The girl sat with her hands folded in her lap.
“Mary Roberta,” Ed Wolfe said.
“Uh huh,” the girl said.
“Mary Roberta.”
“Yes,” the girl said. “That’s right.”
“You want to dance?” Ed Wolfe asked.
“All right,” she said. “I guess so.”
“That’s it, that’s it,” Oliver said. “Stir yourself.”
Ed Wolfe rose clumsily, cautiously, like one standing in a stalled Ferris wheel, and went around behind her chair, pulling it far back from the table with the girl in it. He took her warm, bare arm and moved toward the dancers. Mopiani passed them with a bottle. “Looks good, looks good,” Mopiani said approvingly. He pulled her against him to let Mopiani pass, tightening the grip of his pale hand on her brown arm. A muscle leaped beneath the girl’s smooth skin, filling his palm. At the edge of the dance floor he leaned forward into the girl’s arms and they moved slowly, thickly across the floor. He held the girl close, conscious of her weight, the life beneath her body, just under her skin. Sick, he remembered a jumping bean he had held once in his palm, awed and frightened by the invisible life, jerking and hysterical, inside the stony shell. The girl moved with him in the music, Ed Wolfe astonished by the burden of her life. He stumbled away from her deliberately. Grinning, he moved un-gently back against her. “Look out for Ed Wolfe,” he crooned.
The girl stiffened and held him away from her, dancing self-consciously. Brooding, Ed Wolfe tried to concentrate on the lost rhythm. They danced in silence for a while.
“What do you do?” she asked him finally.
“I’m a salesman,” he told her gloomily.
“Door to door?”
“Floor to ceiling. Wall to wall.”
“Too much,” she said.
“I’m a pusher,” he said, suddenly angry. She looked frightened. “But I’m not hooked myself. It’s a weakness in my character. I can’t get hooked. Ach, what would you goyim know about it?”
“Take it easy,” she said. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want to sit down?”
“I can’t push sitting down,” he said.
“Hey,” she said, “don’t talk so loud.”
“Boy,” he said, “you black Protestants. What’s that song you people sing?”
“Come on,” she said.
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,” he sang roughly. The other dancers watched him nervously. “That’s our national anthem, man,” he said to a couple that had stopped dancing to look at him. “That’s our song, sweethearts,” he said, looking around him. “All right, mine then. I’m an orphan.”
“Oh, come on,” the girl said, exasperated, “an orphan. A grown man.”
He pulled away from her. The band stopped playing. “Hell,” he said loudly, “from the beginning. Orphan. Bachelor. Widower. Only child. All my names scorn me. I’m a survivor. I’m a goddamned survivor, that’s what.” The other couples crowded around him now. People got up from their tables. He could see them, on tiptoes, stretching their necks over the heads of the dancers. No, he thought. No, no. Detachment and caution. The La Meck Plan. They’ll kill you. They’ll kill you and kill you. He edged away from them, moving carefully backward against the bandstand. People pushed forward onto the dance floor to watch him. He could hear their questions, could see heads darting from behind backs and suddenly appearing over shoulders as they strained to get a look at him.
He grabbed Mary Roberta’s hand, pulling her to him fiercely. He pulled and pushed her up onto the bandstand and then climbed up beside her. The trumpet player, bewildered, made room for him. “Tell you what I’m going to do,” he shouted over their heads. “Tell you what I’m going to do.”
Everyone was listening to him now.
“Tell you what I’m going to do,” he began again.
Quietly they waited for him to go on.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he shouted. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Isn’t that a hell of a note?
“Isn’t it?” he demanded.
“Brothers and sisters,” he shouted, “and as an only child bachelor orphan I use the term playfully, you understand. Brothers and sisters, I tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m no consumer. Nobody’s death can make me that. I won’t consume. I mean, it’s a question of identity, right? Closer, come up closer, buddies. You don’t want to miss any of this.”
“Oliver’s broker looks good up there. Mary Roberta looks good. She looks good,” Mopiani said below him.
“Right, Mopiani. She looks good, she looks good,” Ed Wolfe called loudly. “So I tell you what I’m going to do. What am I bid? What am I bid for this fine strong wench? Daughter of a chief, masters. Dear dark daughter of a dead dinge chief. Look at those arms. Those arms, those arms. What am I bid?”
They looked at him, astonished.
“What am I bid?” he demanded. “Reluctant, masters? Reluctant masters, masters? Say, what’s the matter with you darkies? Come on, what am I bid?” He turned to the girl. “No one wants you, honey,” he said. “Folks, folks, I’d buy her myself, but I’ve already told you. I’m not a consumer. Please forgive me, miss.”
He heard them shifting uncomfortably.
“Look,” he said patiently, “the management has asked me to remind you that this is a living human being. This is the real thing, the genuine article, the goods. Oh, I told them I wasn’t the right man for this job. As an orphan I have no conviction about the product. Now, you should have seen me in my old job. I could be rough. Rough! I hurt people. Can you imagine? I actually caused them pain. I mean, what the hell, I was an orphan. I could hurt people. An orphan doesn’t have to bother with love. An orphan’s like a nigger in that respect. Emancipated. But you people are another problem entirely. That’s why I came here tonight. There are parents among you. I can feel it. There’s even a sense of parents behind those parents. My God, don’t any of you folks ever die? So what’s holding us up? We’re not making any money. Come on, what am I bid?”
“Shut up, mister.” The voice was raised hollowly some place in the back of the crowd.
Ed Wolfe could not see the owner of the voice.
“He’s not in,” Ed Wolfe said.
“Shut up. What right you got to come down here and speak to us like that?”
“He’s not in, I tell you. I’m his brother.”
“You’re a guest. A guest got no call to talk like that.”
“He’s out. I’m his father. He didn’t tell me and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“You can’t make fun of us,” the voice said.
“He isn’t here. I’m his son.”
“Bring that girl down off that stage!”
“Speaking,” Ed Wolfe said brightly.
“Let go of that girl!” someone called angrily.
The girl moved closer to him.
“She’s mine,” Ed Wolfe said. “I danced with her.”
“Get her down from there!”
“Okay,” he said giddily. “Okay. All right.” He let go of the girl’s hand and pulled out his wallet. The girl did not move. He took out the bills and dropped the wallet to the floor.
“Damned drunk!” someone shouted.
“That whitey’s crazy,” someone else said.
“Here,” Ed Wolfe said. “There’s over sixteen hundred dollars here,” he yelled, waving the money. It was, for him, like holding so much paper. “I’ll start the bidding. I hear over sixteen hundred dollars once. I hear over sixteen hundred dollars twice. I hear it three times. Sold! A deal’s a deal,” he cried, flinging the money high over their heads. He saw them reach helplessly, noiselessly toward the bills, heard distinctly the sound of paper tearing.