A potato-yellow man and a dull-black were locked. The proprietor, a heavy brown man, worked his elbow like a hatchet between them.
The antagonists glowered at each other.
“What you want to knock the gal down like that for, I acks you?”
“Better acks her why she done spits on mah woman.”
“Woman! White man’s wench, you mean. You low-down tripe. …”
The black man heaved toward the yellow, but the waiters hooked and hustled him off. … Sitting at a table, the cabaret singer was soothing her eye.
“Git out on the sidewalk, all you troublemakers,” cried the proprietor. “And you, Bess,” he cried to the cabaret singer, “nevah you show your face in mah place again.”
The cabaret was closed for the rest of the night. Like dogs flicked apart by a whipcord, the jazzers stood and talked resentfully in the street.
“Hi, Jake”—Zeddy, rocking into the group with a nosy air, spotted his buddy—“was you in on the li’l fun?”
“Yes, buddy, but I wasn’t mixed up in it. Sometimes they turn mah stomach, the womens. The same in France, the same in England, the same in Harlem. White against white and black against white and yellow against black and brown. We’s all just crazy-dog mad. Ain’t no peace on earth with the womens and there ain’t no life anywhere without them.”
“You said it, boh. It’s a be-be itching life”—Zeddy scratched his flank—“and we’re all sons of it. … But what is you hitting round this joint? I thought you would be feeding off milk and honey tonight?”
“Hard luck, buddy. Done lose out counta mah own indiligence. I fohgit the street and the house. Thought I’d find her heah but. …”
“What you thinking ’bout, boh?”
“That gal got beat up in the Baltimore. She done sings me into a tantalizing mood. Ahm feeling like.”
“Let’s take a look in on the Congo, boh. It’s the best pick-me-up place in Harlem.”
“I’m with you, buddy.”
“Always packed with the best pickings. When the chippies come up from down home, tha’s where they hangs out first. You kain always find something that New York ain’t done made a fool of yet. Theah’s a high-yaller entertainer there that I’se got a crush on, but she ain’t nevah gived me a encouraging eye.”
“I ain’t much for the high-yallers after having been so much fed-up on the ofays,” said Jake. “They’s so doggone much alike.”
“Ah no, boh. A sweet-lovin’ high-yaller queen’s got something different. K‑hhhhhhh, K‑hhhhhhh. Something nigger.”
The Congo was thick, dark-colorful, and fascinating. Drum and saxophone were fighting out the wonderful drag “blues” that was the favorite of all the low-down dance halls. In all the better places it was banned. Rumor said it was a police ban. It was an old tune, so far as popular tunes go. But at the Congo it lived fresh and green as grass. Everybody there was giggling and wriggling to it.
And it is ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
Can you show me a woman that a man can trust?Oh, baby, how are you?
Oh, baby, what are you?
Oh, can I have you now,
Or have I got to wait?
Oh, let me have a date,
Why do you hesitate?And there is two things in Harlem I don’t understan’
It is a bulldycking woman and a faggotty man.Oh, baby how are you?
Oh, baby, what are you? …
Jake and Zeddy picked two girls from a green bench and waded into the hot soup. The saxophone and drum fought over the punctuated notes. The cymbals clashed. The excitement mounted. Couples breasted each other in rhythmical abandon, grinned back at their friends and chanted:
“Oh, baby, how are you?
Oh, baby, what are you? …”
Clash! The cymbal snuffed out saxophone and drum, the dancers fell apart—reeled, strutted, drifted back to their green places. …
Zeddy tossed down the third glass of Gordon gin and became aware of Rose, the Congo entertainer, singing at the table. Happy for the moment, he gave her fifty cents. She sang some more, but Zeddy saw that it was all for Jake. Finished, she sat down, uninvited, at their table.
How many nights, hungry nights, Zeddy had wished that Rose would sit down voluntarily at his table. He had asked her sometimes. She would sit, take a drink and leave. Nothing doing. If he was a “big nigger,” perhaps—but she was too high-priced for him. Now she was falling for Jake. Perhaps it was Jake’s nifty suit. …
“Gin for mine,” Rose said. Jake ordered two gins and a Scotch. “Scotch! That’s an ofay drink,” Rose remarked. “And I’ve seen the monkey-chasers order it when they want to put on style.”
“It’s good,” Jake said. “Taste it.”
She shook her head. “I have befoh. I don’t like the taste. Gimme gin every time or good old red Kentucky.”
“I got used to it over the other side,” Jake said.
“Oh! You’re an over-yonder baby! Sure enough!” She fondled his suit in admiration.
Zeddy, like a good understanding buddy, had slipped away. Another Scotch and Gordon Dry. The glasses kissed. Like a lean lazy leopard the mulattress reclined against Jake.
The milk cans were sounding on the pavements and a few pale stars were still visible in the sky when Rose left the Congo with both hands entwined in Jake’s arm.
“You gwina stay with me, mah brown?”
“I ain’t got me a room yet,” he said.
“Come stay with me always. Got any stuff to bring along?”
“Mah suitcase at Uncle Doc’s.”
They went to her room in 133rd Street. Locking the door, she said: “You remember the song they used to sing before you all went over there, mah brown?”
Softly she chanted:
“If I had someone like you at home
I wouldn’t wanta go out, I wouldn’t wanta go out. …
If I had someone like you at home,
I’d put a padlock on the door. …”
She hugged him to her.
“I love you. I ain’t got no man.”
“Gwan, tell that to the marines,” he panted.
“Honest to God. Lemme kiss you
