“There is no better advice, I think, than that of the ruffian on the street, whose motto is ‘Don’t kid yourself.’ But we can’t help kidding ourselves sometimes, and we almost always kid ourselves about our Self. And what is our Self, our knowledge of ourself, if not Jericho—chief city of every man’s spiritual Canaan? And how can we strip off illusion and take possession of our own soul save by battle? No man knows himself till he comes to an impasse; to some strange set of conditions that reveals to him his ignorance of the workings of his spirit; to some disrupting impact that shatters the wall of self-illusion. This, I believe, is the greatest spiritual battle of a man’s life, the battle with his own idea of himself.
“Far more incredible than this tale of the Israelite warrior are the circumstances under which you and I engage in a similar battle today. It is easier to believe, I think, that the blast of rams’ horns and the shouting of a mob could cause a stone wall to crumble than that you and I should hope to find ourselves—to take our Jericho—by some brief event that shatters in a moment what self-deception has built up only over the course of years. But it is true. It is not only possible—it must happen to all who would see things as they are. Self-revelation is the supreme experience, the chief victory, of a man’s life. In all the realm of the spirit, in all the Canaan of the soul, no conquest yields so miraculous a reward.
“I urge you therefore to besiege yourselves; to take honest counsel with the little fraction of God, of Truth, that dwells in us all. To follow the counsel of that Truth and beset the wall of self-deception. So will towering illusion tumble. So will you straightway enter triumphant into the promised land.”
XVII
A casual visitor to Seventh Avenue that bright Sunday noontime might have thought, on seeing the released congregations, that many had already entered triumphant into the promised land.
This weekly promenade is characterized not only by an extravagant and competitive elegance but also by an all pervading air of criticism. Hither come self-satisfied, varicolored flocks from every fold in Harlem, to mingle and browse, to inspect and sniff, to display and observe and censure.
It must be explained that of Manhattan’s two most famous streets, neither Broadway nor Fifth Avenue reaches Harlem in proper guise. Fifth Avenue reverts to a jungle trail, trod almost exclusively by primitive man; while Broadway, seeing its fellow’s fate, veers off to the west as it travels north, avoiding the dark kingdom from afar. A futile dodge, since the continued westward spread of the kingdom threatens to force the sidestepping Broadway any moment into the Hudson; but, for the present, successful escape.
And so Seventh Avenue, most versatile of thoroughfares, becomes Harlem’s Broadway during the week and its Fifth Avenue on Sunday; remains for six days a walk for deliberate shoppers, a lane for tumultuous traffic, the avenue of a thousand enterprises and the scene of a thousand hairbreadth escapes; remains for six nights a carnival, bright with the lights of theaters and night clubs, alive with darting cabs, with couples moving from house party to cabaret, with loiterers idling and ogling on the curb, with music wafted from mysterious sources, with gay talk and loud Afric laughter. Then comes Sunday, and for a few hours Seventh Avenue becomes the highway to heaven; reflects that air of quiet, satisfied self-righteousness peculiar to chronic churchgoers. Indeed, even Fifth Avenue on Easter never quite attains to this; practice makes perfect, and Harlem’s Seventh Avenue boasts fifty-two Easters a year.
Shine and Linda, released from church with the others, might have overheard much critical comment as they walked along Seventh Avenue:
“My Gawd—did you see that hat?”
“Hot you, babu—!”
“—’co’se it’s a homemade dress—can’t you see that crooked hem?”
“Wonder where the fire sale was?”
“Whut is these young folks comin’ to—dat gal’s dress ain’ nuthin’ but a sash!”
“Now you know a man that black ain’t got no business in no white linen suit—”
But Shine and Linda had issues of their own to decide.
“How’d you like it?” she asked.
“He’s a smart guy, that dude,” Shine passed judgment. “After he got through tellin’ ’bout that bird, Joshua, I didn’t know what the—what it was all about. Where’s he get that stuff ’bout knowin’ y’self? How’s a guy go’n’ help knowin’ hisself? What’s the grand secret?”
“It’s easy,” said Linda. “ ’Spose a girl thinks she likes a fellow. Likes him better than anyone else. Then s’pose somebody else comes along and she falls head over heels in love with him. Well, see? She didn’t know herself the first time.”
He grinned. “Who was the guy ahead o’ me?”
And she answered with merry eyes, “There wasn’t any. You’re the first one. I’m talking ’bout the one that’ll come next.”
“Hope I don’t have to spank nobody ’bout you,” he said gravely.
“You make me tired,” she declared. “Just because you’re big you’ve got the idea that nobody can lick you. You think muscle’s everything.”
“It’s all that ever done me any good.”
“Did.”
“I mean did.”
“Well, why don’t you say what you mean?”
“Aw right—listen. Here’s what I mean. I ain’ never yet hurt nobody as much as I could’ve, see? But, what I mean, the first bird gets in between me and my girl—”
“Oh—you didn’t tell me you had a girl.”
“Well I have—and she’s the owl’s-feathers.”
“Really?”
“No lie. She’s right, what I mean. All ’cept one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Yea. She looks like an angel, but talk about one evermore hard woman to get along with—”
“I am not!”
“Who’s talkin’ ’bout you? Girl I mean ain’ nothin’ like you. This girl likes to go to church a lot and it’s near ’bout ruint her. She’s jes’ as evil and tight and hard to get along with as all d’ other church folks.”
“That isn’t true!”
“What isn’t?”
“That about church folks. They’re the best peoples on
