The Street (36 page)

‘You knocked my groceries!' ‘Eggs in here—'

‘Boy, watch where you're going!' ‘If I get my hands on you, you little black devil—' ‘Ouch! My foot!'

His pursuers ran head-on into the confusion he left behind him. He turned to look—a large lady had Gray Cap by the ear, was indignantly pointing at the groceries spilling out of a brown-paper bag on the sidewalk. Bub chuckled at the sight and kept running.

Two blocks away, he slowed his pace and looked back. The boys were nowhere in sight. He had thrown them off completely. He walked on, not thinking, merely trying to catch his breath. His heart was thudding so hard, he thought it was just as though it had been running, too. He smiled at the idea. It had been running right alongside of him, so that it had to go faster and faster to keep up with him. He could almost see it—red like a Valentine heart with short legs kicking up in back of it as it ran.

He wondered if he ought to start working in this block. Supe hadn't said not to go in other streets,
and this one was quite unfamiliar. The sun added a shine and a polish to the buildings; it sparkled on the small muddy streams at the crossings where the snow had melted. Yes, he would try working here where the strangeness of his surroundings offered a kind of challenge, like exploring a new and unknown country. In fact, he would start in that house right across the street—the one where two men were sitting on the steps talking. He felt a quiver of excitement at his own daring.

There was a vast and lakelike expanse of water in the middle of the street. Bub paused to wade through the exact center of it and then ducked out of the way as a passing car sent a shooting spray of water splashing to the curb.

He walked quietly up the steps, past the two men, and paused in the doorway. They weren't paying any attention to him. They were talking about the war, and they were so engrossed he knew they would soon forget he was there behind them. Water dripped down from the roof, gurgled into the gutters.

‘Sure, sure, I know,' the man in overalls said impatiently. ‘I been in a war. I know what I'm talking about. There'll be trouble when them colored boys come back. They ain't going to put up with all this stuff'—he waved toward the street. His hand made a wide, all-inclusive gesture that took in the buildings, the garbage cans, the pools of water, even the people passing by.

‘What they going to do about it?' said the other man.

‘They're going to change it. You watch what I tell you. They're going to change it.'

‘Been like this all these years, ain't nothing a bunch of hungry soldiers can do about it.'

‘Don't tell me, man. I know. I was in the last war.'

‘What's that got to do with it? What did you change when you come back? They're going to come back with their bellies full of gas and starve just like they done before—'

‘They ain't using gas in this war. That's where you're wrong. They ain't using gas—'

Bub opened the door of the hall and slipped inside. The hall was quiet and dark. He listened for footsteps. There was no sound at all. He made no effort to open the mail boxes, but peered inside them. The first three were empty. The next two contained letters—he could see the slim edges showing up white in the dark interior of the boxes.

Slow footsteps started on the stairs and he examined the hall with care. There was no place to hide. He didn't want to appear suddenly on the steps outside, for the two men would notice him and wonder what he had been doing.

He sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and bent over, pretending to tie his shoelace. Then he untied it, waited until he heard the footsteps reach the landing above him and started shoving the lacers through the eyelets of his shoe.

The footsteps came closer and he bent over further He looked toward the sound. A skirt was going past him—an old lady's skirt because it was long; there were black stockings below the skirt and shapeless, flat-heeled shoes.

‘Having trouble with your shoelace, son?'

‘Yes'm.' He refused to look up, thinking that she would go away if he kept his head down.

‘You want me to tie it?'

‘No'm.' He lifted his head and smiled at her. She was a nice old lady with white hair and soft, dark brown skin.

‘You live in this house, son?'

‘Yes'm.' Her old eyes were sharp, keen. He hoped she couldn't tell by looking at him that he was doing something not quite right. It wasn't really wrong because he was helping the police, but he hadn't yet been able to get over the feeling that the letters that weren't the right ones ought to be put back in the boxes. He would talk to Supe about it when he went home. Meantime, he grinned up at her because he liked her.

‘You're a nice boy,' she said. ‘What's your name?'

‘Bub Johnson.'

‘Johnson. Johnson. Which floor you live on, son?'

‘The top one.'

‘Why, you must be Mis' Johnson's grandson. You sure are a nice boy, son,' she said.

She went out the door, murmuring, ‘Mis' Johnson's grandson. Now that's real nice he's here with her.'

Bub remained on the bottom step. He had told two lies in succession. They came out so easily he was appalled, for he hadn't even hesitated when he said he lived here in this house and then that he lived on the top floor. That made two separate, distinct ones. What would Mom think of him? Perhaps he oughtn't to do this for Supe any more. He was certain Mom would object.

But he earned three whole dollars last week. Three whole dollars all at one time, and Mom ought to be pleased by that. When he had a lot more, he'd tell her about it, and they would laugh and joke and have a good time together the way they used to before she changed so. He tried to think of a word that would describe the way she had been lately—mad, he guessed. Well, anyway, different because she was so worried about their not having any money.

He opened three mail boxes in succession. The key stuck a little, but by easing it he made it work. He stuffed the letters in the big pockets of his short wool jacket.

The street door opened smoothly. He slipped quietly outside to the stoop. The men were still talking. They didn't turn their heads. He stood motionless in back of them.

‘The trouble with colored folks is they ain't got no gumption. They ought to let white folks know they ain't going to keep on putting up with their nonsense.'

‘How they going to do that? You keep saying that, and I keep telling you you don't know what you're talking about. A man can't have no gumption when he ain't got nothing to have it with. Why, don't you know they could clean this whole place out easy if colored folks started to acting up. What else they going to do but—'

Bub walked past them, hands in his pockets; paused for a moment right in front of them to look up and down the street as though deciding in an aimless kind of fashion which way he'd go and how he'd spend the afternoon.

And standing there with people going past him,
the two men behind him arguing interminably, aimlessly, a sudden, hot excitement stirred in him. It was a pleasant tingling similar to the feeling he got at gangster movies. These men behind him, these people passing by, didn't know who he was or what he was doing. It could be they were the very men he was trying to catch; it could be the evidence to trap them was at that very moment reposing in the pockets of his jacket.

This was more wonderful, more thrilling, than anything he had ever done, any experience he had ever known. It wasn't make-believe like the movies. It was real, and he was playing the most important part.

He walked slowly down the street, his hands in his pockets, savoring his own importance. He paused in the middle of the block where he lived to watch a crap game that was going on. A big man leaning against an automobile pulled into the curb, held the stakes in his hands—fistfuls of money, Bub thought, looking at the ends of the dollar bills. Boy, but he's big all over—big arms, big shoulders, big hands, big feet. The other men formed a small circle around him, squatting down when they rolled the dice, standing up to watch whoever was shooting.

A thin, tall boy breathed softly on the dice cupped tight in his hand. ‘Work for poppa. Come for poppa. Act right for poppa. Hear what poppa say.' His body rocked back and forth as he talked to the dice, oblivious of everything, the street, the big man, the impatient little circle around him.

‘Come on, roll 'em! What the hell!'

‘Christ, you going to kiss them dice all day?'

‘Roll em, boy! Roll 'em!'

The boy ignored them, went on talking softly, sweetly to the dice. ‘Do it for poppa. Show your love for poppa. Come for poppa.'

The big man kept turning his head, taking quick looks first up and then down the street. Bub looked, too, to see what it was he was seeking. A mounted cop turned into the block from Seventh Avenue. The horse picked up his feet delicately, gaily, as he came side-stepping and cavorting toward them. The sun glinted on the bits of metal on his harness, enriched the chestnut brown of his hide. Bub stared at the approaching pair completely entranced, for the street stretched away and away in back of them and the horse and the man glowed in the sunlight.

‘Blow it,' the big man said out of the side of his mouth.

Bub didn't move. He edged closer to the thin boy and stared at the boy's hand closed so tightly over the dice as he waited to hear again the rhythm of the boy's soft talking.

‘Scram, kid,' the big man said.

Bub moved a little nearer to the thin boy in the hope that if he stayed long enough he might be able to get his hands on the dice and talk to them himself.

‘Get the hell out of here,' the man growled, pushing him violently away.

Bub trotted off down the street. The big palooka, who does he think he is? The big palooka! He liked the sound of the words, and he said them over and over to himself as he walked along—the big palooka, the big palooka.

The key in his pants pocket made a pleasant jingling
as he walked, because it clinked against his doorkey. He skipped along to make it louder. Then he ran a little way, but the sound seemed to disappear, so he slowed down, and began to imitate the dancing, cavorting horse that he had seen picking his way along the street with the sun shining on him.

‘The big palooka,' he said softly. He stopped trotting like the horse and the key jingled in his pocket. The sound reminded him that he hadn't done any work in his own street that afternoon.

Before he headed for home, he had stopped in three apartment houses. The letters he obtained formed lumps in his pockets. Going in and out of the doorways, pausing to listen for footsteps in the halls, walking stealthily up to the mail boxes, sitting down on a bottom step to tie his shoe whenever someone came in or went out, tiptoeing out of the buildings, quickened the excitement in him. People in the houses were completely and stupidly unaware of his presence; their voices coming from behind the closed doors of the apartments added to his sense of daring.

He wished he could share the wonder of it with someone. Supe was too matter-of-fact and never took any interest in the details. His excitement and his pleasure in this thing he was doing enchanted him so that he walked straight into the middle of the gang of boys who had chased him earlier in the afternoon.

They were standing under Mrs. Hedges' window, talking.

‘Aw, you can't go down there. Them white cops are mean as hell—'

‘You're afraid of 'em,' Gray Cap said. There was a sneer on his lean, black face. The light-colored gray cap that gave him his name was far back on his head; the front turned toward the back so that his face was framed against the pale fuzzy wool.

‘Who's afraid of 'em?'

‘You are.'

‘I ain't.'

‘You are, too.'

It might have ended in a fight except that Gray Cap spied Bub approaching. He was coming toward them, so wrapped in thought, so unaware, so full of whatever dream was foremost in his mind, that they nudged each other with delight. They spread out a little so they could encircle him.

‘You start it,' one of them whispered.

Gray Cap nodded. He was standing feet wide apart, hands on hips, dead center in Bub's path, grinning. It always worked, he thought. Start a fight and then take the kid's money and anything else he had on him. You could rob anybody that way in broad daylight. The gang simply closed in once the fight got started.

He waited, watching Bub's slow approach, savoring the moment when he would look up and see that he was trapped. Three boys had moved slowly, carefully, so that they were in back of Bub. There. They had him. Gray Cap moved forward a little, to hasten the entry of the bird into the trap. Perfect.

‘Hi,' he said, and grinned.

Bub looked up, surprised. He turned his head slowly, knowing beforehand what he would find. Yes, there was one on each side of him; two, no, three,
in back of him. He kept on walking, thinking that he would walk right up to Gray Cap, and then suddenly swerve past him and run for the door.

Gray Cap's hand shot out, grabbed the collar of Bub's jacket.

‘Take your hands off my clothes,' Bub said feebly.

‘Who's going to make?' Bub didn't answer. ‘Who's going to make?' Gray Cap repeated. Bub still didn't answer. Gray Cap's eyes narrowed. ‘Your mother's a whore,' he said suddenly.

Bub was startled. ‘What's that?'

‘He says he don't know what it is. Look at him.' Gray Cap grinned at his henchmen. ‘He don't know what his mother is.'

‘She is not,' Bub said defensively, impelled to deny whatever it was that had set Gray Cap to grinning and winking.

‘What you mean she ain't? You just said you don't know what it is. Look at him. He don't know what it is and he says she ain't. Look at him.'

Bub didn't answer.

‘His mother's a whore,' Gray Cap repeated. ‘Does nasty things with men,' he elaborated.