Semi-Tough (20 page)

Shake and me exchanged some kind of look which didn't mean much except wonderment about how far our women folk intended to carry on their joke.

Barbara Jane stuck her hand in her mouth and whistled two or three times, pretty loud, like men do, as if she was calling a New York taxi or a little niece who'd pissed her off.

She giggled to herself and whistled again, to get the attention of whoever was in range.

"Fifties and hundreds over here," Barb said, looking down at me and Shake to see if we appreciated her wit. Fifties and hundreds over here is what Burt Danby is known to say when he takes a client into an action bar in New York and is looking for hooks.

Some people began to meander over to where we were at. Those who didn't mind leaving other parts of the lawn where the rock combos were playing. And those who didn't mind leaving the Indian princess, who had started talking to a couple of Elroy's guests who wore suits and drank beer.

"Help me up," Cissy said.

I said, Why?

"Because I have to take off my clothes," she said, seriously.

That's right, I said. I forgot.

Cissy got up with my help and stood next to Barb with her hands folded behind her back and looking out across
the yard at nothing in particular, I think.

Barbara Jane said, "I would like everyone's very close attention because it's show time."

Elroy played two or three chords on his guitar.

"What the show consists of," said Barb, "is mostly just Miss Earthquake and Miss Volcano, who happen to be smashed, trying to slip out of their duds."

Barb said, "I, of course, am Miss Earthquake. You probably all guessed that. At least you should have. I don't actually give a shit. Anyhow, this over here is Miss Volcano. Say hello, Miss Volcano."

Cissy Walford smiled and waved at everybody.

Barb said, "Now before we start, I want to know who stole my drink?"

Elroy strummed a chord on his guitar.

Shake handed Barb her young Scotch.

"You did that very nicely," Barb said, glancing down at Shake Tiller. "Remind me to put in a good word for you with Obert Tatum."

Barb took a sip of her drink.

"Now then," she said, "if somebody will hold my drink, I will attempt to unbutton my shirt. Thank you, Miss Volcano. That was a kind gesture on your part."

Barbara Jane started unbuttoning her shirt while Cissy held her drink.

Barb got her shirt unbuttoned and turned her back to everybody and slipped it off, and then turned back around holding her shirt up in front of her chest like the Indian princess did with her suede deal.

Then she pitched her shirt down to Shake.

Elroy Blunt strummed a chorus of "Flip Top Heart" and a number of people applauded. Barb's lungs, not Elroy's song.

Barbara Jane took her drink back from Cissy and reached down and captured a fresh cigarette from Shake, a straight Winston. She drew on it and sipped her drink, and then just stood there with her arms at her sides, holding the drink by the rim of the glass, and displaying her major league lungs. And looking casual.

If I hadn't known Barb and didn't understand the humor she was attaching to the whole thing, I would have thought she was being about half-brazen.

I suppose I should say that Barbara Jane's lungs are not exactly gigantic but are closer to what most men might think of as being semi-perfect.

They are certainly very large, but they are also firm and nicely shaped, and they have the good nips. Which is to say that Barb's nips are not big and dark but sort of rose-tinted and they perfectly set off her plenty large, nicely shaped lungs like a gold money clip can set off a roll of green whip-out.

I think most everybody who ever got to see them would agree with me that if there are any lungs to be found that you would classify as ideal, they would be Barbara Jane's.

After she had stood there smoking and drinking for a minute or two, she said:

"This isn't all the show, folks."

She said, "I would venture a guess that if there's anything all of us hate in this world
—
-all of us humans, I mean
—
it's to come upon a pair of really great tits like these and not have a really nifty cunt to go along with them. Right?"

Elroy Blunt shouted something that sounded like whooo-ha.

And there was assorted applause from all around, of course.

Shake looked up at Barbara Jane and said, "You'll surely never find me around one without the other."

"Precisely," said Barb. Then she added:

"As luck would have it, it just so happens that I believe I've got one of those with me here tonight."

She started to wriggle out of her faded Levi's.

"It might not be the best you've ever seen," she said. "But, well. Some people say it smells better than a soft new Italian loafer. And some people say it tastes better than strawberry shortcake. That's what some people say."

Barb then started balancing on one foot, struggling with her Levi's, and giggling, with her cigarette between her teeth.

"What her wool actually is," said Shake to the crowd, "is semi-tough."

"Oh, it's a worker, all right," Barb laughed, kind of loud. "What the hell do you expect from Miss Earthquake? A can of Campbell's Chunky Beef?"

Barbara Jane balanced on one foot and got one leg out of her Levi's, and then she stood on the other foot and got the other leg out, holding her cigarette between her teeth, with her streaked butterscotch hair tossed all around, partly covering her face, flowing and dangling.

"Get on after it," she said to herself, finishing up.

And there she was in all of her smooth, curvy, tanned, elegant and total naked glory, seeing as how she had a habit of not wearing any underpanties, anyhow.

"Did it!" she said.

Everybody hollered and clapped and whistled.

Elroy stared at Barb and then leaned quietly over to Shake Tiller and stuck out his hand. "Son," he said. "Tell the truth. It ain't better than fried chicken, is it?"

Shake looked solemnly at Elroy, clasping his hand, and said:

"I got to be dead honest, Roy."

And Elroy said yeah, lay it on him.

Shake said slowly, "For a Lesbian who gave up the only real love she ever knew
—
Sister Francis at Our Lady of Victory
—
and for a person who can't make it any more with nothing but an electric toothbrush, she's the finest I've ever had."

Elroy whooo-haaad again, and looked back at Barbara Jane.

She was doing some fashion model poses, and the photographer was taking so many flashbulb pictures of her, you would have thought Barbara Jane was raising the flag on Iwo fuckin' Jima or something.

Guys in the crowd, which was getting bigger, started hollering some of the predictable things, like, "When's that old ground gonna crack open there, Miss Earthquake," and, "Make mine a double-dip banana nut," and "Show us your lava flow."

Barbara Jane stopped posing presently and proceeded
to turn Cissy Walford around and begin unfastening whatever it was that held up Cissy's jeweled apron. "Let's get with it, Miss Volcano," said Barb.

The apron came off and Cissy kind of blush-giggled and hid her lungs with her arms. She said to Barb, "Your body is just so incredible, I feel actually silly even
standing
here."

Barb then took Cissy's scarf off her head, letting Cissy's long yellow hair tumble down on her shoulders and her back where it belonged.

Barb then unsnapped something at Cissy's hips and began to yank down her pants, or whatever was supposed to be the rest of her outfit. Cissy was wearing white lace underpanties, bikini types, and Barbara started peeling those down.

Barb brought them down past Cissy's dark golden wool
—
it's about the color of a game ball, I'd say
—
and then started pulling them over Cissy's rawhide boots.

Barbara Jane stopped for a minute and burst out laughing and looked over at me and Shake.

"Jesus," she said. "I'm getting horny."

Pretty soon, Cissy was as bare as Barbara Jane, except for the rawhide boots, which stayed on. That seemed to be O.K. with everyone. And her big dark glasses, which was O.K., too, I presume.

So there was Miss Volcano in all of her own physical glory, which is pretty damn glorious, as I've said before.

While everybody was whistling and clapping and hollering again, and while the photographer was flashing away and sweating like a middle guard, Elroy jumped out and got between our two women folk and put his arms around their high waists. Way around and upward, I noticed, so he could catch a feel of a delectable lung resting on each of his forearms. One of Barb's and one of Cissy's.

Elroy had one of those homemade cigarettes in his mouth and his big old floppy-brimmed suede hat on.

"Goddamned if this ain't the jacket on my next album," Elroy said.

"I'm gonna write me some songs about the lungs and wool of some little old society girlies, and how it's just the nicest thing in the world, and how it's really what the niggers have been after all along," he said.

Right about here, the scene sort of began to deteriorate and lose some impact because a lot of other girls suddenly turned up naked.

They were Elroy's hostesses who had taken off their T-shirts and pitched them up in the air in such abundance it looked to me like a bunch of Annapolis cadets had thrown their white caps in the sky because Navy had fuckin' scored on Army.

One of the rock bands came over and whipped it up, so a lot of people started dancing on the lawn, naked and otherwise.

A couple of fags danced with Barbara Jane and Cissy, and kept looking off into the night, or studying their own moves, instead of looking at Barb and Cissy, where they should have been looking. Fags are fags, I guess.

For quite a while it was a sight that can only be described as quadruple unreal, with all of that naked wool moving around in the night to some fairly good spook music.

I felt like a couple of other fags got the wrong idea about the whole thing because they slipped out of their duds, too. And somehow I didn't get the notion that too many people at the party gave a fuck about seeing naked fags who weren't built any better than a first-down chain.

Besides that, they looked in their faces like they were dying of something awful.

Shake and me and Elroy just sat there on the lawn and tried to watch all of it and pick out who we might want to invite to some future all-skate. Little old Linda the Stew was certainly a must, we decided, after she had danced by and stopped and had another brief chat with us.

"Groovy party," she said to Elroy as she stood there naked with her tough little old white body and her big blue eyes. She was puffing on a joint.

"Hey, I want to ask all of you something," she said. "What's your favorite audible?"

"In a game or in bed?" Shake said.

Linda the Stew said, "In bed of course. You know. Like when you're really jivin'. Heard any good audibles lately?"

We all thought about it for a minute or so.

Elroy said, "I think I heard, 'Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,' not so long ago."

"Me, too," I nodded, seriously.

Linda the Stew said, "Oh, you hear that all the time. That's no good. 'I want all your come,' isn't bad. I heard
that about a week ago from my roommate Kathy when we were doing a couple of pros from the LA Open."

I suppose we all thought about that for a while. I know I did.

Shake said, "How about, 'I know you won't believe this but I got a cramp in my leg'?"

Linda the Stew laughed appreciatively.

She said, "The really best ones are the really slimy ones, I think. Like, 'Oh, God, my God, put two fingers in each.' Or, 'Let me taste my own.' Those are neat."

"You've got some good audibles," I said.

Linda the Stew said, "Want to hear my all-time favorite?"

We didn't have to take a vote on it.

Linda the Stew said, "My all-time favorite is my own, and I just sort of said it not too long ago right after I'd caught a really neat load. I looked up at this guy and I said, 'I wonder who found out first that getting a mouth full of this was really fun?' "

Elroy got up right after that and went off with Linda the Stew toward the house, and Shake and me made it a definite point to memorize that five four two, eight six three one, for a future reference.

And we discussed a few more audibles.

We decided that some of the funnier ones were:

"Is Martha Nell Burch a real person or what?"

And
—

"Where did you say you skied?"

And
—

"Well, what'll we do after I do that?"

I think it was about right then, while Shake and me
were still sitting there on the lawn, and Barbara Jane and Cissy were still up dancing naked with the fags, that we heard this familiar noise which cut right through the spook music.