Chapter 6
"What's keeping that damn waiter!" Randy said, exasperated, looking around the half-empty restaurant. "If we don't get served soon, we're going to be late for that party!"
Nervously, Naomi tapped a cigarette on her fingernail and then followed his glance around the room. She had always wanted to dine in the famous evening spot and when Randy had asked her where she would like to eat that evening, she had quickly named the big Boston restaurant. But now she regretted it.
She had regretted it the moment they had walked in and the maitre d' had come over to them. She could tell from the way he looked at her that she didn't belong. In his disdain and his almost insulting manner, it was apparent. And the only reason he had seated them was because of Randy. Randy with his big, fat checkbook and his influential name. Poor, innocent Randy. He hadn't noticed anything wrong. But Naomi had noticed.
She had noticed the isolated table the maitre d' had given them. Had noticed the stony, insulting glances of the other diners. Had noticed the almost insolent manner of the waiters who served them. And had noticed how other diners were being seated away from their area.
It was as if they were surrounded by a fence of leprosy.
Randy nervously played with a pack of matches and made small talk. Occasionally, he would glance at his wrist watch and then off in the direction of the kitchen. Finally he couldn't stand it any longer and began to get up from the table.
"I'm going to find out what's keeping that waiter. We've been here for almost an hour now and he still hasn't brought the rest of our dinner. Something's wrong and I'm going to find out what it is!"
Naomi put her hand on his wrist and stopped him.
"Don't you know what's wrong, Randy?" she asked in a low voice. He shook his head.
"No. All I know is we're going to be late for that party unless I find out what's wrong!"
Naomi took a deep breath and gave him the answer.
"I'm what's wrong, Randy! Me!"
"You! What do you mean ... you?"
A wave of her hand took in the entire room.
"They don't want me here. The only reason they let us in is because of you. Can't you see what they're thinking from the looks on their faces! I'm not good enough for them!"
Then her voice dropped to a low whisper.
"They only think I'm good for one thing ... and you know what that is. That's the only reason I'm with you as far as they're concerned!"
There was sadness in her face as she looked up at him.
Anger squeezed his lips into a thin hard line.
"Well. I'm not going to let them get away with that. If I have to, I'll force you down their throats!" he breathed vehemently.
Naomi's eyes squeezed closed in despair. She said the words to the white tablecloth in front of her.
"But I don't want to be forced down anyone's throat, Randy. I just want to be treated like any one else ... like a human being!"
But he wouldn't listen, and shaking her hand from his wrist, he rose to his feet and belligerently strode over to the maitre d'. From the angry expression on his face, Naomi could tell what he was saying. There was no argument from the man ... he merely shrugged insolently and nodded. Then he walked toward the kitchen as Randy returned to the table.
Don't make it happen that way, Randy. Please don't make it happen that way! You can't change them-nothing can change them. To people like that, I'm a whore! If not a whore, then a mistress. They think that the only reason you're with me is because I'm beautiful, and good in bed. Can't you see that, Randy! So don't look at them. Don't react to them! Make believe they don't even exist. Make believe we're all alone in this restaurant! Make believe there's just you and me!
But Randy couldn't do it. He settled back into the chair, surrounding himself in a cloud of anger. He was stiff with silence, rarely speaking to her as the rest of their dinner was served to them. They ate hurriedly, not even tasting the food. They had one motive ... to finish and to leave. And finally their dinner was done.
"Come on, Naomi, let's go," Randy said rising and pulling her chair back slowly. "We're going to be late for that party, so let's get out of here."
Naomi preceded him to the door with downcast eyes. It was as if she couldn't look at a single person in the face. For to do so would have caused her to crumble into a thousand pieces.
And so her rule became silence. The wall of self-preservation went up and as they drove uptown toward the exclusive penthouse area, she retreated further and further into her own thoughts.
Maybe this is wrong. I can't fight back. I don't want to fight back! I just want what he has to offer! But I didn't know what I'd have to accept to get it. I didn't know about being snubbed. Being looked down upon and condemned! And I don't know how much longer I can take it!
"We're here!" Randy said as he pulled the convertible sharply to the curb in front of the exclusive apartment house. A smiling doorman came over to the car and opened the door on Naomi's side. She saw the smile disappear when he looked at her and she could feel him stiffen as he helped her out of the car. He was about to say something, but Randy's presence at her side silenced him.
Naomi bit down on her lip to hold back the anger and then, head held high, she walked defiantly into the lobby of the apartment house. Randy took her arm and guided her to the bank of elevators at the other end. She could feel the looks of the loungers in the lobby as the two of them walked through. And her head went a little higher and the look of defiance on her face turned to a look of anger. Then they were in the elevator and zooming up toward the penthouse party.
The door to the penthouse was opened wide and they walked in. Standing on a small landing, they looked down into the lavish living room at the milling throng of well-groomed guests.
The purpose of the affair was charity. Objects of art, paintings, statues, drawings, prints, and the proceeds were to be used to erect a new wing for a children's hospital. And so, the invited guests had been chosen with great care-by the size of their bank accounts. As a result, the men and women were well-groomed and well-heeled. Naomi, in a white gown which contrasted with the golden hue of her flesh, was the equal of any woman in the room as far as clothes and looks, and Randy's income matched that of any of the men.
Arm in arm, they walked down the staircase and into the milling throng of people. Though they had been unnoticed on the landing, their appearance now stirred the throng into a buzz of excitement. Naomi sensed it as Randy steered her into the bar at the far end of the room. She could see it in the looks on their faces as they walked past. Hear it in the hand-covered whispers that accompanied them as they walked. And so she looked straight ahead. Her face was expressionless as they finally seated themselves on the bar stools. But even there she was aware of what was happening. The reactions were like darts sticking into her back. And at each sound, each look, she tensed and flinched and tightened.
"Make it two straight Scotches," Randy said to the bartender, indicating Naomi and himself. He nodded and quickly placed the glasses in front of them. Naomi reached out with both hands and clutched the liquor to her breasts. Then, closing her eyes, she drank deeply.
Maybe if I drink enough, I won't see what's happening ... won't feel what's happening! Sure, that's the answer! Drown it all in alcohol, and maybe it will go away! And then, even if it doesn't, who cares?
And so she finished the drink in two deep swallows and then pushed the empty glass toward the bartender. He looked at her and shrugged. Then, once again he poured her drink.
"Better leave that bottle, Mister," Naomi ordered. "Looks like I'm going to be in for a long night!"
The bartender shrugged and with slow deliberation placed the bottle down in front of her. She drank quickly from the glass and then filled it again. On the stool next to her, Randy watched her nervously. He put his hand over the bottle when she poured her fourth drink.
"Don't you think you'd better slow down, Naomi?" he whispered in a low voice. "I'd hate to have to carry you out of here!"
Slowly she turned her head and stared at him with her deep dark eyes.
"If you're so worried about me," she responded, "then you'd better talk to your friends! I don't think you scored any points by bringing me here!"
Randy looked at her as if she had slapped his face.
"It's not my fault, Naomi ... It's not my fault! You wanted to see how the other half lives. You wanted to come here, not me! So don't take it out on me!"
Naomi downed another drink before answering. Suddenly she wanted to be alone. By herself. The only company she wanted was the bottle of Scotch.
"Look," she said, "why don't you just let me sit here at the bar? You go talk to your friends. It'll be better that way. At least we won't be able to fight. I don't want to fight with you, Randy!"
He looked at her to see if she meant what she had said, and then, getting up from the stool, patted her on the arm and left. Naomi didn't even watch him go. Suddenly she had lost all interest in him. Now she had but one concern. To consume as much Scotch as she could in a short period of time.
Behind her, the auction began. She could hear the sounds of bidding and then the accompanying applause as item after item was sold under the auctioneer's gavel. But she had no interest in the proceedings. Her sole interest was the lowering level of Scotch in the bottle on the bar in front of her....
So that was where life began and ended, possessions and prestige for the white man, Naomi thought. Everything that a check book or credit card could buy and pride and honor in the elite Society.
Ofay bastards! I'm part of life too! A black woman is still a human being, with the same needs and desires as you!
Her glassy eyes hot with the anger of unshed tears, she scanned the waxy-faced men and women, Boston's "upper crust," members of the old "400." Their painted-on and molded smiles, stiff mannerisms, and the hollow laughter.
Here to do your duty. Give to the poor, the under-priveleged. Have a drink while you're at it. "Hobnob" with the other "old families" and write off the rest of your poor countrymen with a check book stub-tax deductible! We're tax deductible! How about that, Naomi silently asked the assembled crowd.
The poor niggers you can't soil yourself with the sight of-down in the filthy slum alleys of Roxbury and Dorchester. Down in "old Southie" where you're all afraid to go because of "those people"-God know you try to help them financially, but know them? ... associate with them? ... "My deah, it just isn't done! It's not proper!"
The gavel resounded upon the podium. And two white women, their hair in blue waves styled by a famous Boston beautician, jewels flashing at their ears, throats, and fingers, pudgy from self-indulgence, delicately clasped long-stemmed crystal with pink ladies. Their steel-grey eyes averted hers as they moved their glasses to shield rapidly moving lips lest Naomi guess what they were saying. Another woman moved toward them and they vaguely motioned toward Naomi with their prim heads and flourished pink ladies. The woman's opaque black eyes flashed at her briefly and turned with a slow sneering grin emerging on her thin lips as she clucked with her friends.
Naomi returned to the bottle-the only thing in the room that didn't stare back with a haughty sniff and hissing criticism.
A hundred years ago they would have had her on the auction stand, admiring her contours and strength, wondering what type of work they could give her to keep the master of the house from using her in bed. Frigid white bitches!
Her thoughts turned to Line and his Muslim friends. Things weren't much better in the white man's world today. People like Martin Luther King and her mother made her sick! Peaceful marches for civil rights. Damn it! After one hundred years of supremacy and holding down the peaceful, striving nigger-Hell! The whites didn't give one shit for the "Uncle Tom" efforts of that fool black preacher.
Maybe Line and his friends were right. Marches like the one in Selma told the whites the black man was aware of his flagrant neglect of duties a century yet unfufilled. Could she have joined their efforts? Hell! It wasn't worth her sweat and tears. Naomi knew those ofays wouldn't change any!
Line and his friends knew too. That's why the Mau Maus, the Panthers, and other strictly black separatist, "hate the white" movements were springing up across the country.
What could they do though? In ten, twenty, fifty years? Naomi would be a broken old woman by then, with sandpaper hands and hard leathery knees from scrubbing floors like her mother before her. Her flesh would sag, too worn and tired to enjoy the things she wanted, the luxuries of life that those creamy-skinned bitches had at the flutter of a blue eye, the toss of a blonde curl, the show of a white thigh.
Fuck them all! I hate them! Naomi cried out silently to that empty bottle, the last drops in her glass. Not a goddamned one of them cares! Where's Randy? Where are my friends?
Naomi saw her eyes reflected in the amber glass of the bottle and knew she was-as she had always been-alone.
She looked from the bottle to the empty glass in her trembling fingers. Her eyes slowly climbed upward, looking across the bar pleadingly at the bartender.
He shook his head as he removed the empty bottle from the bar.
"I think you've had enough, Miss," he said. "I'm cutting you off."
Bleary-eyed, she looked at him again. Then she shrugged indifferently. It didn't really matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
"Should I find the young man who was with you?" the bartender asked with concern.
Naomi thought about it. Should he get Randy?
No! Randy won't do me any good now ... not the way I feel. Woozy. Awful woozy.
So she shook her head in answer.
"No," she sighed. "Just tell me where I can lie down for a while. If I can get some rest, I'll be all right."
"Just go down there, Miss," he advised. "The first door on the left. When I see the man you came in with, I'll tell him where you are."
Naomi nodded her thanks at him and then eased her way off the bar stool. Following his directions, she pushed her way through the corridor. Though she could hear the murmur of voices in her wake, she was now impervious to anything that was said. Weaving slightly, she walked to the door that the bartender had indicated and went into the room. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it to get her bearings. She was in a library and she shook her head in disgust.
"Don't wanna read ... wanna sleep!"
But it was too late for her to find another room. The heavy whirling nausea effect of the alcohol spun through her head and she hurriedly wobbled to a chair in front of the large picture window that looked out over the city. With a sigh of deep relief, she plumped herself down into the deep leather-bound cushions. Leaning her head back and groaning with discomfort, she closed her eyes.
Somehow her feet found the hassock and she straightened out her lithe, limp torso. Trying to make herself comfortable between hassock and chair, her back to the rest of the room, Naomi squirmed until the over-sized cushions embraced her and became a haven. Soon the quiet sound of her shallow breathing filled the room....