Jimson Pt. 1

THE MALTESE FALCON

I once overheard an American woman reveal to a stranger that her husband was "a little weakling". This was at the Molloy Inn where I was headwaiter for three years. She was sitting with the other "guests" waiting to be seated, telling this to strangers. Back then I wondered about the years of disappointment and venom that allowed her to think that let alone say it out loud within earshot of me, not American, not white. The changes that years of shared confinement can cause in a couple are a mystery to me, I have never been married, nor have I ever lived alone with a woman. I think that the coldness and betrayal I saw that night, ten years ago killed any I lingering hope I might have of trusting a woman.

THE MALTESE FALCON

I have long resigned myself to the fact of my own weak will, my cowardice. I drink and I smoke and when I can afford it I sleep with whores. I cannot stop. I am the plaything of my lusts. I could see the resignation to that on the face of my uncle Ferdie as he sat looking at my face over the overflowing ashtray and empty Gold Label rum bottles that occupied the table-space between us. He had begun by looking pointedly at them and back at me, and then had given up. Now his look said only that he could see, finally, what a waste I had made of my life.