The Third Generation (36 page)

But he never got started in the academic life. He was like an airplane that crashes before it gets off the ground. He could have, but he wouldn’t try. He contrived all sorts of excuses to keep from trying: the studies were too difficult, the classes too strange and formal; he didn’t have the academic background for the pre-medical courses he’d elected; his see-saw schooling from Georgia to Mississippi, from Arkansas to Missouri, had left him pitifully unprepared for university study.

Deep down, where he wouldn’t look at it, he was rebelling. If he couldn’t take part in everything, he wouldn’t take part in anything. He’d always been like that; if he couldn’t have it all there was nothing in it for him.

Had his mother been there she would have pushed him. Subconsciously he had come to depend on her pushing. He was not complete away from her, not a whole person. He was still joined to her by an artery of emotion. Independently he could only exercise his will against her, never against others. Against others he needed the joining of her will.

He might have overcome all his aversion to the university, his lack of confidence, his feeling of exclusion, everything, had she made him know how much she depended on his succeeding there. He might have caught fire again. That part of his heart which meant most to himself was dedicated to her. He lived for his mother.

But by himself he wouldn’t make the effort. He began to feel inferior and became resentful and withdrawn. It was as if the artery of emotion joining them began bleeding at one end.

His professors were lenient because of his injury and made unconscious allowances because of his race. They considered him a good boy from a nice background and didn’t want to flunk him out. On several occasions his advisor requested his professors to give him another chance and he was often permitted to take tests over in which he had first failed.

But he never got his academic wings. His studies left him morbidly depressed; his social life excited him unnaturally. He had come out of his shell but it was not healthy. His excitement was sick; he couldn’t control it. There were too many things to do, too many pretty girls, too many wonderful fellows; he had too much money to spend, too much leisure. He became slightly hysterical from so much excitement. As he bogged down more and more in his studies, his resentment toward the university increased. He felt imposed on. He had an awful row with his laboratory instructor. He began cutting lectures. And finally, slowly he withdrew completely to the frenetic escapes of the city.

He began haunting a house where the students often went to drink home-brew with salt and patronize the girls.

Instead of studying he spent his nights at the Pythian Theatre where the colored musicals played, sitting in the front row, watching the sensual shimmying of the half-nude bodies with lust-filled eyes, the dark columnar limbs rising above his tortured gaze like gates to infinite ecstasy. Afterwards he’d go backstage and try to date the girls, but always the ones he wanted were already dated. He ended up by finding some prostitute or other.

On Hamilton Avenue in a house run by the Williams brothers he found a prostitute named Rose who reminded him of Marge. He slept with her so often that she became possessive. She called him her “Mover” and said that he was full of steam.

He contracted gonorrhea from her and for a time was terrified. One of his friends suggested that he go to the university infirmary where he could receive treatment free of charge, but he was too ashamed and went to a private clinic in The Block.

The students at Mrs. Johnson’s teased him mildly.

“Chuck’s got his credentials.”

“He’s a man now. You’re not a man until you’ve had the clap one time.”

“Hell, I’ve had the clap for seven years,” Clefus said. “It ain’t no more than a runny nose.”

The fellows laughed. No one seemed to take it seriously. But Charles found it dirty and disgusting and had to use a syringe and wear a supporter and quit drinking.

He was sick and morbidly depressed when the quarterly finals came, and was incapable of coping with any intellectual exertions. In German he turned in a blank paper. It didn’t seem to him that he did much better in any of the other courses. But miraculously he was passed by all his professors. It was a question of whether he should feel glad or sorry. Now he’d have to continue; he owed it to his parents. If they had flunked him out he could have gone home in peace. By then he knew he couldn’t make it, he’d never make it. All that had happened was a postponement of the inevitable end.

He went home for Christmas. He was thin and extremely nervous, always on the go, haunting the cheap cabarets on 55th Street, coming home late, drunk and exhausted. He couldn’t even have the satisfaction of visiting Marge. He knew he shouldn’t drink, but he couldn’t bear his thoughts. Once he was caught in a heavy snowfall and there was no way of getting home. He had to spend the night in the downtown hotel. It was crowded with other stranded people. Some strange men tried to come into his room. He had a fight before the management came to his assistance. Afterwards he propped a chair against his door and sobbed, bitterly. His life had become revolting.

It was obvious to his parents that he wasn’t getting along well in his studies. They tried to draw him out but he wouldn’t talk about himself. William was preparing for graduation from high school the following month. The house was always filled with his many friends, and he gave a gay New Year’s Eve party. But Charles was uninterested.

The only reason he returned to the university was because his things were there. By then almost all the students knew he was a goner. Two of the fellows offered to coach him but he resisted all their efforts to help. Toward the end of January he wrecked his car. He’d been to a private party down the street from where he lived. One of the fraternity brothers called him aside.

“Are you well, Chuck?”

“Not quite.”

“Then what the hell you doing here?”

“It’s not catching,” he protested.

“No, but dammit, it’s dirty.”

Anne came up in time to hear the last remark. “What’s dirty?”

“I am,” Charles said bitterly, and went to get his hat and coat.

He put the top down so the snow would blow in on him and sped toward the booze joints in The Block. The snow was in his eyes and he drove blindly into the abutment at the end of the viaduct. He was jarred slightly and his ankle sprained. For a long time he sat there in the wrecked car, letting the snow fall on him. His back began to ache. A car drove up and stopped.

“You hurt, buddy?”

“No, I’m all right,” he heard himself reply.

The car didn’t move so he climbed slowly from the wreck. A colored man was driving and offered him a lift. He got in and rode over to the house on Hamilton and drank himself blind. The next day his back ached so badly he couldn’t move. The proprietors put him in their car and drove him home. His gonorrhea took a turn for the worse. For two weeks he was in bed. But he wouldn’t let them notify his parents.

“It’d kill my mother if she knew I had gonorrhea,” he told Mrs. Miller, the minister’s wife with whom he lived.

“Poor boy,” she grieved for him. Later she told her husband, “He’s trying so hard to be brave.”

His professors permitted him to make up for the time he’d lost. For a while he made a valiant effort. He felt as if he were drowning and made this one last desperate attempt to save himself. And for the first time in his life his mind would not respond. He couldn’t concentrate; his memory failed him.

It was in a state of utter frustration that he attended the Pharaohs’ grand ball, by which they metamorphosed into full-fledged fraternity brothers. Due to the number of guests they gave it in a larger, less fashionable ballroom than the Crystal Slipper, located near the red light district where Charles had become a patron. As he stood on the gallery, watching the couples whirl gaily below, everyone seeming so happy and excited, he felt debased beyond redemption, lost, cut off from all those fresh, clean, pretty people.

“Cheer up, Chuck. Have a drink,” someone said.

He took the flask without looking at the donor, emptied it down his throat.

“Hey! Hey!”

“I’ll get your some more,” he promised.

“You know a place?”

“Right around the corner.”

“Wait a minute. Maybe some of the fellows want to go.”

He had drunk a pint of bathtub gin and it built a forest fire in him. Suddenly he was dancing, his despondency burnt away in the alcoholic flame.

Someone tugged at his sleeve. “You ready now, Chuck?”

“Sure, anytime.” He looked at the girl with whom he’d been dancing and was surprised to discover that she was Anne. “You want to go with us? We’re going around the corner to buy some grog.”

She hesitated. “Who all’s going?”

“A bunch of us,” Jesse said. “Steve and Edith, Randy and Jay, Johnny and his girl too:” The last was a fraternity brother.

“All right. Wait until I get my coat.”

The gay little party clad in formal finery tripped lightly through the dirty snow, faces flushed, eyes glowing with excitement. It was a lark.

“Won’t they object to so many of us?”

“No, it’s a pad—I mean a place where they sell homebrew too and people sit about and talk. There’s a victrola too.”

“How does Chuck know about these places?” Edith asked.

“Don’t ask the mans that,” Anne murmured.

“My knowledge is wide and varied; I was educated like Gargantua,” Charles said with drunken flippancy.

As they clustered on the porch of the house of ill fame, whispering excitedly in the dark, startled eyes peered from darkened windows across the street. Finally a man cracked the door and peered from the darkened vestibule.

“It’s me, George. I got some friends.”

“Okay, come on in; there’s nobody here.”

He opened the door and they groped forward in the dark, striking against each other. Someone gasped. Then the door was opened into the dimly lit parlor. They surged forward in a body, sighing with relief.

“What’ll it be?” Charles asked grandiloquently.

“Gin,” Jesse said.

“A quart of gin and setup, George. You don’t mind if we play some records.”

“Don’t play it too loud. Rose is sleeping.”

The couples found seats and snuggled down in the semi-darkness, whispering, here and there a nervous giggle. George brought the drinks and served them. Charles put in a soft needle and played a blues recording. Slowly the girls relaxed, succumbing to that delicious sense of naughtiness as the gin took effect. They began to dance, rubbing their bodies together, giving themselves to the ritual of the sex act. Steve whispered in Edith’s ear and she began to laugh hysterically. The other girls tried to quiet her; the young men’s voices were raised excitedly.

George came into the room. “Shhh, don’t make so much noise,” he cautioned.

When Edith’s hysterics subsided she began hiccuping. Everyone suggested a cure.

“We better go,” Randy said.

Anne laughed nervously. “I bet Ben’s looking all over for me.”

Charles put on another record. “You’re in good hands. Just one more dance.”

They stood locked together, their bodies fused, scarcely moving.

Rose came into the room. She was dressed in a soiled green kimono and her coarse, straightened hair stood on end. She looked at Charles through narrowed lids. Her eyes glowed like live coals in the dim light. She hadn’t seen him since he became ill. Now seeing him in the arms of a sweet young girl she was scalded with jealousy.

“What kind of dryfucking shit is this?” she screamed.

The girls gasped. A shocked silence fell. Slowly Rose looked about the room, her sleep-swollen face puffing with rage. Everything about the scene infuriated her—the air of innocence worn by the girls, the young men’s concern for them, their horror at sight of her. She went berserk, lunged forward and dragged Anne from Charles’s embrace.

Charles was outraged by her violence and vulgarity. He’d never known her to be like that. The times they’d been together she had been sweet and gentle. He clutched her about the waist and threw her roughly to one side. “Shut up, goddammit, and get out of here!” he shouted.

She clawed at him. “I guess mine ain’t good enough for you.” He pushed her away. She ran to the victrola, snatched off the record and smashed it.

The students began a headlong rush toward the exit, carrying their wraps in their hands. They stumbled through the pitch-dark vestibule, surged out on the porch and down the walk and through the dirty snow in panic-stricken flight, ruining their shoes and gowns. They didn’t stop until they’d rounded the corner.

George came from the kitchen in time to see them leave. He closed the door after them and returned to the parlor. Charles and Rose stood looking at each other with bleak hostility. There was something deadly and debased in the battle of their wills.

“You quit me, didn’t you?” she accused.

He didn’t understand her. “Quit you?” He had never gone with her. “I was sick,” he said.

“I fixed your little red wagon, pretty boy,” she said vindictively.

A dazed look came into his face. All the sickness of despondency he had momentarily thrown off returned to castrate him. His shoulders sagged; his eyes had the look of death. “Yes,” he admitted wearily, “if that makes you happy.”

George felt sorry for the lad. “Go up and go to bed,” he ordered Rose.

She looked at him defiantly. “I’m gonna take baby with me.”

Charles covered his face in his hands. He couldn’t look at her. His soul felt naked and defenseless. He knew if he looked at her he’d be lost; her brazen stare would conquer him and she could bend him to her will.

“Go on! Go on!” George said roughly, pushing her from the room.

Dazedly, Charles put on his coat and hat. Suddenly it struck him that he’d done a terrible thing. Now I’m in for it, he thought.

George walked with him to the door. “I’ll see you, kid.”

He turned around and looked at George, and was shocked by the sympathy he saw in the panderer’s face. “Jesus Christ!” he said, thinking: Even this son of a bitch is sorry for me.