What’s Happening? (23 page)

Scooters were becoming a popular means of transportation in the city, and often one would see the raw redness of an intrepid scooter rider's face as he blew steam on his hands, waiting for a traffic light to change.

Through the winter, Rita and her roommates continued their rather hectic, futile, biding way of life, as did the rest of the people in the Village. The Villagers bided their time, waiting for something to happen, something to break, a big chance to come along. They waited for the world to blossom into a beautiful place. They waited and waited, amusing themselves the while.

The Village and its inhabitants are considered strange, off beat, but in all its sad ugliness, it is not so strange as the conceptions the people outside harbor about it. Sadness—a hollow, gnawing sadness—and loneliness is the quality which permeates much of the activity of the Village, not gaiety and abandon. The actors, the actresses, the painters, the poets, the sculptors, the writers, the lonely, the unaccepted, all find their way to the quiet streets, where at night one can walk alone and hear the lamentation rising out of the streets and buildings, swelling from every bar and cafe and coffee shop. Dreams of success are replaced by temporary respites of love and affection, of acceptance and friendship.

And just as the Village is strange, so, very often, is the acceptance found there. There is a great deal of mixing of Negro and white people. Not that this mixing of Negro and white is so strange, only the terms on which it is arranged, and the great profusion of it in this one tiny area.

This integration is only another manifestation of rebelliousness, the expression of hidden needs and desires on the part of the mixers, a purposeful, visible railing against Uptown society and all its preachings and doctrines.

Here is a place where both races meet on equal terms, thereby demonstrating, revealing the hollowness and ignorance of Uptown. Here, brotherly love blooms, thrives; but it bears only bitter fruit. The beauty of the love affairs and friendships is not the primary concern. It is a façade which shows to the world in the case of both white and black that the people so engaged are noble, fine, better than the ones outside who are not magnanimous enough to accept each other. This mixing then is not an acceptance, a solution. It is an unhealthy atmosphere, through which some people ostentatiously attempt to create about themselves an aura of dignity, nobility, worthiness, independence for the rest of the world to note. This integration, taken in the light of a desire to impress the world, being a means to personal aggrandizement, not an end in itself, is not a pretty picture. It is a sad, visible demonstration that there is still a great gap between the two groups.

The coffee shops and cafes continued to be filled with the usual crowds each night, and people came and sat about, talking the talk of people in the Village, all the while waiting for something to happen. They talked art, or acting, or life in general. They talked of every subject that interests the curious intellectual mind, although in many cases the curiosity and the intellectualism is feigned, is a sham and a show. Everybody wants to be intellectual and arty, but some people are just phony author's-name droppers.

Marriage and God are the two favorite subjects of the Villagers because they are the two subjects which cause them the most grief. One prevalent theory is that God has forsaken the world. He allows people to exist without any seeming support, allows them to be miserable, and wretched, without so much as consoling them. It flies against the Village-tempered mind to believe in Him in this unmerciful role. Besides, not believing in God is indeed a rebellion against the ordinary practices of society. So too, talking about art, loving Negroes and most every practice indigenous to the Village.

Marriage is the foundation of society, and society has forsaken these people. Through marriage they were brought into society, in it they have seen much misery, and because of it they have suffered pain and discontent.

God and marriage are the stable things which are so pat, so sure, that the unsure person can not grasp them fully for any length of time. To one who can not find the answer to problems within himself, it is impossible to reach out and permanently hold onto something without to solve problems. God does not exist in the material, and for those who need a present salve, the promise of a future salve is of no benefit. People who can not be happy with themselves can not be happy with others, nor can they make others happy. The circle goes round and round, and the talk follows a certain, almost predictable, path.

The parties continued through the winter, as did the idyllic evening or week affairs, and the restless prowling of the people hungry for relief.

In April, the evenings started to darken the city later, and the promise of warmth, and sun, and life, and spring, and new things, was in the air.

15

The air was soft and gentle at last. The growing within the earth, life, could almost be heard in a song of joy, of liberation. Softening branches speckled with small buds of green swayed gently in the evening breeze, casting forth a faint fragrance. Evenings now embraced the city slowly, the western sky glowing with orange-redness, outlining billowed, purple-tinted clouds, silhouetting shimmering-eyed buildings.

Johnson's was livelier and gayer. It, too, as the earth, seemed more vital. Swaying music floated through doors outspread to welcome the warm, fresh breezes, filling every crevice of Minetta Lane with a happiness and an exuberance it had not known for many months. People were shedding their darkly frigid winter features, rejoicing with the reborn smiles of jubilation.

As Rita, Jeannie, and Laura approached Johnson's, three people stepped off the front step and disappeared out of the bare light into the sudden grey-blackness of the surrounding night. The girls entered. The large, exposed overhead fan was rotating, circulating the smoke. As it revolved from a hub attached to the ceiling, the fan and the hub throbbed and vibrated. Those below glanced overhead every few minutes, nervously anticipating being chopped to bits when it fell.

Sammy was behind the bar pouring a drink for someone already a little drunk. The customer hung limp-legged from the bar, propped up on one elbow, his free hand fumbling with his glass. Staggered down the length of the bar were other patrons, some of whom the girls knew, all talking and drinking. At the rear of the bar, bathed in the rotating, polychromatic light from the jukebox, stood a chattering huddle of five fellows, Josh Minot, Jim Panar, Frankie the Mexican, and two fellows the girls had never met.

The girls took seats at a table opposite the bar, near the front door. Dick, who was now Johnson's waiter and whose past bold advances Laura deigned to ignore and forget rather than suffer the embarrassment of bringing them to light, took their order. The girls sat quietly, watching the others in the cafe.

Between serving customers, Sammy was sponging the shelves behind the bar. The bottles which usually stood on the shelves were spread like sentinels along the bar. Sammy wiped each bottle with a damp rag before replacing it on the shelf.

“Man, I'm going to have to start giving this shit away,” he exclaimed to no one in particular as he wiped a long thin-necked, square-bottomed bottle.

“What is it, man?” asked the drunk, forcing his limp head up inquisitively.

Sammy squinted at the label for a moment. “It's Greek wine.”

“Oh. Those Greeks … Boy they've got some women, those Greeks … But they put them chastity belts on …” The drunk pointed a swaying, admonishing finger at Sammy. “Remember in the time of all those gods and everything?”

“You know when I'd like to live, man?” mused Sammy, stopping his shelf washing. “Back in the days of Venus de Milo and all them cats … you know? Man, that was a lotta woman to like.”

“You're not kidding,” the drunk replied enthusiastically. “Those women were all right.” He stuck out his bottom lip in conviction, nodding his head.

“Yeah, man. If I lived in those days, man, I'd be making it in the street. You know, like they didn't care about that stuff.”

“Yaaa.” The drunk disapproved. “They put them chastity belts on the women, and they'd leave them on for so long … the women'd smell so bad, nobody'd go near them anyway.” The drunk laughed convulsively, staggering, almost falling away from the bar. Sammy laughed too, then resumed putting the bottles on the shelf.

Johnson was now standing in the back, contributing his chatter and laughter to the group of fellows at the end of the bar. Johnson laughed loudly at the end of a story, turned and jaunted toward the front of the cafe. He removed from his pocket a Balero, a Mexican toy. It was a pipe-shaped piece of wood to which was attached by a string, a ping-pong-sized white wooden ball. There was a small hole in the ball. Johnson stood in the center of the cafe swinging the ball into the air, trying to catch it on one of the concave, bowl-like sections. There were actually four catching areas on the Balero. Two, one smaller than the other, on the crosspiece which resembled the bowl of a pipe; and two others on the stem of the pipe. One of the catching surfaces on the stem was another, even smaller, scoop; the other was actually a short point with which to spear the hole in the ball. Johnson was swinging the ball on the string and pushing the largest of the scoops under it. The little ball arched in the air, descended, and bounced off the lip of the scoop. Johnson swung it up again. Occasionally, he caught the ball on the scoop, and he'd stand watching it quiver to a stop on the end of the stem. Then he'd sneer, and wag his head with self pleasure and look cunningly out of the side of his eye at a heavy-set girl propped between the wall and the bar just inside the front window. She returned a blank, wondering, vague smile. Then he'd wag his head again, and start the swinging ball into action.

One of the two fellows from the group at the back, whom the girls didn't know, walked toward Johnson, his attention focused-on the swinging ball in Johnson's hand. He stopped and watched with fascination as Johnson swung the ball, following each arc of the ball and its subsequent bounce off the lip with his head as well as his eyes.

“Hey, man, that game is real great,” he exclaimed finally. “Man, we used to play that for hours when we were in Mexico. I don't even remember the name of it. What'd they call that, man?”

“I don't know, man. What's in a name?” replied Johnson as he kept swinging the ball out in front of the scoop. “I think they call it
flying balls
.” Johnson chuckled snidely, looking up momentarily to the corner where the heavy girl was, then down again at the ball that bounced off the lip of the scoop.

“Hey, Marc! Marc!” the fellow called to the other stranger in the group at the back. “Marc, … look what's here. Remember this game? You used to be champ at it, weren't you, man?”

Marc stopped speaking to the group for a moment, looked up and angled his head so he could see Johnson. The others turned to look, too. Marc nodded to his friend and moved back into the closed group to continue the conversation. The fifth fellow still stood watching Johnson flip the ball.

“Ever been to Mexico, man?” he asked Johnson. “They play that down there all the time.”

“Mexico?” Johnson looked at the fellow quizzically. “Man, I'm Mexican … are you kidding? I'm a champ at this sort of thing. See? It's easy. I'm not even bothering to catch the ball. I'm just letting it drop in the cup and knocking it right out.” The ball bounced off the front lip again. “Did 'ya see that catch, man?”

“Let's see how many you can get in a row.”

“You kidding me, man? What is this, a show? Later, … when the bar closes. You know, like now all the people are around, I'm just goofin' now. Stick around … stick around.… I'll show you later.” Johnson wound the string around the stem and stuffed the Balero in his pocket and walked to the back.

“Hey, Raoul …” called the drunk hanging on the bar as Johnson walked past him. “How about buying me a drink. I've been buying here for a long time, and you never even bought me one drink yet.”

Johnson smirked with annoyance. “I don't buy nobody.”

“Come on, Raoul. You can buy me a drink.”

“What for, man? I owe you anything?”

“I bought plenty of drinks here.”

“That's what you come for, that's what you get. I don't owe you anything.”

Johnson frowned disgustedly, walked back further and rejoined the group standing at the end of the bar. Marc was just concluding a description of a Village party to which he had been the evening before.

“Man,” interjected Johnson, “I went to this party. I was in this room, you know? It was one of these real way-out parties, you know?… ‘n I have about these ten chicks around, and I'm huggin' and kissin', and ballin' them. And all of a sudden this big fuckin' black guy comes in, and man, all these chicks take off for him. I grab my three chicks, and tell them, ‘Come on, let's split, I don't like spades.' “ Raoul laughed uproariously. The entire group laughed with him.

“Yeah, man,” Johnson continued, “those chicks on the Concourse, you have some real balls with them. Jump in the bed and they all jump in with you.” He cocked his head, and with a smug little smile, his eyes half closed, he nodded in time with the music. He began to snap his fingers.

“Let me tell you about a party, man,” said Jim Panar. “I was standing right here the other night and there were these two white guys at the end of the bar with this colored cat. Man, he was a nice looking guy, you know, chocolate color, with real smooth skin, heavy eyelids; he kept them half fluttered all the time like it was real sexy.”

“You mean Louie?” asked Johnson.

“No, not Louie Jackson.”

“No, I know, man. There's another cat comes in here sometimes, a little guy, a swinger … His name is Lou.”

“Well, that was his name, if it's the same guy. Anyway, you know, we're standing here talking, and one of the white guys is drunk, and starts shooting off his mouth. The other white guy is trying to shut him up, but the little colored cat doesn't care. He tells the white guy, ‘See if I care you get your head knocked off … I couldn't care less, baby,' he said. Well, they take this drunk cat out of here before he does get his head knocked off. He was kind of high. And then, like as they're going out, this other white guy tells me, ‘Come on, we got a party going.' So like I wasn't doing anything, you know? I figure I go to a party. The little guy was a screaming fag, but I figure the other two for straight Joes. They were truck drivers. Pretty tough-looking guys, with tattoos and all, you know? So we walk down a couple of blocks with this drunk guy strung between us, me and this other white guy, and the little colored cat's flying along in front of us, swinging his little hips, and like we go to this pad. I think it was the colored cat's place, you know, all swinging fag doodads around. And the drunk is walking around the pad slobbering about how he didn't give a shit, he was tough and could knock the shit outta anybody. The other white guy is sitting next to me bein' real nice, social, you know, pouring drinks for me and all. And the sweet one starts cookin' steak. And the drunk keeps talking, and I'm wondering where the rest of the party was.”