Pulling A Train by Harlan Ellison

Author:Harlan Ellison [Ellison, Harlan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kicks Books
Published: 2013-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Bohemia of Arthur Archer

(as by “Cordwainer Bird”)

STANDING OUTSIDE THE DOOR of the Greenwich Village cold-water flat, Arthur Archer—blond and tall—turned to Burt Simmons—short and sweaty—and asked: “How’re chances of getting laid tonight?”

From inside the apartment could be heard the mingled mangling of party voices. Bert let the corner of his mouth curl, and he said: “Five to one, Artie boy. If there’s five girls here tonight…you’ll get one.

“The odds go up proportionately; nine-to-two, thirteen-to-three, hell, you understand.”

Arthur grinned his which-way-is-the-meat grin, and nodded. “I understand.” Bert knocked on the door.

It slid open of its own weight, unlocked, and Arthur Archer got his first look at a Bohemian party in the Village.

It was straight out of Dante. Or perhaps Lewis Carroll. Or someplace, anyhow. Arthur stopped just inside the door, as Bert brushed past screaming, “Deidre, baaaby!” He let the dull-faced girl with the poodle-cut take his summer hat, and he stared.

It was a wild mixing of color and sound. There were at least a hundred people crammed into the apartment, and more, Arthur was sure, were in the other rooms. Bert had told him earlier: “This was an old hotel, but they divided it up into apartments. Deidre’s place has eight bedrooms, so if you latch onto something good, don’t wait till the end of the evening to drag her back to bed…because they usually pair off and seek solitude about two, three o’clock in the A.M.”

And Arthur, fresh from college and home for the summer with his fraternity brother Bert, wanted very much to latch onto a girl.

So he let his gaze slide around the room, taking in all the confusion and madness of the party. One fellow, with hair that hadn’t been cut, obviously, since Barbara Fritchie hung her flag out the window, was doing an involved African war-step in the middle-center of the dimly lit room. He was going, “Hoo ha, hoo ha, ugga, ugga, ugga!” and mincing about on his toes, arms flailing wildly.

A second joker was perched cross-legged atop the tv, a bath towel wrapped around his head, swami-fashion, and telling the fortunes of three gigglingly attentive girls—all buck-toothed or wearing horn-rimmed glasses. These are girls? These are people? Arthur thought in amazement.

A girl with a twitch, and a ponytail nestling in the small of her back, was sitting in the center of a group of people, reading from the works of Edith Sitwell, in a deep and emphatic voice, each word laced with significance.

Arthur found all this hard to believe. He was a college man, he was reasonably mature, and he was sure he had winnowed the chaff of fable from the wheat of life’s reality. But here was a cliché coming true. He’d heard of Bohemian parties, but this seemed to be a tourist’s dream. Abruptly, he felt Bert’s hand on his bicep, and turned. Bert had a young girl in tow—one with lips that were so thin they looked as though an artist had lined them in with charcoal; glasses black

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