“I know it’s the Bible trute,” the happy-faced black lady chanted in a sugary voice, setting a bottle of champagne and glasses upon the table and seating herself familiarly beside the policeman.
The champagne foamed in the four glasses.
“Whar’s mah li’l chappie?” Jake asked.
“Gone, maybe. Don’t worry,” said Madame Laura. “Drink!”
Four brown hands and one white. Chink!
“Here’s to you, Pat,” cried Madame Laura. “There’s Irish in me from the male line.” She toasted:
“Flixy, flaxy, fleasy,
Make it good and easy,
Flix for start and flax for snappy,
Niggers and Irish will always be happy.”
The policeman swallowed his champagne at a gulp and got up. “Gotta go now. Time for duty.”
“You treat him nice. Is it for love or protection?” asked Jake.
“He’s loving her”—Madame Laura indicated the now coy lady who helped her manage—“but he’s protecting me. It’s a long time since I ain’t got no loving inclination for any skin but chocolate. Get me?”
When Jake returned to the quarters he found Ray sleeping quietly. He did not disturb him. The next morning they walked together to the yards.
“Did the policeman scare you, too, last night?” asked Jake.
“What policeman?”
“Oh, didn’t you see him? There was a policeman theah and somebody hollered ‘Raid!’ scaring everybody. I thought you’d done tuk you’self away from there in quick time becasn a that.”
“No, I left before that, I guess. Didn’t even smell one walking all the way to the quarters in Market Street.”
“Why’d you beat it? One o’ the li’l chippies had a crush on you. Oh, boy! and she was some piece to look at.”
“I know it. She was kind of nice. But she had some nasty perfume on her that turned mah stomach.”
“Youse awful queer, chappie,” Jake commented.
“Why, don’t you ever feel those sensations that just turn you back in on yourself and make you isolated and helpless?”
“Wha’d y’u mean?”
“I mean if sometimes you don’t feel as I felt last night?”
“Lawdy no. Young and pretty is all I feel.”
They stopped in a saloon. Jake had a small whisky and Ray an eggnog.
“But Madame Laura isn’t young,” resumed Ray.
“Ain’t she?” Jake showed his teeth. “I’d back her against some of the youngest. She’s a wonder, chappie. Her blood’s like good liquor. She gave me a present, too. Looka here.” Jake took from his pocket a lovely slate-colored necktie sprinkled with red dots. Ray felt the fineness of it.
“Ef I had the sweetman disinclination I wouldn’t have to work, chappie,” Jake rocked proudly in his walk. “But tha’s the life of a peewee cutter, says I. Kain’t see it for mine.”
“She was certainly nice to you last night. And the girls were nice, too. It was just like a jolly parlor social.”
“Oh, sure! Them gals not all in the straight business, you know. Some o’ them works and just go there for a good time, a li’l extra stuff. … It ain’t like that nonetall ovah in Europe, chappie. They wouldn’t ’a’ treated you so nice. Them places I sampled ovah there was all straight raw business and no camoflage.”
“Did you prefer them?”
“Hell, no! I prefer the niggers’ way every time. They does it better. …”
“Wish I could feel the difference as you do, Jakie. I lump all those ladies together, without difference of race.”
“Youse crazy, chappie. You ain’t got no experience about it. There’s all kinds a difference in that theah life. Sometimes it’s the people make the difference and sometimes it’s the place. And as foh them sweet marchants, there’s as much difference between them as you find in any other class a people. There is them slap-up private-apartmant ones, and there is them of the dickty buffet flats; then the low-down speakeasy customers; the cabaret babies, the family-entrance clients, and the street fliers.”
They stopped on a boardwalk. The dining-car stood before them, resting on one of the hundred tracks of the great Philadelphia yards.
“I got a free permit to a nifty apartmant in New York, chappie, and the next Saturday night we lay over together in the big city Ise gwine to show you some real queens. It’s like everything else in life. Depends on you’ luck.”
“And you are one lucky dog,” Ray laughed.
Jake grinned: “I’d tell you about a li’l piece o’ sweetness I picked up in a cabaret the first day I landed from ovah the other side. But it’s too late now. We gotta start work.”
“Next time, then,” said Ray.
Jake swung himself up by the rear platform and entered the kitchen. Ray passed round by the other side into the dining-room.
XIV
Interlude
Dusk gathered in blue patches over the Black Belt. Lenox Avenue was vivid. The saloons were bright, crowded with drinking men jammed tight around the bars, treating one another and telling the incidents of the day. Longshoremen in overalls with hooks, Pullman porters holding their bags, waiters, elevator boys. Liquor-rich laughter, banana-ripe laughter. …
The pavement was a dim warm bustle. Women hurrying home from day’s work to get dinner ready for husbands who worked at night. On their arms brown bags and black containing a bit of meat, a head of lettuce, butter. Young men who were stagging through life, passing along with brown-paper packages, containing a small steak, a pork chop, to do their own frying.
From out of saloons came the savory smell of corned beef and cabbage, spareribs, Hamburger steaks. Out of little cook-joints wedged in side streets, tripe, pigs’ feet, hogs’ ears and snouts. Out of apartments, steak smothered with onions, liver and bacon, fried chicken.
The composite smell of cooked stuff assaulted Jake’s nostrils. He was hungry. His landlady was late bringing his food. Maybe she was out on Lenox Avenue chewing the rag with some other Ebenezer soul, thought Jake.
Jake was ill. The doctor told him that he would get well very quickly if he remained quietly in bed for a few days.
“And you mustn’t drink till you are better. It’s bad for you,” the doctor warned him.
But Jake had his landlady bring him from two to four pails of beer every
