Free Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone Page A

thought of him as Hat. Once when she had been really fucked up she had said, “ Hi, Hat. ” She had been so fucked up tha t night she had been shortchang ing herself instead of the mooches. Or mushes.
    Hat had just looked at her. “ Oh, ” he had said, “ you like my hat? ”
    She followed Holy-o and t he fellas into the darkened the ater and they all went to Holy-o ’ s office to unlock Rowena and the candy-stand money. Holy-o kept Rowena and the candy money locked in his office until the fellas arrived. Until a year or so before, he had locked the candy complex up in the ladies ’ room after the last film went on but ladies had started coming to the theater — things being what they were — and he had been compelled to leave the ladies ’ room open.
    Rowena stood with the candy till at her feet, pulling her green poncho about her shoulders as though she were cold. In fact, it was not at all cold in Holy-o ’ s office but it smelled strongly of the grass Rowena had been smoking.
    “ Hiya, sweetheart, ” Hat said to Rowena.
    Rowena was biting her lip, peering bemusedly through her square spectacles.
    “ Hiya, ” she said and broke up. “ Hiya, Hat. ”
    Rowena was really fucked up and, of course, Marge had told the story of what had happened the other night. Marge shook her head. Silly Rowena.
    They spread the day ’ s gross on a sliding panel of Holy-o ’ s desk and the other fella counted it.
    “ What is this? ” Hat asked Holy-o. “ Everybody likes my hat. ” Holy-o shook his head in disapproval. Hat put the money in his bag.
    “ It ’ s just a hat, ” he said. “ It ’ s my hat. ”
    “ Right on, ” Rowena said happily.
    Hat looked up at Holy-o, blinked and stared at her. The smiling Rowena turned from the blank eyes of Hat to the stern gaze of Holy-o and back.
    “ Right on? ” Hat asked. “ What ’ s right on? What do you mean, right on? ”
    “ I mean right on, ” Rowena said. “ Just right on. ” Her smile grew wider though less merry. “ I don ’ t mean any thing. ”
    “ Right on, ” Hat sang in falsetto as he carried the bag from the office. The other fella went with him. “ Right on. ” He was mimicking Rowena.
    “ G ’ night, fellas, ” Holy-o said.
    “ G ’ night, Holy-o. ”
    Holy-o was displeased.
    “ What are you, ” he demanded of Rowena, “ dumb? What are you, stupid? ” He waved his arms about to disperse the odor of grass. “ And looka this place. ”
    “ It ’ s just smoke, ” Rowena said.
    “ You ’ re gonna put your job in jeopardy, ” Holy-o told her.
    For the last minutes of the film, Marge and Rowena stood behind the last row of seats. On the screen, long-haired young people were smoking grass and eating each other out between tokes. The night ’ s house was mercifully well-behaved, silent except for i ts hoarse expirations and a cer tain rustle of cloth. When the lights came on, the girls re tired toward the door of Holy-o ’ s office; the mooches were filing up the middle aisle and the close presence of young women was sometimes difficult for them. Holy-o oversaw their going hence with his truncheon stuck in his breast pocket like a cigar.
    When the room was clear, Holy-o checked out the ladies ’ room to see that no mooches had secreted themselves there and Marge and Rowena locked themselves inside. Rowena went to the toilet and lit a joint.
    “ An awful lot of them are Chinese, ” she said to Marge. “ You notice that? ”
    The ethnic reference sounded a ghostly alarm from some dark place in the ruins of Marge ’ s progressive condi tioning.
    “ Sure, ” she said. “ Chinese are just as horny as anybody else. ”
    Rowena was thoughtful as she handed Marge the joint.
    “ I think the Chinese are into a different thing. I think they dig the beauty of the bodies in a kind of aesthetic way. ”
    “ I think they ’ re jerking off. ”
    “ They could do both, ” Rowena insisted. “ I mean why should beauty be platonic? That ’ s