Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Then I was awake and not awake, sitting bolt upright in bed and trying to peer through the sick gray light as I sought the meaning of the brash, nerve-jangling sound. Pushing the blanket aside I clasped my hands to my ears. Someone was pounding the steam line, and I stared helplessly for what seemed minutes. My ears throbbed. My side began itching violently and I tore open my pajamas to scratch, and suddenly the pain seemed to leap from my ears to my side and I saw gray marks appearing where the old skin was flaking away beneath my digging nails. And as I watched I saw thin lines of blood well up in the scratches, bringing pain and joining time and place again, and I thought, The room has lost its heat on my last day at Mary's, and suddenly I was sick at heart.
The clock, its alarm lost in the larger sound, said seven-thirty, and I got out of bed. I'd have to hurry. There was shopping to do before I called Brother Jack for my instructions and I had to get the money to Mary—Why didn't they stop that noise? I reached for my shoes, flinching as the knocking seemed to sound an inch above my head. Why don't they stop, I thought. And why do I feel so let down? The bourbon? My nerves going bad?
Suddenly I was across the room in a bound, pounding the pipe furiously with my shoe heel.
"Stop it, you ignorant fool!"
My head was splitting. Beside myself, I struck pieces of silver from the pipe, exposing the black and rusted iron. He was using a piece of metal now, his blows ringing with a ragged edge.
If only I knew who it was, I thought, looking for something heavy with which to strike back. If only I knew!
Then near the door I saw something which I'd never noticed there before: the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro, whose white eyes stared up at me from the floor, his face an enormous grin, his single large black hand held palm up before his chest. It was a bank, a piece of early Americana, the kind of bank which, if a coin is placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth. For a second I stopped, feeling hate charging within me, then dashed over and grabbed it, suddenly as enraged by the tolerance or lack of discrimination, or whatever, that allowed Mary to keep such a self-mocking image around, as by the knocking.
In my hand its expression seemed more of a strangulation than a grin. It was choking, filled to the throat with coins.
How the hell did it get here, I wondered, dashing over and striking the pipe a blow with the kinky iron head. "Shut up!" I screamed, which seemed only to enrage the hidden knocker. The din was deafening. Tenants up and down the entire line of apartments joined in. I hammered back with the iron naps, seeing the silver fly, striking like driven sand against my face. The pipe fairly hummed with the blows. Windows were going up. Voices yelled obscenities down the airshaft.
Who started all this, I wondered, who's responsible?
"Why don't you act like responsible people living in the twentieth century?" I yelled, aiming a blow at the pipe. "Get rid of your cottonpatch ways! Act civilized!"
Then came a crash of sound and I felt the iron head crumble and fly apart in my hand. Coins flew over the room like crickets, ringing, rattling against the floor, rolling. I stopped dead.
"Just listen to 'em! Just listen to 'em!" Mary called from the hall. "Enough noise to wake the dead! They know when the heat don't come up that the super's drunk or done walked off the job looking for his woman, or something. Why don't folks act according to what they know?"
She was at my door now, knocking stroke for stroke with the blows landing on the pipe, calling, "Son! Ain't some of that knocking coming from in there?"
I turned from side to side in indecision, looking at the pieces of broken head, the small coins of all denominations that were scattered about.
"You hear me, boy?" she called.
"What is it?" I called, dropping to the floor and reaching frantically for the broken pieces, thinking, If she opens the door, I'm lost . . .
"I said is any of that racket coming from in there?"
"Yes, it is, Mary," I called, "but I'm all right . . . I'm already awake."
I saw the knob move and froze, hearing, "Sounded to me like a heap of it was coming from in there. You got your clothes on?"
"No," I cried. "I'm just dressing. I'll have them on in a minute."
"Come on out to the kitchen," she said. "It's warm out there. And there's some hot water on the stove to wash your face in . . . and some coffee. Lawd, just listen at the racket!"
I stood as though frozen, until she moved away from the door. I'd have to hurry. I kneeled, picking up a piece of the bank, a part of the red-shirted chest, reading the legend, FEED ME in a curve of white iron letters, like the team name on an athlete's shirt. The figure had gone to pieces like a grenade, scattering jagged fragments of painted iron among the coins. I looked at my hand; a small trickle of blood showed. I wiped it away, thinking, I'll have to hide this mess! I can't take her this and the news that I'm moving at the same time. Taking a newspaper from the chair I folded it stiffly and swept the coins and broken metal into a pile. Where would I hide it, I wondered, looking with profound distaste at the iron kinks, the dull red of a piece of grinning lip. Why, I thought with anguish, would Mary have something like this around anyway? Just why? I looked under the bed. It was dustless there, no place to hide anything. She was too good a housekeeper. Besides, what of the coins? Hell! Maybe the thing was left by the former roomer. Anyway, whose ever it was, it had to be hidden. There was the closet, but she'd find it there too. After I was gone a few days she'd clean out my things and there it'd be. The knocking had gone beyond mere protest over heatlessness now, they had fallen into a ragged rumba rhythm:

Knock!
Knock-knock
Knock-knock!

Knock!
Knock-knock!
Knock-knock!

vibrating the very floor.
"Just a few minutes more, you bastards," I said aloud, "and I'll be gone! No respect for the individual. Why don't you think about those who might wish to sleep? What if someone is near a nervous breakdown . . . ?"
But there was still the package. There was nothing to do but get rid of it along the way downtown. Making a tight bundle, I placed it in my overcoat pocket. I'd simply have to give Mary enough money to cover the coins. I'd give her as much as I could spare, half of what I had, if necessary. That should make up for some of it. She should appreciate that. And now I realized with a feeling of dread that I had to meet her face to face. There was no way out. Why can't I just tell her that I'm leaving and pay her and go on off? She was a landlady, I was a tenant—No, there was more to it and I wasn't hard enough, scientific enough, even to tell her that I was leaving. I'll tell her I have a job, anything, but it has to be now.
She was sitting at the table drinking coffee when I went in, the kettle hissing away on the stove, sending up jets of steam.
"Gee, but you slow this morning," she said. "Take some of that water in the kettle and go wash your face. Though sleepy as you look, maybe you ought to just use cold water."
"This'll do," I said flatly, feeling the steam drifting upon my face, growing swiftly damp and cold. The clock above the stove was slower than mine.
In the bathroom I put in the plug and poured some of the hot water and cooled it from the spigot. I kept the tear-warm water upon my face a long time, then dried and returned to the kitchen.
"Run it full again," she said when I returned. "How you feel?"
"So-so," I said.
She sat with her elbows upon the enameled table top, her cup held in both hands, one work-worn little finger delicately curved. I went to the sink and turned the spigot, feeling the cold rush of water upon my hand, thinking of what I had to do . . .
"That's enough there, boy," Mary said, startling me. "Wake up!"
"I guess I'm not all here," I said. "My mind was wandering."
"Well, call it back and come get you some coffee. Soon's I've had mine, I'll see what kind of breakfast I can whip together. I guess after last night you can eat this morning. You didn't come back for supper."
"I'm sorry," I said. "Coffee will be enough for me."
"Boy, you better start eating again," she warned, pouring me a full cup of coffee.
I took the cup and sipped it, black. It was bitter. She glanced from me to the sugar bowl and back again but remained silent, then swirled her cup, looking into it.
"Guess I'll have to get some better filters," she mused. "These I got lets through the grounds along with the coffee, the good with the bad. I don't know though, even with the best of filters you apt to find a ground or two at the bottom of your cup."
I blew upon the steaming liquid, avoiding Mary's eyes. The knocking was becoming unbearable again. I'd have to get away. I looked at the hot metallic surface of the coffee, noticing on oily, opalescent swirl.
"Look, Mary," I said, plunging in, "I want to talk to you about something."
"Now see here, boy," she said gruffly, "I don't want you worrying me about your rent this morning. I'm not worried 'cause when you get it I know you'll pay me. Meanwhile you forget it. Nobody in this house is going to starve. You having any luck lining up a job?"
"No—I mean not exactly," I stammered, seizing the opportunity. "But I've got an appointment to see about one this morning . . ."
Her face brightened. "Oh, that's fine. You'll get something yet. I know it."
"But about my debt," I began again.
"Don't worry about it. How about some hotcakes?" she asked, rising and going to look into the cabinet. "They'll stick with you in this cold weather."
"I won't have time," I said. "But I've got something for you . . ."
"What's that?" she said, her voice coming muffled as she peered inside the cabinet.
"Here," I said hurriedly reaching into my pocket for the money.
"What?—Let's see if I got some syrup . . ."
"But look," I said eagerly, removing a hundred-dollar bill.
"Must be on a higher shelf," she said, her back still turned.
I sighed as she dragged a step ladder from beside the cabinet and mounted it, holding onto the doors and peering upon an upper shelf. I'd never get it said. . .
"But I'm trying to give you something," I said.
"Why don't you quit bothering me, boy? You trying to give me what?" she said looking over her shoulder.
I held up the bill. "This," I said.
She craned her head around. "Boy, what you got there?"
"It's money."
"Money? Good God, boy!" she said, almost losing her balance as she turned completely around. "Where'd you get all that much money? You been playing the numbers?"
"That's it. My number came up," I said thankfully—thinking, What'll I say if she asks what the number was? I didn't know. I had never played.
"But how come you didn't tell me? I'd have at least put a nickel on it."
"I didn't think it would do anything," I said.
"Well, I declare. And I bet it was your first time too."
"It was."
"See there, I knowed you was a lucky one. Here I been playing for years and the first drop of the bucket you hits for that kinda money. I'm sho glad for you, son. I really am. But I don't want your money. You wait 'til you get a job."
"But I'm not giving you all of it," I said hastily. "This is just on account."
"But that's a hundred-dollar bill. I take that an' try to change it and the white folks'll want to know my whole life's history." She snorted. "They want to know where I was born, where I work, and where I been for the last six months, and when I tell 'em they still gonna think I stole it. Ain't you got nothing smaller?"
"That's the smallest. Take it," I pleaded. "I'll have enough left."
She looked at me shrewdly. "You sho?"
"It's the truth," I said.
"Well, I de-clare—Let me get down from up here before I fall and break my neck! Son," she said, coming down off the ladder, "I sho do appreciate it. But I tell you, I'm just going to keep part of it for myself and the rest I'm going to save for you. You get hard up just come to Mary."
"I think I'll be all right now," I said, watching her fold the money carefully, placing it in the leather bag that always hung on the back of her chair.
"I'm really glad, 'cause now I can take care of that bill they been bothering me about. It'll do me so much good to go in there and plop down some money and tell them folks to quit bothering me. Son, I believe your luck done changed. You dream that number?"
I glanced at her eager face. "Yes," I said, "but it was a mixed-up dream."
"What was the figger—Jesus! What's this!" she cried, getting up and pointing at the linoleum near the steam line.
I saw a small drove of roaches trooping frantically down the steam line from the floor above, plummeting to the floor as the vibration of the pipe shook them off.
"Get the broom!" Mary yelled. "Out of the closet there!"
Stepping around the chair I snatched the broom and joined her, splattering the scattering roaches with both broom and feet, hearing the pop and snap as I brought the pressure down upon them vehemently.
"The filthy, stinking things," Mary cried. "Git that one under the table! Yon' he goes, don't let him git away! The nasty rascal!"
I swung the broom, battering and sweeping the squashed insects into piles. Breathing excitedly Mary got the dust pan and handed it to me.
"Some folks just live in filth," she said disgustedly. "Just let a little knocking start and here it comes crawling out. All you have to do is shake things up a bit."
I looked at the damp spots on the linoleum, then shakily replaced the pan and broom and started out of the room.
"Aren't you going to eat no breakfast?" she said. "Soon's I wipe up this mess I'm going to start."
"I don't have time," I said, my hand on the knob. "My appointment is early and I have a few things to do beforehand."
"Then you better stop and have you something hot soon as you can. Don't do to go around in this cold weather without something in your belly. And don't think you goin' start eating out just 'cause you got some money!"
"I don't. I'll take care of it," I said to her back as she washed her hands.
"Well, good luck, son," she called. "You really give me a pleasant surprise this morning—and if that's a lie, I hope something big'll bite me!"
She laughed gaily and I went down the hall to my room and closed the door. Pulling on my overcoat I got down my prized brief case from the closet. It was still as new as the night of the battle royal, and sagged now as I placed the smashed bank and coins inside and locked the flap. Then I closed the closet door and left.
The knocking didn't bother me so much now. Mary was singing something sad and serene as I went down the hall, and still singing as I opened the door and stepped into the outside hall. Then I remembered, and there beneath the dim hall light I took the faintly perfumed paper from my wallet and carefully unfolded it. A tremor passed over me; the hall was cold. Then it was gone and I squinted and took a long, hard look at my new Brotherhood name.
The night's snowfall was already being churned to muck by the passing cars, and it was warmer. Joining the pedestrians along the walk, I could feel the brief case swinging against my leg from the weight of the package, and I determined to get rid of the coins and broken iron at the first ash can. I needed nothing like this to remind me of my last morning at Mary's.
I made for a row of crushed garbage cans lined before a row of old private houses, coming alongside and tossing the package casually into one of them and moving on—only to hear a door open behind me and a voice ring out,
"Oh, no you don't, oh, no you don't! Just come right back here and get it!"
Turning, I saw a little woman standing on the stoop with a green coat covering her head and shoulders, its sleeves hanging limp like extra atrophied arms.
"I mean you," she called. "Come on back an' get your trash. An' don't ever put your trash in my can again!"
She was a short yellow woman with a pince-nez on a chain, her hair pinned up in knots.
"We keep our place clean and respectable and we don't want you field niggers coming up here from the South and ruining things," she shouted with blazing hate.
People were stopping to look. A super from a building down the block came out and stood in the middle of the walk, pounding his fist against his palm with a dry, smacking sound. I hesitated, embarrassed and annoyed. Was this woman crazy?
"I mean it! Yes, you! I'm talking to you! Just take it right out! Rosalie," she called to someone inside the house, "call the police, Rosalie!"
I can't afford that, I thought, and walked back to the can. "What does it matter, Miss?" I called up to her. "When the collectors come, garbage is garbage. I just didn't want to throw it into the street. I didn't know that some kinds of garbage were better than others."
"Never mind your impertinence," she said. "I'm sick and tired of having you southern Negroes mess up things for the rest of us!"
"All right," I said, "I'll get it out."
I reached into the half-filled can, feeling for the package, as the fumes of rotting swill entered my nostrils. It felt unhealthy to my hand, and the heavy package had sunk far down. Cursing, I pushed back my sleeve with my clean hand and probed until I found it. Then I wiped off my arm with a handkerchief and started away, aware of the people who paused to grin at me.
"It serves you right," the little woman called from the stoop.
And I turned and started upward. "That's enough out of you, you piece of yellow gone-to-waste. Unless you still want to call the police." My voice had taken on a new shrill pitch. "I've done what you wanted me to do; another word and I'll do what I want to do —"
She looked at me with widening eyes. "I believe you would," she said, opening the door. "I believe you would."
"I not only would, I'd love it," I said.
"I can see that you're no gentleman," she called, slamming the door,
At the next row of cans I wiped off my wrist and hands with a piece of newspaper, then wrapped the rest around the package. Next time I'd throw it into the street.
Two blocks further along my anger had ebbed, but I felt strangely lonely. Even the people who stood around me at the intersection seemed isolated, each lost in his own thoughts. And now just as the lights changed I let the package fall into the trampled snow and hurried across, thinking, There, it's done.
I had covered two blocks when someone called behind me, "Say, buddy! Hey, there! You, Mister . . . Wait a second!" and I could hear the hurried crunching of footsteps upon the snow. Then he was beside me, a squat man in worn clothes, the strands of his breath showing white in the cold as he smiled at me, panting.
"You was moving so fast I thought I wasn't going to be able to stop you," he said. "Didn't you lose something back there a piece?"
Oh, hell, a friend in need, I thought, deciding to deny it. "Lose something?" I said. "Why, no."
"You sure?" he said, frowning.
"Yes," I said, seeing his forehead wrinkle with uncertainty, a hot charge of fear leaping to his eyes as he searched my face.
"But I seen you—Say, buddy," he said, looking swiftly back up the street, "what you trying to do?"
"Do? What do you mean?"
"I mean talking 'bout you didn't lose nothing. You working a con game or something?" He backed away, looking hurriedly at the pedestrians back up the street from where he'd come.
"What on earth are you talking about now?" I said. "I tell you I didn't lose anything."
"Man, don't tell me! I seen you. What the hell you mean?" he said, furtively removing the package from his pocket. "This here feels like money or a gun or something and I know damn well I seen you drop it."
"Oh, that," I said. "That isn't anything—I thought you —"
"That's right, 'Oh.' So you remember now, don't you? I think I'm doing you a favor and you play me for a fool. You some kind of confidence man or dope peddler or something? You trying to work one of those pigeon drops on me?"
"Pigeon drop?" I said. "You're making a mistake —"
"Mistake, hell! Take this damn stuff," he said, thrusting the package in my hands as though it were a bomb with a lighted fuse. "I got a family, man. I try to do you a favor and here you trying to get me into trouble—You running from a detective or somebody?"
"Wait a minute," I said. "You're letting your imagination run away; this is nothing but garbage —"
"Don't try to hand me that simple-minded crap," he wheezed. "I know what kind of garbage it is. You young New York Negroes is a blip! I swear you is! I hope they catch you and put your ass under the jail!"
He shot away as though I had smallpox. I looked at the package. He thinks it's a gun or stolen goods, I thought, watching him go. A few steps farther along I was about to toss it boldly into the street when upon looking back I saw him, joined by another man now, gesturing toward me indignantly. I hurried away. Give him time and the fool'll call a policeman. I dropped the package back into the brief case. I'd wait until I got downtown.
On the subway people around me were reading their morning papers, pressing forward their unpleasant faces. I rode with my eyes shut, trying to make my mind blank to thoughts of Mary. Then turning, I saw the item Violent Protest Over Harlem Eviction, just as the man lowered his paper and moved out of the breaking doors. I could hardly wait until I reached 42nd Street, where I found the story carried on the front page of a tabloid, and I read it eagerly. I was referred to only as an unknown "rabble rouser" who had disappeared in the excitement, but that it referred to me was unmistakable. It had lasted for two hours, the crowd refusing to vacate the premises. I entered the clothing store with a new sense of self-importance.
I selected a more expensive suit than I'd intended, and while it was being altered I picked up a hat, shorts, shoes, underwear and socks, then hurried to call Brother Jack, who snapped his orders like a general. I was to go to a number on the upper East Side where I'd find a room, and I was to read over some of the Brotherhood's literature which had been left there for me, with the idea of my making a speech at a Harlem rally to be held that evening.
The address was that of an undistinguished building in a mixed Spanish-Irish neighborhood, and there were boys throwing snowballs across the street when I rang the super's bell. The door was opened by a small pleasant-faced woman who smiled.
"Good morning, Brother," she said. "The apartment is all ready for you. He said you'd come about this time and I've just this minute come down. My, just look at that snow."
I followed her up the three flights of stairs, wondering what on earth I'd do with a whole apartment.
"This is it," she said, removing a chain of keys from her pocket and opening a door at the front of the hall. I went into a small comfortably furnished room that was bright with the winter sun. "This is the living room," she said proudly, "and over here is your bedroom."
It was much larger than I needed, with a chest of drawers, two upholstered chairs, two closets, a bookshelf and a desk on which was stacked the literature to which he'd referred. A bathroom lay off the bedroom, and there was a small kitchen.
"I hope you like it, Brother," she said, as she left. "If there's anything you need, please ring my bell."
The apartment was clean and neat and I liked it—especially the bathroom with its tub and shower. And as quickly as I could I drew a bath and soaked myself. Then feeling clean and exhilarated I went out to puzzle over the Brotherhood books and pamphlets. My brief case with the broken image lay on the table. I would get rid of the package later; right now I had to think about tonight's rally.