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In the lobby the hat-check girl can hear him phoningHe leans against the wall in danger of supporting himself with his face against the phoneThe line is busy, and for an instant he wants to cry
Hello, Eloise? he asksThe woman's voice crackles at him from the other end
It's more fun being out with the gang from the office on a tear
I tell ya I never saw anything like it, picking up a half dollar like that, why, she just picked it right off the edge of the tableI suppose if it wasn't the place where I saw it you'd have to go to Paris or a nigger whorehouse anyway
It takes all kinds to make a world
Yeh, that's about the way I look at it, there's a lot of things go on in people's heads you don't know nothing about
What do you figure goes on in the Chief's head?
Uh-uh, we ain't talking shop tonight, that's understoodCome on, let's start a round going
They drink up, exhaust the circle of rounds owed
I'm going to tell you men something, Brown says, a lot replica gucci canvas bag of people think we might have a soft job selling, but the God's honest truth of it is that we work hard as any man jack, am I right?
None harderNow when I was up at the university before I flunked out, I flunked out I want you to know 'cause I think a man's a goddam fool if he's got false pride, I don't believe in making out you're exactly what you ain'tI'm as ordinary as an old shoe and I'll admit it to anyone who asks me
Brown, you're a good old sonofabitch
Well, now, I'm glad to hear you say that, Jennings, because I know you mean it, and it means a lotA man works his fool ass off and he wants to have some friends, people he knows will trust him and like him, 'cause if he ain't got that what's the point to his working?
That's exactly it
I'm pretty fortunate, I'll say that to any man in his face, but of course I've had my troubles, who the hell hasn't, but we're not here to cry about that tonight, now, are we? I want to tell you men, I got a beautiful watch replicas cartier wife, now, that's the truth
One of the gang guffawsBrown, I got a beautiful wife too, but I swear after you been married two years a woman might just as well look like a coon dog for all the good it does you
I can't quite agree, Freeman, but there's a point to what you sayHe feels his words dribbling out of his mouth, lost in the babel of glasses and conversation
Come on, let's be goin' over to Eloise's
And the inevitable coming back
Freeman, you said something a while ago that kinda put a stir in me, but I want to tell you I got a beautiful wife, and there's no one could improve on her a bitI think it's a goddam shame the way we go around screwing God knows what, and then goin' back to our wives, it's a helluva note I want to tell you thatWhen I think of her and then what I do I'm pretty goddam ashamed of myselfIt's a hell of a noteYou'd think we have some sense, but the damn truth of it is we just go around screwing and drinking and
And having a hell of a cartier roadster swiss watches good time
Having a hell of a good time, Brown finishesThat's exactly what I was gonna say, Jennings, but you beat me to itHe stumbles, sits down on the pavement
He wakes up in his bed with Beverly undressing himI know what you're gonna say, honey, he mumbles, but I got my troubles, you just keep pushing something through, trying to make ends meet, trying to produce 'cause that's what you gotta pay off on, and it takes a long time, it's, it's a hard life, as the preacher says
And in the morning, massaging his headache, examining an estimate, he wonders what Beverly did last night
(The sly winks, the droll expressions of anguish among the men who had gone out the night beforeAt ten in the lavatory, Freeman joins him
Oh, what a bag I got on
I feel rocky today, Brown saysWhat the hell we do it for?
Got to get out of the rut, I guessOh, man!
6
THIS SAME night, on the other side of the mountain range, Cummings was making a tour of his positionsThe chanel bucket bags attack had been progressing favorably for a day and a half, and his line companies had advanced from a quarter to a half mileThe division was moving again, more successfully than he had expected, and the long wet month of inactivity and stagnation seemed to have endedF Company had made contact with the Toyaku Line, and according to the last report Cummings had received that afternoon, a reinforced platoon from E Company had captured a Japanese bivouac on F Company's flankFor the next few days the attack would teeter from enemy counterattacks, but if they held, and he was going to see that they held, the Toyaku Line might be breached within two weeks
Secretly, he was a little surprised at the advanceHe had prepared the attack for over a month, hoarded his supplies, revised his battle plans from day to day through all the eventless weeks that had followed the aborted Japanese attack across the riverHe had done everything a commander could do, and yet he had been rolex uk gloomy |