“We’re in the wrong field,” Obie said, “or ten years too early.”
It was something to think about, but I said, “Aw, Obie, there you go again.”
He smiled. “It’s the truth, Steve.”
“Nuts.”
Obie became suddenly animated. “Ten years from now you still won’t be able to write.”
Feigning indignation, I said, “What the hell are you talking about, man? You never could write copy.”
“Steve, my man, you haven’t seen the day when you could write as good as me.”
“And layout, Obie. That crap you were doing at Black—what the hell was that supposed to be? Where did you learn that?”
“From the same place you did, dammit.”
“Let’s face it, Obie,” I said, turning my back on him, “you can’t touch Steve Hill.”
“I’ll punch Steve Hill in his goddam mouth,” he said, clutching my shoulder, spinning me around.
I raised my fists and skipped back. “Why? Because he’s a better all-around man than you?”
“No, because he hasn’t bought a drink since we’ve been here, that’s why.”
“Drink!” I shouted. All the slumbering drunks darted to their feet, their eyes flashing up and down and all around, as if a live one had walked in.
“Go back to sleep!” Obie roared, and we laughed until the tears came.
One bum, a few feet from us, closed his eyes sadly and muttered, “Sumbitches.” Obie and I cracked up again.
For a moment we had managed to clown.
Obie took the top off his drink and, staring into his glass, said, “This doesn’t get it at all, man.”
“No,” I agreed.
“A nothing, that’s what this is. Saturday night on the town with worries.”
I didn’t answer. I was thinking of the afternoon and evening, which in a sense had been wasted. In another sense it hadn’t. Who could tell? My money was gone and I could have gotten something for Frankie and Teddy. I was irritated with myself for thinking of them.
“I’d like to get out of this country for a while,” Obie said. He was high now—that mellow, moody kind of high. That blues high.
“Yeah, me too.”
“It’ll get worse.” He studied me. “Do you know where I would go, my man?”
“My man,” I said, “I do not know where you would go.”
“To Africa,” Obie said with a grand gesture of his arms. “And there, deep in the bush, the lightest thing I’d ever see would be the not so pink soles of my people’s feet.”
“You don’t look at the maps or read papers,” I said. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, Spanish Guinea or Portuguese Africa?”
Obie smiled and slapped me on the shoulder. “Kill-joy.”
He smiled again, archly; then his face became serious. “Steve. Steve, look here, man. I’m a little high, but I’m all right and you know it, don’t you, ol’ buddy?”
“Sure, Obie.”
“Steve, you know what I’d really like to see?”
“No, man. What?”
“I’d like to see,” he said, and his eyes cleared for a second. He looked up over the bar. “I’d like to see the Hercules Brunnen in Colmar.”
“Yeah, so would I.” We thought about the statue of the Hercules Brunnen with Negroid features in Alsace. It’s supposed to have been the thing that sent Schweitzer to Africa.
“Holding up the world as cool as you please,” Obie said. “Man, I’d like to see that.”
The drone of the flies seemed to fill the place. Obie pushed his hat back on his head. He looked thoughtful. “You know we teach our kids to say, and the old folks say it, that they’re proud to be black?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I guess I’m proud to be black too,” he said with a hollow laugh, “but I’d like to be white just for a day. One lousy day.” He paused. “Steve, do you know something?”
“Sure. You’d be a bitch for that day.”
“You’re abso-goddam-lutely right.”
“Must be a great feeling,” I said.
“It’s unconscious with them. What the hell,” he said. “Arise, Negroes, arise. You have nothing to lose but your goddam lives!”
I got us another drink because Obie was getting a little loud. The bums were stirring again. Somewhere in the still night someone began to play a blues record. It went slow and easy; it reached way down and touched a nerve, made it quiver and somehow brought thoughts to your mind. Obie snapped his fingers to the beat—pap! pap! pap! A drunk woke long enough to mutter, “Aw, play it, man!” And we all huddled there listening to the record, the drone of the flies, the police sirens that you hear almost all the time in Harlem. Then the record was over for a minute and the person, some blue person, way up high in a tenement apartment, started to play it again.
Obie said, “I guess I’ll call Gloria to come and get me.” He smiled. “It’s good for my ego, you know.” He started to the phone booth and stopped and turned to me. “What is it that ties us so inexplicably to women?”
I started to say something wise.
“No, it’s more than that,” he said, as if he’d read my mind.
“Then I don’t know. Maybe we still need mothers.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it. Hey, you ever feel incestuous?”
The question startled me because at the moment I was thinking of Grace. I still had some guilt feelings about her having been married to my brother. “No,” I said.
Obie went to the booth. He left the door open, and above the sound of the blues, the drone of the flies and the police sirens, I heard him say, “Baby, baby, please come and get me.” Then he told her where he was.
I waited with him until Gloria came. His eyes lighted up the moment she came through the door; so did hers, and I have seldom in my life felt as alone as I did the moment they rushed up to each other and embraced. A drunk opened one eye and peeked at Gloria’s legs, then he closed it and went back to sleep with a little smile on his face. Obie and Gloria turned and walked slowly into the street.
I had one more drink. I drank it slowly and listened to that record that was being played all over again and I tried to think of the kind of blues the person who played it had. Lonely blues? Woman blues? Or just plain old inescapable nigger blues?
I caught a cab and got out a few blocks from home. I wanted to walk. I saw clouds scudding across the sky, looking as if they would run into the buildings; then miraculously they were past, racing northward, and the bright, early morning sky broke out, a single, blazing star spearheading it from the east. One newsstand was open, its incandescent lights blaring soundlessly into the street. I bought a Times at the stand and, tucking it under my arm, thrusting my hands deep into my pockets, I decided I liked New York like this, just before dawn; just before people poured out of and into offices; before the noises started screaming through the glass-brick, asphalt-floored canyons; before the light came up and the buildings became harsh and their windows glinted like the points of steel daggers. At that moment New York was mine and I was surveying it, sauntering through it, making sure everything and everyone in it was all right.
I wished I could call someone and say, “Baby, please come get me.” I thought suddenly of Grace then, and her letter, and I didn’t feel so alone, so blue.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The telephone woke me. My head was a little big.
At least, I called her at decent hours, I thought. It was Lois.
“You going to sleep all day?”
“What time is it?”
“Four o’clock and it’s beautiful out.”
“Already?”
“Who did you sleep with last night?” She laughed when she asked it—an embarrassed laugh.
“I didn’t.”
“You weren’t home all night.”
“You’ve been calling,” I said, pleased.
“Oh, a couple of times. Got a hangover?”
“H
ow did you guess? Want to come down and fix coffee?”
There was a pause. “Just coffee? Well, I did want to talk with you …”
“Just coffee,” I assured her.
I let her in when she came, then I crawled back into bed. She sat looking sad while the coffee perked. Finally she said, “You must have got some load on last night.”
I grunted.
“Who were you with?” She had an odd, fixed smile on her face. There was something in her questions that irritated me.
“Guy I went to school with. Why?”
“Just wondered. Want to take a shower?”
I nodded ever so gently. “What was it,” I asked, “that you wanted to talk about?”
“Later,” she said. “Want a clean towel?”
“No. That one’s all right.”
She turned the shower on. “Ready in five minutes,” she said. I heard the refrigerator door open. “What are you going to eat for dinner? You don’t have a damned thing in the box.”
“Going out,” I muttered.
“I’ll cook—if you’ll buy groceries.”
“Okay. Take the five on the dresser.”
She took it and went out, humming. I felt better by the time she got back with something like seven cents change. “You said just coffee,” I reminded her. “Now you want to make dinner.”
“You know what I meant,” she said, with mock menace. She took a swipe at me.
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
She nodded.
“Don’t you have anything to drink?” she asked.
I looked at her. I had half a flask of Scotch. I got it and gave it to her.
“Three drinks,” she said. “Not bad. You’ve had yours.”
I waved a hand in bitter agreement as she poured herself a drink.
“Idiot,” she said softly. “What do you see in getting drunk?”
“That’s why I do it—so I won’t have to see anything.”
She smiled, but deep behind it there was sadness.
When dinner was ready, I got out some candles and lighted them. There was a bit of Chianti left and I brought it out. Then I put some records on the phonograph.
“Eat,” Lois said.
Outside it was beginning to get dark. Lois, inside with me, was very beautiful in the candlelight, with its flames sparking highlights from her hair. Her eyes seemed impossibly soft and I kept asking myself, What am I doing here with this beautiful woman?
“Want to talk now?” I asked.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” she said.
I kept eating.
“That’s not right, Steve. I can’t see you anymore.”
I continued eating.
“You know why. But I love you, I think, very much.”
“No problem then,” I said.
“It is a problem.” She put down her fork. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
“How’s it with the doctor?”
She sipped her wine, looked at me, eyes widening, softening. “We talk about you at almost every session. I dreamed about you twice last week.”
“Tell me about the dreams.”
“I only remember one.”
I took her hand. “Go on. Tell me.”
“It’s very short.”
“Tell me, baby.”
“Someone,” she said, tracing her fingers lightly over my hand, “had been cruel to you at your office. You jumped out the window.”
“What!” I was thinking about the thirty-floor drop to 42nd Street.
Lois shrugged. “I couldn’t help it. I dreamed it.”
“Well, don’t dream anymore.”
She snickered.
Dinner was over. We stacked the dishes in the sink and I got Lois to stay, though she wanted to leave right then. We sprawled out on the floor. And talked.
“This thing—it’s happening so fast,” she said. She looked at me. “And I’m afraid.”
I rolled over. “Baby,” I said. “I wouldn’t have you be afraid for anything in this world. So why don’t you run along and we’ll forget it.”
“Don’t be like that, dear,” she said, kissing me. I held her just a little off.
“You’re getting moody,” she said, “and bitter.”
“No, I’m just thinking.”
I couldn’t hold her off. She rested her head on my chest. “You are so nice, Steve. I’ve become so used to you—to hearing your voice on the phone. When you’re not home when I call, I’m just so on edge. I shouldn’t be like this and I don’t want to be.” She sighed. “But when we’re like this, it all seems so—so perfect.”
My heart surged. “I don’t want you to go,” I said.
“I’d better.”
“No.”
“You want me to stay?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I don’t know what to say—right after my noble speech. I’ve been practicing it for days—even when I was out on dates I never enjoy anymore for thinking about you, and wondering who you’re with. What should I say?”
“Say yes.”
“Steve?”
“Yes, doll?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
She nestled her head tightly against me and nodded it. I wanted then to place my arms gently around her, but I didn’t. I just lay there thinking.
“Sometimes,” she said, her voice very tiny, very lovely, “when I’m with you, I have nothing my own. If I have, it’s for you.”
And then I placed my arms around her and drew her to me.
But she was not going to see me after that, she said, but I didn’t have the feeling she meant it.
The next evening I couldn’t stay in the apartment that Lois had filled so wonderfully the night before. Without calling, I walked to Lint’s. I just wanted to sit with company. When I got upstairs, Lint stared at me in surprise.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“Didn’t—” He began to choke. “Uh—Bobbie was—” He finally stopped and began over again. “This is a little upsetting,” he said. “Bobbie said she was going to the store and then drop over to your place and bring you back for supper.” He turned away from me. I knew he was very hurt. “You didn’t see her, huh?”
“No,” I said, wishing to hell I’d called or, better still, had not budged from my apartment. I started to go.
“Stick around,” Lint said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Man, I’m really sorry.”
“What the hell,” he said. “I’ve been suspecting it for a long time.”
I said nothing. I wanted out of there.
We watched some TV for about ten minutes. Then there was the sound of a key in the door. Bobbie walked in.
“Steve!” she said. “You bastard. I was just over to your place and left a note in the door. Was going to bring you over here for dinner.”
She paused and looked at us. I broke out in a big grin. Lint turned away and I could see his body heave with relief.
“What the hell is the matter?” Bobbie asked.
“Nothing,” Lint said. “Steve and I were just having one of our serious conversations.”
“C’mon,” she said. “Drinks first, dinner next. Fix your own. Here’s the liquor.”
She dashed into the kitchen. Lint and I avoided looking at one another. During dinner Bobbie again reminded me of Lois. Odd that they seemed to move the same way and had practically the same mannerisms. Afterward, we watched the shows in silence except when Bobbie called off the names of some of the actors she knew. At least two shows came on for which she’d auditioned. She snarled at the actresses who’d got the parts.
“That bitch!” she ranted. “Oh, what a slut!”
Lint looked at me and raised his hands, palms upwards in a gesture of helplessness. In a way his gesture was more than that. It indicated his inability to cope with his wife and I wondered if he had ever been able to handle her. Bobbie burst into tears.
&nbs
p; “Honey,” he said, going to her.
“Get away!” she snarled. There was a wicked flash of hatred in her eyes as she retreated like an animal from him. I knew Lint wished I wasn’t there to witness it. “I’m going for a walk,” she said. She ran to the closet and snatched a sweater and flew out the door, slamming it behind her.
“Man,” Lint said when she’d gone. “Damned if I know what to do. She starts crying when she sees kids she knows on television or when she reads the Sunday Times and sees where someone else got a good part. Christ! I spend all my time cheering her up. I don’t have any guarantee that I’ll be a success as a writer. My future’s in worse shape than hers, dammit!”
He wanted to talk it out. I didn’t say anything.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I suppose,” I said, “you’ll have to see it through.”
“Yeah, well, I’m getting damned sick and tired of seeing it through. Man, just a few months of the old days—a bottle of beer, reams and reams of paper and a typewriter in a cold water flat. How that appeals to me!”
“You’ve lost your Bohemian tastes, old man.”
“I have like hell.” He broke off abruptly and said, without looking at me, “Call me tomorrow at work. Tell me if there’s a note at your place.”
Then he looked at me, and I looked at him. “Sure,” I said.
“What’s the answer, Steve?” He was going back to what he had been talking about before.
Irritated, I said, “Man, don’t ask me what the goddam answer is. How the hell should I know?”
He flushed.
I couldn’t tell whether he was sneering or straight-talking when he said, “Don’t be smug just because you’ve got your problems prepacked in your color.”
“I got to go,” I said.
“Don’t forget the note.”
“How could I?”
He flushed again and I went downstairs and ran into Bobbie. She was still crying angrily. She said, “Can I walk with you? You must be awfully sick of us by now.”
“Sure, walk with me. You know the spiritual, ‘Walk with me, Jesus’?”
She smiled and blew her nose. “No.”
“Neither do I.”
“Steve?”
“What, doll?”
“Lint—Lint got me into trouble with a director.”
“What do you mean?”
The Angry Ones Page 11
