What’s Happening? (21 page)

“Can you just see that guy paying a fortune for a new apartment?” Frankie whispered to Jim.

“Yeah, … just about.”

“What the hell?” Frankie exclaimed incredulously. “Jeannie's got a new one now.”

Jeannie was now standing in the doorway between the front room and the middle room with a tall, blond, white fellow who had just wandered into the party.

“Who's the guy?” asked Jim.

“Don't know. Never saw him before.”

Rita and skinny Paul were now sitting on the couch. Johnny, Paul's friend, was sitting on the floor a bit away from Frankie and Jim. He was just sitting, watching the others around him. He noticed Jim Panar looking at him and smiled weakly.

The red-headed artist and the scarecrow began packing their sketch pads and art supplies. They had pads, and racks, and rags, and inks, and were stuffing all of them into two plastic Pan-American Airline overnight bags.

“See that red-headed guy?” Jim asked Frankie.

“You think I'm blind?”

“I saw him about two months ago, you know? It was early in the morning. I was down Washington Square Park and I see a guy sleeping in the fountain. It was empty, no water or anything. That's the guy who was sleeping there—right in the middle of the oval—on the cement. He used one of those bags of his for a pillow.”

“I believe it. What'd'ya say we cut, man? There's no more juice.”

“Oke, … this place is beginning to drag. Not enough chicks either. Where the hell's Laura been?”

“I think she split out of here about an hour ago with some cat. I don't know where the hell she is.”

They stood and walked toward the door.

“So long, Rita,” called Jim.

Rita turned from talking to Paul and said good-night to both of them. Paul flickered a wince of a smile.

Rita turned back to Paul.

“I don't get over here much. I should though. This is a crazy place,” said Paul. He was completely thrilled by his own boldness and daring, the excitement of this adventure. He looked at his buddy and smiled, lifting his eyebrows.

“It's all right,” replied Rita dryly. She was feeling a little reckless and high.

“You've got some crazy parties here, hanh?” His face wrinkled evilly.

“Yeah, … once in a while.” Rita sipped at her drink. “There's always a party somewhere, … something anyway.”

Paul watched Rita drink. His eyes were like hot coals burning through his head as he stared at Rita's Adam's apple bobbing with the drink inside her throat. His mouth twitched a little with excitement. He searched for a place to put his hands. He was conscious of his body; he looked at his feet, his hands. He put his hands under his knee joints. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a single cigarette and lit it; he folded his arms, smiling. He liked to watch Rita drink, 'cause if she were drunk …

“I heard about them parties,” he said with a leer, his eyes darting down to her bust and then over the smoothness of her skirt, pulled taut by the fullness of her thighs. He looked to her face again. “Heard they were kind of wild.”

“Yeah. Got a cigarette?”

He took out his pack without taking his eyes from her and reached it toward her.

“Heard there was a lot of … fucking …?” He articulated the word with a special pleasure and relish. His eyes glistened, studying Rita as he thrilled with naughtiness.

“No more than anywhere else,” Rita replied flatly. She gazed at Paul from under wrinkled brows as he lit her cigarette. There was a wrong note, a clinker, in the way he had said that.

Rita's outer unconcern heightened Paul's lustful excitement.

Rita was beginning to feel the tired letdown after a high soar. She thought that Paul ought to go home so she could go to bed. Most of the other people had already left.

Paul impulsively put his drink on the floor and slid his arm across Rita's stomach, jerking her roughly toward himself. She bolted with surprise, then twisted her shoulders and head away, wedging her arms desperately against his chest, holding herself away from him.

“C'mon, baby,” he hissed through passion-gritted teeth. “Let's get out of here, … I'll show you a good time.”

“Get … the hell … out of … here … you creepy bastard,” she screamed, struggling,…“Go on … get out, you dope.” She was no longer tired or high.

Paul, having begun, pulled her more firmly, more desperately. He wrenched her, trying to bear-hug her to break the lock of her elbow that was holding her away.

“Get out of here, you dirty bastard. Help! … You bastard!” Rita screamed frightenedly as she felt her body being forced, pressed, pulled, closer to Paul's hot, beery breath. He was puffing and snorting, his eyes satanically agleam.

The two fellows lying with the girls on the bed in the bedroom scrambled into the middle room. Their heads pivoted rapidly, looking for the source of the screams.

Johnny, the other tourist, had run into the middle room and now cowered in a corner, hoping the two fellows wouldn't turn around and see him.

Jeannie and two drunks were sitting on the floor of the middle room, looking puzzled, helplessly toward the front room.

Rita gurgled another scream. Paul was audibly straining and panting to get her closer to himself.

The two fellows ran into the front room. They saw Paul and pounced on him, grabbing him by the neck. Rita was struggling to pull away, but Paul held both her hands by the wrist. She twisted from him, and her watery, shining eyes appealed and pleaded with the two fellows. The college kid hauled Paul backwards off the couch by the shoulders while Josh loosened his hands from Rita's wrists. Paul was reaching a climax of ecstacy.

“Don't, … don't,” he pleaded raspingly with the fellows as they dragged him off the couch. His eyes were sealed with lust.

The college kid propped Paul into a standing position. Josh swung his fist viciously into Paul's groin. Paul gasped convulsively for air and toppled to the floor.

Rita, crying and screaming, ran into the middle room. She fell to the floor, her head in Jeannie's lap. Jeannie and the two girls from the bedroom comforted her. Jeannie's two drunken friends watched helplessly.

Josh and the college kid lifted Paul bodily. He was doubled over, gasping for breath, trying desperately to pull some breath in over the pain that didn't allow him to move his lungs or stomach. He couldn't draw a breath. He only rattled a gasp. The two fellows carried him to the door which had been left open when Johnny ran out, and flung him to the floor of the hall. He lay there groaning and squirming.

A door at the end of the hall opened and a man's head stuck out. His hair stood awry where it had been disarranged by a pillow. He peered down the hall through sleep-laden eyes, trying to make out what was happening. He saw Paul lying on the floor and started cursing in Italian. He bit his own finger in anger and slammed his door.

The fellows looked at Paul with loathing, then shut the apartment door. Rita was cursing and moaning and crying. The two other girls stood around, trying to console her. Jeannie had her arms around Rita. The drunks opened the refrigerator, looking for some beer.

“Come on. What the hell? Let's call it a night,” Jeannie announced looking around.

The drunks shrugged. The two couples put on their coats and started to leave.

“Nice party. Thanks,” said one of the drunks as he followed the others out the door.

“Come on you. Let's get out of here before I kill you,” Josh said viciously, bending over Paul who was groaning and rubbing his groin. Josh pulled him to his feet, and helped him walk to the stairs. At the top of the staircase, Josh gave him a shove.

Rita and Jeannie could hear a noise as someone's feet hit the steps, and then there was a crash and a thud, … and then the footsteps of the party-goers as they followed down the stairs.

13

Johnny had dashed from the apartment. He had scaled the steps directly in front of the door, his feet falling lightly on the metal edges so that no one at the waning party could hear him escaping. His only thought had been flight—the roof leading away. He hadn't bothered to consider his next move from the roof.

A scream of pain froze him still as he opened the roof door. He turned and, through the unlit gloom, watched the door of the apartment below. The door was open. He could see only a small section of the floor, nothing more. He heard more screaming and then crying and a man groaning. Two pairs of legs walked toward the door. Johnny's hands perspired nervously; he grasped the handle of the roof door, ready to bolt if anyone from the apartment saw him. He stared, terror-stricken, as two men carried Paul to the door and threw him to the floor outside the apartment. They returned to the apartment and Paul lay on the floor writhing in pain, holding his groin.

Johnny wanted to go down, to help Paul, but the angry voices mixed with crying and cursing in the apartment, and the fear of discovery and a thrashing riveted him to the spot. He stood as still as the walls, even conscious of the sucking sound he made as he cautiously drew in his breath.

A door at the other end of the hall below opened. Johnny's head automatically drew back further. He heard a sleepy voice curse in some foreign tongue—it might have been Spanish or Italian—then the door slammed closed.

Johnny desperately considered the best method of getting out of his precarious situation. His head nervously twisted from side to side, his eyes searching his perch, looking for a means of escape. Suddenly, to his utter horror, the door behind him swung backwards, opening. Johnny felt a frigid, paralyzing, horrifying, fear flash through him as the door swung open. He stood petrified, afraid, awaiting a blow on his head. It did not come. He twisted about to face whomever it was. The figure of a girl was silhouetted against the light of the moon, which appeared as a spotlight contrasting against the ebony blackness of Johnny's hiding place. Johnny forced himself to move rapidly, yet falteringly, out onto the roof.

“Shhhh …,” he begged Laura, who had been on the roof all this time and who was descending to see what all the screaming was about. Johnny shut the door shakily but carefully, lest the slightest noise should summon the avengers of Rita's virtue.

“What's the matter?” whispered Laura quizzically. “What's happening downstairs?”

“I don't know … I don't know …” His eyes darted over Laura's countenance, trying to fathom her disposition toward him.

“Well, what are you running up here for? Something wrong downstairs?”

“I don't know,” he insisted. “Some guy is getting a beating or something.” He could hardly control his nervousness. His mouth seemed dry and his mind thought frantically. “I just ran up here. I wanted some air.”

“Are they after you too?”

“I don't know … I don't know … I just ran up here.”

Laura walked toward the door to look down to see if anyone was coming up the stairs. Johnny bolted to the door, and pressed his back against it, bracing his feet against the roof.

“You're not going to tell them I'm here? Please?”

Laura's sympathy, born of an understanding of fear and loneliness, was aroused. She couldn't betray this fellow and be the cause of someone hurting him.

“I was only going to look if anyone was coming.”

Her childlike simplicity assured him. He relaxed a bit; fright engulfed him now like a wave. He felt limp; his stomach felt hollow and down in his feet.

“Oh, God, they almost killed him,” Johnny related, terror-stricken.

Laura melted with sympathy. “Don't worry, I won't tell them you're here. Come here.” She motioned Johnny to follow as she walked to the low retaining wall separating the roof of this house from the roof of the next house.

The retaining wall extended from the back to the front, opening at the center into an elongated narrow polygon-shaped shaft four feet wide and twelve feet long.

“This is the shaftway,” Laura explained, sitting on the edge of the opening. “There's our apartment down there.” She indicated a window on the side of the black bottomless pit inside the polygon.

“
Your
apartment?” Johnny stared at her, perplexed.

“Yes, … I live there with Jeannie and Rita.”

Johnny stood up nervously, upset by being with one of the members of that outraged group from which he had run.

“Don't worry.” She smiled weakly to disarm his fears. “I'm not going to tell anyone you're here.”

Johnny sat again slowly and gazed toward the lighted window just below. He could see nothing but some of the rug on the floor, the light playing on it, and part of a table. There were no noises from within.

“I wonder what's going on down there?” Johnny whispered.

“I don't know. I can't hear anything.”

They both spoke in slow, quiet, mysterious whispers.

“I'll go to the door and see what's going on.” She walked toward the door leading down.

Nervously, Johnny rose from his sitting position, studying the neighboring rooftop. He could make out the shadowed images of thin poles standing upright and the strands of clothesline sloping lazily down from the top and reaching up again to the top of the next pole. Chimney pipes stuck up on the sides of the buildings. Beyond the next roof, Johnny saw yet another low wall separating that building from the next one.

Laura pulled the roof door open. It squeaked once, sharply, metallically.

Johnny mounted the wall, ready to bolt over to the next roof. He trembled with expectancy of danger, of betrayal as Laura's head disappeared into the doorway. He held his breath fearfully. She stretched onto her tiptoes, her head penetrating the inside of the house more deeply. After crushing seconds of fear, she pulled her head back and shut the door quietly, holding one hand on the door frame to guide the door into position easily. She tiptoed back to Johnny.