A Rage in Harlem

by Chester Himes

  The air was blue with smoke and thick with kerosene fumes. The room was cold.

  Goldy sat dreamily blowing on the gold cross he wore about his neck and shining it with a handkerchief gray from dirt.

  Jackson threw off the blankets, staggered to his feet, grabbed Goldy’s fat greasy neck between his two black hands, and began to squeeze. Sweat beaded on his black face like pox pimples. His eyes had turned fire-red and looked stark crazy.

  Goldy’s eyes popped and his face turned rusty gray. He dropped the cross, grabbed Jackson back of the neck with both hands, jerked down with all his strength, and butted heads with him. The momentum tipped his chair over backward and he went down on his back with Jackson on top of him, both knocked groggy by the butting. The bottle of whiskey fell to the floor without breaking, and rolled beneath the couch.

  The blankets had sailed over the kerosene stove and were beginning to sizzle with the smell of burning wool and cotton.

  The brothers threshed about the floor, grunting like two hungry cannibals fighting over the missing rib. Finally Goldy got his foot in Jackson’s belly and gave a shove, separating them.

  “What’s the matter with you, man,” he panted. “You done blown your top?”

  “You doped me!” Jackson wheezed.

  The blankets draped over the stove began to burn.

  “Now look what you done,” Goldy said, trying to free his left foot from the folds of his gown so he could get up.

  Jackson clutched the edge of the table, knocking off the loaf of bread while clambering to his feet, then stepped on it as he lunged for the burning blankets. He snatched up the blankets to throw them outside, but the door was padlocked on the inside.

  “Open the door,” he coughed.

  The room was black dark with smoke.

  “You done made me lose the key,” Goldy accused, scrabbling about the floor on his hands and knees looking for it.

  “Goddammit, help me find the key,” he shouted angrily.

  Jackson threw the blankets to the floor, and began crawling about helping Goldy search for the key.

  “What do you lock the door for all the time?” he complained.

  “Here it is,” Goldy said.

  Getting to his feet to unlock the door he stepped on the bread also.

  Jackson kicked the blankets into the hallway.

  “You’re going to be found dead locked up in here someday,” he said.

  “You ain’t got the brains you were born with,” Goldy said, pushing Jackson aside to get through to the store for water to throw onto the smoking blankets.

  Afterwards he tore up a carton and gave Jackson a piece of cardboard to help fan the smoke from the room, bellyaching the while, “Here I is, putting myself out to help you just because you is my brother, and there you is, trying to kill me first thing.”

  “How are you trying to help me,” Jackson grumbled while he fanned the smoke. “I come to you for help and you give me a mickey finn.”

  “Aw, man, eat your dinner and shet up.”

  Jackson picked up the squashed loaf of bread and straightened it out, then sat at the table and lifted the lid of the pot. It was half-filled with boiled pig’s feet, black-eyed peas and rice.

  “Ain’t nothin’ but hoppin’ john,” Goldy said.

  “I like hoppin’ john, all right,” Jackson replied.

  Goldy closed the door and padlocked it again. Jackson gave him a disapproving look. Goldy found the bottle of whiskey beneath the couch and poured Jackson a slug. Jackson looked at it suspiciously. Goldy gave him an evil look.

  “You wouldn’t even trust our mama, would you?” he said, taking a swallow to show it wasn’t doped.

  Jackson took a drink and grimaced.

  “Do you make this stuff yourself?”

  “Man, quit beefing. You ain’t givin’ me no money to buy you no good whiskey, so drink that and shet up.”

  Jackson began to eat with an aggrieved expression. Goldy cooked a C and M speedball and banged himself with quiet savor.

  “I called your landlady,” he said finally. “Imabelle ain’t come back.”

  Jackson stopped eating in the middle of a chew. “I got to go out and find her.”

  “Naw, you ain’t, unless you want to get arrested by the first cop you run into. Your boss has got a warrant out for you.”

  Sweat started forming on Jackson’s face. “That don’t make no difference. She might be in trouble.”

  “She ain’t in no trouble. You the one what’s in trouble.”

  Jackson dropped a polished foot-bone atop the pile on the table, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at Goldy with the deadly indignation of a puritan.

  “Listen, if you think I’m going to set here after being cheated out of my money and kidnapped out of my woman, you got another think coming. She’s my woman. I’m going to look for her too.”

  “Take a drink and relax. You can’t find her tonight. Let’s give this business a little thought.”

  He poured Jackson another drink. Jackson looked at it with distaste then downed it with a gulp and gasped.

  “What kind of thought?”

  “That’s what I want to know. Just what kind of things has your woman got in that trunk besides clothes?”

  Jackson blinked. The food and the whiskey and the close air in the small tight room were making him sleepy.

  “Heirlooms.”

  “Come again.”

  Jackson’s thoughts were growing fuzzy and he suspected Goldy of trying to trick him.

  “Copper pots and pans and bowls,” he shouted angrily. “Stuff that was given to her when she got married.”

  “Copper pots! Pans and bowls!” Goldy looked at him incredulously. “You want me to believe that her and that slim man has gone off somewhere to cook?”

  Jackson was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open.

  “Just leave her trunk alone,” he mumbled belligerently. “If you want to help, just help me find her, and leave her things alone.”

  “That’s all I’m tryin’ to do, Bruzz,” Goldy protested. “Just tryin’ to help you find your gal-friend. But I don’t know yet what I’m looking for.”

  Jackson was too sleepy to reply. He stretched out on the couch and went to sleep instantly.

  “The stuff was too strong,” Goldy muttered to himself.

  7

  By keeping Jackson doped half the time and scared the other half, Goldy held him prisoner in the room. Every day he told Jackson he was working on a lead and promised him definite news by evening. But it was three days later before he got his first real lead.

  The three Black Widows were having breakfast when Big Kathy said, “There was a con man called Morgan in my place last night. He was big-mouthing to my girls about how he was going to make a fortune by the lost-gold-mine pitch. You think he’s one of them you’re looking for?”

  Goldy became alert. “Could be. What kind of a stud was he?”

  “The con-man type, half-sized and sharp but not flashy, a smooth money-talker but stingy, cat-eyed, about forty. And he looked dangerous.”

  “He is dangerous.”

  “He’s one then?”

  “The front man. How’re they goin’ to work it?”

  “He didn’t say. When Teena tried to dig him he clammed up and got his ashes hauled and beat it.”

  “Did she find out where they’re making their pitch?”

  “Naw, he acted as if he’d talked too much already.”

  “He’ll be back,” Goldy said philosophically.

  “Yeah, that girl plays ’em for the long haul.”

  That evening after Jackson had finished the pot of pig’s ears, collard greens and okra Goldy had taken him, and Goldy had had his evening bang, Goldy said casually, “I heard today there’s a man just come to Harlem who’s found a real lost gold-mine somewheres.”

  Suddenly Jackson began trembling and sweat popped from his head and face like showers of rain.

  “A
gold-mine?”

  “That’s what I said. A real lost gold-mine. And the word is out that they got a trunk full of gold ore to prove it.” He peered at Jackson through narrowed eyes. “Does that mean anything to you, Bruzz?”

  Jackson looked suddenly sick, as though he’d swallowed a live bullfrog and it was trying to hop back out of his throat. He wiped the sweat from his ashy face and looked at Goldy through sick eyes.

  “Goldy, listen, that gold ore doesn’t really belong to Imabelle. That’s the only reason I haven’t said anything about it. It belongs to her husband. She’s got to give every ounce of it back whenever she gets her divorce or he’ll send her to the penitentiary. She told me.”

  “So that’s it, Bruzz.” Goldy leaned back in his chair and regarded his brother with rapt contemplation. “So that’s it. That’s what she’s got in her trunk. You’ve been holding out on me, Bruzz.”

  “I ain’t been holding out. I just didn’t want you to get no ideas because that gold ore don’t belong to her. I wouldn’t even touch an ounce of it myself, no matter how hard up I was.”

  “How much is it, Bruzz? Can’t be all that much or you wouldn’t be losin’ all your money on The Blow trying to get it raised and then stealin’ money from your boss.”

  “That ain’t got nothing to do with it. It’s just that it doesn’t belong to her. Do you think I’d steal some of it for myself and risk her getting sent to the penitentiary?”

  “Naw, I know you wouldn’t do that, Bruzz. You is too honest. But just how much is it?”

  “There’s two hundred pounds and eleven ounces.”

  Goldy whistled and his eyes popped out like skinned bananas. “Two hundred pounds! Jumping Jesus! You’ve seen it, ain’t you? You’ve really seen it?”

  “Of course I’ve seen it. Lots of times. We used to take some of it out and put it on the table and sit there with the door locked and look at it. She never tried to hide it from me.”

  Goldy sat staring at his brother as though he couldn’t remove his gaze.

  “What does it look like, Bruzz?”

  “It looks like gold ore. What do you think it looks like?”

  “Can you see the pure gold?”

  “Sure you can see the pure gold. There’re layers of gold running through the rocks.”

  “What kind of layers? Thin layers or thick layers?”

  “Thick layers. What do you think? There’s as much gold as there is rock.”

  “Then there’s about a hundred pounds of pure gold, you’d say?”

  “About that.”

  “A hundred pounds of pure gold.” Goldy blew on his gold cross and began polishing it dreamily.

  “Bruzz, listen to me. If that gold ore is the real stuff, solid eighteen-carat gold, your gal is in real trouble. If it ain’t, then she’s working with ’em and done helped them to trim you. Ain’t no two ways about it.”

  “I’ve been tellin you they’re holding her prisoner. Been telling you all the time,” Jackson said indignantly. “Do you think she’d be toting around a trunk full of gold ore if it wasn’t real eighteen-carat solid gold?”

  “I ain’t thinking nothing. I’m asking you. Do you know for sure that gold ore is solid eighteen-carat?”

  “I know for sure,” Jackson stated solemnly. “It’s real gold ore, as pure as it was dug out of the ground. That’s why I’m so worried.”

  “That’s all I want to know.”

  Goldy knew that his brother was a square, but he figured that even a five-cornered square ought to be able to tell pure gold that has come straight out of the ground.

  “Do you know where I can get a pistol?” Jackson asked suddenly.

  Goldy stiffened. “A pistol? What you goin’ to do with a pistol?”

  “I’m going out of here and get my woman and her gold ore. I ain’t going to set here no longer and wait on you.”

  “Man, listen to me. Those studs is wanted in Mississippi for killing a white man. Those studs is dangerous. All you’d do with a pistol is get yourself killed. What good are you goin’ to be to your woman when you is dead?”

  “I’m not going to fight them fair,” Jackson said wildly.

  “Man, you has gone raving crazy. You don’t even know where they is at.”

  “I’ll find them if I have to search every hole in Harlem.”

  “Man, Saint Peter himself don’t know where every hole is at in Harlem. I’ve seen grandpappy rats get so lost in these holes they find themselves shacked up with a sewer full of eels.”

  “Then I’ll rob somebody and get some money and hire somebody to help me.”

  “Take it easy, Bruzz. I’m goin’ to find them for you. Where is your religion at? Where is your faith? Your time’s comin’, man.”

  Jackson wiped his stinging red eyes with his dirty handkerchief.

  “It’d better hurry up and come soon,” he said.

  8

  They were having a big ball in the Savoy and people were lined up for a block down Lenox Avenue, waiting to buy tickets. The famous Harlem detective-team of Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones had been assigned to keep order.

  Both were tall, loose-jointed, sloppily dressed, ordinary-looking dark-brown colored men. But there was nothing ordinary about their pistols. They carried specially made long-barreled nickel-plated .38-calibre revolvers, and at the moment they had them in their hands.

  Grave Digger stood on the right side of the front end of the line, at the entrance to the Savoy. Coffin Ed stood on the left side of the line, at the rear end. Grave Digger had his pistol aimed south, in a straight line down the sidewalk. On the other side, Coffin Ed had his pistol aimed north, in a straight line. There was space enough between the two imaginary lines for two persons to stand side by side. Whenever anyone moved out of line, Grave Digger would shout, “Straighten up!” and Coffin Ed would echo, “Count off!” If the offender didn’t straighten up the line immediately, one of the detectives would shoot into the air. The couples in the queue would close together as though pressed between two concrete walls. Folks in Harlem believed that Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson would shoot a man stone dead for not standing straight in a line.

  Grave Digger looked around and saw the black-gowned figure of Sister Gabriel trudging slowly down the street.

  “What’s the word, Sister?” he greeted.

  “ ‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, the sixth angel said,’ ” Sister Gabriel quoted.

  The couples nearby in the queue laughed.

  “Listen to Sistah Gabriel,” a young woman snickered.

  “I hear you, Sister,” Grave Digger said. “And what makes those three frogs hop?”

  The listeners laughed again.

  Sister Gabriel paused. “ ‘For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles.’ ”

  “Do you think she’s crazy?” a loud whisper was heard.

  “Shut your mouth,” came a cautious reply.

  “And these frogs?” Grave Digger kept it up. “You mean they’ve got a frog pond in Harlem?”

  It was a signal for the listeners to laugh again.

  “ ‘And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery,’ ” Sister Gabriel quoted and moved on.

  “Everybody to their own Jesus,” Grave Digger said to the audience.

  Goldy continued down Lenox Avenue to 131st Street and turned the corner toward Big Kathy’s whorehouse.

  It was a six-room apartment on the second floor rear of a big crumbling five-story building. Big Kathy was giving her customers a show and the big living-room was lit brightly for the occasion. The air was tinted blue with the smoke of incense. Five girls and a dozen men sat squeezed together on shabby overstuffed chairs and sofas backed against the walls, leaving the center of the room clear.

  A huge yellow woman, almost six feet tall and weighing almost two hundred and fifty pounds, was struggling furiously with a short, skinny, muscular black man about half her weight. Both were clad in skinti
ght rubber suits that had been greased and their faces were streaming with sweat that couldn’t escape through the body pores.

  They were working off a bet whether he could throw her. The stake was a hundred dollars. Side bets had been made.

  The big woman was clubbing the little man with her fists. The little man was trying to get hold of the big woman’s greased limbs. It was rugged. The spectators were laughing and shouting obscene encouragement.

  “Give him some more love licks, baby,” a man kept shouting.

  Goldy entered by the service door and went unnoticed down the hall to Big Kathy’s private room. He entered without knocking.

  The room was furnished with a bed, chiffonier, a desk for a dressing table, and two red plastic-covered chairs.

  Big Kathy was standing at the foot of the bed beside a hinged panel that opened inward from the wall at the height of his face. When closed, the panel was hidden by a lithograph of Mary and her Child. On the other side was a transparent mirror giving a clear view of the living room without the peeper’s being seen.

  Big Kathy turned his head and beckoned to Goldy.

  “He’s here,” he whispered. “Over by the radio with Teena in his lap.”

  Goldy put his face to the peephole and Big Kathy looked over his shoulder. He spotted Hank instantly. Then he noticed a rough-skinned, broad-shouldered man with half-straightened hair, dressed in working pants and a leather jacket, sitting beside Hank in a straight-backed chair.

  “That’s another one,” Goldy whispered. “The one beside him with the burnt hair.”

  “He calls himself Walker.”

  Goldy’s gaze roved about the room but he didn’t see the slim man.

  “Can you get Teena in here?” he asked Big Kathy.

  Big Kathy fingered a loose nail in the joist on which the panel was hinged. The radio dial lit up. All five girls in the big room looked at it covertly.

  Then Teena got up and excused herself.

  “I’ve got to go wee-wee.”

  “You’re getting kind of old for that, ain’t you?” Jodie said roughly.

  “Quit picking at her,” Hank ordered.

  Teena slipped into Big Kathy’s room without its being noticed.

  “The Sister here wants you to dig your John tonight about his gold-mine pitch, and to get every angle there is,” Big Kathy said.