‘What’s Chivas Regal?’
‘If you don’t like, I’ll drink it.’
They sat for the better part of an hour, during which several men stopped by the table to speak with Jean-Victor, who seemed to know everyone in Torremolinos, and each of the men wished Cato a good time during his vacation. Finally Jean-Victor said, ‘We’d better get you a place to sleep. Fellow I was looking for isn’t coming, apparently.’
‘Who?’
‘Chap from Boston named Paxton Fell. Lots of money. Exquisite taste. He has a swank place on a mountain back of town. Extra rooms … you know.’
‘Not exactly,’ Cato said frankly. ‘I’m a new boy in town. What do I have to do to get one of Fell’s rooms?’
Jean-Victor raised his palms upward and leaned forward till his face was quite close to Cato’s. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I’ve arranged for several young men to take accommodations at Fell’s apartment, and I know they live there for nothing and get a little spending money to boot. But what happens when the lights go out … who does what to who … I really don’t know.’
‘Sounds adventurous,’ Cato said.
‘Judge for yourself,’ Jean-Victor replied, pointing over Cato’s shoulder.
Through the brass-studded doors had come a gentleman, perhaps in his early sixties, very tall, very slim, very well dressed. His shoes, Cato noted, were brown, with extra-heavy soles and the kind of sewing that men paid real money for. ‘I dig those shoes,’ Cato whispered.
‘Mr. Fell!’ Jean-Victor cried. ‘Join us.’
Slowly the newcomer surveyed the bar, peering into the various booths and nodding gravely to those who greeted him. Apparently he found nothing more interesting than this table, so with a kind of genteel reluctance, looking elsewhere as he did so, he sat down. Then slowly he turned to face Cato, and after appraising him, said, ‘We find very few Negroes in Torremolinos.’
‘I saw that on the street.’
‘So we are especially gracious in our welcome to those who do come.’ He paused for Cato to say something, then said petulantly, ‘Come, come. That’s a cue for you to explain how you got here.’
Cato was about to mumble something, not knowing what he ought to say, when the tweed-suited woman who had paid for the drinks moved boldly across the room, ignoring Mr. Fell and grabbing Cato by the shoulder.
‘My God!’ she cried in a shout of triumph. ‘It’s him!’ She slammed onto the table a newspaper clipping of the widely publicized photograph, with Cato, his machine gun at the ready, looking over his shoulder and backing out of the church. ‘You’re that one, aren’t you?’
Everyone in the Wilted Swan gathered about the table while Jean-Victor and Mr. Fell scrabbled for the photograph. Finally Fell gained possession of it, held it up to the light, and compared it to Cato. ‘My word!’ he finally said. ‘An authentic folk hero!’ Then, to Cato’s astonishment, he leaned across the table and kissed Cato twice. ‘You were a genius,’ he said admiringly, to pick the Episcopalians. Laura here is an Episcopalian’—he indicated the tweedy woman—‘and they’re all filthy rich. To take money from them is like being an ecclesiastical Robin Hood. You amazing boy! Did you have to flee the country?’
‘Tell me about it!’ Laura said, ordering drinks for everyone. ‘This is so exciting, I feel like singing “La Marseillaise.” ’ In a loud, clear whistle she offered a few bars of that revolutionary song, then asked, ‘Did you gouge any money from the skinflints?’
While the free drinks were circulating, Jean-Victor grabbed off two whiskeys, downed them rapidly, and as he left, whispered in Paxton Fell’s ear, ‘You will remember that I brought him to you.’
The discussion continued for an hour and a half, at the end of which Laura invited everyone to her place for dinner. She lived in a castle west of Torremolinos, furnished with antiques she had found in rural farmhouses on her excursions through the mountains. The atmosphere of each room had been so tastefully recreated in the old style that one expected Don Quixote to come marching in for his dinner. The chairs were lumbering old masterpieces in oak, no two alike, and the dining table was thirty feet long and eight wide, made of planking hand-hewn more than four centuries ago. The fireplace was enormous and burned logs cut in eight-foot lengths, requiring two men to heft them, and the lights were so constructed that the electric bulbs were invisible. Encrusted candles guttered in the drafts which moved through the castle.
‘Come in!’ Laura shouted, alerting her servants, and while her guests found places about the table, she spread the notorious photograph before them and demanded that Cato explain what it was all about, and as he looked around the circle of faces, he imagined that these self-indulgent expatriates seriously wanted to understand the revolutionary forces that were sweeping their homeland.
By the time dinner ended, at one-thirty in the morning, Paxton Fell was satisfied that in Cato Jackson he had found a literate, well-mannered young man of extreme vitality and charm. He looked upon this exotic Negro as other Caucasian men look upon pretty Chinese girls, as a challenge, and when the guests started to depart he took Cato by the arm and said, ‘Jean-Victor told me you had not chosen a place to stay. I have ample room.’ And he led Cato to his Mercedes-Benz convertible, a car with many special features, and when Cato had sunk into its ample leather he reminded Fell, ‘My bag is still at that bar in town.’
‘Forget it!’ Fell said. ‘I’m sure I can find some extra pajamas and a toothbrush. We’ll get your luggage in the morning.’
With considerable skill he drove the Mercedes down from Laura’s castle and onto the main shore road, where cars from all nations were screaming along at seventy and eightly miles an hour; a good many people were killed in Torremolinos and the surrounding villages each year, for the most daring drivers in the world frequented the broad, sweeping roads and insisted upon testing their cars and their nerves. Fell drove at eighty, then slowly applied the brakes and turned left up a steep hill that led to an area called Rancho de Santo Domingo, a private domain guarded by a stucco wall, uniformed security patrols and German police dogs. Inside the walls Cato saw a series of spectacular mansions, one challenging the other, and at the edge of the settlement was Paxton Fell’s house.
It was low and neat, whereas the others had been somewhat opulent, but it was apparent that a fortune must have been spent on the landscaping and the touches of exquisite decoration. ‘I want you to get your first glimpse of the place from the terrace,’ Fell said, leading Cato to a garden overlooking the Mediterranean, which lay far below. There was a partial moon, which cast arrows of shimmering light across the water, and in the distance, not far from the shores of Africa, a dimly lit British freighter plowed its way slowly toward Alicante to pick up a cargo of oranges.
‘This is to be your home,’ Fell said, leading Cato inside. The large room into which they stepped was a refreshing change from the castle, for it contained not one extravagant note, except perhaps three magnificent bovedas that occupied most of the ceiling.
Cato had never before seen these Spanish domes, which were constructed of bricks laid in overlapping circles, each round projecting inward from the preceding, until at last, in some mysterious way which the workmen would not explain, a final group of bricks was set in place, closing the opening at the top and locking the whole together. During the month he lived at Paxton Fell’s, he never ceased to wonder at these lovely bovedas, for they formed a kind of heaven, their inverted domes lacking only stars and a moon.
When Cato was telling me, some time later, about his arrival in Torremolinos and how he had made his acquaintance with Paxton Fell, I asked him frankly, ‘What did you have to do to earn your money?’
He told a bizarre story. ‘I was interested, too, because I didn’t know any more than you did. First night, nothing. Second night, nothing, and I was beginning to get worried. Nothing but the best food you ever tasted, prepared by two Spanish cooks, both men. And of course, each afternoon we went to the Wilted Swan and sat at
one of the tables till nearly midnight, when we had dinner. I think Fell wanted to show me off … like he wanted the others to see he could still attract a live one.
‘Third night we had Laura and her gang in for dinner. It was outstanding. Lot of noise, lot of wild chatter. When I go to bed Paxton Fell comes into the room with me and I think: Here it comes. And you won’t believe what he wanted! For me to get undressed and stand in a white marble niche where there should have been a statue but they hadn’t got around to it yet. He had rigged a special spotlight to shine on me, and as I stood there, he said, “Like a Greek statue … like a great masterpiece from Mycenae.” He kept repeating this, and then he did the damnedest thing you ever heard of.
‘From his coat pocket he took a feather—a feather carved from pure silver. Where in hell he found it, I’ll never know. And he came over to the niche where I was standing and with this damned feather he tickled my balls until I got an erection. Then he stood back and gave me some more jazz about the Greek statue and the Mycenae bit. Then he came up again and tickled some more, and finally he said with great conviction, “Oh, Cato! With that instrument you are going to make a score of girls supremely happy.” And that was it.’
‘You mean, that was his bit?’
‘With me, it was. Now he did have some friends—all men—and he insisted upon showing me off to them, and one of them got so excited when he saw me standing in the niche that he busted into my room later that night and crawled into bed with me and gave me a sensational blow job. And another night Fell brought in Laura and her gang of women and they admired me for half an hour, and it was then I figured I better get to hell out of there.’
When Cato decided to quit Paxton Fell’s pleasure dome, he encountered no recriminations from his sybaritic host. ‘You’re a splendid young American,’ Fell said approvingly as they dined together the last night. ‘You have a brilliant future—if you stay away from machine guns—and it’s been a privilege knowing you.’ In the morning Fell drove him into town in the Mercedes and said, in parting, ‘Remember, you’ll always be welcome on the hill. If you care to stop by now and then, you can leave word at the Wilted Swan.’ He bowed deeply, then drove off, and before the car had disappeared around the first bend, it was doing seventy.
Once more Cato stowed his gear with the bartender—this time with four pairs of expensive shoes given him by Fell—so that he could tour the town to find lodgings, but the spirit of Torremolinos had so infected him that before taking action he decided to rest awhile, and he lounged at the bar, inspecting the new batch of tourists. It was now April and livelier groups were arriving, including many who were determined to swim no matter how cold the sea. As he sat in the sun, the only Negro within the area, he contemplated his position and found it rather promising: In a pinch I can always live at Fell’s … and pick up spending money too. His crowd thinks any black man who can use a fork exotic, so if I need additional cash I can get it from his friends. The fat guy who got into bed with me … the other one from Chicago … or the guy with the poodle. On the other hand, I’m sure I could get some kind of job at the castle. Those rich dames really dig the black boy. They like to have him around—sort of a toy, dangerous but fun. Cato, you got it made. What I mean, you got a safety valve.
Even in his thoughts he fell into Geechee: ‘I Judge Mister Wister gonna keep sendin’ that long green. He got a evil conscience—not for hisself, for dem udder ofays—’n he good for bread, man, he good for bread.’ He shook his head in incredulity at the prospect of Mister Wister’s sending him a regular check, then smiled at the security this gave him. Course, I can’t go home till that warrant for my arrest cools off. Maybe one year, maybe two. So I’m stuck in Spain, and there couldn’t be a better place. No, there could not be a better place for exile.
He leaned back and let the warming sun hit him in the face. When he opened his eyes he saw a squad of beautiful Scandinavian girls passing, and he said softly to himself, ‘Man, this is livin’.’ But the sight of the girls forced him back to a contemplation of his real problem, and he thought: I have a feeling homosexuality is not for me. I just don’t dig it—they wanna make horses’ asses of themselves … For me, straight is better—maybe not better, but it keeps things a little cleaner. What I really need is to find me a chick for the long haul. If I’m gonna be here a year, I better find me a chick who’s gonna be here a year too.
He knew it was inevitable that the girl would have to be white; there were no black ones. No problem. In Torremolinos to be black was an asset, because it made you unique. Girls were on the make; they were in exile, too, and some of them would also be looking for the long haul, and that kind of white girl had a built-in curiosity about black men. I calculate it’s gonna be easier to get me a chick here than it would be in Philadelphia, he thought. Content with this generalization, he snapped his fingers: But the problem’s the same the world over. How you gonna find one with money? I can support me, but I sure as hell can’t support the chick too. He then took refuge in a saying he had learned in North Philadelphia: ‘A man don’t have to be dumb. He can look around. He can take his time.’
Satisfied with these tentative conclusions, he left the sunken bar and started walking idly about the town. When he passed the Northern Lights he was tempted to go into the bar to see what was happening, but he refrained for a good reason: Stay clear of that joint. Them Swedes is gorgeous and they go for black boys, but they’re all down here cheap tourist rates and there ain’t a ruble in the lot. Farewell, Northern Lights.
At the Brandenburger he saw a large group of attractive girls, probably down on a special tour from West Berlin, and he was tempted to join them, for they were obviously interested when they saw him standing by the hotel entrance and he knew from others that German girls liked blacks, perhaps as a means of outraging their parents, but he was afraid of them. Yes, he was afraid of what they would have done to him in 1941 had he been a black in Germany. They were enticing people, the Germans, and the young girls were luscious, but they were not for him.
He liked the French hotels. He liked the strangeness of the language, the men who spoke like Charles Boyer, the classy girls who always seemed to have a ribbon or a hemline that was provocative. He could go for a French girl but he had heard that they brought even less money than the Swedes. He therefore lounged in the sunlight before the French hotels, admired the women he saw, then continued on.
By the time he completed his circuit of the town, he had thus formulated four working principles: no more men, no impecunious Swedes, no Germans under any circumstances, and probably no Frenchwomen. He feared he might be narrowing his field unwisely, but he felt that he had time. With the cushion of safety provided by the regular checks from Mister Wister, he could afford to drift for a couple of weeks. He’d start dropping by the Arc de Triomphe in the evening to see what the action was providing.
In this mood he saw ahead of him the street sign of a bar he had not noticed before: a huge wooden revolver, Texas style, with the words THE ALAMO. That’s all I need, he thought ruefully. A Texas bar. Them Ku Kluxers. He was about to pass by when he happened to spot through the open door one of the most beautiful blondes he had ever seen. She looked like a Swede—not too tall, not too heavy. She had champagne-colored hair, worn naturally, so that it bounced about her lovely round face. Her eyes, her teeth, her complexion, the formation of her body were all perfection, and he stopped in admiration: A boy could bury hisse’f in that all night and wake up in the mornin’ screamin’ for more.
He stood at the bar door for some moments, simply looking at the Scandinavian. She appeared to be working in the place, for she moved among the American soldiers, shoving drinks, and they all seemed to know her, for the bolder ones made grabs at her legs as she passed. Such advances she repelled with solid swipes of a towel and a hearty laugh.
‘You can come in, you know,’ a tall bearded American said. ‘Always providing you got money.’ The man extended his hand and said, ‘Name’s Joe. I run
the place. Come on in and have a beer on the owner. He waters the stuff.’ He led Cato into the small drinking area and introduced him to six or seven of the soldiers. ‘They come down here from Sevilla,’ he explained. ‘The girls are mostly Americans.’
‘The Swede?’ Cato asked, sipping his beer.
‘Norwegian. Name’s Britta. Come on over, Britt.’
She interrupted her duties and walked trimly over to the two men, extending her hand to Cato and saying, ‘Hello, my name’s Britta.’
‘And from the looks of things—you’re his girl?’
‘I am … in a way of speaking.’
‘I could cut my throat. Son,’ he said, turning to Joe, ‘you are to be congratulated. In fact, you can even be jubilated. Can I buy you both a beer?’
‘Today, no. You’re the guest,’ Joe said. ‘But we’ll mark it on the book.’
‘And when we do that,’ Britta warned, ‘we never forget. The handsome black American … owes us two beers.’ She smiled at him in her frank uncomplicated way and moved on.
‘So far, she’s the winner,’ Cato said admiringly.
‘When the circuit is completed, she’s still the winner,’ Joe said.
They were still talking amiably when one of the soldiers suddenly jumped up and shouted, ‘My God! That’s the guy who shot up all those people in the Philadelphia church!’
A group formed about Cato, plying him with questions about the massacre at Llanfair. The comments were inquisitive rather than accusatory, and one fellow said, ‘Is it true there were corpses up and down the aisle?’ And in the corner another whispered, ‘I don’t want no jigaboo shootin’ up in my church.’
‘Wait a minute!’ Cato protested, but he was powerless to stem the tide of admiring yet fearful comment. The GIs, respectful of anyone who could handle a gun, treated him with caution, one telling the other, ‘I read about it. You saw the pictures. Hundreds dead. Somebody told me he was hiding in Torremolinos.’