Max Disher stood outside the Honky Tonk Club puffing a panatela and
watching the crowds of white and black folk entering the cabaret. Max
was tall, dapper and smooth coffee-brown. His negroid features had
a slightly satanic cast and there was an insolent nonchalance about
his carriage. He wore his hat rakishly and faultless evening clothes
underneath his raccoon coat. He was young, he wasn't broke, but he was
damnably blue. It was New Year's Eve, 1933, but there was no spirit
of gaiety and gladness in his heart. How could he share the hilarity
of the crowd when he had no girl? He and Minnie, his high "yallah"
flapper, had quarreled that day and everything was over between them.
"Women are mighty funny," he mused to himself, "especially yallah
women. You could give them the moon and they wouldn't appreciate it."
That was probably the trouble; he'd given Minnie too much. It didn't
pay to spend too much on them. As soon as he'd bought her a new outfit
and paid the rent on a three-room apartment, she'd grown uppity. Stuck
on her color, that's what was the matter with her! He took the cigar
out of his mouth and spat disgustedly.
A short, plump, cherubic black fellow, resplendent in a narrow-brimmed
brown fedora, camel's hair coat and spats, strolled up and clapped him
on the shoulder: "Hello, Max!" greeted the newcomer, extending a hand
in a fawn-colored glove, "What's on your mind?"
"Everything, Bunny," answered the debonair Max. "That damn yallah gal
o' mine's got all upstage and quit."
"Say not so!" exclaimed the short black fellow. "Why I thought you and
her were all forty."
"Were, is right, kid. And after spending my dough, too! It sure makes
me hot. Here I go and buy two covers at the Honky Tonk for tonight,
thinkin' surely she'd come and she starts a row and quits!"
"Shucks!" exploded Bunny, "I wouldn't let that worry me none. I'd take
another skirt. I wouldn't let no dame queer my New Year's."
"So would I, Wise Guy, but all the dames I know are dated up. So here I
am all dressed up and no place to go."
"You got two reservations, aint you? Well, let's you and me go in,"
Bunny suggested. "We may be able to break in on some party."
Max visibly brightened. "That's a good idea," he said. "You never can
tell, we might run in on something good."
Swinging their canes, the two joined the throng at the entrance of the
Honky Tonk Club and descended to its smoky depths. They wended their
way through the maze of tables in the wake of a dancing waiter and sat
down close to the dance floor. After ordering ginger ale and plenty of
ice, they reared back and looked over the crowd.
Max Disher and Bunny Brown had been pals ever since the war when they
soldiered together in the old 15th regiment in France. Max was one of
the Aframerican Fire Insurance Company's crack agents, Bunny was a
teller in the Douglass Bank and both bore the reputation of gay blades
in black Harlem. The two had in common a weakness rather prevalent
among Aframerican bucks: they preferred yellow women. Both swore there
were three things essential to the happiness of a colored gentleman:
yellow money, yellow women and yellow taxis. They had little difficulty
in getting the first and none at all in getting the third but the
yellow women they found flighty and fickle. It was so hard to hold
them. They were so sought after that one almost required a million
dollars to keep them out of the clutches of one's rivals.
"No more yallah gals for me!" Max announced with finality, sipping his
drink. "I'll grab a black gal first."
"Say not so!" exclaimed Bunny, strengthening his drink from his huge
silver flask. "You aint thinkin' o' dealin' in coal, are you?"
"Well," argued his partner, "it might change my luck. You can trust a
black gal; she'll stick to you."
"How do you know? You ain't never had one. Ever' gal I ever seen you
with looked like an ofay."
"Humph!" grunted Max. "My next one may be an ofay, too! They're less
trouble and don't ask you to give 'em the moon."
"I'm right with you, pardner," Bunny agreed, "but I gotta have one
with class. None o' these Woolworth dames for me! Get you in a peck o'
trouble.... Fact is, Big Boy, ain't none o' these women no good. They
all get old on the job."
They drank in silence and eyed the motley crowd around them. There
were blacks, browns, yellows, and whites chatting, flirting, drinking;
rubbing shoulders in the democracy of night life. A fog of tobacco
smoke wreathed their heads and the din from the industrious jazz band
made all but the loudest shrieks inaudible. In and out among the tables
danced the waiters, trays balanced aloft, while the patrons, arrayed in
colored paper caps, beat time with the orchestra, threw streamers or
grew maudlin on each other's shoulders.
"Looky here! Lawdy Lawd!" exclaimed Bunny, pointing to the doorway. A
party of white people had entered. They were all in evening dress and
in their midst was a tall, slim, titian-haired girl who had seemingly
stepped from heaven or the front cover of a magazine.
"My, my, my!" said Max, sitting up alertly.
The party consisted of two men and four women. They were escorted to
a table next to the one occupied by the two colored dandies. Max and
Bunny eyed them covertly. The tall girl was certainly a dream.
"Now that's my speed," whispered Bunny.
"Be yourself," said Max. "You couldn't touch her with a forty-foot
pole."
"Oh, I don't know, Big Boy," Bunny beamed self-confidently, "You never
can tell! You never can tell!"
"Well, I can tell," remarked Disher, "'cause she's a cracker."
"How you know that?"
"Man, I can tell a cracker a block away. I wasn't born and raised in
Atlanta, Georgia, for nothin', you know. Just listen to her voice."
Bunny listened. "I believe she is," he agreed.
They kept eyeing the party to the exclusion of everything else. Max was
especially fascinated. The girl was the prettiest creature he'd ever
seen and he felt irresistibly drawn to her. Unconsciously he adjusted
his necktie and passed his well-manicured hand over his rigidly
straightened hair.
Suddenly one of the white men rose and came over to their table. They
watched him suspiciously. Was he going to start something? Had he
noticed that they were staring at the girl? They both stiffened at his
approach.
"Say," he greeted them, leaning over the table, "do you boys know where
we can get some decent liquor around here? We've run out of stuff and
the waiter says he can't get any for us."
"You can get some pretty good stuff right down the street," Max
informed him, somewhat relieved.
"They won't sell none to him," said Bunny. "They might think he was a
Prohibition officer."
"Could one of you fellows get me some?" asked the man.
"Sure," said Max, heartily. What luck! Here was the very chance he'd
been waiting for. These people might invite them over to their table.
The man handed him a ten dollar bill and Max went out bareheaded to get
the liquor. In ten minutes he was back. He handed the man the quart and
the change. The man gave back the change and thanked him. There was no
invitation to join the party. Max returned to his table and eyed the
group wistfully.
"Did he invite you in?" asked Bunny.
"I'm back here, aint I?" answered Max, somewhat resentfully.
The floor show came on. A black-faced comedian, a corpulent shouter
of mammy songs with a gin-roughened voice, three chocolate soft-shoe
dancers and an octette of wriggling, practically nude, mulatto chorines.
Then midnight and pandemonium as the New Year swept in. When the din
had subsided, the lights went low and the orchestra moaned the weary
blues. The floor filled with couples. The two men and two of the women
at the next table rose to dance. The beautiful girl and another were
left behind.
"I'm going over and ask her to dance," Max suddenly announced to the
surprised Bunny.
"Say not so!" exclaimed that worthy. "You're fixin' to get in dutch,
Big Boy."
"Well, I'm gonna take a chance, anyhow," Max persisted, rising.
This fair beauty had hypnotized him. He felt that he would give
anything for just one dance with her. Once around the floor with her
slim waist in his arm would be like an eternity in heaven. Yes, one
could afford to risk repulse for that.
"Don't do it, Max!" pleaded Bunny. "Them fellows are liable to start
somethin'."
But Max was not to be restrained. There was no holding him back when he
wanted to do a thing, especially where a comely damsel was concerned.
He sauntered over to the table in his most sheikish manner and stood
looking down at the shimmering strawberry blond. She was indeed
ravishing and her exotic perfume titilated his nostrils despite the
clouds of cigarette smoke.
"Would you care to dance?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation.
She looked up at him haughtily with cool green eyes, somewhat
astonished at his insolence and yet perhaps secretly intrigued, but her
reply lacked nothing in definiteness.
"No," she said icily, "I never dance with niggers!" Then turning to her
friend, she remarked: "Can you beat the nerve of these darkies?" She
made a little disdainful grimace with her mouth, shrugged daintily and
dismissed the unpleasant incident.
Crushed and angry, Max returned to his place without a word. Bunny
laughed aloud in high glee.
"You said she was a cracker," he gurgled, "an' now I guess you know it."
"Aw, go to hell," Max grumbled.
Just then Billy Fletcher, the headwaiter passed by. Max stopped him.
"Ever see that dame in here before?" he asked.
"Been in here most every night since before Christmas," Billy replied.
"Do you know who she is?"
"Well, I heard she was some rich broad from Atlanta up here for the
holidays. Why?"
"Oh, nothin'; I was just wondering."
From Atlanta! His home town. No wonder she had turned him down.
Up here trying to get a thrill in the Black Belt but a thrill from
observation instead of contact. Gee, but white folks were funny. They
didn't want black folks' game and yet they were always frequenting
Negro resorts.
* * * * *
At three o'clock Max and Bunny paid their check and ascended to the
street. Bunny wanted to go to the breakfast dance at the Dahomey Casino
but Max was in no mood for it.
"I'm going home," he announced laconically, hailing a taxi. "Good
night!"
As the cab whirled up Seventh Avenue, he settled back and thought of
the girl from Atlanta. He couldn't get her out of his mind and didn't
want to. At his rooming house, he paid the driver, unlocked the door,
ascended to his room and undressed, mechanically. His mind was a
kaleidoscope: Atlanta, sea-green eyes, slender figure, titian hair,
frigid manner. "I never dance with niggers." Then he fell asleep about
five o'clock and promptly dreamed of her. Dreamed of dancing with her,
dining with her, motoring with her, sitting beside her on a golden
throne while millions of manacled white slaves prostrated themselves
before him. Then there was a nightmare of grim, gray men with shotguns,
baying hounds, a heap of gasoline-soaked faggots and a screeching,
fanatical mob.
He awoke covered with perspiration. His telephone was ringing and the
late morning sunshine was streaming into his room. He leaped from bed
and lifted the receiver.
"Say," shouted Bunny, "did you see this morning's _Times_?"
"Hell no," growled Max, "I just woke up. Why, what's in it?"
"Well, do you remember Dr. Junius Crookman, that colored fellow that
went to Germany to study about three years ago? He's just come back and
the _Times_ claims he's announced a sure way to turn darkies white.
Thought you might be interested after the way you fell for that ofay
broad last night. They say Crookman's going to open a sanitarium in
Harlem right away. There's your chance, Big Boy, and it's your only
chance." Bunny chuckled.
"Oh, ring off," growled Max. "That's a lot of hooey."
But he was impressed and a little excited. Suppose there was something
to it? He dressed hurriedly, after a cold shower, and went out to the
newsstand. He bought a _Times_ and scanned its columns. Yes, there it
was: