THEY WERE DRINKING BEER and listening to the Dirty Rivers tape when the other people came in. Rodney had been sitting on the sofa, quietly, too heavy to keep time with his feet and too tight inside to care if the Pratts did. Lynn was in her best position, on the floor, cross-legged. The two girls with names he did not catch sat in chairs and crossed their legs, keeping time to the music and smoking. Looking at Lynn on the floor and looking at them on the chairs made Rodney mad. Listening to the Pratts recount, to the two white fellows, how they got the Cleveland tape made Rodney mad too. He drained his beer can and then began to beat time to the music with his foot and both hands on the arm of the sofa with a heavy, controlled deliberation that was really off the beat. Still, he knew that, since he was the only black male in the room, the others would assume that he alone knew the proper beat, even if it was out of time with their own perception of it, and would follow him. The two bearded fellows did just that when they sat down on the floor with Lynn; but the two girls maintained their original perception of the beat. Nevertheless, watching the fellows, Rodney felt the return of some sense of power.

“Some more suds,” he said to Peggy Pratt.

She went out of the room.

“You’ve had enough,” said Lynn.

Rodney looked at her spitefully. “Just be cool,” he told her. “You just play your own game and stay cool.”

The two girls looked at him and smiled. Their dates looked at Lynn. They did not smile. Dirty Rivers was moaning, “Help me! Help me! Help me!” now, and Rodney felt that he had to feel more from the music than any of them. “Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!” he exclaimed as Peggy Pratt handed him another can of beer. “This cat is together!”

The girls agreed and smiled again. One of them even reconciled her beat to Rodney’s. Lynn just looked at him.

“He’s just a beautiful man,” the reconciled girl said.

“He’s got more soul than anybody,” said Rodney. “Nobody can touch him.” He got up from the sofa, put his hands in his pockets and began to exercise a slow, heavy grind to the music without moving his feet. Charlie, who had been standing by the recorder all this time with his hands locked together, smiled his Genghis Khan smile. “Actually,” he said rather slowly, “I think Ashy Williamson is better.”

“You jivetime cat,” said Rodney. “Williamson couldn’t touch Dirty Rivers with a stick.”

“Rivers couldn’t adapt,” said Charlie.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s just an old man now, playing the toilets, doing his same thing. Williamson’s got class. He’s got a new sound everybody digs. Even the squares.”

“What do you know?” said Rodney.