by Frank Conroy
My first job was ushering at the Dumont Theater for sixty-five cents an hour. They gave me a uniform (too big) and a flashlight and told me never to sit down, even if the theater was empty. After the first few days the images on the screen, repeated into meaninglessness, brought on a mild nausea, a faint, continuous sense of seasickness. When the bill changed I’d stay after closing and do the marquee. High in the air atop a swaying ladder I arranged the gigantic letters one by one, holding them with both hands as I fitted them into place. Every ten minutes the manager would come out, walk a few yards down the sidewalk, and turn and look up to advise me on the spacing. From my vantage point the huge message was meaningless. The marquee filled my vision. Constructing the end of a word whose beginning was lost in the distance, holding a letter larger than my head, I felt I was disappearing, drifting away through the hole of an 0, shrinking into the intersection of an immense X.
At night, after supper in a cafeteria and the long bus ride home, I’d lie under the window in the rear of Flaviano’s trailer listening to the sound track from the drive-in theater. While the ceiling flickered above me words echoed from hundreds of speaker stands, every sound sandwiched in the air, receding like the image of a man between two mirrors. Mysterious murmured words, with long silences in between, doors closing, violins, footsteps, silences.
I went out to Chula Vista in Uncle Victor’s ’38 Chevy one-seater, very proud of my brand-new driver’s license, excited because I was occasionally to be allowed the use of the car. My mind raced ahead to Tobey. As boys we’d always dreamed of the things we could do if we had a car.
The Rawlings’ house looked the same. Old Popeye sprawled in the sand at the edge of the yard. A line of wash billowed in the breeze and the tin roof of the outhouse gleamed dully under the sun. I got out of the car and started toward the house. Tobey pushed open the screen door and stepped into the yard. I hadn’t thought about how he would look. The image I’d carried through the years was too bright, too strong to have changed. But Tobey was not the same. His slender body had thickened and his face was swollen with acne. A black motorcycle cap was jammed onto the back of his head.
“Well Jesus Christ if it ain’t Frank,” he said in a new deep voice.
I looked down at the ground. Deep inside me gates were closing, one by one, locking up a vital area I couldn’t afford to lose all at once, sealing my love in private darkness. When it was done I lifted my head and faced him. “Well,” I said, waving toward the house, “it looks the same.” I tried to keep my tone as casual as his.
“Well, I guess it is.”
“How’s your momma? And Sean and Pat?”
“Sean’s still in jail and Pat’s working in Miami.” He started walking toward the car and I fell in beside him. “Momma’s fine. She’s in town today. Where’d you get the car?”
“It’s my uncle’s. You remember, out at the beach.”
“You come down from New York City?”
I nodded.
He slapped the fender of the car. “Thirty-eight. Has it got a rumble seat?”
I went to the back and pulled it open. “It’s pretty torn up, though.”
“Why don’t we go over to my girl’s house and give her a ride?” he said suddenly.
“Okay. Hop in.”
He gave me directions and we drove in silence for a couple of blocks.
“I guess you go to Central now,” I said.
He didn’t answer right away and I glanced over. He was looking out the window. “Naw. I quit school a while back.”
“Oh.” I shifted down, showing off a little, and turned the corner. “I’m about to get thrown out myself,” I said. “I failed practically everything last year.”
“Is that a fact? I figured you’d be good in school. All them big words you used to know.”
“I played hooky all the time.”
He laughed. “Me too.”
“It’s funny,” I said. “It hasn’t changed much around here but it looks different. It’s the same but it isn’t the same.”
“You see the new gas station out on Brady Street?”
“I went past it. We used to hide our bikes there, remember?”
“Sure. Waiting for the school bus.”
“I mean the part that hasn’t changed looks different for some reason. It feels different.”
“Well, hell,” he said. “You got to expect that. You’re a lot older now.”
“I guess so.”
“Remember how we used to run around in the woods all the time? We weren’t any more’n a couple of bare-ass little kids back then.”
“Yeah. It was a long time ago, I guess.”
“You used to go on about how the niggers was as good as anybody else, and I believed it.” He slapped his leg. “Daddy threw you out of the house once. He was drunk. Remember that?”
“Yes.” (Tobey had caught up with me on the dark road, both of us having wiped our eyes, hiding our tears from each other. He walked me home, risking his father’s violence.) “I remember it all.”
“We had a lot of fun, raising hell and all.” He laughed. “It wasn’t the same after you left.”
I held on tight to the wheel and kept .my voice casual. “All I ever wanted was to come back down.”
“That’s the house up there,” he said. “Yeah, we sure had some times.”
I stopped the car in front of a small stucco house and turned off the ignition. Construction material littered the sandy yard—sawhorses, a trough for mixing cement, old paint cans, and odds and ends of two-by-fours and planks. A small black dog stood stiff-legged by the screen door, yapping.
“A new house,” I said.
“That’s how I met her.” He opened his door. “My daddy and me painted it. I’ll go get her.”
I watched him through the windshield. He trotted the first few steps across the yard and then, as if suddenly remembering himself, slowed down to a walk. Approaching the house he reached up and scratched the back of his neck, knocking the motorcycle cap a bit higher on his head. He called through the screen door and went inside.
In the car I folded one leg against my chest and rested my chin on my knee. The black dog lay down in the sand and began to nip ticks on its back. After a while Tobey and the girl came out. She was about fifteen, wearing blue jeans cut off at the thigh and a white blouse that was too small for her. Her breasts lifted the material so that every now and then a thin line of belly showed at her waist. She kept her head down and stayed close to Tobey. As they came up to the car he tried, very gently, to push her forward a bit, but she stayed behind him.
“Mavis, this here is Frank from New York City,” Tobey said. “Him and me were the first kids in Chula Vista.”
“Hello,” she said without looking up.
“Hi.”
“Mavis don’t want a ride. Come on inside.”
As I got out of the car she was already halfway back to the house.
“She’s feeling bad,” Tobey said as we followed.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. She gets that way.”
The black dog lifted his head, looked me over, and went back to nipping himself. His teeth chattered like barbers’ scissors. Inside, the air was full of the smell of paint and plaster. The small living room was almost empty —a couple of kitchen chairs, an old love seat, and a table. I caught sight of a steel guitar leaning against the wall. Tobey dropped onto the love seat and put his feet on the table. Mavis stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Y’all want a Coke?”
“Okay, honey,” Tobey answered.
“Thanks,” I said, and moved to the guitar. “Is it all right to look at this?”
She nodded and disappeared. I picked up the guitar and laid it flat on the table, hefting the heavy steel bar in my left hand. I ran my index finger over the strings. The tuning was unfamiliar.
“Can you play it?” Tobey asked.
“No. I’ve never seen one before.”
“It’s my favorite
instrument,” he said. “Someday I’m gonna learn it.”
I ran the steel bar up and down the strings, experimenting until Mavis came in with the Cokes.
“Don’t you want one, honey?” Tobey asked.
She shook her head. Suddenly tears started running down her cheeks and she turned and ran into the bedroom. Through the open door I saw her throw herself on the bed and curl up like a little child. In the heat, beads of moisture had formed on my Coke bottle. I began to be aware of an atmosphere around me—a kind of steamy, sex-charged heaviness in the air, a faint girl scent, lush and sullen like the smell of bed. I stared at the smooth curve of her hip. She rolled over and I could see the swell of her breasts. I looked away, my body quickening.
“Maybe I’d better go,” I said.
“Wait a while,” he said, getting up. “I’ll be right back.”
I watched him sit down next to her on the bed. She turned her face away and he put his hand on her back, bending his head down to talk softly. I got up and moved to the window at the other side of the room. A small sticker had been left on one of the panes of glass and I scraped it away with my fingernail. I could hear Tobey murmuring to her.
After a while he came out of the bedroom and, together, we went out into the yard. He picked up a stick and swished it through the air. “Well, I don’t know,” he said, and threw the stick away. “I better stay around, though.”
I saw her breasts again in my mind’s eye. I took her clothes off.
“Maybe she has the rag on,” Tobey said.
I nodded, not sure what he meant but unwilling to reveal my ignorance. “Yeah, maybe that’s it. I have to get the car back anyway.”
We walked to the road. I got in the car, started the engine, and pushed the gear shift into reverse. Holding the clutch down with my foot, I leaned out the window. “Say hello to your momma for me, okay?”
“I’ll do that.” He started back toward the house. “You come on out when you can.”
I back into the road, straightened the wheels, and drove away.
Sitting on the smooth board with my legs dangling down into the hole, I drummed my heels against the padded sides. The other alleys were dark, the catwalk deserted on a slow afternoon. I was lucky to be working. The long thunder started, gathered power, and exploded underneath me as I lifted my legs. Pins flew in all directions and the ball hit the rear padding with a heavy thump. I dropped into the hole, my hands and feet going into the light as if into a pool of water. I heaved the ball up onto the track and watched it roll down the slope to start the long journey back to the front. After clearing the gutter with my foot I jumped up on the board.
It was nice work, simple, with an easy rhythm. I liked the way the pins fell into place in the rack like bottles of wine. Watching the other boys I’d discovered you didn’t have to place each pin, you simply grabbed them by their necks four at a time and threw them into the rack, aiming them toward the particular part of the pyramid you wanted to fill. They slithered and clattered across the metal and fell into their holes like live animals going to ground. When the rack was filled you reached into the darkness for the bar and pulled. The whole apparatus descended and bounced off the floor, leaving the pins trembling on their spots, each one perfectly placed. From that moment on you were exposed—the bowler could throw at any time and it was up to you to get on your board and out of the way.
Once, at the county fair, Tobey and I had been paid twenty-five cents an hour to sit, fully clothed, on a trick seat six feet above a huge tank of water. It was a delirious afternoon. Our instructions were to be as insulting as possible to the customers—an activity at which, once warmed up, we excelled. They lined up three deep to throw baseballs at a red bull’s-eye. A solid hit would trip a switch and open the seat underneath us, sending us, arms and legs flailing, into the water with a tremendous splash. We came up shouting insults, climbing back to the seat without a moment’s pause in the torrent of abuse, two evil monkeys.
A dark shape came moving down the catwalk and dropped into the hole two alleys away. It was Sam, the oldest pinboy, a middle-aged Negro who worked in a bathing suit. He placed his pins and got up on the far side of the hole, facing me.
“You doing all right?”
“It must be fifty frames by now.”
“Good. Make some money today. Tonight’s league night.”
The pins exploded underneath us almost simultaneously and we dropped into our holes. He was back up before me, of course. He was fast.
“You gonna get hurt one of these days, you keep on like that.”
“What?”
“Those games you play. Hanging your legs, jumping in when the pins are still flying around. I seen you.”
I laughed. “I’ve got it timed.”
“I’m telling you, boy. You’re gonna miss the jump to the board one time and get your legs broken.”
“You think a pin could break your leg?”
He shook his head and hissed at my ignorance, not even bothering to answer. The ball thumped underneath him. He pushed against the board with the heels of his hands, slid his rump forward, and dropped out of sight.
My man got a couple of spares and signaled that he was through with a wave of his hand. He threw two dimes down the alley and I had to climb out under the rack to get the second one. I switched off the lights and went over to Sam’s alley. His black body gleamed with sweat as he worked.
“Sounded like two dimes,” he said.
“It was.” I stretched out beside his hole, leaning on my elbow, my head on my fist.
“Be careful.”
“I’m okay.” I watched him racking the pins. “He looks pretty good.”
“He’s getting a spare every damn time,” he said, pulling the bar. “But he bowls fast.”
“Did you ever try it? Bowling, I mean?”
“We ain’t got no alley.”
It took me a second to understand. “We’ll do it here some afternoon. I’ll set up for you.”
The pins exploded. A strike.
“You ought to try it,” I said.
“Maybe I will, sometime.” He threw four pins into the rack. It was a pleasure to watch him work—absolutely no waste motion or fumbling, and he could hit the holes in the rack without looking. He seemed to be taking his time, but he was the fastest boy in the place, capable of handling two alleys of League bowlers simultaneously without the faintest strain. More than once I’d seen him work three.
The ball came rolling toward us, louder and louder, and closing my eyes, I lowered my arm into the hole and left it there. I felt some wind on the back of my hand as the pins flew. My body was completely relaxed, the muscles in my back aching comfortably. I pulled my hand back up but kept my eyes closed listening to the sounds of Sam racking, the ball rolling, the pins exploding—the long, slow rhythms of the game.
“Look out!”
I opened my eyes to see a pin coming toward me. Sam had launched himself off the board and, like a magician or a juggler, he caught the pin in midair. The wood slapped against his palm with a snap. “Was you sleeping?” he asked. “Sleeping back here?” He threw the pin into the rack. “You’re crazy, white boy,” he said sharply. “Get on out of here.”
The girl had been standing outside the Youth Center, waiting for the rain to stop, and I’d offered her a ride. She’d accepted, and when I parked in the darkness on the beach road she didn’t protest. Her mouth was oddly formless, but warm. Shaking, I felt her breasts and tried to get my hand between her legs.
“No,” she said.
I went back to her breasts, slipping my fingers under her sweater. Her skin was warm and smooth. After a long time she let me force my way under her brassiere and find her nipple. I tried to open the snap in back.
“No.” she said, twisting away. “You can do what you were doing, but no more.”
We wrestled for an hour and she started to get scared. “I have to go home,” she said. “It’s late and my father will kill me.”
I agreed to go if she’d show me her legs. After a moment’s hesitation she raised her skirt to her hips. In the darkness the whiteness of her panties was eerily luminous. I kissed her and grabbed her sex—squeezing, feeling. She turned her head and pulled at my arm, her fingernails piercing my skin. “You promised!”
She wouldn’t let me drive her to her house. I let her off at a corner and never saw her again.
Toward the end of the summer I ran out of money and couldn’t find a job. I had my return ticket, so I sold my guitar and went back to New York.
15
Hanging On
I PAUSED briefly at the bottom of the stairs, looked both ways, and walked quickly across the hall to the side exit. The heavy door had a horizontal brass bar instead of a knob. I lifted my leg and kicked, catching it right in the center where the Board of Education seal was worked into the metal. The door opened with a crash. Standing outside on the iron deck in the sunlight, I lit a cigarette. Fifteenth Street was still empty. The final bell for the morning session wouldn’t ring for ten minutes. I shifted my books, climbed down the stairs, and crossed the street to the Hero Shop.
“A bologna hero and an orange soda,” I said at the counter. “Not too much mustard.”
