“Sh-h!” But his panicky warning failed to avert the footsteps: too late to turn the light off, door-crack light, boxed into light, immovable as a picture in a frame, gripped in concrete, yet breathing — oh, Jesus Christ, the usher! No, the tread was multiple: usher and manager. Bluff it out, plead it out, whine it out. Already on his trembling lips abject imploring, Please, mister, please. Extenuate. He had worked here was why. Never again — grovel, as he did in Stuyvesant. Maybe the guy would be Jewish.
The door opened — to Stella’s short startled “O-o-h!” The three young Negroes seemed to pull the light toward them as they swung the door wide open. Like a net, like a seine, they pulled the light toward them. And happy with their catch, pale eyeballs, polished brown skin, grew lustrous with pleasure. They seemed quite young. And even spindlier in the light, like reeds, but already at least Ira’s height, or taller. Elastic, brown striplings, fourteen years old, fifteen, who knew? None had a coat, but under an array of motley, raveled sweaters wore sweatshirts, gaudy summer sport shirts. One sported a striped knit cap, a second something resembling a beret, the third a sawtooth-brimmed and incised-diamond-crowned gray felt.
“Hey, man,” the tallest greeted with flip of wrist and lilt of shoulder, his voice just above a whisper. “We come up t’see how you doin’.”
“You doin’ all right.” The shortest might be the oldest. He had a small scar across his upper lip. His brown face gleamed amiably; his white-nailed hand lingered on his crotch. “We see you an’ her duck the man. We knew y’all gonna finish it.”
“Ri-ight,” commended the third, his gaze lingering appreciatively on Stella. “How ’bout dat? She friend o’ yo?”
Were they serious? Was he in danger? What course to follow? Demeanor what? Tough-bluff. Sheepish, sharing-prank. Options ripped through the mind; his eyes riveted on three brown, flippant faces; he strove to plumb intentions, adjust actions — all in gnarled seconds. Mostly, it was their conspiratorial, their knowing leering he feared, their feral implications that bound together. Penned in here, cornered, he could let out a yell, an outcry: Stella would follow suit. Then what?
He let instinct take control. “All right, fellers.” He moderated a resolute front with concession of foible. “We just tried to duck away — you’re right.” He tried not to move precipitously toward termination. “You know how it is.” He made to edge Stella toward the open door. “Let’s go, Stella.”
But none of the youth showed the least sign of accommodation, no one made room for him. “You ain’t gone break up de party like dat, man?” the tallest objected. “What about us?”
Time to fence — for all he was worth: “You already have.”
“Aw, no, man, we jes’ join it.”
“You just spoiled it.” His chuckle was staple, nonrecriminatory. “Let’s quit kiddin’, fellers.” He appealed to reason. “Waddaye say?” He again leaned in the direction of passage, which they again blocked.
“Say? Nothin’ t’say, man,” the short youth said. “She blow you, she blow us.”
“You get outta the way.” A frightened Stella pushed at Ira’s shoulder, her voice rising. “Get outta the way. We wanna go.”
“Better get outta the way before the usher hears you,” Ira advised.
“We don’ want no trouble, Stella. Dat yo name?” The third youth — nearest the door — pulled it to behind him. All five locked in: ladies’ slate-partitioned toilet, dusty lavatory with rust ring.
“What’re you lockin’ us up for?” Stella’s voice rose in panic. “Open that door!”
“We jes’ want some fun, Stelly.”
“Right. Jes’ a little fun,” two voices blended. “Ev’body like a little fun. Don’t you like a little fun, Stella. A little fun neveh hurt nobody.”
“Sho thing, Stella, bebeh. You do us like yo do him.”
“C’mon, fellers,” Ira pleaded, his ineffectiveness a lead weight within him. “I tell you, you’re gonna get in trouble.”
“I’ll scream.” Stella drove to the fore of opposition. “You let us go!”
“Aw, Stella, bebeh, don’ go gittin’ yose’f all excited.” The tallest youth’s brown finger was curved around its own pale inner pad, hooked like a setting about something metallic, a Gem safety razor blade. “You tell her, man, we ain’ gone hurt her.” Stella shrank back. “Look, man, we don’ like messin’ aroun’.” A bright blade appeared, clicked open out of the pearl-handled knife, pale in the brown hand of the shorter youth.
Ira contracted to nothingness. “Waddaye want? I got three bucks.”
“We don’ wantcher money, man. We wan’ a little fun.”
“Nobody lookin’ t’cutcha up. We all have a little fun.”
“We all stay here, an’ everyone gone take a turn in de ladies’ booth.”
“Yah.” So apropos, persuasive, the shortest youth.
All three brown faces beamed. “Rotten niggers!” Stella screamed — and threw herself forward with flailing fist and manual. “Help! Lemme go!”
“Help!” Ira shouted, surged in tandem. “Goddamn you bastards! Git away from us!”
They gave ground. The door cracked open, flew around, and out they burst into gloom.
“Poleese!” Stella screamed, fleeing toward the stairs. “Help! Poleese!”
“Here! No! This way! Stella!” Ira plunged through the obscurity of the balcony, the movie foaming on the screen below. He hurled himself at the brass bar of the fire-escape door under the red exit light. He flung it open on daylight, with Stella behind him. Were they following? They were — and they weren’t. They lagged. Bluff hadn’t worked, or something like that. Past the edge of daylight, with Stella pressing bodily beside him, out on the fire escape the two charged. Ira led the way down: iron steps under skipping feet, and Stella keeping pace with hand sliding along black iron guardrail, as though gripping a pike, and bookkeeping manual raised like a shield, rushing frantically down by his side. As he ran free, he was surprised at her speed, the reckless patter of her feet in women’s shoes flickering from step to step to the first-balcony level.
“It’s closed. It’s locked. The doors.”
She stopped, perceived the dead end of fire escape, was about to hammer on the metal door.
“Ira, where you going?” she screamed after him.
“Don’t be afraid. Watch.” He felt — what? — a stirring of respect, camaraderie, never felt before. “I’ll show you.” He took hold of her arm, pressed it in encouragement. “Come on. Just walk out after me.” He led the way forward to the end of the cantilever staircase that jutted like a peninsula into empty space over the street, a gangway to nowhere—
“It’s moving!”
“I know. I did this already.” He felt solicitous: libido metamorphosed by stress: poor kid.
“Oh, it goes right to the sidewalk.”
“That’s the whole idea. We’ll be down in a second.” Across the street, windows in the warehouse wall rose above them as they descended — descended in the open air to the level of wooden packing crates beside doorways gathering afternoon shadow. Hardly anyone below paid any attention to them; the few pedestrians on 13th Street had their backs to them. Only the driver of a sedan spared a hasty stare, and was gone. Doors creaked open above them as he steadied her the last few feet of the sinking trammel. The blue-uniformed fireman about to enter the squat brick firehouse a few buildings east regarded them askance, as if tricksters inciting his reproach.