Never Love a Stranger (18 page)
Marty smiled. Jerry reached across the table and took her hand. “You’re an awfully sweet fool if you are one, darling, and I love you for it.”
I
AWOKE
the next morning in a strange room. Half awake, I looked idly at the ceiling. Slowly my gaze wandered over the room as I gradually realized where I was: Baltimore. I hadn’t meant to run away. I wondered about going back. Fully awake now, I got out of bed and began dressing. While I washed my hands in the small basin in the corner of the room, I wondered what they were doing back in New York. Probably when I hadn’t shown up, Brother Bernhard wired my folks. As soon as he received their reply, he would report me to the police. They would start checking the railroad stations and sooner or later find out I had bought a ticket to Baltimore. I was too wise to think I would be able to stay out of sight for long. The best thing I could do was first to check out of the hotel I was in, and then lose myself in the city.
I finished dressing, took one last look around the room, and went downstairs. At the desk I gave the clerk the room key and told him I was checking out. He didn’t say anything, just tossed the key on a table behind him and went back to reading his newspaper. I bought a newspaper at the cigar stand in the lobby and walked out. A few doors down the block was a small restaurant. I went in and ordered breakfast: juice, eggs, and coffee, twenty-five cents. I spread the newspaper open and turned to the want ads. I scanned the columns for jobs. There were a few listed for boys: office boys, errand boys, store help, and the like. I marked them with a pencil and finished breakfast.
By the time lunch came around I had seen all of them and didn’t get a job. I got lost once or twice, but each time I asked a passer-by and received courteous directions from him. It wasn’t like New York, where they would tell you how to get somewhere but you would have the sneaky feeling that they were laughing at your ignorance while they were doing it.
I decided I had better think about a place to sleep before I went anywhere else. I opened the paper again and turned to the rooms-for-rent section. They all seemed to be in the same section. I went into a restaurant and with my lunch got some information on how to get there. I finished lunch, grabbed a trolley at the door, and got off at Stafford Street. It was an old run-down section, just off mid-town. Grey and brown stone houses lined the street, in each window were small signs, “Vacancy”, or “Room for Rent”. I walked along till I found one cleaner than most. I ran up the steps and rang the bell. There was no answer. I waited a few minutes, then rang the bell again. Again no answer. I started down the steps; when I was about half-way down the stoop, I heard the door open behind me. I turned back up the steps. An old woman, her hair tied in funny ribbons, stood there.
What’s the idea waking a person in the middle of the afternoon?” she demanded. Her voice was raucously high pitched, with a small waver in it.
“You have a sign in the window, ma’am,” I said, pointing to it. “‘Room for rent’.”
“Don’t call me ma’am,” she said, sharply; then following my pointed finger, “Oh, that!” she said more quietly.
“Yes,” I said. “Is it still open?”
“No,” she said quickly, “it was taken yesterday. I forgot to take the sign out of the window.”
“Oh!” I said. “Sorry to bother you.” I started down the steps again. About half-way down, she called me.
“Young man,” she called, “young man, come back.” Back up the steps I went. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop calling me ma’am; I don’t like it,” she said. “I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked at me closely. “You’re new here in town, aren’t you?” she asked.
I was sore. If she could tell so easily, what chance would I have to stay out of sight? “Yes,” I said. “What’s it to yuh?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Where do you come from—New York?”
“None of your business!” I told her. I was getting madder. “All I did was ask you for a room. I didn’t know I’d run into a police station. Forget it!” I turned away.
Wait a minute,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything. I’d like to help you. Maybe I’ve got a room. Come inside.”
I followed her through the door into a hallway. At the right of the hall was a big door made of two panels. She rolled the door open by shoving them apart, and I followed her into a large room. There were couches and seats all around the room. A large baby grand piano stood in one corner of the room. There were a few empty whisky bottles on the piano. Cigarette and cigar butts were all over the place in ash-trays and on the floor near a large old-fashioned fireplace against the far wall. There was a stale smell of smoke and whisky and a something else that smelled like the wind when it blew across from the hospital to the orphanage.
“Boy, it stinks in here!” she said, sniffing the air and then going over to a window and throwing it open. It was at the back of the room. I noticed there were large screens in front of the windows that opened on to the street. Some fresh air began to blow in.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said, waving her hand towards one of the couches. She went over to a small cabinet, opened it, took out a bottle of gin, poured herself a drink in one of the tumblers standing there, and tossed it off. She swallowed the liquor without blinking her eyes, then she stood there sniffing the fresh air. “Ah!” she said, “that’s better.” She made a queer picture standing there in a sort of kimono, her grey hair tied into tight little kinks with ribbons, and colour coming into her face from the liquor. I didn’t speak. I was tempted to laugh. It all looked screwy to me.
She sat down on a couch and looked at me. For a few minutes we sat there quietly, not talking. I was becoming restless under her gaze when she spoke.
“How old are you?” Her voice was more quiet now, controlled.
I hesitated a moment. She noticed it. “Nineteen,” I said, lying anyway. “Hmmm!” she said. “Why did you leave New York?”
“None of your business!” I said. “I told you before, all I want to know is, have you a room for rent or haven’t you?” I started to get out of the chair.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” she said, waving me back into the seat with her
hands. “Don’t get touchy!”
“All right,” I said. I wondered what the old dame wanted anyway. This dump looked like a whorehouse to me, anyway. It stank. I wouldn’t live here on a bet.
“You in trouble with a girl?” she asked shrewdly, peering at me. I shook my head.
“The cops maybe?” Still with that same look on her face.
That could be, I thought. As soon as Brother Bernhard reported me, I would be. I shrugged my shoulders casually. I didn’t speak.
“Oh,” she said, smiling now. She was pleased with her guess. I could see it. “I thought so. What are you going to do here in Baltimore?”
“Get a job,” I said, “and a room if I can ever get the hell out of here to find one.”
She laughed out loud at that. “Going to go straight?” she chuckled, then stopped and looked at me fiercely. “Don’t hand me that. You know how far you’d get? They’d pick up a punk like you and ship you back to New York and the can so fast you wouldn’t know what’s happening.”
I watched her silently. In her excitement she got up and walked up and down in front of me.
She spoke again: “You’re a talkative devil, aren’t you?”
“When I have something to say,” I answered. “You’re doing enough for both of us.”
She stopped in front of me and bent down and felt my arm muscles. I thought maybe she was going to try to do something, so I tightened my arm muscles. “Strong, too,” she said. She straightened up, walked over to the cabinet, poured herself another drink, and swallowed it without a blink of her eyes. “I like you,” she said. “I like that hard, mean look you’ve got in your eyes. I got a job for you.”
“Doing what?” I asked. Pimping was not my line.
“You know the kind of place I run here?” she asked, gesturing with her hands at the room.
“Yes,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I need a man here—someone to kind of keep the customers on good behaviour, to keep them from getting too, rambunctious. You won’t have too much to do. No real bouncing—only once in a while—then it’s a drunk and they’re easy to handle. All you got to do is stand around and look tough and let them see you. That’s enough. And someone to come to the stores with me, so’s they think I’m just another rooming-house operator. Prevent talk. Thirty bucks a week. Room and board. What do you say?”
“Sounds all right,” I said, “but it’s a little out of line with what I’ve been doing.”
“What have you been doing—a cheap stick-up here and there? And what’ll it get you? A bullet in the pants. This is better and pays more.” She leaned over me. I could smell the gin on her breath.
“No pimping,” I said.
“No pimping!” she said. “What kind of a place do you think 1 run here, anyway? Every Tom, Dick, and Harry can’t get in here. I got a nice, quiet home trade.”
“O.K.,” I said, standing up. “When do I start?”
“Right now,” she said, smiling. “But remember one thing. Leave the girls alone. I don’t
mean you shouldn’t fool around once in a while when you feel like. But don’t play any favourites. I don’t want any arguments among my girls.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I understand.”
She came close to me. “You do your job and mind your own business, and they’ll never find you here.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said.
“You got a job,” she said, and went over to the cabinet and poured herself another drink. After she swallowed it she looked at me again. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Frankie,” I said, “Frank Kane. What’s yours?”
“Just call me Grandma,” she said, and tossed off the drink.
S
HE
walked to the doors. “Mary, Mary,” she screeched at the top of her voice. She turned around and walked back to me. “Where’s your luggage?” she asked.
“What luggage?” I said.
“You must have been in a hurry,” she laughed. “That’s being young for you. Always shooting off somewhere half-cocked. Not thinking about what you’d need. I suppose you’re broke too.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I thought so!” she cackled triumphantly. “I knew it from the way you looked. I bet you haven’t even got enough money to pay for a room if you did get one.”
I smiled, thinking of the $185 I had in my pocket.
“O.K.,” she said, “O.K. When we go out shopping this after noon we’ll buy you some clothes: a suit with built-up shoulders—make you look bigger—some coloured shirts.” She went to the door again and called Mary. “But don’t think you’re getting them for nothing,” she said, coming back to me. “I’ll take it out of your first week’s pay.”
She stopped. A big coloured girl came into the room. “What do you want?” she asked the old lady.
“My grandson just got here from New York,” the old lady said. “Show him the empty room on the third floor.”
The girl looked at me sceptically. The old woman, apparently reading her mind, shouted at her: “What’s the matter? You heard me—my grandson! I could have a grandson, couldn’t I? I’m the same as the other women in the neighbourhood. They got children.”
The coloured girl sniffed. “I been with you six years, Miz Mander. I ain’t heard you mention nobody.”
“That’s the black folk for you,” the old woman said, turning to me. “Treat ’em good and pretty soon they think they own you.” She turned back to the coloured girl. She was almost screaming now: “Goddam your black hide! I told you he was my grandson. Look at him. He looks like me. Look at his eyes. They’re like mine, I said.”
The coloured girl looked at me. I could see her hesitate. “If’n you say so, Miz Mander,” she said.
The old woman snorted triumphantly. “Well, he isn’t. I never saw him before today. But he’s going to work here, and as far as anyone goes, he’s my grandson.” She turned to me and said: “You can’t fool Mary. She’s been with me too long. We can’t fool you, can we, Mary?”
“No, Miz Mander,” Mary said, smiling now.
“Show him his room,” Mrs. Mander said. “Then bring me some breakfast! And then clean out this room! It stinks!” She went to the doorway and then turned to me. “Did you eat, Frankie?” she asked.
“Yes, Grandma,” I said.
“All right,” she said. “Go to your room then. I’ll call you in about an hour. We have to go shopping.” She stalked off down the hall, disappearing in the door behind the staircase.
I followed Mary up the staircase. The house was quiet, the hallways dimly lit and somehow dirty. Two flights up she stopped in front of a small room. She opened the door and I followed her in. It was a small room facing the street. Heavy black curtains hung beside the window. A small single bed was over against the wall, a wash-stand in the other corner.
“The toilet’s down the hall,” Mary said, pointing to it. “That room over there is Miz Mander’s, mine is upstairs. The girls are all down on the second floh.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She looked at me a minute. “You really from New York?” she asked. “Yes,” I said.
“But you no relative of hers?” “No,” I said.
She went out. I closed the door behind her. I took off my jacket and threw it over a chair. I stretched out on the bed. I felt tired and restless. I didn’t know yet how it was to look for a job. I looked at the ceiling and then the wall. I tried to shut my eyes but they were burning. I got out of bed and went to the window and drew the black heavy curtains together. The dimness of the room seemed to suit me better. I stretched out on the bed again.
Let the old dame think what she wants! She was right about one thing. The cops wouldn’t find me here. As soon as things were quiet I could beat it and join the folks. I wondered about the family. How were they doing? I could see my aunt all excited over the wire that Brother Bernhard would send her—my uncle telling her not to worry, Brother Bernhard must be mad as hell. Mrs. Mander thought I was tough. In a jam with the cops
… funny … Baltimore … Grandma … whorehouse … don’t play favourites….
I started to doze off. The door opened. Mrs. Mander came in. She was all dressed up— nice—like any other old lady. I was completely awake. I sat up.