The Richer, the Poorer

by Dorothy West

  “It looks like a nice one,” she said pleasantly.

  He was baffled. “We ain’t had chicken once in three years.”

  “I understand,” she said sincerely. “Sometimes I spend my whole salary on something I want very much.”

  “You ain’t much like an investigator,” he said in surprise. “One we had before you woulda raised Ned.” He sat down suddenly, his defenses down. “Miss, I been wanting to ask you this for a long time. You ever have any men’s clothes?”

  Her voice was distressed. “Every once in a while. But with so many people needing assistance, we can only give them to our employables. But I’ll keep your request in mind.”

  He did not answer. He just sat staring at the floor, presenting an adjustment problem. There was nothing else to say to him.

  She rose. “I’ll be going now, Mr. Edmunds.”

  “I’ll tell my wife you was here, miss.”

  A voice called from the bedroom. “Is that you talking?”

  “It’s the investigator lady,” he said. “She’s just going.”

  Mrs. Edmunds came hurrying down the hall, the sleep in her face and tousled hair.

  “I was just lying down, ma’am. I didn’t mean to go to sleep. My husband should’ve called me.”

  “I didn’t want him to wake you.”

  “And he kept you sitting in the kitchen.”

  She glanced inside to assure herself that it was sufficiently spotless for the fine clothes of the investigator. She saw the laden table, and felt so ill that water welled into her mouth.

  “The investigator lady knows about the chicken,” Mr. Edmunds said quickly. “She—”

  “It was only five dollars,” his wife interrupted, wringing her hands.

  “Five dollars for a chicken?” The investigator was shocked and incredulous.

  “She didn’t buy that chicken out of none of your relief money,” Mr. Edmunds said defiantly. “It was money she won at a movie.”

  “It was only five dollars,” Mrs. Edmunds repeated tearfully.

  “We ain’t trying to conceal nothing,” Mr. Edmunds snarled. He was cornered and fighting. “If you’d asked me how we come by the chicken, I’d have told you.”

  “For God’s sake, ma’am, don’t cut us off,” Mrs. Edmunds moaned. “I’ll never go to another movie. It was only ten cents. I didn’t know I was doing wrong.” She burst into tears.

  The investigator stood tense. They had both been screaming at her. She was tired and so irritated that she wanted to scream back.

  “Mrs. Edmunds,” she said sharply, “get hold of yourself. I’m not going to cut you off. That’s ridiculous. You won five dollars at a movie and you bought some food. That’s fine. I wish my family could win five dollars for food.”

  She turned and tore out of the flat. They heard her stumbling and sobbing down the stairs.

  “You feel like eating?” Mrs. Edmunds asked dully.

  “I guess we’re both hungry. That’s why we got so upset.”

  “Maybe we’d better eat, then.”

  “Let me fix it.”

  “No.” She entered the kitchen. “I kinda want to see you just sitting and smoking a cigarette.”

  He sat down and reached in his pocket with some eagerness. “I ain’t had one yet.” He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and felt better immediately.

  “You think,” she said bleakly, “she’ll write that up in our case?”

  “I don’t know, dear.”

  “You think they’ll close our case if she does?”

  “I don’t know that neither, dear.”

  She clutched the sink for support. “My God, what would we do?”

  The smoke curled around him luxuriously. “Don’t think about it till it happens.”

  “I got to think about it. The rent, the gas, the light, the food.”

  “They wouldn’t hardly close our case for five dollars.”

  “Maybe they’d think it was more.”

  “You could prove it by the movie manager.”

  She went numb all over. Then suddenly she got mad about it.

  It was nine o’clock when they sat down in the living room. The heat came up grudgingly. Mrs. Edmunds wrapped herself in her sweater and read the funnies. Mr. Edmunds was happily inhaling his second cigarette. They were both replete and in good humor.

  The window rattled and Mr. Edmunds looked around at it lazily. “Been about two months since you asked Mr. Johnson for weather strips.”

  The paper shook in her hand. She did not look up. “He promised to fix it this morning, but his baby died.”

  “His baby! You don’t say!”

  She kept her eyes glued to the paper. “Pneumonia.”

  His voice filled with sympathy. He crushed out his cigarette. “Believe I’ll go down and sit with him a while.”

  “He’s not there,” she said hastily. “I met him when I was going to the store. He said he’d be out all evening.”

  “I bet the poor man’s trying to raise some money.”

  She let the paper fall in her lap, and clasped her hands to keep them from trembling. She lied again, as she had been lying steadily in the past twenty-four hours, as she had not lied before in all her life.

  “He didn’t say nothing to me about raising money.”

  “Wasn’t no need to. Where would you get the first five cents to give him?”

  “I guess,” she cried jealously, “you want me to give him the rest of my money.”

  “No,” he said. “I want you to spend what little’s left on yourself. Me, I wish I had fifty dollars to give him.”

  “As poor as you are,” she asked angrily, “you’d give him that much money? That’s easy to say when you haven’t got it.”

  “I look at it this way,” he said simply. “I think how I’d feel in his shoes.”

  “You got your own troubles,” she argued heatedly. “The Johnson baby is better off dead. You’d be a fool to put fifty dollars in the ground. I’d spend my fifty dollars on the living.”

  “Tain’t no use to work yourself up,” he said. “You ain’t got fifty dollars, and neither have I. We’ll be quarreling in a minute over make-believe money. Let’s go to bed.”

  • • •

  Mrs. Edmunds waked at seven and tried to lie quietly by her husband’s side, but lying still was torture. She dressed and went into the kitchen, and felt too listless to make her coffee. She sat down at the table and dropped her head on her folded arms. No tears came. There was only the burning in her throat and behind her eyes.

  She sat in this manner for half an hour. Suddenly she heard a man’s slow tread outside her front door. Terror gripped her. The steps moved on down the hall, but for a moment her knees were water. When she could control her trembling, she stood up and knew that she had to get out of the house. It could not contain her and Mr. Johnson.

  She walked quickly away from her neighborhood. It was a raw day, and her feet and hands were beginning to grow numb. She felt sorry for herself. Other people were hurrying past in overshoes and heavy gloves. There were fifty-one dollars in her purse. It was her right to do what she pleased with them. Determinedly she turned into the subway.

  In a downtown department store she rode the escalator to the dress department. She walked up and down the rows of lovely garments, stopping to finger critically, standing back to admire.

  A salesgirl came toward her, looking straight at her with soft, expectant eyes.

  “Do you wish to be waited on, madam?”

  Mrs. Edmunds opened her mouth to say “Yes,” but the word would not come. She stared at the girl stupidly. “I was just looking,” she said.

  In the shoe department, she saw a pair of comfort shoes and sat down timidly in a fine leather chair.

  A salesman lounged toward her. “Something in shoes?”

  “Yes, sir. That comfort shoe.”

  “Size?” His voice was bored.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I’ll have to me
asure you,” he said reproachfully. “Give me your foot.” He sat down on a stool and held out his hand.

  She dragged her eyes up to his face. “How much you say those shoes cost?”

  “I didn’t say. Eight dollars.”

  She rose with acute relief. “I ain’t got that much with me.”

  She retreated unsteadily. Something was making her knees weak and her head light.

  Her legs steadied. She went quickly to the down escalator. She reached the third floor and was briskly crossing to the next down escalator when she saw the little dresses. A banner screamed that they were selling at the sacrifice price of one dollar. She decided to examine them.

  She pushed through the crowd of women, and emerged triumphantly within reach of the dresses. She searched carefully. There were pinks and blues and yellows. She was looking for white. She pushed back through the crowd. In her careful hands lay a little white dress. It was spun gold and gossamer.

  Boldly she beckoned a salesgirl. “I’ll take this, miss,” she said.

  All the way home she was excited and close to tears. She was in a fever to see Mr. Johnson. She would let the regret come later. A child lay dead and waiting burial.

  She turned her corner at a run. Going down the rickety basement stairs, she prayed that Mr. Johnson was on the premises.

  She pounded on his door and he opened it. The agony in his face told her instantly that he had been unable to borrow the money. She tried to speak, and her tongue tripped over her eagerness.

  Fear took hold of her and rattled her teeth. “Mr. Johnson, what about the funeral?”

  “I give the baby to the student doctors.”

  “Oh my God, Mr. Johnson! Oh my God!”

  “I bought her some flowers.”

  She turned and went blindly up the stairs. Drooping in the front doorway was a frost-nipped bunch of white flowers. She dragged herself up to her flat. Once she stopped to hide the package under her coat. She would never look at that little white dress again. The ten five-dollar bills were ten five-pound stones in her purse. They almost hurled her backward.

  She turned the key in her lock. Mr. Edmunds stood at the door. He looked rested and confident.

  “I been waiting for you. I just started to go.”

  “You had any breakfast?” she asked tonelessly.

  “I made some coffee. It was all I wanted.”

  “I shoulda made some oatmeal before I went out.”

  “You have on the big pot time I come home. Bet I’ll land something good,” he boasted. “You brought good luck in this house. We ain’t seen the last of it.” He pecked her cheek and went out, hurrying as if he were late for work.

  She plodded into the bedroom. The steam was coming up fine. She sank down on the side of the bed and unbuttoned her coat. The package fell on her lap. She took the ten five-dollar bills and pushed them between a fold of the package. It was burial money. She could never use it for anything else. She hid the package under the mattress.

  Wearily she buttoned up her coat and opened her purse again. It was empty, for the few cents remaining from her last relief check had been spent indiscriminately with her prize money.

  She went into the kitchen to take stock of her needs. There was nothing left from their feasts. She felt the coffeepot. It was still hot, but her throat was too constricted for her to attempt to swallow.

  She took her paper shopping bag and started out to Mr. Spiro’s.

  MAMMY

  The young Negro welfare investigator, carrying her briefcase, entered the ornate foyer of the Central Park West apartment house. She was making a collateral call. Earlier in the day she had visited an aging colored woman in a rented room in Harlem. Investigation had proved that the woman was not quite old enough for Old Age Assistance, and yet no longer young enough to be classified as employable. Nothing, therefore, stood in the way of her eligibility for relief. Hers was a clear case of need. This collateral call on her former employer was merely routine.

  The investigator walked toward the elevator, close on the heels of a well-dressed woman with a dog. She felt shy. Most of her collaterals were to housewives in the Bronx or supervisors of maintenance workers in office buildings. Such calls were never embarrassing. A moment ago as she neared the doorway, the doorman had regarded her intently. The service entrance was plainly to her left, and she was walking past it. He had been on the point of approaching when a tenant emerged and dispatched him for a taxi. He had stood for a moment torn between his immediate duty and his sense of outrage. Then he had gone away dolefully, blowing his whistle.

  The woman with the dog reached the elevator just as the doors slid open. The dog bounded in, and the elevator boy bent and rough-housed with him. The boy’s agreeable face was black, and the investigator felt a flood of relief.

  The woman entered the elevator and smilingly faced front. Instantly the smile left her face, and her eyes hardened. The boy straightened, faced front, too, and gaped in surprise. Quickly he glanced at the set face of his passenger.

  “Service entrance’s outside,” he said sullenly.

  The investigator said steadily, “I am not employed here. I am here to see Mrs. Coleman on business.”

  “If you’re here on an errand or somethin’ like that,” he argued doggedly, “you still got to use the service entrance.”

  She stared at him with open hate, despising him for humiliating her before and because of a woman of an alien race.

  “I am here as a representative of the Department of Welfare. If you refuse me the use of this elevator, my office will take it up with the management.”

  She did not know if this was true, but the elevator boy would not know either.

  “Get in, then,” he said rudely, and rolled his eyes at his white passenger as if to convey his regret at the discomfort he was causing her.

  The doors shut and the three shot upward, without speaking to or looking at each other. The woman with the dog, in a far corner, very pointedly held her small harmless animal on a tight leash.

  The car stopped at the fourth floor, and the doors slid open. No one moved. There was a ten-second wait.

  “You getting out or not?” the boy asked savagely.

  There was no need to ask whom he was addressing.

  “Is this my floor?” asked the investigator.

  His sarcasm rippled. “You want Mrs. Coleman, don’t you?”

  “Which is her apartment?” she asked thickly.

  “Ten-A. You’re holding up my passenger.”

  When the door closed, she leaned against it, feeling sick, and trying to control her trembling. She was young and vulnerable. Her contact with Negroes was confined to frightened relief folks who did everything possible to stay in her good graces, and the members of her own set, among whom she was a favorite because of her two degrees and her civil service appointment. She had almost never run into Negroes who did not treat her with respect.

  In a moment or two she walked down the hall to Ten-A. She rang, and after a little wait a handsome middle-aged woman opened the door.

  “How do you do?” the woman said in a soft drawl. She smiled. “You’re from the relief office, aren’t you? Do come in.”

  “Thank you,” said the investigator, smiling, too, relievedly.

  “Right this way,” said Mrs. Coleman, leading the way into a charming living room. She indicated an upholstered chair. “Please sit down.”

  The investigator, who never sat in overstuffed chairs in the homes of her relief clients, plumped down and smiled again at Mrs. Coleman. Such a pleasant woman, such a pleasant room. It was going to be a quick and easy interview. She let her briefcase slide to the floor beside her.

  Mrs. Coleman sat down in a straight chair and looked searchingly at the investigator. Then she said somewhat breathlessly, “You gave me to understand that Mammy has applied for relief.”

  The odious title sent a little flicker of dislike across the investigator’s face. She answered stiffly, “I had just left Mrs. Ma
son when I telephoned you for this appointment.”

  Mrs. Coleman smiled disarmingly, though she colored a little.

  “She has been with us ever since I can remember. I call her Mammy, and so does my daughter.”

  “That’s a sort of nurse, isn’t it?” the investigator asked coldly. “I had thought Mrs. Mason was a general maid.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “Why, I understood she was discharged because she was no longer physically able to perform her duties.”

  “She wasn’t discharged.”

  The investigator looked dismayed. She had not anticipated complications. She felt for her briefcase.

  “I’m very confused, Mrs. Coleman. Will you tell me just exactly what happened, then? I had no idea Mrs. Mason was—was misstating the situation.” She opened her briefcase.

  Mrs. Coleman eyed her severely. “There’s nothing to write down. Do you have to write down things? It makes me feel as if I were being investigated.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the investigator quickly, snapping shut her briefcase. “If it would be distasteful … I apologize again. Please go on.”

  “Well, there’s little to tell. It all happened so quickly. My daughter was ill. My nerves were on edge. I may have said something that upset Mammy. One night she was here. The next morning she wasn’t. I’ve been worried sick about her.”

  “Did you report her disappearance?”

  “Her clothes were gone, too. It didn’t seem a matter for the police. It was obvious that she had left of her own accord. Believe me, young woman, I was very relieved when you telephoned me.” Her voice shook a little.

  “I’m glad I can assure you that Mrs. Mason appears quite well. She only said she worked for you. She didn’t mention your daughter. I hope she has recovered.”

  “My daughter is married,” Mrs. Coleman said slowly. “She had a child. It was stillborn. We have not seen Mammy since. For months she had looked forward to nursing it.”

  “I’m sure it was a sad loss to all of you,” the investigator said gently. “And old Mrs. Mason, perhaps she felt you had no further use for her. It may have unsettled her mind. Temporarily,” she added hastily. “She seems quite sane.”