What’s Happening? (24 page)

“You didn't know you were the party,” Josh remarked chidingly.

“Yeah …” Jim laughed. “Well, anyway, the colored cat keeps telling the drunk he don't care, and that they should have let him get his head knocked off, it would teach him right. And the guy sitting next to me keeps filling my glass, and telling me not to bother worrying about them and he gets me sandwiches and asks me if I wanted anything else.”

“He probably wanted you to tell him you wanted to make him,” Johnson said, chuckling.

“Yeah. Then I had these real fine steak sandwiches, and they were great, … and this guy next to me is treating me like I was a king.”

“Or a queen,” Josh added.

“Yeah. Jesus, will you guys let me finish. So, this guy starts feeling the muscles in my leg, and my arm, and makes this sucking noise like he was flipping, and he tells me he wants to blow me. The other two guys disappeared into the bathroom—the colored guy wanted to straighten the drunk out and sort of talk to him, and wanted to leave us alone, he said. Well, they go in there and there's not a sound. And this guy sittin' next to me wants to blow me or just hold it or something. But I kept putting him off, and telling him I don't dig the action, and all the time I'm eating the sandwiches. You know, I didn't want to cut out on such fine sandwiches. Soon the two guys from the bathroom come back, and the drunk is hoisting up his fly and not saying a word, and the colored guy ain't sayin' a word, and Jesus, now I start really worrying. I figure I was going to have to knock my way out the door. You know, they started giving me the creeps—this guy next to me purring on my shoulder, and the other two looking at me, wondering why I'm giving their friend a hard time. So I get up and say I gotta go somewhere, you know? The guy next to me says, ‘No, no. Don't go.' But man, like I bolted for the door, and man, did I cut out of this place. Man, I haven't run so fast in years.”

The group all laughed at Jim's story; one of them poked him in the ribs, and everybody got red from laughing. The laughter began to ebb. Frankie, Josh, Jim, together with Marc and Joe, the two new fellows, began to glance around the bar for something new to talk about. They ordered another beer apiece and stood at the bar waiting to undertake a new conversation.

Rita, Jeannie, and Laura were still at the table sipping at glasses of beer. Johnson now began dancing to the blaring music. Josh was looking around the cafe when Rita caught his eye and motioned him toward her table. He went over and sat down.

“Who's the cat up there with you, the new one?” Rita asked interestedly.

“Which one, baby?” Josh looked up.

“The dark one with the red shirt.”

“That's Marc. I met those two cats at Dani's the other night. The little guy is Joe, and the one in the red shirt is Marc. He's a school teacher yet. You interested, baby?”

Rita raised her eyebrows, signaling, “could be.”

Josh smiled. “Wait a minute. I'll introduce you.” He stood and walked to the back.

“That's my idea of a nice-looking guy,” Rita remarked to the other girls when Josh left.

“We could swing pretty together anytime,” Jeannie agreed.

Laura just smiled.

Rita watched as Josh began speaking to Marc, turning toward the girls' table as he did. Marc turned and looked toward the table, exchanging glances with Rita. Rita smiled almost imperceptibly.

Marc smiled at Josh and walked toward the table. He was medium in height, with long dark hair, a few strands of which curled over his forehead. His eyes were dark—darker, Rita thought, than any she had ever seen before. His eyes mesmerized her with a sort of inner warmth. Rita glanced downward to break away from his penetrating gaze. She noticed he wore tight, well-pressed, black slacks and black slip-on Italian shoes. Rita smiled inwardly. She had a theory about people and their shoes.

From a person's shoes she could tell the sort of person with whom she was speaking. Since stylists concentrate on the main clothing, leaving shoes to the discretion and taste of the wearer, Rita could gain a candid, penetrating insight into a person's character from his shoes. The style and condition of the shoes reflect the taste and personality of the person—scuffed, uncared-for shoes indicate a sloppy, careless person; bland shoes, a bland personality; common shoes, a common personality. Marc's shoes were of a very soft leather, and were soleless, that is, the sole was just a continuation of the upper shoe and not a separate piece of leather.

Marc reached the table. Rita looked from Marc's shoes back to his face. She was smiling. His eyes were warm and gentle, just as she knew they would be.

“Hi. I'm Marc. Josh said that if I came over and said that, you might let me sit down with you.” He smiled broadly. He had a long dimple in his cheek when he smiled.

“Sure, sit down. This is Jeannie … this is Laura … and I'm Rita.” Rita couldn't repress her smile.

“Hi, Marc,” said Laura. Jeannie nodded and smiled.

“I like your shoes,” remarked Rita. “I don't always come on like this, but I've never seen a pair of shoes like that.”

“I bought them in Italy. They really swing, don't they.” He was pleased.

“I'll say.” Rita looked into his face. Their eyes held each other's for a moment. Rita felt he was looking right down into her soul. She looked away.

“You girls live around here?” asked Marc, turning to the girls.

“Yeah … you?” asked Jeannie.

Rita admired him as he spoke to the others. She couldn't keep her eyes from him.

“I've just gotten back to town. Matter of fact I just came back from Italy. Wish I had stayed there,” he said reflectively, looking at the travel poster depicting Rome on the wall. His eyes fell upon Rita and gazed intently. He wrinkled his brow and smiled. “Maybe not.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Jeannie, whose eyes and mind were not on the same level of communication as Rita's and Marc's.

“I don't know,” he said meaninglessly, not caring if she understood, knowing Rita understood. He was unmindful of the words he spoke to Laura and Jeannie. How was Italy? Fine. Beautiful this time of year—Taormina—swimming—wine—Rome—The Appian Highway—Ponte Vecchio—Provenza de Laurenzana. Where did his people come from?

All the time he was talking, his mind was preoccupied with one thought—Rita. Not Rita as she was physically sitting next to him, whose eyes he would catch looking into his at various points during the conversation; but Rita, the girl, the woman, the idea, the person. He felt he knew her, what she was, what she was like. They had never met before, but he knew. All the women who had ever attracted him looked like Rita. Not really, not physically that is. They were all different physically, but they all shared an aliveness, a vitality, an inner force that struck him the moment he looked at them. Suddenly, out of a room full of people, as his eye blurred past odd-shaped heads, he could pick out the one woman in the room that he knew he would like. And Marc liked Rita!

Just then, Tom, the fellow Rita had stayed with at his apartment a couple of months before, entered Johnson's. With him was a colored girl. She was dark complexioned and very intriguing in the way that many colored women are. It is a mystique, a fascination perhaps born of the perversity of man, his desire for the forbidden—the intrigue of intrigue for intrigue. Tom saw Rita and smiled. She smiled back, warmly and affectionately, and they both remembered the cat in the ash can.

“Hi, Rita, how've you been?” asked Tom, smiling broadly. He was holding the colored girl's hand. She stood next to him, looking on amiably, with that half-smile of vague friendliness for people she had never met.

“Okay, how're you?” Rita looked to the colored girl inquisitively, as women are prone to look at other women. The colored girl returned the look amiably.

“This is Barbara,” said Tom, introducing the girl, having noticed them look at each other.

“Hi. This is Marc,” said Rita, turning to Marc.

Every time they looked into each other's eyes, a little light went on. They gazed and were held by each other's eyes, smiling warmly outside and in.

“This is Laura and Jeannie,” Rita said, continuing the introductions.

“Hi,” said Barbara to all.

Rita looked at Marc again, and their souls began to speak silently.
Perhaps it would be fun to see each other more, soon
. Rita was fascinated.

Tom stood next to the table, looking around the cafe. One hand was to his chin, and he craned his head, looking into the remotest depths of the place.

“You didn't see Stan, did you?” he asked, looking back at the girls.

“No. I haven't seen him since that night we all were here,” said Jeannie.

“Listen, I've got to shove. If Stan comes in, tell him to meet us at the pad, will you?” Tom asked Jeannie.

“Sure.”

“Okay, see you. So long, Rita,” he said, smiling the cat smile, which was nice and warm and friendly and meant that he would always remember the cat, and would always have memories of that night. “So long, Marc … So long, girls.”

“Bye,” said Barbara, as they stepped out of the doorway and disappeared into the night.

“Gee, I even forgot those guys existed,” said Jeannie.

“Yeah, it's really been a long time since we saw them,” said Rita gazing reflectively at the door.

“Hey, … come on back,” said Marc, shaking her head delicately by the chin.

“Oh, …” Rita exclaimed, returning to the present to find Marc looking at her curiously. She smiled.

“I'm going to Dani's for a while,” said Laura, standing up. “I told Fran I'd see her there.”

“Who the hell is Fran?” asked Jeannie.

“A friend of mine.”

“Okay, honey, see you later,” said Rita.

Laura smiled because Rita seemed to worry about her. Then with her awkward, stiff-legged walk, which gave her an up and down bounce, she walked out. Her walk was like a laugh. Not a happy laugh, but the laugh people laugh when they're embarrassed, laughing at themselves in order not to appear to be serious and therefore ridiculous. Laura walked in a ridiculous way in order to let people know that she wanted them to laugh, and if they did she wouldn't mind it so much.

“She's an awfully lonely-looking thing,” Marc commented as he watched her go out the door. “What's with her?”

“She's just bugged a little. Like everybody else, she's got her problems, too,” replied Rita.

“Yeah, everybody has problems,” agreed Marc. “I wonder what normal is. Everybody's sick. You know, not like just us, but everybody, outside and all. I don't know one person that hasn't got something bugging.”

“Smile and laugh at it all,” said Jeannie. “Just like they say in the song,
Just smile and laugh at it all
.” There was a note of hopeless bitterness in her voice.

“Smiling can get awful boring,” said Marc. “I'd rather be sick and have fun, and like that. If you were normal, like you'd be awfully lonely.”

They all laughed.

“Hey, Marc, come on, boy. We got to get uptown, man. Like, it's eleven-thirty already yet,” said Marc's friend, Joe.

“Okay, okay,” he said resignedly. “We've got to split; maybe we can make it some other time,” said Marc looking at Rita intently, not wanting to leave.

“Sure, why not?” She smiled. “We're here all time time.”

Marc started toward the door. “So long.” He waved, looking at Rita once again.

Jeannie and Rita waved.

When Joe and Marc had gone, they looked at each other, Jeannie pursing her mouth and nodding her head in contemplative approval.

Rita looked at her and smiled with an inner warmth.

16

Laura had left Rita and Jeannie as they spoke with Marc, walked out of Johnson's and turned toward MacDougal Street and Dani's. Minetta Lane, on which Johnson's was located, was a dark, crooked lane about one hundred yards long, sloping from the Avenue of the Americas up toward a well-lit dead end at MacDougal Street. At the center, the lane was bisected by another alley which extended for fifty yards, then, with the typical insouciance of a Village street, curved in a 45-degree bend and continued back toward the Avenue of the Americas. This was Minetta Street. The houses on Minetta Lane and Minetta Street were all small private houses of different heights and shapes and colors. Even the windows of the houses varied in shape. They reminded one of the houses bordering a crowded Italian quay.

Laura was absorbed into the circle of light from the street lamp at the center of the lane. Her shadow was now cast just beneath her; she stepped on it. Ahead, shadowy figures were silhouetted against the backdrop of clashing neon lights and the confusion of people on MacDougal Street. They walked toward Laura. Footsteps came toward her, and two unknown, indistinguishable shadows passed. As she reached the spot where a driveway made the sidewalk slope down steeply into the basement of a building, one approaching shadow stopped. Laura's insides leapt in surprise. She continued walking, ignoring the shadow, yet watching its dark substance from the corner of her eye. The shadow's eyes followed her every step. Laura walked down into the driveway, leaning to maintain her balance on the slope, and passed the stationary figure.

“Laura?” a voice inquired.

Laura stopped and looked around. She could not recognize the voice, and could see only a vague shadowed face. She stepped to the side, letting the greenish neon lights from the Minetta Tavern on the corner of MacDougal Street fall on the shadow. It was a man's face.

“It's me! Johnny!”

“Hello,” Laura said apprehensively, remembering the night on the roof. She edged toward a path of direct escape.

“I've come down here a couple of times since that night.” He looked to the ground embarrassedly, reflecting on his past deeds. “I've never been able to find you, though.”