“Did he invite you in?” asked Bunny.
“I’m back here, aint I?” answered Max, somewhat resentfully.
The floor show came on. A black-faced comedian, a corpulent shouter of mammy songs with a gin-roughened voice, three chocolate soft-shoe dancers and an octette of wriggling, practically nude, mulatto chorines.
Then midnight and pandemonium as the New Year swept in. When the din had subsided, the lights went low and the orchestra moaned the weary blues. The floor filled with couples. The two men and two of the women at the next table rose to dance. The beautiful girl and another were left behind.
“I’m going over and ask her to dance,” Max suddenly announced to the surprised Bunny.
“Say not so!” exclaimed that worthy. “You’re fixin’ to get in dutch, Big Boy.”
“Well, I’m gonna take a chance, anyhow,” Max persisted, rising.
This fair beauty had hypnotized him. He felt that he would give anything for just one dance with her. Once around the floor with her slim waist in his arm would be like an eternity in heaven. Yes, one could afford to risk repulse for that.
“Don’t do it, Max!” pleaded Bunny. “Them fellows are liable to start somethin’.”
But Max was not to be restrained. There was no holding him back when he wanted to do a thing, especially where a comely damsel was concerned.
He sauntered over to the table in his most sheikish manner and stood looking down at the shimmering strawberry blond. She was indeed ravishing and her exotic perfume titilated his nostrils despite the clouds of cigarette smoke.
“Would you care to dance?” he asked, after a moment’s hesitation.
She looked up at him haughtily with cool green eyes, somewhat astonished at his insolence and yet perhaps secretly intrigued, but her reply lacked nothing in definiteness.
“No,” she said icily, “I never dance with niggers!” Then turning to her friend, she remarked: “Can you beat the nerve of these darkies?” She made a little disdainful grimace with her mouth, shrugged daintily and dismissed the unpleasant incident.
Crushed and angry, Max returned to his place without a word. Bunny laughed aloud in high glee.
“You said she was a cracker,” he gurgled, “an’ now I guess you know it.”
“Aw, go to hell,” Max grumbled.
Just then Billy Fletcher, the headwaiter passed by. Max stopped him. “Ever see that dame in here before?” he asked.
“Been in here most every night since before Christmas,” Billy replied.
“Do you know who she is?”
“Well, I heard she was some rich broad from Atlanta up here for the holidays. Why?”
“Oh, nothin’; I was just wondering.”
From Atlanta! His home town. No wonder she had turned him down. Up here trying to get a thrill in the Black Belt but a thrill from observation instead of contact. Gee, but white folks were funny. They didn’t want black folks’ game and yet they were always frequenting Negro resorts.
At three o’clock Max and Bunny paid their check and ascended to the street. Bunny wanted to go to the breakfast dance at the Dahomey Casino but Max was in no mood for it.
“I’m going home,” he announced laconically, hailing a taxi. “Good night!”
As the cab whirled up Seventh Avenue, he settled back and thought of the girl from Atlanta. He couldn’t get her out of his mind and didn’t want to. At his rooming house, he paid the driver, unlocked the door, ascended to his room and undressed, mechanically. His mind was a kaleidoscope: Atlanta, sea-green eyes, slender figure, titian hair, frigid manner. “I never dance with niggers.” Then he fell asleep about five o’clock and promptly dreamed of her. Dreamed of dancing with her, dining with her, motoring with her, sitting beside her on a golden throne while millions of manacled white slaves prostrated themselves before him. Then there was a nightmare of grim, gray men with shotguns, baying hounds, a heap of gasoline-soaked faggots and a screeching, fanatical mob.
He awoke covered with perspiration. His telephone was ringing and the late morning sunshine was streaming into his room. He leaped from bed and lifted the receiver.
“Say,” shouted Bunny, “did you see this morning’s Times?”
“Hell no,” growled Max, “I just woke up. Why, what’s in it?”
“Well, do you remember Dr. Junius Crookman, that colored fellow that went to Germany to study about three years ago? He’s just come back and the Times claims he’s announced a sure way to turn darkies white. Thought you might be interested after the way you fell for that ofay broad last night. They say Crookman’s going to open a sanitarium in Harlem right away. There’s your chance, Big Boy, and it’s your only chance.” Bunny chuckled.
“Oh, ring off,” growled Max. “That’s a lot of hooey.”
But he was impressed and a little excited. Suppose there was something to it? He dressed hurriedly, after a cold shower, and went out to the newsstand. He bought a Times and scanned its columns. Yes, there it was:
Negro Announces Remarkable Discovery
Can Change Black to White in Three Days.
Max went into Jimmy Johnson’s restaurant and greedily read the account while awaiting his breakfast. Yes, it must be true. To think of old Crookman being able to do that! Only a few years ago he’d been just a hungry medical student around Harlem. Max put down the paper and stared vacantly out of the window. Gee, Crookman would be a millionaire in no time. He’d even be a multimillionaire. It looked as though science was to succeed where the Civil War had failed. But how could it be possible? He looked at his hands and felt at the back of his head where the straightening lotion had failed to conquer some of the knots. He toyed with his ham and eggs as he envisioned the possibilities of the discovery.
Then a sudden resolution seized him. He looked at the newspaper account again. Yes, Crookman was staying at the Phyllis Wheatley Hotel. Why not go and see what there was to this? Why not be the first
