Lipton stares at him for a second, doing an affected slow-burn, then raps twice on the white formica and pushes himself away from the table. I know everyone, he growls. He looks past Stanley and calls to the poet. Here, John, he says. Take my seat. I need to have a word with the musicians.
Stanley’s rising to intercept him when the bearded man gently but firmly takes his arm. Wait up a minute, he says. Adrian Welles comes in here sometimes. He comes to hear the jazz canto.
Is he here tonight?
Not yet.
What’s the jazz canto?
Lipton, circling the table, comes to a stop in front of the drumkit. He turns and spins in a slow circle, spreading his arms like a stage magician or a gameshow host. His open hands seem to indicate the room, the scene, the entire waterfront. This! he says. This is the jazz canto!
The bearded man holds out a thick, square hand to Stanley. I’m Stuart, he says.
Stanley, Stanley says.
So what do you want with Adrian Welles, man? Are you, like, his long-lost son or something? Here to claim your legacy?
I read his book, Stanley says. I want to meet him.
He published a book?
Across the table, the poet is lowering himself into Lipton’s seat. Who published a book? he says.
Adrian Welles.
Never heard of him.
He lives in the neighborhood, Stuart says. Larry knows him. He read some work for us right after the café opened. You’ve seen him around. Seems square at first, but if you butter him up a little, he’ll really beat his chops. Oh, Stanley, this is John.
The poet warily offers him a hand. Stanley looks over just long enough to take it.
You dig Welles, huh? Stuart is saying. Who else do you like?
I don’t understand your question, Stanley says.
Poets, man. Who else do you read?
Stanley looks down at the tabletop. It’s dappled all over with candle-wax, chipped around its edges, blistered by cigarettes in a few spots. He looks up again and shrugs.
Stuart strokes his beard, watching the smoke swirl past the light globes overhead. I like Welles all right, he says. I think he’s sharp. But I gotta say, man, his verse is strictly off the cob. I mean, I dig T. S. Eliot just fine. The Waste Land is crazy. But it’s just reactionary, man, to keep chasing the old possum’s tail. All these old farts — Patchen, Rexroth, Adrian Welles, Curtis Zahn, shit, even Larry sometimes — they all got their boots on, sure. Their heads are in the right place. But they’re screwed up under the ribs, man, and they don’t even know it.
Near the center of the table, partly obscured by the base of a thick red candle, a lozenge of formica has been cut away to expose the woodpulp beneath. Someone has glued a three-cent RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA stamp in the cleared area and inked a ring of symbols around it: stars, moons, crosses, ankhs, sigils. They all seem familiar, but most of them Stanley can’t quite place.
Their kind of poetry, Stuart says, it’s like cool jazz, dig? Same situation. Cats get so good at articulating the problem that they forget to look for the solution. And the whole scene just turns into a death trip. Poets today, we gotta pick up where Eliot left off, with what the thunder said. Shantih shantih shantih, man.
John jerks a thumb toward the entrance. Speaking of death trips, he says, look who just walked in.
Stuart pans toward the door. Stanley tracks his gaze. A small blackhaired woman stands there, wearing a lost and sleepy expression. A man with a beaked nose and a simian brow looms behind her, his hand on her neck. The man’s skin is a uniform gray, the color of boiled meat; tiny eyes flash in his otherwise lifeless face. The girl is slim, wide-hipped, broad-shouldered — pretty, though she won’t be for long. Even through the haze Stanley can make them both as junkies. Together they look like a ventriloquist act.
That’s not him, Stanley says. Is it?
Welles? Stuart laughs. No, man. That’s, like, the opposite of Welles.
What’s he doing here? John says. I thought he’d already hit the road. Weren’t him and Lyn going back to New York?
They were, but I talked him into hanging around till after the fish run, Stuart says. Alex wouldn’t pass up a free feast.
The fish? That’s another two weeks yet.
No, man, they run tomorrow. Full moon tonight, dig?
Aw, you’re full of shit, Stuart. Nothing’s running tomorrow night. It’s too early. The water’s still cold.
Stuart grins. You got it all wrong, jack. Me and Bob and Charlie went down to the ocean last night and communed with Neptune and his nymphs. We got the report direct from the king. It’s the bible, man: the fish will run tomorrow night.
Behind Stanley the Negro plays scales on his muted trumpet; the saxophonist sucks the reed of his alto. The blonde and a few of the other hipsters crowd around the counter and sit on the floor, their backs pressed to the walls. Lipton beckons to Stuart, a wrinkled sheaf of foolscap fluttering in his other hand. Uh oh, Stuart says. Showtime.
Stuart rises, pulls a notebook from his back pocket, and takes his place in front of the drumkit. Afoot, he’s shorter than Stanley would have guessed: not much taller than Stanley himself. Lipton claps Stuart on the back, moves to take his empty seat.
Stanley gets up, pushes past the old man, taps Stuart on the shoulder. Stuart, he says. I need your help. How do I find Welles?
Stuart flips through his notebook, doesn’t look up. If he stops in tonight, he says, I’ll introduce you.
Can you tell me where he lives? Or where he works? Do you have a phone number for him?
I don’t know about any of that, man, Stuart says. He sighs, closes the notebook, and looks Stanley in the eye. Listen, he says. I gotta do this thing now. I’ll help you find Welles later. Just cool it, okay?
Stanley looks at the floor. A few feet to his left, the blond girl is staring up at him. Her eyes — dun-colored, kaolin-pale, a doll’s eyes — are open wide. The sight of them makes Stanley uneasy, and he blinks. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets, turns, and crosses the room to stand by the entrance.
Claudio is at a table on the other side of the aisle, among a younger group: three girls, seated, and two guys, leaning on the backs of the girls’ chairs. Claudio’s doing his bashful act, sheepish and shrugging, in the middle of some story, recounting his wetback adventures in the Arizona desert, probably. The two guys have their ears cocked to hear him better, and the three skirts look like they’re all set to take him home, bake him cakes, dress him up in fancy outfits.
Someone sidles up on Stanley’s right: the beak-nosed man. As he draws close a wariness comes over Stanley, sharp and not unpleasing, a feeling he hasn’t known since he left the city: this guy clicks as a true grifter. The familiarity feels good, even if it’s apt to mean trouble. Stanley plays it cool, doesn’t meet the man’s gaze.
You’re a fresh face, the man says. I’m Alex.
Stanley.
Alex nods his big head in Claudio’s direction. That handsome bugger’s got the run of the place, he says. Wastes not a minute, does he?
Stanley smiles, says nothing.
Your partner, Alex says. Is he a good man to work with?
Stanley takes a second to remember that Alex just walked in, has never seen the two of them together. Not that Stanley knows of, anyway. Stanley turns to face him.
Alex is giving him his old-man-of-the-mountain profile, staring into space. You and your friend are down and out, he says. Is that not so? You’re on the street.