Double Play

21.

After a night game at Crosley Field it took them a long time to find a cab. The white cabbies wouldn’t pick up a Negro, and the black cabbies were afraid to pick up a white man. Finally Burke went and stood in the doorway and Robinson flagged a cab driven by an aging gray-haired black man. Robinson got in.

“Looking for a place to eat, open late,” Robinson said.

“Sho’,” the cabbie said. “Take you over to Gaiter’s. Nice southern cookin’.”

“Good,” Robinson said.

He gestured at Burke.

“Wait till my friend gets in,” Robinson said as Burke stepped out of the doorway and walked across the sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ,” the cabbie said.

“It’s okay,” Robinson said. “You know who I am.”

“I do,” the cabbie said. “But I can’t take no white man.”

“He can slouch way down,” Robinson said.

“I get lynched carrying some ofay,” the cabbie said. “You want me gettin’ lynched.”

Burke got into the car and sat beside Robinson in the back seat.

“We can’t eat together anywhere that’s open now, less we go to the right part of town,” Robinson said. “We need to eat.”

Burke took out a twenty-dollar bill, folded it in half the long way, and held it toward the cabbie. The cabbie eyed it. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. Then he took the bill, folded it again and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

“White gennelman has to sit way down and back,” the cabbie said to Robinson.

He didn’t look at Burke.

Robinson said, “Thank you,” and the cab pulled away from the curb. The cabbie drove with both hands on the wheel, careful at cross streets, slowing at intersections. He let them off on a near empty street in front of a glass-fronted restaurant with a large Schlitz beer sign glowing in the window. The door was canopied in purple canvas and on the canvas in gold letters was GAITER’S FINE DINING.

“I can’t be waiting for you,” the cabbie said.

“Free country,” Burke said.

Robinson and the cabbie looked at each other for a moment. Burke caught the look.

“Sort of,” Burke said.

The cab pulled away as soon as they were out. They went into the restaurant. It was smoky, crowded and noisy, with a lot of colored lights and a piano player near the bar. When Burke came in there was a pause in the hubbub. Burke had heard it before. The customers began to talk again as Burke and Robinson stood waiting to be seated. A balding Negro in a tuxedo, carrying menus under his arm, stared at Burke for a moment, then looked at Robinson, and, after another moment, back at Burke.

Then he said, “This way please,” and led them toward a table in the back. As they moved through the restaurant the piano player began to play “White Christmas.” Four young men sitting together nearby glared at Burke. There was challenge in the glare. Burke ignored them.

“The ‘White Christmas’ business was for you,” Robinson said.

“I sort of guessed that,” Burke said.

“Young bucks over there,” Robinson nodded toward them, “might work themselves up enough to make some trouble.”

Burke shrugged and picked up his menu.

“What’s good here,” he said.

“You think I know the food in every Negro restaurant in America?” Robinson said.

“Figured there might be some sort of natural rhythm to it,” Burke said.

Robinson nodded. For a moment his blue-black face relaxed into a short smile.

“I’m going to have the meat loaf,” Robinson said. “Side of macaroni and cheese.”

“Sounds good,” Burke said.

While they waited for their food, Burke had a Vat 69 on the rocks. Robinson had a Coke. The four young men at the far table continued to drink Four Roses and ginger ale, and look at Burke.

“This the way it always is?” Burke said.

“Is what the way it always is?” Robinson said.

“Trouble getting a cab, trouble finding a place to eat, trouble getting a hotel room?”

“That’s the way it always is,” Robinson said.

“Makes everything hard,” Burke said.

“You learnin’,” Robinson said.

His voice seemed to darken into a Negro sound as he talked.

“Got to be careful,” Robinson said. “ ’Bout everything. Be careful who you look at, who you talk to, what you say, where you sit, where you walk, where you live, where you travel. Can’t depend on cops. Finding a bathroom is a problem. Buying cigarettes. Riding in an elevator. Getting a drink of water.”

One of the black men at the table near them called over to Burke, “Hey, white boy.”

Burke turned and looked at him without expression. He was a tall man with yellow-brown skin and longish hair combed straight back and glistening with pomade.

“That’s right, Sow Belly, I talking to you.”

Still looking at the pomaded Negro, Burke said to Robinson, “If there’s trouble we leave.”

Robinson said, “I know.”

The Negro man continued.

“Who that you with? You with your house nigger? You think that make it all right?”

Burke’s hands rested motionless on the table. His face was blank. The Negro stood suddenly and walked to the table.

“You talk?” he said. “Or you too good to talk with a nigger.”

“Don’t make a mistake,” Burke said to him softly.

“Mistake,” the man said. “Shit.”

He paused suddenly and looked at Robinson again. Robinson nodded his head at him.

“You...” the man said.

Robinson nodded again. At the other table the man’s three companions were staring now at Robinson.

“Mutha fuck,” the man said.

He looked at Burke.

“You with him?” he said.

“I am,” Burke said.

The man looked at Robinson.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

Robinson smiled.

“Ah’m sorry to have bothered you,” the man said.

“It’s all right,” Robinson said. “Enjoy your dinner.”

“Yes. You bet. I... Good luck, Jackie.”

“Thank you.”

The man went back to his table. Everyone in the room turned and looked at Robinson. In a moment a waitress brought their food.

“Everybody in the room now knows who you are,” Burke said as he ate.

“Yes.”

“That bother you?” Burke said.

“Yes.”

After dinner Burke and Robinson stood on the garish street. A brindled dog with one ear down limped past them. Several cabs passed them without slowing.

“All the cabbies are Negro,” Robinson said, “in this part of town. They won’t pick us up because of you.”

“And if we walk ten or twelve blocks to a white neighborhood?” Burke said.

“The white cabbies won’t pick us up because of me.”

They stood silently for a moment watching the yellow dog disappear into an alley.

“How far you figure it is to walk to the hotel?” Burke said.

“ ’Bout an hour and a half,” Robinson said. “ ’Course you got to carry that big forty-five.”

“I’ve walked further than that,” Burke said, “carrying more.”

“Enlisted?” Robinson said, as they headed downtown under the disinterested streetlights.

“Yeah,” Burke said. “You?”

“Commissioned.”

“You want to call cadence?” Burke said.

“You start,” Robinson said.

In the uncertain light, on the exhausted street, he might have been smiling.