Never Love a Stranger (28 page)
Saturday was a tough day. I was busy running around all day and had made out pretty well on tips during the week. The customers seemed to like me and I was very careful to be polite and do everything I was asked. I found out I had a fair gift of selling. I could talk easily to the customers—joke with those who wanted to, be respectful to those who demanded it. I worked pretty hard but I liked it.
Sunday at the Harrises was a quiet affair. Tom was reading a paper when I walked in.
I put my package on the table.
“Where are the folks?” I asked him. “They gone out for a walk,” he replied. “Anything new?”
He shook his head. “Naw, I worked on the coal truck one day. But they ain’t anything.” “That’s tough!”
“Sho’ is!”
I gave him a buck. He took it quietly. “Buy yourself some cigarettes, pal,” I told him. “Or maybe go to a show or somethin’. What you need is a little change. Sitting here and worrying about it ain’t goin’ to do you any good.”
“Who’s worryin’?” he demanded, his shiny black face crinkling into a scowl. “Not me, I ain’t worryin’.”
We waited until the folks came back from their walk, then we sat around and chewed the fat a while. I left about six o’clock and went downtown to eat and bought a paper and went up to my room. I undressed slowly and stretched out on the bed and read the paper. After I had finished the paper, I put out the light and lay there in the darkness, smoking a cigarette and thinking. I wondered if I could do anything about finding a job for Tom. I fell asleep with the glimmering of an idea in the back of my head.
The weeks went by, one dissolving into the next with a smooth, melting routine that let them slip through my being. I made about enough money to get by easily if I was careful and the only extra money I spent was for the Harrises’ Sunday package. I went up there every Sunday and always left with a vague feeling of defeat.
March slipped into April, April into May, and May into June. I bought myself a few articles of clothing that I needed, but for the most part I used a pair of work pants and a shirt all through the week. I bought a new suit for Sundays but had no place to wear it except to the Harrises.
One morning when helping to unload the truck from the warehouse, the driver told me
“That means you’re going to need another helper,” I said. “Yep,” he said. “We’ll need two—one for me and one for him.”
I went to the store thoughtfully. This was a job for Tom. I decided to speak to Mr.
Rayzeus when he came the next morning.
When Mr. Rayzeus came in, I asked him if I could see him a minute before he left. I told him about Tom and he asked me if he was reliable.
“He sure is!” I said, “and he wants to work too. He needs a job.”
He shook his head. “I’ve had bad luck with young men,” he told me. “The first few weeks they’re O.K., but the minute they have a few bucks in their pockets they go off on a drunk and don’t come back till they’re broke.”
“I don’t know about the others,” I told him, “but I know this guy. He’ll do a good job.
He’s not a bum.”
Mr. Rayzeus looked at me strangely. “You know the guy pretty well?” I nodded. “I worked with him before, I know he’s all right.”
Mr. Rayzeus shrugged his shoulders. “O.K., send him up to me next week. I’ll talk to him.”
“Thanks, Mr. Rayzeus,” I said, and went back to work. I felt pretty good. Now maybe things will be a little better for them. I could hardly wait until Sunday so I could go up and tell them.
Sunday came bright and clear and warm. I put on my new suit and went uptown. All the way up I kept thinking how happy they’d be to hear the news—Mrs. Harris especially. I walked over to the house from the station and went upstairs. The old dump never changed. It smelled the same. Its rickety wooden steps still creaked underfoot. The electric bulb was too small for the large hallway and didn’t throw enough light. The paint peeled dryly off the walls.
I opened the door and walked into the apartment. Elly was sitting there reading the Sunday News, the coloured page of comics spread out on the table before her. The window, open behind her, allowed many of the sounds of the courtyard into the flat. Somewhere a kid was crying and a man and his wife were shouting at each other and a radio was playing, a jazz band—blending hideously together to make a kind of song of poverty.
Elly looked up at me. “Hello, Frankie.” “Hi!” I said. “Where’s everybody?”
She spoke slowly, tiredly. “Maw is down to church with Sam. Tom went out early this mornin’ and won’t be back till later this afternoon.”
I put the package on the table and opened it. “You’d better put this stuff away,” I told her. “Some of it might spoil.”
She got up and started to put the butter in the icebox. She didn’t speak. It was hot in there. I took off my jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a chair and watched her.
She was wearing a new dress. It was a shiny black satin, fitted fully around her breasts and yet shaped to them. It fitted closely to her skin all the way down. I could see she didn’t have much on underneath from the way it clung to her thighs as she walked around. When she had finished she went back to her chair and sat down without speaking.
Time dragged by. The perspiration was running down my neck, wilting my collar. I could feel little trickles of it running down my back under my undershirt. I opened my collar.
She put her head on her arm on the table and just stayed there silently. I could see the lighter tan of her breasts down the front of her dress as she bent forward.
“What’s the matter. Elly?” I asked. “Don’t you feel well?” “Un-unh,” she said, “I’m sick.”
I got out of my chair and walked over to her. “What’s bothering you?”
She didn’t answer but got out of her chair. “Got a cigarette on yuh?” she asked.
I took out a package from my pocket and gave them to her. She put one in her mouth and I lit up. She stood there impassively, holding the lighted cigarette in her hand. I let her go and went back to my chair feeling oddly defeated. I sat down and lit a cigarette. I didn’t look at her.
She walked over to the window and sat down on the sill looking out. After a few minutes she got up and walked over to me. I didn’t look up.
“It’s not that I don’t care, Frankie,” she said softly. “I’d rather be with you than anyone else. But I’m sick.”
“If you’re sick,” I burst out savagely, “why don’t you go to a doctor?” “I did,” she said dully. There was an undercurrent of fear in her voice.
I looked up at her. Her face was set, impassive. “What did he say?” I asked.
A minute passed before she could bring herself to answer. “Syphilis,” she said, and suddenly sat down in her chair and stared dully at me.
I started to speak, but a thousand things flashed through my mind that I couldn’t say. I opened my mouth like a fish but no sounds came out. She looked at me a little defiantly. We stared at each other. I didn’t know much about it but I knew it was pretty bad. “What are you going to do?” I finally managed to ask.
“I dunno,” she said. “The doctor says I have to report for treatments down at the hospital.”
“You’re not going back to the …” I stopped.
She stood up. “Why not?” she snarled. “Why shouldn’t I go back? That’s where I got it.”
“But you’ll give it to someone.”
“Why should I care?” She paced across the room. “They didn’t care about giving it to me. It’s their tough luck. I ain’t goin’ to see us go hungry just on account of that.”
“You won’t have to think about that,” I said. “My boss wants to see Tom about a job on one of the trucks.”
She looked at me in open disbelief. “Youah jus’ talkin’.” “No,” I said, “I mean it. He wants to see Tom. He told me.”
She was convinced.
“So you see,” I continued, “you can go to the doctor and get cured. You won’t have to worry about them.”
She looked as if she were going to cry, but she didn’t. Instead she came over towards me and took my hand. “It’s so good, Frankie,” she said, half smiling, half crying. “I just can’t believe
Maw Harris came in. She stood in the doorway a minute looking at us. Elly ran over to her. “Maw, Frankie tol’ me his boss wants to see Tom about a job!”
The old lady’s face broke into a smile. “She right, Frankie?” she asked me. I nodded. “Yes, Maw, she’s right. He wants to see Tom right away.”
Mrs. Harris turned to me in simple wonder. “The Lawd was a-lookin’ out for all of us when Tom brought you home.”
I looked at them. Elly was smiling happily; her mother too had a quiet, happy air about her. Sam came in. They told him the news. We all felt good. After a few minutes had passed, I asked Sam if he would go down for a packet of cigarettes and a large bottle of soda pop. It was hot and we could stand a cool drink. Tom hadn’t shown up yet. Elly went down with him.
Mrs. Harris sat in her old rocker. The chair squeaked on the bare wooden floor as she rocked it gently to and fro. She waited until the footsteps in the hall died down, and then she spoke. “You been a real friend to us, Frankie. We appreciate deeply whut you done foh us.”
I was a little embarrassed. “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “You did more for me than I ever could do for you.”
A few minutes passed before she spoke again. “Ah never asked you befoh, Frankie— maybe it ain’t none o’ my business— but haven’t you any frien’s besides us? I mean some white folks that you know?”
I thought of Jerry and Marty and the folks before I spoke. “No,” I said, “and if I did it probably wouldn’t do any good. It’s been so long ago.”
“Didn’t you evunh try to look them up an’ fin’ out?”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t do any good. It was a long time ago. They probably have forgotten about me by now.”
“Real frien’s never forgets,” the old woman said, “no matter how long it is you don’ see them. Besides, you should have some white frien’s.” She hesitated a second. “You should know some people you kin go out an’ have some fun with—some young boys an’ girls youh own age.”
“There’s nothing the matter with you folks,” I said. “You’ve been as nice to me as anyone I know of.”
“But,” she said, “you can’t go out with us. You can’t go dancin’ with us. We is coloured.
That ain’t the way things is done.”
“I don’t care how things are done,” I said, “and I don’t like dancing anyway.”
She smiled at that. “There’s another thing I thought I’d tell you about. It’s Elly. I think she kinda likes you, an’ they is nothin’ but grief in it foh us if’n she gets the idea wuhkin’ ovah in her haid. I don’t want to huht yoh feelin’s none, but things ain’t that way eithuh.”
I thought that over. While I was turning that thought over in my mind, the old lady continued to speak. “She kinda waits all week foh you to come up, an’ on Sundays she dresses herself up in her bes’ clothes cause yoah comin’.”
I knew more about Elly than the old lady knew, and yet she never said anything to me about what she felt or thought. I knew I didn’t love her, and I didn’t think for a minute that she might be in love with me. There was a feeling between us, but I thought it was a mixture of a sort of camaraderie and sex—an indefinable solution that had blended so well it defied all attempts at analysis. Finally I spoke. “I see what you’re tryin’ to tell me, Maw. I’ll do what you think is best. I don’t want to make any of you unhappy.”
She smiled again at me. “I knew you’d say that, Frankie. Youah a good boy. We’ll think about it an’ decide later what to do.”
Sam came in with the soda. We opened the bottle and each drank a glass. Then Sam asked me if I wanted to go up to the park near City College and watch a ball game with him.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to wait around for Tom so I could tell him about the job, but Mrs. Harris urged us to go. She said she was tired and wanted to lie down and take a nap, and that she wouldn’t tell Tom till I came back. I put on my jacket and went out with Sam. On the way down the stairs he told me that Elly had gone over to see a friend of hers, but she’d be back later. We went up to the park.
I
T
was hot up there in the park. The sun beat down on us unmercifully. There was a good game going on up there, though, and we had a good time watching it. We bought some hot dogs and lemonade from one of the pushcart vendors and ate them while we watched.
When we got back to the house it was nearly six o’clock and Tom hadn’t come back home yet. Elly was there and tried to urge me to stay for supper, but I begged off and went over to 125th Street and ate. Then I went to see a picture and came out a few minutes after ten. I decided to go over to the Harrises and see if Tom had come back. I turned up St. Nicholas Avenue and walked over to their house.
As I turned their corner a fire engine whizzed past me, its bell clanging and men pulling on their coats over their shoulders. I looked after them. There was a fire down the block. Smoke was pouring from a building. I stood on the corner staring at it foolishly a few minutes before I realized it was Tom’s house. Then I broke into a run down the block. There was a crowd of people gathered already and being pushed back by the cops.
The firemen were running up a long ladder to the sixth floor, and powerful streams of water were gushing into the blazing building. I pushed through the crowds of people to the front and looked around for one of the Harrises. It was dark and I couldn’t see very well. There was a great deal of excitement. A hand grabbed me by the shoulder.
I spun around. It was Tom. “Frankie!” he shouted, “where are they?”
“I don’t know,” I shouted back at him. “I just came from the show. Weren’t you home?”
“I just got back.”
Just then Sam and Elly came running up. They had been running and were out of breath. “Where’s Maw?” they shouted at Tom.
“I jus’ got home,” he shouted. “Ain’t she with you?”
“No,” Sam answered. “She was feelin’ kind of tired an’ she went to bed early.” We moved over to one of the policemen. He was a big coloured man.
“Did they git my mother out?” Tom asked him. “What she look like?” the cop shouted back.