by Della Martin
"What the hell's with the pounding?" Rags was no bigger than Violet, but the tough bass sound was enormous.
"Sweetie, meet this real good friend a mine. Lon Harris."
Unsmiling, Rags nodded. "Hiya, Lon."
Lon responded, "Hi!" And apparently being Violet's "good friend" meant open sesame. Friend and proprietress led Lon into the smoke-blue dimness. Lon blinked at the strangeness of the scene.
Rags hurried ahead, circling behind the long, home-built bar. She had been interrupted apparently, by Violet's hammering. But now she backed the girl Lon judged to be a barmaid-partner against a chipped and dented bottle cooler. Grimly, she clasped the taller girl in her arms. Kissed her as though it were a life-death matter. Lon watched, something forbidden stirring inside her. "Our kind of kids," Violet had said. "Our kind of kids!"
Violet led Lon to the far end of the bar. She pounded amiably on the linoleum top. "Hey, quit makin' out. How's about some service?"
The girl in Rags's stranglehold laughed and pushed herself free. "That's what I'm getting! Break it up, honey. Vi wants a drink."
She came to their end of the bar, and Lon was introduced to "a real swell kid—Betty." Betty from out of a black-and-white movie; colorless, pale, like shoots that spring up from under sidewalks.
"We need a couple beers," Violet told her. "How 'bout that, Lon?"
"Right," Lon said. Using a ruggedly deep voice that came instinctively because she knew it would sound right. Betty took two brown bottles from the cooler, popped them open with a church key and set them on the bar.
"Most of the kids are in the other room," Violet said, swigging. "I'll go see if I c'n find us a table."
She wriggled her way toward the opening in the divided wall, stopping to scream, "Hi, doll!" to a girl in fly-front slacks and white T-shirt, Lon's size. And Violet hugged another girl, a pug-faced peroxide blonde. Violet shrieked, "Sweetie-eee!" at another group and made her sensuous way to the rope curtains that divided the barroom from the room in which the shadow-forms of kids danced to a recording of Lonely Street. The kids, the kids... Violet glanced over her shoulder once to wink at Lon, to let her know, it seemed, that she knew the kids and the kids knew her and weren't they all having the craziest time? Like Eddie, thought Lon. Eddie going to Disneyland with the family after having gone before with the Cubs—anxious to point out the sights and let everyone know in a loud voice that he had been there before. Like a queer lavender Elsa Maxwell, Violet greeted the loved and the unloved, the staked and the cruising, disappearing finally into the packed room where the shadow-shapes clung to each other. Now she was singing in unison with the record: "Perhaps upon that Lonely Street, there's someone such as I..."
Lon sipped beer. Sipped the new bitter taste and marveled at the way dry palm fronds and a raffia backing on the bar had given an exotic air to a cement-block garage.
Someone had painted a Hawaiian hula scene on the wall above the bar. Someone had sketched a likeness of Rags on the opposite wall, and had framed it with bamboo. This is the way the clubhouse will look. This is the way we'll fix up the recreation hall on the Island! She swigged from the bottle again, mellowing with the sense of a long-gone traveler at last arrived home. For the threesome at the other end of the bar were not unlike the traveler she had seen in mirrors, her own self.
They wore tan peggers, nonchalantly unpressed. Two in plaid flannel shirts, one sharper in an open-throated white job with a turquoise sweater vest. Lon envied them the clipped haircuts, the strong scrubbed faces. And ignored the lazy eyes and droop-cornered mouths.
"I still claim you owe me two-bits," one argued.
"The hell you say."
"You remember that girl, right here at this bar?”
"Oh, Jesus, yes."
"You bet me a quarter I couldn't make her.”
"You didn't.”
"Oh, didn't I?”
"I'll be damned."
"I've got a witness." The first of them turned to the silent one. "Did I make her, Chuck?"
"If you don't know, I'm not gonna tell you."
They roared at this and then the loser paid her bill. "Here's your goddam quarter. Just tell me one thing. Was she butch or fem? Christ, I couldn't tell!"
"Smorgasbord. By the time she went home I wasn't sure which I was!" Eyebrows wriggled up and down, implying secrets that could not be unveiled. Regular guys, remembering a girl and laughing it up. Regular guys, flicking kitchen matches with their thumbnails for a light, burrowing hands in the front-zipped pants for a crushed cigarette pack and belting each other in the back to punctuate a bellylaugh. Regular guys, and less than twenty years before, unknowing nurses had checked the wrong box on the hospital form that offered only Male and Female. For perhaps the choice was incomplete.
Halfway through the brown bottle, Violet came back. "I got a place at their table. This girl, kid—Jeez, she's society an' everything. Boy, would I like to get next to her. She's here with some crazy dark one. I hate t' say this, but this girl, wow, is she sharp." Violet spilled the words breathlessly. "I got a spot at their table. Pray for me, kid." Leading Lon from the bar toward the curtained room, frenzied with her dim hope of a conquest that escaped Lon. "Make out like I'm your girl. Act real nuts about me."
They wove their way through the dancers. Pretty girls and crones at sixteen, old hands and neophytes, insatiable and satiated; Lon saw them in the darkened room where dreams were woven, seeing through the untutored, all-sensing eyes of the young, the clip-haired butches who looked as she herself must look, yet knowing the purpose of their maleness, shuffling to the agonized cry—"Where's this place called Lonely Street?" Big, brawl-sized butches and tiny Napoleons, out to prove to the world: we are not small; we matter, we count! Hands clutching their partners as though someone might doubt their talents to possess, hip grinding hip.
And Lon heard, through the unplugged ears of the young, their spicy, pungent talk, as she tacked her way through the crowd:
". . . took ourselves out on the lawn and I mean, almost froze..."
". . . told that witch, in the future you keep your hands off my girl. Fun is fun and I'm no prude, but I've got my standards, honey..."
". . . Okay, okay, we'll go home. I said we'll go home. Okay, so you can't stand to see me have a little fun..."
And the shriek with its aftermath of hilarious commotion; somebody gagging somebody, everyone game for one more laugh.
Lon saw and heard with the inner awareness that transcends callow ignorance, linking phrase and gesture. So that she knew why they danced with such gay desperation, why they gathered here where a green door barred the inquisitors of that other world with a sign that warned and pleaded: MEMBERS ONLY. And Lon sympathized with the unclassified kids who needed a place "to dance." For she was of them, so must be with them and for them. Of them, and belonging to their secret.
* * *
Four perspiring bottles graced the redwood picnic table provided by the limited budget of The 28%. Side by side on one of the benches, Lon and Violet faced a twosome conspicuous not only by their post-nineteen maturity but by the vivid contrast of their coloring. Violet had introduced them as Sassy Gregg and Mavis.
The Amazon's pale-yellow hair fell in short careless waves over the wide brow of a face once deeply tanned, now faded. It was a face with the unravaged ruggedness of one who has enjoyed the outdoors in solid comfort: playing dedicated tennis, perhaps, or swimming lengths of a country club pool. Her features were carefully spaced, her grey-blue eyes unflinchingly direct. And the simplicity of her tailored shirt and slacks spoke quietly of elegance. Any doubt of her affluence was erased by the wide bracelet clamping the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt and the matching wide belt-buckle of hand-wrought silver and Mexican lava. Her nickname, Lon suspected, was backwash from early childhood; Sassy looked and behaved like anything but her name. A few of her yawns were deliberate; the rest seemed genuine enough.
Violet was tying herself into tortured knots in a pathetic attempt to
impress the girl. "Honest to God, I think it's terrif about you went ta collidge. Even if you on'y specialized in gym. Ain't that what you mean by P. E.?"
Sassy's gray eyes reflected more boredom than amusement. "Yes. I majored in physical education."
"Yeah, but along with that you had ta read up on other subjecks. I'm that same way. Books! Jeez, I read 'em by the carload. Anything that has t' do with education, or if it's artistical, it makes me flip." She reached over to squeeze Lon's hand in a show of familiarity and Lon flinched.
Sassy Gregg broke her cool reserve to wink subtly and knowingly at Lon. Who smiled a vague response to the compliment, grateful that Sassy was not seeing them as a pair.
Violet chattered on, parading her concept of intellectuality, and the analytical eyes of the older girl veiled with a patronizing contempt. Lon turned her attention to Sassy's friend. "Did you go to U.C.L.A. with Sassy?"
The colored girl spoke with a joyless calm. "No, we met this place I work. Used to come round, hear me play jazz piano. Come with 'er fiancé."
Lon had missed the sparkle on Sassy's powerful hand. "Oh, sure. She's engaged."
Mavis smirked. "Reason why escape me jus' now."
Lon stared at the girl, silent while Betty brought fresh beers all around and Sassy wrangled with Violet over the two-dollar honors. Lon had never exchanged words with a Negro before—nor gazed at enigma that surpassed mere physical beauty. Mavis was slight, loose-limbed, the cafe-au-lait flesh pulled tightly over bone structure well defined. Yet it was not the effortless grace with which she moved the languid wrists, floated the slender fingers when she talked. And not the uninterrupted sweep of features, from broad, intelligent forehead past high-rising cheekbones, downward below the cherry-tinted mouth to the defiant little chin. It was in the line of blue-black hair drawn rigid to the coiled bun from which black wisps played with the back of her neck. And in the fierce pride of distended nostrils, the Negroid nose. There, and in the regal tilt of her head, the impassable curtain of velvet black eyes. Eyes almond-shaped and weary from too much seen. If she rose, Lon knew, she would walk with a haughty bearing; Lon knew this with an unassailable certainty. Born to be a Second High Priestess, born to murmur the rhythmic incantations, weave the lithe body on nights when the sky is moonless and the sea beats the time for our chant. Lon dropped her eyes unconsciously to the heavy, snobbish breasts.
"You takin' style notes? You analyzin' my dress?"
Embarrassed, Lon shook her head. "No—I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
What could be seen of Mavis's dress was dull black and shapeless. Lon lifted the second bottle, drinking back the chagrin.
"This dress what you call a saque," Mavis said tonelessly. "Been with me a long time. Man, couple years back the modistes caught up with me. But I pass 'em up again. Now nobody in style but me!" Flashing a snowflake grin, the whiteness melting into brown repose. "Sassy say I look beat. Them beat cats jus' catchin' up with me, too. I beat befo' they latch on Zen. Long befo' they pick up on Gide. Baby, I beat from awa-a-y back. An' don't need to make some cafe expresso scene provin' it."
Now Lon faced the new bewilderment. Mavis fluctuated between a cultured enunciation and what seemed to be deliberate parody of minstrel show dialect. Finding courage in swallows of the tart beer, she said, "You sound like you know a lot. But you don't talk like—" And stammering in the self-induced confusion, "You perplex me!"
Mavis lifted a cigarette from Sassy's case, lying on the table between them. "Trouble is, you tryin' put me in some peg-hole. Baby, go 'head an' crucify me. Go 'head an' vilify me. But don't go messin' 'round tryin' to classify me! I one thing now. Tomorrow I gonna be something else."
"Don't you want anyone to know how sharp you are?”
Sucking in the blue smoke, Mavis said, "That way I get me invited into white-color brain circles. Them folks can go home, tell they neighbors they had tea with a colored gal could quote Spinoza. Big deal! Man, I take a good ole-fashioned down-South nigger-hater over them kind." Then, staring into the dim haze, "I talk my way. I read about some decadent French cats, that Proust talk. Read about some festerin', slime-ooze creeps down South, that Faulkner talk. Ain't for me." And in a sudden spurt of animation, the heat of white-hot, white-directed resentment burned like the tip of her cigarette. "Mavis talk. That all you ever gonna get from me!"
The juke broke out with Poison Ivy. And Sassy, obviously bored with the pressure of being impressed, lifted her brows at the Violet kid. "Dance?"
"Crazy!" Violet wrinkled the little round nose, laughed her delight.
Sassy was even taller than Lon had suspected. The statuesque and the stubby left the table to jiggle their way into the moving crowd.
An alien excitement fell over Lon. Alone with brown Mavis and too tense to express what had lain dormant in her, Lon tried to force herself. Now, now, when at long last the closed doors had strangely opened to her. Feebly offering, "I've never known anyone named Mavis. Mavis what?"
"Jus' Mavis."
"Everybody has a last name."
"Some born without 'em. Some lose the right to use 'em."
Lon sensed that she had treaded on shaky ground. And began again. "You said you play the piano."
"Yea-ah, Sassy got this Knabe grand. Used to be jus' furniture in that fancy pad where she live. That big ole piano cryin' its gut out f'lonesome till I come by."
"I thought you said she used to go somewhere to hear you play."
"Ruggio's. Baby, I play in more pi-ano bars 'n' you got years. That the last place I play before I git unemployed. Ruggio, he tie the can to me."
"Why?" Asking it indignantly, marking the faceless Ruggio a sworn enemy.
"Oh, couple gay gals start hangin' 'round. Ruggio don't want that. I tip these gals, but that don't stop 'em comin' on, comin' on, requestin' I play this numbah 'n' that numbah. Till one night he blow his stack. I gotta git!"
"But it wasn't your fault, was it? Just because he didn't like..." Lon swallowed the hard core taking form in her throat. "Were they girls like these?" Gesturing to indicate the dancers.
"Man, they don't come no gayer. These gals, they both on the make. They wear a big neon sign keep flashin' what they is. Same as these cats you seein' now." Mavis dragged deeply, exhaled, cooled the smoke with draughts from the brown bottle. "I say one thing 'bout you. You look the same. But you diff'runt. You don't wait till Sass leave the table, 'nen make a pass. Too young? Too chicken?" She laughed shortly. "I perplex you? Well, you perplex me!"
The dark eyes mocked, then softened as Lon looked to the beer-wet redwood. Lon lifted her face at last to drink, thirsty swallows, drowning her lack of understanding. And still knowing. Knowing that you can belong and not belong, knowing how much and how little she knew. Until Mavis, wearying, it seemed, of the jazz-man, end-man jargon, dropped her cigarette to the concrete floor, bent to grind it under her heel and spoke with the precise diction of a speech-department pedant. "Sassy happened to be at Ruggio's the night he fired me. Strangely enough, she had come alone that night for the first time. And I could have called the agent who booked me. Complained to the union. But I was beat. You know? Sassy's folks were in Hawaii. Like when people find themselves in Pittsburgh—it's raining—it's a drag, so they get married. Later they ask themselves why." She laughed again, the quick-dying jab of laughter. Amused by her story? More likely getting a laugh from Lon's stunned reaction to the abrupt change in delivery. "Sassy's got no imagination. You see, I have this dark skin. Types me with people like her folks. So we meet this housekeeper at the door. Sassy's got one idea. I'm the new maid. Trite, but that does it! I'm still living there, making with the dustpans. Fractures me, watching Sassy cover up for the way I do a bed. It's a funny hype."
"But you can work in some other night club. Why do you want to—to lower yourself that way?"
Almond eyes explored the table with a soft melancholy. And Mavis echoed again her cotton-patch talk. "Sass an' me, sometimes we dig each othah. Got a fine piano there. Got books.
Don' know, baby. That butch needs me bad. Jus' don' know."
"You mean you're going to stay there?"
"Toss-up. Do I leave Sassy, or do she tell me leave? Don't look now like Sassy's evah goin' let up, but hard tellin'." Mavis shrugged an indifferent shoulder. "Don' nuthin' last."
"I've thought about that a lot," Lon said. The cold beer warming her inside, the words coming easily now. "I've thought about a place where people weren't always—spoiling things for each other."
"Keep tellin', baby."
"A place where—people leave you alone. I mean, where they aren't always stopping you from doing what you want to do."
"Fine place," Mavis encouraged. Picking up her rhythm from the juke.
"I decided it would have to be—well, an island.”
"Now yo' makin' sense!"
"Somewhere in the Pacific." And bursting like a bag of popcorn at the dusky girl's approval, "I've never told anyone, but I have it all planned."
"Swingin'!"
"Everybody could do whatever they enjoy doing."
'Take me at once to yo' leadah!"
"I'd... temporarily, at least, I'd be in charge. Because I know all the plans. I'm doing all the preliminary work."
"It figures, baby."
Then, with the beer and the beat drowning out, hammering down the earlier timidity, "Mavis, how would you like to be the Second High Priestess? If this thing really goes through, there has to be somebody ... I mean, I have all these chants written down. Really weird and... exotic. Do you think you'd...?"