“No. I’m just drinking with calmness.”
“You were drinking with calmness when you set the record,” Serafín said. “With calmness and fortitude from morning until night. And you walked out on your own feet.”
“The hell with the record.”
“You’ve got a chance to break it,” Serafín told him. “Drinking as you are now and eating a little as you go along, you have an excellent chance.”
“Tom, try to break the record,” Honest Lil said. “I’m here as a witness.”
“He doesn’t need any witness,” Serafín said. “I’m the witness. When I go off I’ll give the count to Constante. You’re further along right now than you were the day you set the record.”
“The hell with the record.”
“You’re in good form. You’re drinking well and steady and they’re not having any effect on you.”
“Fuck the record.”
“All right. Como usted quiere. I’m keeping count just in case you change your mind.”
“He’ll keep count all right,” Honest Lil said. “He has the duplicate tickets.”
“What do you want, woman? Do you want a real record or a phony record?”
“Neither. I want a highbalito with agua mineral.”
“Como siempre,” Serafín said.
“I drink brandy, too.”
“I don’t want to be here when you drink brandy.”
“Tom, did you know I fell down trying to get onto a streetcar and was nearly killed?”
“Poor Honest Lil,” Serafín said. “A dangerous and adventurous life.”
“Better than yours standing all day in wooden shoes behind a bar and serving rummies.”
“That’s my trade,” Serafín said. “It’s a privilege to serve such distinguished rummies as you.”
Henry Wood came over. He stood, tall and sweating and newly excited by a change of plans. There was nothing that pleased him, Thomas Hudson thought, like a sudden change of plans.
“We’re going over to Alfred’s Sin House,” he said. “Do you want to come, Tom?”
“Willie’s waiting for you at the Bar Basque.”
“I don’t believe we really want Willie on this one.”
“You ought to tell him, then.”
“I’ll call him up. Don’t you want to come? This is going to be very good.”
“You ought to eat something.”
“I’ll eat a good big dinner. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine,” Thomas Hudson said. “Really fine.”
“Are you going to try for the record?”
“No.”
“Will I see you tonight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll come out and sleep at the house if you like.”
“No. Have fun. But eat something.”
“I’ll eat an excellent dinner. Word of honor.”
“Be sure and call Willie.”
“I’ll call Willie. You can be quite sure.”
“Where’s Alfred’s Sin House?”
“It’s an absolutely beautiful place. It overlooks the harbor and it’s well furnished and really delightful.”
“I mean what is the address.”
“I don’t know but I’ll tell Willie.”
“You don’t think Willie will be hurt?”
“I can’t help it if he is, Tom. I really can’t ask Willie on this. You know how fond I am of Willie. But there are things I simply can’t ask him on. You know that as well as I do.”
“All right. But call him up.”
“Word of honor I’ll call him. And word of honor I’ll eat a first-rate dinner.”
He smiled, patted Honest Lil on the shoulder, and was gone. He moved very beautifully for such a big man.
“What about the girls at his place?” Thomas Hudson asked Honest Lil.
“They’re gone by now,” Honest Lil said. “There’s nothing to eat there. And I don’t think there is much to drink. Do you want to go around there or would you rather come to my place?”
“Your place,” Thomas Hudson said. “But later on.”
“Tell me another happy story.”
“All right. What about?”
“Serafín,” Lil said. “Give Tomás another double frozen without sugar. Tengo todavía mi highbalito.” Then to Thomas Hudson, “About the happiest time you remember. And not with smells.”
“It has to have smells,” Thomas Hudson said. He watched Henry Wood across the square getting into the sport car of the very rich sugar planter named Alfred. Henry Wood was too big for the car. He was too big for almost anything, he thought. But he knew three or four things he was not too big for. No, he said to himself. This is your day off. Take your day off.
“What do you want the story to be about?”
“What I asked you.”
He watched Serafín pour the drink from the shaker into the tall glass and saw the top of it curl over the edge and onto the bar. Serafín pushed the base of the glass into the slit in a cardboard protector and Thomas Hudson lifted it, heavy and cold above the thin stem he held in his ringers, and took a long sip and held it in his mouth, cold against his tongue and teeth, before he swallowed it.
“All right,” he said. “The happiest day I ever had was any day when I woke in the morning when I was a boy and I did not have to go to school or to work. In the morning I was always hungry when I woke and I could smell the dew in the grass and hear the wind in the high branches of the hemlock trees, if there was a wind, and if there was no wind I could hear the quietness of the forest and the calmness of the lake and I would listen for the first noises of morning.
Sometimes the first noise would be a kingfisher flying over the water that was so calm it mirrored his reflection and he made a clattering cry as he flew. Sometimes it would be a squirrel chittering in one of the trees outside the house, his tail jerking each time he made a noise. Often it would be the plover calling on the hillside. But whenever I woke and heard the first morning noises and felt hungry and knew I would not have to go to school nor have to work, I was happier than I have ever been.”
“Even than with women?”
“I’ve been very happy with women. Desperately happy. Unbearably happy. So happy that I could not believe it; that it was like being drunk or crazy. But never as happy as with my children when we were all happy together or the way I was early in the morning.”
“But how could you be as happy by yourself as with someone?”
“This is all silly. You asked me to tell you whatever came in my mind.”
“No, I didn’t. I said to tell me a happy story about the happiest time you remember. That wasn’t a story. You just woke up and were happy. Tell me a real story.”
“What about?”
“Put some love in it.”
“What kind of love? Sacred or profane?”
“No. Just good love with fun.”
“I know a good story about that.”
“Tell it to me then. Do you want another drink?”
“Not till I finish this one. All right. At this time I was in Hong Kong which is a very wonderful city where I was very happy and had a crazy life. There is a beautiful bay and on the mainland side of the bay is the city of Kowloon. Hong Kong itself is on a hilly island that is beautifully wooded and there are winding roads up to the top of the hills and houses built high up in the hills and the city is at the base of the hills facing Kowloon. You go back and forth by fast, modern ferryboats. This Kowloon is a fine city and you would like it very much. It is clean and well laid-out and the forest comes to the edge of the city and there is very fine wood pigeon shooting just outside of the compound of the Women’s Prison.
We used to shoot the pigeons, which were large and handsome with lovely purple shading feathers on their necks, and a strong swift way of flying, when they would come in to roost just at twilight in a huge laurel tree that grew just outside the white-washed wall of the prison compound. Sometimes I would take a high incomer, coming very fast with the wind behind him, directly overhead and the pigeon would fall inside the compound of the prison and you would hear the women shouting and squealing with delight as they fought over the bird and then squealing and shrieking as the Sikh guard drove them off and retrieved the bird which he then brought dutifully out to us through the sentry’s gate of the prison.
“The mainland around Kowloon was called the New Territories and it was hilly and forested and there were many wood pigeons, and in the evening you could hear them calling to each other. There were often women and children digging the earth from the side of the roads and putting it into baskets. When they saw you with a shotgun, they ran and hid in the woods. I found out that they dug the earth because it had wolfram, the ore of tungsten, in it. This was very saleable then.”
“Es un poco pesada esta historia.”
“No, Honest Lil. It isn’t really a dull story. Wait and see. Wolfram itself is pesado. But it is a very strange business. Where it exists it is the easiest thing there is to mine. You simply dig up the dirt and haul it away. Or you pick up the stones and carry them off. There are whole villages in Extremadura in Spain that are built of rock that has very high grade wolfram ore and the stone fences of the peasant’s field are all made of this ore. Yet the peasants are very poor.
At this time it was so valuable that we were using DC-2’s, transport planes such as fly from here to Miami, to fly it over from a field at Nam Yung in Free
