you know who I am, too, hunh?”
“Everybody knows everything in a little old town like this, Mr Patterson,” she said wryly. “How you feeling?”
“Fine,” Larry said. “This is the first time Ive been in town.”
“I know,” the waitress said. “I see your wife go by here every Saturday. Well, Im glad youre feeling better. Dont let those characters over there kid you now. Theyre always comin’ over here devilin’ me,” she grinned. She started away and then came back.
“You know this ad for Carling’s Beer on the TV? Where the men whistle and say Hey, Mabel, Black Label? My name’s Myrtle. Well, they got it fixed up between them so when they come over here any of them they always holler Hey, Myrtle, Black Girdle.” She laughed wryly. “So I tell them Im going to get the boss to raise the price of beer to them so they wont drive off all the decent customers. You know. You know how it is in a small town.”
“Sure,” Larry grinned. “I come from a small town myself, in Indiana.”
“Oh, is that right? How come you ever to wind up in Baltimore then?”
Larry told her how he had worked in the Indianapolis paper after college and later got a better offer from the one in Baltimore.
“Ive always wanted to get away from this town myself,” she said cheerfully, “and go north to some city like Washington or someplace. But I dont spose I ever will.”
“If youre smart youll stay right here.”
Myrtle laughed. “Youre probably right at that.”
Across the street in the barbershop a couple of the men were trying frantically to attract her attention, and with a grin at Larry she turned her back on them.
“Theyre always kiddin’ me about my figure,” she grinned, and with a wink leaned forward and leaned on the heels of her palms on the edge of the table letting all her weight go on one leg. The movement called attention to her behind. “Kid them a little,” she said confidentially.
From across the street someone stepped to the door of the barbershop and let out a long drawn out wolf whistle.
“They all like to think theyre don juans,” she grinned. “But theyre really nice fellows. Wouldnt hurt a fly.” She had been married, to a local boy in the Army, and lived in Texas for a while, she told him. But that didnt work out, “Guess we loved each other too much, you know? No more that kind of love for me”, and she had come back home. She didnt like that Texas. But she still wanted to get out of this little town someday and go North. Even maybe to New York. She talked on for another minute or two and then walked off back to the counter.
Larry did not know if it was just then, as she walked off (she really did have a luscious figure), or if it had been with him longer than that, but it seemed he had been aware for some minutes now of a vague guilty sense of uneasiness. Maybe it had started when she leaned on the edge of the table, or maybe when one of the men in the barbershop had let out the long drawn out wolf whistle. Whatever it was he found that instead of feeling pleased as he had been he was now feeling very uncomfortable, and he realized he had not noticed if Mona had gone by the window.
Across the street the men in the barbershop were convulsed with laughter at their own wittiness while the grinning barber went on slowly cutting hair and one of them mock warningly shook his finger across at Larry.
God, Larry thought, it was almost like back in the Army, and with momentary warmth he thought suddenly of all the barbershops in the country, where men could go and laugh about sex away from women. The safety valves that leached off the pressure. Then he felt guilty.
A little hurriedly he got up and paid for his beer which he discovered he had finished some time ago. As an afterthought he bought a paper. Then he went outside. Mona was not in sight up and down the street, and he had not seen her go by the restaurant, but on the strength of a hunch and his increasingly strong feeling of
“Everybody knows everything in a little old town like this, Mr Patterson,” she said wryly. “How you feeling?”
“Fine,” Larry said. “This is the first time Ive been in town.”
“I know,” the waitress said. “I see your wife go by here every Saturday. Well, Im glad youre feeling better. Dont let those characters over there kid you now. Theyre always comin’ over here devilin’ me,” she grinned. She started away and then came back.
“You know this ad for Carling’s Beer on the TV? Where the men whistle and say Hey, Mabel, Black Label? My name’s Myrtle. Well, they got it fixed up between them so when they come over here any of them they always holler Hey, Myrtle, Black Girdle.” She laughed wryly. “So I tell them Im going to get the boss to raise the price of beer to them so they wont drive off all the decent customers. You know. You know how it is in a small town.”
“Sure,” Larry grinned. “I come from a small town myself, in Indiana.”
“Oh, is that right? How come you ever to wind up in Baltimore then?”
Larry told her how he had worked in the Indianapolis paper after college and later got a better offer from the one in Baltimore.
“Ive always wanted to get away from this town myself,” she said cheerfully, “and go north to some city like Washington or someplace. But I dont spose I ever will.”
“If youre smart youll stay right here.”
Myrtle laughed. “Youre probably right at that.”
Across the street in the barbershop a couple of the men were trying frantically to attract her attention, and with a grin at Larry she turned her back on them.
“Theyre always kiddin’ me about my figure,” she grinned, and with a wink leaned forward and leaned on the heels of her palms on the edge of the table letting all her weight go on one leg. The movement called attention to her behind. “Kid them a little,” she said confidentially.
From across the street someone stepped to the door of the barbershop and let out a long drawn out wolf whistle.
“They all like to think theyre don juans,” she grinned. “But theyre really nice fellows. Wouldnt hurt a fly.” She had been married, to a local boy in the Army, and lived in Texas for a while, she told him. But that didnt work out, “Guess we loved each other too much, you know? No more that kind of love for me”, and she had come back home. She didnt like that Texas. But she still wanted to get out of this little town someday and go North. Even maybe to New York. She talked on for another minute or two and then walked off back to the counter.
Larry did not know if it was just then, as she walked off (she really did have a luscious figure), or if it had been with him longer than that, but it seemed he had been aware for some minutes now of a vague guilty sense of uneasiness. Maybe it had started when she leaned on the edge of the table, or maybe when one of the men in the barbershop had let out the long drawn out wolf whistle. Whatever it was he found that instead of feeling pleased as he had been he was now feeling very uncomfortable, and he realized he had not noticed if Mona had gone by the window.
Across the street the men in the barbershop were convulsed with laughter at their own wittiness while the grinning barber went on slowly cutting hair and one of them mock warningly shook his finger across at Larry.
God, Larry thought, it was almost like back in the Army, and with momentary warmth he thought suddenly of all the barbershops in the country, where men could go and laugh about sex away from women. The safety valves that leached off the pressure. Then he felt guilty.
A little hurriedly he got up and paid for his beer which he discovered he had finished some time ago. As an afterthought he bought a paper. Then he went outside. Mona was not in sight up and down the street, and he had not seen her go by the restaurant, but on the strength of a hunch and his increasingly strong feeling of
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