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 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 anyone 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.
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 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.
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 mealymouthed 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 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.”
“But,” Emma Lou had queried when he had started to talk about something else, “what about your second wife?”
“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.”
“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?”
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?”
Emma Lou had had to admit that this sounded logical, if illegal. Yet she hadn’t been convinced. “But,” she had insisted, “don’t they look you up and convict you of bigamy?”
“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.”
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.
