by Packer, Vin
“Naw. I can’t see it. Get sent to Coxsack, someplace — ”
“If you’re smart you don’t get sent nowhere. You just gotta be smart, Eyes.”
“Naw, I got interests close to my heart to protect.”
“I got those too, man, but I learn one thing this world. Them interests get a lot more interested you, you got a little moola to spend. You know?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eyes says unenthusiastically.
Braden grins. “Blitz, ain’t you heard about old Eyes here? He’s struck oil right in his own backyard. He don’t have to cruise.”
“Shove it!” Eyes snaps.
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Braden interrupts. “I’m saving mine for bigger things.”
• • •
The three Kings stand there like that around the peanut machine, making small talk and yammering. Despite his denial, what Blitz has told Eyes about the pillow interests Eyes. Eyes needs money. He needs seventeen dollars. As he thinks about it, his fingers unconsciously caress an envelope he carries in the hind pocket of his trousers. Like Gober, Eyes has a letter with him this day, a letter of utmost importance; a letter, which like Gober’s, contains that long-shot link to some world better and bigger and kinder. It is each boy’s ace: the secret something that holds hope, however wild and unlikely, and is too desperately believed in by each to mention to another. Unlike Gober, Eyes did not write his letter, but received it three weeks after he had answered this advertisement in the back pages of a comic magazine:
LYRICS WANTED!
To be set to music!
Send your lyrics today for free examination!
Be a hit writing hits!
Arco Song Writers, J. Marius Mahler, Pres.
Post Office Box 748, Chicago, Ill.
The letter was the first one Eyes had ever received in his life; and his mother had said when she found it in their box, “Dominic de Jarro — now who the hell is that?”
Eyes told her, “It’s your beloved sonny boy, that’s who the hell it is, and give it to me.”
“I’ll put a match to it, you little bastard!” she’d responded, but she had given it to him.
Eyes had read it, trembling. J. Marius Mahler, president of the Arco Song Writers Association, assured him that he had great promise, wanted to be the first to congratulate him, and for an initial fee of seventeen dollars would find the right arrangement for his song.
Eyes had read the letter again and again, barely able to contain himself until Dolores Ventura had come home from her factory job at six o’clock. The two had taken the letter to the roof, and there sat together rereading it, discussing it, planning and rejoicing.
“You ought to write them, Dom, and reassure them about them being the ones that can write the music. They sound sorta afraid you might not let them?”
“What part?”
“Here. See? They say they hope to be the lucky ones to give you that assistance. See? Right here.”
“Oh, yeah. They’re the ones give me the encouragement the first place — geez, naturally I’d let them be the ones.”
“You’re going to be famous, Dom.”
“Geez, I don’t know. S’funny, I always knew I could write lyrics. I listen them all the time, you know?”
“And you’ll get fancy and forget all about me, I bet.”
“Lorry, all I want is to get us outa here. Get hitched and just get outa here. Geez, I wouldn’t forget about you. Dint I write that song for you?”
“Seventeen dollars is a lot of money, ‘Dom. Where you gonna get it? Dom, you gotta promise you won’t — ”
“Naw, Lorry. Dint I promise you I was straight now?”
“I could maybe save a little from my salary — except for Uncle Jesus. He always wants to know. He always asks and I gotta give it to him. If it wasn’t for …”
“I’ll kill him some day. If he ever touches you — ”
“Maybe Mr. Roan could tell you how to get it, Dom.”
“Me!” Red Eyes had exclaimed. “Me — going places!”
• • •
Standing there in Dirty Mac’s, Eyes thinks back on that night. He should go and see Dan, this he knows; but he must hang around a while until Tea shows up. Tea and he have business in the Jungle turf. He can’t chicken on that assignment.
“Hey, you guys see Tea?” Red Eyes says.
Blitz shrugs. “Ain’t it Monday? He’s probably up town trying to score.”
Braden, who has been standing silently looking back at the booth where Babe Limon and Marie are sitting, says, “I think that Marie is a goddam Lesbian, way she wears them slacks alla time.”
“Naw,” Blitz disagrees. “It’s cause her ankles is fat. She tole me that once. Comes right out wid it when I’m set to open her box. I told her if I cared what she looked like I wouldn’t be there. And she bawls the whole while I’m working! Broads! Dey’re nuts or somethin’!”
“Her feelings was hurt,” Red Eyes says.
“She’s de one brought her goddam fat ankles up. I dint!”
“You don’t understand women,” Braden says, “You’re a slob.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. I tink I’m gonna have to unnerstand women a whole lot once I get ta be a big man. Oh, yeah, yeah, I tink so! I tink women gonna have unnerstand me.” Blitz slaps the side of the peanut machine. He moans, “Oh boy, how I wanna unnerstand women!”
“They’re all right,” Braden says.
Eyes says, “Where’d we be without them?”
• • •
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street bustles. People jam the sidewalks and spill out into the gutter. The afternoon is muggy and hot; but up in Harlem even muggier and hotter.
Tea Bag Perrez stands outside a record store. The music from inside is pumped through a speaker to the street. People seem to move to the music, seem to walk in beat with it, some with their feet going fast; others dragging, shaking some part of their body to it; but with it — in beat — some sitting on stools near the curb, some standing like Tea; and the music blaring out hot on a hot day, like heaping coals on a going fire; and the sweat soaking everyone. And Sara Vaughn’s voice.
Tea checks the clock in the window of the café next door. Ace is half an hour late. It’s not like him. Timing is everything. Didn’t he teach Tea that? If you want to score, timing is everything. It only snows on time. Tea shifts the weight of his body from one foot to the other; makes time pass looking into the faces of the women, playing the game with himself. One day he is standing on a street and he sees her face suddenly in the crowd. Still young. Still pretty. Little. “Mamita mia!” “Tea Bag, my little Tea Bag. I look for you every place. Every place. Now I find you!” One day. One day he is standing there and it happens. “Mamita Mia!”
It only snows on time. Tea is jumpy; nervous. He has to figure it again. He has six caps left. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. If he can’t score today; he can still last. Maybe Ace is hung up somewhere; maybe someone goofed, the heat is on. If it’s too hot it can’t snow. Still no need to get rifty. Tea can joy-pop with the caps he was going to push. Last till Thursday. No need to get rifty. C’mon Ace. Por Dios. C’mon Ace!
Tea waits. Three o’clock, four, and half-past. C’mon Ace. Ratero! C’mon ooooh, snow, Ace — snow!
• • •
In the clubhouse where Gober has brought her, Babe Limon sits on the yellow couch fumbling with the black plastic straps of her handbag. Gober leans against the brick wall, lighting a cigarette.
“You got a new card table, huh, Gober?” Babe Limon says in a voice that is uncertain and somewhat nervous. “I never saw that here.”
Gober sticks his thumbs into the loops of his trousers and stares down at her, unsmiling. She wears a tight black orlon sweater under which her apple-shaped breasts swell, a black wool skirt which has lint caught over it, the same worn black patent leather pumps, and around her neck a gold chain with a cross hanging on it. Her nail polish is blood-red and chipped, and she sees Gober looking at her nails, curls them into he
r palms, and sits with her hands knotted into fists.
“We here to discuss card tables, or what?” Gober demands.
“I don’t know. You’re the one brought me here.”
“Whata you jumpy about, if you don’t know?”
“I’m not! Gober, you don’t have the right to talk to me like this.”
“You’re pulling at your bag, aren’t you? You’re peeling all the leather crud off the strap of your bag!”
Babe’s hand drops the strap and goes to the gold cross. She says, “You’re not even like yourself any more. That’s why.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning since you been interested in someone else, I don’t get the time of day.”
Gober drags on his cigarette and lets the smoke through his nose; his nostrils flaring angrily; his voice still calm; his face mean. “I want to go on record, Baby. I’m crazy to go on record. You want to hear?”
“Yes.”
“I want to go on record I’m not interested in someone else. That’s for the record. You get it?” “You don’t even say it nice.” “Next time I’ll sing it.”
“I saw you up there hanging around her, Gober. Me and Marie saw you.”
“You didn’t see nothing. You didn’t see one thing!”
“I don’t see why, if you don’t — well — want me any more — why you don’t let me off the hook, Gober.”
“Because you’re my girl, Baby — and there ain’t a Jungle breathin’ don’t know it. Even Flat Head Pontiac, who ain’t breathin’ seeing as he’s got a hole in his head the air leaks out — even he knows you’re my girl!”
“Everybody knows it but me,” Babe Limon says. “I’m glad the news is out. I’m going to hear it any day now.”
“You don’t know it, huh?” Gober walks over to her.
“No.”
“You don’t, huh?” He stands spread-legged, the smoke from his cigarette spiraling up past her face; his eyes fixed on her. She has her head bent, looking down at his feet, his black trousers, and his long arms dangling at his sides, his fingers with the cigarette clutched between them.
“Gober, I’m only human — a girl.”
“You sure you’re human, Baby. Or are you just all — ”
“You talk to me in this kind of voice and expect me to know I’m your girl. Well, I don’t! I’m tired of being treated like something less than the dirt on this floor!”
“You don’t know it, huh?” Gober says again.
“No. No, no, no, no! I don’t!”
Gober tosses the cigarette down and grinds it out with his heel. He bends over and pulls her up by her arm. Her pocketbook falls open, the contents spilling out of it. She tries to pick it up, but Gober jerks her to him. He holds her by her shoulders. “You’re going to learn it,” he says. “I’m going to teach you it, and you’re going to learn it, and you’re going to remember it!”
Gober grabs her; pulls her down with him on the couch. His mouth finds hers and he kisses her, and under him she struggles, writhes in protest while his lips still hold hers. His hands come on her sweater, yanking it out of her skirt. Then Babe Limon fights less earnestly; her movements change from the bolting, frantic ones they were, to slower, more rhythmic ones. Her smooth arm slides around Gober’s back, and she pushes her lean body up against his.
He says finally, “I’m going lock the door first.”
“Do you love me, Gober?”
“Sure,” he says. “Sure.”
He gets up and walks across the cellar, ready to slide the nail on the door, into the hole. “Get your gear off!” he tells her quietly.
She says, “You can be nice, Gobe. When you want to, you really can.”
• • •
Down 102nd Street Junior Brown goes like sixty. His eyes are big as mushrooms and his face is soaked in sweat, but he stops for no one. He runs like crazy.
“Hey! Hey, where you think you’re goin’, Nothin’ Brown,” the news dealer over the Kings’ clubhouse shouts as Nothin’ streaks past him, “Hey, you little jigaboo, you know you ain’t allowed down there! Hey, you — hey!”
Down the cement steps Junior Brown races, nearly tripping over the cartons stacked at the bottom, and reaching the door, he hears a lock being slipped into place; and he shouts, “Don’t lock up, Gobe! I’m friendly. It’s me, Nothin’. I gotta tell you somethin’!” He pounds on the door. “It’s me, Gobe. I gotta tell you somethin’!”
Then the lock slips back, the door opens, and Gober steps outside of the clubroom.
“Nothin’ Brown, you going to get your face slammed into that wall, if this ain’t damn important!”
“I swear!” Nothin’ says, panting. “I swear. I run the whole way.”
“Well!”
“She want see you, Gobe. She want see you.”
“What! Jesus Christ, Nothin’, what the hell you saying! C’mon, man, spit it out!”
“ ‘At’s right! She want see you. She say you come the luncheonette and she talk to you. She say you come there, Gobe. She say it all right cause her old man gone be out.”
“When!”
“Now, Gobe. Right now. That why I run so fast. She say you come between five ‘n six and her old man be outa there, ‘n it five after five right now.”
But Junior Brown does not have to say it another time, for like a shot Gonzalves has taken the steps by threes. Nothin’ stands before the door of the clubroom of the Kings of the Earth, where he has never been before. Inside must be wonderful things; guns and swords, secrets — all clubs have secrets — and things. Junior Brown cannot be sure exactly what kind of things, but gang things, wonderful things. He listens to hear a noise from inside; but he hears none. Eyes had told him up at Dirty Mac’s that Gober was at the clubhouse. “Alone!” he had emphasized, “and he wants to stay alone! So you am-scray, Nothin’ Brown. Leave Gobe be.” Nothin’ knew enough not to tell Eyes why he had to see Gobe. Nothin’ was wised up to that deal. Now Nothin’ stood on the threshold of the clubhouse of the Kings of The Earth. And Gober had not locked the door behind him. Very cautiously; very stealthily, Nothin’ Brown sneaked to the door, opened it, and entered.
At first he did not see the yellow couch.
“What took you?” a voice said behind him where the couch was, “What was it took you so long? Hurry on over, hon. Your baby’s waiting — all ready.”
Then Nothin’ Brown did see the yellow couch; and lying spread upon it Babe Limon, stark naked.
God-dog! Did he run!
VI
They tried to rehabilitate me.
Tried to reinstate me
In the human race —
Tried to civilize me
To psychoanalyze me
Man, am I a case!
— A RED EYES DE JARRO ORIGINAL.
USUALLY, nothing much is doing in Dan Roan’s office until after ten, eleven at night. Then there is always more doing in the streets. Most of the time Dan spends working in the streets, but around seven or eight, a couple nights a week, he works at his desk, reads — maybe plays ping-pong with a kid hanging around there. His office is one of these store-front places in the early hundreds, over near Third Avenue. Besides the small, square cubicle containing his desk, bookcases, and phone, there is the larger outer area where the boys can come in any time to lounge, watch T.V., listen to the phonograph, play table tennis. It is a shabby room, the furniture either contributed to the Youth Board, or bought out of the limited funds available.
Now the place is deserted save for Dan. He sits at his desk, glancing over a postcard he received this morning from a former classmate in graduate school — Ernst Leites — a Fulbright Scholar studying in Paris. A slight sardonic grin tips Dan’s lips as he reads:
Dear Dan,
Your account of life amidst the savages in the asphalt jungle was most amusing. I think you should try Paris. It is lovely now, after about ten days of appalling chilliness; really most agreeable to be here. I’ve been writing a paper on recent French
films, and getting used to drinking wine at lunch without feeling stupefied in the afternoon, which I consider a very worth-while accomplishment — the latter, not the former — heaven forbid! Any excitement in your life worth recounting? Do write.
Best, E. L.
Dan flinches suddenly at the sound of the voice behind him.
“Hi, dad, what gives?”
Turning, he sees Flat Head Pontiac leaning against the doorway, shuffling a deck of cards in his massive and well manicured square hands. Pontiac is sweet and cool; sweet in his charcoal gray trousers, tight-cut and clean; his white linen jacket; and the gleaming collar of his pink shirt set off by his narrow knitted black tie.
Dan shoves the postcard under the blotter and swings his chair around to face Pontiac. He says, “You look happy, Pontiac.”
“Groovy, dad, real groovy.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m on the fleece, dad.”
“I didn’t know you touched the stuff, Pontiac.”
“Maybe you ought to make a study of the Jungles and put the Kings down. Jungles got more color to them.”
“Maybe so. Sit down?” Dan watches as Pontiac eases himself down into a plastic-covered armchair beside his desk. Pontiac looks around the small office, still shuffling the cards, his long legs sprawled in front of him. “This is a real gas, dad, this place. This is Endsville, dad.”
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“Not much business tonight.”
“Not much.”
“Too bad. Jungles would keep you busy. Kings are dead heads.”
“You just on a social call, Pontiac, or you have something on your mind?”
“Social, dad. Just getting to know my neighbors better. A kind of good-neighbor policy.”
“Fine.”
“Groovy, huh? Never been in this place. Always wondered about it. Used to think, man — those Kings must be big men to have their own special social worker assigned just to study them. Big men! I used to think that. Maybe my opinion’s changing. I don’t know. What do you think, dad?”
Dan lit a cigarette and offered one from his pack to Pontiac, who took it, inspected it, handed it back. “I only smoke filter tips, dad. Don’t want to get hung with the cancer kick.”