by Frank Deford
It was in that frame of mind that I showed up at practice. I walked all the way down from the Empire State Bldg & all the way over to the London Terrace & by the time I got there, I was loaded for bear. I mean, I swam w/ a vengeance. I was an absolute naiad, & a dorsal to boot. I could’ve beaten the best men backstrokers in the world. L. deB. couldn’t believe his eyes. “Whatever you got today, Sydney,” he said, “bottle it & pass it round to all the other gals.” I just gritted my teeth.
But then, as soon as I got outside, by myself, I started crying again. So I tried to dry them, to at least look halfway presentable, &—
I couldn’t believe it. I refused to believe it. But there he was. Jimmy, of course.
Mr. S had obviously spilled the beans to him. Jimmy was waiting for me outside the subway. It was early in Nov. by now, a chilly nite, & he had his overcoat all buttoned up. He had his fedora on, too, because in those days if you worked in any office you were absolutely expected to wear a hat. He was just standing there, waiting, smoking a cigarette. It made me very mad that he would try to move right in on me in my lovelorn grief.
So I walked right by him as if he wasn’t there.
“Sydney,” he said softly. “Sydney, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” I said.
“Yeah, I am. I don’t like to see you hurt.”
“Well, I am, so leave me alone.”
I was striding away, leaving him in my dust. He called after me: “I just thought maybe you’d like to go to a movie.” I had to stop. I mean, I knew I was being rude. I still didn’t turn around, tho. But I heard him say, “We could go to the Roxy. I’ve never been to the Roxy, have you?”
That was the biggest movie theater in N.Y., up in Broadway. “‘Thin Ice’ is playing, w/ Tyrone Power and Sonja Henie, & it’s supposed to be real good. They have a stage show, too.” I didn’t say anything. “It might take your mind off things.”
I still didn’t speak. Except I probably made a face. He said, “Sydney, I’m not so stupid as to try to get your mind on me now. I just thought if you went to the movies, you’d get your mind off . . . you know, things.”
Well, I did turn back then. “I don’t want to talk,” I said.
“Fine. You’re not supposed to talk in a movie.”
Well . . . “OK,” I said—which I think, in fact, was the last thing I did say to him. We got on the subway, went to the Roxy & watched “Thin Ice.” Then we took the train back to B’lyn—but I just didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Well, I did say, “No, thank you,” when he asked me if I wanted anything to eat. Actually, I was starving. But I couldn’t face looking at Jimmy Branch or anybody else across a table.
When we got to B’lyn, he walked me home. Well, I wouldn’t actually say, he “walked me home.” He just walked along w/ me. I didn’t want him to, so I just sort of suffered him walking next to me.
At the Schooleys’, I started down to my room. I did say, “Thank you for the movie.”
I guess that standard bit of civility on my part gave Jimmy an opening. “Sydney . . .” I paused, sighing deeply, making it obvious that I was still only indulging him. “Sydney, I know how you must feel.”
“No, you don’t. Nobody you loved ever did this to you.”
“Well, I never really had anybody love me much, but I can imagine.” That sort of gave me pause. He was, after all, being very sweet, & I knew he was telling the truth about never having had anyone really love him. So I let him go on: “Listen, you have to talk to someone.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. And you know, Sydney, all we’ve ever done is talk, but I think we’ve done that real good together, so, if ever you do want to talk, I’d be happy to. OK?”
I just nodded, so he began walking away. I started to go in, but then I stopped, & I turned around, & softly I called after him. “Jimmy?”
He turned back, & when he did, I walked up to him & tilted my face up. When he didn’t get it, tho (which was perfectly understandable, given the circumstances), I got up on my toes, stuck my lips out & kissed him. It surprised him so much that at lst he didn’t even think to put his arms around me, but finally he remembered that you should hold a girl close when you kiss her.
I think Jimmy knew it was mostly a kiss of revenge, that I was kissing him just because I was so mad at Horst. I think he knew it wasn’t even a very good kiss on my part. But also, I think Jimmy realized: OK, you’ve got to start somewhere, & this is a pretty darn good place to start.
V.
As opposed to how it’d been w/ Horst, it was so entirely different going out w/ Jimmy. In Berlin, it’d been such a glamorous whirlwind. Sometimes later I even had to wonder: did all that really happen? It was like Horst must’ve been a vision, that I must’ve gotten pregnant thru some kind of immaculate conception.
In B’lyn, tho, it was nice, because Jimmy was nice, but otherwise it was really very pedestrian. We pretty much only had one another, because neither of us had any $, &, if anything, things weren’t getting any better. Most people nowadays think the Depression was just one big flat line on a graph, but, in fact, it got better after the worst of it, only then that summer I moved to N.Y., the economy got worse again, & by ’38, there we were smack in a recession in the middle of the Depression.
Jimmy & I were working all day, then I was swimming. Not only that, but CCNY, which is the City College of N.Y., had opened a new branch downtown at Lex. & 23rd, & inasmuch as tuition was free, Jimmy had started taking some nite courses there. Now that he’d been promoted, he wanted to get a college degree & make something of himself in the banking world. So, when we had the time, mostly we did free stuff, like parks & museums.
If we saved up a little $, we’d do a movie, and come spring, we went to Ebbets Field once, sat in the bleachers and watched the B’lyn Dodgers play. Also, when Mom sent me $5 as an Easter present, instead of buying a new “bonnet,” we splurged & went to Coney Island, riding the great Cyclone roller coaster, the bumper cars, etc. About once a week we’d “dine” in some nice, clean—but (always) pretty cheap—little cafe. Dutch treat. I don’t think people say “Dutch treat” anymore, do they? Maybe it’s one of those things like Indian giver or French leave where the nitpickers think it might be insulting to the Dutch people.
Anyway, Jimmy was right. We did talk well together. He even told me that I was the lst person he could really talk to, so, hard as it was for him, he opened up to me about all the bad stuff he’d had to endure. Now understand, he didn’t want just to TALK all the time, but I wouldn’t go to bed w/ him. Here was the problem: Jimmy was doing a pretty good job of helping me forget Horst, but, at the same time, when I was w/ Jimmy, that would make me think about Horst. See: going out & doing stuff w/ one boy reminded me of going out & doing stuff w/ the other boy. I wish it hadn’t been that way, but it was. And, of course, it wasn’t fair to Jimmy.
Also: it wasn’t fair to me.
No, no matter how sweet Jimmy was, no matter how much I liked him, I couldn’t COMPLETELY forget Horst Gerhardt. There wasn’t a day when Mrs. S brought me a letter forwarded from my mother that I didn’t think: well, maybe this is it—maybe Horst has finally seen the light. But no, none of the letters were from him. And I wouldn’t write him, either. I wouldn’t beg.
One day, though, I fibbed & told Mr. S that I had a dr.’s appointment. Instead, I went into Manhattan, where I changed lines to get way down to Battery Place, where the German consulate was located. At the consulate, I said that I had a letter for Frau Inge Gerhardt, the wife of the ambassador to Japan, so could they please give me the address of the embassy in Tokyo.
It was certainly a simple enough request, but it threw everyone into an absolute tizzy. You could tell how sensitive the Germans were getting. All I wanted was a lousy address! I finally got to some junior officer, tho, & he believed me after I told him in detail how I’d met the Gerhardts at their home in Charlottenburg. So, finally, he gave me the address, & I wro
te it on the envelope that already had my letter in it.
I may not be completely accurate in my memory, but this is approximately what I had written:Dear Frau Gerhardt,
I think you will remember me. I came to your house with Horst one day during the Olympics. As you probably know, Horst and I have broken up, and it has been a long time since I have heard from him. But even if the romance has definitely ended, I was curious if you could tell me if he is well and how he is doing.
Thank you, and I do hope to see you and Ambassador Gerhardt in Tokyo at the l940 Olympics.
Yours truly,
Sydney Stringfellow
I read the letter over and over at the post office. I thought it was very important to put in that part about how the romance had “definitely ended.” I’m sure that just as my mother didn’t want me to be involved w/ a German boy, Horst’s mother didn’t want him having anything to do w/ an American girl, so I let her know I wasn’t trying to get my claws back into her darling son.
(This also makes me wonder why we say relationship now instead of romance. Why is that, do you suppose? I had a ROMANCE w/ Horst. “Relationship”? Excuse me, it’s such a cold word. You can have a relationship w/ your butcher or the gal at the beauty parlor, can’t you? Oh well, let me get on w/ my story.)
I tried to forget about the letter after I wrote it. It was such a long shot. Besides, as the summer approached, I was concentrating more & more on my swimming, determined as I was to set records in the backstroke at the nationals.
L. deB. was quite sure I’d break the 100-yd. record at a little meet we had scheduled the lst week in June called the “New York Inter-club.” We—that is, the WSA—were so much better than all the other clubs around that it didn’t amount to any real competition, but, if you will forgive a very bad pun, it was good for us “to get our feet wet” w/ some real races before the nationals.
Then, that Tues., out of the blue, after I returned from practice, Mrs. S had a letter waiting for me—a reply from Frau Gerhardt. I opened the envelope nervously in my room. The letter was certainly very polite, however she was not gilding any lillies.
Dear Miss Stringfellow,
Thank you for your interest in Horst. He is quite well. He is a proud member of our Führer’s Kriegsmarine. Horst has just been promoted from Fähnrich zur See to Oberfähnrich zur See.
The Ambassador and I are looking forward to seeing you swim against our German girls here in l940.
Sincerely,
Inge Gerhardt
I remembered, then, in one of Horst’s last letters, that he had told me he was training to become a Fähnrich zur See, which, he said, was the equivalent of midshipman. So now, he must have graduated into the regular navy, & I supposed his new position was like an ensign.
The letter only made me wonder more, tho, where he might be. Could he be standing (so handsome in his uniform), peering out over the bridge of some great battleship, or might he instead be crammed into one of those submarines that the Germans had used so effectively back in what we’d called the Great War? But whatever ship he was on, I knew he just wanted to get the heck out of the Kriegsmarine so he could get on w/ being an architect. OK, he’d broken my heart, but I still couldn’t wish Horst anything bad (as much as I wanted to).
The next evening we had a lite practice, because L. deB. had us tailing off for our Inter-Club meet. As a consequence, I got back to the Schooleys’ earlier than usual. But Jimmy was already sitting there on the steps that led down to my room, smoking a cigarette. I wasn’t expecting him, & for that matter, even tho he was on my steps, he seemed almost surprised to see me. “Hey,” I said.
He looked up, so forlorn that right away I knew something was wrong. Jimmy had one of those faces that was incapable of hiding emotion. In fact, it would’ve been an altogether bland, forgettable face except for the fact that it was such a good-looking face. “Sit down, sweetie,” he said, pointing to the spot next to him. I mean, it was so unlike Jimmy not to immediately pop up when I arrived—or any lady. Despite his upbringing, he had somehow learned how to be every inch the gentleman.
So, I sat there & put an arm around his shoulder. “Okay, kiddo, what’s the matter?”
He couldn’t even look at me, just stared away. “They let me go,” he finally said.
I didn’t understand. “Who did?”
“The bank.”
“The Bank of Manhattan?” He nodded. “They fired you?”
“It’s hard times, Sydney. They had to let a bunch of us go.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, a week’s notice.”
“That’s white of them,” I said.
“Yeah, well, they had orders from the main office to let 2 tellers go, & me and Harvey were the newest.” He just shook his head.
“OK then, come on, let’s go get a beer, & we’ll talk about it,” I said, but he put his hand on my knee, kind of to hold me down.
“Nah, Sydney, I’m almost broke, & now I’ve lost my job.”
“It’s OK, Jimmy, my ship just came in.” That was a little white lie. But I did have a bit of rainy-day $ tucked away, waiting for the next sales at Lerner’s or Lane Bryant’s, so I ran into my room & grabbed a few dollars & we went down to the nearest bar we liked, which was an Irish joint called McDougal’s.
We took a booth in the corner & ordered a couple of Schaefers on tap, which was the loyal thing to do for anybody in Greenpoint, because the brewery was right there on Kent St. It still didn’t much cheer Jimmy up, tho. “Let’s have another couple,” I said.
“You shouldn’t, Sydney. You got a race this weekend.”
“Jimmy, for Pete’s sake, it’s just Inter-club, & if a couple Schaefers can slow me down, then I’m in a lot of trouble.”
“Well, OK,” he said, but he just held his head some more. “The thing is, Sydney, I’ve been thru so much crap in my life, & I was always able to take it, but I finally thought I’d come up aces. The bank, going to college, you—”
“I’m still your girl.”
But even that didn’t cheer him up. “What girl wants a fellow who can’t even hold a good job?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“You know the worst?” I shook my head. “Mr. Bancroft said I could go back to being a runner. Then maybe, when things got better, I could be promoted back.”
“Is that so bad?”
“I can’t do that, Sydney. I can’t go back. I’m sorry. All the things I’ve had to do in my life, I’ve never once gone back. No.” He banged his fist on the table. “No, whatever I do, I’m going forward.” I patted his hand, but he only shrugged. “All right, I’ll get us a couple more beers.” I slid him a quarter, but that only reminded him he was broke. “I’m just a damn tramp again.”
He slumped over to the bar. It hurt me just watching him, because I knew how unlucky he’d been all his life & how hard he’d fought to overcome everything, & how happy he’d been lately, how proud of himself he’d become—but now this. Didn’t that Mr. Bancroft at the Bank of Manhattan remember that it was only a few months ago that Jimmy Branch had been B’lyn’s “Good Citizen Of The Week”? How quickly people forget the good stuff (but how long they remember the bad things—that’s the corollary, isn’t it?). It made me mad.
But it made me care all the more for Jimmy, too, so when he came back with the Schaefers, I just said, “I’ve got another idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, my idea is that after we’re finished these”—I held up my schooner—“we should go back to my room & you should spend the nite w/ me.”
Jimmy almost choked on his beer. It made me laugh. “Are you serious?” he finally said.
“I wouldn’t joke about that.”
He reached across & took my hand. “God, Sydney.”
“But we don’t have to rush the beers.”
Jimmy smiled & put his down. Then, suddenly, his expression changed. He took his hand away from mine & shook his head. “No,” he said.
“No what?”
“Just no. You know how much I want to make love to you.”
“That’s for sure.”
“But, no matter, I don’t want you to do it just ’cause you feel sorry for me. It’s bad enough that you’re buying the beers.”
I folded my arms, & I probably spoke too loud, because I have a tendency to do that when I get my dander up, especially when I fold my arms in the process. “Jimmy Branch,” I said, “you listen to me. You bet I feel sorry for you. You’re a real honey of a guy who just got a very bum break. But that doesn’t mean then, OK, I’m gonna let you go to bed with me just for that. It’s not like I’m just another beer on tap.”
“Come on, Sydney, you know I didn’t mean that.”
“Just shut up, Jimmy. But, here’s the thing”—& this is when I leaned forward & looked him dead in the eyes. “Sometimes you don’t realize how much you care about somebody till something bad happens to that person, & tonite, when I learned that even more bad stuff happened to you, I realized how much I DID care. So yeah, I feel sorry for you & I want to go to bed with you, but it’s not because I feel sorry for you, but because the feeling sorry for you made me feel a lot more for you. Do you understand that?”
Jimmy just nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Then that’s settled.” I hadn’t had any dinner, but mere food was certainly out of the question now, so after we finished our beers, we walked back, hand in hand, to my room. We spent the whole nite together, & not only did it make Jimmy feel a lot better, but me too.
VI.
That weekend, in the Inter-club match, I swam the l00 yds in l:09 flat, which left me a bit short of Eleanor’s l:08.4. L. deB. told me, “You know, Sydney, I’m kind of glad you just missed. Now, when you break the world record at the nationals, you’ll get a lot more attention.”
But whatever pleasure I got from my swimming was tempered by poor Jimmy’s mood. He was so melancholy. There just weren’t any jobs to be had, &, no matter what, he wasn’t going to accept being a runner for the bank again. He didn’t eat enough, & he smoked entirely too much. He smoked Old Golds.
