Dem

by William Melvin Kelley

Mitchell was confused, decided to let the matter drop. “Is this where I pay?”

  “That’s what I said. Don’t you light-skinned niggers never listen to anybody but white folks?”

  “Why, yes.” He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet. “And could I have three drinks. Do you have bourbon?”

  “Course I do.” She bent into a cabinet, brought out the bottle. “Three?” She squinted at him.

  Perhaps three drinks were too many. “Yes.” He wanted them all himself; they might relax him. “One’s a double.”

  She poured the drinks, using a jigger glass with a thick bottom. “What’s wrong now?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “What’s wrong with you, boy? You a retard?” She did not wait for his answer, but returned to the stove, picked up a two-pronged fork, began to spear each piece of chicken, bringing it close to her face for inspection.

  He choked down a large swallow. “It’s just that I think I’ve seen you before.”

  Her back to him: “I probably look like your mama.”

  Mitchell smiled, almost laughed. His mother, dead now eight years, had been small and dry. “No, that’s not it.” He took another swallow. The alcohol could not possibly be in his arteries yet, but knowing it was on its way made him feel better. “But—”

  “I get one of you at every party Glora gives.” She spun around. “You light-skinned, educated boys! Young Black girls scare you, so you come out and talk to mammy.”

  Mitchell tried not to laugh. “Really, that’s not—”

  “Well, mammy’s a girl too and she ain’t got time for scared boys.” She smiled suddenly. “Unless you want to come on in the kitchen with me.” She shook her head. “No, you don’t want that. Go on away from here. Mammy ain’t got no time no more for scared boys. Mammy wants men!”

  Mitchell finished the double bourbon. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Then why you hanging around the kitchen?” She advanced on him, pointing the prongs of her fork at his eyes. “Go on now.”

  He backed away, into the darkness of the hall, and wandered, paper cup in hand, toward the dancing room. Glora was on the floor, moving inside her pink slacks. He stared at her, growing more confident all the time, certain that even across the room she would be able to feel what he was thinking about her. But she did not turn from her partner.

  He stepped onto the floor, to cut in, but at that moment, saw Carlyle in a far corner talking to another man, their foreheads nearly touching. He came up behind them. “Hi, Carlyle.”

  “We was just talking about you.” He put his arm around the other man’s shoulder. “Here’s a man who knows where you can find Cooley. Ain’t that right, Calvin.”

  Calvin nodded. He was Mitchell’s height and very dark, with pouches under his eyes, a thin mustache below his sharp nose. His hair was short, neatly parted. He was wearing a dark suit and white shirt. He too looked familiar, but Mitchell had to admit now that he did not know enough Black people to be able to tell them apart. He had always considered this a cliché, but realized now that it was at least partly true.

  Carlyle told him that Calvin’s last name was Johnson. Mitchell shook his hand, rough and cracked, but with a weak grip. “So what’s happening?”

  “Happening? Oh, nothing. You know Cooley?”

  Calvin nodded. “I ain’t seen him in about a week, but I’m pretty sure I know where he is. Carlyle says you ain’t telling why you want to see him.”

  Mitchell realized now that, given Black people’s fear and suspicion, his not telling his reasons could make it difficult to find Cooley. “You see, it’s kind of private. I…”

  “Ain’t planning to kill him, are you?”

  “Me?” Calvin was not joking. “No. I just want to talk to him.”

  “You understand my position, don’t you? I wouldn’t want to set up a friend of mine for a killing.”

  This talk of murder made Mitchell uneasy. “Sure, I know that.”

  “Good.” He turned to Carlyle, smiled, then his tired eyes were on Mitchell again. “But I hope you won’t be offended if I don’t trust you for a while. I seen squarer-looking killers than you. So we’ll just hang out and if you seem like you telling the truth, then maybe I’ll take you to see Cooley. That sound all right to you?”

  “Sure, but I really don’t want to hurt him.” He did not like the pleading in his voice, tried to harden it. “There may be some money in it for him.”

  “Okay. But if the deal’s a good one, it’ll keep, now won’t it.”

  “I guess so.” Mitchell was beginning to wonder whether it might be better just to forget about finding Cooley. He could force Tam to give the baby to an adoption agency. Her mother would help him. He did not at all like the people he was meeting.

  Calvin smiled at him. “I know you want to find him. And I’ll help you. But Cooley and me is close, and got to stick together. The business we in, can’t take no chances.”

  Mitchell nodded.

  “Carlyle tells me you like Glora a little bit.” He leaned closer. “What say you take Glora; Carlyle and me’ll get us some ladies, and we can go over to a place I know of and drink up some liquor and…see what happens. It got lots of guest rooms.”

  Mitchell was about to refuse, but Calvin turned him around so that he could see Glora’s pink slacks. He watched for a few moments, then agreed. It was important that he win Calvin’s confidence.

  16

  CARLYLE DROVE, Gerri-Ann (his girl?), in a light blue coat with some kind of fur collar, beside him. Calvin sat in the death seat, his arm lying on the seat, his hand, one finger ringed, just behind Carlyle’s wine-colored shoulder. Glora and Rochelle (who seemed to be Calvin’s girl) flanked Mitchell in the back. He could feel Glora’s soft hip through slacks and outer coat. Rochelle’s legs were crossed, and something—perhaps the clasp of her garter belt—was digging into him. They were leaving Harlem.

  “How you doing there?” He could see Calvin’s face in profile, the darkness equalizing his color, his hooked nose making him a Jew.

  Glora rested her red head on his shoulder. “He doing fine. Ain’t you?” Her fingers were making their way through the spaces between the buttons of his overcoat, through his suitcoat, to his shirt. Sharp nails caught in the bandagelike material of his undershirt.

  “Yes.” The street sign told him he was on Eighth Avenue. Then the neon signs ended and he saw the low stone wall of the park, behind it trees.

  The back seat was shrinking. Rochelle seemed constantly to cross, uncross her legs. He glanced at her, found her staring at him, nodding her head. She uncrossed, recrossed her legs again, then suddenly turned away; he was looking at the back of her head, the hair in the kitchen cut into a V.

  He sank down into the seat, enjoying Glora’s hand massaging his stomach. So this was how Black people were by themselves. He had often seen carloads of them, had wondered where they were going, what they would do when they got there. Now he was finding out.

  Then Carlyle had stopped, was parking the car. They climbed out onto the pavement, cold even through his shoes. Mitchell was still wedged between the two girls.

  He dozed in the elevator, the three bourbons and two more besides, pressing his eyes shut. They woke him, made him walk—down the marble-floored hall, into Calvin’s apartment, dropped him onto a large white leather sofa, put a drink into his hand.

  He opened his eyes, the glass half-empty now, and watched Glora dance with Carlyle—too close, and he wondered if she was really his girl. He struggled to his feet, pushed Carlyle away, glimpsed her lavender lips before she rested her head on his chest; his hands slipped between the waistband of her pink slacks, his fingers pinched the elastic on her underpants.

  The music stopped; he opened his eyes. Carlyle and Gerri-Ann were gone. So was Rochelle. Calvin sat in the middle of the sofa, rather small, looking un
comfortable. But he raised his glass to Mitchell, then pointed past him, nodding. Mitchell danced Glora in a circle until he could look down a hallway, where he knew he would find Calvin’s guest rooms. He completed the circle, to signal Calvin he understood, but Calvin had disappeared.

  Of course, Glora wanted to make love to him, had been flirting with him all evening, but he was not quite sure how to introduce the topic. With Tam, he had waited politely until she showed him that she would not reject him. She had been working as a reader in a publishing house then, had invited him to her apartment for dinner. They had finished a bottle of good wine, listened to some Brahms, talked, necked. Then she had guided his hand to her breast.

  But this was a Black woman. He tried to remember what the Southerners he had known in the Service had told him about Black women. But even their experiences had been somewhat different. Glora was not a prostitute, and he was not planning to rape her.

  The answer was simple enough—so simple in fact that he realized he must be quite drunk not to have found it immediately. Glora thought he was Black. He would simply do and say what he thought Carlyle, Calvin, or perhaps even Cooley, would do and say in the same circumstances. There was even some justice in it. Cooley had taken advantage of Tam’s unhappiness. Now he, Mitchell, would take advantage of one of their women. He would convince Glora to help him find Cooley.

  He began by sitting her on the sofa, his arm around her. “You never told me where you work.”

  “Huh?” She had been leaning, snuggling against him. She sat up slowly, blinking.

  He smiled, tried to relax his face. “I asked you where you work?”

  “Why you want to know that?” Before he could answer, she asked him for a cigaret. He gave her one, held a light for her, staring at her over the flame.

  “I want to know as much as I can about you.”

  She took a drag, her lips leaving lavender on the white filter. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I think I’ll be moving to New York soon and I want to see you again.”

  She gave him her golden smile. “Your wife won’t like that a bit.” Before he could ask how she knew he was married, she answered him: “Carlyle told me. He say you got a little boy.” She leaned toward him, put her arms around his neck, smeared lipstick from one side of his mouth to the other. “But what I care! Maybe you’ll give me a baby too, and have to come visit me.”

  His plan seemed to be working. He put his hand under her sweater, whispered, “Why don’t”—clearing his throat—“why don’t we find an empty room.”

  She stood up, took his hand and pulled him to his feet, smiling, and led him down the hallway, past several closed doors, where he guessed he would find Carlyle, Calvin, and their girls. They entered the last room. She closed the door, walked to a low dresser, and looked at herself in the mirror.

  Then she placed her fingers to her temples, as if to hold a headache, and lifted away her red hair. Underneath, her hair was black, kinky, a round lamb hat.

  For some reason, it frightened him, and he took a step backward, trying to recover himself. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  She was proud. “I know. It’s a good one. I saved for six months.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, grabbed the bottom of the yellow sweater. Her head popped from the neckband. Her bra, against copper skin, was light green.

  Lurking near the door, he watched her go to the bed, fold back the spread. The light green straps blinked like neon. When she had finished preparing the bed, she sat down, looked at him. “Anything wrong?”

  He was trying to think of what Cooley would say, but the Cooley of his imagination remained silent. “I want to tell you about my wife.” He wished immediately that he had not said that.

  “Now?” She reached for the button on her pink slacks.

  “Only that she’s a bitch.” He enjoyed saying it, even if it was a lie.

  “I know that.” She stood up, slid the slacks down over her thighs. “If she wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here, right?”

  “Why, yes.” Her underpants were lemon yellow. He closed his eyes. Opening them, he found her no more than a foot away, her arms spread to him. “I’ll make up for that.”

  He backed up, but she kept coming. “Wait.” She put her hands on his waist, began to pull his shirt out of his pants. “Do you know Cooley?”

  She stopped, his shirttail between her fingers. “Cooley? Why…yeah, I know him.” She looked confused, retreated to the bed, and sat down. Cooley certainly had a profound effect on people.

  Sensing that he had thrown her off guard, he followed her. “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “Look, honey, I don’t want to get myself in no mess.”

  He sat down beside her, put his arm around her, speaking softly. “There won’t be any mess. I just want to talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  Perhaps he could tell her the truth, not that he was white, which, after the way he had completely deceived her would be too much for her, but everything else. Of course, he did not trust her. But after all she was sitting beside him almost naked, obviously had some feeling for him. He searched her face, realizing suddenly that he had seen it before, many times. The Black girl who worked in the file room at his office had the same face, and all of the girls he saw on the subway. They were all stupid, simple girls. Each wanted only a good job, a nice home, some bright clothes. And they were willing to do almost anything to get them. He need only give her a glimpse into his world and she would tell him everything he wanted to know. “I asked you before, where do you work?”

  She bit her lip. “I ain’t got a job.”

  “How would you like a nice job in a good company?” He was stroking her plump, soft arm.

  “I couldn’t get no job like that.” Already her dark eyes could see herself riding the subway downtown.

  “Yes, you could, with my help.” He kissed her ear; she tried to move away, but he held her. “I want to tell you a secret, Glora. Originally, I’m from Canada, but now I live in New York.” She did not seem surprised. “And I work in a big company downtown.” He remembered a movie he had seen a long time before. “I’m passing for white.”

  “Really?” She smiled.

  “Now, I’ll get you a good job in my company and all you have to do is tell me where I can find Cooley.”

  He saw fear in her eyes now. “Why you want to find him?”

  “If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone, except Cooley. You do want that good job, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  He sighed, hating to mouth the words, especially to someone like this. “My wife just had his baby.”

  “She really is a bitch, ain’t she?”

  He did not reply, knowing she would never understand all that had happened between him and Tam. “And I want Cooley to take the baby.”

  “Bye-bye job.” She shook her head. “Cooley won’t want no baby.”

  “I think he’ll want this one.” He decided not to tell her why. Then she would know he was not Black. Cooley might not want just any woman’s baby, but this was Tam’s baby—half-white. Of course he would want the baby. “It’s a good job.” And it would be nice to have her indebted to him, close at hand. “Well, what d’you say?”

  “What you think, honey?” She tossed herself into his arms, pushed him down onto the bed, began to kiss his face. “And I’ll be good to you too.” She was on top of him. He inhaled her perfume, smiling, and reaching around her back, unhooked her bra. She began to undress him.

  Both naked, they slid under the covers. He could not take his hands out of her hair; it pushed against his fingers like a sponge. At first he found it distasteful, but then began to enjoy it. Between kisses, she kept talking. “So you ain’t from Canada. You had me fooled. I bet you really fool those white folks downtown. You so cool. And you wait
until I get there. All you got to do is call me in your office. ‘Glora, will you bring me them letters from so-and-so company?’ I’ll have my pants down before you can close the door. One time, I was working downtown, in a mail-order house, for a little white man. He looking at me all the time. So I figured maybe it’d be good for a raise and I ran into him one night, accidentally.” She winked down at him. “He took me up to his place and made his play for me. You thank God you never had to make it with no pasty-faced white man.” She laughed so hard she rolled off him, and almost off the bed. She crawled back to him, rested her spongy head on his chest. “Let me tell you, honey, going over, he squeal like a little fat pig: eeee eeee eeee!” She started to laugh again. “That was the last time. I bet if any white man even get close to me, I’d know it. Eeee eeee eeee! You sure you ain’t passing for colored, Mitchell?”

  He denied it, trying to joke, but felt as if she had thrown ice water on his stomach and thighs. For the next fifteen minutes, he tried to recover. It was hopeless. Finally, he sat up.

  She looked at him from the pillow, bewildered, perhaps a little angry.

  He knew that unless he gave her a reason, she would not help him, might even turn against him. “It’s an old war wound,” he explained. “I never know when it’s going to hit me.”

  She sat up, her face softer, and hugged him. “Sure is terrible the sacrifices a man got to make for his country.” She kissed his shoulder. “You call me when you get over it.”

  He dressed, took her phone number, kissed her good-bye, all the while trying to avoid her dark eyes. “I’ll be all right. I’ll call you tomorrow, about Cooley.”

  “You do that, honey.” She smiled, but suddenly buried her face in the pillow. Her back began to shake, short quick little shakes as if she was giggling. He had really disappointed her.

  Outside, the sky was gray, the trees in the park black. He found his car and drove home, surprised to discover that the distance between Calvin’s house and his own was less than a mile.

  17