And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks Read Online Free

heaven, an illusion born of a need, floating around in some nebulous misty Platonic nowhere, always just around the corner like prosperity, but never
here
and
now
. You’re afraid to go away with him, you’re afraid to put it to a test because you know it won’t work.”
    Al flinched and shut his eyes and said, “No, no, it’s not true!”
    I sat down in the chair and said, “But seriously, Al. If you did go somewhere you might succeed in making him. After all, that’s what you’ve been after these four years.”
    “No, you don’t understand at all. That isn’t what I really want.”
    I jumped up again, sneering. “Oh, so this is a case of Platonic love, hey? Nothing so coarse as physical contact, hey?”
    “No,” said Al, “I do want to sleep with him. But I want his affection more than anything. And I want it to be permanent.”
    “God give me patience,” I said. “Patience I need.” I tore at my hair and a little tuft of it came out. I made a mental note to go to 28th Street and buy some Buno hair tonic. It’s got Spanish fly in it and there’s nothing like it to stop falling hair.
    “Now listen,” I said. “I’m going to say it again and I’m going to say it slow: Phillip isn’t queer. He might sleep with you, which I doubt altogether, but anything permanent is impossible. Unless of course it’s just friendship you want.”
    I walked over to the window and stood with my hands clasped behind me like a captain on the bridge of a battleship.
    Al said, “I want him to love me.”
    I turned around and took a toothpick out of my shirt pocket and started digging at a cavity. “You’re nuts,” I said.
    “I know he’ll come around to my way of thinking in time,” Al said.
    I pointed my toothpick at his chest. “Get yourself some scratch and he’ll come around tonight.”
    Al said, “No, that isn’t the way I want it.”
    “What you want is impossible.”
    “I don’t see why it should be.”
    I said, “Well of course he isn’t influenced by money at all, you’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”
    “Well, he is, but he shouldn’t be. I don’t want to admit that he is.”
    I said, “Facts, man, it’s time to face facts.” I took on a bourgeois
père de famille
tone. “Why don’t you make something of yourself, something he’d be proud of and look up to. Look at you, you look like a bum!”
    He had on an English tweed suit looking like it had been slept in for years, a cheap Sixth Avenue shirt, and a frayed Sulka tie. He looked like a Bowery character.
    I went on, “Now I have it from reliable sources that there is at the present time a tremendous shortage of drugs in this country owing to the war. Marijuana is selling for fifty cents a stick whereas before the war it was ten cents a stick. Why don’t we cash in on this situation, get some seed, and start a marijuana farm?”
    “Well,” he said, “now, that sounds good to me.”
    “You can buy the seed in bird stores. We can sow it out in the country somewhere and come back in a couple of months and harvest our crop. Later on when we build up a bankroll, we can buy our own farm.”
    We talked over this idea for some time. Al said he would go down and get some seed next day.
    We went out to eat at Hamburger Mary’s and he started rehashing the Phillip question. What did it mean when Phillip said this and should he call him up tonight or just go downtown without calling, was Phillip really in love with Barbara and if so should he do anything to break it up. So I ate my food and said, yes, why not, no, go ahead, and stopped listening to him. Like I say, I’d heard all this for years.
    After dinner I said good night and walked down to the bar where I worked as a bartender.
    The place where I worked is called the Continental Café. It is open all the way across the front in summer, with doors that fold back. There are tables where you can sit and look at the sidewalk if you want to. There are several waitress / hostesses who will