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by the steps. Then she knocked on the door the way she was supposed to and he let her in.
    “Hi, Sammy. How’s business?” and she laughed too loud.
    She went past him, to the night stand, bending a little when she passed where the light hung from the ceiling. She put her purse on the night stand and said, “You got the bottle, Sammy?”
    “I forgot,” he said.
    “Now, Sammy!”
    He did not want to leave the room again but he did not want her to leave either. “Wait five minutes,” he said and she said, “Naturally, Sammy,” and laughed again.
    He left and went to the liquor store on his block. If she looks around, he thought, she’ll find laundry, that’s all.
    When he came back with the bottle she was standing and dressed as before, holding the purse against her belly. When Jordan had closed the door and put the liquor bottle next to the bed, she was still standing and holding the purse as before. She clicked the catch and the purse jumped open. So did her smile.
    Jordan put money into her purse and she snapped it shut again.
    He sat down on a chair near the bed and picked up the bottle, holding it in his lap. He worked the cap off the bottle while the woman undressed. “You been out of town, Sammy?”
    “Yes.”
    “You just come back?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “Because I’m flattered,” she said and laughed. She sat down on the bed which made metal sounds under the mattress.
    “You’re sitting on your hat,” he told her.
    She pulled it out from under her and said, “Damn it to hell. Damn it to hell, will you look at that!”
    “I—you want me to buy you a new one?”
    “What’s the matter? You don’t like me to curse?”
    “I ask you, if you want me to buy you a new one, I’d buy you a new one.”
    “Don’t talk crap,” she said.
    He did not answer and watched her roll down her stocking. She rolled down one but not the other. The other one she pulled off, making it look like a skin hanging down.
    When she was naked she lay down on the bed and made a long, end-of-the-day sigh. Then she held out her hand.
    “So give it here,” she said.
    He gave her the full bottle, and she put the neck into her mouth. After the first swallow she gave a little shudder, but none after that. She took a rest and then drank more every so often.
    “Sammy?”
    “Yes?”
    “What you looking at?”
    He had been looking at the window. He could not see anything there because it was night outside but the position had been easy on his neck.
    “Just that way,” he said.
    “That way? You can’t see out, that way.”
    “You ever ride in trains much, Ruth?”
    “No,” she said. She said nothing else and drank.
    Jordan took out a cigarette and held it in his teeth. He did not know what else to say either.
    “What you looking at, Sammy?”
    “I was looking at your feet.”
    “Jeesisgawd.” Then she said he should start taking his clothes off.
    He held the cigarette in his mouth and watched her drink. The bottle gave a spark every so often, depending on how she moved it in the light. The spark from the glass was the brightest thing in the room. Then she put the bottle on top of the night stand, doing this just with her arm and without moving anything else. Her eyes were closed now and she lay still.
    He got up, took his jacket off, pulled the shirt out of his pants. He unbuttoned the shirt. “How you feeling?” he asked her.
    “Just fine, Sammy.”
    “Tell me something.”
    “What?”
    “Why come here?”
    “Why not?”
    “That’s it?” he asked her.
    “Huh?”
    “Why you come here, is what I asked you.”
    “Because nobody wants me either.” And then she laughed hard again, without opening her eyes.

5
    He had her the way it had been with others, not much difference anywhere and when she left, it’s a shame, he thought, but it’s of no particular importance at all. Though he knew that it could be. It could matter that the woman left him, or that she stayed. However, as at other times where he