“Well, I’ll certainly have to come by and check on all this for myself,” said Vivaldo. “At this rate, he’ll be famous before I am.”
“Oh, I’ve always known that,” said Cass, and lit another cigarette.
Rufus watched the pigeons strutting along the walks and the gangs of adolescents roaming up and down. He wanted to get away from this place and this danger. Leona put her hand on his. He grabbed one of her fingers and held it.
Cass turned to Rufus. “Now, you haven’t been working on a novel, why haven’t you come by?”
“I’ve been working uptown. You promised to come and hear me. Remember?”
“We’ve been terribly broke, Rufus—”
“When I’m working in a joint, you haven’t got to worry about being broke, I told you that before.”
“He’s a great musician,” Leona said. “I heard him for the first time last night.”
Rufus looked annoyed. “That gig ended last night. I ain’t got nothing to do for awhile except take care of my old lady.” And he laughed.
Cass and Leona looked briefly at each other and smiled.
“How long have you been up here, Leona?” Cass asked.
“Oh, just a little over a month.”
“Do you like it?”
“Oh, I love it. It’s just as different as night from day, I can’t tell you.”
Cass looked briefly at Rufus. “That’s wonderful,” she said, gravely. “I’m very glad for you.”
“Yes, I can feel that,” said Leona. “You seem to be a very nice woman.”
“Thank you,” said Cass, and blushed.
“How’re you going to take care of your old lady,” Vivaldo asked, “if you’re not working?”
“Oh, I’ve got a couple of record dates coming up; don’t you worry about old Rufus.”
Vivaldo sighed. “I’m worried about me. I’m in the wrong profession — or, rather, I’m not. In it, I mean. Nobody wants to hear my story.”
Rufus looked at him. “Don’t let me start talking to you about my profession.”
“Things are tough all over,” said Vivaldo.
Rufus looked out over the sun-filled park.
“Nobody ever has to take up a collection to bury managers or agents,” Rufus said. “But they sweeping musicians up off the streets every day.”
“Never mind,” said Leona, gently, “they ain’t never going to sweep you up off the streets.”
She put her hand on his head and stroked it. He reached up and took her hand away.
There was a silence. Then Cass rose. “I hate to break this up, but I must go home. One of my neighbors took the kids to the zoo, but they’re probably getting back by now. I’d better rescue Richard.”
“How are your kids, Cass?” Rufus asked.
“Much you care. It would serve you right if they’d forgotten all about you. They’re fine. They’ve got much more energy than their parents.”
Vivaldo said, “I’m going to walk Cass home. What do you think you’ll be doing later?”
He felt a dull fear and a dull resentment, almost as though Vivaldo were deserting him. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess we’ll go along home—”
“I got to go uptown later, Rufus,” said Leona. “I ain’t got nothing to go to work in tomorrow.”
Cass held out her hand to Leona. “It was nice meeting you. Make Rufus bring you by to see us one day.”
“Well, it was sure nice meeting you. I been meeting some real nice people lately.”
“Next time,” said Cass, “we’ll go off and have a drink by ourselves someplace, without all these men.”
They laughed together. “I really would like that.”
“Suppose I pick you up at Benno’s,” Rufus said to Vivaldo, “around ten-thirty?”
“Good enough. Maybe we’ll go across town and pick up on some jazz?”
“Good.”
“So long, Leona. Glad to have met you.”
“Me, too. Be seeing you real soon.”
“Give my regards,” said Rufus, “to Richard and the kids, and tell them I’m coming by.”
“I’ll do that. Make sure you do come by, we’d dearly love to see you.”
Cass and Vivaldo started slowly in the direction of the arch. The bright-red, setting sun burned their silhouettes against the air and crowned the dark head and the golden one. Rufus and Leona stood and watched them; when they were under the arch, they turned and waved.
“We better be making tracks,” said Rufus.
“I guess so.” They started back through the park. “You got some real nice friends, Rufus. You’re lucky. They’re real fond of you. They think you’re somebody.”
“You think they do?”
“I know they do. I can tell by the way they talk to you, the way they treat you.”
“I guess they are pretty nice,” he said, “at that.”
She laughed. “You’re a funny boy”—she corrected herself—“a funny person. You act like you don’t know who you are.”
“I know who I am, all right,” he said, aware of the eyes that watched them pass, the nearly inaudible murmur that came from the benches or the trees. He squeezed her thin hand between his elbow and his side. “I’m your boy. You know what that means?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means you’ve got to be good to me.”
“Well, Rufus, I sure am going to try.”
Now, bowed down with the memory of all that had happened since that day, he wandered helplessly back to Forty-second Street and stopped before the large bar and grill on the corner. Near him, just beyond the plate glass, stood the sandwich man behind his counter, the meat arrayed on the steam table beneath him. Bread and rolls, mustard, relish, salt and pepper, stood at the level of his chest. He was a big man, wearing white, with a blank, red, brutal face. From time to time he expertly knifed off a sandwich for one of the derelicts within. The old seemed reconciled to being there, to having no teeth, no hair, having no life. Some laughed together, the young, with dead eyes set in yellow faces, the slackness of their bodies making vivid the history of their degradation. They were the prey that was no longer hunted, though they were scarcely aware of this new condition and could not bear to leave the place where they had first been spoiled. And the hunters were there, far more assured and patient than the prey. In any of the world’s cities, on a winter night, a boy can be bought for the price of a beer and the promise of warm blankets.
Rufus shivered, his hands in his pockets, looking through the window and wondering what to do. He thought of walking to Harlem but he was afraid of the police he would encounter in his passage through the city; and he did not see how he could face his parents or his sister. When he had last seen Ida, he had told her that he and Leona were about to make it to Mexico, where, he said, people would leave them alone. But no one had heard from him since then.
Now a big, rough-looking man, well dressed, white, with black-and-gray hair, came out of the bar. He paused next to Rufus, looking up and down the street. Rufus did not move, though he wanted to; his mind began to race, painfully, and his empty stomach turned over. Once again, sweat broke out on his forehead. Something in him knew what was about to happen; something in him died in the freezing second before the man walked over to him and said:
“It’s cold out here. Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a drink with me?”
“I’d rather have a sandwich,” Rufus muttered, and thought You’ve really hit the bottom now.