Chapter 2

It was in the main ballroom of the leading hotel. When I got there I

discovered that it was on the occasion of a smoker, and I was told that since

I was to be there anyway I might as well take part in the battle royal to be

fought by some of my schoolmates as part of the entertainment. The battle

royal came first.

All of the town's big shots were there in their tuxedoes, wolfing down

the buffet foods, drinking beer and whiskey and smoking black cigars. It was

a large room with a high ceiling. Chairs were arranged in neat rows around

three sides of a portable boxing ring. The fourth side was clear, revealing a

gleaming space of polished floor. I had some misgivings over the battle royal,

by the way. Not from a distaste for fighting, but because I didn't care too

much for the other fellows who were to take part. They were tough guys who

seemed to have no grandfather's curse worrying their minds. No one could

mistake their toughness. And besides, I suspected that fighting a battle royal

might detract from the dignity of my speech. In those pre-invisible days I

visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington. But the other fellows didn't care too much for me either, and there were nine of them. I felt

superior to them in my way, and I didn't like the manner in which we were

all crowded together into the servants' elevator. Nor did they like my being

there. In fact, as the warmly lighted floors flashed past the elevator we had

words over the fact that I, by taking part in the fight, had knocked one of

their friends out of a night's work.

We were led out of the elevator through a rococo hall into an

anteroom and told to get into our fighting togs. Each of us was issued a pair

of boxing gloves and ushered out into the big mirrored hall, which we

entered looking cautiously about us and whispering, lest we might accidentally

be heard above the noise of the room. It was foggy with cigar smoke. And

already the whiskey was taking effect. I was shocked to see some of the most

important men of the town quite tipsy. They were all there -- bankers,

lawyers, judges, doctors, fire chiefs, teachers, merchants. Even one of the

more fashionable pastors. Something we could not see was going on up front.

A clarinet was vibrating sensuously and the men were standing up and

moving eagerly forward. We were a small tight group, clustered together, our

bare upper bodies touching and shining with anticipatory sweat; while up

front the big shots were becoming increasingly excited over something we still

could not see. Suddenly I heard the school superintendent, who had told me

to come, yell, "Bring up the shines, gentlemen! Bring up the little shines!"

We were rushed up to the front of the ballroom, where it smelled

even more strongly of tobacco and whiskey. Then we were pushed into place.

I almost wet my pants. A sea of faces, some hostile, some amused, ringed

around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde -- stark

*****. There was dead silence. I felt a blast of cold air chill me. I tried to

back away, but they were behind me and around me. Some of the boys stood

with lowered heads, trembling. I felt a wave of irrational guilt and fear. My

teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was

strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself. Had the price of looking

been blindness, I would have looked. The hair was yellow like that of a circus

kewpie doll, the face heavily powdered and rouged, as though to form an

abstract mask, the eyes hollow and smeared a cool blue, the color of a

baboon's butt. I felt a desire to spit upon her as my eyes brushed slowly over

her body. Her breasts were firm and round as the domes of East Indian temples, and I stood so close as to see the fine skin texture and beads of

pearly perspiration glistening like dew around the pink and erected buds of

her nipples. I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to

sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the

eyes of the others with my body; to feel the soft thighs, to caress her and

destroy her, to love her and murder her, to hide from her, and yet to stroke

where below the small American flag tattooed upon her belly her thighs

formed a capital V. I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me

with her impersonal eyes.

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