Charles Wright - The Collected Novels of Charles Wright

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I AM ON THE STOOP these spring nights. The whoring, thieving gypsies, my next door neighbors, are out also. Their clientele is exclusively male. Mama, with her ochre-lined face, gold earrings, hip-swinging beaded money pouch, flowing silk skirts, is sitting on her throne, the top step. She went to jail the other day, made the Daily News. She had clipped a detective and tried to bribe him with ten bucks. The gypsy kids are out also. The girl is five, the boy six. They sell paper flowers. Some moron walking with his girl gives the boy a dime and tells him to keep the flower. He takes his girls arm and they go off laughing, doing the slumming act. The sweet-faced little gypsy boy looks up at me and mutters, Cheap c. The gypsy girl, when her face is clean, looks as if she had been born to wear a confirmation dress. She works men with her sad angels face; tears fall like soft rain from her eyes. Most men are not deceived and then she jumps up and slaps them on the buttocks, always the wallet pocket.

This street is a pretty spring nights dream, Forty-ninth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, with its frantic mixed bag of colors. Chinese and French restaurants, the Gray Line sightseeing buses, jukebox bars catering to soldiers and sailors and lesbian prostitutes, parking lots and garages filled with people returning from the theatre. And tourist hotels.

Later in my apartment, five stories up, nothing obscures the brooding night sky laced with orange-red neon. A haze hangs low over the buildings. The Empire State Building looms a giant obelisk; the rest is a misty El Greco painting. In the mist the low buildings are angular, surrealistic.

Here in this semi-dark room, I become frightened. Am I in America? The objects, chairs, tables, sofa are not specifically American. They, this room, have no recognizable country. I have always liked to believe that I am not too far removed from the heart of America (I have a twenty-five dollar U. S. Savings Bond) and I am proud of almost everything American. Yet Im drowning in this green cornfield. The acres stretch to infinity. I dare not move. This country has split open my head with a golden eagles beak. Regardless of how I try, the parts wont come together. And this old midtown brownstone is waiting mutely for the demolition crew, these two-and-a-half rooms which have sheltered me for two years. A room with a view: the magical Manhattan skyline, and all for five dollars a week because I have connections.

But the super just came in. I looked up. From the top of his cranium an unbroken hairless line runs straight down to the hollow of his neck like the bold stripe of a zebra.

Charlie, why the hell you sitting in the dark like this? You drunk or something?

Want a beer? I ask.

The super was standing motionless with his hand on the doorknob. All I could see was his steel-rimmed glasses. I had a feeling that he was staring hard at me.

Finally he blurted out, Charlie, you gotta move. Somebody keeps ratting to the landlord. And it puts me on the spot.

It must be those people next door. They wanted this place.

Yeah, the super agreed. But the Housing Authority said this place couldnt be rented again unless the violations were fixed. So a man from the office is coming round tomorrow and you do what you always do.

Okay, I said. Sure you dont want a beer?

Nope, the super said.

So tomorrow I must pack all of my things and store them with the people in number seven and with Maxines mother, who lives on the second floor. I will sprinkle dust on the floor, close the shutters tight, scatter cigarette butts and old newspapers around, and take the mattress off the bed.

Nothing lasts forever, I remember telling Shirley. She had called to wish me a belated happy birthday. It had simply slipped her mind. Oh, she was fine. When she felt the need to come over, shed let me know. Well, you just do that, cupcake, I had said. Ill keep you waiting on the stoop five hours like Easter. She hung up without a good-bye. We have been fighting and making up for more than two years now. This always happens when people are unwilling to give up even the carcass of an affair.

I must remember not to flush the cigarette butts down the can in the hall. Ill need them to make this place look unlived in. Ill sweep up and move back in when the Housing man has come and gone.

I WALK THROUGH the early morning streets saddled with a numb, self-centered despair. The bars are closing, and a terrible, indefinable magic cuts the cool air. Early Sunday morning has that subtle, quiet quality in New York. Lonely people everywhere know that time of morning. Slow, uncertain footsteps, your own distorted reflection in darkened store windows. The shameful, envious, eyes-lowered glances at passing couples. You recognize other solitary fellow travelers. Both of you go separate ways, moving with the knowledge of Sunday papers, endless cigarettes, tap water, the hoarded half-pint, and the feeling of having missed out on Saturday nights jackpot prize. You give up the Waterloo, mount the steps, unlock the door, turn on the light, undress. You pace the floor and finally try to sleep, comforted with nothing but the prospect of another sunrise.

You pay for everything you get in this world. Glitter and polish, sophistication, the ejaculations delivered to a sterile country. Everything.

You are alone now, buried in your own morality. I have got to leave New York. I am saving my nickels, dimes, dollars, and this winter I will go away.

Now the Sunday sky is serene and pale blue. Toward the east a ballet of soft, white clouds. The rising sun breaks through shafts of gold. It was as if God had suddenly opened His powerful hand on the world. My heart bows its head in the presence of this force. I am suddenly at peace in this early morning. The sun comforts me; I am swaddled in the folds of those wonderful clouds. Let the rays of the sun touch your body and you will be made holy. Shirley used to say I was saintly, I had missed my calling, I should become a preacher. Youve got the makings, boy. Why did you stray so far from home?

F RIDAY . Faded blue sky. Ninety-three-degree noonday heat. Jammed traffic and the smooth grind of the crosstown bus.

Maxine the pixie, honey-colored seven-year-old, bounces in. She lives on the second floor and has the mind of a twelve-year-old.

Did I scare you, Charles? Maxine throws her arms around me. Ive got a present for you. One of my fantastic pictures. Look!

I look up slowly and smile. Maxine loves the word fantastic. Now she is studying me closely, taking in the red-yellow eyes and the fat bags under them and the two-day beard.

Maxine has given up conventional childrens drawing. She is on an abstract kick. The lines are firm; the colors blend. I took her once to the Museum of Modern Art, but she was very hostile to the gods of Modern Art. She prefers her own abstractions.