“That’s the smallest. Take it,” I pleaded. “I’ll have enough left.”
She looked at me shrewdly. “You sho?”
“It’s the truth,” I said.
“Well, I de-clare—Let me get down from up here before I fall and break my neck! Son,” she said, coming down off the ladder, “I sho do appreciate it. But I tell you, I’m just going to keep part of it for myself and the rest I’m going to save for you. You get hard up just come to Mary.”
“I think I’ll be all right now,” I said, watching her fold the money carefully, placing it in the leather bag that always hung on the back of her chair.
“I’m really glad, ’cause now I can take care of that bill they been bothering me about. It’ll do me so much good to go in there and plop down some money and tell them folks to quit bothering me. Son, I believe your luck done changed. You dream that number?”
I glanced at her eager face. “Yes,” I said, “but it was a mixed-up dream.”
“What was the figger—Jesus! What’s this!” she cried, getting up and pointing at the linoleum near the steam line.
I saw a small drove of roaches trooping frantically down the steam line from the floor above, plummeting to the floor as the vibration of the pipe shook them off.
“Get the broom!” Mary yelled. “Out of the closet there!”
Stepping around the chair I snatched the broom and joined her, splattering the scattering roaches with both broom and feet, hearing the pop and snap as I brought the pressure down upon them vehemently.
“The filthy, stinking things,” Mary cried. “Git that one under the table! Yon’ he goes, don’t let him git away! The nasty rascal!”
I swung the broom, battering and sweeping the squashed insects into piles. Breathing excitedly Mary got the dust pan and handed it to me.
“Some folks just live in filth,” she said disgustedly. “Just let a little knocking start and here it comes crawling out. All you have to do is shake things up a bit.”
I looked at the damp spots on the linoleum, then shakily replaced the pan and broom and started out of the room.
“Aren’t you going to eat no breakfast?” she said. “Soon’s I wipe up this mess I’m going to start.”
“I don’t have time,” I said, my hand on the knob. “My appointment is early and I have a few things to do beforehand.”
“Then you better stop and have you something hot soon as you can. Don’t do to go around in this cold weather without something in your belly. And don’t think you gon’ start eating out just ‘cause you got some money!”
“I don’t. I’ll take care of it,” I said to her back as she washed her hands.
“Well, good luck, son,” she called. “You really give me a pleasant surprise this morning—and if that’s a lie, I hope something big’ll bite me!”
She laughed gaily and I went down the hall to my room and closed the door. Pulling on my overcoat I got down my prized brief case from the closet. It was still as new as the night of the battle royal, and sagged now as I placed the smashed bank and coins inside and locked the flap. Then I closed the closet door and left.
The knocking didn’t bother me so much now. Mary was singing something sad and serene as I went down the hall, and still singing as I opened the door and stepped into the outside hall. Then I remembered, and there beneath the dim hall light I took the faintly perfumed paper from my wallet and carefully unfolded it. A tremor passed over me; the hall was cold. Then it was gone and I squinted and took a long, hard look at my new Brotherhood name.
The night’s snowfall was already being churned to muck by the passing cars, and it was warmer. Joining the pedestrians along the walk, I could feel the brief case swinging against my leg from the weight of the package, and I determined to get rid of the coins and broken iron at the first ash can. I needed nothing like this to remind me of my last morning at Mary’s.
I made for a row of crushed garbage cans lined before a row of old private houses, coming alongside and tossing the package casually into one of them and moving on—only to hear a door open behind me and a voice ring out,
“Oh, no you don’t, oh, no you don’t! Just come right back here and get it!”
Turning, I saw a little woman standing on the stoop with a green coat covering her head and shoulders, its sleeves hanging limp like extra atrophied arms.
“I mean you,” she called. “Come on back an’ get your trash. An’ don’t ever put your trash in my can again!”
She was a short yellow woman with a pince-nez on a chain, her hair pinned up in knots.
“We keep our place clean and respectable and we don’t want you field niggers coming up from the South and ruining things,” she shouted with blazing hate.
People were stopping to look. A super from a building down the block came out and stood in the middle of the walk, pounding his fist against his palm with a dry, smacking sound. I hesitated, embarrassed and annoyed. Was this woman crazy?
“I mean it! Yes, you! I’m talking to you! Just take it right out! Rosalie,” she called to someone inside the house, “call the police, Rosalie!’’
I can’t afford that, I thought, and walked back to the can. “What does it matter, Miss?” I called up to her. “When the collectors come, garbage is garbage. I just didn’t want to throw it into the street. I didn’t know that some kinds of garbage were better than others.”
“Never mind your impertinence,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of having you southern Negroes mess up things for the rest of us!”
“All right,” I said, “I’ll get it out.”
I reached into the half-filled can, feeling for the package, as the fumes of rotting swill entered my nostrils. It felt unhealthy to my hand, and the heavy package had sunk far down. Cursing, I pushed back my sleeve with my clean hand and probed until I found it. Then I wiped off my arm with a handkerchief and started away, aware of the people who paused to grin at me.
“It serves you right,” the little woman called from the stoop.
And I turned and started upward. “That’s enough out of you, you piece of yellow gone-to-waste. Unless you still want to call the police.” My voice had taken on a new shrill pitch. “I’ve done what you wanted me to do; another word and I’ll do what I want to do—”
She looked at me with widening eyes. “I believe you would,” she said, opening the door. “I believe you would.”
“I not only would, I’d love it,” I said.
“I can see that you’re no gentleman,” she called, slamming the door.
At the next row of cans I wiped off my wrist and hands with a piece of newspaper, then wrapped the rest around the package. Next time I’d throw it into the street.
Two blocks further along my anger had ebbed, but I felt strangely lonely. Even the people who stood around me at the intersection seemed isolated, each lost in his own thoughts. And now just as the lights changed I let the package fall into the trampled snow and hurried across, thinking, There, it’s done.
I had covered two blocks when someone called behind me, “Say, buddy! Hey, there! You, Mister … Wait a second!” and I could hear the hurried crunching of footsteps upon the snow. Then he was beside me, a squat man in worn clothes, the strands of his breath showing white in the cold as he smiled at me, panting.
“You was moving so fast I thought I wasn’t going to be able to stop you,” he said. “Didn’t you lose something back there a piece?”
Oh, hell, a friend in need, I thought, deciding to deny it. “Lose something?” I said. “Why, no.”
“You sure?” he said, frowning.
“Yes,” I said, seeing his forehead wrinkle with uncertainty, a hot charge of fear leaping to his eyes as he searched my face.
“But I seen you— Say, buddy,” he said, looking swiftly, back up the street, “what you trying to do?”
“Do? What do you mean?”
“I mean talking ’bout you didn’t lose nothing. You working a con game or something?” He backed aw
ay, looking hurriedly at the pedestrians back up the street from where he’d come.
“What on earth are you talking about now?” I said. “I tell you I didn’t lose anything.”
“Man, don’t tell me! I seen you. What the hell you mean?” he said, furtively removing the package from his pocket. “This here feels like money or a gun or something and I know damn well I seen you drop it.”
“Oh, that”, I said. “That isn’t anything—I thought you—”
“That’s right, ‘Oh.’ So you remembers now, don’t you? I think I’m doing you a favor and you play me for a fool. You some kind of confidence man or dope peddler or something? You trying to work one of those pigeon drops on me?”
“Pigeon drop?” I said. “You’re making a mistake—”
“Mistake, hell! Take this damn stuff,” he said, thrusting the package in my hands as though it were a bomb with a lighted fuse. “I got a family, man. I try to do you a favor and here you trying to get me into trouble— You running from a detective or somebody?”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re letting your imagination run away; this is nothing but garbage—”
“Don’t try to hand me that simple-minded crap,” he wheezed. “I know what kind of garbage it is. You young New York Negroes is a blip! I swear you is! I hope they catch you and put your ass under the jail!”
He shot away as though I had smallpox. I looked at the package. He thinks it’s a gun or stolen goods, I thought, watching him go. A few steps farther along I was about to toss it boldly into the street when upon looking back I saw him, joined by another man now, gesturing toward me indignantly. I hurried away. Give him time and the fool’ll call a policeman. I dropped the package back into the brief case. I’d wait until I got downtown.
On the subway people around me were reading their morning papers, pressing forward their unpleasant faces. I rode with my eyes shut, trying to make my mind blank to thoughts of Mary. Then turning, I saw the item Violent Protest Over Harlem Eviction, just as the man lowered his paper and moved out of the breaking doors. I could hardly wait until I reached 42nd Street, where I found the story carried on the front page of a tabloid, and I read it eagerly. I was referred to only as an unknown “rabble rouser” who had disappeared in the excitement, but that it referred to me was unmistakable. It had lasted for two hours, the crowd refusing to vacate the premises. I entered the clothing store with a new sense of self-importance.
I selected a more expensive suit than I’d intended, and while it was being altered I picked up a hat, shirts, shoes, underwear and socks, then hurried to call Brother Jack, who snapped his orders like a general. I was to go to a number on the upper East Side where I’d find a room, and I was to read over some of the Brotherhood’s literature, which had been left there for me, with the idea of my making a speech at a Harlem rally to be held that evening.
The address was that of an undistinguished building in a mixed Spanish-Irish neighborhood, and there were boys throwing snowballs across the street when I rang the super’s bell. The door was opened by a small pleasant-faced woman who smiled.
“Good morning, Brother,” she said. “The apartment is all ready for you. He said you’d come about this time and I’ve just this minute come down. My, just look at that snow.”
I followed her up the three flights of stairs, wondering what on earth I’d do with a whole apartment.
“This is it,” she said, removing a chain of keys from her pocket and opening a door at the front of the hall. I went into a small comfortably furnished room that was bright with the winter sun. “This is the living room,” she said proudly, “and over here is your bedroom.”
It was much larger than I needed, with a chest of drawers, two upholstered chairs, two closets, a bookshelf and a desk on which was stacked the literature to which he’d referred. A bathroom lay off the bedroom, and there was a small kitchen.
“I hope you like it, Brother,” she said, as she left. “If there’s anything you need, please ring my bell.”
The apartment was clean and neat and I liked it—especially the bathroom with its tub and shower. And as quickly as I could I drew a bath and soaked myself. Then, feeling clean and exhilarated, I went out to puzzle over the Brotherhood books and pamphlets. My brief case with the broken image lay on the table. I would get rid of the package later; right now I had to think about tonight’s rally.
Chapter sixteen
At seven-thirty Brother
Jack and some of the others picked me up and we shot up to Harlem in a taxi. As before, no one spoke a word. There was only the sound made by a man in the corner who drew noisily on a pipeful of rum-flavored tobacco, causing it to glow on and off, a red disk in the dark. I rode with mounting nervousness; the taxi seemed unnaturally warm. We got out in a side street and went down a narrow alley in the dark to the rear of the huge, barnlike building. Other members had already arrived.
“Ah, here we are,” Brother Jack said, leading the way through a dark rear door to a dressing room lighted by naked, low-hanging bulbs—a small room with wooden benches and a row of steel lockers with a network of names scratched on the doors. It had a football-locker smell of ancient sweat, iodine, blood and rubbing alcohol, and I felt a welling up of memories.
“We remain here until the building fills,” Brother Jack said. “Then we make our appearances—just at the height of their impatience.” He gave me a grin. “Meanwhile, you think about what you’ll say. Did you look over the material?”
“All day,” I said.
“Good. I suggest, however, that you listen carefully to the rest of us. We’ll all precede you so that you can get the pointers for your remarks. You’ll be last.”
I nodded, seeing him take two of the other men by the arm and retreat to a corner. I was alone, the others were studying their notes, talking. I went across the room to a torn photograph tacked to the faded wall. It was a shot, in fighting stance, of a former prizefight champion, a popular fighter who had lost his sight in the ring. It must have been right here in this arena, I thought. That had been years ago. The photograph was that of a man so dark and battered that he might have been of any nationality. Big and loose-muscled, he looked like a good man. I remembered my father’s story of how he had been beaten blind in a crooked fight, of the scandal that had been suppressed, and how the fighter had died in a home for the blind. Who would have thought I’d ever come here? How things were twisted around! I felt strangely sad and went and slouched on a bench. The others talked on, their voices low. I watched them with a sudden resentment. Why did I have to come last? What if they bored the audience to death before I came on! I’d probably be shouted down before I could get started … But perhaps not, I thought, jabbing my suspicions away. Perhaps I could make an effect through the sheer contrast between my approach and theirs. Maybe that was the strategy … Anyway, I had to trust them. I had to.
Still a nervousness clung to me. I felt out of place. From beyond the door I could hear a distant scrape of chairs, a murmur of voices. Little worries whirled up within me: That I might forget my new name; that I might be recognized from the audience. I bent forward, suddenly conscious of my legs in new blue trousers. But how do you know they’re your legs? What’s your name? I thought, making a sad joke with myself. It was absurd, but it relieved my nervousness. For it was as though I were looking at my own legs for the first time—independent objects that could of their own volition lead me to safety or danger. I stared at the dusty floor. Then it was as though I stood simultaneously at opposite ends of a tunnel. I seemed to view myself from the distance of the campus while yet sitting there on a bench in the old arena; dressed in a new blue suit; sitting across the room from a group of intense men who talked among themselves in hushed, edgy voices; while yet in the distance I could hear the clatter of chairs, more voices, a cough. I seemed aware of it all from a point deep within me, yet there was a disturbing vagueness about what I saw, a disturbing unformed quality, as when you see yourself in a photo exposed
during adolescence; the expression empty, the grin without character, the ears too large, the pimples, “courage bumps,” too many and too well-defined. This was a new phase, I realized, a new beginning, and I would have to take that part of myself that looked on with remote eyes and keep it always at the distance of the campus, the hospital machine, the battle royal—all now far behind. Perhaps the part of me that observed listlessly but saw all, missing nothing, was still the malicious, arguing part; the dissenting voice, my grandfather part; the cynical, disbelieving part—the traitor self that always threatened internal discord. Whatever it was, I knew that I’d have to keep it pressed down. I had to. For if I were successful tonight, I’d be on the road to something big. No more flying apart at the seams, no more remembering forgotten pains … No, I thought, shifting my body, they’re the same legs on which I’ve come so far from home. And yet they were somehow new. The new suit imparted a newness to me. It was the clothes and the new name and the circumstances. It was a newness too subtle to put into thought, but there it was. I was becoming someone else.
I sensed vaguely and with a flash of panic that the moment I walked out upon the platform and opened my mouth I’d be someone else. Not just a nobody with a manufactured name which might have belonged to anyone, or to no one. But another personality. Few people knew me now, but after tonight … How was it? Perhaps simply to be known, to be looked upon by so many people, to be the focal point of so many concentrating eyes, perhaps this was enough to make one different; enough to transform one into something else, someone else; just as by becoming an increasingly larger boy one became one day a man; a man with a deep voice—although my voice had been deep since I was twelve. But what if someone from the campus wandered into the audience? Or someone from Mary’s—even Mary herself? “No, it wouldn’t change it,” I heard myself say softly, “that’s all past.” My name was different; I was under orders. Even if I met Mary on the street, I’d have to pass her by unrecognized. A depressing thought—and I got up abruptly and went out of the dressing room and into the alley.