Reluctant
Neighbors
E. R. Braithwaite
For Francis,
with love and hope
Contents
Reluctant Neighbors
About the Author
I HAD IT CUT VERY fine, allowing myself barely ten minutes for the half-mile drive from home to the railway station. Two traffic lights and a policeman on duty at the main intersection kept me careful of the 23-m.p.h. limit, but I made it, just beating a white Cadillac to an empty parking meter, my luck continuing with an empty double seat in a fast-filling train compartment. I put my briefcase on the luggage rack and settled myself comfortably near the window, smiling at the memory of the Cadillac driver’s furious face, wondering if he’d find another parking space in time to make this train; not much noblesse in the daily hustle by too many cars for too few parking meters in the station forecourt.
I watched the latecomers jostling each other through the doorways, hurrying for the remaining seats, greeting friends and acquaintances, fitting overcoats, briefcases, hats and packages onto the luggage racks and settling down with The New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Mostly the Journal, folded casually, suggesting familiarity with its complexities, as if high finance were the prevailing occupation or ambition, or at least a respectable false front for humbler pursuits. Soon the compartment was full, except for the vacant aisle seat beside me. Hopefuls would rush towards it, then veer away down the aisle and out to another compartment, reminding me of wide-winged bats in the Venezuelan twilight darting narrowly past near-invisible telephone wires. It amused me to observe these travelers and speculate about their acute sensitivity to the invisible presence on the seat beside me, or perhaps to both of us, me and my invisible companion. It had to be him who was frightening them away because, if familiar indicators could be believed, any of them would welcome the company of a successful author-diplomat-educator on the hour-long ride. After all, any normal American is drawn towards titles, position and success.
At last a bolder spirit, who first did the familiar ritual dance up and down the aisle looking for some other seat. Finding none and resignedly broaching the repellent shield around the invisible presence. Sitting on it, settling comfortably on it and carefully putting up his own Wall Street Journal barricade. Enough pages to insulate and isolate him all the way to New York. I simply closed my eyes. Then we were off, and immediately we were thrown heavily against each other as if the irreverent train didn’t give a damn. Closer than groupies in a sensitivity session. Getting more for our money than our tickets promised. Jammed closer than neighbors with each shuddering jolt, each prolonged sway. After one particularly violent bump I opened my eyes.
My reluctant neighbor was carefully folding his paper in capitulation. Lowering the barricade. I smiled inside myself, anticipating the next move, wondering what he’d use for an opening gambit. The weather? The war in Vietnam? The so-called Attica rebellion? Stocks? Bonds? Perhaps I could put on an act for him. Wait for the conversational overture, then reply in French or Spanish, or maybe pidgin English. No, that would be too easy. For an occasion like this I needed something exotic. Senegalese or Swahili. Exotic or terribly, terribly strange. But no. He placed the folded newspaper behind him, inched himself forward for greater comfort, closed his eyes and seemed all set to doze through the rest of the journey. The train swayed around a bend and threw him heavily against me.
“Sorry,” he apologized, “hope you don’t bruise easily.”
“Not to worry. I’ll survive.” Smiling inside myself at how easily I had been trapped into a simple, familiar rejoinder.
“Don’t be too sure, my friend. I’ve been riding this railroad for eighteen years, and I wouldn’t take any bets on surviving, believe me.” Getting no response, waiting for none. Very knowledgeable about lousy trains, lousy outdated equipment, lousy incompetent management, lousy schedules; the train doing its best to encourage the gentle intrusion.
I thought of the casual “my friend.” With that for starters we’d soon be well away now that he’d conceded my presence. But why should I acknowledge his? No, I didn’t bruise easily, and even if I did, it wouldn’t show. So I could close my eyes again and accept the bumps for the rest of the way.
“Visiting these parts?” His face turned towards me, pink, smooth and narrow, light reflecting off the rimless glasses to obscure the eyes; gray-streaked brown hair worn fashionably long, youthfully uneven. Why the hell would he so readily assume I was visiting these parts? He and I had boarded the same train at the same station which was the departure point for this run into New York. I’d not exchanged more than three or four words with him. Was there something unusual or unfamiliar about me? Hell, let’s play along and see where it might lead.
“No. Residing in these parts.” Flat-voiced.
“New Canaan?” The two words hanging there between us, weighted with his surprise, or shock or unbelief.
“Yes. New Canaan. Why?” My guts tightening.
“No reason. Just that I make this run daily and I’d not seen you before.” Trailing it off, backing away from whatever it was he heard in my voice. If he’d been lucky enough to find another seat his record for not seeing me would have remained unbroken. The way he’d said “New Canaan?” Nose, mouth, spectacles, everything about him sharing in the surprise, the shock, that an outsider had invaded his sovereign earth. I swallowed to ease the dryness in my throat, the hot rage mushrooming inside me. Arbitrarily, contemptuously they believed themselves entitled to the best on no other qualification than that pallid skin. 1971, and nothing had really changed. Zoning laws had replaced the NIGGER KEEP OUT signs, but hell, those stately trees could still support a weighted rope.
Steady, I advised myself. Keep it cool. So it happened today a little earlier than yesterday. But it was sure to happen. The time, the place, the manner of its happening was of little consequence. Sometime in the course of each day, or that part of each day that I spend in inevitable intercourse with the white man, his contempt will seek some way of expressing itself. Each day. Every day. And me, stupid me, always so preoccupied with simple concerns of living and doing, and always caught unprepared for the indignity and the contempt. Today was no exception. This son-of-a-bitch beside me.
Cool it, man. Again I told myself. Control, man. Turning to look at him. It was there, the contempt a ubiquitous nuance in his every word, an irritating dimension to his every look, a broken thread in the uncertain fabric of his smile.
“Do you live in New Canaan?” I asked him. Not caring. Not really wanting to know.
“Oh, yes. All my life. Born and raised here … ” ready to let it flow, but I cut it short.
“That’s rather strange. It just occurred to me that I’d never seen you around before.” Unsmiling.
He hesitated, as if pondering that, then: “Touché.” He laughed, holding both arms up in mock surrender, a risky venture on that roller-coaster train. The stone in his college ring fleetingly caught and held a glint of sunlight. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” Chuckling and straightening himself, adjusting the position of his body towards me. Legs crossed carefully to preserve the sharp crease in the slacks of his green-flecked brown suit. Making the chameleon change. Ready for conversation. Seeing only my pin-striped gray suit and black face. He couldn’t know about the rage which could overspill at any moment. That bit about New Canaan was jangling discordantly in my ear. What the hell was so special about New Canaan? The air was clean. Sure. Green trees everywhere, park land and garbage-free streets. Sure. And courteous policemen, friendly shop assistants and the welcome wagon. Sidewalks free of the dog-shit hazard. Fine. But the people, black and white, all wore one hea
d on one body with two arms and legs and occasionally bad complexions. Like everywhere else. And the rents were high. Not a damned thing was for free. Not the clean air or the green trees, or the skunks doing their nightly thing under my bedroom window.
“What’s your field?” his voice intruded on my musing.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you work in the city?”
“Occasionally.” After a lengthy pause. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to talk with him.
“Only occasionally. You’re lucky. Wish to God I could do my business from home and only occasionally make this trip into the city, but the thing about public relations is that you’ve got to be where the action is, and all the action is at Madison Avenue. Know it?” His voice pleasantly modulated, a confident voice.
“I’ve shopped in it, or passed through it. But I don’t know it.” Keeping my voice noncommittal. Wishing he’d be discouraged enough to return to his newspaper or sleep.
“Keep it that way, my friend. It’s a jungle.” Yet immediately lamenting himself into a conducted tour of the mysteries, difficulties and near genius of soft-selling an idea, masterminding it into a believable reality. Combination writer, seer and magician, to hear him tell it. “My friend.” He’d said it again. Maybe it was only a manner of speech, habitual as a facial tic and just as meaningless. Particularly as I did not feel the least bit friendly. Not there and then. Not to him.
“What about you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What work do you do?” Persistent as hell. Me making the decision, to talk or not to talk with him. Deciding, then, selecting the discussable.
“I’m a writer.” That was enough for him, the public activity. Giving nothing. He was free to sign off.
“Oh, great. What kind? Journalism?” Giving it lots of enthusiasm as if he’d suddenly encountered a kindred spirit.
“No. Books.”
“Great. Great. Books. Anything published?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great. Great. Should I know any of them?” Hitching up his neat slacks to pluck an invisible speck of fluff from his knee. The train jerked to a sudden stop. Seated with both legs forward I was able to brace myself quickly and safely, but my neighbor was thrown roughly against the seat in front of us.
“Shit!” The expletive escaped him as he tried to save himself, the spectacles knocked askew to dangle from his left ear. He righted himself, removing the spectacles to examine them carefully, turning to me with, “Sorry about that. See what I mean about this train?” A handkerchief in service for polishing the lenses. Blowing on them. Polishing again. His eyes now revealed as pale blue, slightly protuberant. The fingers holding the spectacles smoothly pink, nails neatly trimmed and polished. An inch of striped shirt sleeve displaying golden cuff links, everything in harmony with the suit. The tie fashionably wide, of dark green woolly material. Neat. Perhaps all part of the Madison Avenue image. The hair, the clothes, the expletive.
“Not American, are you?” My neighbor had returned to the subject of me. Legs straight this time for safety, but crossed at the ankles, his elegant brogues a glossy dark brown.
“No.”
“Thought not. Something about you. Your accent. Your manner, perhaps. Something.” Giving the words just the right lift to make a question out of it. But not quite. Waiting for me to add the rest. Me not helping. Quiet. Watching him and noticing the struggle to follow through on the friendly overture. Expecting him to give it up.
“British, I’d guess,” he went on. “Yes, British. The inflection you place on certain words.” A hesitant smile exposing itself but ready for instant retreat. Yet even in that moment investing his face with an appealing ingenuousness.
No answer from me. I was playing it cool, as I’d promised myself, consciously fixing my face into a withdrawn, superior aspect, then immediately realizing that I was doing no more than imitating him. Them. Their usual contemptuous, superior attitude.
“It is British, isn’t it?” He wouldn’t leave it alone. Okay, here goes.
“Inevitably, I suppose. Most of my life was spent in Britain.” A bloody speech, by God.
“Oh, so you’re not British by birth.” Making it both question and statement.
“No.”
“Okay. Let me make a guess. The West Indies.” Friendly. Smiling.
“Guyana.”
“Guyana. Guyana. Yes. That’s West Africa, isn’t it?”
“No, South America.”
“Right. Now I remember. Yes. Dr. Jagan. That’s his country, isn’t it?”
“His and three-quarters of a million others.”
“Right. Right. I once read a piece on him in a book by Arthur Schlesinger on the Kennedys in the White House. Quite an interesting piece. Then sometime afterwards I saw him on television. Not Schlesinger. Jagan. Very handsome and articulate, and so plausible I was half persuaded to his point of view. The Marxist bit put me off, though. But, boy, was he loaded with charisma! Indian, isn’t he?”
“Dr. Jagan is Guyanese.”
“But wouldn’t he consider himself Indian?”
I was becoming a little bored with it, with his insistence on demonstrating how well he knew all about it.
“We are all merely Guyanese.”
He gave me a long, questioning look, as if debating the advisability of further conversation. He looked away from me, his fingers interlocked but restless. I thought he’d finally signed off. Roger and out. Muscles in his jaw tightened a few times as if he chewed on some tiny residual fragment of breakfast. I wondered about his own origin. Whatever it was he was evidently secure in it. Once again the train jerked us forward, but this time we were prepared. Through the forward doorway a blue-uniformed conductor wide-walked his way along the aisle, checking tickets and placing the punched stubs under the plastic band conveniently located behind the headrest of each seat. His short, bulky body casually adjusted to the bump and sway, while habit made his clippers an unerring extension of the large, spatulate-fingered muscular hand. He checked our tickets and moved on.
“Did you study writing in England?” My neighbor’s voice and manner as pleasant as ever.
“No. I never studied writing.” That was enough. It would certainly spoil his well-ordered Madison Avenue day if I told him about my first book, a best seller no less, translated into more than a score of languages. Hell, let him go right ahead being condescending.
“What I mean is, was English your major at college?” He was still with it.
“No. I read physics.”
“Physics!” Surprise saturating the pause. “Why do you say you read it?”
Christ! There I’d done it again. Why did I bother to mention it, then have to be bothered explaining?
“In English universities one speaks of reading a subject.” Making it as simple as possible for him.
“Oh. You studied in England?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Cambridge.”
“Cambridge? The university?” Giving the words the same burden of astonishment he’d used with “New Canaan.” His mouth opened in preparation for another question or comment but closed on it. Slipping off his spectacles he favored me with a naked look, as if weighing me to the final ounce, evaluating me for the implied intelligence. The thing inside me was alive, throbbing.
“Cambridge. The university.” Letting my voice convey exactly what I thought. The sudden reddening of his neck told me he’d got the message. I could feel his abrupt retreat. So this was the end of the pseudo humilities, the careful circling of each other. He shifted his position, looking outward towards the aisle as if to put as much distance as possible between us. Perhaps he’d have liked to leave, find another seat, but was held captive by the full compartment of a speeding train. Captive. The thought amused me. He’d just have to bear
it. I leaned against the corner and studied as much of his profile as his new posture allowed.
“What was your major?” Asking the question as soon as I thought of it. Directing my voice to his half-averted face as if unmindful or unaware of his retreat.
“Me? Oh, I did a liberal arts degree.” Turning slightly towards me with the answer. “Georgetown University. Then two years at law school.”
“I always wondered about the qualifications necessary for public relations,” I said, giving it a smile to color it friendly.
“I, ah, wouldn’t call liberal arts a particular qualification for public relations, though I suppose it gives one a broad enough general base. As a matter of fact it was during my service stint that I got the idea of going into public relations.” Readjusting his position inward once again. I said nothing. He wanted to talk. “I was in the Air Force. Desk job in Rome. Working on what amounted to promotional material. Developed a flair for it, you might say.” Returning my smile with interest, the flush disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. “Served with my unit in Naples, Paris, Berlin. Traveled all over Europe. Must say that in those days being an officer had its advantages.”
“I know.”
“You were in it, the war?”
“Yes. The Royal Air Force.” I could not see his eyes behind the glasses but the wordless open mouth told it all.
“The British Air Force?” Again. Just like “New Canaan.”
“The Royal Air Force.”
“As what? I mean, doing what?”
“Aircrew.”
“Flying? I never heard there were any blacks in the British Air Force.”
“The Royal Air Force.” Really patient with him. “There were quite a number of us. From Asia, West Africa, Guyana, the West Indies. Quite a number.” Casual as hell with it.
“In black squadrons?”
“No. No black squadrons in the Royal Air Force. Just crew members. Pilots. Navigators. Bomb aimers. Flight engineers. Wireless ops. Gunners. Ground crew. The lot. Officers. Erks. Everything.”