A Drop of Patience

by William Melvin Kelley

  He crushed out his cigarette and knit his fingers, wondering how many more times, and about what, she had lied to him. He wondered whether he could trust her, whether he still loved her. For a moment he felt nothing for her, could have walked from the apartment and into the street as he had done with Etta-Sue. But then that moment passed gently by and he began to think why she had told him such lies: because she loved him and did not want to lose him. She did love him. He was certain. And he loved her. He was certain of that too. And if they loved each other they could be happy, and she would not have to lie. “Come here, Ragan.”

  She came slowly across the room toward him, stopped a few feet away, then came closer. He raised his arms to her. Her hands rested on his shoulders, then she knelt in front of him and slipped her arms around his neck. “I’m sor—”

  His hands moved across her back, across the slick nylon of her blouse, over the elastic, ribs, and snap of her bra. He let his hand rest there. “Marry me, Ragan. It’ll be good.”

  She let him go, pushed back until he could feel her breath on his face. “You have to let me think. I have to be alone. I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing for us and when you’re around I can’t think clearly.”

  He nodded. “I’ll leave you here. I got to go downtown anyway.” This was true. He had to make final arrangements for a date for both him and Hardie, their groups alternating sets. He could have done it by phone, but he would do it in person.

  He kissed her cheek and stood up. “I’ll come back around seven and we’ll go to dinner or something. All right?”

  “Call first, all right?” She was anxious. “Call, so I’ll know when you’re coming. Call at eight.”

  “All right, Ragan.” He did not like the idea, but agreed, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of her feelings.

  He finished his business quickly—they would open the next night—and, having a few hours, went up to a winter-saddened Harlem. His skin burned with the damp wind; his ungloved cane-hand was numb. He stopped in several bars, making his way through murmuring early evening knots of people, through the steamy mixture of beer, perfume and sweat. He asked the time constantly. Finally, at seven minutes to eight, unable to wait any longer, he took down the receiver of a boothless phone, deposited his money, and with his thumb anchored on zero, dialed their number. The phone buzzed twice.

  “Hello?” He did not recognize the voice, and was about to hang up. “Ludlow?” It was the voice of a white woman from New York.

  He covered his other ear. “Yes. Where’s Ragan?” She must have had a friend come to sit with her.

  “Do you remember me?” There was a crackling pause. “You met me, I guess, the same night you met Ragan. Remember?”

  “Sure. Look, where’s Ragan? Can I speak to her?”

  “I’m sorry, Ludlow.”

  “You didn’t do nothing. Let me talk to Ragan.” He was angry. He may have already realized what had happened, may have been hiding behind his rage to avoid the pain of it.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Put her on.”

  “I can’t tell you where. But she’ll—”

  “What you mean you can’t tell me? Put her on, will you?”

  “She’s gone. But she’ll get in touch with you.”

  “Look, where’d she go?”

  “I’m sorry, Ludlow.” She paused. He was putting the receiver on the hook, when she squawked, a long way from his ear now, “Nice talking to you again, Ludlow.”

  He rushed into the street and asked the first person he met to get him a cab. When he arrived home, even Ragan’s friend was gone.

  7

  FOR THE PAST five days a headache had been stalking, circling him. He had waited for Ragan’s call, sitting in their apartment, the smell of their life together still painfully strong in the rooms. When it came time to go to work, he did so reluctantly, certain she would call the apartment while he was out. He realized finally she could just as well call him at work, while he was playing. To make himself easy to find when he was not on the stand, he always sat in a small room, near the kitchen, where the musicians hung their coats.

  “It shouldn’t be long now.” He spoke aloud, though he was alone. “She’ll get her mind straight soon now.” He could feel his clothes, every part of his body where material scraped his flesh. At times, he could even feel the individual threads. Around his ears, the crinkly hair felt like tiny shocks.

  Women wore their clothes far tighter than men—underpants, bras, garter belts and stockings. He wondered if they could feel their clothes. Probably not. Usually he could not even feel his own. He wondered if Ragan, about to pick up the telephone to call him, could feel her clothes. Malveen, a long time ago, must have felt hers. When he had removed her bra, it had left designs on her breasts, small grooves and bumps.

  Ragan had nicer breasts than Malveen, or than Etta-Sue. Ragan’s breasts were not as big as either of theirs, but they fit his hand perfectly.

  That baby might have breasts now. If he remembered correctly she would be eleven next month. Girls of fifteen sometimes had large, well-developed breasts. Perhaps an eleven-year-old girl would have at least hard, tiny breasts.

  Outside, applause boiled over the end of Hardie’s number. After a moment the trombone player started another song. Ludlow listened for a while, trying to decide if he would go outside and take a table. “No.” Hardie was good, and so was his bassist, but his drummer played too loud and his pianist made too many mistakes.

  Perhaps he and Hardie could form a new group. But then he would not know what to do with Reno. Ludlow sounded good with either Reno’s tenor or Hardie’s trombone, but together, the three of them would sound like a sweet society dance band.

  His buttocks were numb, his feet cold, his elbow sore; he had been too long in one position. He shifted, concentrating on the pain in his elbow, then laughed out loud, drowning out Hardie’s playing. “Got to be careful for my elbows. Somebody’s all the time grabbing me by one!” He got up and opened the door to let in Hardie’s solo. Hardie could play the saddest ballad and he would make it happy. That was because Hardie was happy, living in the Bronx, his garden smelling of lilac and roses.

  His elbow was still sore and he rubbed it. “Without my God damn elbows, I wouldn’ta even played with Inez.” His first day in New York, a stranger, a Negro had taken him by the elbow, asked him where he was going, and had volunteered to guide him to the theater in Harlem where Inez Cunningham was working.

  Ludlow’s head was out of the door. To his left, the crashing pots and pans, the clatter of dishes in a steel tub, the jangle of silverware, the screaming waiters distracted him. Guiding himself along the wall, he went toward the kitchen, away from the music, pushed through the smooth-swinging door.

  The crash of dishes seemed to be all around him. “Hey, you clumsy bastard!” A voice came from the floor.

  Ludlow was already yelling. “Keep quiet out here, will you!”

  Silence pressed against his skin, and then, far off, water gushed. For an instant, he shivered beneath a waterfall.

  “Clumsy blind bastard. I got to pay for breakage, you know.” It was only a whisper, from the floor, just above the rattle of dishes.

  “What? Shut up!” Trying to kick out at the voice, he pulled himself off balance, but did not fall down.

  There was some laughter, then grumbling. Footsteps shuffled closer, like the first day at the Home.

  Afraid, he stumbled toward the door, pushed through into the hall. When the wall ended, he turned into the open door of the coatroom and slammed it behind him. He sat down and concentrated on Hardie. The tone was so full that he imagined himself to be in the very bell of the trombone, the brass ringing and shaking around him. Perhaps he would tell Hardie about Ragan; perhaps Hardie could reach her and tell her to call.

  He was thirsty and wanted to go into the
kitchen for a glass of water, but the waiters and cooks would probably not give it to him. He could go to the bar and get a drink; they liked him at the bar. He got up and opened the door, stepped forward, and bumped into someone. “Where you going?—Hey, you don’t look too good.” It was Reno.

  Ignoring the comment, he answered the question. “Getting a drink.” He was not certain he wanted it now. He suddenly craved honey and hard, foreign bread. It would taste like a honeycomb. Once he and Ragan had driven into the country and bought honeycomb. He did not want to think about it. “How long until we play?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Hey, look, you feel sick? Maybe you should—”

  “Mind your own God damn business, will you?” His right hand, knotted into a fist, moved toward Reno’s voice. He tried to stop it, but could not. He missed, his fist dragging him to the opposite wall.

  “What’s wrong with you, Ludlow?”

  His head and stomach seemed to be connected, pain flowing between them. He stumbled toward Reno. “I’m sorry, man. Really. You’re my boy. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Sure, Ludlow. Hey, what’s the trouble?” Reno was confused.

  Perhaps Reno, who had gone to college, would know why Ragan had left. But Ludlow did not have the courage to tell him she was gone, and disguised the question. “Listen, I want to ask you something important.”

  “Go on.” Reno was suspicious.

  “You went to college, right? So what you think white folks want from us?”

  “You serious?”

  “Yeah, I’m serious.”

  Reno began slowly, expecting some kind of joke. “They want us to be what they think we are.” He paused. “Now what that is depends on the particular white man you dealing with. You still with me?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” The boy was making sense.

  “Most of them want to think we’re not dangerous. And that means they don’t want us to be human. Because if I learned anything at all in college, it’s that everybody’s just naturally dangerous.” He was embarrassed. “All right?”

  Ludlow nodded. Reno had just given him the answer. He knew why Ragan had left, knew what he had to do to make her come back. “I don’t feel good, man. I need some air. Could you get me to the door?”

  “Sure, but don’t you think—”

  “Get me to the door, will you please?”

  Reno took his elbow, guided him down the hall and into the club. Hardie was soloing now, building, playing an uptempo blues. He thought about how Hardie had always made white people think he was not at all dangerous. That was why they permitted Hardie to be happy.

  They came to the foot of the stairs leading to the street. “Can you make it alone?”

  Ludlow nodded. “Do me a favor? Wait here to take me back. I’ll only be five minutes?”

  “Sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “No. Things to think about.” He started up the steps, pushed through the door into the cold wind. His nose began to run, his neck was cold. He had forgotten his overcoat. His cane seemed an icicle. He went to his right, reached the corner and went right again. It should be close by now. He put his hand against cold glass, felt his way into a doorway and opened a door. “This a magic store?”

  The clerk’s answer came from behind a radio which played popular violin music. “Yeah?”

  Ludlow closed the door. “You got make-up?”

  The clerk was angry and rushing toward him. “I don’t want you God damn queens in here!”

  Ludlow raised his cane hand. “I mean stage make-up, like they use in minstrel shows. Blackface.” Once, while still with Inez Cunningham, they had appeared on the same bill as a minstrel show. Standing in the wings, he had listened to the cruel jokes, the slurred speech of white men imitating Negroes. “Blackface. That stuff?”

  The clerk was bewildered now. “What’re you—kidding or something?” This must have been part of it too. Some would pretend they did not understand what Ludlow had to do.

  “You got it?”

  “I don’t mean no offense, buddy, but…you don’t need nothing like that.”

  “You got the make-up?”

  “Sure. I didn’t mean nothing.” He circled the counter. A drawer slid open and tins rattled. Then he returned. “This what we got. It’s black as—sin.” He laughed nervously. “No offense meant.”

  Ludlow did not have much time. “How much?”

  The clerk told him the price. “What’s this—some kind of practical joke?”

  Ludlow tossed the money on the glass counter, put the tin of make-up into his pocket, and made his way back to the night club.

  “You shoulda worn a coat, Ludlow.” Reno was concerned.

  “Get me to the room, will you?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” They moved through the crowded club.

  “Nothing. How much time we got now?”

  “Hardie just started his last number.”

  When they reached the head of the hall, Ludlow shook free. “I got to do something in there.” He pointed down the hall. “Don’t come in, all right? And don’t let nobody else come in.”

  “Sure, Ludlow, but—” Reno stopped when he started down the hallway. Perhaps Ludlow should have been less abrupt. He did not want Reno to worry. Then he might try to stop him, ruining Ludlow’s plan.

  He went into the room and locked the door. He had to get ready. Sitting down, he took the tin of make-up from his pocket and twisted it open and spread it onto his face. It felt like cold hair pomade and smelled like a woman’s powder. When he had finished, he stood up and pressed his ear against the door, listening to the last few choruses of Hardie’s number. Applause followed and then Hardie spoke, his voice made deeper and more fuzzy by the microphone:

  “Thank you, folks. I want you to sit by because in about two minutes we’ll have a giant for you, the man who started it all by his-self, Ludlow Washington.” There was applause. “All right. So stick around now, hear? Thank you.”

  Ludlow moved away from the door, shaking his head. He had never been able to speak to an audience like that, so very friendly.

  In the hall, they were whispering. Then they began to knock. “Hey, Ludlow? It’s Hardie. Ludlow?”

  They would try to stop him; he had to keep them away. They did not know how important this was to him. “Hardie? Who else’s out there?”

  “Just me and Reno. You all right?” And then, almost slyly, “Why don’t you open the door?”

  “Hardie? I got a gun. I’m planning to kill myself.” He hoped they believed him. Reno might think he had bought it while he was outside.

  Beyond the door for a moment, there was only the murmuring, glass-clicking audience. Then Hardie again: “Awh, man. What you want to do that for?”

  “You don’t want me to?” He hated doing all this, using Hardie, and what he would have to do in a few moments.

  “No, man. You got to stay alive….How the hell will I know what to play if I can’t copy off you?”

  “I got this gun in my left pocket and I can shoot a hole in my stomach if anybody gets near me.” He found the make-up tin and put it into his left pocket, gripping it tightly. “All I want really is to go outside on stage and play. That’s all. I ain’t planning to hurt nobody. You let me do that?”

  Hardie whispered to Reno. Then: “Yeah, man. All right.”

  “Don’t try nothing, Hardie.”

  “All right, man.”

  He opened the door. “Hello. I won’t hurt nobody.”

  They did not answer; they must be staring at his face. From inside, Ludlow pulled his coat pocket up toward his stomach, and started down the hall. They followed him. “Don’t jump me. I won’t look good with a hole in my stomach.”

  They went into the club and Ludlow climbed the stairs. At the same time that he felt the hot light
s, the audience applauded. He bowed. He went straight to the microphone. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.” He stopped, trying to think of words. There was deep laughter from the back of the room, then several snickers. They had noticed the make-up. Ludlow hunched his shoulders, stuck out his lips, grinned, bowed several more times.

  He began to sweat; his head was throbbing steadily now and he had trouble remembering what he planned to do. “Ain’t out here to play music tonight, folks. No sir!” He tried to make himself sound as ignorant as he could. He was imitating the minstrels. “Going to tell you folks some funny stories and sing some songs.” He waited for laughter; there was less now. “You understand now? Good. You see, I ain’t dangerous. Honest!” Such pleas were against the rules, he knew. He was supposed only to perform. On that basis alone, they would decide if he was dangerous.

  He felt Hardie at his shoulder, whispering. “Come on, man. Don’t make no ass of yourself in front of these white people.”

  Ludlow put his right hand over the microphone. “That’s the point. It’s the only way I can get Ragan back, man.” He turned to the audience again. “Excuse me, folks. Trouble with one of the field niggers.” He laughed. A few joined him, but nervously; he could not understand that.

  “Heard a good joke the other day. Maybe you’d like it. It seems like Sam, the nigger roustabout in a small circus down South, got paid fifty dollars to screw Gertrude, the gorilla, who was the big attraction in the circus. Gertrude was only happy when she was getting screwed, and people only come to the circus when Gertrude was happy. So the first time Sam screwed her, they chained Gertrude down and put a muzzle on her so Sam wouldn’t get all bit up. They also had canvas on the cage so wouldn’t nobody see Sam doing it. That was to save Sam’s pride. So Sam went into the cage and climbed right on her. After a while, the men standing around the cage, they hear Sam screaming and yelling. They rush inside thinking maybe Sam’s in danger. But when they get in there, Sam turns around, pumping away, puffing and blowing, and says, ‘This is the best fuck I ever had! Take off her muzzle! I want to tongue this sweet thing!’ ” He laughed to help them along, then stopped. The room was silent. He had not fooled them.