Chapter 1
MIDSUMMER. A WARM AND humid night in Coney Island. A man of medium build, with plumpish face and soft effeminate features, strolls aimlessly along the boardwalk. It's late, nearly midnight, but the boardwalk is still crowded. His eyes can scan the sea of faces, darting here and there, searching hungrily. Suddenly they light on an approaching figure and pause. The man gives a little inaudible gasp of pleasure.
The boy wears a blue polo shirt and a pair of gray cotton trousers. He is nineteen, at most twenty, but his ease of carriage, his dignity, and the cynical curve of his lips, seems to belie his youth. Unless you look close, he might pass for twenty-eight. He is tall, broad-shouldered, sturdily built. His mouth is rather large and sensuous, his eyes are alert, and clear and penetrating. He does not search, but he misses nothing. He is dark complexioned, and his skin is tan.
He walks past the effeminate man, and as he does he averts his eyes. It would seem he hasn't seen the other, yet when he is a few paces past he darts a look back.
The effeminate man has paused. Trembling inwardly he turns. He sees the boy, notices that he has changed his direction and is walking towards the beach rail of the boardwalk. He wonders if it's a signal to him. Dare he hope for such good fortune-a boy of this sort, a dream boy, attracted to him? It never happened before. But how often he had dreamed of it happening!
The boy stopped at the beach rail, put one foot up on the lower rung, and stood there, gazing across the deserted beach. He might be watching the tiny waves fall to shore, listening to the murmur of their advance and retreat. The effeminate man screwed up his courage and started towards the figure at the rail. His was an inward, retreating nature, and in all matters but this-the search for love-he was shy, hesitant, backward, he dared not. But now, though it was against the grain, he dared. He knew that he must. Without brazen boldness, such as he were lost. Every fiber of his being revolted; his knees trembled, sweat formed in his armpits. "Nice evening, isn't it?"
The boy turned to him, looked him up and down, nodded.
Soon they were talking. Talking of the weather, past, present, and future-false, forced conversation, in which neither said what was on his mind. They spoke of Coney Island: the beach, the boardwalk, the crowds. The boy said he lived there all year round, the man said he was a visitor.
"Name's Joe-Joe Brody," said the boy, smiling.
They shook hands. The boy seemed to be friendly enough, but there was something evil and cruel in his smile. The effeminate man feared him secretly. So handsome, quite the loveliest boy, and yet ... He had half a mind to turn now, now while there was still time, turn and flee.
Instead he offered to take the boy riding...." I've got my car parked only a few blocks from here"-his voice stuck in his throat as he said it.
The boy shrugged. "It's up to you, friend....
Nice night for a ride."
In silence, each occasionally glancing out of the sides of his eyes to the other, they walked to the car.
The car turned into a dark unpaved street that dead-ended at the bay. "Park it there, between those two cars," said Joe. "This is a good street. No one ever bothers you."
The man with the soft face brought the car to a stop, shut the ignition, and sat motionless, seemingly frozen, staring off into space. "I-I-" he began, but the words stuck, he could not get them out. His pulses raced, his heart tripped. Then, wildly, he reached for Joe's hand, grasped it, and swooping down kissed the hard bony knuckle.
Joe drew his hand away as the other continued to kiss it greedily. "Wait a minute. Take it easy, will you!" And when the other had released his hand, he grinned, rubbed his cheek, and muttered, "I'm a little short of dough, friend."
"Money?"
"Yeah, money." There was impatience and shame in the boy's voice. It was a game he had played before, but he was not yet hardened to it.
The soft-faced man took out a wallet, drew a ten dollar bill from it, and handed this to the boy. "You should have asked me. If I'd known I would have-"
Joe crumpled the note and stuck it into his shirt pocket. "Thanks, friend. Now, if you don't mind, I'll have the rest." He grabbed for the wallet and yanked it out of the other's grasp. He looked into it, removed the bills, crumpled them, and stuck them into his shirt pocket. Then he tossed the wallet back to its owner, and grinning pressed the door open.
"Wait a minute-not so fast! What is this? Are you a thief-a common thief?"
The effeminate man clutched at him, held on to his clothes. Joe lashed out with his open hand, slapped the soft face, slapped it hard. It fell to the steering wheel and a sound of choked sobbing issued from it.
Joe slammed the door shut behind him.
"Queer!" he muttered in disgust; and he spat on the ground. "Stinking queer!"
He moved off into the dark warm summer night, a cab passed, but he didn't hail it. He walked all the way to Mrs. Gowan's rooming house. He wasn't worried, he knew that the queer wouldn't preach to the cops. Queers never preached-he had learned from experience.
He entered the tall gray building and ascended the creaking wooden stairway to the top floor. In his room he drew out the bills, pressed them flat on the dresser. Thirty-five bucks-better than he had expected. Enough to pay Mrs. Gowan the back rent and keep him in eats for a while. He stripped off his shirt and looked at his hard, muscular body in the glass. He grinned at the reflection, stretching the cruel lips, baring the strong white teeth. It was great to be alive, to be on his own and living by his wits!
He got to the beach late, about noon, and found Rudy Gowan waiting for him. Rudy was about the same age as himself, a chubby round-faced boy, with fat rosy cheeks and black curly hair. He was good-natured and easy-going, and Joe liked him. They saw each other in the mornings, meeting here on the beach and going out for a long swim together. The rest of the day Rudy was busy helping his mother at the rooming house. Rudy grinned at him.
"You come in late last night, didn't you?"
Joe nodded.
"Out on a date?"
"No-just walking," Joe lied.
They went towards the water, side by side. Rudy laughed and ran in, diving under when it was knee deep. He began to swim out with easy graceful strokes. Joe dived in and swam after him. They were silent, neither venturing to speak, each sensing perhaps that there was an unearthly beauty to their synchronized movements which their commonplace words would impinge upon and spoil. They swam out, far out, as they always did. Till the beach was little more than a brush-stroke of white on a canvas of blue, and the people on it were bright-colored shifting specks, insects or optical illusions. Then they returned to shore, swimming slowly and leisurely.
After they emerged, they stood at the water's edge, letting the sun dry them. They usually did this. And usually, after they were a bit dry, Rudy took leave of Joe. He started to do this now, but seemed suddenly to remember something.
"Something I meant to ask you, Joe, but it slipped my mind. You doing anything special tonight?"
"Nothing special," said Joe.
"Would you go out on a double-you and me and two babes? It would be a blind date for you."
"I might. What does she look like?"
"Yours?-I wouldn't know. All I knew is that her name is Susan-Susan Carter ... You see, I had some time off yesterday afternoon, and I took a walk along the boardwalk and picked up this babe Sylvia. She gave me her phone number and asked me to call her. I did-last night. But when I ask for a date, she said only if I had a friend for her friend. I mentioned that I had a buddy and that his name was Joe-Joe Brody. So she told me her friend's name."
"Susan Carter, eh. I don't like the name."
"Then it's off-is that it?"
"No, it's on," said Joe softly. "What time do we meet?"
Rudy walked away confused, understanding Joe less than ever. This was precisely the effect that Joe wished for; it pleased him to have people wonder about him and try to figure him out. It was only to attain the effect that he had assented to the date. That was the way he felt it was sometimes, like a game-you said something on impulse and it committed you.
Susan Carter had turned out to be pretty much the personification of her name-a clean-cut clean-living young girl who used big words which she didn't know the meanings of, laughed too much, blushed too readily, and knew nothing about life. The date had been a flop, as he had known it would be. He'd stuck it out, though. And when it was over, instead of putting her on the subway and sending her home alone, as he usually did girls who bored him, he took her home. He couldn't have explained why; later on he would often think back to this night and it would seem to him that things had to happen just the way they did-that it had all been planned by something larger than himself, and he'd been assigned the part of Susan Carter's escort for the night.
They got off the subway somewhere in Flatbush and walked the rest of the way to her house. They were both tired by" the time they reached it, and when she invited him in for some coffee his first reaction was to accept and ask no questions. He caught himself in time. No, he wasn't in the mood just now to meet any girl's parents, least of all Susan Carter's.
"Your folks at home?"
"I haven't any. They're dead. There's only my older sister and myself."
At the door she whispered to him, "You'll love Helen-she's swell! And intellectual too-you won't believe it! She went to college-graduated with the highest honors in her class. And do you know what she does now? Secretary to Barton Whitmore ... Barton Whitmore-you know-the publisher. She's good for a hundred and fifty a week!"
Helen Carter, it turned out, was not a girl-not in Joe Brody's book, anyway. She was a woman of twenty-eight, or maybe thirty. But she had a nice figure, and was an exceptionally friendly, goodhearted creature. It was she who made the coffee, and she who fluttered about diem, serving them, anticipating their every wish. "You sure you don't want another cookie, Joe? Oh come on, have one, please-please Joe, just for me?" She acted the part of the older sister. But he had never had a sister, and he couldn't quite see her in that light.
After coffee they chatted a while, and he sat across the room from Helen. It was the girls who chatted really, he wasn't in the mood for talk. They tried to get him into it, but he kept his answers short and to the point. He was tired and resting, that was all. He must have stared at Helen, though, because he noticed once or twice when she suddenly looked in his direction, she blushed and quickly averted her eyes. It surprised him that a girl of her age could be as shy as all that, and it made him think. He kept remembering that she earned a hundred and fifty dollars a week. "A hundred and fifty smackers"-the phrase kept repeating in his thoughts. And she wasn't hard to take, either. You could see, even with the plain housedress she wore, that she was built for action. Her smile, there was something sad and yet pleasant about it-something motherly. Yes motherly, he would call it that.
He announced suddenly that he had to be on his way, and got to his feet. The younger sister accompanied him into the hall. He supposed she wanted to be kissed, but he wasn't in the mood to kiss clean-cut clean-living little girls just then. He did ask her for her phone number, though. He didn't know why, since he had no intention of seeing her again.