What’s Happening? (27 page)

“He's a actor, ain't he? I tink I seen him in pitchers too. He was in pitchers, wasn'e?”

“Yeah, man. He was in lots of pictures, sure he was.” Johnson finished selecting and started to sway with the music, snapping his fingers. “The last picture he was in was Jungle Safari, man, a swinging Tarzan picture.” He did not look at the hood, fabricating the story easily, without concern.

“Yeah, yeah,” the hood remembered, his face lighting up, as he forced his memory to conjure up the picture that never existed. “I tol' ja,” the hood said to his friends as he walked back to them. “He was in Jungle Safari.”

All the hoods gathered around the one that had been talking to Johnson. They were stealing admiring glances at Johnson, searching the back for Louis so that they might see another movie star.

Johnson was snapping his fingers, and laughing and smiling with the melody of the song. Actually, he was smiling at his own smugness, and the stupidity and gullibility of these hoods, to whose dreary lives he had just added some of his glitter. Johnson winked at Rita whom he knew had seen and heard the entire bit.

“Hey, … come on,” Johnson shouted in rhythm. “Let's drink up. This is the Village, … Bohemia.… Let's be Bohemian,” he yelled mockingly, because he knew the people at the bar had come to see Bohemia, and they thought it was great, even though Johnson was making it up as he went along. “Let's spend lots of money,” he shouted. The people liked this coukie stuff because they expected it; Johnson liked it because it made him feel big.

“My God, this place is crazy,” Bill said to Rita.

“Sure is, Bill, sure is. I want to look out in the garden for a minute. I'll be right back.” Rita walked toward the door in the back and out into the garden.

Many little, round, white tables gleamed in the glare of the yellow and white bulbs strung on wires overhead. In the middle of the garden was a twisted tree, its gnarled, calloused arms reaching in all directions.

Rita looked around at the faces, still searching for Marc. A fellow rose from a side table and walked in her direction. She looked past him, searching. The fellow stopped in front of her; her eyes focused inquisitively on him. It was Marc's face. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Where you been, baby? I've been waiting for you all night.” He took her by the arm and began to lead her toward a table. Rita hesitated, remembering Bill alone and forsaken inside.

“Kind of sure I'd be here, weren't you?”

“I'm here! I was hoping you'd come too. I didn't know where else you might be. Come on, sit down. What's the matter?” he asked, sensing Rita's reluctance to sit at the table.

“Let's not stay here, Marc. I don't want to stay. If you do, I'll come back in a while. I just want to get some fresh air away from this place. I'd like you to come too.”

“That's okay with me.” He picked up his jacket from behind a chair, left some money, and started toward the door leading inside.

Rita saw Bill, still standing on the side, now talking to a colored fellow at a table. She stopped.

“Bill, I'm leaving now. It was nice talking to you. I'll see you now.”

Bill was surprised and confused. Rita passed on quickly before he could ask her about Louis or Audrey. She and Marc began squeezing through the crowd. Rita looked back and saw Bill looking lost and befuddled, standing alone with his drink in one hand and Audrey's handbag in the other. Rita turned forward and followed behind Marc, who was cutting a path for her through the human reeds that choked the aisle. Marc looked back at Bill with curiosity, looked to Rita, then turned and continued making his way through the crowd.

The fresh air seemed cool and free and fresh and relaxing after the physical struggle to get out of Johnson's. People were as jammed in as before, and more people were coming in. Even the street was crowded. Cars were parked half on the sidewalk to leave room in the narrow street for other cars to pass.

Marc and Rita stood in front of Johnson's for a moment, Rita waiting for Marc to decide in which direction they would walk. They crossed to the other side of the street, out of the glare of the light over Johnson's and turned toward MacDougal Street. When they reached the right angle of Minetta Street they turned and walked along the quiet alleyway toward the Avenue.

“I like to walk on this street,” said Marc.

“So do I.”

They could see the houses ahead curve with the bend in the street. The houses, with their darkened windows and untrespassed steps, bore witness to the quiet of the street, in contrast to the bedlam around the corner. They passed silent arched doorways and shuttered windows. As they passed one doorway, they heard a rustling noise and a slight groan. They turned simultaneously. Inside the doorway, leaning against a wall, was a couple. The girl wore a light blue dress, and her back was against the wall. Her reddish hair caressed the side of a light Negro's face, mingling with his black curly hair. The Negro had on jeans, and he leaned against the girl, pressing her against the wall. The girl's arms swept up and around the Negro's back as if she were pulling him down as well as close to herself. They were kissing, and their heads moved from side to side together as if they were trying to rub their lips until they fused.

“Man,” said Marc offhandedly as they walked past the doorway, … “somebody's having a ball. But in a doorway? Why don't they go to a pad or something?”

“They can't. That guy inside that I talked to as we were leaving?”

Marc nodded, indicating that he remembered the fellow.

“That's his chick.”

Marc's face rippled with a cynical smirk. He shook his head slowly as they continued to walk toward the Avenue.

18

Along the beach, as far as the eye could see, even past where the beach curved seaward, hiding the rest of the shore behind the promontory, white, rolling foam glistened against the dark blue of water, leaping on the crest of a wave, thundering down bouncingly to the surface of the sea, gently caressing the breast of the beach, seducing all the land toward its dark mantle. Interspersed between the roaring waves was the whispering, tinkling chorus of sand and foam and pieces of shell churned together in the backwash.

The sun simmered the white stretch of beach. Rays of heat wavered from the flat, footprint-pocked sand toward the heavens. Only a few shadowy places, where weeds grew thick and green and wild on the dunes, could be seen. Here and there, a piece of driftwood lay landlocked. Near one piece of driftwood, there was a sparkling; the sun reflected off a washed-ashore bottle.

From behind the curving promontory of sand, a black shadow of a rock jetty broke the surface of the water, jutting seaward for a great distance. At its tip, a tower with a shack, just visible in the shimmering glare of the sun on the water, stood quietly guarding the fortress of the beach.

The sun baked Marc as he lay next to Rita on the blanket. He was face down, asleep, his head turned toward Rita. One arm lay folded against his side; the other was stretched past the edge of the blanket, his hand grasping a soft pile of sand. Filter butts stuck out of the sand near his hand. Beads of perspiration lined his forehead; a few drops slowly coursed the length of his nose.

Rita watched him as he slept. Her feet, stretched past the end of the blanket, slowly worked a hole into the sand. Her arms were folded under her body, her hands just under her chin. She watched a drop of water roll on the tip of Marc's nose as his head moved with each breath. She reached one hand out and with the tip of her index finger carried the little drop away. Marc stirred. He wrinkled his nose. Rita tweaked his nose again. He flicked his hand at the disturbance. Rita caught his hand in mid-air and held it. He struggled momentarily to get free, and then relaxed as his eyes slowly opened. His eyes were streaked with red sleep lines. He smiled lazily.

“Oh, … are you awake?”

“No, I always sleep this way … with my eyes open.”

“Oh, that's wonderful.”

“What's so wonderful about it?”

“I don't know, but nobody else I know sleeps with their eyes open.”

“Nobody else you know does a lot of things I do—including giving you a good slap on your rear once in a while.” Marc stretched his arms into the air, making a straining noise as his chest muscles were pulled taut. He lowered his arms over Rita's shoulders.

“That's the truth,” she smiled, moving close, snuggling against him. “I mean about you being like no one else.”

Marc smiled. They kissed. Then Marc twisted onto his back, gazing at the expanse of blue overhead.

“Look at that seagull,” exclaimed Marc, sitting up, shading his eyes with his hand, looking toward the ocean.

Rita twisted around and sat up, looking to the area toward which Marc was gazing.

In the sky, the motionless wings of the white bird arched against blue. The round body ending in the yellow beak, suspended between the wings, rose softly, motionlessly, silently in the air. Suddenly, the bird dipped, diving straight to the sea, flapping its wings, slowing itself as it neared the water, only its talons hitting the surface. Then, with the strong beat of its outspread wings, the bird pulled itself up into the air again.

“What a graceful bird,” said Marc as they watched it glide sideways with the wind, its wings motionless again. The white bird began flapping away from them.

Rita stood, brushed sand from the seat of her suit, and walked toward the sea. The slick of darkened sand at the edge of the beach was cold and hard and wet under foot. As she stood frozen on the cold sand, a sheet of water slid in over the shore, covering her foot. A chill passed through her body and subsided as she stood ankle-deep in the foamy surf. Directly in front of her, a sheet of water reared up, arched gracefully, and snapped toward her, crashing on the surface. Rita gazed at the shoreline that stretched away from her. Waves stretched parallel with the beach along the entire length of shore. A tingle gripped the back of her neck and behind her ears as she watched the superb grace and harmony, the sheer power and majesty of nature. It was a new, strange, and pleasureful sensation for her to thrill to the mere world about her. The world had suddenly begun to blossom. Her senses were now more acutely tuned to the changing moods and subtle, unmatchable beauty surrounding her. Rita had never taken pleasure in her surroundings, nor ever noticed the world about her. Now, through Marc, the world itself had become warm and endearing. Marc was understanding and knowledged. He could explain nature, life, to her. He was opening a new world for her, a world that had never been opened before. And that curiosity about the nature of things that had been stifled in the past, rushed to the surface now, and Rita was reveling in discovery, in the pleasure of being alive. Her pleasure was increased by the presence and companionship of Marc who understood and enjoyed being anywhere, because life was everywhere, because life came from inside. Rita too was beginning to understand that life was all around her, inside her, not restricted to coffee shops in the Village, and wearing coukie clothes.

Rita laughed at the thought of clothes, turning to see Marc walking toward her from the blanket. He was clad in a skimpy red bikini.

“How's that water?” Marc's feet sank into the soft sand, leaving their imprint. His smile evaporated instantly as his feet hit the slick of water at the edge of the beach. He hopped on one foot. “Wow, …” he blurted, surprised by the cold, which he felt more now that the sun had warmed him completely. “It sort of gets you when you're not used to it.”

“Come on, you chicken.” Rita lifted her foot through the water as if to kick water on Marc.

He shrank back a few steps, raising his hands defensively. “Come on now—don't fool around.”

Rita pulled her leg back, smiling. Marc walked toward her.

“Man, this is some beach,” Rita remarked. “How'd you know about it?”

“Man, … man, … is that the only way you can speak? Come off it!” Marc complained.

“All right, … all right. God damn it! Once in a while I slip. Don't jump down my God damn throat.”

“Okay … I'm sorry, baby.” Marc regretted his hasty remonstrance. He put his arms about her waist. “Let's go in the water.” He gazed down at the top of her head as she peered, head down, at the sand.

“No … I don't want to go swimming.” Her voice sounded hurt.

“Oh, come on, don't be an old party poop.”

“No, … I'm not an old party poop,” she said seriously.

Marc laughed at her expression. Even Rita begrudged a smile. Then she became serious again.

“I only made one mistake. You didn't have to get so damn nasty.”

“I wasn't nasty … Ahh, I'm sorry I was nasty. I just wanted to remind you of that cool talk. Now come on.” He grabbed Rita's arm and started running toward the water, pulling her with him.

“Stop! Let go,” Rita screamed playfully, trying to dig her feet into the sand to stop her forward motion.

Marc ran, then swung his arm, dragging Rita forward, and threw her into the embrace of an oncoming wave. He followed after her and dove in. They surfaced in the trough of two waves. Water ran off their heads and down their faces. Rita blew water from her mouth.

“You bastard,” she said playfully, laughing.

“What do you mean, bastard?” He pushed her head under the water. She bobbed to the surface gasping. She watched him for a second, then her hand lashed out and grabbed his nose, held it, and squeezed it.

“Let go … let go …”

“No … no …”

Marc pulled his head back quickly, electing to suffer the sudden burst of pain rather than be held prisoner by the nose. As Rita's fingers slipped from his face, he dove quickly beneath the surface. He saw her legs in front of him through the green mass of water. They were black, vague shadows, churning little bubbles as they pumped up and down, moving away from him. He stroked forward, one stroke pulling him even with her running legs. He grabbed her legs and, twisting himself, caught the bottom with his own feet, and lifted Rita upward. Rising to the surface still lifting, he threw her into the air. She flew a few feet, then sank beneath the water. Marc was laughing as she bobbed to the surface, her long black hair hanging against her head in a wet mass, water streaming down her face. She was blowing water away from her mouth and gasping for breath in the same motion. Marc laughed louder as she began to cough from swallowing water. Rita gritted her teeth and started toward him angrily. Marc turned and began to run toward shore, his legs churning against the impeding mass of water. The level of the sea decreased and his speed increased, and he quickly found himself free of the water. He sprinted across the beach to the blanket, turned, and waited for her to join him. She ran to him and stopped, laughing.