“Put on a little lipstick, honey.”
Lola found a tube whose color seemed to match the roses on her dress. It was hard to tell in the light. She smeared some on her lips, laughed a little because she saw that she was missing the line by a wide mark.
“Let me get that for you,” said Lydia. She took a tissue and wiped away the excess, got the detail by running one finger along the top of Lola’s lip. Then she bent in and kissed Lola on the side of her mouth. Lydia watched Lola’s eyes in the mirror for a moment, looked away. “C’mon, baby, let’s go downstairs.”
And so they were down the stairs. They were in the bedroom one moment and in another were down the stairs. They were in a living room of sorts, where several women sat around listening to 78s coming from a Victrola set on a stand in the center of the room. There were plants in the room and a couple of cushiony sofas, with a small cart on wheels against the wall holding three varieties of liquor and one or two mixers and a bucket of ice. A set of tongs with clawed ends leaned upright in the ice.
A horn sounded from outside. Lola turned suddenly at the sound of it, her hand fluttering up to touch her face.
Mr. Morgan said, “That would be them.”
“Them?” said Lydia, giving Mr. Morgan the eye as she draped Lola’s coat around her shoulders.
“One man,” said Morgan tiredly. “A conventioneer. A gentleman, Lola. You’ll be fine.”
“Sure, Mr. Morgan,” and she began to scratch at her forehead. Lydia took Lola’s hand away from her forehead and placed it at her side.
Mr. Morgan leaned in. He was a small man with a soft build, completely bald on top with patches of brown over each ear. To Lola he looked like a science teacher she had known years ago. The thought of Mr. Morgan standing at the head of a classroom made her smile.
“This one is all me,” said Morgan, lowering his voice. “You owe it all to me for tonight’s kick.”
“Yes, Mr. Morgan.”
“Go on, honey,” said Lydia. “I’ll wait up for you, hear?”
“Sure,” said Lola. She walked out of the room, through the foyer and out the front door.
The wind stung at Lola’s face. She drew the lapels of her coat tightly to her chest. From up on the steps she could see New York Avenue. Mr. Morgan’s rowhouse sat on a side street, one block off New York. She had never bothered to learn the address, as the cabbies picked her up and dropped her off, and always knew where to go.
The cab driver gave his horn a short blast. Lola went down the concrete steps to the street, the concrete pillowy beneath her feet. There had been a boy once, back in Farrell, who picked her up at her house and blew the horn on his little coupe to let her know he had arrived. He’d honk his horn, try to get her to speed things up so they wouldn’t miss the show. They were in a hurry then, to be together and get away from their parents and go out and have some fun. Like the man in the cab was in a hurry. In a big hurry to have a little fun.
Just like on a date.
17
Mike Florek cupped his hands around his eyes, sealed his tunnel of vision as he peered inside the plate-glass window of Nick’s at 14th and S. His breath fogged the glass. Behind the glass, several Negro men sat drinking bottles of beer, talking and laughing and having something to eat, while a couple of dark-haired, olive-skinned white men went about their business behind the counter, preparing dishes, capping bottles drawn from the cooler, serving the Negroes their food and drink.
It was mighty odd, that — white men, serving colored men food. But then, Florek had thought many things odd since his arrival in the city two months back. This thing going on in Nick’s was just another to be added to the list.
Florek had a room next door on a month-to-month, three floors up. He had passed by Nick’s every evening on the walk downtown to his night job behind the soda bar at the People’s Drug. Tonight’s walk would be another cold one, what with the freeze dropped down from Canada. Florek reckoned he could use a cup of hot coffee before the hike. He had the nickel in his pocket, after all, and it did look awfully warm inside. He passed beneath the oblong blue sign encircled with white bulbs and pushed on the glass front door of Nick’s.
A chime sounded as he stepped inside. Inside the door, a huge Negro sat on a stool, perhaps the largest man Florek had ever seen, his arms folded across his broad high chest. From the first, Florek noticed the flatness of the man’s head, the flatness exaggerated by his hair shaved close on the sides. The head looked like an anvil atop the bunched mountain of shoulders. But, aside from the size, this was not a man with meanness in his eyes. This man’s eyes were alive with amusement, curiously gentle. Florek guessed that a man that size could look at the world in any way he chose, with absolutely nothing to prove. The bouncer didn’t even give Florek so much as a glance as he passed.
A couple of the Negroes turned their heads sharply as Florek walked across the wood floor. Just as quickly they went back to their conversations. Florek chose a stool at the end of the counter and had a seat.
A record spun on a nearby phonograph, a blues number sung by a lady. One of the Negroes down along the counter had a crate full of 78s on the floor by his side. The radio mounted on the wall was shut off, as was the television set which sat on a wood platform nearby. The lady on the record was singing about how she had changed the lock on her man’s front door. The Negro man closest to Florek softly sang along.
“What you gonna have?” said the larger of the two white mento Florek, stepping up to the counter. He was a big man with thinning black hair and a small, raised pink scar on the right cheek of his wide, open face. Face wiped his hands across a blood-stained apron.
“Just a cup of coffee,” said Florek. “That’ll do it for me.”
“Costa!” said the big man, turning to the stocky one with the wild head of hair and the thick moustache. “Ena cafe yia to aspros!”
Costa went to the urn, drew a cup, put the cup together with a saucer, placed it on the counter in front of Florek. “Here ya go, boss,” he said.
“I’m gettin’ gray waitin’ on those ribs, Nick,” said a young Negro to the big white man.
“Check on those ribs,” said Nick.
Costa stood at the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, yelled over the top of them. “Pou eine ta ribs mou, vre?”
A voice replied from behind the doors: “Hold on to your shirt, Costa. The ribs are workin’.”
Florek looked down the counter past the bottles of hot sauce butted against the napkin dispensers and salt-and-pepper shakers to the plates of food in front of the men. He had never seen food like this. Well, he was in the South. This must be what they called a Southern Style place. But he had never seen food like this for himself.
“The goddamn ribs!” said Costa. “Grigora!”
Florek sipped at his coffee. The coffee was rich and good.
“Hey, Six,” said the young Negro to the huge bouncer. “Who you got that money of yours on tonight?”
The bouncer just shrugged. Costa paced like a cat in front of the kitchen doors.
“How ’bout you, Nick?” said the young Negro. “Who you think’s gon’ win that fight tonight?”
“The Cuban,” said Nick. “What the hell’s his name again?”
“Kid Gavilan. You think he’ll take Ike Williams? Williams beat him good in the Garden last year. And don’t forget, the Kid’s a bleeder.”
“Ah,” said Nick. “That Williams guy, he’s too heavy. Look at ’im: He let himself get soft. I read in the Star how he weighed in at one-forty today. That’s too heavy for that guy. And Gavilan’s got them uppercuts. Whad’ya call them things?”