Serenade

Chapter 2

As well as I can remember, that was in June, and I didn’t see her for a couple of months. Never mind what I did in that time, to eat. Sometimes I didn’t eat. For a while I had a job in a Jazzband, playing a guitar. It was in a nightclub out on the Reforma, and they needed me bad. I mean, the place was for Americans, and the music they handed out was supposed to be the McCoy, but it wasn’t. I went to work, and got them so they could play the hot stuff hot and the blue stuff blue, anyway a little bit, and polished up a couple of them so they could take a solo strain now and then, just for variety. Understand, you couldn’t do much. A Mexican’s got a defective sense of rhythm. He sounds rhythmic on the cucaracha stuff, but when you slow him down to foxtrot time, he can’t feel it. He just plays it mechanically, so when people get out on the floor they can’t dance to it. Still, I did what I could, and figured a few combos that made them sound better than they really were, and business picked up. But then a guy with a pistol on his hip showed up one night and wanted to see my papers, and I got thrown out. They got Socialism down there now, and one of the rules is that Mexico belongs to the Mexicans. They’re out of luck, no matter how they play it. Under Diaz, they turned the country over to the foreigners, and they had prosperity, but the local boys didn’t get much of it. Then they had the Revolution, and fixed it up so that whatever was going on, the local boys had to run it. The only trouble is, the local boys don’t seem to be very good at it. They threw me out, and then they had Socialism, but they didn’t have any Jazzband. Business fell off, and later I heard the place closed.

After that, I even had to beg to stay on at the hotel until I got the money from New York, which wasn’t ever coming, as they knew as well as I did. They let me use the room, but wouldn’t give me any bedclothes or service. I had to sleep on the mattress, under my clothes, and haul my own water. Up to then, I had managed to keep some kind of press in my pants, so I could anyway bum a meal off some American in Butch’s café, but I couldn’t even do that any more, and I began to look like what I was, a beachcomber in a spig town. I wouldn’t even have eaten if it hadn’t been for shagging my own water. I started going after it in the morning, and because the tin pitcher wouldn’t fit under the tap in the washroom at the end of the hall, I had to go down to the kitchen. Nobody paid any attention to me, and then an idea hit me, and next time I went down at night. There was nobody there, and I ducked over to the icebox. They’ve got electric iceboxes all over Mexico, and some of them have combinations on them, like safes, but this one hadn’t. I opened it up, and a light went on, and sure enough, there was a lot of cold stuff in there. I scooped some frijoles into a glass ashtray I had brought down, and held them under the pitcher when I went up. When I got back to my room I dug into them with my knife. After that, for two weeks, that was what I lived on. I found ten centavos in the street one day and bought a tin spoon, a clay soapdish, and a cake of soap, The soapdish and the soap I put on the washstand, like they were some improvements of my own I was putting in, since they wouldn’t give me any. The spoon I kept in my pocket. Every night when I’d go down, I’d scoop beans, rice, or whatever they had, and sometimes a little meat into the soapdish, but only when there was enough that it wouldn’t be missed. I never touched anything that might have counted, and only took off the top of dishes where there was quite a lot of it, and then smoothed them up to look right. Once there was half a Mexican ham in there. I cut myself off a little piece, under the butt.

And then one morning I got this letter, all neatly typewritten, even down to the signature, on a sheet of white business paper.

How she got my name and address didn’t bother me. The waitress at the Tupinamba would have been good for that. But the rest of it, the date I was supposed to have with her yesterday, and how she couldn’t sleep for thinking about me, didn’t make any sense at all. Still, she wanted to see me, that seemed to be the main point, and it was a long time before sundown. I was down past the point where I cared how she had looked at me, or what it meant, or anything like that. She could look at me like I was a rattlesnake, for all I cared, so she had a couple of buns under the bed. I went back upstairs, shaved, and started up there, hoping something about it might lead to a meal.

When I rapped on the door the window opened, and the fat one poked her head out. The four of them were just getting up. The window closed, and Juana called something out to me. I waited, and pretty soon she came out. She had on a white dress this time, that must have cost all of two pesos, and white sock-lets, and shoes. She looked like some high school girl in a border town. I said hello and how had she been, she said very well, gracias, and how had I been? I said I couldn’t complain, and edged toward the door to see if I could smell coffee. There didn’t seem to be any. Then I took out the letter and asked her what it meant.

“Yes. I ask you to come. Yes.”

“I caught that. But what’s all this other stuff about? I didn’t have any date with you — that I know of.”

She kept studying me, and studying the letter, and hungry as I was, and bad as she had walloped me that night, and dumb as it had been up to now, I couldn’t help having this same feeling about her I had had before, that was mainly what any man feels toward a woman, but partly what he feels toward a child. There was something about the way she talked, the way she held her head, the way she did everything, that got me in the throat, so I couldn’t breathe right. It wasn’t child, of course. It was Indian. But it did things to me just the same, maybe worse on account of it being Indian, because that meant she was always going to be like that. The trouble was, you see, that she didn’t know what the letter said. She couldn’t read.

She called the fat one out, and had her read it, and then there was the most indignant jabbering you ever heard. The other two came out and got in it, and then she grabbed me by the arm. “The auto. You make go, yes?”

“Well I could once.”

“Come, then. Come quick.”

We went down the street, and she turned in at a shack that seemed to be a kind of a garage. It was full of wrecks with stickers pasted on the windshield, that seemed to be held for the sheriff or something, but halfway down the line was the newest, reddest Ford in the world. It shone like a boil on a sailor’s neck. She went up to it, and began waving the letter in one hand and the key in the other. “So. Now we go. Calle Venezuela.”

I got in, and she got in, and it was a little stiff, but it started, and I rolled it through the murk to the street. I didn’t know where the Calle Venezuela was, and she tried to show me, but she didn’t have the hang of the one-way streets, so we got tangled up so bad it took us a half hour to get there. As soon as I backed up to park she jumped out and ran over to a colonnade, where about fifty guys were camped out on the sidewalk, back of tables with typewriters on them. They all wore black suits. In Mexico, the black suit means you got plenty of education, and the black fingernails mean you got plenty of work. When I got there, she was having an argument with one guy, and after a while he sat down to his machine, stuck a piece of paper in it, wrote something, and handed it to her. She came over to me waving it, and I took it. It was just two lines, that started off “Querido Sr. Sharp” instead of “Querido Jonny,” and said she wanted to see me on a matter of business.

“This letter, big mistake.”

She tore it up.

Well, never mind the fine points. The result of the big Socialist educational program is that half the population of the city have to come to these mugs to get their letters written, and that was what she had done. But the guy had been a little busy, and didn’t get it quite straight what she had said, and fixed her up with a love letter. So of course, she had to go down there and get what she had paid for. I didn’t blame her, but I still didn’t know what she wanted, and I was still hungry.

“The auto — you like, yes?”

“It’s a knockout.” We were coming up the Bolivar again, and I had to keep tooting the horn, according to law. The main thing they put on cars for Mexican export is the biggest, loudest horn they can find in Detroit, and this one had a double note to it that sounded like a couple of ferryboats passing in an East River fog. “Your business must be good.”

I didn’t mean to make any crack, but it slipped out on me. If it meant anything to her at all, she passed it up.

“Oh no. I win.”

“How?”

“The billete. You remember?”

“Oh. My billette?”

“Yes. I win, in lotería. The auto, and five honnerd pesos. The auto, is very pretty. I can no make go.”

“Well, I can make it go, if that’s all that’s bothering you. About those five hundred pesos. You got some of them with you?”

“Oh yes. Of course.”

“That’s great. What you’re going to do is buy me a breakfast. For my belly — muy empty. You get it?”

“Oh, why you no say? Yes, of course, now we eat.”

I pulled in at the Tupinamba. The restaurants don’t open until one o’clock, but the cafés will take care of you. We took a table up near the corner, where it was dark and cool. Hardly anybody was in there. My same old waitress came around grinning, and I didn’t waste any time. “Orange juice, the biggest you got. Fried eggs, three of them, and fried ham. Tortillas. Glass of milk, frío, and café con crema.”

“Bueno.”

She took iced coffee, a nifty down there, and gave me a cigarette. It was the first I had had in three days, and I inhaled and leaned back, and smiled at her. “So.”

“So.”

But she didn’t smile back, and looked away as soon as she said it. It was the first time we had really looked at each other all morning, and it brought us back to that night. She smoked, and looked up once or twice to say something, and didn’t, and I saw there was something on her mind besides the billete. “So — you still have no pesos?”

“That’s more or less correct.”

“You work, no?”

“I did work, but I got kicked out. Just at present, I’m not doing anything at all.”

“You like to work, yes? For me?”

“... Doing what?”

“Play a guitar, little bit, maybe. Write a letter, count money, speak Inglés, help me, no work very hard, in Mexico, nobody work very hard. Yes? You like?”

“Wait a minute. I don’t get this.”

“Now Í have money, I open house.”

“Here?”

“No, no, no. In Acapulco. In Acapulco, I have very nice friend, big politico. Open nice house, with nice music, nice food, nice drink, nice girls — for American.”

“Oh, for Americans.”

“Yes. Many Americans come now to Acapulco. Big steamboat stop there. Nice man, much money.”

“And me, I’m to be a combination professor, bartender, bouncer, glad-hander, secretary, and general bookkeeper for the joint, is that it?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Well.”

The food came along, and I stayed with it a while, but the more I thought about her proposition the funnier it got to me. “This place, it’s supposed to have class, is that the idea?”

“Oh yes, very much. My politico friend, he say American pay as much as five pesos, gladly.”

“Pay five — what?”

“Pesos.”

“Listen, tell your politico friend to shut his trap and let an expert talk. If an American paid less than five dollars, he’d think there was something wrong with it.”

“I think you little bit crazy.”

“I said five bucks — eighteen pesos.”

“No, no. You kid me.”

“All right, go broke your own way. Hire your politico for manager.”

“You really mean?”

“I raise my right hand and swear by the holy mother of God.But — you got to get some system in it. You got to give him something for his money.”

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

“Listen, I’m not talking about this world’s goods. I’m talking about things of the spirit, romance, adventure, beauty. Say, I’m beginning to see possibilities in this. All right, you want that American dough, and I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do to get it. In the first place, the dump has got to be in a nice location, in among the hotels, not back of the coconut palms, up on the hill. That’s up to your politico. In the second place, you don’t do anything but run a little dance hall, and rent rooms. The girls came in, just for a drink. Not mescal, not tequila. Chocolate ice-cream soda, because they’re nice girls, that just dropped in to take a load off their feet. They wear hats. They come in two at a time, because they’re so well brought up they wouldn’t dream of going in any place alone. They work in the steamboat office, up the street, or maybe they go to school and just came home for vacation. And they’ve never met any Americans, see, and they’re giggling about it, in their simple girlish way, and of course, we fix it up, you and I, so there’s a little introducing around. And they dance. And one thing leads to another. And next thing you know, the American has a room from you, to take the girl up. You don’t really run that kind of place, but just because it’s him, you’ll make an exception — for five dollars. The girl doesn’t take anything. She does it for love, see?”

“For what?”

“Do I know the Americano, or don’t I?”

“I think you just talk, so sound fonny.”

“It sounds fonny, but it’s not just talk. The Americano, he doesn’t mind paying for a room, but when it comes to a girl, he likes to feel it’s a tribute to his personality. He likes to think it’s a big night for her, too, and all the more because she’s just a poor little thing in a steamboat office, and never had such a night in her life until he came along and showed her what life could be like with a real guy. He wants an adventure — with him the hero. He wants to have something to tell his friends. But don’t have any bums sliding up to take their foto. He doesn’t like that.”

“Why not? The fotógrafo, he pay me little bit.”

“Well, I tell you. Maybe the fotógrafo has a heart of gold, and so has the muchacha, but the Americano figures the foto might get back to his wife, or threaten to, specially if she’s staying up at the hotel. He wants an adventure, but he doesn’t want any headache. Besides, the fotos have got a Coney Island look to them, and might give him the idea it was a cheap joint. Remember, this place has class. And that reminds me, the mariachi is going to be hand-picked by me, and hand-trained as well, so maybe somebody could dance to the stuff when they play it. Of course, I don’t render any selections on the guitar. That’s out. Or the piano, or the violin, or any other instrument in my practically unlimited repertoire. And that mariachi, they wear suits that we give them, with gold braid down the pants, and turn those suits in every night when they quit. It’s our own private mariachi, and as fast as we get money to buy more suits we put on more men, so it’s a feature. The main thing is that we have class, first, last, and all the time. No Americano, from the time he goes in to the time he goes out, is going to get the idea that he can get out of spending money. Once they get that through their heads, we’ll be all right.”

“The Americanos, are they all crazy?”

“All crazy as loons.”

It seemed to be settled, but after the gags wore off I had this sick feeling, like life had turned the gray-white color of their sunlight. I tried to tell myself it was the air, that’ll do it to you at least three times a day. Then I tried to tell myself it was what I had done, that I had no more pride left than to take a job as pimp in a coast-town whorehouse, but what the hell? That was just making myself look noble. It was, anyway, some kind of work, and if I really made a go of it, it wouldn’t make me squirm. It would make me laugh. And then I knew it was this thing that was drilling in the back of my head, about her. There hadn’t been a word about that night, and when she looked at me her eyes were just as blank as though I’d been some guy she was talking to about the rent. But I knew what those eyes could say. Whatever it was she had seen in me that night, she still saw it, and it was between us like some glass door that we could see through but couldn’t talk.

She was sitting there, looking at her coffee glass and not saying anything. She had a way of dozing off like that, between the talk, like some kitten that falls asleep as soon as you stop playing with it. I told you she looked like some high school girl in that little white dress. I kept looking at her, trying to figure out how old she was, when all of a sudden I forgot about that and my heart began to pound. If she was to be the madame of the joint, she couldn’t very well take care of any customers herself, could she? Then who was going to take care of her? By her looks, she needed plenty of care. Maybe that was supposed to be my job. My voice didn’t quite sound like it generally does when I spoke to her.

“... Señorita, what do I get out of this?”

“Oh — you live, have nice cloth, maybe big hat with silver, yes? Some pecos. Is enough, yes?”

“—And entertain the señoritas?”

I don’t know why I said that. It was the second mean slice I had taken since we started out. Maybe I was hoping she’d flash jealous, and that would give me the cue I wanted. She didn’t. She smiled, and studied me for a minute, and I felt myself getting cold when I saw there was the least bit of pity in it. “If you like to entertain señoritas, yes. Maybe not. Maybe that’s why I ask you. No have any trouble.”