The Complete Collection. William WhartonЧитать онлайн книгу.
there? What do you do with a fancy place like this in a neighborhood like this one?’
‘This is just what you think it is, Mr Tremont, a fancy place.’
She smiles again.
That’s straight enough. She offers us both a drink, and when we nod yes, she pulls ice from an ice-maker, puts it in shot glasses and pours Ballantine Scotch over top. The whole thing’s so James Bond I can’t get myself around it. I’m still expecting a quiet hit over the head, either here or when we get outside. I’m tasting the drink for knockout drops.
‘If you two’d like to stay on and have a good time, there’s not much going now; it’d cost just one of those soldiers you have in your pocket there.’
Fucking A, the old man handles this as if he’s been propositioned by beautiful whores in the afternoon all his life. He smiles and says we have friends waiting for us; he asks if there’s a bus or streetcar back to Bala-Cynwyd.
‘Lord almighty, I don’t know anything about that. I never go outside. I don’t even live in Philadelphia; I live in Newark. Sorry, I can’t help you but I believe there’s a bar around the corner to the left. Maybe they can help.’
Since there’s no more business with us, she gently slips past, smiling, talking all the way, leading us to the door we came in. All the other doors have been blocked out and covered with mirrors or brocade. This door has heavy drapes over it so you’d hardly know it was there.
So suddenly we’re out in that blinding sunlight. There’s the heat, the humidity, the smells and all those black people standing on the other side of the street staring. The fire hydrant’s still spurting water. It’s ten times worse than coming out of a movie in mid-afternoon; my eyes start hurting as if I’d just eaten a pint of ice cream in three minutes. And there’s such a heavy feeling of hate, a chill would run up my spine if there were anything cool left in me. Now I’m dripping sweat inside my jean jacket.
We stroll, not run, down the street and around the corner. We find a place there you might call a bar. It has the word ‘BAR’ written on what’s left of a broken plate-glass window and there are black, mean-looking bucks hanging around in front of it. There’s also one guy spread in the gutter, bleeding from his nose and mouth. Nobody’s paying much attention to him. There’s another sleek, thin type, with blood dripping down the front of his T-shirt, leaning in the doorway of what’s supposed to be the bar.
Nobody’s shouting or even looking excited. My crazy old man walks past the cat in the door to a fat guy behind the bar; there’s broken glass all over everything. I stay outside. All those eyes follow Dad in as if he’s Cleopatra stepping from her boat on the Nile. I almost expect them to twist shoulders and take the frontal position. Other groovy cats have started drifting onto the scene. I never really thought of myself as the kind of asshole who’d die a violent death in North Philadelphia.
One huge mother of a stud sidles up to me. He’s wearing a black, leather, brimmed hat and a thin, yellow silk, tailored shirt. Dad’s still in there talking with the fat bartender.
‘Hey, man, what you doin’ here?’
‘We just delivered a car from California to a house around the corner and we’re trying to find a bus out. That’s my dad in there.’
‘Shit, man, you are in the wrong place. You got maybe five minutes to live if you stay around here. You all jes’ come with me and right now. Get your old man and stick your ass tight to me.’
This guy must be over six feet six and he’s at least three feet across the shoulders. He looks like a muscular gone-to-pot basketball player or a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He talks in a reedy, high-pitched quiet voice.
Dad comes out and I tell him this fellow’s showing us where there’s a bus. I can tell from Dad’s face, things didn’t go so hot in the bar. I suspect nothing ever goes well in that bar. He falls in behind me and we tail this tall dude with the black leather hat and the yellow shirt. He could be leading us up some alley for a real mugging and we wouldn’t have a chance, even with the two of us, even if he were alone, which he wouldn’t be. But we don’t have that many choices. The giant keeps checking to see that we don’t fall too far behind. it takes two of our steps for every one of his, he’s loping along like a Kodiak bear. There’s a troop following in our wake, sharking along.
About three blocks later, he takes us into a place with the words ‘SETON HALL’ scrawled across the doorway. It’s another beat-up, run-down place from the outside, but on the inside it’s a miniature Salvation Army. There are blankets on tables, and clothes, old clothes, hanging on hangers. The big guy walks over to somebody sitting behind a table in front by the door. There are flies buzzing all around the room.
‘Look, Able, see these guys get on the bus away from here. Don’t let them go out in the street.’
He smiles, then walks through the door without looking back. Everybody working here is black, too. The one at the desk glances at us.
‘You stay right there. I’ll say when to get up. There’s a public service bus comes past.’
We sit and watch. In this heat they’re spotting, repairing and ironing clothes. I don’t know how they stand it. It’s some kind of Catholic charity. On the wall there’s one of those pictures of Jesus with his heart hanging out, brambles sticking into it and blood dripping.
Finally, this guy tells us to get ready. He goes out on the curb and flags down the bus. Shit, I wouldn’t even have recognized it; all the windows have wire grille over them. It looks like an armored truck, only long. He hustles us out and we jump in. The driver’s locked in a cage. We put fifty cents each through a small opening in the wiring; into a metal spinning counter meter. He pushes a button and we go through a turnstile into the bus. We’re the only pale faces; even though we’ve just come from California, we really look pale. Maybe we’re supposed to go to the back of the bus but the only empty seats are just inside the turnstile.
We have no idea where this bus is going. Dad says we’ll stay on so long as it heads south and we’ll get off when we see some faces that aren’t purplish brown, bluish brown or brownish black.
The bus goes into Central Philadelphia and leaves us off by the City Hall. Dad says he knows a train from here that’ll take us out to Bala-Cynwyd. He suggests we go get something to eat and celebrate.
It’s almost three o’clock. It’s taken more than four hours to deliver that car. It seems like three years on Devil’s Island. I know I’m feeling like an escaped criminal. For old time’s sake, we head toward the nearest pizza place. But this is a true Italian restaurant and these are genuine pizzas, not American dough with ketchup and American soap cheese melted over top; it tastes like Europe. When I close my eyes, I can almost taste France.
This whole day has definitely put the icing on the cake. I’m ready to go home. I’m ready for some old-world civilization; I’m not up to coping with the great American democratic experiment.
A commuter train leaves us off about three blocks from the Hills’. What a difference walking in these streets. There are large, spreading trees shading everything, touching each other over the streets like umbrellas. The roots are so huge they lift the pavements up into little hills. But these pavements aren’t cracked; they’re cemented in gentle curves over these hills. The houses are natural or cut stone, three stories with graceful porches. There’s the sound of power lawnmowers keeping grounds in order and the slamming of screen doors. Ladies, alone, in big station wagons, cruise around at about twenty miles an hour, out shopping.
It’s hard to believe we’re only five or six miles from the jungle. What’s going to happen when those people over there come charging into these places? I hate to think about it; I sure as hell don’t want to be here.
In the morning, I call