by Ann Petry
A man’s hand closed over hers, gently extracted the two checks. ‘Let me take ’em,’ said a voice in her ear.
She looked down at the hand. The nails were clean, filed short. There was a thin coating of colorless polish on them. The skin was smooth. It was the hand of a man who earned his living in some way that didn’t call for any wear and tear on his hands. She looked in the mirror and saw that the man who had reached for the checks was directly in back of her.
He was wearing a brown overcoat. It was unfastened so that she caught a glimpse of a brown suit, of a tan-colored shirt. His eyes met hers in the mirror and he said, ‘Do you sing for a living?’
She was aware that Old Man Junto was studying her in the mirror and she shifted her gaze back to the man standing behind her. He was waiting to find out whether she was going to ignore him or whether she was going to answer him. It would be so simple and so easy if she could say point-blank that all she wanted was a little companionship, someone to laugh with, someone to talk to, someone who would take her to places like the Junto and to the movies without her having to think about how much it cost—just that and no more; and then to explain all at once and quickly that she couldn’t get married because she didn’t have a divorce, that there wasn’t any inducement he could offer that would make her sleep with him.
It was out of the question to say any of those things. There wasn’t any point even in talking to him, for when he found out, which he would eventually, that she wasn’t going to sleep with him, he would disappear. It might take a week or a month, but that was how it would end.
No. There wasn’t any point in answering him. What she should do was to take the checks out of his hand without replying and go on home. Go home to wash out a pair of stockings for herself, a pair of socks and a shirt for Bub. There had been night after night like that, and as far as she knew the same thing lay ahead in the future. There would be the three rooms with the silence and the walls pressing in—
‘No, I don’t,’ she said, and turned around and faced him. ‘I’ve never thought of trying.’ And knew as she said it that the walls had beaten her or she had beaten the walls. Whichever way she cared to look at it.
‘Ton could, you know,’ he said. ‘How about another drink?’
‘Make it beer, please.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘Do you mean that you think I could earn my living singing?’
‘Sure. Ton got the kind of voice that would go over big.’ He elbowed space for himself beside her at the bar. ‘Beer for the lady,’ he said to the bartender. “The usual for me.” He leaned nearer to Lutie, ‘I know what I’m talkin’ about. My band plays at the Casino.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You’re—’
‘Boots Smith.’ He said it before she could finish her sentence. And his eyes on her face were so knowing, so hard, that she thought instantly of the robins she had seen on the Chandlers’ lawn in Lyme, and the cat, lean, stretched out full length, drawing itself along on its belly, intent on its prey. The image flashed across her mind and was gone, for he said, ‘You want to try out with the band tomorrow night?’
‘You mean sing at a dance? Without rehearsing?’
‘Come up around ten o’clock and we’ll run over some stuff. See how it goes.’
She was holding the beer glass so tightly that she could feel the impression of the glass on her fingers and she let go of it for fear it would snap in two. She couldn’t seem to stop the excitement that bubbled up in her; couldn’t stop the flow of planning that ran through her mind. A singing job would mean she and Bub could leave 116th Street. She could get an apartment some place where there were trees and the streets were clean and the rooms would be full of sunlight. There wouldn’t be any more worry about rent and gas bills and she could be home when Bub came from school.
He was standing so close to her, watching her so intently, that again she thought of a cat slinking through grass, waiting, going slowly, barely making the grass move, but always getting nearer and nearer.
The only difference in the technique was that he had placed a piece of bait in front of her—succulent, tantalizing bait. He was waiting, watching to see whether she would nibble at it or whether he would have to use a different bait.
She tried to think about it dispassionately. Her voice wasn’t any better or any worse than that of the women who sang with the dance bands over the radio. It was just an average good voice and with some coaching it might well be better than average. He had probably tossed out this sudden offer with the hope that she just might nibble at it.
Only she wasn’t going to nibble. She was going to swallow it whole and come back for more until she ended up as vocalist with his band. She turned to look at him, to estimate him, to add up her chances.
His face was tough, hard-boiled, unscrupulous. There was a long, thin scar on his left cheek. It was a dark line that stood out sharply against the dark brown of his skin. And she thought that at some time someone had found his lack of scruple unbearable and had in desperation tried to do something about it. His body was lean, broad-shouldered, and as he lounged there, his arm on the bar, his muscles relaxed, she thought again of a cat slinking quietly after its prey.
There was no expression in his eyes, no softness, nothing, to indicate that he would ever bother to lift a finger to help anyone but himself. It wouldn’t be easy to use him. But what she wanted she wanted so badly that she decided to gamble to get it.
‘Come on. Let’s get out of here,’ he suggested. He shoved a crisp ten-dollar bill toward the barkeep and smiled at her while he waited for his change, quite obviously satisfied with whatever he had read in her face. She noticed that, though his mouth curved upward when he smiled, his eyes stayed expressionless, and she thought that he had completely lost the knack of really smiling.
He guided her toward the street, his hand under her elbow. ‘Want to go for a ride?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got about three hours to kill before I go to work.’
‘I’d love to,’ she said.
Eighth Avenue was lined with small stores. And as they walked toward 117th Street, Lutie looked at each store, closely reacting to it as violently as though she had never seen it before. All of them provided a sudden shocking contrast to the big softly lit interior of the Junto.
The windows of the butcher shops were piled high with pigs’ feet, hog maw, neck bones, chitterlings, ox tails, tripe—all the parts that didn’t cost much because they didn’t have much solid meat on them, she thought. The notion stores were a jumble of dark red stockings, imitation leather pocketbooks, gaudy rayon underwear edged with coarse yellow lace, sleazy blouses—most of it good for one wearing and no more, for the underwear would fade and ravel after the first washing and the pocketbooks would begin to disintegrate after they had been opened and closed a few times.
Withered oranges and sweet potatoes, wilting kale and okra, were stacked up on the vegetable stands—the culls, the windfalls, all the bruised rotten fruit and vegetables were here. She stole a side glance at Boots striding along cat-footed, silent beside her.
It was a good thing that she had walked past these mean little stores with Boots Smith because the sight of them stiffened her determination to leave streets like this behind her—dark streets filled with shadowy figures that carried with them the horror of the places they lived in, places like her own apartment. Otherwise she might have been afraid of him.
She thought about the stores again. All of them—the butcher shops, the notion stores, the vegetable stands—all of them sold the leavings, the sweepings, the impossible unsalable merchandise, the dregs and dross that were reserved especially for Harlem.
Yet the people went on living and reproducing in spite of the bad food. Most of the children had straight bones, strong white teeth. But it couldn’t go on like that. Even the strongest heritage would one day run out. Bub was healthy, sturdy, strong, but he couldn’t remain that way living here.
‘I ain’t seen you in Junto’s before, baby,’ said Boots Smith.
Then, because she was still thinking about the stores and their contents, she said, ‘When you look at the meat in these windows it’s a wonder people in Harlem go on living.’
‘They don’t have to eat it,’ he said indifferently.
‘What are they going to do—stop eating?’
‘If they make enough money they don’t have to buy that stuff.’
‘But that’s just it. Most of them don’t make enough to buy anything else.’
‘There’s plenty of money to be made in Harlem if you know how.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s on the trees and bushes. All you have to do is shake ’em.’
‘Look, baby,’ he said. ‘I ain’t interested in how they eat or what they cat. Only thing I’m interested in right now is you.’
They were silent after that. So there’s plenty of money to be made in Harlem. She supposed there was if people were willing to earn it by doing something that kept them just two jumps ahead of the law. Otherwise they eked out a miserable existence.
They turned down 117th Street, and she wondered whether a ride with him meant a taxi or a car of his own. If there was plenty of money floating through the town, then she assumed he must have a car of his own. So when he opened the door of a car drawn in close to the curb, she wasn’t over surprised at its length, its shiny, expensive look. It was about what she had expected from the red leather upholstery to the white-walled tires and the top that could be thrown back when the weather was warm.
She got in, thinking, This is the kind of car you see in the movies, the kind that swings insolently past you on Park Avenue, the kind that pulls up in front of the snooty stores on Fifth Avenue where a doorman all braid and brass buttons opens the door for you. The girls that got out of cars like this had mink coats swung carelessly from their shoulders, wore sable scarves tossed over slim wool suits.
This world was one of great contrasts, she thought, and if the richest part of it was to be fenced off so that people like herself could only look at it with no expectation of ever being able to get inside it, then it would be better to have been born blind so you couldn’t see it, born deaf so you couldn’t hear it, born with no sense of touch so you couldn’t feel it. Better still, born with no brain so that you would be completely unaware of anything, so that you would never know there were places that were filled with sunlight and good food and where children were safe.
Boots started the car and for a moment he leaned so close to her that she could smell the after-shaving lotion that he used and the faint, fruity smell of the bourbon he had been drinking. She didn’t draw away from him; she simply stared at him with a cold kind of surprise that made him start fumbling with the clutch. Then the car drew away from the curb.
He headed it uptown. ‘We got time to get up the Hudson a ways. Okay?’
‘Swell. It’s been years since I’ve been up that way.’
‘Lived in New York long, baby?’
‘I was born here.’ And next he would ask if she was married. She didn’t know what her answer would be.
Because this time she wanted something and it made a difference. Ordinarily she knew exactly how it would go—like a pattern repeated over and over or the beginning of a meal. The table set with knife, fork, and spoons, napkin to the left of the fork and a glass filled with water at the tip end of the knife. Only sometimes the glass was a thin, delicate one and the napkin, instead of being paper, was thick linen still shining because a hot iron had been used on it when it was wet; and the knife and fork, instead of being red-handled steel from the five-and-ten, was silver.
He had said there was plenty of money in Harlem, so evidently this was one of the thin glass, thick napkin, thin china, polished silver affairs. But the pattern was just the same. The soup plate would be removed and the main course brought on. She always ducked before the main course was served, but this time she had to figure out how to dawdle with the main course, appear to welcome it, and yet not actually partake of it, and continue trifling and toying with it until she was successfully launched as a singer.
They had left Harlem before she noticed that there was a full moon—pale and remote despite its size. As they went steadily uptown, through the commercial business streets, and then swiftly out of Manhattan, she thought that the streets had a cold, deserted look. The buildings they passed were without lights. Whenever she caught a glimpse of the sky, it was over the tops of the buildings, so that it, too, had a faraway look. The buildings loomed darkly against it.
Then they were on a four-ply concrete road that wound ahead gray-white in the moonlight. They were going faster and faster. And she got the feeling that Boots Smith’s relationship to this swiftly moving car was no ordinary one. He wasn’t just a black man driving a car at a pell-mell pace. He had lost all sense of time and space as the car plunged forward into the cold, white night.
The act of driving the car made him feel he was a powerful being who could conquer the world. Up over hills, fast down on the other side. It was like playing god and commanding everything within hearing to awaken and listen to him. The people sleeping in the white farmhouses were at the mercy of the sound of his engine roaring past in the night. It brought them half-awake—disturbed, uneasy. The cattle in the barns moved in protest, the chickens stirred on their roosts and before any of them could analyze the sound that had alarmed them, he was gone—on and on into the night.
And she knew, too, that this was the reason white people turned scornfully to look at Negroes who swooped past them on the highways. ‘Crazy niggers with autos’ in the way they looked. Because they sensed that the black men had to roar past them, had for a brief moment to feel equal, feel superior; had to take reckless chances going around curves, passing on hills, so that they would be better able to face a world that took pains to make them feel that they didn’t belong, that they were inferior.
Because in that one moment of passing a white man in a car they could feel good and the good feeling would last long enough so that they could hold their heads up the next day and the day after that. And the white people in the cars hated it because—and her mind stumbled over the thought and then went on—because possibly they, too, needed to go on feeling superior. Because if they didn’t, it upset the delicate balance of the world they moved in when they could see for themselves that a black man in a ratclap car could overtake and pass them on a hill. Because if there was nothing left for them but that business of feeling superior to black people, and that was taken away even for the split second of one car going ahead of another, it left them with nothing.
She stopped staring at the road ahead to look at Boots. He was leaning over the steering wheel, his hands cupped close on the sides of it. Yes, she thought, at this moment he has forgotten he’s black. At this moment and in the act of sending this car hurtling through the night, he is making up for a lot of the things that have happened to him to make him what he is. He is proving all kinds of things to himself.
‘Are you married, baby?’ he asked. His voice was loud above the sound of the engine. He didn’t look at her. His eyes were on the road. After he asked the question, he sent the car forward at a faster pace.
‘I’m separated from my husband,’ she said. It was strange when he asked the question, the answer was on the tip of her tongue. It was true and it was the right answer. It put up no barriers to the next step—the removal of the soup plates and the bringing-on of the main course. Neither did it hurry the process.
‘I thought you musta been married,’ he said. ‘Never saw a good-looking chick yet who didn’t belong to somebody.’
She saw no point in telling him that she didn’t belong to anybody; that she and Jim were as sharply separated as though they had been divorced, and that
the separation wasn’t the result of some sudden quarrel but a clean-cut break of years standing. She had deliberately omitted all mention of Bub because Boots Smith obviously wasn’t the kind of man who would maintain even a passing interest in a woman who was the mother of an eight-year-old child. She felt as though she had pushed Bub out of her life, disowned him, by not telling Boots about him.
He slowed the car down when they went through Poughkeepsie, stopping just long enough to pay the guard at the entrance to the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Once across the river, she became aware of the closeness of the hills, for the moon etched them clearly against the sky. They seemed to go up and up over her head.
‘I don’t like mountains,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘I get the feeling they’re closing in on me. Just a crazy notion,’ she added hastily, because she was reluctant to have him get the slightest inkling of the trapped feeling she got when there wasn’t a lot of unfilled space around her.
‘Probably why you sing so well,’ he said. ‘You feel things stronger than other folks.’ And then, ‘What songs do you know?’
‘All the usual ones. Night and Day. Darlin’. Hurry Up, Sammy, and Let’s Go Home.’
‘Have any trouble learnin’ ’em?’
‘No. I’ve never really tried to learn them. Just picked them up from hearing them on the radio.’
‘You’ll have to learn some new ones,’—he steered the car to the side of the road and parked it where there was an unobstructed view of the river.
The river was very wide at this point and she moved closer to him to get a better look at it. It made no sound, though she could see the direction of its flow between the great hills on either side. It had been flowing quietly along like this for years, she thought. It would go on forever—silent, strong, knowing where it was going and not stopping for storms or bridges or factories. That was what had been wrong with her these last few weeks—she hadn’t known where she was going. As a matter of fact, she had probably never known. But if she could sing—work hard at it, study, really get somewhere, it would give direction to her life—she would know where she was going.
