“Book reviewers are all frustrated Negroes, anyway,” Hank said.
“Writers are all frustrated actors,” Murphy said.
“Lawyers are all frustrated chauffeurs,” the driver said.
“The entire world is frustrated,” Grace said. “Nobody’ll get off anybody else’s back.”
“I’ll tell you,” Hank said. “I don’t want you to get off my back. All I want to do is marry your daughter.”
“If you mean that,” Mike said, “you could marry my daughter tomorrow. If I had one.”
“Of course I mean it,” Hank said. “You want to know what equal rights means to me? Equal rights means I’m a man, just like you. And if I’m a man, then I don’t want no other man telling me who I can or can’t marry. Any Negro goes around shouting for equal rights and then claims he don’t want to marry your daughter, or his daughter, or anybody’s daughter, why, he’s just somebody who’s asking for manhood and saying he don’t want it at the same time.”
“I agree with you,” Harris said. “This is all a matter of sex.”
“Sex, my ass,” Hank said. “This is all a matter of identity.”
“I think Harry Belafonte is very sexy,” Grace said.
“Fifty years ago, you wouldn’t have.”
“I think Floyd Patterson is very sexy, too.”
“You’re talking about two nice, safe, gentle Negroes who are acceptable because they’re clean and handsome and fit into what the white man thinks a Negro should be, which is a white man. The day you think Sonny Liston is sexy, that’s the day the Negro in America has finally made it. I’ll tell you something very funny about this whole civil rights megillah—”
“Would anyone like to play Who’s Jewish?” Grace asked.
“Robert Mitchum is Jewish,” Murphy said.
“The funny thing about this entire knotty problem,” Hank went on, “is that most white men can picture themselves in bed with a colored girl very easy, but they just can’t seem to reverse it and picture a blonde in bed with a black man. And that’s where identity comes into the picture, and that’s why I do want to marry your daughter. Why do you think I want to go to school with you? Why do you think I want to vote? Because I want the same power that you have. I’m not asking to be a citizen — hell, I’m a citizen already, second-class or not. I’m asking to be a powerful citizen, I’m asking for the right to make five hundred thousand dollars, and have a black Caddy, and a blonde on my arm if I want one, and my name in the goddamn newspaper, and a minimum of three flunkeys to tell me how great I am every day of the week. I want the right to be whoever I want to be, that’s all.”
“Come on,” Grace said, “let’s play Who’s Jewish.”
“Anne Bancroft is Jewish,” Murphy said.
“Judge Learned Hand is Jewish,” Harris said.
“John Updike isn’t,” Mike said.
“What the hell am I?” Buddwing asked suddenly, and they all turned toward him.
“What?” the driver said.
“Nothing,” Buddwing answered. “Never mind.”
He crouched in the corner of the limousine, suddenly very confused. There was laughter everywhere around him now as name after name was suggested — he’s Jewish, she isn’t — and then Hank began telling the joke about the man who went to Heaven and looked at God — “Well, to begin with, she’s colored” — and they all laughed again, and then the driver told them a racy story about a celebrity he had driven only last week, and they all listened knowledgeably, and then Mike gave his own capsule review of Last Year at Marienbad. “Are you listening?” he asked. “Here’s the review: Last last year year at Marien, bad bad bad,” and they all laughed again. It seemed to him that Grace’s legs were crossed too dangerously, and her skirt pulled too high. It seemed to him that the talk was too fast and too glib, that no one was really saying a damn thing about what was really wrong with the world, but was concerned instead only with what was wrong with his particular corner of the world.
It seemed to him he had heard all the jokes and opinions before, had shared the gossip. It seemed to him he had played every game ever invented. It seemed to him he had seen the crossed legs and exposed knees of a million women, had peered into the low-cut tops of all the gowns in the universe. He had been driven in this same expensive automobile listening to the same talk from the same articulate people for the better part of his life, and none of it made a damn bit of difference. He still didn’t know who he was.
“Have you got that money?” he asked Grace suddenly.
“Yes, I’ve got it.”
“It doesn’t help a damn bit,” he said under his breath. “None of it does,” and was glad that no one heard him. The car was racing down a comparatively empty stretch of Lexington Avenue, preparatory to turning west and heading for the penny arcade where the newspaper headline would be waiting. He knew the headline would not help, either. Edward Voegler had been headlined earlier today, but how had that helped the poor frightened lunatic hiding somewhere in the bushes of the world? He listened to Grace’s brittle laughter, and he remembered the time so long ago when they had tumbled out of bed to drink their coffee and to start a spontaneous game that they had played automatically and apathetically a thousand times since. He stole a sideward glance at her and wondered how this chic and highly lacquered, slightly drunk and provocative blonde sitting beside him in a Cadillac sedan had ever possibly evolved from the simple girl who had tried to study Greek Mythology in the park outside N.Y.U. He looked at Hank and wondered if Hank knew what that headline back at the penny arcade would say when they picked it up. NOBODY MAKES IT! that’s what it would say, don’t you know that, Hank? Fight your battle for civil rights, become the man you want to be, get your five hundred grand and your black Cadillac and your blonde, if that’s who you want, and then add them all up, and Hank, my friend, you’ll find that you’re only starting, that somewhere along the line while you were fighting so goddamn hard for all the things you thought you needed, you lost the very thing that mattered most to you.
He was suddenly seized with an urgent desire to get out of this car and away from these chattering people. It can’t all be gone, he thought, it can’t be too late, I’ve got to get back.
“Driver,” he said, “stop the car. I’m getting out.”
“What do you mean, you’re getting out?” Grace said.
“We’re all going to Oyster Bay, man,” Hank said.
“I’m going back,” Buddwing said.
“Back where?” Grace asked.
“Back,” he answered. “Stop the goddamn car!”
The driver pulled the car to the curb. Buddwing got out quickly and was walking away from it when he heard Grace’s voice behind him.
“Hey, you,” she said.
He turned. “What do you want?”
“You can’t go back,” she said.
Someone in the car laughed, and Buddwing turned away and began running. Behind him, he heard Mike shouting, “Didn’t you ever read Thomas Wolfe?” and then they all burst into laughter again, and the car gunned away from the curb, while he continued running down Lexington Avenue, turning left on the corner and heading for Third. The secret, he thought, was to find those two people who had spilled coffee on the table and rolled onto the floor laughing. The secret, he thought, was to find the person he had been this afternoon, the person clean and new who had met a virgin girl in an autumn park. He quickened his step. Third Avenue was deserted, save for a few late strollers; he supposed it was close to one o’clock in the morning. He felt again the way he had felt on Central Park South just after he had come out of the Plaza, when the world was empty and the birds trilled their high and heady music to his ears. He began running down the sidewalk. He saw the apartment building in the middle of the next block, and he grinned and ran faster. He was about to enter the building when he stopped on the front step and looked up at the numerals over the door, and realized all at once that he did not know Grace’s address.