Manchild in the promised land

by Brown, Claude, 1937-

  I CAME uptown one night and met Danny on the comer of Seventh Avenue and 145th Street. We were just standing there talking. Danny was telling me for about the fiftieth time that he was going to kick his habit. I kept saying, "Yeah, man, yeah. I know you're going to do it eventually." I just happened to ask how Jim was doing.

  He said, "Goldie?"

  "Yeah, Jim Goldie."

  Danny said, "Oh, man, you didn't hear about it?'*

  "About what?'

  He said, "They're having Goldie's funeral Tuesday night. Somebody shot him in the head four times."

  I said, "Who and why? What happened?"

  Danny asked me if I knew somebody on 141st Street by the name of Eddie Carter. I said I didn't know him. He said this was the cat who had wasted Goldie. I asked him why, and he told me about it.

  As he told me about it, I couldn't listen very well. It was kind of hard for me to believe that Jim was dead. Jim was a big guy, and he was good with his hands. He had been to Warwick. He had done a couple of years in Elmira. He'd gotten back on the street and made the big time right away. He had brothers in numbers, so when Jim came out, there was a spot waiting for him in the numbers racket. His family was running the whole show.

  We all used to hang out together. Jim had had a whole lot of heart, maybe too much. He would fight anybody, and this was when we were only thirteen or fourteen. He wanted to gang fight, and he was always real game. When he came out

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  of the Warwick Annex at Hampton Farm, he was big and burly, almost as big as a bam. I suppose just his size frightened a lot of people. He was a nice cat, and he'd always been a nice cat. Of course, if he hit a cat—and he would hit a cat if he got mad—^he would usually wreck the side of his face.

  I think Jim had boxing on his mind when he first came out of the Annex. I don't know what happened. I think he came out and found this spot waiting for him in the numbers and found that all he had to do was come out and stand on Eighth Avenue most of the day. He walked right into the big time. I guess he just lost interest in boxing. Perhaps it was less appealing. His brother Zack was running around with the fine whores, he had a big Cadillac, he was the big numbers man. It was a more glamorous life than boxing.

  After being out for about a year, Jim got busted sitting in Zach's big Cadillac smoking reefers. When he came back on the scene two years later, he was still in the big time. I remember when he first came out of the Annex, he looked for cats from the old crowd. Rock was out on parole. He'd say, "Have you seen Rock?"

  I said, "No, man, I haven't seen Rock."

  He said, "Damn, I'm looking for that cat. I want to get him high."

  This was the way he was. He was always trying to do something for the old crowd, the cats he use to bebop with up and down Eighth Avenue and Lenox Avenue and Seventh Avenue and Amsterdam, all around the neighborhood.

  But when he came out of Elmira, he seemed to look down on everybody as small-time hoodlums. He was ready for the big time. He used to hang out with a lot of Italian cats. Everybody thought they were members of the Mafia. He'd bring them uptown. He started snobbing the old crowd. He even started smoking a big cigar. I guess he was heading for the short life. People started saying that he'was a gorilla, that he was going around shaking down people, shaking down numbers controllers and cats who were dealing drugs. The word was out that he would just walk up to somebody and say, "Man, give me five hundred dollars." They tell me that Shorty Mannlin gave it to him once. Shorty Mannlin was a big-time numbers controller on 146th Street. He was Zack's competitor, and Jim just walked up to him and asked for five hundred dollars. Never laid a hand on him. He was so

  big, and he had a reputation. Everybody knew he was rugged.

  After Jim had been out of Ehnira for about a year, and even though he was only twenty-three years old, he'd gotten big time without a hustle. He went into numbers, and he would take people's plays. If they had a hit, he'd tell them that they just hadn't put it in.

  Some people would get their gun and go looking for him. If he wasn't home or in his stash, people would say, "Tell that nigger don't come on the street any more until he's got my money."

  One of the most dangerous things in the world is to steal from poor people. This was what Jim and some other young cats his age were doing. They would start taking numbers, and they wouldn't pay these people when they hit. They were stealing from the poor, and when you steal from the poor, you gamble with your life.

  Jim had gotten a reputation for not being afraid of a gun because he had once walked into a .45. He hit a cat who had a .45 on him and about six other cats. This was a crazy thing, because everybody else was ready to give the cat the money.

  We used to shoot craps down in a cellar down on 145th Street. There'd usually be a lot of money flying around. Cats would shoot three hundred dollars or sometimes five bills on a roll. When cats were happy, they'd get high, go down there, and shoot craps. A lot of people knew about it, all the hustlers anyway. Evidently, a few others from out of the neighborhood had heard about it.

  One Saturday night we were down there shooting craps. Everybody was hollering and making a lot of noise. The police knew about it. If they came down there, somebody would give them fifty dollars and they were happy. About two o'clock in the morning, two cats came in, two big colored cats. I don't think anybody saw them come in or heard them. All I recall was hearing a big, strong, mean-sounding voice say, "Don't a mother-fucker move." I knew the sound of a voice that meant business. I looked up and saw a cat standing with his back to the door and a gun pointing down at us.

  Over in the far comer, there was another cat. He said, "Drop all the money right there on the floor."

  Most of us had some money in our hands. I dropped mine in a hurry, without any hesitation, because I knew these cats weren't playing. Everybody else knew it too. The cat

  who had told us to drop the money had a revolver, but the cat against the door, the cat with the mean voice, had a big .45.

  A .45 is a frightening thing. Not just because it's a gun, because all guns are frightening. The thing that's so terrifying about any gun is that when you look into it, you're aware that here's this Uttle black hole that at any time can spit death out at you and take your life. People who have a gun in their face will get up oflf money in a hurry, especially people who have been shot. Most stickup artists know that if they put a gun to somebody's face and make him look right into the barrel, it's going to have much more effect than a gun held way down low.

  A .45 has a big hole. As a matter of fact, it's the biggest hole I've ever looked into. The big holes are twice as frightening. It's as though if something were to come out of there, it would take your whole head off. This was how we all felt when we looked up into the muzzle of that .45 pointed at us. I suppose everj^thing seems bigger when you look up at it, and we were all kneeling down shooting craps or watching the craps roll. And all of a sudden there was this big black nigger standing there with death in his hand. I wanted to say, "Here, man. Here's the money; take it in a hurry. Just turn that thing away from me."

  Nobody rose or anything. The cat with the .45 was so big and mean looking, he probably could have stuck me up without a gun. There were some cats there he couldn't have stuck up without a gun. But it was surprising that anybody would come in there and do this even with a gun, because most of the cats shooting craps down there had killed somebody at some time or another in their life. Just about everybody on 146th Street who was in street life had the reputation of a kiUer. It took a lot of nerve for anybody to come in there and even think about sticking up these cats.

  The guy only spoke once, and everybody heeded him in a hurry—everybody but Jim. Jim just squatted down there, almost sitting, like somebody taking a shit in the Woods. He had his money in his hand.

  The cat with the .45 spoke again. He said, "Nigger, what you waitin* for? Put that money down."

  Everybody froze; we all expected this cat to waste Jim right then and there. I knew, and ever
ybody else knew, that if the guy was scared to shoot or wasn't prepared to kill anybody, he wouldn't have been there. He might have gone

  and stuck up some other crap game or a check-cashing place or a liquor store. He would have been safer going to stick up the police station if he was afraid to kill somebody.

  Zack was there too. As a matter of fact, Zack had eight hundred dollars going on the roll, and Zack told Jim, "Jim, put the money down."

  Jim didn't pay any attention to Zack. He just kept staring at the cat for a little while, the cat with the .45 in his hand. The cat said to Jim, "Man, you ain't gon put that money down?" And he stuck the gun out in front of Jim. It seemed to be not more then three feet from his face.

  Jim just started rising out of his squatting position, and he said to this cat, who was still standing with his back to the door, "Man, ain't nobody gon take my money.'*

  When he said that, the feeling went through me, Oh, Lord, there goes Jim. I thought to myself that this nigger must be crazy, because you just don't argue with a .45. You might gamble and argue with a .22 or maybe a .32, but this nigger was arguing with a .45. He had to be crazy—stark, raving mad.

  Everybody tensed. The cat who had told us to drop our money was still standing in the corner and just seemed to be backing the play. The main man in the scene was the cat against the door.

  The cat in the comer with the revolver said, "Look, nigger, I'll shoot you if you don't put that money down by the time I pull this trigger."

  Jim didn't even look at him; he kept looking at the cat against the door, and everybody else kept looking. I got kind of worried. Aside from being the youngest, I was the only one who hadn't killed anybody.

  Jim said, "You come and get me up.'* Everybody else started backing away.

  The cat in the corner said, "All you mother-fuckers better keep still, because the next cat who moves is dead." I was scared, because I didn't know what was going on. Everybody else seemed as though they were going to back Jim's play if he made a stand for his money.

  Jim started getting up. The cat said, "You get up, and you leave your money on the floor."

  Jim just kept rising slowly. As he got up, the cat still had the gun in his face. He never did drop his money. He still had his money in his hand when he hit this cat. He hit

  him with a straight right that everybody thought had broken the cat's neck. His whole head seemed to snap right off.

  I just put my head down, because this shit was crazy, I said, "Oh, Lord, we all gon be wasted right here tonight." I wished that I'd never come down in that cellar that night.

  But everybody just walked away. The cat in the other corner shot his piece off one time. Nobody had been paying any attention to him before, and when he did this, Zack walked over to him said, "Come on, man, give me the piece. Don't get hurt."

  The cat said, "Look, man, I don't want you cats' money. Just let me out of here." Everybody moved back. Zack said, "Okay, we gon let you out. Go on out." The cat started backing toward the door.

  Just before he got to the door, Jim got to him with a right too. It surprised me. I'd been in a lot of gang fights with him, and he'd been a cold cat. But that was years ago, and he was always nice with everybody who was around him. I had seen him stab a cat and not even make any kind of face, not even seem to be the least bit bothered about it. I once saw him stab a girl in the behind with an ice pick. It didn't bother him.

  He wanted to stomp the two cats, fuck them up good, not let them walk from there. What he was saying made sense, because he was saying that this was 146th Street, and 146th Street had always had a reputation, even when I was in knee pants. When I first started running away from the truant officer when I was playing hookey from school, I could always run into 146th Street. At night, two poUcemen wouldn't come in there by themselves. They had trouble getting anybody but the Four Horsemen to come in there.

  Bubba Williams was kind of cold too. Bubba said, "Yeah, let's break their legs." I don't know if they broke their legs or not, but Bubba Williams took these bedposts that were down there. He banged on these cats' shins until he thought that they were broken. Then we walked out and left them.

  People were afraid to mess with Jim. He could do a whole lot of shit and get away with it. After a while, nobody would play any numbers with him. He would just go around shaking down people, and most of the people who used to like him started putting him down.

  I didn't think anybody would shoot him, not in Harlem. I listened to Danny tell me what had happened.

  He said that Jim had been taking care of a cat's gambling joint down on 112th Street. Some guys had come there looking for the cat who owned the joint. He had beaten somebody out of some money or cheated somebody. Since Jim was the substitute houseman and since the owner was his main man, he wasn't going to turn them away and tell them to come back another time. He was going to find out what it was all about, and if it was trouble, well, Jim wasn't afraid of anything.

  Danny said that the cats knocked on the door and asked for Kelsey, the guy who was running the house.

  Jim said he wasn't there. He never opened the door, because it might have been the police. He asked what they wanted with Kelsey, and one cat said they had some business with him. Jim said, "You tell me the business."

  This cat, Eddie Carter, who was gunning for Kelsey, had heard about Jim. He knew that Jim was tight with Kelsey. He called through the door and said, "Look, is that you, Jim?"

  "Yeah, it's me."

  "Jim, this is Eddie. I got no squawk with you, man, but I've got to see Kelsey."

  Jim said, "lx>ok, man, like, Kelsey's my man, and if you got anything to see him about, you got to see me about it too."

  Eddie asked him, "Is that really the way you want it, Jim?" ,

  Jim said, "Yeah, man, that's the way it is."

  Danny said that he shot through the door six times. Four of the bullets caught Jim in the head. Jim was a big, rugged cat. Danny said they were .45 slugs, but I couldn't believe that anybody with four .45 slugs in his head could open a door, walk out of a building, walk for a block, walk up to a policeman, and say, "I'm shot," before he dropped dead.

  That's the way the story went. Danny said that everybody was expected to the funeral Tuesday night.

  I said, "Yeah, man. Yeah, I'll be there."

  We would come. We had to come, because we were all a part of that Harlem thing. I guess I'd want them to be at my funeral too. It was a scream. The junkies were there. I recall sitting there in the back wondering who was going to follow Jim. Chink and Dew, a whole lot of other cats, they were just nodding and nodding, scratching, and carry-

  ing on. They had to be there. We had all come up together, and we were all a part of this thing, all a part of the Harlem scene in some way or another, all a part of Jim's death. I looked at Jim. He seemed to have a frown on his face, a grimace. It looked as though he were in pain, as though he were hurt behind leaving so early.

  Everybody passed around the cofiBn. The preacher said a whole lot of shit about "he was a good strong boy." All this nonsense. All I could think about was how he had lived so quick. He was like the community Horatio Alger. He had made it big in a short period of time. He had become a real big-time gangster.

  He was a funny cat. People said he could smell a crap game a mile away. I'd never been to one where Jim didn't show if there was any real money there. I thought about all Jim's funny ways and all the things he did, and there just wasn't that much to say about him. So I could understand why the preacher had to preach such a bullshit sermon, because if he was to tell the truth, all he could say was, "Jim did some time in jail. He was a member of the old Buccaneers. He grew up on the streets of Harlem, running loose, like so many other of you boys back there nodding and scratching and carrying on."

  As a matter of fact, the preacher did make a crack about "some of us who will follow this coffin on" in his sermon. I felt it was uncalled for. Those colored preachers would do that sort of stuff.

  He died s
o young, and he wasn't even on stujff. It was okay for the junkies to die that young. Everybody expected them to. They were popping off right and left from a O.D. or from getting shot or from falling out of a window Nobody paid it any attention. The thing at the funeral that seemed to get to most people was when Jim's mother screamed out, "Oh, my baby's gone! And he didn't even use no dope."

  It seemed like a whole lot of people in the neighborhood, cats that we'd come up with, gone to school Avith, were being cooked in Sing Sing. It had become a thing with people in the neighborhood to talk to these cats' mothers and relatives, cats who went to the electric chair in Sing Sing. I remember when I was younger, when I was at Warwick and right after I came out, I had heard about people I knew who had gone to the chair. We all wanted to know what they had said, but now we wanted to know what they said because we

  wanted to find obt something for ourselves. We wanted to find out if it was' worth it at the last minute, if they felt that it was worth it, now that they were going to die.

  When I was younger, a few years after Warwick, I wanted to know just whether these cats were really hard. I think most of the guys my age looked upon them as heroes when they were getting cooked at Sing Sing. We wanted to know their last words. Somebody told me that when they cooked Lollipop—Lollipop was a cat who was kind of crazy, and we called him Lollipop because he liked candy—just before he left, he said, "Well, looks like Lolly's had his last lick." That was it. Everybody admired him for the way he went out. He didn't scream or anything like that.

  Years later, after so many guys from the neighborhood had gone to the chair up at Sing Sing, we'd gotten too old to be hero-worshipers any more. The cats we used to worship when we were younger, these were the cats we had to equal. But I think everybody was curious about whether or not it was worth it to kill somebody and save your name or your masculinity, defend whatever it was that had been offended —whether it was you or your woman or somebody in your family. It seemed as though nobody would know this any better than the cat who was going to pay with his life, and he wouldn't know it any better than when he was getting ready to pay. If a cat could say it was worth it at the time he was going to give his life for it, who could challenge it? Who could say that it wasn't worth it? This was what everybody wanted to know.