and what the awful odds had been that I wouldn’t have made it.
A friend of Mama’s had sent me my fare. As the plane flew over the sea of neon, I looked down at the city where I had come so many years ago in search of an empty lonesome dream.
I thought of Henry and the sound of that pressing machine. Of Mama when she was young and pretty. How wonderful it had been back there in Rockford. She would come into my room at bedtime, a tender ghost, and tuck me in warmly and kiss me goodnight. It seemed a long time before I finally got to her.
When I walked into her room, death was there in her tiny gray face. Her eyes brightened and flashed a mother’s deathless love. Her embrace was firm and sure. My coming to her had been like a miracle. It was the magic that gave her strength.
She clutched life for an added six months. I never left the house for those six months. We would lie side by side on twin beds and talk far into the night. She made me promise that I would use the rest of my life in a good way. She told me I should get married and have children.
I tried hard to make up for all those years I had neglected her. It’s hard to square an emotional debt. That last sad day she looked up into my eyes from the hospital bed.
In a voice I could scarcely hear through her parched lips, she whispered, “Forgive me Son, forgive me. Mama didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
I stood there watching her last tears rolling down her dead cheeks from the blank eyes. I crushed her to me.
I tried to get my final plea past death’s grim shield, “Oh Mama, nothing has been your fault, believe me, nothing. If you are foolish enough to think so, then I forgive you.”
I staggered blindly from the hospital. I went to the parking lot. I fell across the car hood and cried my heart out. I stopped crying. I thought Mama had really gotten in the last word this time.
These stinking whores would have gotten a huge charge if they could have seen old Iceberg out there wailing like a sucker because his old lady was dead.
EPILOGUE
I am lying in the quiet dawn. I am writing this last chapter for the publisher.
I am thinking, “How did a character like me, who for most of his life had devoted himself to the vilest career, ever square up? By all the odds, I should have ended a broken, diseased shell, or died in a lonely prison cell.”
I guess three of the very important reasons are lying asleep in the bedroom across the hall. I can see their peaceful, happy faces. They don’t know how hard and often discouraging it is for me to earn a living for them in the square world.
This square world is a strange place for me. For the last five years I have tried hard, so hard, to solve its riddles, to fit in.
Catherine, my beautiful wife, is wonderful and courageous. She’s a perfect mother to our adorable two-year- old girl, and our sturdy, handsome three-year-old boy.
In this new world that isn’t really square at all, I have had many bitter experiences. I remember soon after my marriage how optimistic I was as I set out to apply for the sales jobs listed in the want ads.
I knew that I was a stellar salesman. After all, hadn’t I proved my gift for thirty years? The principles of selling are the same in both worlds. The white interviewers were impressed by my bearing and apparent facility with words. They sensed my knowledge of human nature.
But they couldn’t risk the possible effect that a Negro’s presence would have on the firm’s all white personnel. In disgust and anger, I would return home and sulk. Bitterly I would try to convince myself to go back into the rackets. Catherine always said the right things and gave me her love and understanding.
There was another indispensable source of help and courage during these hard times. She’s a charming, brilliant woman. She had been a friend to my mother. She functioned as a kind of psychotherapist. She explained and pointed out to me the mental phases I was passing through. She gave me insight to fight the battle. To her I shall always be grateful.
The story of my life indicates that my close friends were few. Shortly before I started this book I met a man I respected. I thought he was a true friend. I was bitterly disillusioned to discover he wasn’t. I’m glad in a way it turned out the way it did. I’ve always come back stronger after a good kick in the ass.
I have had many interesting and even humorous experiences in this new life. They will have to wait for now. I see my little family is awake. I’ll have to light the heater. I can’t let them get up in the early morning chill.
How about it, an Iceberg with a warm heart?
GLOSSARY
APPLE, New York City
BANG, injection of narcotics
BEEF, criminal complaint
BELL, notoriety connected to one’s name
BILL, a hundred dollars
BIT, prison term
BITE, price
BLACK GUNION, powerful, thick, dark, gummy marijuana
BOO KOOS, plenty
BOOSTER, shoplifter
BOOT, Negro
BOSS, very good, excellent
BOTTOM WOMAN, pimp’s main woman, his foundation
BOY, heroin
BREAKING LUCK, a whore’s first trick of working day
BRIGHT, morning
BULL SCARE, blustering bluff
BUSTED, arrested and/or convicted
C, cocaine
CANNON, pickpocket
CAN, derriere
CAP, a small glycerin container for drugs
CAT, female sexual organ
CHILI PIMP, small-time one-whore pimp
CHIPPIED, light periodic use of heavy drugs
CHUMP CHANGE, just enough money for basic needs
CIRCUS LOVE, to run the gamut of the sexual perversions
COAST, somnolent nodding state of heroin addict
COCKTAILED, to put a marijuana butt into the end of a conventional cigarette for smoking
COME DOWN, return to normal state after drug use
COP AND BLOW, pimp theory, to get as many whores as leave him
COPPED, get or capture
CRACK WISE, usually applied to an underworld neophyte who spouts hip terminology to gain status
