Manchild in the promised land

by Brown, Claude, 1937-

  He was lying down, looking up as if to say, "Sonny, what the hell is wrong with you?" I started to stomp him, kick him in the face.

  Some people were coming out. A preacher who lived in the next house and had known me for a long time came out. Ever since I was a little boy, in my nicer moments, I would run errands for him and his wife. I don't know if he'd seen me hit Joe Nonis and knock him down, but as I raised my foot over his face, I heard the voice of Reverend Caldwell. He said, "Hey, Sonny Boy, how you doin'?" as if he didn't realize what I was about to do.

  At that point, I realized that 1 wasn't really angry with Joe Norris. I was angry with Pimp, and I was trying to put it on somebody else, the way Mama would do. I put my foot down, and I said, "I'm sorry, Joe."

  He got up and moved away from me. I guess he figured, This cat's crazy, or something Uke that.

  When I turned around, Reverend Caldwell was right behind me. He put his hand on my arm and said, "Sonny Boy, I hope you ain't havin' any trouble out here with none of these people. Look, they can't bother you. You've shown this Eighth Avenue what you can do. Don't let none of those young hoodlums out there get on your nerves or bother you, because they can't do a thing to you. You're on your own and out of it."

  I just didn't want to hear it at that time, but I still had a lot of respect for him. I said, "Yeah, thanks a lot, Reverend Caldwell." I said, "Come on. Pimp." I guess Reverend Caldwell thought that I was being a little rude, but at that time I just didn't care. I told Pimp to go on, and I sat down on the stairs in the hall.

  I felt bad. I had to pull myself together. I didn't know what had happened. Maybe I was losing out. I hadn't felt this bad in a long time. I used to feel this way about every other day in my childhood. As a matter of fact, it seemed as though the last time I had felt this way it was the time I jumped up, ran out of the house, and asked Turk and Bucky to go with me to steal some sheets.

  I started thinking about what had happened the last time I had really gotten violent, what had provoked it I remember I was in a cafeteria down on Eighth Street and St. Marks Place. I had taken Judy in there to get something to eat. We were waiting, and I had the tray. I used to come in there all the time by myself. It was a Jewish cafeteria, and the counterman was Jewish too. He used to always smile at me and act friendly.

  I came there this time with Judy. We had one tray. We were making our selections together. I had asked her what she wanted. The counterman looked at me scornfully. I said hello to him, because we had always acted friendly toward each other. He just seemed to resent me all of a sudden.

  I thought about it, and I realized that it was my being with Judy. To me, he was saying, "I thought you were a good colored boy; you knew your place.'* He could smile at me as long as he thought I was a good colored boy who knew his place. Once I started acting like a no-good colored boy, or a colored man, he stopped smiling.

  After a while, he just turned his back to us. I asked him for something. I didn't know his name, so I just said, "Hey, mister, we would like a cup of fruit salad."

  He just never said anything, and he kept his back to us. Two other people came in. They asked him for something. He turned around and served them. I got mad, but I thought, Maybe I'm getting all pissed off about nothing.

  Somebody else came in, and he served him too. Then I knew that he was just doing this to spite us, to spite me. He was saying, "Look, you can't come in here and bring that white girl in here and get any service." I felt myself getting hot all over.

  Judy grabbed my arm and said, "Come on, ^Claude, let's

  go."

  I said, "No, wait, Judy. I've got to at least say something. If I go out of here now, I might want to come back and fight him."

  She said, "Come on, Claude. It's not that important. Let's

  forget it. As a matter of fact, they've got crummy food in here anyway. Let's go on Fourteenth Street."

  I said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's okay." They had those heavy plastic trays there. Just when I thought I had control, I threw the tray across the counter and just missed his head. It hit a price sign in back, up over the grill, and it fell down.

  It frightened the hell out of the guy. He said, "Hey, call the police! This guy's goin' crazy!"

  Judy kept pulling on me. She said, "Come on, Claude. Please, let's go, please, please." We left.

  I was sitting on the stairs at my mother's, and I was thinking. Damn, I thought I had grown out of all that sort of thing. I thought I had grown out of hitting anybody in the street. I thought I had grown out of not being able to control my anger. I thought I had grown out of putting the blame on somebody else. I guess I hadn't.

  I just sat there for a while. A wino came in. He was talking to himself. He had a bottle of cheap wine, Two Star Port or something like that. He got halfway behind the stairs and started drinking his wine. He made a loud sound, "Ummm!" and he wiped his lips.

  I just happened to look at him, and it sort of snapped me out of it. I just realized that he was there and that he seemed to be having so much fun with that wine.

  He said, "Hey, buddy, you want some wine?"

  I said, "I don't want no fuckin' wine. What's wrong with you?"

  "Okay, okay, partner, I didn't mean no harm."

  "Look, man, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. I want some wine, man. Shit, I'm sorry. Give me some wine!"

  "Okay, here. Don't take it all, now."

  I smiled at the thought of taking all his wine. I hesitated for a long time about putting the bottle up to my mouth, because I had a lot of fears about the germs these cats must carry. But I just went on. I thought. Fuck it, I'm gon drink some wine. I'm gon get with the people again, all the people. I turned it up, drank some wine, and said, "Here, thanks a lot, buddy." I gave him a quarter. I said, "Here's something toward the next one."

  He said, "Look, I got twenty cents. I'll go get another one right now, and we could kill it."

  "No, no, thanks. You go on and get it, and you kill it."

  "Thanks a lot." The cat wanted to talk all kinds of stuff

  about how somebody had cheated him out of some money and how this other guy, who he thought was his buddy, would hide his wine when he got some. He said he wasn't hke that. He would share his wine with anybody. He said, "Like, I come in here and offer you a drink."

  I said, "Yeah, yeah, you seem like a generous guy."

  "Well, I do that to anybody, especially to all the guys I know around there in the backyard."

  "Yeah, you go on. You get another bottle. Have some fun; have a drink for me."

  "Yeah, okay, buddy, thanks a whole lot."

  I went on upstairs. That wine was burning me up; I never thought it was that strong.

  Pimp was sitting in the living room playing some funky jazz records. I went in, and 1 said, "Pimp, I want you to meet somebody."

  "Who's that. Sonny?"

  "It's a guy named Reverend James."

  He said, "A reverend, man? How'd you get to know any reverend?"

  "The cat's a minister, man."

  "He's a what?"

  "He's a minister."

  "A real minister, Sonny? He ain't jivin', is he?"

  "No, man. He's a minister."

  He said, "Man, I don't know about that. I don't know what you're puttin' down, but I don't believe that it's straight up. Sonny, probably another one of those games. I remember when Billy Graham had his convention down there at Madison Square Garden, and you and Reno went down there with shopping bags, collecting money, and all that kind of shit. If this cat is a real preacher, he better beware, 'cause I know you got somethin' on the fire now."

  I said, "No, man. This is straight up."

  "Square business. Sonny? You mean he's a real preacher? How do you know him, man? Where do you know him from, and what you doin' with him?"

  "I'm not doin' anything with the cat. I'm just talking to him. He's got a church, and he's on a council that's gonna send me to school. I'm trying to get him interested in sending you to school t
oo."

  "To college, man?"

  "Yeah, manj to college."

  "Damn, Sonny, that shit would be real nice. I mean real nice, baby," and he went into a nod.

  I said, "Pimp, I want you to come and talk to this cat."

  "This is not that other preacher you were tellin' me about? He hasn't got anything to do with that cat, has he?'*

  "No, this isn't Norman Eddie. He's in the same parish, the East Harlem Protestant Parish. He has this church on 126th Street and Madison Avenue, the Metropolitan Community Methodist Church."

  "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I passed that church a few times. Man, what kind of preacher is he? Has this cat really got some-thin' on the ball?"

  "Man, you wouldn't believe it. You've got to meet the guy."

  "Okay, I'll go down there and meet him sometime, but I got to get some money, Sonny."

  "Look, let's go down and meet him tonight."

  "I got somethin' to do tonight."

  "We could go and meet this guy about seven o'clock, and you could do it afterwards."

  "Yeah, okay. Sonny, I guess I could do it. But first I have to get some money."

  "Uh-uh, Pimp, you got to be straight when you go to see him."

  "Man, I can't even get a high?"

  "No, man, not even a little high."

  "Sonny, I'm just dabblin' now, man, lightly."

  "Yeah, Pimp, I know." I couldn't get mad at him any more, because it was something that I'd seen before, time and time again. I'd known that there were strong cats, great cats, who were strung out for a long time. Pimp had never been strung out but for so long. As a matter of fact, he'd never really been strung out. He'd always had someplace to go until Dad put him out, and that wasn't for long. Carole and Margie would keep giving him money. He was their brother, and they loved him. They couldn't see him as a drug addict. They just had to give to him, whether it was going to hurt him in the long run or not. They couldn't stand to see him in pain.

  That night we "went to see Reverend James. Most of the time, I just hstened. Pimp seemed interested in Reverend James, but I think he looked on him as a preacher, and a preacher was just a preacher. They couldn't be but so hip

  or know but so much about life. Pimp was going to try to outsmart him at every turn, in everything he said.

  Reverend James had started telling Pimp about a minister at another church, the Church of the Master. He said this minister had done a lot of work with young drug addicts and users. He said he'd like Pimp to meet him. I was really surprised when Pimp agreed. I didn't expect this.

  After we'd been there for about an hour and a half, Reverend James wrote down an address, gave it to Pimp, and said he could go there about 9 a.m. the next day. Pimp said he would.

  After we left Reverend James's office, Pimp said that he would go by and see the minister at this Church of the Master the next day. He said, "I liked that cat, man."

  "Yeah, Reverend James is a pretty hip guy for a minister."

  "Yeah, man. He surprised me with a lot of the stuff he knew."

  "Yeah, he's a surprise to most people."

  "Yeah, I'm going by tomorrow to see this cat that he told me about, at the Church of the Master, but I want to see this cat again and talk to him. He's got a good mind."

  I sort of smiled when Pimp said that, because I knew he didn't really know how good a mind Reverend James had yet. I said, "Yeah, man, I think so too."

  Pimp went to see the minister at the Church of the Master, and he got him into something. Pimp wasn't strung out. I don't think he had to have any drugs at this stage of the game. He was just dabbling. He would use it when he wanted to get high. He didn't have to use it if he didn't want to. The minister made arrangements to get Pimp into Metropolitan Hospital, where they had just opened up a new ward. A whole floor was devoted to treating young addicts. Pimp said he was all for it.

  He started saying that he was sorry about not continuing in school. Reverend James had told him about a school for people just like him, in North Carolina, that could probably do him a lot of good. - •

  Pimp thought that his whole problem was not being able to get away from Harlem. He said, "Man, this place is ... it just ruins me. Sonny. I feel like I'm being smothered to death sometimes. If it weren't for you, I guess I could've spent my whole life here and never been downtown, except for the trips that you take in grade school."

  I said, "Yeah."

  "Or when you gfet out and start going to work and take the subway downtown.''

  "Yeah, Pimp, but that all depends on the person, man. Downtown isn't going anywhere. You could go there anytime you want."

  He said, "My whole life has revolved around Harlem, man, uptown. I think if I could get out of here, I could see some-thin', man, and see somethin' different, see some other kind of life. Shit, I don't know anything, man. I wanted to go in the service last year, and Mama started talking all that crazy shit about, 'Boy, you'll go in there and you'll get yourself killed. You ain't got no business in nobody's Army.' You know how that is, Sonny. It was, man ... it was hard. She had to sign for me then. I was only seventeen. She wouldn't let me go. I guess she still sees me as sort of like a second baby. What is it that the old folks called it? The yellin'baby?"

  I said, "Yeah, the yellin' baby." We both laughed.

  "Yeah, Sonny, I'm gonna make some plans to cut this whole thing loose. As a matter of fact, I think I'll cut Ellen loose too, man."

  "Why? She seems to be a nice girl."

  "Yeah, but look at it like this, Sonny, I haven't seen any other women. I haven't seen any other girl outside of Harlem. Man, it would be a drag for me to come up in this place, spend my whole life here, get married here, and never go anywhere. That would be a damn shame. Sonny.

  "We got this little thing goin'; she's a nice girl and all that, but I'd feel buried right here, man, if I was to go and do somethin' like that. I come up here, and raise all my kids here, and we'd become some hillbillies, man, or some farmers, the people from the woods. We'd be big-city backwoods people, you know, that don't know nothin' about people, even if they Hved on the East Side, in the Bronx, or if they lived out in Brooklyn. That's as far as we would go. Sonny, I get scared when I think of that shit."

  I couldn't say anything, but I was moved because I never thought that Pimp did that much thinking about this sort of thing. It made me feel good to know that he did and that he had some good thoughts about it. I felt that this was a sign of maturity* I said, "You know. Pimp, I think you're gonna do everything that you want to do, man. I think you can do anything you want to do. There's only one thing that can stop you, and that's shit."

  He said, "Yeah, Sonny, I've been thinking about that too, and to tell you the truth, man, I don't know where it is, man. I don't know just where I am with usin' stuff. I don't think that I'm really dependent on it, but if I stay here in Harlem, I know I'm gonna have somethin', man. And right now stuff gives more peace than anything, Sonny, than anything in the world. I couldn't go to church and pray or any kind of shit like that. I couldn't go to bed with the finest chick. There was nothing else that could do anything for me that stuff does for me, man."

  He said, "I think if I could get out of here, man ... I think it's this place, all of it's dead. There's just nothing happenin', man. If you grow up in all this shit, when you get nineteen, there's just nothing else to do. You're through, man. There's just nothin' happening. You've got to find some kind of excitement, something different, or you've just got to keep yourself blind ... I mean wasted, man, to take all this damn monotony. Boredom. Day in and day out, man, no place to go but the same damn place, nobody to see but the same old faces you've been seeing all your life. That shit can really get on your nerves. You don't know. You have to get away from it somehow. Stuff was the thing for me. This is the only thing that lets me get away.

  "Sonny, you know what? I'm gonna go into this new thing, man. They're suppose to have a six-week program in the Metropolitan Hospital that's dynamic, man, really dynamic. I'm gonna
go in and see what's happening. And when I come out, I don't want to be hanging around here for any time. I want to get on the train, man, and shoot right down South and get in school, man, start doin' something with my life."

  I said, "Yeah, like, it sounds good, Pimp. It sounds damn good. You don't know how good it makes me feel to hear you talkin' Hke that."

  "Yeah, Sonny, I feel as though my mind is clearer, man, than it's been in a long time. For the first time in ages, I'm sayin' the stuff that's really been on my mind."

  Pimp went into Metropolitan Hospital for six weeks. He came out looking good. I stayed in his corner while he was in there. I sent him money. When he came out, everybody was happy. Mama was excited over how fat he was.

  He came out around April or May, and he got a job. We

  were planning on sending him down South. Reverend James had selected the perfect school for him. He was all set.

  In July, he was working in a hospital. They found out why he had been in Metropolitan, and they fired him. After that. Pimp was hanging around the street most of the time, but he still wasn't dabbling, or so I thought.

  When August rolled around, Pimp was supposed to go down South. I was supposed to give him two hundred dollars, which was half of his first term's tuition. I was downtown, and I called Sunday night, the day before he was to leave, and asked Mama if Pimp was there. She said he wasn't. I told her, "When he comes in, tell him to meet me at the bank Monday morning."

  Mama said Pimp hadn't been around. He hadn't been home the night before, and she hadn't seen him since early Saturday evening. I said, "He didn't start dabbUn' again, did he?" Mama said no, not that she knew of. So I said, "Look, there's nothing to worry about; as long as he's straight, he's gonna be home. As long as he's not dabblin', there's no problem."