“If there is, I got yet to see some of ’em. Most of ’em can’t talk. They just stand with their heads down, with one foot on top of the other and you have to guess at what they’re trying to say.”
I was at ease now. I liked her.
“My husband works in a bakery,” she rattled on pleasantly, openly, as though she had known me for years. “We take in roomers to help out. We just simple people here. You can call this home, if you got a mind to. The rent’s three dollars.”
“That’s a little high,” I said.
“Then give me two dollars and a half till you get yourself a job,” she said.
I accepted and she showed me my room. I set my suitcase down.
“You run off, didn’t you?” she asked.
I jerked in surprise.
“How did you know?”
“Boy, your heart’s like an open book,” she said. “I know things. Lotta boys run off to Memphis from little towns. They think they gonna find it easy here, but they don’t.” She looked at me searchingly. “You drink?”
“Oh, no, ma’am.”
“Didn’t mean no harm, son,” she said. “Just wanted to know. You can drink here, if you like. Just don’t make a fool of yourself. You can bring your girl here too. Do anything you want, but be decent.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her in amazement. It was on reputedly disreputable Beale Street in Memphis that I had met the warmest, friendliest person I had ever known, that I discovered that all human beings were not mean and driving, were not bigots like the members of my family.
“You can eat dinner with us when we come from church,” she said.
“Thank you. I’d like to.”
“Maybe you want to come to church with us?”
“Well…” I hedged.
“Naw, you’re tired,” she said, closing the door.
I lay on the bed and reveled in the delightful sensation of living out a long-sought dream. I had always flinched inwardly from the lonely terror that I had thought I would feel in a strange city, and now I had found a home with friendly people. I relaxed completely and dozed off to sleep, for I had not slept much for many nights. Later I came awake with a sudden start, remembering the fright and tension that had accompanied my foray into crime. Well, all that was gone now. I could start anew. I did not like to feel tension and fear. I wanted something else, to be human, to be caught up in something meaningful. But I must first get a job.
Late that afternoon Mrs. Moss called me for dinner and introduced me to her daughter, Bess, whom I liked at once. She was young, simple, sweet, and brown. Mrs. Moss apologized for her husband, who was still at work. Why was she treating me so kindly? It made me self-conscious. We were eating dessert when Bess spoke.
“Mama’s done told me all about you,” she said.
“I’m afraid that there isn’t much to tell,” I said.
“She said you was walking up and down in the street in front of the house, and didn’t know whether to come in,” Bess said, giggling. “What kind of place did you think this was?”
I hung my head and smiled. Mrs. Moss went into a storm of laughter and left the room.
“Mama says she said to herself soon’s she saw you out there on that street with your suitcase, ‘That boy’s looking for a clean home to live in,’” Bess said. “Mama’s good about knowing what folks feel.”
“She seems to be,” I said, helping Bess to wash the dishes.
“You can eat with us any time you like,” Bess said.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I couldn’t do that.”
“How come?” Bess asked. “We got a plenty.”
“I know. But a man ought to pay his own way.”
“Mama said you’d be like that,” Bess said with satisfaction.
Mrs. Moss returned to the kitchen.
“Bess’s going to be married soon,” she announced.
“Congratulations!” I said. “Who’s the lucky man?”
“Oh, I ain’t got nobody yet,” Bess said.
I was puzzled. Mrs. Moss laughed and nudged me.
“I say gals oughta marry young,” she said. “Now, if Bess found a nice young man like you, Richard…”
“Mama!” Bess wailed, hiding her face in the dishcloth.
“I mean it,” Mrs. Moss said. “Richard’s a heap better’n them old ignorant nigger boys you been running after at school.”
I gaped at one and then the other. What was happening here? They barely knew me; I had been in the house but a few hours.
“The minute I laid eyes on that boy in the street this morning,” Mrs. Moss said, “I said to myself, ‘That’s the kind of boy for Bess.’”
Bess came to me and leaned her head on my shoulder. I was stunned. How on earth could she act like this?
“Mama, don’t,” Bess pleaded teasingly.
“I mean it,” Mrs. Moss said. “Richard, I’m worried about whose hands this house is going to fall into. I ain’t too long for this old world.”
“Bess’ll find a boy who’ll love her,” I said uneasily.
“I ain’t so sure,” Mrs. Moss said, shaking her head.
“I’m going up front,” Bess said, giggling, burying her face in her hands, and running out.
Mrs. Moss came close to me and spoke confidently.
“A gal’s a funny thing,” she said, laughing. “They has to be tamed. Just like wild animals.”
“She’s all right,” I said, wiping the table, thinking furiously, not wanting to become involved too deeply with the family.
“You like Bess, Richard?” Mrs. Moss asked me suddenly.
I stared at her, doubting my ears.
“I’ve been in the house only a couple of hours,” I said hesitantly. “She’s a fine girl.”
“Now. I mean do you like her? Could you love her?” she asked insistently.
I stared at Mrs. Moss, wondering if something was wrong with Bess. What kind of people were these?
“You people don’t know me. I didn’t exist for you five hours ago,” I said seriously. Then I shot at her: “I could be a robber or a burglar for all you know.”
“Son, I know you,” she said emphatically.
Oh, Christ, I thought. I’ll have to leave this place.
“You go on up front with Bess,” Mrs. Moss said.
“Look, Mrs. Moss, I’m just a poor nobody,” I said.
“You got something in you I like,” she said. “Money ain’t everything. You got a good Christian heart and everybody ain’t got that.”
I winced and turned my head away. Her naïve simplicity was overwhelming. I felt as though I had been accused of something.
“I worked twenty years and bought this house myself,” she went on. “I’d be happy when I died if I thought Bess had a husband like you.”
“Oh, mama!” Bess shrieked with protesting laughter from the front room.
I went into a warm, cozy front room and sat on the sofa. Bess was sitting on a little bench, looking out the window. How must I act toward this girl? I did not want to be drawn into something I did not want, and neither did I wish to wound anybody’s feelings.
“Don’t you wanna set here with me?” Bess said.
I rose and sat with her. Neither of us spoke for a long time.
“I’m the same age as you,” Bess said. “I’m seventeen.”
“Do you go to school?” I asked to make conversation.
“Yes,” she said. “Wanna see my books?”
“I’d like to.”
She rose and brought her schoolbooks to me. I saw that she was in the fifth grade.
“I ain’t so good in school,” she said, tossing her head. “But I don’t care.”
“Well, school’s kind of important, you know,” I said cautiously.
“Love is the important thing,” she countered strongly.
I wondered if she were demented. The behavior of the mother and the daughter ran counter to all I had ever seen or known. Mrs. Moss came into the room.
“I think I’ll go out and look for a job,” I said, wanting to escape them.
“On a Sunday!” Mrs. Moss exclaimed. “Wait till in the morning.”
“But I can learn the streets tonight anyway,” I said.
“That’s really a good thought,” Mrs. Moss said after a moment’s reflection. “You see, Bess? That boy thinks.”
I felt awkward, embarrassed, called upon to say something.
“I’ll be glad to help you with your lessons, Bess,” I said.
“You think you can?” she asked, doubting.
“Well, I used to take charge of classes at school last year,” I said.
“Now ain’t that nice?” Mrs. Moss said in a honeyed tone.
I went to my room and lay on the bed and tried to fathom out the kind of home I had come to. That they were serious, I had no doubt. Would they be angry with me when they learned that my life was a million miles from theirs? How could I avoid that? Was it wise to remain here with a seventeen-year-old girl eager for marriage and a mother equally anxious to have her marry me? What on earth had they seen in me to have made them act toward me as they had? My clothes were not good. True, I had manners, manners that had been drilled into me at home, at school, manners that had been kicked into me on jobs; but anybody could have manners. I had learned to know these people better in five hours than I had learned to know my own family in five years.
Later, after I had grown to understand the peasant mentality of Bess and her mother, I learned the full degree to which my life at home had cut me off, not only from white people but from Negroes as well. To Bess and her mother, money was important, but they did not strive for it too hard. They had no tensions, unappeasable longings, no desire to do something to redeem themselves. The main value in their lives was simple, clean, good living and when they thought they had found those same qualities in one of their race, they instinctively embraced him, liked him, and asked no questions. But such simple unaffected trust flabbergasted me. It was impossible.
I walked down Beale Street and into the heart of Memphis. My body was thin, my overcoat shabby, and each gust of wind chilled my blood. On Main Street I saw a sign in a café window:
Dish Washer Wanted
I went in and spoke to the manager and was hired to come to work the following night. The salary was ten dollars for the first week and twelve thereafter.
“Don’t hire anyone else,” I told him. “I’ll be here.”
I would get two meals at the café. But how would I eat in the daytime? I went into a store and bought a can of pork and beans and a can opener. Well, that problem was solved. I would pay two dollars and a half a week for my room and I would save the balance for my trip to Chicago. All my thoughts and movements were dictated by distant hopes.
Mrs. Moss was astonished when I told her that I had a job.
“You see, Bess,” she said. “That boy’s got a job his first day here. That’s get-up for you. He’s going somewhere. He just don’t sit and gab. He moves.”
Bess smiled at me. It seemed that every move I made captivated her. Mrs. Moss went upstairs to bed. I was uneasy.
“Lemme rest your coat,” Bess said.
She took my coat and felt the can in the pocket.
“What you got in there?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I mumbled, trying to take the coat from her.
She pulled out the beans and the can opener. Her eyes widened with pity.
“Richard, you hungry, ain’t you?” she asked me.
“Naw,” I mumbled.
“Then let’s eat some chicken,” she said.
“Oh, all right,” I said.
Bess ran to the stairway.
“Mama!” she called.
“Don’t disturb her,” I said, knowing that she was going to tell Mrs. Moss about my wanting to eat out of a can and feeling my heart fill with shame. My muscles flexed to hit her.
Mrs. Moss came down in her house robe.
“Mama, look what Richard was gonna do,” Bess said, showing the can. “He was gonna eat this in his room.”
“Lord, boy,” Mrs. Moss said. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m used to it,” I said. “I’ve got to save money.”
“I just won’t let you eat out of a can in my house,” she said. “You don’t have to pay me to eat. Go in the kitchen and eat. That’s all.”
“But I wouldn’t dirty your room with the can,” I said.
“It ain’t that, son,” Mrs. Moss said. “Why do you want to eat out of a can when you can set at the table with us?”
“I don’t want to be a burden to anybody,” I said.
Mrs. Moss stared at me, then hung her head and cried. I was stunned. It was incredible that what I did or the way I lived could evoke tears from anyone. Then my shame made me angry.
“You just ain’t never had no home life,” she said. “I’m sorry for you.”
I stiffened. I did not like that. She was reaching into my inner life, where it was sore, and I did not want anyone there.
“I’m all right,” I mumbled.
Mrs. Moss shook her head and went upstairs. I sighed. I was afraid that the family was getting too good a hold on me. Bess and I ate chicken, but I did not have much appetite. Bess was looking at me with melting eyes. We went back to the front room.
“I wanna get married,” she whispered to me.
“You have a lot of time yet for that,” I said, tense and uneasy.
“I wanna get married now. I wanna love,” she said.
I had never met anyone like her, so direct, so easy in the expression of her feelings.
“Do you know what this means?” she asked me as she rose and went to a table and picked up a comb and came and stood before me.
I stared at the comb, then at her.
“What’re you talking about?” I asked.
She did not answer. She smiled, then came close to me and reached out with the comb and touched my head. I drew back.
“What’re you doing?”
She laughed and drew the comb through my hair. I stared at her, completely baffled.
“But my hair doesn’t need combing,” I said.
“I know it,” she said, still combing.
“But why are you doing this?”
“Because I want to.”
“What does it mean?”
She laughed again. I tried to get up and she caught hold of my arm and held me in the chair.
“You have nice hair,” she said.
“It’s just common nigger hair,” I said.
“It’s nice hair,” she repeated.
“But why are you combing my hair?” I asked again.
“You know,” she said.
“I don’t.”
“’Cause I like you,” she purred.
“Is this your way of telling me that?”
“It’s a custom,” she said. “You just fooling me. You know that. Everybody knows that. When a girl likes a man, she combs his hair.”
“You’re young. Give yourself a chance,” I said.
“Don’t you like me?” she asked.
“I do,” I said. “We’re friends.”
“But I want more’n a friend,” she sighed.
Her simplicity frightened me. The girls I had known had been hard and calculating, those who had worked at the hotel and those whom I had met at school. We were silent for a while.
“Say, what’s them books in your room?” she asked.
“Were you in my room?” I asked with soft pointedness.
“Sure,” she said without batting an eye. “I looked through your suitcase.”
What could I do with a girl like this? Was I dumb or was she dumb? I felt that it would be easy to have sex relations with her and I was tempted. But what would happen? Love simply did not come to me that quickly and easily. And she was talking of marriage. Could I ever talk to her about what I felt, hoped? Could she ever understand my life? What had I above sex to share with her,
and what had she? But I knew that such questions did not bother her. I did not love her and did not want to marry her. The prize of the house did not tempt me. Yet I sat beside her, feeling the attraction of her body increasing and deepening for me. What if I made her pregnant? I was sure that the fear of becoming pregnant did not bother her. Perhaps she would have liked it. I had come from a home where feelings were never expressed, except in rage or religious dread, where each member of the household lived locked in his own dark world, and the light that shone out of this child’s heart—for she was a child—blinded me.
She leaned over and kissed me. What the hell, I thought. Have it out with her, and if anything happens, leave…I kissed and petted her. She was warm, eager, childish, pliable. She threw her arms and legs about me and hugged me fiercely. I began to wonder how old she was.
“What would your mother say?” I asked in a whisper.
“She’s sleeping.”
“But what if she saw us?”
“I don’t care.”
She was crazy. Plainly she would have married me that instant, knowing no more about me than she did.
“Let’s go to my room,” I said.
“Naw. Mama wouldn’t like that,” she said.
She would let me do anything to her in her own front room, but she did not want me to do it to her in my room. It was crazy, utterly crazy.
“Mama’s sleeping,” she observed.
I began to suspect that she had had every boy in the block.
“You love me?” she asked in a whisper.
I stared at her, becoming more aware each minute of the terrible simplicity of her life. That was life for her, simple, direct. She just did not attach to words the same meanings I did. She caught my hands in a viselike grip. I looked at her and could not believe in her existence.
“I love you,” she said.
“Don’t say that,” I said, then was sorry that I had said it.
“But I do love you,” she said again.
Her voice had come so clearly that I could no longer doubt her. For Christ’s sake, I said to myself. The girl was astoundingly simple, yet vital in a way that I had never known. What kind of life had I lived that made the reality of this girl so strange? I sat thinking of Aunt Addie, her stern face, her forbidding nature, her caution, her restraint, her keen struggle to be good and holy.
“I’d make a good wife,” she said.