I pushed her away roughly, almost knocking her down. 'Goddamnit, quit teasing me!' I snarled.
'Just like a nigger,' she said angrily, blood reddening in her face. 'Get dressed up and can't nobody touch you. Shows you ain't used to nothing.'
'Hell, I wasn't even thinking about my clothes,' I said, stalking out.
Outside the setting sun slanted from the south with a yellowish, old-gold glow, and the air was warm and fragrant. It was the best part of the day in Los Angeles; the colours of flowers were more vivid, while the houses were less starkly white and the red-tiled roofs were weathered maroon. The irritation ironed quickly out of me and I got that bubbly, wonderful feeling again.
I glanced at my watch, saw that it was a quarter to, and hurried to the car. At Vernon I turned west to Normandie, driving straight into the sun; north on Normandie to Twentyeighth Street, then west past Western. This was the West Side, When you asked a Negro where he lived, and he said on the West Side, that was supposed to mean he was better than the Negroes who lived on the South Side; it was like the white folks giving a Beverly Hills address.
The houses were well kept, mostly white stucco or frame, typical one-storey California bungalows, averaging from six to ten rooms; here and there was a three- or four-storey apartment building. The lawns were green and well trimmed, bordered with various local plants and flowers. It was a pleasant neighbourhood, clean, quiet, well bred.
Alice's folks lived in a modern two-storey house in the middle of the block. I parked in front, strolled across the wet sidewalk to the little stone porch, and pushed the bell. Chimes sounded inside. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and gardenias in bloom. A car passed, leaving the smell of burnt gasoline. Some children were playing in the yard a couple of houses down, and all up and down the street people were working in their yards. I felt like an intruder and it made me slightly resentful.
The door opened noiselessly, and Mrs. Harrison said, 'Oh, it's you, Bob. Come right in, Alice will be ready shortly.'
I had to get my thoughts straightened out in a hurry. 'How are you today, Mrs. Harrison?' I said, following her into the small square hallway. 'How is Dr. Harrison?'
She was a very light-complexioned woman with sharp Caucasian features and glinting grey eyes. Her face was wrinkled with countless tiny lines and sagged about the jowls. She wore lipstick but no other make-up, and her fine grey hair was bobbed and carefully marcelled. She was aristocratic-looking enough, if that was what she wanted, but she had that look of withered soul and body that you see on the faces of many old white ladies in the South.
'Oh, the doctor is busy as usual,' she said in a cordial voice, turning left down three carpeted steps into the sunken living room. 'I've told the doctor a dozen times that he's just working himself to death, but there's nothing to do with him. He says there's a shortage of experienced physicians now and he's such a humanitarian at heart.'
I could picture the doctor, a little cheap, small-hearted, lecherous, cushy-mouthed, bald-headed, dried-up, parchment-coloured man in his late sixties, who figured he was a killer with the women. He was probably out chasing some chippy chick right then and I caught myself about to say, 'Strictly a humanitarian.'
Instead I said, 'Yes, he is,' lifting my feet high to keep from stumbling over the thick nap of the Orientals. Their house reminded me of a country club in Cleveland where I worked summers when I was in high school; you knew they had dough, you saw it, it was there, you didn't have to guess about it. 'Of course the money he's making ought to compensate in part,' I added evenly.
'Well, we could do without some of the money,' she began. 'It's so hard on all of us. You know Charles, our chauffeur, was drafted, and Norma left us to take a defence job. We only have Clara now, and she's getting so temperamental, I do declare-' She broke off, looking at me. 'Bob, you look very nice tonight. You wear evening attire very well indeed.'
'Almost as if I was a gentleman-or a waiter.' I grinned, dropping into a chair before the fireplace and fumbling for a cigarette. 'The boys out at the shipyard wouldn't know me now.'
She took a seat across from me and smiled graciously. 'I imagine some of the white young men at the shipyard in some of the more advanced departments are college-trained; but I understand our Negro workers are mostly Southern migrants.'
'Oh, there're quite a few Negro college graduates working in the various yards,' I said, and got my cigarette going.
'Oh, is that so?' She raised her eyebrows slightly. 'However, I don't imagine any of them have much occasion to wear evening attire.'
I blinked at her; I wondered why she was giving me all that. I knew her, I was one of the family, more or less. But I played along with her. 'No, I guess not. You can't be a gentleman and a worker too.'
'The doctor tells me that most working people spend their leisure time at the movies or in bars,' she went on. 'I think that's really a shame. Of course the doctor and I enjoy the legitimate theatre best, but since the war he hasn't been able to leave his practice long enough for us to visit New York City for the season. We have our season tickets to the Hollywood Bowl, of course-we're on the sponsor list, you know-but I do so wish we could go East this fall and see some of the new shows-'
I caught her digging for a breath and put in, 'Can I fix you a highball?' I knew it was crude, but if I had to listen to her I was at least going to have a drink.
'No thanks, dear,' she declined. 'The doctor has stopped me from drinking entirely. It aggravates my high blood pressure, you know. But fix one for yourself, do, if you like-and one for Alice too. She'll be down in just a moment, I'm sure.' When I stood up she added, 'You know where everything is, of course.'
'Yes, thanks,' I said. I went across the hallway into the doctor's pine-panelled study and mixed a couple of Scotch-and-sodas at his built-in bar. Then on second thought I took a couple of slugs straight to get even for the three drinks I'd bought him the last time I met him at a bar. I was grinning when I returned to the living-room.
'You look quite pleased about something today, Bob,' she observed. 'I suppose you're elated at the prospect of returning to college this fall.'
'This fall?' I looked at her.
'Alice tells me you're going to arrange your work so you can attend the university in the mornings,' she informed me.
'Oh yes, that's right.' I didn't want to tell her that was the first I'd heard about it. 'Yes, I'm going to join the ranks of the Negro professionals.'
'It gives me a feeling of personal triumph, too, to see our young men progress so,' she said. 'I like to think that the doctor and I have contributed by setting an example, by showing our young men just what they can accomplish if they try.'
That was my cue to say, 'Yes indeedy.' But she looked so goddamned smug and complacent, sitting there in her two-hundred-dollar chair, her feet planted in her three-thousand-dollar rug, waving two or three thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on her hands, bought with dough her husband had made overcharging poor hard-working coloured people for his incompetent services, that I had a crazy impulse to needle her. The Scotch had gone to work too.
So I said, 'Well now, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Harrison, what I'm so pleased about today is I've just found out how I can get even with the white folks.'
She couldn't have looked any more startled and horrified if I'd slapped her. 'Bob!' she said. 'Why, I never heard of such a thing!' Her hands made a fluttery, nervous gesture. 'Why on earth should you feel you have to get even with them?' But before I could reply she went on, 'Bob, you frighten me. You'll never make a success with that attitude. You mustn't think in terms of trying to get even with them, you must accept whatever they do for you and try to prove yourself worthy to be entrusted with more.' Now she was completely agitated. 'I'm really ashamed of you, Bob. How can you expect them to do anything for you if you're going to hate them?'
'I don't expect them to do anything for me they can get out of doing anyway,' I said.
'You've been talking to those Communist union agitators out at the shipyard,' she accused. 'You mustn't let them influence you, Bob, you mustn't listen to them.' She was genuinely concerned; I felt sorry for her. 'Take the advice of an old lady, Bob. The doctor and I have many, many white friends. They come here and dine with us and we go to their homes and dine with them. We have earned their respect and admiration and they accept us as social equals. But just a few of us have escaped, just a few of us.'
