Author: Paul Beatty
Category: Fiction
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"Why, man," says I, "I thought you told me that you fairly hated the cat. Don't you know that fifteen-dollar reward is liable to bring the cat back?"
"I is quite sho dat it won't," replied Spruce. "You see /drowned dat cat my own se'f."
"Pas de 'lasses."
"Don't say 'lasses. Say mo-lasses."
"How come I got to say mo'—I ain't had none yit."
An old colored man was leadin' a sad-lookin' horse into a blacksmith shop. Somebody asked him, "What's the speed of that horse?"
"Which way?"
"Why I can't see what difference it makes which way he's headed."
"That's kase you don't own him. Whenever he's goin' todes home his speed compares putty favable wid a Ford Runabout; but when he's comin' 'way frum de barn, you kin ketch his time wid a terbacker box."
Speakin' 'bout horses always put me in mind of a circus. One time I was stranded in a town an' a circus come along so I went an' told the manager that I was desperate and jus' had to have work. He said, "Well, one of our best lions died last week and as we saved the skin, if you want you can git in it and be a lion till something better comes along."
Naturally I grabbed it and that same afternoon I made my first 'pearance as "The King of the Jungles." Then here comes the man what does the stunts inside of the animals' cages. He come in my cage first an' after 'splainin' 'bout what a fine speciman I was and how much trouble they had ketchin' me in Africa, he say, "Now ladies and gent'men, to show much we have tamed and trained him; I am goin' to turn him into this next cage with this large an' f'rocious Bengal Tagger."
I imeegitly backed into the furtherst corner of my cage. The man opened up the door between the two cages, drawed out a big pistol an' say, "Git in thare or I'll blow yo' head off." An' kinder under his breath he say to me, "And that goes too." Then he took and fired the gun off once over his head to show me that it would shoot and I looked up and seen the hole made in the roof of the cage so jus' went on in the nex' cage and got right down on my knees and commence prayin'. And this big Bengal Tagger leaped todes me and jus' as my heart was gittin' ready to stop for good, that Tagger took and leaned over and I heard him whisper right in my ear, "Don't be skeered, pal; I'm colored same as you."
It certainly was too bad about Jim Towels and Joe Madison. Both of 'em good friends of mine. They was shootin' a little friendly craps here not long ago and they got in an argument and Joe hit Jim over the head with a club and killed him. Yes sir, broke his skull. But at the trial it was shown that Jim had an unusually thin skull. 'Cose I never knowed much 'bout Jim's skull but I know his hair was mighty hard an' nappy. They used to have to chloroform him ev'ry time they to comb it. But anyhow at the trial they claimed that his skull was very thin indeed but thin as they claimed it was it didn't seem to have much 'feet on the judge, 'cause he gave Joe twenty-three years. Think of it!! Twenty-three years! Well, all I got to say is—it ain't right. Naw sir. It ain't right. No man ain't got no bizness being allowed to bring that kind of skull to a crap game. Naw sir!!!
The Easiest Way
He was colored and he said he was a carpenter.
"Do you thoroughly understand carpentry?" he was asked.
"Yas suh."
"You can make doors, windows and blinds?"
"Oh, sho'. Yas suh."
"How would you make a Venetian blind?"
He scratched his head and thought for a few seconds, then finally replied, "Well, I reck'n 'bout de easiest way would be to poke him in de eye."
A new collector called at a man's house and asked if the man was in. The woman that came to the door said, "Naw suh."
"Can you tell me where he is?" asked the man.
"Naw suh, I kinnot," said the woman.
"When did you see him last?" asked the man.
"At his fun'ral," she replied.
Then the man asked, "And who may you be?"
"I'm his remains," she said, as she slammed the door.
The family Susie cooked for moved out to the Pacific Coast to live. They took Susie with them. After they had been there some months she said to her madam, "I don't 'spec' I'm goin' to able to stay out here, Miss Em'ly. You see the colored folk out here, Miss Em'ly, ain't de same. They more like de Hawaiians or de Indians an' you see I'se always ben used to de puah Anglo-Saxon type.
Morn Toles
Old Mom Toles is a funny old soul. She was in a shoe store tryin' on some new shoes. The clerk asked, "How does that shoe feel?"
Mom says, "Lord knows. But if that shoe feels half as bad as my foot feels, it sho has my sympathy."
Mom runs a boarding house and she always has an answer or an excuse for everything that goes wrong. The other day one of her boarders yelled right out at the table, "Say, look a here. What's dis collar button doin' in my soup?"
Mom says, "It jes means that you is de lucky man. Dat's all. We has prize soup ev'ry Monday an' Wensday. Dare is a gift in ever tenth bowl. You gits de prize to-day. You sho is lucky."
During the same meal another fellow says to her, "Missus Toles, dis mutton you has heah fuh dinner certny aint da kine a meat dat I ben use to."
Mom says, "I don't doubt it 'tall, 'cause I always gits de bes'."
One fellow at de table asked another, "How long has she kept boarders?"
The other fellow answers, "Sometime she has kept 'em as long as three days."
One day she caught one of the boarders putting butter in his coffee.
Mom yelled, "Whut in de worl' you mean puttin' butter in yo' coffee?" He say, "Madam, I always bleeves it is de duty a de strong to he'p de weak."
Providing
Something caused the lady of the house to ask her colored servant, A'nt Malinda, the other day, "Is your husband much of a provider, Malinda?"
"Yassum," replied Malinda, "he sho' is. He's gwine to git me some new funnicher pervidin' he gits de money; he's gwine to git de money pervidin' he goes to work an' he's gwine to work pervidin' de job suits him. He's de most pervidines' man ever I did see."
Rasmus Bigby used to play with a little white boy about his age. One day the little pale one was crying bitterly and his mother says to Rasmus, "What's the matter with Ronald, Erasmus?"
"He's cryin' 'cause I'm eatin' my cake an' won't gib him none."
"Is his own cake finished?"
"Yassum. An' he cried while I'se eatin' dat too."
RUDOLPH FISHER
the city of refuge
1925
I
Confronted suddenly by daylight, King Solomon Gillis stood dazed and blinking. The railroad station, the long, white-walled corridor, the impassable slot-machine, the terrifying subway train—he felt as if he had been caught up in the jaws of a steam-shovel, jammed together with other helpless lumps of dirt, swept blindly along for a time, and at last abruptly dumped.
There had been strange and terrible sounds: "New York! Penn Terminal—all change!" "Pohter, hyer, pohter, suh?" Shuffle of a thousand soles, clatter of a thousand heels, innumerable echoes. Cracking rifleshots—no, snapping turnstiles. "Put a nickel in!" "Harlem? Sure. This side—next train." Distant thunder, nearing. The screeching onslaught of the fiery hosts of hell, headlong, breathtaking. Car doors rattling, sliding, banging open. "Say, wha' d'ye think this is, a baggage car?" Heat, oppression, suffocation—eternity—"Hundred 'n turdy-fif next!" More turnstiles. Jonah emerging from the whale.
Clean air, blue sky, bright sunlight.
Gillis set down his tan cardboard extension case and wiped his black, shining brow. Then slowly, spreadingly, he grinned at what he saw: Negroes at every turn; up and down Lenox Avenue, up and down 135th Street; big, lanky Negroes, short, squat Negroes; black ones, brown ones, yellow ones; men standing idle on the curb, women, bundle-laden, trudging reluctantly homeward, children rattle-trapping about the sidewalks; here and there a white face drifting along, but Negroes predominantly, overwhelmingly everywhere. There was assuredly no doubt of his whereabouts. This was Negro Harlem.
Back in Nort
h Carolina Gillis had shot a white man and, with the aid of prayer and an automobile, probably escaped a lynching. Carefully avoiding the railroads, he had reached Washington in safety. For his car a Southwest bootlegger had given him a hundred dollars and directions to Harlem; and so he had come to Harlem.
Ever since a traveling preacher had first told him of the place, King Solomon Gillis had longed to come to Harlem. The Uggams were always talking about it; one of their boys had gone to France in the draft and, returning, had never got any nearer home than Harlem. And there were occasional "colored" newspapers from New York: newspapers that mentioned Negroes without comment, but always spoke of a white person as "So-and-so, white." That was the point. In Harlem, black was white. You had rights that could not be denied you; you had privileges, protected by law. And you had money. Everybody in Harlem had money. It was a land of plenty. Why, had not Mouse Uggam sent back as much as fifty dollars at a time to his people in Waxhaw?
The shooting, therefore, simply catalyzed whatever sluggish mental reaction had been already directing King Solomon's fortunes toward Harlem. The land of plenty was more than that now; it was also the city of refuge.
Casting about for direction, the tall newcomer's glance caught inevitably on the most conspicuous thing in sight, a magnificent figure in blue that stood in the middle of the crossing and blew a whistle and waved great white-gloved hands. The Southern Negro's eyes opened wide; his mouth opened wider. If the inside of New York had mystified him, the outside was amazing him. For there stood a handsome brass-buttoned giant directing the heaviest traffic Gillis had ever seen; halting unnumbered tons of automobiles and trucks and wagons and pushcarts and streetcars; holding them at bay with one hand while he swept similar tons peremptorily on with the other; ruling the wide crossing with supreme self-assurance. And he, too, was a Negro!
Yet most of the vehicles that leaped or crouched at his bidding carried white passengers. One of these overdrove bounds a few feet, and Gillis heard the officer's shrill whistle and gruff reproof, saw the driver's face turn red and his car draw back like a threatened pup. It was beyond belief—impossible. Black might be white, but it could n't be that white!
"Done died an' woke up in Heaven," thought King Solomon, watching, fascinated; and after a while, as if the wonder of it were too great to believe simply by seeing, "Cullud policemans!" he said, half aloud; then repeated over and over, with greater and greater conviction, "Even got cullud policemans—even got cullud—"
"Where y' want to go, big boy?"
Gillis turned. A little, sharp-faced yellow man was addressing him.
"Saw you was a stranger. Thought maybe I could help y' out."
King Solomon located and gratefully extended a slip of paper. "Wha' dis hyeh at, please, suh?"
The other studied it a moment, pushing back his hat and scratching his head. The hat was tall-crowned, unindented brown felt; the head was brown patent-leather, its glistening brush-back flawless save for a suspicious crimpiness near the clean-grazed edges.
"See that second corner? Turn to the left when you get there. Number forty-five's about halfway [down] the block."
"Thank y', suh."
"You from—Massachusetts?"
"No, suh, Nawth Ca'lina."
"Is 'at so? You look like a Northerner. Be with us long?"
"Till I die," grinned the flattered King Solomon.
"Stoppin' there?"
"Reckon I is. Man in Washin'ton 'lowed I'd find lodgin' at dis address."
"Good enough. If y' don't maybe I can fix y' up. Harlem's pretty crowded. This is me." He proffered a card.
"Thank y', suh," said Gillis, and put the card in his pocket.
The little yellow man watched him plod flat-footedly on down the street, long awkward legs never quite straightened, shouldered extension-case bending him sidewise, wonder upon wonder halting or turning him about. Presently, as he proceeded, a pair of bright green stockings caught and held his attention. Tony, the storekeeper, was crossing the sidewalk with a bushel basket of apples. There was a collision; the apples rolled; Tony exploded; King Solomon apologized. The little yellow man laughed shortly, took out a notebook, and put down the address he had seen on King Solomon's slip of paper.
"Guess you're the shine I been waitin' for," he surmised.
As Gillis, approaching his destination, stopped to rest, a haunting notion grew into an insistent idea. "Dat li'l yaller nigger was a sho' 'nuff gen'man to show me de road. Seem lak I knowed him befo'—" He pondered. That receding brow, that sharp-ridged, spreading nose, that tight upper lip over the two big front teeth, that chinless jaw—He fumbled hurriedly for the card he had not looked at and eagerly made out the name.
"Mouse Uggam, sho' 'nuff! Well, dog-gone!"
II
Uggam sought out Tom Edwards, once a Pullman porter, now prosperous proprietor of a cabaret, and told him:
"Chief, I got him: a baby jess in from the land o'cotton and so dumb he thinks ante bellum's an old woman."
"Where'd you find him?"
"Where you find all the jaybirds when they first hit Harlem—at the subway entrance. This one come up the stairs, batted his eyes once or twice, an' froze to the spot—with his mouth wide open. Sure sign he's from 'way down behind the sun and ripe f the pluckin'."
Edwards grinned a gold-studded, fat-jowled grin. "Gave him the usual line, I suppose?"
"Did n't miss. An' he fell like a ton o' bricks. 'Course I've got him spotted, but damn 'f I know jess how to switch 'em on to him."
"Get him a job around a store somewhere. Make out you're befriendin' him. Get his confidence."
"Sounds good. Ought to be easy. He's from my state. Maybe I know him or some of his people."
"Make out you do, anyhow. Then tell him some fairy tale that'll switch your trade to him. The cops'll follow the trade. We could even let Froggy flop into some dumb white cop's hands and 'confess' where he got it. See?"
"Chief, you got a head, no lie."
"Don't lose no time. And remember, hereafter, it's better to sacrifice a little than to get squealed on. Never refuse a customer. Give him a little credit. Humor him along till you can get rid of him safe. You don't know what that guy that died may have said; you don't know who's on to you now. And if they get you—I don't know you."
"They won't get me," said Uggam.
King Solomon Gillis sat meditating in a room half the size of his hencoop back home, with a single window opening for an airshaft.
An airshaft: cabbage and chitterlings cooking; liver and onions sizzling, sputtering; three player-pianos out-plunking each other; a man and a woman calling each other vile things; a sick, neglected baby wailing; a phonograph broadcasting blues; dishes clacking; a girl crying heartbrokenly; waste noises, waste odors of a score of families, seeking issue through a common channel; pollution from bottom to top—a sewer of sounds and smells.
Contemplating this, King Solomon grinned and breathed, "Doggone!" A little later, still gazing into the sewer, he grinned again. "Green stockin's," he said; "loud green!" The sewer gradually grew darker. A window lighted up opposite, revealing a woman in camisole and petticoat, arranging her hair. King Solomon, staring vacantly, shook his head and grinned yet again. "Even got cullud policemans!" he mumbled softly.
Ill
Uggam leaned out of the room's one window and spat maliciously into the dinginess of the airshaft. "Damn glad you got him," he commented as Gillis finished his story. "They's a thousand shines in Harlem would change places with you in a minute jess f the honor of killin' a cracker."
"But I did n't go to do it. 'T was a accident."
"That's the only part to keep secret."
"Know whut dey done? Dey killed five o' Mose Joplin's hawses 'fo he lef. Put groun' glass in de feed-trough. Sam Cheevers come up on three of 'em one night pizenin' his well. Bleesom beat Crinshaw out o' sixty acres o' Ian' an' a year's crops. Dass jess how 't is. Soon 's a nigger make a li'l sump'n he better git to leavin'. An' 'fo long ev'yb
ody's goin' be lef!"
"Hope to hell they don't all come here."
The doorbell of the apartment rang. A crescendo of footfalls in the hallway culminated in a sharp rap on Gillis's door. Gillis jumped. Nobody but a policeman would rap like that. Maybe the landlady had been listening and had called the law. It came again, loud, quick, angry. King Solomon prayed that the policeman wx>uld be a Negro.
Uggam stepped over and opened the door. King Solomon's apprehensive eyes saw framed therein, instead of a gigantic officer, calling for him, a little blot of a creature, quite black against even the darkness of the hallway, except for a dirty wide-striped silk shirt, collarless, with the sleeves rolled up.
"Ah hahve bill fo' Mr. Gillis." A high, strongly accented Jamaican voice, with its characteristic singsong intonation, interrupted King Solomon's sigh of relief.
"Bill? Bill fo' me? What km' o' bill?"
"Wan bushel appels. T'ree seventy-fife."
"Apples? I am' bought no apples." He took the paper and read aloud, laboriously, "Antonio Gabrielli to K. S. Gillis, Doctor—"
"Mr. Gabrielli say, you not pays him, he send policemon."
"What I had to do wid 'is apples?"
"You bumps into him yesterday, no? Scatter appels everywhere—on the sidewalk, in de gutter. Kids pick up an' run away. Others all spoil. So you pays."
Gillis appealed to Uggam. "How 'bout it, Mouse?"
"He's a damn liar. Tony picked up most of 'em; I seen him. Lemme look at that bill—Tony never wrote this thing. This baby's jess playin' you for a sucker."
"Ain' had no apples, ain' payin' fo' none," announced King Solomon, thus prompted. "Did n't have to come to Harlem to git cheated. Plenty o' dat right wha' I come fum."
But the West Indian warmly insisted. "You cahn't do daht, mon. Whaht you t'ink, 'ey? Dis mon loose 'is appels an' 'is money too?"
"What diff'ence it make to you, nigger?"
"Who you call nigger, mon? Ah hahve you understahn'—"
"Oh, well, white folks, den. What all you got t' do wid dis hyeh, anyhow?"
"Mr. Gabrielli send me to collect bill!"