The crazy kill (coffin johnson and grave digger jones)

by Chester Himes

  The crazy kill

  ( Coffin Johnson and Grave Digger Jones )

  Chester Himes

  Chester Himes

  The crazy kill

  1

  It was four o'clock, Wednesday morning, July 14th, in Harlem, U.S.A. Seventh Avenue was as dark and lonely as haunted graves.

  A colored man was stealing a bag of money.

  It was a small white canvas bag, the top tied with a cord. It lay on the front seat of a Plymouth sedan that was double-parked on Seventh Avenue, in front of an A amp;P grocery store in the middle of the block between 131st and 132nd Streets.

  The Plymouth belonged to the manager of the A amp;P store. The bag contained silver money to be used for making change. The curb was lined with big shiny cars, and the manager had double-parked until he'd unlocked the store and put the money in the safe. The manager didn't want to risk walking a block down a Harlem street at that time of morning with a bag of money in his hand.

  There was always a colored patrolman on duty in front of the store when the manager arrived. The patrolman stood guard over the cartons and crates of canned goods, groceries and vegetables, which the A amp;P delivery truck unloaded on the sidewalk, until the manager arrived.

  But the manager was a white man. He didn't trust the streets of Harlem, even with a cop on guard.

  The manager's distrust was being justified.

  As he stood in front of the door, taking the key from his pocket, with the colored cop standing by his side, the thief sneaked along the other side of the parked cars, stuck his long bare black arm through the open window of the Plymouth and noiselessly lifted the bag of silver money.

  The manager looked casually over his shoulder at just the instant the stooping figure of the thief, creeping along the street, was disappearing behind another parked "Stop thief!" he shouted, assuming the man was a thief on general principles.

  Before the words had got clear of his mouth the thief was high-balling for all he was worth. He was wearing a ragged dark green cotton T-shirt, faded blue jeans and dirt-blackened canvas sneakers, which, along with his color, blended with the black asphalt, making him hard to distinguish.

  "Where's he at?" the cop asked.

  "There he goes!" a voice said from above.

  Both the cop and the manager heard the voice, but neither looked up. They had seen a dark blur turning on a sharp curve into 132nd Street, and both had taken off in pursuit simultaneously.

  The voice had come from a man standing in a lighted third-story window, the only lighted window in the block of five- and six-story buildings.

  From behind the man's silhouetted figure came the faint sounds of a jam session holding forth in the unseen rooms. The hot licks on a tenor sax kept time with the feet pounding on the sidewalk pavement, and the bass notes from a big piano were echoing the light dry thunder of a kettledrum.

  The silhouette shortened as the man leaned farther and farther out the window to watch the chase. What had first appeared to be a tall thin man slowly became a short squat midget. And still the man leaned farther out. When the cop and the store manager turned the corner, the man was leaning so far out his silhouette was less than two feet high. He was leaning out of the window from his waist up.

  Slowly his hips leaned out. His buttocks rose into the light like a slow-rolling wave, then dropped below the wmdow ledge as his legs and feet slowly rose into the air. For a long moment the silhouette of two feet sitting upside down on top of two legs was suspended in the yellow lighted rectangle. Then it sank slowly from view, like a body going head-down into water.

  The man fell in slow motion, leaning all the way, so that he turned slowly in the air.

  He fell past the window underneath, which bore the black-lettered message: STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT

  Anoint the Love Apples

  With Father Cupid's Original

  ADAM OINTMENT

  A Cure For All Love Troubles

  To one side of the cartons and crates was a long wicker basket of fresh bread. The large soft spongy loaves, wrapped in wax paper, were stacked side by side like cotton pads.

  The man landed at full length on his back exactly on top of the mattress of soft bread. Loaves flew up about him like the splash of freshly packaged waves as his body sank into the warm bed of bread.

  Nothing moved. Not even the tepid morning air.

  Above, the lighted window was empty. The street was deserted. The thief and his pursuers had disappeared into the Harlem night.

  Time passed.

  Slowly the surface of the bread began to stir. A loaf rose and dropped over the side of the basket to the sidewalk as though the bread had begun to boil. Another squashed loaf followed.

  Slowly, the man began erupting from the basket like a zombie rising from the grave. His head and shoulders came up first. He gripped the edges of the basket, and his torso straightened. He put a leg over the side and felt for the sidewalk with his foot. The sidewalk was still there. He put a little weight on his foot to test the sidewalk. The sidewalk was steady.

  He put his other foot over the edge to the sidewalk and stood up.

  The first thing he did was to adjust his gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose. Next he felt his pants pockets to see if he'd lost anything. Everything seemed to be there-keys, Bible, knife, handkerchief, wallet and the bottle of herb medicine he took for nervous indigestion.

  Then he brushed his clothes vigorously, as though loaves of bread might be sticking to him. After that he took a big swig of his nerve medicine. It tasted bittersweet and strongly alcoholic. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  Finally he looked up. The lighted window was still there, but somehow it looked strangely like the pearly gates.

  2

  Deep South was shouting in a hoarse bass voice: " Steal away, daddy-o, steal away to Jesus…"

  His meaty black fingers were skipping the light fantastic on the keys of the big grand piano.

  Susie Q. was beating out the rhythm on his kettle drum.

  Pigmeat was jamming on his tenor sax.

  The big luxurious sitting room of the Seventh Avenue apartment was jam-packed with friends and relatives of Big Joe Pullen, mourning his passing.

  His black-clad widow, Mamie Pullen, was supervising the serving of refreshments.

  Dulcy, the present wife of Big Joe's godson, Johnny Perry, was wandering about, being strictly ornamental, while Alamena, Johnny's former wife, was trying to be helpful.

  Doll Baby, a chorus chick who was carrying a torch for Dulcy's brother, Val, was there to see and be seen.

  Chink Charlie Dawson, who was carrying a torch for Dulcy herself, shouldn't have been there at all.

  The others were grieving out of the kindness of their hearts and the alcohol in their blood, and because grievmg was easy in the stifling heat.

  Holy Roller church sisters were crying and wailing and daubing at their red-rimmed eyes with black-bordered handkerchiefs.

  Dining car waiters were extolling the virtues of their former chef.

  Whorehouse madams were exchanging reminiscences about their former client.

  Gambler friends were laying odds that he'd make heaven on his first try.

  Ice cubes tinkled in eight-ounce glasses of bourbon whisky and ginger ale, black rum and Coca Cola, clear gin and tonic water. Everybody was drinking and eating. The food and liquor were free.

  The blue-gray air was thick as split-pea soup with tobacco smoke, pungent with the scent of cheap perfume and hothouse lilies, the stink of sweating bodies, the fumes of alcohol, hot fried food and bad breath.

  The big bronze-pa
inted coffin lay on a rack against the wall between the piano and the console radio-television-record set. Flowers were banked about a horseshoe wreath of lilies as though about a horse in the winner's circle at the Kentucky Derby.

  Mamie Pullen said to Johnny Perry's young wife, "Dulcy, I want to talk to you."

  Her usually placid brown face, framed by straightened gray hair pulled into a tight knot atop her head, was heavily seamed with grief and fear.

  Dulcy looked resentful. "For Chrissake, Aunt Mamie, can't you let me alone?"

  Mamie's tall, thin, work-hardened old body, clad in a black satin Mother Hubbard gown that dragged the floor, stiffened with resolve. She looked as though she had been washed with all waters and had come out still clean.

  On sudden impulse, she took Dulcy by the arm, steered her into the bathroom and closed and locked the door.

  Doll Baby had been watching them intently from across the room. She moved away from Chink Charlie and pulled Alamena to one side.

  "Did you see that?"

  "See what?" Alamena asked.

  "Mamie took Dulcy into the crapper and locked the door."

  Alamena studied her with sudden curiosity.

  "What about it?"

  "What they go so secretive to talk about?"

  "How the hell would I know?"

  Doll Baby frowned. It relieved the set stupidity of her expression. She was a brownskin model type, slim, tan and cute. She wore a tight-fitting flaming orange silk dress and was adorned with enough heavy costume jewelry to sink her rapidly to the bottom of the sea. She worked in the chorus line at Small's Paradise Inn, and she looked strictly on the make.

  "It looks mighty funny at a time like this," she persisted, then asked slyly, "Will Johnny inherit anything?"

  Alamena raised her eyebrows. She wondered if Doll Baby was shooting at Johnny Perry. "Why don't you ask him, sugar?"

  "I don't have to. I can find out from Val."

  Alamena smiled evilly. "Be careful, girl. Dulcy's damn particular 'bout her brother's women."

  "That bitch! She'd better mind her own business. She's so hot after Chink it's a scandal."

  "It's likely to be more than that now Big Joe is dead," Alamena said seriously. A shadow passed over her face.

  Once she had been the same type as Doll Baby, but ten years had made a difference. She still cut a figure in the deep purple turtle-neck silk jersey dress she was wearing, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman who didn't care any more.

  "Val ain't big enough to handle Johnny, and Chink keeps pressing Dulcy as if he ain't going to be satisfied until he gets himself killed."

  "That's what I can't see," Doll Baby said in a puzzled tone of voice. "What's he giving such a big performance for? Unless he's just trying to get Johnny's goat?"

  Alamena sighed, involuntarily fingering the collar covering her throat.

  "Somebody better tell him that Johnny's got a silver plate in his head and it's sitting too heavy on his brain."

  "Who can tell that yellow nigger anything?" Doll Baby said. "Look at him now."

  They turned and watched the big yellow man push his way through the crowded room to the door as though enraged about something, then go out and slam the door behind him.

  "He's gotta make out like he's mad just because Dulcy went into the crapper to talk to Mamie, when all he's really tryin' to do is get the hell away from her before Johnny comes."

  "Why don't you go too and take his temperature, sugar," Alamena said maliciously. "You been holding his hand all evening."

  "I ain't interested in that whisky jockey," Doll Baby said.

  Chink worked as a bartender in the University Club downtown on East 48th Street. He made good money, ran with the Harlem dandies and could have girls like Doll Baby by the dozen.

  "Since when ain't you interested?" Alamena asked sarcastically. "Since he just went out the door?"

  "Anyway, I gotta go find Val," Doll Baby said defensively, moving off. She left immediately afterward.

  Sitting on the lid of the toilet seat inside of the locked bathroom, Mamie Pullen was saying, "Dulcy, honey, I wish you'd keep away from Chink Charlie. You're making me awfully nervous, child."

  Dulcy grimaced at her own reflection in the mirror. She was standing with her thighs pressed against the edge of the washbowl, causing the rose-colored skin-tight dress to crease inside the valley of her round, seductive buttocks.

  "I'm trying to, Aunt Mamie," she said, nervously patting her short-cut orange-yellow curls framing the olive-brown complexion of her heart-shaped face. "But you know how Chink is. He keeps putting himself in my face no matter how hard I try to show him I ain't interested."

  Mamie grunted skeptically. She didn't approve of the latest Harlem fad of brownskin blondes. Her worried old eyes surveyed Dulcy's flamboyant decor-the rainbowhued whore-shoes with the four-inch lucite heels; the choker of cultured pink pearls; the diamond-studded watch; the emerald bracelet; the heavy gold charm bracelet; the two diamond rings on her left hand and the ruby ring on her right; the pink pearl earrings shaped like globules of petrified caviar.

  Finally she commented, "All I can say is, honey, you ain't dressed for the part."

  Dulcy turned angrily, but her hot long-lashed eyes dropped quickly from Mamie's critical stare to Mamie's man-fashioned straight-last shoes protrudmg from beneath the skirt of Mamie's long black satin dress.

  "What's the matter with the way I dress?" she argued belligerently.

  "It ain't designed to hide you," Mamie said drily, then, before Dulcy could frame a comment, she asked quickly, "What really happened between Johnny and Chink at Dickie Wells's last Saturday night?"

  Dulcy's upper lip began to sweat.

  "Just the same old thing. Johnny's so jealous of me sometimes I think he's crazy."

  "Why do you egg him on then? Do you just have to switch your ass at every man that passes by?"

  Dulcy looked indignant.

  "Me and Chink was friends before I even knew Johnny, and I don't see why I can't say hello to him if I want to. Johnny don't take no trouble to ignore his old flames, and Chink never was even that."

  "Child, you're not trying to tell all that rumpus come just from you saying hello to Chink."

  "You don't have to believe it unless you want to. Me and Val and Johnny was sitting at a ringside table when Chink came by and said, 'Hello, honey, how's the vein holding out?' I laughed. Everybody in Harlem knows that Chink calls Johnny my gold vein, and if Johnny had any sense he'd just laugh, too. But instead of that he jumped up before anybody knew what was happening and pulled his frog-sticker and began shouting about how he was going to teach the mother-raper some respect. So naturally Chink drew his own knife. If it hadn't been for Val and Joe Turner and Big Caesar keeping them apart Johnny would have started chivving on him right there. Didn't nothing really happen though 'cepting they knocked over some tables and chairs. What made it seem like such a big rumpus was some of those hysterical chicks began screaming and carrying on, trying to impress their niggers that they was scared of a little cutting."

  She giggled suddenly. Mamie gave a start.

  "It ain't nothing to laugh about," Mamie said sternly.

  Dulcy's face fell. "I ain't laughing," she said. "I'm scared. Johnny's going to kill him."

  Mamie went rigid. Moments passed before she spoke. Her voice was hushed from fear.

  "Did he tell you that?"

  "He ain't had to. But I know it. I can feel it."

  Mamie stood up and put her arm about Dulcy. Both of them were trembling.

  "We got to stop him somehow, child."

  Dulcy twisted about to face the mirror again, as though seeking courage from her looks. She opened her pink straw handbag and began repairing her make-up. Her hand trembled as she painted her mouth.

  "I don't know how to stop him," she said when she'd finished. "Without my dropping dead."

  Mamie took her arm from about Dulcy's waist and wrung her hands involuntarily.

&nbs
p; "Lord, I wish Val would hurry up and get here."

  Dulcy glanced at her wrist watch.

  "It's already four-twenty-five. Johnny ought to be here now himself." After a moment she added, "I don't know what's keeping Val."

  3

  Someone began hammering loudly on the door.

  The sound was scarcely heard above the din inside the room.

  " Open the door! " a voice screamed.

  It was so loud that even Dulcy and Mamie heard it through the locked bathroom door.

  "Wonder who that can be," Mamie said.

  "It sure ain't neither Johnny or Val making all that fuss," Dulcy replied.

  "Probably some drunk."

  One of the drunks already on the inside said in a minstrel man's voice, "Open de do', Richard."

  That was the title of a popular song in Harlem that had originated with two blackface comedians on the Apollo theatre stage doing a skit about a colored brother coming home drunk and trying to get Richard to let him into the house.

  The other drunks on the inside laughed.

  Alamena had just stepped into the kitchen. "See who's at the door," she said to Baby Sis.

  Baby Sis looked up from her chore of washing dishes and said sulkily, "All these drunks make me sick."

  Alamena froze. Baby Sis was just a girl whom Mamie had taken in to help about the house, and had no right to criticize the guests.

  "Girl, you're getting beside yourself," she said. "You'd better mind how you talk. Go open the door and then get this mess cleaned up in here."

  Baby Sis looked sidewise about the disordered kitchen, her slant eyes looking evil in her greasy black face.

  The table, sink, sidestands and most of the available floor space were strewn with empty and half-filled bottles-gin, whisky and rum bottles, pop bottles, condiment bottles; pots, pans and platters of food, a dishpan containmg leftover potato salad, deep iron pots with soggy pieces of fried chicken, fried fish, fried pork chops; baking pans with mashed and mangled biscuits, pie pans with single slices of runny pies; a washtub containing bits of ice floating about in trashy water; slices of cake and spongy white-bread sandwiches, half eaten, lying everywhere-on the tables, sink and floor.