The fat man, who had been talking when Carlyle came in, continued: “Can’t see why he’d want to do that, can you, Garland? But ain’t that just like a nigger!” He was very dark. The skin under his chin was heavily pocked and scarred.
“And just like a white woman too!”
“Man, these cats marry some colored girl when they starting out, just singing in joints and dives. She supports him while he’s trying to get ahead. But then he gets a hit record, or a job at the Waldorf and—bingo!—he drops her quick, gets a divorce, and marries some white bitch.”
“White chicks know where it’s at. They laying in wait for him. When he makes it, they’ll cut in on a good thing every time. Anyway, it won’t last a year. And you can quote me on that.” Garland finished cutting great patches of hair from the man’s head and started to shape the back.
A short, light-skinned Negro opened the door and leaned in. “Hello, Garland.” He did not close the door and cold wind blasted in around him.
“Say, man, how you doing? You after the boy there. All right?” He continued to work, hardly looking at the head in front of him; he could cut hair blindfolded.
The short man nodded and closed the door behind him. He removed his coat, put his gloves carefully into a pocket, sat down, and stretched. Only then did he take off his hat. His hair was straight and black; he did not seem to need a haircut. “I read in The Amsterdam how Mister Cool and his white sweetie finally got shackled.”
“Yes, sir. We just talking about that.” Garland reached behind him, touched a switch and from an aluminum box, lather billowed into his palm. “Ain’t that just like a Negro!”
“And like a white bitch too!” the fat man added. “Don’t trim the sideburns, Garland. Just around the ears. I’ll trim the sideburns myself.”
Garland nodded. “Man, I seen the same thing happen a thousand times. A Negro making more money than a white man starting to act foolish like a white man. Even though he should know better. I guess it ain’t really that Negro’s fault. All his life he been poor and a nobody.” Garland put the lather behind the fat man’s ears. “So as soon as he gets some money it’s bound to mess up his mind.”
“Don’t touch the sideburns, Garland.” The fat man shifted under the striped sheet. “Yeah, I think you right. And them white bitches is waiting to ambush him.”
The short man folded his thin arms across his chest. “Well, don’t all a colored man’s problems begin with Mister Charlie and Miss Mary?”
“Mostly when Miss Mary wants to make time with her nigger chauffeur or handyman and Mister Charlie finds out about it. He don’t blame Miss Mary for it, that’s sure.” The fat man leaned forward.
Garland stopped shaving, reflecting. “Mostly when you find some white woman being nice to you, nicer than she ought to be. Then watch out!” He started to shave behind the fat man’s ears. “Them white women know where it’s at.”
The short man nodded. “Yeah, but I can’t see why no colored man’d want to marry no white chick on purpose like Mister Cool did. Not when there’s so many fine spade chicks around.”
Garland agreed. “I like my women the way I like my coffee: hot, strong, and black!”
The fat man jerked his head. “I guess he thinks he taking a step up. Now he thinks he better than all the other boots standing on the corner. He’s got himself a white recording contract with a big white company, and a booking at a fine, white night club, and a white Cadillac and an apartment on Park Avenue painted all white and a white bitch too. Why, man, he almost white himself…except for one thing: he still a nigger!”
They all laughed, slapping their thighs.
* * *
—
IT SEEMED MUCH COLDER with his hair cut short, his neck shaved clean. Carlyle trudged flat-footed, planting his feet firmly so as not to slip, up the middle of the carless street, through the shadows cast by the snow-clogged trees. He wished he could go home, take off his wet shoes, listen to records, and read the paper that each night his father carried home tucked under his arm. He knew too that the later it got, the angrier his father would be; his father liked to eat as soon as he came home. Besides, his father would want him or his little brother to clear their own driveway and Carlyle had not asked to take the shovel. He decided then, walking along the rutted street, he would not waste his time with small jobs; he would look for a long snowbanked walk of a house set way back from the street.
This is what he finally found, down a solitary side street lit faintly by a single street lamp at the middle of the block; the house, set back on a short hill that surely, in the spring and summer, would be a thick lawn, perhaps bordered with flowers. Snow clung to the empty, blackened branches of a hedge concealing a grotesque iron fence. The house too was grotesque, painted gray, its gables hung with dagger-like icicles.
He hesitated a moment, looking up at the house; there did not seem to be any light burning, and he did not want to wade twenty or thirty feet through shin-deep snow only to find no one at home. Going farther on up the sidewalk, he found a lighted window down the side near the back and he returned to the gate and started up the drifted walk.
The porch was wood and clunked hollow when he stamped the snow from his feet. He climbed the steps gingerly and peered at the names on the door-bell. If there was a man’s name, he still might not find work—women living alone or old couples usually needed someone more to clean snow. There was a woman’s name—Elizabeth Reuben—and a man’s too, but his, which was typed, had been recently crossed out. Carlyle rang the bell.
No longer walking, his feet got cold very quickly and when, after what seemed a long while, the door opened—and then only a crack—he was hopping from one foot to the other.
“Yes? What is it?” He could see a nose and one eye, could hear a woman’s voice.
“Miz Reuben?” He slurred the “miss” or “missus” so as not to insult her either way.
“Yes.”
“Would you like to have your walk shoveled?” He moved closer and spoke to the nose and eye.
There was a pause while she looked him over, up and down, and inspected the shovel he held in his hand. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t think so.”
“Well, uh…” There was nothing else to say. He thanked her and turned away.
“Wait!” It sounded almost like a scream. And then softer: “Young man, wait.”
He turned back and found the door swung wide. The nose and eye had grown to a small, plumpish, white woman of about forty in a pale blue wool dress. She was not exactly what he would have called pretty, but she was by no means a hag. She was just uninteresting looking. Her hair was a dull brown combed into a style that did her no good; her eyes were flat and gray like cardboard. “On second thought, young man, I think it would be nice to have my walk cleaned off. I’m expecting some visitors and it will make it easier for them…to find me.” She smiled at him. “But come inside; you must be frozen solid walking around in all this snow and cold.”
“That’s all right, ma’am. I’ll start right away.” He took a step back and lifted his shovel.
“You do as I say and come in the house this very moment.” She was still smiling, but there was enough of a mother’s tone in her voice to make him walk past her through the door, which she closed behind him. “Rest your coat and shovel there and follow me. I’m taking you into the kitchen to put something warm into your stomach.”
He did as she ordered and walked behind her down the hall, lit by a low-watt bulb in a yellowing shade.
The first thing he noticed was that the kitchen smelled of leaking gas. There was a huge pile of rags and bits of cloth on the table in the center of the room. There were more rags on the window sill and stuffed at the bottom of the back door.
She saw him looking at them. “It’s an old house. It gets very drafty.” She smiled nervously, wringing her hands.
“Now, are you old enough to drink coffee? Or would you rather have hot chocolate?”
He had remained on his feet. She bustled to the table and swept the rags onto the floor with her arm. “Sit down, please.” He did. “Now, what would you rather have?”
“Hot chocolate, please.”
“Hot chocolate? Good. That’s better for you.” She headed toward the stove, almost running; it was big and old-fashioned with a shelf for salt and pepper above the burners. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Carlyle, ma’am. Carlyle Bedlow.”
“Carlyle? Did you know you were named after a famous man?”
“No, ma’am. I was just named after my father. His name’s—”
She was laughing, shrilly, unhappily. He had said something funny but did not know what it was. It made him uneasy.
“What, dear? You started to say something. I interrupted you.”
“Nothing, ma’am.” He was wondering now what he had said, and why she was being so nice, giving him hot chocolate. Maybe she was giving him the hot chocolate so she could talk to him about things he did not understand and laugh at his ignorance. It was just like the men in the barbershop said: Most of a colored man’s trouble began with white people. They were always laughing and making fun of Negroes…
“Do you like your hot chocolate sweet, Carlyle? I can put some sugar in it for you.” Behind her voice he could hear the milk sizzling around the edges of the saucepan, could hear the gas feeding the flame.
“Yes, ma’am. I like it sweet.”
The milk sizzled louder still as she poured it across the hot sides into his cup. She brought it and sat across from him on the edge of her chair, waiting for him to taste it. He did so and found it good; with his mind’s eye, he followed it down his throat and into his stomach.
“Is it good?” Her gray eyes darted across his face.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled and seemed pleased. That puzzled him. If she had him in to laugh at him, why was she so anxious to get him warm, why did she want him to like the hot chocolate? There had to be some other reason, but just then the chocolate was too good to think about it. He took a big swallow.
“Well now, let’s get down to business. I’ve never had to hire anybody to do this before. I used to do it myself when I was younger and…then…there was a man here who’d do it for me…but he’s not here anymore.” She trailed off, caught herself. “How much do you usually get for a stoop and a walk that long?” She smiled at him again. It was a fleeting smile which warmed only the corners of her mouth and left her eyes sad. “I’ve been very nice to you. I should think you’d charge me less than usual.”
So that was it! She wanted him to do her walk for practically nothing! White people were always trying to cheat Negroes. He had heard his father say that, cursing the Jews in Harlem. He just stared at her, hating her.
She waited an instant for him to answer then started to figure out loud. “Well, let’s see. That’s a long walk and there’s the sidewalk and the stoop and the steps and it’s very cold and I probably can’t get anyone else…It’s a question of too little supply and a great deal of demand.” She was talking above him again. “I’d say I’d be getting off well if I gave you five dollars.” She stopped and looked across at him, helplessly. “Does that sound fair? I really don’t know.”
He continued to stare, but now because he could hardly believe what she said. At the most, he would have charged only three dollars, and had expected her to offer one.
She filled in the silence. “Yes, five. That sounds right.”
He finished his chocolate with a gulp. “But, ma’am, I wouldn’t-a charged you but three. Really!”
“Three? That doesn’t sound like enough.” She bolted from the table and advanced on him. “Well, I’ll give you the extra two for being honest. Perhaps you can come back and do something else for me.” She swooped on him, hugged, and kissed him. The kiss left a wet, cold spot on his cheek. He lurched away, surprised, knocking the cup and saucer from the table. The saucer broke in two; the cup bounced, rolled, lopsided and crazy, under the table.
“No ma’am.” He jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“That’s all right. It’s all right. I’m sor— That’s all right about the saucer.” She scrambled to her knees and began to pick up the pieces and the cup. Once she had them in her lap, she sat, staring away at nothing, shaking her head.
Now he knew for certain what she was up to; he remembered what Garland had said: When you find some white woman being nicer than she ought to be, then watch out! She wanted to make time with him. He started from the kitchen. Maybe he could leave before it was too late.
“Wait, young man.” She stood up. “I’ll pay you now and you won’t have to come inside when you’re through.” She pushed by him and hurried down the shadowy hallway. He followed her as before, but kept his distance.
Her purse was hanging on a peg on the coat-rack, next to his own jacket. She took them both down, handed him his jacket, averting her eyes, and fumbled in her purse, produced a wallet, unzipped it, pulled out a bill, and handed it to him.
“But it’s a five, ma’am.” He could not understand why she wanted to pay him that much now that he was not going to make time with her.
She looked at him for the first time, her eyes wet. “I told you I’d pay you five, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right. Do a good job. And remember, don’t come back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You let yourself out.” She started to the back of the house even before he had finished buttoning his jacket. By the time he opened the door she was far down the hall, and, as he closed it behind him and stepped into the dark, twinkling cold, he could hear her in the kitchen. She was tearing rags.
* * *
—
THE NEXT EVENING the white woman was in the newspaper. A boy trying to deliver a package had found her in the gas-filled kitchen, slumped over a table piled high with rags. Carlyle’s father, who saw it first, mentioned it at dinner. “Had a suicide a couple blocks from here.” He told who and where.
Carlyle sat staring at his plate.
His father went on: “White folks! Man, if they had to be colored for a day, they’d all kill they-selves. We wouldn’t have no race problem then. White folks don’t know what hard life is. What’s wrong, Junior?”
“She was a nice lady.”
His parents and his little brother looked at him.
“You know her, Junior?” His mother put down her fork.
“She was a nice lady, Mama. I shoveled her walk yesterday. She give me five dollars.”
“Oh, Junior.” His mother sighed.
“Five dollars?” His father leaned forward. “Crazy, huh?”
“Have some respect!” His mother turned on his father angrily.
Carlyle looked at his mother. “Are white people all bad? There’s some good ones, ain’t there, Mama?”
“Of course, Junior.” His mother smiled. “What made you think—”
“Sure, there is, Junior.” His father was smiling too. “The dead ones is good.”
The Most Beautiful Legs in the World
IF IT BEEN ONLY HER LEGS I was counting, I would-a had no objections to Hondo, my best friend, marrying her. She was walking around on the most beautiful legs I ever seen in a life of looking at legs. I can’t even describe them. I’ll just say they was the kind of legs that’d give you an upset stomach looking at them, or the sweats like you was guilty of breaking into a bedroom at the wrong time.
The rest of her looks wasn’t bad either, and her face was handsome. But I still had to object. You see, she didn’t have but one arm. Instead of a left arm she had a little stump with one finger coming out of it.
“Hondo, ain’t you afraid your kids
’d come out like that?” I was at his house.
“I looked into that, Carlyle.” He was dressing to take her out. “The doctor says nothing’ll happen to my kids. That ain’t passed on. It just happen once and then it let you alone.” He looked at me funny. “You ain’t marrying her. What’s it to you anyways?”
I’d been thinking about it and I had reasons. “Look, if you have a kid, I’m its godfather, right? So what do godfathers do? They buy presents and stuff like that. So what can I buy a godson what ain’t got but one arm. A baseball bat? A football? A set of golf clubs? No. I’ll tell you what I can buy him—a helmet. So if he running and fall, his head’ll be protected. That sure ain’t much godfathering for me to do!” I stopped and let that sink in.
“That won’t happen, I told you. So I don’t want to hear any more about it.” He finished putting on his shirt and tie and went out into the living room. I could hear him fumbling around in the closet. When I followed him, he was sitting on the sofa shining his shoes.
“Okay, your kids could be all right. But what the hell can she do? Can she cook and sew and clean a house?”
He was grinning, shaking his head. “She can do all that stuff. Her place is just as clean. The meals she cook me is better than any I ever ate.” He got up from the sofa and put the brush away. “One day I’ll carry you by to see how wrong you sound, man. Arm or no, she the swingingest chick ever crossed my path.”
He went back into his room and came back after a minute with his suit coat on.
“You might as well get ready to be my best man.” He smiled. I could only think to myself: you poor, dumb, innocent bastard!
It must-a been them legs of hers and him seeing too much of them. It was like she had them legs around his middle and was holding him for dear life. Somehow I had to pry him out before it was too late.
First off, I thought I’d show him she wasn’t all as handy as he thought, that he wouldn’t be able to have no fun with her. So what I did was invite him and her to go bowling. I figured she’d cop out because she’d know she couldn’t bowl with just one arm, but the next time I seen him, he said: “She thinks it’d be fun.”
Dancers on the Shore Page 15