One More for the Road (21 page)

“Sonny,” the waiter said suddenly. “Sonny. And there was a song he sang a dozen times a night that summer.”

“‘Tangerine,'” I said.

“Ohmigod, what a memory!”

“Tangerine.”

Johnny Mercer wrote it. Sonny sang it.

Leading us through the night, a small crowd of six or seven.

“Tangerine.”

Sometimes we called him Tangerine, for that was his favorite song the summer of that year before everyone went away to war. Tangerine was it. We never found out what his last name was nor where he lived now or where he came from. He was Friday nights late and Saturdays later, singing as he got off the streetcar like a great lady with refined manners and a look that said the world should have more flowers, but sadly did not.

Tangerine. Sonny. No name. He was tall for that year, just this side of six feet, with more skeleton and less flesh than the rest of us. He claimed that he was not thin but svelte and when he alighted in our midst one warm summer night the weather changed because he bade it to do so with a wave of a languid arm and pale fingers in which he held a long cigarette holder that he pointed at buildings, skylines, the park, or us, as he talked, or laughed. There was nothing he didn't laugh at, and after a while, fearing you might miss out, you joined his laughter. Life was pretty damned funny and you had best find that out now, rather than later.

Tangerine. Sonny. He drifted like a countess from a suddenly royal streetcar, swept through the park, gathering as he went all the lonelies, who, pulled by his gravity and grace, their eyes never off him, rarely speaking, followed.

It was as if they had been waiting all summer for something, anything, to happen. For someone to tell them where and who they were, and where to go. Taking it for granted, Sonny poised in the center of the red-bricked plaza, glanced about with disdain, and stabbed his cigarette holder toward those men shouting the virtues of Stalin or Hitler, choose one, choose none.

When Sonny arrived at the sound and fury, there were half a dozen aliens, wanderers in his wake. He did not glance back but accepted them, like a cape to be worn at this strange opera. He stood, eyes shut, listening to the shouts. His new friends did likewise, shut their eyes to accept the noise.

I was one of them.

And all of us nameless. Oh sure, there were Pete and Tom and Jim. But the giveaway was a young punk who claimed to be H. Bedford Jones. I knew he lied. I had read H. Bedford Jones's novels in
Argosy
when I was ten.

But who needed names when Sonny dubbed and redubbed us weekends? This one was “Squirt” and that one “Tad,” and yet another “Elder Statesman,” and someone—me—was from another world, or he led our late-night parades, calling out “cohorts” or “chums” or just “pals” and “lonely hearts.”

I never found out much about those friends who were really not friends but late-night tourists from various cities. In later years I described L.A. and its eighty or ninety towns as eighty-five oranges in search of a navel. But in late 1939 there were only two places to socialize: Pershing Square, where the temperature rose from political explosions, or Hollywood, where people walked up and down in search of liaisons like ectoplasm that melted long before taking shape.

So it was with L.A. before the Second World War, when young men minus cars wandered in dead certain that by nine some fabulous woman would grab and hustle them home to deliriums.

It never happened. Which did not stop the young men the next weekend from shouting “Tonight's the night” at their mirrors, knowing that when they turned away their glass images died. Thus a conglomerate gang gathered by instinct rather than intellect.

And there was Sonny.

His mirror was probably just as accurate as ours at showing defeat with nicely knotted ties and clean collars. But then mirrors are Rorschach tests; you can read anything in them that enhances your myopia or threatens your self-belief. Leaving on Saturday, you always checked the mirror to see if you were really there.

That being so, most Saturday nights were long and Sonny peacocked us around, buying hot dogs or Coca-Colas in bars full of strange men or stranger women. The men seemed to have broken wrists. The women had biceps. We nursed our Cokes for hours, stunned by the scene, until the managers threw us out.

“Okay,” cried Sonny in the doorway, “if that's how you feel!”

“That's how I feel!” the managers replied.

“Come on, girls,” said Sonny.

“I wish you wouldn't say that,” I said.

“Sorry.” Sonny left. “This way, chaps.”

Some Saturday nights ended early. Sonny disappeared. And without Sonny the gang disintegrated. We didn't know what to talk about without him. We never knew where Sonny went but once we thought we saw him duck into a cheap hotel on Main Street with an old white-haired gentleman, but when we got there the lobby was empty. Another time we saw him on a bus that cost ten cents rather than a trolley that cost seven, standing by a tall slender colored boy. Then the trolley was gone. That did it. We said so long and rode home to addresses we never gave.

One Saturday night it rained without stopping and since most of the guys didn't have enough money to hide in the bars, they went home, which left Sonny and me staring at each other, until he said:

“Okay, Peter Pan, you ever had a real drink? Booze, hooch, scotch, wine.”

“Nope.”

“C'mon, it's time.”

He dragged me into the nearest bar and ordered a Coke and a double Dubonnet. When it came, he slid it over. “Try this.”

I sipped it and smiled. “Hey, not bad.”

“Not bad, he says!”

“Reminds me of the grapes when I was nine that me and my dad crushed in a wine press with lots of sugar. Dubonnet.”

“God! The child genius describes his first drink. When will you stop being Joan of Arc making the rounds?”

“No, no,” I said. “I'm the blacksmith who made her armor.”

“Give me that!” Sonny slugged the Dubonnet down. “Joan of Arc's blacksmith! Christ! Out!” Sonny paid and we were on the street, where he stopped and teetered on the curb, staring.

I looked to where he was looking. She was there.

A woman of, I would say, middle years, handsome rather than beautiful, with her hair neatly combed and pulled back in a bun. She should have been wearing a hat but she only stood with the rain falling on her face and running down the front of her black raincoat, her hands folded across her breast. When she saw us, one hand came up in a gesture as if she might call. Instead, she pulled back, as if alarmed that we might run.

“Dear God,” Sonny whispered.

He sighed but did not nod to acknowledge her. “Wait!” He ducked back inside and came out a minute later, wiping his mouth. “One more for courage.”

Still he made no sign of recognition, nor did he move to cross the street. The handsome middle-aged woman stood, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“She knows you,” I said.

“None of your business.”

“But you're crying, too!”

“Am I?” He touched one eye and looked at the wetness on his fingertip. “Damn.”

“She's crying, you're crying. Is someone dead?”

“A long time ago.”

“She a relative?”

“No. Dumb woman. Crazy lady.”

“What does she want?”

Sonny laughed, a crazy kind of broken laugh.

“Me.”

“Beg pardon.”

“Me. Me. Me! Don't you get it? She wanted me. Past tense. She wants me. Present tense. She will want me tomorrow and the day after. Some joke!”

“You're not so bad,” I said lamely.

“Not so bad as what?”

“Not as bad as you think you are,” I said, looking away.

“You don't know a damn thing about me!”

“I know that on Saturday nights if you left town the gang would break up.”

“Some gang, a bunch of lonely half-starved idiot intellectuals with no guts and no future so they follow me like dogs peeing on fireplugs.”

“It gives us something to do. You help do it.”

“What does that make me?”

“A leader.”

“A Christ-awful what?”

“Leader.”

“Give me that head.” He grabbed my skull and twisted my head. “Go have it examined.”

“Sure we're nuts,” I went on, with his fingers still clutching my skull. “But if you weren't around we'd all go home and stay. If you can lead us you can lead others, in some job, someplace. You're funny. You're an actor. You make us all feel good and you cover up how bright you really are.”

“How bright am I?”

“You probably went to college and dropped out. Maybe you got in trouble at the men's gym. Right?” A silence. “Right?”

“You're pretty damn smart.”

“Why did you never go back?”

“They wouldn't let me.”

“What about some other schools?”

“You got to be kidding. This is 1939. There's a war coming. The army would claim I wear perfume and shave under my arms. Bang! I'm on the street! ‘And stay out!' they'll say. Colleges pass the word. No fairies, please, at the bottom of our gardens.”

“Don't talk that way about yourself.”

“They do. Why not me?”

I glanced across the street, and the woman, seeing this, gave a small gesture and a half-smile, as if she guessed our discussion. Yes! I could almost read her lips. Tell him!

“How did that lady want you?”

“God, she proposed marriage!”

“Why didn't you say yes?”

“What is this, a police lineup? You got your lie detector on?”

“It's running. You can't lie to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you like me and I like you.” I took a deep breath and went on.

“Do you mean to tell me that if you crossed the street now she would take you home and marry you?”

“More fool she.”

“No, damn fool you.”

Sonny wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am.”

“If I walked over you'd never see me again. The gang would break up. Where in hell would they go without me?”

“To hell with the gang. Get over there.”

“It's too late.” Sonny stepped back, watching her to see if she moved. “I'm drowning. No. I've gone down for the third time.”

“No you haven't!”

“Besides, if I married her, she'd catch my cold. I haven't been warm in years.”

I hesitated and said, “Do you want me to talk to her?”

“Nut, why would you do that?”

“Because I can't kick you downstairs. I don't like the way you're living.”

“Then why the hell are you with me?”

I almost had an answer. “It's to fill time. I won't be here forever. I'll be gone in a year.”

“You going to be a famous literary person?”

“Something like that.”

He studied me for a long moment. “Son of a bitch. I really think you will.”

“Then come on. I'll go over with you.”

“The blind leading the blind? How come you're always right?”

“Because I just let things fall off my tongue and I'm surprised to hear me say them.”

“You believe that crud?”

“I better. Or I won't have a life.”