The End of a Primitive (6 page)

“Won’t you have come coffee? I’ve just made some fresh coffee.” He bustled up a cup and saucer like an eager widow.

“No, thanks, I’m going back to sleep. Coffee keeps me awake.”

Leroy looked crestfallen. “Whenever I ask you to have a bite to eat you always say you’re just going out or you’ve just eaten or you’re just going to sleep,” he complained. “One of these days I’m gonna quit asking you.”

“Why the hell don’t you,” Jesse thought, but instead he smiled and said, “You always ask me at the wrong time, Mr Martin. This is my drinking day.”

He tried to hurry on before Leroy could reply, but the little dog. Napoleon, who had been waiting his opportunity, charged him, barking furiously, and began nipping at his heels. Both dogs were blond Pomeranians, thoroughbreds with recorded pedigrees, the best of their species. Napoleon had been sired by Nero, who now lay quietly in his dog bed, old, shaggy and stinky, toothless and almost blind. They had been given to Leroy by a former employer, a wealthy dress manufacturer, who had taken up Doberman Pinschers at the death of his wife, to whom the Pomeranians had actually belonged. At the last moment Mr Fishbein had relented his long cherished resolve to have the Dobermans chew them up, and had given them to his black chauffeur instead. Whether he appreciated the irony of his decision, no one ever knew. They were very valuable dogs, or at least had been during the life of Mrs Fishbein. And Leroy was quite fond of them, partly because he knew of their former value, partly because they were such sissy dogs. But Jesse despised them, despised the breed. Although of the two, he liked Nero the better because Nero was soon going to die, which is what Jesse was convinced all Pomeranians should do. So when this little bastard came nipping at his heels his impulse was to give him a swift kick in the ribs, which he always did when no one was about.

But now Leroy called sharply, “Napoleon! Napoleon! You nasty thing! You come back here and let Mr Robinson alone.” he raised his lidded, lecherous look to Jesse’s face. “He likes you,” he said with double-entendre; “Those are just little love bites. He takes after his papa.”

“Oh, we understand one another,” Jesse said, hastening back to his room.

He stripped nude and began dressing. “Need a damn chastity belt to step out this door,” he muttered. He’d gotten on his blue-gray slacks, undershirt and shoes, when someone knocked. “Come in.”

Leroy entered with a tray. “Ohhhh, Mr Robinson! You told me you were going to bed,” he said accusingly.

“I changed my mind,” Jesse said shortly, but softened the brusque reply by adding. “I remembered several things I had to do.”

“I brought you a little snack so you wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry,” Leroy said, placing the tray on the dresser and stealing a look at Jesse’s semi-nude torso.

There was a plate of turkey sandwiches, a half bottle of whiskey, the cold bottle of ginger ale from the refrigerator, a glass, mixer, bowl of ice, and a slice of cake on the tray.

“I’m no frog, you snake,” Jesse thought but, seeing the whiskey, relented. “That looks mighty good. Maybe I ought to go to bed at that.”

Leroy’s expression didn’t change, but he gave the impression of rubbing his hands together. “You know what they say; let your conscience be your guide.” He was looking at Jesse’s shoulder as if he might take a bite out of it.

“I don’t have much choice this morning,” Jesse said quickly, putting on his shirt. “If that son of a bitch makes a pass at me I’ll cut his throat,” he thought. “But I will have a drink,” he added.

“Oh, help yourself,” Leroy said, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice. “I made it for you.”

“I suppose you made the liquor, too,” Jesse thought. He took a stiff drink straight and when Leroy turned to leave, stopped him. “Oh, just a moment, Mr Martin. I want to show you where the dogs’ve been using my bed for a tree.”

Leroy looked, then sniffed. “The nasty things! I’ll bet it was Napoleon, the nasty thing! I’ll bring him in here and put his nose in it and whip his little ass.”

“No need of that. I just wanted to show it to you. My door’ll have to stay shut.” He didn’t have a key to his room and what he meant was he wished they’d close the door when they entered it during his absence to look through his things. Leroy understood perfectly what he meant. “The little dog didn’t mean any harm. When you gotta go, you gotta go, even if you are a dog.”

Leroy laughed but caught himself just as he was about to slap Jesse on the shoulder, shake himself and shriek, “There’s nothing for it but to go!” Instead he said, almost gruffly from having to exercise so much control, “I’ll clean it up for you while you’re out, Mr Robinson,” and hurriedly left the room.

“Jesus Christ, how’d I get mixed up with these birdmen?” Jesse asked himself. However, it hadn’t been as involved as he wanted to make out. Three weeks before, directly after he’d gotten the five hundred dollar option on his new novel, he’d quit his porter’s job in White Plains and had come to New York to look for a room.

Finding rooms for its itinerant population is one of Harlem’s major businesses. One half of the population, at least a good two hundred thousand, live in rented rooms. They are never satisfied and move often. Or their landlords put them out. The rooming agent finds them another room, for which they pay a fee of five or ten dollars, depending on what kind of clothes they wear, cars they drive, or money they flash.

Jesse had consulted a woman agent selected at random from the classified advertisements in a Harlem weekly newspaper. She had sent him to see a woman, a Mrs Susie Braithewaite, on the floor above him, who had registered a room with her agency. She hadn’t really had a vacancy. The room was rented for a good price, fifteen dollars weekly, to a bartender who only used it during his days off and one or two nights in between, which Mr Braithewaite thought was a “good deal.” But Susie didn’t like the fact that the bartender brought white girls there;

and if he didn’t bring them they came anyway and stood out in the hall where they could be seen by the other respectable negro housewives, and rang her bell until someone answered. Who, of course, would not be the bartender; for unless he expected them he would have another white girl in his room, and two white girls at the same time always complicated matters. So she had decided to put the bartender out.

She hadn’t apprised her husband of her intention until Jesse called for an interview, then she had telephoned him at the cleaners where he worked as a presser. He had said, “Hell no!” being a sensible man and realizing in the long run money was worth more than respectability. Besides which, the bartender threw some fine white girls his way every now and then—which was what his wife suspected.

But she was attracted to Jesse on sight and didn’t want him to get away. She was one of those brown-skinned women who look as if they might be voracious in bed. She was about twenty-five, Jesse guessed, with the strong solid body of a girl athlete, the bosom of a wet nurse, and the big, high, ball-bearing hips of a miller. She ran the tip of her red tongue slowly across her wide full cushiony sensuous lips, making them wetly red, and looked him straight in the eyes with her own glassy speckled bedroom eyes. He stared back, feeling all of himself run down to one point, too weak to move, knowing his eyes were begging
now! yes now! please now! it’s got to be now! oh now! the rust is all dissolved…and hers replying not now! you know it can’t be now! but soon! just wait! can’t you wait? it can’t be all that loaded
….

So she’d gotten him this room on the floor below with Mr Martin. He should have recognized Mr Martin as a Panette on sight. But you can’t expect a man in that state to be very observant. He’d paid his rent and moved in before he’d realized the setup. Of course he could have moved after the first week. But it wasn’t worth the trouble.

“What the hell I care what people think!” he said defiantly, tying a Duke of Kent knot in his dark red tie.

“I really ought to shave,” he said as he pulled on a gray, cable-knit sweater. “I wish that punk would get a job and get the hell away from here sometimes.” From a curtained alcove along the wall toward the sitting room which served as a clothes closet, he took down a gray tweed sport coat, brushed the dust from his dark brown suede shoes, and poured himself another drink. He was beginning to feel a light glow. “Not bad for an old man,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror. His hair was cut too short, but that couldn’t be helped. He’d gone to a barber in White Plains who kept getting one side shorter than the other until he’d almost cut it all off, like the story of how the dining room table became a flying saucer. “Good thing I didn’t get a shave there,” he thought. “Look like hell with my teeth sticking out my jaws.” He put on a welt-edge, snap-brim, dark brown hat, taking care to have it straight. The hat emphasized his tan skin and semi-caucasian features, hiding his kinky hair. He poured himself another drink, then, noticing that the bottle was almost empty, poured the remainder into his glass, gulped it down and made a face. “Can’t keep this up, son!” he told himself. He felt very gay, on the verge of laughter. “Long as his ass will lass. So, lass ass! Or should I say, ass, lass!”

He found himself staggering slightly as he opened the door to the hall. A ball of tan hair, barking furiously, charged from the dark cave beneath the marble-top table as if to nip him on the shin bone. But a voice of concern called quickly from the dark sitting room, “Napoleon! Napoleon! You behave yourself!”

Jesse glanced into the sitting-room. Mr Ward sat in the armchair watching a morning television program. He was clad in an old ragged and faded cotton robe, and on the brass coffee stand there was a bottle of whiskey and a half-filled highball glass.

“Good morning, Mr Robinson.” His greeting was polite, respectful and impersonal.

“Good morning, Mr Ward.”

The door to Leroy’s bedroom was closed. Jesse switched on the lights and went cautiously down the long narrow hall toward the front door. He had once counted seven tables in this hall, in addition to much more incredible junk. Halfway down he turned on another light so he could see to get out.

The door was bolted at the top and at the bottom and there were three locks. From the centre lock a long heavy steel bar extended on a slant to an anchor in the floor. To unlock it, the top end was slipped from its socket in the lock, and passed upright through a bracket as the door opened inward. “Fort Knox!” Jesse muttered, manipulating the locks and bolts. He heard Mr Ward call, “I’ll turn out the lights, Mr Robinson.”

“Thanks, Mr Ward,” he called back.

Outside the door in the tiled corridor there was an iron and rubber door mat, welded to a short chain, the chain locked to a bolt, the bolt embedded in concrete in the floor. He had to lock all three locks again with separate keys. “I don’t believe these people trust each other,” he said.

A tall thin black and very old West Indian woman had just come from the apartment next door. She looked at him critically and disapprovingly. A couple emerged from an apartment farther down and looked at him curiously. The superintendent came from the elevator and looked at him interestedly. The super spoke. “What say, sport.” He looked as if they had a secret, but he wasn’t going to tell. “Can’t say,” Jesse replied. “All said.” The super grinned knowingly. “Keep ‘em guessing, sport.”

Jesse was smiling to himself when he got in the elevator. “They all think I’m one of the boys,” he thought. It tickled him. He noticed a very good-looking girl in the corner of the elevator, probably a student or a model, staring at him. He winked at her. She kept staring without any change of expression and when the elevator stopped on the ground floor, she hurried off like a very independent and competent young miss on her way to business—whatever her business might be—her high, hard heels tapping rhythmically on the tiles, her tall lithe body tripping down the steps, swinging through the outer glass door. “You were born on the wrong side of the genitals, son,” he told himself, half-amused.

It was a bright sunshiny April morning. He stood in front of the apartment for a moment, looking up and down the street. That part of Convent Avenue, from City College to 145th Street, was very attractive and clean, with its well-kept, picturesque old houses and stone and brick-faced apartment buildings among the most desirable residences in Harlem. Parking was restricted, and the black, slightly slanting macadam was lined with trees beginning to green. It was very pleasant standing there in the sun, watching the stream of students pass, the lovely young girls and the bright young men, as they came up from the Independent Subway at the corner of St. Nicolas and 145th Street. “From little icons big skyscrapers grow. Heaven’s the next floor, please,” he thought.

Now that he was dressed and outdoors, he didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know anyone he could visit at that hour.“At any hour!” he said aloud. Two men passing looked at him. He looked away. He wasn’t hungry yet. The thought of braving a lonely breakfast in some cheap Harlem hash joint repelled him. The bars weren’t open yet.

He decided to go down to 42nd Street and see what was showing at the cheap movie houses between Eighth Avenue and Times Square. They opened at eight. “Good thing you like movies, son,” he thought. “Otherwise you’d believe all that crap about your country you experience every day.”

He started down the slope toward 145th Street. “I go down but it’s uptown,” he thought. Everyone else was going the other way. He went down the street walking against the crowd. He staggered a little, but didn’t feel drunk. Millions of thoughts were churning into grotesque patterns in the back of his head, crowding out the gaiety.

Chapter 3

K
riss alighted from the IRT local at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, turned west at 60th Street, and walked north on Madison Avenue.

For more than twenty years this strip of Madison Avenue had been relinquished by the city fathers to old ladies of the Arsenic And Old Lace variety as a reservation in which to walk their cats and dogs. Then came the apocalyptic day when the quiet, genteel atmosphere of the reservation was shattered by house wreckers and steam shovels excavating for the foundation of the new, modern, aluminum building which, later, was to house the Ford Foundation. The old ladies freshened their arsenic and ventured forth, but the lower-class labourers didn’t drink tea. So the elderly females were forced to dally behind blackened curtains and had to learn to exercise their dogs and cats early in the morning and late in the afternoon when the danger of their being squashed into Harlem hamburger was minimized.