Manchild in the Promised Land (60 page)

She said, “Aw, come on, Sonny. Damn, Sonny, I use to always dig you for bein' a straight-out nigger, and now here you gon come and tell me some shit like that. How old you gon get ? Shit. Colored men, they never stop fuckin', I don't care how old they get. They might stop usin' pot, and they might stop snortin' cocaine, but here you gon tell me you so old at twenty-one. You can stop snortin', you can stop smoking pot, but you can't tell me, Sonny, that you're so old you're gon stop screwin'.”

I said, “No, I guess I'm not that old, baby; it's …”

She said, “That's what I was afraid of, likin' somebody.”

I said, “Look, life goes on, Jackie. I'm certain you didn't wait all this time just for me. You didn't even know I was comin' in that bar, baby.”

“Yeah, but that's beside the point, Sonny. I tried to find you as soon as I got home. The first place I went was to your house. You didn't answer any of my letters or anything, and I still went to your house, first stop.”

I said, “Jackie, about not answering your letters, as a matter of fact, I didn't get any.”

She said, “I kind of halfway figured that, when I found out that you weren't living with your folks. I knew they would never give you any letters that I'd written to you.”

“That's about what happened.”

She said, “Well, Mr. Righteous, can I fix you a drink?”

“Sure.”

She fixed me a Scotch, and we talked about old times. I asked her
about her plans. She said she didn't know. She figured she'd just keep in doing what she had been doing.

I said, “You can't intend to trick all your life, can you? One day you'll get old, baby.”

“Everybody's gonna get old one day, Sonny. I think the main thing is doing what you want to do, as long as you can, before you get too old to do it. This is what I want to do. Sonny, I sure wish it could be us again.”

“Yeah, I guess I kind of wish that too, Jackie, but you just can't turn back the clock.”

“Yeah, I guess I should have known, Sonny, when I saw you with that little satchel. It just doesn't look like you, walkin' around and carryin' some bag, sellin' cosmetics.”

“Yeah, well, I guess everybody changes.”

“Sonny, did you ever miss me much, or did you ever think of me much?”

“Yeah, I thought of you quite a bit. As a matter of fact, I think it was the dreams of you that kept me warm on those cold winter nights when I first moved away from home.”

“Yeah, I'll bet.”

I said, “Damn, I wish you'd been around then.”

“Yeah, I wish I'd been around too, Sonny.”

I asked her where she'd been, and she said someplace called West-field. She told me about some girls she knew from around the neighborhood and asked me if I knew them. They were up there. She said it was a real ball. She met some nice people.

I said, “Yeah, I usually met nice people too. That's how it goes. Sometimes you meet some of the nicest people in those places.”

We were quiet for a while. I guess I was trying to find a way to end the conversation and say good-bye. After I got there, I felt it would have been better not to have seen her any more after that night in that bar. Then if I had seen her again, I could have kept telling her that I was coming by, but never getting there. Eventually, she would have gotten the message. It would have been easier on both of us. Bu I had come by, and we were both just sitting there. I knew she was wondering how she should treat me, and I was wondering what I should say, trying to think of something nice that I could say to her.

She started asking me about people. She said she'd heard that Turk was making a name for himself as a heavyweight fighter. I said, “Yeah
he's doing real good.” She said she'd heard he'd married that little stuck-up girl on Eighth Avenue. I said, “Sally? I never thought she was stuck up.”

Jackie said, “No, you wouldn't have.”

“Yeah, he married Sally. They've got a real cute little girl.”

Jackie said, “Yeah, I've seen her. She's a pretty child, but I think that's all because of Turk. It's got nothing to do with that old stuck-up …”

I said, “No, Sally has changed too. She was young then, and, I suppose, you would …”

“Aw, I bet she didn't change that much.”

“Look at it this way, Jackie, she must've changed somewhat, because she married Turk, didn't she? And Turk was always one of the dirty little boys out there on the street. Right?”

“Yeah, well, I don't know. Maybe she did change. What happened to Tito?”

“Tito's doin' time, baby, doin' a lot of time, in Sing Sing.”

“I use to always feel sorry for him. I remember one time, Sonny, I gave Tito some body because I felt sorry for him.”

I looked at her sort of suspiciously and said, “Yeah, I'll bet you did.”

“I would never tell that to anybody else but you. I knew you wouldn't believe it, but I knew you could understand it if anybody could.”

“I'm glad you waited this long to tell me, because if you'd told me back then, I would've beaten your ass.”

“Would you, Sonny, would you really have?”

“You know I would have.”

“Yeah, I guess you really did care for me.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

I told her that I had to go to see some customers. She didn't want me to go, but she knew we didn't have anything more to talk about. She hesitated, and then she said, “Sonny, whatever happened to Alley Bush and his crazy self?”

I said, “Oh, Alley is a Muslim now. He's down there on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue hollering and raising hell.”

“Everybody has grown up and gone his own way, huh?”

“Well, I guess that's what life's all about, Jackie. Look at you. You seem to have grown and gone on your own way.”

“Sonny, I don't know what I'm doin'. I know that I've got to do it, and that's all I know. Whatever it is, regardless of how little sense it makes, I've go to do it.… Okay, if you have to be so straight, can't we still be friends, even though we've got different ways to go?”

“Jackie, the way I feel about you, you'll always be one of my dearest friends.” She smiled. I said, “I've got to go, but I'll see you around.”

She went to the door, and as I came by, she kissed at me. I touched her on her lips and said, “Take it easy, baby.”

I had a funny feeling about everything, about the past, about my childhood, and I kind or wondered if Jackie had been real, if the childhood had been real, if we had all gone through all that stuff. I wondered if it weren't really just a dream. I couldn't understand Bucky's not being around. It just never made sense. I guess you just had to take it as it was.

I started meeting a lot of new people when I was selling cosmetics. There were some discouraging moments, but I felt that I had good products to sell to people. Chicks would swear they didn't even have enough money to buy food. They'd say they had only a few pennies, and they really wished they could afford it. Some chicks would start talking that talk about how much they wished they could afford it, and then they'd start opening their robes a little more.

What was so discouraging was that some women wouldn't come out and just say that they didn't like the stuff or didn't want any. They'd swear to all kinds of gods that they didn't have any money. Then the numbers man would come up and knock on the door to get his list of digits for the day, and the same chick who was just telling you that she only had money to buy a little bit of food for the day and didn't know how she was going to make it to the end of the week would start reaching in her brassiere or her stocking and pulling out dollar bills from everywhere. That was just the way it went. I didn't feel too bad. I'd been in Harlem just about all my life, and I knew how people felt about the numbers. I knew that if they did nothing else, they were going to play numbers.

Sometimes you'd meet some girls you really liked. There were other moments when you'd hear about some of the things that happen to women. It made it seem as though women in Harlem were really getting messed over right and left.

I went to a woman's house one morning, and she said she didn't have any money. I said, “Well, this is the day that you told me to come by.”

“Yeah, but dammit, I ain't got no money.”

I just stood there in the doorway and looked at her for a while. She kept screaming, “Everybody! Everybody's got their hand out in this goddamn town!”

“Look, lady, I'm sorry. I'll come back some other time.”

As I turned, she stopped raving. She said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, mister, I'm sorry. I had no business blowin' off and cussin' at you like that. You ain't did nothing to me. I ain't got nothin' against you.”

I said, “That's okay. I'm glad to have been here, if you had to let it out. Sometimes it helps.”

She said, “How much do I owe you for that soap?”

“A dollar seventy-five.”

“Want to come on in a minute? I'll get my change purse.”

I came in and sat down. She said, “Damn. You work so hard, and you try so hard to earn a living and make enough money so you can send your kids to school and keep some clothes on their backs, and these no-good damn doggish men ain't gon try and help you. Not only is they not gon try and help you, they gon try and stop you from doin' anything.”

“Yeah, well, that's the way it goes sometimes.”

“That old no-good damn doggish husband of mine had to go and get himself in jail, just for bein' so goddamn doggish.”

“Yeah, I suppose all men have a little bit of dog in them.”

I remembered the times I'd followed Mama from one room to another when she'd be cleaning house. She'd turn around and say, “Boy, why don't you stop walkin' up under me? Go sit down, or go some place and play or somethin'.”

I'd be following her around, asking questions. Mama would be walking from one end of the house to the other, cleaning, talking to herself, cooking, and looking in the pot. She'd be saying, “That old no-good high-yella hussy. I'm gon throw some hot water on her or somethin'.”

I'd say, “Mama, what's a hussy?”

She'd say, “Boy, why don't you go on out from here and leave me alone?”

I'd be quiet and wouldn't say anything, and Mama would go
back, and she'd start talking. I'd walk behind her. When we got to the other end of the house, I'd say, “Mama, what's a heifer?”

She'd say, “Child why don't you … a heifer is a cow. Now, would you please go someplace and leave me alone?”

I'd just be more puzzled. I'd say, “Mama, you gon throw some hot water on a cow?”

“No, I'm talking about that old light-skin heifer that's always comin' around here to see your daddy.” She'd stop and sit down, maybe take me on her lap, and say, “One day, you'll probably understand … when the dog in you starts comin' out.”

I'd say, “What dog in me, Mama?”

“Every man's got a little bitta dog in him. Your daddy got a whole lotta dog in him too.”

“Yeah, well, I sure hope I ain't got no dog in me, Mama.” Mama would just laugh. She'd rock me a few times, put me off her lap, and start walking from one end of the house to the other, cleaning up here and cleaning up there.

I didn't understand that dog thing, not right then anyway. Then one day I heard a girl say, “A nigger is nothing but a dog.” And I remembered Mama telling me, “Boy, don't be so doggish,” when I would bring home one girl one day and another girl the next. I got the meaning of the dog in the man. “Yeah, all men have a little dog in them,” I repeated to myself.

“Yeah, but they ain't suppose to be that doggish,” the woman said now.

I didn't initiate the conversation, and I didn't feel as though I were in a position to ask her anything, so I just sat there.

She continued after a little pause. She said, “Here I'm sending my fifteen-year-old daughter to school, and this nigger gon be goin' to jail for fuckin' his daughter.”

“Yeah, well …” I felt uncomfortable when this came out. I felt as though I had to say something pretty fast. I just said, “Yeah, well, you can't trust those stepfathers sometimes.” I figured it must have been a stepfather.

“No, that ain't none of her stepfather. That's just her natural daddy, just a doggish old nigger, that's all.”

I just didn't know what to say behind that.

“I just think about it. He might have been doing it for a long time, until my son caught him.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes when people get drunk they don't know what they're doing.”

“He wasn't no damn drunk.” Then she started crying. She said, “He's just a dog!” She put her head down and went on crying.

I felt foolish being there and wanting money, when this woman had troubles much bigger than the dollar and seventy-five cents that she owed me. I just left.

I had to get out, get to the beauty parlor, see some of the smiling beauticians. I always dug those chicks. They seemed to be the strong women in Harlem. They had a lot of confidence. They were pretty slick, and they thought they knew everything. I liked to be around them when I felt kind of blue. I used to think about these women. I used to wonder how cats who came up in Harlem with mothers like these could be anything but strong men, because they came from such strong women.

T
HREE DAYS
after Dad had put Pimp out, Mama got a letter from Bellevue Hospital. They had him down there.

A panic had hit Harlem. Whenever the inflow of drugs in the country is slowed down to where there's none on the streets, the junkies panic. The junkies go around and break into doctors' offices looking for drugs. They stick up drugstores and pharmacists. They stick up dentists. They stick up everybody with a white coat, everybody even remotely associated with medicine. Some junkies even start punching holes in their arms, not with hypodermic needles, but with just regular needles. They go through all kinds of things.