“I don’t see why we had to do this so soon,” Mercy said as we walked down Eighth Avenue through the Meat Packing District. We’d taken the bus and gotten off on Fourteenth Street. “She’s not well,” Mercy continued. The sun was slipping behind the brownstones that surrounded us, but the heat hung on. Men in loose-fitting overalls, splattered with blood, was taking down cow and pig heads from their hooks. Fierce, angry expressions were frozen onto the animals’ faces; nausea rose up in my stomach as I saw blood drip down from necks that was no longer there. I looked away and almost slipped on the slick fluids that oozed from the carcasses onto the street. Shirl and Merci continued to talk like this place didn’t reek of death.
“She’s fine.” Shirl said. “We gave her an extra day to recuperate. Now, it’s time for her to rejoin the world. This is what she needs.”
I do? I said to myself, struggling to keep down the nausea. If only there was a breeze to chase away the smell. I wished they’d be quiet; I had to think.
“A gay girl bar will put her back in the pink in no time,” Shirl went on. “What I don’t understand is how you could’ve let her leave the house in those clothes? You knew where we were going.”
We walked beyond the bloody heads and my stomach settled. We passed dusty tenements with folks fanning themselves on fire escapes. Sagging laundry hung on lines between buildings.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” I said. I walked between the two of them, as if they were the Wonder Bread and I was the baloney.
I wore a cotton dress with red knit roses across the front and white gloves to match. I held my beige clutch purse close to my chest. From neglect my hair had grown to almost shoulder length with no discernible style; it just hung there. Mercy had made me presentable by pulling a handful of my stringy mop into a clip. I never tied my hair back, but Mercy thought it looked cute. I didn’t care so at least one of us was happy. I had to think. Thinking might be even better than happy. The Haven. That’s what I had to think about. I was gonna save it. I had to. I would not let Max sell it. I would get back the audience. Soon I’d know exactly what I had do to get the Haven back on top. That’s how things came to me. I’d think and think and read and read and think and I wouldn’t get one darn idea. Nothing. Then all of a sudden—out of the blue only my blue is kinda silver and there’s sorta a click that comes with it. I think it happens in my head, but I’m not sure. Still, somehow, after that click comes outta the silver, I know what I have to do. It always works. Well—almost. Maybe sometimes. I think the trick is to get my ears syncopated with that click.
I’ve always heard things different from other people. I learned that from Danny, my first beau. We were walking on the board walk at Coney Island and I heard the Sea Gulls way out over the ocean. They blocked all the beach sounds so the seagulls were all I could hear. Danny couldn’t hear them. He said, “You always notice sound before anyone else.” And I told him there were all sorts of sounds everywhere waiting for you grab hold—but back then—on a beach it was lots different from being in the city where it’s always noisy and all the sounds are jumbled up together. That gives no peace. But on a boardwalk hearing the “Caw, caw,” of the seagulls, it was like they were saying “Hey there! Pay attention to me.”
Danny really surprised me when he said, “I don’t think that happens to everybody. That may be your own special gift.”
But it’s hard to hear, really hear in all this noise. But if I can get past the noise to hear I’ll get to that silver click and then I’ll know what to do.
“How could you dress her like this?” Shirl moaned, continuing to talk like I wasn’t there. But maybe I wasn’t in a way. I was stuck deep in my head.
I remember the first time Max and I bought the Haven. Swing Street. Swing Street was the top and we finally were there. On the top. It’d been Max’s dream since he was eighteen. I caught the fire from him after the war. The Olympus was doing good in Times Square, but Swing Street… It was the livin’ end. Opening The Haven on Swing Street meant we were somebodies. And our first headliner was Ella Fitzgerald! We could even afford her salary, them. We were a hit. All the papers cheered us. The reviews were over the moon. Max put me in charge of the place, and it flew! We had Billy Dana, Harbers and Dale, Sammy Davis Jr, Tallulah Bankhead and lots more upper tier performers. I expected it to go on forever. What happened? Doesn’t matter. I’m getting it back.
“You didn’t want me to let her come to the Sea Colony in that black jacket and black skirt she always wears at the clubs, did you?” Mercy asked. “Did you know, she has six or seven of each in her closet. Her closet looks like a department store for widows.”
“What’s wrong with that outfit?” I asked. “That’s my work outfit. Then I don’t have to think about what to wear. What a waste, cluttering up your brain with clothes.”
“Yes, dear.” Mercy said, trying to keep her cheerful demeanor. “There’s nothing wrong with your black outfit.”
“Except,” Shirl said, “if you wore that tonight no one would speak to you.”
“Why?”
“They’d think you were kiki,” Shirl explained.
“They’d think I was what?”
“You spent entirely too much time with Juliana. You don’t know anything about our world,” Shirl said, “Don’t you have a pair of dungarees?”
“I work in a club. Where would I wear them?”
“Girls are wearing them in the street nowadays.”
“Oh, you mean the ones who get arrested?”
“They don’t. Usually. You just might get stared at. If you don’t look too mannish, like me, the cops usually leave you alone. Times are changing.”
A truck rattled by kicking up clouds of dust that got in my hair and mouth. We walked past a few more markets where they were slapping fish into buckets of ice.
“Stop it, Shirl,” Mercy demanded. “She’s been through enough. She looks very nice in this dress. You have to remember she’s been sick. She’s lost a little weight and she’s pale. But she’s starting to look better already, just being out with us. My spaghetti and meatballs certainly gave her back some energy.”
We walked past tenement after tenement; laundry hanging from fire escapes.
“If you keep feeding her like that,” Shirl laughed, “she’s going to turn into a roly poly.” Then, Mercy laughed. I didn’t laugh because it was one of those jokes that people laugh at that isn’t really funny, and everyone knows it isn’t funny, but they laugh at it anyway. I wished they’d stop yakking in my ear. I wanted to get back to thinking.
“A femme.” Shirl said. “You made her look like a femme. That’s what I’m objecting to.”
“I can only work with what’s in her closet, Shirl, dear,” Mercy said, with a little bite to her tone.
Yes, I can do this. I’ll save The Haven and prove myself worthy of Juliana. Jeepers, I sound like a knight. She would hate that.
Still—I’m gonna get her back and I’m gonna get the Haven back up and running. I threw my arms around the two of them. “Okay, girls, let’s go dancing.” They looked at me like they weren’t sure if I was better or had really gone over the deep end. To be frank, I wasn’t so sure myself.
Together we marched toward the three brick row houses joined together. Running across the top of all three it said, “Sea Colony Restaurant.”
“This is it,” Shirl said, and I suddenly stopped. My legs froze and my heart pounded. Shirl tugged on me, but I didn’t move.
I’d been in a gay dance club before; in Paris. I loved it. Juliana and I danced at Cafe Moune until dawn; there was only women in the whole place. Even the orchestra was only women. No threat of cops. But this. This place in front of me. It wasn’t a club; it was a bar, a bar for gay girls, gay girls who got called ‘dykes’ and lesbians by outsiders.
Next to the door a large window. Anyone might easily see inside. The last thing Max had said when I left our apartment was, “Don’t get arrested.” That was his joke that wasn’t funny.
“What’s the matter?” Shirl asked trying to pull me forward.
“I don’t know,” I said, my throat parched. But then it hit me. Going in there meant I really was what I already knew I really was. And I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “Let’s go, girls, before I change my mind.” With my arms still around Shirl and Mercy’s necks I charged toward the door dragging them with me.
We were met by a guy sitting on a high stool in baggy pants, jacket and tie, a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, and big gold rings with red stones on his stubby fingers. Shirl slid out from under my arm and pulled her wallet from her back pocket. “Three tickets,” she told the guy. “This one’s on me, kid.” She smiled at me as she handed the guy some bills and took the tickets.
“An’ dere ain’t gonna be none a dat.” He said, waving his finger at Mercy and me. I still had my arm around Mercy’s shoulders. “No funny bizness, youse two. I run a clean place.”
I released Mercy and we stood waiting behind other girls to get into the main room. Little Richard sang, “Long Tall, Sally” on the juke box.
“No. Wait.” Shirl said before I got fully into the room. She pulled off my white gloves.
“You don’t wear white gloves to a gay girl bar.” She stuffed them in my purse. “Next time, no purse. Let’s go.”
The place was crowded with girls sitting at tables to my right drinking and talking; others leaned on the knotty pine bar to my left. Some talked to the bartender, a woman. On one end of the bar were the mannish girls who sat smoking and sucking on bottles of beer or other drinks. They kept their cigarette packs rolled up in their shirt sleeves. A few of them swiveled on their bar stools to stare at us as we entered. They wore blue or black jeans with pressed creases and men’s white shirts with pockets. Some had hair styles like Elvis Presley and others had crew cuts. The bartender slid drinks down the length of the bar to the mannish girls whose open hands stopped them from flying off the edge.
On the other end of the bar, was a group of giggling girlie girls in frilly clothes. The place smelled of beer and sweat. No air conditioning: fans perched in various corners were doing their best to cool the place off and failing miserably. The tables and chairs and the bar, though, looked nice. Not dingy like I expected.
“ Let’s take that table over there,” Shirl said, pointing to one of the free tables left. She helped Mercy into a seat. The juke box changed the record to, Frankie Limon’s “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” I put my purse on the tabletop; Shirl grabbed it and shoved it onto my lap, “Hide that thing.”
Mercy said, “Stop picking on Al.”
“Mercy has a purse, and it doesn’t bother you,” I said.
“Because Mercy is my lovely lady, and she carries my cigars.” Shirl said. “She has to carry a purse. You don’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
Max wouldn’t even talk to me about what was happening at either of our clubs until I promised to come to this place. It was supposed to be good for me; I hated doing things other people said were good for me.
“Tomorrow Mercy’s taking you out to get a pair of blue jeans,” Shirl announced.
“You’ll look so cute in them,” Mercy said.
“We don’t want her looking cute,” Shirl said. “We want her looking tough, like she can handle herself.”
“Oh, brother,” I mumbled under my breath. I wondered how much longer they were gonna make me stay.
“Why don’t you try to relax and enjoy yourself,” Shirl said. “You’re sitting so stiff.
“Yeah, sure.” I jiggled my shoulders trying to look looser.
I looked around the room. The whole place was filled with girls except for the guy taking tickets at the door and another guy leaning on the bar smoking a cigar. I knew he had to be one of the mob guys who owned the place; mob guys were the only ones who could own a gay bar. I was in a place where just about everyone was like me. Except for Chez Moune, I didn’t think I’d ever been somewhere where that was true before. It was kinda interesting watching everybody. Two girls at the table behind me were kissing. Right out in public. If only Juliana could see this place with me. It didn’t seem like the low class place she thought it was.
“Hey, Shirl, all these girls are gay?”
“Just about. Except, I suppose for the tourists.”
“Tourists? You mean people on vacation come here to watch us?”
“Sometimes.”
“You mean they go home and tell their friends they saw a gay girl drinking a beer? How interesting can that be?”
“Not very, but I heard some of them get a kick out of telling their relatives things like that. Makes them feel daring like a bohemian,” Mercy said.
“Or they tell their friends about the ‘freaks’ like that couple kissing,” Shirl added.
“They don’t take pictures, do they?” I asked.
“They better not,” Shirl said. “There are plenty of girls here who’d knock out a tourist’s brain and stomp it into dust if they did that. There are jobs and apartments at stake.”
“Yeah, I know. Like mine.”
“Don’t worry,” Shirl said. “You’re perfectly safe. This is a group of loyal girls and now you’re one of them. They don’t tell.”
Elvis Presley singing “Hound Dog’ blasted from the juke box and a bunch of girls hurried toward the dance floor in the back. Wiggling in my chair to the song—who could keep themselves from wiggling when Elvis was singing? I shouted, “I love this song! Let’s dance.”
“Go ahead,” Shirl shouted back. “I can’t dance to this. All that hip shaking and gyrating. It’s obscene.”
“You’re showing your age, dear,” Mercy said leaning into the center of the table. “Come on, Al, let’s go.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me weaving in and out of the women taking their drinks to the back room too.
Dancing will keep my thoughts off Juliana. I never saw her rocking and rolling.
“Watch out for the red light,” Shirl yelled after us.
“What’s the red light?” I asked Mercy.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
I followed Mercy into the back room where girls in poodle skirts and pony tails, danced with girls in crew cuts or D.A’s and blue jeans. Sweat hung in the air like a locker room.
Are these women really like me?
“Come on!” Mercy said, pulling me into the center of the pressing bodies. We were stuffed in there like sausages. We stood opposite each other; Mercy sparkled with those lollipop eyes of hers. Everything was always fine and dandy with Mercy. Whoop-di-doo! She was like a walking, breathing ice cream cone. She started right in dancing. I had no idea she could dance like that. She swung me out and in and around and under and over never missing a beat even when I went sailing into another couple. “Not much different than the Jitterbug,” she yelled when I gawked at her.
As soon as that song ended, Mercy and I pushed against the crowds to get back to our table with Shirl. Mercy didn’t want to leave Shirl alone too long. Carl Perkins came on singing, “Blue Suede Shoes.” A slender butch dressed in black jeans and cowboy boots came over to us, grinning at me. “Hey, there, doll. Ya wanna jiggle?” She looked at me with a ‘I gotta have you’ lilt to her voice. I’d never danced with a stranger before. There was something indecent and exciting about it. Her dark hair came down to the center of her forehead in a sort of pompadour, but more subtle. In the back, it ended in a pointed D.A. that flopped over her collar. Her eyebrows, as dark as her hair, were arched upward, in a look of permanent suspicion. She wore a man’s red and white striped shirt with a few buttons open. It had a stiff collar that stood up. Her sleeves were rolled past her elbows and one sleeve had a pack of Winston’s peeking out.
“Well, I…”
“Go ahead,” Mercy said. “I’ve got to keep Shirl company.” She hurried back to our table. The slender butch put an arm around me and led me back to the center of the dance floor just as Carl Perkins was winding down his, Blue Suede Shoes. The Platters began My Prayer , a slow one. She held me lightly in her arms as we started to move together. It felt odd, awkward to have these stranger’s arms around me. She was gentle, but it was so very different from being in Juliana’s arms. As the song got more emotional, she gripped me harder. My Prayer faded and the jukebox immediately flipped to, “In the Still of the Night.” I slipped from her arms, saying thank you. She pulled me back. “Don’t go yet?” Her voice surprised me. It was so feminine. It didn’t seem to go with the way she looked. “This is a good song to dance to.”
She wrapped her arms me and held me against what would’ve been her breasts, if she’d had any. She slid us over the floor like we were ice skating.
When the song ended, I thanked her and stepped back so she couldn’t grab me for another dance. I wanted to find Mercy and Shirl. The juke box wailed Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ Impossible not to wiggle to that. So, I wiggled my way into the middle of the dance floor looking for Mercy and Shirl when…
“Hi. I’m Freddie-Faye,” the tall butch I thought I’d finished dancing with was behind me, whispering close to my ear. Her breath tickled the side of my face. “Who are you , oh lovely one?” she asked.
She means me ? I never thought my looks were my best feature. “Al, I mean Alice—Al,” I whispered back in her ear. The music was loud.
“Nice to meecha, Alice-Al,” she shouted.
“No, just Al,” I shouted back.
“What? Can’t hear. Tell me here.” She pointed to her ear and pulled me close. “My name,” I said into her ear. “Al. That’s all.”
“I figgered.” she said to the side of my face. I could feel her lips against my cheek bone. “Heck of a name for a femme, Al. She put out a hand for me to shake and I did. She held onto it and bent to kiss my fingers. That felt real strange and a little embarrassing. She started to dance right there to Johnny B Goode in the center of the dance floor. She put her hand on my hip and guided me through some steps that seemed more like a fox trot than those meant for Johnny B. Goode. The whole time she stared at me like she wanted to kiss me.
Girls rocked and rolled around us. Hiding in the corner Mercy was teaching Shirl to rock and roll and… CRASH! Everything stopped. The juke box went dark, then dead. Dancers froze, afraid to move. The mob guy who’d been leaning on the bar had pulled the plug outta the music. A hefty girl, thirtyish, wearing a khaki green shirt, hanging half in and half out of her blue jeans stood next to a table she’d knocked over. Her curly ash blonde hair was gathered into a short ponytail and pinned to her neck by a barrette.
“Anybody hurt?” Freddie-Faye asked as she slid through the crowd, swaying her hips like Elvis Presley.
“Janet! I warned you,” the mob guy with the cigar said. “Freddie-Faye, get her outta here and don’t go bringin’ her back.”
“Aw, come on, Vinnie.” Freddie-Faye shot back, bending to put the table upright. “No one’s hurt. Janet just got a little nervous. I’ll pay ya for any damage. Give me the bill. But don’t pad it.”
“Okay, but ya gotta get her in line or else she can’t come here no more. Hey Janet, you tryin’ to cause me trouble? I run a good business here for youse goils.”
Weeping, Janet said, “Sorry Vinnie, the thoughts, you know, the thoughts.”
“Yeah, sure. Take her home, Freddie.” He put the plug back into the juke box, re-lit his cigar and left the room.
A short stocky girl in a white tee-shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front and blue and white striped Bermuda shorts put the chairs Janet knocked over back in place.
“Okay, Janet, that’s enough for tonight.” Freddie-Faye put an arm around her while Janet wept into her shoulder, “I’m sorry, Freddie. I keep thinking. I can’t help thinking, can I?”
“Guess not. But we don’t want ya hurtin’ nobody. I need to get ya home to sleep it off.”
“But I feel so empty when I ain’t here.”
“And if ya don’t keep it under control Vinnie’s not gonna let ya come back. Ever.”
“I know.”
The jukebox dropped, ‘See You Later, Alligator’ and the girls danced again like nothing had happened.
Freddie-Faye turned to me, “I’m sorry, Al. I gotta take care of this. Will ya be here tomorrow night?”
“Uh, well, I…”
“I know! Do you go to the Bagatelle?”
“No.”
“Please. After this I’m gonna need to look at a sweet face like yours. I’ll meet ya at the corner of University and Eleventh, tomorrow, 8. The Bagatelle’s real nice and I gotta keep Janet away from here awhile so Vinnie forgets tonight. So, the Bag tomorrow? Please. Pretty Please.”
“Uh, well, I wasn’t planning on…”
“We’ll sit and talk. Maybe a coupla dances. That’s all.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks. Hey Deb,” she called to the short stocky girl in the Mickey Mouse tee shirt that was miles too big for her. “Look after Al, will ya?”
“Yeah? Really? Thanks, Freddie! You’re the ginchiest.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Freddie-Faye slipped the Army WAC jacket that hung on Janet’s chair into her arms. “Well, ya ain’t gonna be needin’ this tonight,” Freddie-Faye said, holding it under her arm. “It’s gotta be ninety out.” She put her other arm around Janet and walked her to the entrance. “You gotta keep going to ya job so ya gotta watch the booze. I can’t afford to keep ya if ya lose that job.”
“I’ll do better.”
“I know, sweetheart. Yer life’s hard.” I watched them walk out together.
“Hi,” Deb, said coming up behind me. She had her hands stuck deep into her pockets. “I’m Deb Skylar. Some people call me Sky because I can fly.”
“Oh, brother,” I mumbled behind my smile.
“Freddie-Faye wants me to take care of you.”
“I doubt I need that service.”
“Ooh, a feisty femme.” She rubbed the palms of her hands together. “Let’s dance.”
From across the room Shirl and Mercy was signaling me that they were leaving. I wanted to run and catch up with them, but I had this kid staring at me saying a little too eagerly, “Dance with me! Dance with me!”
“Just one,” I told her. “Then I gotta go.”
I was about to join her for the last of “See you Later, Alligator, when the record changed to “Secret Love.”
The whole room got up to dance to that one. Deb reached out for me as Doris Day sang, ‘At last my heart’s an open door…’ I backed away. “I can’t. Not this song.” Deb grabbed me around the shoulders and pulled me against her. “And my secret love’s no secret anymore.” Tears flooded my face and I cried all over her Mickey Mouse.