The Last Leaf of Harlem

by Lionel Bascom

  “I’d love to,” he exclaimed, “ but I can’t! I’ve a meeting at nine, important. Anyway,” he added helpfully, “I haven’t got a tux.” Her eyes returned to her toe, but this time they were sorrowful.

  Cocktails, little sausages on toothpicks, black and green olives, cheeses with crisp little crackers, two-inch sandwiches, went in continuous file around the room. Our hostess had a fine array of liquor with impressive labels on the improvised bar. Once she had recommended her bootlegger to us, but we had stopped his visits when we found his labels were often not yet dry and no two like bottles had similar tastes. Since most of the people were connoisseurs no more than we were, they [eagerly?] drank the badly cut liquor and got high.

  The actress, from a chair-backed hassock, surveyed the room with disdain. She was playing in a downtown hit! Her hair went up and her nose turned up, and even her lips were slightly curled. She was light-skinned and lovely and remote as a queen among her subjects. Ten years ago she had been a gamin and her accent had been Harlem. Now offstage she was indistinguishable from a throaty Englishman.

  We bent to flick our ashes in the tray she was holding in a graceful hand; our mouths open for a pretty compliment. She withdrew her hand in horror and we let our ashes fall on the floor. Her eyes asked us elegantly, “Have we met?”

  The white movie critic started toward her, the white artist’s wife on his arm. The actress smiled and smiled.

  The woman said, “My husband and I saw your show last night. We thought you were marvelous.”

  “How kind!” said the actress.

  “My paper gave you quite a plug,” said the movie critic proudly.

  The actress smiled and smiled again. All of them beamed at each other.

  “I’m so-o-o sorry,” the actress murmured, “that we haven’t been introduced. May I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?”

  The movie critic told her his name and introduced the artist’s wife. In a moment they were as chatty as old friends.

  We had come at a late hour, and when it was an hour past the scheduled time for the party’s end, the crowd gradually began to thin. Our hostess’s hair-up had drifted down and her trailing gown had been trampled on. She struck a graceful pose at the door, and her meticulous phrases sped each departing guest.

  We had not seen our hostess in several months. She urged us to stay for a little chat. When the last guest had gone, she dispatched her husband and the janitor’s wife with borrowed chairs and hassocks and end tables and ashtrays to various flats in the house. She sat down, shook her shoes off, and pulled the rest of her hair down. She lifted her arms and wrinkled her nose.

  “I put four on the card, ‘cause I know colored folks, and I knew they’d start coming around six. I didn’t even plan to take my bath until five. I start sweating so quick. And then at four sharp here come two white folks. I forgot they don’t keep c. p. time. Well, I jumped into this, and did my hair and face, and I know they thought my party was a flop, because nobody else came until around five, and they left before six.”

  We said it was the best attended party we’d been to in a long time.

  She fanned herself under the arms. “It was kinda nice, wasn’t it?” she agreed. Then she chuckled softly. “You notice how Doctor Brown’s wife kept looking at me? She knows he likes me. She only came to keep her eye on him. She’d have to go some to keep her eye on me!

  “You notice that good-looking chap with his wife, one wore the sleazy green dress?” She smiled meaningfully. “Well, she’s just up for the holidays, but he’s here for the winter.”

  The janitor’s wife came back. She was frankly dragging now. Her cap was at a comic angle, but she did not look funny. She stood respectfully before our hostess. I could see that one of her shoelaces was black and the other was white, ink-stained black.

  “I’ll see you Saturday,” said our hostess to her cheerfully, though this was Sunday. “That all right? I won’t have a penny until then. Pouring liquor down all these darkies cost a lot. They’ll talk about you if your drinks are scarce. “Saturday noon, I’ll see you, Flora.”

  The woman covered her embarrassment with a painful smile. “That’s all right,” she said.

  She turned to go. When she reached the door, our hostess jumped up suddenly, called to her to wait, rummage in her bathroom, returned and thrust some silk pieces in the woman’s hands.

  “Will you do these for me, Flora? I’ll pick them up Saturday when I pay you.”

  When the door shut behind Flora, our hostess came back and said triumphantly, “I’ll give her a few cents extra, and I’ll save a dollar’s washing. We’re going to two affairs this week, and that dollar’ll mean taxi fare. I hate to come home late at night in a subway with a lot of funny looking derelicts.”

  We said we hadn’t been anywhere in weeks and hoped that she’d have a good time.

  Our hostess said we ought to get out more, and she tried to interest us in the affairs she was planning to attend. One was for Spain, the other for China, both causes worth supporting. She spoke with feeling of the pogroms in Germany. It was obvious that she kept abreast of the international situation.

  We asked her what she thought of the Gaines decision. She said she hadn’t seen any reference to it in her paper, and she read the paper daily. We said it had been given front-page space in the Negro weeklies for the past two weeks.

  She laughed and answered that she only read the society pages of the Negro papers because of their poor journalism. The society reporters were no better, but at least you kept up with what the darkies were doing. As an afterthought she asked us what the Gaines decision was.

  We explained that it was a Supreme Court Decision whereby a southern state must either admit a Negro student to its university or build a university of equal standards for him.

  She laughed and said she hoped they’d build one. She was tired of her present job and she was a qualified teacher. She’d like to go South a teach a group of good-looking male students.

  Her husband returned. It was obvious that he had had another drink or two in somebody’s flat. It had made him hungry.

  “Any food, female?” he addressed his wife. “None of these scraps.”

  He surveyed with distaste the dainty sandwiches. “Got any greens left?”

  “Greens and spare ribs, have some with us?” she asked.

  We thanked her but said we really should go.

  Her husband looked at us a little belligerently. He was born in the South, and he said that he yearned for it, but he never got any farther than his government job in Washington even on holidays.

  “You don’t like colored folks cooking?” he asked.

  We said that we loved greens and spare ribs and named all the other southern dishes and said that we loved them, too.

  He smiled at us paternally and said that he wished we were all down South, celebrating the New Year right, with black-eyed peas and hogshead.

  “My mother,” he reminisced happily, “would turn her house inside out for my friends. You folks up North got a lot to learn about hospitality. You all buy a quart of gin, a box of crackers, and a bottle of olives, and throw a couple of white folks in, and call it a cocktail party.”

  Our hostess stood in her stocking feet and drew herself up grandly. “You’re drunk,” she said coldly. “Go and eat.”

  Gravely he bade us goodnight and walked away with unsteady dignity.

  Our hostess went to the door with us in her stocking feet. Again we thanked her for a lovely party.

  She surveyed her tumbled rooms complacently.

  “I’ll clean up and take a bath, and turn on the radio and do my paper. I’m speaking Wednesday at the Young Matrons’ meeting. I’m going to talk on the evil of anti-Semitism. There is some anti-Semitism in Harlem which should be scorched at the start. How you like that for a subject?

  We told her we didn’t think there was any anti-Semitism in Harlem as such. There was only the poor man’s resentment of exploitation by the rich.
It was incidental that in this particular instance that one was black and one was Jewish. Black workers and Jewish workers did not hate each other.

  “Maybe,” she said brightly. “But I still think it’s a good topic for a paper.

  Last month some dumb cluck read a paper on childcare. Who can afford to have a child now anyway? I want to give ’em a paper on something current.”

  We urged her to go and put her shoes on before she caught cold. We brushed cheeks all around.

  When we got {Begin inserted text} back {End inserted text} home, we wondered as usual why we had gone to a cocktail party.

  Part IV

  Pulp Fiction

  In the fall of 1940, West began a lengthy relationship with the New York Daily News and the News Syndicate, Inc. She began to publish a series of short stories in the news, among the largest daily circulation newspapers in the world.

  Jack in the Pot

  Blue Ribbon Fiction Section

  New York Daily News

  Sept. 29, 1940

  When she walked down the aisle of the theatre, clutching the money in her hand, hearing the applause, and laughter, seeing, dimly the grinning black faces, she was trembling so violently that she did not know how she could ever retain her seat.

  It was unbelievable. Week after week she had come on Wednesday afternoon to this smelly, third-run neighborhood movie house, paid her dime, received her Beano card, and gone inside to wait through an indifferent feature until the house lights came on, and a too jovial white man wheeled a board onto the stage and busily fished in a bowl for numbers.

  Today it happened. As the too-jovial white man called each number, she found a corresponding one on her card. When he called the seventh number and explained dramatically that whoever had punched five numbers in a row had won the jackpot of fifty-five dollars, she listened in gnawing disbelief that there was that much money in his pocket. It was then that the woman beside her leaned toward her and said excitedly, “Look, lady, you got it.”

  She did not remember going down the aisle. Undoubtedly her neighbor had prodded her to her feet. When it was over, she tottered dazedly to her seat and sat in a dreamy stupor, scarcely able to believe her good fortune.

  The drawing continued, the last dollar was given away, the theatre darkened, and the afternoon crowd filed out. The little gray woman, collecting her wits, followed them.

  WONDERFUL TO THINK OF MONEY IN PURSE

  She revived in the sharp air. Her head cleared and happiness swelled in her throat. She had fifty-five dollars in her purse. It was wonderful to think about.

  She reached her own intersection and paused before Mr. Spiro’s general market. Here she regularly shopped, settling part of her bill fortnightly out of her relief check. When Mr. Spiro put in inferior stock because most of his customers were poor paying reliefers, she had wanted to shop elsewhere but she could never get paid up.

  Excitement smote her. She would go in, settle her account and say good-bye to Mr. Spiro forever. Resolutely, she turned into the market.

  Mr. Spiro, broad and unkempt, began to boom heartily from behind the counter. “Hello Mrs. Edmunds.”

  She lowered her eyes and asked diffidently, “How much is my bill, Mr. Spiro?”

  He recoiled in horror. “Do I worry about your bill, Mrs. Edmunds? Don’t you pay something when you get your relief check? Ain’t you one of my best customers?”

  “I’d like to settle,” said Mrs. Edmunds breathlessly.

  Mr. Spiro eyed her shrewdly. His voice was soft and insinuating. “You got cash, Mrs. Edmunds? You hit the number? Every other week you gave me something on account. This week you want to settle. Am I losing your trade? Ain’t I always treated you right?”

  “Sure, Mr. Spiro,” she answered nervously. “I was telling my husband just last night, ain’t another man treats me like Mr. Spiro. And I said I wished I could settle my bill.”

  “See,” he said, triumphantly. “It’s like I said. You’re one of my best customers. Worrying about your bill when I ain’t even worrying. I was telling your investigator …” He paused significantly. “… When Mr. Edmunds gets a job, I know I’ll get the balance. Mr. Edmunds got himself a job maybe?”

  She was stiff with fright. “No I’d have told you right off, and her too. I ain’t one to cheat on relief. I was only saying how I wished I could settle. I wasn’t saying that I was.”

  Well, then, what you want for supper?” Mr. Spiro asked soothingly.

  “Loaf of bread,” she answered gratefully, “two pork chops, one kinda thick, can of spaghetti, little can of milk.”

  The purchases were itemized. Mrs. Edmunds said good night and left the store. She felt sick and ashamed, for she had turned tail in the moment that was to have been her triumph over tyranny.

  A little boy came toward her in the familiar rags of the neighborhood children. Suddenly Mrs. Edmunds could bear no longer the intolerable weight of her mean provisions.

  “Little boy,” she said.

  “Ma’am? He stopped and stared at her.

  “Here.” She held out the bag for him. “Take it home to your mama. Its food. It’s clean.”

  He blinked, then snatched the bag from her hands, and turned and ran very fast in the direction from which he had come.

  Mrs. Edmunds felt better at once. Now she could buy a really good supper. She walked 10 blocks to a better neighborhood and the cold did not bother her. Her misshapen shoes were winged.

  She pushed inside a resplendent story and marched to the meat counter. A porterhouse steak caught her eye. She could not look past it. It was big and thick and beautiful.

  The clerk leaned toward her. “Steak, madam?

  “That one.”

  It was glorious not to care about the cost of things. She bought mushrooms, fresh peas, cauliflower, tomatoes, a pound of good coffee, a pint of real cream, a dozen dinner rolls, and maple walnut layer cake.

  The winter stars were pricking the sky when she entered the dimly lit hallway of the old law tenement in which she lived. The dank smell smote her instantly after the long walk in the brisk, clear air. The Smith boy’s dog had dirtied the hall again. Mr. Johnson, the janitor, was mournfully mopping up.

  “Evenin, Mrs. Edmunds Ma’am,” he said plaintively.

  “Evening,” Mrs. Edmunds said coldly. Suddenly she hated Mr. Johnson. He was so humble.

  Five young children shared the uninhabitable basement with him. They were always half sick and he was always neglecting his duties to tend to them. The tenants were continually deciding to report him to the agent, and then at the last moment deciding not too.

  “I’ll be up tomorrow to see ‘bout them windows Mis’ Edmunds ma’am. My baby kep’ frettin’ to day and I been so busy doctor’n,”

  “Those children need a mother,” said Mrs. Edmunds severely. “You ought to get married again.”

  “My wife ain’ daid,” cried Mr. Johnson, shocked out of his servility. “She’s in that T.B. home. Been there two years and ‘bout on the road to health.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Edmunds inconclusively and then added briskly, “I been waiting weeks and weeks for them window strips. Winter’s half over. If the place was kept warm --”

  “Yes’m, Mis’ Edmunds,” he said hastily, his bloodshot eyes imploring. “It’s that ol’ furnace. I done tol’ the agent time and again, but they ain’ fix’n to fix up this house ‘long as all you all is relief folks.”

  The steak was sizzling on the stove when Mr. Edmunds’ key turned in the lock of the tiny three-room flat. His steps dragged down the hall. Mrs. Edmunds knew what that meant. “No man wanted.” Two years ago, Mrs. Edmunds had begun doggedly to canvas the city for work, leaving home soon after breakfast and rarely returning before supper.

  Once he had had a little stationary store. After losing it, he had spent his small savings and sold or pawned every decent article of furniture and clothing before applying for relief. Even so, there had been a long investigation while he and his wife slowl
y starved. Fear had been implanted in Mrs. Edmunds. Thereafter she was never wholly unafraid. Mr. Edmunds had had to stand by and watch his wife starve. He never got over being ashamed.

  Mr. Edmunds stood in the kitchen doorway, holding his rain-streaked hat in his knotted hand. He was forty-nine, and he looked like an old man.

  “I’m back,” he said. “Cooking supper.”

  It was not a question. He seemed unaware of the intoxicating odors.

  She smiled at him brightly. “Smell Good?”

  He shook suddenly with the cold that was still in him. “Smells like always to me.”

  Her face fell in disappointment but she said gently, “You oughtn’t to be walking ‘round this kind of weather.”

  “I was looking for work,” he said fiercely. “Work ain’t going to come knocking.”

  She did not want to quarrel with him. He was too cold and their supper was too fine.

  “Things’ll pick up in the Spring,” she said soothingly.

  “Not for me,” he answered gloomily, “Look how I look. Like a bum. I wouldn’t hire me myself.”

  “What you want me to do about it?” she asked furiously.

  “Nothing,” he said with wry humor, “unless you can make money, and make me just about fifty dollars.”

  She caught her breath and stared at his shabbiness. She had seen him look like this so long that she had forgotten that clothes would make a difference.

  She nodded toward the stove. “That steak and all. Guess you think I got a fortune. Well I won a little measly dollar at the movies.”

  His face lightened and his eyes grew soft with affection. “You shouldn’t have bought a steak,” he said. “Wish you’d bought yourself something you been wanting. Like gloves. Some good warm gloves. Hurts my heart when I see you with cold hands.

  She was ashamed, and wished she knew how to cross the room to kiss him. “Go wash,” she said gruffly. “Steak’s ‘most too done already.”