Bailey's Cafe Read online

  I was to hear it whispered as he dressed me for bed each night. Mary. Always a fresh nightgown. Always white. He started with my bobby pins, removing each one so gently I didn’t lose a strand of hair. His small fingers were the comb, his cupped palm the brush, as the loosened curls fell to my shoulders. With each button of my blouse: Mary. He’d raise my right arm and slip it out of that sleeve, bring the blouse around my back, then raise the left arm and slip it out of that one. My skirt was slid down into a pool of bright cotton at my ankles. The hem of the nylon slip was guided up and peeled off over my head. The metal hooks in my brassiere, one by one: Mary. The elastic band of my panties sliding down my waist and over my hips. He’d sit me on the bed before unfastening the garters. My nylons were next. The extended right leg, then the left leg, supported between his armpits as he knelt before me, the nylons forming perfectly even rolls of brown mesh that came to rest at the tops of my shoes. He’d cradle those two feet in his hands, staring at the curves of the rolled nylons, fingering the leather straps of my high heels. I could feel his warm breath on the tops of my feet, the deep trembling. He waited an eternity before finally baring them. His fingers would slip under the rolled nylons, he’d grasp the curve of my instep and slowly stroke the nylons and shoes over the arch, slowly over the toes, his breath quickening, his hands moist as he circled and stroked the fine bones of my feet until stockings and shoes all spilled into his lap.

  And he never called me anything but Mary. Never. Not even when Kansas City had to become Saint Louis, and Saint Louis had to become Chicago, and Chicago had to become South Bend, and South Bend—Cincinnati. He made the same mistake Daddy Jim had. One thought a wall would be the answer; another thought distance. Still he never called me anything but Mary. Never. But after he found out about the redcaps on the trains, he knew there was no point in traveling past Cincinnati. Yes, I guess, I should have expected what was coming. The apartment he put me in was too fine: a marble lobby with doormen and carpeted halls. The hours he worked were too long: all-night games into late-afternoon games until his hands shook so much he couldn’t hold the cards. The clothes he made me shop for were too expensive; the furniture was too large for the rooms. Everything imported or not at all. Months and months, it went on like that. His working himself to exhaustion, his buying and buying and buying. He didn’t question my absences. He didn’t curse. He didn’t plead. He just took out his straight razor one morning at breakfast, pressed it against my throat, and told me very quietly that the next man I was with, I would have to watch die. He would have done it, too, made me watch that man die. And the next. And the next.

  For a solid week I never left the apartment. I didn’t even trust myself to take packages from the doormen. I sat on the thick brocade divans. I clenched and unclenched my hands. I listened to the radio. I watched my new television. I paced the blue-and-gold Persian rugs. I read the leather-bound books in the mahogany cases. I sorted and re-sorted the silks, cashmeres, and angoras in my closets. Now realizing all of it had been put there to warn me that there was no place on earth to run. If I’d known a way to stop, I would have. Didn’t he understand that? I opened and closed linen closets. Kitchen cabinets. The dumbwaiter.

  His closet was as large as mine. All tailored suits and matching vests. Pinstripes. Worsteds. The cambric cotton shirts. The velvet boxes with jeweled cuff links and tiepins. But my eyes rested on the rows and rows of custom-made boots for his shriveled and twisted foot. Thousands of dollars’ worth of boots: the calfskins almost uncountable, alligators, eel-skins, suedes: kept in immaculate condition. I had known him to throw out a new pair of Moroccan leathers because he couldn’t remove a water spot on one of the toes. I looked at his boots and I looked at my feet. It was all I did for another solid week in that apartment. As soon as he’d leave, I’d open his closet to look at those boots and look at my feet. But at the end of that second week, when I took the beer opener from the pantry drawer and went to the bathroom mirror, it was to stare at my face.

  The police thought he had done it. But since I refused to change my story, there was nothing they could do and they had to release him from jail. No one believed that a woman would do that to herself. No one believed that his grief wasn’t guilt. But his grief over what he’d lost was very real. First, I took the tip of the beer opener, smiled into the mirror, and traced the path I was going to take: under the right cheekbone—yes, it must be the right—then a straight diagonal across the dimple, all the way over to the left side of the chin. A thin red line was left on my skin for me to follow, so I didn’t need to smile again as I grasped the opener in both hands and dug down. But I wasn’t prepared for the first bolt of blinding pain; it took precious seconds to catch my breath. And now the opener hanging in my ripped cheek was too slippery to hold firmly because of the gushing blood. I made a poor job of it. I had to resort to sawing my way down, leaving hunks of flesh wedged between the two prongs of the opener. That took so much time that when I’d only reached the bottom jawbone, the pain was so intense I passed out. I awoke to him wailing my name and the ambulance wailing out in the street. And after the sirens had died down, my name kept echoing over and over. It was the only word that man could bring himself to say in my presence again.

  I walked out of the hospital free to do whatever I wanted. And since he had started me on the railroads going east, I kept going east. It gave me pleasure to sit on the right side of the train aisle and to watch through the window’s reflection as one of them moved hopefully toward the empty seat beside me. I’d show my good left dimple when he asked if the seat was free.

  —Yes, I’d answer, and so am I.

  He’d almost break his kneecaps hurrying into that seat. So where are you going? I really didn’t know where I was going. And hadn’t a clue about what to do once I got there. Everything was so cloudy. So confused. But I spoke the truth each time as best I knew it: Wherever women like me go—and I’d turn my full face to him and raise my veil. Sometimes it was embarrassment. Sometimes it was disgust. And many many times, pity. But each time there was the question.

  I collected a lot of business cards on those trains. Men who promised to give me the name of the right doctor. One was even a plastic surgeon himself. And I’d expect nothing in return, child, he said, absolutely nothing. But how to tell this nice old man I didn’t want to fix my face? I’d probably have to end up doing it all over again.

  When those railroad tracks ran out of land going east, I changed trains and went south, changed again and went west, then north. I was circling back toward the east again and realized I’d come to the end of the line. That’s when I heard of a place where women like me could go. Just get off at that next stop, I was told; you can find Bailey’s Cafe in any town. They turned out to be right. And Eve never asked the question. Gently she removed my veil, and she lifted my chin in her hands to trace her thumb down along the path I had taken in front of the mirror. I saw only the scar reflected in her rimless glasses as she felt each jagged curve, each section of twisted flesh. And it was only the scar that was reflected in her eyes when she murmured, Beautiful.

  It’s Sugar Man who finally shows her father how to find his way down the street to Eve’s. He’s hoping to get a ruckus going just out of spite. Sugar Man can’t really describe what goes on in that brownstone since he’s never been inside, but that doesn’t stop him from making up stories. He fills her father’s head with the hundreds of men who go there to buy Peaches. She gets a lot of callers, but hardly hundreds. And the only thing they buy is daffodils. Of course, now, he leaves out that he’s tried from the first to put her on the streets. And even kept trying after he found out about the scar. There’s still a lot of mileage left below her neck, he says.

  He presses his case every time Peaches comes in here, but that isn’t too often. She seems to like staying close to the house. And with all the callers she does get, Sugar Man’s never been one of them. He wouldn’t give Eve the time of day, no less the fifty dollars she asks for the daffodils
.

  —And you ain’t a pimp? he spat out.

  —The girl chose the flowers, Eve said. And you try growing daffodils in the fall.

  Eve won’t let Sugar Man and the father past the front door. Visible over her shoulder are the eager men waiting to visit Peaches. They sit knee to knee in the parlor. That side of the room blooms with bouquets of the yellow flowers. The word didn’t take long to spread. The hot one who moved into the second-floor room takes on all callers. But there are fewer men now than the week before, who were fewer than the week before that.

  —Leave your daughter here, Eve says, and I’ll return her to you whole.

  The autumn wind is chill outside and the fragile heads of the daffodils wilt easily in the heat of the parlor. And if they go upstairs with a bouquet that’s less than perfect, Eve’s taught her to send them back down again. Look in that mirror good, and accept no less than what you deserve. The longer the line, the longer the wait; the later the season, the warmer the house. And it’s the same fifty dollars for a fresh bouquet.

  —I don’t know what she’s doing up in that room, Eve says, and to tell you the truth, I don’t care.

  She spends much more time with each gentleman caller than she spent the week before. And at the time curfew is called, there are still some waiting. But the next evening, if they want to come back, it’s the same fifty dollars for a fresh bouquet. Fewer and fewer men, longer and longer waits.

  —But whatever she’s doing up in that room, she’s doing it feeling beautiful.

  Winter’s coming soon and Peaches will still demand daffodils. More perfect and more perfect daffodils. They will be gotten at no florist for any price. And it will take a special man to give Eve what she’ll ask for hers. A man special enough to understand what the woman upstairs is truly worth. The house will be even warmer, but soon he’ll only have to buy a bouquet once. There’ll be no one else waiting.

  —Go home, my friend, Eve says, and I’ll return your daughter to you whole.

  The man standing in front of Eve is crying, and he keeps calling for Peaches to come down to him. There is no answer from the lighted room on the second floor. He calls louder and there is still no answer. Eve closes the door in his face. He hears the bolt slide shut as the autumn winds blow cold.

  —Go home, my friend. I’ll return your daughter to you whole.

  JESSE BELL

  One man’s weed is another man’s flower. I’d get pretty lonely here after midnight if it weren’t for Jesse. The few customers who do straggle in are the type who want tables as far in the corners as possible, or they sit by the front window and stare out into the dark. They come at this hour for the express purpose of being left to themselves, and I oblige them. But this time of the year it’s pretty much deserted and it’ll stay that way until we move into the holiday season. Christmas Eve, we’ll be packed in here, New Year’s Eve too. Until then being open twenty-four hours means a long stretch between dinner and breakfast where I mostly do a little reading, rearrange the storeroom, or think about getting out my toolbox and fixing the coffee grinder. Nadine’s been after me for months to take that machine apart. I figure she has to find something to nag about since I’m flawless in every other way. Each morning when she gets in I tell her just that, and what she tells me is pretty near unrepeatable. She’d better be careful; it’s not too late in the season to trade her in for a newer model.

  But I was thinking real hard about fixing it tonight when Jesse came in. I owe her five dollars for the bet we made about Truman. Bailey, ain’t you learned by now, she says, not to believe anything you read in the papers? Yeah, I have, but a part of me didn’t want Truman to win, and now I’m out of a five-spot unless I can get it back in gin rummy. Jesse has shortened many a night for me. We’re both native New Yorkers and from the only two boroughs that matter; knowing her has gotten me to expand my horizons and admit that some good can come out of Manhattan. She’s one of those Big Apple gals who won’t bite their tongues about nothing. Like me, she calls ’em as she sees ’em, if it wins her friends or not. She’ll come in here with a pocket full of nickels for the jukebox while I’ll pull out her pint of Jack Daniel’s I keep hid and pour us both a nip. Curfew starts midnight at Eve’s: no more visitors or music, and her boarders can’t have hard liquor at any time. A whorehouse convent, Jesse calls it. Right or wrong, Jesse can get you laughing, and she plays a mean hand of rummy.

  —How’d you sneak out tonight, Jesse?

  —Her faggot watchdog fell asleep.

  —Come on, Miss Maple isn’t a queer.

  —Would you want him to marry your daughter?

  —I don’t have a daughter.

  —Then adopt Maple; you’d get two for the price of one.

  There’s no love lost between Jesse and Miss Maple. He’s been in here complaining about her at times himself. She won’t let him change the linens and her room is a mess to clean because she litters the carpet with crushed dandelions. The men who try to visit her get their flowers smashed right in their faces at the door.

  —They’re only coming to see me because of those lies in the paper, she says.

  The King scandal was pretty big, but it was a long time ago too. I try to tell her that maybe some of them just want to keep her company. Shoot the breeze, like us; play a few hands of cards.

  —Not in a pussy palace, she says.

  But since she lives there and she’s not doing nothing but giving out a good dose of verbal and physical abuse to her gentlemen callers, maybe the others aren’t doing anything either.

  —Bailey, you ain’t talking to Shirley Temple, so just deal me my hand. My room is right next to Peaches’s, okay?

  —Well, Peaches is a special case.

  —And then every sleazeball pervert within fifty miles is tripping down to that basement.

  —Esther is kind of a special case.

  —Mother, what does Eve do? Pay you a commission?

  —I wouldn’t make much on your flowers, Jesse.

  Her laughter is good-natured and comes from deep down. The nice thing about Jesse is that she can take it as well as dish it out. She told Eve she wanted dandelions, and I’m sure Jesse did it to be annoying. Those are the kind of plants Eve usually pulls up as weeds. But then as Eve has often said, Jesse is a special case.

  I’ve gotta find out if the funny farm gives cash rewards. Cause one telephone call to clear out this place would set me up for life. Sometimes to amuse myself I try to figure out who would be worth the most to them: I admit I’d bring in a few dollars turning my own self in, but it’s chicken change beside what I could get for Esther down in that basement hiding in closets. The nympho next door to me. Or this faggot with his slip hanging, who’s about to make me slap him silly if he don’t quit putting starch in my sheets. Starching and ironing the sheets in a whorehouse. Who ever …? I don’t care what Eve says, this is a whorehouse, and her pruning all the zinnias in the world won’t change that.

  Oh, Mother, now that’s a cold one. I know I owe her, but I don’t thank her. And she told me that, too, after I left the House of D. and she got that monkey off my back. Told me there’d be nothing to thank her for when it was all over. Bad as it was, the way she did it, I’ll never forget the way she looked the whole time I was retching my guts out. Like it wasn’t pain. Like it wasn’t real. Like I was a kid or something, complaining about a scratch on my knee. A icy icy mama. The only woman I’ve met who would be a match for Uncle Eli. Lord knows, I wasn’t. And I am quite a woman. Was a woman before I was a girl. But that horrible old man, may he rot in hell, kept at it until he killed me. He was a murderer—a cold-blooded murderer.

  A murderer is somebody who plots to take somebody’s life, ain’t they? Well, he took my husband and son. And they were all I lived for. Still not satisfied, he took away my good name. Hope the devil is kicking his ass right now—from east hell to west hell and back again. Him and that whole clan—upstanding Negroes, teachers, office clerks, doctors—educated folk. Got it s
o when they mention my name up on Sugar Hill, noses flare out like they smelling something decayed. Oh, yeah, Jesse Bell. The tramp from the docks. That slut who married into the King family. Child, didn’t you read about what happened? She went straight to the dogs. I carried a good name. And I was a good wife. I mean, a good wife. But I didn’t have no friends putting out the Herald Tribune. And it’s all about who’s in charge of keeping the records, ain’t it?

  Yeah, I’m from the docks. My people always made their living from the waters around Manhattan Island. And it was a honest living. I grew up around rough men who worked as hard as they cussed and drank. You know what it means to be a longshoreman in the wintertime? It means my uncles and brothers having the skin between their fingers split open from the cold. Cause after a while it’s safer to throw them gloves aside—they freeze up on you just like the sweat freezes in your mustache and eyebrows, and if that guide hook in your hands slips, you and the other men got two tons of scrap iron swinging like a yo-yo coming out of the hold of that ship. Had a cousin crippled for life that way. Musta been ten below by the water that December. And the boss man called for a speed-up, so they’re unloading more than common sense allows to begin with and working faster than anybody would call sane. A small winch snaps, and that’s all you need to get a load off balance and have a crate of granite blocks coming toward your head. Well, he goes to guide it away from his crew and that hook shoots through his frozen gloves like squeezed butter. Edge of that crate snapped his arm clear off from the shoulder. And they say winter is the best time. Cause in the summer with everything else you gotta put up with the stink. Press your nose to a rubber tire, or take a whiff of gasoline sometimes. Now, how about a mountain of crude rubber or an ocean’s worth of raw gasoline? How about doing it ten hours a day? So your sweat stinks like oil? And your bologna sandwiches taste like oil? And you welcome the breeze from the dock tides cause it’s bringing only rotting seaweed and dead fish.