That Was Then, This Is Now Read online

  "Well, if it seems like I'm never going to shut up, just tell me. You and Mark are the first people I've talked to in a long time. There ain't much to say to these nurses." I could see that. What can you say to nurses?

  "Well," Mike began, "I always had this soft spot for chicks. I was always making like Sir Galahad, opening doors for them and complimenting even the homely ones, and I beat out a lot of guys better looking than me and they never could figure out why. But it wasn't just a line with me. I guess I'm a sucker--I've been taken a few times, like 'loaning' money to chicks who came on with a sob story--but I'll always believe the best about a girl until I'm proved wrong, which is my own hang up.

  "That explains the way I acted that night the gang and me was hanging around the drugstore and this black chick came in to buy some cigarettes. Me, I just see a nice-looking chick with really beautiful eyes, all black and inky-soft. I guess I'm a little funny that way, because Negroes just don't get me all upset. I mean, I can see a black guy and a white chick together, and it sure don't bother me, while most white guys can't stand to see that. Like the gang--the minute she walks in, they get all tensed up because black anyone, chick or otherwise, just don't happen to come around much where I live. I guess she worked downtown and got off late and just stopped in on her way to the bus stop. I think she told me that later. I don't remember too good now.

  "So she gets her cigarettes and starts for the door, when a couple of guys block her way. Now the gang I hang with is a pretty good bunch of guys--a lot of heart and only a couple of wise apples in the group--but see, nothin' much had been happenin' and they were bored so they start picking on the chick, calling her Black Beauty and some other choice things. They were really getting rude, and I was feeling sorry for the girl. She kept her eyes down and just said, 'Let me by, please,' real soft-like. The guys started pushing her around, not enough to hurt her but enough to scare her plenty. She just gripped her purse with both hands and tensed all over like she was trying to keep from running, which was pretty smart. Running is just an invitation to be chased, and if she got caught it wouldn't be in a lighted drugstore. The old guy who runs the drugstore had disappeared. He was scared silly of the gang. I don't know why. We never done anything to him.

  "When one of the guys grabbed hold of her and really got crude, I got fed up. I went over and said, 'Let her go,' like I meant it. They all looked at me for a while, like they were trying to make up their minds whether or not to jump me. We don't usually go around beating each other up, but it has happened. They finally decided not to. My big brother, he's got a pretty big rep as a tough guy in our neighborhood. He's in jail now, that's why he don't come to see me. It was his rep and not mine that stopped them, because I ain't never been known as a tough guy.

  "So they turned her loose and went back to reading comics, and I followed the girl outside. She was looking up and down the street kind of desperate-like, and I knew she'd missed her bus. I said, 'Hey, uh, girl, if you've missed your bus I can give you a ride home.'

  "She just kept her eyes down. Finally she said something--but, brother, I'm not going to repeat it. I saw then and there she thought I had evil intentions. I don't blame her. Hell, if I'd had to take what she just did, I'd be sore and suspicious too.

  "I said, 'Look, I don't want a pick-up or anything . . .' She gave me a funny look so I added quick, 'Not that you're not real cute or anything--I mean, you'll have to stay here another hour to catch the next bus and I'll be leaving and I don't know what those other guys might do.'

  "She saw the logic in that, because it was getting dark. Not too many cops come around that area; it's kind of a deserted street. You know how cops are; there's a million over on the Ribbon, making sure the nice kids don't kill each other or run each other down, while we can cut each other's throats and they don't give a damn.

  "Finally she said she'd let me drive her home. I had my old Ford parked in the drugstore parking lot. It was really my brother's car but he said I could drive it any time he got busted, which is often. He's a pretty good guy, but if you've got a rep for fighting, somebody's always trying to take you on. The last time that happened, my brother busted a bottle over the guy's head and got charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. He never used weapons before, but he had finally got fed up with the whole routine. It wasn't his first offense, so they sat on him kind of hard.

  "Anyway, we get into my Ford, and I can see the poor kid is still scared--she sits hugging the door on her side like she's going to jump out any second. I got a couple of good looks at her; she was real slender, looked like she'd sort of sway in the wind, and her hair was down to her shoulders and it must have been straightened. She had on a yellow dress and yellow shoes and she had her straw purse sitting on her lap. She held onto it with one hand and the door handle with the other. She really was cute.

  "I started talking to her about just everything. Would her old lady chew her out because she was late? My old lady did. Man, they never liked anything you did, did they? But still, sometimes you couldn't get along without them. Did she go to school? I did but, boy, it was really a hell of a place to spend all day. I wanted to drop out but the old lady said she'd kill me if I did.

  "I kept talking because that's what I do with animals when they're hurt and scared, and pretty soon they get over being scared. I've got a hang up with animals, too.

  "I could tell she was beginning to calm down a little, at least she let go of the door handle. I even got her to smile once, I forget what I'd been saying. And then I said, 'I'm sorry about what happened to you back there,' and suddenly she started to cry.

  "Man, that got me so shook. Nothing gets me shook like chicks crying." Mike stopped here, and I gave him another drag on my cigarette.

  "That's funny," I said. "Chicks crying bore me. Go on, Mike, finish your story."

  "Well, I didn't know what to say to her. I finally said, 'Hey, don't cry,' which never does any good. She kept on sobbing and now and then I'd catch a word or two. I got the idea that she was fed up with getting walked all over by white people. I could see that. I get fed up with getting walked over by the fuzz, teachers, my old man, and the upper-class kids at school. So I could see that. Bryon, do you know that my old man keeps my mother from coming to see me? Said I was a dumb kid for ever gettin' into this hospital. So anyway, this chick, she tells me about her problems, and she uses some pretty bad language but nothing I ain't heard before from white chicks. I finally pulled the car over to the curb and reached into my pocket. She sat up straight and got all uptight.

  "'What we stoppin' for?' she says, and I said, 'I thought I had a handkerchief, but I guess I don't.' I pulled back out on the street. She looked at me for a minute--I kept staring straight ahead but I could tell she was watching me--and she said, 'Thank you.'

  "I drove her home. She lived way out on the north side where most of the blacks live; you know where. It is a pretty lousy neighborhood, about as bad as mine. As I pulled up in front of her house, I could see a bunch of kids hanging around on her porch and in her yard.

  "'Well, here you are,' I said, a little nervous. For somebody who'd been practicing in her mind how to get the door open, she was pretty slow about getting out. That's how it seemed to me, anyway. I think she was tired out from crying so much.

  "Then there was all these black kids around my car. Some big guy opened the girl's door and pulled her out and said, 'What's the matter, Connie? What happened?' You could tell she'd been crying.

  "Then they opened my door and dragged me out. It seemed like there was a hundred black faces staring at me. I guess it was really just about a dozen, but it seemed like a hundred. I just stood there, backed up against the car. Talk about scared--man, was I scared. To top it off, the chick had started crying again so she couldn't talk."

  Mike paused here for a minute. He was staring off in the distance, and when he started talking again, it was slowly, like he was living the whole thing over again.

  "The big guy came around to my side of t
he car. 'You hurt her, white boy?'

  "'No,' I said, and it didn't sound very loud so I cleared my throat and said, 'No, I didn't,' so loud that it sounded like I was shouting. It was real quiet; you could hear somebody's TV from down the street and a dog barking a block away and Connie's soft sobbing. I could even hear my heart pounding in my ears. Then the big guy said, really quiet-like, 'What if we don't believe you?' And I got so scared I was about to cry and said, 'Ask her, huh, just ask her!' The guy called across the car, 'Connie, what you want me to do with this white cat?'

  "And real soft--her voice was so soft, just like her eyes--she said, 'Kill the white bastard.'

  "And sure enough, they almost did."

  *

  There was a long silence. I think Mike had forgotten I was listening to him. Then he took a long breath. "That's how I got here. I must be a dumb kid like the old man says though, because I still don't hate Negroes, least of all Connie. I mean, I can almost see why she did it. Almost."

  I shook my head. "That's a rotten thing to happen to anybody."

  "It sure is." Mark's voice came from behind me. He had been standing in the doorway, I don't know how long. "Come on, Bryon," he said. "Here's your comics." He tossed a couple of monster comics on the bed.

  As we got into the elevator Mark said, "I'm inclined to agree with his old man. That is one stupid guy."

  "You mean it?" I said. I had been thinking about Mike's story, and I could see his point about not hating the people who beat him up.

  "Yeah, I mean it. Man, if anybody ever hurt me like that I'd hate them for the rest of my life."

  I didn't think much about that statement then. But later I would--I still do. I think about it and think about it until I think I'm going crazy.

  3

  I had been hunting all over town for a job. I really needed one, but they're not easy to come by if you're sixteen years old with no experience, no contacts. I finally hit upon a great idea: I would ask Charlie for a job. After all, we were friends. He thought I was a smart kid, and having been one himself, he appreciated them. Besides, I figured I would really dig working in a bar.

  Charlie's answer was short and to the point: No.

  I was sitting at the bar, smoking a cigarette and trying to fight down my anger and disappointment. I had been hitchhiking all over town for a week trying to get a job. "Well, why not?" I asked, as soon as I thought I could talk without blowing my stack.

  "For one thing, you know how often the plainclothes cops stop in. Do you think they'd let a minor work here? You're lucky you can just come in and sit down. Besides, Bryon, it gets rough in here late at night--Yeah, yeah, you're a rough kid, they all think that, but you'd better just take my word for it that you'd be better off someplace else."

  "Like where? There ain't no jobs in this town. I been all over. Don't think this crummy joint ain't last on my list." I was mad.

  Charlie didn't get upset though, he just grinned. "Bryon, you're an honest kid in most ways, but you lie like a dog. Take Mark--I wouldn't trust him around anything that wasn't nailed down, but I'd believe anything he said. I'd trust you with my wife, if I had one. I trust your actions, but I double-check most of your statements. You just think about it, and I think you'll come up with the reason why you haven't got a job before now. You just think about it."

  I was too mad to think about it right then, but I promised myself I would later. I listened to everything Charlie said, because he was really smart. He had been a high school dropout, but he could subtract and add in his head quicker than a machine, and he had also read almost everything I had, which was quite a bit of reading. Besides, he'd had it even rougher than me when he was a kid, and now he had his own business and was respected by the cops and the rough guys equally.

  "O.K.," I said. "If you trust me so much why don't you let me borrow your car Saturday night?" This was a shot in the dark. I really never expected Charlie to let me borrow his car. But I had been thinking about Cathy quite a bit. I had even called her a couple of times--from a pay phone since we couldn't pay phone bills any more--and there was a dance coming up on Saturday night that I wanted to go to. But I didn't have a car.

  "O.K., Bryon, you can borrow my car Saturday. Just bring it back with as much gas in the tank as there was when you took it."

  I almost fell off the barstool. "You mean it? Really?"

  Charlie gave a short laugh. "Yeah, I mean it. But you get into a wreck, and I'll swear you stole it. And I don't care if you let Mark drive it either. Any kid who's been hot-wiring cars and driving them for as long as he has without an accident, I'll trust with my car."

  I didn't know how to say thanks. I've always had trouble thanking people, I don't know why. But Charlie just gave me one of those twisted grins of his, like he knew what my problem was and couldn't care less.

  "I'll come by and get it Saturday," I said finally. Charlie said O.K., and I could tell he meant, "Get outa here before I change my mind," so I got. I wanted to get to a phone and call Cathy. For all I knew she already had a date.

  She didn't, thank God. But she did ask me where I was going to get a car.

  "A friend's loaning me his," I said. "We may be double-dating with Mark. You remember Mark, don't you?"

  "Who could forget him?" she said, and something gave me a funny feeling, something about the way she said it. It gave me a funny feeling. "Is this a dressy dance or a dance dance or what?" she asked.

  "Casual," I said. "Pants would be O.K. It's just at the school gym. Maybe we could go get a Coke afterward"--but I was thinking, Maybe we'll stop by the park afterward, which is just the way I think.

  Mark was surprised when I told him who I had a date with.

  "Cathy! M&M's sister? How old is she?"

  "Fifteen or sixteen, I guess. You want to double-date? Charlie's loaning me his car." I said this casually, like Charlie loaned me his car every day of the week, but Mark wasn't fooled. He never was, by me. "No kiddin'? How'd you manage that?"

  I just shrugged. The truth was, I still didn't know how I had managed that.

  "Well," Mark said, "I can't double with you. I already told some guys I'd go stag with them. I thought you would, too. Shoot, you haven't taken out a girl since you broke up with Angela Shepard."

  "Yeah, well, if you'd gone with Angela for a while you'd be sour on girls, too. Man, I hate that chick."

  "Too bad she can look so good and be so rotten," Mark said sympathetically. He never once said "I told you so." He had tried to tell me a long time ago that Angela was no good, but I hadn't paid any attention. It always seemed like Mark knew the score before I did--but it didn't do me any good. I wouldn't listen to him. I had to find out things for myself.

  "Who all you going with?" I asked. We were in the kitchen doing dishes. Mark didn't particularly care for washing dishes, but I just couldn't stand a bunch of dirty dishes piled up in the sink.

  "Terry Jones, Williamson, and Curtis."

  "Then I'm glad I'm not going with you. I can't stand that Curtis kid."

  "Come on, Bryon," Mark said easily. "He's a real nice guy. What'd he ever do to you?"

  "He thinks he's so good-looking. That whole family's conceited."

  Mark was trying to hide a grin. He was laughing at me. "You know good and well he's not conceited. He can't help it if he's good-looking; to tell the truth, I don't think he knows he is. You're jealous, Bryon, because Angela dumped you to make a play for Curtis, and he was smart enough to leave her alone."

  "You can think what you want," I said, but I was almost laughing myself. Mark knew me pretty well. Sometimes that could be irritating, but most of the time it was funny.

  *

  I thought Saturday would never come, but it finally did. I hadn't looked forward to a date in a long time. With Angela, after a while our dates either ended in a make-out session or a fight. Both got boring.

  I was kind of bothered about what to wear. It was a casual dance, so about anything would be all right, but I was bugged anyway.


  I was in the bathroom shaving when Mark popped in. He had been down to Charlie's to pick up the car for me.

  "Hey, hey, hey!" He leaned in the doorway, grinning at me. "Take it all off."

  "You're just jealous 'cause you only have to shave once every two weeks."

  Mark refused to be bugged. "You think I want to scrape my face every day? Thanks, but no thanks."

  I glanced at him just to check out what he was wearing. Mark never paid any attention to how he dressed--I wouldn't be surprised if someday he completely forgot he was supposed to have something on and walked out into the street naked--but somehow he was always dressed right for the occasion. He had on a gold sweat shirt and wheat-colored jeans and tennis shoes.

  "What are you wearin'?" Mark asked. His voice sounded funny.

  I shrugged. "I don't know yet."

  Mark turned to leave. "I gotta go now. I'm supposed to meet Terry over at his house. I left the keys in Charlie's car." As he was leaving he called over his shoulder, "I found this shirt out in the street, and it's lying on the bed if you want to see it." I heard the door slam and the sound of his light running steps on the porch.

  I finished washing off my face and went into our room. Mark and I shared a bedroom which was pretty small--we have a small house--and it seemed even smaller with our twin beds. One was against each wall and that left only a path about three-feet wide to the closet. I wanted to get a look at this shirt Mark had "found out in the street."

  It was real funny--that shirt happened to be just my size and dark blue, which happens to be a good color for me. For a minute I wondered whether he had bought it or stolen it--they were the same thing to Mark--but I decided to forget about it. After all, it's the thought that counts. Mark's clothes were almost all things I had outgrown. I grinned as I buttoned up the shirt. If Mark really cared about clothes he would steal some, but he didn't. But he knew me well enough to know what I would be thinking about.

  If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.

  Charlie's car wasn't anything you'd stop and stare at, but it was decent-looking. I felt funny when I stopped in front of Cathy's house. I had always thought of it as M&M's house, and now I thought of it as Cathy's house. I had never paid any attention to M&M's parents and I was about to go crazy trying to remember if I had ever said anything rude or had got smart with them, but I couldn't remember. If I had, I hoped they wouldn't remember.