The Man Who Cried I Am (23 page)

“I'm sure somewhere you do.”

“I'll tell you anyway, all right?”

“Sure.”

“Well, it's not any good without love, Max, and I don't love you and you don't love me. We just—well, we
just!
”

“Everybody just justs, Regina.”

“Well, I don't want to just just! I want something more.”

“Like Bob?”

“Just like Bob.”

“Can you have him?”

“No. I mean, sometimes I think no, and he says no, but when we're together it's yes. But when he hurts me I—”

“You come to me.”

“Yes.”

“I understand. It's part of the game.”

“Max, I know it's part of your game, our game. But no more. Listen, can't we somehow be friends? I know it sounds like nonsense, but I mean it.”

These girls who work in publishing houses, Max thought. They read too many novels. “You just can't shake hands, Regina, and say, ‘Okay, we're friends now,' you know.”

“Oh, I know it,” she said, placing her face in her hands. She got op and took her bag. “If it's to come, it'll come, but let's shake anyway.”

“I'd rather kiss you.”

“No. A shake, Max. Don't be like everyone else. Please shake. I'm tired of passion.”

Regina and the other girls made him feel a part of things. Now, for this weekend at least, loneliness. No, he tried to tell himself, the book, the book. He'd be working, working like hell. He reached out and took her hand. She stood in the door and said, “Think of how you'd be if you had your Lillian; I know how I'd be if I had Bob.”

Max closed the door and walked back to the table. He laid out the manuscript and inserted paper into the typewriter. He worked easily and steadily, pausing from time to time to listen to the news or to light a cigarette. He thought of the city, monstrous and writhing beneath the weight of people running pell-mell in search of pleasure. No one looked for pain or, if they did, they were careful first to drape it in pleasure. Finally, a gray sheen fell across his window; morning had come. The phone had not rung once. Eight million people in the city and not one of them had thought to call. Not a single one. He bounced up from the table. What the hell was he thinking like that for? Everybody else had been balling—all eight million of them—but
he
had been working. I'm nuts, he told himself. Or going nuts. He fixed a cup of instant coffee and carefully stacked his sheets. Work, Max! he told himself, Go, baby!

While he sipped the coffee, he pulled out Harry's letter and reread it. Maybe that was the answer, Paris, Europe. White people, sure, but maybe a different kind of white people. Good enough for Harry. No, don't believe it. Dump five hundred thousand niggers on Paris streets and it'd become just like New York. But, maybe, Max thought, if I ever get in any kind of shape … Maybe
this
book will take off. Max shook his head. The goddamn city was so filled with clichés that you started thinking they were your own golden words. Some agent had used that phrase, “take off.” Max knew that no book took off unless it was first catapulted by the publisher. The gray sheen outside was taking on a slight orange hue. How nice it would be in the country now, breaking through the brush and surprising the pheasant, the big game, as they broke their sleep for water and food. Got to get in the country soon. This city is killing me. Then he wished for Regina. There were others he could have wished for, but Regina had been there, could have been there if he had talked her into staying, but she had been right. Games, there had to be something else. He lowered his window shade and got into bed.

It seemed that he had slept only five minutes when the phone woke him up.

“This is Granville Bryant. Max Reddick?”

Bryant, Max thought.

“Did I wake you?”

“Well …”

“I hear you're looking for a job, Max. How've you been?”

“All right, except for the job.”

“You need a good publisher too.”

“Yeah,” Max said, laughing.

“Did I say something funny?”

“Oh, no. I've only been looking for a job since last winter. As for the publisher, ha-ha.”

“I know. It's terrible.”

“You have a job, Granville?” Ah, well, it had to come to this, the fags. They had their games too.

“Well, yes, Max, but I wondered if you should take something that'll keep you from your work.”

Their solicitousness kills me, Max thought. They could starve you and later say they were doing it so you could become proficient in your art. They've got all the answers, white folks. Well, Max, welcome to the round-eye set, the shitpacker crowd; maybe I can't get out of this hole (ha-ha) until I make that route. “Granville, I need a job. Besides, the novel's just about finished.”

“Oh! is it really? Splendid, Max! Are you pleased with it?”

No, Granville, it's a rotten novel. I helped kill my girl because I wanted to write a rotten novel. I like ham hocks and beans and cabbage and collards for a daily diet, Granville, so I can write rotten books. But Max said, “Yes.”

“Well, then, a friend of mine is starting a new daily. He's gathering staff now. It will be somewhat left, but you don't mind that, do you? [And Max was thinking: How can a broke nigger mind anything?] He's not interested in what a man's color is. He's read your work and the pieces you did for that Harlem paper and he'd like to see you, if you're interested.”

“I'm interested.”

“I'll give you his number then. And say, you know Marion Dawes, don't you?”

Dawes was the young Negro writer who'd gotten such a rave review in the
Times
. “I don't
know
him,” Max said. “I know
of
him.” It was important to make the distinction.

“I see. I wondered if you'd be good enough to give me Harry's address in Paris so I can give it to Marion—he was shy about calling you. Marion is planning to move to Paris before long and he'd like to get in touch with Harry.”

Max kept thinking, Harry ain't gonna like this, ol' Harry ain't gonna like it at all.

“You know,” Bryant was saying, “Marion has gotten a fellowship, so he'll be able to skimp through in Paris. But perhaps Harry will be able to help him with some contacts.”

“Sure,” Max said. Those bastards. They really looked after their own. “What kind of fellowship?”

“A Laurentian.”

“Nice,” Max said. “I wonder what I have to do to get one. They seem pretty hard for some people to come by.”

Bryant laughed. “It does take a little luck.”

And a little suck, Max thought. “That's all, huh?”

Bryant laughed again. “As far as I know, Max. My! You do seem out of sorts. Really, I didn't mean to wake you.”

“It's all right,” Max said. “I've never been out of work nine months before. It upsets me a little.”

“Yes,” Bryant said. “I'm sorry for that. Max, I'd like to have lunch with you sometime. I know you don't like me, but for a couple of hours—it won't hurt will it?”

Max beat a retreat. “What do you mean, I don't like you?”

“Come now. Both you and Harry. I know that.”

“It's not
that
, Granville,” Max said weakly.

“Well, let's talk about it another time. After you've spoken to Julian Berg. Remember,” Bryant said mockingly, “the lunch won't hurt.”

“So all those liberal bastards couldn't between them find a job for you, huh?” Julian Berg spoke as if he were musing to himself. He was a round little man with graying hair and light blue eyes. His nose was fiercely hooked as if to exaggerate his Jewishness. “I suppose this paper will be called liberal. That's a pity, because from the position of the others, we have to be. Everybody on his dot, like dancers. Okay. We'll take the label.” Berg grimaced. “So you won't misunderstand. I want you on this paper because, number one, I want a Negro, as many as I can get. This is not pure altruism, Max. There're whole segments of this town that have no voice. I'm concerned with Jews and Negroes. You can help me with Negroes and Jews and readers in general. Some Jews are reading the
Times
, the well-to-do. Too many Jews and Negroes are reading the reactionary press because they don't know the difference in papers. There's another view of things yet to be presented. That's our job, that's the
New York Century
. If you want the job, Cityside and specials, it's yours.”

“I want it.”

It felt better, after all, having a job. Max resigned himself to it; he was pretty much like everyone else. No job, panic or depression or both swiftly followed. Truly middle class, he thought. I
need
to work. Perhaps with the publication of the next book he could stop working. In the pig's rump.

He liked the way Berg was handling him. Max covered all kinds of human interest stories. The City Hall beat followed and, briefly, theater and books. Mostly it was Cityside, where he became familiar with the reporters of the other papers, the neat, young
Times
-men, always dark-suited and soft-spoken, cerebral. The
Tribmen
were cerebral without the dark suits and better drinkers. The reporters from the
Mirror
and the
News
seemed ashamed of themselves, while the men from the
Journal
and
World-Telegram & Sun
, constant, not quite plodders, drinkers in the old tradition, like French cabdrivers right after lunch with the hooch still curling around their mouths, were solid, underrated newsmen.
Criterion
reporters were not cerebral or good drinkers but pretended to be both. Max never was late and never missed an important news conference. The others, on a first-name basis with the whole range of public figures, were always late. But no matter, they could debrief Max Reddick of the
Century
, who was always on time. Handouts, follow-up calls and Max Reddick, and the story was covered, then written mentally in the nearest bar and given ten minutes on the typewriter at the office. Max didn't quite know how to handle the situation. There were two alternatives, of course. He could refuse to float any more of his material (the juicy color and meat no reporter gave away anyhow) or he could continue as he was, hoping that, if ever he became bored or lazy or ill, then he might be able to debrief other reporters. Max chose the latter alternative through the months, picking up in the meantime plaques from the NAACP and the National Urban League and B'nai B'rith for “superior reporting,” but really for being a Negro reporter on a white Manhattan daily. They did not know how it had been the first few months, being stopped by guards and police and doormen, being refused entrance to press conferences until the
Century
office was called and his connection with it verified. Winter hit hard and was followed by a sullen spring, during which he thought of Lillian. He wondered now how it would have been with the writing. (He was riding the crest of anticipation. The new book would be out in early fall.) Would he have accomplished so much? On the other hand, wasn't this job for her, for her memory? He had done it; he had secured the kind of job she believed he deserved. Aha, baby! I didn't get it by deserving; I got it by knowing! Fags! (God, I must call Granville.)

If this book makes a nickel (he was still thinking) instead of buying a new car—zap! in the bank. Think France. Yes, think France. Six months, a year, it won't hurt. See Harry, move around a little, see just what it is all these niggers are raving about.

The city seemed to give a heavy, concrete sigh of relief with the coming of September. Labor Day had passed. The department stores were filled with parents readying their broods for school and children bent on spending every penny their parents had not already spent on camp and trips to Grandma's during the summer. The accidents on the road seemed to have been particularly gruesome over the Labor Day weekend; Max had covered three. But now the dead were buried, the injured attached to splints, blood, dextrose and in hospital beds. Football was poised to replace baseball, and quite suddenly, Max thought of Regina. He had spoken to her last Christmas and had decided then that perhaps it would be better if he didn't call her and if she didn't call him. But Max was feeling gracious and expansive. Maybe he was ready to be friends with her now; ready to suffer lunches and dinners and long talks and going to movies and theater together—with nothing afterward. Max had never known a woman with whom he wanted that kind of relationship. Regina was different. He called her.

“I've been waiting for you to call,” she said. “I wondered how long it would take. Almost a year exactly, right?” What about last Christmas, Max wondered? He said nothing about it. “I've been reading you, of course,” she went on, “and I read your new book in galleys. I have a friend at your publisher.” It pleased Max to know that she had been thinking about him; he was glad he had called. “That's your best book so far, Max. You should be proud of it, I am. But most important. Did you call because you're feeling horny or are we friends? We are, aren't we?”

“Honest Reg, this was just a friendly call. How are you? How's Bob? Is it any better for you?”

“No, just the same. I think I'm getting used to it. Couldn't we have dinner tonight? I'd like to see you and talk to you. It's been a long time.”

“That's just why I called,” Max lied, although he would not mind the dinner or seeing her again. He felt proud of himself. He hadn't called because he wanted to get into her drawers (although he knew and she knew it too, that if she felt inclined to take them off for him he wouldn't have said no). He couldn't explain to himself his feeling for Regina. When she wanted to be friends why hadn't he said, “It's been nice, later?” Maybe she saw him coming, too. Regina Galbraith (formerly Goldberg) had been the sole member of her family spirited out of Nazi Germany. The rest were dead. Gassed and cooked, most likely. From what she'd told him, they were nice people, willing to please everyone, more German than Jewish. They would not have died in isolation, say, in an escape or during the murder of a prison guard. Those acts were in quarantine; they were not for those who needed the safety of a group. Regina went first to England and spent a few months in the London home of a mammoth, brusque woman. From there to Scotland. (Max had often pictured her, a small, puzzled child, still speaking High German, her head swiveling from side to side in order to see it all, her face a blank as her mind interpreted what the adults around her were saying by placing their words in a context with time of day, expressions on their faces, how loudly or softly they spoke.) She spent many years in Scotland and then was sent off to Australia. Years later, a young woman in her twenties, she arrived in the United States via San Francisco and thence to New York where she charmed everyone with her Scottish accent.