Stanley Elkin - Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers

“It’s your party,” the man said.

“Then let’s go some place else,” Ed Wolfe said. “I get nervous here.”

“I know a place,” the Negro said.

“ You know a place. You’re a stranger here.”

“No, man,” the Negro said. “This is my home town. I come down here sometimes just to sit in the lobby and read the newspapers. It looks good, you know what I mean? It looks good for the race.”

“ The Wall Street Journal? You’re kidding Ed Wolfe. Watch that. ”

“No,” the Negro said. “Honest.”

“I’ll be damned,” Ed Wolfe said. “I come for the same reasons.”

“Yeah,” the Negro said. “No shit?”

“Sure, the same reasons.” He laughed. “Let’s get out of here.” He tried to stand, but fell back again in his chair. “Hey, help me up,” he said loudly. The Negro got up and came around to Ed Wolfe’s side of the table. Leaning over, he raised him to his feet. Some of the others in the room looked at them curiously. “It’s all right,” Ed Wolfe said. “He’s my man. I take him with me everywhere. It looks good for the race.” With their arms around each other’s shoulders they stumbled out of the bar and through the lobby.

In the street Ed Wolfe leaned against the building, and the Negro hailed a cab, the dark left hand shooting up boldly, the long black body stretching forward, raised on tiptoes, the head turned sharply along the left shoulder. Ed Wolfe knew that he had never done it before. The Negro came up beside him and guided Ed Wolfe toward the curb. Holding the door open, he shoved him into the cab with his left hand. Ed Wolfe lurched against the cushioned seat awkwardly. The Negro gave the driver an address and the cab moved off. Ed Wolfe reached for the window handle and rolled it down rapidly. He shoved his head out the window of the taxi and smiled and waved at the people along the curb.

“Hey, man, close the window,” the Negro said after a moment. “Close the window. The cops, the cops.”

Ed Wolfe laid his head on the edge of the taxi window and looked up at the Negro, who was leaning over him, smiling; he seemed to be trying to tell him something.

“Where we going, man?” Ed Wolfe asked.

“We’re there,” the Negro said, sliding along the seat toward the door.

“One ninety-five,” the driver said.

“It’s your party,” Ed Wolfe told the Negro, waving away responsibility.

The Negro looked disappointed, but reached into his pocket.

Did he see what I had on me? Ed Wolfe wondered anxiously. Jerk, drunk, you’ll be rolled. They’ll cut your throat and leave your skin in an alley. Be careful.

“Come on, Ed,” the Negro said. He took Ed Wolfe by the arm and got him out of the taxi.

Fake. Fake, Ed Wolfe thought. Murderer. Nigger. Razor man.

The Negro pulled him toward a doorway. “You’ll meet my friends,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ed Wolfe said. “I’ve heard so much about them.”

“Hold it a second,” the Negro said. He went up to the window and pressed his ear against the opaque glass.

Ed Wolfe watched him without making a move.

“Here’s the place,” the Negro said proudly.

“Sure,” Ed Wolfe said. “Sure it is.”

“Come on, man,” the Negro urged him.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Ed Wolfe said. “But my head is bending low,” he mumbled.

The Negro took out a ring of keys, selected one and put it in the door. Ed Wolfe followed him through.

“Hey, Oliver,” somebody called. “Hey, baby, it’s Oliver. Oliver looks good. He looks good .”

“Hello, Mopiani,” the Negro said to a short black man.

“How is stuff, Oliver?” Mopiani said to him.

“How’s the market?” a man next to Mopiani asked, with a laugh.

“Ain’t no mahket, baby. It’s a sto ’,” somebody else said.

A woman stopped, looked at Ed Wolfe for a moment, and asked, “Who’s the ofay, Oliver?”

“That’s Oliver’s broker, baby.”

“Oliver’s broker looks good,” Mopiani said. “He looks good .”

“This is my friend, Mr. Ed Wolfe,” Oliver told them.

“Hey there,” Mopiani said.

“Charmed,” Ed Wolfe said.

“How’s it going, man,” a Negro said indifferently.

“Delighted,” Ed Wolfe said.

He let Oliver lead him to a table.

“I’ll get the drinks, Ed,” Oliver said, leaving him.

Ed Wolfe looked at the room glumly. People were drinking steadily, gaily. They kept their bottles under their chairs in paper bags. He watched a man take a bag from beneath his chair, raise it and twist the open end of the bag carefully around the neck of the bottle so that it resembled a bottle of champagne swaddled in its toweling. The man poured liquor into his glass grandly. At the dark far end of the room some musicians were playing and three or four couples danced dreamily in front of them. He watched the musicians closely and was vaguely reminded of the airline pilots.

In a few minutes Oliver returned with a paper bag and some glasses. A girl was with him. “Mary Roberta, Ed Wolfe,” he said, very pleased. Ed Wolfe stood up clumsily and the girl nodded.

“No more ice,” Oliver explained.

“What the hell,” Ed Wolfe said.

Mary Roberta sat down and Oliver pushed her chair up to the table. She sat with her hands in her lap and Oliver pushed her as though she were a cripple.

“Real nice little place here, Ollie,” Ed Wolfe said.

“Oh, it’s just the club,” Oliver said.

“Real nice,” Ed Wolfe said.

Oliver opened the bottle, then poured liquor into their glasses and put the paper bag under his chair. Oliver raised his glass. Ed Wolfe touched it lamely with his own and leaned back, drinking. When he put it down empty, Oliver filled it again from the paper bag. Ed Wolfe drank sluggishly, like one falling asleep, and listened, numbed, to Oliver and the girl. His glass never seemed to be empty any more. He drank steadily, but the liquor seemed to remain at the same level in the glass. He was conscious that someone else had joined them at the table. “Oliver’s broker looks good,” he heard somebody say. Mopiani. Warm and drowsy and gently detached, he listened, feeling as he had in barbershops, having his hair cut, conscious of the barber, unseen behind him, touching his hair and scalp with his warm fingers. “You see, Bert? He looks good,” Mopiani was saying.

With great effort Ed Wolfe shifted in his chair, turning to the girl.

“Thought you were giving out on us, Ed,” Oliver said. “That’s it. That’s it.”

The girl sat with her hands folded in her lap.

“Mary Roberta,” Ed Wolfe said.

“Uh huh,” the girl said.

“Mary Roberta.”

“Yes,” the girl said. “That’s right.”

“You want to dance?” Ed Wolfe asked.

“All right,” she said. “I guess so.”

“That’s it, that’s it,” Oliver said. “Stir yourself.”

Ed Wolfe rose clumsily, cautiously, like one standing in a stalled Ferris wheel, and went around behind her chair, pulling it far back from the table with the girl in it. He took her warm, bare arm and moved toward the dancers. Mopiani passed them with a bottle. “Looks good, looks good,” Mopiani said approvingly. He pulled her against him to let Mopiani pass, tightening the grip of his pale hand on her brown arm. A muscle leaped beneath the girl’s smooth skin, filling his palm. At the edge of the dance floor he leaned forward into the girl’s arms and they moved slowly, thickly across the floor. He held the girl close, conscious of her weight, the life beneath her body, just under her skin. Sick, he remembered a jumping bean he had held once in his palm, awed and frightened by the invisible life, jerking and hysterical, inside the stony shell. The girl moved with him in the music, Ed Wolfe astonished by the burden of her life. He stumbled away from her deliberately. Grinning, he moved un-gently back against her. “Look out for Ed Wolfe,” he crooned.