James Baldwin - Another Country

It had been a terrible night, with rain pouring down like great tin buckets, filling the air with a roaring, whining clatter, and making lights and streets and buildings as fluid as itself. It battered and streamed against the windows of the fetid, poor-man’s bar Jane had brought them to, a bar where they knew no one. It was filled with shapeless, filthy women with whom Jane drank, apparently, sometimes, during the day; and pale, untidy, sullen men, who worked on the docks, and resented seeing him there. He wanted to go, but he was trying to wait for the rain to let up a little. He was bored speechless with Jane’s chatter about her paintings, and he was ashamed of Vivaldo for putting up with it. How had the fight begun? He had always blamed it on Jane. Finally, in order not to go to sleep, he had begun to tease Jane a little; but this teasing revealed, of course, how he really felt about her, and she was not slow to realize it. Vivaldo watched them with a faint, wary smile. He, too, was bored, and found Jane’s pretensions intolerable.

“Anyway,” Jane said, “you aren’t an artist and so I don’t see how you can possibly judge the work I do—”

“Oh, stop it,” said Vivaldo. “Do you know how silly you sound? You mean you just paint for this half-assed gang of painters down here?”

“Oh, let her swing, man,” Rufus said, beginning to enjoy himself. He leaned forward, grinning at Jane in a way at once lewd and sardonic. “This chick’s too deep for us, man, we can’t dig that shit she’s putting down.”

“You’re the snobs,” she said, “not I. I bet you I’ve reached more people, honest, hard-working, ignorant people, right here in his bar, than either of you ever reach. Those people you hang out with are dead, man — at least, these people are alive .”

Rufus laughed. “I thought it smelled funny in here. So that’s it. Shit. It’s life, huh?” And he laughed again.

But he was also aware that they were beginning to attract attention, and he glanced at the windows where the rain streamed down, saying to himself, Okay, Rufus, behave yourself. And he leaned back in the booth, where he sat facing Jane and Vivaldo.

He had reached her, and she struck back with the only weapon she had, a shapeless instrument which might once have been fury. “It doesn’t smell any worse in here than it does where you come from, baby.”

Vivaldo and Rufus looked at each other. Vivaldo’s lips turned white. He said, “You say another word, baby, and I’m going to knock your teeth, both of them, right down your throat.”

This profoundly delighted her. She became Bette Davis at once, and shouted at the top of her voice, “Are you threatening me?”

Everyone turned to look at them.

“Oh, shit,” said Rufus, “let’s go.”

“Yes,” said Vivaldo, “let’s get out of here.” He looked at Jane. “Move. You filthy bitch.”

And now she was contrite. She leaned forward and grabbed Rufus’ hand. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.” He tried to pull his hand away; she held on. He relaxed, not wanting to seem to struggle with her. Now she was being Joan Fontaine. “Please, you must believe me, Rufus!”

“I believe you,” he said, and rose; to find a heavy Irishman standing in his way. They stared at each other for a moment and then the man spit in his face. He heard Jane scream, but he was already far away. He struck, or thought he struck; a fist slammed into his face and something hit him at the back of the head. The world, the air, went red and black, then roared in at him with faces and fists. The small of his back slammed against something cold, hard, and straight; he supposed it was the end of the bar, and he wondered how he had got there. From far away, he saw a barstool poised above Vivaldo’s head, and he heard Jane screaming, keening like all of Ireland. He had not known there were so many men in the bar. He struck a face, he felt bone beneath the bone of his fist, and weak green eyes, glaring into his like headlights at the moment of collision, shuttered in distress. Someone had reached him in the belly, someone else in the head. He was being spun about and he could no longer strike, he could only defend. He kept his head down, bobbing and shifting, pushed and pulled, and he crouched, trying to protect his private parts. He heard the crash of glass. For an instant he saw Vivaldo, at the far end of the bar, blood streaming down from his nose and his forehead, surrounded by three or four men, and he saw the back of a hand send Jane spinning half across the room. Her face was white and terrified. Good, he thought, and felt himself in the air, going over the bar. Glass crashed again, and wood was splintered. There was a foot on his shoulder and a foot on one ankle. He pressed his buttocks against the floor and drew his free leg in as far as he could; and with one arm he tried to hold back the fist which crashed down again and again into his face. Far behind the fist was the face of the Irishman, with the green eyes ablaze. Then he saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. Then he heard running feet. He was on his back behind the bar. There was no one near him. He pulled himself up and half-crawled out. The bartender was at the door, shooing his customers out; an old woman sat at the bar, tranquilly sipping gin; Vivaldo lay on his face in a pool of blood. Jane stood helplessly over him. And the sound of the rain came back.

“I think he’s dead,” Jane said.

He looked at her, hating her with all his heart. He said, “I wish to God it was you, you cunt.” She began to cry.

He leaned down and helped Vivaldo to rise. Half-leaning on, half-supporting each other, they made it to the door. Jane came behind them. “Let me help you.”

Vivaldo stopped and tried to straighten. They leaned, half-in, half-out of the door. The bartender watched them. Vivaldo looked at the bartender, then at Jane. He and Rufus stumbled together into the blinding rain.

“Let me help you,” Jane cried again. But she stopped in the doorway long enough to say to the bartender, whose face held no expression whatever, “You’re going to hear about this, believe me. I’m going to close this bar and have your job, if it’s the last thing I ever do.” Then she ran into the rain, and tried to help Rufus support Vivaldo.

Vivaldo pulled away from her touch, and slipped and almost fell. “Get away from me. Get away from me. You’ve been enough help for one night.”

“You’ve got to get in somewhere!” Jane cried.

“Don’t you worry about it. Don’t worry about it. Drop dead, get lost, go fuck yourself. We’re going to the hospital.”

Rufus looked into Vivaldo’s face and became frightened. Both his eyes were closing and the blood poured down from some wound in his scalp. And he was crying.

“What a way to talk to my buddy, man,” he said, over and over. “Wow! What a way to talk to my buddy! ”

“Let’s go to her place,” Rufus whispered. “It’s closer.” Vivaldo did not seem to hear him. “Come on, baby, let’s go on over to Jane’s, it don’t matter.”

He was afraid that Vivaldo had been badly hurt, and he knew what would happen at the hospital if two fays and a spade came bleeding in. For the doctors and nurses were, first of all, upright, clean-living white citizens. And he was not really afraid for himself, but for Vivaldo, who knew so little about his countrymen.

So, slipping and sliding, with Jane now circling helplessly around them and now leading the way, like a big-assed Joan of Arc, they reached Jane’s pad. He carried Vivaldo into the bathroom and sat him down. He looked in the mirror. His face looked like jam, but the scars would probably heal, and only one eye was closed; but when he began washing Vivaldo, he found a great gash in his skull, and this frightened him.