Laughs, etc.

Tom, don't you think I should tell Ceil and Harry about Friday night? Well, I do.

It was truly one of those I mean like (quote) great nights (underscore). And it came about with no help whatever, it just took place. That's East Village, I mean it's not the East Seventies. Things can still happen here, thank God we moved.

To wit: We have these really darling kids upstairs—three boys. (Don't ask me what the "arrangements" are!) One of them, the blond, with hair down to here and eyes that see other worlds, is sweet on me. Strictly Oedipus-type thing, I mean it isn't voulez-vous coucher, he wants to be in my lap!

Which I, Gloria of the barren marriage, see no harm in.

Tom, Tom, Tom, I'm not blaming anybody for the barren marriage, Ceil and Harry know we've chosen it thus, they know you're just bursting with seed. Pretty please, I'm trying to tell something, Tom, is nothing sacred?

Anyway!

I'm sitting here, gagging with boredom, at ten-thirty Friday night: Tom asleep in that chair, much as you (continued on page 152)Laugh, etc.(continued from page 67) see him now, mouth slightly open. Very attractive. Oh, Gloria wasn't bored. She was embalmed!

When rap-rap-rap on her chamber door, it's the blond one, Could he have some ice cubes, please. Looking like an archangel, and his name is Michael! Can you bear it?

Nor can I.

So, just on an impulse, No, I said, I won't let you have a single cube, but you may have a drink.

Oh, but, said he, finger pointing toward heaven, I have these friends up there.

Ah, well, the more angels the better, Go fetch them, I said. And while he was upstairs fetching, 1 telephoned the liquor store.

Oh. Oh, thank you, Tom, for that wonderfully salty contribution to my tale. Ceil and Harry are so grateful to hear all about the liquor bill. Now back to sleep, don't exhaust yourself, and we'll just see if I can't somehow manage to limp through the story without all this detailed assistance.

So.

I no more than hang up the phone when the parade begins. This lovely airborne parade. Angels and archangels. Cherebum and seraphim. All manner of winged creature, lighting gracefully on the furniture.

Slight hyperbole here: There were only three, actually. Three boys.

And this curious girl.

A dreadful little stump of a thing named Jo-Anne. All hair and horn-rims. Truly. All you could see was its smock, its little fists, with ud-cray galore under its fingernails, ça va sans dire, and the most formidable hair. Virtually, you could not see its face without trespassing. I haven't to this day the faintest notion of what the child looked like.

And yet, in retrospect, she managed, without speaking so much as a word that anyone heard, mind you, she saw to it that she became the star of the evening. Truly! This unappetizing little bitch!

Wait! Wait! I have to tell things in my own way.

All right: I knew she'd been living up there with the three, because I'd been seeing her for a couple of weeks, darting about the halls with pathetic little grocery bags. Making herself useful, I suppose. It seems Michael the archangel had found her in the street in front of The Dom one morning at dawn, just sitting there inside of all this hair, and brought her home to make a little sister of her. Apparently they adore having little sisters.

(And mothers, a-ha-ha.)

So at one point, on ze glorious Friday night, Michael follows me to what we laughingly call the bar, that sad little tea wagon there, and wants to know what I think of his Jo-Anne. And I said, Michael, I haven't even seen her yet, what is all that hair about?

He looked at me with these ghost-blue eyes (Ceil, you'd faint!) and he said, perfectly serious, Jo-Anne's in hiding. From herself.

Oh, you idiot, Harry, of course I didn't laugh. What am I? Granted, inside, in here where it counts, I was splitting. But not a flicker did I show.

Then Michael said, Gloria, I hope you'll try to bring her out, will ya? Try to get to know her a little? She's very worth while, she has all kinds of original thoughts, insights, ideas, she has her own little window on the world.

(Window! I thought, what the poor thing needs is a periscope!)

In any case, I was distinctly uneager, shall we say, to enter that red, unwashed wigwam. Treasure-trove or no.

But anyway, there we all were, having our otherwise memorable and splendid Friday night: One of the boys was doing perfectly thrilling things with his hands, an entire puppet show without puppets, unbelievably touching. And it was all wonderfully gay.

But a little too much so for Tom. Gay he doesn't mind if it's mixed, un peu. So I get on the blower once more and call Tom deuxième, who stage-manages at this coffeehouse over here, you know the one, Cafe Something, off-off-off-off-Broadway?

Seconds later, in traipses he with the entire cast of this terribly integrated revue. And then, Tom, my Tom, Tom premier, really perks up. Tom likes Africans. Oh, he does he does he does! When I'm suntanned, he can't keep his hands to himself. The dark shadow of Momma or something!

Oh, look! look! that brought him to life again! The sound of his own libido always does it. I have the most self-referencing husband in the world, I wish there were a contest I could enter him in. Back to sleep, tiger.

Well now, with all this utter variety going on all over the place, I think— selfless being that I am—of all my dear square friends uptown. And I want them with me. I want them to see that Life Can Be Beautiful. So, on the blower again, dialing my fingies right down to the knuckles, Come at once! I shout to all and sundry, Laughs, etc., at Gloria's. And Tom's.

I did call you!

Tom, how many times in all did I call Ceil and Harry? Eight, or was it only twenty?

Well, if people are mad enough to entomb themselves at the cinema on the first really brilliant night of the summer ...

It was glorious. It was balmy. It was heaven replete with angels. All you could smell was life—and perhaps a little pot, ha-ha. We threw open that door to the fire escape, every window in the place, even the skylight, and let everyone flow at will.

Talk about heterogeneous! We had everything. Plus these performers. Oh, I grant you the revue itself stunk! (But isn't that always the way? By the time anything gets on the boards in this town, it's packaged to extinction?) But the kids! Themselves! The talent could kill you! I won't tell you about this one singer, not yet, I'm saving that! You'll die.

Where am I, for God's sake?

Oh, yes, the gnome. Jo-Anne.

At odd intervals throughout the evening or shall I say night, out of the corner of my eye, I catch its little act.

Nothing.

In short, it sits. A perfect lump. Inside of itself. Occasionally Michael goes over to it, puts his angel nose inside this disastrous hair and whispers to it. It whispers back. He puts his arm around it. He takes it to the roof for a breath of air. He guides it across the room to meet someone. He gives it a Coca-Cola.

(Nola bene: ft doesn't drink hard liquor. Oh, no, not at all, my dears! Nothing so simple! Wait till you hear what's coming up!)

Now let's do a little montage of time pressing on: Me, this very matron you see before you, doing a watusi with the puppeteer (and quite good, actually); Michael, trying to get his little catatonic to dance; Tom here, trying to get a little something else going on the roof.

He didn't hear that, just as well, I'd better whisper: Yes, my Tom, Tom premier, not cohabiting with Africans on the fire escape, and not very pleased about it. No thank you. said Miss Ghana. A stunning thing she was, imperial, and quite an artist of the putdown, apparently. Tom doesn't know I had a full report.

What, Tom? Nothing, baby, you're just sensitive. Now nod off for Momma; that's it.

Isn't he heaven?

So! Emergency time! Michael, the guardian angel of the gnome, backs Momma into the bedroom! Yes, me! Too good to be true, surely!

Alas, it was too good to be true: He didn't want Gloria, he wanted money.

Thirty-five smackeroos. Which is not thirty-five cents, need I add.

Good heavens, Michael, replied I, that's a great deal of money.

Oh, but he simply had to have it!

Frankly, he didn't look like he was kidding, either, he was white as a sheet.

I said. Michael, are you in some kind of trouble?

No, but a friend of mine is, he said.

(Big light flashes on.)

Jo-Anne? I said.

Yes, she's sick, she's very sick. She's got to have some (and there was ever-so-tiny a pause) some attention! he said. She's got to have some attention!

(Klieg lights flash on.)

Drugs? I said.

Michael nodded.

H? I said.

H, he said.

And you want me to put up the thirty-five dollars to get her through this one?

You've got to, he said.

I've got to? I thought. My back went up. I adore this boy. but I don't got to anything of the kind. My Tom works like a demon for thirty-five dollars; I felt guilty enough pouring out our good liquor for these young snotnoses. Which they swill happily, all the while I'm sure silently putting down Tom for being such a square as to actually practice anything so dreary as the law so he can come up with the money to finance a party. For them.

Frankly, it made me cross.

But Gloria did not blow her cool. All she said was, Michael darling, why have I got to? I can't afford such expensive vices myself, why must I support Jo-Anne's?

Because she's beautiful, he said. Because she's a human being. Because she's dying.

Dear Michael, I said, get her to a doctor at once if she's dying, don't come to me!

He said, Doctors file reports and Jo-Anne's too young to have her life ruined.

Well, yes, I said, there is a question of legality, isn't there. And you're asking me to involve myself? Please, I urged him, get the girl to a doctor!

(To be perfectly honest, I wanted her out of my house.)

He said he bet I wasn't so worried about legality at income-tax time, or when I wanted an abortion. (He had me there! But of course the two things are not comparable!)

In any case, he was furious, he absolutely turned on me!

Screw doctors, he said, screw cops, screw legislators, screw society! All she needs right now is one human being.

With which he turned on his heel and left the room.

I, of course, was the enemy.

Well, I went into ze dainty powder room and did what I could with a little cold water applied to the face. I'm damned, I said, if my night's going to be wrecked by that hirsute little junkie! Oh, I felt sorry for her, God knows, but there was just one teensy little question: Whose problem was it? Mine?

The answer to that didn't seem too tricky to me, so I went in and poured myself a good, stiff one.

As a matter of fact, I think I'll fill this thing up right now. Oh, would you, Harry? Thank you. Right to the top, and not too much ice. No no no, the Scotch, damn it!

I did not shout.

So! Another montage. Le temps marche, it's now Saturday a.m., party still in progress.

I only remember seeing Michael once more, he was passing through the dining room saying, Is there a human being in the house, is there a human being in the house—looking bitter and grave and fugitive from heaven; and that's the last I saw of him. Until ...

Oh, but I know what's next: this song tiling!

I won't be able to do justice to it, it's one of those things where you have to be there. But I'll try:

At some juncture or other, I'm none too clear about time sequences, I came out of the bathroom and heard this fabulous silence. Everybody, all these young, wild tilings, standing stock-still, not uttering a sound. Well, well, wonders me, what's going on here?

Then I heard!

This singer was out on the fire escape. Singing to the rooftops.

You know that song from Fantasticks: Try to remember a something September when nights are something and and something is something else?

Well, this boy, an Italian, one of those three angels from above, with the most glorious tenor voice ... !

No! No, I'm wrong! Not really glorious! Not a great voice!

Merely perfect! Perfect for that song at that moment on that fire escape on that Friday night.

And everybody knew it. There was this enormous, collective sharing of something truly magical, and not a soul was excluded.

But that's not all. Something happened to top it.

You know where the end of the song goes: Follow follow follow}

Well! Just as he got to that part, there was a new voice! A woman's. We don't know where she was. We don't know who she was. We couldn't even see her. She was in some other building, way-way-way across the courtyards, leaning out of some dirty little window, I suppose. And when our tenor was through, she picked it up in her sad little penny whistle of a voice; she sang:

Follow follow follow

I cried. Me, who doesn't cry anymore. I cried. I'm crying now!

Everybody did. It was as if we were all seven, and pure again, and taking our first Holy Communion. Together. There was this feeling of the Oneness of humanity, the sort of thing Dostoievsky raved about.

Excuse me, let me blow this nose.

Honestly, Ceil and Harry, I just adore this neighborhood. So it's noisy, so it's bearded and unwashed, so there are no taxis. You take all that, because it's alive!

Even if you are held responsible for murdering all the junkies. Don't you love that kind of thinking? It's terribly popular now. Some Negro playwright started it: The claim is that I, Gloria, personally adjusted the rope around every black neck that's been strung up in the U. S. A. for the last one hundred years. And of course it follows that this same dreadful Gloria is responsible for shelling out thirty-five smackeroos to save the life of every drug fiend in Manhattan!

Madly logical, don't you think?

Tom and I are strictly from Squaresville, we happen to think charity starts right here, we sort of look after each other first and foremost, don't we, sleeping beauty.

Never mind, dear, not important.

What?

The girl? Jo-Anne?

Well, I said!

Harry, I did!

Didn't I? Well, I know I did, I must have, that's what I've been going on and on about.

Forgive me, then, I thought I said: The poor little thing did indeed die.

Tom and I felt wretched, as you can imagine.

She died the next afternoon. I guess they were trying to do the withdrawal bit upstairs, you know, home-style? And it just plain did not work.

I saw Michael in the hall that evening and he delivered the bare facts, looking— you guessed it, homesick for paradise— and so tragic. And pointedly not saying I told you so.

I still adore him. It's just that once in a while he makes me a teensy bit cross.