The Club

I took a cab down to Ernie's, the nightclub. Ernie is a pianist. He's always playing there. I got into the cab and I started chatting to the driver, I asked him where the ducks go in winter like I asked the last cab driver. Boy, was he all sore about it! He kept on tellin' me to grow-up and all. Loadsa' people tell me to do that, I don't really pay any attention to 'em if I'm being honest. I had to wait practically ages to get a table once I got to Ernie's. It was always packed-out. They finally gave me a table in the corner I had to climb over a couple of people to get to it. No one had the courtesy to move. The people who were still waiting for a table were standing on their tiptoes at the back to get a good luck at Old Ernie. I'm not sure what it was that he was playing, but he was really stinking it up! He was putting in all these dumb show-off ripples and high notes. You couldn't see his fingers, the spotlight was shining on his big dumb face. The crowd were going wild though.

All of a sudden this girl came up to me, Lillian Simmons her name was. She used to date my Brother, D.B. She was with some phony looking sailor guy. She started shooting the bull with me about D.B. I told her about him being in Hollywood and all. Prostituting himself. She thought it was 'marvelous'. I hate that word. It's so goddam phony. When she left me and the sailor shook hands. It was one of those handshakes that practucally broke your damn fingers off. She asked me to join her. But I made up some excuse about having to meet with someone, so I left. I didn't really want to shoot the bull with Old Lillian about my Brother.