What’s Happening? Read online

  “Real crazy dance,” howled Rita, her face shattered with laughter.

  Bill laughed too. The entire theatre crackled with the noise of laughing.

  The music ended and the blond jumped up, landing on the floor in a split, his arms outstretched. The revelers at the tables began to sway convulsively with increased laughter. Tears of mirth escaped Rita’s eyes. One girl, doubled with laughter, fell from her chair onto the floor. The colored girl gave her blond dancing partner a helping hand and they walked back to their table in the shadows accompanied by laughter and applause.

  “Is that one of your dancing friends?” asked Bill, still laughing.

  “No. I don’t know that couk. First time I ever saw him,” Rita answered, the laughter in her voice fading. “Josh is a dancer.” She nodded toward Jeannie’s shaven-headed friend.

  “I thought he looked like a dancer. I don’t know why. You know, it’s just that sometimes it comes through, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. Lots of times people come through. You know.” She spoke suddenly more slowly and seriously, reflecting on Bill, studying his face. It was a friendly, pleasant face, she thought. “… You don’t come through though. You know, like you don’t come through with any emotion in your face at all. Like it’s a wall and I can’t see on the other side.” As she spoke, she wondered what Bill thought about her; if he thought she was nice.

  “That’s good,” Bill said flatly. “It protects my feelings from the God damn world so nobody can step on them. Everybody else does it, don’t they? Nobody shows the real picture of themselves. They put on a show of what they want to be.”

  She understood what he was saying, and the understanding of his bitterness made her want him to know she understood. She wanted to communicate their “sympatico.”

  “You’re not like that, though, like other people. … I don’t know, maybe you are, but you don’t seem like that. You seem different from the rest of people. I don’t know how to explain it but …” She looked at him lingeringly, her eyes warm and understanding.

  “Yeah, but like when I put on a blank wall I’m not trying to fool myself, you know? I’m trying to fool other people. This way no one knows what’s going on inside, you know? Like I can be myself but nobody knows about it. I can play bits without anyone knowing what’s coming off. Nobody can hurt my secret feelings, laugh or mock them.”

  They each moved their chair closer to the other, smiling at the coincidence.

  “But that’s just it. When you do want to get through to a person you don’t.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes. A deeper, poignant meaning loomed behind their eyes and their words. The conversation was becoming charged with unspoken meaning.

  “Look,” Bill explained seriously, “when I want to get through to somebody I tell them. That’s a big thing with me. I like to be frank and say exactly what I mean.” He groped for a more tangible reaction on her part to the underlying excitement in their physical communication.

  “Rita! Rita!” called Jeannie. “We’re going to Dani’s for coffee. You coming?”

  “You want to go for coffee?” Rita asked Bill. Their eyes met and she was asking him with her flickering eyes too.

  “Baby, I just want to be with you,” he answered softly. “I’m not much on coffee anyway.”

  She looked at him, still studying, a slight pleased smile warming her mouth. “No. We’re going to stay for a while.”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  Jeannie and Josh walked to the exit. Bill and Rita watched them. Now Rita turned back and their eyes met again, sparklingly aware of each other. The sounds of drums and people faded … time lingered … silently, … and now Rita smiled a little, mysteriously.

  “So, you were saying you like to be frank.”

  “Yeah.…” Bill took a matchbook from Rita’s hand and elaborately lit a bolstering cigarette. He shook the match, blew out a spume of smoke, and returned the matches to her hand. Her skin was warm and smooth to his touch. He grasped her hand, studied the deep lines in the palm, then looked up, peering at her intently, continuing to press her hand in his. “It’s the best way to say what you mean.” He scanned her face for a lead.

  “I like people to be frank and come right out and say what they mean,” Rita said leadingly.

  Both were thinking furiously, belying an imposed outer calm. Neither wanted to make the first thrust, yet both wanted to pursue the conversation further.

  “You’re pretty frank,” he commented.

  “Why don’t you be frank?”

  “Okay, let’s be frank. I dig you. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, … but I like you, and I figure you might like me, … and why don’t we get to know each other better?”

  “That’s a good suggestion. Anything else?” She probed further.

  “What else is there? Maybe you can suggest something.”

  She smiled as they stared. She was not talking now. Not being able to think of what to say, Rita waited for Bill to speak.

  “Well, …” Bill said finally, forced to take the lead boldly. He averted his eyes to stare over her head at the wall. “I don’t think there’s a better way of getting to know anyone than by … well, … by … er … ah … going to bed with them. So like why don’t we sort of start getting acquainted real well tonight?” He fired this last at her quickly, watching her eyes for a reaction. She didn’t bolt. She looked at him, the soft smile lingering on her mouth. She just looked, her eyes staring deeply.

  “I was frank with you. Now you be frank with me. Wha’ da ya say?” he persisted.

  And still she didn’t answer. This was—in cold, hard language—what she had rightly anticipated. And she didn’t answer. She had known it was coming and she wanted to answer, but her throat was parched; she tried to swallow a sandy lump in her throat. She couldn’t answer! Her thoughts were confused. She had run away from her overbearing, propriety-bridled home to be able to stand on her own feet and do what she felt she had to do. She had flown the coop to become an adult, make her own decisions, be her own master, but inside, an unsure, frightening apprehension filled her with a quivering unsureness. She wished she would awaken someplace else, away from this ordeal, someplace warm and quiet, where she wouldn’t have to think, to make this decision. She looked at Bill. She took her hand from his and fingered the matchbook on the table, pensive and indecisive and afraid. She wanted to be a person, not destroy her person, and the ominous forebodings of her decision weighed heavily upon her. She still couldn’t swallow.

  “Come on now, …” Bill urged. “What are you sitting like a clam for? You’re not being very frank. Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute.” Everything inside of her sat poised in cold terror. She couldn’t decide! But she had to! Here was an invitation to share in life in a big way. Thoughts of adult romance and a man danced within her. These could be hers, now. She would be a woman. But God, … where does one draw the line between a woman and a whore? She wasn’t a whore. She didn’t want to be a whore! She just wanted to be alive. Oh, God, how did I get into this solitary hell inside my skull? How do I get out? Was this not why she left home and all the molded, jaded, stagnant regimentation? Life had to be lived, and decisions had to be made, regardless of what people who were too weak to accept the necessity of the bitter with the sweet thought. She had to decide … either yes or no … decide … decide—child or woman … woman or whore—decide … decide … now … now. There was no easy way out. She was stuck. She had to make a decision and abide with it. She yearned to be an adult.

  There was no noise of revelers now for Rita, only the sizzling pressure of silence in her ears, the sight of Bill across from her, looking intently into her face, and a millrace of thoughts. Her thoughts of home raised pictures of her family. How stupified, appalled, outraged they would be if they heard this conversation. How they would deny the reality of life … and seek protection behind principles and ideals, unexciting, unsatisfying, yet comforting in their un
iversal acceptance. Familial thoughts and thoughts of blind acceptance of life without understanding angered her. The hell with it! I’ve got to stand up by myself, she screamed within herself, gritting her teeth. I’ve got to … got to … got to … even if I’m wrong. I have to make my own mistakes.

  “Come on, let’s go. You can think about it as we walk. Come on. What’s the story?” Bill smiled. He stood, moving Rita’s chair out so that she could stand. She looked at him, trembling unknowingly. Her stomach turned uncomfortably. He took her hand that trembled slightly. She stood, smiling, biting her lip, and they made their way out of the theatre.

  2

  “So when do you go to this drama class of yours?”

  Bill’s voice floated abstractly through the darkness of Rita’s apartment. The dimness was relieved by occasional comet-like flashes across the ceiling, reflected from the traffic babbling in the street below. Rita and Bill lay on the bed engaged in naked, anti-climactic conversation, fulfilling the awkward need for verbal intercourse to affirm their humanity.

  “We have class three nights a week. Phil Avery teaches us. Ever hear of him?”

  She twisted onto her side to face Bill. In the shrouded room, she could distinguish only the dark outline of his head against the pillow. Her eyes strained to pierce the darkness surrounding his features but failed. Clamping her eyes shut to block out the present dim realities, Rita pondered if she had wanted—really wanted—to go to bed with Bill. It was too late, of course, but she wanted to be sure. Had she wanted him, or had she merely reacted impulsively against her fear of indecision, of immaturity? If she had assumed her present position solely out of fright, it served no purpose save to physically underscore her utter failure to stand on her own reasonable, adult feet. Of course it was what I wanted, she thought, furious at her doubting self. She opened her eyes suddenly, abandoning insidious thought, turning her attention to Bill and the conversation.

  “No, I haven’t. Should I have?”

  His fingers touched her arm, slid to her hand and pressed it in his. He twisted to look at her. She too was a faceless shadow. She snuggled closer to him, resting her hand on his chest, methodically smoothing the hair there, still peering at his shadow. She wondered if she remembered what he looked like.

  “Well, he was in the original cast of Oklahoma and South Pacific, and now he’s in My Fair Lady.”

  Certainly I know what he looks like, she thought angrily, forcing his image to appear before her mind’s eye.

  “Sounds like he knows what he’s doing. But how the hell does he teach if he’s in a show now?”

  Another comet flashed through the slit in the curtains. It passed across Bill, for an instant illuminating his face to a cadaverous grey. Rita stopped stroking his chest; her hand rested inertly. It was a stranger’s face—a face the features of which she knew only fleetingly—and yet this stranger was in bed with her, and she with him. Qualms stirred her stomach uncomfortably. Hell, she admonished herself, it is only the hollow ideals about propriety my parents have crammed into me that disturb me—a lot of frightened bourgeois nonsense that means nothing, that is constantly paid lip service, and that is only adhered to by the mouthers when absolutely necessary. Bill was fun and she was enjoying him, she concluded. She twisted away from Bill to lie flat on her back and stare thoughtfully at the ceiling.

  “The class begins at five thirty and lasts until seven o’clock, that’s how.”

  Bill folded his arms behind his head for a pillow, still peering toward her. She twisted her head toward him, gazing at his face, for which her imagination supplied the features, and smiled. It was exactly what she had wanted, she ventured to convince herself. She leaned forward and their mouths fused. They parted and she rested her head on his chest.

  “How’re you doing with it?”

  “I’ve been taking lessons since I moved down here.… That’s three months.” Her jaw muscles flexed against his chest as she spoke. “I’ve done pretty good so far. Phil said I’d really make it if I kept at it. I will, too. I’ve got to,” she vowed, utterly determined, her jaw muscles set firmly against his chest. “You know what I want to do—achieve? I want to be so good … so good that someday I’ll make a whole audience … cry.” She fell silent, inwardly choked up. “I’ve already won a scholarship for next term. That’s good,” she exclaimed proudly, thinking aloud, “I can sure use the money I’ll save.”

  “You pay for your own lessons now?”

  “Sure. You don’t think my folks are supporting me, do you?” she asked sharply, a tremor of anger in her voice. She raised her head to look toward his face.

  “Take it easy, baby. I don’t know … I haven’t the slightest idea.” Bill didn’t want an argument to jeopardize his warm position. He twisted and put an arm across her soft belly. “Come on, baby … take it easy. Let’s not spoil it.”

  She relaxed again under his urging.

  “Where you from originally?” he asked.

  “Brooklyn. My folks still live there.” Brooklyn—shady streets of black asphalt and sunlight filtering between fluttering leaves—flashed through her memory.

  “So how come you live here? Brooklyn’s not far. It’s kind of tough having to pay for school and the rent and everything, isn’t it?”

  “It’s better than being a brainless stooge,” she fired back determinedly.

  “You mean it was a hassle?”

  “It wasn’t that so much. It was just … I don’t know what. They bugged me, … told me to wear this, hear that, say this, do that, you know? What a God damn rotten deal it was! They thought I was just a lump of clay to be smacked into any shape they wanted. I don’t know why they bother to have children. They don’t know a God damn thing about raising them.” She snorted contempt.

  “What do you think, everybody else has a picnic?”

  “No, it’s just that this is what I felt. I can’t feel everything for everybody else, can I? I only really know the things that bother me. If somebody else has a rough time, let him stick up for himself.”

  “You sound harder than you are,” he joshed with innuendo.

  “It’s not that …” she said, ignoring his comment. “But you’ve got to watch out for yourself in this world. Nobody else does it for you. Maybe that’s right … that everybody should care for themselves. But it would be nice once in a while to relax. You know, once have somebody care for you, about you.…” Her voice trailed off forlornly. She reflected quietly for many moments. “Nobody can love you like your parents, you know that?” she continued.

  “I never thought about it much.”

  “Well, everybody is out for something. You know, they treat people nice if they can get something for themselves out of it. Your parents, they love you all the time—they should anyway—not because you do anything, can do anything, but like you’re theirs … you’re you, part of them.”

  “I guess you’re right. Like I said, I never think about it.”

  “It’s a bitch when they don’t even give a shit about you! Take my parents, … please?” They laughed momentarily. “I don’t know why they had me,” she continued, serious again. “I guess for the same reason they do everything else—it’s the thing! They didn’t want to be out of the race, you know?” One thought led, through painful association, to another, and Rita’s anger spilled over. It was a sort of relief, however, to give these thoughts their freedom, to be able to vent her true emotions and feelings to someone without polite suppression or fear of retaliation. It felt like being alive and real inside herself for a change.

  “They think the only thing they have to do is go to bed and make babies. They don’t know they have to care for children, that everything they do influences their children. They think a kid is a dumb clod. But it isn’t. A kid is a little person! They think they’re kidding you when they lie to you—you know, white lies—to get you to do things, to go to the store for them, to act nice—stories, nonsense—as if, well, someday the kid’ll understand. But you don’t. You r
esent the lie. When you can’t rely on your father, where is there to go?” She fell silent for many moments.

  “I wasn’t treated like a person. I was a nothing … a dummy they pulled strings on,” she continued. “They want animals, little nothings, not children. It’s just like some people have dogs, you know? They want the dog to be cute and to do tricks, see? But when it comes to the dog being a dog, you know, he wants to do his business, or he wants to play when his master isn’t in the mood—Wham!” Rita grimaced, cutting the air viciously with her hand. “… right across the head with a strap. People like that ought to buy paper dolls and paper dogs; they never move unless you want them to.”

  Bill still held her across the waist, listening quietly, breathing slowly. He thought her story a bit trite and tedious; it was her problem. He restrained his feelings, however, being in no position to be annoyed.

  Bill’s quiet, firm support, his understanding, calmed Rita’s doubts about being with him.

  “You know, they even held my God damn acting lessons over my head. I was planning to take acting lessons and they agreed to pay for them. But when anything went wrong, the first thing they said was they wouldn’t pay for my lessons. They thought I was nuts, you know? The jerky kid wants to be an actress. They humored me so they’d get me to behave. They humored me like I was a fff … a dummy. Stupid bastards!” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Who needs it?” she yelled angrily, sitting up in bed.

  “Hey, take it easy.” Bill sat up too. “Don’t think about it.” He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to ease her back to a prone position.