approached me in a bar john I took out the gun and said, “Eh? Eh? What’s that you say?” He bolted. I’ve never understood why I did that; I knew queers all over the country. It was just the loneliness of San Francisco and the fact that I had a gun. I had to show it to someone. I walked by a jewelry store and had the sudden impulse to shoot up the window, take out the finest rings and bracelets, and run to give them to Lee Ann. Then we could flee to Nevada together. The time was coming for me to leave Frisco or I’d go crazy.

I wrote long letters to Dean and Carlo, who were now at Old Bull’s shack in the Texas bayou. They said they were ready to come join me in San Fran as soon as this-and-that was ready. Meanwhile everything began to collapse with Remi and Lee Ann and me. The September rains came, and with them harangues. Remi had flown down to Hollywood with her, taking my sad silly movie original, and nothing had happened. The famous director was drunk and paid no attention to them; they hung around his Malibu Beach cottage; they started fighting in front of other guests; and they flew back.

The final topper was the racetrack. Remi saved all his money, about a hundred dollars, spruced me up in some of his clothes, put Lee Ann on his arm, and off we went to Golden Gate racetrack near Richmond across the bay. To show you what a heart that guy had, he put half of our stolen groceries in a tremendous brown ,paper bag and took them to a poor widow he knew in Richmond in a housing project much like our own, wash flapping in the California sun. We went with him. There were sad ragged children. The woman thanked Remi. She was the sister of some seaman he vaguely knew. “Think nothing of it, Mrs. Carter,” said Remi in his most elegant and polite tones. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

We proceeded to the racetrack. He made incredible twenty-dollar bets to win, and before the seventh race he was broke. With our last two food dollars he placed still another bet and lost. We had to hitchhike back to San Francisco. I was on the road again. A gentleman gave us a ride in his snazzy car. I sat up front with him. Remi was trying to put a story down that he’d lost his wallet in back of the grandstand at the track. “The truth is,” I said, “we lost all our money on the races, and to forestall any more hitching from racetracks, from now on we go to a bookie, hey, Remi?” Remi blushed all over. The man finally admitted he was an official of the Golden Gate track. He let us off at the elegant Palace Hotel; we watched him disappear among the chandeliers, his pockets full of money, his head held high.

“Wagh! Whoo!” howled Remi in the evening streets of Frisco. “Paradise rides with the man who runs the racetrack and swears he’s switching to bookies. Lee Ann, Lee Ann!” He punched and mauled her. “Positively the funniest man in the world! There must be a lot of Italians in Sausalito. Aaah-how!” He wrapped himself around a pole to laugh.

That night it started raining as Lee Ann gave dirty looks to both of us. Not a cent left in the house. The rain drummed on the roof. “It’s going to last for a week,” said Remi. He had taken off his beautiful suit; he was back in his miserable shorts and Army cap and T-shirt. His great brown sad eyes stared at the planks of the floor. The gun lay on the table. We could hear Mr. Snow laughing his head off across the rainy night somewhere.

“I get so sick and tired of that sonofabitch,” snapped Lee Ann. She was on the go to start trouble. She began needling Remi. He was busy going through his little black book, in which were names of people, mostly seamen, who owed him money. Besides their names he wrote curses in red ink. I dreaded the day I’d ever find my way into that book. Lately I’d been sending so much money to my aunt that I only bought four or five dollars’ worth of groceries a week. In keeping with what President Truman said, I added a few more dollars’ worth. But