New Boy (6 page)

"Bud Powell is the greatest jazz pianist in the world," he said flatly, as the train was nearing Grand Central station. "Maybe he's in town. If he is, you ought to try to hear him. He's a genius." When the train arrived at Grand Central, we exchanged phone numbers and walked down the platform with our bags. The lobby of the station was huge, bigger than any place I'd ever seen, big enough to hold three or four Majesties easily, with an enormous, vaulted ceiling and marble everywhere. It was swarming with people, nearly all of whom were white, except for the self-important redcaps, who were strutting around, pushing their carts laden with luggage, as though they were in service to royalty.

"Is your friend going to meet you here?" said Burns. Cousin Gwen had sent me careful directions for taking the subway from Grand Central, but I still needed to find the subway entrance.

"I'm going to take the subway," I said. "Do you know where I catch it?"

Burns motioned for me to follow him and we walked outside onto Forty-second Street, where he pointed down the block. It was early afternoon, overcast and gray, with great streams of cars, trucks, and taxicabs moving along the street in both directions. "How are you getting home?" I said.

"I could easily walk it from here," said Burns, "but my father insists on having our chauffeur pick me up." At that moment, a
long black limousine pulled up to the curb and a dark-skinned man in a dark suit and a chauffeur's cap got out and hurried over to Burns. "Well," said Burns, "speak of the devil. How ya' doing, Tyrone?" Tyrone made an obsequious half-bow. He was cleanshaven and stocky, with close-cropped hair, a thick neck, and ebony skin. He looked as though he could have been an athlete at one time.

"Jes' fine, Mr. Gordie," he said, with a broad, toothy smile. "Sho' is good to see you. How you been?"

"I've been fine, Tyrone," said Burns. "I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Rob Garrett. He's in school with me at Draper." Tyrone's eyes narrowed as he looked me over, and his smile disappeared. "Rob, this is Tyrone Gaskins. Tyrone has worked for us for many years. He's like a member of the family."

"How you doin'?" Tyrone muttered without looking at me, as he bent over to pick up Burns's suitcase. Suddenly he added, "What sports you play up there?" giving me a wary glare.

"I didn't play any sports this fall," I said. "I decided to concentrate on my schoolwork." Tyrone looked skeptical.

"You didn't play no football? How they let you get away with that?"

"It's simple, Tyrone," said Burns. "It was Rob's decision. He didn't want to do it." Tyrone continued to look me over as though I was a species of Negro he had never seen before. He even seemed mildly resentful. I picked up my bag to walk down the street to the subway.

"I'll give you a call," I said to Burns. "Maybe we can do it on Friday evening."

"Friday might be a problem," said Burns. "Saturday would be better."

"Saturday's fine," I said, thinking it would give me an extra day to spend with my parents and in case they became suspicious.

"Say, why don't we give you a lift to the subway entrance? It's a bit of a walk, and it won't take us out of our way," said Burns.

"I wouldn't mind it."

"Okay, let's go!" said Burns. I could see Tyrone stiffen as he opened the door to the limousine for us. Burns climbed in first. I put my bag inside and got in behind him. Tyrone shut the door with a thud and went around to the driver's side. "Times Square is probably crowded," said Burns. "Why don't we drop Rob off at Fiftieth Street?" Tyrone murmured his assent and quickly pulled into the traffic, snaking between cars and accelerating in the open lanes at breakneck speed. I had never ridden so fast in such heavy traffic, and I had little time to appreciate the luxury of riding in a limousine. Before I knew it, Tyrone had pulled the limo up to a corner curb.

"There's the entrance," said Burns, pointing to a dirty concrete structure that looked like a bunker. Tyrone remained behind the wheel, so I got my bag and opened the door myself.

"Thanks a lot for the ride," I said, loud enough for Tyrone to hear me, but he seemed not to. "I'll give you a call on Friday, Gordie."

"Okay," said Burns, "but be sure to call before sundown." He used such a natural voice that I thought nothing of it at the time, but as I stood on the platform waiting for the train, I thought it seemed a little odd. As the train rolled into the station, however, I concluded his family had probably made plans for dinner on Friday evening, and I thought nothing more of it.

I boarded the train headed uptown and found a seat. The doors closed and the train accelerated quickly, barreling through the tunnel so fast that every passenger, even those who were seated like me, had to hold on to something to avoid being thrown to the floor. Eventually, I found the rhythm of the train's movement and began to look around at the other passengers. A well-dressed Chinese couple—at least I thought they were Chinese—were seated across from me, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone except each other. There were several white people on the train, most of them elderly and simply dressed. The women wore hats and the men needed a shave. The whites were either talking to each other or reading the paper or looking at the advertisements that were posted in the train. And there were several colored people, seated apart and looking out the window at the switching lights or dozing with their heads bowed as the train sped through the tunnel. As we headed north, the Chinese couple and the white people got off at various stops and were replaced by more Negroes, until the train reached 110th Street and it looked as though we were traveling through the South in a segregated coach.

Instead of going directly to Cousin Gwen's, I decided to get off the train at 125th Street. For as long as I could remember, I had heard people at home talk about 125th Street as though it was the eighth wonder of the world. "The big time," "the crossroads of Negro America," they called it—but on the few occasions when I had visited New York with my parents, I had only glimpsed the street in passing, on our way to Cousin Gwen's apartment. Now that I had some time of my own, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I knew Cousin Gwen was expecting me, so I couldn't stay for long, and, although my suitcase wasn't very heavy, I still had to carry it. But for the moment, I was free to see Harlem for myself.

I emerged from the subway at the corner of 125th Street and looked around. There were shops and businesses, stretching as far as I could see. With my bag in hand, I started to walk. Along both sides of the street, there were banks, restaurants, theaters, supermarkets, pawn shops, even a department store right in the middle of a Negro community. Eventually I reached Seventh
Avenue, which was lined with large apartment buildings, some as much as a block long and ten stories high, and big churches as well as little storefronts, flanked by funeral homes, nightclubs, doctors' offices, beauty parlors, bars, and liquor stores. The traffic light was green, and the people around me were crossing, so I crossed with them, looking around in amazement at the sights. Diagonally across the street was the Hotel Theresa where, I had heard, a lot of Negro entertainers liked to stay. Both streets seemed as broad as highways and clogged with traffic, taxis, delivery trucks, brand-new Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals, even a few prewar Packards, Fords, Dodges, and old jalopies, all, it seemed, driven by Negroes who were honking their horns at once. The sidewalks were as wide as some streets at home with Negroes moving up and down them in both directions, more Negroes in one place than I had ever seen before.

"Whatcha looking for, son?" said a high-pitched voice I didn't recognize. I looked around and saw a short, light-skinned old man in a jacket and tie. He was wearing a little gray Persian lamb cap that resembled a fedora without a brim and tortoise-shell eyeglasses, which gave him a somewhat scholarly air.

"Nothing, really," I said. "I'm just looking."

"It's a sight to behold, ain't it?" said the old man, smiling. "All these African people in one place."

"Why do you call them African?" I said. It seemed obvious to me that the people on the street were American Negroes, as was I, and as he gave every appearance of being. He cocked his head to one side and squinted at me with one eye nearly closed.

"Boy, where you from?" he said, with an edge to his voice.

"I'm from Virginia."

"What you doin' up here?"

"I'm going to school."

"I thought so," said the old man, his voice now a mixture of self-satisfaction and contempt. "What school you going to?" he said, as though he knew the answer already.

"Draper." I was a little uneasy about telling him, but I decided to anyway.

"Where is
that?
" he shot back, apparently unfamiliar with the name but relishing the role of inquisitor.

"It's in Connecticut. It's a boarding school."

"You mean to tell me you going to a big-time school like that and you don't know you an African?" he said. "What they teachin' you up there anyway?" I was taken aback. Because he was an old man, I felt I should defer to his age, but I found his premise preposterous. There was no question that our ancestors, his and mine, were African slaves, but so much had happened in between to dilute our African ancestry, it seemed absurd to call either of us African. What purpose could it possibly serve, I thought, except to fuel the ravings of an eccentric? Indeed, as I looked at the old man, who was several shades lighter than I was, I could not help but think how ridiculous it was for
him
to call himself an African, since it was obvious that he had a good deal more white blood than black blood in his veins.

I looked around and I realized we were standing in front of a building that was unlike any other in the area. It was a small
brownstone apartment building, four stories high, located on the northeast side of Seventh Avenue, a few doors up from 125th Street. From the second floor down to the street, the building's exterior was covered with signs, the biggest of which identified it as the house of common sense and proper propaganda. Underneath, in much larger letters, was printed,

WORLD HISTORY
BOOK OUTLET ON
2,000,000,000
(
TWO BILLION
)
AFRICANS AND NON-WHITE PEOPLES

Around the perimeter of the sign were hand-painted portraits of colored leaders from around the world, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Tubman of Liberia, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Nasser of Egypt, all of whom I had heard of, as well as someone named Garvey, whom I didn't recognize. On the sidewalk, there were other signs, one of which said,

REPATRIATION HEADQUARTERS
BACK TO AFRICA MOVEMENT
REGISTER HERE!

The signs were professionally lettered and the overall effect was similar to what you'd find at the Believe It or Not tent at a traveling circus. And there were tables on the sidewalk piled with books and pamphlets and newspapers, all on racial themes.

"You need to get yourself a
real
education," the old man said, "instead of filling your head with white ideas." He picked up a newspaper from a nearby card table. "Read this," he said, handing the paper to me, "instead of that trash the white man has been feeding you. You need to know your
own
history before you take up all those European subjects they been giving you up there. The Europeans want you to believe civilization begins and ends with them." He made a face like a child who has just been given a dose of castor oil. "Nothing but foolishness," he sputtered. "Utter nonsense. And don't you be stupid enough to fall for it. You must have a good mind or you wouldn't be up there in the first place. You don't need the white man. Stay with your own people. Anytime you want to learn more about yourself you know where to find me I'm here seven days a week," and he handed me his business card. I was fascinated and a little discomfited by what he had to say. His point of view was so different from anything I had been exposed to in the South. I was inclined to linger and find out more about him, but since I didn't have much time, I decided to keep moving. I thanked him for his advice, put his card in my pocket, and said goodbye.

With the newspaper tucked under my arm and my suitcase in my hand, I fell in with the waves of people moving west with the green light across Seventh Avenue. When I reached the sidewalk on the other side, I stopped and looked back, as the crowd swept past me. As I stood against the tide, I looked across the street, searching for his tiny figure, and after a moment I found
him, standing on the sidewalk in front of his bookstore, shielding his eyes with one hand. When he saw me turn around, he waved his hand briefly, like a grandfather watching his grandson cross a busy street, and then he turned and disappeared inside his store.

By then, I had only seen one police car. It was parked on 125th Street, a few doors down from the House of Common Sense, under a no parking sign, with two white policemen in dark blue uniforms seated in the front. They were the first white faces I'd seen since emerging from the subway, and all they seemed to be doing was watching the traffic, which was heavy and at a standstill. The windows of the police car were rolled up tight, and the policemen made no effort to get out and wade into the intersection to get the traffic moving. Perhaps, I thought, they didn't want to risk getting run over.

I decided to follow the crowd that was headed along 125th Street. The broad sidewalks were swollen with colored people moving in both directions, and I felt as though I was being swept along by the dark mass of humanity into which I had entered, as though I was immersed in a river, carried by its current toward some inevitable destination. I was exhilarated to be there, to be surrounded by so many brown faces at one time. And so I wandered down the street with the rest of the crowd, occasionally nodding at the colored men coming my way, when our eyes would meet, acknowledging the unspoken bond between us. But where, I thought, is everyone going? Up ahead, I could
see a theater marquee hanging over the sidewalk with the word apollo in huge letters above it, and below, the words rhythm and blues revue. It immediately brought to mind the Majestic, but when I reached the marquee, there was no crowd lingering underneath waiting to be admitted, just a slim, sable-colored man with a mountainous process—a glossy arrangement of straightened hair crimped in waves that covered his head. He was wearing a silver tuxedo jacket and black stovepipe trousers, a pale pink shirt with a thin black tie and shiny black shoes with long, pointed toes. He glanced several times at his watch and looked up and down the street without noticing me, although I was only a few feet away. There was something familiar about him. I was certain he was an entertainer, dressed like that and standing in front of the Apollo, and I thought he might be someone famous. I stopped to get a good look, and when I did he gave me a hard stare at first, but. slowly, his face softened into dim recognition.