The End of a Primitive

by Chester Himes

  She had a strong body, revealed sympathetically by the table lamp. It was fantastically well-preserved for her age and the abuses to which she had subjected it. Her full breasts had fallen but slightly and were still firm, and she had handsome shoulders, peppered with tiny red pimples, but voluptuous as a Botticelli painting. Her legs were long and gorgeously shaped with beautiful knees, but her stomach was bloated and those old demon rubber tires had begun forming above her hips. Her skin was very fair, the faint hairs on her arms and at the base of her spine golden in the slanting light, the longer hair on her mound and that on her head, cut short in the modern businesswoman’s fashion, was of a light translucent brown, verging on gold. Her face had the high cheekbones and flat planes of Mongolian ancestry, contradicted by a short, straight, tiny nose, and huge, light blue, slightly glassy, almost bulging eyes, slanting upward at the outer edges. A famous writer and critic of New York City, an old man famous for flowery phrases, once described her as handsome as four peacocks. But he had seen her only when she was dressed. Now as she bent over the set in the somewhat awkward and unflattering position of a can-can dancer sans costume stooping to peer through the monocle of an inebriated Englishman, the thirty-seven year accumulation of derrière belonging to the one hundred and thirty-six pound body commanding fullest attention, she looked extremely naked and shockingly obscene.

  Just at that moment the light appeared on the twenty-inch screen and the close-up of a man’s face, blooming with the bright wide smile of a bleached skull, and wreathed in that dreadful early morning cheerfulness of this telatomic age which inspires old-fashioned diehards suffering from old-fashioned hangovers to rush into their kitchens and cut their throats. The happy, smiling eyes, crinkled about the comers with inner joy and healthy living, stared knowingly at her anatomy, causing her to feel suddenly indecent and very unhealthy.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, involuntarily shielding herself with her hands.

  She had turned the volume too high and a booming jovial voice issued from the smiling lips of the happy face: “Are you overweight? Are you overwrought? Do you suffer from morning depression? Do you have a stale brown taste of biliousness on arising?”

  This boisterous catechism bursting upon her mood of morbid introspection rattled her. She did what she always did when rattled; she giggled.

  “THEN THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED!” the loud voice informed her.

  “What?” she asked the happy face, her quick, spontaneous wit coming to her rescue.

  The face instantly disappeared and in its place appeared a giant’s hand holding a giant bottle with the label forward. “THIS!”

  “Oh, shit!” she said disgustedly.

  The face disappeared. “Yes! This enervating laxative, charged with vitamins, also contains chlorophyll. Not only does it urge nature about its business, but it also provides a pickup after a sleepless night. It sends you cheerfully to work with a clean body, an alert mind, and a sweet breath!”

  Kriss turned the volume down, her giggle turning to a chuckle. There was a corny humour in the situation—she’d have to tell Dorothy about it—but she was still a little disconcerted. It was the first time she’d ever tuned in during the commercial and caught Gloucester’s close-up almost nesting in her thighs. She knew it was foolish but she felt embarrassed, which inspired the impulse to do something naughty, some kind of striptease dance or shake her behind. However, she mustered her respectability and began to walk away from the set with becoming dignity. But she felt Gloucester’s appraising eyes on her bare rear, and looked over her shoulder, wondering the while how many broad beams and rare nudes paraded each morning before his amused, straightforward television gaze. The laughing face of a pet chimpanzee now appeared on the screen, the little beastie jumping up and down in such glee that impulsively she hastened from its view and stumbled over the three-cornered chair, falling against the glass-topped coffee tables, and upsetting the glass ashtray over her prized pink carpet.

  She had to laugh. Mattie, her black cleaning woman who came in three days each week, would swear that she’d been drunk. Now she felt a little drunk. Briskly she set herself to her morning routine.

  She got her copy of the New York Herald-Tribune from the mat outside her door, first peeping through the Judas window to make certain the coast was clear; put on water to boil for coffee; lingered for a moment to watch the antics on the television screen; then devoted the customary five minutes to bodily functions, glancing at the lead stories the while. Vaguely the television voice penetrated her consciousness, “casting” the morning news, which, in modern usage is the province of the “newscaster”. The headlines from both sources were the same: TRUMAN SEIZES STEEL INDUSTRY; the same names cropped up: John L. Lewis, Dean Acheson, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mayor William O’Dwyer, Queen Juliana and Prince Bernard; NATO was praised with faint damning; the State Department was damned with faint praise; the Soviet Union was damned outright; nothing was praised outright; McCarthy had found two thousand communists hiding among the President’s bright print sport shirts; all five-star generals had decided to run for President, but MacArthur, who had become a six-star general since his recall from Korea, had the jump on the others, due no doubt to the extra star which the Truman Democrats hinted he had pinned on his tunic himself without the proper authority; everyone had agreed “It was time for a change”, but no one was clear as to what was to be changed from what to what other than Republicans who were insistent that Democrats be changed to Republicans; Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas urged a “peasants’ revolution” to end economic slavery in backward areas; a Harvard professor suggested that it was a “peasants’ revolution” that had started all the trouble in the first place, but he had been quickly convicted as a communist spy by McCarthy and when last seen was rapidly disappearing beneath the ledge of a twelfth storey window from which he had recently jumped; the U.N. forces in Korea had killed seven thousand Chinese communists the day before, but the war still dragged on, due no doubt to the fact, as a Columbia University professor pointed out, that seventeen thousand Chinese communists had been born during the night.

  After digesting this news, Kriss showered, brushed her teeth, put on a fresh girdle, taking the stocking fasteners from the soiled one in the garment bag inside her closet door where she put her soiled underwear and stockings for the maid to wash, the soiled linen in the hamper in the bath going out to the laundry. Now she felt sufficiently presentable to brave the television eyes. From the middle drawer of her storage cabinet she selected a pair of nylons from a loose pile, first inspecting them for runs. Then she went to the kitchen, poured the boiling water into the drip coffee pot, inserted two slices of expensive white bread into the automatic toaster, and returned to her dressing, pausing for a moment before the closet mirror. In the nylons her legs were slim and svelte, nowadays the only pleasure derived from her reflection. Her hips were held reasonably flat and hard by the girdle but, to her infinite disgust, that old demon bicycle tire went leering around her middle. She’d have to begin dieting, she resolved for the thousandth time. Although it really wasn’t her food, she amended; it was too much drinking. Well, she could stop that too. It was time she stopped, before she became one of those big baywindowed mannish women whom she so despised. But she shouldn’t complain too much about her weight: now, when she became slim, her breasts drooped. She’d never had to wear a brassiere; it was one of her great prides. Her slips sufficed to hold her full firm breasts somewhat steady, which was all that was necessary.

  She selected a red dress from the two racks of dresses in the closet, one third of which were red. She liked herself in red; it went with her fair skin, blue eyes and tawny hair. Besides which, it made her feel daring. She couldn’t get along in the world without feeling daring.

  From alongside a bottle of red and yellow capsules of barbiturates in her medicine cabinet, she took down a bottle of bluish-gray tablets, a patented drug relatively new on the market. They were made from a combination of dexedri
ne and amylobarbitone, and the directions on the label stated: “Indicated in states of mental and emotional distress”. The first time she had read that statement she had told herself, “That’s me. That’s me all the time.” Now, after swallowing one with a little water, she shook a couple of dozen into a lacquered snuffbox to take to the office; her store there had run out.

  Then, bringing her toast and coffee, she sat on a stool at the end of the table so she could see the television, ate one half of a piece of toast and drank two cups of coffee sweetened with saccharine tablets. On the television screen, Gloucester was interviewing the chimpanzee.

  “Who do you think will get the Republican nomination for President?” he asked.

  “Five-star General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower, will be nominated on the first ballot,” the chimpanzee promptly replied.

  “And are you sure it won’t be Senator Taft?” Gloucester, who was a loyal Taft supporter, prompted the chimp.

  “No, not even for Vice President,” the chimpanzee asserted positively. “All Bob Taft will get will be a big hug from Eisenhower when the General rushes across the street directly following his nomination to congratulate Taft on losing and calling for party unity. Senator Richard M. Nixon of California will be nominated for Vice President, and on September 28, 1952, he will go on television—the same as you and I—defend a political fund placed at his disposal by innocent and patriotic businessmen of California, most of whom have somehow become involved in the real estate business and are hamstrung in their desire to invest in low rental properties by the Democratic administration’s rent control program which, paradoxically, precipitates high rent. Mr Nixon will also bare his financial status to the complete satisfaction of the Republicans and the complete dissatisfaction of the Democrats, after which he will hasten to the special campaign train of Republican presidential nominee General of the Army, Eisenhower, to pose for a news-reel parody of the Jerry Lewis-Dean Martin comedy. That’s My Boy.

  “What do you think of General Eisenhower’s chances of being elected?” Gloucester asked condescendingly.

  “On November 4, 1952, Republican nominee for President, five-star General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower, will be elected President of the United States by an overwhelming landslide of 442 electoral votes and a popular vote of 33, 938, 285, the largest popular vote in the history of your Republic, thereby giving Senator McCarthy a mandate to rid the nation of its mentality,” the chimpanzee stated with extreme boredom. After all, this would bear no effect on chimpanzees—chimpanzees didn’t think. “Does that answer your questions?” he asked shortly, anxious to collect payment for his appearance.

  Kriss stared at the chimpanzee in horror. “How can it say such things—and Roosevelt dead but seven years!” she thought indignantly.

  The pill worked rapidly on an empty stomach. The tremendous physical stimulation provided by the five milligrams of dexedrine was levelled off at peak efficiency by the counter-opiate of thirty-two milligrams of amylobarbitone, holding the brain, which had been sharpened and alerted to almost supernatural brilliancy by the caffeine contained in two cups of strong black coffee, to an almost unbearable lucidity, like Hemingway writing a novel. By the time she had combed her short, curled hair, powdered her face smoothly white, painted her lips becomingly red, applied a light sheen of vaseline to her upper eyelids, and adorned herself with appropriate jewelry: two hollow gold matching serpentine bracelets on her right wrist; a gold wrist watch with leather band on her left wrist; a leaf-shaped gold pin containing a dark blue stone at her left breast; a gold rope-shaped necklace; two gold-plated, snap-on earrings; along with her wedding and engagement rings which she still wore for the same reason she still kept her married name, she felt capable and serene and alert and very secure. She loved her little pills for the security they gave her. Thus bedecked and ornamented to the wildest fancy of any savage, emotionally fortified by the latest in patent drugs, faintly amused by the early morning television antics of M.C.s and chimpanzees, her wits made keen by the essence of twenty-five milligrams of good, pure, American coffee, she felt herself an efficient executive, ready to face the day.

  Now she could afford to think about Dave Levine. He hadn’t called her again, the son of a bitch! She had tried hard to marry Dave, and had almost gotten him, but his mother who was very orthodox, and incidentally held the purse-strings even though Dave maintained an apartment in Manhattan, had put her foot down. Since then she had hated him, but she couldn’t bear the humiliation of his breaking off before she did. “The Jewish son of a bitch!” she thought, trying vainly to arouse some inner racial prejudice to support her ego. But she didn’t have any racial prejudice, really, and most of the people whom she had ever deeply admired had been Jews and a few blacks, so it didn’t work. The tragedy was that she loved Dave’s warm, friendly, compassionate mother more than she had ever loved Dave, whose chief influence over her had been to make her feel inferior. “The chiseler! He’s practically lived off me this past year,” she told herself, trying another tactic to prod her anger. But her clean cool thoughts would not accept the lie. She wished, wryly, that it was true, so that when he called next time she could say, “Get out of my house, you bastard! Get out of my life! You’ve done nothing but sponge off me ever since you knew me. Go back and marry that girl in the Bronx, Susan or Vivien or whatever her name is!” She knew very well the girl’s name; it was Denise Rose; and she was a damn pretty girl whose parents had money; and she had graduated from Smith and travelled extensively in Europe, read good books and dabbled in art as a pastime, now wanted to get married like herself and bear her husband some fine sons, one to take over the business, another to study law at Harvard, a girl to marry one of their good friends. Secretly Kriss felt that Dave was a damn fool not to have married her a long time ago.

  “The Brooks Brothers ass!” she thought, going quickly to turn off the television set. On the way out she made a quick cursory examination of the contents of her pocket book. She had three twenties, two tens, a five, and three ones, in a green billfold. She’d stop by Best & Co. at noon and pay her bill. In the change pocket were coins for carfare. The remaining contents consisted of the lacquered snuff box of pills; an enamelled lipstick case of saccharine tablets; a dollar lipstick of Chinese Red; a large, flat, round, gold inlaid, plastic compact; a long, flat, magnificent, solid-gold cigarette case given to her for a birthday present the year before by Fuller, and incidentally a letter from Fuller that had come to the office the day before, stating that he was making a quick hop to Los Angeles on business; a gold-plated Dunhill cigarette lighter given to her for a Christmas present by Dave; a ninety-eight cents ball-point pen from a Whelan’s drugstore; a book of special account checks from a midtown Manhattan & Company branch bank; two clean initialled linen handkerchiefs; a half-filled package of Chesterfield cigarettes from which she smoked unless she wished to make an impression with the solid case—but she never smoked before lunch; the three keys necessary to get into her apartment, another key to the side entrance of her office building, two small flat keys to the large Hartman suitcases in her storage closets which she had not used since her trip to Europe, all held securely in a snap-button red leather key case; and a small, red leather-bound address book, containing the addresses of nine couples, six single women, and two men, there being nothing to indicate whether single or married. One was a Jim Saxton from Dallas, Texas; the other a Kenneth McCrary from Hollywood, California. It was a neat, orderly, and comparatively uncluttered pocket book.

  From one of the front closets devoted to coats she selected a soft plaid of medium weight and neutral shade. She pulled on black cotton gloves, picked up her purse and the morning paper, took a last sip of the now tepid coffee, leaving a smudge of lipstick on the cup, put out the lights behind her, and started to work. It was then exactly nine o’clock, at which time she was due in her office. But she’d gotten into such a habit of being late it was now practically impossible for her to be on time. “I’d better buck
up,” she cautioned herself. Sooner or later her boss, Kirby, would get on her tail—in a nice way, of course; he was really a very nice guy—but she wouldn’t like it. She was extremely sensitive to reprimands, although, unlike many businesswomen who cry and sulk on such occasions, she became unreasonably furious.

  On opening the door into the corridor, she met Mattie about to enter. Mattie was a very dark-complexioned woman who never wore makeup nor gave any other indication of an interest in her personal appearance. Her face always looked unwashed, her short, kinky hair uncombed, her old tattered garments as mussed as if she had slept in them. She weighed over two hundred pounds, but was as solid as a rock.

  At the sight of Kriss her face lit with her professional grin, showing a row of sizeable pale yellow teeth with amalgam fillings here and there. “Mawnin’ Miz Cummons.” She seemed to have some manner of psychological block against pronouncing the name, Cummings, although once Kriss had heard her say distinctly, “Mister Drummings.” However, Kriss had no way of knowing that the gentleman to whom she referred was named Drummond.

  Kriss grinned back at her, giving the little amused chuckle that made her so well-liked. “I’m late again, Mattie. It seems as if I just can’t get off in time.”

  “Y’all needs tuh be ma’d, Miz Cummons. Dass wut y’all needs,” Mattie replied with easy familiarity. What she didn’t know about Kriss’s sex life, she had guessed. “Den y’all woud’n have tuh git up attall.”

  Kriss was never quite certain during these exchanges whether Mattie was slyly poking fun or stating a profound conviction. She chuckled uncomfortably and hastened down the corridor, her hard heel taps echoing about her.