“This world is much too sad a place
For Fannie’s happy smile.
Her feelings far too deep
For the endless guile . . . .”
Solly thought his eyes were filling up. He was a fool. And Fannie Mae was a practical human being. Why should she wait for him? Who did he think he was anyhow?
Celia said, “Break up the politics, boys. Let’s dance. This is a party, and I don’t mean the Communist Party.”
Solly said, “I’m on your side, Sister Celia.”
Dobbs said to Celia, “And you, lovey, are a Trotskyite and a pacifist and that takes a lot of doing.”
Steve said to Samuels, “You blokes carry your white supremacy everywhere. You swaggering bawstards, you come over here and try to impose your own sick policy on your allies.”
Samuels said thickly, “Clean your own backyard. We’ll clean ours after the war—right, Solly, old palsy-walsy?” Samuels got drunk very quickly. Very very very quickly.
“A Yankee colonel came to my house about three months ago and told me he heard we roomed niggers on furlough, and back in the States, he says, we don’t socialize with them. They’re all of them rapists. I told him you aren’t back in the States, get out of my house, and he has had my house raided four or five times as a house of prostitution. That’s your bloody progressive capitalism, and you know what you can do with it.”
Solly wanted them to shut up with their Negro Question.
Dobbs said, “Up the rebels. Up the republic.” And took another heavy swallow. He could drink a gallon of whiskey and still speak clearly.
Samuels said, “What about your White Paper? What about your own colored people?”
“That wasn’t a race problem at all,” Dobbs said. “That was a labor problem.”
Steve said, “No personal offense intended, old boy, because I like you, and Celia likes you, but most of you white Yankees swagger like the Nazis. You yourself are different, but most of them act like they’re occupying Australia. And if I were an American Negro I’d tell you all to go to blazes. No offense intended to you, old chap.” Solly tried desperately to remember.
“Tenderness fills her face
Unprepared for the bile
Of this old world’s sophistication.
True emotions of her heart . . . .”
Fannie Mae—Fannie Mae—what am I doing in this place, darling? And where are you?
Solly poured himself a stiff one and threw it down the hatch and felt it flaming in his stomach and moving upward toward his face. He was a red-hot fiery furnace. They were his friends and they meant well toward the colored people, so let them run off at the mouth. Why should he get into an argument? Frig em.
Dobbs said, “A Yankee chap told me the other day, comes from Mississippi, he says, ‘I like your city, mate, I really do. Y’all all right. Y’all got electric lights and bathtubs.’ He was a proper peckerwood and back home he was probably as poor as a bandicoot.” Fannie, baby!
“The true emotions of your heart
Are unprotected from the start . . .”
Solly held his head in his hands. He felt like jumping up and down. The white storm raging all around him and grenades exploding in his stomach and bombs were bursting in his head. What the hell was he doing here? He felt like yelling help! help! help! I’m surrounded by white folks! Somebody come and save me quick! Fannie Mae! Bookworm! Jimmy! Scotty! Anybody!
He felt like standing up and shouting, “Shut up all of you! You’re all white! You’re all guilty sonsofbitches!”
Celia came and sat on the floor near his chair and looked up into his face. “What’s the matter, Solly? You look like you’re knocked up, and the party’s just getting started.”
He looked down into her face at the roundish mouth and the sweat on her sparse mustache like morning dew on a red rosy bush, her eyes full of deep concern and tender sensitivity. He said, “I’m knocked up?” And then it dawned on him about all the girls at the Southern Cross being knocked up, and now he was knocked up, and he began to laugh and he laughed and they stopped arguing to watch him laugh and he got up, and just wait till he told the Bookworm, who thought most of the women of Australia were in a permanent state of pregnancy, and he went stumbling toward the bathroom and he went inside and he puked his guts, and he flushed the toilet and pulled the lid down and sat on the stool and felt sick again and got up again and pulled up the lid and leaned his poor head over the stool.
And she said, “My poor darling is sick.”
And he turned toward her and then toward the stool again, leaning his head over it and feeling dizzy, almost falling. She put her arms around him and he was embarrassed and appreciative, and leave him alone, goddammit! As he puked and puked and vomited, his stomach was a mad volcano.
She wet a soft washrag and wiped his forehead and his mouth and kissed his mouth. “Poor darling!” And wiped his mouth and kissed his lips and wiped his mouth and kissed his lips and wiped his mouth and kissed his unprotected lips. She got some mouthwash from the cabinet and he washed the insides of his mouth and gargled his throat, and she put her arms around his neck and kissed him and his head was dizzy and “My poor poor darling.”
He thought maybe I should take this woman and escape this whole damn civilized jungle of madness.
He mumbled, “Baby, let’s head for the wide and open bush beyond the mountains and stay there till the world comes to its senses.”
“What are you mumbling, darling?”
He said, “Forget it.”
They came out of the bathroom and Samuels met them at the door, his tan face red with whiskey and embarrassment, or jealousy. “How’s my boy doing? Can I help?”
Solly said thickly, “I am not your boy,” stressing every single word. “I am my man”
Samuels said, “I didn’t mean it that way. You know I didn’t.”
“I know how you meant it. But don’t you worry about it, Lieutenant, sir. I mean Captain. Miss Celia and I have no romantic inclinations whatsoever. We’re strictly platonic. Brotherly and sisterly. You explain it to him, baby.”
They were out of the bathroom now and starting down the narrow hall. Solly was in between the two of them and felt like yelling help! help! help! I’m surrounded by them! The whites got me! The whites got me! Save me! Save me! Samuels took him by the arm.
“For Christ sakes, Solly, we’re friends, man!”
Solly pulled violently away from both of them and moved heavily toward the living room and sank down in an easy chair.
Dobbs said to Solly, “You’re a thinking person, old boy. What do you see as the future of the Negro in America?”
Solly stared at Dobbs and he looked around, as they all sat there staring into his mouth as if it were dripping with pearls of infinite wisdom. Up your kilts—your bloody kilts. They did not really want to know his thoughts. They wanted affirmation of their own opinions. He’d been to these kind of things before, back in New York. The only Negro at a party—the center of attraction. The oddity. The noble savage.
He said, “Is this a party or is it a party? Will somebody play those Mills Brothers again? How about that Taper Doll’? That real live girl in Ebbens—”
Celia stared at him worriedly, and she got up and put “Paper Doll” on, and came back and sat on the floor near him. “Why don’t all of you leave him alone? Can’t you see he’s knocked up? He gets enough of that back home and in the Army.”
Knocked up—knocked up. He started to chuckle as if he were laughing at a joke he’d told himself. She put her hand on his knee and looked up into his face, her eyes anxious and asking him questions. Samuels said complacently, like he was sucking on an empty pipe, “American history has a way of unfolding in a progressive direction. We’re an evolutionary country. We’re sometimes slow but we get there just the same. Americans believe in fair play. We are always for the underdog.”
So talk that stupid crap, man. It doesn’t bother me. Why should I get into a fight with these white
folks? For what? This is supposed to be a party. They are bloody bores. He raised up slightly and looked around him as if he expected colored faces like Worm and Scott and Jimmy to materialize just by looking. Scotty would call these people some nowhere-mamma-jabbers. He sank down into the chair again. He would not get into their argument. It had nothing to do with him. We Americans are for the underdog so long as we can keep him under.
He got up again and pulled Celia to her feet and began to dance with her, just as Samuels repeated, “We’re slow sometimes, I’ll admit it, but we get there just the same.”
Solly looked back over his shoulders and said, “We’ve only had three hundred years, fellers. You people have to give us time. Maybe in the next three hundred—I mean it takes a little time to evolve. Explain it to them, Captain Bob.”
He danced her to the other side of the room away from the momentous debate. He felt Samuels’s eyes heavily upon them and felt Celia’s body heavily against him and heavy in his arms, and when the music stopped, she went to change the record, and he left her and got another drink and sank back into the easy chair.
Samuels was saying, “It’s true. After the war it’ll be the job of every decent-minded white person to do his share to see that the Negro becomes a part of the mainstream of American life.”
Solly loud-talked, “Bainbridge’s a great town, beautiful city, but I’d like to find out what Sydney’s like.”
Steve said to Samuels, “And your country is always spouting all that pious bourgeois hogwash about freedom and democracy, brotherhood and yet—it’s hard to believe you could be so bloody schizophrenic—a bloody nation of schizophrenics. The way you treat your colored people—”
Solly loud-talked, “Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my furlough down in Sydney. They say it’s a great place—big city—”
Celia said angrily, “This is a party, not a debate—”
Solly said, “Why the hell not talk about it? You know anything more important?”
Dobbs said to Solly sympathetically, “I know how you feel, old chap, but—”
Samuels was still following his line of thought as if he had heard nothing that had been said within the last few minutes. “We owe it to the colored people. They’ve been the most loyal Americans of them all.” He stared tenderly at Solly. “You’ve been kept out in the cold too doggone long. Like a stepchild looking into a warm house full of plenty.”
This was too much. Solly got slowly to his feet. His head was going around and around as was his stomach. He said quietly, “I’m going to leave it with you people. I’m tired, sleepy, and frankly bored. But before I go, let me say this. Captain Bob, I don’t want into your house of plenty. It may be plentiful with pimps and whores for all I know. On the other hand it may be a booby hatch plentiful with sick-in-the-heads, and who needs it? And you, Dobbsy, you don’t know how I feel, since you don’t look like a fuzzy-wuzzy.” His voice was calm and he was angry enough now. “And you again, Captain Bob, I got a life-size picture of you battling for a better world for colored people. I remember how ferocious you were with that MP colonel over in Ebbensville. You were a raging tiger, weren’t you? So you know it isn’t likely that I’m betting too heavily on you. I’m putting my money on that large minority known as colored people, three quarters of the world’s population. That’s the basket I’m putting my eggs in. One more thing, Captain Bob—on loyalty. A slave’s loyalty is always suspect unless he is a goddamn fool.” Samuels’s face was burning. He was speechless.
Steve said excitedly, “You’re not a Socialist. You’re nationalistic and you’re anti-white and you’re reactionary.”
Solly said, “Just fine, thank you.” And he turned to leave, but the room was spinning around and around much faster now, much much faster, and he had to hold on or he’d fall off the roller coaster, faster faster the room was whirling the ceiling descending. He reached desperately for the arm of the chair to brace himself but it impishly eluded him and he was falling falling falling . . . .
The men took him to a couch on the other side of the room and stretched him out, as he mumbled, “I’m all right—I’m all right—I’ll be all right—don’t worry about a thing—” Celia put a blanket over him.
They spent at least another hour drinking and arguing about the war-and-after and colored peoples and the labor movement and how about your own aborigines and your bloody White Paper and they talked about General Buford Jack whose headquarters were in Bainbridge on Adeline Street and the current prevalence of fairies, and they danced and Celia danced with Samuels and Pamela tried to awaken Solly, but Celia said to leave him alone.
Pam said, “Did he drink the same slop we drank? You must have been serving him some bloody plonk, that’s what you must’ve given him.”
Celia said, “He’s a sensitive human being, that’s all.”
When the party broke up, Samuels stayed behind with Celia. He took her into his arms. He tried desperately to kiss her and finally she let him. Then she said, “I’m knocked up, Bob. I really am.” And she moved away from him. And yet she did not look exhausted. She seemed leapingly alive.
Samuels glanced toward Solly asleep on the couch. “I’ll help you sober him up and I’ll drive him home in my jeep.”
She said, “Don’t bother, Bob. He can sleep there all night long, right where he is, so why disturb him?”
Bob stared at Solly again and back to Celia, his face burning from ear to ear. He tried to take her into his arms again. An act of half-hearted desperation.
She said, “He’ll be all right. I shan’t bother the dear boy at all. Please don’t worry for him, he’s really safe.”
Bob was like a petulant five-year-old. “You never let me spend the night.”
She laughed. “You never let me get you plastered. You’re the most careful man in the world, you know.”
He sat down again and stared at the floor in silence. He was making a fool of himself. Why didn’t he just say good-bye and leave?
She said, “He’s your friend. Could it be that you’re jealous of him? The first thing you ever told me was about your sweet and loving wife back in the States and your dear dear darling children. My darling wife, Cora. My darling darling Cora.” He didn’t answer.
“Or maybe you’re no better than the people he calls peckerwoods—maybe you’re just smooth and sugar-coated. He thinks you’re different. No matter what he said tonight, he thinks you’re different.” She was working herself up into a small-sized volcano and a very active one. “You’re worried that he might be playing possum and as soon as you leave he’ll leap up from the couch and rape me.”
Bob looked up at her and shook his head. “Celia. Please—please—don’t say that. I may be lots of things and I may even be jealous, but I’m no Mississippi cracker.”
She didn’t even hear him now. “Well, if he wanted me he wouldn’t have to rape me. All he would have to do is take me, but he isn’t even interested. And he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever known.”
He was stunned and shaken. He got up and came toward her and put his arms around her. “Take care of yourself, Celia baby.”
She said, “And he’s presently unattached and that’s more than we can say for you.”
Samuels’s voice was strange and gruff. “I think a great deal of both of you, I really do. You’re my very best friends in this part of the world.”
She said, “I love you too—you know I do—but I would give my life for him. He doesn’t know. Or maybe he does know, but he isn’t interested. And you, you keep being the human being you are, and don’t start acting like a peckerwood.”
He said, “You’re beginning to sound like him already.”
And he stared at her and it was true. He was jealous of the company clerk, even though he admired him. The black handsome bastard who lay sleeping on the couch, whom she preferred to him, him, HIM, Captain Robert W. Samuels, who was Free and White and Brass and American and over Twenty-one. How could she? She was intelligent, she was beautiful
anyway you looked at her. Inside and outside. Superficial and profound. And this night this time he was way-down-under and thousands of miles away from home, and they were really his closest friends in this part of the bloody crazy world. Celia Blake and Solomon Saunders. They were his only friends here in this place. In divine desperation he tried to conjure up New York and home and dear Cora beloved Cora, and the rest of his family, his beautiful children, his mom and pop. He saw their faces, heard their voices. Saw them dimly, heard them vaguely. Celia’s face and Solly’s voice were more truthful to him now. They were real and here and now. But that wasn’t it at all. It was just that he’d had too much to drink, he told himself, too goddamn much to drink, was why Cora’s misty face began to disappear for Celia’s. And he’d had too much to drink of life. So many things, too many things, he’d seen and done and felt and lived since he gave up his pretty family and got married to his Uncle Sam. Cora couldn’t possibly know the him that he was now. A stranger to the man he used to be. The gentle bastard who had gone to war and killed to keep from being killed and for Country and Democracy, he’d lived through too much death and dying.
So now, here, this time, this place, he was at home with Celia and Solly. He had to go now and felt an empty aching loneliness deep in the guts of him. He put his hands on Celia’s shoulders. She reached out and gently touched his troubled face and backed away.
“Good night, dear friend.” Her warm voice and her lovely face were brimming over with emotions deeply felt.
And he said huskily, “Good night.”
When he was gone she went over to Solly and looked down upon his sleeping face. She shook her head. He looked so sweet-faced and completely helpless with his lips barely parted and his arm from under the blanket hanging toward the floor. She knelt and traced the sweet curve of his mouth with her fingers and kissed him softly and she vibrated all the way down into the tunnel of her sex. She kissed his eyes, he stirred slightly, and she kissed his nose, she kissed his mouth with her lips that were sweating more than ever. Then she got up and pulled the blanket away and she started to undress him. “I won’t wake you up, poor darling. I’m just going to make you comfortable and put you in a proper bed. I’m your nurse—I must take care of you.” When she had undressed him, she stared at his unprotected unaffected nakedness, and she swallowed hard and her mouth was dry and she knew a sweetly weak and trembly feeling. And she kissed him tenderly. Then she struggled gently with him, half awoke him, and took him naked and stumbling to the bedroom (she was a nurse, it didn’t matter—she was used to nakedness) and got him into the bed, half asleep and mumbling crazy mumblings, and she covered him up, and then she got undressed and went to the bathroom and washed her face and hands and cried and wiped her face and cried and brushed her teeth and got naked into bed beside him and she cried, and all up against him her arms around him and sharp currents of warm-cold thrills ran from the tip of her bottom to her brain and back and forth and back and forth along her spine, she shivered with excitement, her spinal cord a live conductor. Still asleep he put his arms around her and she felt him hard hard up against her even though he was asleep.
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 46