Daddy Was a Number Runner

by Louise Meriwether

  I went upstairs and found Mother in her bedroom patching my skirt which was so worn it was gonna look like a patchwork quilt.

  “Mother, we ever gonna move off Fifth Avenue?”

  She put the skirt down and looked at me for a long time. Finally she said: “One of these days, Francie, we gonna move off of these mean streets.”

  “HE asked me who you was,” the Twin said, “and he wanted to know how old you were.”

  “What did you tell him?” I asked, excited.

  The Twin looked at me like I was crazy. “I told him you was thirteen like you is. What did you expect me to tell him?”

  “Then what did he say?”

  “He said thirteen was kinda young, but you looked older so he still wants to meet you. He’s sixteen.”

  “Sixteen,” I said. “He don’t look that old.”

  I had seen Vincent from a distance yesterday, a light handsome boy with good hair. He was the Twin’s cousin visiting them from Florida.

  “Anyway, he’ll be down on the stoop with the gang tonight,” the Twin said, “so come on down and meet him.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I said. “I gotta lot of things to do upstairs.”

  “Like what? You scared of boys or something, Francie?”

  “Don’t be silly, Twin. I ain’t scared,” I lied.

  As the Twin walked toward 118th Street, her fat butt bouncing behind her, Sukie came up.

  “Hello, Sukie.”

  “Hello, Francie. Let’s go to the park.”

  “We goin’ swingin’?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t wanna go then.”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t feel good or somethin’?”

  “No, I just don’t wanna go where those men are anymore.”

  Sukie’s face turned red. “You signifying something bad about me?”

  “No, Sukie, I just don’t wanna—”

  “You know what? I ain’t whipped your ass in a long time.”

  “Sukie. How come you wanna talk like that?”

  “You ready to fight now?”

  I sighed and backed up. “No, Sukie. I can’t fight today. I ain’t got time. I gotta go now.” I ran inside my hall and up the stairs. Well, I thought, I should have known she’d get around to picking a fight with me again sooner or later.

  I didn’t go downstairs that night to meet Vincent but stayed up on the fire escape almost falling over the railing looking down at everybody on the stoop having a good time. Maude and Rebecca were there and Sonny Taylor and Duke from 119th Street and Sukie and the Twins and a couple of other boys from Madison Avenue. They were dancing on the tile in front of Max the Baker’s. It wasn’t on account of Sukie that I didn’t go down. She wouldn’t pick a fight with me in front of all those boys, I knew, but I was scared to meet Vincent. What did you say to a handsome light boy from Florida who had straight hair when you were nappy-headed and black?

  Sixteen. What a jazzy age, I thought, as I wrapped my arms about myself and imagined that it was Vincent’s arms and we were dancing. We were lindying up and down on the tile, then we were in a glittering ballroom, me in a long gown, and we were waltzing to a big orchestra and everybody was watching us, we danced that good together.

  We were going steady. Not right now, but next year when he came back. Of course he would come back. Nothing could keep him away from me.

  “Nothing can keep me away from you, Francie, my darling,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll carry you away from here. To Florida or even California. Anywhere you want to go. I love you.”

  I hugged myself again and wondered if I should go downstairs and meet him, but the thought of me stumbling all over myself kept me up on the fire escape. I looked over the railing again. He stood head and shoulders over the other boys and was lindying with Sukie now. He was a sharp dancer. The stars were very bright and low in the sky, like you could reach up and pluck one, and I sat there dreaming about me and Vincent and I hadn’t been so happy since I don’t know when.

  For the next few days whenever Mother sent me to the store I was in agony. Suppose I met Vincent in the street or in the hallway? What would I say? I was so busy dodging Vincent that I forgot to be on the lookout for Sukie, and as I was coming back from the butcher one day, with no extra meat, there she stood with her moriney self.

  “I can’t fight now, Sukie, my mother’s waiting for this meat.”

  “I got plenty of time.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I sighed. “Say, I saw you dancing with Vincent the other night. You like him?”

  “Naw, he thinks he’s cute but he’s an asshole.”

  I went into my hallway. Sukie was lying. Vincent wasn’t an asshole and she knew it. She was just jealous because he liked me better than he did her.

  On the fifth night I couldn’t bear watching them have a good time without me no more and I finally went downstairs. They were laughing and joking on the stoop and I stood there for a long time before anybody noticed me.

  “Hi, Francie,” one of the Twins finally said.

  Vincent didn’t even look up. He was talking to Sukie, telling her a long story, too long, it seemed to me. Finally he finished and they both laughed.

  “Hey, Francie,” Maude yelled, “where you been all week? Hidin’?”

  I could have kicked her. “I was busy studyin’,” I mumbled.

  “Studying in the summertime?” Vincent asked, in a high voice.

  “She’s backward like that,” Sukie said, and everybody giggled.

  I would have fainted if I knew how.

  Vincent looked me up and down. “You sure are tall for a girl,” he said. “I bet you’re almost as tall as I am.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, “I look taller than I am ’cause I’m so skinny, but I ain’t …”

  He wasn’t listening. He had turned back to Sukie and was lighting a cigarette, not that straw we all smoked, but those skinny stinking things they smoked in the Apollo balcony. He was showing off. He inhaled deeply and passed the cigarette to Sukie. She puffed on it like she knew what she was doing and handed it back to him, showing off, too.

  I smiled at nobody in particular until my face grew stiff, then mumbling that I had to go, I fled back into the safety of the dark hall. I ran upstairs and went to bed.

  I ain’t too tall, I thought, and screw him. He wasn’t different nohow from those stupid boys on the block always jivin’ around and actin’ the fool and going nowhere but to Sing Sing, like Daddy said. I didn’t like light boys nohow, they were too stuck up. Screw you, Vincent. Screw you.

  The next morning was one of those hot heavy days that make you feel like you’re being squashed to the ground with a steamroller. I was so blue I went looking for Daddy.

  “Have you seen my father, Slim Jim?”

  “I just left him up at Mrs. Mackey’s, Francie.”

  “Thanks.” I walked to 119th Street and went to Mrs. Mackey’s apartment. She opened the door.

  “He’s inside there, Francie.”

  I went into the bedroom and Daddy was laying across the bed asleep. “Daddy. Daddy.”

  “Hello, sugar.” He hugged me. After we talked for a minute or two he called out to Mrs. Mackey: “Mabel, give Francie a quarter for me, will you? I’ll give it back to you this afternoon.”

  Mrs. Mackey gave me the quarter and I left. When Mother came home from work that afternoon I told her about it. She was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor and she almost knocked over the basin of soapy water when I said Daddy had been laying on Mrs. Mackey’s bed.

  “He was in her bedroom, Francie? In her bed?”

  “Yes, Mother. He didn’t have a quarter so he …”

  Mother was crying. She was still scrubbing the floor and the tears were rolling silently down her cheek. Back and forth her hand scrubbed the same spot.

  “Mother.” I was frightened. “Mother, please don’t cry.”

  Sterling came out of his room.

  “Franci
e saw Daddy in Mrs. Mackey’s bed,” Mother told him, raising her eyes to meet his.

  Sterling took the scrub brush out of her hand and gently pulling her to her feet, he led her to her bedroom. When I tried to follow he pushed me away, his face bunched up with anger. I waited outside the door and he came out in a little while.

  “Don’t you have no better sense than to tell everything you know?”

  “What did I do?”

  “Shut up. Don’t start Mother off again.” He pushed me ahead of him into the kitchen. He picked up the brush and started to scrub where Mother had left off.

  “I only told her Daddy asked Mrs. Mackey to give me a quarter and …”

  “And he was in her bed.”

  “Not in it, on it. I just mentioned that and she started to cry. Why would that make her cry?”

  “Because he’s living over there, that’s why.”

  “Who,” I asked stupidly, “Daddy? Mother thinks that Daddy and Mrs. Mackey …”

  “She don’t think, she knows, thanks to your big mouth.”

  “Sterling,” I spoke very slowly, “is that why he don’t come home no more? Because he’s living with Mrs. Mackey?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. And stop tracking up this floor as fast as I wash it, will you? Get on out of here. And don’t go in Mother’s room and bother her.”

  I ignored Sterling and went in Mother’s room. She was lying on the bed with her face turned to the wall. I went through to the front room and climbed out on the fire escape. It’s not true, I thought, it’s just not true.

  Mother and I were alone that evening in the dining room when Daddy came upstairs. I went into the bedroom so they could be alone, but I sat on Mother’s bed, listening.

  “I had a little luck last night,” Daddy said, “here’s twenty dollars.”

  “Thanks,” Mother said. “The rent was due last week, I’ll pay it.”

  “That lousy Jew oughta give us all the rent free for being janitor,” Daddy said, “instead of just half.”

  Mother didn’t answer. Last month Daddy didn’t bring her anything so she borrowed the rent money from Aunt Hazel.

  “Well,” Daddy said, “I gotta go.”

  I waited for Mother to tell him she knew about him and Mrs. Mackey but she didn’t say a word, and I heard the door shut behind Daddy. I was stunned. Why was she letting him get away with it? I ran into the front room, out the door, and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. I caught up with Daddy when he was in the vestibule.

  “Daddy.”

  I was standing on the first three steps so when he turned to me our eyes met.

  “Yes, dumpling.”

  “You livin’ with Mrs. Mackey, Daddy? That why you don’t come home no more?”

  His face fell apart, then tightened into angry lines. “Who been filling you with that crap? Your mother?”

  It’s true, I thought, Lord, it’s true. I wanted to rush into his face and scratch it bloody. I wanted to hear him cry and turn his face to the wall. But I just stood there like I was turned to stone.

  Daddy was muttering something. I was a little girl and couldn’t understand, but I would someday. The silence grew between us, then with a big sigh, Daddy turned and went into the street. His movement unfroze me. I ran to the door and shouted at his back. “You forgot about Yoruba, Daddy. You forgot you was one of Yoruba’s children.”

  Maybe he didn’t hear me ’cause he kept on walking toward 118th Street. And Mrs. Mackey was a black bitch, I thought, and the next time I saw her I’d tell her so. I ran down the street in the opposite direction looking for Sukie. Goddammit, where was she? I raced down 117th Street to Lenox and over to 116th Street and back to Fifth Avenue. I finally found her on Madison Avenue jumping rope with some of the kids over there. I ran right up to her.

  “You ready to fight now?” I asked, and before she could answer, I banged her in the nose.

  Sukie backed up. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Francie? You sick or somethin’?”

  “No, I’m just ready to fight. Whose ass you say you was gonna whip?”

  “You are sick,” she said, “and I ain’t fighting no sick people. I’ll take care of your ass tomorrow,” and she marched off before I got a chance to sock her again.

  I walked aimlessly down to Central Park and sat on a rock throwing stones into the lake. I sat there until the trees melted into the shadows and the trunks turned into gaping jaws and the branches into writhing snakes. I got up and felt the panic clawing inside me, waiting to burst into a scream. I clamped my lips tightly together and ran down the path keeping as far away from the killer trees as possible. I made my way out of the park.

  Sukie was going to fight me this night. I was tired of messing around with her. Fifth Avenue was crawling with people but Sukie was nowhere to be found. I went up to her apartment and banged on her door. No answer. I continued up to the roof, forgetting that I was afraid of the dark, and crawled down the ladder to her fire escape.

  The window was open but it was dark inside. I was just about to holler for Sukie when I heard a noise. I laid down on the fire escape and raised my head above the sill. It was a bright moonlit night, but I couldn’t see much. Then I heard a noise again, a grunt, and saw a flicker of light, just a spark for an instant, then it disappeared.

  I heard Sukie’s voice say: “No, no.”

  A man’s deep voice mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I could see their outlines now. They were on the couch in a dark corner of the room, but I couldn’t see much. A light flickered again, and I heard that old couch thumping and squeaking.

  Sukie is a sneak thief, I thought, pretending all the time she didn’t like Vincent and planning all the while to let him do it to her. My heart was jumping about so I almost rolled off the fire escape. When the squeaking and groaning ended, I crawled past the window to the ladder, crossed over the roof, and went home.

  “Francie, where you been?”

  “Looking for Sukie, Mother.”

  “She home?”

  I hesitated for only a moment. “No.”

  We pulled the sofa away from the wall and I climbed into it and began to scratch. The bugs had finally made it to our new couch. I hoped Sukie’s mother would come home early and find them and throw both their butts out the window. But I wasn’t really mad at Sukie. It was a strange feeling I had, an ache deep down somewhere, like everybody had gone off to some strange land and left me behind.

  TWELVE

  ON Sunday Mother and I went to church and she let me wear her good silk stockings. The ones she wore were so runny they looked like net and I noticed for the first time how turned over her heels were.

  Adam talked about boycotting the stores on 125th Street until they hired colored people and announced there was gonna be a meeting in the church basement that night to plan it. Then he got down to preaching.

  At the end of his sermon while the choir was singing softly in the background, “Take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there,” and Adam was standing up in the pulpit with his arms outstretched, looking handsome and near white, asking the sinners to come forth and be saved, Mother started to shout.

  “Jesus, help me. O Lord, Lord, Lord.” She stiffened in her seat, flinging her arms up over her head, crying out loud for God’s mercy.

  Mother, don’t. Somebody. Help my mother. The nurse came running. Everybody close by turned around to look at us but I didn’t care. She had a right to cry and shout like everybody else, didn’t she? I glared at the starers but they were nodding at Mother in sympathy.

  “It’s all right, sister. He knows how much you can bear.”

  “Amen, I say. Amen.”

  The nurse wiped Mother’s sweating forehead and suddenly she was herself again and avoiding my eyes. I leaned forward, hesitated a moment, then kissed her cheek.

  “I’m all right, Francie.”

  “Yes, Mother.” I turned my attention back to Adam.

  “We will now sing hymn number two eighty-t
wo,” he said, “ ‘Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.’ ”

  I made a mental note of the number along with everybody else so I wouldn’t forget to play it tomorrow.

  That afternoon I saw Sukie for the first time since I peeked in on her and Vincent from the fire escape.

  “Hello, Sukie.”

  “Hi.”

  “You wanna fight?” I asked, my heart not really in it.

  “Naw,” Sukie said. “We’re too old to be fighting like children. We got better things to do.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I waited for her to tell me what better things she had been doing and when she didn’t, I asked her. “What better things you been doing, Sukie?”

  “What you mean?”

  “You said we had better things to do than fight so I thought you meant something special. Like maybe you had something to tell me.”

  “What I got to tell you?”

  “How do I know what you got to tell me?”

  “I ain’t got nothin’ to tell you.”

  “Oh, for christsake,” I said. So she was gonna be selfish and keep it a secret from me. Vincent had gone back to Florida so why wouldn’t she tell me what happened?

  “What you wanna do?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Let’s walk down to 112th Street,” I suggested.

  We started out silently. I looked at her sidewise but she didn’t seem any different than before. You would think it would show in some way, but it didn’t. There she was, spitting into the gutter like always, looking pretty and evil all at the same time.

  At the corner of 115th Street a street speaker was up on a ladder as usual in front of a small crowd. As we drew closer we were surprised to discover that it was Robert. He stood on the second rung, his elbow resting on the top of the ladder and frowning down on the people like they were his enemies.

  “The Italians in this country know how to throw their weight around,” he hollered. “They got influence and can pressure businessmen here into helping Italy. America says it’s neutral but why is Roosevelt still shipping oil to Mussolini? Oil which helps him kill black people? Answer me that. I’ll tell you why. It’s because Italian Americans got political and economic power, that’s why. And what kind of power do black people have? What are we doing to help Ethiopia? What are we doing to help ourselves? I tell you, brothers and sisters, the black man in this country must make his own life. The crying Negro must die. The cringing Negro must die. If he don’t kill hisself the environment will, and we been dying for too long. The man who gets the power is the man who develops his own strength. I ain’t talking about strength in his muscles but in his mind. We got to get a better education. We got to build Negro economic and political freedom. And if we don’t, in fifty years from now, or sooner, this country will be bloody with race wars.”