At 3:00 A.M. I sat in the same coffee shop, at the same table, and recognized some of the same faces. Alfred was not there. Behind the counter, the rednecked waiter, it seemed, gave me the same look he had given Alfred that night. I did not care. At the next table sat an intellectual, pandering his readings late into the night to a girl whose legs I could not see. That did not matter either. My readings will always be safe with me, never pandered, never used without a legitimate purpose. That is the way I am. But sitting there, at that table, with the eyes of the counterman occasionally checking the direction of my own eyes, I began to wonder about the way I am.

An Act of Prostitution

WHEN HE SAW THE WOMAN, the lawyer put down his pencil and legal pad and took out his pipe.

“Well,” he said. “How do you want to play it?”

“I wanna get outta here,” the whore said. “Just get me outta here.”

“Now get some sense,” said the lawyer, puffing on the pipe to draw in the flame from the long wooden match he had taken from his vest pocket. “You ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“I just want out,” she said.

“You’ll catch hell in there,” he said, pointing with the stem of his pipe to the door which separated them from the main courtroom. “Why don’t you just get some sense and take a few days on the city.”

“I can’t go up there again,” she said. “Those dike matrons in Parkville hate my guts because I’m wise to them. They told me last time they’d really give it to me if I came back. I can’t do no time up there again.”

“Listen,” said the lawyer, pointing the stem of his pipe at her this time, “you ain’t got a choice. Either you cop a plea or I don’t take the case.”

“You listen, you two-bit Jew shyster.” The whore raised her voice, pointing her very chubby finger at the lawyer. “You ain’t got no choice. The judge told you to be my lawyer and you got to do it. I ain’t no dummy, you know that?”

“Yeah,” said the lawyer. “You’re a real smarty. That’s why you’re out on the streets in all that snow and ice. You’re a real smarty, all right.”

“You chickenshit,” she said. “I don’t want you on my case anyway, but I ain’t got no choice. If you was any good, you wouldn’t be working the sweatboxes in this court. I ain’t no dummy.”