What’s Happening? (2 page)

“That's a nice little group you have.”

“Yeah. They're fun most of the time.”

“You mean, like sometimes it gets to be a hassle?”

“Yeah, … well, it's all right. Just sometimes it's not.” Laura fell silent. She lowered her head, then glanced across the room. Her eyes roamed the room watching other people, glimpsing at Bill only occasionally through uplifted, frightened eyes. She scrutinized the medal Bill wore around his neck. Bill sipped at his beer. Laura still stared at his medal.

“Want to dance?” Bill asked to break the tense silence.

“No. I don't dance much. What's this?” She prodded the bright, silver medal.

“It's Saint Christopher. He protects me, like when I'm in the car.”

“Are you Catholic?” She looked at him meekly from the corners of her eyes.

Bill, somewhat perplexed, nodded.

“That's good. I'm Catholic too.” An embarrassed smile flickered across her mouth.

More than perplexed now, he asked, “What's so good about me being Catholic?”

“You don't meet many Catholics down here. If they are they don't say so anyway,” she surrendered.

“I'm not the best Catholic in the world.” He smiled a little with embarrassment.

“Oh, that's all right. It doesn't matter anyway.”

“Well, I'm glad we met each other,” Bill said in an attempt to turn the onrushing silence. He tried to peer beyond her face, into her eyes. Laura looked at him furtively, conscious of his stare. She stood upright in place, her eyes frantically scanning the dim room.

“Hey, Bob! … Bob!” she called to a fellow across the room. “Wait a minute. I'll be right back … in a minute … okay?” Laura asked Bill, her eyes searching his face. Without waiting for an answer, she turned toward the other side of the room.

“Sure, sure, … go ahead.”

Laura scampered through a maze of people and chairs. Bill watched the little figure squeeze between the chairs and saw her start to speak to a fellow on the other side of the room. She glanced back as she spoke. Bill turned back to his beer and the group of people he didn't know. They were sitting in various attitudes of relaxation. On Bill's left, a bearded Negro wearing smoked glasses watched the dancers and listened to the music. A large, round, copper medallion hung from a thong around his neck. He beat the table in rhythm with the drummer on the stage, chanting softly, “bam, bam, ba, ba, bam, ba …” Occasionally he looked around the room at the other people or lifted his sip of beer and feigned drinking, perhaps to appease his own feelings.

“Say, man, you got a match?” Bill asked, an unlit cigarette between his lips.

“No, man, sorry.” He didn't turn his gaze from the stage. “Bam, bam, ba …”

Bill looked across the table. “Say, Jeannie, you got a match?”

Jeannie turned and looked at him. “No, … sorry. You have a match, Josh?” she asked her Negro companion. His head was completely shaved and smooth. A small square of gold pierced the lobe of his right ear. He tapped his pants pockets under the table.

“No. I'm sorry, I don't,” he said through mobile, thick lips.

“Well, I guess I go without a smoke. Thanks anyway.” Bill smiled absently.

The drum beats rose to a crescendo, flying up from the background again, filling the room with their explosion. Suddenly, the air was still. Another beat; three more rapid beats and the music ended. The murmur rose again from the dark depths of the room.

“Yeah! Yeah!” the darkly bespectacled Negro on Bill's left shouted as he applauded. “Man, those cats can really wail, can't they?” he remarked to no one in particular.

“Yeah, they really move,” Bill replied.

“Hello, lean one. I'm glad you waited,” a female voice close behind Bill said softly.

He turned. Rita's eyes studied his face. He thought her long black hair and fair skin were a contrast in loveliness.

“Hey!” He smiled. “I almost forgot we had a big thing going. You were gone a long time.”

“Don't worry, I didn't forget us.” She smiled and sat down.

“You dance pretty wild. You a dancer?”

“No.” She was pleased. “I go to acting class, but like all the cats that I hang around with are dancers. You know, I sort of pick it up.”

“Very smooth indeed. This is a pretty nice place here, you know?” He looked around the club. “It's kind of groovy—it jumps.”

“It's all right. It gets to be a little much after a while … the same things, the same faces all the time.”

“Hey, man, dig these cats cuttin' loose on the floor,” the bespectacled Negro on Bill's left called loudly. He nodded toward the dance floor. Bill and Rita looked up. A couple was writhing to the music. The male partner had long, curly blond hair that fell over his forehead as he danced. He snapped his curls back into place with a gentle flick of his head. He wore olive pants, sandals, no socks, and a boat-neck, sleeveless shirt. He danced with a dumpy, bespectacled Negro girl. She wore a pair of pedal-pusher pants and a sailor cap with the brim turned down all around so that it looked like a white football helmet. Her blouse was coming out of her pants as the two of them bounced and swayed and twirled to the brassy music. He twirled and twisted on his toes, kicking his legs, quickly and snappily, high into the air. His face was stiffened into haughty indifference, save that he glowed as the laughing crowd jeered him on. The girl bounced and twisted, a far-off look in her eye. She was just somewhere, bouncing up and down, not really knowing or caring exactly where. The blond smiled broadly as an extra high kick was greeted by extra loud applause. The crowd laughed even louder, moving the blond to almost frantic twisting and bouncing.

“Real crazy dance,” howled Rita, her face shattered with laughter.

Bill laughed too. The entire theatre crackled with the noise of laughing.

The music ended and the blond jumped up, landing on the floor in a split, his arms outstretched. The revelers at the tables began to sway convulsively with increased laughter. Tears of mirth escaped Rita's eyes. One girl, doubled with laughter, fell from her chair onto the floor. The colored girl gave her blond dancing partner a helping hand and they walked back to their table in the shadows accompanied by laughter and applause.

“Is that one of your dancing friends?” asked Bill, still laughing.

“No. I don't know that couk. First time I ever saw him,” Rita answered, the laughter in her voice fading. “Josh is a dancer.” She nodded toward Jeannie's shaven-headed friend.

“I thought he looked like a dancer. I don't know why. You know, it's just that sometimes it comes through, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Lots of times people come through. You know.” She spoke suddenly more slowly and seriously, reflecting on Bill, studying his face. It was a friendly, pleasant face, she thought. “… You don't come through though. You know, like you don't come through with any emotion in your face at all. Like it's a wall and I can't see on the other side.” As she spoke, she wondered what Bill thought about her; if he thought she was nice.

“That's good,” Bill said flatly. “It protects my feelings from the God damn world so nobody can step on them. Everybody else does it, don't they? Nobody shows the real picture of themselves. They put on a show of what they want to be.”

She understood what he was saying, and the understanding of his bitterness made her want him to know she understood. She wanted to communicate their “sympatico.”

“You're not like that, though, like other people. … I don't know, maybe you are, but you don't seem like that. You seem different from the rest of
people
. I don't know how to explain it but …” She looked at him lingeringly, her eyes warm and understanding.

“Yeah, but like when I put on a blank wall I'm not trying to fool myself, you know? I'm trying to fool other people. This way no one knows what's going on inside, you know? Like I can be myself but nobody knows about it. I can play bits without anyone knowing what's coming off. Nobody can hurt my secret feelings, laugh or mock them.”

They each moved their chair closer to the other, smiling at the coincidence.

“But that's just it. When you do want to get through to a person you don't.”

They stared into each other's eyes. A deeper, poignant meaning loomed behind their eyes and their words. The conversation was becoming charged with unspoken meaning.

“Look,” Bill explained seriously, “when I want to get through to somebody I tell them. That's a big thing with me. I like to be frank and say exactly what I mean.” He groped for a more tangible reaction on her part to the underlying excitement in their physical communication.

“Rita! Rita!” called Jeannie. “We're going to Dani's for coffee. You coming?”

“You want to go for coffee?” Rita asked Bill. Their eyes met and she was asking him with her flickering eyes too.

“Baby, I just want to be with you,” he answered softly. “I'm not much on coffee anyway.”

She looked at him, still studying, a slight pleased smile warming her mouth. “No. We're going to stay for a while.”

“Okay. See you later.”

Jeannie and Josh walked to the exit. Bill and Rita watched them. Now Rita turned back and their eyes met again, sparklingly aware of each other. The sounds of drums and people faded … time lingered … silently, … and now Rita smiled a little, mysteriously.

“So, you were saying you like to be frank.”

“Yeah.…” Bill took a matchbook from Rita's hand and elaborately lit a bolstering cigarette. He shook the match, blew out a spume of smoke, and returned the matches to her hand. Her skin was warm and smooth to his touch. He grasped her hand, studied the deep lines in the palm, then looked up, peering at her intently, continuing to press her hand in his. “It's the best way to say what you mean.” He scanned her face for a lead.

“I like people to be frank and come right out and say what they mean,” Rita said leadingly.

Both were thinking furiously, belying an imposed outer calm. Neither wanted to make the first thrust, yet both wanted to pursue the conversation further.

“You're pretty frank,” he commented.

“Why don't you be frank?”

“Okay, let's be frank. I dig you. I don't know you, and you don't know me, … but I like you, and I figure you might like me, … and why don't we get to know each other better?”

“That's a good suggestion. Anything else?” She probed further.

“What else is there? Maybe you can suggest something.”

She smiled as they stared. She was not talking now. Not being able to think of what to say, Rita waited for Bill to speak.

“Well, …” Bill said finally, forced to take the lead boldly. He averted his eyes to stare over her head at the wall. “I don't think there's a better way of getting to know anyone than by … well, … by … er … ah … going to bed with them. So like why don't we sort of start getting acquainted real well tonight?” He fired this last at her quickly, watching her eyes for a reaction. She didn't bolt. She looked at him, the soft smile lingering on her mouth. She just looked, her eyes staring deeply.

“I was frank with you. Now you be frank with me. Wha' da ya say?” he persisted.

And still she didn't answer. This was—in cold, hard language—what she had rightly anticipated. And she didn't answer. She had known it was coming and she wanted to answer, but her throat was parched; she tried to swallow a sandy lump in her throat. She couldn't answer! Her thoughts were confused. She had run away from her overbearing, propriety-bridled home to be able to stand on her own feet and do what she felt she had to do. She had flown the coop to become an adult, make her own decisions, be her own master, but inside, an unsure, frightening apprehension filled her with a quivering unsureness. She wished she would awaken someplace else, away from this ordeal, someplace warm and quiet, where she wouldn't have to think, to make this decision. She looked at Bill. She took her hand from his and fingered the matchbook on the table, pensive and indecisive and afraid. She wanted to be a person, not destroy her person, and the ominous forebodings of her decision weighed heavily upon her. She still couldn't swallow.

“Come on now, …” Bill urged. “What are you sitting like a clam for? You're not being very frank. Let's go.”

“Wait a minute.” Everything inside of her sat poised in cold terror. She couldn't decide! But she had to! Here was an invitation to share in life in a big way. Thoughts of adult romance and a man danced within her. These could be hers, now. She would be a woman.
But God, … where does one draw the line between a woman and a whore?
She wasn't a whore. She didn't want to be a whore! She just wanted to be alive.
Oh, God, how did I get into this solitary hell inside my skull? How do I get out?
Was this not why she left home and all the molded, jaded, stagnant regimentation? Life had to be lived, and decisions had to be made, regardless of what people who were too weak to accept the necessity of the bitter with the sweet thought. She had to decide … either yes or no … decide … decide—child or woman … woman or whore—decide … decide … now … now. There was no easy way out. She was stuck. She had to make a decision and abide with it. She yearned to be an adult.

There was no noise of revelers now for Rita, only the sizzling pressure of silence in her ears, the sight of Bill across from her, looking intently into her face, and a millrace of thoughts. Her thoughts of home raised pictures of her family. How stupified, appalled, outraged they would be if they heard this conversation. How they would deny the reality of life … and seek protection behind principles and ideals, unexciting, unsatisfying, yet comforting in their universal acceptance. Familial thoughts and thoughts of blind acceptance of life without understanding angered her.
The hell with it! I've got to stand up by myself
, she screamed within herself, gritting her teeth.
I've got to … got to … got to … even if I'm wrong. I have to make my own mistakes
.