Regiment of Women (4 page)

“Charlie…” Cornell said compassionately. It was all he could think of.

Charlie got out his purse and took from it a wretched-looking compact. The mirror inside was cracked.

“I don't know why I bother doing this,” Charlie said, grimacing at his own image. He slapped on some powder from a dirty puff.

“I'm going across the street for a hero sandwich,” he said, rising. “You still on your diet?”

“I'll go off it tonight at your house,” Cornell told him.

Charlie made his frumpy departure. Before the evening was over, he would probably break out his pornography collection. His sex life was all perverse fantasy: transvestite pictures, women in dresses, lace nighties, panty girdles and bras; men dressed as airplane pilots, boxers, soldiers. Most of this stuff was of little interest to Cornell. He looked at it only to humor Charlie.

But there was one photograph that did stir him strangely. It was the most obscene gem in Charlie's lode. An infant was depicted as sucking a breast—the breast of a
woman
. Oh, it was a shameful thing, outlandish and probably faked. The breast was much too large to be that of a normal woman, who would have bound hers tightly from puberty on. But the adult who was pictured did have the smaller facial features of the average female.

The baby seemed to be sucking his heart out, the tiny voracious mouth covering the entire nipple. The woman, if such she was, wore what Cornell saw as an evil, demonic smile.

The picture was the dirtiest, filthiest, most thrilling thing Cornell had ever seen. He could never resist looking at it, and during his sleep thereafter never went without a nightmare. That was one of the many things he had not told Dr. Prine.

G
EORGE
B
ERNARD
S
HAW
, 1908

C
HARLIE
LIVED
in the area called East River Park. There had apparently once been a stream flowing through that neighborhood. New York was characterized by names that referred to bygone geographical features: Kips Bay, Morningside Heights, Central Park, etc.; and the vast sewage system separating Manhattan from New Jersey was still known as the Hudson River.

According to Charlie, a repository of negative information, the East River buildings had been erected in the 1990's on a ground of compacted garbage. The weight of the enormous tenements had caused this fill to settle over the years. Charlie's building still survived, almost alone amid the cairns of rubble which commemorated the other houses in the original project, but the exterior walls were badly cracked and the structure stood at an angle. The elevators had been unusable for years, and because of the slant Cornell felt giddy climbing the stairs.

The pollution alert had, unusually enough, been cancelled just after the evening rush hour, owing to a sudden, brisk west wind. Cornell was not wearing his mask, and he could smell liver frying on the fifth floor. On the sixth, the crack in the outside wall was wide enough to look through: Cornell saw a slatternly man in curlers reeling in a washline crowded with panties and bras.

Charlie lived on the seventh floor, behind a dented door which Cornell now, after taking a moment to catch his breath, rapped upon with a fist gloved in beige suede.

Charlie opened up. He wore an ancient, stained peignoir that looked like a souvenir from his days of whoring. It was trimmed in lank feathers, several of which moulted as he stepped aside to let Cornell in. He also wore infamous mules, the toes of which were open to display three yellow, unpainted nails on each large foot.

Cornell identified the foul odor as that of boiled cabbage.

“I hope you didn't go to any trouble,” said he, searching for a place to deposit his purse. The doorside table was littered with unopened junk mail: samples of depilatories and mascara, etc., which Cornell recognized, having received them himself and having tried them all—but never having afterwards been able to find those brands in the shops he patronized.

“Here,” said Charlie, taking the butter-soft plastic-calfskin handbag—a little birthday remembrance from Cornell to himself—and hanging it on the doorknob.

Cornell had to move a discarded girdle from the sofa cushion he chose to sit on; the others, he remembered, had loose springs that hurt your heinie.

Sooty satin shade on the endtable lamp, and the bulb was too bright. He didn't relish the thought of having his twenty-nine-year-old lines highlighted for Charlie, even old Charlie, scarcely a competitor. Cornell was wearing especially light makeup, after witnessing the scene with Wallace Walton Walsh. He extinguished the lamp.

“You look like a billion dollars, as usual,” said Charlie, without a trace of jealousy. He really was a good sort. “But I should have warned you to be casual. You don't want to ruin your good clothes in this dump.”

It was true that Cornell had gone to some pains, even though he was going to dine with another man. But he was like that. Even on lonely weekends he shaved and did his eyes, splashed on cologne. He wouldn't think of going to the hallway incinerator in curlers and housecoat. Today, after finishing up the contents of his In box, as ordered (much of the material therein he filed in the wastebasket: he had already been demoted to janitor; Ida did not understand the principle of incentive), he had slipped out of the office a bit early, gone home, and washed and set his hair. For two days his natural coiffure would outshine any wig, but then soot and humidity would cause it to go dull. But you couldn't wash it too often, else the ends would turn brittle. He was also trying out a new shade of lipstick, pale tangerine, the perfect complement to his jersey sheath in beige, shoes in tobacco brown, matching bag, patterned hose, amber circlet at the wrist, and a little accent of gold at his bosom, a cunning little owl, souvenir of a past affair that had ended badly, as they usually did, but that could not be blamed on the miniature owl.

Cornell assured Charlie that, on the contrary, his place was very—uh, comfortable.

“Well,” said Charlie, clapping his thighs, “let's have a beer while the corned beef ‘n' cabbage is boiling.”

Cornell wasn't much of a drinker. He seldom touched the hard stuff. He didn't hold it well, going rapidly through giddiness to something rather ugly. Women were misguided who sought to ply him with liquor en route to bed. A glass of wine was his speed, but he supposed Charlie would have offered wine if available.

“Oh, nice,” he said. Beer would bloat him.

Charlie went to the battered half-refrigerator under the counter of the kitchenette, which was scarcely more than an alcove, took out a quart bottle that had already been opened, and filled a glass mug. Cornell closed his eyes as he drank. He did not want to see whether the glass was clean, for there was nothing he could have done about it if it weren't. Charlie gulped at his own mug. He had probably already had a few.

“Let me top that up,” he said after Cornell had had only two sips, extending the slimy bottle.

“I don't want to get tipsy,” Cornell said.

“Come on,” said Charlie, “unbend. This is Liberty Hall.”

By the time Charlie served up the corned beef and cabbage, they had killed the entire quart, and Cornell could feel it. He could sense a certain recklessness in his soul.

Charlie brought the discolored pot to the card table at which they were to eat and forked down a half-head of cabbage on each plastic plate. He had previously hacked from a hunk of corned beef a portion, replete with fibers, for each of them.

“Put some margarine on it while it's hot,” Charlie said. “I'll get the mustard and another bottle.”

“I don't know if I can handle much more,” said Cornell.

“Live a little,” Charlie said.

Cornell was feeling no pain as he chewed the last of the twine-like meat. The truth was that alcohol made him feel rather effeminate. He found himself almost enjoying this crude provender. If he confessed that to Dr. Prine, she would probably use the word “vulva-envy.” If he got drunk enough, he would think of her as an old quack.

He laughed aloud, and told Charlie: “I'm drunk.”

“Good,” Charlie said. “Have another.” He pointed to the bottle. “I'm going to spring my proposition on you in a little while. But, first, if you don't mind, I'm going to get into something more comfortable.”

Cornell laughed again, indicating Charlie's ancient negligee, which had continued to lose feathers. Fresh beer stains had joined the egg yellow, fruit jam, and unidentifiable smears already in place.

“More comfortable? What, a towel?”

Charlie's answering smile made him suddenly queasy. Was Charlie homosexual? Perhaps he had been biding his time for a year and was now about to make the big push.

Charlie lumbered into his little bedroom. Cornell rose unsteadily and shook some crumbs from his skirt. Then he got the compact from his purse and visited the john, an appalling place full of dirty towels and drying lingerie. He cleaned off the toilet seat with paper before sitting down and making water. He plucked at his hair in the spattered mirror and refreshed his makeup, which after dinner was always a little weary, particularly under the eyes.

When he emerged, Charlie was standing in the bedroom doorway. Cornell felt himself going faint, his vision blurring as if he were swimming in murky water. He clutched the jamb of the bathroom door.

Charlie advanced on him.

Cornell shook his head violently.

“I warn you, Charlie. I'll defend myself. I may be somewhat smashed, but I'll fight.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Charlie. “You're drunker than I thought.”

Almost screaming, Cornell demanded:
“Why are you dressed as a woman?”

For Charlie wore baggy corduroy slacks, a plaid wool shirt of the lumberjack type, tattered sneakers, and no wig. He was bald in the middle, between two fringes of graying fuzz. He held the beer mug in the left hand, and in the right a big black cigar.

“Charlie,” Cornell said. “In the name of friendship, I ask you: are you queer? I have to know. We can even remain friends. But let me say this: I'm not. Whatever problems I have in being a man, deviate sex is not one of them.”

Charlie laughed brutally, with a great burst of cigar smoke. Cornell's heart sank.

“I think I'd better leave now,” he said. “Thanks for dinner.” He clutched his compact to his bosom, and with the other hand offered to shake with Charlie. It was too bad, really. Charlie was currently his only friend of either sex.

Charlie roughly, femininely struck his hand aside. “Don't be ridiculous. I'm no faggot, for Mary's sake. You should know better than that. You've seen my collection of porn. Any man-to-man stuff there?” Charlie was roaring. It occurred to Cornell that perhaps Charlie was drunker than he.

Cornell hesitated. Charlie came towards him, reached for him. Cornell started to slap his face, but a miraculous alteration took place in his flying hand: it became a fist, it struck Charlie's stout chin, and Charlie landed on his behind.

Charlie sat there on the floor, laughing. He did not seem to be hurt.

Cornell felt awful. He helped his friend up.

“I'm sorry, Charlie. I don't know what got into me.”

“Forget it!” Charlie said expansively. He went to the refrigerator. “I guess it was a shock for you to see me. I never did it before in front of you. You have to know somebody pretty well.”

When Charlie had refilled the mugs and come back, Cornell took a sip of beer and said: “I'm under a strain these days. I don't have much of a love life.”

“You're kidding,” said Charlie. “With your youth and looks.”

“Youth! I'm twenty-nine, Charlie. Each morning I have to work harder at the vanity table.”

Charlie was still smiling ironically. He could not relate to another man's problems. This annoyed Cornell, who after all was only held together by Dr. Prine. And then even when he had been younger, the women he seemed naturally to attract were crude libertines, most of them, out to seduce him with as little effort as possible. He seldom had dated anyone who would
talk
to him, treat him like a human being; was that too much to ask? Of course, Dr. Prine's interpretation was that he unconsciously elicited this treatment, putting out vibrations that kept sensitive women away while advertising his availability to brutes.

Charlie's cigar butt had gone out. He lighted it, and now it stank.

“Things are tough all over,” said he wryly. “Everybody's been twenty-nine in his day.”

“Not everybody,” Cornell said with feeling. “They're using teenagers in the fashion ads nowadays. Those smooth faces and fresh eyes. You see them all over the streets. That's what women go for. They get older and older, and their boys get younger every year.” Cornell savagely drank some beer. “I'm a has-been, Charlie. I haven't had a date in months, and I haven't had an
interesting
date in years.”

“I have
never
had one,” said Charlie.

Well, Cornell was not unsympathetic, but he disliked being one-upped, especially in this area. He had earned the right to his own anguish. Surely, everyone had been or would be twenty-nine, but this was
his
twenty-ninth year, the loss of
his
youth forever. And he had also just lost his job, or what amounted to the same thing. And had not Dr. Prine told Ida that he was hopeless? He cried so often as a tactic that he had almost forgotten how to do so genuinely: he felt like it now. His hand still hurt: he had punched Charlie in female style. His world was in ruins, yet Charlie insisted he was to be envied. Such blatant injustice shriveled his soul.

In desperation he came out with the ultimate.

“I'm frigid, Charlie.”

Charlie shrugged, unmoved even now.