’Course, we lost our jobs as soon as the men returned from war. I was back at the cannery, Mabeline back in a kitchen. But come evening, she was on the back porch with me.
“You ever been with a Negro girl before?”
“No. You ever been with a white girl before?”
“No. But it’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
“White people believe all kinds of crazy things about Negro girls.”
“Do Negroes believe all kinds of crazy things about white girls?”
“Well, I know you ain’t Miss Ann.”
“I ain’t Miss Anybody.” I paused. “Who’s Miss Ann?”
Mabeline hesitated, then said, “She was a friend of my aunt’s. But they had a falling out.”
“What was it about?”
“About Miss Ann not understanding.”
“Not understanding what?”
“Anything.”
“Well, I want to understand everything about you.”
“That could take awhile,” she said, in a voice so slow that if she’d been on a bicycle she’d have tipped over.
When the war ended we went to the California Hotel to celebrate — Mabeline loves music. We generally encountered fewer hassles at tony places. Not because the people were any nicer, but because the wives would pull their husbands back, saying, That’s your best suit. Musicians filled the air with jazz so raucous it made colors stream and waft up the aisles. As we floated out on those currents, some man came up close behind Mabeline and started sniffing loudly. She ignored him, but I was ready to haul off and hit him right there in the lobby. Mabeline grabbed my arm, saying grimly under her breath, “Forget it.”
She pulled me outside to hail a cab. I kept my gaze on that man — there he was, his eyes still on Mabeline. I watched him watching her, my gaze moving between them. A cab passed by. Then another. It stopped up ahead, for other passengers. Another cab approached and I rushed forward, throwing my arm up and piling Mabeline inside. I wanted her away from that man. When I turned to her, her eyes were angry. The cabbie never stopped watching us in the rearview, so we waited till we got home to speak. Mabeline said there were too many things to talk about.
It took me awhile to understand: she wasn’t mad about me getting that cab — didn’t I see that she couldn’t get one herself? Yes, it was good that I could do that for her, but didn’t I understand that I should be mad too, mad that she couldn’t get us one? I explained that I wanted to be the one to get cabs for her, I wanted to lay down my cloak for her, I wanted to do all those things, but she insisted that I still didn’t understand. “Those things only become a welcome gift,” she said, “when I could have done them myself.”
So then I saw how much of what I had to give could only be an insult, an offense, to Mabeline. Cannery pay is always more than kitchen pay. Those steaks I bought for her — they were a gift she should have been able to buy herself.
Around nine thirty a shadow crossed Evan’s face. I followed his eyes: two men in tight collars had just been served at the bar. Glances ricocheted around the room. The bartender stood sentry, his gaze piercing the smoke the way a lighthouse beam cuts the fog. Conversations were suspended in the air for a moment, hardly something you’d notice in another bar. In the lull Mabeline murmured, “We’ve got company.” Then voices resumed and bodies began to move. Two women rose from the bar, leaving their drinks behind, ambling to the front door mighty fast. Several men slipped quietly out the back. I glanced at Mabeline; her eyes were narrow slits.
“They look too young for cops,” Lester said.
“They recruit ’em young, hung, and handsome for just this purpose.”
“The applicant pool must have been small,” Mabeline noted drily.
“Quite a flamboyant tie on the one. Is that puce?”
“The better to eat you with, my dear.”
“It’s actually quite tasteful. Can’t be department issue.”
The two men got their drinks and came toward our table. Our breaths bottomed out as their shiny shoes squeaked past. They unbuttoned their jackets and settled in at the table behind us. Hands wrapped around their glasses, they leaned back in the universal bar code of invitation. Mabeline and I had front-row seats when Otis weaved his way from the corner, waved merrily as he circled a tableful of friends, and slid sloppily into a seat at the strangers’ table. “Haven’t seen you here before!” he warbled gaily.
The two men smiled, eyes and all. Mabeline swore under her breath.
“You from around here?” Otis queried.
Both nodded, and said they were from San Francisco.
“Oooh, the big bad city!” Otis crooned.
“I’m Fred,” one guy said, extending his hand. “And this is Buck.” I considered the old saw about cops always having single-syllable names as Otis complimented Fred on his tie. Otis gestured to it, leaning exuberantly across the table, his hand landing inches from the glass and the hands of Officer Puce. After a moment Otis slid one seat closer, his hand diddling around on the table near Officer Puce’s beer.
“Jesus,” Mabeline whispered, snapping open her purse and extracting her reading glasses. She slid them on, then quickly smeared away lipstick with the back of her hand, leaving a red streak across her cheek, a macabre mockery of a smile. Then everything happened at once. Otis gave Officer Puce’s hand a fond rub, the cop reached in his back pocket for handcuffs, Mabeline hitched up the front of her dress, pulling it high over her cleavage as bright lights came blasting in the front door. Just before they blinded us Mabeline held my eyes with hers to steady me.
The wagons pulled up to the front of the building, but not to the back. The newly initiated thought this was lucky, and a few made a run for it. Those of us who’d been around awhile knew things were headed south. Wagons at both doors meant they’d load us up, haul us off, and book us. No wagon out back meant other things could happen in that dark alley. Things that made getting hauled off to jail seem like your best option.
The barrage of officers herded us against a wall, shined lights in our eyes, called us faggot, bulldagger, and queer, called some of us nigger and coon. They especially liked mixing words from the first category together with words from the second, in various combinations. A cop with a bent nose and a Southern drawl came down the line with a smile, checking faces. He lingered on Mabeline. I could smell his sweat as he hovered, breathing on her. My body was taut as the mooring line of a warship. I remembered Mabeline’s eyes and held my breath. I waited for him to pass. As he turned, his eyes already on the next woman down the line, he reached out his hand and cupped Mabeline’s breast in a smooth, curving motion. Gave it a squeeze just as he let go. I forgot Mabeline’s eyes and swung for his jaw. He reared back. Blue bodies rushed over, blue arms grabbed me and pulled me toward the back door. He followed, dragging Mabeline.