The Drifters (26 page)

Even in his thoughts he fell into Geechee: ‘I Judge Mister Wister gonna keep sendin’ that long green. He got a evil conscience—not for hisself, for dem udder ofays—’n he good for bread, man, he good for bread.’ He shook his head in incredulity at the prospect of Mister Wister’s sending him a regular check, then smiled at the security this gave him. Course, I can’t go home till that warrant for my arrest cools off. Maybe one year, maybe two. So I’m stuck in Spain, and there couldn’t be a better place. No, there could not be a better place for exile.

He leaned back and let the warming sun hit him in the face. When he opened his eyes he saw a squad of beautiful Scandinavian girls passing, and he said softly to himself, ‘Man, this is livin’.’ But the sight of the girls forced him back to a contemplation of his real problem, and he thought: I have a feeling homosexuality is not for me. I just don’t dig it—they wanna make horses’ asses of themselves … For me, straight is better—maybe not better, but it keeps things a little cleaner. What I really need is to find me a chick for the long haul. If I’m gonna be here a
year, I better find me a chick who’s gonna be here a year too.

He knew it was inevitable that the girl would have to be white; there were no black ones. No problem. In Torremolinos to be black was an asset, because it made you unique. Girls were on the make; they were in exile, too, and some of them would also be looking for the long haul, and that kind of white girl had a built-in curiosity about black men. I calculate it’s gonna be easier to get me a chick here than it would be in Philadelphia, he thought. Content with this generalization, he snapped his fingers: But the problem’s the same the world over. How you gonna find one with money? I can support me, but I sure as hell can’t support the chick too. He then took refuge in a saying he had learned in North Philadelphia: ‘A man don’t have to be dumb. He can look around. He can take his time.’

Satisfied with these tentative conclusions, he left the sunken bar and started walking idly about the town. When he passed the Northern Lights he was tempted to go into the bar to see what was happening, but he refrained for a good reason: Stay clear of that joint. Them Swedes is gorgeous and they go for black boys, but they’re all down here cheap tourist rates and there ain’t a ruble in the lot. Farewell, Northern Lights.

At the Brandenburger he saw a large group of attractive girls, probably down on a special tour from West Berlin, and he was tempted to join them, for they were obviously interested when they saw him standing by the hotel entrance and he knew from others that German girls liked blacks, perhaps as a means of outraging their parents, but he was afraid of them. Yes, he was afraid of what they would have done to him in 1941 had he been a black in Germany. They were enticing people, the Germans, and the young girls were luscious, but they were not for him.

He liked the French hotels. He liked the strangeness of the language, the men who spoke like Charles Boyer, the classy girls who always seemed to have a ribbon or a hemline that was provocative. He could go for a French girl but he had heard that they brought even less money than the Swedes. He therefore lounged in the sunlight before the French hotels, admired the women he saw, then continued on.

By the time he completed his circuit of the town, he had thus formulated four working principles: no more men, no impecunious Swedes, no Germans under any circumstances,
and probably no Frenchwomen. He feared he might be narrowing his field unwisely, but he felt that he had time. With the cushion of safety provided by the regular checks from Mister Wister, he could afford to drift for a couple of weeks. He’d start dropping by the Arc de Triomphe in the evening to see what the action was providing.

In this mood he saw ahead of him the street sign of a bar he had not noticed before: a huge wooden revolver, Texas style, with the words T
HE
A
LAMO
. That’s all I need, he thought ruefully. A Texas bar. Them Ku Kluxers. He was about to pass by when he happened to spot through the open door one of the most beautiful blondes he had ever seen. She looked like a Swede—not too tall, not too heavy. She had champagne-colored hair, worn naturally, so that it bounced about her lovely round face. Her eyes, her teeth, her complexion, the formation of her body were all perfection, and he stopped in admiration: A boy could bury hisse’f in that all night and wake up in the mornin’ screamin’ for more.

He stood at the bar door for some moments, simply looking at the Scandinavian. She appeared to be working in the place, for she moved among the American soldiers, shoving drinks, and they all seemed to know her, for the bolder ones made grabs at her legs as she passed. Such advances she repelled with solid swipes of a towel and a hearty laugh.

‘You can come in, you know,’ a tall bearded American said. ‘Always providing you got money.’ The man extended his hand and said, ‘Name’s Joe. I run the place. Come on in and have a beer on the owner. He waters the stuff.’ He led Cato into the small drinking area and introduced him to six or seven of the soldiers. ‘They come down here from Sevilla,’ he explained. ‘The girls are mostly Americans.’

‘The Swede?’ Cato asked, sipping his beer.

‘Norwegian. Name’s Britta. Come on over, Britt.’

She interrupted her duties and walked trimly over to the two men, extending her hand to Cato and saying, ‘Hello, my name’s Britta.’

‘And from the looks of things—you’re his girl?’

‘I am … in a way of speaking.’

‘I could cut my throat. Son,’ he said, turning to Joe, ‘you are to be congratulated. In fact, you can even be jubilated. Can I buy you both a beer?’

‘Today, no. You’re the guest,’ Joe said. ‘But we’ll mark it on the book.’

‘And when we do that,’ Britta warned, ‘we never forget. The handsome black American … owes us two beers.’ She smiled at him in her frank uncomplicated way and moved on.

‘So far, she’s the winner,’ Cato said admiringly.

‘When the circuit is completed, she’s still the winner,’ Joe said.

They were still talking amiably when one of the soldiers suddenly jumped up and shouted, ‘My God! That’s the guy who shot up all those people in the Philadelphia church!’

A group formed about Cato, plying him with questions about the massacre at Llanfair. The comments were inquisitive rather than accusatory, and one fellow said, ‘Is it true there were corpses up and down the aisle?’ And in the corner another whispered, ‘I don’t want no jigaboo shootin’ up in my church.’

‘Wait a minute!’ Cato protested, but he was powerless to stem the tide of admiring yet fearful comment. The GIs, respectful of anyone who could handle a gun, treated him with caution, one telling the other, ‘I read about it. You saw the pictures. Hundreds dead. Somebody told me he was hiding in Torremolinos.’

‘Knock it off!’ Joe yelled, banging on the bar. ‘I read the stories too. This guy and his committee simply asked for some money. Some shots were fired. But nobody was hit. As a matter of fact, later on, the church did turn over some money … voluntarily.’

‘But isn’t there a warrant out for his arrest?’

‘There is,’ Cato said.

‘Hope you beat the rap,’ a girl called from a corner, and the excitement subsided.

But now Cato was a member of the group. He had bucked the Establishment His picture had been in the paper as a young revolutionary. The fuzz was after him, and that made him automatically one of them. Britta put a stack of rock-and-roll records on the machine and the great good sounds of youth began to fill the bar, the ear-splitting sounds that few people over the age of twenty-five could tolerate, and through the terrifying crescendo of noise which he liked so much, Cato could hear two GIs explaining to a new arrival, ‘He’s the one who shot hell out of that Episcopalian church in Philadelphia. You saw the photos.’ But above the noise and the chatter of aimless conversation
Cato remained preoccupied with the rhythmic movements of Britta as she placed bottles of Coca-Cola on the various tables.

He returned to the bar each day, mesmerized by this Norwegian girl. Both Britta and Joe realized that he was infatuated with her, and one evening Joe said, ‘Why don’t you two have dinner? I’ll tend bar.’

So Cato invited her to select a restaurant, and she chose a small Swedish place that served good food and they talked aimlessly, and finally he took her hand and said, ‘You know I’m bowled over by you,’ and she laughed and told him in her lilting accent, ‘But I’m Joe’s girl.’ He said, ‘But suppose you weren’t Joe’s girl? Could I …’ and she said, ‘You’re handsome and you’re intelligent. I think any girl would like to know you,’ and he said, ‘But you are Joe’s girl?’ and she nodded.

When they returned to the bar Cato told Joe, I’ve been making wild love to your girl,’ and Joe said, pointing to the soldiers who were waiting for Britta. ‘Get in line, buddy.’ Then he added, ‘That girl in the corner said she’d like to meet you … about the church,’ and he led Cato to a corner table, where he said, ‘Cato Jackson, this is Monica Braham. Ask her where she’s from, you won’t believe the answer.’ With that he left them.

Later, in this same bar, seated at this very table, Cato told me, ‘I came into that room in love with Britta. Of that there can be no question, because she was the best-looking girl I’d ever seen. But when Joe left me standing there, looking down at Monica Braham, all the muscles seemed to run out of my legs, because this was a girl so special … something was eating her … we blacks have a sense about people in trouble … and when she asked, in that cool knowing way of hers, “Shooting up any churches lately?” I knew she intended to hurt me—that her future questions would be even tougher, uglier. So I sat down and said, “Where you from?” and she said, “Vwarda,” expecting me to go into a big Africa bit. Now I knew all about Vwarda. In North Philadelphia you hear one hell of a lot about Vwarda this and Vwarda that—you’d think it was the new Athens—but I said, “Where’s that?” and she
smiled at me real cool and said, “As if you didn’t know, you cunning bastard.” ’

Monica and Cato stayed in the bar till four in the morning. With the echoes of the music still ringing in their ears, they walked arm in arm down the hill to the sea front and she took him into the apartment, where he saw the two big beds, and she explained that one belonged to Jean-Victor—‘The Pimp? I met him’—and the other to Joe, and when she said that Britta shared the latter bed, it seemed as if the Norwegian name had come from another world, one that he had known decades ago.

Then she indicated the tartan sleeping bag and said, ‘This is where I live,’ and they stood there for an electric moment, after which she said quietly, ‘I’m sure you’ll get into the bag with me sooner or later. We might as well make it sooner.’ And she proceeded to strip, and when she stood before him, slim and pale, as beautiful as the Greek statuary that Paxton Fell spoke about, Cato knew that she was the most compelling girl he would ever meet. He leaped at her, thrust her into the sleeping bag and joined her in the wildest love-making of his imagination, at the end of which they both fell asleep, exhausted.

When Jean-Victor came in with Sandra toward five, he looked down at the floor and asked casually, ‘Who’d she bring home with her tonight?’ but when Britta and Joe returned after closing the bar, Britta looked at the sleeping bag, smiled and said quietly, ‘It was bound to happen.’

A man who changes his country is like a dog who changes his bark … not to be trusted.

On the basis of fact alone, you could deduce the theory that wherever you have x number of Jews, you will have + plus 2 committees.

I have never understood this adulation of Moses. I calculate that in the forty years he wandered about the desert, not knowing his ass from his elbow, he could have accomplished great things. For example, if he had led his people just thirty yards a day in the right direction, he would have landed them not in Israel but in England, and all this confusion would have been avoided.

God is not dead. He simply refuses to get involved.

The other night I brought my girl friend home to meet my parents. They liked her but they couldn’t stand me.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.—Shaw

Following World War I, the countries of Europe absorbed a million five hundred thousand refugees. Following the Greek-Turkish war, Greece absorbed a million four hundred thousand refugees thrown out of Turkey. Following World War II, the countries of Europe had to adjust to thirteen million refugees. Following the India-Pakistan war, the two sides absorbed upwards of fifteen million refugees. But in the wake of the Arab-Israel war, the Arab countries proved themselves totally incapable of absorbing a few hundred thousand refugees, for which they were themselves largely to blame.

A rose-red city—‘half as old as Time.’—Reverend John William Burgon

In this country we get stuck with taxes, but in the old country we used to get stuck with bayonets.

The use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.—Woodrow Wilson

Worse than war is the fear of war.—Seneca

One of the historical highlights of this century has been the stubborn insistence by the Arab nations that they did not lose the Six-Day War. By girding their loins, adhering to a simplistic interpretation of facts, and bolstering up each other’s flagging resolve, they accomplished a miracle. They simply announced to themselves and to the world, ‘It was an Arab victory,’ and as a result they were obliged to attend no peace conference and make no adjustments. They accomplished in the world of will what they could never have accomplished in the world of battle, and their victory was the greater because it was spiritual and not physical. We had better all accommodate ourselves to what has become a fact: the Arabs won the Six-Day War and must be dealt with as victors.

It was the saying of Bion that though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.—Plutarch

Look after the other man’s belly and your own soul.

The Arabs can lose every war, if only they win the last one.

The Jews have gained nothing if they win all the wars but lose the last one.