Manchild in the promised land

by Brown, Claude, 1937-

  He said, no, he was going into the Apollo, but give him my address and he'd come around. He asked me if I was working, and I told him that I wasn't. I told him that I was just up there visiting and watching some people.

  He asked me what was I doing, and I told him, "Nothing, just knocking about." I had gotten out of the habit of telling people I hadn't seen in years that I was going to school. I just didn't think any of them took it seriously enough. Most of the cats would laugh at it. and then the word would get around. I couldn't tell anybody that any more.

  I told him that I just wasn't doing anything, and I asked him where he had been. He looked at Turk, and I guess he figured he was all right, so he said, "Man, I just got out of Sing Sing. I did three years on a one-to-five bid. Damn, man, everybody is up there, and all the cats are lookin' for you, man, askin' about you."

  When he said this, Turk sort of laughed, and he said, "Yeah, Sonny, I guess you're missed, man."

  "Yeah, vvell, tell them not to give up hope. Rickets, when you go back, because I may get there yet."

  "Yeah, man, cats put out stories about you were doin' time in another state. Somebody said you'd gotten killed. They had a whole lot of stories about you going around up there."

  He told me that K.B. was up there, that there were a lot of my friends up there. While he was talking, I said, "Stop it, man, you tryin' to make me homesick or somethin'?"

  "It's pretty nice up at Sing Sing."

  "Damn, how nice can it be?"

  "I mean, you know, just about every cat is up there."

  He went on into the Apollo, and Turk and I walked on down the street. Turk said, "You know, Sonny, sometimes when I think about all the other cats, like Dunny and Tito

  and Mac and Alley Bush and Bucky, it's like, man, I feel as though I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. I know that somewhere in my life I must have done something good for somebody, because if I hadn't . . . I'm walkin' around here free, and all those cats, they didn't raise any more hell than I did. ... I don't think anybody cared any more for me than they cared for them, but I'm here, man, so it had to be only by luck."

  I said, "Yeah, man, I can understand that. You know I can, because I'm alive by luck."

  Turk looked at me and smiled. He knew. We had a whole lot in common that I didn't have with other cats. The one time in my life when I was most afraid of dying, Turk was with me. Perhaps it was the most dramatic moment in my life, and maybe it had had a great impact on him too. We had this experience together, and it was a bond.

  I remember when I first came back from the hospital, most of the other cats thought that Turk and I wouldn't like each other any more because I had squealed on him that he was with me when I got shot. And I was pissed off at him because when I got shot, he'd just asked me if I was going to tell the law that he was with me. But for some reason or another, I just wasn't mad at Turk, and he wasn't mad at me.

  The first time I saw him after I got back, he was down in the cellar of 2754. Everybody used to go down there and get high. This was our hangout. I walked in there, and all the fellows greeted me with, "Hey, Sonny." Everybody but Turk started rushing to me. He stayed back in the crowd. He looked at me as if he didn't know if he should speak to me or if I was going to speak to him or what. I didn't know exactly how I felt about it either, but after a while, when everybody else came around and started greeting me as if I were a celebrity, I felt as though I had to go over and say something to Turk and let him know how I felt about it, that it could have been me or it could have been him.

  If he had gotten shot, I might have taken the same attitude that he took about me. I suppose it was just the thing to do. He might have told on me; maybe he wouldn't have. But I didn't have any hard feelings about it. I just walked over to him, and stuck out my hand. He said, "Hi, Sonny." And we smiled.

  After that, Turk and I were tighter than anybody.

  I SAW Danny a few nights after that. We talked and had a drink. As I was getting ready to go, Danny said, "Have another one on me, Sonny."

  "No, thanks, Danny. I got to make it. I'm still a workin' man."

  "Yeah, I know that. I think it's kind of nice too." He smiled. "Wait a minute. Sonny. Have one more drink.'*

  When Danny did that, I had the feeling that I was supposed to stay, that there might have been somebody waiting for me outside or something and he was trying to keep me from it. I said, "Yeah, man. I got about another fifteen minutes to blow." I sat down, back at the bar with him. I had another drink, and Danny kept looking in the mirror, watching everything behind him.

  When the bartender poured another two, Danny thanked the cat and looked down at his glass. Then he said, "Sonny, how's Pimp doin'?"

  When Danny asked that, I got scared. I had a feeling why he asked me to sit down, and I had a feeling that he'd been wanting to say something about this all night. I said, "He's doin' fine, man, as far as I know. I haven't seen him in a good little while, but I know he's still got a nice job."

  Danny said, "Yeah, I've seen him sometimes, and he seems to be dressin' nice, so he must be into things."

  I said, "Yeah, I'm a little disappointed in the cat, though, because he wouldn't finish school. I tried to get him to go back to school in the evening, but he says he's not ready to do that yet. He keeps talkin' that talk about he might go

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  back later on and that kind of shit. You know how that is."

  "Yeah, Sonny. I know how that is," and he looked back down at his glass.

  "Why, Danny? Have you seen him lately?"

  "Oh, yeah. I see him around most of the time, Sonny. He seems to be lookin' good to me, man; he's takin' care of himself, you know, stayin' clean."

  "Yeah, uh-huh, that's what I thought, man. I hope he is."

  "Yeah, how old is he now, anyway, Sonny?"

  "Pimp's about seventeen."

  Danny said, "That's a bad age, you know, Sonny. That's a real bad age, man, for a young cat to be at in Harlem, you know. You come out of your house and you're seventeen years old, you come out on Eighth Avenue, you feel like you're a stud on trial, man, on trial by the world."

  "Yeah, Danny, I guess any age that's young is bad in Harlem. What makes seventeen such a bad age for Pimp, Danny?" I kept looking straight at Danny, trying to look at Danny's eyes. They never came up. He kept avoiding my stare. I said, "Danny, you know, I expect, man, if you got anything on your mind, I expect you to tell me. If you didn't, I'd be kind of pissed off. You know how we've always been, man. If I was ever in a joint and somebody ever fucked with my family, like my sisters or Pimp, you know, if you didn't take up for them, when I came out I would've been lookin' for you. I know it would've been the same thing in my case, because that's what we expected from one another. In the same way, I always expected you to pull my coat if somebody in my family was in danger, you know."

  "Yeah, Sonny, but I know how you've always felt about Pimp, man. It's just that I never knew how to mention it to you."

  I got kind of mad. I said, "Danny, why 'don't you stop fuckin' with me and say what's on your mind, nigger." I got kind of loud, and people turned around and looked at us.

  Danny kept looking in the mirror. He just said slowly, softly a couple of times, "Cool it, Sonny. Sonny, baby, cool it."

  I looked in the mirror at his eyes, and I said, "I'm sorry, Danny." I've always had a lot of respect for Danny, and I guess it was mutual, because we had thrown a lot of bricks

  together. I had even more respect for him after he had kicked his habit.

  After I quieted down, and the conversation got back to normal, Danny said, "Sonny, I was up to Ruby's house a few nights ago, and I saw Pimp there. He was there with some little girl on 144th Street."

  I said, "So what, man? I've been up to Ruby's house, and that doesn't mean a mother-fuckin' thing. Anybody can go up there." I started getting loud again. I saw that I was getting excited.

  "Yeah, Sonny. Forget it, man. But now you see what I meant when I said I didn't know how
to say anything. And now you see how you would take somebody's pulling your coat."

  "No, man. That's not it. That's not it at all. Was he doin' anything?"

  Danny looked at me for a while, and he said, "Sonny, tell me, this is Danny. We stole our first mickies together from Gordon's fruit stand. Tell me, Sonny, what do people go up to Ruby's house for? I could go up there to see about some business. You'd be going up there if you were gon turn somebody on. But it's got to have something to do with some drugs, right? I'm goin' up there to give her her weight for the week, you know. When somebody else goes up there, just from the street . . . she doesn't open the door for everybody. Sonny. You know that."

  "Yeah, Danny. I guess I know."

  "Man, you must know what's goin' on."

  "No, man. How the hell are you gonna say I must know what's goin' on?"

  "Well, you said you see him all the time. Don't you see anything different?"

  I said, "No, man. He's still working, so he can't be strung out, right?"

  "Yeah, Sonny, that's right, if you want to take it that way. If that's all you're worried about, man, you might as well forget it, because you know you can't do anything for anybody when they're strung out. Nobody can do anything for anybody who's strung out. The only person who can do anything is the man out there who's dealin'. So if you ever talk to him. Sonny, talk to him now."

  I just sat here and looked in the mirror for a long time. I wondered about me, and I wondered where I'd failed. I remembered all the days when we were young, the time

  Pimp and I had spent together. I remembered when Mama brought Pimp to Wiltwyck to visit me and Pimp punched K.B. in the mouth. Everybody laughed and said, "He must be fast if he can hit K.B. in the mouth and not have him get out of the way." Pimp was only about seven or eight then. He was something.

  But I had known for some time that I had lost him. I guess I should have known it when I saw him. He was hanging out with Murray. Murray just didn't seem to have enough heart to be hanging out with Pimp. He used to marvel at the fact that I was Pimp's brother. This was nobody for Pimp to be hanging out with. He should have been hanging out with strong young cats who knew where they were going, knew how to get around the places that they didn't want to go, and knew how to get around doing the things that they didn't want to do. Pimp should have been hanging out with cats like me, I suppose. I should have been there to guide him, but I couldn't be in Harlem all the time leading him around by the hand.

  I thought I had gotten him ready. I thought I had taught him enough. Maybe he just came out of the house too late; maybe Mama held on to him too long. Maybe a lot of things. But there was one thing that I was certain of, and that was that he was in trouble now. And I didn't know how to help him. I didn't know where to begin.

  I sat there looking in the mirror across the bar and thinking. When Danny said, "Take it easy. Sonny," I heard him and I didn't hear him. I couldn't answer because I was too hurt, and my mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of Pimp and his youth, the days when we were happy together, and why I never thought the plague would ever get to him.

  I was going to find that nigger, and I was going to beat him and beat him until he stopped breathing. I was going to beat that mother-fucker until he realized what he was doing, if I had to beat him to death. Something kept gnawing at me. How the hell could I beat him? I jomembered seeing him as a Httle baby; I remembered slapping him too hard once, when I was about thirteen. His nose bled. . . . But I was going to beat him. I was going to beat that nigger with my fist, because he didn't deserve any more slaps.

  I wasn't even going to tell him why. I was just going to tell that mother-fucker to throw up his hands. I was going to find him and say, "Pimp, throw up your hands. Throw up your hands or go in your pocket." I wondered how I was

  going to beat l^im, when I'd taught him everything he knew.

  As I looked for hkn, everybody I asked ... I guess they saw it. I tried to cool myself, because as I went from place to place asking people if they'd seen Pimp, they'd look at me, and they'd say, "No," as tiiough they knew that I wasn't looking for him to bring him any cheerful greetings. I became almost convinced that nobody was going to tell me where he was, so I went around to his girl's house.

  I asked Shirley if she had seen Pimp. She said she thought that she'd seen him on 143rd Street, but she wasn't sure, because she called to him and he didn't answer. She said she didn't know what was wrong; she was waiting to see him too.

  I said, "Yeah, well, maybe he had something on his mind."

  I left her, and I went to 143rd Street. Somebody told me that he was in the poolroom on Seventh Avenue and 144th Street. When I got there, I saw Jack Davis. Jack Davis was a cat I had known from way back. He was in my class in junior high school. I asked him if he knew Pimp. He said he did and asked me if I wanted to get something.

  I said, "Oh. Why? Is he dealin' stuff now?"

  "No man, but he was just around here a little while ago looking for Johnny McNeil, and Johnny McNeil is dealin' stuff."

  I said, "Oh.'* It kind of hurt me that Johnny would deal Pimp some stuff, because Johnny knew that Pimp was my brother. When Johnny came out of the Army and was up tight and didn't know what he was going to do with himself, I started teaching him the street life. I taught him how to Murphy, and I taught him a few other games. I taught him how to scoop cocaine.

  I was mad. Now I was looking for Pimp and Johnny too. I was going to beat both of their asses, and especially Johnny's, because, if it hadn't been for me, that nigger would have been just about starving. He didn't know anything. He didn't know a damn thing, and he probably never would have known anything if I hadn't taken pity on him and taught him something. That no good son of a bitch.

  I knew that if Johnny was dealing stuff, he'd probably have a piece on him, because he usually carried one of them even when he wasn't dealing. He was just a mean cat that way. Johnny wasn"'t that good with his hands. He was a cat that didn't believe in fighting. Anytime anybody hit him, he'd go for his piece and shoot.

  But I was determined. I was going to walk up on Johnny and Pimp together, and I was going to hit Johnny first. I was going to walk up to them smiling, like Bubba Williams taught us in the streets. Bubba always said that if you ever wanted to waste a cat, smile at him for a month. But I was just going to smile at Johnny for one minute, just long enough to get close enough to him to hit him in his kidneys.

  I was mad. How the hell could he? He knew Pimp was my brother. Everybody around there knew I didn't want him to be using any stuff. Pimp knew I didn't want him using it, more than anybody else. He was the main one; he was the one I was really disappointed in, because I thought he had so much more sense.

  I wondered what Mama would say when she found out. She probably thought that all her troubles were over, that she'd made it with her boys, that they were all right after all. She'd had her bad days. I felt that she'd had all she could take and that Pimp wasn't going to give her any more, not if 1 could help it. I was going to kill that nigger first

  I went into the Low Hat Bar, on 146th Street and Seventh Avenue. When I looked in there, I didn't see Johnny McNeil, but Pimp was there. Pimp was standing near the jukebox with a cigarette in his hand and dark glasses on. I thought he was going to scratch himself. Then I saw that he was in a nod.

  I walked toward him. I was just going to walk up to him, snatch him by the arm, pull him over in a corner, and talk to him. But as I walked up to him, I saw him going into a nod, a deep nod. I stopped about four feet away from him, and I just couldn't move. I don't know why. The anger was there, but it was mixed with something else. The something else just paralyzed me. It wouldn't let me move.

  Here was Pimp in a nod, in a nod, the little brother that I loved, the little brother I had fought so many fights for, the little brother who used to come and get me to go and swing on whoever fucked with him, regardless ef-'how big they were.

  I stood there and watched his head go down. I thought I*d hit him as he was c
oming up and take him off his feet. But he got all the way up in his nod, and I couldn't move. I just stood there looking at him, and then a phrase ran through my mind; Absalom, Absalom.

  Saturday night. I suppose there's a Saturday night in every Negro community throu 'hout the nation just like Saturday night in Harlem. The bars will jump. The precinct station will have a busy night. The hospital's emergency ward will jump.

  Cats who have been working all their lives, who've never been in any trouble before, good-doing righteous cats, self-respecting, law-abiding citizens—they'll all come out. Perhaps it'll be their night in the bar, their night in the police station, maybe their night in the emergency ward.

  They tell me that young doctors really try hard for a chance to do their internship in Harlem Hospital—it offers such a wide variety of experiences. They say it's the best place in the city where a surgeon can train. They say you get all kinds of experience just working there on Saturday nights.

  It's usually the older folks who practice this Saturday night thing, or some of the younger cats who haven't come out of the woods yet, young cats who drink a lot of liquor, who didn't quite finish junior high school, who still have most of the Southern ways . . . the young cats who carry knives, the young cats who want to be bad niggers. It's usually the guys around eighteen to twenty-five, guys who haven't separated themselves yet from the older generation or who just haven't become critical of the older generation. They follow the pattern that has been set by the older generation, the Saturday night pattern "of getting drunk, getting a new piece of cunt, and getting real bad—carrying a knife in your pocket and ready to use it, ready to curse, ready to become a