The End of a Primitive (5 page)

Suddenly he caught a whiff of some foul scent. “Dog piss!” he said. He got down on his hands and knees and sniffed about the legs of the dresser, about the bottom of his wardrobe trunk in the comer, about the legs of the ancient radio cabinet. The dust made him sneeze. “For what I pay for this goddamned room I ought to get it cleaned up once in a while,” he said. He thought he heard a voice ask, “What did you say?” To which he replied shortly, “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Finally he located the area of the scent in the dark brown stains on the polished oak floor about the legs at the foot of his bed. It was definitely the scent of dog urine. “Dirty little bastards! I’ll poison ‘em!” he muttered angrily, getting to his feet. Then he thought, half-amused, “Everybody else has pissed on me; why not Leroy’s dogs?” His mind kept fiddling with the thought, “It’s only us dogs, boss.” He didn’t like that particularly and tried again, “There’s nothing too good to go to the dogs.” But that sounded too much like a wise saying. Scratching his pubic hair he exhausted the thought with. “What’s that you say, boy?…All I say, boss, is more lamp posts more dogs grow.”

For a moment he stood absently looking at his toes. “Even black feet are white on the bottom,” he said. On the side of the bed was a very old, frayed, rust-coloured Persian rug, but its colouring was still rich and bright. “Wonder where they get all this strange junk in this house?” he said. “No doubt Leroy’s. His white folks’ throwaways. Wonder how—” Leaving the thought unfinished, he put on a pair of faded flannel pyjamas that were draped across the back of a chair, stepped into a pair of white rubber bath slippers with red rubber soles, slipped on a dark blue rayon robe, greasy about the collar and cuffs, and went out to the toilet.

The apartment was located in the rear corner of a large apartment house with the three front rooms, including his own, overlooking 142nd Street, while the kitchen, bath, and back bedroom on the other side faced across a narrow airwell toward the blackish brick walls and incredibly dirty windows, always closed, of a small Catholic Convent.

The two front bedrooms, his and the corner one, Leroy’s, opened onto short hallways, not more than a step in length, that led to a large square back hall, which was separated from the small sitting-room at front by a glass partition. But the sitting-room blinds were always closed, throwing the hall in deep shadow. Jesse never left his room without mixed feelings of awe, admiration, and laughter, inspired by the fantastic furnishings crammed so thickly into every nook and corner that the mere act of crossing the hall to the John became a perilous journey, never to be taken lightly, and not to be ventured upon whatsoever when one was drunk and lacked full command of one’s senses.

In the narrow passage just to the left of his door stood the wooden cabinet of a Grandfather clock, over six feet tall, which he had dubbed the “mummy’s coffin,” its dark dulled finish blending with the surrounding gloom to form a perfect hazard located with uncanny skill and foresight to bump the heads of any who dared venture in that direction in the dark. He had yet to avoid it when either going or returning from the John at night; for to the right was a huge pot of imitation evergreens sitting on a wobbly tripod that had to be skirted, and beyond the clock cabinet, placed, strategically, directly in front of the glass partition, stood a cracked, white marble statue of a half-nude woman resting precariously atop a small round stand with rickety iron legs. The entrance to Leroy’s bedroom was rendered reasonably secure by two small bare tables arranged like a tank-trap in the Siegfried line. Beside the plastic evergreens was another table on which stood a huge, gilt clock that never ran and an empty glass fishbowl; beyond which was an old-fashioned writing desk and a rusty umbrella rack, the two of them efficiently blocking the entrance to the long narrow hallway, always pitch dark, through which one passed to reach the distant outside exit to the corridor—if you didn’t break your hip against the one, you tripped over the other and knocked out your teeth against an ancient iron footscraper located in the dark at just the exact distance to catch you in the mouth should you fall on your face.

Against the back wall of the hall stood a chest of drawers, atop which sat a glass-enclosed bookcase crammed with dusty, hand-me-down books, dusty stacks of sheet music, broken victrola records, and a scatter of whisky glasses; it in turn served as a perch for a stuffed owl which appeared so shockingly lifelike in such natural surroundings Jesse often wondered how the birdmen would dare venture from their nests.

On the other side of the hall was a huge black marble-topped dining-room table, leaning heavily against the wall for support, and serving as a zoo parade for a strange menagerie ranging from a large beribboned Teddy bear to a set of three wise monkeys carved from a peach seed. “Leroy’s Ark,” Jesse called it.

Although the sitting-room was much smaller than either bedroom, it contained an armchair, a settee, a sculpted head in white marble atop a tall, mahogany column, a combination radio, phonograph and television set with a twenty-one inch screen that was larger than the family Renault, a Baby Grand piano complete with piano stool, and a magnificent coffee table, the top of which was a removable, hand-carved circular brass tray about a yard in diameter. A tall man with long arms on the settee could easily, without moving, play the piano with his toes, operate the phonograph with his left hand while mixing drinks with his right and spit in the eye of any face which appeared on the television screen without having to turn his head—which Jesse considered a great advantage.

When Jesse stepped into the hall he noticed that Leroy’s bedroom door was open, and the young man. Pal, who slept with Leroy, was sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed, clad in green-and-white striped pyjamas, telephoning. “That’s when my love came down,” he confessed, laughing uproariously, but broke off upon sight of Jesse and looked embarrassed. He nodded and Jesse said, “Good morning.” He was about twenty-eight, Jessie guessed; a well-built virile-looking young man with a sepia complexion and kinky hair clipped short; and he had a warm smile and dull doe eyes quite suitable for his role. “
Faunesse
,” Jesse thought, “Suffragette casualty,” as he manoeuvered himself through the narrow treacherous pass between the marble-top table and the bookcase to the short side hall that led to the kitchen on the left, the bath straight ahead, and Mr Ward’s back bedroom to the right.

Mr Ward’s door was closed, as was customary, and there was no way of telling whether he was in or out; he had worked in the post office for close to twenty years and took advantage of his sick-leave, seniority and other accrued benefits to stay home whenever he pleased. Mr Ward was a short, dark, heavy-set, partially-bald man with marbled eyes. “Image of God,” Jesse thought, half-amused. “
Genesis I:27
.” Then, “If it’d been me, however, I wouldn’t have admitted it.”

He stepped inside the kitchen with the intention of making coffee. But sight of the devastation discouraged him. Garbage spread out from a pile beside the dumbwaiter, empty beer tins, crab shells, chicken bones, gin bottles, broken glass and what closely resembled dried vomit, beneath which the garbage pail was completely inundated. The breakfast table was covered with dirty egg-stained dishes, coffee cups and scraps of bread, the spoils of breakfast; the sink was stacked with dirty dishes, the ravages of last night’s feast. Atop the oven of an incredibly filthy gas range in the comer were piled helter-skelter a variety of blackened kitchen utensils and several coffee percolators, including his own, which still contained the coffee grounds and dregs of aged coffee. On the stove’s warmer were cups of runny fat, greasy boxes of matches, a jar of salt, a tin of pepper, and a saucepan partly filled with burnt rice. The burners held a dishpan filled with cold boiled bluepoint crabs, their bluish shells resembling unevenly tempered metal. Underneath the stove was the dog bed, lined with filthy rags and surrounded by layers of newspapers which were stained in several places where the dogs had peed.

Looking at the mess with disgust, Jesse recalled hearing one of the boys say girlishly the night before, “I feel so
unnecessary!
” He thought, “Damn right! Unnecessary and unexpurgated too!” But he lingered for a moment longer because the kitchen always fascinated him.

In the recess beside the dumbwaiter stood a huge refrigerator, above which, extending along both inside walls to the sealed door that had once connected Leroy’s bedroom, was a glass-enclosed china cabinet, beneath which was a wooden kitchen cabinet with many drawers. This cabinet was crammed to overflowing with glass and chinaware of a great variety of texture, size and design: individual glasses of innumerable shapes, ranging from exquisite, long-stemmed crystal wine glasses, delicate cutglass goblets, to the cheap gaudy ten-cent store tumblers and “shot” glasses of the kind used in cheap bars; several cocktail sets in stainless steel, coloured glass and yellow plastic;

a huge variety of pitchers, platters, serving dishes, stacks of plates, saucers, cups, finger bowls, egg cups, soup bowls, and beer mugs in the shape of miniature chamber pots, each and every one of different quality and design. Below, atop the kitchen cabinet, was an open tray of “company” silver, a few pieces of sterling, but most silverplate, worn along the edges and in the bowls of the spoons, no two pieces matching; and to one side a glass pitcher crammed with utensils of a dullish metal resembling pewter and others stamped with the names of chain restaurants and cheap hotels. “Too late to fire me now, boy,” Jesse said. “I got mine already.”

Among other items contributory to a varied cuisine and good housekeeping were: two containers of eggs with different trademarks; two tins of coffee of different brands; a battered tin bread box half-filled with four partly used loaves of white bread, each of a different brand; an unopened box of cube sugar, its surface covered with dust, and two paper cartons of granulated sugar; three partly-filled bottles of cheap, popular whiskys of different brands; one empty and one full gin bottle; two empty siphons; two containers of Pepsi-Cola, one with two empties and one with three; an electric iron sans cord with a rusty plate; three boxes of soap powder, two opened; a batch of policy slips neatly filed on a nail driven through a board; a jar of pickles, two rolls of toilet paper, and a paper sack of strange roots. “Double or nothing,” Jesse thought.

Beside the sealed door was a broom closet containing a two-foot stack of old newspapers, atop which was a two-foot stack of old paper bags; a lopsided broom; an old raincoat; an old sports jacket; a white rubber apron; a pair of black rubber hip boots; a soiled white chef’s cap; a section of rubber hose; an assorted collection of twine; the electric iron cord; two leather belts; a broken fly swatter; three worn dog leashes; a hammer, screwdriver, hand-saw, empty bottles, old shoes, dust rags and a section of vacuum cleaner tubing. Whenever the door was opened, things began falling out. “Pandora’s got nothing on you boys,” Jesse muttered.

He opened the refrigerator to look for his milk, then stood back and stared. The top shelf was crammed with tins of beer; on the second shelf were butter, eggs, two bottles of milk, a bottle of grape juice, three bottles of Coca Cola, and a quart of orange pop. His container of milk was gone, however. On the shelf beneath were the carcass of a roasted turkey, half of a layer cake with white frosting, a dish of boiled okra, a plate of fried chicken, and a quart bottle of ginger ale. The bottom shelf held one half of a baked ham, a platter piled high with a gray concoction that closely resembled granulated putty—a speciality of Leroy’s made of boiled corn meal and okra—three-quarters of a sweet potato pie, two boiled pig’s feet, and a dish of stewed prunes. In the glass meat tray beneath the freezer were a number of whole fish, probably porgies. “What, no chitterlings?” Jesse said, then, “Never mind the wings, Lawd, just set out the victuals. Leave them fly who been resting all their lives.”

As he started to take a swig from one of the whiskey bottles he heard the outside door open and the dogs yelping, and hastened into the bathroom. The toilet bowl was clogged and filled with excrement. “No wonder!” he said.

The window was raised and while urinating he looked absently toward the windows of the convent. The window opposite on the floor beneath opened from the toilet or bath. Once he had seen it cracked from the top. He wondered if the nuns knew what sort of neighbours they had across the way. He heard Leroy entering the kitchen, talking to the dogs in his high whining voice. “Now you let Nero alone. Napoleon. You know he hasn’t got any teeth. Bad dog! Bad dog! I’m gonna have to whip yo’ little ass if you don’t behave.” He heard the rattle of the chain as Leroy hung it carelessly over the doorknob.

He waited for a moment, hoping Leroy would leave so he wouldn’t have to speak to him, but hearing him fiddling about the sink, grumbling to himself, “Now I got to wash all these dishes. They must think I’m their mother.” He slipped into the hall, hoping to pass unnoticed, but Leroy saw him and greeted brightly, “Good morning, Mr Robinson. I thought you were out.”

“Good morning, Mr Martin. No, I came in late.” He’d always made a particular point of addressing
Mister
Martin and
Mister
Ward with strict formality to avoid any familiarity; the other one he called Pal because it was the only name he knew.

Leroy was a big black man, over six feet tall, with a bulging belly and huge homy hands. He had removed his coat and hat and was now clad in a soiled white shirt with rolled sleeves and black, chauffeur uniform trousers, baggy and shiny, unbuttoned at the top so his belly could overflow. His eyes popped slightly from his flat round face, giving him a look of perpetual surprise, which went admirably with his surroundings. But whenever he looked at Jesse his lids lowered lecherously and his smile widened hungrily, giving to his startled face an expression of a murderer confronting his victim. However, it was intended to be a coquettish look, at once admiring, indulgent, respectful and desirous, by which he hoped to overcome Jesse’s reserve.