D. C. Noir 2

by George Pelecanos

  “I think,” wrote Gray, “that the same hand is at the bottom of all our misfortunes. This is Hamilton’s method.”

  Miss Kirkman and Mr. Aldrich were married two weeks from the day the convention adjourned. Mr. Gray was removed from his position on account of inefficiency. He is still trying to get back, but the very men to whom his case must go are in the hands of Mr. Hamilton.

  THE LAST DAYS OF DUNCAN STREET

  BY JULIAN MAYFIELD

  Kingman Park

  (Originally published in 1960)

  It was one of those bright days when that Washington sun wasn’t taking any stuff off of anybody. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the wind wasn’t a big wind at all, just a little itty-bitty breeze to take the edge off the sun’s heat. It was a good day, man, because there wasn’t any school, the grown folks were at work, and we could do anything that crossed our natural minds. It was a crazy day, man, because that night Joe Louis was going to knock the living stew out of a big German named Max Schmeling.

  We could have gone swimming. There was the colored pool on the other side of town and the muddy Eastern Branch of the Potomac was only a few blocks away. We could have swiped pop bottles from old man Farbenstein’s store yard and sold them back to him. Then we would have had enough money to ride across town to the picture show. A Bob Steele movie was playing at the Gem and a Tom Mix one was at the Alamo.

  But this wasn’t the kind of day when you went swimming or sat in a movie. You could do stuff like that anytime. But how often did Joe Louis have a chance to get into the same ring with that blabber-mouth Schmeling. That German had been doing a lot of talking about how badly he was going to beat Joe. Naturally he thought he was better than Joe because he was white, but the newspapers were hinting that he thought he was better than everybody because he was a German. Well, you know Joe, he hadn’t said much, but all of us knew what was bound to happen. Joe was nobody’s talker, but he could dispose of a man before you could call his name. Yes, this was going to be a great night and we were prepared to celebrate it.

  * * *

  The bricks had come out of an empty lot in the middle of the block. They were red bricks that we had broken into halves, good bricks that were just right for throwing, bricks that you could aim at a white boy’s head. The baseball bats would come in handy for any close fighting. A white boy wouldn’t even know what had hit him if he got beaned with one of those Babe Ruth specials. We had a couple of knives and lots of milk bottles. It was going to be quite a night.

  By mid-afternoon all our weapons were stored in Austin’s basement. We lounged and talked on the grass near the basement door. Austin had a real grudge against the white boys. They had caught him near the Peoples Drug store the week before and knocked out two of his front teeth. He was a skinny little high-yellow kid with bow legs and curly hair. We thought his people were well-off because they lived in an entire house instead of a flat like the rest of us.

  * * *

  “Wait’ll I catch one of them,” Austin said, spitting through the space where his front teeth had been. “I’ll knock his gut string out.” He stood up, reached out with his left hand, and clutched the air. “I’ll take that paddy boy like this, see, and I’ll hold him up like this, see …” With one hand Austin lifted the imaginary white boy from the ground. “And I’ll say, ‘You’re one of those paddy rats that jumped me last week.’ And he’ll say, ‘No sir, Mister Austin, that must’ve been some other paddy rat, not me.’ And I’ll say, ‘Well, that’s too damned bad because you’re gonna get it anyway.’ He’ll say, ‘That ain’t fair, Mister Austin.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yes it is, because all you paddy boys look alike to me!’”

  We laughed as Austin brought his right fist over and wham! the invisible white boy went sailing through the air.

  Teeny Mae said, “Boy, I hear that Joe is in really good shape. Wonder how long it will take him to catch up with that German guy.”

  I said, “Three or four rounds.” I wanted to give our man enough leeway. Sometimes Joe needed time to figure out a man’s style.

  Robert Jackson yelled, “Gowan! Joe’ll stop that jerk in one round. Wanna bet?” I didn’t want to bet. Robert had set himself up as leader of our gang and so far, because he was a year older than the rest (and presumably tougher), no one had challenged him.

  “I’ll show you.” Robert stood up and took the Joe Louis stance, which was the only one any of us ever used. “This guy’s got a hard right, see, but Joe will keep him off with that left jab. Now when this guy comes over with that right, see, Joe’s gonna bring that left hard to the jaw like this. Then he’ll whip it right in, and, man, that’ll be the end of that German.” Robert sprawled face downward on the grass like one of Joe’s victims.

  Fat Sammy said, “And that’s when I’m going out and get myself a paddy boy.”

  We all agreed that, yeah, there was no better time to beat the paddy boys. Then we got into a loud argument about who had beaten up more white boys during the raid we had pulled after the last Joe Louis fight.

  To understand this passion for scrapping with the white boys you have to feel what Joe Louis meant to the Duncan Street gang. We loved him. He was our man. He was right out there in front going for us. Some people called us hoodlums but in our minds there was no doubt Joe would have approved of the raids we went on after his ring victories. We justified them very simply. The white boys had a swimming pool nearby and we didn’t. They could see movies right there in the neighborhood and we had to ride all the way up to the colored business district on U Street. And it was shame on you if, like Austin, you were caught alone by the white gang at 15th and H streets. I think sometimes we could not help wondering if there really was something wrong with us that made white folks treat us so badly. But Joe dispelled our doubts. He made us believe that each one of us was as good as anybody. He was our personal representative.

  So it was give and take, man. You gave as much as you could and you took what you had to. Life was a crazy kind of thing full of school and the gang and fighting white boys. It was exciting because something was jumping every minute. Of course, the fever pitch ran highest whenever Joe fought. Those were the craziest nights of all. Talk about kicks, that was it.

  When the sun got low it hung on a while, kissing everything in sight goodbye. It dropped away slowly as if it too wanted to stay on and hear the fight. Then the night eased down smoothly like warm milk and a gentle breeze cooled Duncan Street. I felt so good being a part of it all that I wanted to yell out loud.

  Sammy’s old man, Mister Speed, came home with a whole case of beer because he had invited friends over to hear the fight. We all had a good laugh on Teeny Mae when we saw his father, who was supposed to be a very strict Baptist, sneak a fifth bottle into the house. My pop sat down in the big easy chair, lit a White Owl cigar, and said he wasn’t going to move until the fight was over.

  * * *

  By ten o’clock the sidewalks were deserted. Every radio in the block was tuned in to New York. Every mind pictured the Brown Bomber, always calm and deliberate, as he stepped through the ropes and raised his hand. We saw him standing before the German, softly pawing the canvas with his toe as the referee droned out the rules. Finally we saw him take off his robe and walk like a bronze god toward the center of the ring to begin his master work.

  Well, I don’t have to tell you what happened. That night Joe didn’t have it, and this big German square did just what he said he was going to do to our ace man. He whipped the living daylights out of Joe. I just couldn’t believe it. My eyes got hot and then the tears began to roll. My old man stopped puffing on his White Owl and didn’t say a mumbling word. My kid sister was too young to understand, but she felt it and kept quiet. Mama sighed and said, “Well, you gotta lose sometimes, I guess,” real sad like, and went into the kitchen. I felt just like nothing inside.

  Of course, there was no rushing out of doors to snatch up our weapons and fight the white boys. One by one the members of the Duncan Street ga
ng dragged tail out to the side-walk under the lamplight where we usually gathered at night. We sat on the curbstone making figures in the sand. Robert Jackson kept spitting because that was what he did when he was mad or down in the blues. We must have sat there ten or fifteen minutes in complete, mournful silence. The beautiful day with the crazy sun had turned into a miserable night.

  Finally, Teeny Mae said, “Boy, you know one thing? That didn’t fight like no Joe Louis.”

  “You’re goddamned right it didn’t,” said Austin, and we all agreed, yeah, they were right, that didn’t fight like Joe Louis at all.

  Then, as if someone had kicked him, Sammy yelled, “Something was wrong!” That’s right, we chorused, something was damn wrong.

  “Do you suppose they doped Joe?”

  We turned and stared at Robert Jackson. He was serious. Our mouths opened in astonishment as the thought gripped us. It was such a simple explanation. We knew that Joe could beat Max Schmeling or anybody else any day in the week.

  Sammy said, “You know they don’t want no colored guy to be champ, man. My pop says they never did like Jack Johnson.”

  Now we were all furious. Imagine doing a nasty thing like that to Joe Louis! Robert Jackson said we ought to go beat some white heads just to make up for what they had done to poor Joe. He reminded us of the bricks and bats we had stored in Austin’s basement. Robert Jackson said that 15th and H streets ought to be our first target because we could probably catch the whole white gang there. We jumped to our feet agreeing loudly that Robert had a damned good idea and we would show those sons of—Crrraaaaaash! A terrible shattering above our heads and pitch blackness. I stopped breathing. Not a soul moved. We were numb with fear as the fragments of the streetlamp showered us. For a moment there was a long, awful silence.

  Then, small and hard, the white boy’s voice from the alley. “Oh, you black bastards! We got you now!”

  Man, I’m standing there like a dump on a log, and nothing in my hands. Then the bricks and bottles started falling, and the white boys came down on us like white on rice. The first brick hit me and I fell against Teeny Mae. Then we both started running and bumped into one another again. Teeny said, “Man, don’t be holding me up,” and I yelled, “Man, you get out of my way!” We both took flying leaps for a secret hiding place under Sammy’s porch. Once there I huddled close to Teeny. My shoulder was throbbing where the brick had hit me.

  Teeny said, “Man, ain’t this something. Those guys done caught us off guard.”

  Obviously the 15th and H boys had felt so good about the German beating Joe that they had decided to pay us a surprise visit, something they had never dared before. They were dancing and yelling like Indians in the middle of Duncan Street, and throwing bricks and milk bottles at everything that moved. Then our parents started opening windows to see what all the noise was about, and the light from the houses poured down into the street. The victorious invaders hauled tail for their own territory, disappearing as suddenly as they had come.

  We crawled out of our shelters and gathered under the shattered lamplight. You can imagine how we felt. It wasn’t so much my shoulder or Robert Jackson’s bleeding (his hand had been cut) or Austin’s crying (he had lost another tooth). The hurt was deeper than that.

  “Ira! Ira!” It was Teeny Mae’s father calling him. “You out there, boy?”

  Teeny looked up. “Yes sir, I’m here.”

  “What are you boys doing out there? What happened to that lamplight?”

  Teeny didn’t know what to say, and the rest of us could not help him. We just stood there with our heads bowed.

  “Well, speak up, boys. What happened?”

  We didn’t know, not really. After that night we had our victories, especially after Joe became champ and gave Schmeling a good licking. But the spirit was never quite the same on Duncan Street. We were never so sure again.

  WASHINGTON

  BY JULIAN MAZOR

  Shaw

  (Originally published in 1963)

  When I ran through Pennsylvania Station on a cloudy November afternoon, I was wearing a clean blue shirt with a soft unbuttoned collar, a brown knit tie, a brown herringbone suit, well-polished brown Spanish shoes, and an English overcoat—a gray herringbone—that I had worn for three years. I had some old letters stuffed into the inside pocket of my jacket, and after I had taken out my wallet to buy my train ticket I had trouble putting it back. I was afraid I would miss my train, so I slipped the wallet into the inside pocket of my overcoat, thinking I would sort things out when I was aboard. I had a hundred and forty-seven dollars in the wallet, a sum left over from my last pay check, and I was on my way to Washington, D.C., to see my family—my mother and father and an older sister who had recently got married. I had just left my job as a salesman-demonstrator-instructor in the tennis department of a famous New York department store, where I, John Lionel, was known as “Wright & Ditson.” One day, for some reason, while demonstrating the proper service technique to a twelve-year-old boy and his mother, I tossed a tennis ball up in the air and hit a powerful cannonball service; the ball whizzed by the floor manager’s—Mr. Palmerston’s—ear, and smashed a glass case. Palmerston said it was nice knowing me and told me to pick up my check. So long, Wright & Ditson. It was my third job since coming back from Europe, where I had served a tour in the Army, and although in a way I was a little concerned because I didn’t seem to be going anywhere and didn’t know where I wanted to go, I thought, Well, I’m only twenty-three and I’ve got time.

  Somewhere near North Philadelphia, I ate a tuna-fish sandwich that I bought from a vender on the train, and about twenty minutes south of the Thirtieth Street Station I began to feel warm and a little strange. I thought I’d get some air, so I left my seat and went out to the platform between the cars. I leaned against the steel wall and smoked and looked out at the countryside. The cool air made me feel a lot better. I stayed out between the cars until the train was about a half hour past Wilmington, and then I returned to my seat in the coach.

  I thought I’d get a book out of my suitcase and read for a while. When I looked up at the baggage rack, I saw that my overcoat was gone. I had forgotten to take the wallet out of it. I had placed the coat neatly folded over my suitcase, and there was no doubt that it was gone. I walked up and down the coach, looking at all the overcoats in the baggage racks, and then I returned to my seat and tried to be calm and think things out. Then I went up and down the car again. When I returned to my seat for the second time, feeling demoralized and enraged, a man sitting across the aisle asked me what was the matter, and I told him that my overcoat was gone. The man folded his newspaper and looked out the window for a while, and then he asked me to describe the coat. I told him that it was a gray herringbone, and that it had been on the rack above my seat. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then, seeming embarrassed, he told me that he had seen a man pull my coat from the rack as the train got into Wilmington, and that he had, even then, found it a little strange, because this man was already wearing a camel’s-hair coat.

  I slumped down in my seat, feeling sick. I always do when somebody steals from me. For a while, I sat there thinking about my overcoat and how it had been part of the friendly continuity of my life. Then I got to my feet and went through my pockets and came up with fifty cents. I had lost my money, my Social Security card, and even my passport. I began to feel cold and hot alternately, and around Aberdeen I began to feel cramps and nausea. I figured it was the tuna-fish sandwich. Just outside of Baltimore, I became desperately sick and went to the men’s room and threw up. I was sick again between Baltimore and Washington, and when the train finally pulled into Union Station and I stepped out into the cold, rainy afternoon, I felt like hell.

  I didn’t have enough money for a cab, and it was no use calling home. My family was out of town, visiting my sister’s husband’s family in Maryland. They would be coming back to Washington in the morning. So I got on a bus, and about twenty minutes later go
t off, in the rain, and transferred to another bus. While I was on the bus, the nausea and cramps came back and I decided I’d have to get off. I began to look for a bar or restaurant or hotel along the way, and when I saw a gasoline station in a very old, shabby neighborhood—a Negro neighborhood—I pulled the cord and picked up my suitcase and got off.

  In the men’s room of the gasoline station, I bathed my face in cold water, and went outside again. I was feeling much better, but weak. The rain was cold, and the wind had grown stronger, and I was shivering. I was about to cross the street and wait by a little yellow bus-stop sign, when I saw that I was in front of a small grocery store with a green awning slanting down over a dimly lighted display window. I decided to stand under the awning and watch for the bus from there.

  * * *

  Inside the grocery store, three Negroes were leaning against a long, white refrigerated case, or counter, talking and laughing. Another Negro, in a white apron, was behind the counter, leaning on it and reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich. I thought of going into the store and getting warm, but I had no excuse for going in, really—no money to buy anything with. So I stayed under the awning, which was flapping wildly in the wind. My teeth were chattering, and I felt a sore throat coming on, when I saw a Negro man and woman walking down the street in the rain, arguing. They’d walk without speaking, then stop and argue, then walk some more. Actually, it was more of a dramatic exercise than an argument. The woman would make wordless faces at the man, which unsettled him. He would get ready to say something, and then she would laugh at him. Then he would look surprised and cautious, as though he was searching for a little balance and leverage, and she would scream at him. Then she would tell him to shut up, and he would look surprised, and finally he would begin to scream at her, and then she would begin to laugh at him, which made him more unsteady. The man was squat and round, with a black moonface crowned by a porkpie hat. He was wearing a frayed and very wet fatigue jacket. His companion was mocha brown, and tall and wide. She was large-boned and hefty, but not fat, and although she was obviously strong, she was unmistakably feminine. She wore a man’s raincoat and a pair of bedroom slippers without backs. She didn’t wear stockings, and she didn’t wear a hat. She had a wide nose and a wide mouth, and large, beautiful eyes. She walked ahead of the man into the grocery store, slamming the door after her, and he followed her in, looking worried and confused.