If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

  “How soon do you need the money?” Mama asked.

  “I have begun the operation already,” he said, “of tracing the Jady. I will need the money as soon as you can get it. I will also force the D.A.’s office to allow me to see Daniel Carty, but they will throw every conceivable obstacle in my way——”

  “So we’re trying,” Mama said, “to buy time.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Time: the word tolled like the bells of a church. Fonny was doing: time. In six months time, our baby would be here. Somewhere, in time, Fonny and I had met: somewhere, in time, we had loved; somewhere, no longer in time, but, now, totally, at time’s mercy, we loved.

  Somewhere in time, Fonny paced a prison cell, his hair growing—nappier and nappier. Somewhere, in time, he stroked his chin, itching for a shave, somewhere, in time, he scratched his armpits, aching for a bath. Somewhere in time he looked about him, knowing that he was being lied to, in time, with the connivance of time. In another time, he had feared life: now, he feared death—somewhere in time. He awoke every morning with Tish on his eyelids and fell asleep every night with Tish tormenting his navel. He lived, now, in time, with the roar and the stink and the beauty and horror of innumerable men: and he had been dropped into this inferno in the twinkling of an eye.

  Time could not be bought. The only coin time accepted was life. Sitting on the leather arm of Mr. Hayward’s chair, I looked through the vast window, way down, on Broadway, and I began to cry.

  “Tish,” said Hayward, helplessly.

  Mama came and took me in her arms.

  “Don’t do us like that,” she said. “Don’t do us like that.”

  But I couldn’t stop. It just seemed that we would never find Mrs. Rogers; that Bell would never change his testimony; that Daniel would be beaten until he changed his. And Fonny would rot in prison, Fonny would die there—and I—I could not live without Fonny.

  “Tish,” Mama said, “you a woman now. You got to be a woman. We are in a rough situation—but, if you really want to think about it, ain’t nothing new about that. That’s just exactly, daughter, when you do not give up. You can’t give up. We got to get Fonny out of there. I don’t care what we have to do to do it—you understand me, daughter? This shit has been going on long enough. Now. You start thinking about it any other way, you just going to make yourself sick. You can’t get sick now—you know that—I’d rather for the state to kill him than for you to kill him. So, come on, now—we going to get him out.”

  She moved away from me. I dried my eyes. She turned back to Hayward.

  “You don’t have an address for that child in Puerto Rico, do you?”

  “Yes.” He wrote it out on a piece of paper, and handed it to her. “We’re sending somebody down there this week.”

  Mama folded the piece of paper, and put it in her purse.

  “How soon do you think you’ll be able to see Daniel?”

  “I intend,” he said, “to see him tomorrow, but I’m going to have to raise all kinds of hell to do it.”

  “Well,” Mama said, “just as long as you do it.”

  She came back to me.

  “We’ll put our heads together, at home, Mr. Hayward, and start working it on out, and I’ll have Ernestine call you early tomorrow morning. All right?”

  “That’s fine. Please give Ernestine my regards.” He put down his cigar, and came and put one clumsy hand on my shoulder. “My dear Tish,” he said. “Please hold on. Please hold on. I swear to you that we will win, that Fonny will have his freedom. No, it will not be easy. But neither will it be as insurmountable as it seems to you today.”

  “Tell her,” Mama said.

  “Now—when I go to see Fonny, the first question he always asks is always about you. And I always say, Tish? she’s fine. But he watches my face, to make sure I’m not lying. And I’m a very bad liar. I’m going to see him tomorrow. What shall I tell him?”

  I said, “Tell him I’m fine.”

  “Do you think you can manage to give us a little smile?—to go with the message. I could carry it with me. He’d like that.”

  I smiled, and he smiled, and something really human happened between us, for the first time. He released my shoulder, and walked over to Mama. “Could you have Ernestine call me around ten? or even earlier, if possible. Otherwise, she may not be able to get me before six.”

  “Will do. And thank you very much, Mr. Hayward.”

  “You know something—? I wish you’d drop the mister.”

  “Well—okay. Hayward. Call me Sharon.”

  “That I will do. And I hope that we become friends, out of all this.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Mama said. “Thank you again. ’Bye now.”

  “Good-bye. Don’t forget what I said, Tish.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Tell Fonny I’m fine.”

  “That’s my girl. Or, rather”—and he looked more boyish than ever—“Fonny’s girl.” And he smiled. He opened the door for us. He said, “Good-bye.”

  We said, “Good-bye.”

  Fonny had been walking down Seventh Avenue, on a Saturday afternoon, when he ran into Daniel again. They had not seen each other since their days in school.

  Time had not improved Daniel. He was still big, black, and loud; at the age of twenty-three—he is a little older than Fonny—he was already running out of familiar faces. So, they grabbed each other on the avenue—after a moment of genuine shock and delight—howling with laughter, beating each other around the head and shoulders, children again, and, though Fonny doesn’t like bars, sat themselves down at the nearest one, and ordered two beers.

  “Wow! What’s happening?” I don’t know which of them asked the question, or which of them asked it first: but I can see their faces.

  “Why you asking me, man?”

  “Because, like the man says about Mt. Everest, you’re there.”

  “Where?”

  “No kidding, man—how you making it?”

  “I gotta slave for the Jew in the garment center, pushing a hand truck, man, riding up and down in them elevators.”

  “How your folks?”

  “Oh, my Daddy passed, man, while ago. I’m still at the same place, with my Mama. Her varicose veins come down on her, though. So”—and Daniel looked down into his beer.

  “What you doing—I mean, now?”

  “You mean, this minute?”

  “I mean, you any plans, man, you hung up, or can you come on and hang out with me? I mean, right now—?”

  “I ain’t doing nothing.”

  Fonny swallowed his beer, and paid the man. “Come on. We got some beer at the pad. Come on. You remember Tish?”

  “Tish?—”

  “Yeah, Tish. Skinny little Tish. My girl.”

  “Skinny little Tish?”

  “Yeah. She’s still my girl. We going to get married, man. Come on, and let me show you the pad. And she’ll fix us something to eat—come on, I told you we got beer at the house.”

  And, though he certainly shouldn’t be spending the money, he pushes Daniel into a cab and they roll on down to Bank Street: where I am not expecting them. But Fonny is big and cheerful, overjoyed; and the truth is that I recognize Daniel by the light in Fonny’s eyes. For, it is not so much that time has not improved him: I can see to what extent he has been beaten. This is not because I am perceptive, but because I am in love with Fonny. Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind. And I could not be indifferent to Daniel because I realized, from Fonny’s face, how marvelous it was for him to have scooped up, miraculously, from the swamp waters of his past, a friend.

  But it means that I must go out, shopping, and so out I go, leaving them alone. We have a record player. As I go out, Fonny is putting on “Compared To What,” and Daniel is squatting on the floor, drinking beer.

  “So, you really going to get married?” Daniel asks—both wistful and mocking.

  “Well, yeah, we looking for a place to live—we lookin
g for a loft because that don’t cost no whole lot of bread, you know, and that way I can work without Tish being bugged to death. This room ain’t big enough for one, ain’t no question about its being big enough for two, and I got all my work here, and in the basement.” He is rolling a cigarette as he says this, for him and for Daniel, squatting opposite him. “They got lofts standing empty all over the East Side, man, and don’t nobody want to rent them, except freaks like me. And they all fire traps and some of them ain’t even got no toilets. So, you figure like finding a loft ain’t going to be no sweat.” He lights the cigarette, takes a drag, and hands it to Daniel. “But, man—this country really do not like niggers. They do not like niggers so bad, man, they will rent to a leper first. I swear.” Daniel drags on the cigarette, hands it back to Fonny—Tired old ladies kissing dogs! cries the record player—who drags on it, takes a sip of his beer and hands it back. “Sometimes Tish and I go together, sometimes she goes alone, sometimes I go alone. But it’s always the same story, man.” He stands up. “And now I can’t let Tish go alone no more because, dig, last week we thought we had us a loft, the cat had promised it to her. But he had not seen me. And he figures a black chick by herself, way downtown, looking for a loft, well, he know he going to make it with her. He thinks she’s propositioning him, that’s what he really thinks. And Tish comes to tell me, just so proud and happy”—he sits down again—“and we go on over there. And when the cat sees me, he says there’s been some great misunderstanding, he can’t rent the loft because he’s got all these relatives coming in from Rumania like in half an hour and he got to give it to them. Shit. And I told him he was full of shit and he threatened to call the cops on my ass.” He takes the cigarette from Daniel. “I’m really going to have to try to figure out some way of getting some bread together and getting out of this fucking country.”

  “How you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know yet,” says Fonny. “Tish can’t swim.” He gives the cigarette back to Daniel, and they whoop and rock with laughter.

  “Maybe you could go first,” says Daniel, soberly.

  The cigarette and the record are finished.

  “No,” says Fonny, “I don’t think I want to do that.” Daniel watches him. “I’d be too scared.”

  “Scared of what?” asks Daniel—though he really knows the answer to this question.

  “Just scared,” says Fonny—after a long silence.

  “Scared of what might happen to Tish?” Daniel asks.

  There is another long silence. Fonny is staring out the window. Daniel is staring at Fonny’s back.

  “Yes,” Fonny says, finally. Then, “Scared of what might happen to both of us—without each other. Like Tish ain’t got no sense at all, man—she trusts everybody. She walk down the street, swinging that little behind of hers, and she’s surprised, man, when some cat tries to jump her. She don’t see what I see.” And silence falls again, Daniel watching him, and Fonny says, “I know I might seem to be a weird kind of cat. But I got two things in my life, man—I got my wood and stone and I got Tish. If I lose them, I’m lost. I know that. You know”—and now he turns to face Daniel—“whatever’s in me I didn’t put there. And I can’t take it out.”

  Daniel moves to the pallet, leans against the wall. “I don’t know if you so weird. I know you lucky. I ain’t got nothing like that. Can I have another beer, man?”

  “Sure,” Fonny says, and goes to open two more cans. He hands one to Daniel and Daniel takes a long swallow before he says, “I just come out the slammer, baby. Two years.”

  Fonny says nothing—just turns and looks.

  Daniel says nothing; swallows a little more beer.

  “They said—they still say—stole a car. Man, I can’t even drive a car, and I tried to make my lawyer—but he was really their lawyer, dig, he worked for the city—prove that, but he didn’t. And, anyway, I wasn’t in no car when they picked me up. But I had a little grass on me. I was on my stoop. And so they come and picked me up, like that, you know, it was about midnight, and they locked me up and then the next morning they put me in the lineup and somebody said it was me stole the car—that car I ain’t seen yet. And so—you know—since I had that weed on me, they had me anyhow and so they said if I would plead guilty they’d give me a lighter sentence. If I didn’t plead guilty, they’d throw me the book. Well”—he sips his beer again—“I was alone, baby, wasn’t nobody, and so I entered the guilty plea. Two years!” He leans forward, staring at Fonny. “But, then, it sounded a whole lot better than the marijuana charge.” He leans back and laughs and sips his beer and looks up at Fonny. “It wasn’t. I let them fuck over me because I was scared and dumb and I’m sorry now.” He is silent. Then, “Two years!”

  “By the balls,” says Fonny.

  “Yes,” says Daniel—after the loudest and longest silence either of them has ever known.

  When I come back in, they are both sitting there, a little high, and I say nothing and I move about in the tiny space of the kitchenette as quietly as I can. Fonny comes in for a moment and rubs up against me from behind and hugs me and kisses the nape of my neck. Then, he returns to Daniel.

  “How long you been out?”

  “About three months.” He leaves the pallet, walks to the window. “Man, it was bad. Very bad. And it’s bad now. Maybe I’d feel different if I had done something and got caught. But I didn’t do nothing. They were just playing with me, man, because they could. And I’m lucky it was only two years, you dig? Because they can do with you whatever they want. Whatever they want. And they dogs, man. I really found out, in the slammer, what Malcolm and them cats was talking about. The white man’s got to be the devil. He sure ain’t a man. Some of the things I saw, baby, I’ll be dreaming about until the day I die.”

  Fonny puts one hand on Daniel’s neck. Daniel shudders. Tears stream down his face.

  “I know,” Fonny says, gently, “but try not to let it get to you too tough. You out now, it’s over, you young.”

  “Man, I know what you’re saying. And I appreciate it. But you don’t know—the worst thing, man, the worst thing—is that they can make you so fucking scared. Scared, man. Scared.”

  Fonny says nothing, simply stands there, with his hand on Daniel’s neck.

  I yell, from the kitchen, “You cats hungry?”

  “Yeah,” Fonny yells back, “we starving. Move it!”

  Daniel dries his eyes and comes to the door of the kitchenette and smiles at me.

  “It’s nice to see you, Tish. You sure ain’t gained no weight, have you?”

  “You hush. I’m skinny because I’m poor.”

  “Well, I sure don’t know why you didn’t pick yourself a rich husband. You ain’t never going to gain no weight now.’ ”

  “Well, if you skinny, Daniel, you can move faster and when you in a tight place, you got a better chance of getting out of it. You see what I mean.”

  “You sound like you got it figured. You learn all that from Fonny?”

  “I learned some things from Fonny. But I also have a swift, natural intelligence—haven’t you been struck by it?”

  “Tish, I been struck by so many things that I really have not had time to do you justice.”

  “You’re not the only one. And I can’t really blame you. I’m so remarkable, I sometimes have to pinch myself.”

  Daniel laughs. “I’d like to see that. Where?”

  Fonny mutters, “She’s so remarkable, I sometimes have to go up side her head.”

  “He beats you, too?”

  “Ah! what can I do—? All my life is just despair, but I don’t care—”

  Suddenly we are singing,

  When he takes me in his arms,

  The world is bright, all right.

  What’s the difference if I say

  I’ll go away

  When I know I’ll come back

  On my knees someday

  For, whatever my man is

  I am his,

  Forever
more!

  Then, we are laughing. Daniel sobers, looking within, suddenly very far away. “Poor Billie,” he says, “they beat the living crap out of her, too.”

  “Man,” Fonny says, “we just have to move it from day to day. If you think too much about it, you really are fucked, can’t move at all.”

  “Let’s eat,” I say. “Come on.”

  I have prepared what I know Fonny likes: ribs and cornbread and rice, with gravy, and green peas. Fonny puts on the record player, low: Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”

  “Maybe Tish can’t gain no weight,” says Daniel, after a moment, “but you sure will. You folks mind if I drop by more often—say, around this time?”

  “Feel free,” says Fonny, cheerfully, and winks at me. “Tish ain’t very good looking, but she can sure get the pots together.”

  “I’m happy to know I have some human use,” I tell him, and he winks at me again, and starts chewing on a rib.

  Fonny: chews on the rib, and watches me: and, in complete silence, without moving a muscle, we are laughing with each other. We are laughing for many reasons. We are together somewhere where no one can reach us, touch us, joined. We are happy, even, that we have food enough for Daniel, who eats peacefully, not knowing that we are laughing, but sensing that something wonderful has happened to us, which means that wonderful things happen, and that maybe something wonderful will happen to him. It’s wonderful, anyway, to be able to help a person to have that feeling.