Cotton Comes to Harlem

by Chester Himes

  With a quick lithe motion she opened a secret compartment in the bed-table, snatched up the receiver of the telephone extension, and cried, “Help!” then quickly hung up.

  In his haste he didn’t hear her. He reached the telephone in the sitting-room and said breathlessly, “Henderson speaking,” but the connection had been broken. She could hear him jiggling the receiver as she slipped on a sport coat and snatched up a pair of shoes. “Hello, hello,” he was still shouting when she went barefooted from the bedroom, locking the door behind her and taking the key, on back to the kitchen and went barefooted out of the house by the service door.

  “Your party has hung up,” came the cool voice of the telephone operator.

  He realized instantly the call had come from the police cruiser parked down the street. Panic exploded in his head as he realized he didn’t even have his pistol. He ran naked back to the bedroom, snatched his pistol from the doorknob and tried to open the door. He found it locked. He became frantic. He couldn’t risk shooting off the lock, he might hit her. The detectives from the cruiser would be there any instant and he’d catch hell. He had to get into the goddamned room. He tried breaking in, but it was a strong door with a good lock and his shoulder was taking a beating. He had forgotten the paper sack over his head.

  The detectives from the cruiser had rushed there post-haste and had let themselves in with a pass-key. Over the telephone they had heard a woman cry for help. God only knew what was going on in there, but they were ready for it. They went into the apartment and spread out, their pistols in their hands. The sitting-room was empty.

  They started through towards the rear. They drew up as though they had run into an invisible wall.

  Down the hall was a buck-naked white man with a paper sack over his head and a holstered pistol in his hand, trying to break down the bedroom door with his bare shoulder.

  No one ever knew who was the first one to explode with laughter.

  Iris went down the service stairway barefooted. The sport coat was a belted wraparound of tan gaberdine and no one could tell she was naked underneath it. At the service exit on St Nicholas Avenue, she slipped into her shoes and peeped out into the street.

  A car stood at the kerb in front of the apartment next door with the motor idling. A smartly dressed woman got out and ran towards the entrance. Iris cased her as an afternoon prostitute or a cheating wife. The man behind the wheel called softly, “Bye now, baby,” and the woman fluttered her fingers and ducked out of sight.

  Iris walked rapidly to the car, opened the door and got into the seat the other woman had just vacated. The man looked at her and said, “ ’Lo, baby,” as though she was the same woman he’d just told good-bye. He was a nice-looking chocolate-brown man dressed in a beautiful gray silk suit, but Iris just glanced at him.

  “Drive on, daddy,” she said.

  He steered from the curb and climbed St Nicholas Avenue. “Running to or from?” he asked.

  “Neither,” she said and when they came to the church at 142nd Street she said: “Turn left here up to Convent.”

  He left-turned up the steep hill past Hamilton Terrace to the quiet stretch of Convent Avenue north of City College.

  “Right here,” she directed.

  He right-turned north on Convent and when he came opposite the big apartment house she said, “This is good, daddy.”

  “Could be better,” he said.

  “Later,” she said and got out.

  “Coming back?” he called but she didn’t hear him.

  She was already running across the street, up the steps and into the foyer of a big well-kept apartment house with two automatic elevators. One was waiting and she took it to the fourth floor and turned towards the apartment at the back of the hall. A serious-looking man wearing black suspenders, a white collarless shirt, and sagging black pants opened the door. He took himself as seriously as a deacon in a solvent church.

  “And what can I do for you, young lady?”

  “I want to see Barry Waterfield.”

  “He don’t want to see you, he’s already got company,” he leered. “How ’bout me?”

  “Stand aside, buster,” she said, pushing past him. “And quit peeping through keyholes.”

  She went straight to Barry’s room but the door was locked and she had to knock.

  “Who is it?” asked a woman’s voice.

  “Iris. Tell Barry to let me in.”

  The door was unlocked and Barry stood to one side wearing only a purple silk dressing-gown. He closed the door behind her. A naked high-yellow woman lay in the bed with the sheet drawn up to her neck.

  Clothes were draped over the only chair so Iris sat on the bed and ignored the naked woman. “Where’s Deke?” she asked Barry.

  He hesitated before replying, “He’s all right, he’s holed up safe.”

  “If you’re scared of talking then write it,” she said.

  He looked uncomfortable. “How’d you get away?”

  “None of your business,” she snapped.

  “You’re sure you weren’t tailed?”

  “Don’t make me laugh. If the cops wanted you they’d have had you long ago, stupid as you are. Just tell me where Deke is and let others do the thinking.”

  “I’ll call him,” he said, going towards the door.

  She started to go with him but pressure on her hip stopped her, and she said only, “Tell him I’m coming to see him.”

  He went out and locked the door from the outside without answering.

  The woman in the bed whispered quickly, “He’s with Mabel Hill in the Riverton Apartments,” and gave the street, number and telephone. “I heard Barry talking.”

  Iris looked blank. “Mabel Hill. The only Mabel Hill I know vaguely is the Mabel Hill who was married to the John Hill who got croaked.”

  “That’s the cutie,” the woman whispered.

  Iris couldn’t control the rage that distorted her face.

  Barry came in at that moment and looked at her, “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Did you get Deke?” she countered.

  He wasn’t clever enough to dissemble and she knew he was lying when he said, “Deke’s cut out but he left word he would call me. He’s changing his hideout.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Iris said, getting up to go.

  The naked woman underneath the sheet said, “Wait a minute and I’ll give you a lift. I got my car downstairs.”

  “No, you ain’t,” Barry said roughly, pushing her down.

  Iris unlocked the door and opened it, then turned and said, “Go to hell, you big mother-raping square,” and slammed the door behind her.

  11

  Deke hadn’t left Mabel’s apartment but he’d had some close shaves. Two Homicide detectives had shown up at ten o’clock to question her again. He had hid in the closet, feeling defenceless and stark-naked without a gun, listening to every word with his heart in his mouth for fear he might have left something incriminating in the room, sweating blood from fear they might decide to search the house, and literally sweating in the close dusty heat. The dust had tickled his nose and he’d had to bite his lip to keep from sneezing.

  Later, Mr Clay, the undertaker, had come and caught him in the bedroom and he’d had to hide under the bed. They had talked so interminably about money he had begun to wonder whether they intended to bury John Hill or hold his body for ransom.

  Then Mabel had again turned into the weeping widow and bemoaned her fate with buckets of tears and enough hysterics for a revival meeting and nothing turned them off but to console her in bed. He had consoled her in bed so many times he’d concluded that if John Hill hadn’t been shot she’d have loved him to death. Or was she like that because her mother-raping husband was dead? he asked himself. Was this some kind of freakishness that came out in her? Whore complex or something? But if she had to wait for her mother-raping husband to get killed before she could get her nuts off, hadn’t he better take care himself? Or was he the exc
eption being her minister; a minister is supposed to minister. Or was it that she thought if she sinned with her minister, God would forgive her; and the more she sinned, the greater would be God’s forgiveness? Or did this bitch just have a hot ass? Anyway, he was godamned tired of her everlasting urge and he was mentally damning John Hill to hell for getting himself killed.

  But finally just before he’d had to holler calf-rope she’d calmed down enough to keep her appointment with the undertaker to go get John’s body from the morgue.

  It gave him a chance to contact Barry and his other two guns and arrange the caper with the Colonel for that night. So when she came home hysterical again he was ready for her.

  Afterwards he was just lounging around in his shorts, drinking bourbon highballs, and she was in the kitchen doing he didn’t know what — probably taking an aphrodisiac — when the telephone rang.

  It was Barry, telling him that Iris had got loose and was looking for him. He didn’t want to see Iris and he didn’t want her to find him for fear she might be tailed. So he had given Barry his answer. He figured if the police picked her up it was better she didn’t know where he was, then they couldn’t get it out of her. Furthermore, she was too damn jealous, and one hitch at a time was enough.

  To his annoyance he saw that Mabel had been listening to his conversation. She made herself a lemon coke with ice and sat down beside him on the sofa.

  “I’m glad she’s not coming here,” she said.

  “Jealousy is one of the seven cardinal sins,” he said.

  For a moment he thought she was going to become hysterical again, but she just looked at him possessively and said, “Oh, Reverend O’Malley, pray with me.”

  “Later,” he snapped and got up to get a refill.

  He was in the kitchen getting ice from the tray when the doorbell rang. Ice cubes flew into the air like startled birds. He didn’t have time to retrieve them. He shoved the tray back, slammed the door shut and dumped his drink into the sink. Then he rushed into the closet in the back hall opposite the bathroom where his clothes were hung, waving a signal to Mabel as he passed through the sitting-room. He had found an old .32 revolver of John Hill’s and he snatched it from the shelf where he had hidden it and held it in his shaking hand.

  Mabel was flustered. She didn’t know whether he had meant she should answer the door or not answer it.

  The bell rang again, long and insistently, as though whoever it was must know she was at home. She decided to answer it. There was a chain on the door; and anyway, even if the police did catch Reverend O’Malley there, he hadn’t done anything really wrong, she thought. He was just trying to get their money back.

  She unlocked the door and someone tried to push it open but the chain caught it. Then through the crack she saw the face of Iris, distorted with rage.

  “Open this mother-raping door,” Iris grated in her throaty voice, her lips popping wetly.

  “He’s not here,” Mabel said smugly from behind the chained door. “Reverend O’Malley, I mean.”

  “I’ll start screaming and get the police here and then you tell them that,” Iris threatened.

  “If that’s all he means to you …” Mabel began and flung wide the door. “Come in.” And she chained and locked the door after her.

  Iris went through the house like a gun dog looking for a game bird.

  “He heard what you said,” Mabel called after her.

  “These mother-raping bitches!” Deke muttered to himself and came out of the closet, covered with a film of sweat, still holding the pistol in his hand. “Why don’t you have some sense?” He said to Iris’s back as she was looking into the bathroom.

  She wheeled, and her eyes widened and went pitch-black when she saw him in his shorts. Her face convulsed with uncontrollable jealousy. All she thought of then was him in bed with this other woman.

  “You chickenshit cheat,” she mouthed, spittle flying from her popping lips. “You sneaking pimp. You get me out of the way and shack up with some chippy whore.”

  “Shut up,” he said dangerously. “I had to hide out.”

  “Hide out? Between this slut’s legs!”

  From the doorway into the sitting-room Mabel said, “Reverend O’Malley is just trying to get our money back; he doesn’t want it all bungled by the police.”

  Iris turned on her. “I suppose you call him Reverend O’Malley in bed,” she stormed. “If your mouth isn’t too full.”

  “I’m not like you,” Mabel said angrily. “I do it the way God intended.”

  Iris rushed at her and tried to scratch her face. Her coat flew open, showing her naked body. Mabel grabbed her by the wrists and shouted tauntingly, “I’m going to have his baby.” Iris couldn’t have a baby and it was the worst thing Mabel could have said. Iris went berserk; she spat in Mabel’s face and kicked her shins and struggled to break free. But Mabel was the stronger and she spat back in Iris’s face and let go her hands to grab her hair. Iris scratched her on the neck and shoulders and tore her negligee, but Mabel was pulling her hair out by the roots and pain filled her eyes with tears, blinding her.

  Deke grabbed Iris by the coat collar with his left hand, still holding the revolver in his right. He hadn’t had time to put it away and he was afraid to drop it on the floor. Iris’s coat came off in his hand and she was naked except for shoes and there was nothing else to clutch. So he tried to break Mabel’s grip on her hair. But Mabel was so infuriated she wouldn’t turn loose.

  “Break loose, you mother-raping whores!” Deke grated and hit at Mabel’s hands with his pistol.

  He mashed her fingers against Iris’s skull. Iris screamed and scratched eight red lines across his ribs. He hit her in the stomach with his free left hand, then grabbed Mabel’s negligee to pull her away. The negligee came off in his hand and she was naked too. Iris clawed her like a cat, streaking her body, and the blood began to flow. Mabel couldn’t use her hands but she bent Iris’s head down with her arms and bit her in the shoulder. Screaming in pain, with her head bent down, Iris saw the pistol in Deke’s hand. She snatched it and shot Mabel in the body until it was empty.

  It happened so fast it didn’t register on Deke’s brain. He heard the thunder of shots; he saw the surprised look of anguish on Mabel’s face as she loosened her grip on Iris’s head and slowly began to crumble. But it was like a horrifying nightmare before the horror comes.

  Then awareness hit him like a time bomb exploding in his head. His body erupted into action as his brain went rattled with panic. He hit Iris in the breast with his left fist, rocking her back, and crossed a right to her neck, knocking her off-balance. He kicked her in the stomach with his bare foot and, when she doubled over, hit her on the back of the head with the side of his fist, knocking her face downward to the floor.

  Suddenly the panic started going off in his head like a chain of explosions, each one bigger than the ones before. He leapt over Iris’s prostrate figure, started towards the closet to get his clothes, then wheeled and snatched up the pistol from the floor where Iris had dropped it. He didn’t look at Mabel; his mind knew she was dead but he tried not to think of it. Somewhere in his head he knew he didn’t have any more bullets for the pistol which wasn’t his. He dropped it to the floor as though it was burning his hand.

  Wheeling, he leapt into the hall, rushed to the closet. The knob slipped in his hand and one half of his brain began cursing, the other half praying.

  In the front of all other thoughts was the sure knowledge that in a few minutes the police would come. Before the shooting, there had been enough screaming to raise the dead; and he knew in this nigger-proper house someone would have called the police. He knew his only hope was flight. To get away before the police got there. It was his life. And these mother-raping seconds were running out. But he knew he’d never get away looking half-dressed. Some meddling mother-raper in this nigger-heaven house would stop him on suspicion and he didn’t have a gun.

  He tried to dress fast. Quick-quick-quick,
urged his brain. But his mother-raping fingers had turned to thumbs. It seemed as though it took him seven hundred mother-raping years to button up his shirt; and some more mother-raping centuries to lace his shoes.

  He leapt to the mirror to tie his tie and search for tell-tale scratches. His dark face was powder gray, his stretched eyes like black eight-balls, but there were no scratches showing. He was trying to decide whether to take the elevator down five floors and walk the remaining two, or take the fire-escape and try the roof, He didn’t know how these buildings were made, whether the roofs were on the same level and he could get from one to another. In the back of his head he kept thinking there was something he was leaving. Then he realized it was Iris’s life. Fear urged him to go back and take the pistol and beat her to death; stop her from talking forever.

  He turned from the bathroom, turned towards the sitting-room, and was caught in midstep by the hammering on the door. He ran on his toes to the back window in the bedroom that let onto the outside fire-escape. He opened it quickly, went out and down without hesitation. He didn’t have time to decide; he was committed. His feet felt nothing as they touched the iron steps of the steep ladder. His eyes searched the windows he passed.

  The fire-escape was on one of the private streets of the housing development. He could only be seen by people across the street or in the windows he passed. Halfway down he saw the hem of a curtain fluttering from a half-open bedroom window. He didn’t hesitate. He stopped at the window, opened it and went in. The apartment was arranged the same as the one he had just quit. There was no one in the bedroom. He went through on his toes, praying the house was empty, but with no intention of stopping if it was filled with wedding guests. He came out into the back hall. He could hear a woman singing in the kitchen at the front of the sitting-room. He got to the front door, found it locked and chained. He tried to open it silently; he held his breath as he turned the lock and took off the chain. Time was drowning him in a whirlpool of flying seconds. He got the door unlocked, the chain off. He heard the singing stop. He closed the door quickly behind him and ran down the hall towards the service stairway. He got onto the landing and closed the door just before he heard a faint woman’s voice call, “Henry, where are you, Henry?”