• • •
“She knew,” Cliff said to me as we lay on the mattress. “She knew all along that he had a girl on the side. That I had a goddamned brother, for Chrissake . . .” He paused. We had our arms wrapped around each other; I felt his jaw clench as he swallowed. “Once, over the breakfast table, she said to my father, ‘You’ve spent a lot of nights sleeping in the city lately, Roger. I think you ought to cut back.’ Just like that! Right in front of me, like we didn’t both know exactly where he’d been spending his nights.”
I couldn’t think of what to say, and I knew, on instinct, that Cliff would rather I say nothing at all. So I simply went on stroking his arm, letting him know I was awake and listening.
After we were married, I asked Cliff once if he wouldn’t like the chance to talk to his half-brother someday. They were, after all, related. And nearly the same age. But by that point I knew Cliff well enough . . . I should’ve guessed already what his answer would be.
“What for?” he asked, a sneer slowly soaking into his features. “I tell ya one thing . . . if I ever did, I would be sure to knock the bastard’s block off, the lousy no-good pretender.”
CLIFF
37
I guess Eden and I were true newlyweds because we went from one day having a fight and not being able to stand each other to the next day me doing something as sweet and simple as bringing her a packet of daisies I’d bought for twenty-five cents at the newsstand and suddenly the two of us couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I’d had some valid points during our big argument and I didn’t think I ought to give them up, but there was one thing I was awful sorry about and that was bringing up the subject of Eden’s name. I could tell it had her rattled. If she knew me at all she ought to know I would never rat her out but in any case I felt pretty lousy whenever I remembered that part of our fight and I decided I would lay off Eden for a while about the whole business of slipping my manuscript to My Old Man.
One Saturday Rusty turned up unannounced per his usual habit while Eden and I were busy making love under a shower of rare but glorious afternoon sunshine. Of course we knew when the buzzer sounded it was Rusty and we also knew we had to stop what we were busy doing and answer it or else there would be consequences. I extracted myself and pulled my pants on begrudgingly, knowing full well there are only so many afternoons you get in life when you are young and so is your wife and you still have love between you and the sunshine pours in through the windows in such a way that the very word generous seems to hang in the air. But since Eden wasn’t going to slip My Old Man a manuscript, I needed to get to Rusty’s boss now more than ever and there were always consequences if you made Rusty cross so down I went to the stoop. It turned out there were consequences anyway, because when Rusty came trudging up the creaking wooden stairs and into the apartment he took one look at the sticky sheen of our faces and at the bedsheets that were now twined into a thick vine and dangling off the mattress a little like the braid of Rapunzel’s hair and he knew exactly what had been going on just minutes prior.
Whenever someone else was making love or balling someone it put Rusty in a foul mood and a small but devastating tantrum was sure to follow. I didn’t completely understand the reasons for his foul mood but it was as if he believed there was only a set amount of sex in the world and whenever someone else used some of it up they were taking away from the stash that was rightfully his. He paced around our apartment like an aggravated jungle cat. Eden made him a melted cheese sandwich on the hot plate but he refused to take a single bite of it and instead kept complaining about how his shirt had gotten wrinkled on the cab ride over because the driver had been so lousy he’d been forced to hunker down in the backseat to avoid flying out the cab window whenever the driver made one of his death-defying swerves into traffic. I almost asked how Rusty had managed to pay the taxi without someone to spot him the money but I held my tongue. Finally, Eden offered to iron it for him and he sighed and took his shirt off as though acquiescing to a great favor.
The sight of Rusty sitting at the kitchen table in his undershirt with his narrow shoulders and skinny arms and his chest so soft and saggy was enough to make me gag but I did not have to stomach it long because Eden was an efficient ironer and when the shirt was done Rusty whipped it back on and stood up and when he got up he yelled, “Good Lord, I don’t know how you people can stand it in here; it positively reeks!” Then he declared we all needed to get outside and do something. Eden and I changed our clothes and soon enough we were outside standing on the curb, helping Rusty hail a taxi. The afternoon sunshine was all gone now; twilight had set in and all the electric signs were beginning to glow like embers against the ashen sky. When a cab finally pulled over to let us in, Eden gave me a look that said: Of course this is another thing we’re going to have to pay for with money we don’t really have because we both know perfectly well he’s not going to offer to pay for it. I shrugged as if to say: What do you want me to do about it? She sighed and I sighed and we got in. I think we were both especially compliant that evening to Rusty’s demands because of the big fight we’d had about my manuscript. If Rusty ever got around to giving my work to the big important literary agent the problems between us would be solved and we would never fight again, so we figured it couldn’t hurt to give him what he wanted.
It turned out Rusty didn’t really want fresh air because what he really wanted was to smoke some tea, so we ended up giving the driver an address in Harlem because in those days the tea was plentiful in Harlem—so much so that if you didn’t have any money to buy, sometimes you could just get out and walk the streets and breathe the air there to get good and stoned. I didn’t mind so much going to Harlem, because once up there we could check out some of the jazz joints and it was always a good time to go hear the Negro musicians blow as only the Negro musicians could.
When we got to Harlem we found both the tea and the jazz in the same place. It was early still, so the nightclubs hadn’t filled up yet and we had a table to ourselves. The waiter told us in order to see about the tea we’d have to ask at the bar and of course Rusty wasn’t very well going to do this part and so it was all up to me. The bartender directed me to a stockroom in the back of the club just past the men’s toilet and once there I stood in front of a pair of decommissioned urinals until finally a heavyset mulatto who was all frowns abruptly pushed through the door and without a single word or twitch of expression took my money and handed over the tea and shuffled out just as directly as he had come in.
When I got back to the table Rusty and Eden were discussing something and when I sat down Rusty took the tea from me and abruptly changed the subject by asking me what did I think of the fellow sitting at the bar. After all the cloak-and-dagger with the tea I was a little annoyed to watch as Rusty started rolling a marijuana cigarette right at the table for everyone to see but I decided to ignore this and oblige his request and looked over at the bar. There were two light lemony-skinned colored girls, one fat man so big his haunches concealed the barstool supporting him, and one athletic-built Negro in a turtleneck and horn-rimmed glasses. I assumed Rusty meant the young athlete.
With a start, I realized the young man we were staring at was Miles.
He must’ve felt our eyes on him because just then he turned and looked in our direction. I waved and he gave a tight nod and smile. It was funny seeing him at that bar. I guess I knew he’d been born and raised in Harlem and all that, but even so, he spent a lot of his spare time running around the Village and when you are used to seeing a particular person in a specific setting it was jarring to encounter him someplace entirely different; it made you feel almost like the person had a second life he kept secret from you. As I looked at Miles now, I imagined his other, Harlem life.
“You two know that fella?” Rusty asked. Eden and I nodded.
“He runs around the Village scene. Kind of funny to see him up here.”
“Bring him over here and
invite him to the party at your pad,” Rusty said to me, and I realized the imperial toddler was back.
“We’re not having a party at our pad,” I said, and Rusty gave me a look and suddenly I understood: We were having a party at our pad. I crossed the bar to where Miles sat on a barstool and after a few niceties cajoled him into joining us at our table. I could tell Miles was uncomfortable to see us outside the Village, but it was not in his personality to be impolite so he followed me back to the table.
Eden seemed genuinely pleased to see old Miles. They smiled openly at each other and she asked him about Columbia and about graduating and about the bicycle messenger business. Rusty and I sat there scowling, me because here was my wife as chummy as can be with a fellow I wasn’t aware she knew so well, and Rusty because the whole idea was that everybody should pay attention to him and most especially that Miles should pay attention to him.
“Tell him about the party you’re throwing,” Rusty said, cutting into the conversation. I told Miles about the party and invited him and he looked vaguely uncomfortable.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m going out of town soon.”
“When are you leaving?” Rusty demanded.
Miles hesitated. “I’ve still got to make sure everything’s in order, but in the next week or so.”
“Well, our party is this week, so you can fit it in, no problem. Tell you what: We’ll make it a bon voyage party,” Rusty insisted.
“Oh, don’t do that,” Miles said, hesitating. “But I suppose I can drop in,” he continued, mostly to me and to Eden.
Rusty grinned in victory and leered a bit in a drunken, stoned manner as he looked Miles over. Miles shifted uncomfortably under Rusty’s stare and pretended rapt interest in the musicians on the stage despite the fact they hadn’t started playing just yet.
I saw Eden give both of them a nervous glance but when she looked at me with a question in her eyes I only shrugged. Just then the first blast of the trumpet sounded and barked its way through a tongue-twisting series of very fast jazz notes and the stage lit up with colored lights as the musicians started to play. Rusty relented and turned his attention to the stage and so did we and those musicians began to blow with an impressively urgent and limber force. The club began to fill up and soon the room was thick with smoke from cigarettes and tea and cigars and also the groggy garlicky heat of sweaty bodies standing close to one another.
I could already tell it was going to be a late night, and once again Eden and I were probably going to spend more money than we could afford, and that meant by the end of the month we would be scrambling all over again to get the rent paid. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself; these were just the facts. And now Rusty had demanded a party, which meant soon we were going to be hosting some kind of shindig at our pad and that would also be an expense. I wasn’t looking forward to any of this but at that time we were both still afraid to disappoint Rusty. There was a vague indirect sprinkling of dread over my thoughts that night, like a handful of kernels that had yet to sink into the soil. But it was a nice night, or at least that’s my memory of it, so instead of worrying about anything Rusty could get up to, I sat back and listened to the tremendous musicians blow. After only ten minutes or so of listening to the jazz I had managed to push those seedlings of nervous dread to the back of my mind with the hope that, once there, they would fail to take root.
38
Of course, it was only natural to invite Swish and Bobby and Pal, and even though the party was something Rusty had demanded it was nice having all the gang back together and it wasn’t long before Eden and I began to feel like the whole thing had been our own idea in the first place. The early-autumn chill had let off a bit and everyone was in good spirits that night. Pal had just had a little poetry chapbook printed and it was impossible not to smile back into his friendly blue eyes as he passed it around with a look of sheepish pride. Swish also was in fine form: He had gotten a haircut and dropped the ratty hobo attire for the evening and stood in the corner hunched over with his characteristic wiry thin-guy posture, debating politics with a freckly blond kid dressed in glasses and a rumpled checked shirt. The blond kid didn’t so much debate back as listen and nod.
Bobby was always the last to turn up at parties and we all knew this about him and even had grown to like it. Whenever things started to slow up and get dull, Bobby would crash through the door with all his explosive energy and inject the atmosphere with new life. True to form that night, after we’d all been sitting around for a while and had gotten a few drinks into things, Bobby showed up with a couple of huge hash bricks he’d gotten off a crazy Frenchman and a trio of girls whose names he hadn’t even bothered to learn but who he’d decided to call LaVerne, Maxene, and Patty after the Andrews Sisters. I didn’t talk much to the girls that night as it was clear they were all in it for Bobby and were trying to outlast one another to see which one of them would finally wind up basking in Bobby’s beauty for the night. I remember they giggled every time he called them by the Andrew Sisters’ names despite the fact no one liked the Andrews Sisters and it was clearly a condescension and we all found their lack of dignity mildly irritating.
Overall, though, even the Andrews Sisters couldn’t ruin the mood that night, which was good. We were all keyed up and ready to get our kicks. After Bobby made his entrance the room suddenly got very full and all the conversations began going a million miles a minute and nobody paid much attention to Rusty, so for a moment I thought he might get bored and go home. Of course he didn’t, because he was waiting for Miles to turn up, and eventually Miles did turn up looking very clean-cut and muscular and then a little later there was some bad business that I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t anticipated and so did very little to stop. The bad business started when we had all moved the party up onto the roof.
When Miles got to our apartment he poked his handsome dusky face into the room with an uncertain air and knocked timidly on the open door, despite the fact he’d obviously found us. Sonny Rollins was piping hot and loud out of the record player. Eden waved and left my side to go over to his. The two of them were joined by Swish and very shortly afterward all three of them were locked into one of Swish’s great debates. By the time I made my way across the room Swish was heavy into a diatribe about whether or not it would be better to live as a colored man in the U.S.A. or in Russia.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Swish was saying when I walked up, “I hear what you’re saying about Dos Passos because I have a true affection for that cat of course and all his politics, too, and I would like nothing better than to agree but what I’m saying is a man of color—a man such as yourself—might do better to live in a foreign nation where his people haven’t already been harnessed to the government like a godforsaken capitalistic extra appendage of the state and you could start over without the burden of your people’s history and maybe with the right intellectuals even make a new history of your own . . .”
Miles frowned in a friendly way and shook his head at Swish and I saw Swish’s body tighten in the pleased apprehension that someone was about to disagree with him. “You’re assuming I want to forget my people’s history,” Miles said. He inflected the words my people in a kind of wry way and I think this was meant to imply Swish was using an expression he had no right to use. The point was lost on Swish, because Swish had always been of the opinion that simply being born had entitled him to all rights of every kind and most especially the right to talk about anything he wanted to with whatever expressions suited him best.
“Well, why wouldn’t you?” Swish asked. “It’s a beggars’ history, cobbled together by the very people who have made you beggars. The Negro will never be equal to the white man until he sheds his history as a slave and gets everybody to forget all about the shame of letting himself be enslaved.”
“It’s a history of adversity,” Miles said, suddenly very quiet and serious. “And adversity is what makes a people strong
in their own conviction of themselves as a people.”
“Well, you’re hanging on to your own noose is what I say, and in the larger order of things this is why your people have stayed exactly where they have stayed.”
It was almost imperceptible but I saw Miles flinch at Swish’s words. Very coolly he collected himself and cleared his throat and I could see then that Miles had probably had more than one conversation with the kind of intense white guy Swish was and had learned long ago not to rise too passionately to the bait because that was exactly what these guys always wanted. “I see,” Miles said. “And would you have the Jews forget their persecution during the war, too?”
“You bet I would,” Swish said. “The war of course was awful for the Jews, but the survivors only make themselves into victims by sitting around talking about how awful it was for them.”
This time it was Eden’s turn to flinch. Most of the time I forgot that Eden was Jewish and now as I saw her flinch I remembered her true name again. But before I had much of a chance to reflect on this fact I felt the short, stingy, hovering presence of Rusty at my elbow.
“Tell your friend to stop being a drip,” Rusty said in a low voice into my ear, meaning Swish. I hated that he knew I would do what he told me to do, but he did have one thing right and that was how gloomy the conversation was getting. Swish meant well but he liked to stir up controversy—he saw it as his way of upholding American democracy—and conversations that started off in an unassuming tone could sometimes turn sour and poison the night and cause everyone’s mood to take a turn for the worse.
Three-Martini Lunch Page 23