“Cream, if I may, please,” Mrs. Murdock said. “And two lumps of sugar, please, if I may.”
“Oh, youth, youth,” Lily Wynton said. “Youth and love.”
The maid returned with an octagonal tray supporting a decanter of brandy and a wide, squat, heavy glass. Her head twisted on her neck in a spasm of diffidence.
“Just pour it for me, will you, my dear?” said Lily Wynton. “Thank you. And leave the pretty, pretty decanter here, on this enchanting little table. Thank you. You’re so good to me.”
The maid vanished, fluttering. Lily Wynton lay back in her chair, holding in her gloved hand the wide, squat glass, colored brown to the brim. Little Mrs. Murdock lowered her eyes to her teacup, carefully carried it to her lips, sipped, and replaced it on its saucer. When she raised her eyes, Lily Wynton lay back in her chair, holding in her gloved hand the wide, squat, colorless glass.
“My life,” Lily Wynton said, slowly, “is a mess. A stinking mess. It always has been, and it always will be. Until I am a very, very old lady. Ah, little Clever-Face, you writers don’t know what struggle is.”
“But really I’m not—” said Mrs. Murdock.
“To write,” Lily Wynton said. “To write. To set one word beautifully beside another word. The privilege of it. The blessed, blessed peace of it. Oh, for quiet, for rest. But do you think those cheap bastards would close that play while it’s doing a nickel’s worth of business? Oh, no. Tired as I am, sick as I am, I must drag along. Oh, child, child, guard your precious gift. Give thanks for it. It is the greatest thing of all. It is the only thing. To write.”
“Darling, I told you tiny one doesn’t write,” said Miss Noyes. “How’s for making more sense? She’s a wife.”
“Ah, yes, she told me. She told me she had perfect, passionate love,” Lily Wynton said. “Young love. It is the greatest thing. It is the only thing.” She grasped the decanter; and again the squat glass was brown to the brim.
“What time did you start today, darling?” said Miss Noyes.
“Oh, don’t scold me, sweet love,” Lily Wynton said. “Lily hasn’t been naughty. Her wuzzunt naughty dirl ’t all. I didn’t get up until late, late, late. And though I parched, though I burned, I didn’t have a drink until after my breakfast. ‘It is for Hallie,’ I said.” She raised the glass to her mouth, tilted it, and brought it away, colorless.
“Good Lord, Lily,” Miss Noyes said. “Watch yourself. You’ve got to walk on that stage tonight, my girl.”
“All the world’s a stage,” said Lily Wynton. “And all the men and women merely players. They have their entrance and their exitses, and each man in his time plays many parts, his act being seven ages. At first, the infant, mewling and puking——”
“How’s the play doing?” Miss Noyes said.
“Oh, lousily,” Lily Wynton said. “Lousily, lousily, lousily. But what isn’t? What isn’t, in this terrible, terrible world? Answer me that.” She reached for the decanter.
“Lily, listen,” said Miss Noyes. “Stop that. Do you hear?”
“Please, sweet Hallie,” Lily Wynton said. “Pretty please. Poor, poor Lily.”
“Do you want me to do what I had to do last time?” Miss Noyes said. “Do you want me to strike you, in front of tiny one, here?”
Lily Wynton drew herself high. “You do not realize,” she said, icily, “what acidity is.” She filled the glass and held it, regarding it as though through a lorgnon. Suddenly her manner changed, and she looked up and smiled at little Mrs. Murdock.
“You must let me read it,” she said. “You mustn’t be so modest.”
“Read—?” said little Mrs. Murdock.
“Your play,” Lily Wynton said. “Your beautiful, beautiful play. Don’t think I am too busy. I always have time. I have time for everything. Oh, my God, I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. Oh, the suffering I have gone through with my teeth. Look!” She set down her glass, inserted a gloved forefinger in the corner of her mouth, and dragged it to the side. “Oogh!” she insisted. “Oogh!”
Mrs. Murdock craned her neck shyly, and caught a glimpse of shining gold.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said.
“As wah ee id a me ass ime,” Lily Wynton said. She took away her forefinger and let her mouth resume its shape. “That’s what he did to me last time,” she repeated. “The anguish of it. The agony. Do you suffer with your teeth, little Clever-Face?”
“Why, I’m afraid I’ve been awfully lucky,” Mrs. Murdock said.
“I——”
“You don’t know,” Lily Wynton said. “Nobody knows what it is. You writers—you don’t know.” She took up her glass, sighed over it, and drained it.
“Well,” Miss Noyes said. “Go ahead and pass out, then, darling. You’ll have time for a sleep before the theater.”
“To sleep,” Lily Wynton said. “To sleep, perchance to dream. The privilege of it. Oh, Hallie, sweet, sweet Hallie, poor Lily feels so terrible. Rub my head for me, angel. Help me.”
“I’ll go get the Eau de Cologne,” Miss Noyes said. She left the room lightly patting Mrs. Murdock’s knee as she passed her. Lily Wynton lay in her chair and closed her famous eyes.
“To sleep,” she said. “To sleep, perchance to dream.”
“I’m afraid,” little Mrs. Murdock began. “I’m afraid,” she said, “I really must be going home. I’m afraid I didn’t realize how awfully late it was.”
“Yes, go, child,” Lily Wynton said. She did not open her eyes. “Go to him. Go to him, live in him, love him. Stay with him always. But when he starts bringing them into the house—get out.”
“I’m afraid—I’m afraid I didn’t quite understand,” Mrs. Murdock said.
“When he starts bringing his fancy women into the house,” Lily Wynton said. “You must have pride, then. You must go. I always did. But it was always too late then. They’d got all my money. That’s all they want, marry them or not. They say it’s love, but it isn’t. Love is the only thing. Treasure your love, child. Go back to him. Go to bed with him. It’s the only thing. And your beautiful, beautiful play.”
“Oh, dear,” said little Mrs. Murdock. “I—I’m afraid it’s really terribly late.”
There was only the sound of rhythmic breathing from the chair where Lily Wynton lay. The purple voice rolled along the air no longer.
Little Mrs. Murdock stole to the chair upon which she had left her coat. Carefully she smoothed her white muslin frills, so that they would be fresh beneath the jacket. She felt a tenderness for her frock; she wanted to protect it. Blue serge and little ruffles—they were her own.
When she reached the outer door of Miss Noyes’s apartment, she stopped a moment and her manners conquered her. Bravely she called in the direction of Miss Noyes’s bedroom.
“Good-by, Miss Noyes,” she said. “I’ve simply got to run. I didn’t realize it was so late. I had a lovely time—thank you ever so much.”
“Oh, good-by, tiny one,” Miss Noyes called. “Sorry Lily went by-by. Don’t mind her—she’s really a real person. I’ll call you up, tiny one. I want to see you. Now where’s that damned Cologne?”
“Thank you ever so much,” Mrs. Murdock said. She let herself out of the apartment.
Little Mrs. Murdock walked homeward, through the clustering dark. Her mind was busy, but not with memories of Lily Wynton. She thought of Jim; Jim, who had left for his office before she had arisen that morning. Jim, whom she had not kissed good-by. Darling Jim. There were no others born like him. Funny Jim, stiff and cross and silent; but only because he knew so much. Only because he knew the silliness of seeking afar for the glamour and beauty and romance of living. When they were right at home all the time, she thought. Like the Blue Bird, thought little Mrs. Murdock.
Darling Jim. Mrs. Murdock turned in her course, and entered an enormous shop where the most delicate and esoteric of foods were sold for heavy sums. Jim liked red caviar. Mrs. Murdock bought a jar of the shiny, glutinous eggs. They would have cocktails tha
t night, though they had no guests, and the red caviar would be served with them for a surprise, and it would be a little, secret party to celebrate her return to contentment with her Jim, a party to mark her happy renunciation of all the glory of the world. She bought, too, a large, foreign cheese. It would give a needed touch to dinner. Mrs. Murdock had not given much attention to ordering dinner, that morning. “Oh, anything you want, Signe,” she had said to the maid. She did not want to think of that. She went on home with her packages.
Mr. Murdock was already there when she arrived. He was sitting with his newspaper opened to the financial page. Little Mrs. Murdock ran in to him with her eyes a-light. It is too bad that the light in a person’s eyes is only the light in a person’s eyes, and you cannot tell at a look what causes it. You do not know if it is excitement about you, or about something else. The evening before, Mrs. Murdock had run in to Mr. Murdock with her eyes a-light.
“Oh, hello,” he said to her. He looked back at his paper, and kept his eyes there. “What did you do? Did you drop up to Hank Noyes’s?”
Little Mrs. Murdock stopped right where she was.
“You know perfectly well, Jim,” she said, “that Hallie Noyes’s first name is Hallie.”
“It’s Hank to me,” he said. “Hank or Bill. Did what’s-her-name show up? I mean drop up. Pardon me.”
“To whom are you referring?” said Mrs. Murdock, perfectly.
“What’s-her-name,” Mr. Murdock said. “The movie star.”
“If you mean Lily Wynton,” Mrs. Murdock said, “she is not a movie star. She is an actress. She is a great actress.”
“Well, did she drop up?” he said.
Mrs. Murdock’s shoulders sagged. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, she was there, Jim.”
“I suppose you’re going on the stage now,” he said.
“Ah, Jim,” Mrs. Murdock said. “Ah, Jim, please. I’m not sorry at all I went to Hallie Noyes’s today. It was—it was a real experience to meet Lily Wynton. Something I’ll remember all my life.”
“What did she do?” Mr. Murdock said. “Hang by her feet?”
“She did no such thing!” Mrs. Murdock said. “She recited Shakespeare, if you want to know.”
“Oh, my God,” Mr. Murdock said. “That must have been great.”
“All right, Jim,” Mrs. Murdock said. “If that’s the way you want to be.”
Wearily she left the room and went down the hall. She stopped at the pantry door, pushed it open, and spoke to the pleasant little maid.
“Oh, Signe,” she said. “Oh, good evening, Signe. Put these things somewhere, will you? I got them on the way home. I thought we might have them some time.”
Wearily little Mrs. Murdock went on down the hall to her bedroom.
MIDSUMMER MADNESS (1953)
Langston Hughes
The unnamed prim, educated Harlem resident who narrates “Midsummer Madness” is the recurring “partner” of Langston Hughes’s recurring protagonist, Jesse B. Semple. Simple (as Semple is known) was born and raised in Virginia, but, like Hughes (who was born in Missouri), he found himself happiest in Harlem. During World War II, Hughes created the Simple character for a newspaper column and discovered that Simple’s irreverent and comic voice cut quicker and deeper into issues of social justice and race than Hughes’s own could. Hughes (1902–1967) moved to New York in 1921 to attend Columbia University, but soon abandoned his studies there for life as a writer in Harlem. One of the most important figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes, for more than forty years, was the country’s most persistent and enthusiastic advocate for black writers and artists.
PAVEMENT HOT AS a frying pan on Ma Frazier’s griddle. Heat devils dancing in the air. Men in windows with no undershirts on—which is one thing ladies can’t get by with if they lean out windows. Sunset. Stoops running over with people, curbs running over with kids. August in Harlem too hot to be August in hell. Beer is going up a nickel a glass, I hear, but I do not care. I would still be forced to say gimme a cool one.
“That bar’s sign is lying—air cooled—which is why I’d just as well stay out here on the sidewalk. Girl, where did you get them baby-doll clothes? Wheee-ee-oooo!” The woman did not stop, but you could tell by the way she walked that she heard him. Simple whistled. “Hey, lawdy, Miss Claudy! Or might your name be Cleopatra?” No response. “Partner, she ig-ed me.”
“She really ignored you,” I said.
“Well, anyhow, every dog has its day—but the trouble is there arc more dogs than there are days, more people than there are houses, more roomers than there are rooms, and more babies than there are cribs.”
“You’re speaking philosophically this evening.”
“I’m making up proverbs. For instance: ‘A man with no legs don’t need shoes.’”
“Like most proverbs, that states the obvious.”
“It came right out of my own head—even if I did hear it before,” insisted Simple. “Also I got another one for you based on experience: ‘Don’t get a woman that you love. Get a woman that loves you!’”
“Meaning, I take it, that if a woman loves you, she will take care of you, and you won’t have to take care of her.”
“Something like that,” said Simple, “because if you love a woman you are subject to lay down your all before her, empty your heart and your pockets, and then have nothing left. I bet if I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, some woman would of had my spoon before I got to the breakfast table. I always was weak for women. In fact, womens is the cause of my being broke tonight. After I buy Joyce her summer ice cream and Zarita her summer beer, I cannot hardly buy myself a drink by the middle of the week. At dinner time all I can do is walk in a restaurant and say, ‘Gimme an order of water—in a clean glass.’”
“I will repeat a proverb for you,” I said. “‘It’s a mighty poor chicken that can’t scratch up his own food.’”
“I am a poor rooster,” said Simple. “Womens have cleaned me to the bone. I may give out, but I’ll never give up, though. Neither womens nor white folks are going to get Jesse B. down.”
“Can’t you ever keep race out of the conversation?” I said.
“I am race conscious,” said Simple. “And I ain’t ashamed of my race. I ain’t like that woman that bought a watermelon and had it wrapped before she carried it out of the store. I am what I am. And what I say is: ‘If you’re corn bread, don’t try to be an angel-food cake!’ That’s a mistake. . . . Look at that chick! Look at that de-light under the light! So round, so firm, so fully packed! But don’t you be looking, too, partner. You might strain your neckbone.”
“You had better take your own advice,” I said, “or you might get your head cut off. A woman with a shape like that is bound to have a boy friend.”
“One more boy friend would do her no harm,” said Simple, “so it might as well be me. But you don’t see me moving out of my tracks, do you? I have learned one thing just by observation: Midsummer madness brings winter sadness, so curb your badness. If you can’t be good, be careful. In this hot weather with womens going around not only with bare back, but some of them with mighty near everything else bare, a man has got to watch his self. Look at them right here on the Avenue—play suits, sun suits, swim suits, practically no suits. I swear, if I didn’t care for Joyce, I’d be turning my head every which-a-way, and looking every which-a-where. As it is, I done eye-balled a plenty. This is the hottest summer I ever seen—but the womens look cool. That is why a man has to be careful.”
“Cool, too, you mean—controlled!”
“Also careful,” said Simple. “I remember last summer seeing them boys around my stoop, also the mens on the corner jiving with them girls in the windows, and the young mens in the candy store buying ice cream for jail bait and beating bongos under bebop windows. And along about the middle of the winter, or maybe it was spring, I heard a baby crying in the room underneath me, and another one gurgling in the third floor front. And this summer on the sidewalk I
see more new baby carriages, and rattles being raised, and milk bottles being sucked. It is beautiful the way nature keeps right on producing Negroes. But the welfare has done garnished some of these men’s wages. And the lady from the Domestic Relations Court has been upstairs in the front room investigating twice as to where Carlyle has gone. When he do come home he will meet up with a summons.”
“I take it Carlyle is a young man who does not yet realize the responsibilities of parenthood.”
“Carlyle is old enough to know a baby has to eat. And I do not give him credit for cutting out and leaving that girl with that child—except that they had a fight, and Carlyle left her a note which was writ: ‘Him who fights and runs away, lives to fight some other day.’ The girl said Carlyle learned that in high school when he ought to have been learning how to get a good job that pays more than thirty-two dollars a week. When their baby were born, it was the coldest day in March. And my big old fat landlady, what always said she did not want no children in the house, were mad when the Visiting Health Nurse came downstairs and told her to send some heat up.
“She said, ‘You just go back upstairs and tell that Carlyle to send me some money down. He is two weeks behind now on his rent. I told him not to be setting on my stoop with that girl last summer. Instead of making hay while the sun were shining, he were using his time otherwise. Just go back upstairs and tell him what I said.’
“‘All of which is no concern of mine,’ says the Health Nurse. ‘I am concerned with the welfare of mother and child. Your house is cold, except down here where you and your dog is at.’
“‘Just leave Trixie out of this,’ says the landlady. ‘Trixie is an old dog and has rheumatism. I love this dog better than I love myself, and I intends to keep her warm.’
“‘If you do not send some steam upstairs, I will advise your tenants to report you to the Board of Health,’ says the Health Nurse.
“She were a real spunky little nurse. I love that nurse—because about every ten days she came by to see how them new babies was making out. And every time she came, that old landlady would steam up. So us roomers was warm some part of last winter, anyhow.”
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