half of the class brushed with Crest; tragedy begins from such tiny things. But that’s why all of us with the ultra-bright grimaces have to be content to end up in Hollywood, as movie stars, hideously famous, fabulously rich, trailing behind us all the heartaches, the broken romances, divorce after divorce—Look at you! Fame and fortune are already glittering up there on South Brisbain. You see? It’s begun, already, you poor thing!”