The Cosmopolitans (5 page)

That was his fate somehow, Earl. To go out alone. Sidle up to someone at a bar or on a bench by a loading dock and try to strike up a relationship. They'd talk for a while and then the other would be on his way. Earl missing him already, while for the one he'd trapped into a chat, it was a throwaway. Unless they were both up for sex, and then it would be behind a building or, if he got lucky, in one of their apartments for a few hours that he could never get to stretch into a night. He liked to be in bed with a man, but most of them shied away. Whenever Earl would see some potential, he'd clean his place, change the sheets. Set up the two pillows in clean cases. He'd have four bottles of beer in the Frigidaire, a pack of smokes. Whatever a fellow might need. But it would be years in between the nights anyone else climbed between those sheets. Sometimes Bette
was his only real conversation of the day. He'd go the whole twenty-four hours without interchanging with another soul for real. Being lonely is a bad habit, like dope. Don't start or it will run your life. That's the advice Earl would have offered Leon, if he'd ever had the opportunity.
Don't make loneliness work for you
.

He saw a small brown-skinned boy shyly standing apart from the adults. The kid was fascinated, could not take his eyes off the men but could not approach them either.

Get yourself some friends, boy
! Earl wanted to shout out.
Before it's too late and you don't know how
.

On the northeast corner of the park, Earl stopped at the Chock Full o'Nuts. This was the only store in the neighborhood with an all-Negro staff besides Mary Raye's Pink Tea Cup on Grove where the NAACP would meet. Village Chapter. That's why the great Jackie Robinson had gone to work for Chock Full o'Nuts as director of personnel. He knew where to go to help his people. Earl did not know where to go. And he wasn't sure exactly who
his people
were. He stepped into that place every once in a while to exchange smiles with Sheila and Nancy and the other young ladies in yellow uniforms who worked the counters. There were no tables, no plates. They served the doughnuts on wax paper. Sometimes he'd order one of those cream-cheese-and-date nut bread sandwiches. Chock Full o'Nuts brand coffee. Everybody sat alone. He had that freeing feeling when he stepped in, like it was
his
place. Where else was he going to be treated that nice? A lonely black man looking for a cup of joe. Like how he felt when he was in a theater when he was acting in a play. When he could walk through the stage door and
old Pops would greet him.

“Good evening, Mr. Coleman.”

“Hi, Pops.”

“Have a great show.”

“Thanks.”

Earl bought two doughnuts for dessert, one plain for him and one powdered for Bette, and started the final stretch from Chock Full o'Nuts up University Place.

At the corner of Tenth, he bought his nightly bottle of beer at Rubin's Deli. Then he saw the strange beige Bentley Bette had mentioned parked for a second time in front of one of them galleries. It was such a beaut, he stood quietly with appreciation. Admired the thing, its grace. There's something about excess beauty that makes both energetic children and tired old men stop suddenly and stare with admiration. They just can't help it. The shine is paralyzing, that otherworldly spark. It's an affirmation that someone he did not know, somewhere he would never be, was living high on the hog. The whole pig.

Earl couldn't help himself, he was pulled toward its gleaming chassis, and only then did he see the equally beautiful black man in front of the chariot's carriage, daintily smoking a cigarette. Handsome man, handsome car.

The guy had a good physique and carried off the uniform with panache. He wasn't buried by it, he surpassed it. Matching beige uniform, cap tipped rakishly to the side.

Then the guy looked up and caught Earl's eye. There was kindness at first, followed by a swelling recognition.

“Frankie?” Earl called out. “Frankie, is that you?”

Big smile, beautiful open face. Now, this was the good news, and not of the churchgoing kind.

“Earl, baby, what you doing around here?”

“I live here, man, right across the street.”

Frankie was a fellow actor, from the old days. He and Earl had worked together in
On Strivers Row
, could that be fifteen years back?

“You mean
eighteen
, Earl, dontcha?”

“Already?”

“Yes sir. Eighteen years back.”

Standing there, Earl melted inside with the joyful surprise, the realization that he could still love. He was still cursed and blessed with a fucking open heart. Here this darling guy had crossed his path.
Frank
. Just when Earl had been so low, scraping the sidewalk down, that's when Frankie appeared with his sweet smile, saying something friendly, showing some sort of kindness. Earl was filled with a terrible joy. Just being remembered brought it out in him. Frankie placed his hand casually on Earl's shoulder and left a scar. Earl got a whiff of his neck, a sign of his languid wrist, his strong hands. Earl could see the whole thing, how easily it would unfold. If the other would only agree, they could make themselves happy, together forever. Every pain that had come before would be no matter. Life would begin anew. Instead of waiting for death, Earl would want to live, to live longer and longer to have another lifetime with his man. His man, Frankie. Frankie's dreams in his hands. Someone to roll over and talk to in the morning light. Like it had been with Anthony, now dead for fourteen long, hard years. Silent widower, ghost mourner, man with no marker, no
title. That hell could finally end. Morning. That was the key to happiness. Someone in the morning. You wake up and he's not a dream. Coffee together at the table. Shirts hanging side by side in the closet. T-shirts in the drawer. Two towels. Frankie's specialties in the kitchen, in the bedroom, his books, his musical tastes, his friends, his family. The way he looked at things, those phrases. More light. More hope. Salvation. Frankie. Salvation. Frankie.
Bring it to me. Bring it to me
.

Seeing the potential before him brought out the truth of how his life was so paltry. After dinner with Bette, Earl never knew what to do with himself. Go out and get in trouble or lie down on his beat-up sofa and read the paper until he fell asleep. He knew not to get in bed too early or it would be a painful night. Lonely, empty, remembering, can't shake it. He'd learned to lie on that sofa until the paper fell from his hand. Sleep off the first three hours and then groggily transfer to the bed, already hoping not to awaken. It was the only way that worked. There were times though when he just couldn't make it and would recite
Othello
until the longing made even that unbearable.

              
Think, my lord!

              
By heaven, he echoes me,

              
As if there were some monster in his thought

              
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:

              
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,

              
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?

              
And when I told thee he was of my counsel

              
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst “Indeed!”

              
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,

              
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

              
Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,

              
Show me thy thought.

Earl looked at Frank, joking, warm. It all made sense. This darling guy. He was a beauty. Earl smiled.
Show thy thought
. Frank smiled back. There was hope.

Just at that moment a svelte woman in pants and dark glasses came storming through the gallery's doors. Earl saw her barreling like a submarine torpedo and jumped to the side to get out of her way. The lady gallery owner, Miss Parsons, chased after her half-heartedly, knowing it would not resolve, and followed her into the back of the sedan.

“Gotta go,” Frank said, stubbing out his smoke. “Hey, you free tonight?”

“Yeah, I'm free.”

“This is your lucky day.”

“Every day is my lucky day.” Earl was so happy.

Frank handed him a ticket and replaced his chauffeur's cap neatly on his graying head. “It'll be a special night,” Frank winked, and slid back behind the driver's seat.

The kids on the block who had gathered for a return communion with the Bentley stepped away to let her depart. With a deepened respect that came from repeated discussion and inspection, they admired her silent roll uptown.

“Who was that?” Margaret O'Reilly asked on the way to Teddy's Butcher Shop, clutching her mama's grocery list. One half-pound sliced bologna.

“That was Frank,” Earl answered, fingering his ticket.

“That wasn't Frank,” one of the queens from the Albert Hotel corrected. “Honey, that was Greta Garbo.”

“Oh yeah?” Earl couldn't care less.

“Yeah,” she said, wrapping her sweater expertly into a veil over her hair. “
Dat vas Ninotchka.”

Earl did not care. He was riveted by the black words on the small red slip in his hand. First he saw the raised letters spell out the name “Carnegie Hall.” Then he saw the title “An Evening with Paul Robeson.”

This was it
.

He was being handed his one true last chance on earth for happiness. Last opportunity to be cared for, to be seen, to be recognized. Acknowledged, held, loved, and heard. To be valued. To never sleep alone again. To be cut slack, to be forgiven, to be given a break and defended. Last gasp of loyalty, honor, respect, and, again, love, love, l-o-v-e. No more shit. It would all be over now, just things going his way, just finally at this late date everything being set finally, finally right.

That night at supper Earl and Bette talked through every detail.

“Did Frank have on a wedding ring?”

Earl wasn't sure.

“Did he wear one back in 1940?”

Definitely not. Earl remembered checking backstage all those years ago and filing away that hope for
later. Well, later had arrived. Amazing how long he could carry a tender wish born in one moment of noticing that there was no wedding band. No girl.

“It looks good,” Bette concluded. And they both agreed.

Earl sat back in his chair stunned. He couldn't move. Bette cleared the plates, boiled the water, and got out the tea bags, because he was immobilized. He was paralyzed by happiness. His eyes were wet. His hands tingled. His dick had weight. His chest glowed proud from under his best shirt. Paul Robeson! Othello! Emperor Jones! And Frank. Paul and Frank. Paul and Frank. Sitting next to Frank and watching Paul, together.
Together
. Two mature black men, both still good-looking. Two actors with the same dream and knowledge behind them. And the fellow on the stage, the actor who'd made it, made them think it was possible. Paul Robeson who had gotten that dream right. It was an omen. Tonight. Tonight, Earl's whole life finally made sense. It was all going to click, to come together, and come true. At Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall! Frank. Frank. Beautiful Frank. I love you, Frankie. You're my man. Mr. Robeson. Mr. Robeson. Othello!

“Whatever happens . . .” Bette trailed off.

He saw the love and fear in her eyes. She was being realistic, but she wanted it all to work out.

He could not be realistic. Hope was not realistic. Love was not realistic. Salvation for Earl Coleman was not realistic.

“Hey!” Earl almost forgot.

“What?” Bette poured the boiling water into their cups.

“Guess who was in that Bentley?”

“Who?”

Earl unfolded the linen napkin and draped it alluringly around his head. “
Dat vas Ninotchka,”
he said.

“Well, well,” Bette marveled. “Now that is truly something.” A bona fide star had made a cameo appearance in her movie. “You don't say.”

After this night, Bette would never have to watch him be humiliated again. He would never cause her that pain. He would sail on through life. He would have everything. This was it. This was his night. Finally. A king.

Chapter 5

E
arl sat, proud in his suit, in the balcony at Carnegie Hall, overlooking the crowd below. He did belong somewhere, after all, and that somewhere was here. This was his world, and it was Frankie who had brought it literally to his feet. A theater, his people, his man, his suit. It was sold out, but he had a ticket. Smiling as he soared past those on line with no chance of getting in. Stride! Everyone seated before him in the red-curtained and wood-paneled hall had a ticket too, the price of admission. Some were there for the moment, some for the music, some for the movement, some for the meaning.

“Excuse me.”

Earl stood happily to let an attractive young woman pass by him in the aisle. She had class and so did he. There were rituals and decorum and elegance in this world, and he fit in perfectly.

“Earl?”

“Yes?”

How did she know him? He scanned his memory. Was she a dancer? Did she work at the Chock Full o'Nuts? Someone he'd met at a show? Nothing clicked.

“I'm Lynette Carter.”

“How are you, Lynette?”

He couldn't place her. Must be early thirties. Stunning. Dark-skinned, lovely demeanor. Fashionable style of the sophisticated young. Not churchy, modern. Not uplift,
arrived
. Black skirt, black turtleneck, black stockings. She crossed many worlds, that was clear.

“Frank's daughter.” The lights dimmed. She slid into the seat next to him and crossed her legs. “I grew up with Robeson's records,” she whispered. “So excited to finally see the man.”

“Daughter?” Earl bleeted, knowing he had to internalize something terrible very quickly.

He could smell her perfume. She was being seductive. The audience hushed as the piano accompanist appeared, took his seat. Hands, poised in midair, ready to go. The crowd could not contain their joy, murmuring happiness even at simple anticipation of something wonderful.

“He sends his best,” she whispered again. Her voice was full, smoky.

“How's your mother?” He still held out one last straw.
Oh, my parents divorced years ago. That marriage was a mistake . . . well, you know
.

“She's doing fine. They're having a dinner party tonight. Thirty years of marriage. It's a blessing. There he is!” Already Lynette was contented and absorbed.

Who am I?
Earl trembled.

At that terrible moment, the chasm within Earl's soul split open. He could feel the rotten liquid oozing through his chest, dripping out of his ears. Simultaneously, Robeson appeared. The room embraced him in cheers.

The star was sixty. His kidneys were hurting. The US government still would not give him back his passport. He was up against more than he would ever be able to handle. But Earl did not take any of that in. He crumpled his program and seethed. He melted. Devil reality forced its evil self back onto the throne.

              
Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart, I'm free
.

              
Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart, I'm free
.

Earl stared at the stage. Where was he? He trembled. His soul had fallen to the floor, rolled down the aisle, and leapt from the balcony, crashing into the lives of the people below. Causing tragedy. Ruining everything. Ruining everyone else's night. Ruining Paul Robeson's big moment. That was how Earl felt. What did he do about how he felt? The same thing he always did. Diminished silently. Lost life. If ever, anywhere, there were a group of guys all walking in Earl's specific shoes, trying to do something about the pain, well . . . the news had not reached him. The loss was always, always, always his own personal, singular, queer, old loss. And it was always the taking away of connection, keeping it ever impossible to simply have.

              
And then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again
.

              
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole
.

Lynette turned to him and smiled. He smiled back. Applause. Now, Robeson was singing something in Russian. How did a black man know Russian? Earl had met plenty of Communists in his day, but they didn't speak goddamn Russian. He was burning now, Earl. He was enraged. Why didn't Frankie tell him he had a family? Earl replayed the scene in his mind four times.

              
“
Hey, you free tonight?”

              
“
Yeah, I'm free.”

              
“
This is your lucky day.”

Goddamn that boy, Frankie never said
he
was gonna be there. What a sly devil that one was. How could Earl be so sloppy? Bette always said they had to pay attention to
everything
. Every detail. But he didn't. He wasn't attentive.
Fool. Fool
. Frankie was passing Earl off onto his own daughter. Pimp. He must want her himself. Putting her on a date with a man almost her father's age.

              
I grows weary, and sick of trying
.

              
I'm tired of living, and scared of dying
.

              
It just keeps rolling. It keeps on rolling
.

              
It just keeps rolling along
.

Lynette kept glancing sideways at Earl, smiling. Then she would look ahead at the program. She wanted
to know what would happen next. She was grinning at him, having made up her mind. Like they were in on something together. Earl did not want to be in on anything with her. She was just like her father. Fucking charming. Nice. She saw conspiracies on her own behalf when there were none. Lynette pointed to the program. Earl smiled back at her. He was blind with rage. What was this woman grinning about? He knew. He knew what she was thinking. What she wanted. She assessed that Earl was everything her father had built him up to be. How much wronger could a person get?

The audience burst into applause, jumping out of their seats. They went on and on, clapping and moaning. They could not believe their own luck. This night would become a story their grandchildren would tell. That was for sure. The lights focused onstage and the audience got the message.
Calm down. Let the man sing
! That was one thing Earl knew plenty about. How audiences do what the lights instruct. It was uncanny. They don't understand why they're doing it, but they obey.

Being in an audience intensified Earl's feelings. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. A stage provided the opportunity to be in the world of others, to be listened to, engaged with. Doing a play meant that the other person had to answer, they couldn't just walk away and pretend. They were forced to stay and follow the script to its denouement. They had to face him. Resolution guaranteed. But being in the audience was the opposite. Earl watched someone
else get all the validation. Here he was, in the wrong spot again. Everything was out of touch with everything else.

And then he felt calm. This was so familiar after all. Being disappointed. It was a blanket he knew well. It was the most normal feeling of his life. He knew how to be disappointed, but he didn't know how to have hope. Hope turned him into an idiot. He couldn't handle hope and that now was clear. One glimpse of a chance and he immediately went overboard. Nothing was going to be up to him. He had to go with it, one more time. He had to go with loss. That was his path.
Okay, listen to Robeson, you fool. Let him give you something. Don't come out of this with nothing
. Listen. Listen.

              
Soft you; a word or two before you go.

              
I have done the state some service, and they know't.

Something grabbed at Earl, like he'd been lassoed by a chain.

              
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,

His heart recognized something, breaking through his isolation.

              
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

              
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

It was happening on stage. What was it? What was
it? Earl saw Robeson, his face, the resolution of a man playing a role from his soul. Othello! Robeson was reciting Othello!

              
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak

              
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;

              
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought

              
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,

              
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

              
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,

              
Albeit unused to the melting mood,

              
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

              
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;

              
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,

              
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk

              
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

              
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,

              
And smote him, thus.

The audience exploded, and Earl found himself propelled from his seat, reaching for the sky. Clapping, cheering, jumping, opening his heart like a country woman with no place but church to be herself, nothing better to look forward to than the preacher's gold on Sunday. It happened too quickly to pass over. Joy was a truck coming on full force into his same lane. Collision. He was happy, happy!

That was it. Pretending made Earl happy. He told himself bluntly to just forget life.
It is not available
. And then he felt something soft and warm reach out to
him and saw his hand being held by a young woman's hand. When he looked over, she was beaming, and Earl realized that he was beaming. And they were united, Earl Coleman and Lynette Carter. They were united in
Othello
, holding hands in the balcony. He was not alone. He had Paul Robeson.

Before Othello stabs himself, he asks the others to listen to him for a moment. And they do, because of his service to the state. Because he is somebody. He already knows that he's going to die but is worried about how he will be remembered. This problem was so different from Earl's own problem. Earl didn't give a rat's ass about what could happen after he died. His worry was about the rest of his life. Right now. How was he going to make it through? How was he going to survive this minute? Becoming Othello removed that problem, the problem of the everyday. Earl was lonely every day. Not Othello. Othello asks the others to see him as he
actually
is, no better or no worse. Earl couldn't even get that far in the conversation. Othello loves “not wisely but too well.” Earl never got a chance to love. Not since Anthony.

For the rest of the concert, Lynette held his hand and smiled at him. Earl smiled back and thought about the man he didn't have. His boyfriend. That's how it was going to have to be. Earl's lover would have to take other forms. He would have to be roles and celebrities and images from the street. Earl would have to conjure the person up in his mind, like his own personal genie, and carry him around in his pocket. Tell himself,
my man is waiting for me at home
. Or,
I'm going to meet my man
. And then going home would be happy and walking
to his destination would be happy. So what that no one was home and no one was meeting him anywhere? He'd just defer. Place the man around the very next corner.
That's how it would have to be
, Earl settled on it. Since he still lived, he would have to pretend.

What was happening? The audience was cheering. The concert was over. Earl had somehow missed the rest of it. There was a stunning beauty to the night, sweet with the earliest promise of spring to come, as Lynette led him out onto Fifty-Seventh Street. The sidewalks were full, everyone living life in front of each other, creating each other's worlds.

“I'm going to a party. Want to join me?”

“Sure,” Earl said. Why did he say that?

On the subway he was still asking himself that question. Lynette talked and talked, which gave him some time to think. She was newly divorced. She talked primarily about her ex-husband and the key facts of the situation, the ones that bothered her the most. She was annoyed now about how great he had looked in his army uniform when they'd first met. But then, after the war, back from Berlin, he hung with his old friends from the neighborhood and never took his responsibilities seriously. It all got very old. She was tired of being his mama, always asking him to keep his promises. She was clear about what she wanted. Lynette Carter was looking for someone more mature, more adult. Like her father. She wanted a man who understood the importance of stability. She was finishing her master's in social work at Adelphi and doing her fieldwork at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. It was a long commute from her parents' place in Harlem, and she
knew it was only a matter of time before she got her own apartment again. She had dated a Jewish psychiatrist she'd met at Kings County, but he still lived with his parents in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and was a big baby. She'd already had a black adult baby, why get a white one too? No, Lynette Champagne Carter wanted a grown-up black man to live with in Brooklyn or a Puerto Rican neighborhood like Chelsea, someplace friendly. A lot of her friends from City College became artists, intellectuals, teachers. They were a happening crowd. Earl would understand them, being an actor like her father. He would really like their scene.