A Place at the Table: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  I’m sure I do come across as a yokel. One of the front desk guys at the hotel calls me Mr. Deliverance (ha ha ha) because of my accent. Apparently I have a thick one. Who knew? Pete Arnold used to tease me about having one, but I always thought that was because I made fun of the Yankee way he talked.

  Everyone dresses differently up here. And not like how they used to dress, not how you described, back when you and Granddaddy Banks visited Manhattan before he shipped off for the war and you were intimidated by all of the ladies with their white gloves and fox stoles. No. Things are grittier now. Ripped jeans, spiked hair, torn shirts. Like the other day when I stopped by my friend Mike’s room to see if he wanted to go get a drink. (Sorry!) I was just standing in his doorway, waiting for him to respond, when he walked right over to me, grabbed my shirt by the collar, and ripped it halfway down the front. “There,” he said. “Now you’re ready to be seen.”

  Mike is from Providence, Rhode Island. He has a terrible accent, the opposite of soothing. Which is okay, I guess, for a guy. But I can’t imagine somebody’s mama talking that way. The only southerners I’ve met are this little band of evangelicals who are also staying at the residence hotel. They are from somewhere in Tennessee. Half of them have guitars and they are always sitting around the lobby, singing folk songs about Christ. I’m not sure what they do during the day, maybe distribute tracts to apartment buildings, but every night there they are singing their songs. I know some of the lyrics from having been an RA, but I’ve never asked to join in. To tell the truth, Meemaw, this merry band of evangelicals seems pretty naïve to me, like they think they can change this whole city just by strumming their guitars.

  The truth is, I don’t think this city changes all that much. I think it changes people. I’ve only been here three months, and it’s already changing me.

  I wish you were here. I wish I could phone you. I wouldn’t be able to afford to talk for long, but at least I could hear your voice. The truth is, I’m lonely. You don’t know how alone you are until you move by yourself to New York City. Here’s the thing about this place: No one cares. No one cares about Bobby Banks up here, no, ma’am. To be honest, that realization can be exciting sometimes, freeing, like no one knows you and no one cares, so you can do whatever the heck you want. That’s when I might go to a bar or go to the clubs or walk through the Ramble at Central Park at dusk, observing all of the forbidden things happening around me. Compared to Mike, who is forever sharing details of his sexual exploits, I’m pretty inexperienced. But I can’t claim innocence. I suppose it’s been a long time since I could do that.

  Daddy always said that God knows each and every one of our hearts. It’s hard to imagine that here. That night I was out with Mike, after he ripped my shirt, we were on the Upper West Side, walking on Broadway, and some guy turns a corner and nearly walks into us. I start apologizing, even though it was actually his fault, and the guy reaches out and grabs the St. Christopher medal I wear—wore—on a silver chain around my neck and just rips it off. Just rips it off and runs with it. As if it’s worth any money, when in fact I purchased it for five dollars at a little secondhand shop in the East Village.

  Don’t worry, Meemaw, I haven’t turned Catholic or anything; it just made me feel safe to wear the Patron Saint of Travelers around my neck. Actually, I don’t imagine you would mind if I did go Catholic. I can just imagine you saying, “As long as you’ve got God in your heart.” Lord, you were a good person, Meemaw. I don’t think they make many like you.

  I have a roommate at the hotel. It’s hard to get a single here, and besides, it’s so much cheaper if you double up. My roommate’s name is Alex Marcus, and the only times I see him are late, late at night when he comes into the room and starts jumping up and down on his bed, chanting, “Oh my God, I’m so coked up! I’m so coked up!” He’s not talking about Coca-Cola, Meemaw.

  Can you see me from where you are? Is any of what I’m writing down news to you? Are you witnessing my life? Truth is, I don’t always want you looking at what I’m doing. I certainly didn’t want you looking the other night at the Anvil. Just turn away when I’m at a club, okay, Meemaw? Just turn your head and know I’m still your Bobby, just a little roughed up.

  I try to avoid the bars and the baths. I really do. I’ll tell myself I’m not going to go, and I don’t, not for a long time, not for a month, and then I’ll get this hungry feeling and without telling myself where I’m headed I’ll leave the hotel and find myself there.

  But that’s not how I spend most of my time. Most days I’m looking for a job, and if not that, I’m exploring the city, trying to do something both cultural and cheap. I went to the main branch of the New York Public Library the other day. Boy, does it beat the heck out of any library I’ve ever been to, even the big one in downtown Atlanta. I sat in the reading room among the rows and rows of tables with little banker’s lamps positioned every few feet, a pile of magazines beside me. I had been job searching earlier that morning, literally pounding the pavement, and I was discouraged and exhausted. And so I read GQ and Esquire and Vogue cover to cover while college students studied around me and a wild-haired man wearing a brown sweater scribbled away at what must have been a novel. It was nice to be in such a beautiful space. There’s sure nothing beautiful about the residence hotel. Not that I’m complaining, Meemaw. It serves its purpose. I just aspire to a life more lovely. I guess I’ve still got some of Mama in me after all.

  Lord, am I worried about money. I have got to get a job soon, because I know that once the money you left me runs out, that’s it. I cannot expect any from Mama or Daddy. Sometimes I get so scared it’s like my heart clenches up in my chest. I imagine myself having to move back home, having to take the train because I can’t afford the plane ticket, arriving at the Amtrak station on Peachtree, calling Daddy to come pick me up. I imagine being driven back to Decatur, my duffel bag in the back of Daddy’s car, and Daddy and me walking in the back door to greet Mama, who would be chilly but resigned.

  Sometimes I imagine being homeless in New York. Wandering the streets looking in old trash cans for leftovers to eat. It could happen, Meemaw. I have no college degree, no safety net.

  But I sound ungrateful. That’s the last way I want to come across. It still makes me teary to think of you sliding that envelope filled with cash across the table at The Colonnade, after I had finished my turkey dinner and you your chicken livers. That was the night you told me about the time you left Daddy and June with your mama and took the train to New York City to spend the week with Granddaddy Banks before he was shipped off to Europe from Jersey City. You told me about being intimidated by the fancy ladies, and eating at Schrafft’s and being served a butterscotch sundae that was the most delicious thing you ever put in your mouth. You told me that all those years later you could still remember how exciting it was to be in Manhattan, how tall the buildings, how elegant the people: the men in their hats, the women in their white gloves. You told me that not only did New Yorkers impress you with their elegance, but they seemed to have a shared sense of adventure. And then you told me that while you would miss me “like the dickens,” you thought New York City might be the perfect place for a “special, creative boy” like me. Then you slid that envelope across the table, and I opened it, and it was filled with cash.

  Five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars is a lot of pound cakes sold. A thousand pound cakes, except no, more than that, because that doesn’t account for the money you put into each one, the money for butter and eggs, sugar and flour, pure vanilla extract. And then you tithed, didn’t you, Meemaw? Gave ten percent of your profits to the church. So really, Lord knows how many pound cakes you had to bake to earn five thousand dollars of profit. Two thousand? Two thousand pound cakes slid raw into the oven, and pulled out golden and fragrant?

  When you gave me that money, did you realize how soon after I would go? Did you think I might first finish up my degree at Georgia State? I bet you knew I would leave as fast as I could. I bet y
ou knew that I was bored with school, that I was lonely, that I needed a change, something drastic. Your intuition was always so good, Meemaw. Like how you knew I was in trouble that night I got caught with Pete Arnold. (He didn’t even show up for your funeral, Meemaw. I thought he might.) Maybe your intuition let you know you didn’t have long left in this world and so you slid that cash over to me while you were still here to see my reaction. Which was to cry. Just break down and cry because you slid my freedom to me. Much as I loved living with you, I guess we both knew I couldn’t keep doing it forever.

  The next day I called a travel agent and booked a one-way ticket to LaGuardia Airport, and you told me that a lady at your church knew of a residence hotel where young men new to the city could stay, at least temporarily, and I phoned up there and booked a room for the first two weeks, thinking surely that was long enough to find an apartment. (Ha.) And then the week before my flight was to take off, you died. Died while planting petunias, getting ready for spring. Your heart just stopped, they said, and you fell over sideways onto the ground. You had been sitting on that little stool you used to wheel around while you gardened, to soften the impact on your knees. Mrs. Reid from next door said she looked out the window and there was Miss Millie mounding dirt around her flowers, and then she blinked, and there was Miss Millie, fallen to the ground.

  Meemaw, did you plan it? Did you plan to die right before I left so I would be forced to see Mama and Daddy one more time? Lord. You always got your way, didn’t you? That’s what Mama always said, that you were all sweet and soft on top but a master manipulator underneath.

  I know Daddy would have liked for your funeral to have been at his church, but of course it was held at Second Avenue Baptist. And the place was packed. I hope you know that. So many people rose to speak in your honor. Lord knows how many people you touched during your lifetime. Small gestures adding up to a lifetime of service. That’s how your pastor described it. So many gestures were recalled: how you would bring a tuna noodle casserole to anyone in your neighborhood or your church who had a hospitalized family member, or a death in the family, or a new baby. How you always offered to feed a neighbor’s cat or water a neighbor’s plants when they were away on vacation. How you brought cut flowers all summer long to the elderly black lady who lived down the street from you, who was isolated and alone in her house, whose only company, often, was yours. How you baked your pound cakes with such love and care, and didn’t charge your regular customers for their cake during their birthday week. How you kept account of people’s birthdays.

  I had my own story of appreciation to tell, Meemaw. But I remained quiet. Sat silently with my brothers, a Banks boy again. Hunter had driven down from Athens and Troy had driven up from the Medical College in Augusta. After the funeral service Mama opened the house up to anyone who wanted to come by. She served several of your pound cakes, pulled from the freezer and defrosted. She served the cakes with berries sweetened with sugar and Cool Whip. Eating my slice made me think of communion, Meemaw. Because you were in the sweetness of that cake. Because I could taste your love when I ate it.

  My flight to New York was only three days later. I was so afraid of chickening out, of not going, that I didn’t change my ticket. I went to your house and packed up my belongings, as well as a few things of yours that I wanted for sentimental reasons, including your old metal tube pan and a picture of the two of us from when I was five years old or so, sitting on your lap on your front porch swing. I left the rest for Mama and Daddy to deal with. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe I should have stayed and made sure nothing important was thrown away. But I knew if I stayed I might not ever leave. I might be too weighted down by grief. So I took that flight on Eastern Air Lines to LaGuardia, ate my little bag of peanuts and drank my Coca-Cola while looking out the tiny window at the clouds below. And then we descended, and I saw the city’s skyline, and all of a sudden I realized, I had moved. I had left my home and moved here. I gathered my possessions from the baggage claim, slinging my duffel bag from the Army-Navy store over one shoulder and holding your old burgundy Samsonite suitcase in my opposite hand, shivering already though I wasn’t even outside yet. I took a shuttle to Grand Central Station, where I joined the crowds, alone. Hoping—at that moment, at least—that you were watching.

  6

  Pounding the Pavement

  (New York City, Summer 1981)

  Today I filled out an application at Bloomingdale’s, dreaming of working in their gourmet shop, though willing to work in any of their departments. I’m not, however, holding my breath for an offer considering that the woman who took my application barked, “Who do ya think I am, your grandma?” after I called her ma’am.

  Leaving Bloomingdale’s with no prospect of employment, I vowed not to obsess over what might happen if I can’t find a job, if I spend all of Meemaw’s money and have nothing to fall back on. I will not think of how vulnerable I am, of how many jobs I’ve been turned down for so far. Instead I will relax my clenched heart by looking for other men, men like me. It’s easy to tell who they are. For starters, they have bodies shaped by hours at the gym and they wear their shirts a little tighter to show off their muscles, an extra button undone at the collar. They wear their jeans tighter, too, the fabric around the crotch a little worn, a little frayed, the result of taking a wire brush to them, just to rough them up in the right places, a trick my friend Mike showed me my second night at the hotel.

  Mike taught me other things to look for, too: an earring in the right lobe, a wallet attached to the belt with a chain, a leather jacket or vest—not that many would brave leather in the New York summer heat. I have heard that there are handkerchief codes, too, different colors of handkerchiefs worn in the back pocket indicating different turn-ons. That’s a little more advanced skill set than I have, but I can sure recognize a fag when I see one. If I spot an especially attractive man, sometimes I will follow him, see where he goes. Make a mental note of the place, vowing to return later.

  I head south on Third Avenue, deciding I’ll check out Beekman Place, which runs between 51st and 49th Streets. I want to see if I can find the town house where Auntie Mame lived. I’ll never forget watching that movie with Meemaw. It came on The Late, Late Show, and while Meemaw did mutter a few “oh my’s” and “mercies!” during Mame’s more drunken moments, she and I both loved it. Once I moved up to the city, I realized that practically every gay boy worshiped Auntie Mame and the actress who played her, Rosalind Russell.

  Walking, I am reminded for the thousandth time of how much I love this city, despite its crime, its expense, its hardness. In tandem with the trials are daily jolts of inspiration: the Chrysler Building coming into sudden view; the fruit vendor I frequent who always gives me extra grapes or an apple; the way the setting light hits pink against the Hudson River at dusk. Just as I reach 51st Street, a young woman with cheekbones like cut glass and Mia Farrow’s pixie haircut—the one she wore in Rosemary’s Baby—swishes by, heading west. I turn to stare as she walks away. Could she be Mia Farrow? It’s certainly possible. On impulse, I follow the woman, trying to figure out if she really is the famous actress. She turns the corner at Second Avenue, and I, realizing I’m an idiot to trot after a (maybe) famous person as if I’m some slack-jawed tourist, turn and head back toward my destination.

  That’s right, Bobby, don’t be an idiot chasing after Mia Farrow. Instead stalk the home of a fictitious character from an over-the-top movie. Lord.

  So wrapped up am I in my self-chiding that I almost walk past the “Help Wanted” sign hung from a hook on the front door of one of the town houses on Fifty-first. But then I backtrack, realizing what it is I have seen. Café Andres is embossed on the wooden door, above the sign.

  This is not a home but a restaurant.

  I run my fingers through my hair. It feels just like Daddy’s used to, thick and rough and curly. I dab my pointer finger with a little spit and smooth down each eyebrow, first the left, then the right, then slide my nail sidew
ays through the space between my front teeth, hoping to dislodge any food that might have gotten stuck there. Usually I carry mints in my pocket, but when I reach for them I feel only the crumpled remains of a Certs wrapper.

  Opening the town house door, I walk down a little flight of stairs and then across a marbled hall that smells of dust and long-enclosed air. At the end of the hall is a swinging door with a smoked-glass mirror. I push it open, finding myself in another world. The whole interior is lush with furnishings; many, like the life-sized marble statues positioned about the place, seem to have no purpose other than to charm. Everywhere you look there is an object taking up space: an upright piano in the corner, cake plates stacked atop each other on the bar, whirling fans overhead, a parrot observing the whole scene from a swing in the corner of the room. Billie Holiday’s recorded voice pipes in from hidden speakers. The scene gives me the sudden desire to drink cocktails and lounge. Not that there is anyone to lounge with. At three o’clock in the afternoon, with the exception of a formally dressed woman with a prominent brow seated at a corner table, the place is empty of customers.

  As I walk toward the bar the parrot on the swing squawks, “Stella!” As if summoned, an impeccably groomed man shoots out of the kitchen through the swinging door and rushes to greet me. He has a full head of silver hair. He wears a crisp white linen shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, tucked into a pair of light blue trousers, surely a linen and cotton blend. His braided belt, made of white cotton, wraps around his slender-as-a-girl’s waist. On his feet are blue Sebagos, just a few shades darker than his pants.

  “Hello, hello!” he calls. “Please, sit anywhere you like. Would you like to know our menu or are you simply craving a drink to relieve you from this heat?”