Going Down Fast (23 page)

“I see her because I like her—you wouldn't understand.”

“Burt, promise me you won't throw good money after bad. The University won't take him back. Nothing but a matchcover tradeschool would let him in, someone his age who can't earn a living, his wife left him, the court took away his son—if it is his—”

Anna stood. She could hardly believe the acid wash of anger that scalded her chest. “Come on, Leon. We have to leave.” She took hold of him and half dragged him out, out of that field of magnetic hate and soured love that fixed them head to head.

“Leon, you call me again. You come out to the house and have a good meal with your aunt and your cousins and me.”

Sheldon craned after them off balance. “What does he want to study this time, or pretend to? Why is he running out?”

“None of your business. I had something to discuss with you, Uncle Burt, and advice to ask. But I see I can't trust you, so just forget it.” Leon marched out. Going down in the elevator, she could feel the waves of lavathick humiliation coming off him. “They pretend they want you to submit,” he muttered, “but you can never crawl low enough. Because they don't want to help. They want to pretend to offer help and make you refuse.”

The depth of her response alarmed her. She felt bound. She felt condemned to try to mediate between him and the world. His face was gutted with anger, dark and swollen. When the car reached the lobby she had to lead him out. On the sidewalk heading into the rasp of the wind, she took his arm and he let her guide, bumping blindly against her as they walked.

Friday–Sunday, December 12–14

The first tape waiting to be transcribed was an interview with a local politician who was for urban renewal but against its abuses, for the planners but against their mistakes, in favor of public housing but not in his ward. He favored responsible government on all levels.

The second interviewee was Tom Lovis. She did not recognize him until he had talked for a while. Yes, acquaintance of Asher who'd been publicity director for UNA, the neighborhood organization (University-Nesting Affluents, Rowley called them, Ur-liberal Node-seeking Ass-kissers, and Us-Nice-Animals, and Universal Nose-Clean Aunties, and so forth). Had a tall blond wife and a pretty kid named Rhoda. Whole photogenic family. The tape announced that Tom Lovis was now a member of Penman, Bates and Lovis, Associates, Communications Counselors, retained till recently by the planning unit.

Mellowly Tom Lovis told the interviewer that he did not think himself as a PR man, for the work of his organization was largely education. They kept the public informed, a vital function in a democracy and never more important than in our increasingly complex exurban civilization with its heavy reliance upon mass media.

With respectful voice the graduate student nudged him subjectward. Were they satisfied with their consulting for the planning unit? “We came in there,” said Lovis sadly, “prepared to engineer a favorable response and we've handled a number of consulting activities in the field of community projects. We've lent our skills to some of the biggest corporations in the Midwest, as well as serving municipalities and governmental agencies. But from time to time we run into a real lack of understanding of the importance of carefully manufactured consensus in a community. Stone age minds.”

Tom Lovis described successful community organization. “You go in and identify the potential sources of conflict. Then you set up a committee and invite spokesmen from those groups that could cause dissent to sit in on it, being careful to keep it balanced and maintain its prestige. Now if the University had taken the trouble to negotiate consent, say, from key Negro leaders—businessmen, professionals who live in the area, plus the leftlibs in the unions—that would have nipped charges of racism in the bud, and you'd still have the same plan. You take some of the black business interests, real estate investors, insurancemen—they have sound business sense. They aren't looking for a quarrel with the banks or the mayor's office.”

The graduate student, in phrasing a question, referred to Sheldon Lederman as a decision-maker, and Tom Lovis chuckled. “He's just a crude noisy lawyer. Mind you, he's devoted to the job and moderately inventive—but he has an oldfashioned style. He charges into battles wiser men wouldn't need to fight. He's useful now. But the only power he has is who he represents, and after the bulldozers are through, Lederman will be through too.”

The graduate student asked Tom Lovis who then he would credit with the success of renewal in Chicago.

“It's a case of really topflight men getting involved in saving our central cities. The same thing is going to have to happen in every major city in the country. We've just been luckier here to have the local talent ready to move in and act before the situation reached crisis. While other cities are rotting at the core, look at the new construction going up here in the Loop and around it—new office buildings, new apartment houses. We've reversed the cancer some oldfashioned types were calling inevitable a few years ago. Here's a case where you have the banks, the utilities, the topflight insurance companies, the industrial giants, all giving of their best administrators or directors to take a hand in civic responsibility. Some of the most important men in the Midwest are sitting on mayor's commissions, serving on the boards which have prepared the urban renewal plans and mapped strategies. That's why urban renewal here hasn't been simply a matter of tearing down a few slums and putting up a few cheap housing projects. We have men here with the vision to see how the city could be revitalized starting with its economy, using urban renewal to bring back industries and keep the ones already here, attract the prosperous back from the suburbs and into the center of our city again. You have here a mayor with an efficient machine friendly to business interests, able to get the legislation we need through, and a business community shrewd and able enough to see its interest and plan for it. There isn't another urban renewal program in the country that's been as skillful and efficient and profitable as ours.”

They went step by step over the consulting, discussing what should have been done. The words flowed in her ears and out her fingers. When Tom Lovis said, “Rowley,” she jumped and the tape advanced several sentences before she could reverse it.

“… Harlan Williams and the socalled Defense Committee. There are a number of longterm reds or fellow travelers—I don't know what you'd call them—who've operated in the neighborhood for years. Tried to infiltrate UNA. They've captured Williams and they're using him in an attempt to obstruct the plan.”

The graduate student asked for names and Tom Lovis obliged. “One is a folk singer named Rowley who comes from a leftish background. I personally know he's involved in narcotics.”

Anna sat hands poised typing nothing. Why did Tom have it in for Rowley? The student would never read her transcription. She produced a smooth version without names.

Lovis finished with a panegyric to the trustees and administration of the University, who had finally awakened to their responsibilities and joined the most forward looking parts of the greater business community in civic decision. Near the tape's end the graduate student, alone now, described Lovis' office in its glory and Lovis too, who had retained his slim athletic looks. He described even the paintings, impeccably violent and chic. The student added that he would attach high validity to Lovis' remarks as he was an informed observer with a background in the social sciences. Anna longed to add her own comments on Tom Lovis drunk and sober, at work and play, propositioning her in the kitchen while Asher held forth on reform from within the Democratic party in the next room. She giggled, but nervously.

Saturday night she went to a party at Marcia's, intentionally without Leon. But she could interest herself in no one. She caught herself wondering where Leon was, what he was up to. Simply to describe herself to a stranger seemed more work than any small pleasure could justify.

Then Rowley arrived. Vera wore sheer white wool. Her face burned above the dress very dark: reverse image of a candle. Her expression was a sulky curiosity but Rowley looked hot in the face, excited. She waved and turned her back.

She had to look again. Had to look for Vera's body in the dress. Skinny for him. Was Vera's being black like her being Jewish, something he ignored, something he desired, something he needed? Not a line on the girl, smooth as a ripe plum. He walked behind her warily. He thought her a prize someone might take from him. Anna laughed, she danced, she talked and heard herself emptying her lungs. She went home early.

“Tonight, dress. Like you did for that party you went off to on your own, prospecting. We're going up to the North Shore. Some film society—I'm going to suggest they rename themselves the Sons of Eisenstein and see them writhe—are paying—poorly—for a bunch of us to come and show our uncouth experiments. Afterward some broad will raise her hand and ask why is it depressing, and how come Caroline don't have no clothes on.” He grimaced in pain.

“Vera insists you used to go out with that Rowley,” Paul said, picking at the side of his boot. “I told her she was crazy.”

“That she is, but she's right.” Leon slumped in the director's chair, his broad ass filling it.

“She was at the party with him,” she said.

“What's this?” Leon glared. “What about him?”

Paul fitted his chin into his cupped hand, spoke through his fingers. “She's acting funny. Still mad. I don't want her to seize on me again, but I wish she'd admit the truth—”

“You want to take her with you.” Leon scowled.

“After all, it's bad for her not to be able to talk.”

“What's this about Rowley?” Leon repeated.

“They've been seeing each other,” she said.

Paul muttered, “You mean, he's been hanging around.”

“Come on. Nothing obliges her to attend parties with him. Rowley is not an unattractive man.”

“To Vera? You don't know her. She's not interested in men. Especially not white men.”

Leon extended a palm. “You don't mind it. Why should she?”

“She's straight with herself. It's her way. Besides, she knows how it looks.”

“How it looks. Now it's your sister, and out comes the race trash. Not my sister, not my daughter, keep it clean.” Leon turned away in his chair.

“Look, most of the girls who … come after me they want the same thing, black or white, it's simple.” The breath sang in Paul's throat as he held his temper. “She's not anybody. Not like that.”

“It all comes down to you believing in good girls and fallen women,” Anna said coldly. For an instant she hated them both.

“No!” Paul clawed at his close wiry hair, set it on end. “It's a matter of what people can do. I don't say this because she's my sister. I wouldn't say it about Sylvia or Loueen. She's proud, she's tight, if she believes in anything it's form—beauty, style.”

“You have got to let go. She is twenty-two, Ace, she is none of your business. She's a woman and she's going to lead a woman's life or lose her mind. See that. Know it!” Leon leaned from the director's chair, his voice grating with passion.

She stirred, moving her thighs. “She's bright. So few men would attract her you shouldn't wonder some of those few will be white.”

“What I don't like are Rowley's motives,” Leon mumbled. “Trying to keep an eye on Caroline, you think?”

In a muted voice she said, “I did see them together. He looked wrapped up in her.”

Leon drawled, “We have noted what a wonderful sense of observation you show toward men.”

“Why shouldn't he be interested in her if he's not blind?” Paul snapped, looking up. “Think that's abnormal?”

“Are you soreheaded tonight. I've screwed all sides of the line myself—”

“Every lynching cracker can say the same.”

“Listen to yourself. Listen! Then ask if you're so free of your obsession as you've been boasting. Maybe your sister's the one who really pulled out.”

Paul looked from one to the other and then at the street, already darkening. “You think she's
involved
with him?”

She said, “Get Leon to ask Rowley.”

“Are you kidding?” Leon strained back in his chair. “He isn't going to tell me anything.”

“Why not? I bet he would.”

“
Because
.” Leon's voice rose in scratchy exasperation. “I have you. I took you away … so to speak.”

Paul smiled naturally for the first time in an hour. “I like that. Having a woman ‘so to speak,' that's very spiritual. It's near ethereal, by god.”

Leon cleared his throat. “Something important happened yesterday when we stopped by Macphersons for a bite. Who was there but Caroline and her fi-yan-say. We sat at their table.”

“They were glad to see us as a couple of kingsize roaches, I'll tell you.” Paul let out his breath in a hard, flat laugh.

“You mean that
klutz
Bruce was negative. Caroline was glad. Didn't you see the way she smiled at me?”

Paul tilted his head scarecrowlike on one thin shoulder.

“That's her way. I bet if we walked in on them humping away, old Caroline would give you the glad eye and the time of day and invite you to sit down and have some too.”

Leon went doggedly on, “She doesn't love him, she can't hand me that bull. She doesn't turn on when she looks at him. She's fidgety and tense.”

“That Bruce is a cold fish. All the wheels turning. Can I make anything out of this one? Anything here for me?”

“Did you see her take my hand? If she won't give me a chance she won't let go either.”

Paul winced. “She flirts, she comes on. That's her style.”

“Then when we were getting up, she reached out and touched my arm. Just reached out …” Leon produced a girlish imitation. “Not as if she meant to, not something thought out, but just as she was saying good bye as if she didn't care, out shoots that hand and says unconsciously,
stay
. You heard her invite me over.”