I waited till she was ready to go home, and walked with her. She had cleaned up the room till it looked halfway decent. “You don’t have to go; the place is as much yours as mine,” she said when I was leaving. I didn’t think about her being a girl; I went home because it was my habit. If she had been a boy I would have done the same.
I was busy all the time learning to gamble at Tex’s, collecting bills for the milkman, and taking Julia home after work. There was no mention of her the next time I went to Madam Singleton’s. She was forgotten, and they never suspected me.
I was saving my money, hoping some day to get my gray suit, hat, and trunk. I told Julia of my ambition to have the suit and leather trunk.
“I’ll buy them for you, kid, as soon as I get a few things myself.”
“Never mind that, Julia, I’ll pay for them,” I said, thinking of Cocky McAllister.
I hung around the Comique every night, waiting for Julia. She knew all the “actors” and told me about them.
The handsome young man who came out in a green suit did a clog dance and sang “’Tis a handful of earth” so feelingly worked daytimes in a near-by chop-house. The two girls with skirts almost to their knees that did the buck and wing dance sold beer in the boxes. The comedians that beat and pummeled each other about the stage starved around between engagements at the local theaters. The strong man, my favorite, turned out to be the bartender upstairs; he also served as bouncer.
Julia was ambitious to make more money and every night practiced dancing in hopes that she could some time do a turn at the theater. I served as her audience, sat around till the small hours, and often fell asleep in a chair or on the bed. One night we hurried home ahead of a storm and I was on the bed asleep before she had her supper cooked. She woke me up tugging at me. “Get up, you poor kid; take your clothes off and go to bed if you’re that dead for sleep.” She helped me take off my shoes and I was soon asleep again. She went to bed without waking me, but as I tossed about in the night I knew she was there and was glad. Once my body touched hers—it was hot and sticky. I pulled the sheet down between us and turned away. The next morning as we were walking to the restaurant for breakfast a heavy hand fell on my shoulder; I turned to face my father.
My father’s hand was heavy on my shoulder as he pushed me into a doorway. He looked sad and his stern voice shook. “John, do you know what you are? You are a pimp.”
Julia never stopped, never looked back, just kept going, which was the right thing. She probably thought I had been taken by the police. No good in her getting arrested, too.