The Angry Ones

by Williams, John A. ;

  “Man,” Obie said. “Let’s get out of here. That action left me limp.”

  “We went next door to William’s for some ribs. We ate in silence until Obie said, “You’re kind of quiet. What’s happening?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I had been listening to the music. It was the same stuff Lois had played.

  “You turn up anything yet?” he asked.

  “Not a goddam thing.”

  After a pause Obie said, “This is a funny town. You never really know what’s going on.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cleveland’s supposed to be a crazy place.”

  “So I heard, but this is the place, man, New York.”

  Obie was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You know what we should do?”

  “What?”

  “Start an ad or PR agency—make it go so we don’t have to be dependent on other people for a living.”

  “An agency—” I began.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking. What’re we going to eat—where’s the money coming from to set it up—where are we going to get accounts from? I know that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s the only way out of this crap,” he said.

  “That’s no way out,” I said, thinking of the little, darkroomed Negro agencies I’d seen from New York to Los Angeles.

  Obie said, “I guess we’re too afraid of starving, and yet, look what’s happened to us already. Man, if we don’t get a couple of things soon we’ll be starving anyway. And there’s nothing sure about what we will be doing.”

  “I guess not, Obie, but there ought to be something.”

  “I go for the idea of not having a boss who can walk in and fire me at any time.”

  “Jesus, Obie, who doesn’t?”

  Obie rushed on. “We could work exclusively in the Negro market. We’d be experts.”

  “Man,” I said heatedly, “I thought we talked about this before? Negro market—that’s sixteen million niggers each with ten dollars in his pocket. Big deal. You got ten dollars, Obie?”

  “Aw, man—”

  “And even if there was a market, Obie, why would you want to prolong the goddam isolation. Look at you, look what isolation did for you. Top man in the class and look at you! Obie, damn it, look at us!”

  “I’m looking,” he said.

  “In another ten or fifteen years it would be gone anyway. It’ll be absorbed into the total market. It’s inevitable.”

  Obie threw down his fork. “Aw, hell, let’s walk, man.”

  We dragged around Broadway, getting our kicks watching the tourists. We listened to the rush of water pouring down the Pepsi-Cola sign; we watched the huge, mechanized Johnny Walker striding smilingly west with his swinging cane, and we saw the Anheuser-Busch horses trampling red and soundless out of the night. Around us people sludged along, gaping, staring all around. We stopped in a bar on Seventh Avenue and began to drink Scotch shorties with beer, but I couldn’t get to feeling good. We decided to call it a night.

  I went home to my apartment and shut out the Saturday night. I fixed coffee and smoked. I showered and thumbed through the paper, but I couldn’t concentrate on it. I put it aside and reached for the phone book. I thumbed through it looking for the F’s, then the Fl’s. The phone rang. The bell was turned low and the ringing sounded very intimate, very special.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Want to go for a walk? I don’t feel like walking alone.”

  “Huh?”

  She laughed.

  “Lois?”

  “Yes. I tried to call you before. Are you alone?”

  “Yes.” I reached for a cigarette, lighted it.

  “You want to?”

  “What? Oh, walk. All right. I’ll be right down.”

  “If you’re tired,” she said, “forget it. I’m so stupid for calling at this hour.”

  “No,” I said. “I guess I hoped you would. Matter of fact—”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing.” I stared around the apartment.

  “You did?”

  “Did what?”

  “Hope I would call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

  “Well—”

  “Do you know how many times I called you?”

  “No.”

  “Three times, I’m afraid. I thought it quite foolish, but I couldn’t stop once I got the notion.”

  I was silent for a while. Then I said, “I’ll be right down.”

  I dressed and went out. She was standing in her lobby. I could see her through the glass door with her gray flannel slacks and brown buckskin jacket. She wore a black scarf around her neck. She started to move the instant she saw me; she was smiling. I smiled back. We walked across the street and leaned on the stone wall. It was a bit chilly, but otherwise nice. Lois took several deep breaths and turned to me, smiling again. The sky was clear and star-filled. The river moved in shadows. Across it, the big Spry sign flashed red and white. Cars rushed by on the parkway, their lights lancing up bolder and bolder, then vanishing suddenly. We walked down to 79th Street, then into the park. We sat on a bench and lighted cigarettes.

  “What did you do tonight?” she asked.

  I told her.

  “I’ve never been to Birdland,” she said. “I went to Basin Street once, though.”

  “I’ll take you sometime.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “I’d love it.”

  We stared out over the river. Small blocks of light stood on the edges of the Palisades from the buildings there.

  “What do you usually do Saturday nights?” I asked.

  She shrugged, “I do nothing usually. I date sometimes. Two or three times a week.”

  “Nice Jewish home-type boys?”

  She cracked up. When she stopped laughing she asked, “And you?”

  “Yeah, I date sometimes.”

  “New York can be terribly lonely on a Saturday night if you’ve nothing to do, nowhere to go.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know.” I could see she considered me a neuter—nice to be with, wonderful to talk to, excellent company for a lonely girl.

  “It’s beautiful like this, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, but I was looking at her. She was very beautiful in the soft, almost morning light. I wanted to take her hand. I don’t think she would have minded, but I didn’t. We walked back up along the Drive and sat down again. It was about four, but I was not really tired.

  “I could use some coffee,” I said. “How about you?”

  “Could I! Do you have any?”

  Right away we both knew she shouldn’t have said that, but I jumped up before she could say anything and said, “Just made a fresh pot. C’mon.”

  She came.

  She smiled as she walked slowly through the door of my place. “I thought,” she said, “it would look like this. Yes, I’ve been imagining all sorts of things about you.”

  I lighted the coffee and put Oscar Peterson’s “Autumn in New York” on the player; it’s great at four in the morning.

  “Dance?” I said.

  Lois hesitated for a moment, then came into my arms, her eyes a little wide. She felt very good. She held her arm way out. I took it and drew it in a little.

  “Going to fly away?” I asked.

  She laughed nervously and was very relieved when the record was through playing. I shut the player off and turned the radio on. We had coffee, then more. It was getting close to five. I kept thinking. Something has to happen.

  “I think I’d better go,” she said. She walked to the door and stood there. She looked at me inquiringly.

  “Good night,” I said. “It was nice.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Aren’t you going to walk me home?”

  “No,” I said. Something had told me that this was the right thing to say. />
  “You’re kidding, Steve.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Good night, then.” She went out.

  It would have been nice to walk her home, to be with her a few minutes longer just to see what happened.

  I had just got into bed when the phone rang.

  Lois said, “You’re a bastard, you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “A nice bastard.”

  I smiled to myself. “Can I call you sometime?”

  “Yes.”

  A silence followed her rather positive assent.

  “Fine,” I said. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Steve.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I didn’t see Lois on the bus the next morning. I guess I expected to.

  Harriet didn’t come in. She called and said she was quitting. Even at the end she surprised me. Who in the hell quits on a Monday? I would have thought that Harriet’s position was one that just had to be filled, but it wasn’t. Rollie and Sarah agreed to parcel the work out between Leah and Anne, and we trundled along as Crispus’ book finally got onto the presses.

  As a matter of procedure, we notified the authors when their books went into the final phase of production. At the same time we passed along to them for approval art work for the covers of their books. Crispus wired that he would return his sample in person as he was passing through on business.

  Rollie thought about that for a time. He usually preferred not having authors anywhere in New York while we were getting their books out, but it didn’t really faze him. Rollie would take Crispus to lunch and send him to Radio City Music Hall and that would be that. Nothing really fazed Rollie except losing a contract, and that seldom happened.

  I was still backing off job interviews. I was sending out letters and resumés, of course, but I hadn’t heard from anyone. I lunched pretty regularly with Lint, and with Obie too, when I could. He was busy on his lunch hours, looking for another job.

  A couple of weeks dragged by. I hadn’t called Lois, hadn’t seen her or Obie. I avoided Lint and Bobbie and stayed pretty much to myself.

  Then Obie called me at work.

  “Well, man,” he said. “I’ve had it.”

  “Goddam. Anything in sight? Did you turn up anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do they owe you any money?”

  “No, I got all the bread I had coming.”

  “Obie, you want to move in—”

  “Don’t be silly, Steve. As much pussy as I get, how can I share a pad with anyone? I’d make you en-vee-ous.”

  “Cut the clowning, man. What are you going to do?”

  “Do? You know I’d better get out there and get my black ass a job. Have you flipped?”

  “Obie, why don’t you cut out the garbage?”

  “Steve, I’m not clowning. Now I can hang out with the—with the—”

  “Niggers,” I said. Obie couldn’t say the word; he hated it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Get me a flock of fine broads and put them to work for the old boy, you know? Then I’ll get me a contact and start handling high-grade marijuana. Who knows, a month from now I may have a prettier Caddie than Sugar Ray. What color is his?”

  “Lavender, I think.”

  “That’s cool. Mine’ll be shar-troose!”

  “Try to stay in touch, will you, man?”

  “But of course, old chap.”

  “You need any money?”

  “I’m fine now,” he said, “but please, don’t run away.”

  I laughed. “I’ll talk to you in a day or so.”

  “All right.”

  I hung up feeling down, way down. I felt for Obie and I was fearful for myself. But for him the grind was on, not coming on.

  That week looked like a bad one, but toward the end of it I was pleasantly surprised to meet Lois at the bus stop. We climbed on together and stood talking in the aisle. I became conscious of a great strain, just talking to her. Everyone seemed so interested in us. Every time we spoke, heads swung around. And the eyes, the eyes searched, first her, then me as if this was such an impossible thing—a pretty white girl talking without apparent discomfiture, and very familiarly, with a Negro. I suggested we get off about five blocks from our usual stop and walk. She agreed. I felt she was as glad as I to get off the bus.

  “You didn’t call,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “I made you an ash tray, best one I ever made, and I wanted you to pick it up, but you didn’t call.”

  I said nothing. It was nice, the walking.

  “Do you want some supper?” she asked.

  “Are you cooking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m with you.”

  Again there was that silence which, between the right people, is more communicative than talking.

  “Tell me,” I said, “don’t you have a boy friend?”

  She shook her head without looking at me.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I’ve had them,” she said. “Let’s say I’m between them.”

  We walked along the park until we got to her place, then we cut in past the doorman. I couldn’t resist saying, “What’s happening, Dan?”

  He glared at me and I smiled. Lois smiled too. She was still smiling when we got into the self-service elevator and the door closed. I kissed her all the way upstairs. When the door opened I knew I was no longer a neuter—a nice guy to be with, a guy who wouldn’t touch. And at that point I knew that she didn’t want me to be a neuter any longer either.

  Holding her hand on the table after dinner, I said with a tight throat, “I’m glad you didn’t feel as though I’d rape you.”

  She removed her hand. “Why did you say that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I hope you really don’t think that, Steve.”

  “No.”

  She sipped her wine. I stared at the ash tray she’d made for me. She’d said she designed it to fit my personality, but it really eluded description. I looked up to find her looking at me, not closely but as if she were looking at an object she would begin to paint in a few moments. Her eyes were soft and unblinking. Several times when I thought she might be looking at something else, I turned to find her still looking at me.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she answered, jerking her head slightly, as if to clear it.

  I went to her then and raised her from the chair. She stood poised against my chest, her lips tight against my neck. I don’t recall now who was breathing the louder. I whispered into her hair.

  “No, Steve,” she said, but she didn’t mean it, because minutes later I was looking at the melanin spots on her bare back, thinking how the absence of it, almost, made her white and the overwhelming presence of it in my skin made me brown. I left her in bed, a pale nude with sparkling hair. She kissed me lightly and murmured as I left, “Slam the door, dear.”

  Downstairs I walked slowly along the street. I stifled a desire to cross it and lean on the park wall, to stare into the darkness. I wanted to savor every minute of the past couple of hours. But I went along home. Suddenly I stopped. Something Lois had said was echoing and re-echoing in my brain.

  She had said, “I’m glad I met you today. My mother’s been on my back all week. I wish I could bring myself to give her a good ringing slap or even shout back at her.”

  Lois had looked at me then, those gray eyes going wide and deep. “She’d die,” Lois said, “if she walked in here and found you nude, in bed with me—nude too.”

  I started walking home again, only this time I moved slower. You could smell the river, and the winds that blew in from it made the street cool. I was thinking, She hates her mother. She wants to get even with her for the hard times she’s caused her, and I’m that tool for revenge. Her mother doesn’t really have to know—it’s enough for Lois to imagine and delight in her mother’s shock.

  I didn’t think Lois knew what motivate
d her. Perhaps with the help of her analyst she would soon find out, but until then I had the upper hand. That is, I knew pretty well why she saw me.

  It had started out a wonderful night. It had ended very messy, and I guess it was fitting that the next day would bring Hadrian Crispus to New York.

  Rollie was very gracious with him. He showed Crispus around the office and introduced him to each of us. By now Rollie and I were managing to get along rather stiffly. No one else in the office suspected anything between us, not even Leah, who was pretty sharp. I made a great effort to be pleasant to Crispus. He made no effort to extend his hand, nor did I. If he had to address me, he said, “Hill,” not mister. And I, in turn, called him “Crispus.” Rollie, I’m sure, was a little amused by it all.

  Crispus, like other authors who had come into the office, seemed favorably impressed by the size of it and by the staff. To me it remained a junky place with the covers of books which had been pasted against the walls slipping off and unread manuscripts piled all over hell.

  Hadrian Crispus was a big fellow, big and flabby. He had a ruddy complexion and little dull brown spots for eyes. They seemed always slitted against light. His face was that of the rural Southerner, open, pale and without character. His neck was red from the sun and he was uncomfortable in his new white shirt. His hair was flattened down over his head and he had a sweet smell about him, as if he’d been doused with cheap shaving lotion from the five-and-dime. And he had an accent. I’ve always wondered why it is that Southern whites often have more pronounced accents than Southern Negroes.

  I had mixed feelings about this man. He was from Mississippi and as such represented the epitome of Crackerhood; in fact in other sober moods I would have voiced the opinion that the world could get along without him very well. I wanted Rocket to take him for every damned penny he had. But still, a part of me wanted him to escape Rollie’s clutches. It was just a small part of me.

  Crispus thought he had written a best seller. Can you imagine? His book was about life on the Mississippi Delta. He had some happy, singing Negroes in his book too. They danced also, by the way. Obie had once said that all that dancing that Negroes are supposed to be good at was only aggression disguised. Sometimes I thought Obie a pretty smart guy.