Tom looked at him perplexed. “That’s a nice story, Stan. Remind me to take you to my next party so you can entertain the guests with your great stories.”
“I’ll be there.”
“What’s a mini docka?” asked Rita.
“A little pot, man, you know, pot?” Stan suggested.
Rita nodded.
The juke box started to push a calypso chant and beating drums into the room. This music wasn’t popular anywhere else, but the management put its own selections on the juke box to please the unorthodox tastes of the customers. Their appreciation was wide, restricted only by imagination and a loathing for popular demand.
Raoul Johnson, the owner, had been standing in the back, talking to a tall, thin, specter-faced girl whose blond hair cascaded to her shoulders. Now Johnson started to chant loudly with the jukebox. He was a tall, light-complexioned, blue-eyed, handsome Negro. His clothes were form fitting. He wore them as much to be noticed for their difference as to be clothed in a style that he liked. Precious few act merely for an enjoyment of the thing done. Fads and fears trammel discretion, replacing it with stock solutions to the desires of life. Individuality only adds confusion and responsibility to the mass that progresses intellectually only far enough to realize that everything must be convertible to material reality to be worthwhile.
Johnson, in tight white pants and light green shirt, danced forward from the rear of the cafe. He called for a pair of maracas. Sammy pulled two pairs off the wall behind the bar, handed a pair to Johnson, and took a pair for himself. Both rattled them loudly as they sang with the jukebox. All the people around the bar joined in at the chorus. The place overflowed with mixed singing voices. Johnson danced solo in the center of the space between the bar and the tables. He had a supercilious smirk on his face; his eyes narrowed to slits. He knew everyone was watching him. This was the same look he effected when there was a girl he wanted to impress with the fact that he was Raoul Johnson, man, Raoul Johnson. When he approached a girl, he’d shrug his shoulders, and say softly, with a sly smile on his face, a flutter of eyebrow, ‘hello, baby … what’s happening?’ Or, if she was with a guy, he’d start singing loudly to attract her attention, and then he’d give her a sneering once-over and perhaps pucker a kiss for her when her boy friend wasn’t looking. The girls from the Village had become hardened to his passes; they ignored him for the most part. Girls from Uptown got a big, exotic charge out of it.
The chant from the jukebox ended in drumfire. Johnson ended his dance next to the table where Rita and her friends sat. Looking down, he contrived surprise at seeing Rita.
“Hello, baby,” slid from the side of his mouth. His eyes fluttered as he gave her the once-over, or as much of a once-over as possible, considering she was seated. He wagged his head slightly, his eyebrows raised, a leer in his eyes. This was to convey that he was appraising her sexually. “Baby, let me tell you I dig you.” He took her hand in his and kissed it very slowly, raising his eyes to peer into hers in the manner of the European. He had a penchant for trying to make white women. “Let’s get together sometime when you’re not busy.” He stood straight, his eyes still narrowed, and fluttered his eyebrows again.
“You’re so full of shit, Raoul, it isn’t even funny,” Jeannie remarked laughing. Everyone at the table laughed.
“That’s right,” he snapped. His face suddenly hardened. “You ought to know better than to say Raoul Johnson is full of shit, baby. I spit on better white meat than you.”
“Well, why don’t you just keep doing that then, man,” said Rita. “You certainly don’t need us.”
“Listen, baby, forget it, you know?” he said with disgust. “You don’t have nothin’ special, you know. Hahaaaiii …” he cried out lustily in accompaniment to the new selection on the jukebox. He began to dance away. “C’mon, man, … let’s swing tonight,” he called to the bar in general. “Hey’a, … c’mon.” He danced toward the back and the specter-faced blonde.
“That God damn clown gets on your nerves sometimes,” Rita commented, watching him dance away.
“He’s a big man with the women, though, baby,” Stan added.
“So would you be if you made a pass at every and any bitch you saw in this bar. Big shit,” Jeannie discounted.
The front door opened and a girl that Rita knew walked in. Her name was Moira. She was one of the girls that went to acting class with Rita. She was dark haired, with a fleshy, aquiline nose. Her mouth was wide, her lips thin at the edges, so that the middle of her lips fell together in a mass, giving her mouth a pouting aspect. Her eyes were lined in heavy black pencil and deepened with greenish eyeshadow.
“Hi, Moira,” Rita called.
She turned, saw Rita, and smiled. She walked toward the table.
“I didn’t know you came in this place,” Rita added.
“Hi, Rita. I don’t usually, but I felt like it tonight. Every place else is dead.” Moira looked at the people at the table, smiling the slight smile of the unacquainted. Rita introduced her to the others. Moira smiled to them and stood by the table talking.
Johnson was now behind the bar, still smarting from the rejection. He saw the new arrival, whom he had met once before to his dissatisfaction.
“What are you drinking there, baby?” he called out.
“I don’t want anything right now.”
“You can’t come in here if you don’t want to drink anything, baby,” Johnson called loudly. “What the hell do you think this is? I throw my own kind out; you think I’m going to leave you stay here standing around, sucking up the heat for nothin’?”
Tom twisted toward Johnson, his brow wrinkled. “She’ll have a drink in a minute,” he said softly, determinedly. “Right now she hasn’t made up her mind. Don’t be such a bug, man. She’ll drink when she feels like it. Don’t worry about it.”
People at the bar watched silently.
“Listen, man, when somebody comes in here they gotta spend. If not, forget it.”
“We’re spending,” Tom continued, staring at Johnson. “Sit down, Moira.”
Johnson looked at Tom viciously. Angrily, he turned to serve other people at the bar.
“You want a drink Moira?” Tom asked.
“No, I’m going to take off,” she replied, smiling thankfully. “I can’t take that bastard too much.”
“Yeah, let’s all cut out,” suggested Jeannie irritatedly. “Let’s take off.”
“Let’s go,” agreed Stan unconcernedly.
“I’m going to stay here a while,” said Laura as the others stood. She felt like a fifth wheel.
“Oh, come on. You’re not going to start that?” said Rita, looking at Laura impatiently.
Laura appealed to her with her eyes. “Let me stay here. You cats go ahead. I’ll meet you later.”
“Come on. There’s no coupling here or anything,” said Tom.
“No, … I’d really rather stay here for awhile. Frankie, Frankie …” she called to the short Mexican who was standing at the rear of the bar. She wanted to assure them she wouldn’t be alone. “I’ll stay here, … and I’ll see you later.”
“Okay, if you want to,” Rita relented.
Tom payed the bill, and they walked out. Rita said good night to Moira in front of Johnson’s. Moira walked toward MacDougal Street. Rita and the others started toward the Avenue of the Americas. They all fell silent as the cold began to bite them again. Tom walked with Rita; Stan and Jeannie followed behind.
“You know, I’ve never seen you around before tonight,” Tom said to Rita to start conversation. They crossed the avenue, walking toward West Fourth Street.
“I’ve been around awhile, about six months.”
“Funny, I’ve never seen you. Where do you keep yourself?”
“I keep busy around, doing the usual things, you know?”
“Me too, but I’ve never seen you anyway.”
They fell silent again, leaning into the wind. They passed under the marquee of the Waverly C
inema.
“Hey, dig what’s playing,” Stan called from behind, “To Have and Have Not. That’s one of Hemingway’s, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Tom answered, not turning.
“You see it?” Rita asked.
“Yeah,” Tom answered. He hunched deeper into his coat to counter the wind. “You see it?”
“Yeah. It was pretty good. That Bogart was really … well, he was really terrific, you know? Really believable. He put such a depth of feeling, such facial gestures, such … well, everything he did was so great that you could believe him, identify with him. He really felt his role.”
“You sound like you studied the picture.”
“I did. I study all the pictures I see. If you want to act you have to learn from people who know how.”
“You study acting?”
“Sure over on Sheridan Square—with Phil Avery.”
“Hey!” exclaimed Tom, stopping with surprise to look at her. “I know a couple of chicks that go over there.” He started to walk again. “What the hell …” He tried to remember a name. “… Sybil … Sybil Owens. You know her?”
“Sure. Sybil and I are partners in a one-act play.” Rita smiled. “We were rehearsing together last night.”
“No kidding? That’s crazy. She’s a great chick. Sybil and I used to hang around together, you know, like we were kind of very chummy for a while.”
“Yeah, I’m hip,” Rita smiled knowingly.
Tom smiled and shrugged his shoulders to indicate that that’s the way life is.
Stan and Jeannie fell further back and began to talk about something else. Each had his head down into the wind, their hands in their pockets as they continued forward briskly.
“You from New York originally?” Tom asked.
They reached the corner of Fourth Street and turned West toward Pandora’s and Sheridan Square.
“Yeah, if you want to say Brooklyn is part of New York.”
“Brooklyn? No kidding?” Tom exclaimed more surprised than before. “How great is this? You know Sybil and now you’re from Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn too. This must be a portent of something great.”
“It could only be a harbinger of calamity. I didn’t think anybody else ever found his way out of Brooklyn.”
“There are a few other people still awake in this little old world.”
“You don’t still live there, do you?” she asked.
“Yeah, I still stay over a lot with my folks.”
“Man, you’ve got what it takes. I couldn’t do that for all the money in the world.”
“Yeah, well, you know, like I work in Brooklyn, and like it’s easier to get to work from my father’s place. I have a pad down here I stay at on weekends though.”
“Man, I left Brooklyn and my mother and father six months ago, and all of a sudden I realize there are lots of things on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge … things they never even dreamed of, still don’t.”
“They gave you a hard time, hanh?”
“That’s being charitable. I couldn’t take those people any more. So I figured it would be less frustrating for me to move out on my own, … even if I can’t give myself all the things I ever wanted,” she mimicked savagely. “You know?”
“Yeah, like I know the scene. Same bit, different players.” Tom chuckled sadly. It was a laugh brought up to overcome embarrassment or sorrow. “I’ve been through that scene so many times I can play it blindfolded. I guess everyone has.”
“So why are you sticking at home?”
“Like I said, it’s easier for me to get to work this way. I don’t stay there much. I get my food and a pallet to sleep on and I have a pad down here for my friends. You know, … and like that?”
“Yeah, I’m hip, and like that. What sort of work do you do?”
“I work in a shoe store. I sell shoes to old bitches that cram their big, fat feet into ugly little shoes.”
“Shoes? You like selling shoes?”
“I make a couple of bucks at it. It’s not a hobby or pastime or anything. What the hell, a job is a job. Nobody bothers me; the boss let’s me dress the way I want, as long as I look neat and all, but he doesn’t insist that I wear grey flannel, or be his religion, or agree with his politics, or any of that crap. He just wants me to work for him. You know? It’s a nice switch. Of course, it’s not one of the up-and-coming professions. They don’t consider it chic …”
They looked at each other, smiling simultaneously. They passed in front of Pandora’s. Tom turned to Stan and Jeannie.
“Hey, you wanna see who’s inside?” he called. “You want to go inside?” he asked Rita.
“No.” She shook her head, her face wincing with the cold. She huddled her face down farther into her coat collar. “I’m cold and tired. I think I’ll pack myself into bed.”
“Okay, … I’ll walk you home.”
“Crazy. I’m afraid of the dark.” She smiled, pleased.
“I want to go inside for a cup of coffee. I’m freezing,” said Jeannie.
“I’m going to the pad.” Rita shivered through the shoulders. Her lips were a bit blue.
“I’ll be along in a minute,” said Jeannie. She and Stan started up the stoop to Pandora’s.
“Okay. So long,” Tom said. He and Rita started walking hurriedly toward the Square.
“So how’re you paying the rent in this place, and going to school, and all that?” he asked as they walked. “You working?”
“I’m a waitress. Besides, I have two roommates. We sublet this apartment from two guys real cheap—furnished and all and a telephone for twenty-six a month, and like that.”
“What? Twenty-six a month? You’re kidding? Man, they just don’t make apartments like that, do they? Where is your place, under the river?”
“Right here,” Rita nodded toward Sheridan Square. “Right around the corner on Christopher Street.”
“I gotta see this pad. It sounds too much. It’s wild. Twenty-six a month. Wow! How great is that, hanh? We pay seventy a month for ours, me and Stan. How many rooms do you have?”
“Three.”
“Three? Me too, and the seventy doesn’t even include the phone.”
They reached Sheridan Square and stood at the curb waiting for traffic to cease. Streams of cars swarmed from Uptown on the wide, cobblestoned street, their sealed-beam eyes glaring whitely into the black shadow of night.
The Square was a broad, flat, open space into which six streets emptied. Twelve corners surrounded the Square. Most of the corners blazed with lights and signs in front of shops and cafes. Directly across from Rita and Tom was a cigar store. Next to that was a Riker’s food shop, and next to that a delicatessen. On the other corner of Christopher Street, across from the cigar store, was Jim Atkins eat shop. On another corner was the Riviera Bar. On another corner was a small park. On the corner where Rita and Tom stood, there was Mother Hubbard’s Food Shoppe, Simple Simon’s Eat Shop, then the Seventh Avenue South Theatre, and next to that, the Limelight, an espresso shop, then a book store, then two dark, closed shops, and a gas station.
After the cafes close and the tourists leave, the Villagers converge to this square. It is difficult to note exactly who the Villagers are. The term and reference is applied to far more people than those who live within the actual, physical boundaries of the Village and excludes many who do. Physically, the Village is small. Yet, its reputation for bearded poets and painters and writers and starving actors and uninhibited licentiousness and queers and Lesbians and all sorts of sensational, dreamy, romantic, exotic, erotic stories is far more extensive than its crooked streets could possibly harbor.
The Village that has spawned this sensational reputation is only a small part of the actual Greenwich Village. There are thousands of people living on the quiet, residential, crooked, forsaken streets in and around all of the mad excitement which, as legend has it, is continually broiling up in the Village, who rarely seem to notice it, and never partake of it. People who live
away from the main stems of weirdness and life—Eighth Street between the Avenue of the Americas and Broadway, Fourth Street from Sheridan Square to Broadway, MacDougal Street from Eighth Street to Bleeker Street, West Third Street from the Avenue of the Americas to Broadway, Sheridan Square, and Washington Square Park—live quietly, peacefully in little houses, on age-old streets, go to work Uptown each morning, appear to be tourists to the tourists, but only want quiet living, and are Villagers nonetheless.
There is also a large Italian settlement in the Village. This is another of the worlds of Greenwich Village, right within this framework of weird life. Pushcarts, Italian-provisions stores, dark kids, and old men who chomp black cigars, can’t even speak English, much less hip English, and think Americans are a little pazzo, are part of the Village too.
At the same time, all the legendary Villagers, who populate the joints till all hours of the night, who exist according to a sensational, social code, purposely and diametrically opposed to the social code of the outside world that has rejected them, live not only here, but all around Uptown—in the Gas House District, the Murray Hill District, the Chelsea District, the Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn—and come to the Village to meet and find a little life.
The Village is really only an idea. That which people from Uptown consider the Village is something not outlined by streets or avenues, but by minds and ideals and souls struggling within themselves, by heart and sinew needing their own personal raison d’etre, not some union-made, impersonal spirit. The Village is reputed to be the capital of these rebellious idealists, but more often they flourish forsakenly miles away, and only come to the Village for companionship.
The Village is a place of exile for rebels condemned to remain there by misunderstanding people too lazy-minded to think of a true answer for those things which they do not understand. It is far easier to condemn than to understand, to reject than to befriend newness or strangeness. And the excuse offered is that these strange rejected creatures do not want people, do not love people. But it is rather that these unhappy creatures do love people which sends them from society’s mindless non-people.
What’s Happening? Page 9