The Swashbuckler

by Lee Lynch

  I pushed back to the table, another drink in my hand. I felt ugly mean. I was angry, too, because I didn’t have the bread to buy a round. All I had left was my subway fare home. But with all the money they liked to flash around, I wasn’t going to let these white bastards know that. Sure they worked every week and were proud of it, liked to show it off. I wished I had it to show off.

  I stumbled a little sitting down, but Frenchy knew not to try and steady me. She was finishing a quiet conversation with Edie and I figured she was telling her how easy I was, what a hot-blooded Latin. Oh, how could I have? I yelled inside myself, humiliated all over again. I shut it off, though, and toasted them. “Here’s one for the road,” I said.

  “You splitting?” Frenchy asked, smoothing back her hair.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Wanted to talk to you is all.”

  I didn’t say anything. What did she want me to say? I shook my head. Besides, I was feeling dizzy, I didn’t want to talk. I was afraid I’d cry again. My eyes were half-closed from the booze and the pills. My body was slowing down. It felt good, but I still felt mean. If I hadn’t felt so sluggish I would’ve knocked the table over to get at Frenchy.

  “You bastard,” I heard myself saying, real low. “You fucking bastard fake white man. You been sucking around me a couple of months now.” I talked louder, thickly: “You got what you want now? You got your little piece of Mercedes so you can feel like the big man around here? You knock me down to your size yet?” I think I said some more stuff in between, but I can’t remember what. Just Frenchy sitting there kind of blurry, looking at me sad, like she was so damn hurt. “You’re lucky they got me doped up or I’d kill you. That’s why the man dopes me, so I won’t kill any of his white girls.” I had them all looking shocked. “Yeah, I hurt girls. I’m an outlaw: PR and gay. How you like that? I tried it uptown, I didn’t make it. I tried it out of town, I didn’t make it. Now I tried it downtown and I’m just about to flunk that too. Seems like nobody wants me to win. Not even me. Seems like I just get back on my feet and somebody comes by to knock me down. Fuck all of you.”

  I found out later I put my head down then and passed out. Didn’t do any damage this time. Just cursed them out and went to sleep. Good stuff, those tranquilizers. I didn’t hurt any nice little white girls. They didn’t have to lock me up, though I almost wanted them to. Sometimes it’s easier.

  * * * * *

  I woke up on the subway halfway into Queens. Edie, Jessie and Mary half-dragged, half-pushed me that far. I remember asking if we’d passed the House of D yet and saying I’m sorry a lot. I was too exhausted to say more. Without really caring I wondered where we were going.

  Edie’s voice seemed to whisper in my ear. “We’re going to my house, Mercedes. You can sleep there.”

  I knew I should be happy about that. Going home to sleep with Edie. But I was in a heavy black fog I couldn’t get out of. I guessed it was depression. The liquor and tranquilizers were sitting on my whole body, holding it down. Then I remembered, through a cloud, or like it happened long ago when I was a kid, that Frenchy, my friend Frenchy, had got to me real bad. The black fog moved back from me a little and I felt a warm glow. I wanted to be with her again. I wanted to dance again. I felt forgiving like a revelation from the Bible. Probably she didn’t understand, I thought, didn’t know why I got mad. “Frenchy?” I found myself asking out loud.

  “She went home,” Edie said. “She didn’t think you’d want her around.”

  Even through my fog I knew for sure now Edie knew what had happened.

  I risked falling off the earth by lifting my head to see Edie’s face. It was full of concern. “I love you,” I told her, meaning it. “And I love Frenchy.” I let my head fall back to her shoulder. Then, to make sure everybody had it right, I said, as clear as I could, “But don’t let that bastard near me again.”

  The noise of the train seemed to be a thousand voices singing, Stop in the Name of Love, over and over. When we got off the train the city seemed silent. I found I could walk pretty good, but I was still very weak. Edie told Jessie and Mary they could go back, that we could make it to the house alone. It seemed like a very long walk. There was a newsstand on a corner, but that was all the life I saw as we went into the trees and darkness. In my neighborhood, that time of night, there’d still be plenty of action. “Where’s this,” I asked, “Long Island?”

  Edie laughed. “Not quite.”

  We walked up to a three-story house and I thought she’d live on the second or third floor. I wasn’t looking forward to those stairs. “Let me stay here,” I argued, but she pushed me inside. She was pretty strong for a femme. We didn’t climb stairs. The whole house was hers. I couldn’t believe it and kept staggering around to see different parts of it. Finally, she put me in a big double bed in a nice warm room on the first floor. I grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her in bed with me. I mean, I had to at least try, alone there in a house with a good-looking femme. My reputation was blown enough for one night. But Edie pulled away and disappeared.

  At first I felt the darkness and the strangeness of the place as scary. Like Lydia does when we start out someplace new. But after a while, since I didn’t have a mother to talk to me, I kind of talked to the house. Thanked it for giving me shelter. As if to the Madonna, I whispered into the comforting blackness. Shelter from everything, I thought sleepily. It was nice how the dark got mixed in with the cloud that still sat around me, pressing in on me until it went away a little. When the cloud was light enough, and I felt like I could breathe pretty good, I slept.

  * * * * *

  The next day Edie fed me and kept me in bed. I was kind of panicky about my tranquilizers, knowing what I would be like without them, so I called my friend Gladys, who had a car. I told her I was sick again, but somebody was taking care of me. Gladys was used to my calls and Edie said she’d meet her up at the newsstand.

  When I said, “What’s the matter, she’s not good enough to come to your house?” Edie explained very cool how hard it was to find her house. Anyway, I apologized because, after all, didn’t she take me in? I was a real louse, I guess, but I wasn’t used to the kindness of strangers. Most times I’d be strapped down to a bed by now or still out with drugs. “Why’d you bring me here anyway?” I asked as we sat at her kitchen table around 7:00 that night. I wore an old bathrobe of hers and warmed my hands around a mug of coffee though it was plenty warm in there.

  “I have plenty of space,” Edie said easily.

  I stared at her blonde head and her white face, suspicious again. She was too damn pretty. I mean, people say I’m pretty, but when did you ever hear a Rican winning the Miss America? “You could have dumped me at the hospital.”

  “You don’t need a hospital, Mercedes,” she said. “You need a home. I could offer you that.”

  “Oh.” The feeling of revelation I had the night before — I couldn’t remember what about — came back to me. “Oh,” I said again, surprised how simple it all was. “Yeah. I guess I do need a home. A warm clean place where I belong,” I said, looking up at her. “That might go a long way toward fixing me up. How’d you know?”

  Edie poured me more coffee. “Different things you’ve said.”

  “How much did Frenchy tell you?”

  “About you?”

  “About me. About last night.”

  “About you, bits and pieces here and there over the last several months. About last night, just that she was coming on to you and you got offended.”

  That didn’t sound too bad. But those were Edie’s words, not Frenchy’s. Edie said things nice. Still, maybe she didn’t think I was an idiot. “She got me by surprise, you know. I didn’t know how I felt. I’m butch,” I explained. I wasn’t planning to tell her anything, but it was coming out. She didn’t say anything, just sat there looking interested and nodding.

  “What do you think I should do, Edie?”

  “I don’t really understand about butches and femmes
, Mercedes. I never have, really. I just fell in love with Frenchy Tonneau and learned to love by her rules. That was all I knew. Now, though, since she hasn’t been as interested in me, I’ve met another woman, another teacher, who’s more like me, and doesn’t go in for roles.”

  “You mean you’re both butch? Or both femme?”

  Edie was smiling, and I noticed her teeth weren’t so all-American. Some were discolored and one was chipped. That made me feel better.

  “I guess we’re a little bit of both. She’s had more experience than I, so maybe she starts things more.” She added with a sexy shy look, “But I can hold my own now.”

  I was smiling. “How come you weren’t with her last night?”

  “She sings in a gospel group. They perform a lot on Saturday nights. And of course she’s often in church all day Sundays.”

  “A gospel group?” I asked, not able to cover my surprise. “You mean she’s...”

  Edie was grinning ear to ear and nodding. “Black,” she finished for me. “You look as shocked as my neighbors.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, liking this surprising woman more and more. “I never figured you for the type.” Then I got silly. “You mean I have a chance with you?”

  She laughed, shaking her head and blushing. I thought, this chick is shy! “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask you that. I was only teasing.”

  “I shouldn’t be embarrassed,” she said. “I’m just not used to being teased like this. Frenchy’s always so serious. But there isn’t a chance for you, I’m afraid. Esther takes up about all of me there is.”

  Was that woman ever in love. Just talking about this Esther made her glow. She looked like I’d felt when Frenchy was holding me the night before. “What’s she like?” I asked, wondering if I might have met her.

  Edie sighed. “She’s short, like us, and not heavy, but a little round—just enough.” She was still grinning like she couldn’t help herself. “She wears her hair in that new way — in an Afro? It looks like a halo around her head. She’s not real dark, but not as light as you and she wears glasses. Her face is round and looks like an angel’s, especially when she smiles. Her voice is as deep as, I don’t know, as a woman’s can get I guess, and when she mumbles I think she’s growling.”

  “How’d you meet her?”

  “That’s the funny thing. All this time I was seeing Frenchy once in a blue moon and spending the rest of my time alone or running around with my teacher friends and thinking nobody knew about me. But Esther was watching me,” she went on, all happy. “She’s from South Carolina and got a scholarship to go to school up here. Afterward she took a job at my school teaching typing and, like me, English. She came to the department meetings, and I realize now because she was black, I thought she was on loan to English and really belonged in the trades department. She had her Masters in Literature, but the only way she could get a full-time job when she started was to take on the two subjects.” She stopped and looked at me like she’d put on brakes. “I can tell you about Esther for hours.”

  “Tell me the important stuff,” I said, catching her happiness and smiling. “How did you two get together?”

  “It was simple. And very romantic. One day, maybe because I’d decided it was time for some changes in my life, including branching out from Frenchy, I noticed Esther. I was eating with my group in the teacher’s lunchroom and I looked up to see this cherubic woman gazing at me over her sloppy joe with a look of such love and lust I thought she must be daydreaming about her boyfriend. She said later she was so used to me not looking at her that for weeks she hadn’t bothered to hide how she felt. When our eyes met she didn’t turn away. I definitely felt exactly what she was feeling and knew just what she wanted to do about it. The bell rang and I started taking my tray to the trash bin. She’d made me so nervous I dropped everything all over the floor and, of course, there she was helping me pick it all up, brushing me off tenderly, and asking if she could treat me to a pizza for lunch the next day, it would be less damaging to school property. She went on like that for a few minutes — she’s very funny — and we were both late for our classes which turned out to be next door to each other.”

  She took a deep breath. “Of course I’d noticed that she taught her English classes next to me, but it hadn’t registered. When I was too nervous to eat more than one slice of pizza the next day she took me out for dinner too, to make sure I got enough to eat and didn’t break any china. We began to spend all our time between periods talking. I learned to listen to her voice and laughter through the wall. Oh, Mercedes, I can’t tell you what she’s done for me.”

  “You don’t have to. I see it. When can I meet her?”

  “She tries to get away from church early enough on Sundays to come over in the evening. I’m still hoping she’ll make it”

  I worried for a minute. “How will you explain me?”

  Edie laughed that full happy laugh of hers. “I don’t think she’ll be jealous,” she said looking at me wearing her bathrobe and slippers, my face pale and sickly, my hair uncombed.

  “I must smell pretty bad too,” I said, laughing with her. Then I got kind of weepy. “How come she doesn’t live with you? I wouldn’t pass up a chance like this for anything. Your house is so — I don’t know... warm. Last night, going to sleep, it felt full of nice old ghosts who were all smiley and kind. You know?”

  “I know exactly. They weren’t like that when my parents were living. Or for a while after that. As soon as I listened to one of them and acknowledged her good advice, they all seemed to come alive and be as helpful as all get out. You know, sometimes I can’t help but wonder if they didn’t create Esther for me, to bring me happiness.”

  I was as serious as she was. “Maybe not that, but I’m sure they told you to notice her when you didn’t for so long.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re probably right. Have you ever known any ghosts?”

  “When I was a kid there was this woman who ran a religious shop in my neighborhood. She told me a lot about ghosts so I wasn’t afraid of them. An espiritista, my family called the old woman. She sold all this religious stuff, crosses and like that, but you could get other kinds of things. Things I promised her I’d never tell anybody about. She said I’d use them myself when I was ready, but, you know, I think I’ve forgotten all of them.”

  “That’s too bad. Here I was hoping you could teach me a secret or two!”

  “She had a crystal ball, too. She really did. All the old women would consult with her and if I was hanging around I got to watch the front of the shop. The old ladies, they would come out of the back room smiling or crying, talking to themselves, and I’d be real proud I worked for the woman who told the future.”

  “Did she ever tell yours?”

  “Not from the ball. She said I was too young. I don’t know if that meant she couldn’t or wouldn’t. She was probably afraid because my parents were so American, you know? They talked English at home and didn’t want me to talk Spanish. They dressed to fit in downtown instead of where we lived. They didn’t go to the neighborhood church. If my father hadn’t died so soon I’d probably be living next door to you!”

  “When did he die?”

  “I was nine, ten. And I was the oldest. My mother had five of us, plus she used to work. But my father, he had three jobs, trying to save money to live in a little better place, to send us to college. Killed himself trying, I guess. My mother couldn’t make it even though she started working two jobs. Just couldn’t earn enough. We started to run through the savings. She started getting tired. Without my father’s help she had to turn more and more to the rest of the family, the more old-fashioned people who followed us over. Pretty soon we were just another big poor Puerto Rican family. And worse off than some of them because my mother didn’t have a boyfriend. She was waiting for another good husband with money and ambitions. What man like that would marry five kids?” I was shaking my head, remembering how hard it had been to go from being special a
nd different to being laughed at because we were being brought down to our real size. “The neighborhood helped us, sure, but you could tell it was because now we weren’t any better than them, there was nothing wrong with them after all. But I’m talking your head off,” I apologized.

  “No!” Edie said. “Go on. I’m interested. It’s so much like my parents’ story, only, as you can see, my father didn’t die till he got where he wanted to be. Or at least close to it. And besides, I was an only child. It wasn’t much different for Jews than for Puerto Ricans. Only instead of espiritistas we had rabbis, Talmudic scholars. The women would talk of dybbuks, our spirits, and other unearthly things, but it was the men who had all the religious say.”

  “I never understood why these same women who came to the shop also went to Church. Didn’t they see the two didn’t go together?”

  Edie nodded. “Of course they did. They were afraid. The men said theirs was the right way to be religious. I wonder if any of our women had powers like your shopkeeper’s and why they stopped using the powers if they did. Maybe, after World War II, they thought they had to give them up to be in America. Or maybe the Nazis killed off anyone like that first.” She shook herself and stood. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, it tastes better than coffee today.”

  “I’m really enjoying talking to you,” Edie said as she took cups down. “I can’t talk to Frenchy like this. She’s so superficial most of the time. Interested in clothes and who’s going with whom and the movies she’s seen. She never talks about herself, as if she didn’t have a self. Never wants to hear much about me. Esther is much easier to talk to than Frenchy, even though our backgrounds are so different.”

  “Frenchy’s gay,” I said.

  “Well, I know that.”

  “But, I mean, that’s all of her: her past, her future.” I wondered why I was defending the girl. “She can only go as deep as gay is. And because of how we live, that’s not very deep.”