Dancers on the Shore

by William Melvin Kelley

  So I got a date and we went over to the bowling alley that Friday.

  She was a great bowler. Like as not she got a strike. Then she’d hop up and down so her dress’d bounce and you could see leg clear to the middle thigh. Hondo would say something like: “That’s my baby.” She’d run back to him. He’d put his arms around her and kiss her, then look over at me and say: “Your turn, Carlyle.”

  Then my chick’d toss one into the gutter. After they beat us, they wanted to play another game, but I said I was tired, and I was.

  Outside, I just had a chance to say a few words to him, while the chicks was in the john. “You see how funny she looked, kid? I mean, face it. People’ll be laughing at you all the time.”

  “What I care?” He was anxious for her to come back. “Man, did you see her? I didn’t know she could bowl. Were you digging her?”

  “You don’t care what people say about you?”

  “People can say what they want, man. I got myself a chick and a half!”

  The chicks came then, down a flight of stairs. I looked up and could see his girl’s legs sprouting out the middle of her skirt, the muscles sliding around under her brown skin, and dimples in each knee. I looked back at Hondo and he was staring up at them too, his mouth a little open. It’d be harder than I thought to pry him out.

  We split up outside. They went one way; me and my chick went the other. We walked along for a while, past some bars with smoky windows. My girl didn’t say too much. Then all of a sudden she turned to me: “Ain’t she just the sweetest thing, though?”

  She didn’t know how close she came to getting slapped. But instead of hitting her, I just told her to shut up.

  * * *

  —

  I WAS HIP NOW Hondo’s girl’d be able to juggle if she really wanted to. Them kind of people learn to compensate. So what I had to do was show him she wasn’t as good as he thought she was, that maybe if he gave her half a chance, she’d cheat on him.

  I knew he was thinking about marrying her, but I didn’t think she knew. As far as she was concerned, she could still do business with other cats. All I had to do was get a date with her. If he wasn’t too mad at me for cutting him, he’d see she wasn’t loyal.

  Hondo is a stock clerk at a department store which is open until nine on Thursday. I called her Thursday at seven: “Listen, baby, I was digging you that night we was bowling and I wondered, as long as you sitting home alone, whether you’d like to have a few drinks with me?”

  “I’d like that, Carlyle. You tell Hondo to call me when he get home. You get your girl and we can go out somewheres.”

  “No, baby, you don’t get my drift. I mean, you and me. You ain’t got no set thing with Hondo, do you?”

  “Well, no.” Her voice got small.

  “He’s my best friend sure, but we got this understanding that all is fair, if you dig me?” That was true. Me and Hondo decided a long time ago we wouldn’t let no chicks split us. There’s too many chicks around to worry about just one.

  “And you want me to go out with you?”

  “That’s right, baby. I think we probably got more in common than you got with him, so I was hoping we could get together.” Just at the moment, even though I knew I was doing all this for Hondo, I had a hard time not picturing those legs, growing up from black, patent-leather high, high heels, them legs covered with a film of nylon, getting bigger and bigger, finally disappearing into her skirt. I could see her coming down the stairs from the bowling alley. And then I could see that stump and queered the picture.

  Her voice was strong again. “But you don’t like me.”

  That’s one thing I hadn’t thought might happen—that Hondo would tell her what I’d said to him. But I had to run my game. “Now, baby, who told you that lie? I like you better than I should. You ought-a know I was digging them fine old legs of yours.”

  “But you don’t want Hondo to marry me, do you?”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  She didn’t answer. “Why you don’t like me, Carlyle? Because I only got this stub instead of an arm?”

  My hand on the receiver started to sweat. I took out my handkerchief and wiped my hand, but in the tiny cracks I could already see more water. “Listen, baby, I don’t know how we got off on this. I was talking about you and me.”

  “I’m talking about you and me, too. If I couldn’t be a good wife to Hondo, I’d understand. But you just being pure-d mean, Carlyle!”

  “Listen, baby, I don’t want to get strung out here. I think I better hang up now.” And I did, and took a few deep breaths because I dug she had wasted my butt.

  We were getting down to the nitty-gritty now. Whatever I did, both of them’d be watching me and I had to be careful. I had to make sure Hondo was woke that I was doing all this for his own good.

  But I couldn’t think of nothing to do. The chick didn’t dig me at all, and even if she had before, she was hipped to where I was coming from. She’d be loyal to Hondo just to spite me.

  I had to try him again. I didn’t know what to say to him, but it had to be something outside, something that would hit him hard enough to start him thinking. When I saw him that night and he didn’t put me down for trying to make his chick—I figured he hadn’t spoken to her—I told him I wanted to have a serious talk with him.

  He sat on his bed watching me. I guessed he knew what I was going to talk about and was a little bit tired of it, but he listened.

  “Hondo, I ain’t trying to hang you up, but you has to think over what you getting into with that chick. There’s a lot could happen to you, living with her.”

  “Yeah? Like what?” He looked salty, but not too much.

  “Well, you got to admit it ain’t normal having one arm, right?”

  “Yeah? So?” He swung his feet up on the bed and fell back, staring at the ceiling.

  “So it got to do something to the mind. Not having an arm could make you bitter as hell and then you’d do way-out things—you dig it?—and finally you’d start making the folks around you a little way-out. I mean, you couldn’t even blame anyone with one arm for being crazy.” I stopped to give him time to say something; I didn’t want to press. But he didn’t take his eyes off the ceiling, and I had to go on, only just then I got a brainstorm. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Hondo, but that chick of yours, she did a crazy thing tonight; she called me up.”

  He sat up real quick, interested. “She did?”

  I hung my head. “Yeah, she did. She hit on me, man. She asked me if I didn’t want to take her out for a drink. At first, I thought she was asking me and a chick, but it turned out she was hitting on me. I do believe we never would-a left her pad. I mean, she knew you was working late.”

  “Man, you is the biggest lie I ever heard anywhere at any time.” He didn’t even seem mad, just disgusted. He’d let me run on, knowing all the time I was jiving him. “I always call her when I get off Thursdays. She pulled my coat to what you tried to do. And then you’d-a come to me and said she was a jive bitch, I bet, and I’d get mad at you, but I’d still be down on her enough to cut her loose. Oh, man!”

  “I’m only looking out for you. I mean, you seem all set to sail into this thing. All I want is that you really investigate what you getting into. That’s all. Just take it slow.”

  “Ain’t no going slow now, Carlyle. After she told me what you done, I asked her to marry me. We getting the license tomorrow. Now, you want to be my best man or not?”

  There wasn’t nothing left for me to do. I’d tried to get him out of it, but he wouldn’t be got. He wanted to get married. I sat there, nodding my head to his question, thinking that it wouldn’t be but so bad having her around—at least if she wore a short skirt and sat in a low chair I’d get something fantastic to look at—but then I thought of that damn stump of hers and I almost got sick. I wasn’t
ever getting used to her.

  They didn’t want to wait too long, and got the wedding up for the next week, on Saturday. That wouldn’t give them much time, but they didn’t need it, only enough to tip off the preacher and make a few phone calls.

  Friday night, I took him out to get him drunk for the last time as a free man. We went down to One-Two-Five Street and had a shot in most every bar between Seventh and Saint Nicholas. Finally we decided to lay a while in one quiet, near-black place, where the barmaid was stacked, having them wide apart bosoms and a corseted ass like a barrel. We sat at the bar, sipping some whiskey.

  “I wonder if all the cats what get married has the feelings I’m having.”

  If I been thinking I would-a seen he was having some doubts, but I was too wasted behind that taste. “What feelings, Hondo?”

  “I’m thinking that even though she’s a fine old soul, I can still think of about five chicks I’d like to ball this minute.”

  “Well, getting married don’t got to stop that. The woman gets married, not the man. When you stand up and say, ‘I do,’ what you mean is: ‘I do—whatever the hell I want to do.’ You won’t miss nothing.” I killed the taste in front of me and waved to the barmaid to hit me one more time.

  “I’m hip, but it gets harder after you’re married. Then you got to remember your lies and I never could remember no lie I ever told.” He was looking like a bullfrog peeping through a cake of ice.

  Finally, after all that talk, I dug the sack he was coming out of. “Well, if you scared, man, cool it. Don’t show up tomorrow.”

  “I ain’t scared. I just thinking maybe I’d like to wait a while and look around some more, you dig it?”

  “Sure, why don’t you lay a while. The chick loves you. If you was to tell her you didn’t have the bread now, she’d wait for you.”

  “Yeah, she would. I sure as hell want to marry her, but I ain’t sure I can take care of her. I mean, man, I’m only bringing home forty-five dollars a week.”

  I didn’t have to say no more, just reach into my pocket and hand him a dime. He looked at it for a minute, then picked it up and slid off the stool. He made a couple turns, located the phone, then tipped back to it on his toes, trying not to walk heavy and drunk. I had to hear what was taking place so I went back and stood outside the booth, peering at him. The sweat was pouring off his face, making it shiny like wet coal. He had his handkerchief out and his hat in his lap and was mopping, but it didn’t seem to do no good. He was still wet as ever. He wasn’t saying anything, just listening. I tapped the glass. He opened the door.

  “What’s happening, man?”

  “Nothing. The phone’s still ringing. Wait a minute…Hello? Yes, this is Hondo Johnson. Yes, ma’am, I know it late, but I have to speak to her.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked up at me. “She at home tonight with her Mama…Oh, hiya, baby. Yeah, baby, I love you too. Look, I was talking to Carlyle…I mean, you know I only make forty-five a week, don’t you? Well, I was wondering if you thought that was enough? I mean, baby, I love you and I don’t want you to be starving and all…”

  I didn’t have to hear no more. He had blown his cool from the git-go. He would come back to the bar and say something like he couldn’t hurt her feelings and he could still chip on her if he really wanted to. I just told the barmaid to hit me again.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, we woke up hung over, tore down, and late. And when you live in the Bronx like we do, you ain’t just late, you is very late. On the highway into the city we drove fast. Hondo asked me for a cigarette; I’d dropped the pack under the seat, and reaching down there for it, I run off the road and knocked down two or three of them dinky little roadside posts. The cop took me to the slam and charged me with operating a machine to endanger the lives and property of the public and set bail at a hundred dollars.

  Just before they took me back to a cell, I told Hondo to go on get married.

  “I already put it off. I got to get you out of jail, man. I got to scare up a hundred dollars.”

  “Go get married, man. I can sit here for a couple hours.”

  “No, you can’t.” And he went off to arrange my bail.

  He never got married.

  It took two months for him to hip me on what had happened.

  After he got me out of the slam, he went to her house. She’d changed out her wedding dress and was wearing a sweater and skirt, sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed.

  He went to kiss her and she was kind of cold, her lips all tight over her teeth. He sat down beside her, and told her he was sorry, but he couldn’t let his ace cat rot in some cell in the Bronx.

  “It all happened just in time,” she said to him. “You didn’t really stand me up, you was just getting your dear friend out the jail house.”

  For a minute, he told me, he didn’t know where she was coming from. Then he did: “You think I’m lying about Carlyle being in jail?”

  “No, you ain’t lying. But I don’t know how much an accident that accident really was.”

  “Awh, baby, do you dig what sack you’re blowing out of? The cat wasted his car for real!” His eyes was getting wide. At first, he couldn’t believe it, but then he remembered what I said about not having the right number of arms doing things to a person’s mind.

  “Of course he did. But why?”

  “Because he was looking for his cigarettes on the floor of the car, baby.”

  “You either got to be pretty dumb or pretty desperate about your friend marrying a girl with one arm to crawl around on the floor of your car when you driving on a highway.”

  “Awh, baby!”

  “Awh, baby, nothing! First he tried to show me up at the bowling alley, and then he called me up and tried to hit on me so you’d think I was jive, then he tried to get you to call it off last night. Your best friend don’t mean you a bit of good, but you go on trusting him!”

  He listened to her, and tried to talk to her. It was no use. He had to call it off. It’s all right for a cat to talk about his friend like that, but he can’t let no strange chick do it.

  Cry for Me

  THIS IS ABOUT my Uncle Wallace, who most of you know by his last name—Bedlow—because that’s all they ever put on his records. I only got one of his albums myself. It has a picture of him on it, sitting, holding his two guitars, wearing his white dinner jacket, his mouth wide open and his eyes squinted shut. The name of the album is: Bedlow—Big Voice Crying in the Wilderness and I got it in particular because it has the only two songs he sang that I really like: Cotton Field Blues and John Henry. Besides that, I don’t much like folk songs or folk singers. But I liked Uncle Wallace all right.

  I guess I should tell you about the first time I met Uncle Wallace; this was even before he was folk singing, or maybe before any of us knew it. We just knew he was a relative, my old man’s brother, come North from the South.

  That was in June of 1957. We went to Pennsylvania Station to meet him. He sent us a telgram; there wasn’t enough time for him to write a letter because he told us later he only decided to come two days before he showed up.

  So we went to the station, and the loud-speaker called out his train from down South. A whole bunch of colored people got off the train, all looking like somebody been keeping it a secret from them they been free for a hundred years, all bulgy-eyed and confused, carrying suitcases and shopping bags and boxes and little kids.

  My old man was craning his neck, looking to find Uncle Wallace. None of us would-a recognized him because when my old man come North twenty years ago he didn’t bring but one picture of Uncle Wallace and that was of him when he was about seven. But my old man been back South once and saw Uncle Wallace a man. He would recognize him all right.

  But I heard my old man say to my mother, “Don’t see him yet.”

  And then
we did see him; we could not-a missed him because he come rumbling out the crowd—the size of a black Grant’s Tomb with a white dinner jacket draped over it (he had the jacket even then, having won it in some kind-a contest driving piles, or cutting wood)—and punched my old man square in the chops so he flew back about twenty feet, knocking over this little redcap, and springing all the locks on the four suitcases he was carrying, scattering clothes in all directions like a flock of pigeons in Central Park you tossed a rock at.

  My old man is about six-five and two-fifty and works in heavy construction and I ain’t never seen anyone hit him, let alone knock him off his feet, and I thought sure he’d go nuts and get mad, but he didn’t; he started to laugh, and Uncle Wallace stood over him and said: “How you doing, Little Brother? I see you ain’t been keeping up your strength. Use to have more trouble with you when I was six.” And he reached out his hand to my old man, who got up, and even though he was on his feet still looked like he was lying down because Uncle Wallace was at least a head taller.

  My old man said, “Never could beat you, Wallace. Pa’s the only man could.” And I remember figuring how to be able to do that, my Grandpa Mance Bedlow must-a been close to eight feet tall and made of some kind of fireproof metal.

  Then my old man turned to us and said: “I’d like you to meet my family. This is my wife, Irene.” He pointed at my mother. “And this is Mance; we call him Little Brother.” He pointed at my brother. “And this is my first born, Carlyle junior.” And he pointed at me and I reached up my hand to Uncle Wallace before I realized he’d probably crush it. He took it, but didn’t crush it at all, just squeezed it a little and smiled, looking down at me out tiny, red eyes in his black-moon face.

  So we took Uncle Wallace home to the Bronx.