_Gold Coast_
Time certainly does flitter by here in little old New York, as I has now
taken to calling it. Here it has been nearly six weeks since last I done
any authorizing, and a whole heap of things has come to pass since then;
yet, when I looks back at it, it seems like 'twas only yesterday when
last I held my pen in hand.
Also in that time I has learned much. When I reflects back on how
sorghum-green I was when we landed here off the steam-cars, I actually
feels right sorry for myself--not knowing what a road-house was, and
figuring that when somebody mentioned sub-let apartments they was
describing the name of a family, and getting lost in Harlem the first
time I went forth rambling, and all them other fool things which I done
and said at the outsetting of our experiences! No longer ago than last
evening I was saying to some of the fellow-members up at the Pastime
Colored Pleasure and Recreation Club, on One-Hundred and Thirty-fifth
street, that it's a born wonder they didn't throw a loop over me and
cart me off to the idiotic asylum for safety keeping till the newness
had done wore off.
I must also say for Mr. Dallas that he's progressed very rapid, too. And
likewise the new business must be paying him powerful well right from
the go-off, because we certainly is rolled up in the lap-robes of luxury
and living off the top skimmings of the cream.
Before we has been here a week I notices there's a change taking place
in Mr. Dallas. He's beginning to get dissatisfied with things as they is
and craving after things as they ain't. Near as I can figure it out,
he's caught a kind of restlessness disease which it appears to afflict
everybody up in these parts, one way or another. It seems like to me,
though, he must a-taken it early and in a violent form.
The first symptoms is when he fetches in one of these here little
slick-headed Japanee boys to do the cooking and et cetera, so's I can
wait on him more exclusively. Anyway, that's the reason which he assigns
to me, but all the same I retains my own personal views on the matter.
We don't need no extra hands to help run our establishment no more'n we
needs water in our shoes, and my onspoken opinion is that Mr. Dallas
thinks maybe the place look more high-tonish by having an imported
strange foreigner fussing round. Privately, I don't lose no time
designating to this here Koga, which is the slick-headed boy's name,
where he gets off so far as I is concerned. No sooner does he arrive in
amongst our midst than I tolls him back into the far end of the butler's
pantry and I says to him, I says:
"Yaller kid, lis'sen: I ain't 'sponsible fur yore comin' yere, but jest
so shorely ez you starts messin' in my bus'ness I'm goin' be 'sponsible
fur yore everlastin' departure. You 'tends to yore wu'k an' I 'tends to
mine an' tharby we gits along harmonious. But one sign of meddlin' frum
you an' I'll jest reach back yere to my flank pocket whar I totes me a
hosstile razor an' 'en you better pick out w'ich one of these yere
winders you perfurs to jump out of."
He just sort of grins at that and sucks some loose air in betwixt his
front teeth.
"Tha's right," I says, "save up yore breathin', 'cause ef I teks after
you you'll shore require to have plenty of it on hand fur pu'pposes of
fast travelin'. Chile," I says, "you's had yore warnin'--so harken an'
give heed or else you'll find yo'se'f carved up so fine they'll have to
fune'lize you on the 'stallment plan. Mr. Dallas he may be the big
boss," I says, "but you lakwise better pay a heap of 'tention to the
fust assistant deputy sub-boss w'ich I'm," I says, "him."
Saying thus I gives him a savigrous look backward over my shoulder and
walks away stepping kind of light on my feet like a cat fixing for to
pounce. He ain't saying a word; he's just standing there reserving some
more breath.
Of course I ain't really aiming to start no race war. Always it has been
my constant aim to keep out of rough jams with one and all but, even
so, I figures that it's just as well to get the jump on that there
Japanee human-siphon and render him tame and docile from the beginning.
Next thing is that Mr. Dallas begins faulting the clothes he brought
along with him from home. He says to me they appeared all right when he
was having 'em made to order for him by M. Marcus & Son, corner of Third
and Kentucky Avenue, which that is our leading merchant-tailor, but he
can see now that they ain't got the real New York snap to 'em. And the
ensuing word is that one of them swell Fifth Avenue shops is making him
a full new outfit. Well, I must admit that suits me from the ground up;
it's a sign to me I'm about to inherit.
And the next thing is that he invests in several cases of fancy
drinkings which a bootlegging white man fetches it up to us under cover
of the darkness. I sees Mr. Dallas counting out the money for to pay
him, and it certainly amounts to an important sum. I ain't questioning
the wisdom of this step neither, seeking that the stock we fetched
along with us from the South is vanishing very brisk, and the new supply
ought to last me and him for no telling how long, if we both is careful.
The trouble with Mr. Dallas, though, is he ain't careful. Scarcely a day
passes without some of his new-made Northern friends dropping in on him
and sopping up highballs and cocktails and this and that. That there Mr.
Bellows is one of our most earnest customers. He'll set down empty
alongside a full bottle and stay right there till the emptiness and the
fullness has done changed places. Also, when it comes to liberal
consuming of somebody else's liquor, Mr. H. C. Raynor has his ondoubted
merits. And when Mr. Dallas gives a party, which he does frequent and
often, the wines and such just flows like manna from the rod of Jonah.
Still, that ain't pestering me much. When white folks lives high in the
front parlor niggers gets fat back in the kitchen.
Then on top of all this he buys himself an automobile and hires a white
chauffeur for to run her. She's one of these here low-cut,
high-powerful cars which when you wants to go somewheres in a hurry you
just steps on her and--_b-z-z-z_--you is done arrived! But she's plenty
costive to run. Every time she takes a deep breath there's another
half-gallon of gasoline gone. If the truth must be known, Mr. Dallas has
not only bought one car; he's bought two. But we don't see the second
one, which is a dark blue runabout, only when Miss Bill-Lee comes round,
because it seems Mr. Dallas has loaned it out to her for her own use,
him paying the garage bills. Betwixt themselves they speaks of it as a
loan, but I thinks to myself that this probably is predestinated to be
one of the most permanent loans in the history of the entire loaning
business.
So it goes. Every day, pretty near it, delivery boys comes knocking at
the service door bringing this and that for Mr. Dallas. If it ain't half
a dozen fresh pairs of shoes it's a sack-full of these here golf
utensils or some new silk pyjamas; and if it ain't another motoring coat
or an elaborous smoking jacket, it's a set of silver-topped brushes and
combs and bottles and things for his toilet table, with his initials cut
on 'em. It seems like he must stop in somewheres every morning on his
way down-town to business and buy himself something. So I judges the
money must be coming in mighty brisk at the bung-hole, because it
certainly is pouring out mighty steady from the spigots.
It also must be a powerful handy and convenient business to be in, for
not only does it appear to pay so well, but it practically almost runs
itself. Often Mr. Dallas ain't starting down-town till the morning is
'most gone, and sometimes he gets back home as early as four o'clock in
the evening. Come Saturday, he don't go near the headquarters at all.
That astonishes me deeply, because down home on a Saturday the stores
all stays open till late at night on account of the country people
coming into town and the hands at the tobacco warehouses and the
factories and all being paid off, and the niggers being out doing their
trading. Especially the niggers. You take the average one of 'em, and
if he can't spend all he's got on Saturday night, it practically spoils
his Sunday for him. He ain't aiming to waste none of his money, saving
it. So, with us, Saturday is the busiest day in the week. But seemingly
not so in this locality.
In fact, so far as I observes to date, the folks up here has got a
special separate system of their own for doing pretty near everything.
More times than one enduring this past month I has said to myself that
there certainly is a big difference betwixt Paducah and New York City.
You don't notice it so much in Paducah, but, lawsy, how it does prone
into you when you gets to New York!