Little Scarlet

32

Los Angeles is a desert city. Plants don’t grow except for the sufferance of irrigation. The soil is hard and yellow and the sun shines more than three hundred days a year. It doesn’t rain much and there’s no snow at all. People come here to escape the necessity of seasons. They talk about the weather like it was their personal pot of gold.

They come here for the daylight and the warmth of the sun, flocking to the beaches and planning barbecues. Los Angeles is a town of baseball and football, croquet and golf. The city is oriented toward the heat of the sun. And when the night comes, people curl up in their beds and dream about the morning and all the promise of light.

L.A. is not a town for night owls. You come for the acreage and the vistas but in order to pay for that, most people work so hard that night is only a place to rest.

Those people who finally understand that perfect weather only means that you could work even harder often become disillusioned. After that they either move back to where they came from or they drop out and live in the shadows.

Those folks need a nightlife. And where there’s a need there’s always an offering.

Stud’s All Night Holiday was one such offering. It was a bungalow built to be a school. But there was a property dispute and lawsuit and finally the city backed off. I don’t know how Ronette Lee got hold of the lease but every night she ran a bar/coffeehouse/restaurant from sundown till sunup out of that would-be school.

It was off the road but the cops knew she was there. They knew but didn’t bother her because she filled the needs of all the people who needed respite—and also she was a good tipper.

THE CLASSROOM HAD a dozen round tables and a bar. A door behind the bar led to another classroom, where Ronette’s daughter, Maxine, cooked and stewed.

The women didn’t get along. That’s because Ronette hated men and Maxine couldn’t get enough of us. And that was only the beginning of their discord. Maxine didn’t like the taste of salt, so Ronette criticized her cooking. Ronette wanted to move back to St. Louis but Maxine hated the cold. I had never heard either one of them say a kind word to the other but I rarely saw them apart.

At four a.m. there were maybe a dozen souls at Stud’s. When I entered I waved at Ronette and made the gesture for coffee. For someone else the signal might have meant beer. But Ronette knew I had given up alcohol.

Benita Flag was sitting at a small table alone and miserable. Her shoulders sagged and her hair was a mess. When she looked up I could see that her makeup had been running with her tears.

Sadness is a kind of beacon for me. That’s why I frequented the late-night spot.

“Hey, Benny,” I said, moving a chair to her table.

“Did you see him?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he okay?” she asked. Her voice was rising toward hysteria. I realized that she really was worried about his well-being.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Mouse is fine. You know any kind of social upheaval makes for business opportunities. And Raymond is definitely what you call an opportunist.”

I smiled and she at least tried to.

“You know what I’m sayin’, don’t you?” I asked.

“What?”

“Mouse is like a thundershower at the end of a hot day. If lightning don’t strike you the rain will cool you down. It brings you back to life.”

Benita smiled and took a very deep breath.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s Raymond.”

“But a storm like that just passes by, Benny. And when it’s gone it’s gone. I mean even if it hits you again it won’t stay around.”

Benita was staring into my face. Her intensity brought back the beauty I knew.

“But I love him, Easy. He come into my life and I never even knew you could feel like that for anybody else. When he walk out to go to the store I ache till he’s back again. When he say my name in conversation I feel somethin’ so strong I get dizzy.”

What could I say to that? She was in love—or something. And whatever that was, it would be wrong to take it away.

“You got any relatives outta town?” I asked.

“A cousin in San Diego.”

“Maybe after a while you should go visit her. Maybe the sea will do you some good.”

Ronette came up to the table then.

“Easy,” she said, setting down my coffee, and to Benny, “Girl, you need to go to the bathroom and fix your face.”

Ronette was solidly built and the color of tarnished bronze. She had straightened hair that swirled at the top of her head like a squat tornado that had been turned upside down.

“I’m lookin’ for a Harold,” I said to Ronette.

“Funny, it look like you lookin’ for a Helen.”

Benita was touching her face to see if she should follow Ronette’s suggestion.

“His last name,” I said, ignoring her joke, “could be Lakely or Ostenberg or Bryant.” I decided to leave out Brown and Smith. I concentrated on the less common names, hoping my man would be one of them.

“Excuse me,” Benita said.

She got up and went toward the bathroom.

“Sounds like white men,” Ronette said.

“It ain’t a woman and it ain’t a white man,” I replied. “Have you heard their names?”

“No, Easy. I don’t know no Harolds at all. Not no black ones.”

“You know we all have white men’s names,” I said.

“Say what?”

“Our names. None of them come from Africa.”

“That’s why you always frownin’, Easy,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Studyin’ somethin’ till it don’t even look like what it is no more. That’s what makes you so sad.”

I couldn’t deny it. She was right.

Ronette saw my silence as a victory. She snorted and smiled and strode off to her bar. I watched her. She had a good figure for a woman in her mid-forties. She liked being watched by men, and women too. She just didn’t want their opinions.

When Benita got back to the table she looked like another woman. There was a store-bought sexiness about her, from the false eyelashes to the fire-engine-red nails.

She sat down and started in as if she had never heard of Raymond or had a broken heart. She asked me about my job at Sojourner Truth and my kids. I found out all about her grandfather who was descended from chiefs of the Seminole tribe out of Florida. She talked until the sky began to lighten.

When I said that I had to leave she asked for a ride.

When we got to her door on San Pedro she asked me inside. I could tell that she was fragile and for some reason I felt responsible for Raymond’s romantic misdemeanor.

Once inside she made me another coffee. She wanted a kiss for her troubles but I suggested that she might want to bathe first.

I ran the tub for her, making it especially warm.

She came in wearing a pink robe. Before I could leave the bathroom she let the garment drop to the floor. I saw why Mouse once wanted her and then I closed the door.

BENITA HAD A very small place. It was just two rooms and a hot plate. And the rooms were small. The telephone sat on a small triangular table that had three legs. Underneath it sat a phone book.

The Smiths alone took up seven pages. The Browns only had a page and a column.

Lakely and Ostenberg had five listings apiece and Bryant was little more than a third of a column of names.

I studied the book, jotting down numbers until the sun was bright. Then I peeked into the bathroom.

Benita was sound asleep in the tub, snoring and dreaming of real love.