Manchild in the promised land

by Brown, Claude, 1937-

  She was so natural-acting, I just had to react to her. When we sat down at the Circle in Washington Square and I told her that I would bring her down there the following Sunday, she said, "It sounds like something marvelous, like something they'd have in foreign countries." She started getting that faraway look in her eye. I just grabbed her and kissed her.

  She sighed and said, "Well! That was nice. You know, I always knew that it would be.'*

  "How do you mean you knew?"

  "I just had that feeling before it happened that when you kissed me, it was going to be something exceptional."

  "Yeah? You're an authority on kissing already?"

  "No, but I knew it would give me a feeling like I never had before. I knew it would be a real good feeling." She just looked at me. I still had my arm around her.

  She said, "How about an encore?" I kissed her again. We just sat there and held each other for a while. Then she said she thought she'd better be going home. She was supposed to be out with a friend of hers, and she didn't want her mother to start calling the friend.

  I said, "Yeah, well, that's understandable." She told me

  she would call ipe Saturday, which was the following day. I said, "Okay, I'll be looking forward to it."

  I took her to the subway. I wanted to take her home, but I realized I couldn't do that. I rode uptown with her to Eighty-sixth Street and said good night there.

  I felt good. I really felt as though I had met something wonderful. I had just never met a girl like that. It was everything. Everything was different about her. Compared with her, most of the colored chicks I'd known seemed crude and harsh. They were chicks who you couldn't be but so sweet to, because they weren't sweet themselves. Her voice; and manner were warm. She seemed to be more feminine than most of the women I knew, and more of everything a woman was supposed to be.

  She did call that Saturday, and she talked about the time we'd had and how she'd enjoyed it very much. And she thanked me. She thanked me for asking her out. This was kind of funny. It made me laugh, but these little things made me think of her as more and more beautiful all the time. She seemed to be the sweetest girl in the world. I just kept talking about it, in my head, and every time I thought about it, I would laugh, not just smile, even if I was out in the street someplace. I guess people looked at me and thought I was a little crazy.

  I brought Judy down to the Village on Sunday and took her over to the Circle to see the folk singers carrying on. She really thought this was something great. Everybody there seemed so free. She wanted to take off her shoes and go into the Circle too.

  I said okay. I had to let her do what she wanted to do, and hope that she wouldn't go too far. She took off her shoes.

  I said, "Come on. You want to sing?"

  She «?aid. "No, I've got a terrible voice. I don't sing, but I'd like to listen."

  "Come on, you can get closer to the crowd."

  "No, I just want to stand here."

  "WeU, aren't your feet hot?"

  "No, it feels comfortable. This is something I've wanted to do all afternoon, but there aren't many places like this. Everybody else has their shoes off, so I don't look conspicuous here "

  We both smiled. That thought ran through my head aeain: Wow! I must have done something good, somewhere in my

  life, and this must be the goodness I'm reaping for it. We talked about the people in the Village.

  She asked me, "Why did you, that time when I told you I was Jewish and my parents were Jewish, why did you say that you suspected it?"

  "Look around you, here.'*

  "Yeah, so what?"

  "The Village is like a showplace for interracial couples. You're a square down here if you're going with somebody of the same race. It's all a fad, I think, with these people. I don't think most of them dig any of the people they're 'going with. They're just down here trying to be different, and if you're really going to be different, you've got to get (you a companion of a different race."

  She said, "I'm not so sure that's true. Maybe it's just that |down here all these people have found something good . . . iand people who happen to be of a different race. It's some-j thing they wanted, and this is the only place they can come jto and not be looked on as something queer. So they all just jcome down here."

  I said, "Yeah, that's a possibility, too, but I've been living jdown here now for about three years, and most of the younger people out here, they're just experimenting. They're taking a taste of the different fruits. Every few months, they have different boyfriends, different girl friends."

  "That may be true with many of the people down here. Still, that doesn't answer my question.".

  I said, "I don't know exactly what it is, Judy, but there seems to be a strong attraction between Jewish people and Negroes. Most of the white girls who you see around here going with colored fellows will be Jewish. And most of the white guys you see going with colored girls will be Jewish guys."

  "Oh, I didn't know that. I don't know of anybody who has done anything Hke that. I thought it was a very unusual thing."

  "It is, but when it does happen, it's with Jewish people."

  "Oh, I thought it was something that rarely Jiappened with Jewish families, because Jewish people have strong family ties. I have a cousin who married this Puerto Rican fellow. Her family just doesn't have anything to do with her any more. I still like her, and I see her. She can come by my house, and my parents say it's okay, but my aunt and my uncle say that she isn't their child any more."

  "Yeah, well, feat's the way some parents might take it."]

  "If my parents were to do that, and I was in love with I somebody, I think we'd be disowning each other, because] if they couldn't accept someone I was in love with, it would! only indicate to me that they didn't really love me."

  I looked at her, and I tried to smile. I said, "Yeah, that's; a big stand to take. It takes big parents to accept it. You'll have a rough way to go." |

  We just sat there. Before I'd realized it, we were talking^ about something new, something different. Suddenly, it had-gotten serious.

  "You know, Judy, many times I think that if a Negro ^ fellow really loved a giri . . , and she was white, he would' ... if he really loved her ... I think he wouldn't want to marry her."

  Judy said, "Why not? I think anybody who loves anybody regardless of color ... if they really love them, they couldn't help but marry them."

  "No. You see, what I'm talking about is most Negroes know that life is hard for a Negro anyway; it's terribly hard unless you've got some money, and most Negroes don't have any money. And if a Jewish person marries a colored person, this is murder. Life is going to be twice as hard for both of them. Then, just think about the kids you'd have. Damn. Can you imagine a kid being born a Jew and a Negro? You've struck out before you even start. It seems like a cruel thing to do to a child, bring a child into the world of Jewish and Negro parents."

  She looked at me silently for a while. Then she said, "Do you really believe this?" i

  "Sometimes I feel that way."

  "Well, let me tell you that when you feel that way, you're wrong. You're just taking a defeatist attitude. If you loved somebody, and you really loved them, you'd just have to find a way to make it work so you both could be together and be happy."

  "Yeah, well, maybe." I looked at her for a while. I thought. Wow, this young girl is really on fire, really on fire! I said, "Yeah, Judy, maybe you're right. Then again, I don't know whether I'd be game enough to do something like that myself."

  "Wait a minute, Claude. You mean to tell me that if I were to fall in love with you, there would be no hope for my ever becoming your wife?"

  I looked at her, and smiled. "Well, you've got us getting married already, huh?"

  "No ..."

  "Don't rush me, lady, please don't rush me to the altar. I've been afraid of this sort of thing all my life."

  She smiled and said, "Oh, no, no, no. I wasn't suggesting anything. I was just trying to find o
ut."

  I just grabbed her around the neck, playfully, and I said, "You just let your parents try and take you away from me, and I'll chase you to the ends of the earth. Just to spite 'em, I'll marry you, and we'll have a houseful of half-breeds. We'll have a houseful of nigger and Jewish kids running all around. Every Christmas, we'll let them send your parents a Christmas card with their pictures on it."

  Judy laughed.

  After a while, she said, "Qaude, didn't you tell me you live around here somewhere?"

  "Yeah, I live right over there on Cooper Square."

  "What does it look like?"

  "What does what look like?"

  "Cooper Square, and the place you live."

  "It's down the street from the club we went to Friday night. As a matter of fact, I showed you the school of Engineering at Cooper Union, and also the School of Science and Art."

  "Oh, you live near there. Why don't we go, and you can play something for me?"

  "I'll do it later."

  "Oh, no, you're just going to procrastinate about it. You don't want to show me how well you can play. Are you ashamed or something?" -

  "No. You could probably play better than me."

  "Okay, then, come on and let me show you how well I can play."

  For some reason, I was hesitating. I didn't know what I'd be able to do with her, or what I'd want to do with her. I said, "Okay, Judy, you come with me. We'll see how good you are on the piano. I'll bet you're very talented. I've always had the suspicion that you were too modest.'^

  I took her up to my place. We met Tony coming out. I introduced Tony to Judy. He was polite, with his beard and all, but I don't think he was too impressed. It was just a white girl. Tony said he'd see me later.

  It was really a drab-looking room I had down there on Cooper Square, but I had a lot of nice paintings. The land-

  lord was "a painter, and he had made reproductions ofj masterpieces. THey were hanging up all over the room.

  Judy looked af them; she looked at just about everything* as she came in. She said, "This is a very quaint place."

  It was a loft room with the slanted ceiling near the window, j The window was between the two drops in the ceiling. Itj was late afternoon when we came in there. The sun was just| going down. There was a little breeze.

  She thought it was beautiful. She just raved and ravedl about it. As she looked out the window, I came up behind i her and said, "The Third Avenue El used to be there t when I first moved down here. It was miserable." I

  She said, "Why, I'll bet it was beautiful even then." She looked around at the room and said, "I'll bet many a great artist has stood here and looked out this window. Probably during the Depression."

  She was really excited about it. I just stood there and watched her. She seemed to be going through some kind of fantasy. The place looked dreary to me, but Judy said, "Wow! It's beautiful. Everything about it is beautiful. As a matter of fact, it seems ideal for the painter, for the musician, or even a writer. It's a place where you can get away from everything."

  "Oh, yeah. I've had some pretty nice lonely moments down here."

  "I'll bet you've never been lonely."

  "No. I have aU my paintings to keep me company."

  Judy said, "Play something for me on the piano."

  "What would you like to hear?"

  "I don't know. Anything nice."

  "Have you ever heard 'These Foolish Things Remind Me of You'?"

  "Oh, yeah, I've heard that. Can you play it?"

  I sat down and played it. She raved about it. I didn't think it was that good, but I sort of expected it from her, because she was that way.

  After that, I asked her to play. She said she wanted me to play another one for her. I played another one. She was sitting over in the corner, in the rocking chair. I had had a rocking chair and a chair at the desk. These were the only two chairs in the room, other than the bench for the piano.

  She said, "There's something about this room that seems to be you."

  I stopped playing, and I said, "Something like what?'*

  "The books that you have, and the piano, with the metronome sitting on the top, the paintings that you have. It's just the coloring and everything."

  "It's not really. All the paintings and just about all the furniture, except for the piano, were here when I came."

  "Yeah, but it seems to have blended in with you."

  "It's probably that I blended in with the furniture."

  All the time, she just kept rocking. She said, "I want to hear you finish playing that, whatever it was you were playing. What was it?"

  "It's a tune called 'I'm in the Mood for Love.'"

  "I've heard the tune. . . . I've never heard it played that way."

  "Yeah, well, this is what jazz does to tunes."

  She laughed.

  As I was playing, I heard the rocking chair stop. The piano was right next to the bed. Tony used to say I treated it like the woman I loved; I kept it near the bed so that it would be the first thing I touched when I woke up and the last thing I touched when I went to sleep. I used to put in long hours on the piano.

  When I was sitting there playing, I didn't hear Judy get up; I just heard the rocking chair stop squeaking. Then I heard her plop down on the bed. She said, "Do you ever lie here and look up at the ceiling?"

  "No, I don't look at the ceiling too much. Sometimes I lay there and read. Sometimes I just lay there and think."

  "What do you think about?"

  I was still playing and she was lying on the bed looking. I'd just noticed something about her. She had a very big chest; her breasts were large, and she looked ready, very ready. I don't know why, but I had a crazy feeling about her. I didn't want to look at her, because she looked so good, so tempting there. I had seen chicks with much finer bodies, but they never seemed to have the mind and womanly sweetness to go with it. It wasn't just the body or her big breasts; it was all the things we'd done that day, all the things we'd said, the kind of telephone conversation we'd had the day before. I looked at her and smiled.

  She reached one hand up, and she put it on my leg. I said, "Okay, Judy, it's your turn. What're you trying to do, distract me? Did you think I was going to forget?" I started joking. I said, "You're going to get up and play something for me."

  She got up and played. She said, "This is the first movement from BeethoVen's Sonata Pathedque"

  I said, "Wow! I should have known with all the modesty you have. It's usually the people with the most modesty who can play best."

  I kept talking, and she kept looking at me. She had a look in her eye that sort of let me know that she wasn't in the mood for playing piano and talking. I knew what she wanted, but I just couldn't. It seemed as though I would have been treating her like an average bitch, just one of the whores you'd pick up out there on the street. I just couldn't do that; I just couldn't do it. I said, "Look, Judy, why don't we go out and get something to eat? I'm hungry. There's a nice delicatessen over on Second Avenue. We could go and have a hot pastrami sandwich and a beer or something." She said, "Okay, if you want to." "Yeah, I want to."

  We went and had the pastrami sandwiches and the beer. When we came out, I said, "Come on, there's a park I want to show you. It's up on Eighteenth Street and Second Avenue. It's one of the nicest parks around here."

  She came along, but she looked a little disappointed. I knew she wanted to go back to my place.

  We walked and walked until it was time for her to go home. Then we went to the subway at Fourteenth Street and University Place.

  I said, "Look, Judy, why don't we just let the relationship take its course? I would never think of rushing you into anything. If something just happened on the spur of the moment, I wouldn't be certain whether I caught you off guard of whether you wanted to, or what. I want to get everything you've got, everything. But when I get it, I want to feel absolutely certain that you want me to have it." I kissed her, and she smiled. I had the feeling that we imderstood
each other.

  "Claude, I think that the luckiest thing that's happened to me is that I met you. I thought that at first, but now I'm more convinced of it than ever. I feel more certain every day that it has been the luckiest experience in my life."

  She used to say things like this, and it always made me feel good. I wanted to devour her right there on the spot. I told her, "I feel pretty lucky too," and we just stood there, in the middle of the subway entrance, kissing. We went down the stairs holding hands.

  I rode up as far as Fifty-ninth Street with her, then came back downtown. When I came home, I saw a hght on in Tony's room, so I knocked on the door. I asked him, "Man, how are things?"

  He said, "Okay. How are things with you?"

  I smiled and said, "All right."

  He said, "Yeah, I sort of thought they would be. Sonny, it looks like you're becoming a regular Villager now, man."

  "How's that?"

  "Well, you're into this thing, man. You got your art, and you got your beard . . . even though it's only three days old and you might shave it off tomorrow. And you even got your white girl now."

  I thought he'd said it in a joking mood. I said, "Yeah, man, I guess I am." I wasn't ready to joke about it now; I just wasn't ready to joke about it. I didn't know I would feel that way. Tony and I were tight. I always felt that I could say anything to him, and I suppose he always felt that way too. Well, he was saying it, and I didn't know how to take it.

  He said, "Sonny, man, how is she?"

  "How you mean how is she?"

  "Well, did you pop her? You must have jugged her by now, haven't you?"

  I said, "Uh-uh, man. I don't know."

  "Damn, man, what you doin' with it?"

  I didn't answer. I didn't want to talk about it. I hadn't thought about it before, and I didn't know until Tony started talking about it, but I just knew that I couldn't make her a topic of conversation for the fellows.