“Quit, Harriet!”
She was strong. She nubbed me in the back with her game arm. If I had pushed her, she’d have gone through the window. I twisted around so that she was away from it. I tried to pry her off. The feel and the smell of her disgusted me.
“Steve boy—just a kiss, Stevie …”
I remembered her scraggly gray hair, her long yellowed teeth. She was comparatively harmless before the bourbon; at least she was able to behave. Now she was like a comic-strip character coming to life in a dirty book. We struggled. I tried not to hurt her, tried to watch out for the window, and all the time she kept hissing at me, trying to bite me. Finally I forced her away and she said, “You nigger, you.” We both panted. She brushed her hair back and said in a desperate bitter voice, “Oh, Stevie, c’mon. Don’t you want to? To a white woman? I won’t tell. I won’t tell.” She began unbuttoning her blouse. She changed her mind and began pulling drunkenly at the hem of her skirt.
I thrust her back against the wall and held her there, breathing hard. I could see her whole life then, of loving so many guys, of wanting so many guys, of not wanting to be alone with her aunt always, yet saying nothing because of the arm.
“Harriet,” I said. “Listen to me. No, now, please stop. You’re just a little high.”
She relaxed, and for just a fraction of a second I wanted to hit her, smash her against that wall. I ran out feeling weak and sick and very glad I hadn’t hit her in anger. I shuddered thinking about being arrested on a rape charge. Would the cops believe that a middle-aged woman with an arm crippled by polio had tried to rape me? Yeah, they would!
I met my date Evalyn as I rushed blindly out of the building. Dinner went badly. My mind wasn’t on it. I kept thinking of my vulnerability and I wondered what life would be like with a white face. I took Evalyn home and returned to my place and again I wasn’t able to sleep too much.
The next day and for a few days afterward, it was pretty miserable being in the office around Harriet and Rollie. I didn’t mention the incident to Harriet and she didn’t talk about it either, not even to apologize. Leah, I think, sensed something, but she had the good grace not to ask what. Anne, on the other hand, always rather crude, said several times, “Well, what’s the matter with you two?”
Sometimes I caught Harriet wiping her eyes hastily. It wouldn’t have done any good for me to have said. “Aw, hell, forget it,” so I didn’t. A part of me went out to her, and I could feel for her endlessly drab life. But another part of me smoldered. I mean, hers and Rollie’s behavior was just another case of using me. In every conceivable manner they want to use you. I felt this more than sympathy for Harriet.
What with the job and all, I was really mixed up and I would have cracked up had it not been for Lois.
But let me explain. The first girl friend I had was Sally Ricci. She lived upstairs over us with her family. When she and the other girls in the neighborhood played house, I was drafted to play father. It seemed the games of soldiers and cowboys and Indians bored me, although Sally’s brother, Nick, usually came to urge me away from the girls. But you don’t get any kicks playing soldier. Sally always played the mother, and I the father. We would send the kids who played with us to the movies or to school, as our parents did, and then we would be parents ourselves down there in the cool cellar. Sally and I got along well together.
Sally had auburn hair and gray eyes, and when I first saw Lois on the bus, I thought, This is how Sally must look now. Another thing about Lois. From a distance she reminded me of Lint’s wife, Bobbie. I saw Lois about three mornings a week. You couldn’t help but see her. She was the type of woman everyone stares at when she gets on a bus or into a subway car. Her hair was cut short and her brows were arched just slightly, like twin beautiful streams of mist. Her complexion was flawless. Her lips were red and full; they looked very warm and soft. Then you saw the gray eyes and they had about them a tender, warming look that made you want to walk fences.
If there were no seats, she stood in the aisle, her trim legs spread slightly while she looked through a window. You could see she was a little embarrassed when people looked at her. She was beautiful, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And two or three mornings a week she got off at my stop, Fifth and 42nd, and vanished in the swirling crowds.
Sometimes I saw her on the evening bus. We never spoke, of course, except to say, “Excuse me,” going for a seat or moving back. I seldom got a seat. The harmless-looking old ladies trampled me to death. It was safer to stand still and cover up. If I did get a seat, I would look up over my paper to where Lois was standing and find her looking at me, which was, perhaps, what had made me look up. As Obie would have said, “Something flowing in the air” between us. I wanted badly to say something to her, but who in New York or anywhere else opens by saying, “I noticed you on the bus”?
Then I was out early on a Saturday morning, one of those warm fall days when the sun sparkles like old gold and you hate to stay indoors. I had been out walking around the park with Lint, listening to his complaints about Bobbie—when I was with her, she complained about him—and I thought the day much too fine to listen long to either of them.
I hurried home.
On the way I saw Lois coming out of a little store with two bags of groceries. Each bag seemed almost as big as she. Her back was arched with the weight of them, and as I walked behind her I could see her straining in her tight, black knee-length pants and striped T-shirt. Again I was struck by her resemblance to Bobbie. Lois heard my footsteps and turned. Her face brightened instantly. I tried to keep mine expressionless. I swung out to go past. My stride broke.
“Can I help you with one of those?” I heard myself say. I looked at her. God, she was beautiful.
“Would you mind awfully?”
I took the largest of the two bags. It was heavy. I looked at her. She didn’t seem that strong, but I guessed she was.
“Heavy, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” I smiled. We walked in silence a half a block. When we got in front of my apartment building I automatically paused.
“You live here, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. She had stopped too.
She wrinkled her face. “I live at the end of the block. It isn’t too far. Can you—would you mind—”
“—awfully,” I finished for her.
We laughed and shifted the bags, then walked on, looking at one another out of the corners of our eyes and smiling. When we got to her building we passed a Negro doorman who said, “That’s a pretty big delivery boy you got there, Miss Fleck.”
“He’s not a delivery boy, Dan. He’s a friend.” She smiled brightly at me.
The doorman and I sized each other up in a glance, then Lois and I went into the elevator. She placed her bag on the floor.
“Why don’t you put your bag down? We have to go all the way to the top. It’s cheaper up there.”
“Why didn’t you have this stuff delivered?” I asked.
“I’d have had to wait too long for them. I needed some things right away.”
We got to the top. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said when we were inside her place. It was four times larger than mine.
“What’s this cost you?” I couldn’t help asking it.
She told me. It was the same amount I paid for my place. It didn’t make me angry; it made me sad, and I shook my head.
“I’ve seen you on the bus a lot,” she said, and right away I thought, Oh, she said it. “I’m glad you weren’t on it today. I don’t know how I’d have made it home.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t on it,” I said.
She smiled and clasped her hands together in front of her. I couldn’t help smiling back.
“Would you like some coffee?” she said.
“I’d love it,” I said.
“All right. You go in there and sit down. Be ready in a minute.” She began to flutter all over the place. Her apartment overlooked Riverside Drive. I could
see the park, the river, and across it, the Palisades.
“What’s your name?” she shouted from the kitchen.
“Steve! What’s yours?”
“Lois!” She came out seconds later with a glass of cold beer. “Lois Fleck.”
“Hill,” I said, taking the beer with some surprise.
“Coffee’s not ready yet,” she explained. “You do drink beer, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“What kind of work do you do?” she asked. She sat down. “You get off at Fifth and Forty-second—I think.”
I told her what I did. I didn’t tell her what sort of company Rocket was though. When I finished I said, “You seem to notice a lot of things.”
She smiled and got up to see about the coffee. She came back walking slowly, as if to give an idea time to nurture. “You have anything to do this afternoon?”
“No,” I said, though Obie and I had tentatively thought about a football game.
“Like to stay for dinner?” Then she said hastily, “I assume you’re not married and you either eat out or cook yourself.”
“I’m not married and I’d love to stay for dinner someone else cooks.”
“Good,” she said with a smile. “You won’t mind if I make something fabulous, would you?”
“No. Can I help?”
“Can you peel potatoes?”
“Sure.”
We went into the kitchen. Just like that, we had been caught up in each other. In the kitchen she gave me an apron and put me to work. She seemed very happy to have someone to talk with. She was very animated. It was delightful for me. There was no strain, no pain. Lois understood what I talked about almost before I said it, and several times we hit upon the crux of an idea at the same time and stood grinning at each other, quite proud of ourselves.
I learned a lot about Lois and her family that afternoon. The Flecks had come from Austria, fleeing before Hitler moved in to take the country. They had come to New York and her father had gone into business. One of his shops was in Harlem. I was silent for a second or two thinking about that shop in Harlem. Lois chattered on. She had gone to C.C.N.Y. and came out of Liberal Arts. She was a Gal Friday in one of those hustling little ad agencies. She worked in ceramics on the side. Her parents were orthodox Jews. I had known many when I was a kid. I used to make pin money during the holidays by lighting the gas for them. Since Lois went to school, worked with and knew many Christians, her folks watched her carefully. They didn’t want her to marry one and they protested vigorously when she dated them while she lived at home.
Lois’ parents were Old World Jews; Lois was not. She’d spent her formative years in America and almost from the start had relinquished much of the tradition of her parents. She, too, had to belong. But the pressures from both directions created problems that drove her into analysis. She could not quite decide whether she should live her own life or live it for her parents. She finally decided she had to live it for herself and she moved away from home. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she was right. Her mother sounded like a witch.
“What’s your mother like?” she asked. She was a little wistful, and I guessed she thought it had not been wise to begin the conversation.
“A little like yours.”
“Oh, no.”
“Perhaps not.”
“I’ll bet she’s wise and kind. She’s a good cook and you love her very much.”
“I guess so.”
We sat down to eat and she put on a stack of records. It was all very nice. Lois and I talked with our eyes. When we spoke aloud, the words were few. As I stood at the door, looking deep into those gray eyes, I knew I would see her again and I felt quite sure she wanted to see me. It was all over to quickly, but I didn’t have any idea how soon I was to see her again.
I passed the doorman on the way out and he smiled. I glared back at him, but I think I was a little pleased that he thought what I knew he was thinking. We said nothing, yet it was as if there was complete understanding between us, like there is on the buses when Negroes get on and don’t sit beside each other. They spread out, making those whites who don’t wish to sit beside Negroes uncomfortable. The understanding, though unspoken, is the same.
I rushed home to call Obie. He cussed me out. I suggested we make it to The Bird—Birdland—since I had goofed on the game. We arranged to meet just outside.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We dashed inside Birdland, Obie and I, and halfway down the steps he said, “Who’s on the bill?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought you knew.”
We trotted back upstairs and checked the boards.
“Never heard of them,” Obie said, “but Powell’s on too, so we’ll catch him.”
We went back downstairs and got seats in the gallery next to the rail. Bud Powell came on. He blinked and took his seat at the piano. Obie and I sat there listening. At one point, Obie leaned over the rail and whispered, “Blow, Bud, blow.”
Powell winked and nodded. His fingers ran over the keys, and as he worked out his innovations he bent closer and closer to the piano. Satisfied, he raised his head and looked up at the ceiling. For me, Powell could play all night. We decided to stay through and catch him again.
Obie and I were returning from the bar to reclaim our seats from the tourist trade when a small group of musicians sauntered onstage. They spoke softly to one another and moved restlessly. Then, almost by accident, it seemed, they began to play. Their shadows loomed huge behind them. They seemed like mannikins on the stage, oblivious to the complex sounds they were making, unaware of the emotions they stirred.
Obie began to tap on the table with a forefinger, I looked around. People were nodding to the beat. I turned back to the stage and watched the brown fingers of the bass player. They moved in a tireless, throbbing rhythm. The eyes of the youth—he was no more than twenty-two-stared into the crowd in front of him as though he were searching for someone or something he’d lost. All of a sudden I couldn’t help shaking my head gently from side to side. I heard someone keeping a ragged footbeat. I was surprised to find it was me.
The trumpet player moved forward on the stage then. At first I wasn’t sure what he was playing. The notes were soft and fluid, rolling swiftly with hardly a noticeable break. The tune seemed almost obscured. Finally I realized it was “Skylark.” It had been popular around 1942. In utter concentration the trumpeter peered through half-closed eyes at his fingers on the valves; they might have been acting independent of him. Behind the trumpet, the piano chorded softly and the bass became the flap of bird’s wings on a summer mid-morning.
The picture of what they were doing was clear in my mind now. The alto sax man pivoted slightly and began to blow with a gentle rush of air. The trumpeter, receiving applause from the crowd, gave a single, almost sardonic nod and stepped to the side, where he sleepily filled in the breaks of the saxophone with soft, echoing notes. Here the skylark swam effortlessly across the sky, diving among the trees, coming to rest for a second on the lower branches, stopping to pick up something in its beak.
Some of the words were running through my mind when the sax man quit abruptly, and the piano player, hunched over the keys in a posture of restrained eagerness, placed the skylark drifting and dipping on the currents of air. The trumpeter and the saxophonist, standing on different sides of the stand and peering coolly down at the audience, pointed and counterpointed each other on the theme, their triplets, flatted fifths and diminished ninths filling in with eerie shadows the portrait of the bird and the lovers waiting for it.
Applause filled the room.
Obie said, “What do you think?”
“Pretty good,” I said.
“Damned good,” he said.
We turned quickly back to the stage. A bongo player slipped into the lights and, crouched over his drums, began beating a soft, rapid rhythm which stilled the uneven sounds of talking in the crowd. The audience became ready to absorb the music, to go into it. The trumpeter and the
saxophonist set the theme and broke off suddenly, leaving a void into which the bongo player rushed, his hands making pale blurs above the small drums clutched tightly between his knees.
“Go, bongo!” someone shouted.
There seemed a hundred insinuating beats coming all at once from beneath the hands of the drummer. Faster. The spotlight came up full. I could see Obie’s head shaking to the beat. I began tapping the table myself, but it seemed not enough. Faster. The dry irritating thuds slammed into the room. The head of the bongo player bent forward so that his black hair dangled loose and shook in black strings as he tore his head left and right, pausing only at the end of a few bars to throw back his head and suck air through his clenched teeth. The bass fell in then, with an ominous, heavy beat which seemed a thing racing through complete blackness. The sound of a hundred feet tapping softly became pronounced. I recalled how the floor of the high-school gym had swung, swayed and creaked to the measured, deathless beat of dancing while our team dressed beneath it after a basketball game.
The bongo player hit four rapid beats so close together they were as one. Simultaneously, the bass player quit and there lingered in the air a horrible, empty sound. Then, almost with a sneer, the sax man moved into the center of the stage. He blew insinuating, insulting notes. He broke off, curved them, picked up the threads and wove them back into a theme.
At one point I had the image of a great horse galloping across a land shrouded in darkness, his name streaming behind him. Right behind that image I had another one of something soft and gentle, a beautiful thing. Again through counterpoint, the trumpeter and the saxophonist wove the weird, haunting sound into the melody.
I suddenly felt warm beneath my armpits; I could feel moisture on my body. The notes from the horns matched, grew loud, leaped on a flat fifth and quit. The bongo player, almost forgotten, hit four soft beats and flung his head over his drums. A second or two elapsed before the crowd knew the number was over; then it burst into wild applause.
The Angry Ones Page 8
