“As soon as I can.”
Carlyle poured some of the green tobacco into the paper, rolled a thin cigaret, and lit it. It did smell bad. “You see, that’s the thing. Could cost some money.”
Mitchell was becoming suspicious. He had read about white men swindled by Blacks. He would be cautious, careful. “How do you mean?”
“You got a car?” Mitchell nodded. “Well, we could get in your car, drive to Harlem, and go some places he might be. But we might have to pay admission and like that. And…I think I should warn you, man, Cooley’s kind of an underworld figure. A lot of people’d look at you and think you was a cop, and we’d have to give them some money to get them to talk. You understand?”
“I see.” This seemed reasonable enough. “I think I have money for that.”
Carlyle shrugged. “I want to be honest with you.” He patted his chest. “I mean, there a lot of bad feelings between the races. Like with my brother. But me? I don’t go for it. A man is a man, and I don’t kid no man. So I got to warn you: we might spend some money and never find him or anything about him.”
Mitchell was moved by Carlyle’s honesty. “Well, I hope we do find him, but if we don’t, I’ll know you tried to help me.”
Carlyle stood up. “You a good man, Mr. Pierce. I guess I should’ve known that by the way you took A’nt Opal back after that misunderstanding.” He went to his closet and put on a wine-colored sport coat. “So, I guess we better start.”
“Good.”
They left the room; Carlyle stopped at the front door. “Say, Mance, I’m cutting. I’ll catch you later.”
Mance looked up from his book, nodded.
Mitchell smiled. “Good-bye, now.”
“Devil.”
13
OUTSIDE, under a streetlamp, Carlyle suggested it might be easier if he drove; he would not have to direct Mitchell through the Harlem streets. “Besides, man, there’s this race business.” He winked. “They won’t wreck your car if they see me get from behind the wheel.” Mitchell asked to see his license, and, satisfied they would not be breaking the law, surrendered the keys.
Because Carlyle knew the Bronx streets, they were soon on the highway. They passed the place where, not three hours before, Mitchell had seen the accident. The cars and people were gone; only the splintered pole marked the spot. They climbed a short hill and in front of him, Mitchell saw the tall, light-barnacled shadows of the city.
He was beginning to relax now, growing accustomed to the way Carlyle drove his car. He felt certain he would find Cooley and be rid of the baby before the evening was over. He slid down, his head on the seat, and tried to remember how Cooley had looked that night eighteen months before, the only time Mitchell had ever seen him.
He had been sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying the smell of the apple pie Opal had baked for him. She had just left the room, Jake in her arms, his hand inside the neck of her dress, his fingers tugging on the strap of her bra. Then the buzzer, and he had opened the door.
First, Mitchell had noticed Cooley’s nose, as if the heel of a hand had jammed the end of it back and up toward his small, red eyes, and held it there, stretching the nostrils to the size of black quarters. The upper lip had been three fingers wide, the lower lip drooping, pink—all this packed onto a head no larger, it almost seemed, than a softball, and that sitting, neckless, on shoulders the width of the door. The shoulders and chest had been covered by a chartreuse jacket, with the name—Cooley—in gold thread over the heart. He had looked down at Mitchell almost from the top of the doorway. “Who are you?”
He had not allowed Cooley to intimidate him. “Mitchell Pierce,” he had answered deliberately. “And just who are you?”
“Cooley.” Challenged, he seemed to shrink a bit. “I come for Opal.”
Already, Mitchell had begun to get angry, but before he could answer, Opal had entered the kitchen. And then the rest of it. He had demanded that Cooley wait outside, had begun to reprimand her, had called her a thief, had dismissed her. It was clear now what had happened; anger had confused him. He had attacked Opal because of Cooley’s rudeness…
They crossed a bridge, the tires howling on hivelike steel, and stopped next to a big, new car carrying a Black man and two brown girls, one of them under blond, almost white hair. Carlyle elbowed him. “Roll down the window.”
Mitchell did, and Carlyle lay across his lap, that straight, oily hair, sweet-smelling just under his nose. The roots were not at all straight. “Hey, baby, where you going?”
The blond turned toward him, scowled. The man smiled. “Sorry, bubba, all for me.”
“Go on, man, she don’t need no translator.”
The blond smiled, but turned away.
“Listen, I’ll tell you what—you meet me at the Apple-O at midnight, I’ll take you to the show. You can get rid of them people.”
The blond was still smiling. “I seen it already, baby. Besides, I meet you and my man’ll beat hell out of me. Won’t you, honey?” She leaned over and kissed the man. Behind them, horns started, and the car disappeared up a ramp, its back red with lights.
“Okay, Mr. Pierce, roll up.” Carlyle stepped on the gas, and they started down Seventh Avenue.
“Isn’t it dangerous to talk like that to another man’s wife?”
“Ain’t no other man; that’s my Brother.”
Mitchell did not understand, but did not dwell on it. Cooley still loomed in his mind. He wondered now, as the dead trees on the narrow center strip whipped by, how Tam had ever met him. Someday, but not soon, he would ask her. Opal had said she had gone out with him only three times. Probably the night of the misunderstanding had been the last time.
Cooley had probably come to the house before that, seen Tam, and had decided he loved her.
Perhaps he had come late one morning, after the German woman had taken Jake to the park. Tam would have been in bed, napping, reading, watching television, when the doorbell rang.
The German woman, Tam thinks, has forgotten her key. She gets up and goes to the door, not bothering to cover her pink, freckled shoulders, the white lace. She opens the door.
Cooley stands in the hall, his large black hands buried in dark pockets. “I like to see Opal for a minute. I’m Cooley.”
At first Tam is frightened, but if Cooley knows Opal, it is probably safe. “Opal doesn’t work here anymore.”
His eyes blink. “Oh…”
Now Tam realizes he is looking through the lace, but he does not leer; there is an innocence about him. He has been expecting to see Opal. Now he is a disappointed child. She asks him in, runs to get a robe.
When she returns to the living room, he is on the edge of the small antique chair, afraid to put his full weight on the twisted legs, awed by the tranquillity of the room she has designed.
She sits across from him on the sofa. “Do you know Opal well?”
“No, ma’am, I only been out with her three times.” He finds it hard to look at her.
“So she didn’t tell you she’s not working here anymore?”
He shakes his tiny black head. He cannot sustain it, cannot lie to her; he must look at her, confess. “I seen you before, Mrs. Pierce, one time when I come for Opal. I ain’t been able to think of nothing else. I can’t work; I can’t sleep. And now today I come down here and asks for Opal. I know Opal don’t work here no more.” He drops from the chair to his knees. “But I figured I’d come to the door and ask for her, just on the chance of seeing you.” The knuckles of his black hands sink into the rug; he begins to crawl toward her, the chartreuse satin, like skin across his shoulders. “Just to see you. But then you was kind enough to ask me into your house. I ain’t never seen a house this nice.”
Tam slides back onto the sofa. “Please, Cooley.”
“I ain’t going to hurt you, Mrs. Pierce. I wouldn’t do th
at.” Over her knees, she can see only his small red eyes. His hands grip her ankles. “I loves you, Mrs. Pierce.” Her feet are growing numb, cold; even so, she can feel his lips just behind her toes.
She should jump up, scream, but does not. She thinks of Mitchell, who no longer loves her, who does not appreciate her. They are arguing. And now Opal’s Cooley has come to her, and, demanding nothing, has confessed honest, childlike love for her. She begins to unbutton her robe.
But she never finishes. By her ankles, he pulls her off the sofa, bouncing her soft buttocks to the rug. He tears at the robe. Pink, cloth-covered buttons pop and fly. And now the freckles under white lace seem to madden him. He pulls at the lace, destroys the knitted cobwebs.
She lies still, beginning to cry, thinking, Mitchell, Mitchell, see what you’ve driven me to do…
“First stop, Mr. Pierce.” Carlyle had parked in a dark, litter-strewn street. Down at the corner were the lights of an avenue, a bar window turning the gray pavement yellow. The houses were old, Victorian, their entrances guarded by stone dragons, angels with chipped noses. “There’s a party here he might be at.”
Mitchell continued to see Tam, as still as rags, spread under Cooley’s shadow. He tried to shake them out of his head.
“You still want to find him?” The streetlamp caught the hard wave in Carlyle’s hair.
Mitchell sat up, reached for the door handle. “Of course I do. More than ever.”
14
THEY DESCENDED STEPS to a cellar doorway, passed rows of steel garbage cans. Already Mitchell could hear music. Carlyle pushed open a door into a stone hallway. “Listen, Mr. Pierce, don’t say nothing. You let me talk.” He winked. “This race business.” They stopped and Carlyle rang the bell. “And if you don’t mind, I’d better call you Mitchell.”
The door opened a crack, then all the way. “Hiya, Carlyle!” Mitchell could not see her face, only tight pink slacks, a yellow turtleneck sweater, red hair, and plump arms, each with a charm bracelet, rushing to embrace Carlyle. “How you doing?”
“All right.” His hand stroked the pink slacks. “You miss me?”
“Sure did.” She pulled back from him, gold teeth smiling in a copper face. “And just where you been?”
“Around.” Carlyle’s forehead was greasy.
The gold disappeared behind lavender lips, her face serious now. “You ain’t been up state, has you?”
“Nothing like that, Glora.” He smiled. “Just hustling.”
“Well, come in and party.” From behind a hard face, she looked at Mitchell. “What’s this?” scolding Carlyle with her eyes.
“You see that, Mitchell?” Carlyle shook his head. “White skin and she act like a red skin.” He sucked his tongue. “This my cousin, Mitchell, from Canada. From a small, snowy-ass town where the underground railway left his granddaddy’s butt. Had to integrate to keep the blood moving.”
She smiled at Mitchell now, gold teeth in the dim light. “Cousin!” He felt her arms around him, red hair in his face, high breasts just above his stomach. “Welcome home. I’m sorry I took you for Sir Charles, the White Knight.”
“That’s all right.” Mitchell did not know if he liked being…colored.
“What we standing out here for when they partying inside?” She hugged Mitchell’s arm, pulled him over the marble doorsill, and took his coat.
“You got a cover, man,” Carlyle whispered. “Just don’t dance. They know you a phoney for sure if you get on that floor.”
Mitchell nodded, slightly offended. He had always considered himself a good dancer, especially when he was drunk.
Carlyle was still at his ear. “Listen, they trying to pay the Jew, so lay something on them.”
“What?” The hallway was dark, a door at the end, lit red. The music came from the doorway, and inside the room, Mitchell could see shadows weaving.
“It’s a rent party, so drop two dollars in the basket. A dollar a drink, and if you hungry, she got her mama making chicken and potato salad, a dollar a plate.”
Glora was back, hugging his arm again. “I’m taking over your cousin, Carlyle.” As if to consolidate her claim, she put her hand on Carlyle’s stomach, and pushed him away.
“I’ll see you later, man.” Before Mitchell could protest, Carlyle winked and left them.
Glora pulled him into the room where Black people danced, nodding heads, jerking hips, feet scraping on the wooden floor. Some of the men were sweating under the red light, patting their faces with neatly folded handkerchiefs. The women’s faces were stern above their dancing bodies. Mitchell had never seen a group of Black people dance before, and was surprised to find no one writhing on the floor, none of the women with skirts hitched to their waist. Everyone did the same step, moved the same way in time to the music. Even so, they seemed to be having a good time.
Around the dancers, at the edges of the room, others stood talking. In the closest group to him, a half-dozen men, and a few women stood listening, their eyes downcast, but no one seemed to be talking. Glora led him toward them.
“Well look what the cat drug in,” one of the women said. “What’s that, Glora?”
“This is Carlyle Bedlow’s cousin from Canada. Mitchell. Don’t he look white though?” She introduced him around, “…and down there is Shorty.”
Out of the shadows in the center of their small circle reached a yellow hand. Mitchell looked down at a pinched face under a pile of straight yellow hair. The midget wore a tuxedo, a lace-front shirt. “Glad to meet you.” He mashed Mitchell’s knuckles. “Where from in Canada?” His voice was high, forced through tiny nostrils.
Mitchell answered that he was from a small town near Ottawa.
“That’s a long way from home. I ain’t never worked there.” He stared at Mitchell a moment longer, almost suspiciously, then turned to the others. “Anyway, like I say, I didn’t really want to join, but I like testing them. So I look up the name in the phone book: The Little Folks Club, downtown, and walks in there one day, with my Great Dane and my two-foot cane. They had like kindergarten furniture, everything low down on the floor. There’s this blond at the reception desk, maybe two-six, nice body on her. I asks if I could join up. She look at me like she ain’t never seen a midget before, then at my dog, and runs on into the inner sanctum and in a minute she comes out with this official-looking cat. He wearing a little Ivy League suit with a vest and these big glasses. He tried all kinds of ways to tell me they didn’t allow no niggers to join, and I play it dumb, asking questions, twisting his mind around, letting my dog lick his face. Finally I asks him how short you got to be to join. He say they didn’t let no one in who taller than three feet. I look him in the eye, calm and quiet as you please, then shouts, ‘Three feet? Why, man, that’s discrimination! I’m afraid I couldn’t join no club with such an unfair policy. Some of the best midgets I know is three-foot-one!’ And I jumps up on my dog’s back and rides out of there. That’s Charles for you!”
Only Mitchell did not laugh. Bigotry was not to him a laughing matter. The rest spun with laughter, hiding their faces on each other’s shoulders.
“Say, you is out of it,” Glora whispered, then kissed his ear. “Come on, I’ll teach you the New York way.” She embraced him.
The music had turned slow—a high tenor over a rumble. Couples stood still on the floor, their arms around each other. Mitchell wanted to pull away, but knew he had to pretend; anything to find Cooley.
“Tell me about Canada.” He could just hear her above the music. Her breasts were not at all hard. He began to sweat.
“It’s cold and there’s a lot of snow.”
“Ooooh.” She squeezed him tighter. There was perfume in her hair. Suddenly, he wanted to bury his face in it, kiss her scalp, but was afraid. And now he could feel himself getting excited, was afraid of that too.
“Listen, before I forg
et, I want to pay.” He pushed her away.
She shook her head. “Mitchell, you been with white people too damn long. You don’t even know how to relax—all tied up in knots, thinking about money. This the weekend, man.”
She took his hand and led him to the door, pointed: “My mama’s in the kitchen. Pay her.” She was angry. “And while you’re there, get a couple drinks in you. That’s the way white folks do, ain’t it? Can’t have a good time until they get drunk and start breaking things.” She shook her head again. “Sometimes I think the Jesuits is right. I seen more good niggers ruined by integration!”
15
IT WAS ONLY a few steps to the kitchen. Just inside the door, a table blocked the way, a money-filled saucepan in the center. Behind the table, the kitchen was a high-ceilinged room. At one time it had been some bright color. Now it was impossible to tell what color; no one would have chosen the gray which covered the walls.
At the far end was a spattered white stove, crouching hidden behind a Black woman at least as tall and twice as wide as Mitchell. She wore a black dress decorated with large yellow sunflowers, one of which stretched across her broad back, like the picture on a team jacket.
“Is this where I pay?”
“No place else, baby.” She turned now, smoke rising from an iron kettle behind her. She was the woman he had seen sitting beside the highway.
“Well?” She moved toward the table. “Ain’t you got change?” She stood behind the table, large hands hanging at her sides. “It’s in the pan there. Go on, I trust you.”
“Didn’t I see you a few hours ago on the highway?”
She wrinkled her tiny nose. “Highway?”
Perhaps he was mistaken. But…“You look very familiar to me.”
“I ain’t never been to Canada.”
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