Manchild in the Promised Land (51 page)

I remember the Saturday night when Dad kicked Pimp out of the house and told him not to come back. Pimp had fallen to sleep on the toilet with a needle in his arm. I guess he'd taken a light O.D.

Mama was telling me about it. According to her, Dad came in and panicked. He opened the bathroom door and saw Pimp halfway on and halfway off the toilet with a needle in his arm. Mama said he just starting calling so loud for her to come there, she thought he was dying. Mama tried to make a joke out of it. She said she thought maybe he'd fallen down in the toilet and was having trouble getting out. I tried to laugh, but all I could get out was a snicker.

Mama said she tried to slap Pimp out of it. She thought for a while he was dead when she saw him. She just refused to accept that her child was dead from using dope. She ran into the bathroom and started slapping him and calling his name real loud, as though, even if he was dead, he would hear her and come back.

She started hollering for the doctor, and she started hollering about an ambulance. Dad said, “No, don't be callin' no ambulance or no doctors around here. We ain't gon have no police coming in here.”

Mama started hollering, “The boy might be dead! The boy might be dead!”

Dad said, “Huh?” He'd stop and say, “He ain't dead. He ain't dead. It's just that old dope.” They both panicked.

When Mama finally got Pimp to wake up, after so much slapping and calling his name, Dad was convinced that it was time for Pimp to go. I guess he should have been convinced. It must have been a pretty frightening thing, even for him, though he wouldn't admit it, to come
into the bathroom and see his son slumped over a toilet with a needle in his arm, after having heard so much about the junkies dying from using dope, after having been to so many funerals, after having asked so many times about this kid and that kid who came up with his older son and being told that he'd died from dope—it must have been a pretty frightening thing.

Pimp had deceived just about everybody in the family for a long time. After a while, we all knew, but I knew before anybody else that Pimp was dabbling. I was the first one to say, “Come on, man. You got to do something.”

I guess Pimp sort of knew that I suspected him of using stuff. The first time after I saw him high that night in the Low Hat, I took him to a bar. He didn't know that I had seen him nodding. I said, “Come on, let's have a drink. I want to talk to you. Let's sit down and have a drink.”

I asked him what he'd like to drink. I remembered that he used to like rum. I think he just took a rum and Coke because he knew I remembered it and thought I might get suspicious if he didn't.

When he took his first sip of the rum and Coke, he grimaced. He said, “Man, it's, like, I'm so tired. I'm so tired, Sonny, this stuff almost knocks me out.”

I looked at him and said, “Yeah, man. It can do that to you.”

Then he looked down and started fumbling with his glass, as if he knew I was suspicious of him. The next thing he said was, “Man, you know, I ain't had no good rum in a long time.”

When he said this, I paid it no attention. I knew he was going to try to bullshit me. I looked straight at him as he went on talking. I said, “Pimp.” I sort of quietly shouted it at him.

“Yeah, Sonny?”

“How long have you been dabblin' in stuff?”

He looked at me for a long time. He got kind of quiet, and he dropped his head. He said, “Oh, about four months, man.”

“How far are you? How much stuff are you usin' a day?”

“Oh, man, I buy a bag about every other day, but I don't get high every day.”

“Are you snortin' or skin poppin'?”

“Man, I'm just startin', and I can keep a bag two or three days.”

“Uh-huh. That is good, because now is the time for you to stop. You got to stop now, before you really get yourself into some trouble.

“Yeah, yeah.” He was glad to hear this. It seemed as though he had heard something that he had been waiting to hear, he had been given some kind of signal. He seemed to feel that all he had to do now was agree with everything I said and everything would be okay. He was going to prevent any violence from taking place by just being agreeable.

“Look, Pimp, you got a job, and you're still working. You're doing good now. Now is the time when you can quit, because if you keep on dabblin', man, you're gon actually go to the dogs. After a while, you won't be able to quit, and you won't have anything to quit for, because once you blow your job, your clothes, and everything you've got, it just won't matter that much. You got a nice girl, man. And maybe you'll want to get married or something. But what you're doin', man, you're gon blow everything.”

“Yeah, Sonny, I know what you mean, man. I've been tellin' myself. I've been planning on stopping this stuff for the last two weeks. As a matter of fact, last week …”

I just knew he was lying. He was saying all this so relaxed, and he seemed so pleased with the way he was telling it. But I could tell he was lying. I knew. He didn't know how to lie, not to me anyway.

He said that he had bought some Dorphine tablets and that he had taken his first two today. He was going to keep taking the Dorphine tablets and start cutting down on other drugs from day to day, and in a couple of weeks or so, he'd be ready to sign himself into someplace.

I asked him if he'd ever heard of Norman Eddie, in the East Harlem Protestant Parish. He said no, he hadn't. I said, “Well, he's doin' a lot of good work with drug addicts, and if you're really interested, I think I could get him to work with you, man. You could kick it now, before it really gets a strong hold on you.”

Pimp went right on bullshitting me. He said, “Yeah, Sonny, that's what I want to do. You go ahead and see this cat and let me know what's happening.”

I was crushed. He didn't understand it at all. He just seemed to look at me as if I were someone who was trying to deprive him of something. And he wasn't even going to pretend to defend it, even though he wanted it terribly. He was just going to sit there and say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh-huh. I'll go along with you. You're right; that's so right. I'm going to be doing it, so there's nothing else to talk about when you stop trying to sell me on it.”

Even though I could see this, I still felt I had to try. He was my brother, and I could make him kick it. He couldn't help but kick it if I was in his corner, if I really wanted him to. I was going to put everything I had into it.

When Mama called me that Saturday night and told me what Dad had said to Pimp, how he couldn't come back in the house any more, and how afraid she was for him, I said, “Look, Mama, he'll be coming back.”

She said, “No, he ain't gon come back, because he was really hurt. I think he's just gon go some place and try and take enough of that stuff to kill himself or something.”

I said, “No, Mama, junkies don't kill themselves. They've goc something to live for. They got to live for another high, for the next one. He'll probably come down here.” I knew he wasn't coming, but that's what I told her. “Mama, he'll probably come down here, and when he does come down, I'll put him up for the night and call you and let you know.”

Mama said, “He just might go someplace and get himself into some trouble in the meantime, before he gets down there. Why don't you go out and look for him for a little while. He's probably around there on 144th Street. And let me know if you can't find him. Call me and keep in touch with me, because he ain't had a bath all week, and he got on those old dirty pants. That shirt he has on, he put it on day before yesterday, and it was white. It looks like it's black from the dirt and grime. He ain't had nothin' to eat in a long time. I don't know if he even had anything to eat yesterday, and he's probably hungry.”

I wanted to tell her, “Look, Mama, junkies don't care about eating. They don't care about clothes. They don't care about baths and stuff like that. It just don't matter to them. All they care about is some heroin, and this is the only thing that's gon do them any good, Mama. You got to face the fact that he's at that state where soap and water's not gon do him any good. Clothes ain't gon do him any good. Food ain't gon do him any good. He's just dead, and maybe the thing that'll do him the most good is the O.D., the O.D. that he's waitin' for.” But I couldn't tell her that. I just couldn't seem to bring it out.

I knew it was no use, but she got me to promise that I'd look for him. She was a woman, and that was her child. I couldn't tell her that many other women had sons and daughters out there dying too. It
wouldn't have meant anything to her, because this was the first child that she had out there who was a drug addict. This was the only one out there she was concerned about, the only one that mattered.

I went uptown to start looking for Pimp. I looked everywhere. I went to all the places where junkies might go, looked in all the dope dens, in all the backyards where the junkies might sleep. Nobody had seen him or heard about him. Some people hadn't seen him in days. I kept on looking and hoping. When Mama called me, it had been about eight-thirty or nine o'clock. When I hadn't found Pimp or anybody who had seen Pimp by three-thirty, I became a little worried.

I started fearing for him. When this happened, I started getting mad at myself, because I felt myself going right back into the same pattern again. I knew that if I had seen him then and he was in pain or said his habit was down on him, I would have had to give him some money to get him some stuff. I probably would have fallen right back into Pimp's trick bag and helped send him to Kentucky and waited for him to come back and start all over.

Still, the longer I looked for him, the more worried I became. And the more worried I became, the more angry I became with myself for worrying, for going back on my word, for weakening, for weakening from Pimp and his weakness. This was what he had always played on with me. He'd beg me for my clothes, to pawn them, because he knew I worried about him.

He'd intimidate me with my concern for him. He'd tell me he was going to have to go and try a stickup or something like that. Many times, after he'd left, I'd say, “Nigger, go on. Go on and pull a stickup. Go on and do what you want to. Just hurry up and get it over with; like, pull a stickup and get shot, or go on and throw a brick. Rob somebody's house and get thrown out of a window, or just go on and take that O.D. But whatever you do, please do it in a hurry. Please do it in a hurry and get off my back.”

That was what I should have told him, but I guess every junkie looks pitiful to his brother. Pimp always seemed to be the most pitiful creature in the world when his habit was down on him. He looked so helpless. I knew I could never turn my back on him if I saw him when his habit was down on him. I was almost certain that this morning would be another case like that.

There was nothing else to do but go on uptown and tell Mama
that I couldn't find him but that we still had Pimp, we still had our problem.

When I got there, I hesitated to knock on the door. I felt ashamed to go in there and tell Mama, “Look, I couldn't find him. I couldn ‘t find hide nor hair of him. Nobody's seen him or heard from him.”

She expected me to bring her some hope. That's why I went out to begin with, because I figured I could bring him back or at least find him and ease her mind. But I had to come back with nothing, not even knowing where Pimp was.

When I finally got around to knocking on the door, Dad opened the door. I think he had just come in. Not from looking for Pimp—he had come in from his Saturday night. He looked at me as if he was a little disappointed or something. Maybe he expected the police to come and bring Pimp home or bring his body home or bring the information that he was dead. It was just me, and he seemed to resent the knowledge that my presence brought him: that we still had our problem.

Dad went into the bathroom, and I went into the front room. Mama was sitting at the front window. I just came in, walking slowly, and said I couldn't find him.

Mama said, “Yeah, he might just be someplace dead, in some strange backyard. Maybe some of those junkies could have taken him and thrown him in some boiler down in the cellar. Like they did around on 144th Street last year, when that boy took a lot of dope and went in that coma. They put him in that boiler, just about cooked him. Yeah, he just might be layin' around in one of them boilers cookin' right now.”

I didn't say anything, because I knew what Mama was doing. I felt sorry for her. She was trying to prepare herself for the worst by saying all that stuff. I knew she didn't believe it, and she didn't want to believe it. She just wanted to hear herself say it, just in case somebody brought some sad news. If she told herself that this was what had happened to him, and something happened to him that wasn't as bad, it had to be good.

Then Dad came in and said, “Woman, why don't you stop all that foolishness? You don't have to be worried about them damn junkies. Them damn junkies take care of theirselves twice as good as you can. You see that they be out there so long, look like they be dying, and they
be hanging around there for years. Why don't you stop talkin' all that foolishness?”

Mama didn't seem to hear Dad. She looked out the window, saw the daylight creeping in, stroked the cat—about the tenth cat named Tina—and seemed to realize that Saturday night was gone. Mama stroked the cat lightly and looked out the window, greeting the daylight with a question. She said to the dawn, “Lord, where can my child be this mornin'?”

I
FIRST
heard about the Black Muslims in 1955. They had started talking at night down on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. This seemed to be the speakers' corner in Harlem. Everybody talked down there, all the politicians. Anybody who had to address the Harlem public got up on a soapbox on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue.