I spent some time contemplating things while I waited for our lunch-date to roll around and in particular I spent some time thinking about how I could be a better man and a better husband to Eden. It occurred to me that we both still felt bad about what had happened to Miles the night of our party and if I wanted to make things better all around, one thing I could do was to go up to Harlem and look him in the eye and apologize, man-to-man. It was the decent thing to do, and as soon as I made up my mind to do it I began to feel very benevolent just for having the idea.
Deciding to apologize to Miles was easy, but tracking him down was another question. He’d been absent from the Village scene ever since that bad night on our roof. He had talked about going out of town but surely he had to be back by now and this meant he was staying away intentionally. I thought I remembered Miles’s surname as being Tillman. I checked the Columbia directory but came up with nothing. He was not in the book, either, but there was a Tillman listed and it gave an address that was not far from the jazz club where Eden and Rusty and I had run into him. I figured it was a sign I was on the right track.
I took the train uptown and walked around Harlem until I found the address. Some Negro kids were rough-housing on the stoop and when I asked them did they know Miles Tillman they said “Sho’ ’nuff,” they did know Miles Tillman, and that I could find the Tillman family on the fourth floor. Once I got upstairs, a middle-aged woman answered the door. I asked for Miles and she looked at me in alarm and it dawned on me that I had on a collared shirt and a nice pair of trousers and to her I probably looked like the tax-man.
“He’s not in any kind of trouble,” I explained. “I’m just here to tell him something about a mutual friend of ours.” This wasn’t entirely true, because Rusty was hardly my friend, let alone Miles’s, and the only thing I wanted to tell Miles was how mistaken I’d been to allow Rusty into our group and into the party, but I didn’t want to explain about all that to the woman standing at the door. I could tell she did not believe in the existence of a mutual friend but she wasn’t about to say so. Instead she nodded politely but still looked a little jumpy. Miles was out but would be home soon, she said, and invited me to come inside and wait in the living room. I peered over her shoulder into the apartment and saw that it was nice enough but decided to decline her offer to go inside on account of the fact I had made her uneasy. I was right to think this, because when I told her I would wait at the coffee shop around the corner on 125th Street she looked relieved. I asked her would she be so kind as to send Miles over when he came home? She said yes and off I went.
I wasn’t waiting very long before Miles turned up, which was good, because I’d had to order some coffee just to sit there and I didn’t have a lot of money and wanted to avoid ordering anything else. I don’t know who Miles was expecting but it certainly wasn’t me. I was sitting in a booth by the window and staring out into the street when he cut around the corner. His face was dark and shining with sweat and he had an eager air about him, but when he saw me he froze and the smile vanished from his face. I tried not to take this personally because I knew it was mostly on account of Rusty and the horrible thing he had done to Miles. I saw the tight frown creep into Miles’s face and I understood he had not forgotten one second of it. There was nothing I could say to make it better but I had come to apologize anyhow. When you really get down to it most apologies are useless but it’s nice to make them anyway and for some reason—like I said, because of Eden and because of my new leaf—I was really hot on making this one.
Miles entered the coffee shop and walked right up to my table with a pinched look on his face. He was standing before me and the time for my apology was at hand. We stared at each other. “My mother said you came calling at the house for me,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. The formality of his tone shook my confidence. He stood hovering over my table, looking uncomfortable. “Sit down,” I said. He set down the satchel he was carrying and sank into the seat opposite me. He was graceful in the way he did it and as I looked him over I remembered how lean and muscular he was, and how good-looking. The glasses added something, too. Miles cleared his throat and I knew he was waiting for me to speak.
“You weren’t expecting me,” I said.
“No.”
“But you were expecting someone,” I observed. He didn’t answer. “Who were you expecting?” I asked. I had no right to ask but I was curious and couldn’t help myself. Miles narrowed his eyes and looked at me with that same distrustful expression he’d worn that time I’d approached him in the jazz club, and hesitated.
“Just a friend. Someone from San Francisco,” he finally said.
“A friend from Frisco?” I echoed. I hadn’t pictured Miles existing outside of Harlem or the Village, let alone outside of New York, and Frisco was a place I had always meant to go but had never been. Evidently before me sat a worldly Negro who got around. I was impressed. “You been there much?” I asked.
“Just got back.”
“Hey, cool, man,” I said, hoping he would catch on to my approving tone and understand that we were natural friends. “Frisco’s a madman’s town,” I added. I had not meant to sound authoritative but it came out that way. Miles nodded. He started to say something but just as he did the bell over the door of the coffee shop jingled and a young Negro boy ran in.
“Miles!” The little boy grinned and launched himself into Miles’s arms. Miles caught him and settled him into his lap but did not grin back. “Mama said you came home and lef’ again.” The boy turned and grinned in my direction. He was a free, easy boy, a kid with the kind of primitive spirit people often talked about when they admired the Negro race. I had never seen a child smile in such a pure-hearted way and it was a marvel to see, but in the very next moment Miles dampened that smile so that it still glowed but a little less brightly.
“I have some business to attend to, little man,” Miles said. “You run along now and tell Mama I’ll be sure to be home in time for supper.”
“You promise you gonna read to me some more about Pa?”
“As soon as I get home. Now go on, Cob. I mean it.”
The boy shuffled his feet and slumped his shoulders. “Well, anyway,” he turned again to me, “nice to meet you, mister.”
I was tickled by this and so I put out my hand and the little boy shook it with a tremendous solemnity and introduced himself as “Mister Malcolm ‘Cob’ Tillman.”
“All right, then, that’s enough,” Miles said. “Go on, Cob; get.” A stiffness had crept into Miles’s voice and Cob and I exchanged a look that meant we both knew we would do well to heed him. The boy spun on his feet and dashed out the same way he had come in.
“My kid brother,” Miles explained.
“Cute,” I said. He seemed squirrely about this and stiffened.
“Look,” Miles said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but what do you want?”
“I came here to tell you my feelings on things,” I said. My voice was getting all funny in my throat. I was suddenly nervous as hell. “And you know,” I continued, “you know . . . to tell you that I’m no longer friends with Rusty.”
“Congratulations,” he said.
“I mean, I don’t know if I’d have even called him a friend in the first place. If you want to know the truth, he was shamming us all. Me included. Boy oh boy, did I let him pull the old wool over my eyes. He turned out to be a real lousy rat. But you know that already.”
Miles only nodded and I could see his jaw clench.
“So I just came here, like I said, to tell you that I wish I would’ve punched him when I had the chance. You know, before all that nonsense started. Really I do, honest.” I had almost said before all that nonsense on the roof but I sensed Miles did not need a more specific reminder to know what I meant.
Miles nodded. “I guess that makes two of us,” he said finally.
“I mean, I really
wish I had,” I repeated. “I would’ve felt bad whaling on such a weenie of a guy, but I would’ve laid him out cold if we ever went toe to toe.”
“Yes, well,” Miles said, “I better be going.” He rose from the booth before I could say anything. “Nice to see you again,” he said, shouldering his satchel and reaching out to shake hands. I really had to give it to him, he had a polite way with people. I could tell it had not been a pleasure to see me again but he wasn’t about to let it show.
“Cliff.” He nodded.
“Miles.” I nodded in return.
We shook. He stepped quickly for the door. I wasn’t quite satisfied with the result of our meeting; something was still missing.
“I really do wish I’d laid that bastard out cold when I had the chance,” I called after him. I don’t know why I kept repeating this. I guess it was the closest thing I had to an apology and anyway it let Miles know that I was really on his side and that was the important thing. He nodded and slipped through the door, then gave me a terse wave of his hand as he passed by the window.
I watched him as he disappeared around the corner and then I sat in the booth alone and drained the rest of my coffee. I’d pictured the whole thing differently: me making my apology to Miles and him being grateful and the two of us getting all chummy. I’d also pictured going home to Eden and telling her all about it and having her smile in that way she had when she was proud of me and glad to be my wife. Maybe we’d even get Miles to rejoin the group down in the Village again and he’d come and we’d show him how nice and generous we could be towards a Negro. Sitting there in that booth, I realized how foolish this idea had been.
I looked out the window at the traffic and the people bustling by. It had been dry all day but now an early winter rain had begun to fall and there were big ugly blotches all over the sidewalk. The walk back to the train was going to be very wet and even with my nice trousers pegged up high I was probably going to end up with wet pant legs, which I hated.
I figured it was no good putting off the inevitable soggy walk, so I slid out of the booth. But as I stood up I happened to glance into the other side where Miles had been sitting and caught sight of something. Lying on the seat was a composition book stuffed with papers and bound shut with a rubber band. It must have fallen out of Miles’s satchel while he was sitting down and then when he’d gotten up he’d been in too much of a hurry to notice it had fallen out.
I picked it up. I had already been to his family’s apartment and so I knew where he lived and I knew I ought to return it to him, but for some reason I didn’t do this. In retrospect, knowing everything I know now, I honestly wish I had. But that’s like saying I wish I had punched Rusty the minute I met him or that I’d never gone to that hotel room after my fight at the Y. All of these things were true enough but the past was the past and what happened, happened. Instead of bringing Miles’s composition book back to him I found myself burning with a tremendous curiosity.
I undid the rubber band and peeked inside and saw the composition book was full of what looked like some kind of makeshift manuscript. I stared at the pages, remembering our day together writing in the café. I wondered if the manuscript was any good. It would be interesting, at least, to read a little before returning it.
58
At first I only read Miles’s pages in small doses. I think I put it off a little because I didn’t know if it was his diary or what and if it turned out to be terrible stuff I knew I would feel awkward about that when I went to return the composition book. But the stuff Miles had written in the café that day had been all right and it just so happened these pages were pretty decent, too. Right away I saw the stuff had merit. Some of it needed small adjustments here and there and as I read I marked those places for Miles’s benefit, trying to be helpful. Criticism is a form of true help even though not everybody can see his way clear to this all the time. It occurred to me that by doing Miles this favor and marking down my suggestions for improvement I might have a second shot at an apology.
If I am being honest, then I will tell you I had a second motivation in reading and marking up Miles’s pages and that was to distract myself from my impending lunch-date with My Old Man. I was confident in the novel manuscript I had mailed to him at Bonwright but there was just something about the old bastard that always got my hands to turn all clammy. This meeting at Keen’s would determine my future—everything had been building towards it—and to think about that fact alone was a little like trying to stare directly into the sun. You had to look away and I found that focusing my attention on Miles’s composition book was a good way of doing this.
It was tricky marking down my criticism at first because I wasn’t entirely sure what I was reading. It seemed like a memoir at times and at other times it seemed like war fiction. A lot of it was about being in the war and I was surprised at the vivid portrayal of various battles. At first I thought Miles had a strange and unruly imagination, but then I recalled what his little brother had said when he had run into the coffee shop and asked if Miles was going to read to him some more about their father, and I understood better what it was I was likely reading and I respected the writing all the more for its authenticity. I’m all for imagination but if you ask me Hemingway had it right when he said there is no substitution for true-life experience and that you should write what you know. I don’t want to hear about the war from some phony who never went to the front lines and I don’t know why anybody else would, either. Anyway, I knew that wasn’t the case with this manuscript after I pieced together that the war bits were probably Miles rewriting his father’s stories.
Overall, there was a real narrative in it, too, and that excited me. The story was two-fold, because some of it consisted of his father’s anecdotes from the trenches—about what it was like to be hungry and tired and not have any socks, all the while ducking mortar shells and carrying guys whose legs had been blown off through a veritable rat-maze and that sort of thing—and the other part of the story was about Miles and about what it had been like to grow up thinking your father was a kind but doddering and decrepit old man, only to find out later he had been noble and brave and a war hero. The first part was gripping in its retelling of dramatic events but the latter part had a kind of unflinching honesty about it and this was where Miles’s writing was at its truest and strongest. He wove together the father’s war scenes and the son’s scenes at home with his cripple of a father very well and you could see a sort of modern portrait of a father and son emerge. Naturally there was a sense of sadness and culpability in discovering he had underestimated his father, and Miles had a graceful way of diffusing the sentimentality of the story that served him very well.
In any case, I had a good time reading Miles’s pages and it even got so I looked forward to the part of my day where I sat down to read his work. One thing about reading the pages of another novice writer is that you can learn a lot by studying the parts they get right and the parts they get wrong. Having grown up with an editor for a father I could easily spot the flaws in Miles’s writing but at the same time his work was often very good and in a lot of ways he had developed strengths that were opposite my own. I don’t remember when I started copying passages from his pages over into my own notebook, but at some point I began to do this as a way of dissecting what was good about Miles’s technique as a means to learn these qualities and adopt them for myself. I would copy out a few of Miles’s passages by hand and then I would type them up on the typewriter.
When I reached the typewriter stage, I made little edits to improve the plot and I changed this-or-that detail to make the story more personal to me. For instance, I changed the young man and his father from being Negroes to being white, because it seemed more authentic and more in keeping with what Hemingway said about writing what you know and I was wise enough to understand at that phase in my career I was too green to write from my imagination of what it was like to be a Negro. In any case, all of this
rewriting was very good practice. When I reread the pages I’d typed up and saw how nicely Miles’s story was shaping up under my expert eye I felt my confidence return and I began to feel hopeful again about what My Old Man was going to make of the manuscript I’d sent him.
“Have you been using the typewriter?” Eden asked me one day when she noticed the typewriter ribbon looked pretty beat up. I told her I had but that it was no big deal.
“You know I’m willing to type for you,” she reminded me.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m working on something new and I think typing it up myself is helping things along. And besides, it’s good exercise for me: I wouldn’t want to forget how to punch the old typewriter anyhow. You know, some guys compose on the typewriter. Their sentences just come straight out their heads and into type-print and soon enough that’ll be me.”
Three-Martini Lunch Page 35