"How? All I…"
"Is there a homosexual colonel in that goddamn play?"
"What?"
"I said—"
"How do I know? I didn't say there was a—"
"Well, there isn't. But you were so busy denying even the suggestion of one in your movie…"
"How was I supposed to know…"
"Is even the suggestion threatening to you?"
"Now look here, Sam, nothing about homosexuality threatens me, so let's not…"
"Then why did you insist a clearly homosexual scene wasn't one?"
"I told the truth as I saw it!"
"Yes, and make it sound as if you were hiding a theft."
"I didn't intend…"
"Were you also telling the truth about dividing Colman into two characters?"
"Of course. What's wrong with that? I was explaining…"
"It's exactly what they claimed was done."
"Huh?"
"Huh, huh? They said Driscoll changed it when he copied the play, and you changed it right back again. Huh?"
"I did?"
"That's what you admitted doing, isn't it, you stupid ass!"
"I was under oath. I had to explain how I wrote the screenplay. That's what he asked me, and that's what I had to tell him."
"Do you even remember how you wrote it?"
"Yes. Just the way I said I did."
"I don't believe you. I think if Brackman said you'd made fifteen characters out of Colman, you'd have agreed."
"Now why would I do anything like that, Sam?"
"To show that your movie was an original act of creation, something that just happened to pop into your head, the hell with Driscoll and his book, you practically ad-libbed the whole movie on the set!"
"I never said that! The" only scene we ad-libbed was the one with the mess kit. How was I to know all this other stuff was so—"
"Why didn't you read the play, the way we asked you to?"
"I have better things to do with my time."
"Like what? Destroying the reputation of a better writer than you'll ever be?"
"Now that's enough, Sam. You can't—"
"Don't get me sore, you… you porco fetente" Geni-tori said, apparently having run out of English expletives. "You've done more toward killing this case…"
"Look, Sam…"
"… than any witness the plaintiff might have called!"
"Look, Sam, I don't have to listen to this," Ralph said, having already listened to it.
"No, you don't, that's true. All you have to listen to is that tiny little voice inside your head that keeps repeating, 'Ralph Knowles, you are wonderful, Ralph Knowles, you are marvelous.' That's all you have to listen to. Are you flying?"
"What? Yes."
"Good. I hope your goddamn plane crashes," Genitori said, and then turned on his heel and went raging down the corridor.
Boy, Ralph thought.
10
He saw her for the first time in Bertie's on DeKalb Avenue, a girl with short blond hair, wearing sweater and skirt, scuffed loafers, her elbow on the table, her wrist bent, a cigarette idly hanging in two curled fingers. Unaware of him, she laughed at something someone at her table said, and then dragged on the cigarette, and laughed again, and picked up her beer mug, still not looking at him while he continued to stare at her from the door. He took off his parka and hung it on a peg, and then went to join some of the art-student crowd jammed elbow to elbow at the bar. Some engineering students at the other end of the long, narrow room were beerily singing one of the popular sentimental ballads. He watched her for a moment longer, until he was sure she would not return his glance, and then wedged himself in against the bar with his back to her, and ordered a beer. The place smelled of youthful exuberant sweat, and sawdust, and soap, and booze, and of something he would have given his soul to capture on canvas in oil, a dank November scent that seemed to seep from the windswept Brooklyn street outside and into the bar.
He knew all at once that she had turned to look at him.
He could not have said how he knew, but he sensed without doubt that she had discovered him and was staring at him, and he suddenly felt more confident than he ever had in his life. Without hesitating to verify his certain knowledge, he turned from the bar with the beer mug in his hand and walked directly across the room toward her table — she was no longer looking at him-and pulled out the chair confidently without even glancing at any of the other boys or girls sitting there, nor caring whether they thought he was nuts or whatever, but simply sat and put down his beer mug, and then looked directly at her as she turned to face him.
"My name is Jimmy Driscoll," he said.
"Hello, Jimmy Driscoll," she answered.
"What's your name?"
"Goodbye, Jimmy Driscoll," one of the boys at the table said.
"Ebie Dearborn," she said.
"Hello, Ebie. You're from Virginia, right?"
"Wrong."
"Georgia?"
"Nope."
"Where?"
"Alabama."
"It figures."
"What do you mean?"
"Honey chile, that's some accent you-all got there."
"Don't make fun of it," she said, and then turned toward her friends as laughter erupted from the other end of her table. "What was it?" she asked them, smiling in anticipation. "I missed it, what was it?"
"Ah-ha, you just try and find out," one of the boys said, and they all burst out laughing again.
"Would you like a beer?" he asked.
"All right," she said.
"Waiter, two beers," he said over his shoulder.
"Who'd you just order from?" she asked, and laughed.
"I don't know. Isn't there a waiter back there someplace? Two beers!" he yelled again, without looking behind him.
"Come and get them!" the bartender yelled back.
"You think you'll miss me?"
"Huh?"
"When I go for the beers."
"I doubt it. There's lots of company here."
"You may be surprised."
"I may be," she said.
He went to the bar and returned with two mugs of beer. She was in conversation with her friends when he approached, but she immediately turned away from them and pulled out a chair for him.
"How'd it work out?" he asked.
"I missed you, sure enough."
"I knew you would."
"Here's to your modest ways," she said, and raised her glass.
"Here's to your cornflower eyes."
"Mmm."
"How's the beer?"
"Fine."
"Would you like another one?"
"I've just barely sipped on this one."
"So what? Let me get another one for you."
"Not yet."
"Do you always wear your hair so short?"
"I cut it yesterday. Why? What's the matter with it?"
"You look shaggy."
"Say, thanks."
"I meant that as a compliment. I should have…"
"What else don't you like about me?"
"… said windblown."
"What?"
"Your hair. Windblown."
"Oh," she said, and brushed a strand of it away from her cheek.
"That's nice."
"What is?"
"What you just did. How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"That's good."
"Why?"
"Older women appeal to me."
"What do you mean? How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"Oh? Really?"
"I'm a first-year student."
"Oh?"
"But very advanced for my age."