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the pay station from which all private calls had to be made. The walls of the
booth were covered with obscene drawings. He fastened his eyes on two
disembodied genitals and gave the operator Burgess 7-7323.
    "Is Mrs. Doyle in?"
    "Hello, who is it?"
    "I want to speak to Mrs.
Doyle," he said. "Is this Mrs. Doyle?"
    "Yes, that's me." Her
voice was hard with fright
    "This is Miss Lonelyhearts ."
    "Miss who?"
    "Miss Lonelyhearts ,
Miss Lonelyhearts , the man who does the column."
    He was about to hang up, when she
cooed, "Oh, hello..."
    "You said I should call."
    "Oh, yes...what?"
    He guessed that she wanted him to do
the talking. "When can you see me?"
    "Now." She was still cooing and he could almost feel her warm, moisture-laden breath
through the earpiece. "Where?"
    "You say."
    "I'll tell you what," he
said. "Meet me in the park, near the obelisk, in about an hour."
    He went back to his desk and
finished his column, then started for the park. He sat down on a bench near the
obelisk to wait for Mrs. Doyle. Still thinking of tents, he examined the sky
and saw that it was canvas-colored and ill-stretched. He examined it like a
stupid detective who is searching for a clue to his own exhaustion. When he
found nothing, he turned his trained eye on the skyscrapers that menaced the
little park from all sides. In their tons of forced rock and tortured steel, he
discovered what he thought was a clue.
    Americans have dissipated their
radical energy in an orgy of stone breaking. In their few years they have
broken more stones than did centuries of Egyptians. And they have done their
work hysterically, desperately, almost as if they knew that the stones would
some day break them.
    The detective saw a big woman enter
the park and start in his direction. He made a quick catalogue: legs like
Indian clubs, breasts like balloons and a brow like a pigeon. Despite her short
plaid skirt, red sweater, rabbit-skin jacket and knitted tam-o'-shanter, she
looked like a police captain.
    He waited for her to speak first.
    "Miss Lonelyhearts ?
Oh, hello..."
    "Mrs. Doyle?" He stood up
and took her arm. It felt like a thigh.
    "Where are we going?" she
asked, as he began to lead her off.
    "For a
drink."
    "I can't go to Delehanty's . They know me."
    "We'll go to my place."
    "Ought I?"
    He did not have to answer, for she
was already on her way. As he followed her up the stairs to his apartment, he
watched the action of her massive hams; they were like two enormous grindstones.
    He made some highballs and sat down
beside her on the bed.
    "You must know an awful lot
about women from your job," she said with a sigh, putting her hand on his
knee.
    He had always been the pursuer, but
now found a strange pleasure in having the roles reversed. He drew back when
she reached for a kiss. She caught his head and kissed him on his mouth. At
first it ticked like a watch, then the tick softened
and thickened into a heart throb. It beat louder and more rapidly each second,
until he thought that it was going to explode and pulled away with a rude jerk.
    "Don't," she begged.
    "Don't what?"
    "Oh, darling, turn out the
light."
    He smoked a cigarette, standing in
the dark and listening to her undress. She made sea sounds; something flapped
like a sail; there was the creak of ropes; then he heard the
wave-against-a-wharf smack of rubber on flesh. I Her call for him to hurry was a sea-moan, and when he lay beside her, she heaved,
tidal, moon-driven.
    Some fifteen minutes later, he
crawled out of bed like an exhausted swimmer leaving the surf, and dropped down
into a large armchair near the window. She went into the bathroom, then came
back and sat in his lap.
    "I'm ashamed of myself,"
she said. "You must think I'm u bad woman."
    He shook his head no.
    "My husband isn't much. He's a
cripple like I wrote you, and much older than me." She laughed. "He's
all dried up. He hasn't been a husband to me for years. You know, Lucy, my kid;
isn't his."
    He saw that she expected him to