James Baldwin - Another Country

The bartender watched them.

“You better have a drink. Hey, Mac, give the kid a drink.”

“You sure he’s all right?”

“Yeah, he’s all right, I know him. Give him a drink.”

The bartender filled a shot glass and placed it in front of Rufus. And Rufus stared into the gleaming cup, praying, Lord, don’t let it happen. Don’t let me go home with this man.

I’ve got so little left, Lord, don’t let me lose it all.

“Drink. It’ll do you good. Then you can come on over to my place and get some sleep.”

He drank the whiskey, which first made him feel even sicker, then warmed him. He straightened up.

“You live around here?” he asked the man. If you touch me, he thought, still with these strange tears threatening to boil over at any moment, I’ll beat the living shit out of you. I don’t want no more hands on me, no more, no more, no more.

“Not very far. Forty-sixth Street.”

They walked out of the bar, into the streets again.

“It’s a lonely city,” the man said as they walked. “I’m lonely. Aren’t you lonely, too?”

Rufus said nothing.

“Maybe we can comfort each other for a night.”

Rufus watched the traffic lights, the black, nearly deserted streets, the silent black buildings, the deep shadows of doorways.

“Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not the boy you want, mister,” he said at last, and suddenly remembered having said exactly these words to Eric — long ago.

“How do you mean, you’re not the boy I want?” And the man tried to laugh. “Shouldn’t I be the best judge of that?”

Rufus said, “I don’t have a thing to give you. I don’t have nothing to give nobody. Don’t make me go through with this. Please.”

They stopped on the silent Avenue, facing each other. The man’s eyes hardened and narrowed.

“Didn’t you know what was going on — back there?”

Rufus said, “I was hungry.”

“What are you, anyway — just a cock teaser?”

“I was hungry,” Rufus repeated; “I was hungry.”

“Don’t you have any family — any friends?”

Rufus looked down. He did not answer right away. Then, “I don’t want to die, mister. I don’t want to kill you. Let me go — to my friends.”

“Do you know where to find them?”

“I know where to find — one of them.”

There was a silence. Rufus stared at the sidewalk and, very slowly, the tears filled his eyes and began trickling down his nose.

The man took his arm. “Come on — come on to my place.”

But now the moment, the possibility, had passed; both of them felt it. The man dropped his arm.

“You’re a good-looking boy,” he said.

Rufus moved away. “So long, mister. Thanks.”

The man said nothing. Rufus watched him walk away.

Then he, too, turned and began walking downtown. He thought of Eric for the first time in years, and wondered if he were prowling foreign streets tonight. He glimpsed, for the first time, the extent, the nature, of Eric’s loneliness, and the danger in which this placed him; and wished that he had been nicer to him. Eric had always been very nice to Rufus. He had had a pair of cufflinks made for Rufus, for Rufus’ birthday, with the money which was to have bought his wedding rings: and this gift, this confession, delivered him into Rufus’ hands. Rufus had despised him because he came from Alabama; perhaps he had allowed Eric to make love to him in order to despise him more completely. Eric had finally understood this, and had fled from Rufus, all the way to Paris. But his stormy blue eyes, his bright red hair, his halting drawl, all returned very painfully to Rufus now.

Go ahead and tell me. You ain’t got to be afraid.

And, as Eric hesitated, Rufus added — slyly, grinning, watching him:

“You act like a little girl — or something.”

And even now there was something heady and almost sweet in the memory of the ease with which he had handled Eric, and elicited his confession. When Eric had finished speaking, he said, slowly;

“I’m not the boy for you. I don’t go that way.”

Eric had placed their hands together, and he stared down at them, the red and the brown.

“I know,” he said.

He moved to the center of his room.

“But I can’t help wishing you did. I wish you’d try.”

Then, with a terrible effort, Rufus heard it in his voice, his breath:

“I’d do anything. I’d try anything. To please you.” Then, with a smile, “I’m almost as young as you are. I don’t know — much — about it.”

Rufus had watched him, smiling. He felt a flood of affection for Eric. And he felt his own power.

He walked over to Eric and put his hands on Eric’s shoulders. He did not know what he was going to say or do. But with his hands on Eric’s shoulders, affection, power, and curiosity all knotted together in him — with a hidden, unforeseen violence which frightened him a little; the hands that were meant to hold Eric at arm’s length seemed to draw Eric to him; the current that had begun flowing he did not know how to stop.

At last, he said in a low voice, smiling, “I’ll try anything once, old buddy.”

Those cufflinks were now in Harlem, in Ida’s bureau drawer. And when Eric was gone, Rufus forgot their battles and the unspeakable physical awkwardness, and the ways in which he had made Eric pay for such pleasure as Eric gave, or got. He remembered only that Eric had loved him; as he now remembered that Leona had loved him. He had despised Eric’s manhood by treating him as a woman, by telling him how inferior he was to a woman, by treating him as nothing more than a hideous sexual deformity. But Leona had not been a deformity. And he had used against her the very epithets he had used against Eric, and in the very same way, with the same roaring in his head and the same intolerable pressure in his chest.

Vivaldo lived alone in a first-floor apartment on Bank Street. He was home, Rufus saw the light in the window. He slowed down a little but the cold air refused to let him hesitate; he hurried through the open street door, thinking, Well, I might as well get it over with. And he knocked quickly on Vivaldo’s door.

There had been the sound of a typewriter; now it stopped. Rufus knocked again.

“Who is it?” called Vivaldo, sounding extremely annoyed.

“It’s me. It’s me. Rufus.”

The sudden light, when Vivaldo opened the door, was a great shock, as was Vivaldo’s face.

“My God,” said Vivaldo.

He grabbed Rufus around the neck, pulling him inside and holding him. They both leaned for a moment against Vivaldo’s door.

“My God,” Vivaldo said again, “where’ve you been? Don’t you know you shouldn’t do things like that? You’ve had all of us scared to death, baby. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

It was a great shock and it weakened Rufus, exactly as though he had been struck in the belly. He clung to Vivaldo as though he were on the ropes. Then he pulled away.

Vivaldo looked at him, looked hard at him, up and down. And Vivaldo’s face told him how he looked. He moved away from the door, away from Vivaldo’s scrutiny.

“Ida’s been here; she’s half crazy. Do you realize you dropped out of sight almost a month ago?”

“Yes,” he said, and sat down heavily in Vivaldo’s easy chair — which sagged beneath him almost to the floor. He looked around the room, which had once been so familiar, which now seemed so strange.

He leaned back, his hands over his eyes.

“Take off your jacket,” Vivaldo said. “I’ll see if I can scare up something for you to eat — are you hungry?”

“No, not now. Tell me, how is Ida?”

“Well, she’s worried, you know, but there’s nothing wrong with her. Rufus, you want me to fix you a drink?”