In Chicago, Felice had begun reading the Negro World, the organ of the Back-to-Africa movement, and when they came back she was as interested in Liberty Hall as in Sheba Palace. She had even worried Jake to take a share in Black Star Line.
“Let’s get on to it too, dad,” she had said. “There can be some’n’ in it. Times is changing, and niggers am changing, too. That great big nigger man ain’t no beauty, but, oh, lawdy! he sure is illiquint.”
But Jake had resisted Felice’s new enthusiasm and it was only a few months after their return to New York that Liberty Hall lost Leader Marcus to the Federal jail.
At supper time the boys came together again in the Bum Square. Banjo, playing the square game according to the standards of the bum fraternity, had rounded up all the beach boys he knew to meet Jake and be treated to drinks or handouts. They went to the African Bar. Ray introduced Jake to the proprietor and the two chatted a little about Harlem. Jake stood a round of drinks for the picturesque black rabble.
Banjo, Goosey, Ray, and Jake were going to sup together. Ray suggested they should eat at an Italian chophouse in the quarter where he sometimes fed when he was flush with francs. The cooking there was always well done and moderately spiced as he loved cooking to be, and the wine one grade removed from the vin rouge ordinaire was superb for the price and mellow to the palate. And the proprietor could concoct the most delicious zabaione.
But when the boys came to the restaurant, Jake objected to feeding there because it was next door to a cabinet d’aisance—so much next door that if you were a little gone in your cups you could easily mistake one entrance for the other.
“By the britches of Gawd, chappie!” cried Jake, “what done happen to you sence you show Harlem you’ black moon. After me telling you that I want to blow to the swellest feed there is, you bring me to a place with a big W.C. sign ovah it. I remember when you was a deal moh whimscriminate. When you couldn’t eat the grub on the white man’s choo-choo ’causen you was afraid the chef cook done did nastiness to it as he swoh he would. And now—”
“But just look at that!” cried Goosey. “There’s the whole family setting down to eat right in there.”
Yes. At the lower end of the shop, flanked on either side by cabinets, the family dinner was spread. A long loaf of bread, two large bottles of red wine, and a great basin of soup with a ladle in it. And around the table sat husband and wife, a girl of about fourteen years, a boy a little less, and a shrunken gray grandmother. Clients were coming and going and the family were swallowing their soup amid the sounds and odors of the place, while the wife occasionally vacated her seat to attend to business.
“But don’t they have a home?” demanded Jake. “Sure they ain’t sleeping theah, then why does they wanta feed in it?”
“I wouldn’t let nobody see me do that work, much less eat in there,” said Goosey. “These people don’t know any shame.”
“Shame you’ trap,” said Jake. “It ain’t no being ashame’. Can we niggers cry shame about any kind a work to make a living in this big wul’ of the ofays? It ain’t doing the work, but what you make it do with you. You remember, Ray, when you and me was on the road together? When you done finished with that theah pantry hole and I got outa that steaming grave, we couldn’t even stomach them lousy quathers. We was crazy to go any place we could fohgit the whole push.”
“That was seven years gone, Jake,” said Ray. “And in seven years many things can change to nothing according to law. You haven’t changed any. You’re a good black American. Too American. We had a fellow in our gang called Bugsy. He died here—died with his eyes wide open. He was the toughest black boy I ever knew. Yet when he found out he’d been eating horse meat in his cook-joint, thinking it was beef, he cried—”
“He was a real nigger. I woulda puked,” said Jake.
“One day,” continued Ray, “one of my nice liberal friends ran into me here and I happened to tell him about Bugsy and the horse steak. And he was so surprised that a Negro should have prejudices—especially such a delicate sort.”
“Ain’t a bumbole thing delicate about a man being particular what he’s putting away in his guts,” said Jake.
“All the same, Jake, this place, that family. You’re in the most civilized country in the world, and you aren’t civilized enough to understand.”
“I ain’t what’s that?” demanded Jake.
“You heard exactly what I said, ole-timer.”
“Well, whether I is or ain’t, you take me away from here and show me the swellest house-of-many-pans foh feeding in this heah poht of the frogs. Ise got enough a them francs to blow fifty face-feeders with the few dollars I done change. I don’t know what done happen to you in the seven years we ain’t seen one another. But foh the sake a good ole friendship, chappie, I hope you ain’t no stink-lover.”
“What kind a place you want?” asked Ray. “I don’t want to go to one a those places with a lotta stiff, hard-faced people stuffing themselves, and flunkies that don’t know what to do with you because you aren’t like them.”
“And I didn’t mean one a them sort,” said Jake. “I mean a clean place where we can get
