Ann Petry

by Ann Petry

  The morning after the second night of beer drinking, of lounging in The Moonbeam, laughing in The Moonbeam, he was polishing the brass rail on the bar, seven-thirty in the morning, and that’s what he was doing.

  Weak Knees said, “The boss wants to see you.”

  “To see me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s he want to see me for? Christ, is he going to send me to the other end of town again to buy a bar of soap or a stick of chewing gum or something? What’s the matter with him lately anyway?”

  “I dunno, Sonny. But he’s kinda mad.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In his office.”

  Link stuck his head inside the office door, they called it the office, though there wasn’t a thing in it but a desk and a chair and a telephone. “Weak Knees said you wanted to see me.”

  “Yeah,” Bill jerked open the drawer of his desk, shoved a pile of papers in it, and watching him Link thought, He always opens the drawer of that desk as though someone had just yelled “Fire” and he was opening an exit door and he shoves it shut the same way, and he jerks doors open and shut the same way.

  Bill said, “You stay out of that beer parlor up the street. You go in there one more time and I’ll come up there and smack you all over the place just as though you were a twobit whore.”

  His mind jumped away from the word whore. He wondered if his face had revealed what he had been thinking about. For weeks now he had been wondering what they were like and how much it cost, and—

  He said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Bill, all the guys—”

  “All but you, Sonny. You stay out of that dump unless you want to be embarrassed.”

  He stayed away from The Moonbeam after that though he deliberately walked past the place, slowing down so that he could look in through the open door; after all Bill couldn’t very well stop him from glancing inside as he went by. He didn’t intend to give Bill the chance to maul him in front of a lot of guys, so he didn’t go in. And always there were the girls in the thin summer dresses, laughing and chattering. He eyed them when he passed them in the street, and a kind of yearning would come over him.

  It seemed to him that this phase, this stage of his life was impossible, hopeless, and that it would never pass. He was always being told that he was too young for this or that; and too old for certain so-called childish pleasure. It wasn’t just Bill either. It was all of them, Bill and Weak Knees and Abbie and F. K. Jackson. They kept him on what Abbie called the straight and narrow path; Bill called it minding your own business; and Weak Knees called it staying away from trouble; and Miss Jackson, who had no handy, easy-to-use categories for right and wrong, spoke in terms of infantile reactions and pulled her glasses up and down on the thin gold chain to which they were attached by a sort of button arrangement pinned to her flat chest.

  And all the time he ached for what Abbie called the Broad Path that leads to Destruction, the Primrose Path. Primroses. Why primroses? He wondered about that, too, and then went back to thinking about girls, girls in thin dresses, whores, whores who sat around in The Moonbeam. Wherein lay the difference? How did you find out about them?

  And so finally he went to China’s Place, the place the guys talked about, that very respectablelooking house that looked like all the other houses on Franklin except that the lights burned late in the windows, and sometimes the lights went out very suddenly, but other than the laughter and the music and the smell of incense, drifting out into the street when the door was opened, there wasn’t anything which told you exactly what went on inside.

  He walked into China’s Place one evening, fairly early, around eight. China, vast, fat, yellow of skin, opened the door, looked him over, smiled at him, said, “Come on in.”

  But once inside she studied him, from head to foot, kept looking at him, until he was so uncomfortable that he started to walk out of the place, without saying anything.

  “Baby, you’re too young,” she said, finally. “I’m an old woman,” licking her lips, tip edge of her tongue, delicately moistening her lips, tip edge of her tongue going in and out. “I’m an old woman,” she said again. “But you wait here in the hall. I’ll be right back.”

  And he believed her. He stood there in the hall, not able to think, excitement mounting in him, excitement and a quiver of fear, and he forced himself to look at the hallway, in which he was standing, right near those dark green velvetylooking curtains behind which China had disappeared, she had pushed the curtain aside, a thick fabric, falling back in place, slowly, deep folds in it, smell of incense, a Buddha on the table, dim light in the hall, and the Buddha right near the curtained doorway, absolute silence, and he believing, waited, not thinking, just waiting.

  Someone pushed the street door open, violently, suddenly.

  Bill said, “Get out of here.”

  He didn’t move. Bill walked toward him, took hold of his arm, twisted it, kept twisting it, so that he had either to bend toward him or resist him by not bending, and resistance meant the bone in his wrist would snap, he could have sworn he felt it give, and so he bent toward him, and the pain that shot up his arm took his breath away.

  He said, “Don’t.”

  Bill said, “Get out of here.”

  And twisted his arm again, and the pain ran up his shoulder into his neck, reached into his spine, and he thought he’s trying to break my back, break my spine, and the dark green curtains moved, and he saw that fat yellow woman standing there watching. He said, “For Christ’s sake, Bill.”

  “What are you waiting for? Get going.”

  In the kitchen of The Last Chance, he sat down at the table, touched his wrist, gingerly, with the tips of his fingers.

  Bill came in and sat on the edge of the kitchen table, swinging one foot back and forth, and he looked at Link so long that Link thought, If there was anything around here in reach, I’d throw it at him.

  He had said, finally, still swinging his foot, back and forth, “I catch you in that whorehouse again, I’ll kill you.”

  Link turned his head away, touched his wrist again, tenderly, with his fingertips and winced.

  “You hear what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  “You better soak that wrist in some hot water,” Bill said, mildly, and stood up.

  The war between them started like that, and it never really ended. He still gave the thing a whirl, now and then. So did Bill.

  Bill was giving it a whirl, now. He said, “You got somethin’ on your mind?”

  “Just the human race, friend. I have complications to straighten out with it. In New York. This afternoon.”

  “Any time you get tired of this job, Bud, all you got to do is say so. You been playing footsie with it for months now. Saturday night is the night all the Dumble Street punks have to swill enough liquor to be able to forget their troubles for the rest of the week. We’d take it kindly if you could bring yourself to stay around and do a little honest labor some Saturday night.”

  Complications, he thought. Stevedore and the lady. Prizefighter and the lady. Both parties white. Sometimes the rich white ladies married the big-muscle white boys, the penniless, body-beautiful white boys. And the marriages wouldn’t work, couldn’t work, because the wenches had too much money, and the penniless muscle men couldn’t control them, couldn’t keep them in line because they didn’t have anything to keep them in line with except the good bones and the long smooth muscles, the fighter’s heart and the dockhand’s vocabulary, and after a while the novelty of the whole thing wore off, the rich white lady called quits, until she ran across another one with bigger muscles, a stronger back.

  But if you were a black barkeep, a black barkeep, and the girl was white, and a multonmillionaire as Weak Knees called the very rich, the filthy rich, the obscenely rich, something so wrong with having millions that there must always be the clearcut,
clearstated word about money being dirty, if you were a black barkeep: Stud.

  “As a matter of fact, pal, and come to think about it,” he said, “I will be here for the late watch tonight. It will take longer to dispose of the body than to actually commit the murder.”

  Part of his mind parroted, I bid two hundred; look at his teeth, make it three hundred; the gentleman says five hundred; look at his muscle, look at his back; the lady says one thousand dollars. Sold to the lady for one thousand dollars. Plantation buck. Stud.

  He had been in love with her, wooed her, won her, thought there was between them that once in a lifetime kind of love. He remembered the snow falling on her hair, on her face, on the tip of her nose, and that he had been filled with tenderness, with a yearning tenderness, known once again what complete and utter surrender was like, felt responsible for her, felt protective toward her, standing on that cold windswept corner in Harlem, Christmas lights everywhere, in store windows, in houses, strung across the streets, yellow, red, blue lights, and that he wanted to marry her, thinking of her as the mother of his children, thinking of a home and a continuing, enduring love, not this all at once and clearly, not clearly, incoherently, illogically, but all of it inside him when he kissed the tip of her nose, and asked her to marry him.

  Bought and sold, he thought. Bought at an auction, sold again at the death of the owner, part of an estate to be disposed of at the death of the owner, along with his horses and cows. Presents. She was always giving him presents. Lisle socks, English imports, and cashmere sweaters, English imports, too, handpainted neckties, first editions, mint condition. Diamond-studded cigarette case. He didn’t even know where the hell it was. Kept man. The wrist watch. Chronometer. Kept man. Stud.

  He took the watch off and laid it down on the bar.

  Weak Knees got up from the table. “Wassamatter, ain’t it workin’?” He leaned over and looked at it. “Hey, Sonny, what’s a watch like that cost?”

  “A piece of your life.” He pushed it toward Weak Knees. “Here, you want it?”

  “You kiddin’, Sonny?”

  “No. You take it. I’m making you a present of it. I’ve got five more just like it.”

  Weak Knees hesitated. “You sure you don’t want this watch?”

  “No. It’s contaminated.”

  “What’s that mean?” Weak Knees poked at it with his forefinger.

  “It means it’s got ‘I cost too much’ written all over it.”

  “I don’t see nothin’ on it.”

  “Such things are in the eyes of the beholder, old man. If you don’t see nothin’ on it then I would say there wasn’t nothin’ on it. So it’s yours.”

  “I can’t take it, Sonny.”

  “If you don’t want it, leave it on the bar and let one of the lushes palm it. Then it’ll end up at Uncle Abraham’s place of exchange. Where it belongs.”

  He parked the car in front of The Hotel, parked the long red Cadillac, custombuilt, red leather upholstery, a thousand gadgets on it, all polished metal, gleaming car, multonmillionaire’s car, right in front of The Hotel.

  His distaste for everything, the girl, the car, The Hotel, everything, himself included, was so great that he looked at the doorman and thought, He ought to be in a zoo, with that longtailed dark red coat flapping around his legs and that permanent fixed purchasable grin on his ape’s face, grin that only changed the shape of his mouth, did not reach to his eyes, eyes keep estimating the contents of pants pockets, automatically and accurately.

  The doorman leaped toward the car, like a kangaroo.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Williams,” he said, smiling, bowing, opening the door with a flourish. “Let me have those keys, Mr. Williams, and I’ll get that trunk open and get those bags out for you. You jus’ go right on in—”

  Camilo said, “Thank you, Ralph.”

  The elevator man said, “Good afternoon,” the instant he saw them, and pushed the button for the eighth floor without having to be told. Regular customers. You always know where they get off, it flatters ’em to be taken automatically and without being told, to the floor where they hold their assignation, it means a bigger, fatter, juicier tip.

  “How are you, John?” Camilo said.

  “Fine, ma’am. Just fine. Nice to have you back again.”

  The elevator creaked and groaned and sighed just as it always did.

  Elevator man all smiles. So was the bellboy who practically met them at the door of the suite with all the pigskin luggage, overnight bags and suitcases, that she had bought and paid for, bellboy all smiles, too, all bought and paid for, too.

  The bellboy said, “It’s good weather to be in the city. Won’t be long before it’s spring. You both been all right?”

  “We’re fine,” she said. “How about you, Roland?”

  “I’m fine, ma’am. Just fine. My mother’s all right too. The doctor you told me to get for her fixed her up good. Her back ain’t bothered her since she went to him.” He was still holding the bags, looking at Camilo with a mixture of awe and gratitude that infuriated Link, his eyes were like the eyes of a setter, soft, liquid, undemanding, humble.

  “We can’t ever thank you, ma’am. Ain’t there somethin’ we can do for you?”

  Camilo’s eyes widened. The incredibly blue, candid, innocent eyes, widening, in surprise. “Why—I—”

  “We been tryin’ to think of somethin’, ma’am, but—”

  Link said, “Okay, Bud. Put the bags down and scram.”

  Roland looked around for the bags, saw that he was still holding them, looked confused and put them down hastily, said, “Oh,” and left quickly.

  Camilo gave Link a long, direct, meaningful glance, and he thought, I’ve seen married women give their husbands that same kind of dirty look and you know that as soon as the door is closed, that the gentleman is going to catch hell and when the gentleman has caught all the hell the lady can throw at him, under the inspiration of the moment, the lady would really go to work on him and when she got through, the gentleman was going to wish that the female had never been dreamed up by whatever Machiavellian intelligence had created females as a means of ensuring the propagation of the species.

  He picked up the bags, all of them, all the pretty cream-colored pigskin bags, and deliberately slammed them down on the floor of the bedroom, heard the clink of glass, and thought, Well, here we go Miss Multonmillionaire.

  “I bet you’ve broken all my little bottles,” she said.

  “You can buy some more.”

  “I can’t buy them here in The Hotel, and besides you’re being awfully rude. What’s the matter?”

  She called it The Hotel, just like the rest of Harlem, easily, casually, taking it for granted that you would know that she was talking about this one particular hotel, not needing to identify it by name. She makes everything hers, he thought. Part of that easy adaptability which he had once liked and admired and even envied in her, and which he now found irritating.

  She owned everything: people, cars, houses, establishing her ownership quickly; she bought bellboys, desk clerks, elevator men, doormen. Bought ’em up fast. Had bought him, too.

  “What’s the matter?” she repeated.

  He wanted to say, I have thought of myself in many ways, called myself many things, but I have never thought of myself as the toy, the plaything, of a rich white woman. Even if this thing between us were over, ended, finished, long since dead and buried and the grass growing over the grave, even then if I had found out who you are, I would still feel as though I had been tricked, used, played with.

  “Link! You’re angry. What have I done? Tell me.”

  “You haven’t done anything.” He took off his jacket, took off the handpainted Bronzini necktie, the shirt from Sulka. “Come on, get in bed.”

  “Why are you acting like this?” she said softly.

  Sh
e put her hand on his arm, and the sweet smell of her perfume seemed to come from her skin, from her hair, smell of nightblooming stock in the moonlight, smell that evoked images of females, roundhipped, globular-breasted, luminous of skin. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

  “I said you were to get in bed.”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t let’s spoil what we had. It was so beautiful and so wonderful—”

  “It’s gone down the drain,” he said savagely, and then forced her down on the bed, something raging inside him, furious now, and enjoying his fury, thinking, Everywhere, everything, even this bed, that first night we came here, the bed was the one provided by The Hotel for people who thought toosoft mattresses were comfortable, were the last word in luxury, and The Hotel knowing that these rooms would be used for assignations, for the consummation of illicit relations between males, beween females, between males and females, for rape, for seduction, sexes arranged and rearranged, mixed up, mismatched, and so charged Waldorf-Astoria prices for thirdrate fourthrate accommodations, but the next night, ah, miracle of wealth, miracle of gun money, miracle of being an heiress, the next night he noticed, only vaguely of course because he was heavenbound, in a state of ecstasy, prolonged and wonderful, the bed was wider, longer, bed with no mounds and hummocks of softness, bed designed by someone who knew what a bed should be like. Kingsize bed. Sheets made to order. Blankets made to order.

  Millionaire’s bed.

  And now, he thought, now, I will get even with you for being rich, for being white, for owning bellboys, for owning one particular bellboy named Roland, Knight of the Bags, for knowing his name, and remembering it, for knowing that the Knight of the Bags had a mother, for helping his mother with your vast unspendable unspeakable fortune.

  Rape her? He couldn’t.

  He got dressed in a hurry, put his shirt on, knotted the Bronzini tie, yanking it, put his jacket on, the jacket she had picked out, made him buy (“We’ll both wear gray flannel”) in a fancy store on Fiftieth Street, and the clerks had eyed them, speculation in their faces, and word must have been passed around because every time he looked up there was another sheepfaced one standing nearby, staring, eyes round, speculative, astonishment on their faces, bewilderment, until finally, he had roared at the sheepfaced one who seemed to be in charge, “Look, mister, I’m not Public Exhibit Number One. That is not yet. Find something for these flunkeys to do, will you?”