Slim say, “Ah me it’s May again. Wish’t I could go someplace tonight,” and I say “Ain’t we goin no place?”
And he say, “I mean someplace where all the boys and girls have their fun. Ain’t never seen nor found such a place all my born days. It’s what them boys is thinkin ’bout right now.”
“What boys is that?” I say, and he point to New York and say “The boys in the jailhouse tonight.” Grandpa, I axed him last time if he was in the jail-house in New York and he said yes, he was busted one time but he didn’t do nothin wrong, his friend did. He said his friend was in that jailhouse still, and wasn’t no better than him.
Well, now I told you how fearsome and grand New York was when I first seed it, and that ain’t all. The bus come down into a tunnel and whoosh! it and ever’body else go barrelin along the walls, and it warn’t dark in there but bright as you like and all lit-up jolly. “Now we’s under the Hudson River,” brother say, “and wouldn’t it be somethin if that river bust thu and come down on our heads?” I didn’t dass guess ’bout that till we come out the other side, and when we did I plum forgot to guess, and I reckon most folks is like that, ain’t they grandpa, till the day such a thing happen to them? The bus come out that LINCOLN TUNNEL it was called, and a great yaller light shine up the front of it, and ain’t nobody but one man walkin on the street, and I look at him and he look at me too. Well, I guess that man said to hisself “There’s a little boy comin to New York for the first time and cain’t do nothin but gawk at a man like me ’at’s so busy in New York and got so many things to do.”
And here we was in New York, and it didn’t look half grand now we was inside it on account you couldn’t see far with all them walls risin clear up on every side. Well you know, I look straight up oncet and I look again and don’t see but the most p’culiar brown air in the sky above the tall walls, and I seed it was on account all the lights of New York paint-up the nighttime way high yonder, and do it so much it don’t need no more’n a few feeble stars in it. “Them’s skyscrapers,” Slim said when he seed me look up. Well then the bus turn on a big street, Slim said it was Thirty Four street then I seed plenty far and a whole great gang of folks and grandpa it was jess so many lights strung out one after ’nother, and up, and down, and trembly along the walls, and red, and blue, and all the folks and the car traffic acting jess like ants as far as your eye can see. Grandpa, all the folks you do see, and things they do, and all the streets you do see, and the places there is, and whilst you gotsa keep in mind all the folks and streets you don’t see, at’s round the corner and way yonder ever’whichaway, and up in the skyscrapers, and down in the subway—well, you can see how t’ain’t pos’ble to make a body unnerstand it lessen they done come and looked for theirselves.
The bus stop, and me and Slim got off and went down the street to the subway, which is a tunnel train there underneath New York at ever’body takes to git where they’s goin the fastenest best way. “Bus is fast in the country but’s too slowed-up in this town,” Slim say. We pay the man when we pay the gate-machine, and get on the train when the door-machine bring the door open, and get inside and set and let the train-machine run along the rail. Wasn’t nobody around to run the doggone thing ’case I looked up front and wasn’t nobody steerin it. And I knowed we went fast and I wasn’t fooled by no dark.
Brother and me got off at Hundred Twenty Five street in Harlem.
“We’s just around the corner from home, old-timer,” Slim say to me. “so you see we made it after all.” Well then we come upstairs on the street and it’s all as jolly and brightly as Thirty Four street, and grandpa, here we was a hunnerd streets up along the city, so you can see how New York never gets to be near the country as you go along it.
“Stand right still whilst I wash your face for Sheila,” Slim said, and he stopt me on the street in front of the water-bubbler and rub off my mouth with his handkerchief and great big crowds of folks walks by and it’s a nice warm night again and I shore feels glad we come to New York. “Slim,” I say, “I’s shore glad I ain’t at Aunt Gastonia’s no more and won’t be scairt neither no more.” And I look down the street where we come from and say to myself, “No, North Carolina ain’t round here no more.”
“Well thass the way to talk, soldier,” Slim say, “and just because ever’thing’s so fine I’m gonta buy Sheila a little thing in the store here so’s we’ll all have a fine time our first night home.”
And we go into a record store at’s full of men fishin through the record racks and jumpin up and down while they do so like they jess can’t wait. Ain’t nothin but music and noise in there, and a whole bunch of men out front jumpin jess the same way. Whoo, what fun! Slim, he went fishin and jumpin like ever’body else, and come up with a record, and yelled “Whee! Look what I found!” and ran to the man and throwed him a dollar. Then we go around the corner to a street at wasn’t so bright but jess as gay and full of folks in the dark, and run upstairs into a old crumbly hallway, and knock on the door and push it in.
Well, there was Sheila, and I liked her jess as quick as I laid my eyes on her. She was a slim purty gal ’at wore glasses with red horn rims, and a purty red sweater, and purty green skirt, and fine jigglets on her wrists, and when we come in she was standin at the stove makin coffee and readin the paper all at the same time, and looked at us s’prised.
“Baby!” Slim yelled out, and run up and hugged her, and spun her round, and kissed her smack upon the mouth, and said “Looky yonder your new son, mother dear, ain’t he somethin fine?”
“Is that Pic?” she said, and come over and took both my hands, and lookt at me down in the eye. “I can see you’ve been havin lots of trouble lately haven’t you, little boy,” she said, and I don’t know how she could tell that, but she did, and I tried to smile to show I liked for her to be so nice but I was jess a little too bashful. “Well won’t you smile sometime?” she said, and I had to go freeze there so foolish and said but jess “Uh-huh” and look away. Doggone it!
Then she said “Wasn’t that chile cold comin up here in that little sweater full of holes? And look at his socks, they’re full of holes too. Even his poor pants in the back here.”
“My hat too,” I said, and showed her my hole-hat.
Well, I caught her then and it was her ’at didn’t know whether to laugh or look awful, and she got red and laughed. I reckon, grandpa, it was because a boy like me ain’t got no call talkin about himself when a lady’s doin that for him, ain’t it? Well, she was the finest soul, and I knowed it jess then by the way she got red and didn’t mind.
Slim said “I’ll buy him clothes first thing in the mornin,” and Sheila said “How you gonna do that without money?” but he jess started that new record on the record machine in the corner and you shoulda seen him clap his hands and walk up and down with his feet right where he was, and shake his head and say “Oh where’s my horn tonight? Oh where’s my horn tonight?” over and over, and look up and laugh, ’case he likes the music so much, and say “Play that thing Slopjaw!” Grandpa, that record was by Slopjaw Jones done with a saxophone horn and everybody yellin and bangin the piano behind him, and you never heard such reckless jumpin and crashin in your ears out there in the country. Seem like the folks up in the city wants to have fun and ain’t got time for no worry exceptin when worry catches up with them, that’s when they ain’t busy about worryin.
“What do you mean no money?” Slim said, and Sheila said, “I don’t like to tell you and Slopjaw, and everybody, and Pic here, but I went and lost my job day before yesterday because they’re tearin down the building where the restaurant was down on Madison avenue and puttin up a new office building.”
“Office building?” Slim yelled. “Did you say office building? What’s they goin to do with a office building? Ain’t nobody get to eat in no office building.”
“You talk silly,” Sheila said, and look at him sad. “Why shoo, all they’ve got to do is go round the corner to eat in a restaurant.”
> “Then they put up another office building there and then where do you go?” said Slim, and then heaved a sigh. “Doggone it. what are we goin to do now?” He turned off the record, and looked round the kitchen, and began walkin up and down in it, and worried himself to death. I seed then how Slim had worried before about a lots of things. His face dragged down awesome and his eyes jess went starin straight ahead and his bones of his face stuck out from his cheeks and made him look old. Poor Slim, I never forget that look on his face when I think about him now. “Dog-gone,” he jess say, over and over, “dog-gone.” Then he look at Sheila and she didn’t know it but his face flinch a little bit like if they was pain way down deep in his heart, and he come back to say “Dog-gone!” and be starin straight ahead after that, and for a long awesome time. Lord, Lord, Slim always tried so hard to explain to me and ever’body else the things on his mind, like he done then. “Dog-gone it, are we goin to be beat all the time or ever make a livin around here? When will our troubles end? I’m tired of bein poor. My wife is tired of bein poor. I guess the world is tired of bein poor, because I’m tired of bein poor. Lord a mercy who’s got some money? I know I ain’t got some money and that’s for sure, now look” and show his empty pocket.
“You shouldn’t of bought that record,” Sheila said.
“Well,” he said, “I didn’t know then. Now so where’d this money go that folks is supposed to live on? I’d jess be satisfied if I had a field of my own I could jess grow things in and wouldn’t need no money, and wouldn’t worry what folks had it. not records neither. But I ain’t got a field and I need money to eat. Well where am I goin to get this money? I gotsa get a job. Yes, a job, gotsa get, I-got-a-git-a-job. Sheila,” he call out, “first thing in the mornin I am goin out and find me a job. You know how I’m sure I can get one? Because I need one. You know why I need a job? Because I ain’t got no money.” And he went on like that, and got hisself all ’volved in talk, and come round again to worry some more. “Sheila, I shore hope I get a job tomorrow.”
“Well,” Sheila said, “I’ll have to look for one too.”
“It’s so hard to get a job that you can’t stick to all your life,” Slim said. “I wish I could get a job playin tenor in a club and make my livin that way, and express myself with that horn. Show ever’body how I feel by the way I play, and make them see how happy I can be and ever’body can be. Make them learn how to enjoy life and do good in life and unnerstand the world. A whole lot of things. Play sometimes about God, by the way I can make my horn pray in the blues and get down on my knees to signify. Play in such a way as to show ever’body how hard a man tries all the time, and make somebody learn that. I want to be like a schoolteacher with that horn, or like a preacher, but show ever’body that jess a musician can do so simple a thing as take a horn in his hand, and blow in it, and finger the stops, yet be a preacher and a schoolteacher in the result of what he’s doin. I tear my heart out wherever I go. All over this country I’ve been, and “ain’t been liked because I was colored, by people who don’t mind their own personal business, and don’t want me to do good, but I’ve tore my heart out with that horn. That horn is the only way people come to listen to me. They won’t talk on the street, but they’ll clap and yell hooray when I’m on the bandstand, and smile at me. Well I smile back, I ain’t cool about people, nor cool about nothin. I like to respond and listen and be with people. I feel good most of the time, and do it. Lord a mercy, I sure wantsa live and have my place in the world like they call it and I’m ready to work if I can only work with my horn, because that’s the way I like to work and I don’t know how to run a machine. Well, I ain’t learned yet anyway, and like my horn better, I do. Ar-tist, I’m a ar-tist, jess like Mehoodi Lewin and the columnist in the paper and whoozit. I got a million ideas and can shore pour them out of that horn, and I ain’t doin so bad pourin them without the horn. Sheila,” he say to her, “less eat some supper and worry about ever’thing tomorrow. I’m hungry and want my strength back. Throw some beans in there, and after supper make a lunch for tomorrow noontime.”
“I’ll have to make one for myself,” Sheila said, and then they wondered what was to happen to me tomorrow, and Slim decided for me to go with him to look for work and we could eat the lunch together. “Make it a big one. You got bread? Throw somethin between that bread and that’ll be fine. Wished we had a coffee mug. You got a coffee mug? Thermidor you say? Well, thermidor it shall be, with the coffee hot. Pic,” he said to me, “you and me ain’t even started travelin together is we? We just come four and fifty miles and here we go again. Eat, then we go to sleep and get up early. Got a nice old sweater of mine for you tomorrow, and clean socks. Well, we’ll make it again. Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, look out. Look out for your boy!” he shouted, and closed his eyes a minute, and stood like that.
Well, that was the first night in New York, and shore ’joyed the supper, and us sittin round the table till ten at night, talkin and recollectin and Sheila told about when she was my age in Brooklyn, and all such fine things went on of gabbin together in the nighttime, and me lookin forward to what happen next ever’time I look out the window at New York. I say to myself, “Pic, you left home and come into New York!”
I had me a fine cot-bed to sleep on all night.
But that next day wasn’t so pleasin as this first night.
10. HOW SUM LOST TWO JOBS IN ONE DAY
I’LL NEVER FORGET THAT DAY because so many things happened all at oncet. Started off, me and Slim got up jess as the sun come back red, and he cooked up some eggs and breakfast so’s Sheila could sleep some more. Grandpa, ain’t nothin better in the world like eggs and breakfast in the mornin because your taster ain’t worked all night and ever’thing comes so chawy and smells so fryin good it makes a body wish he could eat ever’body’s breakfast all up and down the street seven times, ain’t it the truth? When we come down on the street and I seed all them men eatin more eggs and breakfast in the corner store I wished I could eat all the breakfasts in New York City. It was a cool mornin and wasn’t but six o’clock. I had my new socks, and Slim’s black sweater, and Sheila done sewed up the holes in my pants, and I was all set. And you know the first thing happened? We was standin in the doorway and Slim was readin the newspaper want ads, and it was mighty chill, and keen, and ever’body come by to get to the work-bus coughin and spittin and shore looked mis’ble from work in New York City, and some of them was readin the papers with the most gloomy disappointed look like if’n the papers complained jess what they hankered to see, and here come a man out of that crowd who knew Slim. “Well there daddyo,” he said, and showed Slim the palm of his hand, and Slim showed him his, and they touched up like that. “Don’t tell me you’re lookin for a job again,” the man said, and Slim told him he was shore enough.
“Well, I declare, I got a job for you. You know my brother Henry. He ain’t got up yet this mornin. I jess talked to him. I say Henry, ain’t you supposed to go to work in that cookie factory down on whatzit street? And he hid under the pillow and says, yes I guess so, uh-huh, but don’t move a bone. I say Henry, ain’t you gettin up? Henry! Well now Henry? Hey, yoo-hoo, Henry? That man just made up his mind to sleep, that’s all,” and Slim’s friend walked off ten feet and come back again.
“Do you think he’ll be fired?” Slim axed him curious, and the man said “Henry? Will he be fired?” Dog my cats if he don’t walk off again and come back. “You mean Henry?” and he looked away, and shook his head, and felt too tired to do anything but hang his head. “Shooee, he’s got the world record for that. He’s been fired more times than he’s been hired.”
“What’s the address of this place?” Slim said, and the man knew it and gave it to us, and made another couple funny jokes and said “Lookout for the boogieman” when me and Slim took off for the job factory. Well, he was all right.
We took the subway, then walked down a street to the river and there was the cookie factory. It was jess a great big old place with chimbleys and lots o
f machines thunderin inside, and gave out a mighty sweet smell that made us smile. “Why this will be a good job,” Slim said, “ ’cause it smells so good,” and we jumped up the steps and come in the office. The boss was there by the punchin clock and was wonderin where was Henry, I guess. We waited on a bench a half hour, then the boss said Slim had better start workin all right because nobody was never goin to show up. Slim had to spend some time writin papers, so he told me to wait in the park across the street till noon and then come in for lunch with him. And there he was straight into a job right off quick.
“Sheila’ll be happy,” I said to myself, and knowed it.
I waited all mornin in that park. It was a tiny park with a iron rail and some bushes, and swings, and such, and jess sat most of the time watchin at a couple other children, and figurin life. I made friends with a little white boy who came into the park with his mother. He was all fine lookin in a blue suit with gold buttons, and knee high stockins, and a red huntin hat. He had a most admirable way of talkin and settin hisself on the bench. His mother read a book on the other bench and smiled at us kindly.