Chapter 24

Chapter 24

I started yessing them the next day and it began beautifully. The community was still going apart at the seams. Crowds formed at the slightest incidents. Store windows were smashed and several clashes erupted during the morning between bus drivers and their passengers. The papers listed similar incidents that had exploded during the night. The mirrored façade of one store on 125th Street was smashed and I passed to see a group of boys watching their distorted images as they danced before the jagged glass. A group of adults looked on, refusing to move at the policemen's command, and muttering about Clifton. I didn't like the look of things, for all my wish to see the committee confounded.
When I reached the office, members were there with reports of clashes in other parts of the district. I didn't like it at all; the violence was pointless and, helped along by Ras, was actually being directed against the community itself. Yet in spite of my sense of violated responsibility I was pleased by the developments and went ahead with my plan. I sent out members to mingle with crowds and try to discourage any further violence and sent an open letter to all the press denouncing them for "distorting" and inflating minor incidents.
Late that afternoon at headquarters I reported that things were quieting down and that we were getting a large part of the community interested in a clean-up campaign, which would clear all backyards, areaways, and vacant lots of garbage and trash and take Harlem's mind off Clifton. It was such a bareface maneuver that I almost lost the confidence of my invisibility even as I stood before them. But they loved it, and when I handed in my fake list of new members they responded with enthusiasm. They were vindicated; the program was correct, events were progressing in their predetermined direction, history was on their side, and Harlem loved them. I sat there smiling inwardly as I listened to the remarks that followed. I could see the role which I was to play as plainly as I saw Jack's red hair. Incidents of my past, both recognized and ignored, sprang together in my mind in an ironic leap of consciousness that was like looking around a corner. I was to be a justifier, my task would be to deny the unpredictable human element of all Harlem so that they could ignore it when it in any way interfered with their plans. I was to keep ever before them the picture of a bright, passive, good-humored, receptive mass ever willing to accept their every scheme. When situations arose in which others would respond with righteous anger I would say that we were calm and unruffled (if it suited them to have us angry, then it was simple enough to create anger for us by stating it in their propaganda; the facts were unimportant, unreal); and if other people were confused by their maneuvering I was to reassure them that we pierced to the truth with x-ray insight. If other groups were interested in becoming wealthy, I was to assure the Brothers and the doubting members of other districts, that we rejected wealth as corrupt and intrinsically degrading; if other minorities loved the country despite their grievances, I would assure the committee that we, immune to such absurdly human and mixed reactions, hated it absolutely; and, greatest contradiction of all, when they denounced the American scene as corrupt and degenerate, I was to say that we, though snarled inextricably within its veins and sinews, were miraculously healthy. Yessuh, yessuh! Though invisible I would be their assuring voice of denial; I'd out-Tobitt Tobitt, and as for that outhouse Wrestrum—well. As I sat there one of them was inflating my faked memberships into meanings of national significance. An illusion was creating a counter-illusion. Where would it end? Did they believe their own propaganda?
Afterwards at the Chthonian it was like old times. Jack's birthday was an occasion for champagne and the hot, dog-day evening was even more volatile than usual. I felt highly confident, but here my plan went slightly wrong. Emma was quite gay and responsive, but something about her hard, handsome face warned me to lay off. I sensed that while she might willingly surrender herself (in order to satisfy herself) she was far too sophisticated and skilled in intrigue to compromise her position as Jack's mistress by revealing anything important to me. So as I danced and sparred with Emma I looked over the party for a second choice.
We were thrown together at the bar. Her name was Sybil and she was one of those who assumed that my lectures on the woman question were based upon a more intimate knowledge than the merely political and had indicated several times a willingness to know me better. I had always pretended not to understand, for not only had my first such experience taught me to avoid such situations, but at the Chthonian she was usually slightly tipsy and wistful—just the type of misunderstood married woman whom, even if I had been interested, I would have avoided like the plague. But now her unhappiness and the fact that she was one of the big shot's wives made her a perfect choice. She was very lonely and it went very smoothly. In the noisy birthday party—which was to be followed by a public celebration the next evening—we weren't noticed, and when she left fairly early in the evening I saw her home. She felt neglected and he was always busy, and when I left her I had arranged a rendezvous at my apartment for the following evening. George, the husband, would be at the birthday celebration and she wouldn't be missed.


IT WAS a hot dry August night. Lightning flashed across the eastern sky and a breathless tension was in the humid air. I had spent the afternoon preparing, leaving the office on a pretense of illness to avoid having to attend the celebration. I had neither itch nor etchings, but there was a vase of Chinese lilies in the living room, and another of American Beauty roses on the table near the bed; and I had put in a supply of wine, whiskey and liqueur, extra ice cubes, and assortments of fruit, cheese, nuts, candy and other delicacies from the Vendome. In short, I tried to manage things as I imagined Rinehart would have done.
But I bungled it from the beginning. I made the drinks too strong—which she liked too well; and I brought up politics—which she all but hated—too early in the evening. For all her exposure to ideology she had no interest in politics and no idea of the schemes that occupied her husband night and day. She was more interested in the drinks, in which I had to join her glass for glass, and in little dramas which she had dreamed up around the figures of Joe Louis and Paul Robeson. And, although I had neither the stature nor the temperament for either role, I was expected either to sing "Old Man River" and just keep rolling along, or to do fancy tricks with my muscles. I was confounded and amused and it became quite a contest, with me trying to keep the two of us in touch with reality and with her casting me in fantasies in which I was Brother Taboo-with-whom-all-things-are-possible.
Now it was late and as I came into the room with another round of drinks she had let down her hair and was beckoning to me with a gold hairpin in her teeth, saying, "Come to mamma, beautiful," from where she sat on the bed.
"Your drink, madame," I said, handing her a glass and hoping the fresh drink would discourage any new ideas.
"Come on, dear," she said coyly. "I want to ask you something."
"What is it?" I said.
"I have to whisper it, beautiful."
I sat and her lips came close to my ear. And suddenly she had drained the starch out of me. I pulled away. There was something almost prim about the way she sat there, and yet she had just made a modest proposal that I join her in a very revolting ritual.
"What was that!" I said, and she repeated it. Had life suddenly become a crazy Thurber cartoon?
"Please, you'll do that for me, won't you, beautiful?"
"You really mean it?"
"Yes," she said, "yes!"
There was a pristine incorruptibility about her face now that upset me all the more, for she was neither kidding nor trying to insult me; and I could not tell if it were horror speaking to me ont of innocence, or innocence emerging unscathed from the obscene scheme of the evening. I only knew that the whole affair was a mistake. She had no information and I decided to get her out of the apartment before I had to deal definitely with either the horror or the innocence, while I could still deal with it as a joke. What would Rinehart do about this, I thought, and knowing, determined not to let her provoke me to violence.
"But, Sybil, you can see I'm not like that. You make me feel a tender, protective passion—Look, it's like an oven in here, why don't we get dressed and go for a walk in Central Park?"
"But I need it," she said, uncrossing her thighs and sitting up eagerly. "You can do it, it'll be easy for you, beautiful. Threaten to kill me if I don't give in. You know, talk rough to me, beautiful. A friend of mine said the fellow said, 'Drop your drawers' . . . and —"
"He said what!" I said.
"He really did," she said.
I looked at her. She was blushing, her cheeks, even her freckled bosom, were bright red.
"Go on," I said, as she lay back again. "Then what happened?"
"Well . . . he called her a filthy name," she said, hesitating coyly. She was a leathery old girl with chestnut hair of fine natural wave which was now fanned out over the pillow. She was blushing quite deeply. Was this meant to excite me, or was it an unconscious expression of revulsion?
"A really filthy name," she said. "Oh, he was a brute, huge, with white teeth, what they call a 'buck.' And he said, 'Bitch, drop your drawers,' and then he did it. She's such a lovely girl, too, really delicate with a complexion like strawberries and cream. You can't imagine anyone calling her a name like that."
She sat up now, her elbows denting the pillow as she looked into my face.
"But what happened, did they catch him?" I said.
"Oh, of course not, beautiful, she only told two of us girls. She couldn't afford to let her husband hear of it. He . . . well, it's too long a story."
"It's terrible," I said. "Don't you think we should go . . . ?"
"Isn't it, though? She was in a state for months . . ." her expression flickered, became indeterminate.
"What is it?" I said, afraid she might cry.
"Oh, I was just wondering how she really felt. I really do." Suddenly she looked at me mysteriously. "Can I trust you with a deep secret?"
I sat up. "Don't tell me that it was you."
She smiled, "Oh, no, that was a dear friend of mine. But do you know what, beautiful," she said leaning forward confidentially, "I think I'm a nymphomaniac."
"You? Noooo!"
"Uh huh. Sometimes I have such thoughts and dreams. I never give into them though, but I really think I am. A woman like me has to develop an iron discipline."
I laughed inwardly. She would soon be a biddy, stout, with a little double chin and a three-ply girdle. A thin gold chain showed around a thickening ankle. And yet I was becoming aware of something warmly, infuriatingly feminine about her. I reached out, stroking her hand. "Why do you have such ideas about yourself?" I said, seeing her raise up and pluck at the corner of the pillow, drawing out a speckled feather and stripping the down from its shaft.
"Repression," she said with great sophistication. "Men have repressed us too much. We're expected to pass up too many human things. But do you know another secret?"
I bowed my head.
"You don't mind my going on, do you, beautiful?"
"No, Sybil."
"Well, ever since I first heard about it, even when I was a very little girl, I've wanted it to happen to me."
"You mean what happened to your friend?"
"Uh huh."
"Good Lord, Sybil, did you ever tell that to anyone else?"
"Of course not, I wouldn't've dared. Are you shocked?"
"Some. But Sybil, why do you tell me?"
"Oh, I know that I can trust you. I just knew you'd understand; you're not like other men. We're kind of alike."
She was smiling now and reached out and pushed me gently, and I thought, here it goes again.
"Lie back and let me look at you against that white sheet. You're beautiful, I've always thought so. Like warm ebony against pure snow—see what you do, you make me talk poetry. 'Warm ebony against pure snow,' isn't that poetic?"
"I'm the sensitive type, you musn't make fun of me."
"But really you are, and I feel so free with you. You've no idea."
I looked at the red imprint left by the straps of her bra, thinking, Who's taking revenge on whom? But why be surprised, when that's what they hear all their lives. When it's made into a great power and they're taught to worship all types of power? With all the warnings against it, some are bound to want to try it out for themselves. The conquerors conquered. Maybe a great number secretly want it; maybe that's why they scream when it's farthest from possibility —
"That's it," she said tightly. "Look at me like that; just like you want to tear me apart. I love for you to look at me like that!"
I laughed and touched her chin. She had me on the ropes; I felt punch drunk, I couldn't deliver and I couldn't be angry either. I thought of lecturing her on the respect due one's bedmate in our society, but I no longer deluded myself that I either knew the society or where I fitted into it. Besides, I thought, she thinks you're an entertainer. That's something else they're taught.
I raised my glass and she joined me in a drink, moving close.
"You will, won't you, beautiful?" she said, her lips, raw-looking now without makeup, pouting babyishly. So why not entertain her, be a gentleman, or whatever it is she thinks you are—What does she think you are? A domesticated rapist, obviously, an expert on the woman question. Maybe that's what you are, house-broken and with a convenient verbal push-button arrangement for the ladies' pleasure. Well, so I had set this trap for myself.
"Take this," I said, shoving another glass into her hand. "It'll be better after you've had a drink, more realistic."
"Oh, yes, that'll be wonderful." She took a drink and looked up thoughtfully. "I get so tired of living the way I do, beautiful. Soon I'll be old and nothing will've happened to me. Do you know what that means? George talks a lot about women's rights, but what does he know about what a woman needs? Him with his forty minutes of brag and ten of bustle. Oh, you have no idea what you're doing for me."
"Nor you for me, Sybil dear," I said, filling the glass again. At last my drinks were beginning to work.
She shook her long hair out over her shoulders and crossed her knees, watching me. Her head had begun to weave.
"Don't drink too much, beautiful," she said. "It always takes the pep out of George."
"Don't worry," I said. "I rapes real good when I'm drunk."
She looked startled. "Ooooh, then pour me another," she said, giving herself a bounce. She was as delighted as a child, holding out her glass eagerly.
"What's happening here," I said, "a new birth of a nation?"
"What'd you say, beautiful?"
"Nothing, a bad joke. Forget it."
"That's what I like about you, beautiful. You haven't told me a single one of those vulgar jokes. Come on, beautiful," she said, "pour."
I poured her another and another; in fact, I poured us both quite a few. I was far away; it wasn't happening to me or to her and I felt a certain confused pity which I didn't wish to feel. Then she looked at me, her eyes bright behind narrowed lids and raised up and struck me where it hurt.
"Come on, beat me, daddy—you—you big black bruiser. What's taking you so long?" she said. "Hurry up, knock me down! Don't you want me?"
I was annoyed enough to slap her. She lay aggressively receptive, flushed, her navel no goblet but a pit in an earth-quaking land, flexing taut and expansive. Then she said, "Come on, come on!" and I said, "Sure, sure," looking around wildly and starting to pour the drink upon her and was stopped, my emotions locked, as I saw her lipstick lying on the table and grabbed it, saying, "Yes, yes," as I bent to write furiously across her belly in drunken inspiration:

SYBIL, YOU WERE RAPED
BY
SANTA CLAUS
SURPRISE

and paused there, trembling above her, my knees on the bed as she waited with unsteady expectancy. It was a purplish metallic shade of lipstick and as she panted with anticipation the letters stretched and quivered, up hill and down dale, and she was lit up like a luminescent sign.
"Hurry, boo'ful, hurry," she said.
I looked at her, thinking, Just wait until George sees that—if George ever gets around to seeing that. He'll read a lecture on an aspect of the woman question he's never thought about. She lay anonymous beneath my eyes until I saw her face, shaped by her emotion which I could not fulfill, and I thought, Poor Sybil, she picked a boy for a man's job and nothing was as it was supposed to be. Even the black bruiser fell down on the job. She'd lost control of her liquor now and suddenly I bent and kissed her upon the lips.
"Shhh, be quiet," I said, "that's no way to act when you're being —" and she raised her lips for more and I kissed her again and calmed her and she dozed off and I decided again to end the farce. Such games were for Rinehart, not me. I stumbled out and got a damp towel and began rubbing out the evidence of my crime. It was as tenacious as sin and it took some time. Water wouldn't do it, whiskey would have smelled and finally I had to find benzine. Fortunately she didn't arouse until I was almost finished.
"D'you do it, boo'ful?" she said.
"Yes, of course," I said. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
"Yes, but I don't seem t'remember . . ."
I looked at her and wanted to laugh. She was trying to see me but her eyes wouldn't focus am aer head kept swinging to one side, yet she was making a real effort, and suddenly I felt lighthearted.
"By the way," I said, trying to do something with her hair, "what's your name, lady?"
"It's Sybil," she said indignantly, almost tearfully. "Boo'ful, you know I'm Sybil."
"Not when I grabbed you, I didn't."
Her eyes widened and a smile wobbled across her face.
"That's right, you couldn't, could you? You never saw me before." She was delighted, I could almost see the idea take form in her mind.
"That's right," I said. "I leaped straight out of the wall. I overpowered you in the empty lobby—remember? I smothered your terrified screams."
" 'N' did I put up a good fight?"
"Like a lioness defending her young . . ."
"But you were such a strong big brute you made me give in. I didn't want to, did I now, boo'ful? You forced me 'gainst m' will."
"Sure," I said, picking up some silken piece of clothing. "You brought out the beast in me. I overpowered you. But what could I do?"
She studied that a while and for a second her face worked again as though she would cry. But it was another smile that bloomed there.
"And wasn't I a good nymphomaniac?" she said, watching me closely. "Really and truly?"
"You have no idea," I said. "George had better keep an eye on you."
She twisted herself from side to side with irritation. "Oh, nuts! That ole Georgie porgie wouldn't know a nymphomaniac if she got right into bed with him!"
"You're wonderful," I said. "Tell me about George. Tell me about that great master mind of social change."
She steadied her gaze, frowning. "Who, Georgie?" she said, looking at me out of one bleary eye. "Georgie's blind 'sa mole in a hole 'n doesn't know a thing about it. 'D you ever hear of such a thing, fifteen years! Say, what're you laughing at, boo'ful?"
"Me," I said, beginning to roar, "just me . . ."
"I've never seen anyone laugh like you, boo'ful. It's wonderful!"
I was slipping her dress over her head now and her voice came muffled through the shantung cloth. Then I had it down around her hips and her flushed face wavered through the collar, her hair down in disorder again.
"Boo'ful," she said, blowing the word, "will you do it again sometimes?"
I stepped away and looked at her. "What?"
"Please, pretty boo'ful, please," she said with a wobbly smile.
I began to laugh, "Sure," I said, "sure . . ."
"When, boo'ful, when?"
"Any time," I said. "How about every Thursday at nine?"
"Oooooh, boo'ful," she said, giving me an old-fashioned hug. "I've never seen anyone like you."
"Are you sure?" I said.
"Really, I haven't, boo'ful . . . Honor bright . . . believe me?"
"Sure, it's good to be seen, but we've got to go now," I said seeing her about to sag to the bed.
She pouted. "I need a lil nightcap, boo'ful," she said.
"You've had enough," I said.
"Ah, boo'ful, jus' one . . ."
"Okay, just one."
We had another drink and I looked at her and felt the pity and self-disgust returning and was depressed.
She looked at me gravely, her head to one side.
"Boo'ful," she said, "you know what lil ole Sybil thinks? She thinks you're trying to get rid of her."
I looked at her out of a deep emptiness and refilled her glass and mine. What had I done to her, allowed her to do? Had all of it filtered down to me? My action . . . my—the painful word formed as disconnectedly as her wobbly smile—my responsibility? All of it? I'm invisible. "Here," I said, "drink."
"You too, boo'ful," she said.
"Yes," I said. She moved into my arms.


I MUST have dozed. There came the tinkling of ice in a glass, the shrill of bells. I felt profoundly sad, as though winter had fallen during the hour. She lay, her chestnut hair let down, watching through heavy-lidded, blue, eye-shadowed eyes. From far away a new sound arose.
"Don't answer, boo'ful," she said, her voice coming through suddenly, out of time with the working of her mouth.
"What?" I said.
"Don't answer, let'er ring," she said, reaching her red-nailed fingers forth.
I took it from her hands, understanding now.
"Don't, boo'ful," she said.
It rang again in my hand now and for no reason at all the words of a childhood prayer spilled through my mind like swift water. Then: "Hello," I said.
It was a frantic, unrecognizable voice from the district. "Brother, you better get up here right away —" it said.
"I'm ill," I said. "What's wrong?"
"There's trouble, Brother, and you're the only one who can —"
"What kind of trouble?"
"Bad trouble, Brother; they trying to —"
Then the harsh sound of breaking glass, distant, brittle and fine, followed by a crash, and the line went dead.
"Hello," I said, seeing Sybil wavering before me, her lips saying, "Boo'ful."
I tried to dial now, hearing the busy signal throbbing back at me: Amen-Amen-Amen Ah man; and I sat there a while. Was it a trick? Did they know she was with me? I put it down. Her eyes were looking at me from out of their blue shadow. "Boo —"
And now I stood and pulled her arm. "Let's go, Sybil. They need me uptown"—realizing only then that I would go.
'"No," she said.
s'"But yes. Come."
She fell back upon the bed defying me. I released her arms and looked around, my head unclear. What kind of trouble at this hour? Why should I go? She watched me, her eyes brightly awash in blue shadow. My heart felt low and deeply sad.
"Come back, boo'ful," she said.
"No, let's get some air," I said.
And now, avoiding the red, oily nails I gripped her wrists and pulled her up, toward the door. We tottered, her lips brushing mine as we wavered there. She clung to me and, for an instant, I to her with a feeling immeasurably sad. Then she hiccupped and I looked vacantly back into the room. The light caught in the amber liquid of our glasses.
"Boo'ful," she said, "life could be so diff'rent —"
"But it never is," I said.
She said, "Boo'ful."
The fan whirred. And in a corner, my brief case, covered with specks of dust like memories—the night of the battle royal. I felt her breathing hot against me and pushed her gently away, steadying her against the door frame, then went over as impulsively as the remembered prayer, and got the brief case, brushing the dust against my leg and feeling the unexpected weight as I hugged it beneath my arm. Something clinked inside.
She watched me still, her eyes alight as I took her arm.
"How're you doing, Syb?" I said.
"Don't go, boo'ful," she said. "Let Georgie do it. No speeches tonight."
"Come on," I said, taking her arm quite firmly, pulling her along as she sighed, her wistful face turned toward me.
We went down smoothly into the street. My head was still badly fuzzed from the drink, and when I looked down the huge emptiness of the dark I felt like tears . . . What was happening uptown? Why should I worry over bureaucrats, blind men? I am invisible. I stared down the quiet street, feeling her stumbling beside me, humming a little tune; something fresh, naïve and carefree. Sybil, my too-late-too-early love . . . Ah! My throat throbbed. The heat of the street clung close. I looked for a taxi but none was passing. She hummed beside me, her perfume unreal in the night. We moved into the next block and still no taxis. Her high heels unsteadily scrunched the walk. I stopped her.
"Poor boo'ful," she said. "Don't know his name . . ."
I turned as though struck. "What?"
"Anonymous brute 'n boo'ful buck," she said, her mouth a bleary smile.
I looked at her, skittering about on high heels, scrunch, scrunch on the walk.
"Sybil," I said, more to myself than to her, "where will it end?" Something told me to go.
"Aaaah," she laughed, "in bed. Don't go up, boo'ful, Sybil'll tuck you in."
I shook my head. The stars were there, high, high, revolving. Then I closed my eyes and they sailed red behind my lids; then somewhat steadied I took her arm.
"Look, Sybil," I said, "stand here a minute while I go over to Fifth for a taxi. Stand right here, dear, and hold on."
We tottered before an ancient-looking building, its windows dark. Huge Greek medallions showed in spots of light upon its façade, above a dark labyrinthine pattern in the stone, and I propped her against the stoop with its carved stone monster. She leaned there, her hair wild, looking at me in the street light, smiling. Her face kept swinging to one side, her right eye desperately closed.
"Sure, boo'ful, sure," she said.
"I'll be right back," I said, backing away.
"Boo'ful," she called, "My boo'ful."
Hear the true affection, I thought, the adoration of the Boogie Bear, moving away. Was she calling me beautiful or boogieful, beautiful or sublime . . . What'd either mean? I am invisible . . .
I went on through the late street quiet, hoping that a cab would pass before I had gone all the way. Up ahead at Fifth the lights were bright, a few cars shooting across the gaping mouth of the street and above and beyond, the trees—great, dark, tall. What was going on, I pondered. Why call for me so late—and who?
I hurried ahead, my feet unsteady.
"Booo'ful," she called behind me, "boooooo'ful!"
I waved without looking back. Never again, no more, no more. I went on.
At Fifth a cab passed and I tried to hail it, only to hear someone's voice arise, the sound floating gaily by. I looked up the lighted avenue for another, hearing suddenly the screech of brakes and turning to see the cab stop and a white arm beckoning. The cab reversed, rolled close, settling with a bounce. I laughed. It was Sybil. I stumbled forward, came to the door. She smiled out at me, her head, framed in the window, still pulling to one side, her hair waving down.
"Get in, boo'ful, 'n take me to Harlem . . ."
I shook my head, feeling it heavy and sad. "No," I said, "I've got work to do, Sybil. You'd better go home . . ."
"No, boo'ful, take me with you."
I turned to the driver, my hand upon the door. He was small, dark-haired and disapproving, a glint of red from the traffic light coloring the tip of his nose.
"Look," I said, "take her home."
I gave him the address and my last five-dollar bill. He took it, glumly disapproving.
"No, boo'ful," she said, "I want to go to Harlem, be with you!"
"Good night," I said, stepping back from the curb.
We were in the middle of the block and I saw them pull away.
"No," she said, "no, boo'ful. Don't leave . . ." Her face, wild-eyed and white, showed in the door. I stood there, watching him plunge swiftly and contemptuously out of sight, his tail light as red as his nose.
I walked with eyes closed, seeming to float and trying to clear my head, then opened them and crossed to the park side, along the cobbles. High above, the cars sailed round and round the drive, their headlights stabbing. All the taxies were hired, all going downtown. Center of gravity. I plodded on, my head awhirl.
Then near 110th Street I saw her again. She was waiting beneath a street lamp, waving. I wasn't surprised; I had become fatalistic. I came up slowly, hearing her laugh. She was ahead of me and beginning to run, barefoot, loosely, as in a dream. Running. Unsteadily but swift and me surprised and unable to catch up, lead-legged, seeing her ahead and calling, "Sybil, Sybil!" running lead-legged along the park side.
"Come on, boo'ful," she called, looking back and stumbling. "Catch Sybil . . . Sybil," running barefoot and girdleless along the park.
I ran, the brief case heavy beneath my arm. Something told me I had to get to the office . . . "Sybil, wait!" I called.
She ran, the colors of her dress flaring flamelike in the bright places of the dark. A rustling motion, legs working awkwardly beneath her and white heels flashing, her skirts held high. Let her go, I thought. But now she was crossing the street and running wildly only to go down at the curb and standing and going down again, with a bumped backside, completely unsteady, now that her momentum was gone.
"Boo'ful," she said as I came up. "Damn, boo'ful, you push me?"
"Get up," I said without anger. "Get up," taking her soft arm. She stood, her arms flung wide for an embrace.
"No," I said, "this isn't Thursday. I've got to get there . . . What do they plan for me, Sybil?"
"Who, boo'ful?"
"Jack and George . . . Tobitt and all?"
"You ran me down, boo'ful," she said. "Forget them . . . bunch of dead-heads . . . unhipped, y'know. We didn't make this stinking world, boo'ful. Forget —"
I saw the taxi just in time, approaching swiftly from the corner, a double-decker bus looming two blocks behind. The cabbie looked over, his head out of the window, sitting high at the wheel as he made a swift U-turn and came alongside. His face was shocked, disbelieving.
"Come now, Sybil," I said, "and no tricks."
"Pardon me, old man," the driver said, his voice concerned, "but you're not taking her up in Harlem are you?"
"No, the lady's going downtown," I said. "Get in Sybil."
"Boo'ful's 'n ole dictator," she said to the driver, who looked at me silently, as though I were mad.
"A game stud," he muttered, "a most game stud!"
But she got in.
"Just 'n ole dictator, boo'ful."
"Look," I told him, "take her straight home and don't let her get out of the cab. I don't want her running around Harlem. She's precious, a great lady —"
"Sure, man, I don't blame you," he said. "Things is popping up there."
The cab was already rolling as I yelled, "What's going on?"
"They're taking the joint apart," he called above the shifting of the gears. I watched them go and made for the bus stop. This time I'll make sure, I thought, stepping out and flagging the bus and getting on. If she comes back, she'll find me gone. And I knew stronger than ever that I should hurry but was still too foggy in my mind, couldn't get myself together.
I sat gripping my brief case, my eyes closed, feeling the bus sailing swift beneath me. Soon it would turn up Seventh Avenue. Sybil, forgive me, I thought. The bus rolled.
But when I opened my eyes we were turning into Riverside Drive. This too I accepted calmly, the whole night was out of joint. I'd had too many drinks. Time ran fluid, invisible, sad. Looking out I could see a ship moving upstream, its running lights bright points in the night. The cool sea smell came through to me, constant and thick in the swiftly unfolding blur of anchored boats, dark water and lights pouring past. Across the river was Jersey and I remembered my entry into Harlem. Long past, I thought, long past. I was as if drowned in the river.
To my right and ahead the church spire towered high, crowned with a red light of warning. And now we were passing the hero's tomb and I recalled a visit there. You went up the steps and inside and you looked far below to find him, at rest, draped flags . . .
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street came quickly. I stumbled off, hearing the bus pull away as I faced the water. There was a light breeze, but now with the motion gone the heat returned, clinging. Far ahead in the dark I saw the monumental bridge, ropes of lights across the dark river; and closer, high above the shoreline, the Palisades, their revolutionary agony lost in the riotous lights of roller coasters. "The Time Is Now . . ." the sign across the river began, but with history stomping upon me with hobnailed boots, I thought with a laugh, why worry about time? I crossed the street to the drinking fountain, feeling the water cooling, going down, then dampened a handkerchief and swabbed my face, eyes. The water flashed, gurgled, sprayed. I pressed forward my face, feeling wet cool, hearing the infant joy of fountains. Then heard the other sound. It was not the river nor the curving cars that flashed through the dark, but pitched like a distant crowd or a swift river at floodtide.
I moved forward, found the steps and started down. Below the bridge lay the hard stone river of the street, and for a second I looked at the waves of cobblestones as though I expected water, as though the fountain above had drawn from them. Still I would enter and go across to Harlem. Below the steps the trolley rails gleamed steely. I hurried, the sound drawing closer, myriad-voiced, humming, enfolding me, numbing the air, as I started beneath the ramp. It came, a twitter, a coo, a subdued roar that seemed trying to tell me something, give me some message. I stopped, looking around me; the girders marched off rhythmically into the dark, over the cobblestones the red lights shone. Then I was beneath the bridge and it was as though they had been waiting for me and no one but me—dedicated and set aside for me—for an eternity. And I looked above toward the sound, my mind forming an image of wings, as something struck my face and streaked, and I could smell the foul air now, and see the encrusted barrage, feeling it streak my jacket and raising my brief case above my head and running, hearing it splattering around, falling like rain. I ran the gantlet, thinking, even the birds; even the pigeons and the sparrows and the goddam gulls! I ran blindly, boiling with outrage and despair and harsh laughter. Running from the birds to what, I didn't know. I ran. Why was I here at all?
I ran through the night, ran within myself. Ran.