Downtown Men part 1
Billy Joel’s song, “Uptown Girl” has a line–“Uptown Girl looking for a downtown man..”
When Peter was a young man he met a group of other young men who were truly “downtown men.” Nothing uptown about these guys. But the group was unique. It was comprised of two brothers–Joe Tiberino and his brother Tony who were at the center of everything–plus a combination of straight/gay, black/white/beige/artists and writers and people who like hanging around drinking and talking for hours and hours. Peter was in his 20s then and he’s told me wild, crazy, hilariously funny stories about what these people did and also wrote and painted and sang. Huge gallon jugs of the tasty red wine called Cribari were consumed; several of the downtown men died of alcoholism. Peter did his share of drinking but knew when to get out in time.
When he was telling me these stories as a newly-wed, I asked one time about where were these people now? It was the mid-70s. He looked blank and said that they were probably still living in West Philadelphia where they always were. I asked him why he still didn’t visit them and it had a lot to do with Peter taking very seriously his new role as husband. As a husband he couldn’t see himself associating with the downtown men. I thought he should go to see them if he wanted to and he did.
They were still the same; basically the same crowd as before but nobody got married except Peter. They accepted him back into the group and on weekends he’d go. My curiosity drove me to ask him if I could come too, so we went downtown and met up at this newly-opened bar/art gallery called “Bacchanal,” owned and operated by Joe Tiberino.
I was so shy that I couldn’t speak. I also don’t like alcohol so I sat on a high bar stool and watched the action. Lewis Brown, friend/bartender, gave me my first glass of club soda decorated with a piece of lime–I was destined to drink many glasses of club soda in my time at Bacchanal. Lewis was my first Black friend and he was the first Black person who “told me how it is” for Black people in the U.S. In my novel “Buying A Year” Bacchanal was a partial model for Sunny Daye’s Stage Door.
I may have been in my early 30s but I knew nothing of this new reality. What Lewis told me really shocked me. He told me that among Blacks, the men and women who had lighter skin were envied and admired. What!!! I practically shrieked. That was in Gone With The Wind, I said. Lewis just smiled at me. On looking back I think he enjoyed shocking me but I also knew he loved me in a special way. All of the other women who hung out there looked like hookers and were heavy drug users. I looked like Alice In Wonderland. But he admired my “ladylike” ways. When I got pregnant he used to tell Peter–“Don’t be surprised if your baby has black and white striped skin. Your wife and I enjoy a very special relationship…” My pregnancy entranced the downtown men. When I got big they would come and look at me, hoisted up on my high bar stool and touch my belly. But Lewis isn’t the only Black man I got to know…
lgmwriting 