by John Keene
He peers at the telegram and tries to recall . . . the poet’s face remains an empty screen . . . he met so many people in Mexico City . . . he should consult his notebooks, carbons . . . so much he will never put into print . . . he ponders, which one could this one be . . . the party after Rafael’s, at that apartment . . . not the movie director, not Salvador, but Xavier . . . quickly they loom into view, the immense eyes, hawkish nose . . . wide mouth, glass vase complexion . . . a tiny beautiful thing, almost passarine . . . he is trying to figure out if he will even have a minute to respond . . . should he call anyone else, or meet this man alone . . . the premiere of the play is just over a week away . . . everything that could go wrong already has . . . because of the rich ofay producer-director . . . whose changes have warped his vision . . . into something monstrous, a mess on stage . . . who keeps demanding more of his royalties . . . silence from his drama agent, Rumsey . . . despite his constant appeals . . . maybe he should let Max handle this too . . . he sips his coffee and smiles at Toy . . . his second mother, Em his father . . . his own mother sent a brief letter from Cleveland wishing him well . . . her sincerity and false confidence as evident as her shaky hand . . . the tumor cannibalizing her insides . . . how can he be there and here . . . always the need for more cash . . . how can he even think to write that novel . . . poems keep grinding themselves out of him . . . the trip to Minnesota days ago feels like it took place last century . . . all those students cheering at his words . . . how to bring that world more frequently into view . . . maybe he has mixed this poet up with someone else . . . so many there, such beauty . . . if only he had a Beauty now to listen to him . . . lean on, lie beside as he barely slept . . . black, Mexican, it wouldn’t matter . . . the sunlight crept in though he had only just halted a nightmare . . . the cast on stage performing and the theater empty . . . Jones refusing altogether to pay him . . . critics writing reviews condemning the language and structure . . . he could use the air and light of Central Avenue now . . . the beach and orange groves, those California Negroes . . . even the tenements and singsong patter of his Cleveland and Chicago neighbors . . . he hugs Toy goodbye and heads out . . . more battles at the theater await him . . . he knots his scarf against the October chill . . . feels the telegram folded into fourths atop cards in his jacket pocket . . . the subway platform not so busy at midday . . . the train whining its swift approach . . . he finds a seat in the middle of the car . . . exchanges glances with a silver haired man who winks, slyly . . . shall I make a record of your beauty . . . he extracts a poem tucked inside the script from his portfolio . . . uncaps his pen, begins to mark it up . . . he realizes only as the train slumbers into 34th Street . . . that he has missed his stop. . . .
He spent all of yesterday touring Manhattan . . . first thing after breakfast the ultramodern Chrysler Building and the Empire State fortress . . . both a brisk stroll from the hotel . . . the Independent subway line to Bookstore Row in the Village, Wall Street, Bowling Green . . . the Aquarium at the little fort at the island’s southern tip . . . he walked to the foot of Brooklyn Bridge, imagining Crane’s steps, Whitman’s ferry crossing . . . rang his hotel from a nearby booth to find out if anyone had rung him . . . a cab then train to the Public Library’s main branch on Fifth Avenue . . . trekked up to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center . . . snapped photos, ate a late lunch at an automat . . . sipping a cola and polishing off a bowl of soda crackers and chicken noodle soup . . . watching the patricians and penniless stream past the window . . . on the street he struck up a conversation with a Puerto Rican . . . who gave the names of restaurants to visit in East Harlem . . . a walk east to Madison’s haberdasher shops, where he bought handkerchiefs and a scarf . . . and the Interborough up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . he could only manage the exhibit of Hogarth’s prints . . . so exhausted he stumbled out into the violet street . . . no time left to visit Harlem . . . no messages waiting at his return . . . in the hotel lobby he called a painter friend of Carlos’s . . . to meet for a meal tomorrow . . . he had dinner in his room, began reading . . . through his gathering poems . . . he penned a letter to Salvador but crumpled it . . . thought he might see what lurked out in the darkness . . . signs, stars, blue tattoed letters . . . but slumber gripped him and he was out . . . he returned to his hotel after leaving the chatty Guadalajaran . . . and a Broadway matinee of Porgy and Bess . . . he was searching for the right words to describe it . . . the songs kept pealing deep inside him . . . silence vast and frozen . . . a message from Langston awaited . . . Querido Xavier, deseas cenar conmigo esta noche? . . . he called the number and a woman answered . . . she would pass on his message, for this evening at 7:30 pm . . . he set the clock and lay down . . . at 7 he rose and washed up . . . changed into fresh underwear, shirt, the socks he had hung to dry . . . a pale lavender tie purchased in a store on College Street . . . at 7:25 he headed downstairs . . . expecting to see the American standing there . . . he sat in a comfortable chair and waited . . . he had brought a copy of Maeterlinck’s poems . . . he flipped through, barely reading, as his watch hand spun . . . at 8:04 Langston walked in, palms extended in greeting . . . his face gay and fuller, sporting a mustache . . . he spoke in Spanish, almost formally at first . . . Xavier replied in casual English..apologies upon apologies, there were issues at the theater . . . a dramatic piece beginning in a week . . . too much to explain right now . . . did the visitor want to dine near the hotel . . . go downtown to the Village . . . Xavier suggested Harlem . . . Langston mentioned it was sixty blocks north, but they they could take the train . . . there were restaurants still open . . . he had one in mind in particular . . . if Xavier was game . . . the visitor urged that they take a taxicab . . . he had a little stipend . . . he would pick up the fare . . . the doorman hailed one for them . . . they climbed in and pitched right into conversation . . . Langston asking about the various people he had met last spring . . . the writers, painters, theater . . . the social and political conditions in Mexico . . . he offers some gossip about the celebrities . . . he met in Los Angeles and during his stay in Carmel . . . like the hearthrob Ramón Novarro . . . Xavier describes the experience of Gershwin’s musical . . . he is one of the finest composers, Langston says . . . not a colored man but he has something of us in his soul . . . in no time they reach Harlem . . . where the buildings shrink and the faces brown . . .
At Robert Johnson’s Dixie on 133rd St. they climb out . . . Langston leads his guest into the mid-sized restaurant . . . they cut up in here, he laughs, and I mean cut up . . . Xavier doesn’t understand the idiom but laughs too . . . a fox-faced maître d’ ushers them to a table . . . the dining space is not especially full . . . but all there are, Xavier notes, are black people . . . no one gives him more than a glance, though several greet Langston . . . I have to be on my best behavior, he whispers, grinning . . . though you can get away with quite a bit in here . . . Xavier again fails to grasp what he means but savors that smile . . . the wall of reserve he observed in Mexico City has fallen . . . a bandstand, empty but with some instruments, hunkers off to the side . . . I was trying to think of all the people I want to meet you . . . but I have been so busy with this play and all . . . it is a budding disaster, not that that matters . . . is it on Broadway, Xavier asks . . . yes, at the Vanderbilt, it’s called Mulatto . . . like your poem: “Into my father’s heart to plunge the knife / To gain the utmost freedom that is life” . . . Yes, though there’s a fuller story, actors, the whole deal . . . I’m sure it is
brilliant and I hope to see it . . . If you only knew what they were doing to it . . . but let’s talk about something else, like your studies at Yale . . . they chat about Xavier’s classes . . . his desire not just to write but understand the theory of theater . . . to know drama’s extensive history . . . do they teach you about rich white Southern dictators, who fancy themselves producer-directors . . . Xavier is not sure exactly what or whom Langston means . . . is this the father he wrote the poem about . . . he notices two fey men at a table, observing them . . . Yale is one of the most elite schools, Langston continues . . . they make sure not to let many, really any Negroes in . . . Unsure what to say Xavier sips his water . . . at another table he spots a woman’s leg rising along the line of her table partner, another woman . . . the waiter glides up to take their order . . . a minute more to choose, please . . . Xavier asks questions about Harlem . . . when he’ll be returning to Mexico . . . Langston promises a tour of Harlem and the rest of the city when Xavier comes back . . . the drinks, then the main dishes arrive . . . the meal is passable, but there’s the ambience . . . all the restaurants, like the people up here, are suffering badly . . . Xavier nods, affirming things are tough in Mexico City too . . . we’re still waiting, Langston adds, on President Roosevelt to help us, and I mean us . . . we’ll even take Presidente Cárdenas if he isn’t too busy . . . both laugh and launch into a discussion of poetry . . . the poets of Mexico first, Langston lists all he knows, Cuesta, Gorostiza, Torres Bodet, Ortiz de Montellano . . . then other poets leaving their mark in the Spanish language, Darío, Vallejo, Guillén . . . the Chileans Mistral and Neruda . . . especially the ones committed to the cause of political, economic and social liberation . . . the Contemporáneos are not Communists, Xavier responds, but are quietly striving to transform Mexican literature . . . what does he think of Borges, Langston asks . . . the avant-garde without a political compass can easily become reactionary . . . Xavier assures him there is no danger of this among his group . . . you must read Alfonso Reyes, Gutiérrez Cruz . . . what of the poets of Harlem, of America . . . he has heard of some of the names but not many others . . . Cullen, yes, a master stylist, Douglas Johnson, the powerful McKay . . . Nugent, never heard of him, Bontemps, no, Grimke, Walrond, Brown . . . he withdraws a little notebook and his fountain pen . . . he has to ask Langston to repeat a number of them . . . then the white ones, Crane, why of course, Crane came to Mexico a few years ago . . . Eliot, certainly, so erudite and forbidding . . . Pound, Williams, he is familiar with these, yes, and Bénet, Sandburg, Robinson, Millay . . . Stevens? No. Moore? No. H.D.? No . . . most are politically retrograde . . . the whole passel including Hillyer, Coffin, as well as the Southern Agrarians (though Ransom is a good poet) and the rest not worth mentioning . . . there are poets with far better politics, like Fearing, Rukeyser, Davidman, Beecher . . . does he know any American poets who are of Mexican descent or write in Spanish . . . he will send Xavier some issues of the newer periodicals he has appeared in . . . they talk of Gide, Wilde, Proust . . . through their ideas of poetry . . . what makes it so necessary always . . . especially now, even more than novels or essays . . . like plays it is, Langston says, an immediate and economical way of reaching the masses . . . promoting the ideas that will foster and allow revolution to flourish in society . . . look at the bloody lesson of Mexico, Xavier says . . . one should exercise caution when invoking that term . . . he views poetry’s role and power as more modest . . . poetic language always carries the seed of something revolutionary . . . merely by being a testimony to one’s always complex and difficult interior journeys . . . in language you need to lose yourself . . . to recover yourself . . . yes, Langston says, that too, so true . . . still talking, they finish dinner, another round of drinks . . . Xavier mentions an early train back to New Haven . . . over Langston’s gentle objections he pays the bill . . . the male couple, now openly holding hands at their table, offer familial approval . . . we are not afraid of night..the next one will be my treat . . . they walk down to 125th Street to hail a taxi . . . shoulder to shoulder, fingers grazing . . . Xavier offers to have the cab drop him off . . . then abruptly says why don’t you come back downtown with me . . . have a final nightcap and relax . . . Langston muses a second, then agrees . . . there are places in Times Square where we can get a drink . . . I have a bottle of whiskey in my room . . .
The taxi knifes through the city’s dark canyons . . . the sky glowing blue as a gas flame . . . Xavier presses his thigh into Langston’s . . . they are discussing the options in nightlife . . . if this were a Saturday I would have many places to take you . . . no bullfighters but we have some things almost as delectable . . . Xavier laughs and says not everyone longs for a brute . . . yes, Langston answers, a poet’s touch can do the trick . . . the taxi lets them off right in front of the hotel . . . in the room Xavier takes Langston’s hat, coat and scarf . . . he glimpses himself in the mirror . . . more cold, more fire . . . pours each a little glassfull . . . they sip in silence for a while . . . Langston inspects the room . . . the neatly folded clothes, small pile of books, the sheaf of poems . . . Xavier asks Langston if he is keeping him from anyone . . . no luck in that regard, he responds . . . they pour through my fingers like water . . . Ferdinand, A, C . . . so beautiful, Xavier says to himself, it seems incomprehensible . . . and you, I imagine you have someone back in Mexico City . . . or someone new up in New Haven . . . there is a novio at home, but things are complicated . . . Always, Langston says, the toll you pay for your art . . . he sits down at the desk . . . please don’t read those poems, they aren’t ready . . . ah, but this one is a gem . . . “Somnambulant, asleep and awakened all at once / in silence I roam the submerged city.” . . . That one is titled “Nocturnal Estancias” . . . Nocturnal ranches and stanzas, how intriguing . . . I think my whole next book will be a volume of nocturnes . . . I myself have written so many poems about the night . . . That is where I truly live . . . Xavier pours each another drink, takes off his tie and jacket . . . Tás cansado . . . Sí, un poco . . . It is getting late, Langston says . . . you have an early train and I a long trip back uptown . . . Please, no hurry, finish your drink . . . Langston knocks it back . . . Thank you for a wonderful evening . . . Thank you, and I will be your Virgil through the city next time . . . Xavier passes him his hat and coat . . . they embrace, peck each other’s cheeks . . . He departs . . . Xavier slips out of his remaining clothes . . . packs, sets the alarm clock . . . he notices Langston’s scarf is still on the chair . . . he will mail it to the Emersons’ when he reaches New Haven . . . he finishes off a cigarette, reads one of his poems . . . not so bad, but not yet as good as he wants it . . . climbs into bed, douses the light . . . there is a knock on the door . . . he listens, ignores it . . . it persists . . . he rises . . . cracks it open . . . I’m so sorry, Xavier . . . but I left my scarf here I think . . . please come in . . . it’s just over there . . . Langston enters . . . he does not light the lamp . . . he wants to say something . . . nothing to be said . . . let hunger and instinct guide them . . . in this confusion . . . of bodies, he will show . . . this one is mine . . . slides Langston’s coat from his shoulders . . . the jacket, tie, underpants, shoes . . . his lips on his lips . . . their bodies bare . . . together . . . his chest on his . . . armpits and thighs . . . he guides his hand down there . . . he kneels and tastes . . . his hard sex . . . of salt, silkenness . . . he guides him to the bed . . . they caress, and kiss . . . this mouth is mine . . . he climbs atop him . . . dulce, tan dulce . . . tastes his salt a
gain . . . takes his sex again . . . in that blue darkness . . . spit and sweat . . . satin funk and musk . . . sweetens his tongue . . . opening . . . he takes him in . . . dulce, slowly . . . again . . . a double death . . . ay morenito . . . this mouth is his . . . sweetly, mi ángel . . . fills him . . . the firm grip on his hips . . . nipples, ankles . . . fast now, angel . . . moving together . . . in sync . . . this rhythm . . . of men . . . alone together . . . a blues. . . . fills them . . . he feels him . . . deep inside . . . his soul . . . ay negrito . . . moans . . . this man is his . . . mi amor . . . short breaths . . . as one . . . together . . . sweet fire . . . ay cariño . . . they come . . . to this . . . yes, this . . . this fire . . . together . . . cry sí, este fuego . . . sí . . . sí . . . softly . . . softly . . . they lie . . . beside each other . . . in the crepuscular dark . . . holding tight . . . night pouring in . . . to stir the blueblack shadows . . . somewhere out there dawn . . . on the horizon . . . somewhere out there dawn . . . and trains to New Haven, Harlem . . . the open grave of life, this dying room . . . its waning song . . . will you write a poem . . . about tonight . . . I already have . . . and you . . . I have too . . . who will you give it to . . . you, my angel..and you . . . you, my very own . . . our secret . . . I loved my friend . . . amid this solitude . . . let us roam the night . . . together . . . loving . . . living . . . these blues . . .