Three-Martini Lunch (34 page)

Y
our job with the State Department . . . what will you be doing there, anyhow?”

We had slept in, whiling away the morning in bed. Or rather, Joey had slept in. I had lain awake, listening to the sound of his soft snoring, restless, trying to picture Joey's life after me. The life he would now have
without
me. Now he was awake. I got up to put on my pants, while Joey followed suit with considerable reluctance.

“I'll be writing up armament reports for the Political-Military office,” he answered. “It's only a paper-pusher job, really, but some of the information is classified: the quantities of munitions we supply to other countries and such.” Suddenly he laughed. “Actually, when you think about it, it's not altogether different from what I was doing before.”

“What do you mean? From what you were doing in the Army?”

I asked him what guys actually did in the Army when there wasn't a war on. He shrugged and said as far as he could tell it wasn't all that different from working in any other industry because mostly it was all about
supplies: You either counted supplies or audited the use of supplies or moved supplies from one place to another. I asked him wasn't there more to it than that and he shrugged again and said: “Maybe for the officers. But the enlisted men . . . it's like running one big national warehouse. Sometimes we pretend there's a war on and we do training exercises. Then a couple of guys write up a report on how much supplies that would take.”

In spite of myself, I laughed.

It was difficult to stay mad at Joey. But ever since he'd gotten his letter from the State Department, a little ball of resentment had been rolling around in the pit of my stomach, growing bigger and bigger. I had no reason to feel betrayed. From the first moment I agreed to join him on the houseboat, we had never discussed the terms of our relationship, not once. And it wasn't as if I hadn't seen Joey flirt with others or observed his familiarity with the YMCA. Nonetheless, I was angry to think I could be one of a number, a transition point as he moved back to one coast from another.

Joey noticed the shift in my disposition almost immediately.

“What's eating you, Miles?” he asked. He came over and put his hands on my shoulders. “Ever since I got my good news yesterday, you've been acting funny.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but stopped. I would not be dishonest with him.

“I suppose I'm not ready—just yet—to part ways.”

He cocked his head and searched my face.

“What are you talking about?” he said, laughing. “The job's in D.C.—that's the beauty of it. When you go back to New York, we'll be on the same coast.” He released his grip on my shoulders and let his arms slide down around my waist. “It's possible we can go on seeing each other!” he said with a triumphant, matter-of-fact smile, as though he had solved a difficult math equation that he'd been working on.

“Oh,” I said, stunned. I felt the back of my neck bristle with a sudden cold sweat. “I hadn't . . . thought of that.”

“Of course, the weekdays will have to be all work and no play, but on weekends I can take the train up to see you and get a hotel room for us.” He dropped his arms from my waist and picked up the letter he'd left lying on the table, looking it over and thinking aloud. “You know, the pay isn't a heck of a lot, but it isn't terrible, either. Maybe if I scrimp a bit in D.C. we can eventually get a little place of our own somewhere in Manhattan.” He put his arms back around me and tucked his face into my neck. Suddenly he started. “Gosh. What's a matter with you? Your heart is beating a million miles an hour!”

“I'm all right,” I said. “I'm just excited, I suppose. This is news to me. I'm taking it all in.” I
was
excited. And more than a little frightened.

“You want that, don't you?” he asked. “To go on seeing each other?”

“Sure I do.”

“Well, then,” he said. He gave my body a squeeze and released me. “We ought to celebrate.”

“All right,” I agreed, still dazed. Everything had changed in the blink of an eye.

“I'm happy. Aren't we happy?” he asked.

I shook myself from my trance, trying to register the question he'd asked.
Aren't we happy?
“Of course.”

“Look, you finish up what you're doing here.” He gestured to where my composition book and my father's journal lay open on the table. “I'll go back into town and see if I can't get us some champagne.” His eyes sparkled and he grinned, and I found myself grinning back. He started to leave, then paused and spun back around. “Oh!” he said, and pulled an envelope from his pocket. “Oh, yeah—this came for you. In my excitement yesterday, I put this in my pocket and forgot about it.”

Joey handed me the envelope and leaned over to kiss me. I kissed him back in a perfunctory way.

“Be right back.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and watched him go.

When I looked down at the letter, I froze. My heart stopped and I felt the blood drain from my face. It was from Janet. I opened it. Her letters had come back to her in the mail, she wrote, marked
RETURN TO SENDER
and, alarmed, she'd tried to telephone my hotel room. What was this post office box address the hotel clerk had given her? Where was I sleeping if not the hotel?

It didn't take me long to figure out that the clerk at my former hotel in San Francisco had opted to return my mail while at the same time bewildering Janet with news of the P.O. box address when she'd called. I wondered if this had been done out of malicious intent; he had certainly glared at Joey and me with hatred and disgust.

I folded the letter back up and slipped it into its envelope, wishing dearly that it didn't exist. The small tremor of panic I'd felt when Joey suggested we go on seeing each other once we were both back on the East Coast had been amplified by the abrupt materialization of Janet's letter, Janet's handwriting, Janet's words. What was I doing? I was suddenly terrified.

In less than ten minutes I had all of my things packed and had walked down the road—in the opposite direction Joey had taken—to telephone for a taxi to take me across the bridge to the bus station in downtown San Francisco. I wrote a note—a painfully casual note, for I was trying harder to convince myself than I was trying to convince him that I was indifferent to this affair—to say I was headed back to New York. My family needed me, I wrote (without giving specific details I knew he would never have believed anyway), so I was going back East and anyway it was time for me to be moving on. I cannot imagine what it was like for Joey to come home and find that note. I feel pretty low whenever I think of it, to have written it, for it was full of cowardice and lies.

T
he ride back to New York was dull, gray, seemingly endless. The roads were slick with early-winter rain, causing the bus's brakes to squeal from time to time as the driver attempted to wrangle the great lumbering steel beast steady as we zoomed over the pavement. Newcomers getting on the bus struggled out of their dripping coats and allowed the rainwater to soak into the upholstery, releasing the humid odors of wet, dirty wool. Morale among the passengers was low, befitting my own mood.

I made it back to New York and came home in a surreal daze, back to my old bedroom in my mother's apartment. Technically speaking, I was a Columbia graduate now—no longer a student—and my prospects ought to have been bright. But I felt neither here nor there. I was free to go forth as a man with a diploma, an adult who could proudly put the words
summa cum laude
on his résumé, yet I felt distinctly dispirited and unambitious. My life had not really begun. I had thought that it was actually beginning during my time in San Francisco. Or, more specifically, in Sausalito, on that houseboat. Those rare days had felt more like the start of something
than anything else I'd experienced. But it had been a false start; I was sure of that now.

I met with Janet to tell her I was back in town and explained things to her as best I could. I mentioned Joey, but said that we were merely friends and that he'd put me up for a spell as a matter of financial practicality. Money was likewise the reason I gave Janet for seeing her less often.

“I can't afford to take you out as much,” I said to her.

“I like the park,” she said. “The park is free.”

“It's getting much too cold out now,” I said. “I promise I'll get some work soon, and then I can take you out properly.”

“All right,” she agreed.

But this was a false promise, too. I wallowed about and didn't go looking for work, not right away. My mother and Cob were puzzled by my depression. From their vantage, they only knew I had gone away on an adventure and returned victorious with my father's keepsake, his words, his journal, his war stories.

“I'm proud of you, son,” my mother said, holding the journal when I first showed it to her and gazing at it in wonder. “You done it.” She opened it to a random page and her face screwed up with emotion as her eyes ran over the familiar shapes of my father's handwriting. Then the sound of Wendell snoring in the living room broke her reverie and she hurriedly handed the journal back to me, then wiped her eyes. “Here,” she said in a low voice, “I hope you read eve'y word, and it makes you proud.”

“It already has,” I said, hoping to reassure her.

“Then why you look so sad?”

There was an answer to her question, but not one I could speak aloud.

During my first week back, I barely got out of bed. At first she was perplexed, but soon enough puzzlement gave way to impatience, and eventually, my mother—a woman who could only tolerate inactivity for so long—roused me.

“I don't know what cause you got to feel so sorry for yo'self, but I didn't
raise no lazybones!” she scolded, creating a small tornado of force as she pretended to tidy my room. It was impressive; she managed to rip the sheets off the bed and stuff them in her laundry basket before I was entirely out of it.

I took the subway down to the messenger dispatch in midtown and was given my old job back. I did not attempt to contact Mister Gus or resume my duties for him, figuring it was best to leave well enough alone. My days were spent peddling around the city, making deliveries for the messenger service, and my evenings were spent side-stepping Wendell. Whenever we bumped into each other in the living room or in the hallway, we squared off and stalked around my mother's apartment, leering at each other with the hateful eyes of two jungle cats.

My greatest pleasure during that dreary time was the delight in Cob's face when I read entries from our father's journal aloud to him in the evening. But other than the happy, golden half hour or so I spent doing this, I was left with a profound sense of being idle after Cob went to bed. I told myself this was a result of no longer having my studies to occupy me, but I knew things were more complicated than that.

I had felt the first pangs of regret before I'd even signed the note and left the houseboat, but I didn't know how much these feelings would intensify until I came home one day and found my mother waiting anxiously in the living room, pacing in circles.

“He wouldn't say what he come for,” she announced in a plaintive voice when I entered the apartment.

“Who?” I asked.

“The white boy who rang the bell. He asked for you by name, but he wouldn't say what he come for.”

My heart leapt.

“Did he say he was coming back?” I asked.

“No,” she said with certainty.

“Oh.”

“He
say
he wait for you at the coffee shop around the corner.”

“What?”

“He
say
he wait for you at the coffee shop around the corner,” she repeated, and gave her foot an impatient stamp. “Hurry now. You go an' see about it. I don't know
what
on God's green earth he want, but he trouble, an' this family ain't fixin' for no trouble.”

With my messenger bag still slung over my shoulder, I dashed for the door. Enthusiasm carried me down the stairs, along the street, and around the corner.

I was feeling a bit high and dazed when I neared the coffee shop . . . and then, peering in the large plate-glass window, I saw him. Suddenly everything came crashing down around me as I surveyed the situation and the dim buzz of comprehension began to seep into my core. The white boy waiting for me in a booth at the coffee shop was
not
Joey as I had hoped and expected it would be, but it
was
someone I knew. I blinked at his familiar sandy-blond hair and pert retroussé nose, and as I did so, he looked up and noticed me, too.

It was Cliff, from the Village. I had not seen him since the terrible night of his house-party. What he wanted from me now, I couldn't say, but he had seen me and there was no going back. Saturated with the soggy weight of disappointment, I took a deep breath and pushed through the coffee shop door.

57

I
guess I surprised everybody pretty good by going up to Harlem. It was all part of my new policy of goodwill. I'd decided to turn over a new leaf. I knew I'd been a lousy husband to Eden lately, what with all that prizefight business and the hotel room. I'd gotten into a pretty destructive state, and when you got down to it even I had to admit the truth behind this had to do with my frustrations about my writing and My Old Man. I had resolved the issue by grabbing the bull by the horns and approaching him directly and making an official submission. Eden was mostly staying out of it but she
did
mention it had arrived in the mail and that she had spotted the envelope on My Old Man's desk. I had addressed it directly to him and marked it “Private and Confidential” and a week later I received back a date-card in the mail, making an appointment for us to have lunch at Keen's. “We will discuss your pages,” he'd written in his cramped chicken-scratch handwriting at the bottom. It was a little funny he hadn't commissioned Eden to send the date-card out because according to her he rarely did that sort of thing personally, but then again I was his son and it was
only natural that I get better treatment. I knew the pages I sent him were good and he was likely to think so, too, and I tried not to read too much between the lines. Now there was nothing left to do but wait.

I spent some time contemplating things while I waited for our lunch-date to roll around and in particular I spent some time thinking about how I could be a better man and a better husband to Eden. It occurred to me that we both still felt bad about what had happened to Miles the night of our party and if I wanted to make things better all around, one thing I could do was to go up to Harlem and look him in the eye and apologize, man-to-man. It was the decent thing to do, and as soon as I made up my mind to do it I began to feel very benevolent just for having the idea.

Deciding to apologize to Miles was easy, but tracking him down was another question. He'd been absent from the Village scene ever since that bad night on our roof. He had talked about going out of town but surely he had to be back by now and this meant he was staying away intentionally. I thought I remembered Miles's surname as being Tillman. I checked the Columbia directory but came up with nothing. He was not in the book, either, but there
was
a Tillman listed and it gave an address that was not far from the jazz club where Eden and Rusty and I had run into him. I figured it was a sign I was on the right track.

I took the train uptown and walked around Harlem until I found the address. Some Negro kids were rough-housing on the stoop and when I asked them did they know Miles Tillman they said “Sho' 'nuff,” they
did
know Miles Tillman, and that I could find the Tillman family on the fourth floor. Once I got upstairs, a middle-aged woman answered the door. I asked for Miles and she looked at me in alarm and it dawned on me that I had on a collared shirt and a nice pair of trousers and to her I probably looked like the tax-man.

“He's not in any kind of trouble,” I explained. “I'm just here to tell him something about a mutual friend of ours.” This wasn't entirely true, because Rusty was hardly my friend, let alone Miles's, and the only thing I
wanted to tell Miles was how mistaken I'd been to allow Rusty into our group and into the party, but I didn't want to explain about all that to the woman standing at the door. I could tell she did not believe in the existence of a mutual friend but she wasn't about to say so. Instead she nodded politely but still looked a little jumpy. Miles was out but would be home soon, she said, and invited me to come inside and wait in the living room. I peered over her shoulder into the apartment and saw that it was nice enough but decided to decline her offer to go inside on account of the fact I had made her uneasy. I was right to think this, because when I told her I would wait at the coffee shop around the corner on 125th Street she looked relieved. I asked her would she be so kind as to send Miles over when he came home? She said yes and off I went.

I wasn't waiting very long before Miles turned up, which was good, because I'd had to order some coffee just to sit there and I didn't have a lot of money and wanted to avoid ordering anything else. I don't know who Miles was expecting but it certainly wasn't me. I was sitting in a booth by the window and staring out into the street when he cut around the corner. His face was dark and shining with sweat and he had an eager air about him, but when he saw me he froze and the smile vanished from his face. I tried not to take this personally because I knew it was mostly on account of Rusty and the horrible thing he had done to Miles. I saw the tight frown creep into Miles's face and I understood he had not forgotten one second of it. There was nothing I could say to make it better but I had come to apologize anyhow. When you really get down to it most apologies are useless but it's nice to make them anyway and for some reason—like I said, because of Eden and because of my new leaf—I was really hot on making this one.

Miles entered the coffee shop and walked right up to my table with a pinched look on his face. He was standing before me and the time for my apology was at hand. We stared at each other. “My mother said you came calling at the house for me,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. The formality of his tone shook my confidence. He stood hovering over my table, looking uncomfortable. “Sit down,” I said. He set down the satchel he was carrying and sank into the seat opposite me. He was graceful in the way he did it and as I looked him over I remembered how lean and muscular he was, and how good-looking. The glasses added something, too. Miles cleared his throat and I knew he was waiting for me to speak.

“You weren't expecting me,” I said.

“No.”

“But you were expecting someone,” I observed. He didn't answer. “Who were you expecting?” I asked. I had no right to ask but I was curious and couldn't help myself. Miles narrowed his eyes and looked at me with that same distrustful expression he'd worn that time I'd approached him in the jazz club, and hesitated.

“Just a friend. Someone from San Francisco,” he finally said.

“A friend from Frisco?” I echoed. I hadn't pictured Miles existing outside of Harlem or the Village, let alone outside of New York, and Frisco was a place I had always meant to go but had never been. Evidently before me sat a worldly Negro who got around. I was impressed. “You been there much?” I asked.

“Just got back.”

“Hey, cool, man,” I said, hoping he would catch on to my approving tone and understand that we were natural friends. “Frisco's a madman's town,” I added. I had not meant to sound authoritative but it came out that way. Miles nodded. He started to say something but just as he did the bell over the door of the coffee shop jingled and a young Negro boy ran in.

“Miles!” The little boy grinned and launched himself into Miles's arms. Miles caught him and settled him into his lap but did not grin back. “Mama said you came home and lef' again.” The boy turned and grinned in my direction. He was a free, easy boy, a kid with the kind of primitive spirit people often talked about when they admired the Negro race. I had
never seen a child smile in such a pure-hearted way and it was a marvel to see, but in the very next moment Miles dampened that smile so that it still glowed but a little less brightly.

“I have some business to attend to, little man,” Miles said. “You run along now and tell Mama I'll be sure to be home in time for supper.”

“You promise you gonna read to me some more about Pa?”

“As soon as I get home. Now go on, Cob. I mean it.”

The boy shuffled his feet and slumped his shoulders. “Well, anyway,” he turned again to me, “nice to meet you, mister.”

I was tickled by this and so I put out my hand and the little boy shook it with a tremendous solemnity and introduced himself as “Mister Malcolm ‘Cob' Tillman.”

“All right, then, that's enough,” Miles said. “Go on, Cob; get.” A stiffness had crept into Miles's voice and Cob and I exchanged a look that meant we both knew we would do well to heed him. The boy spun on his feet and dashed out the same way he had come in.

“My kid brother,” Miles explained.

“Cute,” I said. He seemed squirrely about this and stiffened.

“Look,” Miles said, “I don't mean to be rude, but what do you want?”

“I came here to tell you my feelings on things,” I said. My voice was getting all funny in my throat. I was suddenly nervous as hell. “And you know,” I continued, “you know . . . to tell you that I'm no longer friends with Rusty.”

“Congratulations,” he said.

“I mean, I don't know if I'd have even called him a friend in the first place. If you want to know the truth, he was shamming us all. Me included. Boy oh boy, did I let him pull the old wool over my eyes. He turned out to be a real lousy rat. But you know that already.”

Miles only nodded and I could see his jaw clench.

“So I just came here, like I said, to tell you that I wish I would've punched him when I had the chance. You know, before all that nonsense
started. Really I do, honest.” I had almost said
before all that nonsense on the roof
but I sensed Miles did not need a more specific reminder to know what I meant.

Miles nodded. “I guess that makes two of us,” he said finally.

“I mean, I really wish I had,” I repeated. “I would've felt bad whaling on such a weenie of a guy, but I would've laid him out cold if we ever went toe to toe.”

“Yes, well,” Miles said, “I better be going.” He rose from the booth before I could say anything. “Nice to see you again,” he said, shouldering his satchel and reaching out to shake hands. I really had to give it to him, he had a polite way with people. I could tell it had not been a pleasure to see me again but he wasn't about to let it show.

“Cliff.” He nodded.

“Miles.” I nodded in return.

We shook. He stepped quickly for the door. I wasn't quite satisfied with the result of our meeting; something was still missing.

“I really do wish I'd laid that bastard out cold when I had the chance,” I called after him. I don't know why I kept repeating this. I guess it was the closest thing I had to an apology and anyway it let Miles know that I was really on his side and that was the important thing. He nodded and slipped through the door, then gave me a terse wave of his hand as he passed by the window.

I watched him as he disappeared around the corner and then I sat in the booth alone and drained the rest of my coffee. I'd pictured the whole thing differently: me making my apology to Miles and him being grateful and the two of us getting all chummy. I'd also pictured going home to Eden and telling her all about it and having her smile in that way she had when she was proud of me and glad to be my wife. Maybe we'd even get Miles to rejoin the group down in the Village again and he'd come and we'd show him how nice and generous we could be towards a Negro. Sitting there in that booth, I realized how foolish this idea had been.

I looked out the window at the traffic and the people bustling by. It had been dry all day but now an early winter rain had begun to fall and there were big ugly blotches all over the sidewalk. The walk back to the train was going to be very wet and even with my nice trousers pegged up high I was probably going to end up with wet pant legs, which I hated.

I figured it was no good putting off the inevitable soggy walk, so I slid out of the booth. But as I stood up I happened to glance into the other side where Miles had been sitting and caught sight of something. Lying on the seat was a composition book stuffed with papers and bound shut with a rubber band. It must have fallen out of Miles's satchel while he was sitting down and then when he'd gotten up he'd been in too much of a hurry to notice it had fallen out.

I picked it up. I had already been to his family's apartment and so I knew where he lived and I knew I ought to return it to him, but for some reason I didn't do this. In retrospect, knowing everything I know now, I honestly wish I had. But that's like saying I wish I had punched Rusty the minute I met him or that I'd never gone to that hotel room after my fight at the Y. All of these things were true enough but the past was the past and what happened, happened. Instead of bringing Miles's composition book back to him I found myself burning with a tremendous curiosity.

I undid the rubber band and peeked inside and saw the composition book was full of what looked like some kind of makeshift manuscript. I stared at the pages, remembering our day together writing in the café. I wondered if the manuscript was any good. It would be interesting, at least, to read a little before returning it.