[Juliana 02.0] Olympus Nights on the Square

by Vanda

  I slid my arm out of Marty’s. “You go.”

  “Don’t let him bother you.” He pulled my arm back around his. Cast and crew gathered around us, hitting him on the back. A few girls kissed him. I got pushed up against Moshe—“Oh, excuse me”—and together we watched Marty play-fight with some guys.

  Marty pulled away from his fans and threw his arms around Moshe and me. “Let’s go.”

  The whole crowd, many who had already started drinking, ended up outside the Washington Gate, where we hailed cabs. A light mist fell. I was shoved into the back seat of a cab, and when I turned my head to see who sat next to me, it was Moshe, not Marty.

  On my other side, a girl I didn’t know sat on her beau’s lap. They kissed each other with open mouths, seemingly unaware that their passion was making their arms and legs knock into me. When I slid over to give them more room, I almost ended up on Moshe’s lap. He gave me a venomous look. I slid back toward them.

  Moshe and I sat with our hands pressed neatly into our laps, his caressing the brim of his hat, while we pretended not to see the man trying to get his hand under the girl’s skirt. She giggled and swatted him away without separating her lips from his.

  “So—Moshe. He was good, wasn’t he?” I thought a little conversation might ease our awkward situation.

  “He was okay.” He stared out the window. The driver turned on the wipers, and I listened to them swish-swish across the window as the mist turned into a drizzle.

  “I thought he was very alive on that stage.”

  “Maybe.” Still staring out the window. “But he should be doing the classics, not this musical theater nonsense.”

  “Marty never told me he wanted to be that type of actor.”

  “No. He wouldn’t.” Again, the sound of victory.

  “Well—how have you been?” I asked.

  “And I’m sure that’s a sincere question. So, you’re his date for the evening.”

  “Do I look like his date? He’s not even here. I’m really no threat to you.”

  His head whipped around to face me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t mean anything.” I was more than a little afraid. “I’m sorry.” How could I make such a mistake in front of straights? Okay, they weren’t paying attention to us. But still, if they heard me, they could report it and get us both kicked out of school. A chill ran through my body.

  The cab pulled up to the curb, and Marty yanked open the door. “Come on.”

  The couple crawled onto the running board, the man on all fours, the girl on his back. They fell onto the sidewalk, laughing. Moshe grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back toward him like he wanted to hit me. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you don’t know anything. It’s not true.”

  “I know.”

  I sidled out of the car. The drizzle had turned into rain. I was surrounded by the blinking neon lights of Swing Street. The Street! I can’t be here with them. The Haven must be a little … I looked up at the awning to my right. Birdland! I can’t go in there.

  Marty grabbed my arm. “Hurry. You’ll be drenched.” He took his tie out of his pocket and hung it around his neck. He marched me past Tony the doorman and signaled Moshe to follow us. I kept my head down, so Tony didn’t see me. Marty and Moshe took off their hats.

  The place was dimly lit in a glowing red. We walked down the carpeted steps toward the hatcheck girl. In the distance, I could see the main room with patrons clustering around little round tables. I slid my hat to the side of my face so Trudy didn’t see me.

  “Isn’t it all too wonderful?” Marty said as we drew closer to hatcheck. “Let me take your coats. I’ll give these to the girl and get the tickets.”

  Marty came back waving the tickets, and we walked down the steps to our table. Marty looked up at the birdcages hanging from the ceiling, each one with a little bird inside. “I read about this, but gosh, he really does have birds everywhere.”

  “And over there. By the bar.” I pointed to a large cage. “A talking mynah bird.”

  “How’d you know it talks?”

  “Oh.” Damn. “They all talk. Don’t they?”

  “I don’t know, do they?”

  We stepped into the main room and were led to our table. To our left, men were squashed around the bar.

  Moshe sat opposite me, looking as sullen as ever. Customers took their seats and waiters hurried to serve them.

  “So, I have news,” Marty announced. “I got an acting job. I haven’t even graduated yet.”

  “Tell us!” I said.

  “TV. Only a small part in a fifteen-minute show. For Autolite Theater.”

  “I know them. I once did a radio bit on their show.”

  “So much in common,” Moshe whispered.

  I decided not to give him the dirty look that was trying to crawl onto my face.

  “Marty, you’re gonna be on my TV, in my living room.”

  “If you look fast.”

  The waiter came over, “Drinks? Hey, Al, how are you?”

  “Fine,” I said softly to the caramel-complexioned waiter, keeping my eyes on my drink menu. “I’ll have—”

  “A side car, right?”

  “Uh, Manhattan.”

  “Really? But you always …”

  I wiggled my eyebrows at him, hoping he’d catch my drift.

  “What’ll you gentlemen have?”

  Marty ordered a dry martini, which seemed right for him, but when Moshe, who I expected to order something like chocolate milk, ordered a dry martini too, that was a surprise.

  Lou dashed off, and I looked up to see Marty and Moshe staring at me.

  “Well?” Marty said.

  “What?”

  “How is it you know our waiter, and he knows what you drink?”

  “Oh, well, he must’ve mixed me up with someone else.”

  “No, he knew you,” Marty said. “He called you Al. Why’d he call you that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Al. What was that about, Al?”

  “We’ve worked together.”

  “Where do you work, exactly? I always thought it was in some little diner, but if you know him and he knows your drink, you must work in a fancy place like a nightclub.”

  “Kinda.”

  “You’re a cigarette girl, aren’t you?” Moshe hissed. “See? I told you she’s nothing, but a—”

  “Don’t finish that,” Marty and I said at the same time.

  “Which nightclub do you work in?” Marty asked.

  “The Master of Ceremonies. They’re going to start.”

  Pee Wee Marquette stood on the stage in his little tuxedo. He was a midget who announced the shows. The musicians had to treat him kindly, or the next time they did a show at Birdland he’d mispronounce their name in an embarrassing way.

  The lights came up on a huge stage, revealing a full orchestra with the Charlie Bird Quintet downstage. Last year, to attract teenagers to the Mt. Olympus—they were calling older kids teenagers now—Max put in a pre-show bebop dance hour. For the opening, Charlie Parker played a few of his bebop songs. It attracted a huge crowd, and ever since then, “teenagers” were finding their way to the Mt. Olympus. Charlie “Bird” Parker became our regular special guest.

  As the music played, Lou ran by, dropping off our drinks. Moshe swallowed down his in a couple gulps and ordered another. My listening of the music was erratic because all I could think of was that Shakespeare quote about the tangled web that chokes you when you’re deceiving people. When the music stopped and the musicians left the stage for a break, Moshe said, in between sloppy gulps of martini, “She cavorts with musicians, Marty. That means narcotics, and drunken orgies, and—”

  Charlie Parker came over to our table. “Hey, Al!” He held out his thick brown hand for me to shake. “I thought that was you sitting there, but I had to come over and be sure. How ya doing?”

  “Good. Bird, your new show is terrific. I love the
addition of the strings. No other jazz musician would do that.”

  “Well, I’m not any ol’ jazz musician.”

  “No, you’re not. I want you to meet my friends, Aaron Martin Buchman, and this is Moshe Steinman.”

  “Hi, fellas,” Bird said to two fans whose mouths hung open. “Hey, Lou.” Bird signaled our waiter. “Another round of drinks here. On the house.” He winked at me and disappeared into the roomful of fans.

  “Holy Smoke!” Marty said. “You actually know him. You called him Bird.”

  “I bet she’s a drug addict,” Moshe said.

  “Shut up,” Marty said. “And don’t tell me you didn’t get a thrill out of meeting Bird after all the hours we’ve spent listening to his records. Spill it, Al. How is it you’re buddies with “Bird?”

  “Yeah,” Moshe said, his head swaying. While Marty and I were nursing our second drink, Moshe had finished his third, and was waving down Lou for another.

  “Marty, I’m a student when I’m at school. That’s all I want to be.”

  “Instead of a whore?” Moshe drawled.

  “Okay. That’s it.” I got up and sped toward the exit, pushing customers out of my way, forgetting my coat. Marty caught up with me under the awning outside. The steady rain was a persistent drumbeat against the canvas above our heads.

  “Alice, wait. Your coat.” He handed it to me without helping me into it. He rarely followed the ordinary rules for men and women, so I put my own coat on. “He’s been drinking. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  “He knows exactly what he’s saying because it’s what he thinks. Look, Marty, at the school I’m a student. Your mother expected you to go to college; she encouraged you, and if it hadn’t been for the war you would’ve gone years ago. I never in my wildest imagination thought of myself as a college student, but that’s what I seem to be. And some days I even fit in. I don’t want to lose that by—by …”

  “Telling me who you really are?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I think I know a lot more about you than you realize.”

  “Like what?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Like …” He looked out toward the street. Cars whooshed through puddles, reflections of colored lights sparkled in the water running down the street. “Like … gosh, this is hard to say. Alice, you’re …” Despite the two of us being the only people standing under the awning—Tony must have gone off somewhere for a smoke—Marty stepped closer to me and whispered, “You’re …” And swallowed. “You’re gay, aren’t you?”

  A cold chill shot through my body, and “No!” with great outrage almost flew out of my mouth, but then I stopped it. I’d never had to acknowledge this thing out loud beyond Shirl and Mercy, but now it was the school … “Yes. And you are too.”

  We both sighed.

  “I’m glad that’s out,” he said. “I’ve known about you since the beginning.”

  “When you asked if I was a communist.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “Dumb.”

  “I think after a while I got it, but I was afraid to get it.”

  “I feel safe around you,” Marty said. “It’s not like that with other people. Those things they say about us in the papers ... There are others like us at the school, some in the cast, but trying to find out for sure is treacherous. I get a suspicion, but what if I’m wrong? It’ll ruin my future career. There are ways of telling on the street and in subways, but at the school …”

  “There are?”

  “Code words. And that’s really for sex.”

  “You do that with strangers in subways? How?”

  “In the bathroom. But my point is, I don’t want to take that chance at school.”

  “You do that with strangers in subway bathrooms?”

  “Yes, and if you keep repeating it I’m going to feel guilty, and it’s the one thing I don’t feel guilty about. Let me get Moshe in a cab, and you and me’ll go some place and talk. I want to know about you and Charlie Parker. You really know him, wow.”

  We walked back into the place, squeezing through the people overflowing the bar, and made our way to Moshe, whose head was on the table; his hand gripped his half-filled glass. “Where’s the waiter? I’ve got to pay the bill,” Marty said.

  “You take care of Moshe. I’ll get this.” I took a few bills from my purse.

  “Well, look at you. We definitely need to talk. I know waitresses don’t get paid like that.”

  Marty scooped Moshe up into his arms, while I gave the bills to Lou. As Marty dragged Moshe toward the hatcheck girl, Moshe’s head fell back and his yarmulke fell off. I picked it up while Marty stuffed him into his coat.

  Marty dragged him into the damp air. The rain was once again only a drizzle. The air seemed to revive him, and he raised his head from Marty’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  “Taxi! Hey, Taxi!” Marty called out, shaking his hand in the air to flag a cab. Who knew where Tony had gone off to? A couple of green and yellow-checkered cabs with their flags down slid into the curb, and Marty yanked open the door of one of them. He dropped Moshe inside and gave the address to the driver. “Don’t go till you see him go inside. I’m giving you something extra for that.” He handed the driver money.

  As Marty slid back out of the cab, Moshe’s eyes got wide. “Hey! Aren’t you coming, too?”

  “No. Alice and I are gonna talk. You go home and sleep.”

  “He dropped this.” I handed Marty the yarmulke.

  “I’m coming too,” Moshe said, sticking his leg out of the car. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” He pushed his foot against the running board and grabbed Marty’s coat, trying to get out.

  “Put your yarmulke on,”—Marty put it on his head—“and go home and pray. You need it.”

  Moshe continued to push against Marty’s body and got his second leg out of the car onto the running board. “Cut it out, Mosh, you’re in no condition—”

  Moshe wrapped his arms around Marty’s chest in a killer-wrestler move. Or was that a hug? “Don’t leave me.” He started to cry.

  “Stop, you’re crushing me.”

  “Look, buddy,” the hack said, “your dough ain’t coverin’ all night. Get in or out.”

  “Oh, hell, Moshe. I’m sorry, Alice, I better get him home. We’ll go out another time. Next week? I wanna hear about you and Charlie Parker.”

  Chapter 35

  I HESITATED AT the top of the steps. The basement door had only the number 181 on it. Strange not to be hidden under the shadow of the Second Avenue El. They’d taken it down during the war because it shut out the light. Soon they’d be building the Second Avenue subway. I stood only a few blocks from The Christian Ladies of Hope House, my first home in the city. The boarders of Hope House were long gone, the building in a bad state of disrepair. The Third Avenue El squealed in the distance. There was talk they’d be taking that down too, soon.

  I wore my Dior New Look white sleeveless dress with a butterfly pattern and a flare skirt, the hemline at my lower calf. My hat had a wide brim and was made to look like woven straw.

  This place catered pretty much to the same crowd as we did: big shot bankers, celebrities, Wall Streeters, mobsters, and tourists. Folks with money to spend. But it wasn’t really like our place at all.

  It was dark inside, lit only by flickering candles. On the stage, a bright light shone on chorus boys, dressed like chorus girls, singing and swishing to “That’s My Fella” from Up in Central Park, a Broadway hit in ’45. The audience laughed at their femininity as they sang about their “man.” My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and I noticed the rich Wedgewood blue and white walls. At the bar, I saw straight men and gay boys leaning over their drinks; some of the gay boys had their arms around each other. Didn’t they know sitting like that made them part of the entertainment whether they wanted to be or not?

  “Hey, Al!” Marty called from the bar, running to me, a drink in hand. He wore his too-big corduroy pants wit
h his tie hanging crookedly around his neck.

  A woman in a tuxedo approached us. “May I show you to a table, sir?”

  “Yeah. Thanks,” Marty said. “In the back, please.” We followed our hostess. “Isn’t this place great? One of the guys from the cast brought me here a few weeks ago. He figured out about me.” We sat at a round table.

  “The most famous fag joint in town,” I said.

  “Al!”

  “I’m only quoting USA Confidential.”

  “Be happy. This is a place for us.”

  “This place isn’t for us. It’s a place for straights to come and laugh at us. When I first came to the city, I went with my friends from the Island to the Life Cafeteria on Seventh Avenue.”

  “I know the place.”

  “We stood with our faces pressed against their large windows, making fun of the homos inside as if we were at the zoo. Now, I’m one of those homos in the zoo.”

  “Stop. The talent here is the best.”

  “If they wanted to perform at the Copa or Jimmy Ryan’s, could they?”

  “Well … no.”

  “And if a girl showed up who wasn’t an entertainer or a waiter, but was wearing a tuxedo, would they let her in?”

  “Of course not. What’s your point?”

  “It’s not a place for us. It’s a place for them.”

  “Boy, you sure know how to bring a fella down. There are places for us. Lots of them. More since the war.”

  “You mean the ones where people get arrested?”

  “Come on, Al, lighten up.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not used to being …” I whispered, “…gay. It’s new to me and a little scary. I have a career I care about, and someone could come along and—”

  “Tell me about that. Your career. What do you do?”

  “You’re right. This place is nice. Can you get me a drink first?”

  Marty signaled the waiter or waitress—I didn’t know which was the right word—but it was another girl in a tuxedo. Everyone waiting on tables were girls in tuxedos. “What can I get ya, doll?” our waiter said, directly to me.

  “You want dinner?” Marty asked.

  “No. A Coca-Cola.”

  “Not something stronger?”