“What’s your contribution, friend? Only a half? Can’t buy the sweet mamma shoes on four-bit bets. How much to you, dumb-and-ugly? One buck, right. Next? A dollar and a dime to Jinx, the freckle-face wonder—dime’s for luck—my luck. How ’bout you, Squatty? Make it light on y’self. Two-dollar bills is bad luck, you know. Wha’ d’ y’ say, Stud? The rest of it? Nineteen bucks four bits to you. Deal it? Consider it doled. Perfect, gentlemen, perfect.”
He had dealt each player a card as he spoke. Now he dealt them each another, renoting the amounts of their bets as the second card fell. He put down the rest of the deck, picked up his own two cards and, holding them close to his chest to prevent his neighbors’ seeing them, studied them long and hard. Suddenly he warned with exaggerated malignancy—“Don’t a man move!—knew I’d turn the bug on you dinkies this time!” And he threw down an ace and a jack, the supreme combination.
He was collecting his winnings when Shine came in, edging sidewise through the crowd. Finding no place available at the table, Shine would have ordinarily lifted some player out by the collar, thanked him with a grin, and assumed his place. Tonight he simply looked on. Had anyone else appropriated valuable space just to look on without betting, there would have been trouble; first gentle hints about how crowded it was, then less gentle hints about the value of fresh air to kibitzers, and finally, if the offender was especially dense, an ultimatum suggesting that he try the pool room or the roof. Nobody however, manifested a trace of annoyance at Shine’s profitless presence.
As for Shine, he felt tonight a new exhilaration, a satisfying ability to fill his lungs, a conscious, pitying superiority over these companions of his. For to him, through Linda and after considerable meditation, had come a new outlook on old things. He had finally been able to phrase it for himself in terms that brought it home to him, terms that made it ridiculous to feel shame for having let Merrit off unpunished. He put it thus:
“The guy that’s really hard is the guy that’s hard enough to be soft.”
That about got it. That covered him. That made him unafraid to do what he damned pleased in any situation. If he felt like letting a bird off, he was big enough to do it. Hitherto he’d been like a little shrimp that dares not go without a gun or a knife, only his size and strength had taken the place of the weapon. Sort of coward, sure ’nough—no wonder it made Lindy sore. She sure had got him told, too. Sure had—some kid, no lie. Funny he never could see it before—the walls of Jericho. Lindy—Judas Priest—he’d forgotten to ask where she was going from the hospital. Dumbbell. Well he’d find out. Gee, what a feeling! Boy! Like a port-wine drunk—
He saw the men ’round about anew—lean and long bodies, thick and short, round heads, egg heads, bullet heads, steeple heads, thick lips stuck out, thin lips drawn in, skins black, brown, tan, yellow. He picked out two or three strangers, conjectured about their occupations. This lopsided one was undoubtedly a waiter, that plump cocoa one a porter, the bald, custard one whose cheeks had been left in the oven a trifle too long a—Well, what the hell else were boogies but waiters and porters?
In this superior frame of mind, he was not at all prepared for what he was now to learn.
Wearying of the turn of cards, the stereotyped comments of players, the occasional deft, furtive exchanges between collaborating cheaters, Shine waded out into the pool room, where the air was a trifle less thick. Here the talk was loud and the laughter unmuffled; the clack and clatter of pool balls, the thump of cue sticks, the eager shuffle of players’ feet, freed this room of the covert atmosphere oppressing the other.
As Shine abandoned the game room he encountered Patmore who was coming toward it; and he was a little surprised to observe Patmore quite so drunk. A slick coat of sweat made Pat’s face shine as though it had been greased; his eyes, also, were unusually bright and his manner a trifle too genial.
“Hello, Mr. Jones!” he greeted Shine. “What’s Mr. Jones gonna say tonight?” And Shine felt a vague disproportionate annoyance at the ironic form of address. He brushed past with a noncommittal response, while Pat stood back, turned to watch him pass, and grinned derisively: “Must be turnin’ dickty.”
Shine ignored this as he had ignored Pat himself ever since the dance. He found a cue stick and an empty table and proceeded to amuse himself solitaire. He had hardly racked-’em-up when Bubber appeared at his side.
“Come ’eh,” Bubber said. “Come listen to this.” And Joshua Jones went and listened.
Pat was proclaiming to all his friends in the game room:
“Yassir. Fair and square, that’s Henry Patmore. Anything you do for him, he’s gonna do for you. Good or bad, don’t make no difference. You know what the man says—as ye sow so shall ye reap. You see me go—I’ll see you go. You put it on me, I’ll put it on you. Sooner or later. Don’t make no difference—sooner or later, thass all. Five years ago, I tell y’, this dickty—dickty, mind y’—put it on me, see? Cost me damn near all I had. Ten thousand Got-damn dollars. Cost me that to stay out o’ jail. Yassir—ten thousand berries. Well—thass aw right. Jes’ go up on Court Avenue and look at his house now. Huh. Thought I’d forgot it, see? So damn smart, movin’ in ’mongst d’ fays. Fay nigger. Movin’ in ’mongst d’ white folks. Well, d’ white folks sho’ give ’im a welcome. Jes’ go up on Court Avenue and see what d’ white folks done. White folks. Yea. Henry Patmore—white folks. Hah!—damn if this ain’t d’ first
