All the Trouble You Need Page 9

  “Look at this! Basketball players facedown on the ground.”

  “Basketball players?” Ned repeated. Ned followed Jordan, maneuvering until he had a clear view of three very tall black men in expensive sweatsuits, handcuffed, facedown on the cold concrete.

  The shortest of the basketball players called to the police, but it was hard to understand him because he had to speak with half his face pressed against concrete.

  “We’re the Harlem Globetrotters!” the guy said, over the sirens of approaching patrol cars. The policemen ignored him, milling about, talking among themselves.

  “Now, that’s fucked up. That is the Globetrotters. They’re playing on campus tonight,” Ned said.

  “They’ll let them go now,” Jordan said.

  Ned was backing away, retreating to the edge of the crowd and waving for Jordan to follow.

  “Come on, we’ve got to go,” Ned said, harshly, pulling at Jordan’s arm.

  At first he didn’t understand, but then a patrol car slowed as they crossed the street onto Cañon Perdido.

  He understood. Black men were in season.

  “Don’t turn around. That cop is checking us out!”

  Jordan couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder at the blond cop in the patrol car. It hit a U-turn and rolled on them. The cop bolted from the car with both hands on his gun.

  “Hands on your heads. Turn around. Get against the car! Spread them!”

  Almost instantly they were swarmed by more police, springing out of nowhere. A beefy cop handcuffed them; first Jordan, then Ned.

  “Ned?” he said, turning him around, appraising him. “Wait a minute! You’re Ned in my watercolor class.”

  “Yeah, you’re Bob. You do those watercolors of Ellwood Beach. This is my friend, Jordan Davis. He teaches at the university.”

  “Oh, yeah. You mentioned him. You teach creative writing, right?”

  “Yeah, I do. Sometimes.”

  The cop shrugged. “Okay, obviously we have a problem. Three black guys robbed a jewelry store.”

  “Those guys you got on the ground are the Globetrotters. They play on campus tonight,” Ned said.

  “That’s what they said. Man, shit is going to fly.”

  He turned away to talk to the other officers and reappeared after a few minutes.

  “It’s out of my hands; we’re going to have to take you to the station,” he said, avoiding their eyes. He opened the door of his patrol car and carefully guided them into the backseat.

  “Yeah, some paradise,” Ned said.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jordan said. “He knows you.”

  “Yeah, he does, but we’re all suspects. Those Globetrotters got to be thinking Santa Barbara knows how to treat a black man.”

  They sat in the patrol car long enough for a fairly large group of gawkers to gather across the street to watch them. They stared right back.

  “They probably think we killed somebody. We’re celebrities,” Jordan said.

  “Fuck celebrity,” Ned said.

  Bob returned and helped them out of the backseat and uncuffed them.

  “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

  “Hey, don’t mention it. See you in class,” Ned said.

  They crossed State Street, scattering onlookers, mostly kids hanging out in front of McDonald’s. They headed back to the relative security of Milpas to wait out the craziness.

  Ned laughed, breaking the silence of the walk.

  “Too bad we didn’t have a real asshole arrest us. A little beating and we might have got a big settlement.”

  “Yeah, or a nice funeral,” Jordan said.

  * * *

  The entrance of the Pub was jammed, but that didn’t slow Daphne from jockeying for position to reach the doorman. Jordan was reluctant to follow. He couldn’t help noticing that the crowd, pressing hard to enter the last dance club open at one in the morning, was overwhelmingly male. When Jordan trailed too far behind, Daphne reached for his hand to keep him close. The burly doorman who looked more like a bouncer, shirtless and dressed in red leather overalls, had a disconcerting, inch-long screw through his nose. He gave Daphne a curious once-over, collected the cover, and let them through.

  Inside, the booming bass line made conversation impossible, and dancing was almost as impossible; too many people squirreling around for a bit of room to move. Daphne still maneuvered forward, around the men lingering at the edge of the dance floor. One ran his hands along her sides; Daphne ignored the gesture and shoved on. Miraculously, she found a tiny corner of unoccupied space and leaned close, shouting into Jordan’s ear, “Do you feel uncomfortable here?”

  He shook his head but it was an obvious lie. Grimly nodding, he was too unnerved to even glance at the men dancing almost directly in front of him. Maybe she was testing him, he thought. Seeing if he was a homophobe.

  He was beyond uncomfortable. Suffering was more like it.

  “Care for a beer?”

  He nodded, and Daphne took off for the bar. From the start she was gone too long. He felt very, very awkward alone; frightened someone would chat him up or discover he was some hetro tourist, slumming in a gay club, soaking up the local color. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the lighting, he could see that there were some women out there, but then he noticed men kissing against the wall. In spite of trying not to, he found himself staring and felt guilty about his curiosity. He thought about Jake in The Sun Also Rises, wanting to bash the gay guys coming to the Bal. Remembering the scene made him want to laugh; there he was sympathizing with a homophobic, racist white man because he was worried somebody might hit on him. Fuck Hemingway. He decided to find Daphne, but there she was, coming to the rescue with beers in hand. She looked delighted.

  “I saw one of my professors at the bar.”

  She pointed nonchalantly to a tall, balding man at the counter having a beer. The professor caught their stares. Daphne waved to him as if to break the ice. Startled, the professor abruptly turned away and lost himself in the humanity.

  “I didn’t mean to scare him off. He’s my religious studies instructor, and I do believe he’s married with kids.”

  Jordan strained to hear her over the music.

  “Maybe he was just having a beer.”

  “And looking for love in all the wrong places?” she replied, laughing.

  He shrugged. He couldn’t understand what she said but her attention was elsewhere. She watched the dance floor with hawkish intensity. Jordan was content to have Daphne pressed close against him. With her there, the red strobes firing every other second, and thunderous, discordant music booming against the skin, the smoke, the bitter odors were perfect in a hellish kind of way.

  “This is the promised land!” he shouted over the din to Daphne. “And you are my people. Robert Cohn is too.”

  “You’re a fool,” she said, and kissed him fiercely.

  “You’re right, I’m a fool.”

  He wished that they were already back to her almost empty apartment, just a bed and a desk and her equally spartan refrigerator, nothing but mustard and coffee and mineral water. About the only other thing in the apartment was all the sand in her bed. He remembered her lying there naked in that gritty bed, looking vulnerable as if she had just been born.

  “Is that one of your friends?” she asked, nudging him.

  “Huh, who?”

  She pointed to a black man on the dance floor. He had his back to Jordan. Jordan shrugged.

  “Because he looked at you like he knows you.”

  “Oh,” Jordan said.

  The sweltering room became even more of an oven; Daphne’s blouse clung like wet tissue, and her breasts gleamed alluringly. He kissed her neck and slid his hands to her breasts, releasing them from her flimsy bra. She squeezed against him and whispered something that he couldn’t make out. Jordan and Daphne were both soaked with sweat, kissing hungrily. She pulled away, breaking the spell.

  “Look, your friend is coming over.”


  Jordan saw him, but at first his face didn’t register. Then he knew him—David. Coolly nodding to Daphne, David held his hand out for Jordan to shake.

  “Hello, Jordan, enjoying the heat?” David said, shouting over the music.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “It gets worse. Are you going to introduce me to your friend, or are you trying to hide her?”

  What an asshole, Jordan thought. Bet he can’t wait to run to Trisha with tales: Yeah, Trisha! I saw him with that girl he’s so in love with, feeding her a mile of tongue!

  Grudgingly, Jordan made the introductions.

  “David, this is Daphne; Daphne, David.”

  David shook her hand.

  “You are too lovely to be with Jordan. Would you two like to join us?”

  Daphne smiled shyly but shook her head. Jordan didn’t bother to respond.

  “Well, it’s been wonderful. I’ll tell Trisha I ran into you.”

  He finally left. Jordan slipped into a Trisha-inspired funk. Why did hurting Trisha’s feelings bother him so much? He couldn’t help but hurt her. It was so easy. She had the values of some Victorian heroine: prideful, proper, and virginal.

  “What’s wrong? Since David left you’ve been staring off into space. I’m not standing in the way of something, am I?”

  He grimaced.

  “Forget it. Let’s dance.”

  She entwined her hand with his, and they found a bit of space on the dance floor so confining that they hardly had room to move. Jordan enjoyed feeling Daphne writhing against him, but he wondered if David was checking them out, and the enjoyment fled like air from a balloon.

  “You keep looking for someone. David, maybe? Why don’t you ask him to dance?”

  Before he could become annoyed, she slipped her fingers around his, and kissed his cheek, running her lips to his ear.

  “Look to the far right,” she said. Jordan glanced in that direction expecting to see another professor or maybe a preacher, but he caught a glimpse of David dancing with a well-dressed blond guy.

  “What do you make of that?” Jordan asked.

  Daphne shrugged.

  “What’s to make of it? Two guys dancing at a gay club.”

  “I mean, do you think he’s straight?”

  “What do you think?”

  Jordan turned to see another man standing behind David’s partner. This guy was a big man, probably a weight lifter. He locked the blond guy’s arms in a half-nelson. David continued to dance with his restrained partner, pretty much crotch to crotch.

  “Still wondering if he’s straight?”

  Jordan shook his head.

  They watched the threesome dance, doing a kind of three-headed tango.

  “They’re very good together. Maybe they practice,” she said.

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  Jordan wasn’t really listening to her. Instead he was thinking of just how naive Trisha was. Couldn’t she see that he was gay? And what about David, didn’t he know that he could see him over there doing the Freak with a lumberjack and some preppie guy? David was busted but he didn’t seem to care. What did he want with Trisha anyway? Did he need a wife or a girlfriend for cover? Maybe he was considering a run for the senate and figured he needed a wife for the campaign flyer. The song ended, and the dance floor cleared, as people searched for air and cooler temperatures. But what was this engagement thing about? Was he just trying to mess with her mind?

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, gesturing to the rest rooms.

  It took a few minutes to locate David outside in the enclosed patio area, huddled close, sharing a cigarette with the blond guy.

  “David, excuse me. Let’s talk, if you got a minute?”

  At first David smiled at him, taking a moment too long to respond.

  “Sure, I have a minute.”

  Jordan hoped that David would excuse himself from his friend, but the friend lingered near them.

  “Look, I know this isn’t any of my business, but Trisha mentioned that you two are engaged.”

  David raised an eyebrow and stepped away from his friend, who looked curious. Jordan was glad to have David look uncomfortable if only for a passing moment.

  “Oh, she did? I thought she wanted to keep it a secret for another month.”

  “I don’t mean to butt in, but I’m concerned for her. I mean you’re here with . . .”

  Suddenly, Jordan was at a loss for words.

  “Gay men? Some of whom happen to be my friends?”

  “Okay, but what I’m saying is . . .”

  “Am I gay? Is that what you want to know?”

  Jordan shook his head, embarrassed.

  “If I were, what would it matter? I asked her to marry me because she makes me happy, and I believe I can make her happy. Marriage is something I take seriously, faithfulness, all of it. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

  Jordan had nothing else to say.

  “What about you? Trisha cares for you, and she says you care for her, but you have a thing for pretty girls. Where did you meet this one?”

  “Hey . . . that’s not how it is. Trisha is the one who . . .”

  “And she is pretty. I mean, so many black men who decide to date out of their race choose such dogs. You’ve found an exotic, and Trisha even mentioned that she’s rich. You can see that. She reeks of it. She’ll improve you.”

  Jordan was impressed. David had a tongue like a goddamn viper.

  “Look, David, I’m not the one we’re talking about. If you care about her, you need to be honest.”

  “This is where I came in,” David replied, glancing at his friend waiting patiently for his return.

  “See, Jordan, I don’t owe you an explanation, nor do I need your friendly advice.”

  David walked away, leaving Jordan standing there stupidly.

  Jordan returned to Daphne and led her from the club without a word.

  * * *

  Over the roar of the engine and the wind, Daphne’s voice interrupted the silence.

  “I’m sorry I brought you. I didn’t know you’d have such a bad reaction.”

  “It’s not that. David is dating a friend of mine. Actually, he’s engaged to her.”

  “Does she know he’s gay?”

  “I don’t think he thinks she needs to know. She’s a virgin and doesn’t know much about men.”

  Daphne laughed.

  “So, is it your job to save her?”

  “No, I’m not saying that.”

  “Then why are you so worried about their relationship? She’ll discover he’s not interested, sooner or later . . . if she cares.”

  He couldn’t find a place to park near her studio apartment at the top of the Riviera.

  “Don’t worry about parking. I have to get up at seven to go to the farmer’s market with my mother. Remember, tomorrow you’re to come by for dinner. My parents are looking forward to meeting you.”

  They kissed warmly, and Jordan waited until she was safely in her apartment before coasting downhill.

  * * *

  He figured the house would be quiet at three in the morning, but all the lights were blazing and the windows were wide open.

  There was Ned packing his belongings for the long trip back to civilization.

  Jordan walked in and startled Ned, nearly causing him to drop his milk crate of belongings.

  “What’s up?” Jordan asked.

  “My life. Getting my life in order.”

  “So you’re really going to do it?”

  “Yeah, time for a change.”

  “What day are you heading out?”

  “Tomorrow, man. I told you that. If I linger around too long, I may change my mind.”

  “You can’t go tomorrow. What’s the rush? It’s almost summer. The beach . . . you love the beach.”

  “You just don’t want to have to find another roommate.”

  “Art says he wants in. I just think you ought to hang out a little longer and don’t rush things.
”

  Ned laughed.

  “You oughta come with me. We could get a great place much cheaper than here. Shit, we each could have a floor in a cool townhouse. All kinds of sisters looking for degreed young men like ourselves.”

  Jordan shrugged.

  “Sorry, man, you know I’m down with California. Hey, you remember David?”

  “The Negro with the phony English accent, yeah.”

  Jordan waited for Ned’s full attention. Ned complied and looked up from sorting through a mound of CDs.

  “And?”

  “I saw him at the Pub.”

  “Damn, Jordan, you went to that gay bar?”

  “I was with Daphne.”

  “Yeah, that explains it. Is she a transexual? If she is, I got to get me one. What about David? You saw him there getting personal with some jocks?”

  “Well, yeah. He was there with a couple of men doing a slow grind.”

  “I thought you said he was engaged to Trisha. That doesn’t sound like what you do when you about to be married to a woman.”

  “Naw, it doesn’t.”

  “Well, it ain’t your business.”

  “That’s what Daphne says.”

  “Unless, you still trying to beat David out for Trisha.”

  Jordan shrugged nervously.

  “If that’s what you trying to do then you oughta be happy, ‘cause this David ain’t even in the game.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “But then you back where you started out, deciding who you gonna be with.”

  “Yeah, I know . . . I got to crash,” he said, and headed for the bedroom.

  Asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, he dreamed of the steering wheel of the Triumph coming off in his hand, and plunging headlong into the Pacific.

  * * *

  The next morning on his way to the university, Jordan tried not to think about Trisha, but he couldn’t help it; she was just that naive not to see what was right there in her face. Jordan couldn’t stop from exiting and driving to San Antonio Creek Road. What to do now? he thought as he sat idling at the base of their driveway. Was he going to be the carrier of tales? “Look, Trisha, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your fiancé was dancing cheek to cheek with not one man, but two. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. And if he mentions anything about me and Daphne, he’s lying.”