“Wasn’t it a place where you could help share what you had? Didn’t it mean more than just a place to have fun?”
“I guess so,” she said doubtfully.
I was right. Most of the people that came there didn’t know what in hell the score was
—it was just a place to go. Any good work that came out of it was only through the planning of its officers, men like Gerro. The ordinary members didn’t really know how important it was for them. I said good-bye to Terry and went back to work.
Wednesday afternoon, Harry answered a phone call. “It’s for you,” he said, holding the receiver towards me.
I took it. “Hello.”
I recognized Gerro’s voice. “Hello, Frank. This is Gerro.” “How are you feeling?” I asked.
“O.K. now,” he said. “I just wanted to call and find out if you can have supper with me tonight.”
“I’d like to, thanks,” I said. “Where’ll we eat?” “Down here at Marianne’s,” he said.
I didn’t expect that. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to go down there; I didn’t want to see her. That is, I wanted to see her, but I knew I had better not. I had thought too much about her the last few days—more than I thought I would. It was funny the way
she had crept into my mind. “What time?” I asked. “About seven-thirty.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I just remembered. The truck comes tonight, and I have to wait around for it. I won’t be able to come. I’m sorry.”
“Oh!” He sounded disappointed. “Marianne wanted you to come down. We’ll both be disappointed that you can’t make it.”
It was funny the way my heart jumped when he mentioned her name. “Tell her I’m sorry I can’t make it, but you understand.”
“Yes,” he said, “I understand. Maybe some other time.” “Yeah, some other time.” We said good-bye, and I hung up.
I felt good after that call. I knew she had thought about me too or else I wouldn’t have gotten that invitation.
Gerro called me again next week, and I had dinner with him at a restaurant on Fourteenth Street. We had a nice talk. I was beginning to like the guy a hell of a lot. He was the first guy I had met who I seemed to cotton to in a long time. He was smart and friendly.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked him while we were having our dessert. “I’m being transferred to a club uptown,” he answered, “up in Harlem.”
“I don’t know why in hell you bother with that bunch! Most of the people don’t know or care what you are really trying to do. All they’re looking for is a place to have a good time.” I thought I was telling him something he didn’t know.
“I know that,” he said readily. I looked surprised. He continued: “I know that most of them don’t understand what we are trying to do. But that isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t try to help them. Sooner or later everyone will realize that what we’re trying to do is the right thing. It may take a little time but they will learn.”
“So you’re going uptown,” I said ruminatively. I was thinking of the Harrises. There was a hell of a lot he could do up there. He was the right kind of a guy too.
“Yes,” he said. “The organization feels I’d be able to do a better job up there among my own kind.”
“You did a hell of a good job down here!” I said.
“I thought so too,” he said, shaking his head, “but now I don’t know. I had hoped that by working with the people, we would forget the old animosities and differences. That’s the only way for us to get along: by working together in a common effort. That way we’d get to know each other and understand that each of us is looking for the same thing. Then we wouldn’t have any differences.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. I didn’t know how right he was, but I did know you couldn’t make people change overnight.
I met him once a week after that, and it was the most interesting evening of the week for me. I looked forward to it. We had become fairly good friends.
I began to see less of Terry. The club had moved to new quarters about five blocks away, and I didn’t attend any of the meetings there. Somehow since I had met Marianne I had changed. I was beginning to feel there were more things I wanted from a woman than the mere physical possession of her body. Terry was a nice kid but she didn’t have
what I wanted. There was no pretence of love between us. Our relationship was purely physical. In some vague manner I began to feel that I wasn’t being given all that I wanted. I didn’t have that feeling of lift, excitement, curiosity, or awareness that I felt when I thought of Marianne. I began to wonder whether I had fallen in love, but laughed it off. The idea of falling in love was a foolish thing to me. It was something you read about in books and saw in the movies, but it had no place in real life. I felt pretty sure I hadn’t fallen in love.
One evening in March when we were standing in the hallway of Terry’s house, I had kissed her and she had pushed me away. This time I didn’t press myself on her. She stood there in the dimness looking at me. At last she spoke.
“You’ve changed, Frank,” she said. I laughed.
“No,” she said seriously. “You’ve changed. I mean it. There’s something on your mind.” “Nothing that I know about,” I told her flippantly.
“You may not know it, but there is.” She looked at me, trying to see what expression there was on my face. “And I’ve been thinking too. This thing we’ve been doing will have to stop.”
I didn’t answer.
“I was right,” she said, more sure of herself now than before. “A few months ago you would have argued with me. Now you don’t say anything. And I’m glad. I was going to stop even if you didn’t. I’m going to get married.”
She misunderstood my sigh of relief. I had expected something else.
“To that fellow I was telling you about. He’s a bus driver, and he has a pretty good job and makes about forty a week. He loves me, and if I marry him, I can move out of this dump and have all the things I want. We can live on Long Island in a nice steam-heated flat, not this cold place. I won’t have to worry about bills and food. We won’t have to try to stretch pennies.”
I tried to look unhappy but I had a hard job doing it.
She put a hand on my arm. “Don’t feel too bad about it, Frank. It’s something we couldn’t help.” She sounded like a dame in a picture we had seen last week. “We had a lot of fun together and some laughs. Let’s part friends.”
I looked at her strangely. She really didn’t believe that stuff she was handing out. Her face was perfectly serious; she meant every word of it. I cleared my throat of a wild desire to laugh. “If that’s the way you want it, Terry,” I said. My voice sounded strangled to me because of the attempt to control it.
She thought I felt bad. “This is good-bye, Frank,” she whispered. I played the game. “No,” I said, “you can’t mean it.”
“Yes,” she said, “I mean it. This is good-bye.” She was so carried away by what she said there were actually tears in her eyes.
I bent over and kissed her on the cheek. “I guess you’re right, baby,” I said. “I’m not good enough for you. I hope you’ll be very happy. Good luck.”
She burst into sobs and ran upstairs crying. I watched her go and then walked out into
the street grinning.
A month later as I walked into the restaurant to meet Gerro, I saw Marianne sitting at the table with him. I stopped a moment in the doorway and then walked over to the table as he caught my eye. I sat down.
“Marianne is having dinner with us.” Gerro smiled. “So I see,” I said. “How are you, Marianne?”
“I’m all right,” she replied, smiling at me in a way that set my pulses to racing. “How have you been?”
“Pretty good.” I nodded, looking down at the menu so she couldn’t see what was going on in my mind.
“If you will excuse me,” Gerro said, standing up, “I’ll be back in a minute. Order some tomato juice to start for me.” He walked towards the men’s room.
I spent an awkward moment looking at the menu.
“What’s the matter, Frank?” Marianne asked with a smile. “Surprised that I came?” I nodded. “A little.”
“Well,” she said, “don’t let it bother you. I was curious to see what you looked like in the daylight.”
I looked out the window of the restaurant. It was dark. It had been dark over an hour. She followed my graze and laughed. “You don’t believe me then?”
“No,” I said succinctly.
She laughed again. “Frank, I think you’re afraid of me—that you think I’m a wicked woman.
“I told you before,” I said, “who you are and what you are doesn’t interest me. I’m Gerro’s friend.”
“Touché!” she said, then leaned forward earnestly. “Frank, it’s possible for a woman to be in love with two men at once. Gerro is wonderful—he’s sweet and kind and everything a woman should want in a man. I wish we were married, and I mean it. But you’re different. You’re wicked, selfish, dishonest. I can see it in your face. You seem to want everything that someone else possesses. But you attract me. I want to take you apart and find out what makes you tick. But you’re elusive. I knew you wouldn’t come down to see me, so I talked Gerro into taking me along. I had to see you again. I had to know how you felt about me. And now I know. I can see that in your face too, under that mask you keep in place.”
“Well then,” I spoke quietly, “maybe you can also see that you’re Gerro’s girl, and that he has a hard enough job to do without my messing up his personal life. For years the thought of you has kept Gerro alive. I’m not going to take that away from him.”
She looked down at her plate and bit her lip. I could see the colour pour into her face. She blushed very easily. She started to answer, but Gerro came back to the table and we dropped the conversation.
When I left them after supper I walked slowly uptown. “If it weren’t for Gerro,” I thought, “I’d——” Resolutely I put the thought from my mind and went back to the hotel.
A
PRIL
came, and with it the first soft touch of spring. Spring in New York! It kind of did something to you. It wasn’t anything like spring was supposed to be. It was the first onslaught of the dull, hot days to come. It was the first sign of a hot, uncomfortable summer. I went through the days automatically —one day after another, the same thing every day. I didn’t know whether I was happy, but I knew that I was content in some strange, unsatisfied fashion. There were other things I longed for, but I never could define those feelings even to myself.
One evening Gerro asked if I could come down to Union Square on May Day. He was scheduled to make a speech there and he wanted me to hear it. I didn’t know whether I could go, because May Day fell on a Monday. I told him I’d ask Harry if I could have a few hours off that afternoon. If I could get the time off, I would come.
I hadn’t seen Marianne since that last meeting in March. I vaguely wondered if she would be there. I don’t know whether that was the factor that finally influenced me to go to the May Day affair. But I know it must have played some part in my decision, because I didn’t care for speeches.
Anyway, Monday, May 1st, I got time off to go. There was a big crowd down at the square, and they had erected a temporary platform for the speakers. Men were going around handing out slips of paper on which was printed the programme for the day. I looked over the list and I saw Gerro was the fourth speaker. His subject, as announced by the programme, was: “Equality—A Birthright.”
I pushed my way down to the front of the crowd. A man was talking. I didn’t know who he was, I didn’t care. I was trying to locate Gerro. At last I saw him. He was sitting up there on the platform with some other men, all plainly awaiting their turn to speak. I waved to him.
His eyes, which had been wandering restlessly over the crowd, came to rest upon me. He grinned and nodded his head to show that he saw me. I waved again. I began to look over the crowd to see if I could locate Marianne. She wasn’t there.
A hand tugged at my sleeve. I turned around. It was Terry. “Hello,” I said, smiling. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
She smiled back when she heard me speak to her. “I came down to hear Gerro,” she said. “I’m with my folks.”
“That’s good,” I said awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. “How have you been?” It was a stupid question, because I saw her almost every day in the store. But there was a feeling of strangeness between us, and we didn’t talk very much.
“I’m O.K.,” she said. “Nice crowd, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I replied, looking around again for Marianne, “big crowd.”
We were silent a few minutes: we didn’t know what to talk about. Finally she said: “I’ll have to get back to my folks.”
“Yes,” I agreed brightly, “I guess so.”
“So long,” I said. I turned back to look over the crowd but didn’t see Marianne. I looked at the speakers’ stand, and saw Gerro get up and move towards the steps. I walked over there.
I shook hands with him. “Hi, ya, boy!”
He grinned at me. “I was glad you came down. I was nervous as hell until I saw you. This is the first time I’ve made a speech to so big a crowd, but when I saw you I felt better. I knew everything would be all right. I always like to talk to someone in the crowd I know. It takes your mind off the other people.”
“Then I’m glad I came,” I grinned. I looked around and asked him casually: “Did Marianne come down?”
“No,” he shook his head, “She can’t stand big crowds like this.”
I concealed my disappointment. We spoke a few minutes, and then he went back on the stand. I stood around waiting for his turn to come. There would be two more speakers before he appeared.
There were all kinds of people there—poor of every race, every colour, every creed, dressed in their Sunday best. Poverty wasn’t exclusive. You didn’t have to be born here to be broke. Around the edges of the crowd were mounted policemen to keep order. They were astride beautiful reddish-brown horses, and gripped clubs firmly in their free hand. They looked ready for trouble.
I looked back at the speakers’ stand. The first man had finished and another was speaking now. I felt warm, so I went back to the edge of the crowd and bought a bottle of coke. Then I pushed my way through the crowd again to the front. Gerro was now sitting in the front row on the end nearest the steps. I edged closer to the platform. I had finished the coke. Now I looked around for a place to put the bottle down, but couldn’t find any, so I stood there holding it in my hand.