Moise and the World of Reason by Tennessee Williams Read Free Book Online

from the harbor, and it was a baffling maze of steep ramps and stairways which I found it difficult to steer my lady friend up when we went home after midnight. I said to her, ‘Honey, you know we can’t stay another night there and you know the only good hotel on this island is the Hotel des Roses straight to the left a little ways down the street. Now why don’t you go over there and turn on your Southern charm and book us in there tonight for a two-week stay?’
    â€œThis lady-companion, being a really great Southern lady, would never refuse a heartfelt request like that, so off she wobbled down the waterfront to the left toward the Hotel des Roses, and I was then free to concentrate on the hilarious sailor but it soon turned out that he was more responsive to a navy buddy than he was to me, so I had to sit there downing one ouzo after another for an hour before my lady-companion came wobbling back out of the dimness of the beyond and as she came into the light I noticed that the front of her pink skirt was almost entirely covered with a dark stain and as she came still closer to the waterfront table, I detected an odor of piss.
    â€œI said, ‘Honey, it looks like you spilt something liquid on your skirt,’ and she lurched into a chair with a raffish grin and said, ‘Yes, well, on the road I was forced to urinate and there wasn’t a ladies’ room visible along there, so I just squatted down in the road and let it go.’”
    At this point he leaned back in his chair, laughing, and fell on the floor, but seemed not to notice this incident, just picked the chair up and sat down in it again and continued his story.
    â€œSo I said to her, ‘Oh,’ and then I asked her if she had booked us into the Hotel des Roses.
    â€œâ€˜No, honey, negative there. The desk clerk tells me it’s booked up solid as a rock for the next six months or more.’
    â€œWell, I should’ve dropped the subject but it was so intriguing, I asked her,
    â€œâ€˜Did you, uh, pee on the road before or after you got to the hotel?’
    â€œâ€˜Why, naturally,
before
. You know I’ve got a weak bladder and I certainly didn’t want to commit a public nuisance in the hotel lobby.’
    â€œâ€˜Oh, so,
before
. Well maybe, honey, that had something to do with their being booked solid for so long in advance.’
    â€œThat sounds like a bitchy remark for me to make to this great Southern lady, but it didn’t phase her, nothing much phases a lady. She looked at me and grinned. It was a crooked pirate’s grin, an oh-fuck-it-all sort of grin which had great charm and distinction, I swear it did. She was what the French call a
jolie laide
, which means—”
    â€œI know French. It means pretty despite.”
    â€œThat’s right, despite everything. God, how I loved that girl.”
    By now we’d finished the wine and had caught a cab.
    My chance companion had sunk into a mood of revery and sorrowful regret.
    It didn’t particularly concern me but I asked him, out of politeness, if he was still traveling about with this
jolie laide
.
    â€œGrinned like a pirate but was an absolute lady.”
    â€œI asked if you still travel with her.”
    â€œNo, not now, how could I? Smoked continually, fifth of bourbon, quart of Scotch a day, with double martinis at meals, no, I’m not traveling with her, God rest her soul full of love.”
    â€œShe’s, uh, taking a cure?”
    â€œShe’s taking a rest in her heavenly mansion.”
    â€œOh. Departed.”
    â€œTha’s right, too far to follow. Complications of cirrhosis and emphysema removed her from this world and left me stranded.”
    He changed his glasses and peered at me in the cab.
    â€œYou like travel?”
    â€œIf you mean would I like to replace her as your traveling companion, no, I wouldn’t, no further than West Eleventh.”
    He’d told me such a