ALVA
III
ALVA
It was nine o’clock. The alarm rang. Alva’s roommate awoke cursing.
“Why the hell don’t you turn off that alarm?”
There was no response. The alarm continued to ring.
“Alva!” Braxton yelled into his sleeping roommate’s ear, “Turn off that
clock. Wake up,” he began shaking him, “Wake up, damn you ... ya dead?”
Alva slowly emerged from his stupor. Almost mechanically he reached for
the clock, dancing merrily on a chair close to the bed, and, finding
it, pushed the guilty lever back into the silent zone. Braxton watched
him disgustedly:
“Watcha gettin’ up so early for? Don’tcha know this is Monday?”
“Shure, I know it’s Monday, but I gotta go to Uncle’s. The landlord’ll
be here before eleven o’clock.”
“Watcha gonna pawn?”
“My brown suit. I won’t need it ’til next Sunday. You got your rent?”
“I got four dollars,” Braxton advanced slowly.
“Cantcha get the other two?”
Braxton grew apologetic and explanatory, “Not today ... ya ... see....”
“Aw, man, you make me sick.”
Disgust overcoming his languor, Alva got out of the bed. This was
getting to be a regular Monday morning occurrence. Braxton was always
one, two or three dollars short of having his required half of the
rent, and Alva, who had rented the room, always had to make it up.
Luckily for Alva, both he and the landlord were Elks. Fraternal
brothers must stick together. Thus it was an easy matter to pay the
rent in installments. The only difficulty being that it was happening
rather frequently. There is liable to be a limit even to a brother
Elk’s patience, especially where money is concerned.
Alva put on his dressing gown, and his house shoes, then went into the
little alcove which was curtained off in the rear from the rest of
the room. Jumbled together on the marble topped stationary washstand
were a half dozen empty gin bottles bearing a pre-prohibition Gordon
label, a similar number of empty ginger ale bottles, a cocktail shaker,
and a medley of assorted cocktail, water, jelly and whiskey glasses,
filled and surrounded by squeezed orange and lemon rinds. The little
two-burner gas plate atop a wooden dry goods box was covered with
dirty dishes, frying pan, egg shells, bacon rinds, and a dominating
though lopsided tea kettle. Even Alva’s trunk, which occupied half the
entrance space between the alcove and the room, littered as it was with
paper bags, cracker boxes and greasy paper plates, bore evidence of the
orgy which the occupants of the room staged over every weekend.
Alva surveyed this rather intimate and familiar disorder, faltered
a moment, started to call Braxton, then remembering previous Monday
mornings set about his task alone. It was Braxton’s custom never to
arise before noon. Alva who worked as a presser in a costume house was
forced to get up at seven o’clock on every week day save Monday when he
was not required to report for work until twelve o’clock. His employers
thus managed to accumulate several baskets of clothes from the sewing
room before their pressers arrived. It was better to have them remain
at home until this was done. Then you didn’t have to pay them so much,
and having let the sewing room get head start, there was never any
chance for the pressing room to slow down.
Alva’s mother had been an American mulatto, his father a Filipino.
Alva himself was small in stature as his father had been, small
and well developed with broad shoulders, narrow hips and firm well
modeled limbs. His face was oval shaped and his features more oriental
than Negroid. His skin was neither yellow nor brown but something
in between, something warm, arresting and mellow with the faintest
suggestion of a parchment tinge beneath, lending it individuality. His
eyes were small, deep and slanting. His forehead high, hair sparse and
finely textured.
The alcove finally straightened up, Alva dressed rather hurriedly, and,
taking a brown suit from the closet, made his regular Monday morning
trip to the pawn shop.
* * * * *
Emma Lou finished rinsing out some silk stockings and sat down in a
chair to reread a letter she had received from home that morning. It
was about the third time she had gone over it. Her mother wanted her
to come home. Evidently the home-town gossips were busy. No doubt they
were saying, “Strange mother to let that gal stay in New York alone.
She ain’t goin’ to school, either. Wonder what she’s doin’?” Emma Lou
read all this between the lines of what her mother had written. Jane
Morgan was being tearful as usual. She loved to suffer, and being
tearful seemed the easiest way to let the world know that one was
suffering. Sob stuff, thought Emma Lou, and, tearing the letter up,
threw it into the waste paper basket.
Emma Lou was now maid to Arline Strange, who was playing for the
moment the part of a mulatto Carmen in an alleged melodrama of Negro
life in Harlem. Having tried, for two weeks to locate what she termed
“congenial work,” Emma Lou had given up the idea and meekly returned to
Mazelle Lindsay. She had found her old job satisfactorily filled, but
Mazelle had been sympathetic and had arranged to place her with Arline
Strange. Now her mother wanted her to come home. Let her want. She was
of age, and supporting herself. Moreover, she felt that if it had not
been for gossip her mother would never have thought of asking her to
come home.
“Stop your mooning, dearie.” Arline Strange had returned to her
dressing room. Act one was over. The Negro Carmen had become the
mistress of a wealthy European. She would now shed her gingham dress
for an evening gown.
Mechanically, Emma Lou assisted Arline in making the change. She was
unusually silent. It was noticed.
“’Smatter, Louie. In love or something?”
Emma Lou smiled, “Only with myself.”
“Then snap out of it. Remember, you’re going cabareting with us
tonight. This brother of mine from Chicago insists upon going to Harlem
to check up on my performance. He’ll enjoy himself more if you act as
guide. Ever been to Small’s?” Emma Lou shook her head. “I haven’t been
to any of the cabarets.”
“What?” Arline was genuinely surprised. “You in Harlem and never been
to a cabaret? Why I thought all colored people went.”
Emma Lou bristled. White people were so stupid. “No” she said firmly.
“All colored people don’t go. Fact is, I’ve heard that most of the
places are patronized almost solely by whites.”
“Oh, yes, I knew that, I’ve been to Small’s and Barron’s and the Cotton
Club, but I thought there were other places.” She stopped talking, and
spent the next few moments deepening the artificial duskiness of her
skin. The gingham dress was now on its hanger. The evening gown clung
glamorously to her voluptuous figure. “For God’s sake, don’t let on
to my brother you ain’t been to Small’s before. Act like you know all
about it. I’ll see that he gives you a big tip.” The call bell rang.
Arline said “Damn,” gave one last look into the mirror, then hurried
back to the stage so that the curtain could go up on the cabaret scene
in Act Two.
Emma Lou laid out the negligee outfit Arline would be killed in at the
end of Act Three, and went downstairs to stand in the stage wings, a
makeup box beneath her arm. She never tired of watching the so-called
dramatic antics on the stage. She wondered if there were any Negroes of
the type portrayed by Arline and her fellow performers. Perhaps there
were since there were any number of minor parts being played by real
Negroes who acted much different from any Negroes she had ever known or
seen. It all seemed to her like a mad caricature.
She watched for about the thirtieth time Arline acting the part of
a Negro cabaret entertainer, and also for about the thirtieth time,
came to the conclusion that Arline was being herself rather than the
character she was supposed to be playing. From where she was standing
in the wings she could see a small portion of the audience, and she
watched their reaction. Their interest seemed genuine. Arline did have
pep and personality, and the alleged Negro background was strident and
kaleidoscopic, all of which no doubt made up for the inane plot and
vulgar dialogue.
They entered Small’s Paradise, Emma Lou, Arline and Arline’s brother
from Chicago. All the way uptown he had plied Emma Lou with questions
concerning New York’s Black Belt. He had reciprocated by relating how
well he knew the Negro section of Chicago. Quite a personage around the
Black and Tan cabarets there, it seemed. “But I never,” he concluded
as the taxi drew up to the curb in front of Small’s, “have seen any
black gal in Chicago act like Arline acts. She claims she is presenting
a Harlem specie. So I am going to see for myself.” And he chuckled
all the time he was helping them out of the taxi and paying the fare.
While they were checking their wraps in the foyer, the orchestra began
playing. Through the open entrance way Emma Lou could see a hazy,
dim-lighted room, walls and ceiling colorfully decorated, floor space
jammed with tables and chairs and people. A heavy set mulatto in
tuxedo, after asking how many were in their party, led them through a
lane of tables around the squared off dance platform to a ringside seat
on the far side of the cabaret.
Immediately they were seated, a waiter came to take their order.
“Three bottles of White Rock.” The waiter nodded, twirled his tray on
the tip of his fingers and skated away.
Emma Lou watched the dancers, and noticed immediately that in all that
insensate crowd of dancing couples there were only a few Negroes.
“My God, such music. Let’s dance, Arline,” and off they went, leaving
Emma Lou sitting alone. Somehow or other she felt frightened. Most
of the tables around her were deserted, their tops littered with
liquid-filled glasses, and bottles of ginger ale and White Rock. There
was no liquor in sight, yet Emma Lou was aware of pungent alcoholic
odors. Then she noticed a heavy-jowled white man with a flashlight
walking among the empty tables and looking beneath them. He didn’t seem
to be finding anything. The music soon stopped. Arline and her brother
returned to the table. He was feigning anxiety because he had not seen
the type of character Arline claimed to be portraying, and loudly
declared that he was disappointed.
“Why there ain’t nothing here but white people. Is it always like this?”
Emma Lou said it was and turned to watch their waiter, who with two
others had come dancing across the floor, holding aloft his tray,
filled with bottles and glasses. Deftly, he maneuvered away from the
other two and slid to their table, put down a bottle of White Rock and
an ice-filled glass before each one, then, after flicking a stub check
on to the table, rejoined his companions in a return trip across the
dance floor.
Arline’s brother produced a hip flask, and before Emma Lou could demur
mixed her a highball. She didn’t want to drink. She hadn’t drunk
before, but....
“Here come the entertainers!” Emma Lou followed Arline’s turn of
the head to see two women, one light brown skin and slim, the other
chocolate colored and fat, walking to the center of the dance floor.
The orchestra played the introduction and vamp to “Muddy Waters.” The
two entertainers swung their legs and arms in rhythmic unison, smiling
broadly and rolling their eyes, first to the left and then to the
right. Then they began to sing. Their voices were husky and strident,
neither alto nor soprano. They muddled their words and seemed to
impregnate the syncopated melody with physical content.
As they sang the chorus, they glided out among the tables, stopping at
one, then at another, and another, singing all the time, their bodies
undulating and provocative, occasionally giving just a promise of an
obscene hip movement, while their arms waved and their fingers held
tight to the dollar bills and silver coins placed in their palms by
enthusiastic onlookers.
Emma Lou, all of her, watched and listened. As they approached her
table, she sat as one mesmerized. Something in her seemed to be
trying to give way. Her insides were stirred, and tingled. The two
entertainers circled their table; Arline’s brother held out a dollar
bill. The fat, chocolate colored girl leaned over the table, her hand
touched his, she exercised the muscles of her stomach, muttered a
guttural “thank you” in between notes and moved away, moaning “Muddy
Waters,” rolling her eyes, shaking her hips.
Emma Lou had turned completely around in her chair, watching the
progress of that wah-wahing, jello-like chocolate hulk, and her slim
light brown skin companion. Finally they completed their rounds of
the tables and returned to the dance floor. Red and blue spotlights
played upon their dissimilar figures, the orchestra increased the tempo
and lessened the intensity of its playing. The swaying entertainers
pulled up their dresses, exposing lace trimmed stepins and an island
of flesh. Their stockings were rolled down below their knees, their
stepins discreetly short and delicate. Finally, they ceased their
swaying and began to dance. They shimmied and whirled, charlestoned
and black-bottomed. Their terpsichorean ensemble was melodramatic and
absurd. Their execution easy and emphatic. Emma Lou forgot herself. She
gaped, giggled and applauded like the rest of the audience, and only
as they let their legs separate, preparatory to doing one final split
to the floor, did Emma Lou come to herself long enough to wonder if
the fat one could achieve it without seriously endangering those ever
tightening stepins.
“Dam’ good, I’ll say,” a slender white youth at the next table
asseverated, as he lifted an amber filled glass to his lips.
Arline sighed. Her brother had begun to razz her. Emma Lou blinked
guiltily as the lights were turned up. She had been immersed in
something disturbingly pleasant. Idiot, she berated herself, just
because you’ve had one drink and seen your first cabaret entertainer,
must your mind and body feel all aflame?
Arline’s brother was mixing another highball. All around, people were
laughing. There was much more laughter than there was talk, much more
gesticulating and ogling than the usual means of expression called for.
Everything seemed unrestrained, abandoned. Yet, Emma Lou was conscious
of a note of artificiality, the same as she felt when she watched
Arline and her fellow performers cavorting on the stage in “Cabaret
Gal.” This entire scene seemed staged, they were in a theater, only
the proscenium arch had been obliterated. At last the audience and the
actors were as one.
A call to order on the snare drum. A brutal sliding trumpet call on the
trombone, a running minor scale by the clarinet and piano, an umpah,
umpah by the bass horn, a combination four measure moan and strum by
the saxophone and banjo, then a melodic ensemble, and the orchestra
was playing another dance tune. Masses of people jumbled up the three
entrances to the dance square and with difficulty, singled out their
mates and became closely allied partners. Inadvertently, Emma Lou
looked at Arline’s brother. He blushed, and appeared uncomfortable. She
realized immediately what was on his mind. He didn’t know whether or
not to ask her to dance with him. The ethics of the case were complex.
She was a Negro and hired maid. But was she a hired maid after hours,
and in this environment? Emma Lou had difficulty in suppressing a
smile, then she decided to end the suspense.
“Why don’t you two dance. No need of letting the music go to waste.”
Both Arline and her brother were obviously relieved, but as they got
up Arline said, “Ain’t much fun cuddling up to your own brother when
there’s music like this.” But off they went, leaving Emma Lou alone and
disturbed. John ought to be here, slipped out before she remembered
that she didn’t want John any more. Then she began to wish that John
had introduced her to some more men. But he didn’t know the kind of men
she was interested in knowing. He only knew men and boys like himself,
porters and janitors and chauffeurs and bootblacks. Imagine her, a
college trained person, even if she hadn’t finished her senior year,
being satisfied with the company of such unintelligent servitors. How
had she stood John so long with his constant of defense, “I ain’t got
much education, but I got mother wit.” Mother wit! Creation of the
unlettered, satisfying illusion to the dumb, ludicrous prop to the
mentally unfit. Yes, he had mother wit all right.
Emma Lou looked around and noticed at a near-by table three young
colored men, all in tuxedos, gazing at her and talking. She averted
her glance and turned to watch the dancers. She thought she heard a
burst of ribald laughter from the young men at the table. Then some
one touched her on the shoulder, and she looked up into a smiling
oriental-like face, neither brown nor yellow in color, but warm and
pleasing beneath the soft lights, and, because of the smile, showing a
gleaming row of small, even teeth, set off by a solitary gold incisor.
The voice was persuasive and apologetic, “Would you care to dance with
me?” The music had stopped, but there was promise of an encore. Emma
Lou was confused, her mind blankly chaotic. She was expected to push
back her chair and get up. She did. And, without saying a word, allowed
herself to be maneuvered to the dance floor.
In a moment they were swallowed up in the jazz whirlpool. Long
strides were impossible. There were too many other legs striding for
free motion in that over populated area. He held her close to him;
the contours of her body fitting his. The two highballs had made her
giddy. She seemed to be glowing inside. The soft lights and the music
suggested abandon and intrigue. They said nothing to one another. She
noticed that her partner’s face seemed alive with some inner ecstasy.
It must be the music, thought Emma Lou. Then she got a whiff of his
liquor-laden breath.
After three encores, the clarinet shrilled out a combination of notes
that seemed to say regretfully, “That’s all.” Brighter lights were
switched on, and the milling couples merged into a struggling mass of
individuals, laughing, talking, over-animated individuals, all trying
to go in different directions, and getting a great deal of fun out
of the resulting confusion. Emma Lou’s partner held tightly to her
arm, and pushed her through the insensate crowd to her table. Then
he muttered a polite “thank you” and turned away. Emma Lou sat down.
Arline and her brother looked at her and laughed. “Got a dance, eh
Louie?” Emma Lou wondered if Arline was being malicious, and for an
answer she only nodded her head and smiled, hoping all the while that
her smile was properly enigmatic.
Arline’s brother spoke up. “Whadda say we go. I’ve seen enough of this
to know that Arline and her stage director are all wet.” Their waiter
was called, the check was paid, and they were on their way out. In
spite of herself, Emma Lou glanced back to the table where her dancing
partner was sitting. To her confusion, she noticed that he and his two
friends were staring at her. One of them said something and made a wry
face. Then they all laughed, uproariously and cruelly.
* * * * *
Alva had overslept. Braxton, who had stayed out the entire night, came
in about eight o’clock, and excitedly interrupted his drunken slumber.
“Ain’t you goin’ to work?”
“Work?” Alva was alarmed. “What time is it?”
“’Bout eight. Didn’t you set the clock?”
“Sure, I did.” Alva picked up the clock from the floor and examined
the alarm dial. It had been set for ten o’clock instead of for six. He
sulked for a moment, then attempted to shake off the impending mood of
regretfulness and disgust for self.
“Aw, hell, what’s the dif’. Call ’em up and tell ’em I’m sick. There’s
a nickel somewhere in that change on the dresser.” Braxton had taken
off his tuxedo coat and vest.
“If you’re not goin’ to work ever, you might as well quit. I don’t see
no sense in working two days and laying off three.”
“I’m goin’ to quit the damn job anyway. I been working steady now since
last fall.”
“I thought it was about time you quit.” Braxton had stripped off his
white full dress shirt, put on his bathrobe, and started out of the
room, to go downstairs to the telephone. Alva reached across the bed
and pulled up the shade, blinked at the inpouring daylight and lay
himself back down, one arm thrown across his forehead. He had slipped
off into a state of semi-consciousness again when Braxton returned.
“The girl said she’d tell the boss. Asked who I was as usual.” He went
into the alcove to finish undressing, and put on his pajamas. Alva
looked up.
“You goin’ to bed?”
“Yes, don’t you think I want some sleep?”
“Thought you was goin’ to look for a job?”
“I was, but I hadn’t figured on staying out all night.”
“Always some damn excuse. Where’d you go?”
“Down to Flo’s.”
“Who in the hell is Flo?”
“That little yaller broad I picked up at the cabaret last night.”
“I thought she had a nigger with her.”
“She did, but I jived her along, so she ditched him, and gave me her
address. I met her there later.”
Braxton was now ready to get into the bed. All this time he had been
preparing himself in his usual bedtime manner. His face had been
cold-creamed, his hair greased and tightly covered by a silken stocking
cap. This done, he climbed over Alva and lay on top of the covers. They
were silent for a moment, then Braxton laughed softly to himself.
“Where’d _you_ go last night?”
“Where’d I go?” Alva seemed surprised. “Why I came home, where’d ya
think I went?” Braxton laughed again.
“Oh, I thought maybe you’d really made a date with that coal scuttle
blond you danced with.”
“Ya musta thought it.”
“Well, ya seemed pretty sweet on her.”
“Whaddaya mean, sweet? Just because I danced with her once. I took pity
on her, cause she looked so lonesome with those ofays. Wonder who they
was?”
“Oh, she probably works for them. It’s good you danced with her. Nobody
else would.”
“I didn’t see nothing wrong with her. She might have been a little
dark.”
“Little dark is right, and you know when they comes blacker’n me,
they ain’t got no go.” Braxton was a reddish brown aristocrat, with
clear-cut features and curly hair. His paternal grandfather had been
an Iroquois Indian.
* * * * *
Emma Lou was very lonesome. She still knew no one save John, two
or three of the Negro actors who worked on the stage with Arline,
and a West Indian woman who lived in the same apartment with her.
Occasionally John met her when she left the theater at night and
escorted her to her apartment door. He repeatedly importuned her to be
nice to him once more. Her only answer was a sigh or a smile.
The West Indian woman was employed as a stenographer in the office of a
Harlem political sheet. She was shy and retiring, and not much given to
making friends with American Negroes. So many of them had snubbed and
pained her when she was newly emigrant from her home in Barbadoes, that
she lumped them all together, just as they seemed to do her people. She
would not take under consideration that Emma Lou was new to Harlem,
and not even aware of the prejudice American-born Harlemites nursed
for foreign-born ones. She remembered too vividly how, on ringing the
bell of a house where there had been a vacancy sign in the window, a
little girl had come to the door, and, in answer to a voice in the back
asking, “Who is it, Cora?” had replied, “monkey chaser wants to see the
room you got to rent.” Jasmine Griffith was wary of all contact with
American Negroes, for that had been only one of the many embittering
incidents she had experienced.
Emma Lou liked Jasmine, but was conscious of the fact that she could
never penetrate her stolid reserve. They often talked to one another
when they met in the hallway, and sometimes they stopped in one
another’s rooms, but there was never any talk of going places together,
never any informal revelations or intimacies.
The Negro actors in “Cabaret Gal,” all felt themselves superior to
Emma Lou, and she in turn felt superior to them. She was just a maid.
They were just common stage folk. Once she had had an inspiration. She
had heard that “Cabaret Gal” was liable to run for two years or more
on Broadway before road shows were sent out. Without saying anything
to Arline she had approached the stage director and asked him, in all
secrecy, what her chances were of getting into the cabaret ensemble.
She knew they paid well, and she speculated that two or three years in
“Cabaret Gal” might lay the foundations for a future stage career.
“What the hell would Arline do,” he laughed, “if she didn’t have you to
change her complexion before every performance?”
Emma Lou had smiled away this bit of persiflage and had reiterated her
request in such a way that there was no mistaking her seriousness.
Sensing this, the director changed his mood, and admitted that even
then two of the girls were dropping out of “Cabaret Gal” to sail for
Europe with another show, booked for a season on the continent. But he
hastened to tell her, as he saw her eyes brighten with anticipation:
“Well, you see, we worked out a color scheme that would be a complement
to Arline’s makeup. You’ve noticed, no doubt, that all of the girls are
about one color, and....”
Unable to stammer any more, he had hastened away, embarrassed.
Emma Lou hadn’t noticed that all the girls were one color. In fact, she
was certain they were not. She hastened to stand in the stage wings
among them between scenes and observe their skin coloring. Despite many
layers of liquid powder she could see that they were not all one color,
but that they were either mulatto or light-brown skin. Their makeup and
the lights gave them an appearance of sameness. She noticed that there
were several black men in the ensemble, but that none of the women were
dark. Then the breach between Emma Lou and the show people widened.
Emma Lou had had another inspiration. She had decided to move. Perhaps
if she were to live with a homey type of family they could introduce
her to “the right sort of people.” She blamed her enforced isolation
on the fact that she had made no worthwhile contacts. Mrs. Blake was
a disagreeable remembrance. Since she came to think about it, Mrs.
Blake had been distinctly patronizing like ... like ... her high school
principal, or like Doris Garrett, the head of the only Negro sorority
in the Southern California college she had attended. Doris Garrett had
been very nice to all her colored schoolmates, but had seen to it that
only those girls who were of a mulatto type were pledged for membership
in the Greek letter society of which she was the head.
Emma Lou reasoned that she couldn’t go on as she was, being alone
and aching for congenial companionship. True, her job didn’t allow
her much spare time. She had to be at Arline’s apartment at eleven
every morning, but except on the two matinee days, she was free from
two until seven-thirty P. M., when she had to be at the theater, and
by eleven-thirty every night, she was in Harlem. Then she had all
day Sunday to herself. Arline paid her a good salary, and she made
tips from the first and second leads in the show, who used her spare
moments. She had been working for six weeks now, and had saved one
hundred dollars. She practically lived on her tips. Her salary was
twenty-five dollars per week. Dinner was the only meal she had to pay
for, and Arline gave her many clothes.
So Emma Lou began to think seriously of getting another room. She
wanted more space and more air and more freedom from fish and cabbage
smells. She had been in Harlem now for about fourteen weeks. Only
fourteen weeks? The count stunned her. It seemed much longer. It was
this rut she was in. Well, she would get out of it. Finding a room, a
new room, would be the first step.
Emma Lou asked Jasmine how one went about it. Jasmine was noncommittal,
and said she didn’t know, but she had heard that _The Amsterdam News_,
a Harlem Negro weekly, carried a large “Furnished rooms for rent”
section. Emma Lou bought a copy of this paper, and, though attracted,
did not stop to read the news columns under the streaming headlines
to the effect “Headless Man Found In Trunk”; “Number Runner Given
Sentence”; “Benefit Ball Huge Success”; but turned immediately to the
advertising section.
There were many rooms advertised for rent, rooms of all sizes and for
all prices, with all sorts of conveniences and inconveniences. Emma Lou
was more bewildered than ever. Then, remembering that John had said
that all the “dictys” lived between Seventh and Edgecombe Avenues on
136th, 137th, 138th and 139th Streets, decided to check off the places
in these streets. John had also told her that “dictys” lived in the
imposing apartment houses on Edgecombe, Bradhurst and St. Nicholas
Avenues. “Dictys” were Harlem’s high-toned people, folk listed in the
local social register, as it were. But Emma Lou did not care to live in
another apartment building. She preferred, or thought she would prefer,
living in a private house where there would be fewer people and more
privacy.
The first place Emma Lou approached had a double room for two girls,
two men, or a couple. They thought their advertisement had said as
much. It hadn’t, but Emma Lou apologized, and left. The next three
places were nice but exorbitant. Front rooms with two windows and a
kitchenette, renting for twelve, fourteen and sixteen dollars a week.
Emma Lou had planned to spend not more than eight or nine dollars at
the most. The next place smelled far worse than her present home. The
room was smaller and the rent higher. Emma Lou began to lose hope, then
rallying, had gone to the last place on her list from _The Amsterdam
News_. The landlady was the spinster type, garrulous and friendly. She
had a high forehead, keen intellectual eyes, and a sharp profile. The
room she showed to Emma Lou was both spacious and clean, and she only
asked eight dollars and fifty cents per week for it.
After showing her the room, the landlady had invited Emma Lou
downstairs to her parlor. Emma Lou found a place to sit down on a
damask covered divan. There were many other seats in the room, but the
landlady, _Miss_ Carrington, as she had introduced herself, insisted
upon sitting down beside her. They talked for about a half an hour,
and in that time, being a successful “pumper,” _Miss_ Carrington had
learned the history of Emma Lou’s experiences in Harlem. Satisfied of
her ground, she grew more familiar, placed her hand on Emma Lou’s knee,
then finally put her arm around her waist. Emma Lou felt uncomfortable.
This sudden and unexpected intimacy disturbed her. The room was close
and hot. Damask coverings seemed to be everywhere. Damask coverings and
dull red draperies and mauve walls.
“Don’t worry any more, dearie, I’ll take care of you from now on,” and
she had tightened her arm around Emma Lou’s waist, who, feeling more
uncomfortable than ever, looked at her wrist watch.
“I must be going.”
“Do you want the room?” There was a note of anxiety in her voice.
“There are lots of nice girls living here. We call this the ‘Old Maid’s
Home.’ We have parties among ourselves, and just have a grand time.
Talk about fun! I know you’d be happy here.”
Emma Lou knew she would too, and said as much. Then hastily, she gave
_Miss_ Carrington a three dollar deposit on the room, and left ... to
continue her search for a new place to live.
There were no more places on her _Amsterdam News_ list, so noticing
“Vacancy” signs in windows along the various streets, Emma Lou decided
to walk along and blindly choose a house. None of the houses in 137th
Street impressed her, they were all too cold looking, and she was
through with 136th Street. _Miss_ Carrington lived there. She sauntered
down the “L” trestled Eighth Avenue to 138th Street. Then she turned
toward Seventh Avenue and strolled along slowly on the south side
of the street. She chose the south side because she preferred the
appearance of the red brick houses there to the green brick ones on the
north side. After she had passed by three “Vacancy” signs, she decided
to enter the very next house where such a sign was displayed.
Seeing one, she climbed the terraced stone stairs, rang the doorbell
and waited expectantly. There was a long pause. She rang the bell
again, and just as she relieved her pressure, the door was opened by a
bedizened yellow woman with sand colored hair and deep set corn colored
eyes. Emma Lou noted the incongruous thickness of her lips.
“How do you do. I ... I ... would like to see one of your rooms.”
The woman eyed Emma Lou curiously and looked as if she were about to
snort. Then slowly she began to close the door in the astonished girl’s
face. Emma Lou opened her mouth and tried to speak, but the woman
forestalled her, saying testily in broken English:
“We have nothing here.”
Persons of color didn’t associate with blacks in the Caribbean Island
she had come from.
From then on Emma Lou intensified her suffering, mulling over and
magnifying each malignant experience. They grew within her and were
nourished by constant introspection and livid reminiscences. Again, she
stood upon the platform in the auditorium of the Boise high school.
Again that first moment of realization and its attendant strictures
were disinterred and revivified. She was black, too black, there was no
getting around it. Her mother had thought so, and had often wished that
she had been a boy. Black boys can make a go of it, but black girls....
No one liked black, anyway....
Wanted: light colored girl to work as waitress in tearoom....
Wanted: Nurse girl, light colored preferred (children are afraid of
black folks)....
“I don’ haul no coal....”
“It’s like this, Emma Lou, they don’t want no dark girls in their
sorority. They ain’t pledged us, and we’re the only two they ain’t, and
we’re both black.”
_The ineluctability of raw experience! The muddy mirroring of life’s
perplexities.... Seeing everything in terms of self.... The spreading
sensitiveness of an adder’s sting._
“Mr. Brown has some one else in mind....”
“We have nothing here....”
She should have been a boy. A black boy could get along, but a black
girl....
* * * * *
Arline was leaving the cast of “Cabaret Gal” for two weeks. Her mother
had died in Chicago. The Negro Carmen must be played by an understudy,
a real mulatto this time, who, lacking Arline’s poise and personality,
nevertheless brought down the house because of the crude vividity
of her performance. Emma Lou was asked to act as her maid while
Arline was away. Indignantly, she had taken the alternative of a two
weeks’ vacation. Imagine her being maid for a _Negro_ woman! It was
unthinkable.
Left entirely to herself, she proceeded to make herself more miserable.
Lying in bed late every morning, semi-conscious, body burning, mind
disturbed by thoughts of sex. Never before had she experienced such
physical longing. She often thought of John and at times was almost
driven to slip him into her room once more. But John couldn’t satisfy
her. She felt that she wanted something more than just the mere
physical relationship with some one whose body and body coloring were
distasteful to her.
When she did decide to get up, she would spend an hour before her
dresser mirror, playing with her hair, parting it on the right side,
then on the left, then in the middle, brushing it straight back, or
else teasing it with the comb, inducing it to crackle with electric
energy. Then she would cover it with a cap, pin a towel around her
shoulders, and begin to experiment with her complexion.
She had decided to bleach her skin as much as possible. She had
bought many creams and skin preparations, and had tried to remember
the various bleaching aids she had heard of throughout her life. She
remembered having heard her grandmother speak of that “old fool, Carrie
Campbell,” who, already a fair mulatto, had wished to pass for white.
To accomplish this she had taken arsenic wafers, which were guaranteed
to increase the pallor of one’s skin.
Emma Lou had obtained some of these arsenic wafers and eaten them, but
they had only served to give her pains in the pit of her stomach. Next
she determined upon a peroxide solution in addition to something which
was known as Black and White Ointment. After she had been using these
for about a month she thought that she could notice some change. But
in reality the only effects were an increase in blackheads, irritating
rashes, and a burning skin.
Meanwhile she found her thoughts straying often to the chap she had
danced with in the cabaret. She was certain he lived in Harlem, and
she was determined to find him. She took it for granted that he would
remember her. So day after day, she strolled up and down Seventh Avenue
from 125th to 145th Street, then crossed to Lenox Avenue and traversed
the same distance. _He_ was her ideal. He looked like a college person.
He dressed well. His skin was such a warm and different color, and
she had been tantalized by the mysterious slant and deepness of his
oriental-like eyes.
After walking the streets like this the first few days of her vacation,
she became aware of the futility of her task. She saw many men on the
street, many well dressed, seemingly cultured, pleasingly colored men
and boys. They seemed to congregate in certain places, and stand there
all the day. She found herself wondering when and where they worked,
and how they could afford to dress so well. She began to admire their
well formed bodies and gloried in the way their trousers fit their
shapely limbs, and in the way they walked, bringing their heels down
so firmly and so noisily on the pavement. Rubber heels were out of
fashion. Hard heels, with metal heel plates were the mode of the day.
These corner loafers were so care-free, always smiling, eyes always
bright. She loved to hear them laugh, and loved to watch them, when,
without any seeming provocation, they would cut a few dance steps or do
a jig. It seemed as if they either did this from sheer exuberance or
else simply to relieve the monotony of standing still.
Of course, they noticed her as she passed and repassed day after day.
She eyed them boldly enough, but she was still too self-conscious to
broadcast an inviting look. She was too afraid of public ridicule or a
mass mocking. Ofttimes men spoke to her, and tried to make advances,
but they were never the kind she preferred. She didn’t like black men,
and the others seemed to keep their distance.
One day, tired of walking, she went into a motion picture theater
on the avenue. She had seen the feature picture before, but was too
lethargic and too uninterested in other things to go some place else.
In truth, there was no place else for her to go. So she sat in the
darkened theater, squirmed around in her seat, and began to wonder
just how many thousands of Negroes there were in Harlem. This theater
was practically full, even in mid-afternoon. The streets were crowded,
other theaters were crowded, and then there must be many more at home
and at work. Emma Lou wondered what the population of Negro Harlem was.
She should have read that Harlem number of the Survey Graphic issued
two or three years ago. But Harlem hadn’t interested her then for she
had had no idea at the time that she would ever come to Harlem.
Some one sat down beside her. She was too occupied with herself to
notice who the person was. The feature picture was over and a comedy
was being flashed on the screen. Emma Lou found herself laughing, and,
finding something on the screen to interest her, squared herself in
her seat. Then she felt a pressure on one of her legs, the warm fleshy
pressure of another leg. Her first impulse was to change her position.
Perhaps she had touched the person next to her. Perhaps it was an
accident. She moved her leg a little, but she still felt the pressure.
Maybe it wasn’t an accident. Her heart beat fast, her limbs began to
quiver. The leg which was pressed against hers had such a pleasant,
warm, fleshy feeling. She stole a glance at the person who had sat down
next to her. He smiled ... an impudent boyish smile and pressed her leg
the harder.
“Funny cuss, that guy,” he was speaking to her.
_Slap him in the face. Change your seat. Don’t be an idiot. He has a
nice smile. Look at him again._
“Did you see him in ‘Long Pants’?”
He was leaning closer now, and Emma Lou took note of a teakwood tan
hand resting on her knee. She took another look at him, and saw that he
had curly hair. He leaned toward her, and she leaned toward him. Their
shoulders touched, his hand reached for hers and stole it from her lap.
She wished that the theater wasn’t so dark. But if it hadn’t been so
dark this couldn’t have happened. She wondered if his hair and eyes
were brown or jet black.
The feature picture was being reeled off again. They were too busy
talking to notice that. When it was half over, they left their seats
together. Before they reached the street, Emma Lou handed him three
dollars, and, leaving the theater, they went to an apartment house on
140th Street, off Lenox Avenue. Emma Lou waited downstairs in the dirty
marble hallway where she was stifled by urinal smells and stared at by
passing people, waited for about ten minutes, then, in answer to his
call, climbed one flight of stairs, and was led into a well furnished,
though dark, apartment.
His name was Jasper Crane. He was from Virginia. Living in Harlem with
his brother, so he said. He had only been in New York a month. Didn’t
have a job yet. His brother wasn’t very nice to him ... wanted to
kick him out because he was jealous of him, thought his wife was more
attentive than a sister-in-law should be. He asked Emma Lou to lend him
five dollars. He said he wanted to buy a job. She did. And when he left
her, he kissed her passionately and promised to meet her on the next
day and to telephone her within an hour.
But he didn’t telephone nor did Emma Lou ever see him again. The
following day she waited for an hour and a half in the vicinity of
that hallway where they were supposed to meet again. Then she went to
the motion picture theater where they had met, and sat in the same
seat in the same row so that he could find her. She sat there through
two shows, then came back on the next day, and on the next. Meanwhile
several other men approached her, a panting fat Jew, whom she reported
to the usher, a hunchback, whom she pitied and then admired as he
“made” the girl sitting on the other side of him; and there were
several not very clean, trampy-looking men, but no Jasper.
He had asked her if she ever went to the Renaissance Casino, a public
hall, where dances were held every night, so Emma Lou decided to go
there on a Saturday, hoping to see him. She drew twenty-five dollars
from the bank in order to buy a new dress, a very fine elaborate
dress, which she got from a “hot” man, who had been recommended to
her by Jasmine. “Hot” men sold supposedly stolen goods, thus enabling
Harlem folk to dress well but cheaply. Then she spent the entire
afternoon and evening preparing herself for the night, had her hair
washed and marcelled, and her fingernails manicured.
Before putting on her dress she stood in front of her mirror for over
an hour, fixing her face, drenching it with a peroxide solution,
plastering it with a mudpack, massaging it with a bleaching ointment,
and then, as a final touch, using much vanishing cream and powder.
She even ate an arsenic wafer. The only visible effect of all this on
her complexion was to give it an ugly purple tinge, but Emma Lou was
certain that it made her skin less dark.
She hailed a taxi and went to the Renaissance Casino. She did feel
foolish, going there without an escort, but the doorman didn’t seem to
notice. Perhaps it was all right. Perhaps it was customary for Harlem
girls to go about unaccompanied. She checked her wraps and wandered
along the promenade that bordered the dance floor. It was early yet,
just ten-thirty, and only a few couples were dancing. She found a
chair, and tried to look as if she were waiting for some one. The
orchestra stopped playing, people crowded past her. She liked the dance
hall, liked its draped walls and ceilings, its harmonic color design
and soft lights.
The music began again. She didn’t see Jasper. A spindly legged yellow
boy, awkward and bashful, asked her to dance with him. She did. The boy
danced badly, but dancing with him was better than sitting there alone,
looking foolish. She did wish that he would assume a more upright
position and stop scrunching his shoulders. It seemed as if he were
trying to bend both their backs to the breaking point. As they danced
they talked about the music. He asked her did she have an escort. She
said yes, and hurried to the ladies’ room when the dance was over.
She didn’t particularly like the looks of the crowd. It was
well-behaved enough, but ... well ... one could see that they didn’t
belong to the cultured classes. They weren’t the right sort of people.
Maybe nice people didn’t come here. Jasper hadn’t been so nice.
She wished she could see him, wouldn’t she give him a piece of her
mind?--And for the first time she really sensed the baseness of the
trick he had played on her.
She walked out of the ladies’ room and found herself again on the
promenade. For a moment she stood there, watching the dancers. The
floor was more crowded now, the dancers more numerous and gay. She
watched them swirl and glide around the dance floor, and an intense
longing for Jasper or John or any one welled up within her. It was
terrible to be so alone, terrible to stand here and see other girls
contentedly curled up in men’s arms. She had been foolish to come,
Jasper probably never came here. In truth he was no doubt far away from
New York by now. What sense was there in her being here. She wasn’t
going to stay. She was going home, but before starting toward the check
room, she took one more glance at the dancers and saw her cabaret
dancing partner.
He was dancing with a slender brown-skin girl, his smile as ecstatic
and intense as before. Emma Lou noted the pleasing lines of his body
encased in a form-fitting blue suit. Why didn’t he look her way?
“May I have this dance?” A well modulated deep voice. A slender
stripling, arrayed in brown, with a dark brown face. He had dimples.
They danced. Emma Lou was having difficulty in keeping track of Alva.
He seemed to be consciously striving to elude her. He seemed to be
deliberately darting in among clusters of couples, where he would
remain hidden for some time, only to reappear far ahead or behind her.
Her partner was congenial. He introduced himself, but she did not hear
his name, for at that moment, Alva and his partner glided close by.
Emma Lou actually shoved the supple, slender boy she was dancing with
in Alva’s direction. She mustn’t lose him this time. She must speak.
They veered close to one another. They almost collided. Alva looked
into her face. She smiled and spoke. He acknowledged her salute, but
stared at her, frankly perplexed, and there was no recognition in his
face as he moved away, bending his head close to that of his partner,
the better to hear something she was asking him.
The slender brown boy clung to Emma Lou’s arm, treated her to a
soda, and, at her request, piloted her around the promenade. She saw
Alva sitting in a box in the balcony, and suggested to her companion
that they parade around the balcony for a while. He assented. He was
lonesome too. First summer in New York. Just graduated from Virginia
Union University. Going to Columbia School of Law next year. Nice boy,
but no appeal. Too--supple.
They passed by Alva’s box. He wasn’t there. Two other couples and the
girl he had been dancing with were. Emma Lou and her companion walked
the length of the balcony, then retraced their steps just in time to
see Alva coming around the corner carrying a cup of water. She watched
the rhythmic swing of his legs, like symmetrical pendulums, perfectly
shaped; and she admired once more the intriguing lines of his body and
pleasing foreignness of his face. As they met, she smiled at him. He
was certain he did not know her but he stopped and was polite, feeling
that he must find out who she was and where he had met her.
“How do you do?” Emma Lou held out her hand. He shifted the cup of
water from his right hand to his left. “I’m glad to see you again.”
They shook hands. His clasp was warm, his palm soft and sweaty. The
supple lad stepped to one side. “I--I,” Emma Lou was speaking now,
“have often wondered if we would meet again.” Alva wanted to laugh.
He could not imagine who this girl with the purple-powdered skin was.
Where had he seen her? She must be mistaking him for some one else.
Well, he was game. He spoke sincerely:
“And I, too, have wanted to see you.”
Emma Lou couldn’t blush, but she almost blubbered with joy.
“Perhaps we’ll have a dance together.”
“My God,” thought Alva, “She’s a quick worker.”
“Oh, certainly, where can I find you?”
“Downstairs on the promenade, near the center boxes.”
“The one after this?” This seemed to be the easiest way out. He could
easily dodge her later.
“Yes,” and she moved away, the supple lad clinging to her arm again.
“Who’s the ‘spade,’ Alva?” Geraldine had seen him stop to talk to her.
“Damned if I know.”
“Aw, sure you know who she is. You danced with her at Small’s.” Braxton
hadn’t forgotten.
“Well, I never. Is that _it_?” Laughter all around as he told about
their first meeting. But he didn’t dodge her, for Geraldine and Braxton
riled him with their pertinacious badinage. He felt that they were
making more fun of him than of her, and to show them just how little he
minded their kidding he stalked off to find her. She was waiting, the
slim, brown stripling swaying beside her, importuning her not to wait
longer. He didn’t want to lose her. She didn’t want to lose Alva, and
was glad when they danced off together.
“Who’s your boy friend?” Alva had fortified himself with gin. His
breath smelled familiar.
“Just an acquaintance.” She couldn’t let him know she had come here
unescorted. “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“Of course, I did; how could I forget you?” Smooth tongue, phrases with
a double meaning.
“I didn’t forget _you_.” Emma Lou was being coy. “I have often looked
for you.”
Looked for him where? My God, what an impression he must have made! He
wondered what he had said to her before. Plunge in boy, plunge! The
blacker the berry--he chuckled to himself.
Orchestra playing “Blue Skies,” as an especial favor to her. Alva
telling her his name and giving her his card, and asking her to ’phone
him some day. Alva close to her and being nice, his arms tightening
about her. She would call him tomorrow. Ecstasy ended too soon. The
music stopped. He thanked her for the dance and left her standing on
the promenade by the side of the waiting slender stripling. She danced
with him twice more, then let him take her home.
At ten the next morning Emma Lou called Alva. Braxton came to the
telephone.
“Alva’s gone to work; who is it?” People should have more sense than to
call that early in the morning. He never got up until noon. Emma Lou
was being apologetic.
“Could you tell me what time he will be in?”
“’Bout six-thirty. Who shall I say called? This is his roommate.”
“Just.... Oh.... I’ll call him later. Thank you.”
Braxton swore. “Why in the hell does Alva give so many damn women his
’phone number?”
Six-thirty-five. His roommate had said about six-thirty. She called
again. _He_ came to the ’phone. She thought his voice was more harsh
than usual.
“Oh, I’m all right, only tired.”
“Did you work hard?”
“I always work hard.”
“I ... I ... just thought I’d call.”
“Glad you did, call me again some time. Goodbye”--said too quickly. No
chance to say “When will I see you again?”
She went home, got into the bed and cried herself to sleep.
* * * * *
Arline returned two days ahead of schedule. Things settled back into
routine. The brown stripling had taken Emma Lou out twice, but upon her
refusal to submit herself to him, had gone away in a huff, and had not
returned. She surmised that it was the first time he had made such a
request of any one. He did it so ineptly. Work. Home. Walks. Theaters
downtown during the afternoon, and thoughts of Alva. Finally, she just
had to call him again. He came to the ’phone:
“Hello. Who? Emma Lou? Where have you been? I’ve been wondering where
you were?”
She was shy, afraid she might be too bold. But Alva had had his usual
three glasses of before-dinner gin. He helped her out.
“When can I see you, Sugar?”
Sugar! He had called her “sugar.” She told him where she worked. He
was to meet her after the theater that very night.
* * * * *
“How many nights a week you gonna have that little inkspitter up here?”
“Listen here, Brax, you have who you want up here, don’t you?”
“That ain’t it. I just don’t like to see you tied up with a broad like
that.”
“Why not? She’s just as good as the rest, and you know what they say,
‘The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.’”
“The only thing a black woman is good for is to make money for a
brown-skin papa.”
“I guess I don’t know that.”
“Well,” Braxton was satisfied now, “if that’s the case....”
He had faith in Alva’s wisdom.