He was just going out when a chocolate lad pointed at a light-brown and said: “The pot calls foh four bits, chappie. Come across or stay out.”
“Lemme a quarter!”
“Ain’t got it. Staying out?”
Biff! Square on the mouth. The chocolate leaped up like a tiger-cat at his assailant, carrying over card table, little pile of money, and half-filled gin glasses with a crash. Like an enraged ram goat, he held and butted the light-brown boy twice, straight on the forehead. The victim crumpled with a thud to the floor. Susy jerked over to the felled boy and hauled him, his body leaving a liquid trail, to the door. She flung him out in the corridor and slammed the door.
“Sarves him right, pulling off that crap in mah place. And you, Mis’er Jack Johnson,” she said to the chocolate youth, “lemme miss you quick.”
“He done hits me first,” the chocolate said.
“I knows it, but I ain’t gwina stand foh no roughhouse in mah place. Ise got a dawg heah wif me all ready foh bawking.”
“K‑hhhhh, K‑hhhhh,” laughed Strawberry Lips. “Oh, boh, I know it’s the trute, but—”
The chocolate lad slunk out of the flat.
“Lavinia,” said Susy to Miss Curdy, “put on that theah ‘Tickling Blues’ on the victroly.”
The phonograph began its scraping and Miss Curdy started jig-jagging with Strawberry Lips. Jake gloomed with disgust against the door.
“Getting outa this, buddy?” he asked Zeddy.
“Nobody’s chasing us, boh.” Zeddy commenced stepping with Susy to the “Tickling Blues.”
Outside, Jake found the light-brown boy still half-stunned against the wall.
“Ain’t you gwine at home?” Jake asked him.
“I can’t find a nickel foh car fare,” said the boy.
Jake took him into a saloon and bought him a lemon squash. “Drink that to clear you’ haid,” he said. “And heah’s car fare.” He gave the boy a dollar. “Whar you living at?”
“San Juan Hill.”
“Come on, le’s git the subway, then.”
The Myrtle Avenue Elevated train passed with a high raucous rumble over their heads.
“Myrtle Avenue,” murmured Jake. “Pretty name, all right, but it stinks like a sewer. Legs and feets! Come take me outa it back home to Harlem.”
VII
Zeddy’s Rise and Fall
Zeddy was scarce in Harlem. And Strawberry Lips was also scarce. It was fully a week after the Myrtle Avenue gin-fest before Jake saw Zeddy again. They met on the pavement in front of Uncle Doc’s saloon.
“Why, where in the sweet name of niggers in Harlem, buddy, you been keeping you’self?”
“Whar you think?”
“Think? I been very much thinking that Nije Gridley done git you.”
“How come you git thataway, boh? Nije Gridley him ain’t got a chawnst on the carve or the draw ag’inst Zeddy Plummer so long as Ise got me a black moon.”
“Well, what’s it done git you, then?”
“Myrtle Avenue.”
“Come outa that; you ain’t talking. …”
“The trute as I knows it, buddy.”
“Crazy dog bite mah laig!” cried Jake. “You ain’t telling me that you done gone. …”
“Transfer mah suitcase and all mah pohsitions to Susy.”
“Gin-head Susy!”
“Egsactly; that crechur is mah ma-ma now. I done express mahself ovah theah on that very mahv’lously hang-ovah afternoon of that ginnity mawnin’ that you left me theah. And Ise been right theah evah since.”
“Well, Ise got to wish you good luck, buddy, although youse been keeping it so dark.”
“It’s the darkness of new loving, boh. But the honeymoon is good and well ovah, and I’ll be li’l moh in Harlem as usual, looking the chippies and chappies ovah. I ain’t none at all stuck on Brooklyn.”
“It’s a swah hole all right,” said Jake.
“But theah’s sweet stuff in it.” Zeddy tongue-wiped his fleshy lips with a salacious laugh.
“It’s all right, believe me, boh,” he informed Jake. “Susy ain’t nothing to look at like you’ fair-brown queen, but she’s tur’bly sweet loving. You know when a ma-ma ain’t the goods in looks and figure, she’s got to make up foh it some. And that Susy does. And she treats me right. Gimme all I wants to drink and brings home the goodest poke chops and fried chicken foh me to put away under mah shirt … Youse got to come and feed with us all one o’ these heah evenings.”
It was a party of five when Jake went again to Myrtle Avenue for the magnificent free-love feast that Susy had prepared. It was Susy’s free Sunday. Miss Curdy and Strawberry Lips were also celebrating. Susy had concocted a pitcherful of knockout gin cocktails. And such food! Susy could cook. Perhaps it was her splendid style that made her sink all her wages in gin and sweetmen. For she belonged to the ancient aristocracy of black cooks, and knew that she was always sure of a good place, so long as the palates of rich Southerners retained their discriminating taste.
Cream tomato soup. Ragout of chicken giblets. Southern fried chicken. Candied sweet potatoes. Stewed corn. Rum-flavored fruit salad waiting in the icebox. … The stars rolling in Susy’s shining face showed how pleased she was with her art.
She may be fat and ugly as a turkey, thought Jake, but her eats am sure beautiful.
“Heah! Pass me you’ plate,” Susy gave Jake a leg. Zeddy held out his plate again and got a wing. Strawberry Lips received a bit of breast. …
“No more chicken for me, Susy,” Miss Curdy mumbled, “but I will have another helping of that there stewed corn. I don’t know what ingredients yo-all puts in it, but, Lawdy! I never tasted anything near so good.”
Susy beamed and dipped up three spoonfuls of corn. “Plenty, thank you,” Miss Curdy stopped her from filling up her saucer. … Susy drank off a tumbler of cocktail at a draught, and wiped her lips with the white serviette that was stuck into
