A boy named Tommy Baretti thought it would be fun to set Ere to the thick rug, but Buff poked her head out from one of the blankets and shouted, “The hell you say!” and that put an end to that.
Bilious, in her bra and panties, with Warren against her on her right, and with a boy named Simmy behind her, felt very much in her element, and she shouted, “Why don’t we just shut up and enjoy ourselves,” which everybody thought was a damned good idea, and so everybody shut up and began enjoying themselves, and this wasn’t a very easy thing to do, the master bedroom being as packed as it was, nor was it a difficult thing to do, either. When the room was silent, they realized that some of the musicians were still downstairs playing, and one of the girls wrapped a blanket around herself and went down to see what sport was being offered in the living room. The other kids in the bedroom got a little bored with this goldfish-bowl group attitude and began drifting to other parts of the house. (There were five bedrooms with a total of ten beds, a den in which there were three foam-rubber sofas, a playroom with a very thick rug on its floor, a garage with a large, roomy-back-seat Cadillac, and a living room just overflowing with soft and inviting pieces of furniture.)
The musicians were in the living room, too — only three of them now — Andy, Fletcher, and the tenor man, a boy named Jonesy for no apparent reason other than that his last name was Jones.
Andy had had a good many Scotches and sodas by this time, and Carol had had just as many, and Fletcher had inherited the rum bottle Artie left at the piano, and so the music was more a labor of love than it was anything else. Carol drifted over to one of the couches, kicked off her shoes, and lay down full length, and it was several moments before Andy realized she was gone, and at the same time (it was only three-thirty) he realized he was tired. He yawned, and Jonesy, the tenor man, said, “What’s the matter, man? Sleepy?”
“Awm,” Andy said.
“You want to crack a benny?”
“What?”
“Keep you awake, man.”
“What the hell’s a benny?”
Jonesy reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small tube. “Benzedrine inhaler.”
“I haven’t got a cold,” Andy said.
Jonesy chuckled. “You’re a card, man. Who says you need a cold?”
“That’s what it’s for, isn’t it? Says right here, ‘For relief of congested nasal pass—’”
“That’s the square definition, man. Here, dig this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pocketknife, which he unclasped. He stabbed the point of the blade into the container and then slit the container across the center, reaching in and pulling out a folded sheet of paper.
Andy saw a printed message on the sheet, and he asked, “What’s that say?”
“Business about not taking this internally. It’s for the birds, man. I’ve taken it a dozen times.”
“Taken what?” Andy asked.
“The paper. Here, chew on it and then swallow it.”
Andy looked at him curiously. “What are you, nuts or something?”
“Go ahead. Keep you awake. Give you a little bounce.”
“Come down, man,” Andy said.
“I’m serious,” Jonesy said, his eyes widening. “Go on, take it.”
“You want me to chew that paper? Do I look like a goat?”
“All right, don’t chew it. Just wash it down with something, that’s all. Go ahead.”
Andy eyed the Benzedrine-soaked paper skeptically. “That’s too big to swallow,” he said.
Jonesy tore the sheet in half, and then half again, and then he wadded the torn paper into balls. “Here,” he said. “Just like pills.”
“I don’t know,” Andy said hesitantly.
“Come on, come on, for Christ’s sake.”
Andy shrugged, took one of the paper balls, and then washed it down with his drink.
“I don’t feel anything,” he said.
“You will. Here, take the rest.”
Andy washed down the remaining paper pills and then waited for something to happen. “I still don’t feel anything.”
“Give it time. It’s got to hit your blood.”
“You sure I won’t get sick?”
“On bennies? Get off that, man, will you?” Jonesy scoffed.
“Well, I still don’t feel anything.”
“You will. It’ll get you.”
“What am I supposed to feel?”
“Nothing much. Just hops you up, that’s all.”
“Hops me up how?” He was beginning to feel a little frightened now, wishing he had read the printed warning and suspecting he had swallowed something poisonous.
“Makes you jump, man,” Jonesy said, laughing. “You’ll see.”
He began to feel it in a little while, a sort of hypertension that surged through his body, a sort of forced energy, a pseudo-drive.
“It’s getting you, huh, man?” Jonesy asked.
“Yeah, I feel it now,” Andy said. “What the hell is that stuff, anyway?”
“Benzedrine, I told you. Harmless. But it’ll keep you awake, you can bet on that.”
“Man, it really charges you up, doesn’t it?”
He felt suddenly restless, as if he had a million things to do and had to get them done instantly. He rested his horn on the piano top, started to walk away, and then thought better of it. After what he’d seen done to the drapes (how the hell would Buff explain that to her folks? A careless cigarette?) he couldn’t trust his horn alone. He walked quickly back to the piano, took his horn again, and then put it back into his case. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he locked the case. He looked around for Carol then, still feeling this restless pounding inside him, his head suddenly crystal clear, his entire nervous system all jazzed up.
He spotted her on the couch in the corner, and he walked to it, his steps curiously perky, his eyes bright. He turned off the light behind the couch, plunging the corner into darkness.
“Carol,” he whispered.
“Mmmm?”
“Are you asleep?”
“Norn.”
“Carol?”
“Mmm?”
“Carol?”
“Mmm, whuzzit?”
“Are you asleep?”
“Mmmm.”
“Honey?”
“Mmm?”
“Honey, can you hear me?”
“Yezzufcuss.”
“You’re pretty as hell, do you know that?”
“Om.”
“You’re the prettiest girl here tonight.”