Sometimes I drink alone; I go into a bar and sit me in a corner.

I drink my drinks and speak to no one.

I sit and drink and think alone.

When I wish to think, when I have to think, I go into a bar,

A bar where there are many people--who laugh and quaff and play
the nickel jukebox.

One day as I sat thus, thinking the terrible thots that force themselves
into my brain,

I saw a little man, a little bald and pudgy man, who also sat alone.

He looked so commonplace and sloppy in his blue serge suit.

I looked at him and shuddered: I was glad
That I was not a little bald and pudgy sloppy man.

But as I raised my drink, my eyes met his, and I could see that he was
laughing,

Laughing hard--altho the only outward sign was a tight and painful smile.

I took my drink in my left hand and went and laid my right hand on his
shoulder.

"Why are you laughing, little man?" I asked him. He did not mind that I
Had called him little man.

"I have a wife," he said, "who is a woman of the world.
And that is why I laugh, my friend." For he had seen that I, too, was
unhappy man

And did not think that life was what it could have been.

"Come with me," he said in a sudden burst of intimacy, "And I will show
you something."

He took me round the corner and as we walked he told me:
"I want to introduce you to my wife." He laughed out loud.
The "also my three daughters" was an added afterthought.

And so swiftly we walked three blocks, and I was all agog with interest
and excitement.

"Well there they are," he said, and I confess I was surprised
To see myself looking into the huge glass window of a lady's clothing
store.

Behind the glass there was a room transplanted from a home.

Complete with rugs and chairs and little tables holding cocktail glasses.

And of the four women in the falseness of that typical American home,
One was dressed in black and stood there in a pose so graceful

It obviously was false. She was tall and regal, each feature of her
face quite clear, distinct.

She was obviously the typical American mother--of the more monied sort--
Complete with even to the loveable tiny quirk upon her full-lipped mouth
The other three ranged down the scale:

The young married woman with every hair in place;

The young er college girl with anklets, saddleshoes, and sweater pushed
up to her elbows;

The still younger school girl with her naive look and schoolbooks.

Each feature on each face was perfect in detail.

You could pick each type an archtype instantly.

They represented what each woman of America strove to be--

When she was at the age XX to fit that type.

The scene was perfect. Each of the four fitted to perfection

The archtype that she was.

I stood and looked--while the little fat man stood and laughed.
An irritation, a desire to strike out and smash a face, rose up thru me.
For behind each perfectly typed face was coldness, calculation.
Behind each pair/eyes--motherly, wifely, sisterly, daughterly--
Was a look of hardness that belied the typed emotion the faces showed.
They were window models and each perfect breast and hip were made of
plaster,
Each head and bosom hollow.

The little fat man laughed again and rubbed his pudgy hand across his
the baldness of his head.

"That is my family. I made those molds five years ago, and every big
store

In the country has bought them from me. That's where I get the money
That I spend in all the bars."

I looked at him, and he returned the look.

We went back to our bar to get another drink.

A bar where there are many people--who laugh and quaff and pāāy
the nickel jukebox.

"Why are you laughing, little man?" I asked him. He did not mind that I
Had called him little man,

You could pick each archtype instantly.

They represented what each woman of America strove to be--
When she was at the age ix to fit that type.

Each head and bosom hollow.