The car doors opened, and a couple got out, apparently on their way into the bar. I caught the surprised look on the face of the man, and I thought he was likely to say something like “Hey, kids, you’re out pretty late, aren’t you?” and I didn’t want to hear that, so I threw my arms over the girls’ shoulders, in the style of Rocky, and we staggered on along the sidewalk, with our backs to the dangerous couple, and I went on singing bravely—
Something something, oo-ee-oo,
Éclairs and me and you two, too.
—and we didn’t allow ourselves to stop and turn around until we heard the noise of the bar spill out through the door and knew that the couple had opened it to go inside. We couldn’t see what was going on inside the bar from the angle we had, but we could hear it, a clatter of adult noise. The woman waved at someone on her way in. The man turned his head in our direction. We spun around and resumed our reeling escape.
“It must be one of their meetings,” said Martha.
“Rallies,” Margot corrected her.
“Rallies. Yes. If we could infiltrate that, get inside—”
“Not tonight,” said Margot. “We’ve got our mission to think of.”
“Yes, of course,” said Martha.
She giggled, and Margot poked her.
We walked on, saying nothing for a while. When we reached the Babbington Diner, I almost ruined everything. I asked the girls, as I might have at any other time when we happened to be passing the diner, “Do you want to get a Coke?”
“Well—” said Margot.
“Yes and no,” said Martha.
“I know what you mean,” I said, because I realized what I had done: I’d disturbed the glamour of the evening, and I had to try to restore it. “We—ah—can’t really spare the time,” I said, improvising, “but I was thinking that it would throw them off the scent, you know? Keep up appearances. So we wouldn’t look suspicious.”
“Good thinking,” said Martha.
“Yes,” said Margot, “but we’d better keep moving.” She looked up at the sky and, quoting from the movie, said, “There’s a bomber’s moon tonight.”
Quoting further, the girls drew closer to me and snuggled into the protection of my arms, trying for the effect, often repeated in the film, in which the brawny Rocky had seemed actually to shelter the women under his broad shoulders. It didn’t quite work for us, since the girls were taller than I, but I felt, at the time, that the job I was doing was good enough, that my swagger was a pretty good match for Rocky’s. (However, as I examine the scene now, in my mind’s eye, as if from across the street, watching silently while Margot and Martha and my former self walk by, they seem to be holding me up, conducting me, and instead of playing the part of the hero, I seem to be the comic relief, the young recruit in the troupe, wet behind the ears, drunk on his first glass of marc, singing.)
Love and war and dust, wee-oo,
And me in the dark with you and you.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 841, Mark Dorset considers Drinking: Marc from this episode.
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