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The blacker the berry | Project Gutenberg
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<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78747 ***</div>
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<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<h1>THE BLACKER<br>THE BERRY</h1>
</div></div></div>
<p class="center">A NOVEL OF<br>
NEGRO LIFE</p>
<p class="center">By WALLACE THURMAN</p>
<br>
<figure class="figcenter illowp5">
<img class="w100" src="images/sm.jpg" alt="Small decoration">
</figure>
<br><br>
<p class="center">THE MACAULAY COMPANY<br>
NEW YORK MCMXXIX</p>
<figure class="figcenter illowp65">
<img class="w100" src="images/horiz.jpg" alt="Full-width decoration">
</figure>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="center">
COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY<br>
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
</p>
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<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">
CONTENTS
</h2>
</div>
<p class="center">PART I — EMMA LOU — <a href="#Page_9">9</a></p>
<p class="center">PART II — HARLEM — <a href="#Page_75">75</a></p>
<p class="center">PART III — ALVA — <a href="#Page_111">111</a></p>
<p class="center">PART IV — RENT PARTY — <a href="#Page_157">157</a></p>
<p class="center">PART V — PYRRHIC VICTORY — <a href="#Page_217">217</a></p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="center">
<i>TO MA JACK</i>
</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
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<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">The blacker the berry</div>
<div class="verse indent0">The sweeter the juice...</div>
<div class="verse indent4">—<i>Negro folk saying</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">My color shrouds me in....</div>
<div class="verse indent4">—<i>Countee Cullen</i></div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="fh2"><span class="smcap">Part I</span></p>
<p class="fh2">EMMA LOU</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p>
</div>
<h2 class="nobreak">I<br>EMMA LOU</h2>
<p>More acutely than ever before Emma Lou
began to feel that her luscious black complexion
was somewhat of a liability, and that her
marked color variation from the other people in her
environment was a decided curse. Not that she
minded being black, being a Negro necessitated having
a colored skin, but she did mind being too black.
She couldn’t understand why such should be the
case, couldn’t comprehend the cruelty of the natal
attenders who had allowed her to be dipped, as it
were, in indigo ink when there were so many more
pleasing colors on nature’s palette. Biologically, it
wasn’t necessary either; her mother was quite fair,
so was her mother’s mother, and her mother’s brother,
and her mother’s brother’s son; but then none of them
had had a black man for a father. Why <i>had</i> her
mother married a black man? Surely there had been
some eligible brown-skin men around. She didn’t particularly
desire to have had a “high yaller” father,
but for her sake certainly some more happy medium
could have been found.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p>
<p>She wasn’t the only person who regretted her darkness
either. It was an acquired family characteristic,
this moaning and grieving over the color of her skin.
Everything possible had been done to alleviate the
unhappy condition, every suggested agent had been
employed, but her skin, despite bleachings, scourgings,
and powderings, had remained black—fast black—as
nature had planned and effected.</p>
<p>She should have been born a boy, then color of
skin wouldn’t have mattered so much, for wasn’t her
mother always saying that a black boy could get
along, but that a black girl would never know anything
but sorrow and disappointment? But she wasn’t
a boy; she was a girl, and color did matter, mattered
so much that she would rather have missed receiving
her high school diploma than have to sit as she
now sat, the only odd and conspicuous figure on
the auditorium platform of the Boise high school.
Why had she allowed them to place her in the center
of the first row, and why had they insisted upon
her dressing entirely in white so that surrounded as
she was by similarly attired pale-faced fellow graduates
she resembled, not at all remotely, that comic
picture her Uncle Joe had hung in his bedroom?
The picture wherein the black, kinky head of a little
red-lipped pickaninny lay like a fly in a pan of milk
amid a white expanse of bedclothes.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
<p>But of course she couldn’t have worn blue or black
when the call was for the wearing of white, even if
white was not complementary to her complexion.
She would have been odd-looking anyway no matter
what she wore and she would also have been conspicuous,
for not only was she the only dark-skinned
person on the platform, she was also the only Negro
pupil in the entire school, and had been for the past
four years. Well, thank goodness, the principal would
soon be through with his monotonous farewell address,
and she and the other members of her class
would advance to the platform center as their names
were called and receive the documents which would
signify their unconditional release from public school.</p>
<p>As she thought of these things, Emma Lou glanced
at those who sat to the right and to the left of her.
She envied them their obvious elation, yet felt a
strange sense of superiority because of her immunity
for the moment from an ephemeral mob emotion.
Get a diploma?—What did it mean to her? College?—Perhaps.
A job?—Perhaps again. She was going
to have a high school diploma, but it would mean
nothing to her whatsoever. The tragedy of her life
was that she was too black. Her face and not a
slender roll of ribbon-bound parchment was to be her
future identification tag in society. High school diploma
indeed! What she needed was an efficient
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>bleaching agent, a magic cream that would remove
this unwelcome black mask from her face and make
her more like her fellow men.</p>
<p>“Emma Lou Morgan.”</p>
<p>She came to with a start. The principal had called
her name and stood smiling down at her benevolently.
Some one—she knew it was her Cousin Buddie, stupid
imp—applauded, very faintly, very provokingly.
Some one else snickered.</p>
<p>“Emma Lou Morgan.”</p>
<p>The principal had called her name again, more
sharply than before and his smile was less benevolent.
The girl who sat to the left of her nudged
her. There was nothing else for her to do but to get
out of that anchoring chair and march forward to
receive her diploma. But why did the people in the
audience have to stare so? Didn’t they all know that
Emma Lou Morgan was Boise high school’s only
nigger student? Didn’t they all know—but what was
the use. She had to go get that diploma, so summoning
her most insouciant manner, she advanced to the
platform center, brought every muscle of her lithe
limbs into play, haughtily extended her shiny black
arm to receive the proffered diploma, bowed a chilly
thanks, then holding her arms stiffly at her sides,
insolently returned to her seat in that foreboding white
line, insolently returned once more to splotch its pale
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>purity and to mock it with her dark, outlandish
difference.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou had been born in a semi-white world,
totally surrounded by an all-white one, and those
few dark elements that had forced their way in had
either been shooed away or else greeted with derisive
laughter. It was the custom always of those with
whom she came into most frequent contact to ridicule
or revile any black person or object. A black cat
was a harbinger of bad luck, black crape was the
insignia of mourning, and black people were either
evil niggers with poisonous blue gums or else typical
vaudeville darkies. It seemed as if the people in her
world never went half-way in their recognition or
reception of things black, for these things seemed
always to call forth only the most extreme emotional
reactions. They never provoked mere smiles or mere
melancholy, rather they were the signal either for
boisterous guffaws or pain-induced and tear-attended
grief.</p>
<p>Emma Lou had been becoming increasingly aware
of this for a long time, but her immature mind had
never completely grasped its full, and to her, tragic
significance. First there had been the case of her
father, old black Jim Morgan they called him, and
Emma Lou had often wondered why it was that he
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>of all the people she heard discussed by her family
should always be referred to as if his very blackness
condemned him to receive no respect from his fellow
men.</p>
<p>She had also begun to wonder if it was because
of his blackness that he had never been in evidence
as far as she knew. Inquiries netted very unsatisfactory
answers. “Your father is no good.” “He left your
mother, deserted her shortly after you were born.”
And these statements were always prefixed or followed
by some epithet such as “dirty black no-gooder”
or “durn his onery black hide.” There was
in fact only one member of the family who did not
speak of her father in this manner, and that was
her Uncle Joe, who was also the only person in the
family to whom she really felt akin, because he
alone never seemed to regret, to bemoan, or to ridicule
her blackness of skin. It was her grandmother
who did all the regretting, her mother who did the
bemoaning, her Cousin Buddie and her playmates,
both white and colored, who did the ridiculing.</p>
<p>Emma Lou’s maternal grandparents, Samuel and
Maria Lightfoot, were both mulatto products of
slave-day promiscuity between male masters and female
chattel. Neither had been slaves, their own
parents having been granted their freedom because of
their rather close connections with the white branch
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>of the family tree. These freedmen had migrated into
Kansas with their children, and when these children
had grown up they in turn had joined the westward-ho
parade of that current era, and finally settled
in Boise, Idaho.</p>
<p>Samuel and Maria, like many others of their kind
and antecedents, had had only one compelling desire,
which motivated their every activity and dictated
their every thought. They wished to put as much
physical and mental space between them and the
former home of their parents as was possible. That
was why they had left Kansas, for in Kansas there
were too many reminders of that which their parents
had escaped and from which they wished to flee.
Kansas was too near the former slave belt, too accessible
to disgruntled southerners, who, deprived of
their slaves, were inculcated with an easily communicable
virus, nigger hatred. Then, too, in Kansas
all Negroes were considered as belonging to one class.
It didn’t matter if you and your parents had been
freedmen before the Emancipation Proclamation, nor
did it matter that you were almost three-quarters
white. You were, nevertheless, classed with those
hordes of hungry, ragged, ignorant black folk arriving
from the South in such great numbers, packed
like so many stampeding cattle in dirty, manure-littered
box cars.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p>
<p>From all of this these maternal grandparents of
Emma Lou fled, fled to the Rocky Mountain states
which were too far away for the recently freed slaves
to reach, especially since most of them believed that
the world ended just a few miles north of the Mason-Dixon
line. Then, too, not only were the Rocky
Mountain states beyond the reach of this raucous
and smelly rabble of recently freed cotton pickers
and plantation hands, but they were also peopled by
pioneers, sturdy land and gold seekers from the East,
marching westward, always westward in search of
El Dorado, and being too busy in this respect to be
violently aroused by problems of race unless economic
factors precipitated matters.</p>
<p>So Samuel and Maria went into the fast farness
of a little known Rocky Mountain territory and settled
in Boise, at the time nothing more than a
trading station for the Indians and whites, and a red
light center for the cowboys and sheepherders and
miners in the neighboring vicinity. Samuel went into
the saloon business and grew prosperous. Maria raised
a family and began to mother nuclear elements for
a future select Negro social group.</p>
<p>There was of course in such a small and haphazardly
populated community some social intermixture
between whites and blacks. White and black
gamblers rolled the dice together, played tricks on one
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>another while dealing faro, and became allies in their
attempts to outfigure the roulette wheel. White and
black men amicably frequented the saloons and
dancehalls together. White and black women leaned
out of the doorways and windows of the jerry-built
frame houses and log cabins of “Whore Row.” White
and black housewives gossiped over back fences and
lent one another needed household commodities. But
there was little social intercourse on a higher scale.
Slue-foot Sal, the most popular high yaller on
“Whore Row,” might be a buddy to Irish Peg and
Blond Liz, but Mrs. Amos James, whose husband
owned the town’s only drygoods store, could certainly
not become too familiar with Mrs. Samuel
Lightfoot, colored, whose husband owned a saloon.
And it was not a matter of the difference in their
respective husbands’ businesses. Mrs. Amos James did
associate with Mrs. Arthur Emory, white, whose husband
also owned a saloon. It was purely a matter of
color.</p>
<p>Emma Lou’s grandmother then, holding herself
aloof from the inmates of “Whore Row,” and not
wishing to associate with such as old Mammy Lewis’
daughters, who did most of the town wash, and others
of their ilk, was forced to choose her social equals
slowly and carefully. This was hard, for there were
so few Negroes in Boise anyway that there wasn’t
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>much cream to skim off. But as the years passed,
others, who, like Maria and her husband, were
mulatto offsprings of mulatto freedmen seeking a
freer land, moved in, and were soon initiated into
what was later to be known as the blue vein circle,
so named because all of its members were fair-skinned
enough for their blood to be seen pulsing
purple through the veins of their wrists.</p>
<p>Emma Lou’s grandmother was the founder and
the acknowledged leader of Boise’s blue veins, and
she guarded its exclusiveness passionately and jealously.
Were they not a superior class? Were they not
a very high type of Negro, comparable to the persons
of color group in the West Indies? And were
they not entitled, ipso facto, to more respect and
opportunity and social acceptance than the more
pure blooded Negroes? In their veins was some of
the best blood of the South. They were closely akin
to the only true aristocrats in the United States.
Even the slave masters had been aware of and
acknowledged in some measure their superiority.
Having some of Marse George’s blood in their veins
set them apart from ordinary Negroes at birth.
These mulattoes as a rule were not ordered to work
in the fields beneath the broiling sun at the urge
of a Simon Legree lash. They were saved and trained
for the more gentle jobs, saved and trained to be
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>ladies’ maids and butlers. Therefore, let them continue
this natural division of Negro society. Let them
also guard against unwelcome and degenerating encroachments.
Their motto must be “Whiter and
whiter every generation,” until the grandchildren of
the blue veins could easily go over into the white race
and become assimilated so that problems of race
would plague them no more.</p>
<p>Maria had preached this doctrine to her two children,
Jane and Joe, throughout their apprentice
years, and can therefore be forgiven for having a
physical collapse when they both, first Joe, then
Emma Lou’s mother, married not mulattoes, but a
copper brown and a blue black. This had been somewhat
of a necessity, for, when the mating call had
made itself heard to them, there had been no eligible
blue veins around. Most of their youthful companions
had been sent away to school or else to seek
careers in eastern cities, and those few who had
remained had already found their chosen life’s companions.
Maria had sensed that something of the
kind might happen and had urged Samuel to send
Jane and Joe away to some eastern boarding school,
but Samuel had very stubbornly refused. He had his
own notions of the sort of things one’s children
learned in boarding school, and of the greater opportunities
they had to apply that learning. True, they
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>might acquire the same knowledge in the public
schools of Boise, but then there would be some limit
to the extent to which they could apply this knowledge,
seeing that they lived at home and perforce
must submit to some parental supervision. A cot in
the attic at home was to Samuel a much safer place
for a growing child to sleep than an iron four poster
in a boarding school dormitory.</p>
<p>So Samuel had remained adamant and the two
carefully reared scions of Boise’s first blue vein family
had of necessity sought their mates among the
lower orders. However, Joe’s wife was not as undesirable
as Emma Lou’s father, for she was almost
three-quarters Indian, and there was scant possibility
that her children would have revolting dark
skins, thick lips, spreading nostrils, and kinky hair.
But in the case of Emma Lou’s father, there were
no such extenuating characteristics, for his physical
properties undeniably stamped him as a full blooded
Negro. In fact, it seemed as if he had come from
one of the few families originally from Africa, who
could not boast of having been seduced by some
member of the southern aristocracy, or befriended
by some member of a strolling band of Indians.</p>
<p>No one could understand why Emma Lou’s mother
had married Jim Morgan, least of all Jane herself.
In fact she hadn’t thought much about it until
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>Emma Lou had been born. She had first met Jim
at a church picnic, given in a woodlawn meadow
on the outskirts of the city, and almost before she
had realized what was happening she had found herself
slipping away from home, night after night, to
stroll down a well shaded street, known as Lover’s
Lane, with the man her mother had forbidden her to
see. And it hadn’t been long before they had decided
that an elopement would be the only thing to assure
themselves the pleasure of being together without
worrying about Mama Lightfoot’s wrath, talkative
neighbors, prying town marshals, and grass stains.</p>
<p>Despite the rancor of her mother and the whispering
of her mother’s friends, Jane hadn’t really found
anything to regret in her choice of a husband until
Emma Lou had been born. Then all the fears her
mother had instilled in her about the penalties inflicted
by society upon black Negroes, especially upon
black Negro girls, came to the fore. She was abysmally
stunned by the color of her child, for she had
been certain that since she herself was so fair that
her child could not possibly be as dark as its father.
She had been certain that it would be a luscious
admixture, a golden brown with all its mother’s
desirable facial features and its mother’s hair. But
she hadn’t reckoned with nature’s perversity, nor had
she taken under consideration the inescapable fact
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>that some of her ancestors too had been black, and
that some of their color chromosomes were still imbedded
within her. Emma Lou had been fortunate
enough to have hair like her mother’s, a thick, curly
black mass of hair, rich and easily controlled, but she
had also been unfortunate enough to have a face as
black as her father’s, and a nose which, while not
exactly flat, was as distinctly negroid as her too
thick lips.</p>
<p>Her birth had served no good purpose. It had
driven her mother back to seek the confidence and
aid of Maria, and it had given Maria the chance she
had been seeking to break up the undesirable union
of her daughter with what she termed an ordinary
black nigger. But Jim’s departure hadn’t solved matters
at all, rather it had complicated them, for although
he was gone, his child remained, a tragic
mistake which could not be stamped out or eradicated
even after Jane, by getting a divorce from Jim
and marrying a red-haired Irish Negro, had been
accepted back into blue vein grace.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou had always been the alien member of
the family and of the family’s social circle. Her
grandmother, now a widow, made her feel it. Her
mother made her feel it. And her Cousin Buddie
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>made her feel it, to say nothing of the way she was
regarded by outsiders. As early as she could remember,
people had been saying to her mother, “What an
extraordinarily black child! Where did you adopt
it?” or else, “Such lovely unniggerish hair on such
a niggerish-looking child.” Some had even been facetious
and made suggestions like, “Try some lye, Jane,
it may eat it out. She can’t look any worse.”</p>
<p>Then her mother’s re-marriage had brought another
person into her life, a person destined to give
her, while still a young child, much pain and unhappiness.
Aloysius McNamara was his name. He was
the bastard son of an Irish politician and a Negro
washerwoman, and until he had been sent East to a
parochial school, Aloysius, so named because that
was his father’s middle name, had always been known
as Aloysius Washington, and the identity of his
own father had never been revealed to him by his
proud and humble mother. But since his father had
been prevailed upon to pay for his education, Aloysius’
mother thought it the proper time to tell her
son his true origin and to let him assume his real
name. She had hopes that away from his home town
he might be able to pass for white and march unhindered
by bars of color to fame and fortune.</p>
<p>But such was not to be the case, for Emma Lou’s
prospective stepfather was so conscious of the Negro
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>blood in his veins and so bitter because of it, that
he used up whatever talents he had groaning inwardly
at capricious fate, and planning revenge upon
the world at large, especially the black world. For it
was Negroes and not whites whom he blamed for
his own, to him, life’s tragedy. He was not fair
enough of skin, despite his mother’s and his own
hopes, to pass for white. There was a brownness in
his skin, inherited from his mother, which immediately
marked him out for what he was, despite
the red hair and the Irish blue eyes. And his facial
features had been modeled too generously. He was
not thin lipped, nor were his nostrils as delicately
chiseled as they might have been. He was a Negro.
There was no getting around it, although he tried in
every possible way to do so.</p>
<p>Finishing school, he had returned West for the
express purpose of making his father accept him publicly
and personally advance his career. He had
wanted to be a lawyer and figured that his father’s
political pull was sufficiently strong to draw him beyond
race barriers and set him as one apart. His
father had not been entirely cold to these plans and
proposals, but his father’s wife had been. She didn’t
mind her husband giving this nigger bastard of his
money, and receiving him in his home on rare and
private occasions. She was trying to be liberal, but
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>she wasn’t going to have people point to her and say,
“That’s Boss McNamara’s wife. Wonder if that
nigger son is his’n or hers. They do say....” So
Aloysius had found himself shunted back into the
black world he so despised. He couldn’t be made to
realize that being a Negro did not necessarily indicate
that one must also be a ne’er-do-well. Had he
been white, or so he said, he would have been a successful
criminal lawyer, but being considered black
it was impossible for him ever to be anything more
advanced than a pullman car porter or a dining
car waiter, and acting upon this premise, he hadn’t
tried to be anything else.</p>
<p>His only satisfaction in life was the pleasure he
derived from insulting and ignoring the real blacks.
Persons of color, mulattoes, were all right, but he
couldn’t stand detestable black Negroes. Unfortunately,
Emma Lou fell into this latter class, and suffered
at his hands accordingly, until he finally ran
away from his wife, Emma Lou, Boise, Negroes, and
all, ran away to Canada with Diamond Lil of “Whore
Row.”</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Summer vacation was nearly over and it had not
yet been decided what to do with Emma Lou now
that she had graduated from high school. She herself
gave no help nor offered any suggestions. As it was,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>she really did not care what became of her. After all
it didn’t seem to matter. There was no place in the
world for a girl as black as she anyway. Her grandmother
had assured her that she would never find a
husband worth a dime, and her mother had said
again and again, “Oh, if you had only been a boy!”
until Emma Lou had often wondered why it was that
people were not able to effect a change of sex or at
least a change of complexion.</p>
<p>It was her Uncle Joe who finally prevailed upon
her mother to send her to the University of Southern
California in Los Angeles. There, he reasoned, she
would find a larger and more intelligent social circle.
In a city the size of Los Angeles there were Negroes
of every class, color, and social position. Let Emma
Lou go there where she would not be as far away
from home as if she were to go to some eastern
college.</p>
<p>Jane and Maria, while not agreeing entirely with
what Joe said, were nevertheless glad that at last
something which seemed adequate and sensible could
be done for Emma Lou. She was to take the four
year college course, receive a bachelor degree in education,
then go South to teach. That, they thought,
was a promising future, and for once in the eighteen
years of Emma Lou’s life every one was satisfied in
some measure. Even Emma Lou grew elated over the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>prospects of the trip. Her Uncle Joe’s insistence upon
the differences of social contacts in larger cities intrigued
her. Perhaps he was right after all in continually
reasserting to them that as long as one was
a Negro, one’s specific color had little to do with
one’s life. Salvation depended upon the individual.
And he also told Emma Lou, during one of their
usual private talks, that it was only in small cities
one encountered stupid color prejudice such as she
had encountered among the blue vein circle in her
home town.</p>
<p>“People in large cities,” he had said, “are broad.
They do not have time to think of petty things. The
people in Boise are fifty years behind the times, but
you will find that Los Angeles is one of the world’s
greatest and most modern cities, and you will be
happy there.”</p>
<p>On arriving in Los Angeles, Emma Lou was so
busy observing the colored inhabitants that she had
little time to pay attention to other things. Palm
trees and wild geraniums were pleasant to behold,
and such strange phenomena as pepper trees and
century plants had to be admired. They were very
obvious and they were also strange and beautiful,
but they impinged upon only a small corner of
Emma Lou’s consciousness. She was minutely aware
of them, necessarily took them in while passing,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>viewing the totality without pondering over or lingering
to praise their stylistic details. They were, in
this instance, exquisite theatrical props, rendered insignificant
by a more strange and a more beautiful
human pageant. For to Emma Lou, who, in all her
life, had never seen over five hundred Negroes, the
spectacle presented by a community containing over
fifty thousand, was sufficient to make relatively commonplace
many more important and charming things
than the far famed natural scenery of Southern
California.</p>
<p>She had arrived in Los Angeles a week before
registration day at the university, and had spent her
time in being shown and seeing the city. But whenever
these sightseeing excursions took her away from
the sections where Negroes lived, she immediately
lost all interest in what she was being shown. The
Pacific Ocean in itself did not cause her heart beat
to quicken, nor did the roaring of its waves find an
emotional echo within her. But on coming upon
Bruce’s Beach for colored people near Redondo, or
the little strip of sandied shore they had appropriated
for themselves at Santa Monica, the Pacific
Ocean became an intriguing something to contemplate
as a background for their activities. Everything
was interesting as it was patronized, reflected
through, or acquired by Negroes.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p>
<p>Her Uncle Joe had been right. Here, in the colored
social circles of Los Angeles, Emma Lou was certain
that she would find many suitable companions, intelligent,
broad-minded people of all complexions,
intermixing and being too occupied otherwise to
worry about either their own skin color or the skin
color of those around them. Her Uncle Joe had said
that Negroes were Negroes whether they happened to
be yellow, brown, or black, and a conscious effort to
eliminate the darker elements would neither prove
nor solve anything. There was nothing quite so silly
as the creed of the blue veins: “Whiter and whiter,
every generation. The nearer white you are the more
white people will respect you. Therefore all light
Negroes marry light Negroes. Continue to do so generation
after generation, and eventually white people
will accept this racially, bastard aristocracy, thus
enabling those Negroes who really matter to escape
the social and economic inferiority of the American
Negro.”</p>
<p>Such had been the credo of her grandmother and of
her mother and of their small circle of friends in
Boise. But Boise was a provincial town, given to the
molding of provincial people with provincial minds.
Boise was a backwoods town out of the main stream
of modern thought and progress. Its people were
cramped and narrow, their intellectual concepts
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>stereotyped and static. Los Angeles was a happy contrast
in all respects.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>On registration day, Emma Lou rushed out to the
campus of the University of Southern California one
hour before the registrar’s office was scheduled to
open. She spent the time roaming around, familiarizing
herself with the layout of the campus and learning
the names of the various buildings, some old and
vineclad, others new and shiny in the sun, and watching
the crowds of laughing students, rushing to and
fro, greeting one another and talking over their plans
for the coming school year. But her main reason for
such an early arrival on the campus had been to find
some of her fellow Negro students. She had heard
that there were to be quite a number enrolled, but in
all her hour’s stroll she saw not one, and finally somewhat
disheartened she got into the line stretched out
in front of the registrar’s office, and, for the moment,
became engrossed in becoming a college freshman.</p>
<p>All the while, though, she kept searching for a
colored face, but it was not until she had been duly
signed up as a student and sent in search of her
advisor that she saw one. Then three colored girls
had sauntered into the room where she was having
a conference with her advisor, sauntered in, arms
interlocked, greeted her advisor, then sauntered out
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>again. Emma Lou had wanted to rush after them—to
introduce herself, but of course it had been impossible
under the circumstances. She had immediately
taken a liking to all three, each of whom was
what is known in the parlance of the black belt as
high brown, with modishly-shingled bobbed hair and
well formed bodies, fashionably attired in flashy
sport garments. From then on Emma Lou paid little
attention to the business of choosing subjects and
class hours, so little attention in fact that the advisor
thought her exceptionally tractable and somewhat
dumb. But she liked students to come that way. It
made the task of being advisor easy. One just made
out the program to suit oneself, and had no tedious
explanations to make as to why the student could
not have such and such a subject at such and such
an hour, and why such and such a professor’s class
was already full.</p>
<p>After her program had been made out, Emma Lou
was directed to the bursar’s office to pay her fees.
While going down the stairs she almost bumped into
two dark-brown-skinned boys, obviously brothers if
not twins, arguing as to where they should go next.
One insisted that they should go back to the registrar’s
office. The other was being equally insistent
that they should go to the gymnasium and make an
appointment for their required physical examination.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>Emma Lou boldly stopped when she saw them, hoping
they would speak, but they merely glanced up at
her and continued their argument, bringing cards and
pamphlets out of their pockets for reference and
guidance. Emma Lou wanted to introduce herself to
them, but she was too bashful to do so. She wasn’t
yet used to going to school with other Negro students,
and she wasn’t exactly certain how one went about
becoming acquainted. But she finally decided that
she had better let the advances come from the others,
especially if they were men. There was nothing forward
about her, and since she was a stranger it was
no more than right that the old-timers should make
her welcome. Still, if these had been girls ..., but
they weren’t, so she continued her way down the
stairs.</p>
<p>In the bursar’s office, she was somewhat overjoyed
at first to find that she had fallen into line behind
another colored girl who turned around immediately,
and, after saying hello, announced in a loud, harsh
voice:</p>
<p>“My feet are sure some tired!”</p>
<p>Emma Lou was so taken aback that she couldn’t
answer. People in college didn’t talk that way. But
meanwhile the girl was continuing:</p>
<p>“Ain’t this registration a mess?”</p>
<p>Two white girls who had fallen into line behind
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>Emma Lou snickered. Emma Lou answered by shaking
her head. The girl continued:</p>
<p>“I’ve been standin’ in line and climbin’ stairs and
talkin’ and a-signin’ till I’m just ’bout done for.”</p>
<p>“It is tiresome,” Emma Lou returned softly, hoping
the girl would take a hint and lower her own
strident voice. But she didn’t.</p>
<p>“Tiresome ain’t no name for it,” she declared more
loudly than ever before, then, “Is you a new
student?”</p>
<p>“I am,” answered Emma Lou, putting much emphasis
on the “I am.”</p>
<p>She wanted the white people who were listening to
know that she knew her grammar if this other person
didn’t. “Is you,” indeed! If this girl was a specimen
of the Negro students with whom she was to associate,
she most certainly did not want to meet another
one. But it couldn’t be possible that all of them—those
three girls and those two boys for instance—were
like this girl. Emma Lou was unable to imagine
how such a person had ever gotten out of high school.
Where on earth could she have gone to high school?
Surely not in the North. Then she must be a southerner.
That’s what she was, a southerner—Emma
Lou curled her lips a little—no wonder the colored
people in Boise spoke as they did about southern
Negroes and wished that they would stay South. Imagine
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>any one preparing to enter college saying “Is
you,” and, to make it worse, right before all these
white people, these staring white people, so eager and
ready to laugh. Emma Lou’s face burned.</p>
<p>“Two mo’, then I goes in my sock.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou was almost at the place where she
was ready to take even this statement literally, and
was on the verge of leaving the line. Supposing this
creature did “go in her sock!” God forbid!</p>
<p>“Wonder where all the spades keep themselves? I
ain’t seen but two ’sides you.”</p>
<p>“I really do not know,” Emma Lou returned precisely
and chillily. She had no intentions of becoming
friendly with this sort of person. Why she would
be ashamed even to be seen on the street with her,
dressed as she was in a red-striped sport suit, a
white hat, and white shoes and stockings. Didn’t she
know that black people had to be careful about the
colors they affected?</p>
<p>The girl had finally reached the bursar’s window
and was paying her fees, and loudly differing with
the cashier about the total amount due.</p>
<p>“I tell you it ain’t that much,” she shouted through
the window bars. “I figured it up myself before I
left home.”</p>
<p>The cashier obligingly turned to her adding
machine and once more obtained the same total.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>When shown this, the girl merely grinned, examined
the list closely, and said:</p>
<p>“I’m gonna’ pay it, but I still think you’re wrong.”</p>
<p>Finally she moved away from the window, but not
before she had turned to Emma Lou and said,
“You’re next,” and then proceeded to wait until
Emma Lou had finished.</p>
<p>Emma Lou vainly sought some way to escape, but
was unable to do so, and had no choice but to walk
with the girl to the registrar’s office where they had
their cards stamped in return for the bursar’s receipt.
This done, they went onto the campus together.
Hazel Mason was the girl’s name. Emma Lou had
fully expected it to be either Hyacinth or Geranium.
Hazel was from Texas, Prairie Valley, Texas, and she
told Emma Lou that her father, having become quite
wealthy when oil had been found on his farm lands,
had been enabled to realize two life ambitions—obtain
a Packard touring car and send his only
daughter to a “fust-class” white school.</p>
<p>Emma Lou had planned to loiter around the
campus. She was still eager to become acquainted
with the colored members of the student body, and
this encounter with the crass and vulgar Hazel Mason
had only made her the more eager. She resented being
approached by any one so flagrantly inferior, any
one so noticeably a typical southern darky, who had
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>no business obtruding into the more refined scheme
of things. Emma Lou planned to lose her unwelcome
companion somewhere on the campus so that she
could continue unhindered her quest for agreeable
acquaintances.</p>
<p>But Hazel was as anxious to meet some one as was
Emma Lou, and having found her was not going to
let her get away without a struggle. She, too, was new
to this environment and in a way was more lonely
and eager for the companionship of her own kind
than Emma Lou, for never before had she come into
such close contact with so many whites. Her life had
been spent only among Negroes. Her fellow pupils
and teachers in school had always been colored, and
as she confessed to Emma Lou, she couldn’t get used
“to all these white folks.”</p>
<p>“Honey, I was just achin’ to see a black face,” she
had said, and, though Emma Lou was experiencing
the same ache, she found herself unable to sympathize
with the other girl, for Emma Lou classified
Hazel as a barbarian who had most certainly not
come from a family of best people. No doubt her
mother had been a washerwoman. No doubt she had
innumerable relatives and friends all as ignorant and
as ugly as she. There was no sense in any one having
a face as ugly as Hazel’s, and Emma Lou thanked her
stars that though she was black, her skin was not
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>rough and pimply, nor was her hair kinky, nor were
her nostrils completely flattened out until they
seemed to spread all over her face. No wonder people
were prejudiced against dark skinned people when
they were so ugly, so haphazard in their dress, and
so boisterously mannered as was this present specimen.
She herself was black, but nevertheless she had
come from a good family, and she could easily take
her place in a society of the right sort of people.</p>
<p>The two strolled along the lawn-bordered gravel
path which led to a vine-covered building at the end
of the campus. Hazel never ceased talking. She kept
shouting at Emma Lou, shouting all sorts of personal
intimacies as if she were desirous of the whole world
hearing them. There was no necessity for her to talk
so loudly, no necessity for her to afford every one on
the crowded campus the chance to stare and laugh
at them as they passed. Emma Lou had never before
been so humiliated and so embarrassed. She felt
that she must get away from her offensive companion.
What did she care if she had to hurt her feelings
to do so. The more insulting she could be now, the
less friendly she would have to be in the future.</p>
<p>“Good-by,” she said abruptly, “I must go home.”
With which she turned away and walked rapidly in
the opposite direction. She had only gone a few steps
when she was aware of the fact that the girl was
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>following her. She quickened her pace, but the girl
caught up with her and grabbing hold of Emma Lou’s
arm, shouted, “Whoa there, Sally.”</p>
<p>It seemed to Emma Lou as if every one on the
campus was viewing and enjoying this minstrel-like
performance. Angrily she tried to jerk away, but the
girl held fast.</p>
<p>“Gal, you sure walk fast. I’m going your way.
Come on, let me drive you home in my buggy.”</p>
<p>And still holding on to Emma Lou’s arm, she led
the way to the side street where the students parked
their cars. Emma Lou was powerless to resist. The
girl didn’t give her a chance, for she held tight, then
immediately resumed the monologue which Emma
Lou’s attempted leave-taking had interrupted. They
reached the street, Hazel still talking loudly, and
making elaborate gestures with her free hand.</p>
<p>“Here we are,” she shouted, and releasing Emma
Lou’s arm, salaamed before a sport model Stutz
roadster. “Oscar,” she continued, “meet the new girl
friend. Pleased to meetcha, says he. Climb aboard.”</p>
<p>And Emma Lou had climbed aboard, perplexed,
chagrined, thoroughly angry, and disgusted. What
was this little black fool doing with a Stutz roadster?
And of course, it would be painted red—Negroes always
bedecked themselves and their belongings in
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>ridiculously unbecoming colors and ornaments. It
seemed to be a part of their primitive heritage which
they did not seem to have sense enough to forget
and deny. Black girl—white hat—red and white
striped sport suit—white shoes and stockings—red
roadster. The picture was complete. All Hazel needed
to complete her circus-like appearance, thought
Emma Lou, was to have some purple feathers stuck
in her hat.</p>
<p>Still talking, the girl unlocked and proceeded to
start the car. As she was backing it out of the narrow
parking space, Emma Lou heard a chorus of semi-suppressed
giggles from a neighboring automobile.
In her anger she had failed to notice that there were
people in the car parked next to the Stutz. But as
Hazel expertly swung her machine around, Emma
Lou caught a glimpse of them. They were all colored
and they were all staring at her and at Hazel. She
thought she recognized one of the girls as being one
of the group she had seen earlier that morning, and
she did recognize the two brothers she had passed on
the stairs. And as the roadster sped away, their
laughter echoed in her ears, although she hadn’t actually
heard it. But she had seen the strain in their
faces, and she knew that as soon as she and Hazel
were out of sight, they would give free rein to their
suppressed mirth.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p>
<p>Although Emma Lou had finished registering, she
returned to the university campus on the following
morning in order to continue her quest for collegiate
companions without the alarming and unwelcome
presence of Hazel Mason. She didn’t know whether
to be sorry for the girl and try to help her or to be
disgusted and avoid her. She didn’t want to be intimately
associated with any such vulgar person. It
would damage her own position, cause her to be
classified with some one who was in a class by herself,
for Emma Lou was certain that there was not, and
could not be, any one else in the university just like
Hazel. But despite her vulgarity, the girl was not
all bad. Her good nature was infectious, and Emma
Lou had surmised from her monologue on the day
before how utterly unselfish a person she could be
and was. All of her store of the world’s goods were
at hand to be used and enjoyed by her friends.
There was not, as she had said, “a selfish bone in her
body.” But even that did not alter the disgusting
fact that she was not one who would be welcome by
the “right sort of people.” Her flamboyant style of
dress, her loud voice, her raucous laughter, and her
flagrant disregard or ignorance of English grammar
seemed inexcusable to Emma Lou, who was unable
to understand how such a person could stray so far
from the environment in which she rightfully belonged
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>to enter a first class university. Now Hazel,
according to Emma Lou, was the type of Negro
who should go to a Negro college. There were plenty
of them in the South whose standard of scholarship
was not beyond her ability. And then, in one of those
schools, her darky-like clownishness would not have
to be paraded in front of white people, thereby causing
discomfort and embarrassment to others of her
race, more civilized and circumspect than she.</p>
<p>The problem irritated Emma Lou. She didn’t see
why it had to be. She had looked forward so anxiously,
and so happily to her introductory days on the
campus, and now her first experience with one of her
fellow colored students had been an unpleasant one.
But she didn’t intend to let that make her unhappy.
She was determined to return to the campus alone,
seek out other companions, see whether they accepted
or ignored the offending Hazel, and govern herself
accordingly.</p>
<p>It was early and there were few people on the
campus. The grass was still wet from a heavy overnight
dew, and the sun had not yet dispelled the
coolness of the early morning. Emma Lou’s dress
was of thin material and she shivered as she walked
or stood in the shade. She had no school business to
attend to; there was nothing for her to do but to walk
aimlessly about the campus.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p>
<p>In another hour, Emma Lou was pleased to see
that the campus walks were becoming crowded, and
that the side streets surrounding the campus were
now heavy with student traffic. Things were beginning
to awaken. Emma Lou became jubilant and
walked with jaunty step from path to path, from
building to building. It then occurred to her that she
had been told that there were more Negro students
enrolled in the School of Pharmacy than in any other
department of the university, so finding the Pharmacy
building she began to wander through its
crowded hallways.</p>
<p>Almost immediately, she saw a group of five Negro
students, three boys and two girls, standing near a
water fountain. She was both excited and perplexed,
excited over the fact that she was so close to those
she wished to find, and perplexed because she did
not know how to approach them. Had there been
only one person standing there, the matter would
have been comparatively easy. She could have approached
with a smile and said, “Good morning.”
The person would have returned her greeting, and it
would then have been a simple matter to get
acquainted.</p>
<p>But five people in one bunch, all known to one
another and all chatting intimately together!—it
would seem too much like an intrusion to go bursting
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>into their gathering—too forward and too vulgar.
Then, there was nothing she could say after having
said “good morning.” One just didn’t break into a
group of five and say, “I’m Emma Lou Morgan, a
new student, and I want to make friends with you.”
No, she couldn’t do that. She would just smile as she
passed, smile graciously and friendly. They would
know that she was a stranger, and her smile would
assure them that she was anxious to make friends,
anxious to become a welcome addition to their group.</p>
<p>One of the group of five had sighted Emma Lou as
soon as she had sighted them:</p>
<p>“Who’s this?” queried Helen Wheaton, a senior in
the College of Law.</p>
<p>“Some new ‘pick,’ I guess,” answered Bob Armstrong,
who was Helen’s fiance and a senior in the
School of Architecture.</p>
<p>“I bet she’s going to take Pharmacy,” whispered
Amos Blaine.</p>
<p>“She’s hottentot enough to take something,” mumbled
Tommy Brown. “Thank God, she won’t be in
any of our classes, eh Amos?”</p>
<p>Emma Lou was almost abreast of them now. They
lowered their voices, and made a pretense of mumbled
conversation among themselves. Only Verne
Davis looked directly at her and it was she alone who
returned Emma Lou’s smile.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span></p>
<p>“Whatcha grinnin’ at?” Bob chided Verne as
Emma Lou passed out of earshot.</p>
<p>“At the little frosh, of course. She grinned at me.
I couldn’t stare at her without returning it.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see how anybody could even look at her
without grinning.”</p>
<p>“Oh, she’s not so bad,” said Verne.</p>
<p>“Well, she’s bad enough.”</p>
<p>“That makes two of them.”</p>
<p>“Two of what, Amos?”</p>
<p>“Hottentots, Bob.”</p>
<p>“Good grief,” exclaimed Tommy, “why don’t you
recruit some good-looking co-eds out here?”</p>
<p>“We don’t choose them,” Helen returned.</p>
<p>“I’m going out to the Southern Branch where the
sight of my fellow female students won’t give me
dyspepsia.”</p>
<p>“Ta-ta, Amos,” said Verne, “and you needn’t
bother to sit in my car any more if you think us so
terrible.” She and Helen walked away, leaving the
boys to discuss the sad days which had fallen upon
the campus.</p>
<p>Emma Lou, of course, knew nothing of all this.
She had gone her way rejoicing. One of the students
had noticed her, had returned her smile. This getting
acquainted was going to be an easy matter after all.
It was just necessary that she exercise a little patience.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>One couldn’t expect people to fall all over one
without some preliminary advances. True, she was a
stranger, but she would show them in good time that
she was worthy of their attention, that she was a
good fellow and a well-bred individual quite prepared
to be accepted by the best people.</p>
<p>She strolled out on to the campus again trying to
find more prospective acquaintances. The sun was
warm now, the grass dry, and the campus overcrowded.
There was an infectious germ of youth and
gladness abroad to which Emma Lou could not remain
immune. Already she was certain that she felt
the presence of that vague something known as “college
spirit.” It seemed to enter into her, to make her
jubilant and set her every nerve tingling. This was no
time for sobriety. It was the time for youth’s blood to
run hot, the time for love and sport and wholesome
fun.</p>
<p>Then Emma Lou saw a solitary Negro girl seated
on a stone bench. It did not take her a second to
decide what to do. Here was her chance. She would
make friends with this girl and should she happen
to be a new student, they could become friends and
together find their way into the inner circle of those
colored students who really mattered.</p>
<p>Emma Lou was essentially a snob. She had absorbed
this trait from the very people who had sought
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>to exclude her from their presence. All of her life
she had heard talk of “right sort of people,” and
of “the people who really mattered,” and from these
phrases she had formed a mental image of those to
whom they applied. Hazel Mason most certainly
could not be included in either of these categories.
Hazel was just a vulgar little nigger from down
South. It was her kind, who, when they came North,
made it hard for the colored people already resident
there. It was her kind who knew nothing of the social
niceties or the polite conventions. In their own home
they had been used only to coarse work and coarser
manners. And they had been forbidden the chance
to have intimate contact in schools and in public
with white people from whom they might absorb
some semblance of culture. When they did come
North and get a chance to go to white schools, white
theaters, and white libraries, they were too unused
to them to appreciate what they were getting, and
could be expected to continue their old way of life in
an environment where such a way was decidedly
out of place.</p>
<p>Emma Lou was determined to become associated
only with those people who really mattered, northerners
like herself or superior southerners, if there
were any, who were different from whites only in so
far as skin color was concerned. This girl, to whom she
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>was now about to introduce herself, was the type she
had in mind, genteel, well and tastily dressed, and
not ugly.</p>
<p>“Good morning.”</p>
<p>Alma Martin looked up from the book she was
reading, gulped in surprise, then answered, “Good
morning.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou sat down on the bench. She was congeniality
itself. “Are you a new student?” she inquired
of the astonished Alma, who wasn’t used to
this sort of thing.</p>
<p>“No, I’m a ‘soph’,” then realizing she was expected
to say more, “you’re new, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“Oh yes,” replied Emma Lou, her voice buoyant
and glad. “This will be my first year.”</p>
<p>“Do you think you will like it?”</p>
<p>“I’m just crazy about it already. You know,” she
advanced confidentially, “I’ve never gone to school
with any colored people before.”</p>
<p>“No?”</p>
<p>“No, and I am just dying to get acquainted with
the colored students. Oh, my name’s Emma Lou
Morgan.”</p>
<p>“And mine is Alma Martin.”</p>
<p>They both laughed. There was a moment of silence.
Alma looked at her wrist watch, then got up from
the bench.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
<p>“I’m glad to have met you. I’ve got to see my
advisor at ten-thirty. Good-by.” And she moved
away gracefully.</p>
<p>Emma Lou was having difficulty in keeping from
clapping her hands. At last she had made some headway.
She had met a second-year student, one who,
from all appearances, was in the know, and, who, as
they met from time to time, would see that she met
others. In a short time Emma Lou felt that she would
be in the whirl of things collegiate. She must write
to her Uncle Joe immediately and let him know how
well things were going. He had been right. This was
the place for her to be. There had been no one in
Boise worth considering. Here she was coming into
contact with really superior people, intelligent, genteel,
college-bred, all trying to advance themselves
and their race, unconscious of intra-racial schisms,
caused by differences in skin color.</p>
<p>She mustn’t stop upon meeting one person. She
must find others, so once more she began her quest
and almost immediately met Verne and Helen strolling
down one of the campus paths. She remembered
Verne as the girl who had smiled at her. She observed
her more closely, and admired her pleasant dark
brown face, made doubly attractive by two evenly
placed dimples and a pair of large, heavily-lidded,
pitch black eyes. Emma Lou thought her to be much
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>more attractive than the anemic-looking yellow girl
with whom she was strolling. There was something
about this second girl which made Emma Lou feel
that she was not easy to approach.</p>
<p>“Good morning.” Emma Lou had evolved a
formula.</p>
<p>“Good morning,” the two girls spoke in unison.
Helen was about to walk on but Verne stopped.</p>
<p>“New student?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Yes, I am.”</p>
<p>“So am I. I’m Verne Davis.”</p>
<p>“I’m Emma Lou Morgan.”</p>
<p>“And this is Helen Wheaton.”</p>
<p>“Pleased to meet you, Miss Morgan.”</p>
<p>“And I’m pleased to meet you, too, both of you,”
gushed Emma Lou. “You see, I’m from Boise, Idaho,
and all through high school I was the only colored
student.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” Helen inquired listlessly. Then turning
to Verne said, “Better come on Verne if you are
going to drive us out to the ‘Branch’.”</p>
<p>“All right. We’ve got to run along now. We’ll see
you again, Miss Morgan. Good-by.”</p>
<p>“Good-by,” said Emma Lou and stood watching
them as they went on their way. Yes, college life was
going to be the thing to bring her out, the turning
point in her life. She would show the people back in
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>Boise that she did not have to be a “no-gooder” as
they claimed her father had been, just because she
was black. She would show all of them that a dark
skin girl could go as far in life as a fair skin one, and
that she could have as much opportunity and as
much happiness. What did the color of one’s skin
have to do with one’s mentality or native ability?
Nothing whatsoever. If a black boy could get along
in the world, so could a black girl, and it would take
her, Emma Lou Morgan, to prove it.</p>
<p>With which she set out to make still more
acquaintances.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Two weeks of school had left Emma Lou’s mind
in a chaotic state. She was unable to draw any
coherent conclusions from the jumble of new things
she had experienced. In addition to her own social
strivings, there had been the academic routine to
which she had had to adapt herself. She had found it
all bewildering and overpowering. The university was
a huge business proposition and every one in it had
jobs to perform. Its bigness awed her. Its blatant
reality shocked her. There was nothing romantic
about going to college. It was, indeed, a serious business.
One went there with a purpose and had several
other purposes inculcated into one after school began.
This getting an education was stern and serious,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>regulated and systematized, dull and unemotional.</p>
<p>Besides being disappointed at the drabness and
lack of romance in college routine, Emma Lou was
also depressed by her inability to make much headway
in the matter of becoming intimately associated
with her colored campus mates. They were all polite
enough. They all acknowledged their introductions
to her and would speak whenever they passed her,
but seldom did any of them stop for a chat, and
when she joined the various groups which gathered
on the campus lawn between classes, she always felt
excluded and out of things because she found herself
unable to participate in the general conversation.
They talked of things about which she knew nothing,
of parties and dances, and of people she did not
know. They seemed to live a life off the campus to
which she was not privy, and into which they did
not seem particularly anxious to introduce her.</p>
<p>She wondered why she never knew of the parties
they talked about, and why she never received invitations
to any of their affairs. Perhaps it was because
she was still new and comparatively unknown
to them. She felt that she must not forget that most
of them had known one another for a long period of
time and that it was necessary for people who “belonged”
to be wary of strangers. That was it. She was
still a stranger, had only been among them for about
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>two weeks. What did she expect? Why was she so
impatient?</p>
<p>The thought of the color question presented itself
to her time and time again, but she would always
dismiss it from her mind. Verne Davis was dark and
she was not excluded from the sacred inner circle.
In fact, she was one of the most popular colored
girls on the campus. The only thing that perplexed
Emma Lou was that although Verne too was new to
the group, had just recently moved into the city, and
was also just beginning her first year at the University,
she had not been kept at a distance or excluded
from any of the major extra-collegiate activities.
Emma Lou could not understand why there
should be this difference in their social acceptance.
She was certainly as good as Verne.</p>
<p>In time Emma Lou became certain that it was
because of her intimacy with Hazel that the people on
the campus she really wished to be friendly with paid
her so little attention. Hazel was a veritable clown.
She went scooting about the campus, cutting capers,
playing the darky for the amused white students.
Any time Hazel asked or answered a question in
any of the lecture halls, there was certain to be
laughter. She had a way of phrasing what she wished
to say in a manner which was invariably laugh provoking.
The very tone and quality of her voice designated
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>her as a minstrel type. In the gymnasium she
would do buck and wing dances and play low-down
blues on the piano. She was a pariah among her own
people because she did not seem to know, as they
knew, that Negroes could not afford to be funny in
front of white people even if that was their natural
inclination. Negroes must always be sober and serious
in order to impress white people with their adaptability
and non-difference in all salient characteristics
save skin color. All of the Negro students on
the campus, except Emma Lou, laughed at her openly
and called her Topsy. Emma Lou felt sorry for her
although she, too, regretted her comic propensities
and wished that she would be less the vaudevillian
and more the college student.</p>
<p>Besides Hazel, there was only one other person on
the campus who was friendly with Emma Lou. This
was Grace Giles, also a black girl, who was registered
in the School of Music. The building in which she
had her classes was located some distance away, and
Grace did not get over to the main campus grounds
very often, but when she did, she always looked for
Emma Lou and made welcome overtures of friendship.
It was her second year in the university, and
yet, she too seemed to be on the outside of things.
She didn’t seem to be invited to the parties and
dances, nor was she a member of the Greek letter
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>sorority which the colored girls had organized. Emma
Lou asked her why.</p>
<p>“Have they pledged you?” was Grace Giles’
answer.</p>
<p>“Why no.”</p>
<p>“And they won’t either.”</p>
<p>“Why?” Emma Lou asked surprised.</p>
<p>“Because you are not a high brown or half-white.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou had thought this too, but she had been
loathe to believe it.</p>
<p>“You’re silly, Grace. Why—Verne belongs.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Grace had sneered, “Verne, a bishop’s
daughter with plenty of coin and a big Buick. Why
shouldn’t they ask her?”</p>
<p>Emma Lou did not know what to make of this.
She did not want to believe that the same color
prejudice which existed among the blue veins in
Boise also existed among the colored college students.
Grace Giles was just hypersensitive. She wasn’t taking
into consideration the fact that she was not on
the campus regularly and thus could not expect to be
treated as if she were. Emma Lou fully believed that
had Grace been a regularly enrolled student like herself,
she would have found things different, and she
was also certain that both she and Grace would be
asked to join the sorority in due time.</p>
<p>But they weren’t. Nor did an entire term in the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>school change things one whit. The Christmas holidays
had come and gone and Emma Lou had not
been invited to one of the many parties. She and
Grace and Hazel bound themselves together and
sought their extra-collegiate pleasures among people
not on the campus. Hazel began to associate with a
group of housemaids and mature youths who worked
only when they had to, and played the pool rooms
and the housemaids as long as they proved profitable.
Hazel was a welcome addition to this particular group
what with her car and her full pocketbook. She had
never been proficient in her studies, had always found
it impossible to keep pace with the other students,
and, finally realizing that she did not belong and
perhaps never would, had decided to “go to the
devil,” and be done with it.</p>
<p>It was not long before Hazel was absent from the
campus more often than she was present. Going to
cabarets and parties, and taking long drunken midnight
drives made her more and more unwilling and
unable to undertake the scholastic grind on the next
morning. Just before the mid-term examinations, she
was advised by the faculty to drop out of school until
the next year, and to put herself in the hands of a
tutor during the intervening period. It was evident
that her background was not all that it should be;
her preparatory work had not been sufficiently complete
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>to enable her to continue in college. As it was,
they told her, she was wasting her time. So Hazel
disappeared from the campus and was said to have
gone back to Texas. “Serves her right, glad she’s
gone,” was the verdict of her colored campus fellows.</p>
<p>The Christmas holidays for Emma Lou were dull
and uneventful. The people she lived with were rheumatic
and not much given to yuletide festivities. It
didn’t seem like Christmas to Emma Lou anyway.
There was no snow on the ground, and the sun was
shining as brightly and as warmly as it had shone
during the late summer and early autumn months.
The wild geraniums still flourished, the orange trees
were blossoming, and the whole southland seemed to
be preparing for the annual New Year’s Day Tournament
of Roses parade in Pasadena.</p>
<p>Emma Lou received a few presents from home, and
a Christmas greeting card from Grace Giles. That
was all. On Christmas Day she and Grace attended
church in the morning, and spent the afternoon at
the home of one of Grace’s friends. Emma Lou never
liked the people to whom Grace introduced her. They
were a dull, commonplace lot for the most part, people
from Georgia, Grace’s former home, untutored
people who didn’t really matter. Emma Lou borrowed
a word from her grandmother and classified
them as “fuddlers,” because they seemed to fuddle
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>everything—their language, their clothes, their attempts
at politeness, and their efforts to appear more
intelligent than they really were.</p>
<p>The holidays over, Emma Lou returned to school a
little reluctantly. She wasn’t particularly interested
in her studies, but having nothing else to do kept up
in them and made high grades. Meanwhile she had
been introduced to a number of young men and gone
out with them occasionally. They too were friends
of Grace’s and of the same caliber as Grace’s other
friends. There were no college boys among them except
Joe Lane who was flunking out in the School of
Dentistry. He did not interest Emma Lou. As it was
with Joe, so it was with all the other boys. She invariably
picked them to pieces when they took her out,
and remained so impassive to their emotional advances
that they were soon glad to be on their way
and let her be. Emma Lou was determined not to go
out of her class, determined either to associate with
the “right sort of people” or else to remain to herself.</p>
<p>Had any one asked Emma Lou what she meant by
the “right sort of people” she would have found herself
at a loss for a comprehensive answer. She really
didn’t know. She had a vague idea that those people
on the campus who practically ignored her were the
only people with whom she should associate. These
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>people, for the most part, were children of fairly
well-to-do families from Louisiana, Texas and
Georgia, who, having made nest eggs, had journeyed
to the West for the same reasons that her grandparents
at an earlier date had also journeyed West.
They wanted to live where they would have greater
freedom and greater opportunity for both their children
and themselves. Then, too, the World War had
given impetus to this westward movement. There was
more industry in the West and thus more chances
for money to be made, and more opportunities to
invest this money profitably in property and progeny.</p>
<p>The greater number of them were either mulattoes
or light brown in color. In their southern homes they
had segregated themselves from their darker skinned
brethren and they continued this practice in the
North. They went to the Episcopal, Presbyterian, or
Catholic churches, and though they were not as
frankly organized into a blue vein society as were
the Negroes of Boise, they nevertheless kept more or
less to themselves. They were not insistent that their
children get “whiter and whiter every generation”,
but they did want to keep their children and grandchildren
from having dark complexions. A light
brown was the favored color; it was therefore found
expedient to exercise caution when it came to mating.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
<p>The people who, in Emma Lou’s phrase, really
mattered, the business men, the doctors, the lawyers,
the dentists, the more moneyed pullman porters, hotel
waiters, bank janitors, and majordomos, in fact all
of the Negro leaders and members of the Negro upper
class, were either light skinned themselves or else
had light skinned wives. A wife of dark complexion
was considered a handicap unless she was particularly
charming, wealthy, or beautiful. An ordinary
looking dark woman was no suitable mate for a
Negro man of prominence. The college youths on
whom the future of the race depended practiced this
precept of their elders religiously. It was not the
girls in the school who were prejudiced—they had
no reason to be, but they knew full well that the boys
with whom they wished to associate, their future husbands,
would not tolerate a dark girl unless she had,
like Verne, many things to compensate for her dark
skin. Thus they did not encourage a friendship with
some one whom they knew didn’t belong. Thus they
did not even pledge girls like Grace, Emma Lou, and
Hazel into their sorority, for they knew that it would
make them the more miserable to attain the threshold
only to have the door shut in their faces.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Summer vacation time came and Emma Lou went
back to Boise. She was thoroughly discouraged and
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>depressed. She had been led to expect so much pleasure
from her first year in college and in Los Angeles;
but she had found that the people in large cities were
after all no different from people in small cities. Her
Uncle Joe had been wrong—her mother and grandmother
had been right. There was no place in the
world for a dark girl.</p>
<p>Being at home depressed her all the more. There
was absolutely nothing for her to do nor any place
for her to go. For a month or more she just lingered
around the house, bored by her mother’s constant and
difficult attempts to be maternal, and irritated by her
Cousin Buddy’s freshness. Adolescent boys were such
a nuisance. The only bright spot on the horizon was
the Sunday School Union picnic scheduled to be held
during the latter part of July. It was always the
crowning social event of the summer season among
the colored citizens of Boise. Both the Methodists
and Baptists missions cooperated in this affair and
had their numbers augmented by all the denominationally
unattached members of the community. It
was always a gala, democratic affair designed to
provide a pleasant day in the out-of-doors. It was,
besides the annual dance fostered by the local chapters
of the Masons and the Elks, the only big community
gathering to which the entire colored population
of Boise looked forward.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span></p>
<p>Picnic day came, and Emma Lou accompanied her
mother, her uncle, and her cousin to Bedney’s Meadow,
a green, heavily forested acre of park land,
which lay on the outskirts of the city, surrounded on
three sides by verdant foothills. The day went by
pleasantly enough. There were the usually heavily
laden wooden tables, to which all adjourned in the
late afternoon, and there were foot races, games, and
canoeing.</p>
<p>Emma Lou took part in all these activities and
was surprised to find that she was having a good
time. The company was congenial, and she found
that since she had gone away to college she had become
somewhat of a personage. Every one seemed to
be going out of his way to be congenial to her. The
blue veins did not rule this affair. They were, in fact,
only a minority element, and, for one of the few
times of the year, mingled freely and unostentatiously
with their lower caste brethren.</p>
<p>All during the day, Emma Lou found herself
paired off with a chap by the name of Weldon Taylor.
In the evening they went for a stroll up the precipitous
footpaths in the hills which grew up from the
meadow. Weldon Taylor was a newcomer in the West
trying to earn sufficient money to re-enter an eastern
school and finish his medical education. Emma Lou
rather liked him. She admired his tall, slender body,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>the deep burnish of his bronze colored skin, and his
mass of black curly hair. Here, thought Emma Lou,
is the type of man I like. Only she did wish that his
skin had been colored light brown instead of dark
brown. It was better if she was to marry that she did
not get a dark skin mate. Her children must not suffer
as she had and would suffer.</p>
<p>The two talked of commonplace things as they
walked along, comparing notes on their school experiences,
and talking of their professors and their
courses of study. It was dusk now and the sun had
disappeared behind the snow capped mountains. The
sky was a colorful haze, a master artist’s canvas on
which the colors of day were slowly being dominated
by the colors of night. Weldon drew Emma Lou off
the little path they had been following, and led her
to a huge bowlder which jutted out, elbow like, from
the side of a hill, and which was hidden from the
meadow below by clumps of bushes. They sat down,
his arm slipped around her waist, and, as the darkness
of night more and more conquered the evanescent
light of day, their lips met, and Emma Lou grew
lax in Weldon’s arms....</p>
<p>When they finally returned to the picnic grounds
all had left save a few stragglers like themselves who
had sauntered away from the main party. These
made up a laughing, half-embarrassed group, who
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>collected their baskets and reluctantly withdrew
from the meadow to begin the long walk back to
their homes. Emma Lou and Weldon soon managed
to fall at the end of the procession, walking along
slowly, his arm around her waist. Emma Lou felt an
ecstasy surging through her at this moment greater
than she had ever known before. This had been her
first intimate sexual contact, her first awareness of
the physical and emotional pleasures able to be enjoyed
by two human beings, a woman and a man.
She felt some magnetic force drawing her to this man
walking by her side, which made her long to feel the
pleasure of his body against hers, made her want to
know once more the pleasure which had attended the
union of their lips, the touching of their tongues. It
was with a great effort that she walked along apparently
calm, for inside she was seething. Her body had
become a kennel for clashing, screaming compelling
urges and desires. She loved this man. She had submitted
herself to him, had gladly suffered momentary
physical pain in order to be introduced into a new
and incomparably satisfying paradise.</p>
<p>Not for one moment did Emma Lou consider regretting
the loss of her virtue, not once did any of
her mother’s and grandmother’s warnings and solicitations
revive themselves and cause her conscience
to plague her. She had finally found herself a mate;
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>she had finally come to know the man she should
love, some inescapable force had drawn them together,
had made them feel from the first moment of
their introduction that they belonged to one another,
and that they were destined to explore nature’s
mysteries together. Life was not so cruel after
all. There were some compensatory moments. Emma
Lou believed that at last she had found happiness,
that at last she had found her man.</p>
<p>Of course, she wasn’t going back to school. She
was going to stay in Boise, marry Weldon, and work
with him until they should have sufficient money to
go East, where he could re-enter medical school,
and she could keep a home for him and spur him on.
A glorious panorama of the future unrolled itself in
her mind. There were no black spots in it, no shadows,
nothing but luminous landscapes, ethereal in
substance.</p>
<p>It was the way of Emma Lou always to create her
worlds within her own mind without taking under
consideration the fact that other people and other
elements, not contained within herself, would also
have to aid in their molding. She had lived to herself
for so long, had been shut out from the stream
of things in which she was interested for such a long
period during the formative years of her life, that
she considered her own imaginative powers omniscient.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>Thus she constructed a future world of love on
one isolated experience, never thinking for the moment
that the other party concerned might not be
of the same mind. She had been lifted into a superlatively
perfect emotional and physical state. It
was unthinkable, incongruous, that Weldon, too, had
not been similarly lifted. He had for the moment
shared her ecstasy, therefore, according to Emma
Lou’s line of reasoning, he would as effectively share
what she imagined would be the fruits of that ecstatic
moment.</p>
<p>The next two weeks passed quickly and happily.
Weldon called on her almost every night, took her
for long walks, and thrilled her with his presence
and his love making. Never before in her life had
Emma Lou been so happy. She forgot all the sad
past. Forgot what she had hitherto considered the
tragedy of her birth, forgot the social isolation of
her childhood and of her college days. What did
being black, what did the antagonistic mental attitudes
of the people who really mattered mean when
she was in love? Her mother and her Uncle Joe were
so amazed at the change in her that they became
afraid, sensed danger, and began to be on the lookout
for some untoward development; for hitherto
Emma Lou had always been sullen and morose and
impertinent to all around the house. She had always
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>been the anti-social creature they had caused her to
feel she was and, since she was made to feel that she
was a misfit, she had encroached upon their family
life and sociabilities only to the extent that being
in the house made necessary. But now she was
changed—she had become a vibrant, joyful being.
There was always a smile on her face, always a note
of joy in her voice as she spoke or sang. She even
made herself agreeable to her Cousin Buddy, who in
the past she had either ignored or else barely tolerated.</p>
<p>“She must be in love, Joe,” her mother half
whined.</p>
<p>“That’s good,” he answered laconically. “It probably
won’t last long. It will serve to take her mind
off herself.”</p>
<p>“But suppose she gets foolish?” Jane had insisted,
remembering no doubt her own foolishness, during
a like period of her own life, with Emma Lou’s
father.</p>
<p>“She’ll take care of herself,” Joe had returned with
an assurance he did not feel. He, too, was worried,
but he was also pleased at the change in Emma Lou.
His only fear was that perhaps in the end she would
make herself more miserable than she had ever been
before. He did not know much about this Weldon
fellow, who seemed to be a reliable enough chap, but
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>no one had any way of discerning whether or no his
intentions were entirely honorable. It was best,
thought Joe, not to worry about such things. If, for
the present, Emma Lou was more happy than she
had ever been before, there would be time enough to
worry about the future when its problems materialized.</p>
<p>“Don’t you worry about Emma Lou. She’s got
sense.”</p>
<p>“But, Joe, suppose she does forget herself with this
man? He is studying to be a doctor and he may not
want a wife, especially when....”</p>
<p>“Damn it, Jane!” her brother snapped at her. “Do
you think every one is like you? The boy seems to
like her.”</p>
<p>“Men like any one they can use, but you know as
well as I that no professional man is going to marry
a woman dark as Emma Lou.”</p>
<p>“Men marry any one they love, just as you and
I did.”</p>
<p>“But I was foolish.”</p>
<p>“Well?”</p>
<p>“That’s right—Be unconcerned. That’s right—Let
her go to the devil. There’s no hope for her anyway.
Oh—why—why did I marry Jim Morgan?” and she
had gone into the usual crying fit which inevitably
followed this self-put question.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
<p>Then, without any warning, as if to put an end
to all problems, Weldon decided to become a Pullman
porter. He explained to Emma Lou that he
could make more money on the railroad than he
could as a hotel waiter in Boise. It was necessary for
his future that he make as much money as possible
in as short a time as possible. Emma Lou saw the
logic of this and agreed that it was the best possible
scheme, until she realized that it meant his going
away from Boise, perhaps forever. Oakland, California,
was to be his headquarters, and he, being a
new man, would not have a regular run. It was possible
that he might be sent to different sections of
the country each and every time he made a trip.
There was no way of his knowing before he reported
for duty just where he might be sent. It might be
Boise or Palm Beach or Albany or New Orleans. One
never knew. That was the life of the road, and one
had to accept it in order to make money.</p>
<p>It made Emma Lou shiver to hear him talk so
dispassionately about the matter. There didn’t seem
to be the least note of regret in his voice, the least
suggestion that he hated to leave her or that he
would miss her, and, for the first time since the night
of their physical union, Emma Lou began to realize
that perhaps after all he did not feel toward her as
she did toward him. He couldn’t possibly love her
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>as much as she loved him, and, at the same time,
remain so unconcerned about having to part from
her. There was something radically wrong here,
something conclusive and unexpected which was going
to hurt her, going to plunge her back into unhappiness
once more. Then she realized that not
once had he ever spoken of marriage or even hinted
that their relationship would continue indefinitely.
He had said that he loved her, he had treated her
kindly, and had seemed as thrilled as she over their
physical contacts. But now it seemed that since he
was no longer going to be near her, no longer going
to need her body, he had forgotten that he loved her.
It was then that all the old preachments of her
mother and grandmother were resurrected and began
to swirl through her mind. Hadn’t she been warned
that men didn’t marry black girls? Hadn’t she been
told that they would only use her for their sexual
convenience? That was the case with Weldon! He
hadn’t cared about her in the first place. He had
taken up with her only because he was a stranger in
the town and lonesome for a companion, and she,
like a damn fool, had submitted herself to him! And
now that he was about to better his condition, about
to go some place where he would have a wider circle
of acquaintances, she was to be discarded and forgotten.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p>
<p>Thus Emma Lou reasoned to herself and grew
bitter. It never occurred to her that the matter of
her color had never once entered the mind of Weldon.
Not once did she consider that he was acting toward
her as he would have acted toward any girl under
similar circumstances, whether her face had been
white, yellow, brown, or black. Emma Lou did not
understand that Weldon was just a selfish normal
man and not a color prejudiced one, at least not
while he was resident in a community where the girls
were few, and there were none of his college friends
about to tease him for liking “dark meat.” She did
not know that for over a year he had been traveling
about from town to town, always seeking a place
where money was more plentiful and more easily
saved, and that in every town he had managed to
find a girl, or girls, who made it possible for him to
continue his grind without being totally deprived of
pleasurable moments. To Emma Lou there could
only be one reason for his not having loved her as
she had loved him. She was a black girl and no professional
man could afford to present such a wife in
the best society. It was the tragic feature of her life
once more asserting itself. There could be no happiness
in life for any woman whose face was as black
as hers.</p>
<p>Believing this more intensely than ever before
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>Emma Lou yet felt that she must manage in some
way to escape both home and school. That she must
find happiness somewhere else. The idea her Uncle
Joe had given her about the provinciality of people
in small towns re-entered her mind. After all Los
Angeles, too, was a small town mentally, peopled by
mentally small southern Negroes. It was no better
than Boise. She was now determined to go East
where life was more cosmopolitan and people were
more civilized. To this end she begged her mother
and uncle to send her East to school.</p>
<p>“Can’t you ever be satisfied?”</p>
<p>“Now Jane,” Joe as usual was trying to keep the
peace——</p>
<p>“Now Jane, nothing! I never saw such an ungrateful
child.”</p>
<p>“I’m not ungrateful. I’m just unhappy. I don’t like
that school. I don’t want to go there any more.”</p>
<p>“Well, you’ll either go there or else stay home.”
Thus Jane ended the discussion and could not be
persuaded to reopen it.</p>
<p>And rather than remain home Emma Lou returned
to Los Angeles and spent another long miserable,
uneventful year in the University of Southern California,
drawing more and more within herself and
becoming more and more bitter. When vacation time
came again she got herself a job as maid in a theater,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>rather than return home, and studied stenography
during her spare hours. School began again and
Emma Lou re-entered with more determination than
ever to escape should the chance present itself. It
did, and once more Emma Lou fled into an unknown
town to escape the haunting chimera of intra-racial
color prejudice.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="fh2"><span class="smcap">Part II</span></p>
<p class="fh2">HARLEM</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak">II<br>HARLEM</h2>
</div>
<p>Emma Lou turned her face away from the wall,
and quizzically squinted her dark, pea-like eyes
at the recently closed door. Then, sitting upright, she
strained her ears, trying to hear the familiar squeak
of the impudent floor boards, as John tiptoed down
the narrow hallway toward the outside door. Finally,
after she had heard the closing click of the double-barrelled
police lock, she climbed out of the bed,
picked up a brush from the bureau and attempted to
smooth the sensuous disorder of her hair. She had
just recently had it bobbed, boyishly bobbed, because
she thought this style narrowed and enhanced
the fulsome lines of her facial features. She was
always trying to emphasize those things about her
that seemed, somehow, to atone for her despised
darkness, and she never faced the mirror without
speculating upon how good-looking she might have
been had she not been so black.</p>
<p>Mechanically, she continued the brushing of her
hair, stopping every once in a while to give it an
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>affectionate caress. She was intensely in love with
her hair, in love with its electric vibrancy and its
unruly buoyance. Yet, this morning, she was irritated
because it seemed so determined to remain disordered,
so determined to remain a stubborn and
unnecessary reminder of the night before. Why, she
wondered, should one’s physical properties always
insist upon appearing awry after a night of stolen
or forbidden pleasure? But not being anxious to find
an answer, she dismissed the question from her mind,
put on a stocking-cap, and jumped back into the
bed.</p>
<p>She began to think about John, poor John who
felt so hurt because she had told him that he could
not spend any more days or nights with her. She
wondered if she should pity him, for she was certain
that he would miss the nights more than he would
the days. Yet, she must not be too harsh in her conclusions,
for, after all, there had only been two
nights, which, she smiled to herself, was a pretty
good record for a newcomer to Harlem. She had been
in New York now for five weeks, and it seemed like,
well, just a few days. Five weeks—thirty-five days
and thirty-five nights, and of these nights John had
had two. And now he sulked because she would not
promise him another; because she had, in fact, boldly
told him that there could be no more between them.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>Mischievously, she wished now that she could have
seen the expression on his face, when, after seeming
moments of mutual ecstasy, she had made this cold,
manifesto-like announcement. But the room had been
dark, and so was John. Ugh!</p>
<p>She had only written home twice. This, of course,
seemed quite all right to her. She was not concerned
about any one there except her Uncle Joe, and she
reasoned that since he was preparing to marry again,
he would be far too busy to think much about her.
All that worried her was the pitiful spectacle of her
mother, her uncle, and her cousin trying to make
up lies to tell inquiring friends. Well, she would
write today, that is, if she did not start to work, and
she must get up at eight o’clock—was the alarm set?—and
hie herself to an employment agency. She had
only thirty-five dollars left in the bank, and, unless
it was replenished, she might have to rescind her
avowals to John in order to get her room rent paid.</p>
<p>She must go to sleep for another hour, for she
wished to look “pert” when she applied for a job,
especially the kind of job she wanted, and she must
get the kind of job she wanted in order to show
those people in Boise and Los Angeles that she had
been perfectly justified in leaving school, home, and
all, to come to New York. They all wondered why
she had come. So did she, now that she was here.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>But at the moment of leaving she would have gone
any place to escape having to remain in that hateful
Southern California college, or having to face the
more dreaded alternative of returning home. Home?
It had never been a home.</p>
<p>It did seem strange, this being in Harlem when
only a few weeks before she had been over three
thousand miles away. Time and distance—strange
things, immutable, yet conquerable. But was time
conquerable? Hadn’t she read or heard somewhere
that all things were subject to time, even God? Yet,
once she was there and now she was here. But even
at that she hadn’t conquered time. What was that
line in Cullen’s verse, “I run, but Time’s abreast with
me?” She had only traversed space and defied distance.
This suggested a more banal, if a less arduous
thought tangent. She had defied more than distance,
she had defied parental restraint—still there hadn’t
been much of that—friendly concern—there had been
still less of that, and malicious, meddlesome gossip, of
which there had been plenty. And she still found herself
unable to understand why two sets of people in
two entirely different communities should seemingly
become almost hysterically excited because she, a
woman of twenty-one, with three years’ college training
and ample sophistication in the ways of sex and
self-support, had decided to take a job as an actress’
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>maid in order to get to New York. They had never
seemed interested in her before.</p>
<p>Now she wondered why had she been so painfully
anxious to come to New York. She had given as a
consoling reason to inquisitive friends and relatives,
school. But she knew too well that she had no intentions
of ever re-entering school. She had had enough
of <i>that</i> school in Los Angeles, and her experiences
there, more than anything else, had caused this foolhardy
hegira to Harlem. She had been desperately
driven to escape, and had she not escaped in this
manner she might have done something else much
more mad.</p>
<p>Emma Lou closed her eyes once more, and tried
to sublimate her mental reverie into a sleep-inducing
lullaby. Most of all, she wanted to sleep. One had to
look “pert” when one sought a job, and she wondered
if eight o’clock would find her looking any
more “pert” than she did at this present moment.
What had caused her to urge John to spend what she
knew would be his last night with her when she was
so determined to be at her best the following morning!
O, what the hell was the use? She was going to
sleep.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>The alarm had not yet rung, but Emma Lou was
awakened gradually by the sizzling and smell of
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>fried and warmed-over breakfast, by the raucous early
morning wranglings and window to window greetings,
and by the almost constant squeak of those impudent
hall floor boards as the various people in her apartment
raced one another to the kitchen or to the bathroom
or to the front door. How could Harlem be so
happily busy, so alive and merry at eight o’clock.
Eight o’clock? The alarm rang. Emma Lou scuttled
out of the bed and put on her clothes.</p>
<p>An hour later, looking as “pert” as possible, she
entered the first employment agency she came to on
135th Street, between Lenox and Seventh Avenues.
It was her first visit to such an establishment and
she was particularly eager to experience this phase
of a working girl’s life. Her first four weeks in Harlem
had convinced her that jobs were easy to find,
for she had noticed that there were three or four
employment agencies to every block in business Harlem.
Assuring herself in this way that she would
experience little difficulty in obtaining a permanent
and tasty position, Emma Lou had abruptly informed
Mazelle Lindsay that she was leaving her
employ.</p>
<p>“But, child,” her employer had objected, “I feel
responsible for you. Your—your mother! Don’t be
preposterous. How can you remain in New York
alone?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
<p>Emma Lou had smiled, asked for her money once
more, closed her ears to all protest, bid the chagrined
woman good-bye, and joyously loafed for a week.</p>
<p>Now, with only thirty-five dollars left in the bank,
she thought that she had best find a job—find a job
and then finish seeing New York. Of course she had
seen much already. She had seen John—and he—oh,
damn John, she wanted a job.</p>
<p>“What can I do for you?” the harassed woman at
the desk was trying to be polite.</p>
<p>“I—I want a job.” R-r-ring. The telephone insistently
petitioned for attention, giving Emma Lou a
moment of respite, while the machine-like woman
wearily shouted monosyllabic answers into the instrument,
and, at the same time, tried to hush the
many loud-mouthed men and women in the room,
all, it seemed, trying to out-talk one another. While
waiting, Emma Lou surveyed her fellow job-seekers.
Seedy lot, was her verdict. Perhaps I should have
gone to a more high-toned place. Well, this will do
for the moment.</p>
<p>“What kinda job d’ye want?”</p>
<p>“I prefer,” Emma Lou had rehearsed these lines
for a week, “a stenographic position in some colored
business or professional office.”</p>
<p>“’Ny experience?”</p>
<p>“No, but I took two courses in business college,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>during school vacations. I have a certificate of competency.”</p>
<p>“’Ny reference?”</p>
<p>“No New York ones.”</p>
<p>“Where’d ya work before?”</p>
<p>“I—I just came to the city.”</p>
<p>“Where’d ya come...?” R-r-ring. The telephone
mercifully reiterated its insistent blare, and, for a
moment, kept that pesky woman from droning out
more insulting queries.</p>
<p>“Now,” she had finished again, “where’d ya come
from?”</p>
<p>“Los Angeles.”</p>
<p>“Ummm. What other kind of work would ya
take?”</p>
<p>“Anything congenial.”</p>
<p>“Waal, what is that, dishwashing, day work, nurse
girl?”</p>
<p>Didn’t this damn woman know what congenial
meant? And why should a Jewish woman be in
charge of a Negro employment agency in Harlem?</p>
<p>“Waal, girlie, others waiting.”</p>
<p>“I’ll consider anything you may have on hand, if
stenographic work is not available.”</p>
<p>“Wanta work part-time?”</p>
<p>“I’d rather not.”</p>
<p>“Awright. Sit down. I’ll call you in a moment.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p>
<p>“What can I do for you, young man?” Emma Lou
was dismissed.</p>
<p>She looked for a place to sit down, and, finding
none, walked across the narrow room to the window,
hoping to get a breath of fresh air, and at the same
time an advantageous position from which to watch
the drama of some one else playing the rôle of a job-seeker.</p>
<p>“R-r-ring.”</p>
<p>“Whadda want? Wait a minute. Oh, Sadie.”</p>
<p>A heavy set, dark-brown-skinned woman, with full,
flopping breasts, and extra wide buttocks, squirmed
off a too narrow chair, and bashfully wobbled up to
the desk.</p>
<p>“Wanta’ go to a place on West End Avenue? Part-time
cleaning, fifty cents an hour, nine rooms, yeah?
All right? Hello, gotta girl on the way. ’Bye. Two
and a half, Sadie. Here’s the address. Run along now,
don’t idle.”</p>
<p>R-r-ring. “’Lo, yes. What? Come down to the
office. I can’t sell jobs over the wire.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou began to see the humor in this sordid
situation, began to see something extremely comic
in all these plaintive, pitiful-appearing colored folk,
some greasy, some neat, some fat, some slim, some
brown, some black (why was there only one mulatto
in this crowd?), boys and men, girls and women, all
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>single-filing up to the desk, laconically answering laconic
questions, impertinently put, showing thanks
or sorrow or indifference, as their cases warranted,
paying off promptly, or else seeking credit, the while
the Jewish overseer of the dirty, dingy office asserted
and reasserted her superiority.</p>
<p>Some one on the outside pushed hard on the warped
door. Protestingly it came open, and the small stuffy
room was filled with the odor and presence of a stout,
black lady dressed in a greasy gingham housedress,
still damp in the front from splashing dishwater. On
her head was a tight turban, too round for the rather
long outlines of her head. Beneath this turban could
be seen short and wiry strands of recently straightened
hair. And her face! Emma Lou sought to observe
it more closely, sought to fathom how so much
grease could gather on one woman’s face. But her
head reeled. The room was vile with noise and heat
and body-smells, and this woman——</p>
<p>“Hy, Rosie. Yer late. Got a job for ya.”</p>
<p>The greasy-faced black woman grinned broadly,
licked her pork chop lips and, with a flourish, sat
down in an empty chair beside the desk. Emma Lou
stumbled over three pairs of number ten shoes,
pulled open the door and fled into the street.</p>
<p>She walked hurriedly for about twenty-five yards,
then slowed down and tried to collect her wits. Telephone
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>bells echoed in her ears. Sour smells infested
her nostrils. She looked up and discovered that she
had paused in front of two garbage cans, waiting on
the curbstone for the scavenger’s truck.</p>
<p>Irritated, she turned around and retraced her steps.
There were few people on the street. The early morning
work crowds had already been swallowed by the
subway kiosks on Lenox Avenue, and it was too
early for the afternoon idlers. Yet there was much
activity, much passing to and fro. One Hundred and
Thirty-Fifth Street, Emma Lou mumbled to herself
as she strolled along. How she had longed to see it,
and what a different thoroughfare she had imagined
it to be! Her eyes sought the opposite side of the
street and blinked at a line of monotonously regular
fire-escape decorated tenement buildings. She thanked
whoever might be responsible for the architectural
difference of the Y. M. C. A., for the streaming bit
of Seventh Avenue near by, and for the arresting corner
of the newly constructed teachers’ college building,
which dominated the hill three blocks away, and
cast its shadows on the verdure of the terraced park
beneath.</p>
<p>But she was looking for a job. Sour smells assailed
her nostrils once more. Rasping voices. Pleading
voices. Tired voices. Domineering voices. And the
insistent ring of the telephone bell all re-echoed in
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>her head and beat against her eardrums. She must
have staggered, for a passing youth eyed her curiously,
and shouted to no one in particular, “oh, <i>no</i>,
now.” Some one else laughed. They thought she was
drunk. Tears blurred her eyes. She wanted to run,
but resolutely she kept her steady, slow pace, lifted
her head a little higher, and, seeing another employment
agency, faltered for a moment, then went in.</p>
<p>This agency, like the first, occupied the ground
floor front of a tenement house, three-quarters of the
way between Lenox and Seventh Avenue. It was
cagey and crowded, and there was a great conversational
hubbub as Emma Lou entered. In the rear of
the room was a door marked “private,” to the left of
this door was a desk, littered with papers and index
cards, before which was a swivel chair. The rest of
the room was lined with a miscellaneous assortment
of chairs, three rows of them, tied together and trying
to be precise despite their varying sizes and shapes.
A single window looked out upon the street, and the
Y. M. C. A. building opposite.</p>
<p>All of the chairs were occupied and three people
stood lined up by the desk. Emma Lou fell in at the
end of this line. There was nothing else to do. In
fact, it was all she could do after entering. Not another
person could have been squeezed into that
room from the outside. This office too was noisy and
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>hot and pregnant with clashing body smells. The
buzzing electric fan, in a corner over the desk, with
all its whirring, could not stir up a breeze.</p>
<p>The rear door opened. A slender, light-brown-skinned
boy, his high cheekbones decorated with
blackheads, his slender form accentuated by a tight
fitting jazz suit of the high-waistline, one-button
coat, bell-bottom trouser variety, emerged smiling
broadly, cap in one hand, a slip of pink paper in the
other. He elbowed his way to the outside door and
was gone.</p>
<p>“Musta got a job,” somebody commented. “It’s
about time,” came from some one else, “he said he’d
been sittin’ here a week.”</p>
<p>The rear door opened again and a lady with a
youthful brown face and iron-gray hair sauntered in
and sat down in the swivel chair before the desk.
Immediately all talk in the outer office ceased. An
air of anticipation seemed to pervade the room. All
eyes were turned toward her.</p>
<p>For a moment she fingered a pack of red index
cards, then, as if remembering something, turned
around in her chair and called out:</p>
<p>“Mrs. Blake says for all elevator men to stick
around.”</p>
<p>There was a shuffling of feet and a settling back
into chairs. Noticing this, Emma Lou counted six
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>elevator men and wondered if she was right. Again
the brown aristocrat with the tired voice spoke up:</p>
<p>“Day workers come back at one-thirty. Won’t be
nothing doin’ ’til then.”</p>
<p>Four women, all carrying newspaper packages, got
out of their chairs, and edged their way toward the
door, murmuring to one another as they went, “I
ain’t fixin’ to come back.”</p>
<p>“Ah, she keeps you hyar.”</p>
<p>They were gone.</p>
<p>Two of the people standing in line sat down, the
third approached the desk, Emma Lou close behind.</p>
<p>“I wantsa—”</p>
<p>“What kind of job do you want?”</p>
<p>Couldn’t people ever finish what they had to say?</p>
<p>“Porter or dishwashing, lady.”</p>
<p>“Are you registered with us?”</p>
<p>“No’m.”</p>
<p>“Have a seat. I’ll call you in a moment.”</p>
<p>The boy looked frightened, but he found a seat and
slid into it gratefully. Emma Lou approached the
desk. The woman’s cold eyes appraised her. She must
have been pleased with what she saw for her eyes
softened and her smile reappeared. Emma Lou
smiled, too. Maybe she was “pert” after all. The
tailored blue suit——</p>
<p>“What can I do for you?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p>
<p>The voice with the smile wins. Emma Lou was
encouraged.</p>
<p>“I would like stenographic work.”</p>
<p>“Experienced?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” It was so much easier to say than “no.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou held tightly to her under-arm bag.</p>
<p>“We have something that would just about suit
you. Just a minute, and I’ll let you see Mrs. Blake.”</p>
<p>The chair squeaked and was eased of its burden.
Emma Lou thought she heard a telephone ringing
somewhere in the distance, or perhaps it was the
clang of the street car that had just passed, heading
for Seventh Avenue. The people in the room began
talking again.</p>
<p>“Dat last job.” “Boy, she was dressed right down
to the bricks.”</p>
<p>“And I told him....” “Yeah, we went to see
‘Flesh and the Devil’.” “Some parteee.” “I just been
here a week.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou’s mind became jumbled with incoherent
wisps of thought. Her left foot beat a nervous
tattoo upon a sagging floor board. The door opened.
The gray-haired lady with the smile in her voice
beckoned, and Emma Lou walked into the private
office of Mrs. Blake.</p>
<p>Four people in the room. The only window facing
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>a brick wall on the outside. Two telephones, both
busy. A good-looking young man, fingering papers in
a filing cabinet, while he talked over one of the
telephones. The lady from the outer office. Another
lady, short and brown, like butterscotch, talking
over a desk telephone and motioning for Emma Lou
to sit down. Blur of high powered electric lights,
brighter than daylight. The butterscotch lady hanging
up the receiver.</p>
<p>“I’m through with you young man.” Crisp tones.
Metal, warm in spite of itself.</p>
<p>“Well, I ain’t through with you.” The fourth person
was speaking. Emma Lou had hardly noticed him
before. Sullen face. Dull black eyes in watery sockets.
The nose flat, the lips thick and pouting. One hand
clutching a derby, the other clenched, bearing down
on the corner of the desk.</p>
<p>“I have no intention of arguing with you. I’ve
said my say. Go on outside. When a cook’s job comes
in, you can have it. That’s all I can do.”</p>
<p>“No, it ain’t all you can do.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m not going to give you your fee back.”</p>
<p>The lady from the outside office returns to her
post. The good-looking young man is at the telephone
again.</p>
<p>“Why not, I’m entitled to it.”</p>
<p>“No, you’re not. I send you on a job, the man
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>asks you to do something, you walk out, Mister Big
I-am. Then, show up here two days later and want
your fee back. No siree.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t walk out.”</p>
<p>“The man says you did.”</p>
<p>“Aw, sure, he’d say anything. I told him I came
there to be a cook, not a waiter. I——”</p>
<p>“It was your place to do as he said, then, if not
satisfied, to come here and tell me so.”</p>
<p>“I am here.”</p>
<p>“All right now. I’m tired of this. Take either of
two courses—go on outside and wait until a job
comes in or else go down to the license bureau and
tell them your story. They’ll investigate. If I’m
right——”</p>
<p>“You know you ain’t right.”</p>
<p>“Not according to you, no, but by law, yes. That’s
all.”</p>
<p>Telephone ringing. Warm metal whipping words
into it. The good-looking young man yawning. He
looks like a Y. M. C. A. secretary. The butterscotch
woman speaking to Emma Lou:</p>
<p>“You’re a stenographer?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“I have a job in a real estate office, nice firm, nice
people. Fill out this card. Here’s a pen.”</p>
<p>“Mrs. Blake, you know you ain’t doin’ right.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p>
<p>Why didn’t this man either shut up or get out?</p>
<p>“I told you what to do. Now please do one or the
other. You’ve taken up enough of my time. The
license bureau——”</p>
<p>“You know I ain’t goin’ down there. I’d rather
you keep the fee, if you think it will do you any
good.”</p>
<p>“I only keep what belongs to me. I’ve found out
that’s the best policy.”</p>
<p>Why should they want three people for reference?
Where had she worked before? Lies. Los Angeles was
far away.</p>
<p>“Then, if a job comes in you’ll give it to me?”</p>
<p>“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”</p>
<p>“Awright.” And finally he went out.</p>
<p>Mrs. Blake grinned across the desk at Emma Lou.
“Your folks won’t do, honey.”</p>
<p>“Do you have many like that?”</p>
<p>The card was made out. Mrs. Blake had it in her
hand. Telephones ringing, both at once. Loud talking
in the outer office. Lies. Los Angeles was far away.
I can bluff. Mrs. Blake had finished reading over
the card.</p>
<p>“Just came to New York, eh?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Like it better than Los Angeles?”</p>
<p>The good-looking young man turned around and
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>stared at her coldly. Now he did resemble a
Y. M. C. A. secretary. The lady from the outer office
came in again. There was a triple criss-cross conversation
carried on. It ended. The short bob-haired
butterscotch boss gave Emma Lou instructions and
information about her prospective position. She was
half heard. Sixteen dollars a week. Is that all? Work
from nine to five. Address on card. Corner of 139th
Street, left side of the avenue. Dismissal. Smiles and
good luck. Pay the lady outside five dollars. Awkward,
flustered moments. Then the entrance door and
135th Street once more. Emma Lou was on her way
to get a job.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>She walked briskly to the corner, crossed the street
and turned north on Seventh Avenue. Her hopes
were high, her mind a medley of pleasing mental
images. She visualized herself trim and pert in her
blue tailored suit being secretary to some well-groomed
Negro business man. There had not been
many such in the West, and she was eager to know
and admire one. There would be other girls in the
office, too, girls who, like herself, were college trained
and reared in cultured homes, and through these fellow
workers she would meet still other girls and men,
get in with the right sort of people.</p>
<p>She continued day-dreaming as she went her way,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>being practical only at such fleeting moments when
she would wonder,—would she be able to take dictation
at the required rate of speed?—would her
fingers be nimble enough on the keyboard of the typewriter?
Oh, bother. It wouldn’t take her over one
day to adapt herself to her new job.</p>
<p>A street crossing. Traffic delayed her and she was
conscious of a man, a blurred tan image, speaking to
her. He was ignored. Everything was to be ignored
save the address digits on the buildings. Everything
was secondary to the business at hand. Let traffic
pass, let men aching for flirtations speak, let Seventh
Avenue be spangled with forenoon sunshine and
shadow, and polka-dotted with still or moving human
forms. She was going to have a job. The rest
of the world could go to hell.</p>
<p>Emma Lou turned into a four-story brick building
and sped up one flight of stairs. The rooms were
not numbered and directing signs in the hallway only
served to confuse. But Emma Lou was not to be
delayed. She rushed back and forth from door to
door on the first floor, then to the second, until she
finally found the office she was looking for.</p>
<p>Angus and Brown were an old Harlem real estate
firm. They had begun business during the first decade
of the century, handling property for a while in
New York’s far-famed San Juan Hill district. When
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>the Negro population had begun to need more and
better homes, Angus and Brown had led the way in
buying real estate in what was to be Negro Harlem.
They had been fighters, unscrupulous and canny.
They had revealed a perverse delight in seeing white
people rush pell-mell from the neighborhood in
which they obtained homes for their colored clients.
They had bought three six-story tenement buildings
on 140th Street, and, when the white tenants had
been slow in moving, had personally dispossessed
them, and, in addition, had helped their incoming
Negro tenants fight fistic battles in the streets and
hallways, and legal battles in the court.</p>
<p>Now they were a substantial firm, grown fat and
satisfied. Junior real estate men got their business
for them. They held the whip. Their activities were
many and varied. Politics and fraternal activities occupied
more of their time than did real estate. They
had had their hectic days. Now they sat back and
took it easy.</p>
<p>Emma Lou opened the door to their office, consisting
of one medium-sized outer room overlooking
139th Street and two cubby holes overlooking
Seventh Avenue. There were two girls in the outer
office. One was busy at a typewriter; the other was
gazing over her desk through a window into the
aristocratic tree-lined city lane of 139th Street. Both
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>looked up expectantly. Emma Lou noticed the powdered
smoothness of their fair skins and the marcelled
waviness of their shingled brown hair. Were they
sisters? Hardly, for their features were in no way
similar. Yet that skin color and that brown
hair——.</p>
<p>“Can I do something for you?” The idle one spoke,
and the other ceased her peck-peck-pecking on the
typewriter keys. Emma Lou was buoyant.</p>
<p>“I’m from Mrs. Blake’s employment agency.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” from both. And they exchanged glances.
Emma Lou thought she saw a quickly suppressed
smile from the fairer of the two as she hastily resumed
her typing. Then——</p>
<p>“Sit down a moment, won’t you, please? Mr.
Angus is out but I’ll inform Mr. Brown that you are
here.” She picked a powder puff from an open side
drawer in her desk, patted her nose and cheeks, then
got up and crossed the office to enter cubby hole
number one. Emma Lou observed that she, too,
looked “pert” in a trim, blue suit and high-heeled
patent leather oxfords——</p>
<p>“Mr. Brown?” She had opened the door.</p>
<p>“Come in Grace. What is it?” The door was
closed.</p>
<p>Emma Lou felt nervous. Something in the pit of
her stomach seemed to flutter. Her pulse raced. Her
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>eyes gleamed and a smile of anticipation spread over
her face, despite her efforts to appear dignified and
suave. The typist continued her work. From the
cubby hole came a murmur of voices, one feminine
and affected, the other masculine and coarse. Through
the open window came direct sounds and vagrant
echoes of traffic noises from Seventh Avenue. Now
the two in the cubby hole were laughing, and the
girl at the typewriter seemed to be smiling to herself
as she worked.</p>
<p>What did this mean? Nothing, silly. Don’t be so
sensitive. Emma Lou’s eyes sought the pictures on
the wall. There was an early twentieth century photographic
bust-portrait, encased in a bevelled glass
frame, of a heavy-set good-looking, brown-skinned
man. She admired his mustache. Men didn’t seem to
take pride in such hirsute embellishments now.
Mustaches these days were abbreviated and limp.
They no longer were virile enough to dominate and
make a man’s face appear more strong. Rather, they
were only insignificant patches weakly keeping the
nostrils from merging with the upper lip.</p>
<p>Emma Lou wondered if that was Mr. Brown. He
had a brown face and wore a brown suit. No, maybe
that was Mr. Angus, and perhaps that was Mr.
Brown on the other side of the room, in the square,
enlarged kodak print, a slender yellow man, standing
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>beside a motor car, looking as if he wished to
say, “Yeah, this is me and this is my car.” She hoped
he was Mr. Angus. She didn’t like his name and since
she was to see Mr. Brown first, she hoped he was
the more flatteringly portrayed.</p>
<p>The door to the cubby hole opened and the girl
Mr. Brown had called Grace, came out. The expression
on her face was too business-like to be natural.
It seemed as if it had been placed there for a
purpose.</p>
<p>She walked toward Emma Lou, who got up and
stood like a child, waiting for punishment and hoping
all the while that it will dissipate itself in threats.
The typewriter was stilled and Emma Lou could
feel an extra pair of eyes looking at her. The girl
drew close then spoke:</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Miss. Mr. Brown says he has some one
else in view for the job. We’ll call the agency. Thank
you for coming in.”</p>
<p>Thank her for coming in? What could she say?
What should she say? The girl was smiling at her,
but Emma Lou noticed that her fair skin was flushed
and that her eyes danced nervously. Could she be
hoping that Emma Lou would hurry and depart?
The door was near. It opened easily. The steps were
steep. One went down slowly. Seventh Avenue was
still spangled with forenoon sunshine and shadow.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>Its pavement was hard and hot. The windows in the
buildings facing it, gleaming reflectors of the mounting
sun.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou returned to the employment agency. It
was still crowded and more stuffy than ever. The
sun had advanced high into the sky and it seemed
to be centering its rays on that solitary defenseless
window. There was still much conversation. There
were still people crowded around the desk, still people
in all the chairs, people and talk and heat and
smells.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Blake is waiting for you,” the gray-haired
lady with the young face was unflustered and cool.
Emma Lou went into the inner office. Mrs. Blake
looked up quickly and forced a smile. The good-looking
young man, more than ever resembling a
Y. M. C. A. secretary, turned his back and fumbled
with the card files. Mrs. Blake suggested that he
leave the room. He did, beaming benevolently at
Emma Lou as he went.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Blake was very kind and
womanly. “Mr. Brown called me. I didn’t know he
had some one else in mind. He hadn’t told me.”</p>
<p>“That’s all right,” replied Emma Lou briskly.
“Have you something else?”</p>
<p>“Not now. Er-er. Have you had luncheon? It’s
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>early yet, I know, but I generally go about this time.
Come along, won’t you. I’d like to talk to you. I’ll
be ready in about thirty minutes if you don’t mind
the wait.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou warmed to the idea. At that moment,
she would have warmed toward any suggestion of
friendliness. Here, perhaps, was a chance to make a
welcome contact. She was lonesome and disappointed,
so she readily assented and felt elated and superior
as she walked out of the office with the “boss.”</p>
<p>They went to Eddie’s for luncheon. Eddie’s was
an elbow-shaped combination lunch-counter and
dining room that embraced a United Cigar Store on
the northeast corner of 135th Street and Seventh
Avenue. Following Mrs. Blake’s lead, Emma Lou
ordered a full noontime dinner, and, flattered by
Mrs. Blake’s interest and congeniality, began to talk
about herself. She told of her birthplace and her
home life. She told of her high school days, spoke
proudly of the fact that she had been the only Negro
student and how she had graduated cum laude.
Asked about her college years, she talked less freely.
Mrs. Blake sensed a cue.</p>
<p>“Didn’t you like college?”</p>
<p>“For a little while, yes.”</p>
<p>“What made you dislike it? Surely not the
studies?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p>
<p>“No.” She didn’t care to discuss this. “I was lonesome,
I guess.”</p>
<p>“Weren’t there any other colored boys and girls?
I thought....”</p>
<p>Emma Lou spoke curtly. “Oh, yes, quite a number,
but I suppose I didn’t mix well.”</p>
<p>The waiter came to take the order for dessert,
and Emma Lou seized upon the fact that Mrs. Blake
ordered sliced oranges to talk about California’s
orange groves, California’s sunshine—anything but
the California college she had attended and from
which she had fled. In vain did Mrs. Blake try to
maneuver the conversation back to Emma Lou’s
college experiences. She would have none of it and
Mrs. Blake was finally forced to give it up.</p>
<p>When they were finished, Mrs. Blake insisted upon
taking the check. This done, she began to talk about
jobs.</p>
<p>“You know, Miss Morgan, good jobs are rare.
It is seldom I have anything to offer outside of the
domestic field. Most Negro business offices are family
affairs. They either get their help from within their
own family group or from among their friends. Then,
too,” Emma Lou noticed that Mrs. Blake did not
look directly at her, “lots of our Negro business men
have a definite type of girl in mind and will not
hire any other.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span></p>
<p>Emma Lou wondered what it was Mrs. Blake
seemed to be holding back. She began again:</p>
<p>“My advice to you is that you enter Teachers’
College and if you <i>will</i> stay in New York, get a job
in the public school system. You can easily take a
light job of some kind to support you through your
course. Maybe with three years’ college you won’t
need to go to training school. Why don’t you find
out about that? Now, if I were you....” Mrs.
Blake talked on, putting much emphasis on every
“If I were you.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou grew listless and antagonistic. She
didn’t like this little sawed-off woman as she was
now, being business like and giving advice. She was
glad when they finally left Eddie’s, and more than
glad to escape after having been admonished not to
oversleep, “But be in my office, and I’ll see what I
can do for you, dearie, early in the morning. There’s
sure to be something.”</p>
<p>Left to herself, Emma Lou strolled south on the
west side of Seventh Avenue to 134th Street, then
crossed over to the east side and turned north. She
didn’t know what to do. It was too late to consider
visiting another employment agency, and, furthermore,
she didn’t have enough money left to pay
another fee. Let jobs go until tomorrow, then she
would return to Mrs. Blake’s, ask for a return of her
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>fee, and find some other employment agency, a more
imposing one, if possible. She had had enough of
those on 135th Street.</p>
<p>She didn’t want to go home, either. Her room had
no outside vista. If she sat in the solitary chair by
the solitary window, all she could see were other
windows and brick walls and people either mysteriously
or brazenly moving about in the apartments
across the court. There was no privacy there, little
fresh air, and no natural light after the sun began
its downward course. Then the apartment always
smelled of frying fish or of boiling cabbage. Her
landlady seemed to alternate daily between these two
foods. Fish smells and cabbage smells pervaded the
long, dark hallway, swirled into the room when the
door was opened and perfumed one’s clothes disagreeably.
Moreover, urinal and foecal smells surged upward
from the garbage-littered bottom of the court
which her window faced.</p>
<p>If she went home, the landlady would eye her
suspiciously and ask, “Ain’t you got a job yet?” then
move away, shaking her head and dipping into her
snuff box. Occasionally, in moments of excitement,
she spat on the floor. And the little fat man who had
the room next to Emma Lou’s could be heard coughing
suggestively—tapping on the wall, and talking
to himself in terms of her. He had seen her slip John
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>in last night. He might be more bold now. He might
even try—oh no he wouldn’t.</p>
<p>She was crossing 137th Street. She remembered
this corner. John had told her that he could always
be found there after work any spring or summer
evening.</p>
<p>Emma Lou had met John on her first day in New
York. He was employed as a porter in the theatre
where Mazelle Lindsay was scheduled to perform,
and, seeing a new maid on the premises, had decided
to “make” her. He had. Emma Lou had not liked
him particularly, but he had seemed New Yorkish
and genial. It was John who had found her her room.
It was John who had taught her how to find her way
up and down town on the subway and on the elevated.
He had also conducted her on a Cook’s tour
of Harlem, had strolled up and down Seventh
Avenue with her evenings after they had come uptown
from the theater. He had pointed out for her
the Y. W. C. A. with its imposing annex, the Emma
Ranson House, and suggested that she get a room
there later on. He had taken her on a Sunday to
several of the Harlem motion picture and vaudeville
theaters, and he had been as painstaking in pointing
out the churches as he had been lax in pointing out
the cabarets. Moreover, as they strolled Seventh
Avenue, he had attempted to give her all the “inside
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>dope” on Harlem, had told her of the “rent parties,”
of the “numbers,” of “hot” men, of “sweetbacks,”
and other local phenomena.</p>
<p>Emma Lou was now passing a barber shop near
140th Street. A group of men were standing there
beneath a huge white and black sign announcing,
“Bobbing’s, fifty cents; haircuts, twenty-five cents.”
They were whistling at three school girls, about fourteen
or fifteen years of age, who were passing, doing
much switching and giggling. Emma Lou curled her
lips. Harlem streets presented many such scenes. She
looked at the men significantly, forgetting for the
moment that it was none of her business what they
or the girls did. But they didn’t notice her. They
were too busy having fun with those fresh little
chippies.</p>
<p>Emma Lou experienced a feeling of resentment,
then, realizing how ridiculous it all was, smiled it
away and began to think of John once more. She
wondered why she had submitted herself to him.
Was it cold-blooded payment for his kind chaperoning?
Something like that. John wasn’t her type.
He was too pudgy and dark, too obviously an ex-cotton-picker
from Georgia. He was unlettered and
she couldn’t stand for that, for she liked intelligent-looking,
slender, light-brown-skinned men, like, well
... like the one who was just passing. She admired
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>him boldly. He looked at her, then over her, and
passed on.</p>
<p>Seventh Avenue was becoming more crowded now.
School children were out for their lunch hour, corner
loafers and pool-hall loiterers were beginning to collect
on their chosen spots. Knots of people, of no
particular designation, also stood around talking, or
just looking, and there were many pedestrians, either
impressing one as being in a great hurry, or else
seeming to have no place at all to go. Emma Lou
was in this latter class. By now she had reached
142nd Street and had decided to cross over to the
opposite side and walk south once more. Seventh
Avenue was a wide, well-paved, busy thoroughfare,
with a long, narrow, iron fenced-in parkway dividing
the east side from the west. Emma Lou liked
Seventh Avenue. It was so active and alive, so different
from Central Avenue, the dingy main street of
the black belt of Los Angeles. At night it was
glorious! Where else could one see so many different
types of Negroes? Where else would one view such a
heterogeneous ensemble of mellow colors, glorified
by the night?</p>
<p>People passing by. Children playing. Dogs on
leashes. Stray cats crouching by the sides of buildings.
Men standing in groups or alone. Black men.
Yellow men. Brown men. Emma Lou eyed them.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>They eyed her. There were a few remarks passed.
She thought she got their import even though she
could not hear what they were saying. She quickened
her step and held her head higher. Be yourself,
Emma Lou. Do you want to start picking men
up off of the street?</p>
<p>The heat became more intense. Brisk walking made
her perspire. Her underclothes grew sticky. Harlem
heat was so muggy. She could feel the shine on her
nose and it made her self-conscious. She remembered
how the “Grace” in the office of Angus and Brown
had so carefully powdered her skin before confronting
her employer, and, as she remembered this, she
looked up, and sure enough, here she was in front
of the building she had sought so eagerly earlier that
morning. Emma Lou drew closer to the building.
She must get that shine off of her nose. It was bad
enough to be black, too black, without having a shiny
face to boot. She stopped in front of the tailor shop
directly beneath the office of Angus and Brown, and,
turning her back to the street, proceeded to powder
her shiny member. Three noisy lads passed by. They
saw Emma Lou and her reflection in the sunlit show
window. The one closest to her cleared his throat
and crooned out, loud enough for her to hear,
“There’s a girl for you, ‘Fats.’” “Fats” was the one
in the middle. He had a rotund form and a coffee-colored
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>face. He was in his shirt sleeves and carried
his coat on his arm. Bell bottom trousers hid all save
the tips of his shiny tan shoes. “Fats” was looking
at Emma Lou, too, but as he passed, he turned his
eyes from her and broadcast a withering look at the
lad who had spoken:</p>
<p>“Man, you know I don’t haul no coal.” There was
loud laughter and the trio merrily clicked their
metal-cornered heels on the sun-baked pavement as
they moved away.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="fh2"><span class="smcap">Part III</span></p>
<p class="fh2">ALVA</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak">III<br>ALVA</h2>
</div>
<p>It was nine o’clock. The alarm rang. Alva’s roommate
awoke cursing.</p>
<p>“Why the hell don’t you turn off that alarm?”</p>
<p>There was no response. The alarm continued to
ring.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>“Watcha gettin’ up so early for? Don’tcha know
this is Monday?”</p>
<p>“Shure, I know it’s Monday, but I gotta go to
Uncle’s. The landlord’ll be here before eleven
o’clock.”</p>
<p>“Watcha gonna pawn?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p>
<p>“My brown suit. I won’t need it ’til next Sunday.
You got your rent?”</p>
<p>“I got four dollars,” Braxton advanced slowly.</p>
<p>“Cantcha get the other two?”</p>
<p>Braxton grew apologetic and explanatory, “Not
today ... ya ... see....”</p>
<p>“Aw, man, you make me sick.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Alva’s mother had been an American mulatto, his
father a Filipino. Alva himself was small in stature
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>know that one was suffering. Sob stuff, thought
Emma Lou, and, tearing the letter up, threw it into
the waste paper basket.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>Mechanically, Emma Lou assisted Arline in making
the change. She was unusually silent. It was
noticed.</p>
<p>“’Smatter, Louie. In love or something?”</p>
<p>Emma Lou smiled, “Only with myself.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“What?” Arline was genuinely surprised. “You in
Harlem and never been to a cabaret? Why I thought
all colored people went.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>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.</p>
<p>Immediately they were seated, a waiter came to
take their order.</p>
<p>“Three bottles of White Rock.” The waiter
nodded, twirled his tray on the tip of his fingers and
skated away.</p>
<p>Emma Lou watched the dancers, and noticed immediately
that in all that insensate crowd of dancing
couples there were only a few Negroes.</p>
<p>“My God, such music. Let’s dance, Arline,” and
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>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.</p>
<p>“Why there ain’t nothing here but white people.
Is it always like this?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Arline’s brother produced a hip flask, and before
Emma Lou could demur mixed her a highball. She
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>didn’t want to drink. She hadn’t drunk before,
but....</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>if the fat one could achieve it without seriously endangering
those ever tightening stepins.</p>
<p>“Dam’ good, I’ll say,” a slender white youth at the
next table asseverated, as he lifted an amber filled
glass to his lips.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>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.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you two dance. No need of letting the
music go to waste.”</p>
<p>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,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In a moment they were swallowed up in the jazz
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Alva had overslept. Braxton, who had stayed out
the entire night, came in about eight o’clock, and
excitedly interrupted his drunken slumber.</p>
<p>“Ain’t you goin’ to work?”</p>
<p>“Work?” Alva was alarmed. “What time is it?”</p>
<p>“’Bout eight. Didn’t you set the clock?”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“I’m goin’ to quit the damn job anyway. I been
working steady now since last fall.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“You goin’ to bed?”</p>
<p>“Yes, don’t you think I want some sleep?”</p>
<p>“Thought you was goin’ to look for a job?”</p>
<p>“I was, but I hadn’t figured on staying out all
night.”</p>
<p>“Always some damn excuse. Where’d you go?”</p>
<p>“Down to Flo’s.”</p>
<p>“Who in the hell is Flo?”</p>
<p>“That little yaller broad I picked up at the cabaret
last night.”</p>
<p>“I thought she had a nigger with her.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span></p>
<p>“She did, but I jived her along, so she ditched
him, and gave me her address. I met her there later.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Where’d <i>you</i> go last night?”</p>
<p>“Where’d I go?” Alva seemed surprised. “Why I
came home, where’d ya think I went?” Braxton
laughed again.</p>
<p>“Oh, I thought maybe you’d really made a date
with that coal scuttle blond you danced with.”</p>
<p>“Ya musta thought it.”</p>
<p>“Well, ya seemed pretty sweet on her.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“Oh, she probably works for them. It’s good you
danced with her. Nobody else would.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t see nothing wrong with her. She might
have been a little dark.”</p>
<p>“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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>and curly hair. His paternal grandfather had been
an Iroquois Indian.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“What the hell would Arline do,” he laughed, “if
she didn’t have you to change her complexion before
every performance?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>“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....”</p>
<p>Unable to stammer any more, he had hastened
away, embarrassed.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Emma Lou asked Jasmine how one went about it.
Jasmine was noncommittal, and said she didn’t know,
but she had heard that <i>The Amsterdam News</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>The Amsterdam News</i>. 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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>and clean, and she only asked eight dollars and
fifty cents per week for it.</p>
<p>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, <i>Miss</i> 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,” <i>Miss</i> 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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“I must be going.”</p>
<p>“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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>time. Talk about fun! I know you’d be happy here.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou knew she would too, and said as much.
Then hastily, she gave <i>Miss</i> Carrington a three dollar
deposit on the room, and left ... to continue
her search for a new place to live.</p>
<p>There were no more places on her <i>Amsterdam
News</i> 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. <i>Miss</i>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p>
<p>“How do you do. I ... I ... would like to see
one of your rooms.”</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>“We have nothing here.”</p>
<p>Persons of color didn’t associate with blacks in the
Caribbean Island she had come from.</p>
<p>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....</p>
<p>No one liked black, anyway....</p>
<p>Wanted: light colored girl to work as waitress in
tearoom....</p>
<p>Wanted: Nurse girl, light colored preferred (children
are afraid of black folks)....</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p>
<p>“I don’ haul no coal....”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p><i>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.</i></p>
<p>“Mr. Brown has some one else in mind....”</p>
<p>“We have nothing here....”</p>
<p>She should have been a boy. A black boy could get
along, but a black girl....</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>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 <i>Negro</i> woman! It was unthinkable.</p>
<p>Left entirely to herself, she proceeded to make herself
more miserable. Lying in bed late every morning,
semi-conscious, body burning, mind disturbed
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>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.</p>
<p>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. <i>He</i> 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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Funny cuss, that guy,” he was speaking to her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p>
<p><i>Slap him in the face. Change your seat. Don’t be
an idiot. He has a nice smile. Look at him again.</i></p>
<p>“Did you see him in ‘Long Pants’?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>liked its draped walls and ceilings, its harmonic color
design and soft lights.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>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.</p>
<p>“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:</p>
<p>“And I, too, have wanted to see you.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou couldn’t blush, but she almost blubbered
with joy.</p>
<p>“Perhaps we’ll have a dance together.”</p>
<p>“My God,” thought Alva, “She’s a quick worker.”</p>
<p>“Oh, certainly, where can I find you?”</p>
<p>“Downstairs on the promenade, near the center
boxes.”</p>
<p>“The one after this?” This seemed to be the easiest
way out. He could easily dodge her later.</p>
<p>“Yes,” and she moved away, the supple lad clinging
to her arm again.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p>
<p>“Who’s the ‘spade,’ Alva?” Geraldine had seen him
stop to talk to her.</p>
<p>“Damned if I know.”</p>
<p>“Aw, sure you know who she is. You danced with
her at Small’s.” Braxton hadn’t forgotten.</p>
<p>“Well, I never. Is that <i>it</i>?” 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.</p>
<p>“Who’s your boy friend?” Alva had fortified himself
with gin. His breath smelled familiar.</p>
<p>“Just an acquaintance.” She couldn’t let him know
she had come here unescorted. “I didn’t think you’d
remember me.”</p>
<p>“Of course, I did; how could I forget you?” Smooth
tongue, phrases with a double meaning.</p>
<p>“I didn’t forget <i>you</i>.” Emma Lou was being coy.
“I have often looked for you.”</p>
<p>Looked for him where? My God, what an impression
he must have made! He wondered what he had
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>said to her before. Plunge in boy, plunge! The blacker
the berry—he chuckled to himself.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>At ten the next morning Emma Lou called Alva.
Braxton came to the telephone.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“Could you tell me what time he will be in?”</p>
<p>“’Bout six-thirty. Who shall I say called? This is
his roommate.”</p>
<p>“Just.... Oh.... I’ll call him later. Thank
you.”</p>
<p>Braxton swore. “Why in the hell does Alva give
so many damn women his ’phone number?”</p>
<p>Six-thirty-five. His roommate had said about six-thirty.
She called again. <i>He</i> came to the ’phone. She
thought his voice was more harsh than usual.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p>
<p>“Oh, I’m all right, only tired.”</p>
<p>“Did you work hard?”</p>
<p>“I always work hard.”</p>
<p>“I ... I ... just thought I’d call.”</p>
<p>“Glad you did, call me again some time. Goodbye”—said
too quickly. No chance to say “When
will I see you again?”</p>
<p>She went home, got into the bed and cried herself
to sleep.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>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:</p>
<p>“Hello. Who? Emma Lou? Where have you been?
I’ve been wondering where you were?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“When can I see you, Sugar?”</p>
<p>Sugar! He had called her “sugar.” She told him
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>where she worked. He was to meet her after the
theater that very night.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>“How many nights a week you gonna have that
little inkspitter up here?”</p>
<p>“Listen here, Brax, you have who you want up
here, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“That ain’t it. I just don’t like to see you tied up
with a broad like that.”</p>
<p>“Why not? She’s just as good as the rest, and you
know what they say, ‘The blacker the berry, the
sweeter the juice.’”</p>
<p>“The only thing a black woman is good for is to
make money for a brown-skin papa.”</p>
<p>“I guess I don’t know that.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Braxton was satisfied now, “if that’s the
case....”</p>
<p>He had faith in Alva’s wisdom.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="fh2"><span class="smcap">Part IV</span></p>
<p class="fh2">RENT PARTY</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak">IV<br>RENT PARTY</h2>
</div>
<p>Saturday evening. Alva had urged her to hurry
uptown from work. He was going to take her
on a party with some friends of his. This was the
first time he had ever asked her to go to any sort of
social affair with him. She had never met any of
his friends save Braxton, who scarcely spoke to her,
and never before had Alva suggested taking her to
any sort of social gathering either public or semi-public.
He often took her to various motion picture
theaters, both downtown and in Harlem, and at least
three nights a week he would call for her at the
theater and escort her to Harlem. On these occasions
they often went to Chinese restaurants or to ice
cream parlors before going home. But usually they
would go to City College Park, find an empty bench
in a dark corner where they could sit and spoon before
retiring either to her room or to Alva’s.</p>
<p>Emma Lou had, long before this, suggested going to
a dance or to a party, but Alva had always countered
that he never attended such affairs during the summer
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>months, that he stayed away from them for
precisely the same reason that he stayed away from
work, namely, because it was too hot. Dancing, said
he, was a matter of calisthenics, and calisthenics were
work. Therefore it, like any sort of physical exercise,
was taboo during hot weather.</p>
<p>Alva sensed that sooner or later Emma Lou would
become aware of his real reason for not taking her
out among his friends. He realized that one as color-conscious
as she appeared to be would, at some not
so distant date, jump to what for him would be uncomfortable
conclusions. He did not wish to risk
losing her before the end of summer, but neither
could he risk taking her out among his friends, for
he knew too well that he would be derided for his
unseemly preference for “dark meat,” and told publicly
without regard for her feelings, that “black cats
must go.”</p>
<p>Furthermore he always took Geraldine to parties
and dances. Geraldine with her olive colored skin and
straight black hair. Geraldine, who of all the people
he pretended to love, really inspired him emotionally
as well as physically, the one person he conquested
without thought of monetary gain. Yet he had to do
something with Emma Lou, and release from the
quandary presented itself from most unexpected
quarters.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p>
<p>Quite accidentally, as things of the sort happen in
Harlem with its complex but interdependable social
structure, he had become acquainted with a young
Negro writer, who had asked him to escort a group
of young writers and artists to a house-rent party.
Though they had heard much of this phenomenon,
none had been on the inside of one, and because of
their rather polished manners and exteriors, were
afraid that they might not be admitted. Proletarian
Negroes are as suspicious of their more sophisticated
brethren as they are of white men, and resent as
keenly their intrusions into their social world. Alva
had consented to act as cicerone, and, realizing that
these people would be more or less free from the
color prejudice exhibited by his other friends, had
decided to take Emma Lou along too. He was also
aware of her intellectual pretensions, and felt that
she would be especially pleased to meet recognized
talents and outstanding personalities. She did not
have to know that these were not his regular companions,
and from then on she would have no reason
to feel that he was ashamed to have her meet his
friends.</p>
<p>Emma Lou could hardly attend to Arline’s change
of complexion and clothes between acts and scenes,
so anxious was she to get to Alva’s house and to the
promised party. Her happiness was complete. She
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>was certain now that Alva loved her, certain that he
was not ashamed or even aware of her dusky complexion.
She had felt from the first that he was superior
to such inane truck, now she knew it. Alva
loved her for herself alone, and loved her so much
that he didn’t mind her being a coal scuttle blond.</p>
<p>Sensing something unusual, Arline told Emma Lou
that she would remove her own make-up after the
performance, and let her have time to get dressed for
the party. This she proceeded to do all through the
evening, spending much time in front of the mirror
at Arline’s dressing table, manicuring her nails, marcelling
her hair, and applying various creams and
cosmetics to her face in order to make her despised
darkness less obvious. Finally, she put on one of
Arline’s less pretentious afternoon frocks, and set
out for Alva’s house.</p>
<p>As she approached his room door, she heard much
talk and laughter, moving her to halt and speculate
whether or not she should go in. Even her unusual
and high-tensioned jubilance was not powerful
enough to overcome immediately her shyness and
fears. Suppose these friends of Alva’s would not take
kindly to her? Suppose they were like Braxton, who
invariably curled his lip when he saw her, and seldom
spoke even as much as a word of greeting? Suppose
they were like the people who used to attend her
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>mother’s and grandmother’s teas, club meetings and
receptions, dismissing her with—“It beats me how
this child of yours looks so unlike the rest of you....
Are you sure it isn’t adopted.” Or suppose they
were like the college youth she had known in Southern
California? No, that couldn’t be. Alva would never
invite her where she would not be welcome. These
were his friends. And so was Braxton, but Alva
said he was peculiar. There was no danger. Alva had
invited her. She was here. Anyway she wasn’t so
black. Hadn’t she artificially lightened her skin about
four or five shades until she was almost brown? Certainly
it was all right. She needn’t be a foolish ninny
all her life. Thus, reassured, she knocked on the door,
and felt herself trembling with excitement and internal
uncertainty as Alva let her in, took her hat and
coat, and proceeded to introduce her to the people
in the room.</p>
<p>“Miss Morgan, meet Mr. Tony Crews. You’ve
probably seen his book of poems. He’s the little jazz
boy, you know.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou bashfully touched the extended hand
of the curly-headed poet. She had not seen or read
his book, but she had often noticed his name in the
newspapers and magazines. He was all that she had
expected him to be except that he had pimples on
his face. These didn’t fit in with her mental picture.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p>
<p>“Miss Morgan, this is Cora Thurston. Maybe I
should’a introduced you ladies first.”</p>
<p>“I’m no lady, and I hope you’re not either, Miss
Morgan.” She smiled, shook Emma Lou’s hand, then
turned away to continue her interrupted conversation
with Tony Crews.</p>
<p>“Miss Morgan, meet ...,” he paused, and addressed
a tall, dark yellow youth stretched out on the
floor, “What name you going by now?”</p>
<p>The boy looked up and smiled.</p>
<p>“Why, Paul, of course.”</p>
<p>“All right then, Miss Morgan, this is Mr. Paul, he
changes his name every season.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou sought to observe this person more
closely, and was shocked to see that his shirt was
open at the neck and that he was sadly in need of
a haircut and shave.</p>
<p>“Miss Morgan, meet Mr. Walter.” A small slender
dark youth with an infectious smile and small features.
His face was familiar. Where had she seen him
before?</p>
<p>“Now that you’ve met every one, sit down on the
bed there beside Truman and have a drink. Go on
with your talk folks,” he urged as he went over to
the dresser to fill a glass with a milk colored liquid.
Cora Thurston spoke up in answer to Alva’s adjuration:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p>
<p>“Guess there ain’t much more to say. Makes me
mad to discuss it anyhow.”</p>
<p>“No need of getting mad at people like that,” said
Tony Crews simply and softly. “I think one should
laugh at such stupidity.”</p>
<p>“And ridicule it, too,” came from the luxurious
person sprawled over the floor, for he did impress
Emma Lou as being luxurious, despite the fact that
his suit was unpressed, and that he wore neither socks
nor necktie. She noticed the many graceful gestures
he made with his hands, but wondered why he kept
twisting his lips to one side when he talked. Perhaps
he was trying to mask the size of his mouth.</p>
<p>Truman was speaking now, “Ridicule will do no
good, nor mere laughing at them. I admit those weapons
are about the only ones an intelligent person
would use, but one must also admit that they are
rather futile.”</p>
<p>“Why futile?” Paul queried indolently.</p>
<p>“They are futile,” Truman continued, “because,
well, those people cannot help being like they are—their
environment has made them that way.”</p>
<p>Miss Thurston muttered something. It sounded
like “hooey,” then held out an empty glass. “Give
me some more firewater, Alva.” Alva hastened across
the room and refilled her glass. Emma Lou wondered
what they were talking about. Again Cora broke the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>silence, “You can’t tell me they can’t help it. They
kick about white people, then commit the same
crime.”</p>
<p>There was a knock on the door, interrupting something
Tony Crews was about to say. Alva went to the
door.</p>
<p>“Hello, Ray.” A tall, blond, fair-skinned youth
entered. Emma Lou gasped, and was more bewildered
than ever. All of this silly talk and drinking, and
now—here was a white man!</p>
<p>“Hy, everybody. Jusas Chraust, I hope you saved
me some liquor.” Tony Crews held out his empty
glass and said quietly, “We’ve had about umpteen
already, so I doubt if there’s any more left.”</p>
<p>“You can’t kid me, bo. I know Alva would save
me a dram or two.” Having taken off his hat and
coat he squatted down on the floor beside Paul.</p>
<p>Truman turned to Emma Lou. “Oh, Ray, meet
Miss Morgan. Mr. Jorgenson, Miss Morgan.”</p>
<p>“Glad to know you; pardon my not getting up,
won’t you?” Emma Lou didn’t know what to say,
and couldn’t think of anything appropriate, but since
he was smiling, she tried to smile too, and nodded her
head.</p>
<p>“What’s the big powwow?” he asked. “All of you
look so serious. Haven’t you had enough liquor, or
are you just trying to settle the ills of the universe?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p>
<p>“Neither,” said Paul. “They’re just damning our
‘pink niggers’.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou was aghast. Such extraordinary people—saying
“nigger” in front of a white man! Didn’t
they have any race pride or proper bringing up?
Didn’t they have any common sense?</p>
<p>“What’ve they done now?” Ray asked, reaching
out to accept the glass Alva was handing him.</p>
<p>“No more than they’ve always done,” Tony Crews
answered. “Cora here just felt like being indignant,
because she heard of a forthcoming wedding in
Brooklyn to which the prospective bride and groom
have announced they will <i>not</i> invite any dark people.”</p>
<p>“Seriously now,” Truman began. Ray interrupted
him.</p>
<p>“Who in the hell wants to be serious?”</p>
<p>“As I was saying,” Truman continued, “you can’t
blame light Negroes for being prejudiced against dark
ones. All of you know that white is the symbol of
everything pure and good, whether that everything
be concrete or abstract. Ivory Soap is advertised as
being ninety-nine and some fraction per cent pure,
and Ivory Soap is white. Moreover, virtue and virginity
are always represented as being clothed in
white garments. Then, too, the God we, or rather
most Negroes worship is a patriarchal white man,
seated on a white throne, in a spotless white Heaven,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>radiant with white streets and white-apparelled angels
eating white honey and drinking white milk.”</p>
<p>“Listen to the boy rave. Give him another drink,”
Ray shouted, but Truman ignored him and went on,
becoming more and more animated.</p>
<p>“We are all living in a totally white world, where
all standards are the standards of the white man,
and where almost invariably what the white man
does is right, and what the black man does is wrong,
unless it is precedented by something a white man
has done.”</p>
<p>“Which,” Cora added scornfully, “makes it all
right for light Negroes to discriminate against dark
ones?”</p>
<p>“Not at all,” Truman objected. “It merely explains,
not justifies, the evil—or rather, the fact of intra-racial
segregation. Mulattoes have always been accorded
more consideration by white people than
their darker brethren. They were made to feel superior
even during slave days ... made to feel proud, as
Bud Fisher would say, that they were bastards. It
was for the mulatto offspring of white masters and
Negro slaves that the first schools for Negroes were
organized, and say what you will, it is generally the
Negro with a quantity of mixed blood in his veins
who finds adaptation to a Nordic environment more
easy than one of pure blood, which, of course, you
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>will admit, is, to an American Negro, convenient if
not virtuous.”</p>
<p>“Does that justify their snobbishness and self-evaluated
superiority?”</p>
<p>“No, Cora, it doesn’t,” returned Truman. “I’m not
trying to excuse them. I’m merely trying to give what
I believe to be an explanation of this thing. I have
never been to Washington and only know what Paul
and you have told me about conditions there, but
they seem to be just about the same as conditions in
Los Angeles, Omaha, Chicago, and other cities in
which I have lived or visited. You see, people have
to feel superior to something, and there is scant satisfaction
in feeling superior to domestic animals or
steel machines that one can train or utilize. It is much
more pleasing to pick out some individual or some
group of individuals on the same plane to feel superior
to. This is almost necessary when one is a
member of a supposedly despised, mistreated minority
group. Then consider that the mulatto is much
nearer white than he is black, and is therefore more
liable to act like a white man than like a black one,
although I cannot say that I see a great deal of difference
in any of their actions. They are human beings
first and only white or black incidentally.”</p>
<p>Ray pursed up his lips and whistled.</p>
<p>“But you seem to forget,” Tony Crews insisted,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>“that because a man is dark, it doesn’t necessarily
mean he is not of mixed blood. Now look at....”</p>
<p>“Yeah, let him look at you or at himself or at
Cora,” Paul interrupted. “There ain’t no unmixed
Negroes.”</p>
<p>“But I haven’t forgotten that,” Truman said, ignoring
the note of finality in Paul’s voice. “I merely
took it for granted that we were talking only about
those Negroes who were light-skinned.”</p>
<p>“But all light-skinned Negroes aren’t color struck
or color prejudiced,” interjected Alva, who, up to
this time, like Emma Lou, had remained silent. This
was, he thought, a strategic moment for him to say
something. He hoped Emma Lou would get the full
significance of this statement.</p>
<p>“True enough,” Truman began again. “But I also
took it for granted that we were only talking about
those who were. As I said before, Negroes are, after
all, human beings, and they are subject to be influenced
and controlled by the same forces and factors
that influence and control other human beings. In
an environment where there are so many color-prejudiced
whites, there are bound to be a number of
color-prejudiced blacks. Color prejudice and religion
are akin in one respect. Some folks have it and some
don’t, and the kernel that is responsible for it is present
in us all, which is to say, that potentially we are
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>all color-prejudiced as long as we remain in this environment.
For, as you know, prejudices are always
caused by differences, and the majority group sets
the standard. Then, too, since black is the favorite
color of vaudeville comedians and jokesters, and,
conversely, as intimately associated with tragedy, it
is no wonder that even the blackest individual will
seek out some one more black than himself to laugh
at.”</p>
<p>“So saith the Lord,” Tony answered soberly.</p>
<p>“And the Holy Ghost saith, let’s have another
drink.”</p>
<p>“Happy thought, Ray,” returned Cora. “Give us
some more ice cream and gin, Alva.”</p>
<p>Alva went into the alcove to prepare another concoction.
Tony started the victrola. Truman turned
to Emma Lou, who, all this while, had been sitting
there with Alva’s arm around her, every muscle in
her body feeling as if it wanted to twitch, not knowing
whether to be sad or to be angry. She couldn’t
comprehend all of this talk. She couldn’t see how
these people could sit down and so dispassionately
discuss something that seemed particularly tragic to
her. This fellow Truman, whom she was certain she
knew, with all his hi-faluting talk, disgusted her immeasurably.
She wasn’t sure that they weren’t all
poking fun at her. Truman was speaking:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p>
<p>“Miss Morgan, didn’t you attend school in Southern
California?” Emma Lou at last realized where
she had seen him before. So <i>this</i> was Truman Walter,
the little “cock o’ the walk,” as they had called him
on the campus. She answered him with difficulty, for
there was a sob in her throat. “Yes, I did.”
Before Truman could say more to her, Ray called to
him:</p>
<p>“Say, Bozo, what time are we going to the party?
It’s almost one o’clock now.”</p>
<p>“Is it?” Alva seemed surprised. “But Aaron and
Alta aren’t here yet.”</p>
<p>“They’ve been married just long enough to be late
to everything.”</p>
<p>“What do you say we go by and ring their bell?”
Tony suggested, ignoring Paul’s Greenwich Village
wit.</p>
<p>“’Sall right with me.” Truman lifted his glass to
his lips. “Then on to the house-rent party ... on to
the bawdy bowels of Beale Street!”</p>
<p>They drained their glasses and prepared to leave.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>“Ahhhh, sock it.”... “Ummmm”.... Piano
playing—slow, loud, and discordant, accompanied by
the rhythmic sound of shuffling feet. Down a long,
dark hallway to an inside room, lit by a solitary red
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>bulb. “Oh, play it you dirty no-gooder.”... A room
full of dancing couples, scarcely moving their feet,
arms completely encircling one another’s bodies ...
cheeks being warmed by one another’s breath ...
eyes closed ... animal ecstasy agitating their perspiring
faces. There was much panting, much hip
movement, much shaking of the buttocks.... “Do
it twice in the same place.”... “Git off that dime.”
Now somebody was singing, “I ask you very confidentially....”
“Sing it man, sing it.”... Piano
treble moaning, bass rumbling like thunder. A swarm
of people, motivating their bodies to express in suggestive
movements the ultimate consummation of
desire.</p>
<p>The music stopped, the room was suffocatingly
hot, and Emma Lou was disturbingly dizzy. She
clung fast to Alva, and let the room and its occupants
whirl around her. Bodies and faces glided by. Leering
faces and lewd bodies. Anxious faces and angular
bodies. Sad faces and obese bodies. All mixed up together.
She began to wonder how such a small room
could hold so many people. “Oh, play it again....”
She saw the pianist now, silhouetted against the dark
mahogany piano, saw him bend his long, slick-haired
head, until it hung low on his chest, then lift his
hands high in the air, and as quickly let them descend
upon the keyboard. There was one moment of cacophony,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>then the long, supple fingers evolved a slow,
tantalizing melody out of the deafening chaos.</p>
<p>Every one began to dance again. Body called to
body, and cemented themselves together, limbs
lewdly intertwined. A couple there kissing, another
couple dipping to the floor, and slowly shimmying,
belly to belly, as they came back to an upright position.
A slender dark girl with wild eyes and wilder
hair stood in the center of the room, supported by
the strong, lithe arms of a longshoreman. She bent
her trunk backward, until her head hung below her
waistline, and all the while she kept the lower portion
of her body quivering like jello.</p>
<p>“She whips it to a jelly,” the piano player was
singing now, and banging on the keys with such
might that an empty gin bottle on top of the piano
seemed to be seized with the ague. “Oh, play it Mr.
Charlie.” Emma Lou grew limp in Alva’s arms.</p>
<p>“What’s the matter, honey, drunk?” She couldn’t
answer. The music augmented by the general atmosphere
of the room and the liquor she had drunk had
presumably created another person in her stead. She
felt like flying into an emotional frenzy—felt like
flinging her arms and legs in insane unison. She had
become very fluid, very elastic, and all the while she
was giving in more and more to the music and to the
liquor and to the physical madness of the moment.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p>
<p>When the music finally stopped, Alva led Emma
Lou to a settee by the window which his crowd had
appropriated. Every one was exceedingly animated,
but they all talked in hushed, almost reverential
tones.</p>
<p>“Isn’t this marvelous?” Truman’s eyes were ablaze
with interest and excitement. Even Tony Crews
seemed unusually alert.</p>
<p>“It’s the greatest I’ve seen yet,” he exclaimed.</p>
<p>Alva seemed the most unemotional one in the
crowd. Paul the most detached. “Look at ’em all
watching Ray.”</p>
<p>“Remember, Bo,” Truman counselled him. “Tonight
you’re ‘passing.’ Here’s a new wrinkle, white
man ‘passes’ for Negro.”</p>
<p>“Why not? Enough of you pass for white.” They
all laughed, then transferred their interest back to
the party. Cora was speaking:</p>
<p>“Didya see that little girl in pink—the one with
the scar on her face—dancing with that tall, lanky,
one-armed man? Wasn’t she throwing it up to him?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Tony admitted, “but she didn’t have anything
on that little Mexican-looking girl. She musta
been born in Cairo.”</p>
<p>“Saay, but isn’t that one bad looking darkey over
there, two chairs to the left; is he gonna smother
that woman?” Truman asked excitedly.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p>
<p>“I’d say she kinda liked it,” Paul answered, then
lit another cigarette.</p>
<p>“Do you know they have corn liquor in the kitchen?
They serve it from a coffee pot.” Aaron seemed
proud of his discovery.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Alva, “and they got hoppin’-john out
there too.”</p>
<p>“What the hell is hoppin’-john?”</p>
<p>“Ray, I’m ashamed of you. Here you are passing
for colored and don’t know what hoppin’-john is!”</p>
<p>“Tell him, Cora, I don’t know either.”</p>
<p>“Another one of these foreigners.” Cora looked
at Truman disdainfully. “Hoppin’-john is black-eyed
peas and rice. Didn’t they ever have any out in Salt
Lake City?”</p>
<p>“Have they any chitterlings?” Alta asked eagerly.</p>
<p>“No, Alta,” Alva replied, dryly. “This isn’t Kansas.
They have got pig’s feet though.”</p>
<p>“Lead me to ’em,” Aaron and Alta shouted in unison,
and led the way to the kitchen. Emma Lou clung
to Alva’s arm and tried to remain behind. “Alva,
I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>“Afraid of what? Come on, snap out of it! You
need another drink.” He pulled her up from the settee
and led her through the crowded room down the
long narrow dark hallway to the more crowded
kitchen.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p>
<p>When they returned to the room, the pianist was
just preparing to play again. He was tall and slender,
with extra long legs and arms, giving him the appearance
of a scarecrow. His pants were tight in the waist
and full in the legs. He wore no coat, and a blue silk
shirt hung damply to his body. He acted as if he
were king of the occasion, ruling all from his piano
stool throne. He talked familiarly to every one in
the room, called women from other men’s arms, demanded
drinks from any bottle he happened to see
being passed around, laughed uproariously, and made
many grotesque and ofttimes obscene gestures.</p>
<p>There were sounds of a scuffle in an adjoining
room, and an excited voice exclaimed, “You goddam
son-of-a-bitch, don’t you catch my dice no more.”
The piano player banged on the keys and drowned
out the reply, if there was one.</p>
<p>Emma Lou could not keep her eyes off the piano
player. He was acting like a maniac, occasionally
turning completely around on his stool, grimacing
like a witch doctor, and letting his hands dawdle over
the keyboard of the piano with an agonizing indolence,
when compared to the extreme exertion to which
he put the rest of his body. He was improvising. The
melody of the piece he had started to play was merely
a base for more bawdy variations. His left foot
thumped on the floor in time with the music, while
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>his right punished the piano’s loud-pedal. Beads of
perspiration gathered grease from his slicked-down
hair, and rolled oleagenously down his face and
neck, spotting the already damp baby-blue shirt, and
streaking his already greasy black face with more
shiny lanes.</p>
<p>A sailor lad suddenly ceased his impassioned hip
movement and strode out of the room, pulling his
partner behind him, pushing people out of the way
as he went. The spontaneous moans and slangy
ejaculations of the piano player and of the more
articulate dancers became more regular, more like
a chanted obligato to the music. This lasted for a
couple of hours interrupted only by hectic intermissions.
Then the dancers grew less violent in their
movements, and though the piano player seemed
never to tire there were fewer couples on the floor,
and those left seemed less loathe to move their legs.</p>
<p>Eventually, the music stopped for a long interval,
and there was a more concerted drive on the kitchen’s
corn liquor supply. Most of the private flasks and
bottles were empty. There were more calls for food,
too, and the crap game in the side room annexed more
players and more kibitzers. Various men and women
had disappeared altogether. Those who remained
seemed worn and tired. There was much petty person
to person badinage and many whispered consultations
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>in corners. There was an argument in the hallway
between the landlord and two couples, who
wished to share one room without paying him more
than the regulation three dollars required of one
couple. Finally, Alva suggested that they leave.
Emma Lou had drifted off into a state of semi-consciousness
and was too near asleep or drunk to distinguish
people or voices. All she knew was that she
was being led out of that dreadful place, that the
perturbing “pilgrimage to the proletariat’s parlor
social,” as Truman had called it, was ended, and
that she was in a taxicab, cuddled up in Alva’s arms.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou awoke with a headache. Some one was
knocking at her door, but when she first awakened
it had seemed as if the knocking was inside of her
head. She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples,
and tried to become more conscious. The knock
persisted and she finally realized that it was at her
door rather than in her head. She called out, “Who
is it?”</p>
<p>“It’s me.” Emma Lou was not far enough out of
the fog to recognize who “me” was. It didn’t seem
important anyway, so without any more thought or
action, she allowed herself to doze off again. Whoever
was on the outside of the door banged the
louder, and finally Emma Lou distinguished the voice
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>of her landlady, calling, “Let me in, Miss Morgan,
let me in.” The voice grew more sharp.... “Let me
in,” and then in an undertone, “Must have some one
in there.” This last served to awaken Emma Lou
more fully, and though every muscle in her body
protested, she finally got out of the bed and went to
the door. The lady entered precipitously, and pushing
Emma Lou aside sniffed the air and looked around
as if she expected to surprise some one, either squeezing
under the bed or leaping through the window.
After she had satisfied herself that there was no one
else in the room, she turned on Emma Lou furiously:</p>
<p>“Miss Morgan, I wish to talk to you.” Emma Lou
closed the door and wearily sat down upon the bed.
The wrinkled faced old woman glared at her and
shifted the position of her snuff so she could talk
more easily. “I won’t have it, I tell you, I won’t have
it.” Emma Lou tried hard to realize what it was she
wouldn’t have, and failing, she said nothing, just
screwed up her eyes and tried to look sober.</p>
<p>“Do you hear me?” Emma Lou nodded. “I won’t
have it. When you moved in here I thought I made it
clear that I was a respectable woman and that I kept
a respectable house. Do you understand that now?”
Emma Lou nodded again. There didn’t seem to be
anything else to do. “I’m glad you do. Then it won’t
be necessary for me to explain why I want my room.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p>
<p>Emma Lou unscrewed her eyes and opened her
mouth. What was this woman talking about? “I don’t
think I understand.”</p>
<p>The old lady was quick with her answer. “There
ain’t nothin’ for you to understand, but that I want
you to get out of my house. I don’t have no such
carryings-on around here. A drunken woman in my
house at all hours in the morning, being carried in
by a man! Well, you coulda knocked me over with
a feather.”</p>
<p>At last Emma Lou began to understand. Evidently
the landlady had seen her when she had come in, no
doubt had seen Alva carry her to her room, and perhaps
had listened outside the door. She was talking
again:</p>
<p>“You must get out. Your week is up Wednesday.
That gives you three days to find another room, and
I want you to act like a lady the rest of that time,
too. The idea!” she sputtered, and stalked out of the
room.</p>
<p>This is a pretty mess, thought Emma Lou. Yet
she found herself unable to think or do anything
about it. Her lethargic state worried her. Here she
was about to be dispossessed by an irate landlady,
and all she could do about it was sit on the side of
her bed and think—maybe I ought to take a dose of
salts. Momentarily, she had forgotten it was Sunday,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>and began to wonder how near time it was for her to
go to work. She was surprised to discover that it was
still early in the forenoon. She couldn’t possibly have
gone to bed before four-thirty or five, yet it seemed as
if she had slept for hours. She felt like some one who
had been under the influence of some sinister potion
for a long period of time. Had she been drugged?
Her head still throbbed, her insides burned, her
tongue was swollen, her lips chapped and feverish.
She began to deplore her physical condition, and
even to berate herself and Alva for last night’s debauchery.</p>
<p>Funny people, his friends. Come to think of it
they were all very much different from any one else
she had ever known. They were all so, so—she sought
for a descriptive word, but could think of nothing
save that revolting, “Oh, sock it,” she had heard on
first entering the apartment where the house-rent
party had been held.</p>
<p>Then she began to wonder about her landlady’s
charges. There was no need arguing about the matter.
She had wanted to move anyway. Maybe now she
could go ahead and find a decent place in which to
live. She had never had the nerve to begin another
room hunting expedition after the last one. She shuddered
as she thought about it, then climbed back into
the bed. She could see no need in staying up so long
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>as her head ached as it did. She wondered if Alva had
made much noise in bringing her in, wondered how
long he had stayed, and if he had had any trouble
manipulating the double-barrelled police lock on the
outside door. Harlem people were so careful about
barricading themselves in. They all seemed to fortify
themselves, not only against strangers, but against
neighbors and friends as well.</p>
<p>And Alva? She had to admit that she was a trifle
disappointed in him and in his friends. They certainly
weren’t what she could have called either intellectuals
or respectable people. Whoever heard of decent folk
attending such a lascivious festival? She remembered
their enthusiastic comments and tried to comprehend
just what it was that had intrigued and interested
them. Looking for material, they had said. More than
likely they were looking for liquor and a chance to
be licentious.</p>
<p>Alva himself worried her a bit. She couldn’t understand
why gin seemed so indispensable to him. He
always insisted that he had to have at least three
drinks a day. Once she had urged him not to follow
this program. Unprotestingly, he had come to her
the following evening without the usual juniper berry
smell on his breath, but he had been so disagreeable
and had seemed so much like a worn out and dissipated
person that she had never again suggested that
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>he not have his usual quota of drinks. Then, too, she
had discovered that he was much too lovable after
having had his “evening drams” to be discouraged
from taking them. Emma Lou had never met any
one in her life who was as loving and kind to her as
Alva. He seemed to anticipate her every mood and
desire, and he was the most soothing and satisfying
person with whom she had ever come into contact.
He seldom riled her—seldom ruffled her feelings. He
seemed to give in to her on every occasion, and was
the most chivalrous escort imaginable. He was always
courteous, polite and thoughtful of her comfort.</p>
<p>As yet she had been unable to become angry with
him. Alva never argued or protested unduly. Although
Emma Lou didn’t realize it, he used more subtle
methods. His means of remaining master of all situations
were both tactful and sophisticated; for example,
Emma Lou never realized just how she had first
begun giving him money. Surely he hadn’t asked her
for it. It had just seemed the natural thing to do after
a while, and she had done it, willingly and without
question. The ethical side of their relationship never
worried her. She was content and she was happy—at
least she was in possession of something that
seemed to bring her happiness. She seldom worried
about Alva not being true to her, and if she questioned
him about such matters, he would pretend not
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>to hear her and change the conversation. The only
visible physical reaction would be a slight narrowing
of the eyes, as if he were trying not to wince from
the pain of some inner hurt.</p>
<p>Once she had suggested marriage, and had been
shocked when Alva told her that to him the marriage
ceremony seemed a waste of time. He had already
been married twice, and he hadn’t even bothered to
obtain a divorce from his first wife before acquiring
number two. On hearing this, Emma Lou had urged
him to tell her more about these marital experiments,
and after a little coaxing, he had done so, very impassively
and very sketchily, as if he were relating
the experiences of another. He told her that he had
really loved his first wife, but that she was such an
essential polygamous female that he had been forced
to abdicate and hand her over to the multitudes.
According to Alva, she had been as vain as Braxton,
and as fundamentally dependent upon flattery. She
could do without three square meals a day, but she
couldn’t do without her contingent of mealy-mouthed
admirers, all eager to outdo one another in the matter
of compliments. One man could never have satisfied
her, not that she was a nymphomaniac with abnormal
physical appetites, but because she wanted attention,
and the more men she had around her, the more attention
she could receive. She hadn’t been able to
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>convince Alva, though, that her battalion of admirers
were all of the platonic variety. “I know niggers too
well,” Alva had summed it up to Emma Lou, “so I
told her she just must go, and she went.”</p>
<p>“But,” Emma Lou had queried when he had
started to talk about something else, “what about
your second wife?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” he laughed, “well, I married her when I was
drunk. She was an old woman about fifty. She kept
me drunk from Sunday to Sunday. When I finally
got sober she showed me the marriage license and I
well nigh passed out again.”</p>
<p>“But where is she?” Emma Lou had asked, “and
how did they let you get married while you were
drunk and already had a wife?”</p>
<p>Alva had shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know
where she is. I ain’t seen her since I left her room
that day. I sent Braxton up there to talk to her.
Seems like she’d been drunk too. So, it really didn’t
matter. And as for a divorce, I know plenty spades
right here in Harlem get married any time they want
to. Who in the hell’s gonna take the trouble getting
a divorce, when, if you must marry and already have
a wife, you can get another without going through
all that red tape?”</p>
<p>Emma Lou had had to admit that this sounded
logical, if illegal. Yet she hadn’t been convinced.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>“But,” she had insisted, “don’t they look you up and
convict you of bigamy?”</p>
<p>“Hell, no. The only thing the law bothers niggers
about is for stealing, murdering, or chasing white
women, and as long as they don’t steal from or murder
ofays, the law ain’t none too particular about
bothering them. The only time they act about bigamy
is when one of the wives squawk, and they hardly
ever do that. They’re only too glad to see the old man
get married again—then they can do likewise, without
spending lots of time on lawyers and courthouse
red tape.”</p>
<p>This, and other things which Emma Lou had elicited
from Alva, had convinced her that he was undoubtedly
the most interesting person she had ever
met. What added to this was the strange fact that
he seemed somewhat cultured despite his admitted
unorganized and haphazard early training. On being
questioned, he advanced the theory that perhaps this
was due to his long period of service as waiter and
valet to socially prominent white people. Many
Negroes, he had explained, even of the “dicty”
variety, had obtained their <i>savoir faire</i> and knowledge
of the social niceties in this manner.</p>
<p>Emma Lou lay abed, remembering the many different
conversations they had had together, most of
which had taken place on a bench in City College
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>Park, or in Alva’s room. With enough gin for stimulation,
Alva could tell many tales of his life and
hold her spellbound with vivid descriptions of the
various situations he had found himself in. He loved
to reminisce, when he found a good listener, and
Emma Lou loved to listen when she found a good
talker. Alva often said that he wished some one would
write a story of his life. Maybe that was why he cultivated
an acquaintance with these writer people....
Then it seemed as if this one-sided conversational
communion strengthened their physical bond.
It made Emma Lou more palatable to Alva, and it
made Alva a more glamorous figure to Emma Lou.</p>
<p>But here she was day dreaming, when she should
be wondering where she was going to move. She
couldn’t possibly remain in this place, even if the
old lady relented and decided to give her another
chance to be respectable. Somehow or other she felt
that she had been insulted, and for the first time,
began to feel angry with the old snuff-chewing termagant.</p>
<p>Her head ached no longer, but her body was still
lethargic. Alva, Alva, Alva. Could she think of nothing
else? Supposing she sat upright in the bed—supposing
she and Alva were to live together. They
might get a small apartment and be with one another
entirely. Immediately she was all activity. The headache
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>was forgotten. Out of bed, into her bathrobe,
and down the hall to the bathroom. Even the quick
shower seemed to be a slow, tedious process, and she
was in such a hurry to hasten into the street and
telephone Alva, in order to tell him of her new plans,
that she almost forgot to make the very necessary
and very customary application of bleaching cream
to her face. As it was, she forgot to rinse her face
and hands in lemon juice.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Alva had lost all patience with Braxton, and profanely
told him so. No matter what his condition,
Braxton would not work. He seemed to believe that
because he was handsome, and because he was Braxton,
he shouldn’t have to work. He graced the world
with his presence. Therefore, it should pay him. “A
thing of beauty is joy forever,” and should be sustained
by a communal larder. Alva tried to show him
that such a larder didn’t exist, that one either worked
or hustled.</p>
<p>But as Alva had explained to Emma Lou, Braxton
wouldn’t work, and as a hustler he was a distinct
failure. He couldn’t gamble successfully, he never had
a chance to steal, and he always allowed his egotism
to defeat his own ends when he tried to get money
from women. He assumed that at a word from him,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>anybody’s pocketbook should be at his disposal, and
that his handsomeness and personality were a combination
none could withstand. It is a platitude
among sundry sects and individuals that as a person
thinketh, so he is, but it was not within the power
of Braxton’s mortal body to become the being his
imagination sought to create. He insisted, for instance,
that he was a golden brown replica of Rudolph Valentino.
Every picture he could find of the late lamented
cinema sheik he pasted either on the wall or
on some of his belongings. The only reason that
likenesses of his idol did not decorate all the wall
space was because Alva objected to this flapperish
ritual. Braxton emulated his silver screen mentor in
every way, watched his every gesture on the screen,
then would stand in front of his mirror at home and
practice Rudy’s poses and facial expressions. Strange
as it may seem, there was a certain likeness between
the two, especially at such moments when Braxton
would suddenly stand in the center of the floor and
give a spontaneous impersonation of his Rudy making
love or conquering enemies. Then, at all times,
Braxton held his head as Rudy held his, and had
even learned how to smile and how to use his eyes in
the same captivating manner. But his charms were
too obviously cultivated, and his technique too
clumsy. He would attract almost any one to him, but
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>they were sure to bolt away as suddenly as they had
come. He could have, but he could not hold.</p>
<p>Now, as Alva told Emma Lou, this was a distinct
handicap to one who wished to be a hustler, and live
by one’s wits off the bounty of others. And the competition
was too keen in a place like Harlem, where
the adaptability to city ways sometimes took strange
and devious turns, for a bungler to have much success.
Alva realized this, if Braxton didn’t, and tried
to tell him so, but Braxton wouldn’t listen. He felt
that Alva was merely being envious—the fact that
Alva had more suits than he, and that Alva always
had clean shirts, liquor money and room rent, and
that Alva could continue to have these things, despite
the fact that he had decided to quit work during
the hot weather, meant nothing to Braxton at all. He
had facial and physical perfection, a magnetic body
and much sex appeal. Ergo, he was a master.</p>
<p>However, lean days were upon him. His mother
and aunt had unexpectedly come to New York to help
him celebrate the closing day of his freshman year
at Columbia. His surprise at seeing them was nothing
in comparison to their surprise in finding that their
darling had not even started his freshman year. The
aunt was stoic—“What could you expect of a child
with all that wild Indian blood in him? Now, our
people....” She hadn’t liked Braxton’s father. His
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>mother simply could not comprehend his duplicity.
Such an unnecessarily cruel and deceptive performance
was beyond her understanding. Had she been
told that he was guilty of thievery, murder, or rape,
she could have borne up and smiled through her tears
in true maternal fashion, but that he could so completely
fool her for nine months—incredible; preposterous!
it just couldn’t be!</p>
<p>She and her sister returned to Boston, telling
every one there what a successful year their darling
had had at Columbia, and telling Braxton before
they left that he could not have another cent of their
money that summer, that if he didn’t enter Columbia
in the fall ... well, he was not yet of age. They
made many vague threats; none so alarming, however,
as the threat of a temporary, if not permanent,
suspension of his allowance.</p>
<p>By pawning some of his suits, his watch, and diamond
ring, he amassed a small stake and took to
gambling. Unlucky at love, he should, so Alva said,
have been lucky at cards, and was. But even a lucky
man will suffer from lack of skill and foolhardiness.
Braxton would gamble only with mature men who
gathered in the police-protected clubs, rather than
with young chaps like himself, who gathered in private
places. He couldn’t classify himself with the
cheap or the lowly. If he was to gamble, he must
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>gamble in a professional manner, with professional
men. As in all other affairs, he had luck, but no skill
and little sense. His little gambling stake lasted but
a moment, flitted from him feverishly, and left him
holding an empty purse.</p>
<p>Then he took to playing the “numbers,” placing
quarters and half dollars on a number compounded
of three digits and anxiously perusing the daily clearing
house reports to see whether or not he had chosen
correctly. Alva, too, played the numbers consistently
and somehow or other, managed to remain ahead of
the game, but Braxton, as was to be expected, “hit”
two or three times, then grew excited over his winnings
and began to play two or three or even five dollars
daily on one number. Such plunging, unattended
by scientific observation or close calculation, put
him so far behind the game that his winnings were
soon dissipated and he had to stop playing altogether.</p>
<p>Alva had quit work for the summer. He contended
that it was far too hot to stand over a steam pressing
machine during the sultry summer months, and there
was no other congenial work available. Being a bellhop
in one of the few New York hotels where colored
boys were used, called for too long hours and broken
shifts. Then they didn’t pay much money and he
hated to work for tips. He certainly would not take
an elevator job, paying only sixty or sixty-five dollars
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>a month at the most, and making it necessary
for him to work nights one week from six to eight,
and days the next week, vice versa. Being an elevator
operator in a loft building required too much skill,
patience, and muscular activity. The same could be
said of the shipping clerk positions, open in the various
wholesale houses. He couldn’t, of course, be expected
to be a porter, and swing a mop. Bootblacking
was not even to be considered. There was nothing
left. He was unskilled, save as a presser. Once he had
been apprenticed to a journeyman tailor, but he preferred
to forget that.</p>
<p>No, there was nothing he could do, and there was
no sense in working in the summer. He never had
done it; at least, not since he had been living in New
York—so he didn’t see why he should do it now.
Furthermore, his salary hardly paid his saloon bill,
and since his board and room and laundry and clothes
came from other sources, why not quit work altogether
and develop these sources to their capacity
output? Things looked much brighter this year than
ever before. He had more clothes, he had “hit” the
numbers more than ever, he had won a baseball
pool of no mean value, and, in addition to Emma Lou,
he had made many other profitable contacts during
the spring and winter months. It was safe for him to
loaf, but he couldn’t carry Braxton, or rather, he
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>wouldn’t. Yet he liked him well enough not to kick
him into the streets. Something, he told Emma Lou,
should be done for him first, so Alva started doing
things.</p>
<p>First, he got him a girl, or rather steered him in
the direction of one who seemed to be a good bet.
She was. And as usual, Braxton had little trouble in
attracting her to him. She was a simple-minded over-sexed
little being from a small town in Central Virginia,
new to Harlem, and had hitherto always lived
in her home town where she had been employed since
her twelfth year as maid-of-all-work to a wealthy
white family. For four years, she had been her master’s
concubine, and probably would have continued
in that capacity for an unspecified length of time, had
not the mistress of the house decided that after all
it might not be good for her two adolescent sons to
become aware of their father’s philandering. She
had had to accept it. Most of the women of her generation
and in her circle had done likewise. But these
were the post world war days of modernity ... and,
well, it just wasn’t being done, what with the growing
intelligence of the “darkies,” and the increased
sophistication of the children.</p>
<p>So Anise Hamilton had been surreptitiously
shipped away to New York, and a new maid-of-all-work
had mysteriously appeared in her place. The
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>mistress had seen to it that this new maid was not as
desirable as Anise, but a habit is a habit, and the
master of the house was not the sort to substitute
one habit for another. If anything, his wife had made
herself more miserable by the change, since the last
girl loved much better than she worked, while Anise
had proved competent on both scores, thereby pleasing
both master and mistress.</p>
<p>Anise had come to Harlem and deposited the
money her former mistress had supplied her with in
the postal savings. She wouldn’t hear to placing it
in any other depository. Banks had a curious and
discomforting habit of closing their doors without
warning, and without the foresight to provide their
patrons with another nest egg. If banks in Virginia
went broke, those in wicked New York would surely
do so. Now, Uncle Sam had the whole country behind
him, and everybody knew that the United States
was the most wealthy of the world’s nations. Therefore,
what safer place than the post office for one’s
bank account?</p>
<p>Anise got a job, too, almost immediately. Her
former mistress had given her a letter to a friend of
hers on Park Avenue, and this friend had another
friend who had a sister who wanted a stock girl in
her exclusive modiste shop. Anise was the type to
grace such an establishment as this person owned,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>just the right size to create a smart uniform for,
and shapely enough to allow the creator of the
uniform ample latitude for bizarre experimentation.
Most important of all, her skin, the color of beaten
brass with copper overtones, synchronized with the
gray plaster walls, dark hardwood furniture and powder
blue rugs on the Maison Quantrelle.</p>
<p>Anise soon had any number of “boy friends,” with
whom she had varying relations. But she willingly
dropped them all for Braxton, and, simple village girl
that she was, expected him to do likewise with his
“girl friends.” She had heard much about the “two-timing
sugar daddies” in Harlem, and while she was
well versed in the art herself, having never been particularly
true to her male employer, she did think
that this sort of thing was different, and that any
time she was willing to play fair, her consort should
do likewise.</p>
<p>Alva was proud of himself when he noticed how
rapidly things progressed between Anise and Braxton.
They were together constantly, and Anise, not unused
to giving her home town “boy friends” some of
“Mister Bossman’s bounty,” was soon slipping Braxton
spare change to live on. Then she undertook to
pay his half of the room rent, and finally, within
three weeks, was, as Alva phrased it, “treating Braxton
royally.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></p>
<p>But as ever, he was insistent upon being perverse.
His old swank and swagger was much in evidence.
With most of his clothing out of the pawnshop, he
attempted to dazzle the Avenue when he paraded its
length, the alluring Anise, attired in clothes borrowed
from her employer’s stockroom, beside him.
The bronze replica of Rudolph Valentino was, in
the argot of Harlem’s pool hall Johnnies, “out the
barrel.” The world was his. He had in it a bottle,
and he need only make it secure by corking. But
Braxton was never the person to make anything
secure. He might manage to capture the entire universe,
but he could never keep it pent up, for he
would soon let it alone to look for two more like it.
It was to be expected, then, that Braxton would lose
his head. He did, deliberately and diabolically. Because
Anise was so madly in love with him, he imagined
that all other women should do as she had
done, and how much more delightful and profitable
it would be to have two or three Anises instead of
one. So he began a crusade, spending much of Anise’s
money for campaign funds. Alva quarrelled, and
Anise threatened, but Braxton continued to explore
and expend.</p>
<p>Anise finally revolted when Braxton took another
girl to a dance on her money. He had done this many
times before, but she hadn’t known about it. She
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span>wouldn’t have known about it this time if he hadn’t
told her. He often did things like that. Thought it
made him more desirable. Despite her simple-mindedness,
Anise had spunk. She didn’t like to quarrel, but
she wasn’t going to let any one make a fool out of
her, so, the next week after the heartbreaking incident,
she had moved and left no forwarding address.
It was presumed that she had gone downtown to live
in the apartment of the woman for whom she worked.
Braxton seemed unconcerned about her disappearance,
and continued his peacock-like march for some
time, with feathers unruffled, even by frequent trips
to the pawnshop. But a peacock can hardly preen an
unplumaged body, and, though Braxton continued to
strut, in a few weeks after the break, he was only a
sad semblance of his former self.</p>
<p>Alva nagged at him continually. “Damned if I’m
going to carry you.” Braxton would remain silent.
“You’re the most no-count nigger I know. If you
can’t do anything else, why in the hell don’t you get
a job?” “I don’t see you working,” Braxton would
answer.</p>
<p>“And you don’t see me starving, either,” would be
the come-back.</p>
<p>“Oh, jost ’cause you got that little black
wench....”</p>
<p>“That’s all right about the little black wench.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>She’s forty with me, and I know how to treat her.
I bet you couldn’t get five cents out of her.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t try.”</p>
<p>“Hell, if you tried it wouldn’t make no difference.
There’s a gal ready to pay to have a man, and there
are lots more like her. You couldn’t even keep a
good-looking gold mine like Anise. Wish I could
find her.”</p>
<p>Braxton would sulk a while, thinking that his
silence would discourage Alva, but Alva was not to
be shut up. He was truly outraged. He felt that he
was being imposed upon, being used by some one who
thought himself superior to him. He would admit
that he wasn’t as handsome as Braxton, but he certainly
had more common sense. The next Monday
Braxton moved.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Alva was to take Emma Lou to the midnight
show at the Lafayette Theater. He met her as she
left work and they had taken the subway uptown.
On the train they began to talk, shouting into one
another’s ears, trying to make their voices heard
above the roar of the underground tube.</p>
<p>“Do you like your new home?” Alva shouted. He
hadn’t seen her since she had moved two days before.</p>
<p>“It’s nice,” she admitted loudly, “but it would be
nicer if I had you there with me.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p>
<p>He patted her hand and held it regardless of the
onlooking crowd.</p>
<p>“Maybe so, sugar, but you wouldn’t like me if you
had to live with me all the time.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou was aggrieved: “I don’t see how you
can say that. How do you know? That’s what made
me mad last Sunday.”</p>
<p>Alva saw that Emma Lou was ready for argument
and he had no intention of favoring her, or of discomfiting
himself. He was even sorry that he said
as much as he had when she had first broached the
“living together” matter over the telephone on Sunday,
calling him out of bed before noon while
Geraldine was there too, looking, but not asking, for
information. He smiled at her indulgently:</p>
<p>“If you say another word about it, I’ll kiss you
right here in the subway.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou didn’t put it beyond him so she could
do nothing but smile and shut up. She rather liked
him to talk to her that way. Alva was shouting into
her ear again, telling her a scandalous tale he claimed
to have heard while playing poker with some of the
boys. He thus contrived to keep her entertained until
they reached the 135th Street station where they
finally emerged from beneath the pavement to mingle
with the frowsy crowds of Harlem’s Bowery, Lenox
Avenue.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p>
<p>They made their way to the Lafayette, the Jew’s
gift of entertainment to Harlem colored folk. Each
week the management of this theater presents a new
musical revue of the three a day variety with motion
pictures—all guaranteed to be from three to ten
years old—sandwiched in between. On Friday nights
there is a special midnight performance lasting from
twelve o’clock until four or four-thirty the next
morning, according to the stamina of the actors.
The audience does not matter. It would as soon sit
until noon the next day if the “high yaller” chorus
girls would continue to undress, and the black face
comedians would continue to tell stale jokes, just so
long as there was a raucous blues singer thrown in
every once in a while for vulgar variety.</p>
<p>Before Emma Lou and Alva could reach the entrance
door, they had to struggle through a crowd of
well dressed young men and boys, congregated on the
sidewalk in front of the theater. The midnight show
at the Lafayette on Friday is quite a social event
among certain classes of Harlem folk, and, if one is
a sweetback or a man about town, one must be seen
standing in front of the theater, if not inside. It costs
nothing to obstruct the entrance way, and it adds
much to one’s prestige. Why, no one knows.</p>
<p>Without untoward incident Emma Lou and Alva
found the seats he had reserved. There was much
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>noise in the theater, much passing to and fro, much
stumbling down dark aisles. People were always
leaving their seats, admonishing their companions
to hold them, and some one else was always taking
them despite the curt and sometimes belligerent,
“This seat is taken.” Then, when the original occupant
would return there would be still another argument.
This happened so frequently that there seemed
to be a continual wrangling automatically staged in
different parts of the auditorium. Then people were
always looking for some one or for something, always
peering into the darkness, emitting code whistles, and
calling to Jane or Jim or Pete or Bill. At the head of
each aisle, both upstairs and down, people were
packed in a solid mass, a grumbling, garrulous mass,
elbowing their neighbors, cursing the management,
and standing on tiptoe trying to find an empty,
intact seat—intact because every other seat in the
theater seemed to be broken. Hawkers went up and
down the aisle shouting, “Ice cream, peanuts, chewing
gum or candy.” People hissed at them and ordered
what they wanted. A sadly inadequate crew of ushers
inefficiently led people up one aisle and down another
trying to find their supposedly reserved seats;
a lone fireman strove valiantly to keep the aisles clear
as the fire laws stipulated. It was a most chaotic and
confusing scene.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span></p>
<p>First, a movie was shown while the organ played
mournful jazz. About one o’clock the midnight revue
went on. The curtain went up on the customary
chorus ensemble singing the customary, “Hello, we’re
glad to be here, we’re going to please you” opening
song. This was followed by the usual song and dance
team, a blues singer, a lady Charleston dancer, and
two black faced comedians. Each would have his
turn, then begin all over again, aided frequently by
the energetic and noisy chorus, which somehow managed
to appear upon the stage almost naked in the
first scene, and keep getting more and more naked
as the evening progressed.</p>
<p>Emma Lou had been to the Lafayette before with
John and had been shocked by the scantily clad
women and obscene skits. The only difference that
she could see in this particular revue was that the
performers were more bawdy and more boisterous.
And she had never been in or seen such an audience.
There was as much, if not more, activity in the
orchestra and box seats than there was on the stage.
It was hard to tell whether the cast was before or
behind the proscenium arch. There seemed to be a
veritable contest going on between the paid performers
and their paying audience, and Emma Lou
found the spontaneous monkey shines and utterances
of those around her much more amusing than the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>stereotyped antics of the hired performers on the stage.</p>
<p>She was surprised to find that she was actually
enjoying herself, yet she supposed that after the
house-rent party she could stand anything. Imagine
people opening their flats to the public and charging
any one who had the price to pay twenty-five cents
to enter? Imagine people going to such bedlam
Bacchanals?</p>
<p>A new scene on the stage attracted her attention.
A very colorfully dressed group of people had gathered
for a party. Emma Lou immediately noticed that
all the men were dark, and that all the women were
either a very light brown or “high yaller.” She turned
to Alva:</p>
<p>“Don’t they ever have anything else but fair chorus
girls?”</p>
<p>Alva made a pretense of being very occupied with
the business on the stage. Happily, at that moment,
one of a pair of black faced comedians had set the
audience in an uproar with a suggestive joke. After
a moment Emma Lou found herself laughing too.
The two comedians were funny, no matter how prejudiced
one might be against unoriginality. There
must be other potent elements to humor besides surprise.
Then a very Topsy-like girl skated onto the
stage to the tune of “Ireland must be heaven because
my mother came from there.” Besides being
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>corked until her skin was jet black, the girl had on a
wig of kinky hair. Her lips were painted red—their
thickness exaggerated by the paint. Her coming
created a stir. Every one concerned was indignant
that something like her should crash their party. She
attempted to attach herself to certain men in the
crowd. The straight men spurned her merely by turning
away. The comedians made a great fuss about it,
pushing her from one to the other, and finally getting
into a riotous argument because each accused the
other of having invited her. It ended by them agreeing
to toss her bodily off the stage to the orchestral
accompaniment of “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” while the
entire party loudly proclaimed that “Black cats
must go.”</p>
<p>Then followed the usual rigamarole carried on
weekly at the Lafayette concerning the undesirability
of black girls. Every one, that is, all the males,
let it be known that high browns and “high yallers”
were “forty” with them, but that.... They were
interrupted by the re-entry of the little black girl
riding a mule and singing mournfully as she was being
thus transported across the stage:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">A yellow gal rides in a limousine,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">A brown-skin rides a Ford,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">A black gal rides an old jackass</div>
<div class="verse indent0">But she gets there, yes my Lord.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span></p>
<p>Emma Lou was burning up with indignation. So
color-conscious had she become that any time some
one mentioned or joked about skin color, she immediately
imagined that they were referring to her.
Now she even felt that all the people near by were
looking at her and that their laughs were at her
expense. She remained silent throughout the rest of
the performance, averting her eyes from the stage and
trying hard not to say anything to Alva before they
left the theater. After what seemed an eternity, the
finale screamed its good-bye at the audience, and Alva
escorted her out into Seventh Avenue.</p>
<p>Alva was tired and thirsty. He had been up all
night the night before at a party to which he had
taken Geraldine, and he had had to get up unusually
early on Friday morning in order to go after his
laundry. Of course when he had arrived at Bobby’s
apartment where his laundry was being done, he
found that his shirts were not yet ironed, so he had
gone to bed there, with the result that he hadn’t been
able to go to sleep, nor had the shirts been ironed,
but that was another matter.</p>
<p>“First time I ever went to a midnight show without
something on my hip,” he complained to Emma
Lou as they crossed the taxi-infested street in order
to escape the crowds leaving the theater and idling in
front of it, even at four A. M. in the morning.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span></p>
<p>“Well,” Emma Lou returned vehemently, “it’s the
last time I’ll ever go to that place any kind of way.”</p>
<p>Alva hadn’t expected this. “What’s the matter with
you?”</p>
<p>“You’re always taking me some place, or placing
me in some position where I’ll be insulted.”</p>
<p>“Insulted?” This was far beyond Alva. Who on
earth had insulted her and when. “But,” he paused,
then advanced cautiously, “Sugar, I don’t know what
you mean.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou was ready for a quarrel. In fact she had
been trying to pick one with him ever since the night
she had gone to that house-rent party, and the landlady
had asked her to move on the following day.
Alva’s curt refusal of her proposal that they live
together had hurt her far more than he had imagined.
Somehow or other he didn’t think she could be so
serious about the matter, especially upon such short
notice. But Emma Lou had been so certain that he
would be as excited over the suggestion as she had
been that she hadn’t considered meeting a definite
refusal. Then the finding of a room had been irritating
to contemplate. She couldn’t have called it irritating
of accomplishment because Alva had done
that for her. She had told him on Sunday morning
that she had to move and by Sunday night he had
found a place for her. She had to admit that he had
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>found an exceptionally nice place too. It was just
two blocks from him, on 138th Street between Eighth
Avenue and Edgecombe. It was near the elevated
station, near the park, and cost only ten dollars and
fifty cents per week for the room, kitchenette and
private bath.</p>
<p>On top of his refusal to live with her, Alva had
broken two dates with Emma Lou, claiming that he
was playing poker. On one of these nights, after
leaving work, Emma Lou had decided to walk past
his house. Even at a distance she could see that there
was a light in his room, and when she finally passed
the house, she recognized Geraldine, the girl with
whom she had seen Alva dancing at the Renaissance
Casino, seated in the window. Angrily, she had gone
home, determined to break with Alva on the morrow,
and on reaching home had found a letter from her
mother which had disturbed her even more. For a
long time now her mother had been urging her to
come home, and her Uncle Joe had even sent her
word that he meant to forward a ticket at an early
date. But Emma Lou had no intentions of going home.
She was so obsessed with the idea that her mother
didn’t want her, and she was so incensed at the people
with whom she knew she would be forced to associate,
that she could consider her mother’s hysterically-put
request only as an insult. Thus, presuming, she had
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>answered in kind, giving vent to her feelings about
the matter. This disturbing letter was in answer to
her own spleenic epistle, and what hurt her most was,
not the sharp counsellings and verbose lamentations
therein, but the concluding phrase, which read, “I
don’t see how the Lord could have given me such an
evil, black hussy for a daughter.”</p>
<p>The following morning she had telephoned Alva,
determined to break with him, or at least make him
believe she was about to break with him, but Alva
had merely yawned and asked her not to be a goose.
Could he help it if Braxton’s girl chose to sit in his
window? It was as much Braxton’s room as it was
his. True, Braxton wouldn’t be there long, but while
he was, he certainly should have full privileges. That
had quieted Emma Lou then, but there was nothing
that could quiet her now. She continued arguing as
they walked toward 135th Street.</p>
<p>“You don’t want to know what I mean.”</p>
<p>“No, I guess not,” Alva assented wearily, then
quickened his pace. He didn’t want to have a public
scene with this black wench. But Emma Lou was not
to be appeased.</p>
<p>“Well, you will know what I mean. First you take
me out with a bunch of your supposedly high-toned
friends, and sit silently by while they poke fun at me.
Then you take me to a theater, where you know I’ll
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>have my feelings hurt.” She stopped for breath. Alva
filled in the gap.</p>
<p>“If you ask me,” he said wearily, “I think you’re
full of stuff. Let’s take a taxi. I’m too tired to walk.”
He hailed a taxi, pushed her into it, and gave the
driver the address. Then he turned to Emma Lou,
saying something which he regretted having said a
moment later.</p>
<p>“How did my friends insult you?”</p>
<p>“You know how they insulted me, sitting up there
making fun of me ’cause I’m black.”</p>
<p>Alva laughed, something he also regretted later.</p>
<p>“That’s right, laugh, and I suppose you laughed
with them then, behind my back, and planned all
that talk before I arrived.”</p>
<p>Alva didn’t answer and Emma Lou cried all the
rest of the way home. Once there he tried to soothe
her.</p>
<p>“Come on, Sugar, let Alva put you to bed.”</p>
<p>But Emma Lou was not to be sugared so easily.
She continued to cry. Alva sat down on the bed beside
her.</p>
<p>“Snap out of it, won’t you, Honey? You’re just
tired. Go to bed and get some sleep. You’ll be all right
tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou stopped her crying.</p>
<p>“I may be all right, but I’ll never forget the way
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>you’ve allowed me to be insulted in your presence.”</p>
<p>This was beginning to get on Alva’s nerves but he
smiled at her indulgently:</p>
<p>“I suppose I should have gone down on the stage
and biffed one of the comedians in the jaw?”</p>
<p>“No,” snapped Emma Lou, realizing she was being
ridiculous, “but you could’ve stopped your friends
from poking fun at me.”</p>
<p>“But, Sugar,” this was growing tiresome. “How can
you say they were making fun of you. It’s beyond
me.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t beyond you when it started. I bet you
told them about me before I came in, told them I
was black....”</p>
<p>“Nonsense, weren’t some of them dark? I’m
afraid,” he advanced slowly, “that you are a trifle
too color-conscious,” he was glad he remembered that
phrase.</p>
<p>Emma Lou flared up: “Color-conscious ... who
wouldn’t be color-conscious when everywhere you go
people are always talking about color. If it didn’t
make any difference they wouldn’t talk about it, they
wouldn’t always be poking fun, and laughing and
making jokes....”</p>
<p>Alva interrupted her tirade. “You’re being silly,
Emma Lou. About three-quarters of the people at the
Lafayette tonight were either dark brown or black,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>and here you are crying and fuming like a ninny
over some reference made on the stage to a black
person.” He was disgusted now. He got up from the
bed. Emma Lou looked up.</p>
<p>“But, Alva, you don’t know.”</p>
<p>“I do know,” he spoke sharply for the first time,
“that you’re a damn fool. It’s always color, color,
color. If I speak to any of my friends on the street
you always make some reference to their color and
keep plaguing me with—‘Don’t you know nothing
else but light-skinned people?’ And you’re always
beefing about being black. Seems like to me you’d
be proud of it. You’re not the only black person in
this world. There are gangs of them right here in
Harlem, and I don’t see them going around a-moanin’
’cause they ain’t half white.”</p>
<p>“I’m not moaning.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes you are. And a person like you is far
worse than a hinkty yellow nigger. It’s your kind
helps make other people color-prejudiced.”</p>
<p>“That’s just what I’m saying; it’s because of my
color....”</p>
<p>“Oh, go to hell!” And Alva rushed out of the room,
slamming the door behind him.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Braxton had been gone a week. Alva, who had
been out with Marie, the creole Lesbian, came home
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>late, and, turning on the light, found Geraldine asleep
in his bed. He was so surprised that he could do
nothing for a moment but stand in the center of the
room and look—first at Geraldine and then at her
toilet articles spread over his dresser. He twisted his
lips in a wry smile, muttered something to himself,
then walked over to the bed and shook her.</p>
<p>“Geraldine, Geraldine,” he called. She awoke
quickly and smiled at him.</p>
<p>“Hello. What time is it?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” he returned guardedly, “somewhere after
three.”</p>
<p>“Where’ve you been?”</p>
<p>“Playing poker.”</p>
<p>“With whom?”</p>
<p>“Oh, the same gang. But what’s the idea?”</p>
<p>Geraldine wrinkled her brow.</p>
<p>“The idea of what?”</p>
<p>“Of sorta taking possession?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” she seemed enlightened, “I’ve moved to New
York.”</p>
<p>It was Alva’s cue to register surprise.</p>
<p>“What’s the matter? You and the old lady fall
out?”</p>
<p>“Not at all.”</p>
<p>“Does she know where you are?”</p>
<p>“She knows I’m in New York.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span></p>
<p>“You know what I mean. Does she know you’re
going to stay?”</p>
<p>“Certainly.”</p>
<p>“But where are you going to live?”</p>
<p>“Here.”</p>
<p>“Here?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“But ... but ... well, what is this all about,
anyhow?”</p>
<p>She sat up in the bed and regarded him for a
moment, a light smile playing around her lips. Before
she spoke she yawned; then in a cool, even tone
of voice, announced “I’m going to have a baby.”</p>
<p>“But,” he began after a moment, “can’t you—can’t
you...?”</p>
<p>“I’ve tried everything and now it’s too late. There’s
nothing to do but have it.”</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p class="fh2"><span class="smcap">Part V</span></p>
<p class="fh2">PYRRHIC VICTORY</p>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak">V<br>PYRRHIC VICTORY</h2>
</div>
<p>It was two years later. “Cabaret Gal,” which had
been on the road for one year, had returned to
New York and the company had been disbanded.
Arline was preparing to go to Europe and had decided
not to take a maid with her. However, she
determined to get Emma Lou another job before she
left. She inquired among her friends, but none of the
active performers she knew seemed to be in the
market for help, and it was only on the eve of sailing
that she was able to place Emma Lou with Clere
Sloane, a former stage beauty, who had married a
famous American writer and retired from public life.</p>
<p>Emma Lou soon learned to like her new place. She
was Clere’s personal maid, and found it much less
tiresome than being in the theater with Arline. Clere
was less temperamental and less hurried. She led a
rather leisurely life, and treated Emma Lou more as
a companion than as a servant. Clere’s husband,
Campbell Kitchen, was very congenial and kind too,
although Emma Lou, at first, seldom came into contact
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>with him, for he and his wife practically led
separate existences, meeting only at meals, or when
they had guests, or when they both happened to arise
at the same hour for breakfast. Occasionally, they
attended the theater or a party together, and sometimes
entertained, but usually they followed their
own individual paths.</p>
<p>Campbell Kitchen, like many other white artists
and intellectuals, had become interested in Harlem.
The Negro and all things negroid had become a fad,
and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish
pilgrimages were in order. Campbell Kitchen, along
with Carl Van Vechten, was one of the leading spirits
in this “Explore Harlem; Know the Negro” crusade.
He, unlike many others, was quite sincere in his
desire to exploit those things in Negro life which he
presumed would eventually win for the Negro a more
comfortable position in American life. It was he who
first began the agitation in the higher places of journalism
which gave impetus to the spiritual craze. It
was he who ferreted out and gave publicity to many
unknown blues singers. It was he who sponsored most
of the younger Negro writers, personally carrying
their work to publishers and editors. It wasn’t his
fault entirely that most of them were published before
they had anything to say or before they knew
how to say it. Rather it was the fault of the faddistic
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>American public which followed the band wagon and
kept clamoring for additional performances, not because
of any manifested excellence, but rather because
of their sensationalism and pseudo-barbaric
<i>decor</i>.</p>
<p>Emma Lou had heard much of his activity, and
had been surprised to find herself in his household.
Recently he had written a book concerning Negro
life in Harlem, a book calculated by its author to be
a sincere presentation of those aspects of life in
Harlem which had interested him. Campbell Kitchen
belonged to the sophisticated school of modern
American writers. His novels were more or less fantastic
bits of realism, skipping lightly over the surfaces
of life, and managing somehow to mirror depths
through superficialities. His novel on Harlem had
been a literary failure because the author presumed
that its subject matter demanded serious treatment.
Hence, he disregarded the traditions he had set up for
himself in his other works, and produced an energetic
and entertaining hodgepodge, where the bizarre was
strangled by the sentimental, and the erotic clashed
with the commonplace.</p>
<p>Negroes had not liked Campbell Kitchen’s delineation
of their life in the world’s greatest colored city.
They contended that, like “Nigger Heaven” by Carl
Van Vechten, the book gave white people a wrong
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>impression of Negroes, thus lessening their prospects
of doing away with prejudice and race discrimination.
From what she had heard, Emma Lou had expected
to meet a sneering, obscene cynic, intent upon ravaging
every Negro woman and insulting every Negro
man, but he proved to be such an ordinary, harmless
individual that she was won over to his side almost
immediately.</p>
<p>Whenever they happened to meet, he would talk
to her about her life in particular and Negro life in
general. She had to admit that he knew much more
about such matters than she or any other Negro she
had ever met. And it was because of one of these
chance talks that she finally decided to follow Mrs.
Blake’s advice and take the public school teachers’
examination.</p>
<p>Two years had wrought little change in Emma Lou,
although much had happened to her. After that tearful
night, when Alva had sworn at her and stalked
out of her room, she had somewhat taken stock of
herself. She wondered if Alva had been right in his
allegations. Was she supersensitive about her color?
Did she encourage color prejudice among her own
people, simply by being so expectant of it? She tried
hard to place the blame on herself, but she couldn’t
seem to do it. She knew she hadn’t been color-conscious
during her early childhood days; that is, until
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>she had had it called to her attention by her mother
or some of her mother’s friends, who had all seemed
to take delight in marvelling, “What an extraordinarily
black child!” or “Such beautiful hair on such
a black baby!”</p>
<p>Her mother had even hidden her away on occasions
when she was to have company, and her grandmother
had been cruel in always assailing Emma
Lou’s father, whose only crime seemed to be that he
had had a blue black skin. Then there had been her
childhood days when she had ventured forth into the
streets to play. All of her colored playmates had been
mulattoes, and her white playmates had never ceased
calling public attention to her crow-like complexion.
Consequently, she had grown sensitive and had soon
been driven to play by herself, avoiding contact with
other children as much as possible. Her mother encouraged
her in this, had even suggested that she not
attend certain parties because she might not have
a good time.</p>
<p>Then there had been the searing psychological
effect of that dreadful graduation night, and the
lonely embittering three years at college, all of which
had tended to make her color more and more a paramount
issue and ill. It was neither fashionable nor
good for a girl to be as dark as she, and to be, at
the same time, as untalented and undistinguished.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>Dark girls could get along if they were exceptionally
talented or handsome or wealthy, but she had nothing
to recommend her, save a beautiful head of hair.
Despite the fact that she had managed to lead her
classes in school, she had to admit that mentally she
was merely mediocre and average. Now, had she been
as intelligent as Mamie Olds Bates, head of a Negro
school in Florida, and president of a huge national
association of colored women’s clubs, her darkness
would not have mattered. Or had she been as wealthy
as Lillian Saunders, who had inherited the millions
her mother had made producing hair straightening
commodities, things might have been different; but
here she was, commonplace and poor, ugly and undistinguished.</p>
<p>Emma Lou recalled all these things, while trying
to fasten the blame for her extreme color-consciousness
on herself as Alva had done, but she was unable
to make a good case of it. Surely, it had not been
her color-consciousness which had excluded her from
the only Negro sorority in her college, nor had it been
her color-consciousness that had caused her to spend
such an isolated three years in Southern California.
The people she naturally felt at home with had,
somehow or other, managed to keep her at a distance.
It was no fun going to social affairs and being
neglected throughout the entire evening. There was no
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>need in forcing one’s self into a certain milieu only
to be frozen out. Hence, she had stayed to herself,
had had very few friends, and had become more and
more resentful of her blackness of skin.</p>
<p>She had thought Harlem would be different, but
things had seemed against her from the beginning,
and she had continued to go down, down, down, until
she had little respect left for herself.</p>
<p>She had been glad when the road show of “Cabaret
Gal” had gone into the provinces. Maybe a year of
travel would set her aright. She would return to
Harlem with considerable money saved, move into
the Y. W. C. A., try to obtain a more congenial position,
and set about becoming respectable once more,
set about coming into contact with the “right sort of
people.” She was certain that there were many colored
boys and girls in Harlem with whom she could associate
and become content. She didn’t wish to chance
herself again with a Jasper Crane or an Alva.</p>
<p>Yet, she still loved Alva, no matter how much
she regretted it, loved him enough to keep trying to
win him back, even after his disgust had driven him
away from her. She sadly recalled how she had
telephoned him repeatedly, and how he had hung up
the receiver with the brief, cruel “I don’t care to talk
to you,” and she recalled how, swallowing her pride,
she had gone to his house the day before she had left
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>New York. Alva had greeted her coolly, then politely
informed her that he couldn’t let her in, as he had
other company.</p>
<p>This had made her ill, and for three days after
“Cabaret Gal” opened in Philadelphia, she had confined
herself to her hotel room and cried hysterically.
When it was all over, she had felt much better. The
outlet of tears had been good for her, but she had
never ceased to long for Alva. He had been the only
completely satisfying thing in her life, and it didn’t
seem possible for one who had pretended to love her
as much as he, suddenly to become so completely indifferent.
She measured everything by her own moods
and reactions, translated everything into the language
of Emma Lou, and variations bewildered her to the
extent that she could not believe in their reality.</p>
<p>So, when the company had passed through New
York on its way from Philadelphia to Boston, she
had approached Alva’s door once more. It had never
occurred to her that any one save Alva would answer
her knock, and the sight of Geraldine in a negligee
had stunned her. She had hastened to apologize for
knocking on the wrong door, and had turned completely
away without asking for Alva, only to halt as
if thunderstruck when she heard his voice, as
Geraldine was closing the door, asking, “Who was it,
Sugar?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p>
<p>For a while, Alva had been content. He really
loved Geraldine, or so he thought. To him she seemed
eminently desirable in every respect, and now that
she was about to bear him a child, well ... he didn’t
yet know what they would do with it, but everything
would work out as it should. He didn’t even
mind having to return to work, nor, for the moment,
mind having to give less attention to the rest of his
harem.</p>
<p>Of course, Geraldine’s attachment of herself to him
ruled Emma Lou out more definitely than it did any
of his other “paying off” people. He had been thoroughly
disgusted with her and had intended to relent
only after she had been forced to chase him for a
considerable length of time. But Geraldine’s coming
had changed things altogether. Alva knew when not
to attempt something, and he knew very well that
he could not toy with Emma Lou and live with
Geraldine at the same time. Some of the others were
different. He could explain Geraldine to them, and
they would help him keep themselves secreted from
her. But Emma Lou, never! She would be certain to
take it all wrong.</p>
<p>The months passed; the baby was born. Both of
the parents were bitterly disappointed by this sickly,
little “ball of tainted suet,” as Alva called it. It had
a shrunken left arm and a deformed left foot. The
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>doctor ordered oil massages. There was a chance that
the infant’s limbs could be shaped into some semblance
of normality. Alva declared that it looked like
an idiot. Geraldine had a struggle with herself, trying
to keep from smothering it. She couldn’t see why
such a monstrosity should live. Perhaps as the years
passed it would change. At any rate, she had lost her
respect for Alva. There was no denying to her that
had she mated with some one else, she might have
given birth to a normal child. The pain she had experienced
had shaken her. One sight of the baby and
continual living with it and Alva in that one, now
frowsy and odoriferous room, had completed her disillusionment.
For one of the very few times in her life,
she felt like doing something drastic.</p>
<p>Alva hardly ever came home. He had quit work
once more and started running around as before,
only he didn’t tell her about it. He lied to her or else
ignored her altogether. The baby now a year old was
assuredly an idiot. It neither talked nor walked. Its
head had grown out of all proportion to its body,
and Geraldine felt that she could have stood its
shrivelled arm and deformed foot, had it not been for
its insanely large and vacant eyes which seemed never
to close, and for the thick grinning lips, which always
remained half open and through which came no translatable
sounds.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span></p>
<p>Geraldine’s mother was a pious woman, and, of
course, denounced the parents for the condition of
the child. Had they not lived in sin, this would not
be. Had they married and lived respectably, God
would not have punished them in this manner. According
to her, the mere possession of a marriage
license and an official religious sanction of their mating
would have assured them a bouncing, healthy,
normal child. She refused to take the infant. Her
pastor had advised her not to, saying that the parents
should be made to bear the burden they had brought
upon themselves.</p>
<p>For once, neither Geraldine nor Alva knew what
to do. They couldn’t keep on as they were now. Alva
was drinking more and more. He was also becoming
less interested in looking well. He didn’t bother about
his clothes as much as before, his almond shaped eyes
became more narrow, and the gray parchment conquered
the yellow in his skin and gave him a deathlike
pallor. He hated that silent, staring idiot infant
of his, and he had begun to hate its mother. He
couldn’t go into the room sober. Yet his drinking
provided no escape. And though he was often
tempted, he felt that he could not run away and leave
Geraldine alone with the baby.</p>
<p>Then he began to need money. Geraldine couldn’t
work because some one had to look after the child.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>Alva wouldn’t work now, and made no effort to come
into contact with new “paying off” people. The old
ones were not as numerous or as generous as formerly.
Those who hadn’t drifted away didn’t care enough
about the Alva of today to help support him, his wife
and child. Luckily, though, about this time, he “hit”
the numbers twice in one month, and both he and
Geraldine borrowed some money on their insurance
policies. They accrued almost a thousand dollars
from these sources, but that wouldn’t last forever,
and the problem of what they were going to do with
the child still remained unsolved.</p>
<p>Both wanted to kill it, and neither had the courage
to mention the word “murder” to the other. Had
they been able to discuss this thing frankly with one
another, they could have seen to it that the child
smothered itself or fell from the crib sometime during
the night. No one would have questioned the
accidental death of an idiot child. But they did not
trust one another, and neither dared to do the deed
alone. Then Geraldine became obsessed with the fear
that Alva was planning to run away from her. She
knew what this would mean and she had no idea of
letting him do it. She realized that should she be left
alone with the child it would mean that she would be
burdened throughout the years it lived, forced to
struggle and support herself and her charge. But were
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>she to leave Alva, some more sensible plan would
undoubtedly present itself. No one expected a father
to tie himself to an infant, and if that infant happened
to be ill and an idiot ... well, there were
any number of social agencies which would care for
it. Assuredly, then she must get away first. But
where to go?</p>
<p>She was stumped again and forced to linger, fearing
all the while that Alva would fail to return home
once he left. She tried desperately to reintroduce a
note of intimacy into their relationship, tried repeatedly
to make herself less repellent to him, and,
at the same time, discipline her own self so that she
would not communicate her apprehensions to him.
She hired the little girl who lived in the next room to
take charge of the child, bought it a store of toys and
went out to find a job. This being done, she insisted
that Alva begin taking her out once again. He acquiesced.
He wasn’t interested one way or the other
as long as he could go to bed drunk every night and
keep a bottle of gin by his bedside.</p>
<p>Neither, though, seemed interested in what they
were doing. Both were feverishly apprehensive at all
times. They quarrelled frequently, but would hasten
to make amends to one another, so afraid were they
that the first one to become angry might make a bolt
for freedom. Alva drank more and more. Geraldine
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>worked, saved and schemed, always planning and
praying that she would be able to get away first.</p>
<p>Then Alva was taken ill. His liquor-burned stomach
refused to retain food. The doctor ordered him
not to drink any more bootleg beverages. Alva
shrugged his shoulders, left the doctor’s office and
sought out his favorite speakeasy.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou was busy, and being busy, had had less
time to think about herself than ever before. Thus,
she was less distraught and much less dissatisfied
with herself and with life. She was taking some
courses in education in the afternoon classes at City
College, preparatory to taking the next public school
teacher’s examination. She still had her position in
the household of Campbell Kitchen, a position she
had begun to enjoy and appreciate more and more
as the master of the house evinced an interest in her
and became her counsellor and friend. He encouraged
her to read and opened his library to her. Ofttimes
he gave her tickets to musical concerts or to the
theater, and suggested means of meeting what she
called “the right sort of people.”</p>
<p>She had moved meanwhile into the Y. W. C. A.
There she had met many young girls like herself,
alone and unattached in New York, and she had soon
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>found herself moving in a different world altogether.
She even had a pal, Gwendolyn Johnson, a likable,
light-brown-skinned girl, who had the room next to
hers. Gwendolyn had been in New York only a few
months. She had just recently graduated from
Howard University, and was also planning to teach
school in New York City. She and Emma Lou became
fast friends and went everywhere together. It
was with Gwendolyn that Emma Lou shared the
tickets Campbell Kitchen gave her. Then on Sundays
they would attend church. At first they attended a
different church every Sunday, but finally took to
attending St. Mark’s A. M. E. Church on St. Nicholas
Avenue regularly.</p>
<p>This was one of the largest and most high-toned
churches in Harlem. Emma Lou liked to go there;
and both she and Gwendolyn enjoyed sitting in the
congregation, observing the fine clothes and triumphal
entries of its members. Then, too, they soon became
interested in the various organizations which
the church sponsored for young people. They attended
the meetings of a literary society every Thursday
evening, and joined the young people’s bible
class which met every Tuesday evening. In this way,
they came into contact with many young folk, and
were often invited to parties and dances.</p>
<p>Gwendolyn helped Emma Lou with her courses in
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>education and the two obtained and studied copies
of questions which had been asked in previous examinations.
Gwendolyn sympathized with Emma Lou’s
color hyper-sensitivity and tried hard to make her
forget it. In order to gain her point, she thought it
necessary to down light people, and with this in mind,
ofttimes told Emma Lou many derogatory tales
about the mulattoes in the social and scholastic life
at Howard University in Washington, D. C. The
color question had never been of much moment to
Gwendolyn. Being the color she was, she had never
suffered. In Charleston, the mulattoes had their own
churches and their own social life and mingled with
darker Negroes only when the jim crow law or racial
discrimination left them no other alternative. Gwendolyn’s
mother had belonged to one of these “persons
of color” families, but she hadn’t seen much in it all.
What if she was better than the little black girl who
lived around the corner? Didn’t they both have to
attend the same colored school, and didn’t they both
have to ride in the same section of the street car, and
were not they both subject to be called nigger by the
poor white trash who lived in the adjacent block?</p>
<p>She had thought her relatives and associates all a
little silly, especially when they had objected to her
marrying a man just two or three shades darker than
herself. She felt that this was carrying things too far
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>even in ancient Charleston where customs, houses
and people all seemed antique and far removed from
the present. Stubbornly she had married the man of
her choice, and had exulted when her daughter had
been nearer the richer color of her father than the
washed-out color of herself. Gwendolyn’s father had
died while she was in college, and her mother had
begun teaching in a South Carolina Negro industrial
school, but she insisted that Gwendolyn must finish
her education and seek her career in the North.</p>
<p>Gwendolyn’s mother had always preached for complete
tolerance in matters of skin color. So afraid
was she that her daughter would develop a “pink”
complex that she wilfully discouraged her associating
with light people and persistently encouraged her
to choose her friends from among the darker elements
of the race. And she insisted that Gwendolyn must
marry a dark brown man so that her children would
be real Negroes. So thoroughly had this become inculcated
into her, that Gwendolyn often snubbed
light people, and invariably, in accordance with her
mother’s sermonisings, chose dark-skinned friends
and beaux. Like her mother, Gwendolyn was very
exercised over the matter of intra-racial segregation
and attempted to combat it verbally as well as
actively.</p>
<p>When she and Emma Lou began going around together,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>trying to find a church to attend regularly,
she had immediately black-balled the Episcopal
Church, for she knew that most of its members were
“pinks,” and despite the fact that a number of dark-skinned
West Indians, former members of the Church
of England, had forced their way in, Gwendolyn
knew that the Episcopal Church in Harlem, as in
most Negro communities, was dedicated primarily to
the salvation of light-skinned Negroes.</p>
<p>But Gwendolyn was a poor psychologist. She didn’t
realize that Emma Lou was possessed of a perverse
bitterness and that she idolized the thing one would
naturally expect her to hate. Gwendolyn was certain
that Emma Lou hated “yaller” niggers as she called
them. She didn’t appreciate the fact that Emma
Lou hated her own color and envied the more mellow
complexions. Gwendolyn’s continual damnation of
“pinks” only irritated Emma Lou and made her more
impatient with her own blackness, for, in damning
them, Gwendolyn also enshrined them for Emma
Lou, who wasn’t the least bit anxious to be classified
with persons who needed a champion.</p>
<p>However, for the time being, Emma Lou was more
free than ever from tortuous periods of self-pity and
hatred. In her present field of activity, the question
of color seldom introduced itself except as Gwendolyn
introduced it, which she did continually, even
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>to the extent of giving lectures on race purity and
the superiority of unmixed racial types. Emma Lou
would listen attentively, but all the while she was
observing Gwendolyn’s light-brown skin, and wishing
to herself that it were possible for her and
Gwendolyn to effect a change in complexions, since
Gwendolyn considered a black skin so desirable.</p>
<p>They both had beaux, young men whom they had
met at the various church meetings and socials.
Gwendolyn insisted that they snub the “high yallers”
and continually was going into ecstasies over the
browns and blacks they conquested. Emma Lou
couldn’t get excited over any of them. They all
seemed so young and so pallid. Their air of being
all-wise amused her, their affected church purity and
wholesomeness, largely a verbal matter, tired her.
Their world was so small—church, school, home,
mother, father, parties, future. She invariably compared
them to Alva and made herself laugh by classifying
them as a litter of sick puppies. Alva was a
bulldog and a healthy one at that. Yet these sick
puppies, as she called them, were the next generation
of Negro leaders, the next generation of respectable
society folk. They had a future; Alva merely
lived for no purpose whatsoever except for the pleasure
he could squeeze out of each living moment.
He didn’t construct anything; the litter of pups
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>would, or at least they would be credited with constructing
something whether they did or not. She
found herself strangely uninterested in anything they
might construct. She didn’t see that it would make
much difference in the world whether they did or did
not. Months of sophisticated reading under Campbell
Kitchen’s tutelage had cultivated the seeds of pessimism
experience had sown. Life was all a bad dream
recurrent in essentials. Every dog had his day and
every dog died. These priggish little respectable persons
she now knew and associated with seemed infinitely
inferior to her. They were all hypocritical and
colorless. They committed what they called sin in the
same colorless way they served God, family, and
race. None of them had the fire and gusto of Alva,
nor his light-heartedness. At last she had met the
“right sort of people” and found them to be quite
wrong.</p>
<p>However, she quelled her growing dissatisfaction
and immersed herself in her work. Campbell Kitchen
had told her again and again that economic independence
was the solution to almost any problem.
When she found herself a well-paying position she
need not worry more. Everything else would follow
and she would find herself among the pursued instead
of among the pursuers. This was the gospel
she now adhered to and placed faith in. She studied
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>hard, finished her courses at Teachers College, took
and passed the school board examination, and mechanically
followed Gwendolyn about, pretending to
share her enthusiasms and hatreds. All would soon
come to the desired end. Her doctrine of pessimism
was weakened by the optimism the future seemed to
promise. She had even become somewhat interested
in one of the young men she had met at St. Mark’s.
Gwendolyn discouraged this interest. “Why, Emma
Lou, he’s one of them yaller niggers; you don’t want
to get mixed up with him.”</p>
<p>Though meaning well, she did not know that it was
precisely because he was one of those “yaller niggers”
that Emma Lou liked him.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou and her new “yaller nigger,” Benson
Brown, were returning from church on a Tuesday
evening where they had attended a Young People’s
Bible Class. It was a beautiful early fall night, warm
and moonlit, and they had left the church early,
intent upon slipping away from Gwendolyn, and taking
a walk before they parted for the night. Emma
Lou had no reason for liking Benson save that she
was flattered that a man as light as he should find
himself attracted to her. It always gave her a thrill
to stroll into church or down Seventh Avenue with
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>him. And she loved to show him off in the reception
room of the Y. W. C. A. True, he was almost as colorless
and uninteresting to her as the rest of the crowd
with whom she now associated, but he had a fair
skin and he didn’t seem to mind her darkness. Then,
it did her good to show Gwendolyn that she, Emma
Lou, could get a yellow-skinned man. She always felt
that the reason Gwendolyn insisted upon her going
with a dark-skinned man was because she secretly
considered it unlikely for her to get a light one.</p>
<p>Benson was a negative personality. His father was
an ex-preacher turned Pullman porter because, since
prohibition times, he could make more money on the
Pullman cars than he could in the pulpit. His mother
was an active church worker and club woman, “one
of the pillars of the community,” the current pastor
at their church had called her. Benson himself was in
college, studying business methods and administration.
It had taken him six years to finish high school,
and it promised to take him much longer to finish
college. He had a placid, ineffectual dirty yellow face,
topped by red mariney hair, and studded with gray
eyes. He was as ugly as he was stupid, and he had
been as glad to have Emma Lou interested in him as
she had been glad to attract him. She actually seemed
to take him seriously, while every one else more or
less laughed at him. Already he was planning to quit
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>school, go to work, and marry her; and Emma Lou,
while not anticipating any such sudden consummation,
remained blind to everything save his color and
the attention he paid to her.</p>
<p>Benson had suggested their walk and Emma Lou
had chosen Seventh Avenue in preference to some of
the more quiet side streets. She still loved to promenade
up and down Harlem’s main thoroughfare. As
usual on a warm night, it was crowded. Street speakers
and their audiences monopolized the corners.
Pedestrians and loiterers monopolized all of the remaining
sidewalk space. The street was jammed with
traffic. Emma Lou was more convinced than ever
that there was nothing like it anywhere. She tried
to formulate some of her impressions and attempted
to convey them to Benson, but he couldn’t see anything
unusual or novel or interesting in a “lot of
niggers hanging out here to be seen.” Then, Seventh
Avenue wasn’t so much. What about Broadway or
Fifth Avenue downtown where the white folks gathered
and strolled. Now those were the streets, Seventh
Avenue, Harlem’s Seventh Avenue, didn’t enter
into it.</p>
<p>Emma Lou didn’t feel like arguing. She walked
along in silence, holding tightly to Benson’s arm
and wondering whether or not Alva was somewhere
on Seventh Avenue. Strange she had never seen him.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>Perhaps he had gone away. Benson wished to stop in
order to listen to one of the street speakers who, he
informed Emma Lou, was mighty smart. It seemed
that he was the self-styled mayor of Harlem, and
his spiel nightly was concerning the fact that Harlem
Negroes depended upon white people for most
of their commodities instead of opening food and
dress commissaries of their own. He lamented the
fact that there were no Negro store owners, and regretted
that wealthy Negroes did not invest their
money in first class butcher shops, grocery stores,
et cetera. Then, he perorated, the Jews, who now grew
rich off their Negro trade, would be forced out, and
the money Negroes spent would benefit Negroes alone.</p>
<p>Emma Lou knew that this was just the sort of
thing that Benson liked to hear. She had to tug hard
on his arm to make him remain on the edge of the
crowd, so that she could see the passing crowds
rather than center her attention on the speaker. In
watching, Emma Lou saw a familiar figure approach,
a very trim, well garbed figure, alert and swaggering.
It was Braxton. She didn’t know whether to speak
to him or not. She wasn’t sure that he would acknowledge
her salute should she address him, yet here was
her chance to get news of Alva, and she felt that she
might risk being snubbed. It would be worth it. He
drew near. He was alone, and, as he passed, she
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>reached out her arm and touched him on the sleeve.
He stopped, looked down at her and frowned.</p>
<p>“Braxton,” she spoke quickly, “pardon me for
stopping you, but I thought you might tell me where
Alva is.”</p>
<p>“I guess he’s at the same place,” he answered
curtly, then moved away. Emma Lou bowed her
head shamefacedly as Benson turned toward her long
enough to ask who it was she had spoken to. She
mumbled something about an old friend, then suggested
that they go home. She was tired. Benson
agreed reluctantly and they turned toward the
Y. W. C. A.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>A taxi driver had brought Alva home from a
saloon where he had collapsed from cramps in the
stomach. That had been on a Monday. The doctor
had come and diagnosed his case. He was in a serious
condition, his stomach lining was practically eaten
away and his entire body wrecked from physical excess.
Unless he took a complete rest and abstained
from drinking liquor and all other forms of dissipation,
there could be no hope of recovery. This hadn’t
worried Alva very much. He chafed at having to remain
in bed, but possibility of death didn’t worry
him. Life owed him very little, he told Geraldine.
He was content to let the devil take his due. But
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>Geraldine was quite worried about the whole matter.
Should Alva die or even be an invalid for any lengthy
period, it would mean that she alone would have the
burden of their misshapen child. She didn’t want
that burden. In fact, she was determined not to have
it. And neither did she intend to nurse Alva.</p>
<p>On the Friday morning after the Monday Alva
had been taken ill, Geraldine left for work as was
her custom. But she did not come back that night.
Every morning during that week she had taken away
a bundle of this and a bundle of that until she had
managed to get away most of her clothes. She had
saved enough money out of her earnings to pay her
fare to Chicago. She had chosen Chicago because a
man who was interested in her lived there. She had
written to him. He had been glad to hear from her.
He ran a buffet flat. He needed some one like her to
act as hostess. Leaving her little bundles at a girl
friend’s day after day and packing them away in a
second hand trunk, she had planned to leave the
moment she received her pay on Saturday. She had
intended going home on Friday night, but at the last
moment she had faltered and reasoned that as long
as she was away and only had twenty-four hours
more in New York she might as well make her disappearance
then. If she went back she might betray
herself or else become soft-hearted and remain.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span></p>
<p>Alva was not very surprised when she failed to
return home from work that Friday. The woman in
the next room kept coming in at fifteen-minute intervals
after five-thirty inquiring: “Hasn’t your wife
come in yet?” She wanted to get rid of the child
which was left in her care daily. She had her own
work to do, her own husband and child’s dinner to
prepare; and, furthermore, she wasn’t being paid to
keep the child both day and night. People shouldn’t
have children unless they intended taking care of
them. Finally Alva told her to bring the baby back to
his room ... his wife would be in soon. But he knew
full well that Geraldine was not coming back. Hell
of a mess. He was unable to work, would probably
have to remain in bed another week, perhaps two.
His money was about gone, and now Geraldine was
not there to pay the rent out of her earnings. Damn.
What to do ... what to do? He couldn’t keep the
child. If he put it in a home they would expect him
to contribute to its support. It was too bad that he
didn’t know some one to leave this child of his with
as his mother had done in his case. He began to wish
for a drink.</p>
<p>Hours passed. Finally the lady came into the room
again to see if he or the baby wanted anything.
She knew Geraldine had not come in yet. The partition
between the two rooms was so thin that the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>people in one were privy to everything the people
in the other did or said. Alva told her his wife must
have gone to see her sick mother in Long Island. He
asked her to take care of the baby for him. He would
pay her for her extra trouble. The whole situation
offered her much pleasure. She went away radiant,
eager to tell the other lodgers in the house her version
of what had happened.</p>
<p>Alva got up and paced the room. He felt that he
could no longer remain flat on his back. His stomach
ached, but it also craved for alcoholic stimulant. So
did his brain and nervous system in general. Inadvertently,
in one of his trips across the room, he
looked into the dresser mirror. What he saw there
halted his pacing. Surely that wan, dissipated, bloated
face did not belong to him. Perhaps he needed a
shave. He set about ridding himself of a week’s
growth of beard, but being shaved only made his face
look more like the face of a corpse. It was liquor he
needed. He wished to hell some one would come along
and get him some. But no one came. He went back
to bed, his eyes fixed on the clock, watching its
hands approach midnight. Five minutes to go....
There was a knock on the door. Eagerly he sat up
in the bed and shouted, “Come in.”</p>
<p>But he was by no means expecting or prepared to
see Emma Lou.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span></p>
<p>Emma Lou’s room in the Y. W. C. A. at three
o’clock that same morning. Emma Lou busy packing
her clothes. Gwendolyn in negligee, hair disarrayed,
eyes sleepy, yet angry:</p>
<p>“You mean you’re going over there to live with
that man?”</p>
<p>“Why not? I love him.”</p>
<p>Gwendolyn stared hard at Emma Lou. “But don’t
you understand he’s just tryin’ to find some one to
take care of that brat of his? Don’t be silly, Emma
Lou. He doesn’t really care for you. If he did, he
never would have deserted you as you once told me
he did, or have subjected you to all those insults.
And ... he isn’t your type of man. Why, he’s nothing
but a ...”</p>
<p>“Will you mind tending to your own business,
Gwendolyn,” her purple powdered skin was streaked
with tears.</p>
<p>“But what about your appointment?”</p>
<p>“I shall take it.”</p>
<p>“What!” She forgot her weariness. “You mean to
say you’re going to teach school and live with that
man, too? Ain’t you got no regard for your reputation?
I wouldn’t ruin myself for no yaller nigger.
Here you’re doing just what folks say a black gal
always does. Where is your intelligence and pride?
I’m through with you, Emma Lou. There’s probably
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>something in this stuff about black people being different
and more low than other colored people. You’re
just a common ordinary nigger! God, how I despise
you!” And she had rushed out of the room, leaving
Emma Lou dazed by the suddenness and wrath of
her tirade.</p>
<hr class="tb">
<p>Emma Lou was busier than she had ever been before
in her life. She had finally received her appointment
and was teaching in one of the public schools in
Harlem. Doing this in addition to nursing Alva and
Alva Junior, and keeping house for them in Alva’s
same old room. Within six months she had managed
to make little Alva Junior take on some of the
physical aspects of a normal child. His little legs
were in braces, being straightened. Twice a week she
took him to the clinic where he had violet ray sun
baths and oil massages. His little body had begun to
fill out and simultaneously it seemed as if his head
was decreasing in size. There was only one feature
which remained unchanged; his abnormally large
eyes still retained their insane stare. They appeared
frozen and terrified as if their owner was gazing upon
some horrible, yet fascinating object or occurrence.
The doctor said that this would disappear in time.</p>
<p>During those six months there had been a steady
change in Alva Senior, too. At first he had been as
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>loving and kind to Emma Lou as he had been during
the first days of their relationship. Then, as he got
better and began living his old life again, he more
and more relegated her to the position of a hired
nurse girl. He was scarcely civil to her. He seldom
came home except to eat and get some pocket change.
When he did come home nights, he was usually
drunk, so drunk that his companions would have to
bring him home, and she would have to undress him
and put him to bed. Since his illness, he could not
stand as much liquor as before. His stomach refused
to retain it, and his legs refused to remain steady.</p>
<p>Emma Lou began to loathe him, yet ached for his
physical nearness. She was lonesome again, cooped
up in that solitary room with only Alva Junior for
company. She had lost track of all her old friends,
and, despite her new field of endeavor, she had made
no intimate contacts. Her fellow colored teachers
were congenial enough, but they didn’t seem any
more inclined to accept her socially than did her
fellow white teachers. There seemed to be some question
about her antecedents. She didn’t belong to any
of the collegiate groups around Harlem. She didn’t
seem to be identified with any one who mattered.
They wondered how she had managed to get into the
school system.</p>
<p>Of course Emma Lou made little effort to make
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>friends among them. She didn’t know how. She was
too shy to make an approach and too suspicious to
thaw out immediately when some one approached
her. The first thing she noticed was that most of the
colored teachers who taught in her school were lighter
colored than she. The darkest was a pleasing brown.
And she had noticed them putting their heads together
when she first came around. She imagined that
they were discussing her. And several times upon
passing groups of them, she imagined that she was
being pointed out. In most cases what she thought
was true, but she was being discussed and pointed
out, not because of her dark skin, but because of
the obvious traces of an excess of rouge and powder
which she insisted upon using.</p>
<p>It had been suggested, in a private council among
the Negro members of the teaching staff, that some
one speak to Emma Lou about this rather ludicrous
habit of making up. But no one had the nerve. She
appeared so distant and so ready to take offense at
the slightest suggestion even of friendship that they
were wary of her. But after she began to be a
standard joke among the pupils and among the white
teachers, they finally decided to send her an anonymous
note, suggesting that she use fewer aids to the
complexion. Emma Lou, on receiving the note, at first
thought that it was the work of some practical joker.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>It never occurred to her that the note told the truth
and that she looked twice as bad with paint and
powder as she would without it. She interpreted it
as being a means of making fun of her because she
was darker than any one of the other colored girls.
She grew more haughty, more acid, and more distant
than ever. She never spoke to any one except as a
matter of business. Then she discovered that her
pupils had nicknamed her ... “Blacker’n me.”</p>
<p>What made her still more miserable was the gossip
and comments of the woman in the next room. Lying
in bed nights or else sitting at her table preparing
her lesson plans, she could hear her telling every
one who chanced in——</p>
<p>“You know that fellow in the next room? Well, let
me tell you. His wife left him, yes-sireee, left him flat
on his back in the bed, him and the baby, too. Yes,
she did. Walked out of here just as big as you please
to go to work one morning and she ain’t come back
yet. Then up comes this little black wench. I heard
her when she knocked on the door that very night
his wife left. At first he was mighty s’prised to see
her, then started laying it on, kissed her and hugged
her, a-tellin’ her how much he loved her, and she
crying like a fool all the time. I never heard the likes
of it in my life. The next morning in she moves an’
she’s been here ever since. And you oughter see how
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>she carries on over that child, just as loving, like
as if she was his own mother. An’ now that she’s here
an’ workin’ an’ that nigger’s well again, what does
he do but go out an’ get drunk worse than he uster
with his wife. Would you believe it? Stays away
three and four nights a week, while she hustles out of
here an’ makes time every morning....”</p>
<p>On hearing this for about the twentieth time,
Emma Lou determined to herself that she was not
going to hear it again. (She had also planned to ask
for a transfer to a new school, one on the east side
in the Italian section where she would not have to
associate with so many other colored teachers.) Alva
hadn’t been home for four nights. She picked Alva
Junior from out his crib and pulled off his nightgown,
letting him lie naked in her lap. She loved to
fondle his warm, mellow-colored body, loved to caress
his little crooked limbs after the braces had been removed.
She wondered what would become of him.
Obviously she couldn’t remain living with Alva, and
she certainly couldn’t keep Alva Junior forever. Suppose
those evil school teachers should find out how
she was living and report it to the school authorities?
Was she morally fit to be teaching youth? She remembered
her last conversation with Gwendolyn.</p>
<p>For the first time now she also saw how Alva had
used her during both periods of their relationship.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>She also realized that she had been nothing more
than a commercial proposition to him at all times.
He didn’t care for dark women either. He had never
taken her among his friends, never given any signs
to the public that she was his girl. And now when
he came home with some of his boy friends, he always
introduced her as Alva Junior’s mammy. That’s
what she was, Alva Junior’s mammy, and a typical
black mammy at that.</p>
<p>Campbell Kitchen had told her that when she
found economic independence, everything else would
come. Well now that she had economic independence
she found herself more enslaved and more miserable
than ever. She wondered what he thought of her. She
had never tried to get in touch with him since she
had left the Y. W. C. A., and had never let him
know of her whereabouts, had just quit communicating
with him as unceremoniously as she had quit the
Y. W. C. A. No doubt Gwendolyn had told him the
whole sordid tale. She could never face him again
unless she had made some effort to reclaim herself.
Well, that’s what she was going to do. Reclaim herself.
She didn’t care what became of Alva Junior.
Let Alva and that yellow slut of a wife of his worry
about their own piece of tainted suet.</p>
<p>She was leaving. She was going back to the
Y. W. C. A., back to St. Mark’s A. M. E. Church,
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>back to Gwendolyn, back to Benson. She wouldn’t
stay here and have that child grow up to call her
“black mammy.” Just because she was black was no
reason why she was going to let some yellow nigger
use her. At once she was all activity. Putting Alva
Jr.’s nightgown on, she laid him back into his crib
and left him there crying while she packed her trunk
and suitcase. Then, asking the woman in the next
room to watch him until she returned, she put on her
hat and coat and started for the Y. W. C. A., making
plans for the future as she went.</p>
<p>Halfway there she decided to telephone Benson. It
had been seven months now since she had seen him,
seven months since, without a word of warning or
without leaving a message, she had disappeared, telling
only Gwendolyn where she was going. While
waiting for the operator to establish connections, she
recalled the conversation she and Gwendolyn had
had at the time, recalled Gwendolyn’s horror and disgust
on hearing what Emma Lou planned doing,
recalled ... some one was answering the ’phone.
She asked for Benson, and in a moment heard his
familiar:</p>
<p>“Hello.”</p>
<p>“Hello, Benson, this is Emma Lou.” There was
complete silence for a moment, then:</p>
<p>“Emma Lou?” he dinned into her ear. “Well, where
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>have you been. Gwennie and I have been trying to
find you.”</p>
<p>This warmed her heart; coming back was not
going to be so difficult after all.</p>
<p>“You did?”</p>
<p>“Why, yes. We wanted to invite you to our wedding.”</p>
<p>The receiver fell from her hand. For a moment she
stood like one stunned, unable to move. She could
hear Benson on the other end of the wire clicking
the receiver and shouting “Hello, Hello,” then the
final clicking of the receiver as he hung up, followed
by a deadened ... “operator” ... “operator” from
central.</p>
<p>Somehow or other she managed to get hold of the
receiver and replace it in the hook. Then she left
the telephone booth and made her way out of the
drugstore into the street. Seventh Avenue as usual
was alive and crowded. It was an early spring evening
and far too warm for people to remain cooped
up in stuffy apartments. Seventh Avenue was the
gorge into which Harlem cliff dwellers crowded to
promenade. It was heavy laden, full of life and
color, vibrant and leisurely. But for the first time
since her arrival in Harlem, Emma Lou was impervious
to all this. For the moment she hardly realized
where she was. Only the constant jostling and the
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>raucous ensemble of street noises served to bring her
out of her daze.</p>
<p>Gwendolyn and Benson married. “What do you
want to waste your time with that yaller nigger for?
I wouldn’t marry a yaller nigger.”</p>
<p>“Blacker’n me”.... “Why don’t you take a hint
and stop plastering your face with so much rouge and
powder.”</p>
<p>Emma Lou stumbled down Seventh Avenue, not
knowing where she was going. She noted that she was
at 135th Street. It was easy to tell this particular
corner. It was called the campus. All the college boys
hung out there when the weather permitted, obstructing
the traffic and eyeing the passersby professionally.
She turned west on 135th Street. She wanted quiet.
Seventh Avenue was too noisy and too alive and too
happy. How could the world be happy when she felt
like she did? There was no place for her in the world.
She was too black, black is a portent of evil, black is
a sign of bad luck.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“A yaller gal rides in a limousine</div>
<div class="verse indent0">A brown-skin does the same;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">A black gal rides in a rickety Ford,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">But she gets there, yes, my Lord.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>“Alva Jr’s black mammy.” “Low down common
nigger.” “Jes’ crazy ’bout that little yaller brat.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span></p>
<p>She looked up and saw a Western Union office sign
shining above a lighted doorway. For a moment she
stood still, repeating over and over to herself Western
Union, Western Union, as if to understand its
meaning. People turned to stare at her as they passed.
They even stopped and looked up into the air trying
to see what was attracting her attention, and, seeing
nothing, would shrug their shoulders and continue
on their way. The Western Union sign suggested only
one thing to Emma Lou and that was home. For the
moment she was ready to rush into the office and send
a wire to her Uncle Joe, asking for a ticket, and thus
be able to escape the whole damn mess. But she immediately
saw that going home would mean beginning
her life all over again, mean flying from one
degree of unhappiness into another probably much
more intense and tragic than the present one. She
had once fled to Los Angeles to escape Boise, then
fled to Harlem to escape Los Angeles, but these mere
geographical flights had not solved her problems in
the past, and a further flight back to where her life
had begun, although facile of accomplishment, was
too futile to merit consideration.</p>
<p>Rationalizing thus, she moved away from in front
of the Western Union office and started toward the
park two blocks away. She felt that it was necessary
that she do something about herself and her life and
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>do it immediately. Campbell Kitchen had said that
every one must find salvation within one’s self, that
no one in life need be a total misfit, and that there
was some niche for every peg, whether that peg be
round or square. If this were true then surely she
could find hers even at this late date. But then hadn’t
she exhausted all possibilities? Hadn’t she explored
every province of life and everywhere met the same
problem? It was easy for Campbell Kitchen or for
Gwendolyn to say what they would do had they
been she, for they were looking at her problem in
the abstract, while to her it was an empirical reality.
What could they know of the adjustment proceedings
necessary to make her life more full and more happy?
What could they know of her heartaches?</p>
<p>She trudged on, absolutely oblivious to the people
she passed or to the noise and bustle of the street.
For the first time in her life she felt that she must
definitely come to some conclusion about her life and
govern herself accordingly. After all she wasn’t the
only black girl alive. There were thousands on thousands,
who, like her, were plain, untalented, ordinary,
and who, unlike herself, seemed to live in some degree
of comfort. Was she alone to blame for her
unhappiness? Although this had been suggested to her
by others, she had been too obtuse to accept it. She
had ever been eager to shift the entire blame on
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>others when no doubt she herself was the major
criminal.</p>
<p>But having arrived at this—what did it solve or
promise for the future? After all it was not the abstractions
of her case which at the present moment
most needed elucidation. She could strive for a
change of mental attitudes later. What she needed to
do now was to accept her black skin as being real and
unchangeable, to realize that certain things were,
had been, and would be, and with this in mind begin
life anew, always fighting, not so much for acceptance
by other people, but for acceptance of herself by
herself. In the future she would be eminently selfish.
If people came into her life—well and good. If they
didn’t—she would live anyway, seeking to find herself
and achieving meanwhile economic and mental
independence. Then possibly, as Campbell Kitchen
had said, life would open up for her, for it seemed as
if its doors yielded more easily to the casual, self-centered
individual than to the ranting, praying
pilgrim. After all it was the end that mattered, and
one only wasted time and strength seeking facile
open-sesame means instead of pushing along a more
difficult and direct path.</p>
<p>By now Emma Lou had reached St. Nicholas Avenue
and was about to cross over into the park when
she heard the chimes of a clock and was reminded of
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>the hour. It was growing late—too late for her to wander
in the park alone where she knew she would be
approached either by some persistent male or an insulting
park policeman. Wearily she started towards
home, realizing that it was necessary for her to get
some rest in order to be able to be in her class room
on the next morning. She mustn’t jeopardize her job,
for it was partially through the money she was earning
from it that she would be able to find her place
in life. She was tired of running up blind alleys all
of which seemed to converge and lead her ultimately
to the same blank wall. Her motto from now on
would be “find—not seek.” All things were at one’s
finger-tips. Life was most kind to those who were
judicious in their selections, and she, weakling that
she now realized she was, had not been a connoisseur.</p>
<p>As she drew nearer home she felt certain that
should she attempt to spend another night with Alva
and his child, she would surely smother to death
during the night. And even though she felt this, she
also knew within herself that no matter how much
at the present moment she pretended to hate Alva
that he had only to make the proper advances in
order to win her to him again. Yet she also knew that
she must leave him if she was to make her self-proposed
adjustment—leave him now even if she should
be weak enough to return at some not so distant date.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>She was determined to fight against Alva’s influence
over her, fight even though she lost, for she reasoned
that even in losing she would win a pyrrhic victory
and thus make her life less difficult in the future, for
having learned to fight future battles would be easy.</p>
<p>She tried to convince herself that it would not be
necessary for her to have any more Jasper Cranes or
Alvas in her life. To assure herself of this she intended
to look John up on the morrow and if he
were willing let him re-enter her life. It was clear
to her now what a complete fool she had been. It
was clear to her at last that she had exercised the
same discrimination against her men and the people
she wished for friends that they had exercised against
her—and with less reason. It served her right that
Jasper Crane had fooled her as he did. It served her
right that Alva had used her once for the money she
could give him and again as a black mammy for his
child. That was the price she had had to pay for
getting what she thought she wanted. But now she
intended to balance things. Life after all was a give
and take affair. Why should she give important
things and receive nothing in return?</p>
<p>She was in front of the house now and looking
up saw that all the lights in her room were lit. And
as she climbed the stairs she could hear a drunken
chorus of raucous masculine laughter. Alva had
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>come home meanwhile, drunk of course and accompanied
by the usual drunken crowd. Emma Lou
started to turn back, to flee into the street—anywhere
to escape being precipitated into another sordid
situation, but remembering that this was to be
her last night there, and that the new day would find
her beginning a new life, she subdued her flight impulse
and without knocking threw open the door and
walked into the room. She saw the usual and
expected sight: Alva, face a death mask, sitting on
the bed embracing an effeminate boy whom she
knew as Bobbie, and who drew hurriedly away from
Alva as he saw her. There were four other boys in
the room, all in varied states of drunkenness—all
laughing boisterously at some obscene witticism.
Emma Lou suppressed a shudder and calmly said
“Hello Alva”—The room grew silent. They all
seemed shocked and surprised by her sudden appearance.
Alva did not answer her greeting but instead
turned to Bobbie and asked him for another drink.
Bobbie fumbled nervously at his hip pocket and
finally produced a flask which he handed to Alva.
Emma Lou stood at the door and watched Alva drink
the liquor Bobbie had given him. Every one else in
the room watched her. For the moment she did not
know what to say or what to do. Obviously she
couldn’t continue standing there by the door nor
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>could she leave and let them feel that she had been
completely put to rout.</p>
<p>Alva handed the flask back to Bobbie, who got up
from the bed and said something about leaving. The
others in the room also got up and began staggering
around looking for their hats. Emma Lou thought for
a moment that she was going to win without any
further struggle, but she had not reckoned with Alva
who, meanwhile, had sufficiently emerged from his
stupor to realize that his friends were about to go.</p>
<p>“What the hell’s the matter with you,” he
shouted up at Bobbie, and without waiting for an
answer reached out for Bobbie’s arm and jerked him
back down on the bed.</p>
<p>“Now stay there till I tell you to get up.”</p>
<p>The others in the room had now found their hats
and started toward the door, eager to escape. Emma
Lou crossed the room to where Alva was sitting and
said, “You might make less noise, the baby’s asleep.”</p>
<p>The four boys had by this time opened the door
and staggered out into the hallway. Bobbie edged
nervously away from Alva, who leered up at Emma
Lou and snarled “If you don’t like it—”</p>
<p>For the moment Emma Lou did not know what
to do. Her first impulse was to strike him, but she
was restrained because underneath the loathsome
beast that he now was, she saw the Alva who had
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>first attracted her to him, the Alva she had always
loved. She suddenly felt an immense compassion for
him and had difficulty in stifling an unwelcome urge
to take him into her arms. Tears came into her eyes,
and for a moment it seemed as if all her rationalization
would go for naught. Then once more she saw
Alva, not as he had been, but as he was now, a
drunken, drooling libertine, struggling to keep the
embarrassed Bobbie in a vile embrace. Something
snapped within her. The tears in her eyes receded,
her features grew set, and she felt herself hardening
inside. Then, without saying a word, she resolutely
turned away, went into the alcove, pulled her suitcases
down from the shelf in the clothes-closet, and,
to the blasphemous accompaniment of Alva berating
Bobbie for wishing to leave, finished packing her
clothes, not stopping even when Alva Junior’s cries
deafened her, and caused the people in the next room
to stir uneasily.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="transnote">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">
Transcriber’s Notes
</h2>
<p>
<span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">Minor typographical and formatting errors have been silently corrected.</span><br>
<span style="margin-left: 1.0em;"><a href="#Page_245">p. 245</a> changed “Geraldine” to “Gwendolyn” in “Gwendolyn in negligee” and “Gwendolyn stared hard”.</span>
</p>
</div>
<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78747 ***</div>
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