Not Without Laughter

by Langston Hughes

  “Most of ’em lives in de Bottoms, where de sportin’ houses are,” said Hager. “It’s a shame de way de white mens keeps them sinful places goin’.”

  “It ain’t Christian, is it?” mocked Harriett. . . . “White folks!” . . . And she shrugged her shoulders scornfully. Many disagreeable things had happened to her through white folks. Her first surprising and unpleasantly lasting impression of the pale world had come when, at the age of five, she had gone alone one day to play in a friendly white family’s yard. Some mischievous small boys there, for the fun of it, had taken hold of her short kinky braids and pulled them, dancing round and round her and yelling: “Blackie! Blackie! Blackie!” while she screamed and tried to run away. But they held her and pulled her hair terribly, and her friends laughed because she was black and she did look funny. So from that time on, Harriett had been uncomfortable in the presence of whiteness, and that early hurt had grown with each new incident into a rancor that she could not hide and a dislike that had become pain.

  Now, because she could sing and dance and was always amusing, many of the white girls in high school were her friends. But when the three-thirty bell rang and it was time to go home, Harriett knew their polite “Good-bye” was really a kind way of saying: “We can’t be seen on the streets with a colored girl.” To loiter with these same young ladies had been all right during their grade-school years, when they were all younger, but now they had begun to feel the eyes of young white boys staring from the windows of pool halls, or from the tennis-courts near the park—so it was not proper to be seen with Harriett.

  But a very unexpected stab at the girl’s pride had come only a few weeks ago when she had gone with her class-mates, on tickets issued by the school, to see an educational film of the under-sea world at the Palace Theatre, on Main Street. It was a special performance given for the students, and each class had had seats allotted to them beforehand; so Harriett sat with her class and had begun to enjoy immensely the strange wonders of the ocean depths when an usher touched her on the shoulder.

  “The last three rows on the left are for colored,” the girl in the uniform said.

  “I— But— But I’m with my class,” Harriett stammered. “We’re all supposed to sit here.”

  “I can’t help it,” insisted the usher, pointing towards the rear of the theatre, while her voice carried everywhere. “Them’s the house rules. No argument now—you’ll have to move.”

  So Harriett rose and stumbled up the dark aisle and out into the sunlight, her slender body hot with embarrassment and rage. The teacher saw her leave the theatre without a word of protest, and none of her white classmates defended her for being black. They didn’t care.

  “All white people are alike, in school and out,” Harriett concluded bitterly, as she told of her experiences to the folks sitting with her on the porch in the dark.

  Once, when she had worked for a Mrs. Leonard Baker on Martin Avenue, she accidentally broke a precious cut-glass pitcher used to serve some out-of-town guests. And when she tried to apologize for the accident, Mrs. Baker screamed in a rage: “Shut up, you impudent little black wench! Talking back to me after breaking up my dishes. All you darkies are alike—careless sluts—and I wouldn’t have a one of you in my house if I could get anybody else to work for me without paying a fortune. You’re all impossible.”

  “So that’s the way white people feel,” Harriett said to Aunt Hager and Sister Johnson and Jimboy, while the two children listened. “They wouldn’t have a single one of us around if they could help it. It don’t matter to them if we’re shut out of a job. It don’t matter to them if niggers have only the back row at the movies. It don’t matter to them when they hurt our feelings without caring and treat us like slaves down South and like beggars up North. No, it don’t matter to them. . . . White folks run the world, and the only thing colored folks are expected to do is work and grin and take off their hats as though it don’t matter. . . . O, I hate ’em!” Harriett cried, so fiercely that Sandy was afraid. “I hate white folks!” she said to everybody on the porch in the darkness. “You can pray for ’em if you want to, mama, but I hate ’em! . . . I hate white folks! . . . I hate ’em all!”

  EIGHT

  Dance

  * * *

  MRS. J. J. RICE and family usually spent ten days during the August heat at Lake Dale, and thither they had gone now, giving Annjee a forced vacation with no pay. Jimboy was not working, and so his wife found ten days of rest without income not especially agreeable. Nevertheless, she decided that she might as well enjoy the time; so she and Jimboy went to the country for a week with Cousin Jessie, who had married one of the colored farmers of the district. Besides, Annjee thought that Jimboy might help on the farm and so make a little money. Anyway, they would get plenty to eat, because Jessie kept a good table. And since Jessie had eight children of her own, they did not take Sandy with them—eight were enough for a woman to be worried with at one time!

  Aunt Hager had been ironing all day on the Reinharts’ clothes—it was Friday. At seven o’clock Harriett came home, but she had already eaten her supper at the restaurant where she worked.

  “Hello, mama! Hy, Sandy!” she said, but that was all, because she and her mother were not on the best of terms. Aunt Hager was attempting to punish her youngest daughter by not allowing her to leave the house after dark, since Harriett, on Tuesday night, had been out until one o’clock in the morning with no better excuse than a party at Maudel’s. Aunt Hager had threatened to whip her then and there that night.

  “You ain’t had a switch on yo’ hide fo’ three years, but don’t think you’s gettin’ too big fo’ me not to fan yo’ behind, madam. ‘Spare de rod an’ spoil de chile,’ that’s what de Bible say, an’ Lawd knows you sho is spoiled! De idee of a young gal yo’ age stayin’ out till one o’clock in de mawnin’, an’ me not knowed where you’s at. . . . Don’t you talk back to me! . . . You rests in this house ever’ night this week an’ don’t put yo’ foot out o’ this yard after you comes from work, that’s what you do. Lawd knows I don’t know what I’s gonna do with you. I works fo’ you an’ I prays fo’ you, an’ if you don’t mind, I’s sho gonna whip you, even if you is goin’ on seventeen years old!”

  Tonight as soon as she came from work Harriett went into her mother’s room and lay across the bed. It was very warm in the little four-room house, and all the windows and doors were open.

  “We’s got some watermelon here, daughter,” Hager called from the kitchen. “Don’t you want a nice cool slice?”

  “No,” the girl replied. She was fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, her legs in their cheap silk stockings hanging over the side of the bed, and her heels kicking the floor. Benbow’s Band played tonight for the dance at Chaver’s Hall, and everybody was going—but her. Gee, it was hard to have a Christian mother! Harriett kicked her slippers off with a bang and rolled over on her stomach, burying her powdery face in the pillows. . . . Somebody knocked at the back door.

  A boy’s voice was speaking excitedly to Hager: “Hemorrhages . . . and papa can’t stop ’em . . . she’s coughin’ something terrible . . . says can’t you please come over and help him”—frightened and out of breath.

  “Do, Jesus!” cried Hager. “I’ll be with you right away, chile. Don’t worry.” She rushed into the bedroom to change her apron. “You Harriett, listen; Sister Lane’s taken awful sick an’ Jimmy says she’s bleedin’ from de mouth. If I ain’t back by nine o’clock, see that that chile Sandy’s in de bed. An’ you know you ain’t to leave this yard under no circumstances. . . . Po’ Mis’ Lane! She sho do have it hard.” In a whisper: “I ’spects she’s got de T. B., that what I ’spects!” And the old woman hustled out to join the waiting youngster. Jimmy was leaning against the door, looking at Sandy, and neither of the boys knew what to say. Jimmy Lane wore his mother’s cast-off shoes to school, and Sandy used to tease him, but tonight he didn’t tease his friend about his shoes.

  “You go to bed ’fore it get
s late,” said his grandmother, starting down the alley with Jimmy.

  “Yes’m,” Sandy called after her. “So long, Jim!” He stood under the apple-tree and watched them disappear.

  Aunt Hager had scarcely gotten out of sight when there was a loud knock at the front door, and Sandy ran around the house to see Harriett’s boy friend, Mingo, standing in the dusk outside the screen-door, waiting to be let in.

  Mingo was a patent-leather black boy with wide, alive nostrils and a mouth that split into a lighthouse smile on the least provocation. His body was heavy and muscular, resting on bowed legs that curved backward as though the better to brace his chunky torso; and his hands were hard from mixing concrete and digging ditches for the city’s new water-mains.

  “I know it’s tonight, but I can’t go,” Sandy heard his aunt say at the door. They were speaking of Benbow’s dance. “And his band don’t come here often, neither. I’m heart-sick having to stay home, dog-gone it all, especially this evening!”

  “Aw, come on and go anyway,” pleaded Mingo. “After I been savin’ up my dough for two weeks to take you, and got my suit cleaned and pressed and all. Heck! If you couldn’t go and knew it yesterday, why didn’t you tell me? That’s a swell way to treat a fellow!”

  “Because I wanted to go,” said Harriett; “and still want to go. . . . Don’t make so much difference about mama, because she’s mad anyhow . . . but what could we do with this kid? We can’t leave him by himself.” She looked at Sandy, who was standing behind Mingo listening to everything.

  “You can take me,” the child offered anxiously, his eyes dancing at the delightful prospect. “I’ll behave, Harrie, if you take me, and I won’t tell on you either. . . . Please lemme go, Mingo. I ain’t never seen a big dance in my life. I wanta go.”

  “Should we?” asked Harriett doubtfully, looking at her boy friend standing firmly on his curved legs.

  “Sure, if we got to have him . . . damn ’im!” Mingo replied. “Better the kid than no dance. Go git dressed.” So Harriett made a dash for the clothes-closet, while Sandy ran to get a clean waist from one of his mother’s dresser-drawers, and Mingo helped him put it on, cussing softly to himself all the while. “But it ain’t your fault, pal, is it?” he said to the little boy.

  “Sure not,” Sandy replied. “I didn’t tell Aunt Hager to make Harrie stay home. I tried to ’suade grandma to let her go,” the child lied, because he liked Mingo. “I guess she won’t care about her goin’ to just one dance.” He wanted to make everything all right so the young man wouldn’t be worried. Besides, Sandy very much wanted to go himself.

  “Let’s beat it,” Harriett shrilled excitedly before her dress was fastened, anxious to be gone lest her mother come home. She was powdering her face and neck in the next room, nervous, happy, and afraid all at once. The perfume, the voice, and the pat, pat, pat of the powder-puff came out to the waiting gentleman.

  “Yo’ car’s here, madam,” mocked Mingo. “Step right this way and let’s be going!”

  Wonder where ma easy rider’s gone—

  He done left me, put ma new gold watch in pawn!

  Like a blare from hell the second encore of Easy Rider filled every cubic inch of the little hall with hip-rocking notes. Benbow himself was leading and the crowd moved like jelly-fish dancing on individual sea-shells, with Mingo and Harriett somewhere among the shakers. But they were not of them, since each couple shook in a world of its own, as, with a weary wail, the music abruptly ceased.

  Then, after scarcely a breath of intermission, the band struck up again with a lazy one-step. A tall brown boy in a light tan suit walked his partner straight down the whole length of the floor and, when he reached the corner, turned leisurely in one spot, body riding his hips, eyes on the ceiling, and his girl shaking her full breasts against his pink silk shirt. Then they recrossed the width of the room, turned slowly, repeating themselves, and began again to walk rhythmically down the hall, while the music was like a lazy river flowing between mountains, carving a canyon coolly, calmly, and without insistence. The Lazy River One-Step they might have called what the band was playing as the large crowd moved with the greatest ease about the hall. To drum-beats barely audible, the tall boy in the tan suit walked his partner round and round time after time, revolving at each corner with eyes uplifted, while the piano was the water flowing, and the high, thin chords of the banjo were the mountains floating in the clouds. But in sultry tones, alone and always, the brass cornet spoke harshly about the earth.

  Sandy sat against the wall in a hard wooden folding chair. There were other children scattered lonesomely about on chairs, too, watching the dancers, but he didn’t seem to know any of them. When the music stopped, all the chairs quickly filled with loud-talking women and girls in brightly colored dresses who fanned themselves with handkerchiefs and wiped their sweating brows. Sandy thought maybe he should give his seat to one of the women when he saw Maudel approaching.

  “Here, honey,” she said. “Take this dime and buy yourself a bottle of something cold to drink. I know Harriett ain’t got you on her mind out there dancin’. This music is certainly righteous, chile!” She laughed as she handed Sandy a coin and closed her pocketbook. He liked Maudel, although he knew his grandmother didn’t. She was a large good-natured brown-skinned girl who walked hippishly and used too much rouge on her lips. But she always gave Sandy a dime, and she was always laughing.

  He went through the crowd towards the soft-drink stand at the end of the hall. “Gimme a bottle o’ cream soda,” he said to the fat orange-colored man there, who had his sleeves rolled up and a white butcher’s-apron covering his barrel-like belly. The man put his hairy arms down into a zinc tub full of ice and water and began pulling out bottles, looking at their caps, and then dropping them back into the cold liquid.

  “Don’t seem like we got no cream, sonny. How’d a lemon do you?” he asked above the bedlam of talking voices.

  “Naw,” said Sandy. “It’s too sour.”

  On the improvised counter of boards the wares displayed consisted of cracker-jacks, salted peanuts, a box of gum, and Sen Sens, while behind the counter was a lighted oil-stove holding a tin pan full of spare-ribs, sausage, and fish; and near it an ice-cream freezer covered with a brown sack. Some cases of soda were on the floor beside the zinc tub filled with bottles, in which the man was still searching.

  “Nope, no cream,” said the fat man.

  “Well, gimme a fish sandwich then,” Sandy replied, feeling very proud because some kids were standing near, looking at him as he made his purchase like a grown man.

  “Buy me one, too,” suggested a biscuit-colored little girl in a frilly dirty-white dress.

  “I only got a dime,” Sandy said. “But you can have half of mine.” And he gallantly broke in two parts the double square of thick bread, with its hunk of greasy fish between, and gravely handed a portion to the grinning little girl.

  “Thanks,” she said, running away with the bread and fish in her hands.

  “Shame on you!” teased a small boy, rubbing his forefingers at Sandy. “You got a girl! You got a girl!”

  “Go chase yourself!” Sandy replied casually, as he picked out the bones and smacked his lips on the sweet fried fish. The orchestra was playing another one-step, with the dancers going like shuttles across the floor. Sandy saw his Aunt Harriett and a slender yellow boy named Billy Sanderlee doing a series of lazy, intricate steps as they wound through the crowd from one end of the hall to the other. Certain less accomplished couples were watching them with admiration.

  Sandy, when he had finished eating, decided to look for the wash-room, where he could rinse his hands, because they were greasy and smelled fishy. It was at the far corner of the hall. As he pushed open the door marked GENTS, a thick grey cloud of cigarette-smoke drifted out. The stench of urine and gin and a crowd of men talking, swearing, and drinking licker surrounded the little boy as he elbowed his way towards the wash-bowls. All the fellows were shouting loudly to one
another and making fleshy remarks about the women they had danced with.

  “Boy, you ought to try Velma,” a mahogany-brown boy yelled. “She sure can go.”

  “Hell,” answered a whisky voice somewhere in the smoke. “That nappy-headed black woman? Gimme a high yaller for mine all de time. I can’t use no coal!”

  “Well, de blacker de berry, de sweeter de juice,” protested a slick-haired ebony youth in the center of the place. . . . “Ain’t that right, sport?” he demanded of Sandy, grabbing him jokingly by the neck and picking him up.

  “I guess it is,” said the child, scared, and the men laughed.

  “Here, kid, buy yourself a drink,” the slick-headed boy said, slipping Sandy a nickel as he set him down gently at the door. “And be sure it’s pop—not gin.”

  Outside, the youngster dried his wet hands on a handkerchief, blinked his smoky eyes, and immediately bought the soda, a red strawberry liquid in a long, thick bottle.

  Suddenly and without warning the cornet blared at the other end of the hall in an ear-splitting wail: “Whaw! . . . Whaw! . . . Whaw! . . . Whaw!” and the snare-drum rolled in answer. A pause . . . then the loud brassy notes were repeated and the banjo came in, “Plinka, plink, plink,” like timid drops of rain after a terrific crash of thunder. Then quite casually, as though nothing had happened, the piano lazied into a slow drag, with all the other instruments following. And with the utmost nonchalance the drummer struck into time.