Hold Tight

by Christopher Bram

  Hank was grimacing but he began to unbutton his fly. He shifted around so his back was to Erich. He didn’t want this to be any more embarrassing for the two of them than it already was.

  “What a nice one. Does that hurt?” She squeezed. “Now pull the skin back. Hmmm. Looks plenty healthy. You can put him away.”

  “Satisfied?” said Erich.

  “For now.” She looked for a place to wipe her hand and rubbed it against Hank’s blouse. “But we will have to see him at work before we can be certain.”

  “What are you suggesting? That you bring one of your boys in here and have them perform for you?”

  Mrs. Bosch laughed. “What an idea, Mr. Zeitlin. Oh, no. All I need is a week or two to see how he gets on with my customers. If he doesn’t, I can send him back, right?”

  “Yes. Only he’ll do fine here. Won’t you, Fayette?”

  “I’ll do my damnedest,” said Hank, and tried to get the man to look into his eyes, without success.

  Erich quickly went over the instructions again, for Mrs. Bosch’s benefit as well as Hank’s. With customers, Hank was to say he was still in the Navy. With the others who worked at the house, he was to say he had been kicked out. Nobody, absolutely nobody, was to know his real purpose in being there. Erich would visit the house every Monday afternoon, but Hank was to telephone a special number if anything important came up between meetings—meaning encounters with suspected German agents, which could not be mentioned in front of Mrs. Bosch. Erich asked if Hank had any last questions, took another promise of secrecy from Mrs. Bosch and said he was going.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Erich?” asked Hank.

  “What?”

  “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”

  The request startled Erich. He stared into Hank’s eyes, hard, as if he was trying to see through his eyes to his thoughts. “Of course,” he mumbled and held out his hand. His gaze slid from Hank’s, but the grip of his small hand was tight, desperate, like the grip of a civilian who thought that, just because you were in the service, you were going to die and he had to say goodbye to you in the name of the whole world.

  “Goodbye,” said Erich and hurried out of the room. The front door was slammed very hard.

  Such nerves and shyness and coolness, ending in a painful goodbye when they’d be seeing each other in less than a week? Hank could come up with only one explanation: the boyish little man was falling in love with him. Which was a bother, but kind of touching, too. It was a relief to realize all the man’s strangeness was caused by something so simple. It would pass.

  “Now, we talk. Just you and me,” said Mrs. Bosch. She stood in front of Hank, clasped her hands together and told Hank he was to call her “Valeska” and look upon her as a big sister. “We are all a family here.” She explained that seventy-five percent of anything paid Hank was to be given to her. In exchange, she would provide him with bed and board. He was to be her “special boy,” the only one who actually lived in the house, and she trusted he would provide services that would justify his special standing. All her other boys lived outside, dropped in on their own or were sent for when business was heavy. Boys being boys, they had only so many performances in them per night. “Sometimes I wish I am dealing in girls instead. All a girl has to do is lie there, no matter how tired she is. But that line is all full up. And those girls can be so catty. I luf my ‘gay’ boys.”

  She told him the house rules, duty hours, times for meals—he was to eat in the kitchen with her houseboy. He would have his own room, which he was to keep clean. “My houseboy can’t do everything, what with cooking and laundry. I get him now and he will take you to your room. Afterwards, I will introduce you to my boys.” She pressed a button on the wall and an electric bell rang in the hall. “One more thing. What you do for Uncle Sam is no concern of mine. My lips are sealed. But while you are living here, I am boss. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  She nodded, then abruptly pitched forward, threw her arms around Hank and whispered, “You will never tell them anything that might hurt our poor Valeska?”

  Her embrace was all bone and sinew. Hank stood there, stunned, looking into the wiry hair and white gardenia just inside his focus. “No’m,” he said.

  “You want something, Miz Bosch?”

  The woman released Hank and they both turned. The door had been opened by a colored boy with straight, shiny hair. It looked like the boy from the night of the raid.

  “We have a new member. This is…What is your name?”

  Hank told her, while he watched the boy, pleased to find a familiar face here, even a black one.

  “Hank will be living here. I want you to take him up to Leo’s old room, show him where everything is and bring him to the sitting room.”

  Juke sneered and nodded. “This way, honey. And take your own bag, I ain’t no—” He had seen only a white uniform. Now he saw Hank’s face. “Blondie? You?”

  “You were here the night we all got arrested,” said Hank.

  “Uh huh. Wahl hush mah mouth,” said Juke, mocking Hank’s accent. “What’re you doing back at this toilet?”

  “You know my houseboy?” asked Valeska.

  “Well, kinda.” Hank didn’t know why he should be pleased to see the boy again. He had only gotten Hank deeper into grief that night, when Hank slugged the Shore Patrol. But he was a face from the past, which was something.

  “Then I am not needing to tell you not to be taking any lip from him. If he gives you trouble, you tell me. He works here only because I am protecting him from reform school and the police.”

  “And ’cause I’m cheap,” Juke muttered.

  Valeska pretended not to hear. “Go. I will come up shortly.”

  Hank lifted his seabag and followed the boy out into the hall. It was funny, using a colored to make yourself feel at home when life turns strange on you. But Hank knew he had to be careful. Seeing a casual acquaintance again, in the right circumstances, could turn you into old friends, which Hank couldn’t afford right now. It was a good thing the boy was colored.

  “So you found me again, Blondie. You must have hunted high and low, but you finally sniffed me out. You can’t guess what it means to a girl to be loved like that.”

  “Shit. I forgot you even existed.” Hank wondered if this would complicate things. Nobody was supposed to know who he was, or who he had been.

  “Doll face. You still can’t tell when somebody’s pulling your leg? Not to be confused with pulling something else. Up the stairs here. Just follow my twitchy behind.”

  Hank followed Juke, ducking where the ceiling lowered. “How come you’re still here? Getting arrested didn’t cure you of whorehouses, boy?”

  “Me and fancy houses suit each other fine. You’re one to talk, Blondie. The Navy know you’ve turned professional?”

  “No. I…” But Hank realized he could use the fact that Juke had been here that night. “They kicked me out. After the raid. I’m wearing these because they’re the only clothes I have to my name.” Juke would gossip; word would get around. Lying didn’t come naturally to Hank, but he would have to learn to lie here, just as he had to learn how to be alone and not trust anyone.

  “Save those whites, baby. Johns go ape over sailors. But they gave you your walking papers? My, my. We queens are safe nowhere, are we, honey?”

  They passed the music Hank had heard downstairs, coming from behind a closed door on the second floor. They started up another flight of stairs.

  “So what happened to you after the raid?” said Hank. He had never talked so much to a colored, but he needed to talk to someone and better a colored than someone you might take seriously.

  “They put my sweet ass on ice. Jail. For a month. Nothing they could charge me with but public nuisance. That’s their word for queen. Then they give me to a parole officer and he gives me back to the Witch-woman. For a fee. Mrs. Simon LeGreedy. So she’s got that to hold over me, but there’s ways of tricking a
round her. She’s twice as smart as the bimbos here think she is, but only half as smart as she thinks she is. You make friends with old Juke here and he can make it worth your while.” They were on the third floor now, in a hallway where the wallpaper was faded and peeling. Juke reached inside an open door and turned on a light. “Here we are, Blondie. The honeymoon suite.”

  The room wasn’t much. A hospital bed and a deal cupboard, a bare lightbulb hanging on a cord, a chipped bedpan on the painted floor. There was a curled picture of Tarzan, clipped from a magazine and tacked to the wall. A canvas shade was pulled over the window.

  “You’re lucky you’re in the back. Windows up front are painted over for the blackouts and farmers start pulling up at five every morning to set up their market out front. Hard for a girl to get much beauty sleep before noon. But all that racket should make you feel right at home, farmboy.”

  Hank tossed his seabag in the corner and opened the top drawer of the cupboard. The bottom was lined with old newspaper—a black and yellow debutante ate cake—and was empty except for the blade of a safety razor and a racing form.

  “Leo, the guy whose room this was,” said Juke, “was caught trying to break into the Witch-woman’s money box. He got arrested for dodging the draft a week later. The Witch-woman’s got friends in high places somewhere. I don’t know who, but some big deal’s got his finger in this pie.”

  “Uh huh.” Hank didn’t look at Juke, afraid the answer showed in his eyes. He wished the boy would leave him in peace, so he could have time to tuck away his thoughts before he faced the others.

  But Juke continued to stand in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, hands on his shoulders. “Hey, Blondie,” he suddenly said. “Don’t think I forgot you decked that Shore Patrol for me. Didn’t do me much good. But don’t think I forgot.”

  Hank looked up. The boy sounded sincere. “Nothing to remember. I would’ve done it for anyone.”

  “Yeah? Yeah, I think you would’ve. Anyway, I remember.”

  They looked at one another, neither of them wanting to say aloud that one might have cause to be grateful to the other.

  Then Juke undid himself from his arms and put one hand on his hip. “So shake your ass, honey. We haven’t got all night. The Witch-woman wants you in her sitting room, pronto. Save your douche for later.”

  Hank couldn’t help smiling. This boy was so funny, so strange. His girlishness made him seem perfectly harmless. It might be good having him here for company. The boy seemed faithful enough, even trustworthy. It would be good for Hank’s soul having him around. Like having a dog.

  6

  ALPHEUS COOPER, KNOWN DOWNTOWN as Juke, took Hank downstairs, trying to think of ways he could use this cracker. It would be handy having someone so large and dim as your friend around here. Juke had tried it with others, but they all thought they were too slick to take favors from a crazy little nigger, much less return them. This homeboy was anything but slick. He was in obvious need of good management and Juke was the one to give it to him. Juke might feel stupidly fond of the guy, or maybe it was only pity for someone so ignorant they might risk their neck for yours. But Juke knew how to keep feelings like pity or affection under control. At seventeen, he’d learned the hard way that a smart queen’s one concern in this world was looking after her own ass.

  He went down the stairs, which creaked under the weight of the sailor thudding behind him. “Don’t let these girls fool you with their airs, Blondie. Nothing but dicks and smiles and the brains of chickens.” Of course, he thought Hank was nothing but a dick and a smile. How else could anybody think there was easy money in peddling your ass? But every boy thinks he’s the one exception to the stupidity around him. It didn’t hurt to play up to this hillbilly’s pride, so long as Juke didn’t make a fool of himself.

  He opened the door to the sitting room. One of those lousy songs that was all voices and no orchestra played in the new phonograph cabinet Mrs. Bosch had bought as bait.

  “Oh, boy? There you are. Yes,” said the cockney steward sitting in an armchair with Bunny in his lap. Bunny was pale and fish-eyed, smiling dreamily. The beet-faced steward held up an empty, suds-laced glass. “Me and my pal here need more of that horse piss you people call beer.”

  “Yes, suh. Right away, suh.” But Juke only ushered Hank inside and closed the door. The cracker was looking over the room as if he’d never seen furniture before.

  It was early and the steward was the only customer. The half dozen others, sitting on the long, black camelback sofa beneath the black window shade or on the love seat or around the card table, were whores. The music was turned up loud enough for a party, but it didn’t look like a party here. Everybody was waiting for something. The guys playing acey-deucy at the table looked up when Juke brought Hank in, then went back to their cards when they saw it was only more competition. The steward went back to trying to coax a response out of the unresponsive Bunny. Things never picked up until more money came into the room.

  “Bigger than when it was downstairs,” said Hank.

  “Uptown, we do up a place like this with style,” Juke scoffed. “Fancy drapes and colored lights. That overhead light makes everybody look like they’re at the morgue. But Mrs. Bosch’s too cheap for any of that. She could get herself a classier line of whore, too,” Juke whispered. “Instead of trash.”

  A sharper man would wonder if Juke were calling him trash, but the cracker only nodded and looked at Mick and Smitty on the sofa, thumbing through Mick’s copy of Strength and Health magazine. Mick was older than the others and worked out at a gymnasium. Smitty worshipped him, which was a laugh. Everyone was taken by Mick the first time they saw him, or at least by the biceps stretching his rolledup sleeves. It hurt Juke to find his cracker eyeing him.

  “Watch out for Mick,” Juke whispered. “The muscles? He’s cuckoo in the head.”

  “Uh huh,” went Hank. “Do you remember that soldier from the night we got arrested? A wop? Or spick, maybe.”

  “Soldiers are soldiers, honey. I see so many.”

  “This one danced with you. He seemed to know you pretty good. You two did one of those Mexican dances.”

  “Oh him. I kinda remember. Why?” Juke didn’t remember, but he wanted to hear what the cracker was driving at.

  “Does he still come around?”

  Juke laughed. “Baby! This place is Grand Central Station. You almost never see the same dick twice!” What a Willy Cornbread this boy was. And romantic? He had come to a whorehouse pining after an old trick. “You poor dear. Whoever he was, he’s out getting his cookies off in Japland or somewhere. Take it from me—you can’t fall in love with trade.”

  Hank dug in his ear, then shook his head and laughed. He was so slow he had to decide if something was funny. “Get out of here. I was just asking. Anyway, I don’t fall in love with guys.”

  “You’re one of those?” cried Juke in mock horror. “You just do it for the green?”

  “Well, no. I do it cause it’s fun. If that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, thank God.” Juke pressed one hand to his chest. “Then you are queer. I was afraid you were one of those poor dears going against nature just to make a dollar. Times are rough, and a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Even if it means a little cocksucking.”

  The cardplayers glanced over, looking uncomfortable.

  “It’s a good time,” said Hank. “That’s all.”

  Juke felt he was wasting his spiel on the cracker. The boy had no irony, but he didn’t take offense, either. “Then count yourself one lucky girl, Blondie. Because everybody else here thinks it’s work.” The cracker didn’t even nettle at being called a girl. But Juke felt the others in the room listening. He could always play to them. “Nasty and unmanly. Nothing but real men here. Real men who have to make money. That’s what I admire about white people. Their discipline. No colored man could go down on a dick unless he really enjoyed doing it. Shiftless. But these tough white boys?” Juke swept hi
s hand at the room. “They just close their eyes and suck. Give them some jack and they’ll swallow their pride. Swallow just about anything.”

  “Hey, coon!” shouted one of the cardplayers. “Put a sock in it!”

  “Ignore him,” said Smitty. “Just nelly crap from a nelly nigger. We got to put up with it all the time.”

  The angry cardplayer was a sailor who had never been here until last night. He seemed tough. Juke had to see how deep that toughness went. “Put a sock in it? You put a cock in it. Darling.”

  The sailor hunched over the table and clutched his cards. “Somebody ought to knock that fairy on his ugly black ass.”

  “Fairy, huh? Fairy!” Juke struck an indignant pose, perching the back of one hand on a tilted hip. “I may be more ki-ki than some of you trade. But today’s trade is tomorrow’s queen. And I know for a fact that that big old stevedore you took upstairs last night settles for nothing less than the deep, brown eye.”

  The sailor jumped up, cards flying. He grabbed Juke by the front of his shirt and shouted, “Shut up, nigger, or I’m punching your headlights out!”

  Juke was up on his toes, thinking of the new shirt he didn’t want ripped. “Oh, but I love being touched by a real man.”

  “You think I’m kidding? You think you’re funny?” The guy wasn’t twenty yet. He had more pimples than hairs on his chin.

  But before Juke could needle him about his skin, the cracker elbowed his way between them. “Come on. The kid didn’t do anything to you.”

  “The hell he didn’t. I didn’t come here to be called fairy by no nigger.”

  “You just come here to be a fairy,” said Juke.

  The sailor’s grip on Juke’s shirt tightened and the big Southerner tried to elbow them apart.

  “Back off, squid. This is between him and me.”

  “Yeah, swab,” called out another cardplayer. “Let the shine get what he deserves. He’s been asking for it.”

  Smitty chimed in with, “One good bop. Put that nigger back in his place.”

  The cracker glanced around him, surprised by everybody’s reaction.