Roost.
It was ten-thirty. The sky was a fresh, bright bitch. This first April night had gone sucker and gifted her with a shimmering bracelet of diamond stars. The fat moon lurked like an evil yellow eye staring down at the pimps, hustlers, and whores hawk-eyeing for a mark, a cop.
I felt the raw tenderness of first April winds lashing at the hem of my white alligator. I felt the birth stirrings of that poisonous pimp’s rapture. I felt powerful and beautiful.
I thought, “I was still black in the white man’s world. My hope to be important and admired could be realized even behind this black stockade. It was simple, just pimp my ass off and get a ton of scratch. Everybody in both worlds kissed your ass black and blue if you had flash and front.”
I was six storefronts away from the Roost. He stood in the center of the sidewalk. I looked down at him. He was a foot shorter than the runt. He looked like a black baby who had taken ugly pills. His head was the size of a giant pumpkin. His voice was a squeal like a clappy joker makes when the croaker rams a sound down his dingus.
He squealed, “Shine ’em up, Hot Shot. If I had your ‘hand’ I’d throw mine away. Get on bigtime. Shines ain’t but a dime. Shine ’em up.”
I looked down at my Stomps. They could stand a gloss all right. I followed the pointing, gnarled finger to the dwarf’s open-air stand. It sat at the mouth of a gangway between two buildings. The red fringes of its tattered canvas top rippled in the breeze.
I climbed into the chair. The dwarf was slapping polish on my Stetsons. A thin stud with at least a half a grand in threads on his back took the other chair. He was wearing silver nail polish. He was reeking with perfume.
A gleaming black custom Duesenberg eased into the curb in front of me. The top was down. My peepers did a triple take.
A huge stud was sitting in the back seat. He had an ocelot in his lap dozing against his chest. The cat was wearing a stone-studded collar. A gold chain was strung to it.
He was sitting between two spectacular high-yellow whores. His diamonds were blazing under the streetlight. Three gorgeous white whores were in the front seat. He looked exactly like Boris Karloff in black- face.
He was rapping something. All five of those whores were turned toward him. They were listening and paying attention like he was God giving them a pass to Heaven. He could have been running down a safe place to hide because the world was coming to an end.
I said, “Who is that?”
The dwarf said, “You gotta be from outta town. That Sweet Jones. He’s the greatest Nigger pimp in the world.”
The thin joker said, “That spotted cat, Miss Peaches, is the only bitch he cares lives or croaks. Shit, them whores you pinning ain’t but half the stable. If they got Nigger pimps in outer space, he’s the best of them, too. He’s gonna take them whores into the Roost and pop some. He’s lugging twenty G’s in his raise. Ain’t no heist man crazy enough to stick him up though. He croaks Niggers for his recreation.”
I couldn’t believe what I saw. This was only nineteen-thirty-eight. Those Duesenbergs cost a fortune. He must have been the only black pimp in the country who owned one. My peepers jacked off just watching him and those high-powered whores. It was as exciting as maybe Christ making his encore.
The dwarf had shined my Stomps. I gave him a buck. I sat there and watched Sweet Jones and those whores get out of the Duesenberg and walk toward the Roost. The black-spotted cat slinked beside him.
I thought, “Tonight I got to cut into him. I got to be careful so I don’t blow him. The cut in has to be in the Roost. I’ll go in and cook up something in there.”
I got off the stand. I passed Poison’s problem whore. She was sitting beside a joker in a red Hog. She had a bottle of gin in her jib turned straight up. As I neared the Roost I saw old Preston trying to shoo two marks into the Greek’s joint. Just as I turned into the Roost he bucked his eyes and jerked his thumb at me. He was tipping me Sweet was in the Roost. I nodded my head and went in.
It was an off night for the combo. The jukebox was grinding out “Pennies From Heaven.” The joint hadn’t crowded yet. There were maybe a half dozen couples in the booths. Sweet Jones and his whores were the only people at the log. They were in the center. The cat was licking her paws beneath Sweet’s stool. I sat at the log near the front door facing him and the stable. The pretty Mexican broad was standing in front of him.
Sweet was buying the house a drink. She served his party. She glanced at me. She remembered my drink. She brought me a Planter’s Punch on Sweet. The floor waitress loaded a tray from the log and served the couples in the booths all on Sweet.
I sat there studying Sweet. He had to be six feet six. His face was like a black steel mask. Not a flicker of emotion played over it. He kept smashing the heels of his brute-sized hands together like he was crushing an invisible throat.
Even at a distance it made me edgy. I guess it kept his whores on the brink of peeing on themselves. If he had smiled maybe they would have dropped dead from shock. He sure proved pimping wasn’t a charm contest.
Those whores lit his cigarette. They took turns feeding him sips of his Coke. They fought to ram their noses up his ass.
I froze; one of the white broads was whispering in his ear. Those unearthly gray eyes of his in the ebony sockets were staring at me. I could hear the thud of those meat sledges.
I thought, “Christ Almighty! Mama darling, I hope my double hasn’t put the muscle on this broad for some snatch or scratch. Please don’t let this broad bum-finger me!”
He slid his terrible pearl-gray peepers off me. I saw him pound the bottom of his glass against the log. The Mexican broad expressed to him. He was rapping to her. She was nodding her head and looking down the log at me.
My Stetsons on the stool rung were slamming together like the heels of a Flamenco Dancer. The jukebox was sobbing Lady Day’s beef about her mean but sweet man. I wondered if I’d see the runt again, and if not, how soon she’d get another ass kicker.
The couples in the booths were bug-eying the arena. It was maybe like the Circus Maximus. The doomed Christian, me, pitted against the king of beasts, him, plus the ocelot.
The Mexican broad came slowly toward me. Her face was tight and serious as she stood before me. She had pity in her peepers. She hated capital punishment.
She said, “Mr. Jones wants you to come to him pronto.”
She turned and walked away. I staggered to my feet. I started hoofing that thousand miles to Mr. Jones. On the way I dusted off the hundred-and-seventy-five I. Q. in my skull.
I got to him. The cat snarled under the stool. It pasted its yellow eyes on me. I jerked my eyes from the cat and kept them riveted to the floor. I was afraid to look into Sweet’s glowing peepers up close. I knew I’d crap in my pants.
He whirled around on his stool, his back to the log. I glued my peepers to the tapping tips of his needle-toed patent leather stomps. I flinched at each crash of his huge hooks.
He whispered, “Nigger, you know who I am? Look at me when I’m spieling to you.”
That teletype in my skull hammered out the escape hatch.
It read, “For this maniac you gotta be just like a Mississippi Nigger. You gotta pretend he’s a white lynch-mob leader. You gotta con him, but be careful, don’t get cute. Keep your nose square in his ass. Jeff it out all the way.”
I said, “Sure I know who you are Mr. Jones. You’re the black God of the sporting world. Ain’t a Nigger alive, unless he’s stupid and deaf, that ain’t heard your fame and name ring. The reason I don’t look at you is because I remember what happened to that sucker in the Bible that snitched a peep.”
His whores broke out into gales of laughter. Miss Peaches wasn’t a lady. She broke wind and grinned. Those patent-leather toes stopped tapping. Could I be selling it?
He reached out and grabbed my chin. He held my head up and cupped it in his giant hook. I flexed my belly to take up the slack in my bowels. Those deadly gray slits almost slugged me into a dead faint. When he opened his Jib I saw spidery webs of spit for an instant bridge his fat lips.
He said, “Little Nigger, who are you and where you from? You kinda look like me. Maybe I layed your Mammy,
