Gigolo | Page 6

a stone wall,
but she must needs ask notwithstanding: "Who you got to see?"
"I got to see a party. I forgot." He made the car step in two long strides;
had swung himself up. "So long!" The car door slammed after him.
Miss Bauers, in her unavailing silks, stood disconsolate on the hot
street corner.
He swayed on the car platform until Sixty-third Street was reached.

There he alighted and stood a moment at the curb surveying idly the
populous corner. He purchased a paper bag of hot peanuts from a
vender's glittering scarlet and nickel stand, and crossed the street into
the pathway that led to Jackson Park, munching as he went. In an open
space reserved for games some boys were playing baseball with much
hoarse hooting and frenzied action. He drew near to watch. The ball,
misdirected, sailed suddenly toward him. He ran backward at its swift
approach, leaped high, caught it, and with a long curving swing, so
easy as to appear almost effortless, sent it hurtling back. The lad on the
pitcher's mound made as if to catch it, changed his mind, dodged,
started after it.
The boy at bat called to Nick: "Heh, you! Wanna come on and pitch?"
Nick shook his head and went on.
He wandered leisurely along the gravel path that led to the park golf
shelter. The wide porch was crowded with golfers and idlers. A
foursome was teed up at the first tee. Nick leaned against a porch pillar
waiting for them to drive. That old boy had pretty good practise
swing ... Stiff, though ... Lookit that dame. Je's! I bet she takes fifteen
shots before she ever gets on to the green ... There, that kid had pretty
good drive. Must of been hundred and fifty, anyway. Pretty good for a
kid.
Nick, in the course of his kaleidoscopic career, had been a caddie at
thirteen in torn shirt and flapping knickers. He had played the smooth,
expert, scornful game of the caddie with a natural swing from the lithe
waist and a follow-through that was the envy of the muscle-bound men
who watched him. He hadn't played in years. The game no longer
interested him. He entered the shelter lunchroom. The counters were
lined with lean, brown, hungry men and lean, brown, hungry women.
They were eating incredible dishes considering that the hour was 3 P.
M. and the day a hot one. Corned-beef hash with a poached egg on top;
wieners and potato salad; meat pies; hot roast beef sandwiches;
steaming cups of coffee in thick white ware; watermelon. Nick slid a
leg over a stool as he had done earlier in the afternoon. Here, too, the
Hebes were of stern stuff, as they needs must be to serve these

ravenous hordes of club swingers who swarmed upon them from dawn
to dusk. Their task it was to wait upon the golfing male, which is man
at his simplest--reduced to the least common denominator and shorn of
all attraction for the female eye and heart. They represented merely
hungry mouths, weary muscles, reaching fists. The waitresses served
them as a capable attendant serves another woman's child--efficiently
and without emotion.
"Blueberry pie à la mode," said Nick--"with strawberry ice cream."
Inured as she was to the horrors of gastronomic miscegenation, the
waitress--an old girl--recoiled at this.
"Say, I don't think you'd like that. They don't mix so very good. Why
don't you try the peach pie instead with the strawberry ice cream--if
you want strawberry?" He looked so young and cool and fresh.
"Blueberry," repeated Nick sternly, and looked her in the eye. The old
waitress laughed a little and was surprised to find herself laughing. "'S
for you to say." She brought him the monstrous mixture, and he
devoured it to the last chromatic crumb.
"Nothing the matter with that," he remarked as she passed, dish-laden.
She laughed again tolerantly, almost tenderly. "Good thing you're
young." Her busy glance lingered a brief moment on his face. He
sauntered out.
Now he took the path to the right of the shelter, crossed the road, struck
the path again, came to a rustic bridge that humped high in the middle,
spanning a cool green stream, willow-bordered. The cool green stream
was an emerald chain that threaded its way in a complete circlet about
the sylvan spot known as Wooded Island, relic of World's Fair days.
The little island lay, like a thing under enchantment, silent, fragrant,
golden, green, exquisite. Squirrels and blackbirds, rabbits and pigeons
mingled in Æsopian accord. The air was warm and still, held by the
encircling trees and shrubbery. There was not a soul to be seen. At the

far north end the two Japanese model houses, survivors of the
exposition, gleamed white among the trees.