The Town and the City: A Novel

  “Listen, you,” she said in a very low voice, “why didn’t you come tonight?”

  “Because I had to play here!” he laughed. “I had a last-minute call!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded intently. She knew the girls in front of the bandstand were watching her and laughing, but she didn’t care, she didn’t care about the whole roaring place.

  “I didn’t have time, crazy!” laughed Buddy, pushing her lightly with a big meaty hand. “Come here, come here, listen to these chords, dizzy!”

  “You’re lying,” she said half-heartedly, looking at him now with a wary, amused eye, knowing that everything was all right again.

  “Okay, so I’m lying,” the boy frowned. “Here’s the chords I was telling you about—wait a minute,” and he paused broodingly while the singer sang slowly to the end of her chorus in the sudden hush of a suspended tempo, then he struck his chords softly, with great spread-eagled fingers, and stared at the keys moodily during the applause.

  He got up—tall and big, slouching and shambling dreamily, somewhat consumptive—and took Liz to a corner table and ordered her a coke. He was dark, with pensive brown eyes, slow lazy movements, and a way of staring into space absentmindedly when someone spoke and turning to gaze at them with a serious, stupefacted, scrutinizing earnestness.

  Liz was looking up at him gleefully now. “Oh, I know you weren’t lying. Don’t look so stupid!” she cried happily.

  “Who’s looking stupid?” he mumbled in his absentminded way.

  “You are! You don’t even know that I was jealous!”

  “Jealous? Why?”

  “Oh, never mind!” she cried in his face angrily. “How can you be so big and foolish! You’re so foolish—and so big!” She stamped her foot and sulked.

  And he chuckled, hugely pleased, staring at her with fond amazement. He not only liked her, but actually she was the only girl he had ever noticed particularly. For the most part he went around wrapped in his own thoughts like a great brooding monk, always thinking about something other than what was directly at hand—a dreamy, shambling, overgrown boy with strange notions of his own, thoughts of his own, and music in his mind … destined, somehow, to forget his life in a dream. He had spent his boyhood on the farm, and then, in high school, where he had met Liz, a few piano lessons had suggested to him that he become a jazz musician. He was a good one now, with an inborn genius for music, and the restless exploring originality of the American jazz musician. He dressed smoothly, sleekly, with his immense size forty-six drape jacket, long lapels, a bow tie, and a way of wearing his clothes with a catlike slouch and angular ease. He was only eighteen years old. And the sharp, vivacious, abrupt Liz was the girl who could wake him up and make him pay his amazed attention to her.

  “That singer,” said Liz now, as the jukebox music resumed thrumming and low, “I’ll bet she’s making eyes at you. And all those girls standing in front of your piano. That’s my piano!” she cried. “Damn bunch of flirts! Why did you have to get a job in here!” she demanded.

  “This is a good place! Do you know what I’m getting for tonight? Fifteen bucks!”

  “Well, what about that singer?”

  “Her? She’s married to the drummer. You’re crazy.”

  “Well, I saw her looking at you, brother.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes! Don’t look so happy!”

  And they sat at the little corner table looking at each other with a kind of grave, absentminded delight. Soon they were holding hands casually and looking around the room in solemn curiosity. They were young and they forgot one moment from the other.

  “Buddy!” said Liz finally. “You’re not mad at me for being jealous.”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  “It’s only because I love you so crazy, Buddy,” she whispered savagely. “Buddy, do you love me as much as I love you? Now, really, do you?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you’re going to be my husband,” she stated firmly.

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so! Don’t forget, you!” she whispered in a sulk. And suddenly there were tears welling in her eyes and she was looking at him, studying his face intently, and trembling convulsively as though she was going to cry. She felt that furious longing for him to “notice” her, that longing possessiveness that was the one ruling passion of her life, something she remembered from way back as a little girl when she would protect little Mickey in a fight, or even Peter on one occasion, and take them home and make them play with her. It was always that dreamy absentmindedness of them that drove her furious to own them, make them stay beside her dreaming. But when they noticed her she was always scared.

  “Take it easy, Liz!” pleaded Buddy softly and swiftly in her ear. “Don’t cry. You know I mean every word I say.”

  “Oh, you’re so dumb!”

  “Okay, I’m dumb,” he laughed, squeezing her hand in his sudden, earnest, astonished way.

  “We’ll be married and we’ll have children and we won’t ever see nobody else,” she pouted darkly. “You’re so big and dumb. I want you for myself. I don’t want other girls around. I don’t want them to look at you because you’re mine. You belong to me. You do, you know. Buddy, you’ve got to!”

  “How can they help looking at me!” he shouted, laughing. “I’m sitting right up there on the bandstand! Crazy Liz!”

  “We’ll be married and we’ll have lots of children and we won’t see anybody else in the world,” she said simply, and then she broke out in a gleeful little laugh and kissed him quickly. “I don’t like it here in this damn place. I wish you weren’t a musician—but that’s one reason why I love you. I love you because you’re a musician and a big fool.”

  “Great,” he grinned absentmindedly.

  “You’re going to be a great musician, I’ll help you,” went on Liz as though reciting things to herself. “And I’ll be a great singer myself like Martha Tilton. That’s what it’s going to be,” she said firmly.

  When it was time for Buddy to go back on the bandstand, he got up slowly and lazily, tousled Liz’s hair in his fond abstracted way, winked at her, and went shambling back to the piano, and she watched him with proud approval, with brooding satisfaction.

  The drummer struck a cracking rim-shot and the band was off once more on a fast swing beat. All the dancers began to bounce in unison, tall girls were held off at arm’s length, scissoring sexy knees swiftly, pulled back suddenly to whirl and bounce, flung away again scissoring and bowing. The room seemed to rock from dancing and din, the smoke was thick and heavy, the waitresses scrambled through the crowd with their trays yelling orders, everyone was talking or shouting. The saxophone player with a sweating bursting face was playing with his eyes closed, driving the instrument up and down, standing with his legs wide apart. The drummer grinned and bobbed his head steadily as he snapped the snare brushes. Someone was drunk across the way, there was a weave of bodies in the dimness, the manager came rushing up, a glass smashed, someone was being thrown out.

  Liz watched all this with a scowl of displeasure. Only her Buddy was calm and beautiful to look at in the whole place, he just sat slouching at the piano with his hands reached out, motionless, executing soft tinkling interplays in the wild music and noise, grinning secretly over his ideas. Only Buddy was like that in the whole place, Buddy and maybe three soldiers who sat at the table in front of Liz. The three soldiers sat motionless, sullen, a little drunk, watching with bleary eyes, paying no attention to two military policemen who stood in the corner twirling their heavy sticks abstractedly. They and Buddy had other things on their minds, dark and meaningful, besides frolic and screaming. Most of all Liz hated the girls who were there “making damn fools of themselves.”

  She hated the whole fury and clamor of it, she wanted to get away and go with Buddy to their own place on the riverbank where they sang to each other and ate fried clams and talked about things, where everything wasn’t crazy and honkyt
onk and silly like this. She knew what she wanted. Only she and Buddy, together, alone in all the world in dreams, was good, only that was true and wonderful and good.

  It was her first furious smothering love.

  When the club closed for the night, Liz and Buddy drove out to Bill’s on the highway and bought two containers of fried clams, then out along the dark river several miles to “their” spot on the riverbank beneath a grove of pines, where they sat down on a bed of green grass, just by the water.

  The river was sown with starlight, bright and misty, flowing hugely in its dark tidal silence, all mud-smelling, all rippling soft. They could see the railroad tracks gleaming across the river in dark thickets there, the Montreal train was howling almost out of earshot upriver, faintly interrupted in night airs. The breeze harped softly in the pines overhead, the water lapped at their feet. It was the great nighttime and summer’s joy of their hearts. When they thought of each other, they always thought of each other on the riverbank at night, their faces dark and dreaming and the mysterious shadow of themselves in darkness, speaking softly in the pine-scented darkness, sighing, waiting, and sweetly kissing.

  “Hey,” said Liz huskily in Buddy’s mouth, “I don’t want ever to go home.” She had said that a thousand times. “We’ll always come here,” she said simply. “This is our place. Someday when we’re rich we’ll come back here and build our house right here. A twelve-room house.”

  “Say, this wouldn’t be such a bad spot for a house!” cried Buddy, looking around with dreamy amazement.

  “Just leave those things to me,” she said, “you just think about music and how to become a great pianist and play with Benny Goodman. I’ll figure the rest.”

  “Yeah? You’re supposed to become a singer too! How will you work that in?”

  “I’ll do that, too,” she said firmly, “I’ll do a lot of things.”

  And they ate their fried clams, and munched, and looked around.

  “I just remembered a great song today!” cried Buddy. “I’ll bet you can’t remember it. I’m going to make an arrangement of it. She’s Funny That Way!”

  “Oh, I know that!” said Liz scornfully. “Huh! Listen … I even know the words. I’m not much to look at,” she sang, “nothing to see—just glad I’m living—and happy to be—I’ve got a man—crazy for me—he’s funny that way.”

  “Bet you don’t know the second chorus!” he cried gleefully. “I can’t save a dollar—ain’t worth a cent—but she’d never holler—she’d live in a tent—I got a woman—crazy for me—she’s funny that way. Think of the beautiful chord progressions in that, beautiful but simple, just pure!”

  “And the words!” cried Liz, kissing him. “I’ve got a man crazy for me. You are crazy for me, aren’t you, Buddy?”

  “Let me finish my fried clams. For me it would be I got a woman crazy for me.”

  “Am I as good as fried clams?”

  “Maybe with a little tartar sauce—”

  “Oh, you wheel you!” she sniffed with delight.

  And then they lay back with their arms as pillows and looked up at the milky stars and talked.

  “You look at those things long enough and you’re knocked out,” said Buddy, staring astonishedly at the stars. “They’re so far off, you know?”

  “What do you expect!”

  “I mean they’re so far, so far gone! Deep! You look up there long enough and it’s just like looking into a big hole, you’re afraid you’ll fall in it—like when you drink too much.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Liz fondly.

  “I used to go to Smitty’s house and play records and play piano and then at midnight go out on the porch and drink a can of beer. He lived right by the railroad, you know. I used to watch those passenger trains clipping along to Boston and New York and then Chicago, right under the stars, and I used to think—someday I’ll be able to play like Teddy Wilson, I’ll have that left hand of his. Boy!”

  “You’ll play better than him,” said Liz. “You’ll play in Hollywood and Chicago and Florida and every place. And I’ll be with you … I’ll be the singer, you’ll be the leader.”

  “Nobody can play better than Teddy Wilson, dope! Look at that star there. It’s gold!” he cried, amazed. “The others are all silver and that one is gold!”

  Then they were almost asleep from the drowsiness of lapping water and the breeze, and the cool enfolding flower-smells all around, and the grass underneath them that was like warm hay in the cool night—the young lovers, on the starry shore at night, in the bower, dreaming of trains and far-off cities of jazz.

  “When we’re married we’ll wake up in the morning and tell each other stories,” said Liz. “That’s how we’ll wake up. We won’t need an alarm clock. And then we’ll run down the hall on a nice big thick carpet that tickles the toes and go take our showers together. Then we’ll go downstairs and have a ranch style breakfast. Hmm! And for lunch what’ll we have? Cheeseburgers! pineapple salad! Hmmm!”

  “You want some more fried clams, greedy?”

  “How did you guess!” She tinkled with laughter.

  “Finish them. I’m all through. I’m almost ready to sleep. It’ll be dawn soon. The sun always comes up,” he said sleepily, “all the stars and the sun on a wheel, like a big, slow ferris wheel rolling in the universe. Someday I’ll use stuff like that for lyrics—nice love song with different lyrics. Not just love, dove, blue, you, June, moon—but real beautiful words. Did you ever hear that great blues Black and Blue? That’s a colored song from New Orleans. Oh, my sin is in my skin, Oh, why do I feel so black and blue? … Guy sitting in his shack on a gray Monday morning, it’s drizzling and he’s real depressed, he’s sitting on his old rickety bed, just feeling rotten.”

  “Tell me some more!” cried Liz eagerly.

  “That’s all.”

  “But there’s more to it! The rickety bed—tell me a story about it!”

  “Ah, I feel too lazy.”

  “He’s alone on his rickety bed! You’ve got to tell me stories. You’ve got to learn now!” she cried.

  “Tomorrow. I hear music right now. Chords, melodies, chords—if I could hit the chords I hear, I’d be so great. Mad chords full of new sounds and all kinds of … colors almost …”

  And they brooded by the riverbank.

  “Boy, is your old man going to be sore this time!” cried Buddy, sitting up. “It’s almost four! That old man’s going to hate me!”

  “I don’t care. We’ll be married soon and then they won’t be able to tell me what time to come home.

  “I hate it at home!” cried Liz, sitting up suddenly. “My father’s so gloomy because he lost his shop and we have to save money and everything and scrimp. I hate it there now. I want to go away with you. We’ll be married soon,” she pouted.

  “You’re always talking like we’re getting married next week!” chuckled Buddy, pushing her away playfully.

  “Next month.”

  “Next month? Are you crazy?”

  “Yes. You’ll get that job in Hartford and we’ll go live there.”

  “I don’t know if I can get that job!” he laughed.

  “But you will,” she said quietly. “Then we’ll get married. I love you, I love you, I love you. Then we’ll be together always. I want to live in the same house with you, I want it to be my house. Yes.”

  “I won’t be making enough money to get a house!” He laughed again.

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh, be honest, honey!” she cried, wincing.

  “How, dope?”

  “I’ll get a job in a defense plant in Hartford. You play with the band and I’ll work in the defense plant. I’ll make a hundred dollars a week.”

  “Say,” mused the boy, “maybe I could get a job in a defense plant too, and play with the band at night, huh? Maybe we’d really rake in the dough that way!”

  “Of course, you fool!” she said scornfully now. “Let me do the thinking in this family. You just lay there and think about
your mad chords.”

  “Poo!” said Buddy, blowing in her face. He rolled away dodging her hand, they laughed and squealed wrestling on the ground, they threw pine cones at each other, they raced in the woods, and they were alone in the middle of their own nighttime earth, in gorgeous darkness, in the bower, alone and hidden in the land—and they were happy now, they were young, they didn’t care what would ever happen.

  [3]

  One night in July Peter was coming out of a movie with some of his usher chums. It was about eleven o’clock of a warm pleasant night with a yellow halfmoon just rising into view over the rim of Daley Square buildings.

  Liz Martin had been waiting and watching for her brother Peter from the window of a sandwich shop across the street. Now when she saw him scuffling about on the Square she ran out and called him, and he looked up with an angry preoccupied glare.

  “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m going some place!”

  “Look,” she said scornfully, “just forget that silly gang of yours for a while and come with me. It’s important. I want you to make a big promise to me.”

  He looked at her with curiosity; he had never seen her looking so flushed and delighted. But he also noticed she was raggedly nervous.

  “What do you want me for?” he demanded.

  “I want to talk to you.” She tugged on his arm impulsively. When Peter didn’t budge, she looked up pleadingly at him. He saw the terror and loneliness in her eyes, realizing at once that she had been waiting for him for hours during the movie.

  He went with her, with some embarrassed reluctance arranging to meet his buddies later, and they sauntered around the Square a few times.

  “Now we’ll walk home,” said Liz gravely, “and by the time we get there you’ll promise me.” She had taken his hand, to his dreamy surprise.

  “But you haven’t told me what’s up!” he cried.

  “I’m going to marry Buddy,” she said simply.

  “You’re going to marry Buddy, okay. What am I supposed to do?” he said very casually.