“But you must be careful, Jake. You’re too sensible not to know good advice from bad.”
“Oh, sure, chappie, I’ll take care. I don’t wanta be crippled up as the doctor says I might. Mah laigs got many moh miles to run yet, chasing after the sweet stuff o’ life, chappie.”
“Good oh Jake! I know you love life too much to make a fool of yourself like so many of those other fellows. I’ve never knew that this thing was so common until I started working on the railroad. You know the fourth had to lay off this trip.”
“You don’t say!”
“Yes, he’s got a mean one. And the second cook on Bowman’s diner he’s been in a chronic way for about three months.”
“But how does he get by the doctor? All them crews is examined every week.”
“Hm! . . .” Ray glanced carelessly through The Amsterdam News. “I saw Madame Laura in Fairmount Park and I told her you were sick. I gave her your address, too.”
“Bumbole! What for?”
“Because she asked me for it. She was sympathetic.”
“I never give mah address to them womens, chappie. Bad system that.”
“Why?”
“Because you nevah know when they might bust in on you and staht a rough-house. Them’s all right, them womens . . . in their own parlors.”
“I guess you ought to know. I don’t,” said Ray. “Say, why don’t you move out of this dump up to the Forties? There’s a room in the same house I stay in. Cheap. Two flights up, right on the court. Steam heat and everything.”
“I guess I could stand a new place to lay mah carcass in, all right,” Jake drawled. “Steam heats you say? I’m sure sick o’ this here praying-ma-ma hot air. And the trute is it ain’t nevah much hotter than mah breath.”
“All right. When do you want me to speak to the landlady about the room?”
“This heah very beautiful night, chappie. Mah rent is up tomorrow and I moves. But you got to do me a li’l’ favor. Go by Billy Biasse this night and tell him to come and git his ole buddy’s suitcase and see him into his new home tomorrow morning.”
Jake was as happy as a kid. He would be frisking if he could. But Ray was not happy. The sudden upset of affairs in his home country had landed him into the quivering heart of a naked world whose reality was hitherto unimaginable. It was what they called in print and polite conversation “the underworld.” The compound word baffled him, as some English words did sometimes. Why under-world he could never understand. It was very much upon the surface as were the others divisions of human life. Having its heights and middle and depths and secret places even as they. And the people of this world, waiters, cooks, chauffeurs, sailors, porters, guides, ushers, hod-carriers, factory hands — all touched in a thousand ways the people of the other divisions. They worked over there and slept over here, divided by a street.
Ray had always dreamed of writing words some day. Weaving words to make romance, ah! There were the great books that dominated the bright dreaming and dark brooding days when he was a boy. Les Misérables, Nana, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist.
From them, by way of free-thought pamphlets, it was only a stride to the great scintillating satirists of the age—Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, Anatole France, and the popular problemist, H. G. Wells. He had lived on that brilliant manna that fell like a flame-fall from those burning stars. Then came the great mass carnage in Europe and the great mass revolution in Russia.
Ray was not prophetic-minded enough to define the total evil that the one had wrought nor the ultimate splendor of the other. But, in spite of the general tumults and threats, the perfectly-organized national rages, the ineffectual patching of broken, and hectic re-building of shattered, things, he had perception enough to realize that he had lived over the end of an era.
And also he realized that his spiritual masters had not crossed with him into the new. He felt alone, hurt, neglected, cheated, almost naked. But he was a savage, even though he was a sensitive one, and did not mind nakedness. What had happened? Had they refused to come or had he left them behind? Something had happened. But it was not desertion nor young insurgency. It was death. Even as the last scion of a famous line prances out this day and dies and is set aside with his ancestors in their cold whited sepulcher, so had his masters marched with flags and banners flying all their wonderful, trenchant, critical, satirical, mind-sharpening, pity-evoking, constructive ideas of ultimate social righteousness, into the vast international cemetery of this century.
Dreams of patterns of words achieving form. What would he ever do with the words he had acquired? Were they adequate to tell the thoughts he felt, describe the impressions that reached him vividly? What were men making of words now? During the war he had been startled by James Joyce in The Little Review. Sherwood Anderson had reached him with Winesburg, Ohio. He had read, fascinated, all that D. H. Lawrence published. And wondered if there was not a great Lawrence reservoir of words too terrible and too terrifying for nice printing. Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu burnt like a flame in his memory. Ray loved the book because it was such a grand anti-romantic presentation of mind and behavior in that hell-pit of life. And literature, story-telling, had little interest for him now if thought and feeling did not wrestle and sprawl with appetite and dark desire all over the pages.
Dreams of making something with words. What could he make . . . and fashion? Could he ever create Art? Art, around which vague, incomprehensible words and phrases stormed? What was art, anyway? Was it more than a clear-cut presentation of a vivid impression of life? Only the Russians of the late era seemed to stand up like giants in the new. Gogol, Dostoievski, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgeniev. When he read them now he thought: Here were elements that the grand carnage swept over and touched not. The soil of life saved their roots from the fire. They were so saturated, so deep-down rooted in it.
Thank God and Uncle Sam that the old dreams were shattered. Nevertheless, he still felt more than ever the utter blinding nakedness and violent coloring of life. But what of it? Could he create out of the fertile reality around him? Of Jake nosing through life, a handsome hound, quick to snap up any tempting morsel of poisoned meat thrown carelessly on the pavement? Of a work pal he had visited in the venereal ward of Bellevue, where youths lolled sadly about? And the misery that overwhelmed him there, until life appeared like one big disease and the world a vast hospital?
A PRACTICAL PRANK
XVI
MY DEAR HONEY-STICK
“I was riding in Fairmount Park one afternoon, just taking the air as usual, when I saw your proper-speaking friend with a mess of books. He told me you were sick and I was so mortified for I am giving a big evening soon and was all set on fixing it on a night when you would certain sure be laying over in Philadelphia. Because you are such good company I may as well say how much you are appreciated here. I guess I’ll put it off till you are okay again, for as I am putting my hand in my own pocket to give all of my friends and wellwishers a dandy time it won’t be no fun for me if I leave out the principal one. Guess who!
“I am expecting to come to New York soon on shopping bent. You know all us weak women who can afford it have got the Fifth Avenue fever, my dear. If I come I’ll sure look you up, you can bank on it.
“Bye, bye, honeystick and be good and quiet and better yourself soon. Philadelphia is lonesome without you.
“Lovingly, LAURA.”
Billy Biasse, calling by Jake’s former lodging, found this letter for him, lying there among a pile of others, on the little black round table in the hall. . . .
“Here you is, boh. Whether youse well or sick, them’s after you.”
“Is they? Lemme see. Hm . . . Philly.” . . .
“Who is you’ pen-pusher?” asked Billy.
“A queen in Philly. Says she might pay me a visit here. I ain’t send out no invitation foh no womens yet.”
“Is she the goods?”
“She’s a wang, boh. Queen o’ Philly, I tell you. And f
oh me, everything with her is f. o. c. But I don’t want that yaller piece o’ business come nosing after me here in Harlem.”
“She ain’t got to find you, boh. Jest throws her a bad lead.”
“Tha’s the stuff to give ’m. Ain’t you a buddy with a haid on, though?”
“ ’Deed I is. And all you niggers knows it who done frequent mah place.”
And so Jake, in a prankish mood, replied to Madame Laura on a picture post-card saying he would be well and up soon and be back on the road and on the job again, and he gave Congo Rose’s address.
Madame Laura made her expected trip to New York, traveling “Chair,” as was her custom when she traveled. She wore a mauve dress, vermilion-shot at the throat, and short enough to show the curved plumpness of her legs encased in fine unrumpled rose-tinted stockings. Her modish overcoat was lilac-gray lined with green and a large marineblue rosette was bunched at the side of her neat gray hat.
In the Fifth Avenue shops she was waited upon as if she were a dark foreign lady of title visiting New York. In the afternoon she took a taxi-cab to Harlem.
Now all the fashionable people who called at Rose’s house were generally her friends. And so Rose always went herself to let them in. She could look out from her window, one flight up, and ho-ho down to them.
When Madame Laura rang the bell, Rose popped her head out. Nobody I know, she thought, but the attractive woman in expensive clothes piqued her curiosity. Hastily she dabbed her face with powder pad, patted her hair into shape, and descended.
“Is Mr. Jacob Brown living here?” Madame Laura asked.
“Well, he was—I mean ——” This luxurious woman demanding Jake tantalized Rose. She still referred to him as her man since his disappearance. No reports of his living with another woman having come to her, she had told her friends that Jake’s mother had come between them.
“He always had a little some’n’ of a mamma’s boy about him, you know.”
Poor Jake. Since he left home, his mother had become for him a loving memory only. When you saw him, talked to him, he stood forth as one of those unique types of humanity who lived alone and were never lonely. You would hardly wonder who were his father and mother and what they were like. He, in his frame and atmosphere, was the Alpha and Omega himself.
“I mean— Can you tell me what you want?” asked Rose.
“Must I? I didn’t know he— Why, he wrote to me. Said he was ill. And sent his friend to tell me he was ill. Can’t I see him?”
“Did he write to you from this here address?”
“Why, certainly. I have his card here.” Madame Laura was fumbling in her handbag.
A triumphant smile stole into Rose’s face. Jake had no real home and had to use her address.
“Is you his sister or what?”
“I’m a friend,” Madame Laura said, sharply.
“Well, he’s got a nearve.” Rose jerked herself angrily. “He’s mah man.”
“I didn’t come all the way here to hear that,” said Madame Laura. “I thought he was sick and wanting attention.”
“Ain’t I good enough to give him all the attention required without another woman come chasing after him?”
“Disgusting!” cried Madame Laura. “I would think this was a spohting house.”
“Gwan with you before I spit in you’ eye,” cried Rose. “You look like some’n just outa one you’self.”
“You’re no lady,” retorted Madame Laura, and she hurried down the steps.
Rose amplified the story exceedingly in telling it to her friends. “I slapped her face for insulting me,” she said.
Billy Biasse heard of it from the boy dancer of the Congo. When Billy went again to see Jake, one of the patrons of his gaming joint went with him. It was that yellow youth, the same one that had first invited Zeddy over to Gin-head Susy’s place. He was a prince of all the day joints and night holes of the Belt. All the shark players of Dixie Red’s pool-room were proud of losing a game to him, and at the Congo the waiters danced around to catch his orders. For Yaller Prince, so they affectionately called him, was living easy and sweet. Three girls, they said, were engaged in the business of keeping him princely—one chocolate-to-the-bone, one teasing-brown, and one yellow. He was always well dressed in a fine nigger-brown or bottle-green suit, excessively creased, and spats. Also he was happy-going and very generous. But there was something slimy about him.
Yaller Prince had always admired Jake, in the way a common-bred admires a thoroughbred, and hearing from Billy that he was ill, he had brought him fruit, cake, and ice cream and six packets of Camels. Yaller Prince was more intimate with Jake’s world than Billy, who swerved off at a different angle and was always absorbed in the games and winnings of men.
Jake and Yaller had many loose threads to pick up again and follow for a while. Were the gin parties going on still at Susy’s? What had become of Miss Curdy? Yaller didn’t know. He had dropped Myrtle Avenue before Zeddy did.
“Susy was free with the gin all right, but, gee whizzard! She was sure black and ugly, buddy,” remarked Yaller.
“You said it, boh,” agreed Jake. “They was some pair all right, them two womens. Black and ugly is exactly Susy, and that there other Curdy creachur all streaky yaller and ugly. I couldn’t love them theah kind.”
Yaller uttered a little goat laugh. “I kain’t stand them ugly grannies, either. But sometimes they does pay high, buddy, and when the paying is good, I can always transfer mah mind.”
“I couldn’t foh no price, boh,” said Jake. “Gimme a nice sweet-skin brown. I ain’t got no time foh none o’ you’ ugly hard-hided dames.”
Jake asked for Strawberry Lips. He was living in Harlem again and working longshore. Up in Yonkers Zeddy was endeavoring to overcome his passion for gambling and start housekeeping with a steady home-loving woman. He was beginning to realize that he was not big enough to carry two strong passions, each pulling him in opposite directions. Some day a grandson of his born in Harlem might easily cope with both passions, might even come to sacrifice woman to gambling. But Zeddy himself was too close to the savage swell of life.
Ray entered with a friend whom he introduced as James Grant. He was also a student working his way through college. But lacking funds to continue, he had left college to find a job. He was fourth waiter on Ray’s diner, succeeding the timid boy from Georgia. As both chairs were in use, Grant sat on the edge of the bed and Ray tipped up Jake’s suitcase. . . .
Conversation veered off to the railroad.
“I am getting sick of it,” Ray said. “It’s a crazy, clattering, nerve-shattering life. I think I’ll fall down for good.”
“Why, ef you quit, chappie, I’ll nevah go back on that there white man’s sweet chariot,” said Jake.
“Whasmat?” asked Billy Biasse. “Kain’t you git along on theah without him?”
“It’s a whole lot the matter you can’t understand, Billy. The white folks’ railroad ain’t like Lenox Avenue. You can tell on theah when a pal’s a real pal.”
“I got a pal, I got a gal,” chanted Billy, “heah in mah pocket-book.” He patted his breast pocket.
“Go long from here with you’ lonesome haht, you wolf,” cried Jake.
“Wolf is mah middle name, but . . . I ain’t bad as I hear, and ain’t you mah buddy, too?” Billy said to Jake. “Git you’self going quick and come on down to mah place, son. The bones am lonesome foh you.”
Billy and Yaller Prince left.
“Who is the swell strutter?” Ray’s friend asked.
“Hm! . . . I knowed him long time in Harlem,” said Jake. “He’s a good guy. Just brought me all them eats and cigarettes.”
“What does he work at?” asked Ray.
“Nothing menial. He’s a p-i.” . . .
“Low-down yaller swine,” said Ray’s friend. “Harlem is stinking with them.”
“Oh, Yaller is all right, though,” said Jake. “A real good-hearted scout.”
“Good-hearted!
” Grant sneered. “A man’s heart is cold dead when he has women doing that for him. How can a man live that way and strut in public, instead of hiding himself underground like a worm?” He turned indignantly to Ray.
“Search me!” Ray laughed a little. “You might as well ask why all mulattoes have unpleasant voices.”
Grant was slightly embarrassed. He was yellow-skinned and his voice was hard and grainy. Jake he-hawed.
“Not all, chappie, I know some with sweet voice.”
“Mulattress, mon ami.” Ray lifted a finger. “That’s an exception. And now, James, let us forget Jake’s kind friend.”
“Oh, I don’t mind him talking,” said Jake. “I don’t approve of Yaller’s trade mahself, but ef he can do it, well— It’s because you don’t know how many womens am running after the fellahs jest begging them to do that. They been after me moh time I can remember. There’s lots o’ folks living easy and living sweet, but . . .”
“There are as many forms of parasitism as there are ways of earning a living,” said Ray.
“But to live the life of carrion,” sneered Grant, “fatten on rotting human flesh. It’s the last ditch, where dogs go to die. When you drop down in that you cease being human.”
“You done said it straight out, brother,” said Jake. “It’s a stinking life and I don’t like stinks.”
“Your feeling against that sort of thing is fine, James,” said Ray. “But that’s the most I could say for it. It’s all right to start out with nice theories from an advantageous point in life. But when you get a chance to learn life for yourself, it’s quite another thing. The things you call fine human traits don’t belong to any special class or nation or race of people. Nobody can pull that kind of talk now and get away with it, least of all a Negro.”
“Why not?” asked Grant. “Can’t a Negro have fine feelings about life?”
“Yes, but not the old false-fine feelings that used to be monopolized by educated and cultivated people. You should educate yourself away from that sort of thing.”
Home To Harlem Page 13
