The cigarette was almost out. I put it out in a small plate on the dresser, shaved, and then went down the hall to the shower. It was late and there wasn’t a line. I went right in, turned on the warm water, and soaped myself. The warm water felt good as it ran the soap down my back. I stepped out and dried myself on the rough towel, rubbing till I could feel my skin turn red and tingle. Then I went back to my room and dressed. I took the subway and went uptown. At 125th Street I got off and walked over to the Harrises’. It was near one o’clock. I walked up the stairs in the dimly lit hallway, smelling that old fried-porky smell, and knocked on the door.
Tom opened it. His face broke into a smile as he saw me. “Man!” he said, grinning, “we was jus’ tawkin’ about you. Come on in.”
I stepped inside as he called into the other room, “Maw, guess who’s here?” He turned back to me and grabbed my hand and shook it enthusiastically. “How ah yuh, boy?”
I managed to grin and rescue my hand before he crushed it. “Fine!” I said, “just fine!”
Sam and Elly came running into the room, followed more slowly by their mother. I shook hands with Sam and Elly and kissed Mrs. Harris. From the way they greeted me, a person would think I hadn’t seen them in years, instead of just five days. When the excitement died down a little, I put the package on the table.
“I got a job,” I announced proudly, “a real job, in a grocery store, like Sam. I thought I’d bring something up to you.” I opened the bag and took out the food. “The best eggs,” I said, “real butter and cheese and cake and…” I stopped. Mrs. Harris had sat down in her chair and was weeping.
I went over to her and put my arm around her shoulders. I could feel the thin bones of them near her neck. “Why, Maw,” I said softly, “what’s the matter?”
She looked up at me and smiled through her tears, “Nothing, Frankie,” she spoke softly. “Nothing—I’m just glad I guess. I was a-prayin’ for you evvy day—A-prayin’ fer you to git somethin’ that would let you smile again an’ kinda turn the cohnehs of youah mouth up a little.”
I was silent—I didn’t know what to say. I looked at Sam and Tom and Elly. Tom nodded his head. “Thass right, Frankie. She tole us evvy day to pray fer you. An’ we did—all of us.” He looked at his brother and sister. “Didn’t we?”
They shook their heads in silent assent. I looked around at them and down at Maw Harris. “I don’t know what to say.”
Maw Harris smiled at me. “Don’ say nothin’. You don’ have to say nothin’. It’s just that the Lawd has heard us an’ all we can say is: ‘Thank you, Lawd. Thank you foah all youah kindnesses.’”
Later when we had eaten and I had told them all my story—how I got the job and how much I was making and what I was doing—and we were sitting back and I was smoking, Mrs. Harris spoke again: “This has been a good week foh us folks too.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She looked proudly at Elly. “Elly’s done got herself a good job too—thass what! She is wukkin’ over at anothuh ribbon fact’ry an’ makin’ mos’ fifteen dollars a week.”
“That’s swell!” I said, automatically looking at Elly, happy for them. Elly was sitting there, her face stony. She stared right back at me almost defiantly. I knew instantly what Elly was doing, and yet couldn’t say anything. I had to play along with the old woman.
“She has to wuhk pretty late some nights though,” the old woman continued. “But Elly’s a good girl. She doan’ mind that.” She looked at the old clock on the closet shelf. “My, my!” she said, getting to her feet. “The day does fly. It’s mos’ fouah o’clock an’ I mus’ go down to the Sunday aftehnoon meetin’. Come on, Tom, and you too, Sam. You has to go with me. Elly went this mohnin, an’ she can stay an’ keep Frankie com’ny till we gits back. Hurry now!”
They left, the two young men and their mother, one on each side of her, holding her gently as they went down the steps. The queen of England couldn’t have been held with more care, more respect, and more devotion that the touch of their hands on her arms or the soft, tender look on their faces. I closed the door behind them and turned to Elly.
She was sitting on the edge of the window sill, looking out into the dirty brown courtyard. I sat down in a chair near her and watched her. We didn’t speak. I lit a cigarette. “So you got a job, Elly,” I said quietly.
She didn’t look at me. Her voice was low and bitter. “You know I haven’t.”
“I don’t know anything,” I said. “Supposing you tell me.”
She didn’t answer for a while. Then she spoke, her voice tense and strained, but controlled. “I wuhk oveh at an apahtment with some women.” Her dialect was more pronounced than usual. “We splits with the ownuh.”
“There must be something else you can do,” I said.
“Is theyah?”
I had no answer for that question.
After a minute she continued, her voice deliberately mimicking mine. “Theyah mus’ be somethin’ else you can do. Sho’ they is. I can go intuh the five-an’-ten or the depahtment stoh on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street an’ say: ‘I is white an’ you can hiyeh me to sell youeh muchandise to the poh nigguhs who cain’t git jobs because they is black an’ oney white people is hiyed heanh in this stoh.’
“An’ Tom wouldn’ have to sit in the house all day an’ look at his hands—his big, strong, capable han’s while they opens an’ closes oveh a piece of wuhk he ain’t got until he gets filled with feelin’s he don’t know he’s got inside him. An’ yuh throat huhts just sittin’ theeyah an’ watchin’ his min’ slip down an’ down an’ down until they fixes an’ comes up with an ansuh. An then he goes out an’ drinks—cheap rotten gin, made by some white man who is kind enuff to sell to poh nigguhs foh a nickel a drink so they kin inflame they min’s until the fiyeh buhns them up inside an’ they doan’ remembeunh anymoh they is black. But foh a few minutes they is white an’ the worl’ is they oystuh and they laughs an’ is happy until they falls down. An’ when they wakes up the next mohnin, they head bustin an’ they throat raw an they stummic buhnin, they brings they han’s to they heads an’ holds it tight an they sees they han’s is black an’ dirty and has no wuhk to keep them busy. They cries to themselves, not with teahs, not with they eyes but with they hearts an’ ask themselves: “Wheanh is the beautiful white, busy han’s I had yesterday?”
“An’ Sam wuhkin in a stoh evvy mohnin befoh school. He knows evvythin’ in the stoh—all the prices, all the stock. An’ all he does is delivuh groceries. He cain’t wait on customehs. He ain’t allowed to cut buttuh or cheese. His black might come off’n his hands and git in some nice white cream cheese that has to go down on nice white bread that has to go down some nice white throat. Sho, there mus’ be somethin’ else I kin do.”
She turned toward me. Her face was grim and hard, her eyes as wise as time. “I kin lay me down on a nice white bed, naked, and squirm so that the customeh will think I’m hot foh him an’ cain’t wait foh him to come oveh to me. An’ he kin lay down on me so’s I kin change his luck. An’ he nevuh worries whether the black’ll come off an’ when he gits up an’ begins to pull on his trousehs, his knees kind a shakin’ a little, he’ll look oveh at me an’ say: ‘You suah you all right, girl? If’n you ain’t, tell me. I won’t be mad. I just want to know so’s I kin git to a doctuh befoh anything happens.’ An’ I’ll look oveh at him an’ say: ‘I’m all right, mistuh. Doan’t you worry yoh head nonce. I may be black outside, but inside I’m as clean an’ white as any white woman you have evah known.’ But that ain’t the way it comes out. It comes out low and husky and full of tears. ‘I’m all right mistuh.’”
She stood up straight and looked at me. “I’m all right, mistuh,” she repeated.
The way she said it went down deep inside of me. I put the cigarette out and stood up, holding my arms out to her. “You’re all right with me, lady,” I said.
She came into them and laid her head against my chest and cried and cried and cri
ed. I let her cry herself out. After a while she stopped. For a few minutes we stood there silently.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She stepped out of my arms and took a cigarette from the pack I had put on the table and lit it and sat down. “I don’t know why I tell you these things,” she said so softly I almost couldn’t hear her. “It’s not your fault that’s the way they are. But I got to tell somebody and I can’t tell them.”
“I know how it is when you got something on your mind and have no one to tell it to,” I said. “I felt the same way many times.”
She went over to the sink and washed her face, then combed her hair. Her hair was kinky, but she had used some cream to soften it out so that it framed her face loosely. Her black skin was thin and fine and shone with a pale blue translucence that seemed to give it a white undertone. Her body was thin, her breasts pointed, a little stomach, a high boogey behind, and thin legs in high-heeled shoes that made them look even thinner. She sat down and picked up the lit cigarette and puffed at it. “I feel better now,” she said in a normal tone of voice.
I felt rotten. We sat there silently awhile, waiting for the family to come back. We heard Tom’s booming voice downstairs in the hall. She put out the cigarette and went over to the sink and rinsed out her mouth.
“Maw doesn’t like fer me to smoke,” she explained.
I left there about seven o’clock before they ate supper. I didn’t want to take anything from them. My portion would only have come from their scanty share. I promised to come up to see them next week and went to eat in a cafeteria on 125th Street. Then I went into the Loew’s Victoria and saw a picture called Skippy. It was based on the comic strip in the American. But it wasn’t real. Nobody lived like that.
43
At the end of the next week life had settled down into a routine of a sort for me. Friday evening after coming from work, I spoke to the desk clerk about a permanent room. For three dollars a week I got a room with an adjoining bath. It was a larger room than the one I had before. It had two windows facing the street and a large closet. There were two easy chairs and a regular chair and a small table next to the bed. A dresser on one side and a chest of drawers opposite it completed the picture.
Saturday was a tough day. I was busy running around all day and had made out pretty well on tips during the week. The customers seemed to like me and I was very careful to be polite and do everything I was asked. I found out I had a fair gift of selling. I could talk easily to the customers—joke with those who wanted to, but respectful to those who demanded it. I worked pretty hard but I liked it.
Sunday at the Harrises’ was a quiet affair. Tom was reading a paper when I walked in. I put my package on the table.
“Where are the folks?” I asked him.
“They gone out for a walk,” he replied.
“Anything new?”
He shook his head. “Naw, I worked on the coal truck one day. But they ain’t anything.”
“That’s tough!”
“Sho’ is!”
I gave him a buck. He took it quietly. “Buy yourself some cigarettes, pal,” I told him. “Or maybe go to a show or somethin’. What you need is a little change. Sitting here and worrying about it ain’t goin’ to do you any good.”
“Who’s worryin’?” he demanded, his shiny black face crinkling into a scowl. “Not me, I ain’t worryin’.”
We waited until the folks came back from their walk, then we sat around and chewed the fat awhile. I left about six o’clock and went downtown to eat and bought a paper and went up to my room. I undressed slowly and stretched out on the bed and read the paper. After I had finished the paper, I put out the light and lay there in the darkness, smoking a cigarette and thinking. I wondered if I could do anything about finding a job for Tom. I fell asleep with the glimmering of an idea in the back of my head.
The weeks went by, one dissolving into the next with a smooth, melting routine that let them slip through my being. I made about enough money to get by easily if I was careful and the only extra money I spent was for the Harrises’ Sunday package. I went up there every Sunday and always left with a vague feeling of defeat.
March slipped into April, April into May, and May into June. I bought myself a few articles of clothing that I needed, but for the most part I used a pair of work pants and a shirt all through the week. I bought a new suit for Sundays but had no place to wear it except to the Harrises’.
One morning when helping to unload the truck from the warehouse, the driver told me they were putting on another truck.
“Who’s going to run it?” I asked.
“Tony,” he said. Tony was his helper.
“That means you’re going to need another helper,” I said.
“Yep,” he said. “We’ll need two—one for me and one for him.”
I went to the store thoughtfully. This was a job for Tom. I decided to speak to Mr. Rayzeus when he came the next morning.
When Mr. Rayzeus came in, I asked him if I could see him a minute before he left. I told him about Tom and he asked me if he was reliable.
“He sure is!” I said, “and he wants to work too. He needs a job.”
He shook his head. “I’ve had bad luck with niggers,” he told me. “The first few weeks they’re O.K., but the minute they have a few bucks in their pocket they go off on a drunk and don’t come back till they’re broke.”
“I don’t know about the others,” I told him, “but I know this guy. He’ll do a good job. He’s not a bum.”
Mr. Rayzeus looked at me strangely. “You know the guy pretty well?”
I nodded. “I worked with him before. I know he’s all right.”
Mr. Rayzeus shrugged his shoulder, “O.K., send him up to me next week. I’ll talk to him.”
“Thanks, Mr. Rayzeus,” I said, and went back to work. I felt pretty good. Now maybe things will be a little better for them. I could hardly wait until Sunday so I could go up and tell them.
Sunday came bright and clear and warm. I put on my new suit and went uptown. All the way up I kept thinking how happy they’d be to hear the news—Mrs. Harris especially. I walked over to the house from the station and went upstairs. The old dump never changed. It smelled the same. Its rickety wooden steps still creaked underfoot. The electric bulb was too small for the large hallway and didn’t throw enough light. The paint peeled dryly off the walls.
I opened the door and walked into the apartment. Elly was sitting there reading the Sunday News, the colored page of comics spread out on the table before her. The window, open wide behind her, allowed many of the sounds of the courtyard into the flat. Somewhere a kid was crying and a man and his wife were shouting at each other and a radio was playing, a jazz band—blending hideously together to make a kind of song of poverty.
Elly looked up at me. “Hello, Frankie.”
“Hi!” I said. “Where’s everybody?”
She spoke slowly tiredly. “Maw is down to church with Sam. Tom went out early this mornin’ and won’t be back till later this afternoon.”
I put the package on the table and opened it. “You’d better put this stuff away,” I told her. “Some of it might spoil.”
She got up and started to put the butter in the icebox. She didn’t speak. It was hot in there. I took off my jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a chair and watched her. She was wearing a new dress. It was a shiny black satin, fitted fully around her breasts and yet shaped to them. It fitted closely to her skin all the way down. I could see she didn’t have much on underneath from the way it clung to her thighs as she walked around. When she had finished she went back to her chair and sat down without speaking.
Time dragged by. The perspiration was running down my neck, wilting my collar. I could feel little trickles of it running down my back under my undershirt. I opened my collar.
She put her head on her arm on the table and just stayed there silently. I could see the lighter tan of her breasts down the front of her dress as
she bent forward.
“What’s the matter, Elly?” I asked. “Don’t you feel well?”
“Un-unh,” she said, “I’m sick.”
I got out my chair and walked over to her. “What’s bothering you?”
She didn’t answer but got out of her chair. “Got a cigarette on yuh?” she asked.
I took out a package from my pocket and gave them to her. She put one in her mouth and I lit it. She leaned forward to take the light from me, and I looked down inside her dress. On impulse I pulled her close to me. I could feel her body against me. She made no move to stop me, just let me hold her and she remained stiff and wooden in my hands. I felt her breast inside her dress, trying to arouse some response in her. She stood there impassively holding the lighted cigarette in her hand. I let her go and went back to my chair feeling oddly defeated. I sat down and lit a cigarette. I didn’t look at her.
She walked over to the window and sat down on the sill looking out. After a few minutes she got up and walked over to me. I didn’t look up.
“It’s not that I don’t care, Frankie,” she said softly. “I’d rather be with you than anyone else. But I’m sick.”
“If you’re sick,” I burst out savagely, “why don’t you go to a doctor?”
“I did,” she said dully. There was an undercurrent of fear in her voice.
I looked up at her. Her face was set, impassive. “What did he say?” I asked.
She walked a little away from me. A few minutes passed before she answered. “I got a dose.”
I was shocked. “Clap?” I asked.
Another minute passed before she could bring herself to answer. “Syphilis,” she said, and suddenly sat down in her chair and stared dully at me.
I started to speak, but a thousand things flashed through my mind that I couldn’t say. I opened my mouth like a fish but no sounds came out. She looked at me a little defiantly. We stared at each other. I didn’t know much about it but I knew it was pretty bad. “What are you going to do?” I finally managed to ask.
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 23