by Claude Brown
I became a part of this. I had been making it for a long time, but I hadn’t noticed that there were so many other cats who had put down street life too. They were hip; they’d already made a name for themselves and gained street respect when they were coming up in Harlem. Now they were settled cats; not settled in the sense that they didn’t want to go anywhere and didn’t want to do anything, but settled in the sense that they weren’t going to go out and get in trouble and go to jail.
I admired these cats, and I thought that they had done more, far more than I had, in staying right there in Harlem and meeting all the pitfalls of street-life temptations and eluding the plague. I think everybody in the community sort of looked up to these young cats and respected them. I guess many of the older generation would look at them and wish that their sons or their nephews or whoever they had were like these nice young men. It was an admirable thing, because there were so many who had gotten wasted by the plague.
I felt that this was a new Harlem. I saw it as a sort of by-product of the plague generation. All those cats who stayed there and eluded the plague were strong. They were dynamic and beautiful cats. They all stood out, ten feet tall, because they had the strength of character not to be swallowed up in vice and crime. They were such a small segment that the drug generation had overshadowed them, but when I saw them, I knew that everybody in the community was aware of them and admired them. I was glad to be a part of this.
It made me feel strong just being in Harlem and being a part of this, even though I knew in my heart that I hadn’t achieved what these guys had. I had run away, I had hidden. That’s how I’d gotten away from it. Still, I felt good. I just wanted to be around them, as though some of their strength might rub off on me.
Whenever I went up to Harlem and saw somebody like Turk, I knew that all the junkies admired him, and all the kids and the older generation too. Here was a neighborhood boy who had really made good. Turk had become quite a reputable boxer now. Just about everybody in the neighborhood watched him on TV when he had a fight. Many, including me, had even gone down to watch a couple of his fights at the Garden. I guess it was a symbol of the achievement that was possible in the community. Damn, somebody from Eighth Avenue could make it.
One day we were coming out of the building where Turk had an apartment. He couldn’t get out of the house good before the junkies would pounce on him. Every junkie who saw him would come around with his hand out. Turk would reach in his pocket and keep giving out.
I stood on the side and watched this one day. After the junkies had scattered, gone on their way, I spoke to him about it. I said, “Turk, baby, you got a big heart, but I sure hope you don’t end up like Joe Louis.”
He smiled and said, “Sonny, it seems crazy to you, doesn’t it?”
I said, “Yeah, man. It damn sure does. Down my way, man, you could go broke like that. On Third Avenue near the Bowery, they’ve got a whole lot of panhandlers down there. I have to light all my cigarettes in the house, man. If I come out on Third Avenue with a pack of cigarettes, I can’t walk two blocks. Before I’ve gone a block and a half, the panhandlers have got the whole pack of cigarettes. They just seem to smell cigarettes and they come out begging. By the time you get two blocks, all you’ve got is a match, man. They’ve got the cigarettes and gone. Cigarettes aren’t that expensive, man, but I was just wondering how long that pocket you kept going into was going to hold up.”
Turk laughed. He said, “It’s not what it may appear to be, Sonny. I brought this money out just for this purpose. It’s seed money. Actually, I’ll get all the money back that I gave away, ten times that.”
“Yeah, man. As long as that good right holds out.”
“No, man. Have you ever heard of seed money, Sonny?”
“No, man. I’ve never heard of any seed money.”
“Man, brace yourself. I’m going to tell you a secret that you could get rich off of.”
I looked at him as if to say, “Are you all right, man?”
He said, “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I thought so too the first time I heard about this seed money. Believe it or not, Sonny, this is the way that most of the cats all over the world who are rich got rich, man. They got rich giving money away. The supreme powers that be, man, God, or whatever you want to call it—I call it fate myself—these supreme powers let you make a tenfold claim on them for any money that you give away, man, or for anything that you give away … behind a noble motivation.”
“Look here, Turk. I think you better start blocking better, baby, because you’re in the heavyweight division, and those boys are hitting kind of hard. I think it’s beginning to tell on you.”
He smiled. He said, “Yeah, man, I told you that you’d say this. As a matter of fact, I said something like that the first time I heard it, but this is the truth, man. When I come out and I give this money to these cats, or to anybody who asks for it that’s up tight, I’m giving to mankind. It’s like I’m planting the seed money in the soil of life, and the soil of life is kindness and good deeds. I think the supreme powers that be have just given it to me, like they’ve given it to all the wealthy men in my time and throughout the ages. They had some sort of kindness, man. I think fate knows who to bestow good fortune on.”
I looked at him for a while, and I said, “You know something, Turk? It’s hard to believe, man. I talk to you now, and I listen to you. It’s hard to believe that you were in that shit with us back there. I just can’t make the connection with you then and you now.”
“Yeah, Sonny, the truth is that none of us had any business in that. Not a cat I grew up with had any business in there. Tito’s got no business in Sing Sing. And did you hear that Dunny was in Attica?”
I said, “In Attica? What’s he doing in Attica? Dunny is only about twenty-four years old.”
“Yeah, but Dunny was always a hard cat. Some people, when they grow up … I think me and you, we got a little more human as we grew up. We softened to life. We started becoming people, believe it or not. We were crazy. Shit, running around with guns and knives and shit out there in the street. Sometimes I stop and look back and say, ‘Oh, shit. Was that really me?’ It’s hard to believe it now, Sonny. I look at you now, man, and people tell me you’re thinking about going to college.”
I said, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.”
“When I first heard it, I said, ‘Damn, is that the Sonny who I use to go out there and bebop with, and who was always trying to be so cold?’ Now, Sonny, I know that you were a fraud. Yeah, that’s right, a twenty-two-carat fake. And so were all of us. This was something we figured we had to be, because we’d come up in all that shit. As we went on, most of us just got softer, became more mature. I guess that’s what maturity is, seeing that all that shit was crazy.
“In Dunny’s case, Sonny, he … I don’t know man, but I think he had missed out on too much in life, and he just kept getting harder instead of getting softer. He got madder, madder with everybody in the world, so it seemed. I heard he was up at Sing Sing and up at Woodburn; he was up at Comstock, a whole lot of places, but they couldn’t keep him anywhere—even Auburn. They have killers up there, man, some stone killers. They had Johnny Wilkes up at Auburn, and James Fox is still up there.”
I said, “Oh, yeah? What happened to Johnny Wilkes? I thought he was still up there.”
“You didn’t hear about Johnny Wilkes?”
“No, what happened?”
“He killed a hack, and they had to send him to Materwann. His mind is gone, man. They say he hasn’t recognized anybody since then. He was a real mean cat.”
“Yeah, a lot of people said that, but I was never able to see Johnny as a mean cat, Turk. I figure I knew him better than most people.”
“Yeah, I guess you did, Sonny. I know you knew him better than me, but I could never see that cat as nothing but a cold killer.”
“Yeah, I guess he seemed that way to most people.”
“The way I heard it, m
an, this hack was messing with him, and he’d told the hack that he was going to kill him the next time. This hack pushed him once after that, and he just turned around and threw him off a balcony … those tiers; you know, those things they have in jail, Sonny.”
I said, “I wouldn’t know,” and we both smiled.
“Well, shit, you’ve seen the movies haven’t you?”
“Yeah, Turk, I guess I’ve seen it.”
He said, “Well, man, he just threw the cat off it. Then they took him away. They put a straitjacket on him. It took six guards to cool him down. I hear it was over a year ago, and he’s still bouncing around in a rubber room. He hasn’t recognized anybody since then.”
“Damn! That’s an ice-cold end. I never would have expected that for Johnny.”
“I’m sorry I told you now.”
“No, man, I guess he had to go some hard way or another. He was always unhappy. Maybe that was his way of getting away from it all, Turk.”
He said, “We changed, man. Most of us changed. I saw Mac about three weeks ago. The cat’s working. He’s got a job with a paint firm. He’s happy; he’s married and got a daughter. Actually, Sonny, he should never have gone to Coxsackie. He just never had any business in this thing. All of us, believe it or not, we were nice guys. Maybe that was our trouble, that we were afraid because we were such nice guys. I guess that’s what this maturity thing is about, growing up and being able to face being what you are.”
“Yeah, Turk. Maybe that’s it.”
Turk said, “Sonny, I’m glad that you come up more often now, because you’re the only cat I know who I can talk to like this. Most of the cats around here … I just talk the shit that you’re suppose to talk. I seldom say the things that are really on my mind, man. When you come up, I can talk to you, anything that’s on my mind. You may say I’m crazy, but I know you don’t really think it, and I know you’re going to say something that I might tell you is crazy.”
I punched him lightly on the shoulder.
Turk said, “Man, don’t do that, Sonny. If we were in the ring, I’d be afraid of you.”
“Why?”
“I’d be thinking you were trying to make love to me.”
“Yeah, all that boxing and all that psychology is getting to you. You better watch out.” We laughed.
“Sonny, I thought you had put us down, man, had gone white on us.”
“Yeah, man, I think I could’ve done it, if it wasn’t for the fact that I was so obviously colored. I’d have trouble passing, being my complexion.”
“Yeah, I saw Tony, man. He told me that you had some cute little white girl down there, and I thought you had given up the colored folks completely.”
“No, I guess I was trying something different, Turk, but I know better now. I have dreams about getting away from that Harlem thing. I mean, getting it out of my mind … and wanting to get close to people. I guess the first thing I’d like to do is get a decent girl.”
“Damn, Sonny. That’s nothing, man. You don’t have to rush.”
“Yeah, man. You can go on and talk that shit because you’re married and got a good-doin’ wife and a wonderful little girl.”
“Damn, look at you, Sonny; you’re only about twenty-one. You’ve got years.”
I said, “Yeah. It would seem like that, wouldn’t it? Look, Turk, I don’t know about this spiritual thing, but I’m going to try planting some of this seed money. I’m going to try planting some of this seed money just to see what kind of a tree I’ll grow.”
It was as though I had found my place and Harlem had found its place. We were suited for each other now. I decided to move. I didn’t exactly decide. Somebody decided to move me. The landlord I was paying the rent to took the guy who owned the building to court. He lost the case, so everybody had to go.
A few months before, I had quit my job in the watch repair shop, and now I was working with a group of fireproofing people on Long Island. They were contract painters, and they fireproofed and soundproofed ceilings. It paid two dollars an hour for nonunion men, and that was pretty good for me. It paid the rent and permitted me to continue playing the piano in my spare time.
It was all right for a while, until I realized what was happening. After I became accustomed to the job, I found out I just couldn’t stay there. I was doing more work than anyone else and getting less money. It seemed that they always kept one Negro around to do the heavy work, the jobs nobody else wanted to do. So I decided to get fired and collect unemployment compensation for a while. I was collecting something like forty-two dollars a week, and that was all right. That would pay my rent and the bills, and I had a lot of time to do other things. I could practice the piano for eight hours or more if I wanted to.
I started selling cosmetics about that time. It wasn’t so much for the money—there wasn’t that much money in it—but for the experience. I ran into a fellow on the street, a guy I had gone to evening high school with. He was a Harlemite, and always hustling. They called him Shorty. Shorty used to be always on the go, always trying to make that next dollar, and he always had a lot of plans. He was always telling me about his plans for getting ahead. He wanted to go to college. He wanted to become a businessman in Harlem and do something for Harlem. Shorty was the kind of guy who I felt could do what he wanted to do.
He was always selling some kind of cosmetics, and he was a good salesman. He used to tell me about the people he met selling cosmetics. After a while, I became so interested in this, I thought it was something I’d like to do, just to meet the kind of people that Shorty told me about. He said that he could take me up to the place he was selling for, Rose Morgan Cosmetics. He asked me if I knew Rose Morgan. I said I didn’t know her, but I’d heard of her. I knew she was the woman who was married to Joe Louis once.
He said, “Yeah, that’s the woman. She’s a good businesswoman, man, and she’s a fair person. Why don’t you come on up and meet her? I’m sure you’ll really be impressed by her, Sonny, because you’re the kind of guy who could dig something like this. She wants to do something for Harlem and for the people too.”
I said, “Yeah, I’d like to meet her.”
He said, “Okay, well, come up to this address tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.” He gave me the address of a shop up on 145th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway.
I went up there and saw her. I liked the people who were working there. They started telling me things about how to sell cosmetics. As a matter of fact, I was told to come there every morning for an hour lecture on just how to sell cosmetics and beauty products.
I started selling the cosmetics. At first it seemed kind of slow and dull. I couldn’t make any money, and it wasn’t very gratifying to be made to feel that you weren’t a good salesman. I told Shorty about it, and he said, “You got to keep trying, man.”
I went around with him for a half a day once. He was showing me how he approached customers. I got a few hints from him, and I started working long hours. Sometimes I would do this all day and part of the night. I liked it. I’d just be certain that I got four hours in on the piano during the day.
I had gotten my diploma from high school, and now I wasn’t certain what I was going to do. I wanted to go to college, but it seemed like a dream. I didn’t have any money. I didn’t think I was good enough to get a scholarship from anywhere. There were a lot of things happening that made me sort of look at my desire to go to college as just one of those dreams that couldn’t possibly come true.
There I was. I had gotten my diploma, I was twenty-one years old. It was kind of old for going to college, but I took the college entrance exam up at Columbia University. I told the folks about it. I should have known they wouldn’t understand, but they were the only people I had, so who else could I tell?
I said to my father, “Look, Dad, I’ve passed the entrance exam for Columbia University.”
He said, “Columbia University? Ain’t that that school up on Broadway around IIoth Street?”
“
It’s around 115th Street and Broadway.”
He said, “Yeah, yeah, I know where that is. I passed it sometimes when I was going to work.”
“Yeah, that’s the same school.”
“Well, that’s nice. Did you hear what the first figure was?”
I felt like somebody who is looking for a bar and ends up in a church. I felt as though I’d brought the wrong news. I said, “No, I didn’t hear the first number, Dad. I didn’t hear anything.”
“Well, it’s probably better that I don’t know it. I’ll bet I didn’t make it.”
I thought to myself, I guess he didn’t hear me either, or it just didn’t make any difference. This is crazy. I couldn’t expect him to understand. I shouldn’t have expected anybody to understand.
I didn’t say anything more about the school thing. It was nice to go, and that was all there was to it. I didn’t have any money, and I knew it took money to go to school. I decided to just sell cosmetics and play the piano.
In selling cosmetics, I became involved in Harlem, really involved. I was in Harlem all day. Most of the night, I’d hang out up there with the cats I knew. I’d moved up to Ninetieth Street. I got closer to the people. I was able to see them better.
I was always walking around with my sample case. Sometimes I’d knock on somebody’s door like the Fuller Brush man, and I would say, “Good morning, madam. I’m here to interest you in Rose Morgan beauty products,” or something like this.