reason in a public toilet and Cody gasps and says to me “I’ve met those Negroes that beat up old men, they're called the Strongarms in San Quentin, they’re all put away among themselves away from the other prisoners, they’re all Negroes and it seems all they wanta do is beat up old defenseless men, he’s tellin the absolute truth’—“But why do they do that?”—“Oh man I dont know they just want hit up on some old man that cant hit back and just beat him and beat him till he’s dead” and Oh the horror of Cody’s knowledge of the world when all is said and done)—So now were sitting with Billie in her pad, outside the window you see the glittering lights of the city again, ah Urbi y Roma, the world again, and she’s got these mad blue eyes, arched eyebrows, intelligent face, just like Julien, I keep saying “Julien goddamit!” and I see even in my drunkenness a little worried flutter in Cody's eyes—The fact of the matter being, Billie and I go for each other like two tons of bricks right there in front of Cody so that when he rises and announces he’s going back to Los Gatos to get some sleep to go to work it’s already well agreed I’m staying right where I am and not only for tonight but for weeks months years.
Poor Cody—Yet you see I’ve already explained why actually subconsciously this is what he really wants to happen but he wont admit it ever and always invents reasons around this to get mad at me and call me a bastard—But aside from Cody I find Billie to be a very companionable strange kid in this lonesome night and I actually NEED to stay with her awhile—In fact both Billie and I explain to Cody why—But there's nothing evil, man-against-man or sinister about any of it, it’s just a strange innocence, a spontaneous burst of love in fact and Cody understands that bettern anybody else anyway so he leaves at midnight saying he’ll be back tomorrow night and all of a sudden I’m alone with a charming woman and we’re talking a blue streak sitting crosslegged facing each other on the floor in a litter of books and bottles.
It gives me a pang of pain and remorse really now
