Amiable with Big Teeth

by Claude McKay

  14

  PEIXOTA’S HUMILIATION

  Pablo Peixota and Dorsey Flagg had left the scene of the demonstration immediately after speaking, before the disorder occurred. The Sufi, despite his bizarrerie, was a stimulating tonic to the Harlem kraal, they both agreed. So long as they were not wholly unconscionable fakers, men like Sufi Abdul Hamid and Professor Koazhy were performing a real service to their people, filling that lacuna in their lives which the privileged world had studiedly neglected.

  Peixota went home to dinner. He had another engagement for the later part of the evening. The Good Old Pals of which he was a member were having a pig knuckles feed and card game. He had promised and wanted to attend. The Good Old Pals was Peixota’s pet club. It was founded long before he became a wealthy man by a group of young men, elevator runners and others, who were close associates. Now they were really “old” pals. Most of them were married and had children and only two of fifteen members were still operating an elevator. But every three months they got together in a midnight stag party to play cards until dawn.

  The secretary and leading spirit of the club was at one time one of Peixota’s most trusted lieutenants in the policy game.1 Now he was the owner of a restaurant. Another lieutenant of Peixota’s who was a member was the proprietor of a flourishing little cigar and candy store, and it was said that he still held a small kingship in the policy. Another member was the proprietor of a bar and grill. One of the Good Old Pals had plodded through many years to become a lawyer and he was the only professional member.

  For a decade, starting in during the hey-day of the Prohibition era, when money started coming easy to Peixota, he had provided the liquor for the get-together. As the wealthiest man of the Old Pals Peixota made this contribution with a generous gesture, always sending plenty and a variety of good liquor. It was such acts—remembrance of old friends and treating them just as in the past—which caused many Harlemites to be so loyal and ever ready to defend him.

  The Good Old Pals were meeting at the home of their secretary. He lived in a private house, renting some of the rooms. His wife and daughter had carefully prepared the basement rooms for the event. They cooked the pig knuckles and left them simmering on the stove. They set the dishes and plates on the buffet, with dill pickles, horseradish, olives and bread. They set out a package of paper napkins. And when everything was perfect, mother and daughter went off to a midnight show, leaving the Good Old Pals to enjoy themselves as if they were a secret fraternity.

  Twelve of the Old Pals were already there when Peixota arrived. His coming perceptibly changed the spirit of the atmosphere. Because although the others had started to play cards and had had something to drink, their mood was like actors doing minor roles as a preliminary to the appearance of the principal. Although Peixota was just one other member, the others all looked to him without subserviency as the natural leader.

  They all stood together and drank a toast to the Good Old Pals and sang, “We All Are Jolly Good Fellows.” Then they started their games. There was no gambling. They were friendly games played for prizes, chiefly boxes of cigars. At intervals each pal helped himself to a feed of pig knuckles and poured his own drink.

  As the blanket slipped a little from the friendly body of night, the joviality of the pals increased its volume. About the hour when the scarcely visible hand of dawn was lifting, the house was raided by a colored and white squad of plainclothes sleuths. They were armed with hatchets, intent upon chopping up the roulette wheel which they imagined to be there. But they found only a small group of respectable persons mildly amusing themselves. Disappointed, the sleuths insolently charged them with gambling, bundled all into a patrol wagon and took them to the police station.

  On Monday morning the city newspapers reported the raid of a Harlem gambling club, magnifying it into a big affair. There were details of the flourishing of the numbers game in Harlem in spite of efforts by the authorities to break up the syndicates, and Pablo Peixota was specially mentioned as one of the men arrested and a leading promoter of the numbers game. There was no reference to his respectable interests.

  The Labor Herald put the story on the front page with a photograph of Peixota, who was called a gangster and racketeer and the most vicious exploiter speculating upon the vices of the unfortunate people of Harlem. On Monday all the accused were released under bond. When the case was brought to trial their lawyers easily demolished the charge of the police with irrefutable proof that the Good Old Pals were a respectable fraternal group and that the secretary’s house was not a gambling rendezvous, but a family residence. The magistrate rebuked the police and dismissed the case. There was a Fusion mayor2 in office who was sincerely opposed to the indiscriminate and aggravating high-handedness of police activity in Harlem.

  But there was no report of the outcome of the trial in the city newspapers. The Aframerican weeklies copied the reports of the arrest from the dailies under big headlines and published photographs of Peixota. Inconspicuously printed at the end of the accounts it was stated that the case was dismissed.

  That Monday evening Alamaya called to see Peixota. He had quickly perceived that the unfavorable publicity given the man’s arrest was an underhanded attack on the Hands to Ethiopia. And it had followed so soon his own miserable experience, he felt that the same persons who had smeared his own reputation had perhaps indirectly engineered the raid. He felt personally involved in all the trouble. He wanted to tell Peixota how he felt, he had such a high regard for him. He was unhappy knowing that there was nothing he could do to help.

  Alamaya found Peixota calm as always, with plans already formulated. “Don’t agitate yourself about it,” he said to Alamaya. “It’s just a dirty frame-up. But I have to resign as chairman of the Hands. It would hurt the organization if I didn’t resign. It is more than seven years since I washed my hands free of the numbers game. And those people who wrote that filthy slander about me know it. They know I am not a professional gambler. Their one aim is to destroy the organization.”

  “But if you resign, that will destroy the organization,” said Alamaya, “and that is what they desire.”

  “I don’t think it will if we can find a courageous fighter to head it,” said Peixota, “and I’ll work just as hard behind the scenes. But as a front man my usefulness is at an end.”

  “My God! What a pity,” said Alamaya. “The war news from Ethiopia gets worse and worse. Our soldiers have only spears and battle-axes and old-fashioned rifles to fight against Italian machine guns and tanks and airplanes. And my effort to do something here is futile. I am helpless.”

  “Don’t give up in despair, my son,” said Peixota. “Life is a grim struggle all the time. Your experience here will be useful in the future. You discovered that your European Friends were ‘Greeks bearing gifts.’ And it is the same with our Friends. Friendship between individuals must be based upon common self-respect. It is the same with nations as with individuals. Each side must possess the wherewithal either materially or spiritually to maintain its self-respect. We have very little beside the spirit to sustain us to exist and work with hope for the future. I have fought against the influence of the Friends in our organization, because I saw very clearly that they did not want us to retain a spirit of our own, they wanted either to control or break our spirit.”

  “I am afraid that my mission is a failure,” said Alamaya.

  “It may appear to be in the eyes of those who expect immediate results. But sometimes what looks like a failure may be only a necessary setback in a grand cycle of events which foreshadows a new dispensation,” said Peixota.

  “You’re optimistic,” said Alamaya.

  “On the contrary, I’m not. No Aframerican can be over-optimistic, but I am a man. I must have faith to live. Those who feel so sure, because they have the power to possess the world today, they may have the wrong kind of faith. You have more cause than I to be optimistic. You have a little
corner of Africa, and Africa is a land of vast resources still undeveloped. Your Empire may be destroyed by the Italians. But your people may live and if they guard their native spirit intact, they may yet become the Light of a new Africa.”

  “God help my people,” said Alamaya, putting his hand to his face in a gesture as of prayer.

  “God help us all,” said Peixota. “Now, I believe that you’re here not merely to talk, but to know what I plan to do. I think the best man to take over the chairmanship is Dorsey Flagg. Even though the White Friends hate him, he has no questionable past which they can use against the organization. Then, I don’t think my house should continue to be your headquarters, even as a front. It would only be a handicap to you in your present position. Better for the present that you cut off all contact with me. Later on perhaps we may be able to collaborate closely again. This time of ferment and high tension can’t continue forever. It must burn itself out and people will have a chance at least to think before they act.”

  “Then you don’t want me to come here anymore,” said Alamaya, “and you and your family are the only real friends I have in New York. You have been so good to me.”

  “It is not that I don’t want you to come,” said Peixota. “I like you personally, but I think it is better for the Cause if you stay away for a while. After all the Cause of Ethiopia comes first. Circumstances may change and conditions become more favorable and then—”

  The door opened and Seraphine looked in and said: “Hi, Tekla, I didn’t know you were here. Busy?”

  Tekla nodded and forced a smile.

  “Awright, see you afterwards.”

  Seraphine closed the door and Peixota said: “How are you getting along with the Friends?”

  “Tasan is the Friends and the Friends is Tasan,” said Alamaya. “I drop in at the office occasionally. He has been acting exceptionally decently. He’s considering a new plan of campaign with the cooperation of Mr. Bishop.”

  “Prudhomme Bishop, that wishy-washy humbug!” Peixota spoke with emphatic contempt. “You’ll find plenty of optimism there. He’s as wholesome as pasteurized milk and his superlatives are grander than Hollywood’s. Well, whatever happens, I wish you better luck, Lij Alamaya. Personally I think you’re a nice young man, too clean to touch that stinker Tasan. It’s a pity we’re such a weak and vulnerable people.”

  Alamaya said: “Mr. Peixota, I want to thank you for all your kindness. I shall never forget it. I tried my best and if I have failed—I have tried to be frank with you and yet—but perhaps someday you will understand.”

  “I understand the difficulty of your position very well, Lij Alamaya,” said Peixota, “and don’t forget I am still your friend. Let’s take a drink, a straight drink.” He opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey. He filled two glasses and said: “To the freedom and future of Ethiopia!”

  • • •

  Seraphine was hurt because Lij Alamaya left the house without seeing her. Peixota said that he had been summoned by telephone to an important rendezvous. But that did not satisfy her. Her mother’s attitude was disquieting. Mrs. Peixota was fretfully reiterating that the publicity her husband’s arrest had received would affect their relations with Alamaya. She wasn’t worried about his position in the Hands to Ethiopia and Seraphine felt about the situation exactly like her mother.

  She telephoned Lij Alamaya the following day, but he betrayed no eagerness to see her; his manner was evasive. Vexed but undaunted, she surprised him at his hotel the following evening. In a wretched mood Alamaya was unable to hide his embarrassment.

  “What is it, Tekla?” cried Seraphine. “Aren’t you glad to see me or are you tired of me already?”

  “I am not tired of you and you should not say that.”

  “Then why do you act in such an un-American way? Why don’t you kiss me?” She hugged and kissed him, but there was no warmth in him. “I don’t believe you like me anymore. Do you?” she asked.

  “It isn’t anything personal, Seraphine, but things aren’t going right. I’m in trouble and your father too. You saw what the papers had about him.”

  “Yes, but what has that to do with us? I am not responsible for my father’s affairs. And he isn’t guilty of anything except that he keeps low company. Mother often told him he’s too big a man in Harlem to associate with trash.”

  “Your father is a real man, Seraphine, and I like and respect him very much. I’d prefer to visit his house and associate with—with his family more than any other in New York. But he doesn’t want me to and I believe he’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “How can I explain? You know I’m here on a mission for Ethiopia. Your father thinks it is better for my mission if I keep away. I’m not a free person. I have made mistakes and I must pay the cost of those mistakes.”

  “But you don’t have to pay for Father’s mistakes,” said Seraphine, “nor have I. If you won’t come to the house, then I can visit you downtown. I’m sick of Harlem anyway.”

  “I made a promise to your father and I’ll keep it, Seraphine. I won’t cheat, for I have too much respect for him.”

  “You mean you don’t want to see me then. You don’t like me?”

  “Don’t say I don’t like you, please. But do try to understand. I cannot help myself. I’m not a free agent.”

  Seraphine buried her face in the cushion of the couch and sobbed. Alamaya sat beside her and put his arm across her shoulder. “Please don’t, don’t be upset,” he said. “I’m not worth it.” But her sobbing increased, her body violently shaking almost as it strangely did when she was inebriated and giggling.

  Alamaya caressed her hair and murmured: “Don’t do that, please. Please, forgive me.” At last she calmed down and, holding a handkerchief to her face, she went to the bathroom. She dipped her face in cold water and vigorously rubbed it and applied powder and rouge.

  When she came out she said: “Goodbye, Tekla.”

  “I’ll accompany you to your car,” he said.

  “I came down on the subway, but I don’t want you to come with me, goodbye.”

  “Au revoir, Seraphine.”

  15

  SERAPHINE LEAVES HOME

  Seraphine did not wake up as usual the next morning to go to her father’s office. The maid served her breakfast in her room, but she only drank orange juice. Her mother went up to her bedroom. Seraphine said she was miserable in her mind and in her body and would not be able to breathe in the atmosphere of her father’s office. Mrs. Peixota informed her husband that Seraphine was indisposed.

  Peixota opened the office himself. He had neglected it since he became so immersed with the work of the Hands to Ethiopia. Now he plunged into it again, giving his attention to details of things which had accumulated. In his largest tenement building most of his tenants had joined the recently formed Mutual Association of Harlem Tenants and had presented demands for a reduction in rent. He was arranging with his lawyers to discuss the situation. There was a strike of tenants in many other apartment buildings owned by white people. For many reasons, but specially because he was connected with the Hands to Ethiopia, Peixota did not want his tenants to go on strike. He expressed his willingness to meet the officials of the tenants’ group in conference.

  Seraphine kept to her room all day. And in the evening, when Peixota came home from the office, he went to see her, taking a bouquet of violets, which he thought of when he was passing the florist’s.

  “I’ve brought you some violets, Seraphine,” he said, putting them in a vase on her dressing table. “People asked for you at the office.”

  “I don’t want any flowers and I’m never going back to that office,” she said. “If you want to be nice, you should be nice to Tekla.”

  “Now what is wrong with you?” said Peixota. “I haven’t been unkind to Alamaya or anyone.”

  “Yes, you have too. You’v
e stopped him from coming here and seeing me. But nobody can stop me from doing what I want. I’m not going to stay here cooped up in Harlem.”

  “If Alamaya cannot have his office here anymore, there are reasons for it. The young man is here on a mission, which is more important than his having an office here. And I wish you would try to understand and not make a simpleton of yourself.”

  Seraphine jumped up from her couch-bed, drawing her blue and orange satin kimono around her: “I’m not a simpleton and I won’t be called a simpleton. You imagine you’re the only wise person in Harlem and everybody else a fool. But I am not and I won’t stay here for you to insult me.”

  “What is happening now?” Peixota said sharply. “Are you going crazy?”

  “I’m not crazy either and I won’t be talked to that way. You can’t treat me like Lij Alamaya. I think you’re hard and mean and cruel and smug with it. I won’t stand for it, I won’t. Indeed not. You’re a wicked man, o-o-oh!”

  Mrs. Peixota came in: “What’s all this noise about? What’s wrong with you, Sirrie?”

  “Father says I’m a simpleton and a fool because I like Alamaya and I won’t be treated like a child. I’m a woman, I know my own mind. I won’t stay in this house and be insulted—”

  “Shut up!” said Mrs. Peixota. “If you were a woman you wouldn’t be acting like a child.”