Her shaft hit home. … Jake crossed over to her table. He ordered Scotch and soda.
“Scotch is better with soda or even water,” he said. “English folks don’t take whisky straight, as we do.”
But she preferred ginger ale in place of soda. The cabaret singer, seeing that they were making up to each other, came expressly over to their table and sang. Jake gave the singer fifty cents. …
Her left hand was on the table. Jake covered it with his right.
“Is it clear sailing between us, sweetie?” he asked.
“Sure thing. … You just landed from over there?”
“Just today!”
“But there wasn’t no boat in with soldiers today, daddy.”
“I made it in a special one.”
“Why, you lucky baby! … I’d like to go to another place, though. What about you?”
“Anything you say, I’m game,” responded Jake.
They walked along Lenox Avenue. He held her arm. His flesh tingled. He felt as if his whole body was a flaming wave. She was intoxicated, blinded under the overwhelming force.
But nevertheless she did not forget her business.
“How much is it going to be, daddy?” she demanded.
“How much? How much? Five?”
“Aw no, daddy. …”
“Ten?”
She shook her head.
“Twenty, sweetie!” he said, gallantly.
“Daddy,” she answered, “I wants fifty.”
“Good,” he agreed. He was satisfied. She was responsive. She was beautiful. He loved the curious color on her cheek.
They went to a buffet flat on 137th Street. The proprietress opened the door without removing the chain and peeked out. She was a matronly mulatto woman. She recognized the girl, who had put herself in front of Jake, and she slid back the chain and said, “Come right in.”
The windows were heavily and carefully shaded. There was beer and wine, and there was plenty of hard liquor. Black and brown men sat at two tables in one room, playing poker. In the other room a phonograph was grinding out a “blues,” and some couples were dancing, thick as maggots in a vat of sweet liquor, and as wriggling.
Jake danced with the girl. They shuffled warmly, gloriously about the room. He encircled her waist with both hands, and she put both of hers up to his shoulders and laid her head against his breast. And they shuffled around.
“Harlem! Harlem!” thought Jake. “Where else could I have all this life but Harlem? Good old Harlem! Chocolate Harlem! Sweet Harlem! Harlem, I’ve got you’ number down. Lenox Avenue, you’re a bear, I know it. And, baby honey, sure enough youse a pippin for your pappy. Oh, boy!” …
After Jake had paid for his drinks, that fifty-dollar note was all he had left in the world. He gave it to the girl. …
“Is we going now, honey?” he asked her.
“Sure, daddy. Let’s beat it.” …
Oh, to be in Harlem again after two years away. The deep-dyed color, the thickness, the closeness of it. The noises of Harlem. The sugared laughter. The honey-talk on its streets. And all night long, ragtime and “blues” playing somewhere, … singing somewhere, dancing somewhere! Oh, the contagious fever of Harlem. Burning everywhere in dark-eyed Harlem. … Burning now in Jake’s sweet blood. …
He woke up in the morning in a state of perfect peace. She brought him hot coffee and cream and doughnuts. He yawned. He sighed. He was satisfied. He breakfasted. He washed. He dressed. The sun was shining. He sniffed the fine dry air. Happy, familiar Harlem.
“I ain’t got a cent to my name,” mused Jake, “but ahm as happy as a prince, all the same. Yes, I is.”
He loitered down Lenox Avenue. He shoved his hand in his pocket—pulled out the fifty-dollar note. A piece of paper was pinned to it on which was scrawled in pencil:
“Just a little gift from a baby girl to a honey boy!”
III
Zeddy
“Great balls of fire! Looka here! See mah luck!” Jake stopped in his tracks … went on … stopped again … retraced his steps … checked himself. “Guess I won’t go back right now. Never let a woman think you’re too crazy about her. But she’s a particularly sweet piece a business. … Me and her again tonight. … Handful o’ luck shot straight outa heaven. Oh, boy! Harlem is mine!”
Jake went rolling along Fifth Avenue. He crossed over to Lenox Avenue and went into Uncle Doc’s saloon, where he had left his bag. Called for a glass of Scotch. “Gimme the siphon, Doc. I’m off the straight stuff.”
“Iszh you? Counta what?”
“Hits the belly better this way. I l’arned it over the other side.”
A slap on the shoulder brought him sharply round. “Zeddy Plummer! What grave is you arisen from?” he cried.
“Buddy, you looks so good to me, I could kish you,” Zeddy said.
“Where?”
“Everywhere. … French style.”
“One on one cheek and one on the other.”
“Savee-vous?”
“Parlee-vous?”
Uncle Doc set another glass on the counter and poured out pure Bourbon. Zeddy reached a little above Jake’s shoulders. He was stocky, thick-shouldered, flat-footed, and walked like a bear. Some more customers came in and the buddies eased round to the short side of the bar.
“What part of the earth done belch you out?” demanded Zeddy. “Nevah heared no God’s tidings a you sence we missed you from Brest.”
“And how about you?” Jake countered. “Didn’t them Germans git you scrambling over the top?”
“Nevah see’d them, buddy. None a them showed the goose-step around Brest. Have a shot on me. … Well, dawg bite me, but—say, Jake, we’ve got some more stuff to booze over.”
Zeddy slapped Jake on his breast and looked him over again. “Tha’s some stuff you’re strutting in, boh. ’Tain’t ’Merican and it ain’t French.” …
“English.” Jake showed his clean white teeth.
“Mah granny an’ me! You been in that theah white folks’ country, too?”
“And don’t I look as if Ise been? Where else could a fellow git such good and cheap man clothes to cover his skin?”
“Buddy, I know it’s the trute. What you doing today?”
“No, when you make me think ovit, particular thing. And you?”
“I’m alongshore but—I ain’t agwine to work thisaday.”
“I guess I’ve got to be heaving along right back to it, too, in pretty short time. I got to get
