He told her he was sorry, which he truly was, and which he thought was a gentlemanly and certainly American thing to admit, as she pulled her dress down over her long brown legs, and stood up. She said his apology was accepted, but that nonetheless he had been an inadequate and disappointing partner, whereas she had been hoping for someone with skill and virtuosity enough to perform on Ferris wheels, for example.
“I would be willing to do it on a roller coaster!” he shouted in defense, and then lowered his voice because it was, after all, the wee small hours of the morning, whispering, “I’m truly sorry, Melanie.”
Yes, she said, but you must admit there is something about the white man that can only engender hatred and distrust, dusting off her Pucci dress, and tucking her breasts back into the bodice. The white man has been taking for centuries and centuries, she said, and he doesn’t know how to give, you see, nor even how to accept graciously. The white man (he was beginning to feel as if he’d been captured by the Sioux) knows only how to grab and grab and grab — which is why you have that look on your face that Mother always warned me about — but he doesn’t know what he really wants or even why the hell he’s grabbing. The white man is a User and a Taker and a Grabber, and he will continue to Use and Take and Grab until there’s nothing left for him to feast upon but his own entrails, which he will devour like a hyena, did you know that hyenas eat their own intestines?
“No, I did not know that,” Mullaney said, amazed and repulsed.
It is a little known fact, Melanie said, but true. You must not think I’m angry at you, or would harbor any ill feelings toward you, or seek any revenge other than not permitting you to spend the night in my apartment, which would be impossible with Mother here, anyway. She despises the white man, as you may have gathered. I, on the other hand, like the white man, I really do. As a group, that is. And whereas it’s true that I’ve never met one individually or singly of whom I could be fond, this doesn’t mean I don’t like them as a group. I am, for example, keenly disappointed in you personally, but this needn’t warp my judgment of the group as a whole, do you understand? In fact, I suppose I should be grateful to you for proving to me once again just how undependable the white man really is, as an individual of course. Trust him, let him have his way with you, and what does he do once again but leave you with empty promises, though I wouldn’t march on Washington for something as trivial as this, still I think you know what I mean. Now I suppose you think I’m going to ask you to give me back those clothes you’re wearing, send you out into the night wearing your own flimsy yellow shirt with the bullet hole in it, but no, I’m not the type to seek revenge or to harbor any ill feelings, as I’ve already told you. I like the white man, I do. So you can keep the clothes because they once belonged to a Negro who is ten times the man you are, though I don’t wish to offend you or even cause you any embarrassment. But perhaps they’ll remind you as you go through life that you once took a little colored girl in an incinerator room, grabbed her and took her and used her, and left her not hating you, certainly not hating you, but nonetheless feeling a very keen disappointment in you, which I should have been prepared to expect. But grateful to you nonetheless for ascertaining it once again to my satisfaction. I am, in fact, extremely satisfied. Your performance was exactly what I expected, and therefore I am satisfied with my disappointment, do you understand what I’m saying?
“Oh, of course,” Mullaney said, relieved.
“Well, good then,” Melanie said, and offered her hand and said, “Good luck, I hope the fuzz don’t get you, I take the pill.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I take the pill, don’t worry, and I hope the fuzz don’t get you.”
“Thank you,” Mullaney said.
The fuzz were waiting for him outside the building.
In fact, Freddie, or Lou, or perhaps both of them, hit him on the head with a blackjack or some similar weapon or weapons.
8. Bozzaris
At eight o’clock on Saturday morning, Mullaney was brought up to the lieutenant’s office, together with the eight other prisoners who had spent the night downstairs in the precinct’s detention cells.
The lieutenants name was Bozzaris, and he sat behind a scarred wooden desk in the only two-window office in the squad-room, puffing on a cigar and studying the men who stood before the desk in various attitudes of discomfort. He had very black hair parted in the middle. The part seemed to lead directly into a rather long cleaving nose which bisected his face, pointing toward the long cigar in the exact center of his mouth, which seemed in turn to join the cleft in the exact center of his chin, so that Bozzaris seemed to possess a face that had been formed by folding an ink blot in half, thereby producing two equal and identical sides.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know how many of you folks who were arrested last night are familiar with the procedure here in New York City, but I thought I might fill you in on it for your own benefit and also because I have always been a maverick, witness my name.”
Mullaney had never heard of a maverick named Bozzaris, but he made a mental note to look it up in his encyclopedia when he got the chance and also when his landlady let him back into his room.
“We used to have a thing here in New York, oh maybe two three years ago, which has now been abolished, but which was a very good thing while it lasted. I am referring to the lineup, which I am sure at least some of you folks are familiar with, and which has been discontinued oh these past two three years. Now the lineup was a very good thing, I will repeat that, a very good thing, because it enabled detectives from squads all over the city to go down to Police Headquarters on Centre Street and get an actual glimpse of all the people who were committing crimes all over this fair metropolis, that was the purpose of the lineup. As some of you folks here may know, only felony offenders were taken to the lineup, and a felony is a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in a state prison, so we used to get quite a show down there every morning from Monday to Thursday. But unfortunately that’s all been done away with, be that as it may, we won’t go into police policies right now, let’s just say the loss has been keenly felt, especially by nonconformists like myself, witness my name.