The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  “I didn’t ask you to bother me, Beebo. I don’t want to talk to you. Now scram!”

  “There she stands at the bar, drinking whisky because it tastes good,” Beebo drawled, gazing toward the ceiling and letting the smoke from a cigarette drift from her mouth. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”

  “Twenty,” Laura snapped.

  “Excuse me, twenty. Your innocence is getting tedious, lover.” She smiled.

  “Beebo, I don’t like you,” Laura said. “I don’t like the way you dress or the way you talk or the way you wear your hair. I don’t like the things you say and the money you throw around. I don’t want your dimes and I don’t want you. I hope that’s plain because I don’t know how to make it any plainer.” Her voice broke as she talked and toward the end she felt her own crazy tears coming up again. Beebo saw them before they spilled over and they changed her. They touched her. She ignored the hard words Laura spoke, for she knew enough to know they meant nothing.

  “Tell me, baby,” she said gently. “Tell me all about it. Tell me you hate me if it’ll help.”

  For a moment Laura sat there, not trusting her, not wanting to risk a word with her, letting the stray tears roll over her cheeks without even brushing them away. Then she straightened up and swept them off her face with her long slim fingers, turning away from Beebo. “I can’t tell you, or anybody.”

  Beebo shrugged. “All right. Have it your way.” She dinched her cigarette and leaned on the bar again, her face close to Laura’s. “Try, baby,” she said softly. “Try to tell me.”

  “It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous. We’re complete strangers.”

  “We aren’t strangers.” She put an arm around Laura and squeezed her a little. Laura was embarrassed and grateful at the same time. It felt good, so good. Beebo sighed at her silence. “I’m a bitch, you’re right about that,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to be. It’s an attitude. You develop it after a while, like a turtle grows a shell. You need it. Pretty soon you live it, you don’t know any other way.”

  Laura finished her drink without answering. She put it down on the bar and looked for the bartender. She wouldn’t care what Beebo said, she wouldn’t look at her, she wouldn’t answer her. She didn’t dare.

  “You don’t need to tell me about it,” Beebo went on. “Because I already know. I’ve lived through it, too. You fall in love. You’re young, inexperienced. What the hell, maybe you’re a virgin, even. You fall, up to your ears, and there’s nobody to talk to, nobody to lean on. You’re all alone with that great big miserable feeling and she’s driving you out of your mind. Every time you look at her, every time you’re near her. Finally you give in to it—and she’s straight.” She said the last word with such acid sharpness that Laura jumped. “End of story,” Beebo added. “End of soap opera. Beginning of soap opera. That’s all the Village is, honey, just one crazy little soap opera after another, like Jack says. All tangled up with each other, one piled on top of the next, ad infinitum. Mary loves Jane loves Joan loves Jean loves Beebo loves Laura.” She stopped and grinned at Laura.

  “Doesn’t mean a thing,” she said. “It goes on forever. Where one stops another begins.” She looked around The Cellar with Laura following her gaze. “I know most of the girls in here,” she said. “I’ve probably slept with half of them. I’ve lived with half of the half I’ve slept with. I’ve loved half of the half I’ve lived with. What does it all come to?”

  She turned to Laura, who was caught with her fascinated face very close to Beebo’s. She started to back away but Beebo’s arm around her waist tightened and kept her close. “You know something, baby? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You don’t like me, and that doesn’t matter. Someday maybe you’ll love me, and that won’t matter either. Because it won’t last. Not down here. Not anywhere in the world, if you’re gay. You’ll never find peace, you’ll never find Love. With a capital L.”

  She took a drag on her cigarette and let it flow out of her nostrils. “L for Love,” she said, looking into space. “L for Laura.” She turned and smiled at her, a little sadly. “L for Lust and L for the L of it. L for Lesbian. L for Let’s—let’s,” she said, and blew smoke softly into Laura’s ear. Laura was startled to feel the strength of the feeling inside her.

  It’s the whisky, she thought. It’s because I’m tired. It’s because I want Marcie so much. No, that doesn’t make sense. She caught the bartender’s eye and he fixed her another drink.

  Beebo’s arm pressed her again. “Let’s,” she said. “How about it?” She was smiling, not pushy, not demanding, just asking. As if it didn’t really matter whether Laura said yes or no.

  “Where did you get that ridiculous name?” Laura hedged.

  “My family.”

  “They named you Beebo?”

  “They named me Betty Jean,” she said, smiling. “Which is even worse.”

  “It’s a pretty name.”

  “It’s a lousy name. Even Mother couldn’t stand it. And she could stand damn near anything. But they had to call me something. So they called me Beebo.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Beebo laughed. “I get along,” she said.

  The bartender set Laura’s glass down and she reached for her change. “What’s your last name?” she said to Beebo.

  “Brinker. Like the silver skates.”

  Laura counted her change. She had sixty-five cents. The bartender was telling a joke to some people a few seats down, resting one hand on the bar in front of Laura, waiting for his money. She was a dime short. She counted it again, her cheeks turning hot.

  Beebo watched and began to laugh. “Want your dime back?” she said.

  “It’s your dime,” Laura said haughtily.

  “You must have left home in a hurry, baby. Poor Laura. Hasn’t got a dime for a lousy drink.”

  Laura wanted to strangle her. The bartender turned back to her suddenly and she felt her face burning. Beebo leaned toward him, laughing. “I’ve got it, Mort,” she said.

  “No!” Laura said. “If you could just lend me a dime.”

  Beebo laughed and waved Mort away.

  “I don’t want to owe you a thing,” Laura told her.

  “Too bad, doll. You can’t help yourself.” She laughed again. Laura tried to give her the change she had left, but Beebo wouldn’t take it. “Sure, I’ll take it,” she said. “And you’ll be flat busted. How’ll you get home?”

  Laura went pale then. She couldn’t go home. Even if she had a hundred dollars in her pocket. She couldn’t stand to face Marcie, to explain her crazy behavior, to try to make herself sound normal and ordinary when her whole body was begging for strange passion, for forbidden release.

  Beebo watched her face change and then she shook her head. “It must have been a bad fight,” she said.

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Beebo. It wasn’t a fight. It was—I don’t know what it was.”

  “She straight?”

  “I don’t know.” Laura put her forehead down on the heel of her right hand. “Yes, she’s straight,” she whispered.

  “Well, did you tell her? About yourself?”

  “I don’t know if I did or not. I didn’t say it but I acted like a fool. I don’t know what she thinks.”

  “Then things could be worse,” Beebo said. “But if she’s straight, they’re probably hopeless.”

  “That’s what Jack said.”

  “Jack’s right.”

  “He’s not in love with her!”

  “Makes him even righter. He sees what you can’t see. If he says she’s straight, believe him. Get out while you can.”

  “I can’t.” Laura felt an awful twist of tenderness for Marcie in her throat.

  “Okay, baby, go home and get your heart broken. It’s the only way to learn, I guess.”

  “I can’t go home. Not tonight.”

  “Come home with me.”

  “No.”

  “Well…” Beebo smiled. “I know a nice bench in Washi
ngton Square. If you’re lucky the bums’ll leave you alone. And the cops.”

  “I’ll—I’ll go to Jack’s,” she said, suddenly brightening with the idea. “He won’t mind.”

  “He might,” Beebo said, and raised her glass to her lips. “Call him first.”

  Laura started to leave the bar and then recalled that all her change was sitting on the counter in front of Beebo. She turned back in confusion, her face flushing again. Beebo turned and looked at her. “What’s the matter, baby?” And then she laughed. “Need a dime?” She handed her one.

  For a moment, in the relative quiet of the phone booth, Laura leaned against a wall and wondered if she might faint. But she didn’t. She deposited the dime and dialed Jack’s number. The phone rang nine times before he answered, and she was on the verge of panic when she heard him lift the receiver at last and say sleepily, “Hello?”

  “Hello, Jack? Jack, this is Laura.” She was vastly relieved to find him at home.

  “Sorry, we don’t want any.”

  “Jack, I’ve got to see you.”

  “My husband contributes to that stuff at the office.”

  “Jack, please! It’s terribly important.”

  “I love you, Mother, but you call me at the God-damnedest times.”

  “Can I come over?”

  “Jesus, no!” he exclaimed, suddenly coming wide awake.

  “Oh, Jack, what’ll I do?” She sounded desperate.

  “All right now, let’s get straightened out here. Let’s make an effort.” He sounded as if he had drunk a lot and just gotten to sleep, still drunk, when Laura’s call woke him up. “Now start at the beginning. And make it quick. What’s the problem?”

  She felt hurt, slighted. Of all people, Jack was the one she had to count on. “I—I acted like a fool with Marcie. I don’t know what she thinks,” she half-sobbed. “Jack, help me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing—everything. I don’t know.”

  “God, Mother. Why did you pick tonight? Of all nights?”

  “I didn’t pick it, it just happened.”

  “What happened, damn it?”

  “I—I sort of embraced her.”

  There was a silence on the other end for a minute. Laura heard him say away from the receiver, “Okay, it’s okay. No, she’s a friend of mine. A friend, damn it, a girl.” Then his voice became clear and close again. “Mother, I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure I understand what happened, and if I did I still wouldn’t know what the hell to say. Where are you?”

  “At The Cellar. Jack, you’ve just got to help me. Please.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. No. I’ve been talking to Beebo, but—”

  “Oh! Well, God, that’s it, that’s the answer. Go home with Beebo.”

  “No! I can’t, Jack. I want to come to your place.”

  “Laura, honey—” He was wide awake now, sympathetic, but caught in his own domestic moils. “Laura, I’m—well, I’m entertaining.” He laughed a little at his own silliness. “I’m involved. I’m fraternizing. Oh, hell, I’m making love. You can’t come over here.” His voice went suddenly in the other direction as he said, “No, calm down, she’s not coming over.”

  Then he said, “Laura, I wish I could help, honest to God. I just can’t, not now. You’ve got to believe me.” He spoke softly, confidentially, as if he didn’t want the other to hear what he said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll call Marcie and get it straightened out. Don’t worry, Marcie believes in me. She thinks I’m Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy. The four-square troubleshooter. I’ll fix it up for you.”

  “Jack, please,” she whimpered, like a plaintive child.

  “I’ll do everything I can. You just picked the wrong night and that’s the God’s truth, honey. Where’s Beebo? Let me talk to Beebo.”

  Laura went out of the booth to get her, feeling half dazed, and found her way back to the bar. “He wants to talk to you,” she said to Beebo, without looking at her.

  Beebo frowned at her and then swung herself off her seat and headed for the phone. Laura sat down in her place, disturbed by the warmth Beebo left behind, twirling her glass slowly in her hand. She was crushed that Jack had turned her down.

  Perhaps he had a lover, perhaps this night was so important to him that he couldn’t give it up, even though she had all his sympathy. These things might be—in fact, were—true. But Laura could hardly discern them through her private pains.

  Beebo came back in a minute and leaned over Laura, one hand on the bar, the other on Laura’s shoulder. “He says I’m to take you home,” she said, “feed you aspirins, dry your tears, and put you to bed. And no monkey business.” She smiled as Laura looked slowly up into her face. It was a strong interesting face. With a little softness, a little innocence, it might have been lovely. But it was too hard and cynical, too restless and disillusioned. “Come on, sweetie pie,” Beebo said. “I’m a nice kid, I won’t eat you.”

  They walked until they came to a small dark street, and the second door up—dark green—faced right on the sidewalk. Beebo opened it and they walked down a couple of steps into a small square court surrounded by the windowed walls of apartment buildings. On the far side was another door with benches and play areas grouped in between on the court. Beebo unlocked the other door and led Laura up two flights of unlighted stairs to her apartment.

  When they went inside a brown dachshund rushed to meet them and tried to climb up their legs. Beebo laughed and talked to him, reaching down to push him away.

  Laura stood inside the door, her hands over her eyes, somewhat unsteady on her feet.

  “Here, baby, let’s get you fixed up,” Beebo said. “Okay, Nix, down. Down!” she said sharply to the excited little dog, and shoved him away with her foot. He slunk off to a chair where he studied her reproachfully.

  Beebo led Laura through the small living room to an even smaller bedroom and sat her down on the bed. She knelt in front of her and took her shoes off. Then, gently, she leaned against her, forcing her legs slightly apart, and put her arms around Laura’s waist. She rubbed her head against Laura’s breasts and said, “Don’t be afraid, baby.” Laura tried weakly to hold her off but she said, “I won’t hurt you Laura,” and looked up at her. She squeezed her gently, rhythmically, her arms tightening and loosening around Laura’s body. She made a little sound in her throat and, lifting her face, kissed Laura’s neck. And then she stood up slowly, releasing her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Fini. No monkey business. Make yourself comfortable, honey. There’s the john—old, but serviceable. You sleep here. I’ll take the couch. Here! Here, Nix!” She grabbed the little dog, which had bounded onto the bed and was trying to lick Laura’s face, and picked him up in her arms like a baby. She grinned at Laura. “I’ll take him to bed, he won’t bother you,” she said. “Call me if there’s anything you need.” She looked at Laura closely while Laura tried to answer her. The younger girl sat on the bed, pale with fatigue and hunger, feeling completely lost and helpless. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  Beebo sat down beside her. “You look beat, honey,” she said.

  “I am.”

  “Want to tell me about it now?”

  Laura shook her head.

  “Well…” she said. “Good night, Little Bo-peep. Sleep tight.” And she kissed her forehead, then turned around and went out of the bedroom, turning out the light on her way.

  Laura had gotten off the bed without looking at her, but feeling Beebo’s eyes on her. She shut the door slowly, until she heard the catch snap. Then she turned, leaning on the door, and looked at the room. It was small and full of stuff, with yellowed walls. Everything looked clean, although the room was in a state of complete confusion, with clothes draped over chairs and drawers half shut.

  All of a sudden, Laura felt stronger. She undressed quickly, taking off everything but her nylon slip, and pulled down the bedclothes. She climbed in gratefully.

  She
didn’t even try to forget Marcie or what had happened. It would have been impossible. Mere trying would have made it worse. She relaxed on her back in the dark, her arms outflung, and waited for the awful scene to come up in her mind and torture her.

  Her mind wandered. The awful embrace was awful no longer—only wrong and silly and far away. The damage was irreparable. She stared at the ceiling, invisible in the dark, and felt a soft lassitude come over her. She felt as if she were melting into the bed; as if she could not have moved if she tried.

  Time flowed by and she waited for sleep. It was some time before she realized she was actually waiting for it. It didn’t come. She turned on her side, and still it eluded her. Finally she snapped the light on to squint at her watch. It said five of four. She switched it off again, her eyes dazzled, and wondered what the matter was. And then she heard Beebo turn over in the next room, and she knew.

  An old creeping need began to writhe in Laura, coming up suddenly out of the past and twisting itself around her innards. The pressure increased while she lay there trying to ignore it, becoming more insistent. It began to swell and fade with a rhythm of its own; a rhythm she knew too well and feared. Slowly the heat mounted to her face, the sweat came out on her body. She began to turn back and forth in bed, hating herself and trying to stop it, but helpless with it.

  Laura was a sensual girl. Her whole being cried out for love and loving. It had been denied her for over a year, and the effects were a severe strain on her that often brought her nerves to the breaking point. She pretended she had learned to live with it, or rather, without it. She even pretended she could live her whole life without it. But in her secret self she knew she couldn’t.

  Beebo turned over again in the living room and Laura knew she was awake, too. The sudden realization made her gasp, and she could fool herself no longer. She wanted Beebo. She wanted a woman; she wanted a woman so terribly that she had to put her hand tight over her mouth to stop the groan that would have issued from it.

  For a few moments more she tossed feverishly on her bed, trying to find solitary release, but it wouldn’t come. The thought of Beebo tortured her now, and not the thought of Marcie. Beebo—with her lithe body, her fascinating face, her cynical shell. There was so much of Beth there. At that thought, Laura found herself swinging her legs out of bed.