Esther's delinquency

[Terrance]

"You are early," he said.
"I'm late," she answered. Already stepping out of her skirt.
V.96

Rachel bitches to Dr. S, Esther is broke so why is he doing
this to her. Doing what? Screwing her? R gives the good Dr.
$800.00. That was a whole lotta clams back in 55-56. 
Poor Esther is living with R. She earns about $50 a week,
little more than minimum wage and she spends half of her
weekly earnings on weekly visits to a shrink. She sleeps
around, that nose, no confidence and besides girls are
expendable (V.53, V.87) She kicks in $12 a week for rent,
the Con Ed (that's the big utility company here) bill  has
not been paid and yet she has her eye on  a dress at Lord
and Taylor, "bright lights big city is gone and made my baby
mad." A $40 dress at L&T could be had in Bloomingdales or
Macys for less and if she had but a pinch of frugality she
could stay on the bus over the bridge to Queens and get the
dress for $20. And even though most people would take the
bus to meet a lover on the fringes of Germantown if they
were coming crosstown, I think (can't be sure, it's probably
deliberate, those park crossings of Benny and R, though the
grating seems to suggest...) R walks over there to pay
Esther's balance. Anyway, here is Esther (Queen savior of
the Jews) riding on an M crosstown to see her lover, her
thighs Veeed at the rear of the bus. Not the black back of
the bus, but not the place that a frightened young lady with
limited means would be sitting in 1956, but there she is
reading L. Ron Hubbord or some such soon to be going to
California with daisies in her hair metam in my psycho
classes talking in tongues Bridy Murphy trash while outside
the bus (she's a tourist no?) is a delinquent wilderness.
Delinquent? R does say that Esther pays on time. The bus,
nothing like that mad bus and driver in GR, is being driven
by a genial Ralph, perhaps he likes driving through the park
and cross town is a pleasant drive as compared with the
Yo-Yo or up or down the bronx is up and the battery is down,
who happens to like Classical syrup. And if you like
Classical syrup or if you want to here Tchaikovsky's R&J at
least three times a day, no just every other day since 1956,
you can tune into WQXR NY. So P, as he does with other
cities gets in these familiar details and sets them against
the Baedeker or tourist stereotypes. So the delinquent also
turns out to be a faceless rock heaver near Columbus Circle
and cries in Spanish from down in the darkness assault the
bus and a gun shot or maybe if you are not so paranoid only
a taxi backfiring downtown and into the waste of the great
park we go where uptown and downtown there is much killing,
raping, screwing in the bushes, mugging and all that good
stuff Central Park is good for. Shakespeare, Jazz, screwing
in the bushes, rugby, football, tokes and jokes and all
that. The history of CP and its finances is quite an
interesting story and was all over the papers during the
late 50s and 60s as were the stereotypical Archie Bunkerism
the narrator is mocking here. The park is not square, but
rectangular and so I think the "square" confines of her
world, the covenant for cops and delinquents (Molly Hite's
use of the term "Covenant" is quite interesting, Secular
History maybe, sorry) are Esther's paranoid thoughts as are
the paranoid thoughts that are generated from here reading
of L. Ron Hubbord or whatever, that R may have been
listening to her phone conversations. 

I'm late.
What?
My period, you know, that bloody mess, monthly. 
Hills like white elephants baby, hills like white elephants.