Irving Wallace - The Man

Only one truth marred their relationship, and it trailed doggedly after him, following their third meeting. She was black.

Otto Beggs had long taken pride in his tolerance. Sure, Negroes were different from white folk, they were lazier, less dependable, trickier, less smart, but hell, they weren’t to blame, because look what they came from; they came from Africa and from plantation slavery. He had not known any Negroes, except Solly, who ran interference for him on the football team in Oregon, and a few others in the Army, and he had liked them well enough. Of course, he didn’t like Prentiss too much, because Prentiss had got the job as assistant to the head of the White House Detail that had rightfully belonged to himself. Still, he could not hold that against Prentiss personally. It was not Prentiss’ doing. If anyone was to blame, it was Chief Gaynor. Beggs couldn’t prove it yet, but he was willing to bet money Gaynor intended to promote as many colored agents as he could, which was natural when you played politics. As to President Dilman, Beggs wasn’t definite about him. He didn’t like him in general, that was for certain. On the other hand, he could not say he disliked him entirely, either. What he did dislike was having to track around on the heels of a Negro. Beggs knew that he was smarter than Dilman, more courageous (as he had once proved), and had more personality, and yet, look what that lumpy politician was paid per annum and look what he was paid. And worst of all, for the lousy money he was getting, Beggs was pledged to lay his life on the line to protect that colored man. For one of Beggs’s stature, gifts, potential, it was demeaning. Imagine Dilman doing anything to deserve a Medal of Honor? Ha!

Without being able to define it, Beggs felt uncomfortable around Negro men, especially the ones in this cruddy neighborhood, which even his so-called friends, the Schearers, had now abandoned. About Negro women, however, his feelings were more lenient, although still confused. After all, he had loved Lena Horne in his youth, well, when he was younger. He had always liked to watch Negro women in the street from his bedroom window. The young ones carried themselves great. And their builds, they were built for heroic men. Sometimes, but not often, in his pre-Ruby days, he had entertained wild thoughts about Negro women and their secrets. But then he would always get mixed up in his thoughts, for sometimes he would think they were below him, not in the street below but socially beneath him, and not good enough for him, with their secrets, those builds from Africa, and only Negro men could manage them.

Several times he had recalled the night that he had escorted President Dilman to that brownstone where the Reverend Spinger lived, and the crazy thing that had happened before they left, that colored girl, an older one but a swell looker, who had come dashing out after Dilman. The President had called her Miss Gibson and acted like she was a secretary, which she probably was, taking notes on the conference with Spinger, which she probably had done, yet Beggs could not forget that when she had come out, she had been kind of informal, calling after the President, “Doug.” Beggs had never heard of a secretary calling her boss by his first name, especially a boss who was President of the United States. He had tried to picture Miss Gibson exactly in his mind, but could only remember that she had been kind of light-colored and slender, and not bad for her age. He had wondered if she was Spinger’s secretary and had just called Dilman by his first name because she had known him a long time, or if maybe she was Dilman’s lady friend and nothing else. The latter thought had been so disrespectful, so Communistic, especially for one in his job, that Beggs had driven it from his mind as best he could and had not dared repeat the juicy speculation even to Gertrude.

But it had come back to him, the thought, in a different context last night when he could not sleep, when he had enjoyed his daring dreams of Ruby. If Dilman, he had told himself, could manage to take care of a pretty fair-looking light-colored girl-lady-then he, Otto Beggs, could do ten times better with any one of them. This feeling of superiority had brought some order to his confusion, and reinforced his ardor for Ruby Thomas. He had not waited for lunch to tell his lie to Gertrude. He had done so the moment that he had sat down to breakfast.

Suddenly he realized that he was standing before the Walk Inn. No more last night’s dreams. No more last week’s accidental meetings. He was here, now and today, because he had planned it. He had even left the Nash for Gertrude, being gracious and considerate about it, announcing that he would take the bus (because he did not want the car parked so dangerously long in front of the nearby tavern). He had planned everything. His first assignation.

He went inside, past the clanging pinball machines, and headed straight for the horseshoe bar.

He stopped in his tracks. There were three men at the bar, two colored, one a white laborer, but there was no Ruby. His disappointment was as sharp as if he had received a physical blow. He had started toward the bartender, Simon, who was busily drying his glassware, when the flutter of a distant brown hand crossed his vision. He stood on tiptoe, elevating his bulk to its utmost height, and peered over the bartender’s bent head. The hand fluttered still, and then he could see it belonged to Ruby.

Quickly Beggs made his way between the bar and the wooden tables and chairs, to the farthest of the three leatherette booths hidden deep in the rear of the tavern. She was waiting for him in a corner of the dark booth, fingering the rim of her drained glass. What perplexed him was not that for the first time she was waiting in the intimacy of a booth, but that for the first time she was not in a white uniform.

As he clumsily slid into the booth, he could not help but gape at her across the table. Since he had never seen her out of the dental uniform, he had not imagined that any different garment could improve her good looks. This instant he could see that he had been wrong, that a new dimension had been added to her. She wore a ruffled pink chiffon blouse, one that almost indecently revealed the well-filled pink lace brassière beneath, and could not adequately contain her breasts. Her waist was tied tightly with a red flowered sash above her red skirt. She was ravishing.

She smiled timorously, showing him even white teeth and a deep dimple. “I was hopin’ y’all be comin’, Otter,” she said. The first time that his Otto had become her Otter, it had made him squirm, reminding him that he was white and she was not, but the intimacy of it had quickly appealed to him, as it did now. “ ’Cause,” she went on, “I didn’t wanna be made to feel foolish, ’cause I done come here ’specially today expectin’ you to come, like it was an occasion.”

“Ruby,” he said, “where’s your usual outfit, the uniform?”

“Doc done come down with the flu bug last night, and we been cancelin’ the customers. So today’s off for us-all, an’ I been fixin’ an’ messin’ ’round the apartment, and done some shoppin’ for records, but still thought to git me here case you come, too.”

His head swam, and last night’s fantasies began to grow real in the daylight. “That’s awfully nice of you, Ruby. I guess you knew I’d, well, I’d be hoping to run into you for a drink.”

“You were ackin’ like you was meanin’ it day ’fore yesterday.”

He opened his hands. “Here I am,” he said. “You been here long?”

“One drink’s worth.”

He felt expansive and rich. “Well, have another.”

“You gonna?”

“I’ve got to go on duty, but-what the hell-one beer never made anyone cockeyed.” He twisted, raised his arm and snapped his fingers. “Simon! One J and B on the rocks, and one tap beer. Bring some pretzels, too.”