Ms. Etta's Fast House

by McGlothin, Victor

  “All right then, that’s more like it,” M.K asserted uneasily, as he made an attempt toward restoring normalcy. “Baltimore, you remember the carnival we broke in down south. I was just telling Ollie and Delbert what a time we had that weekend. Go ahead and tell them, about the Birmingham twins.”

  “I ain’t stud’n no twins scam, M.K. I’m busy trying to make something outta myself.”

  “Like what exactly? Something other than a shiftless niggah I hope?” he teased, using Henry’s rants.

  “Yeah, a rich shiftless niggah,” Baltimore jested, with a raised glass of whiskey.

  M.K. drank to that and made a number of other toasts for the sake of tying on a good one, after pulling an eighteen hour shift patching up cuts and wounds. He was willing to drink the night away if it meant getting Baltimore to agree on arranging another fixed beauty contest where the winners owed them personally on the back end. Having to tell the story himself, M.K. didn’t leave anything out.

  “Three years ago while blowing some money down in Alabama, Baltimore ran across a set of beautiful twenty-year-old twins at the supermarket. He bought a sack of beer and chips then went on back to their apartment. One of them wouldn’t give up nothing because the other was watching, so he come and got me to even the odds, but by the time we got there, two other fellas had drank up all the beer and hemmed the girls in for the night. Not to be outdone, Baltimore told the man at a carnival booth that he was sponsoring a prettiest twins contest for women ages nineteen to ninety. The man running the show thought it was a good enough idea, so he worked it up and cleared over three hundred dollars in popcorn and pickle sales while people stood around looking the girls over and voting. Just before the ballots were counted, I snuck around back and dumped them in a trash bin, then I stuffed the boxes to put in the fix. After the carnival closed, me and Baltimore spent all night with the winning contestants, two lovely burlesque dancers who couldn’t thank us enough, even though they were still trying to when the sun came up.”

  After a few more drinks and exaggerations thrown in on the side, Baltimore did come around to seeing M.K.’s point about twinning and winning. Delbert was simply glad to be among men with something on their minds other than bandages and bumps and bruises. He’d seen his share of those to last him a long while. What Delbert wanted was his first female conquest. Twins wouldn’t have been a bad start although getting his kicks with two women was more than any man could hope for on his first time out of the gate.

  While stumbling back to the residence’s quarters after hours of drinking and trading tales about lascivious living, Delbert needled M.K. for his wild stories about loose women, especially a particular pair he’d mentioned earlier. Ollie didn’t object because he was looking to get his hands on a pair of identical beauties himself after hearing all about it. “O.K., but this is the last time. Now there I was, waiting for the carnival man to announce the winning contestants. Phyllis, she had the biggest titties of the two, I think, was standing up on that bandstand grinning and waving those melons at me. I had to tighten my belt to keep my pecker in my pants. But when I got her alone that night, I set it free and then went looking for her sister Mildred in the next room, only Baltimore had already ground her down to nothing and sent her off to sleep. Oh, man, we did some wild things then,” he reminisced.

  “Talk about wild things, I heard Baltimore’s got his hooks in that snooty nurse Dinah Leonard that won’t let nobody else get close to her,” Ollie said, hoping it wasn’t true.

  “If I know Baltimore, he’s put way more than his hooks in her,” answered M.K., smiling and nodding as they walked up the hospital lawn. “He’s putting a mighty firm piece of meat in her too. Once he gets ’em, he’s got ’em.”

  Ollie grimaced, learning that Baltimore had a reputation for pleasing the ladies as well as attracting them. “I’d better start on the low end of the talent pool and work my way up, least that way I can guarantee keeping my wick wet. I’m so glad those nursing school girls do anything to get on a doctor’s lap.”

  “I managed to hook two of them already,” M.K. chuckled as he staggered up the back steps. “It ain’t like I’ve had ’em join in together yet, but I won’t give up trying.”

  “Like those Birmingham twins, M.K.?” Delbert asked, wanting him to tell the story for the third time.

  “Hold up, wait a minute.” M.K. glanced at Ollie then poked Delbert in the chest with his thick index finger. “Don’t tell me you haven’t cinched your first big city notch since you’ve been in town? Come on, Tex, I put you in real good with that healthy ox Belle that night at the Fast House and besides, there’s a whole floor of nursing students living over in the east wing dormitories. With all of that possibility in your face, why is your sack still dragging the ground? I mean, you do like girls, don’t you?”

  “It hadn’t occurred to me to ask either,” Ollie said, smirking curiously.

  Delbert felt like his back was against the wall. He didn’t want his contemporaries mistaking him for a sissy so he decided to do a Texas two-step and dance around the truth. “Hell yeah, I like girls,” he protested loudly before hushing his own voice. “It’s just that I haven’t had a lot of experience with fast women.”

  “Huh, them’s the only kind you’re gonna get any experience with,” said M.K. “Tell you what I’m fixing to do, get me some sleep before they start cracking tomorrow’s whip. I’d suggest y’all do likewise. Delbert, I’m expecting you to get some experienced pussy before your nuts back up, explode and drown us all. Thank you and good night.”

  14

  HARD DAY’S WORK

  Scared to death along with the four other colored men who scored passing grades on the police exam, Henry slipped off his clothing in what appeared to be a supply closet turned makeshift dressing room. He didn’t know what he was thinking, trusting white men with his safety as well as his success. The night before, he’d made an appointment to meet with an insurance salesman. In the front room of their home, Henry’s wife Roberta cried a puddle on the rented furniture while signing the accidental life policy which made her the sole beneficiary. Although she agreed that it made perfect sense to prepare for the worst, just in case, her tears left a stain on Henry’s heart. This police business was serious and so was his marriage. They were tied together, holding him steady, firm against the winds of his past. With Baltimore and Etta standing in direct opposition, he’d need all of the help he could get trailblazing unchartered territory.

  His nervous toes danced upon the cold cement floor and added to the chilling aspect of uncertainty. The colored men were asked to undress apart from their white counterparts, who were given full access to the temperature controlled dressing area, individual lockers and running water. Long before the days of separate but equal, Henry’s band of five was relegated to accommodations which amounted to cramped storage space and a wooden bench. None of them had knowledge of better conditions just across the hall until they were ordered to step into the examination area in their underwear, for immediate inspection.

  As Henry peeped out of the small, non-ventilated room, Trace and Smiley were close behind. “Stop pushing,” Henry complained. “I’m feeling shaky enough as it is.”

  “Ain’t this a bunch of nothing?” smarted Patton Jones, the smallest of the five by several inches. He scratched at his pea-sized head and then he smirked. “Y’all been damn near butt-naked around each other for years and now all of a sudden you scared for some white boys to see your skivvies. Move outta the way.”

  “Where you off to, P.J.?” Smiley asked, with a full set of ashy knees and elbows.

  “To get poked and pulled on by the doctor. They say this check-up is the beginning of getting into the department.”

  “He’s right, fellas,” Henry asserted boldly. “Let’s get over there and show them how real cadets are supposed to look.”

  Each of them straightened their backs and strutted out in formation, in their multicolored boxer shorts and just as ostentatious undershirt
s. Several uniformed policemen gawked, scowled and laughed at the assortment of loose ends that appeared out of place and doomed to failure. “Good Lord, it’s worse than I thought. I didn’t know the circus was in town,” one of the veterans hissed. Others weren’t as kind in their assessments of the new recruits.

  Just inside the locker room, they were greeted by a line of pale farm boys and youthful city slickers also anxiously waiting to get the process underway. One look at those clean-cut applicants, in matching white underwear told Henry and his surprised clique two things right off—they didn’t get the memo about generic drawers and they weren’t going to share that posh locker room, not without a fight.

  “Why do they get to huddle up in here and we got to situate in the broom closet?” Willie B. asked, seething beneath the skin. “Henry, you know this ain’t right.”

  “Yeah, I see that, but this ain’t the time to make a stand about it. We’s got to pick our battles, a little at a time,” Henry replied, before being hushed by a superior.

  “All right, quiet now!” barked a stout older officer in his street uniform. The policeman’s light blue shirt was stretched across his plump belly and his chin sagged like a wet stocking. Years of ordering cadets rounded out his physique. “By the looks of things,” he started in, “I don’t have to guess that everyone didn’t get the word about proper attire for the inspection. However, that’s no excuse. Everyone not dressed in white shorts and shirts, drop and gimme twenty pushups.” Initially the colored recruits thought he was merely joking but his stern expression begged to differ. “I said drop!” Instantly, those who didn’t get the memo assumed the position to answer their first command. While scoffing and laughing, the older cop mumbled to another one, “Now there’s no way they’ll pass the physical with their hearts racing a mile a minute.”

  “What the hell is going on here?” yelled the police chief, as he entered the den of prospective policemen. “Somebody better tell me why these men are being hazed and made to dress like some goddam clowns.” It was inconceivable to him that men would show up to a paramilitary organization wearing provocative undergarments. When no one spoke up, the stout officer eased out of the side door. “O.K., I was afraid this would get off to a bad start and boy, was I wrong,” he barked, with a tone shrouded in sarcasm. “Henry Taylor, is there something you want to tell me?”

  Henry’s chest was heaving in and out from the brief physical activity but he was more exasperated because of the fools they’d been made of. “No, suh,” he answered, staring straight ahead. “We was just getting a jump on the calisthenics, suh.”

  “I see,” said the chief, looking over the assortment of misfits. “Where’s Officer Brandish? I thought he was in charge of the uniforms and orientation.” The chief surveyed the room and again no one answered. “In no less than ten seconds, I want to see Brandish and the doctor in charge of first-day physicals,” he demanded. Within the time it took Henry to blink, men scattered about to locate this Brandish fellow and the physician.

  “Here he is, Chief!” hollered the junior officer who came up with Brandish first.

  Henry glanced to the side to see the man who was responsible for their initial difficulties. His eyes narrowed angrily when it turned out to be the stout cop who’d embarrassed them in the first place. ‘Now I know we’s in for it,’ Henry quickly surmised, and he couldn’t have been more right. Tom Brandish, they soon learned, was out to get them. He’d made up his mind that something had to be done to force each of the colored cadets off the training roster. They would have to take what he dished out in order to graduate and they accepted that from the beginning. Unfortunately, odds weren’t heavily in their favor.

  “Yes sir, Chief,” the fat man answered begrudgingly. “I was getting coffee. I didn’t think we were ready yet,” he lied, wiping his oily pink skin with a folded handkerchief. “I’d first like to say congratulations to each of you to for making the score on the civil servant examination. That allows you the chance to become a part of the Metro Police Department, but there will be other deciding factors before that happens,” Brandish said with a shifty sneer tossed at Henry. Once the chief felt good about things being on track, he stepped out in the hall for a photo opportunity with the local newspapers. “Let me warn you that non-compliance and/or failing to meet upcoming requirements will get you expelled from the training program. And don’t let the chief being here make you think I’m not running this operation. It’s my duty to put the best officers on the street.” Brandish stepped closer to Smiley and whispered, “That means you don’t stand a snowman’s chance in hell of making it, none of you dumb nigger bastards do.” Willie B. was thinking of breaking ranks and decking the pompous bigot, but the chief reentered with the deputy mayor and a host of cameramen. Flashbulbs lit up the room while the brass posed endlessly.

  “Good Lord, Chief,” the deputy mayor said. “Get a load of their drawers. It’s worse than I thought. Do something about that. At least they can all dress alike.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll get right on that. I’ve enlisted Clay Barker to lead the training detail. He knows most of the coloreds and is as good a cop as you’ll find.”

  “Chief, is he a man you can trust?” the mayor asked quietly. “The city needs to show the rest of the world that our coloreds get a fair shake in Saint Louis. Make it work and I mean that. It’s high time we prove how progressive we are.” Again the chief promised to stay on top of it. And for the second time, his boss took him at his word.

  “All right, simmer down,” said the chief, to a collection of unrelenting photographers. “We don’t want any pictures to run below the waist. We’re a professional unit and want to appear as such. It’s time we left Officer Brandish to his business.”

  Immediately, the news reporters dashed out like the room was on fire, undoubtedly sprinting to their offices to develop the film. “As I was saying, you will have a hard row to hoe, some more than others,” Brandish sniggled, as he read over the names on his list. “This is Doc O’Brien,” he announced as an old physician entered wearing a white lab coat and puffing on a foul smelling cigar.

  “Morning, gents,” he hailed politely. “Let’s sort ’em out and get a look at ’em. Whoa, Brandish, you’re short one candidate.”

  “Well, doc, you can forget about James Dodd showing his face. The jiggaboo got homesick for Joplin and beat it back there quick as spit. He was smart to get out while the getting’s good.”

  Despite Brandish’s ill-tempered comments, the train to progress started moving and all of the colored men in attendance were glad to be on it. “Spread out, drop your drawers and raise your arms shoulder high,” he demanded. After he looked over the recruits, checked their pulses, held their testicles and had them cough, he ordered each of them to stand in line near the wall where a height marker read 5’8”. The police regulations demanded officers range between five-feet-eight inches and six-feet-two. All others who passed the exam but didn’t measure up could apply for a position within another city department.

  When one of the white guys barely made the height, Willie B. squinted his sore black eye at P.J. “This is where you get off, runt,” he teased.

  “Are you Patton Jones?” the doctor asked P.J.

  “Yes, suh,” he answered slowly, trying to stretch his short frame up the wall without being detected.

  “Well, Mr. Jones, you’re also a bit undersized. Son, I’m sorry,” he added, drawing a line through P.J.’s name on his chart. “Gotta nix Jones, Patton L.,” yelled the doctor loudly, so that the equipment managers could hear him and scratch P.J.’s name off their list.

  “Sorry about that, P.J.,” said Henry as the slightly dejected man sadly slinked out of line.

  “Hell, I’m sorry they didn’t blackball me before the doc squeezed my jewels with his ice cold hands. I’ll make out all right. There’s a position in the motor pool with my name on it. Just give them hell, ’cause you know it’s coming.” The other men waved so long to him as he trekked back acros
s the hall. P.J. couldn’t do anything but laugh when he passed by two officers shorter than him before exiting the building. All he could say was, “It figures,” although he didn’t overlook it when Brandish laid his fat foot on the scale to help a skinny white kid make the one-hundred-fifty-pound weight requirement.

  Over the next three hours, the remaining cadets were shuffled from one room to the next, fingerprinted and measured for workout gear. No one thought it strange when the white men’s outfits fit perfectly but the colored men’s sizes weren’t even close. Everyone knew the score. It was merely an inkling of things to come. Four out of the ten would be subjected to tougher scrutiny than the rest, that’s just the way it was. The die had been cast.

  The police academy was simply a microcosm of the outside world. There were rules, written and otherwise, to keep black men in their place as best they could. There was no way getting around that. Although Clay Barker was introduced as the training leader, he gave four out of the ten a better hand to play. He was their inside straight, dealt by the chief, which was why he had rushed over to Ms. Etta’s with the news about the city’s decision to lift the department’s exclusive guideline regarding race.