The Blacker the Berry (9 page)

“No.” She didn’t care to discuss this. “I was lonesome, I guess.”

“Weren’t there any other colored boys and girls? I thought …”

Emma Lou spoke curtly. “Oh, yes, quite a number, but I suppose I didn’t mix well.”

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.

When they were finished, Mrs. Blake insisted upon taking the check. This done, she began to talk about jobs.

“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.”

Emma Lou wondered what it was Mrs. Blake seemed to be holding back. She began again:

“My advice to you is that you enter Teachers’ College and if you will 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.”

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 over-sleep, “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.”

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 fee, and find some other employment agency, a more imposing one, if possible. She had had enough of those on 135th Street.

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 fecal smells surged upward from the garbage-littered bottom of the court which her window faced.

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 in last night. He might be more bold now. He might even try—oh no he wouldn’t.

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.

Emma Lou had met John on her first day in New York. He was employed as a porter in the theater 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 dope” on Harlem, had told her of the “rent parties,” of the “numbers,” of “hot” men, of “sweetbacks,” and other local phenomena.

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.

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 him boldly. He looked at her, then over her, and passed on.

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?

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. 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 the street?

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 selfconscious. 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 her nose. It was bad enough to be black, too black, without having a shiny face to boot. She stepped 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 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:

“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.

It was nine o’clock. The alarm rang. Alva’s roommate awoke cursing.

“Why the hell don’t you turn off that alarm?”

There was no response. The alarm continued to ring.

“Alva,” Braxton yelled into his sleeping roommate’s ear. “Turn off that clock. Wake up,” he began shaking him, “Wake up, damn you … ya dead?”

Alva slowly emerged from his stupor. Almost mechanically he reached for the clock, dancing merrily on a chair close to the bed, and, finding it, pushed the guilty lever back into the silent zone. Braxton watched him disgustedly:

“Watcha gettin’ up so early for? Don’tcha know this is Monday?”

“Sure, I know it’s Monday, but I gotta go to Uncle’s. The landlord’ll be here before eleven o’clock.”

“Watcha gonna pawn?”

“My brown suit. I won’t need it ’til next Sunday. You got your rent?”

“I got four dollars,” Braxton advanced slowly.

“Cantcha get the other two?”

Braxton grew apologetic and explanatory. “Not today … ya …”

“Aw, man, you make me sick.”

Disgust overcoming his languor, Alva got out of the bed. This was getting to be a regular Monday morning occurrence. Braxton was always one, two, or three dollars short of having his required half of the rent, and Alva, who had rented the room, always had to make it up. Luckily for Alva, both he and the landlord were Elks. Fraternal brothers must stick together. Thus it was an easy matter to pay the rent in installments. The only difficulty being that it was happening rather frequently. There is liable to be a limit even to a brother Elk’s patience, especially where money is concerned.

Alva put on his dressing gown, and his house shoes, then went into the little alcove which was curtained off in the rear from the rest of the room. Jumbled together on the marble-topped stationary washstand were a half dozen empty gin bottles bearing a pre-prohibition Gordon label, a similar number of empty ginger ale bottles, a cocktail shaker, and a medley of assorted cocktail, water, jelly, and whiskey glasses, filled and surrounded by squeezed orange and lemon rinds. The little two-burner gas plate atop a wooden dry-goods box was covered with dirty dishes, frying pan, egg shells, bacon rinds, and a dominating though lopsided tea kettle. Even Alva’s trunk, which occupied half the entrance space between the alcove and the room, littered as it was with paper bags, cracker boxes, and greasy paper plates, bore evidence of the orgy which the occupants of the room staged over every weekend.

Alva surveyed this rather intimate and familiar disorder, faltered a moment, started to call Braxton, then remembering previous Monday mornings set about his task alone. It was Braxton’s custom never to arise before noon. Alva, who worked as a presser in a costume house, was forced to get up at seven o’clock on every week day save Monday when he was not required to report for work until twelve o’clock. His employers thus managed to accumulate several baskets of clothes from the sewing room before their pressers arrived. It was better to have then remain at home until this was done. Then you didn’t have to pay them so much, and having let the sewing room get a head start, there was never any chance for the pressing room to slow down.