| OCR Text |
Show •250 in front of the Fantcm Building to get my bearings; down a sidestreet a long banner stretched above a storefront marked the Hubert Fantom (Republican) for Governor Headquarters. The town was full of black-haired, dark-skinned girls who could have been Jenny; I hurried along, peering into faces but all I met were consecutive disappointments. The people took no interest in me; if a girl smiled, it was absent-mindedly; they were intent on their own business. I went into Herbie's Place: Singles Only, and peered without luck into one booth after another. The man behind the bar was Father Ragni from Butte. "Where's Jenny?" I asked him. He dipped three fingers into my drink and crossed himself solemnly. "This earthly life is only a vanity and a dream," he said. "My advice is prayer and resignation. Don't forget the part about women." In his black cassock, with his enormous arms, his head big as an apple-crate, his knotty fingers with red hair springing from the knuckles, he looked like an earth-giant heaved up out of the planet's belly by a queer accident of nature. "Bless you, father," I said. I followed my nose down one street after another; the logic of the dream led me to a more deserted part of Los Angeles. High blank walls replaced the signs and friendly |
