“That’s poetical,” replied Goosey. “The weak and comic side of race life can’t further race advancement.”
“You talk just like a nigger newspaper,” said Ray.
“Niggah from you, Ray!” exclaimed Goosey, “and with white folks among us! I expected that from Banjo or Malty, but not from you.”
“Yes, nigger,” repeated Ray. “I didn’t say ‘niggah’ the way you and the crackers say it, but ‘nigger’ with the gritty ‘r’ in it to express exactly what I feel about you and all coons like you. I know you think that a coon is a Negro like Banjo and Ginger, but you’re fooling yourself. They are real and you are the coon—a stage thing, a made-up thing. I said nigger newspaper because a nigger newspaper is nothing more than a nigger newspaper. Something like you, half baked, half educated, full of false ideas about Negroes, because it can’t hold its head up out of its miserable purgatory. That’s why we—you—the race—can’t get beyond the nigger newspaper in the printed word. That’s why an intelligent man reads it only for the comic—the joke that it is. You talk about niggerism. Good Lord! You’re a perfect example of niggerism. Sometimes you get me so worked up with your niggery bull, I feel like giving you a poke in your stupid yaller jaw.”
Swept by a brainstorm, Ray was gesticulating in Goosey’s face.
“Get your monkey-chasing hand out of my face, black nig—man,” cried Goosey, getting hot. “Because you’re a man without a country, you have no race feeling, no race pride. You can’t go back to Haiti. You feel there’s no place for you in Africa, after you’ve hung around here, trying to get down into the guts of the life of these Senegalese. You hate America and you despise Europe. You’re just a lost sorehead. You pretend you’d like to be a vagabond like Malty and Banjo here, but you know you’re a liar and the truth is not in you.”
“Aren’t you happy you’ve got a country and a flag to go back to?” asked Ray, now quieting down.
“When it comes to myself, I’m not studying those United Snakes,” retorted Goosey.
“Holy Gees!” cried Kid Irish. “Don’t start a riot among ye, or if youse going to, wait and let me deliver meself first.”
“Sure. Go on with it, bud,” said Ginger. “Ray, how come you make Goosey get you’ goat like thataway?”
Ray laughed, puzzled himself at his little flare-up.
Kid Irish said: “There’s four people in me story, so that makes it a square joke.
“There was two Irish friends from Galway. They were very poor and they went to America to make their fortune. The oldest friend was engaged to be married. When the two partners reached New York they soon got jobs and they lived together. The oldest one became a policeman and his friend got a job as a bartender. They had an apartment in San Juan Hill in a district where there were many niggers—”
“Negroes,” corrected Goosey.
“Yes, Niggerows. Excuse me,” said Kid Irish. “The policeman started in to save to send for his girl. But after a year he didn’t have enough money. So his friend offered to help him and proposed they should all three housekeep together to save expenses when the girl came. She arrived and was married to the policeman, and the three of them took a flat in the same quarter. And of course in time the bride got in the family way.
“The husband was very happy and he and his friend began saving more than ever so that after the birth they would all go back to Ireland. But the strangest thing happened, some funny freak o’ nature, for when the baby was born it was black. The husband said he didn’t want the baby and he wasn’t going to stay in New York; he was going back home and he couldn’t take the bride with him. The friend said he would go back home, too. So they bought steamship tickets to go back to Ireland and left the bride and the strange infant. But the friend was awfully sad about the whole business, and when they were on the pier, waiting to board the ship, he broke down and cried as if his heart was going to break.
“And the husband said to him: ‘Cheer up! The way you carry on they would think it was you and not me that was married to her.’
“And his friend replied: ‘I just can’t help it, seeing how it took two Irishmen to make one nigger.’ ”
The boys roared as Kid Irish stopped. Goosey liked that joke and joined in the laughter.
Banjo got up, jigging round the café, chanting the popular melody: “It takes a long, tall brownskin.”
“What about going down to the docks, fellahs?” asked Ginger. “There’s a good broad in. I know the crew.”
“I’m game for anything,” said Malty.
“Let’s give Lonesome Blue some money, between us,” said Banjo, “for I just ain’t gwine to have this rear-end facer trailing us.”
They found five francs for Lonesome Blue, and as he was limping off from the café Ray called after him:
“Wait for me. I’m going with you.”
“Whereat?” demanded Banjo. “You’re going with us.”
“No, I’m going to police headquarters or to the American consulate with Lonesome. If they expel him, why don’t they send him home to America? This jailing of a man again every ten days after he is out seems the most abominable thing to me. And a man like Lonesome. Sick and nutty and not able to help himself. How can a civilized government do that? Is there no international law for deportees?”
“I tell you, pardner, as you best friend,” said Banjo, “if I was you I’d keep away from all them gov’ment people, whether theyse French or Americans. I ain’t nevah fooled round them. What you want to go and get mixed up with them for, all on account of this dumb Alabama darky—”
“I ain’t
