What’s Happening?

by John Nicholas Iannuzzi

  Josh grimaced, dismissing the ludicrous subject. “What’s happening tonight—anything?”

  “Nothing much,” Ronnie shrugged, “unless there’s a party going. You know of anything?”

  “No, I haven’t seen anyone all day. I guess I’ll drop in at Pandora’s Box.”

  “What’s to do there but drink coffee?”

  “Something’ll turn up.”

  “You want anything, Josh?” the waitress asked.

  “Nothing you sell here, baby.”

  Her face tightened into a stern stare.

  “No,” he corrected himself awkwardly, “I’ll just be squatting a minute, and like I really don’t want to spring for the price of a coffee.”

  Juanita smirked and returned to the back of the shop.

  The three sat silently at the table. The entire shop was silent save for the soft music. The espresso machine hissed impatiently.

  “I hear you got yourself a job, Josh?”

  “Yeah Ron, me and Anna, my partner, we’re dancing at this little cafe up on the West Side in the twenties.

  “Hey, that’s great. I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been there two weeks.”

  “Does it include waiting tables?”

  Josh glared at Ronnie, then glanced to Rita who was watching him.

  “Once in a while we help out—when they’re really busy.”

  Josh studied the other two for their reaction.

  Ronnie frowned.

  “What the hell man, … at least I’m working.”

  Neither Ronnie nor Rita spoke.

  Josh looked up and saw a girl he knew outside the shop. He stood, grabbed his coat, and ran to the door.

  “See you, gang,” he called over his shoulder as he pushed open the first door. “Hey, Dolores,” he called, running out to meet the girl, putting his jacket on in the street.

  Ronnie and Rita watched them through the window.

  “Who the hell needs that kind of a job? I’m an actor, man, not a waiter,” Ronnie remarked, not turning his gaze from Josh outside.

  “I’m hip, but at least he’s getting experience. He has a chance to be what he wants—even if he’s waiting tables.”

  “Who needs it?”

  “Most of us—me.”

  “Not me, baby, not that bad. I’ve got my pride.”

  Puffs of smoke escaped Josh’s mouth as he spoke to the girl outside. Frankie, a young Mexican, approached the shop. He stopped and motioned a greeting to Josh. He then turned and walked through the doors, hesitated, then walked toward Ronnie and Rita. He was short and wiry, with a springy-fast look to his frame. This was accented by a bouncing skip in his walk. He seemed to be hopping on the tips of his toes for people to see him better. Under his chin a small triangular patch of shadow followed the shape of his muscular jaw.

  “Hi, boys and girls,” he waved, “what’s up? What’s happening?”

  He put books down, removed his jacket, put it over the back of the chair Josh had just vacated, and walked to the back.

  There was a large vertical supporting beam in the middle of the room. A bulletin board was nailed to it. Frankie read the posters announcing the local events and the signs indicating the available actors and actresses and their phone numbers, the models and their numbers, and clothes or books or furniture for sale. As he read he started into a shuffling tap dance. When he stopped reading and dancing, he made his way back toward the table. Juanita, the waitress, walking toward the back, passed him in the aisle.

  “Get me a cup of espresso when you get a chance, will you, baby?”

  “Okay.”

  “Say, Ronnie,” Frankie called, walking to the front again, “do you want to make it to a flick tonight?”

  “Which flick is that, man?”

  “You know, the one at the Plaza Theatre. The new Italian flick with Vittorio de Sica.”

  “No, man. No bread. I haven’t been working lately. Besides, like I’m not worthy to mingle with the great people outside the wall. I’ll catch it when it comes down here, … and save some loot besides.”

  Frankie chuckled patronizingly. “Don’t hold your breath while you’re waiting.”

  “Don’t worry, baby. I parcel out my gasps very sparingly to say the least. Never know when I may need an extra one.”

  They studied each other.

  “What’s with the shadow under the chin, Frankie?” Rita asked, interrupting the incipient dispute.

  “My womb broom, baby,” he said smilingly, glad she had noticed. “You know, one of these chicks at school asked me what it was. I told her it was a womb broom, … and, man, … she flipped. I mean, she thought I was off my rocker to speak, like, so nasty, you know?” He chuckled. “You know, some of these chicks that just got down here are the squarest you’ve ever seen. Like they’re nowhere. I’m trying to give them a few pointers though.” He smiled slyly.

  “Say listen,” said Rita standing. “I’m going to split out of here. I want to get a little chow for supper and I have to find Laura. Like she’s got the bread with which we buy the bread which we will break this eventide.” She put on her scarf and coat. “Here’s a quarter. Pay for my coffee, will you.”

  “How about paying for me?” Ronnie suggested.

  She laughed. “See you guys later.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be around. We’ll find something.” Frankie assured her.

  “You gonna be at Pandora’s tonight?”

  “Yeah, we’ll be there.”

  “Crazy. See you later.” She smiled and went through the doorway.

  Ronnie and Frankie followed her with their eyes through the glass side of the compartment between the two doors and out into the street.

  “You been making it with her?” Frankie asked, both of them watching until she disappeared down the street.

  “Not yet, man, … but I’m working on it.” Ronnie nodded approvingly. “She’d be kind of nice, you know.”

  “Yeah, man, … like I’m hip. What’s the story with her?”

  “It’s there, man, it’s there. You just can’t rush these things, you know.”

  “I know it’s there, man,” Frankie acknowledged, “and I’m not in a hurry. I’ve got plenty of time and nothing better to do. I’ll fit her into my schedule one of these days.”

  “Yeah, … like I’m hip you’re so busy you need a schedule to keep track of them.”

  “Don’t be too sure, man. I do all right.”

  “Okay, baby, okay.”

  “I’m going to split.” Frankie was a bit annoyed with Ronnie.

  “Yeah, me too. These places depress the hell out of me in the afternoon. They’re all like a vacuum, … devoid, nothing … you know? Juanita!”

  Juanita was in the back. She stood on her toes, peering over the coffee machine.

  “I’ll leave the money for you here,” Ronnie called, putting some change on the table. “Take it slow, hanh.”

  “What else?”

  7

  The Village was wind-ripped and very cold. The wind withdrew from the canyons of the streets to lurk cunningly at the edge of every corner. Thence, it slashed forcefully, whistlingly, unexpectedly at exposed faces and ears and hands. Its chilling fingers reached through the heaviest clothing, freezing the defenseless wearers. The few people on the street walked quickly, leaning down into the wind, holding their coats close about themselves, their faces turned from the wind.

  Rita, Jeannie, and Laura quickly descended the steps leading from Pandora’s Box, “the coffee shop with an aroma.” Tom and Stan, fellows the girls had just met over coffee, followed just behind them. Tom was of average height, wiry. His hair was parted and combed slick. Stan was tall and broad with curly, black hair. The five of them, caught up in the Village’s nocturnal wandering, turned toward Johnson’s. The frigid wind felt its way into their coats. It froze Rita’s face into excruciating numbness. Her forehead ached as if many little wires were stretched across, agonizingly cutting into the skin. She be
gan to stride faster.

  “Come on, girls, let’s move a little faster. Come on,” Rita urged Stan and Tom, “you’re buying!” All the girls laughed. So did Stan and Tom.

  “These chicks are all right,” Tom commented to Stan as they moved to catch up to the girls. “Hands off that Rita.”

  “Cool, man,” Stan agreed readily. “I dig that Jeannie, you know? She swings all right. But listen, let’s not spring for too much in Johnson’s. You know, Dad, like this pocket hasn’t much in it, and like the rent is due soon.”

  “A couple of beers, what the hell?” He smiled as they now caught up to the girls.

  “C’mon, woman,” Stan snapped with sham imperiousness, gripping Jeannie’s arm to physically urge her to speed her steps. “It’s rather chilly out here tonight.”

  The five reached Johnson’s. A bare bulb over the door cast a denuding white glare into the darkness of Minetta Lane. Stan ducked his head under the canopy, pushed open the door, and they entered.

  Johnson’s was a narrow cafe. The people at the bar and at the tables were immersed in a dim, yellow, murkiness. The jaundiced haze emanated from dim, yellow bulbs burning in an occasional socket of the octopus-armed chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The bulbs and chandeliers were coated with a thick fuzz of dust. (Many Village bars, noted for quaint dustiness, retain their aged atmosphere with a flit gun and a mixture of oil and vacuum-cleaner dust.) Calypso music filtered through the thick air.

  The wooden bar was parallel to the wall on the right side. Small, round tables lined the left side. The floor was coated with sawdust. The bar extended only half the length of the cafe; beyond were more tables, rest rooms, and a jukebox. From the jukebox, dim red, blue, and yellow alternately beamed up the walls and across the ceiling. The rest rooms were marked hombres and muchachas. From a hamburger grill against the back wall, greasy smoke swirled up to an exhaust fan in the wall. A door next to the grill led to a garden in the rear which was used as an outdoor cafe during the summer.

  The atmosphere in the cafe was splashed with all varieties of color from a confusion of decoration. A huge snake skin stretched across the wall behind the entire length of the bar; a picture of a middle-aged man with glasses, inscribed “to Bill from Dad” was tacked to the men’s room door; all sizes and colors of bottles hung from strings tied to pipes near the ceiling; travel posters from all over the world, torn for a casual effect, were pasted to the walls and ceiling—so were bullfight posters, photographs, composites of actors who frequented the place, caricatures of others, weird paintings by customers, old hats, stuffed fish, African masks, a bullfighter’s cape, banderillas, rifles, foils, fake hands, maracas, brassieres, a torn jacket, a bullwhip, a baseball bat, and a kiddies car in the shape of an aerial bomb marked “Sputnik.” These decorations were always being altered. If one had not been to Johnson’s for a time, one would find many new objets d’art casually increasing the confusion.

  It was hard to know if Johnson’s was an authentically casual cafe with weird decor, or a place contrivedly casual and weird. Once the decorations were hung, it was difficult to say. Only time distinguishes the genuine from the phony. The genuine is the flexible, self-determining, self-complementing predecessor, while imitation only follows dogmatically, without understanding or reason, save that this is the way the original was fashioned. It is far easier to know if a person is a phony than if a place is. A place must be taken at face value, but a phony person, once he speaks, can hardly sustain the false impression he attempts to convey. A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, but a person, with a few words, can expose his hidden background so disastrously that the picture that had existed disappears into nothingness. With people, a few spoken words are worth a thousand pictures. Places, however, do reflect their owners, … and Johnson was a phony.

  Not only were the decorations on the walls of Johnson’s always changing, so too were the waiters, cooks, and bartenders. When things got rough, regular customers, or other Villagers they recommended, changed their status and became employees, working their way through school, earning enough to take some lessons, or keeping from falling back into society’s maze. Johnson’s was in the Village, was part of the Village, and was the Village.

  Just as the waiters and bartenders and cooks were replaced constantly, so were the people living in the Village. The values and ideals remained, the principles, the rules, the code of the revolutionaries, but the people believing in them varied. The people living there last week had gone away, perhaps to surrender and live home again, or to go to California to get away from the grind of the Village, or to paint closer to nature, or to tour with summer stock, or to live with someone who lives in another part of town, or to do any number of things in further search of peace. Their places were eagerly filled by others. Male and female flee to the Village attracted by the lure of excitement, of freedom, of tolerance, of peace and security, to escape from the harsh, unthinking world—but many leave very soon, most leave after a while, with more tolerance for the world, but some never go away and never find it.

  “Hi, Rita,” said Sammy, aproned, standing behind the bar. Sammy was a rare Villager. He was the most constant feature of Johnson’s beside Johnson himself, who was present seven days a week. Johnson was always there to keep his eyes open and the people drinking. He had to;half his profits were absorbed by other interests; those politicians who had to be payed off because they secured Johnson’s liquor license; the hoods who had a death grip on all the clubs in the Village. The only thing sacred to Uptowners is money; that’s why they’re Uptowners; that’s why there are Villagers. Sammy was always bartending at Johnson’s, and the bar somehow never looked the same without him.

  “Hey, Sammy, how’re you?” Rita answered, smiling.

  “Fine.” He nodded slightly, drawing his thin lips back over his teeth. He had a way of holding his mouth so that even when he wasn’t smiling he looked as if he were. He was Negro, with a soft voice and smile. Sinewy biceps bulged at the edge of his short-sleeved shirt. Contrasting against the dark skin of one hand, the overhead yellow lights reflecting on it, was a large, silver ring, hand wrought in the Village. It looked like silver worms entwining Sammy’s finger, holding up a green stone.

  “Hi, Tom, Stan, Jeannie, Laura.” Sammy nodded to the rest of the group.

  “Say, Sam. How about five beers? You want glasses?” Stan asked the group.

  “No,” said Jeannie. Rita shook her head negatively. So did Laura.

  “I’ll take a glass,” said Tom.

  “See that! Anything to be different, hanh, man?” Stan shook his head woefully.

  “Will you come off it, man? Do you mind if I drink out of a glass?”

  “Yes, yes, I do mind,” Stan taunted playfully. “You think you’re better than anybody here, don’t you? Well, you’re not, man, … you’re not. You’re just like everybody else. What was good enough for my father is good enough for you” … Stan began to laugh; he fought down the laugh “… and you’re going to drink out of a bottle like a respectable person. Got that, man?”

  “Yeah, Pa.” Tom shook his head sadly. “This is too much. This boy is really sick. Sam,” he said deliberately, smiling, peering at Stan from the side of his eyes, “five beers, one with, please, … even if my father objects.”

  “Right you are. Come on, Daddy, … get hip,” Sammy admonished Stan. He slid the cooler door open and lifted out five bottles.

  “You guys always come on like this?” Rita asked amused.

  “Yeah, man, like you guys are bugged, you know,” Jeannie added. “Like you’re flying.”

  “Are you turned on, or what?” asked Rita.

  “You fly, man?” Tom whispered, feigning mysteriousness.

  “Once in a while,” Rita replied.

  “Talking about flying—we went to a party the other night, oh wait, listen to this.” Stan recalled a story. He put his hand up to ward off other conversation or interruption. “I got a date with this chick, and I go to pic
k her up at her old lady’s pad, you know? She’s a model, you know, a real nice-looking chick. Her old lady’s one of these real watchful-type old ladies, you know? She always wanted to be an actress or somebody and she never was—but she’s gonna make sure this chick is, whether the chick wants to or not. So, the old lady makes sure the chick gets home early, and if she does this, and takes care of her career, and takes care of her clothes, and if she goes to the bathroom regularly and all that kind of crap.”

  Sammy put the beers on the bar. One of the bottles had a glass inverted over its neck. Tom grasped the five bottles and carried them to a table opposite the bar.

  “Let’s sit over here,” Tom suggested.

  They all walked over and sat around the table, the girls on a bench built into the wall, Tom and Stan on chairs.

  “Well, anyway, to continue …,” Stan said after taking a draught from his bottle. “So I go to the door and I say, ‘Is Sally home?’ And the old lady tells me, Sally’s not here. ‘Wait a minute,’ I say,” he recounted with a chuckle of surprise as he re-enacted the scene. “‘This is Sally’s house, isn’t it? She lives here doesn’t she?’ The old lady says, ‘yes.’ ‘I don’t think you understand,’ I tell her. ‘I have a date with Sally. She told me to pick her up here at eight-thirty … That’s what time it is now. She’s got to be here.’ The old lady smiles a little, you know, a little whimper of a smile, and tells me she’s not. So you know, like what can you say? Anyway, it turns out …” He bent forward, emphasizing each word “… the chick meets me a few days later and tells me she was hiding in the bathroom because her old lady wouldn’t let her go, on account of some modeling job the next day, and she was so embarrassed, like she couldn’t face me. I mean, is that wild?” Stan concluded with a laugh. “How much can an old lady want a career?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Anyway, I go to this party myself,” he continued. “Well, Tom was with me, but like that’s as good as coming on by yourself.” He snickered. “Anyway, I meet another chick there … with an English accent.” Stan now assumed a haughty British inflection. “And she says, ‘You have a mini docka?’ ‘Got a mini docka,’ she says. ‘I like to fly a bit you know.’ Man, she was out of her head, this chick. You know, a real couk. Anyway, she got high and started cursing out this guy she was with like mad because he didn’t come through or something. And I mean, real swinging talk, I tell you. And this guy she was with was a little guy … embarrassed … he had to hide in the bathroom until they threw this chick out. She had a knife in her hand and all … Talking about flying reminded me of the party … and like that.”