Free Ice-Cream Headache by James Jones

chair. She sat down smiling on his right thigh and Tom put his arm clear around her waist. “I’m doin all right, baby, ain’t I? Who wants to get married?”
    George was watching him, and now he laughed. “I been married myself,” he said, not looking at Sandy.
    “Sure,” Tom grinned. “Don’t tell me. I was out in Utah when you got the rings back, remember? Ha!” he turned his liquor-bright eyes on Sandy. “It was just like Robert Taylor in the movies. He took them out in the snow and threw them away with a curse. Went right out the ward door and into the snowing night.
    “One ring, engagement, platinum, two-carat diamond,” Tom said, as if giving the nomenclature of a new weapon. “One ring, wedding, platinum, diamond circlet—I told him he should of hocked them.”
    “No,” Sandy said. “He should have kept them, then he could have used them over and over, every other night.”
    “I’ll say,” Tom said. “I’ll never forget the first time me and George went on pass in Salt Lake City. He sure could of used them then.”
    “Aint you drinkin, Sandy?” George said.
    “You know I don’t drink.”
    “You used to. Some.”
    “That was only on special occasions,” Sandy said, looking at him. “That was a long time ago. I’ve quit that now,” she said.
    George looked away, at Tom, who had his hand up under the blonde one’s armpit, snuggled in. “Now this here’s a very fine thing,” Tom said, nodding at her. ‘She’s not persnickity like the broads in Salt Lake.”
    “I didn’t really like it then,” Sandy said.
    “I know,” George said.
    “George picked him up a gal in a bar in Salt Lake that first night,” Tom said. “She looked a lot like you, honey,” he said to the blonde one. The blonde one tittered and put her hand beneath his ear.
    “This gal,” Tom continued, “she thought George was wonderful; he was wearing his ribbons. She asked him all about the limp and how he got wounded. She thought he was the nuts till she found out what it was made him limp.” Tom paused to laugh.
    “Then she got dressed and took off; we seen her later with a marine.” He looked at George and they both laughed. George went around the table and sat down beside the short one.
    “You ought to have a drink with us, Sandy,” George said. “You’re the host.”
    “I don’t feel much like being formal,” Sandy said.
    Tom laughed. “Me neither.”
    “Do you want something to eat?” Sandy asked him. “I might eat something.”
    “Sure,” Tom said. “I’ll eat anything. I’m an old eater from way back. I really eat it. You got any cheese and crackers?”
    Sandy went to one of the cupboards. “You fix another drink, George.”
    “Thats it,” Tom said. “Eat and drink. There’s only one thing can turn my stommick,” he said to the blonde one. “You know what’s the only thing can turn my stommick?”
    “Yes,” said the blonde one apprehensively, glancing at Sandy. “I know.”
    “I’ll tell you the only thing can turn my stommick.”
    “Now, honey,” the blonde one said.
    George turned around from the bottles on the countertop, pausing dramatically like an orator.
    “Same thing that can turn my stommick.”
    He and Tom laughed uproariously, and he passed the drinks and sat down. The blonde one and the short one tittered and glanced nervously at Sandy.
    Tom thumped George’s right leg with his fist and the sound it made was solid, heavy, the sound his own had made out in the car.
    “You goddam old cripple, you.”
    “Thats all right,” George said. “You can’t run so goddam fast yourself.”
    “The hell I can’t.” Tom reached for his drink and misjudged it, spilling some on the tablecloth and on the blonde girl’s skirt.
    “Now see what you did?” she said. “Damn it.”
    Tom laughed. “Take it easy, baby. If you never get nothing worse than whisky spilled on your skirt, you’ll be all right. Whisky’ll wash out.”
    George watched dully as the spot spread