Hot Night in the City

'Thanks.' His eyes crinkled into a smile. 'You know, this is a strange scene. I mean... really strange. Just picture it. Our heroine descends from a bus, right? She is followed by a young man, lost in vague daydreams. She suddenly turns on him and threatens to Italian him to death. Surprised, bewildered, dumbfounded, nonplussed, and just plain scared, he decides to flee. But curiosity (that notorious cat killer) obliges him to stop, and they chat, separated by yards of sidewalk that he hopes will make her feel safe. While they're talking, he notices how the overhead street lamp glows in her hair and drapes over her shoulders like a shawl of light. ...A shawl of light. But her eyes... her eyes are lost in shadow, so he can't tell what she's thinking, what she feels. The young hero asks directions to a coffee shop, which she obligingly gives him. Now comes the tricky bit of the scene. Does he dare to invite her to have a cup of coffee with him? They could sit in the Whitest of all possible Towers and while away a few hours of this stifling hot night, talking about... well, whatever they want to talk about. Life, for instance, or love, or maybe—I don't know—baseball? Finally the drifter summons the courage to ask her. She hesitates. (Well, come on! What young heroine wouldn't hesitate?) He smiles his most boyish smile. (I'm afraid this is my most boyish smile.) Then the girl— Well, I'm not sure what our heroine would do. What do you think she would do?'

She looked at him, mentally hefting his intent. Then she asked, 'Are you an Englishman?'

He smiled at the abrupt non sequitur. 'Why do you ask?'

'You sound like Englishmen in the movies.'

'No, I'm not English. But then, you're not Italian. So we're even. Well... I'm even. Even-tempered, even- handed, and even given to playing with words. But you? You're not even. You're most definitely odd.'

'What do you mean, odd?'

'Oh, come on! Accepting an invitation for coffee with a total stranger is pretty goshdarned odd, if you ask me.'

'I didn't say I'd go for coffee with you.'

'Not in words maybe, but... say, which way is this White Tower of yours, anyway?'

'Back the way we came.'

'Four blocks down and one over, I believe you said.'

They walked down the street side by side, but with plenty of space between them, and he kept up a light trickle of small talk, mostly questions about her. She soon warmed to his light, smiling tone because she was lonely and eager to talk to somebody. He learned that she had been in the city only six months, that she had come from a small town upstate, and that she had a job she didn't like all that much. No, she didn't wish she'd stayed in her hometown. Oh sure, she got the blues sometimes, but not bad enough to want to go back there. At the next corner, she turned unexpectedly in the direction of the all-night coffee joint, and their shoulders touched. They both said 'Sorry,' and they walked on, closer now, but she was careful not to let their shoulders touch again as they approached the White Tower, a block of icy white light in the hot night.

It was pretty full, considering the late hour. The air-conditioning had attracted people driven off the street by the heat. In the booth next to theirs, a young couple fussed over three kids wearing pajamas and unlaced tennis shoes. The baby slept in the woman's arms, its mouth wetly pressed against her shoulder. The other two made slurping noises with straws stuck into glasses of pale tan crushed ice from which the last bit of cola taste had long ago been sucked. Among the refugees from the heat wave, the boy recognized several night people by the way they hunched defensively over the cups of coffee that represented their right to stay there. They were his sort of people: the flotsam that collects in all-night joints; the losers and the lost; those on the drift, and those who'd been beached; nature's predators, nature's prey.

Mugs of coffee between them, the boy and the girl talked; and when their talk waned or their thoughts wandered inward, as sometimes they did, they gazed out onto the empty street lit only by the bright splash from their window. Once he caught her examining his reflection in the glass. Her eyes saw his looking back at her and they flinched away. He hadn't had a real chance to see what she looked like out in the darkness, so he made a quick appraisal of her reflection. She was young and slim, but not pretty. Her face had a bland, peeled look. But her eyes were kind and expressive, and they were set off by long, soft lashes that were her only natural ornament. He was careful not to compliment her on her eyes, however, because saying a girl has nice eyes is an admission she isn't good-looking; it's something like describing a person with no sense of humor as 'sincere', or saying a really dull girl is a 'good listener'. Her shoulder-length hair was curled in at the ends and, with her short bangs, it made a frame that emphasized the blandness of her face. She had gone out that night in a stiff cotton frock with little bows at the shoulders, a full skirt held out by a rustling crinoline, and a matching bolero jacket. There was something odd about her clothes... like she had borrowed them from someone who was not quite her size.

Then it hit him: June Allyson!

Every major film actress had her characteristic makeup, hairdo, and wardrobe that girls imitated, each following the style of her 'favorite movie star': meaning the actress she thought she most closely resembled. For girls with too much face, there was the 'Loretta Young look'; for hard-faced girls, the 'Joan Crawford look'; for skinny-faced girls, there was Ida Lupino; for chubby-faced girls, Mitzi Gaynor or Doris Day; and for terminally plain girls there was always Judy Garland, who had to rely on her cornball, moist-eyed, hitch-in-the-voice earnestness.

This girl's scanty bangs and under-roll hairdo, together with her girl-next-door cotton dress and matching jacket, told him that she had chosen June Allyson as her 'favorite'. He thought it was sad that she'd settled for June Allyson who, with her flat face, shallow eyes, and lisping overbite, was among the plainest of the popular actresses. A real girl-next-door, for crying out loud.

'That's a lovely dress,' he said with gravity.

She smiled down at it. 'I got all dressed up and went to the movies tonight. I don't know why. I just...' She shrugged.

'A June Allyson movie?' he asked.

'Yes. I'd been waiting to see—' Her eyes widened. 'How did you know?'

He slipped into his Bela Lugosi voice. 'I know many things, my dear. I have powers beyond those of your ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill, ready-to-wear, off-the-shelf human being.'

'No, come on, really. How did you know I went to a June Allyson movie?'

He smiled. 'Just a lucky guess.' Then he popped back into the Lugosi voice, 'Or maybe not! Maybe I was lurking outside the movie house, and I followed you onto the bus, stalking my prey!' He shifted to Lionel Barrymore, all wheezy and avuncular, 'Now just you listen to me, young lady! You've got to be careful about letting bad boys pick you up and carry you off to well-lit dens, where they ply you with stimulants... like caffeine.'

She laughed. 'Well, you're right, anyway. I did go to a June Allyson movie. She's my favorite.'

'No kidding?'

'It was Woman's World. Have you seen it?'

'Afraid not.'

'Well, there's these three men who are after this swell job, but only one of them can have it. And their wives are trying to help them get it, and...'

'...and June Allyson is the nicest of the wives? A smalltown girl?'

'That's right, and she— Wait a minute! You said you haven't seen it.'

'Another lucky guess.' Then back into the Lugosi voice. 'Or was it? You must never trust bad boys, my dear. They may smile and seem harmless, but underneath...? Churning cauldrons of passion!'

She waved his nonsense away with a flapping motion of her hand: an old-fashioned, small-town, June Allyson gesture. 'Why do you call yourself a bad boy?'

'I never said that,' he said, suddenly severe.

'Sure, you did. You said it twice.'

He stared at her for a moment... then smiled. 'Did I really? Well, I guess that makes us a team. I'm the bad one, and you're the odd one. Riffraff, that's what we are. Tell you what: you be riff, and I'll be raff, okay?' Then Amos of Amos 'n' Andy said, 'So elucidate me, Missus Riff. What am yo' daily occupational work like?'

She described her work at a JC Penney's where Weaver Overhead Cash Carriers zinged on wires, bringing money and sales slips up to a central nest suspended from the ceiling, and the change came zinging back down to clerks whom the company didn't trust to handle money. She worked up in the cashier's cage, making change and zinging it back down. '...but most of the stores have modernized and gotten rid of their cash carriers.'