by Iceberg Slim
Blue said, “No, it’s just to the Southside.”
Blue walked toward the doorway. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Reverend Joe, I wouldn’t dare double-cross the Lord.”
I heard Blue’s fourteens slugging the stairs. The Reverend stood looking up at me in a strange way.
He said, “Johnny, excepting for your mouth, you don’t look much like Phala. She sure had a beautiful angel-face. She were that teasing color of them half-chink gals that got white pappies. I were the bar porter in that cabaret where she danced until I got fired for nipping from the bar bottles. She used to talk about your paw. To the end, she thought he were coming back to her. She were my friend.
“She used to slip me coins for my wine when I couldn’t ketch up to Blue. All them no-account nigger hustlers and winos around Thirty-ninth and Cottage was just aching to fool around with Phala. But she’d put her pretty nose in the air and pass ’em like the dirt they was.
“They know’d she’d married a white man and they hated her proudness. Oh, son, I could have saved her from those sinful imps. But I were stinking drunk in the lobby of the flea-bag where they abused her.”
He stopped talking to wipe at his tears with his sleeve. I had never found out how Phala had been tricked and mass raped. Blue had heard what had happened that early morning, but I could never get him to go into detail.
I said, “Reverend, tell me just what happened. Don’t worry, I’m numb after twenty years. I won’t be hurt to hear about it.”
He said, “It’s a awful story. Everybody on them streets know’d what happened to your mama that morning. One of them slick hustlers eased up beside her at the bar just before closing time.
“Phala was drinking and tired. She didn’t see the pill go in her glass. Two of them dirty niggers carried her out to the back door of the flea-bag across the street. They had rented a back room on the alley for the night. They say that cold-hearted nigger what owned the cabaret just grinned when she were carried out. He were glad because she’d never let him have her.
“When them devils finished they rotten fun, they went in them streets for blocks around. They told all the tramps and winos about your beautiful mama laid helpless and naked in that room.
They say them dogs went in and out of there until daybreak. I were sobering up in a chair near the lobby window. I heard the pitiful screams of a woman. Then your mama came running by.
“She were naked as the day she were born. Her belly and thighs was caked white with jism. She were cutting herself bloody with her fingernails. I guess she were trying to scrape them niggers’ filth off her. She had woke up and know’d by the stink what had happened.
“I ain’t never going to forget her face. Johnny, her eyes was twice bigger and she tored hunks of hair from out her head. I stumbled to my feet to ketch her. But she were running too quick.
The last I seen, she were going down Cottage Grove, screaming her heart out. The Lord is surely just, though. The sneaking nigger who put that pill in her glass got his throat cut the week after. Forgive me, son, for not being in shape to save her.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. I said, “Reverend, don’t feel guilty. I can’t blame you. Thanks for telling me the whole story. I don’t have to wonder now.”
My legs were shaky. I sat down on the couch. I wiped the sweat off my palms with my handkerchief. I wondered for the ten-thousandth time since that night when it happened if the awful guilt were mine.
If I just had gone home when I got off from the theatre, I would have been there outside the cabaret to walk Phala home as always. Then for the ten-thousandth time I told myself it had had to happen to her.
It wasn’t really my fault. It would have happened at some other time and place. I heard Blue coming slowly up the stairs. His face was tense when he came through the doorway. I guessed that Cleo still wasn’t home.
Blue stood and looked down at Reverend Joe. He said, “Reverend Joe, when is the last time you and Bertha got any news from down home in Vicksburg?”
Reverend’s thumb and index finger seized and shimmied the tip of his bulby nose. He closed his eyes in deep thought. He raked his forty-dollar uppers against his bottom lip and sat down on the bottom bunk cross-legged.
He said, “My goodness gracious. We ain’t writ or got a scratch from down there for mighty near ten years. All Bertha Mae’s kin is long dead. My grandpaw, Isaac, passed away in Forty-eight. I got baptised with the Holy Ghost and the Fire. I ain’t heard from them good-time niggers I grow’d up with in twenty years, near ’bout. Why you ask, Blue?”
Blue got to his feet and took the stage. He was in action to cinch our hideout until Monday noon. He stood before the Reverend with bowed head and narrowed eyes. His fists were clenched at his sides. He swung his head from side to side in anguish. He crashed his fists against his thighs and sobbed.
“Reverend Joe, I’m the biggest fool there ever was. I’ve let my sympathy for one of our old hometown niggers get the Klan and the Mississippi police at my throat.
“I thought sure you and Bertha had heard about the Bigelow Brothers. You remember Sporty? His brother Bob got that hunk of watermelon out of your throat. You had almost choked to death. He blew air into your mouth and saved your life.
“It was just before I left home with the carnival. You, Bob and Sporty Richard were always great pals. My troubles started when I ran into Sporty on the Southside about three weeks ago.
“He had just hoboed to Chicago from down home. He was a sad sight and acted like a crazy man. I took him home with me to a bath and a hot meal.
“Sporty told me he and Bob were walking down the road. They were high as Georgia pines, heading home to their shack in the country. They saw a new Mercedes-Benz stalled on the roadside.
They saw a beautiful young white girl sitting inside it. She was grinding the starter. Reverend Joe, they had to be two crazy, drunk, unlucky Niggers. They walked up to a white woman on a lonely road at two A.M. in the morning in Mississippi to offer help. Even half-wit Niggers would have run like hell from her even if she had been dying.
“She was big-shot Doctor Landry’s daughter. He’s a wheel in the Klan. Old Sporty and Bob stuck their heads through the car windows. Now you know neither of them would run second to King Kong in a beauty contest. Marva, that’s her name, took one look at them, screamed and leaped from the car door on the other side.
“The idiots tried to hold her, to reason with her. She was quick and agile. She fought free of them, leaving Sporty holding her torn coat and dress in his stupid hands. They got cold sober when she raced down the highway shouting help and rape.
“Reverend, they found a hiding place that will bring back many memories to you. You can’t have forgotten that cave we boys dug in thick woods on the old Buchanan Plantation. Your grandpaw, Isaac, beat us almost senseless in that cave. He caught us nipping on the potato hooch we’d made. Remember, dear old friend?”
The Reverend had been straining forward, gnawing at his dirty fingernails. Tears were oozing from the corners of his sad maroon eyes.
He moaned, “Oh Lord have mercy! ’Course I remember. Oh, Blue! Did the Han ketch Bob in the cave?”
Blue leaned down and placed his hands tenderly on the Reverend’s shoulders for an instant. Then Blue said, “No, thank God, the Klan didn’t find him. Sporty and Bob hid in that fearful darkness until almost daybreak. They didn’t know where to turn. Finally Sporty decided their only hope was to swing onto a fast freight going North.
“Bob was paralyzed with fear. Sporty begged him to leave. Bob wouldn’t budge. Sporty left him whimpering, huddled into a ball like an unborn baby in that black cave.
“Reverend Joe, to make a short story shorter, Sporty made it to the railroad line. He swung onto a northbound train and made it to Chicago.
“I got Bob’s childhood sweetheart’s address from Sporty. You know, Jessie, with the clubfoot and hazy mind? Jessie could get Bob’s friends to go out there and get him to safety. I had the phon
e in my hands to have Western Union send the telegram. I was going to have Jessie call me right away, collect.
“Reverend Joe, someone or something snatched that phone from my hands. An unearthly voice started talking to me. It kept saying over and over, ‘Blue, you don’t want the Klan to get Bob. You know you can’t trust any of those poor frightened black people to get Bob to freedom. Jessie can’t be trusted with Bob’s life. Blue, only you can save him. Go to him and rescue him. No harm will come to you.’
“I don’t know who or what snatched that phone and talked to me. But, Reverend Joe, please believe me, it really hap—”
The Reverend cut off the tale. He leaped to his feet. He threw his arms around Blue. The embrace locked Blue’s arms to his sides. The Reverend was dancing an ecstatic little jig as he nested his face in Blue’s chest.
Blue grinned and winked at me. I shook my head and smiled.
The Reverend raised his head from the nest. He looked up at Blue. His yellow face was radiant. His craggy features were softened, almost saintly.
He chirped joyously, “Blue, you big black fool! Ain’t you got enough sense to know that were the Lord Hisself? Oh, praise His holy name! Thank You, precious Lamb! You touched a sinner with Your immortal spirit. Hallelujah, Jesus! Hallelujah!”
Blue took the Reverend gently by his shoulders and guided him backwards to his seat on the bunk. Blue had a smug look on his face as he stepped back.
He was approaching that stage in his tale that black grifters call the hook. White grifters call it the convincer.
When con is played for money alone, it’s that point at which the sucker is hooked or convinced by actual or paper profits that he can reap a bonanza. Once on the hook, a sucker usually can’t get off. But the buyer must believe the final decision to buy is his alone.
The Reverend had to believe at the end of the tale that the decision to hide us out was his. The Reverend’s conscience had to be allowed to take over and buy Blue’s tale.
Blue said, softly, “Reverend Joe, you have made me see the light. Johnny and I were on a divine mission when we went down South and brought Bob to Chicago. We borrowed an old but roadworthy Dodge from a friend. We got down there around dusk, two days after I tried to call Western Union. We went right to the cave.
“I put my flashlight on him. Bob covered his eyes and screamed. He thought we were the white mob come to lynch him. We carried him through the woods and fields to the Dodge. We got back to Chicago three days ago around eight P.M. I was proud and happy I had saved him. We were all safe, I thought.
“Johnny and I got up early the next morning and went to open our restaurant. That evening when we got home Sporty told me Bob had written Jessie to tell her where he was and how Johnny and I had driven down and rescued him. If Cleo, my wife, had not been with her sick mother, she would have stopped him.
“I was angry and worried. If they hadn’t been half sick, with no place to go, I would have turned the stupid twins out then and there.
“Early Friday morning, Johnny and I were dressing to go to the restaurant. The doorbell rang. It was a telegram for Bob from Jessie. I tore it open.
“In crude code it said, ‘Bad Landry rigmarole. Said you the ones. I’m praying for you both. Love, Jessie.’
“She was warning Bob that the white people were looking for him and Sporty for raping Marva Landry. Lying or not, Marva’s charge could get them lynched.
“That white clerk at the Western Union office in Vicksburg had to be awfully drunk or careless. It was a miracle that the telegram had ever been sent from Vicksburg.
“Jessie, by now, was most likely in jail. The Mississippi police would have Bob’s letter proving our part in his flight.
“Reverend Joe, no more than ten minutes after that telegram came all of us were out of the house. It wasn’t too soon. In his rear-view mirror, Johnny saw two squad cars stop at our house.
“We drove to a friend’s home who has big political connections. We needed advice and to get off the street. Our friend stayed on the phone for most of Friday and today. Finally, he told us he could clear us if we told him where the twins were hiding.
“Reverend Joe, I told my disgusted friend I just couldn’t see them taken back to Mississippi. He was very angry. Tonight around ten, he ordered us from his house. We didn’t know where to go until I remembered you. And here we are.”
Suddenly, Blue clapped his palms against his ears. He twisted and pounded them against the side of his head in a savage ritual of mental agony. He pointed his chin at the ceiling.
I heard a creaky pop as he wobbled his head around like a punchy pug loosening up before the phantom clang of an inner gong. The hook, the convincer was in play. By whatever name, its purpose was the same. The Reverend’s mouth was an awed chasm.
Then, in tinny tones of an amateur ventriloquist’s dummy, Blue said, “Think of yourself, Blue. You’re sixty-seven years old. Why stick your neck out? Call the police and turn in those no-good niggers. They’re not worth the money you plan to spend Monday to get them out of the country.
“I know Bob Bigelow worries you. You can’t forget his one noble deed. You feel you’re in his debt. You don’t owe him anything. He didn’t save your life. Turn them in and enjoy what’s left of your life.”
Then in his true voice, Blue said, “Thank you, Lord, for priding me again.”
Like a sleepwalker Blue went to the bed. He got our coats and hats. He walked over to me. I took my hat and coat. I rose from the couch and put them on. I helped Blue put on his.
The Reverend sat there staring at us. We weren’t worried. Reverend was like a bloody bar room brawler, too anted in the fray to feel the pain right away of the knife in his back. We walked toward the doorway.
The delayed pain of Blue’s hook struck and wrenched a cry of anguish from Reverend Joe. He propelled himself from the bunk. He charged past me and grabbed Blue’s arm and spun him around. His eyes were wild.
He shouted, “Satan’s trying to trick you. That ain’t the Lord’s voice you heard. Satan’s trying to fool you into hell. You got sense enough to know that were Satan lying when he told you I ain’t caring for my friend that saved my life.
“He knows the Lord ain’t never going to allow you in heaven if you betray our friends in need. I ain’t going to let you do it. You ain’t going nowhere. The Lord will forgive the vilest sinner and take him to his bosom.
“I ain’t going to let you leave here until Monday. Blue, the Lord ain’t going to let no harm befall you here. He knows, just like Satan, that you planning to get them boys away. You’ll be blessed when you do.”
Blue shrugged him off.
He said, “Reverend Joe, I’m afraid to stay. That voice I heard was the same voice I heard when that phone was snatched from my hands. I can’t afford to disobey the Lord. Johnny, what do you think?”
I said, “Blue, I just don’t know. I know the devil is pretty clever. He bamboozled Adam and Eve into the original sin. Reverend Joe’s word can be trusted. Let’s stay here in the safe hands of Reverend Josephus and Jesus.”
Blue said, “Johnny, maybe you’re right. I love Reverend Josephus and trust his judgment.”
Reverend said, “Praise the Lord. Good night, friends.” He walked from the room.
I took off my suit-coat and shoes. I couldn’t get Phala off my mind. I kept thinking about the filth and her screaming and all. I put my coat on the couch. I loosened my tie and sprang to the top bunk. I didn’t turn the blanket back. If bedbugs were there I didn’t want to see them.
For a long moment I stared through the doorless entrance to the bedroom. The tiny wall light gave the hallway the murky dimness of a mortuary slumber-room.
Blue’s bulk shook the bed when he lay down. I didn’t want to talk. We lay there in the shadows. I listened to Blue’s heavy breathing for a long time.
Finally he said, “I wonder why the hell Cleo isn’t home yet? God! I hope those torturers haven’t got her!
“Son, life
is like a crazy crap game. I’m like a sucker who gets a long run of good luck. Then the dice turn against him. The silly creep had conned himself. He had thought his good luck run was all due to his big brain.
“The bubble bursts and the chump finds himself broke and in a gutter. I’m not broke. But think of it—I had to con that square bastard until I got hoarse, just to stay in this pigsty for a weekend.
“At this moment I’m wishing my ass off that I had stayed down South. What the hell good did it do me to leave there and try to improve myself?
“Goddamnit! I taught myself to read and write, and speak fair English. I had a horror of winding up like the ignorant niggers I grew up with. Tonight I had to kiss the black ass of one of those same niggers I’ve held in contempt. I’ve come a full, funky circle, Folks.”
I said, “Blue, you’ve really had it tough, haven’t you? Even though your mother and father died in your teens, at least, Blue, you had a taste of happy home life.
“I barely remember my father. The weak white sonuvabitch fled back to his white world after his hot yen for a nigger body went cold.
“Your mother’s heart died. My mother’s brain withered. She died a drooling mental cripple. The first time I went to see her she tried to snatch my balls off.
“So, Blue, I could get a license to bellyache. You’re lucky to be jet black. What if you had been a racial freak like me?
“It isn’t exactly a happy limbo to be a white Nigger in a black world driven paranoid by a white world to hate white skin. But, pal, I’m thankful you came North. I would have been a lost ball in high weeds without you. Say, shouldn’t you call home again?”
Blue said, “I think I will.”
The bed creaked and he stood up. He was a blank silhouette in the near darkness.
He said, “Folks, you’re right about my limited advantage in having black visibility. I know you’ve shown raw heart for all your life in this black world.