What’s Happening? (31 page)

The door of the apartment swung open. The noise of the party, which had been muffled, now flew out, over and around the figure of Jimmy, the fellow who owned the apartment.

“Hey, man, hanh? Keep it a little cool, will you?” Jimmy demanded. “Man, like just down to a slow roar. There's another cat living upstairs, and like he'll call the cops, you know?”

“Yeah, man, okay, okay, I'll take care of it.” Marc stared impatiently at Jimmy, waiting for him to leave.

Jimmy returned Marc's gaze blandly. His eyes darted occasionally to Rita. He turned back into the apartment. The noise of the party swelled and faded as the door opened and closed.

“Be serious, Marc—Jesus Christ. Tom was a little high, and like he was kidding around. It doesn't mean anything at all, darling.”

Marc glared at her uncompromisingly, his clenched fists turning white with the tension.

“Oh, come off it, baby,” she yelped exasperated. She reached out to put her arms around his neck.

“Bullshit, bullshit. Get away from me,” he said, grimacing, removing her arms from around his neck. “What are you, a sex machine, throwing yourself at every guy that gets near you? I didn't come out here to make it with you. I want to know what the hell is coming off? I know all about the cat and all that. And now what? You starting in again? Hanh? Making a fool out of me? Here … in front of everybody?”

“I know you know about the cat,” she said slowly, deliberately. “I told you, remember? So the guy comes to a party and he's a little high, and like he's kidding around. Like, we're friends. He has a date with him—or didn't you bother to notice?”

“All I saw was the two of you balling.”

“Oh, come off that trash. For Christ's sake, the guy gives me two little kisses on the cheek and you call it balling. Man, you're a couk, … you know that? You're a real, honest to God couk sometimes.”

“Don't give me that line, baby. I don't dig the action here. I don't dig the dirty finger at all. He the “mother” you said you were talking to on the phone today?”

“Stop it, will you? … stop it, you idiot.” Rita felt like crying, dying. “Are you trying to get rid of me? If you are, just say so. I'll go … all you have to do is say so. But don't persecute me like this. Didn't we have this out this afternoon? I don't want to go through it again. I told you what happened. If that isn't good enough for you, it's tough. What the hell am I supposed to say?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.” Marc twirled and started down the stairs.

Rita did not stir. She watched him descend and set her jaw determinedly. Suddenly, she was resigned to the impossibility of Marc's ever being able to trust her, their love ever being able to overcome his fear. But he was leaving now; she'd be alone again right now. Terror gripped her. She bolted down the stairs after him. She caught him and threw her arms around his neck, clinging to his back.

“Marc, oh Marc, baby … Baby, I love you … Nobody else means anything to me. Don't you believe that?”

“I don't know what to believe,” Marc said bewilderedly, wanting to believe her. “I know what I see though.” He turned to face her.

“Baby, we were only kidding, honest! Do you think I could go for anyone else?”

“I don't know, baby. Women are kind of funny. I just see red when I see you fooling around with another guy.”

“I wasn't fooling around, baby, honest. If I wanted to be with him, I wouldn't have run after you, would I?”

“I don't know, would you?” Marc slipped his arms around Rita's waist.

“No, baby, I only run after you.”

Yet, even as she spoke, Marc's eyes were studying her, wondering.

Rita's insides ached with desperation. She wanted, needed him so much. But the scars on his soul, his bitter agony of loneliness and fear, clawed at him, destroying him and the bird of love and beauty he had created. Their love, being bigger and stronger had more strength to destroy itself. Rita realized Marc was weakening under the greater strain of accepting their love, trusting her. She kissed his mouth. It was warm. Even if she had to fool herself, she wanted Marc.

Marc lost his balance on the steps and grabbed the rail for support.

“Let's get on some level ground,” Marc smiled.

“Okay,” said Rita smiling softly.

Marc's smile broadened. He watched her from the side of his eyes as they descended the steps one arm around each other's waist.

23

Pounding music drifted through the humid heat. The yellow overhead lights fused with the engulfing heat, forcing the walls of Johnson's down upon the people standing along the bar and seated at the tables. Their voices seemed to crack across the room with an unusual rapidity, resounding and reverberating like an echo inside an empty cavern. It was the heat, the slowness of moving, the forced languor of the people that gave sound a staccato which assailed the ears.

Rita walked into Johnson's with Jeannie, Laura, and Johnny. Sammy looked up.

“Hey, baby, long time no see.”

“Hi, Sammy, how're you?” Rita replied.

“Not bad. What's been happening?”

“Nothing very exciting. I've been out of circulation for a while.…” She smiled weakly, not really feeling like smiling; it was more a snicker of resignation. “But I'm back swinging again.”

“Yeah, I heard you and your boy split.”

“That's right …” Rita swallowed hard. “You got a wire service, or what? You know everything, don't you?”

“You know, baby, we're all interested in our friends.”

Someone from the far end of the bar called Sammy and he walked toward them to refill their orders.

“Everything's just about the same, isn't it?” Rita remarked, looking around.

“A few more pieces of junk here and there, but the same dive,” replied Jeannie. “Let's sit at this table.”

They sat at a table opposite the bar.

“Excuse me,” said Johnny. He walked toward the men's room.

“You and Johnny really hit it off good, didn't you,” Jeannie remarked to Laura as the three girls watched Johnny walk toward the back.

“Yeah, we get along fine. Now that you're back, Rita—I know it's one day—but why don't you and Jeannie come over to our place. Maybe tomorrow? Johnny's been asking me to have you over.”

“Maybe. Want to go tomorrow?” Jeannie asked Rita.

“Hmmm … sure, sure.” Rita was absorbed in thought.

“What are you thinking about, babe?” asked Laura. “Marc?”

“What do you think? I met him in here, didn't I?”

“Yeah. You'd never think so much could happen in so short a time. You and Marc getting together and splitting. Me and Johnny getting married. Jeannie's the same though, same as ever.”

“You're not kidding. Me and God. We're always the same.”

Laura snickered. Rita smiled uneasily, sadly.

“But what started the whole thing?” Laura asked. “I thought you two were going real smooth.”

“We were—for a while. We were going great, but then Marc started to get real nervous every time I was within a hundred yards of another guy. You remember what happened at Jimmy's party two weeks ago, don't you Laura? You remember Tom?” Rita asked Jeannie. “Well, he comes to the party a little gassed and kisses me on the cheek. I think you were at the party, weren't you?”

“Yeah, but like I didn't see
anything
happen.”

“Yeah, well, Marc flipped over that scene with Tom—how come I was balling with Tom, you know? And he just kept bugging me after that. Every night we'd start in on a new argument. Same story, different correspondents—every night. Who was I fooling around with? Was I trying to put him down? On and on and on and on. He didn't do it to be mean, you know? He loved me, I'm sure. I think that was the trouble. In the beginning, when it didn't affect either of us too much, he was wonderful, kind, considerate, opened up a new world of warmth and beauty, pared away the dead skin; but as we got to mean more and more to each other, Marc tightened; he froze in the clutch. If I could only have assured him; if I could only have reached him. But it wasn't me. It was inside him; it had to come from inside. But it didn't.” She sat silently, sadly.

“See … that's why I'm the same,” said Jeannie. “I want none of that crap.”

“You can take so much of that.…” Rita's eyes filled with tears. “… and then it's the end. And here we are, you know, it's all over.” She shrugged hopelessly and glanced around the bar. She batted her eyelids closed a couple of times to try to disperse tears … but a few escaped and rolled down her cheeks.

“You still love him, don't you?” Laura asked.

“I guess I'm still in love with the guy I fell in love with, not with the raving idiot at the end. He just wouldn't believe that I didn't want to make it with another guy.”

“He was probably making it on the side himself and felt guilty,” Jeannie suggested.

“Come off it! Rita feels bad enough without that kind of talk,” snapped Laura.

“Hey, man, listen to this little one come on,” Jeannie remarked surprisedly. “That guy must feed her vitamins.”

They all laughed and it helped to ease Rita's tension.

Johnny came back and sat down. They ordered four beers.

Raoul Johnson entered the cafe. He was wearing a light green, short-sleeved shirt and skin-tight white pants. He saw Rita, smiled his sneer, and walked over.

“Hello, baby, back in action again, hunh?” He gazed at her through half-closed eyelids. “Crazy, I'd like to get in on some of that action,” he said, slowly fluttering his eyebrows. He tried to arch one eyebrow higher than the other, but it just lifted slightly and fell back in line with the other.

Rita made a disapproving face and waved a weary hand at him, as if to chase an irksome fly.

How crazy this all seems
, she thought.
I've returned, and this place
—
the whole Village
—
is the same as ever. Yet something about it is strange, cold, shallow now. I've changed!

It's all the same. The same guys around, looking for women, but now they seem merely slimy voluptuaries trying to bed every girl they can get their eyes on; the same frustrated searching; the same forlorn people doing the same things, the same uninteresting, lonely, time-absorbing things every night
.

The thought that she had been so much a part of this place was confusing to Rita now. She saw the people as sick, searching for a cure.

They are all looking for something and they don't know what it is, nor where to look. They are looking for themselves, but don't know it and can't find anything but nonsense and
little games and bits and sex. The whole place is cold and rotten and dirty and sick and lonely. They don't know anything about life. They've never felt the warmth and tenderness of love, and that's what they are really after, but they don't know it, and they say they aren't because they can't find it anyway
.

Now that Rita had loved, now that she was still in love, in love with love, now she realized. She knew that there was more warmth to love than the warmth of a bed.

But these people don't know, because they've never loved. They are so full of thoughts of themselves, of their own satisfaction, of their own security, they can love no one but themselves. How boring, how terribly empty their lives must be
, she thought to herself, recalling the vacuousness of her prior existence in the Village.
They only know an insatiable hunger and drive, a need to do something
—
but what? None of them are sure, and not being sure, nothing can satisfy them. They're just drifting and grabbing
.

She pitied them.

They're animals, that's all they are
, she thought.
That's all I was. Man's nature is to be rational … but these don't think, they only feel
—
feel sorry for themselves
.

Rita looked around at the tables of people. Books were piled on the tables, books from acting or painting or dancing or some other school.

Everybody is still going to school, preparing to enter life
—
but not yet
—
some day. People are sitting and talking and drinking, waiting for a late hour so they can escape to the soothing arms of Morpheus. Oh, heavily burdened, ethereal arms of Morpheus, the salvation of the world
, thought Rita to herself.
They just keep sleeping until they can't sleep longer, and then they arise to tire themselves with unimportant dabbling until it is time to rest again. They are missing the whole point of it all. They are grabbing for something and only grasping at its shell. Love isn't sex. Sex is merely a physical thing which can be delved into by anybody, anything, anytime. It isn't special, it didn't take brains
.

And what about all those men making all kinds of advances to women walking in the street? And yet, what is it that is different from their wives who they deceive? Is what the young girls have to offer them any different than the little hunched-over woman with the hair sticking out of the moles on her face who sells newspapers in the bars around the Village? Is it so much different, really? Or is it merely the mind of the person who wishes to make the younger girl something more, who wishes to think that the young girl is wonderful and maddening; who wishes to think that promiscuity is great? Even their mothers and daughters are the same as the other women whom they crave, but thinking of their mother would only be in matters of respect. Any thoughts that she be capable of being desired by another man would be horrible, disgusting. Only the thoughts of wild sex excites these animals, not love, not even sex itself. They go to bed with an idea, and their partner in bed is just to fill the role, and anyone could fill that role
.

Sex can't be taken so lightly
, thought Rita.
Not that it can't because it's wrong … but it can't be because it just doesn't work. Sex the overadvertised, love the undermined. And this is what Marc was afraid of
, she thought sadly.
Pity that so many people don't realize the importance of love and tenderness. Love is something warm and friendly and protecting and happy
.