Trick Baby

  She shrugged and said, “No wonder, them freakish peckerwoods would drive anybody crazy.”

  I said, “No, it isn’t like that. I think she was raped by a bunch of niggers last night. I don’t know what to do. What would you do?”

  She said, “You’re full of shitty baloney. Who the hell would have to rape Phala? She’d gap her legs open for any bum. All he’d need to do was bullshit her that she was beautiful. She thinks she’s the prettiest woman walking the earth.

  “And listen, don’t use the word nigger in my house. It’s like I’m letting a peckerwood get away with it. I would do what I’ve been doing, and that’s forgetting she was ever born.”

  She was hurting me badly, and she was doing it in that same soft, syrupy voice. I fought for control.

  I said, “Aunt Pearl, you’re all wrong about her. And from what I know you’ve always been wrong. Don’t you feel anything for your only sister?”

  She said, “I knew that dizzy bitch before you were born. You ain’t got the nerve, I hope, to sit in my house and preach to me.

  “She ain’t never had nothing. She’s been poor as Lazarus all her life. That color-struck fool could have had herself a black doctor and even a lawyer. But no, she had to fuck that tramp peckerwood father of yours.

  “Hell no, I don’t feel a goddamn thing. She’s found out now that light skin and white folks’ hair ain’t all of it. I’m black, fat and ugly, but I amount to something.”

  I checked a murderous impulse to split her skull with a heavy lamp on a table beside me.

  She stopped to catch her breath. I got up and walked to the door. I knew I was going to cry. I had to get out of there fast. I couldn’t let her see my tears.

  I said over my shoulder, “Pearl, you are a big funky liar.”

  I heard her grunting up from her sofa as I went into the hall and slammed her door. I went through the foyer to the street. I walked to Garfield. I heard a sliding sound behind me.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Pearl’s black hog body was thrust across the windowsill of the open window.

  She screamed, “Don’t you ever put a foot on my property again, you white nigger sonuvabitch.”

  I had stopped crying when I noticed the elevated train station on Garfield. I paid a fare and walked up the stairway to the train platform.

  I got on a Howard Street train going to the Loop. All the rest of the day, I rode from South to North. I’d get off at one end of the line, then cross over to the opposite platform going in the other direction.

  I couldn’t go home. The old whore was probably right about those juvenile authorities. At nine P.M. I got off at Forty-third Street on the Southside. I went into a chili joint for a bowl of chili.

  I sat at the counter near the front window. Five black teenagers were at a table in the rear. The old Mexican behind the counter kept stealing frightened glances at them.

  I was eating my chili when a young brown-skinned girl in shorts came in. She stood next to my stool and ordered chili to go. She reached down to the paper-napkin holder beside me. She said. “Excuse me, will you push that bowl of pepper to me?”

  I said, “Yes.”

  I pushed the red dried pepper across the counter to her. She dumped a load of it into a napkin and put it into her purse.

  Then she said, “Say, don’t you live around Thirty-Ninth and Cottage?”

  I said, “I did until a short time ago. Why?”

  She said, “Oh, nothing. I just remembered seeing you around there.”

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I half-turned on the stool and looked up. One of the loud-mouth teenagers was standing behind me, glaring down at me.

  He said, “Man, why you fucking with this girl? You got pussies in you own neighborhood.”

  The girl cut in. She said, “He didn’t hit on me.”

  He said, “You dumb bitch, get on the dummy.”

  I said, “Hell, buddy, what’s the matter? You high or something? This is a free country. I got a right to—”

  The punk sucker-punched me hard in my right cheek bone.

  The room reeled. I fell to the floor next to the counter. I held my hand against my cheek and looked up at him.

  He reached into his pocket. I heard a metallic click and saw the wicked gleam of the switchblade in his hand. His eyes were spinning in his head. He bent over toward me.

  I rolled away toward the door and threw my feet up to keep him from gutting me. The door opened and a pair of khakied legs stepped across me. It was a young soldier. He was between me and the shiv man.

  The soldier looked down curiously at me. I scooted backward through the closing door to the sidewalk. I got to my feet and raced down Forty-third Street.

  I heard pounding feet behind me. I looked back. The whole pack was running toward me.

  I hollered as loud as I could, “I’m a Nigger! I’m a Nigger! I’m a Nigger!”

  I turned into the el station. I threw a handful of coins across the fare collector’s counter. I raced up the stairs to the train platform. A Jackson Park el was closing its doors. I slipped through the closing slit. I fell into a cushion and looked down on Forty-third Street.

  The pack was down there looking up at me. Three of them waved knives that glinted under a street lamp. I settled back in the seat, closed my eyes and started to figure my next move.

  The train had stopped at Fifty-first Street. I realized that I didn’t have the leatherette case filled with my paintings and art materials. I had left it on the floor beneath the stool in the chili joint. I wouldn’t have gone back for it if it had been stuffed with Rembrandts.

  A pair of hippy-dippys came into the car. They had two fancy brown-skinned broads with them. They sat down in the two seats directly in front of me.

  The train pulled out toward Garfield Boulevard. The young broad with the hippy just in front of me turned her head back toward me. She smiled hotly at me. My eyes scrambled to the coach ceiling. I felt the throbbing lump on my cheekbone. I escaped down the aisle to another seat.

  An elderly black woman was nodding next to the window. Her purse was on the seat between us. I eased my right hand across my thigh to the side of the purse. My fingers touched the heavy brass clasp on the top of it.

  I looked at the wrinkled side of her face as I slowly worked her purse open. My fingers were suddenly frozen numb. I jerked my hand away to my lap. I couldn’t rob her. The old lady’s coarse kindly face had reminded me of sweet Grandma Annie.

  The train stopped at Garfield Boulevard. In the distance I saw Aunt Pearl’s building. I wondered if she had felt any regret after she had driven me away. I had an urge to go back to see if she had had a change of heart. Then I remembered that sweetly poisonous voice. I just couldn’t understand, how could she have been so cruel? Phala and I needed her so much.

  I rode to the Sixty-third Street stop. I got off and went to the opposite platform. I took a Howard Street train going toward the Loop.

  I tried to think of someone who could advise me about Phala. There was no one. I felt lost, lonely and desperate.

  I decided to get off at Forty-seventh Street. I wasn’t due to report for work at the theatre until three o’clock. I wasn’t excited about going to work in that darkness, the way I was feeling and all.

  I walked east down Forty-seventh Street. I didn’t know what to do about Phala or anything else. I was friendless and homeless in the cold heart of Chicago’s Southside.

  I got to Calumet Avenue. I walked around the corner to a poolroom. A silent crowd stood watching a straight pool game at the front table.

  I stood next to a glass cigar case near the door. For almost an hour I watched a slender black man run one rack of balls after another. He controlled the cue ball like he had it on an invisible string.

  I turned to an old man standing beside me. He had clucked his praise of the thin wizard’s skill. I whispered, “I wish I could shoot pool like that guy. I could sure get rich in a hurry.”

  He whispered, “White boy, if wishe
s were cars, damn fools would ride. He is one of the best big-buck pool players in the country. I wish he’d play me. But he won’t. Since you just wishing, wish for his feet. Them slick dogs of his done made him more dollars than Carter is got pills. That’s Bill Bojangles Robinson in the livin’ meat.”

  The wizard telescoped his stick. He slipped it into a leather case. The crowd moved away.

  I said, “Listen, Mister, I’m not a white boy. I’m colored like you. Honest, I’m really colored. My mother is about your color.”

  A very black zoot-suited kid strutted and stood in front of us on his way out the door. He ignored me.

  He said to the old man beside me, “One Pocket, ain’t life a mother-fucker? My old lady must of fucked hundreds of peckerwoods for three bucks a hump.

  “Didn’t one of them silky-haired, straight-nosed bastards knock her up. Hell no, the blackest, kinkiest-haired, ugliest trick on Thirty-first Street rammed me up her ass.

  “Now, Pocket, I ain’t hip to a white trick baby so square he’s passing for a Nigger. I just ain’t never heard of it, Pocket. Shit, a dumb bastard like that oughta’ have his ass kicked to the top of his stupid head. And by me.”

  I slugged my fist into the side of his jaw. I heard a flat crack like a bat against a baseball. I felt the shuddery shock of it to my elbow. He fell backwards and bounced hard. He lay flat on his back moaning. A snake of mustard vomit wiggled across his cheek.

  Through a red haze of fury I went to the wall rack for a cue stick. He had driven me out of my mind with his wise crack about Phala.

  I stood over him and raised the lead-loaded butt of the cue stick high over my head. I was going to crush his ugly face into a blob of black jelly. I drew a deep breath for the downward slam.

  Then something locked my upraised arms to the sides of my head. I felt myself pulled away from the terrified eyes on the floor.

  There wasn’t a sound in the crowded poolroom. I half-twisted my head around. It was One Pocket holding me. That Irish in me was raging. I was screaming, “Let me go! I’m going to murder that signifying sonuvabitch.”

  One Pocket had one hell of a time holding me until after the wise apple had struggled to his feet and fled to safety.

  I walked through the door and stood on the sidewalk. One Pocket came out and stood beside me. I kept my eyes on the sidewalk. He was sweating and panting like a thirsty pooch. I was ashamed that I had lost my temper.

  He said, “Goddamn, it took a lotta’ muscle to stop you from playing the murder game. I got a sucker’s tender ticker. I couldn’t stand to see even that rat croaked.

  “What the hell, you didn’t need to waste him to convince him your old lady wasn’t no whore. Besides, you’re lucky those scufflers in there didn’t stomp you to death. I guess they hate that rat stool pigeon worse than your white skin.”

  I said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m glad I didn’t kill him. I don’t know what happened to me in there. I’ve never been that mad in my life. Thanks for stopping me, One Pocket.”

  9

  FLAT-JOINT FLIMFLAM

  A tomato-red Cadillac glided to the curb in front of us. A tall heavyset guy in a white shimmery tropical suit got out. I’d seen him a hundred times going into the Du Sable Hotel on Oakwood near Thirty-ninth Street.

  His processed black hair glittered like a satin skullcap in the sun. A monstrous rock on his ebony right hand flashed like a hunk of rainbow.

  I said, “Who is the rich guy?”

  Pocket said, “He’s Blue Howard.”

  He came across the sidewalk towards us. One Pocket took a step to meet him and said, “Well, Blue, what’s in the barnyard for a hawk?”

  The giant grinned down at One Pocket. In a very soft voice, he said, “I’m flat-jointing with an outfit operation on Lake Street. I fired all of my thieving boost last night. Pocket, I could use you on the outside to feed the belly-sticks and to heckle the marks for the usual ten percent of the box. Don’t worry, you’ll make a buck. Do I have to tell you that the dagos don’t play in bad locations? Well?”

  One Pocket threw his hands into the air palms up. He said, “Blue, I ain’t played nothing but funny pool in a week. My rep has all the hustlers scared shitless. I gotta wait for chumps who ain’t heard of me to get a game. I’ll rib marks and handle the sticks for you. How many sticks you using?”

  Blue looked over Pocket’s head and said, “I need three. How about your young white friend? Maybe he’d like to pick up a sawbuck or so. He’d give the joint inviting flavor for any white marks over there.”

  Pocket said, “Blue, the kid ain’t white. He’s a boot. But it’s the same difference ain’t it? Blue, I like him. You should have seen him punch the puke outta Double-crossing Sammy.”

  Then he glanced over his shoulder at me. He said, “Kid, you want a job?”

  I said, “Sure, but I don’t know anything about it.”

  Blue said, “You’re the whitest spade I’ve ever seen. Kid, there isn’t a helluva lot a belly-stick has to know. All you do is keep your belly against the joint counter and let me make you lucky on the wheel. Pocket will give you a rundown on the scratch and the feed. You get paid every night.”

  I said, “I learn fast. I’ll be the best stick you ever saw.”

  Pocket turned and went to the poolroom doorway. He shouted, “First and last call for two sober belly-sticks in clean clothes. It’s a Westside spot, there and back in a brand new Cadillac.”

  A half dozen prospects galloped to the sidewalk. They stood in slouched attention like a squad of bedraggled soldiers waiting for a pass from no man’s land.

  Pocket eyed them from head to toe. Finally he said, “I want Precious Jimmy and Old Man Mule. The rest of you ain’t in the shape like you could have the measly scratch to blow on a wheel.”

  Precious was a tall handsome light brown-skinned fellow about twenty-two years old. Mule was old, black and ugly, with the longest ears I’d ever seen except on a mule.

  The turndowns dragged back into the poolroom. We all got into the Cadillac. Pocket sat in the front seat with Blue. The Caddie leaped from the curb like a red jackrabbit.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back in the plush seat between Precious and Mule. It was like floating on air. It felt a little like the train ride Phala and I took from Kansas City to Chicago, long ago. This ride was smoother and I didn’t feel so tiny and afraid like on the train.

  Blue said, “What’s your name, kid?”

  I opened my eyes. They met his in the rear-view mirror. I said, “Johnny O’Brien.”

  He said, “That’s no name at all for a young hustler. You’ve got to have a street moniker that’s jazzy and proper. How about ‘White Folks?’ It’s a natural for you, just like ‘Blue’ for me because I’m so black.”

  I said, “I don’t like that one. I don’t want people hating me because they think I’m bragging I’m white. If I’m going to have a moniker it ought to brag that I’m a Nigger.”

  Blue said, “I’m glad you said that. That’s just what that moniker does for you. It’s got a solid Nigger sound. There never was, and there never will be a genuine white hustler with that tag. It shouts that you’re really a Nigger with white skin. Convinced, White Folks?”

  I said, “The way you explain it makes sense. I just hope it makes everybody sure that I’m a Nigger.”

  We had reached the Westside when Pocket turned his long head back toward me and said, “White Folks, don’t never speak to me when we’re playing a mark in the joint. You run out of dough to make your plays on the wheel, you hold your mitts palms up so on your last play Blue can see you’re tapped. He’ll toss you a light cop on your number.

  “Say a mark is right beside you in the joint, Blue is gonna gaff that wheel on your number and heave you a heavy cop to excite the mark. Now I’m telling the three of you belly-sticks the time to go off to piss ain’t that time when you got that big scratch in your duke.

  “Put that heavy cop in your mitt flat against your thigh fu
rthest from the mark. I’m gonna be right there patting your mitt to take off that scratch. Just slap that scratch easy-like into my palm.

  “Then like a real happy winner get the hell away from the joint. Come back after them marks in the joint have been played.

  “You get five percent of the box. The joint takes in two bills, you get a sawbuck. It takes in a half a grand, you got twenty-five slats coming.

  “There ain’t no roller problems. The mob’s got that captain in the district in their ass pocket. Any questions?”

  I said, “What is a gaff?”

  Precious and Mule snickered.

  Pocket said, “It’s a gimmick that stops that wheel wherever Blue wants. He can stop that paper arrow on the middle of a pinhead.

  “There’s the spot. We’ll get out first. Then split up and walk around the lot until Blue gets ready for us. Ain’t no use to let early suckers see us together. Keep your eyes on me. I’m gonna scratch my chin to pull you into the joint.”

  Blue pulled to the side of a huge lot at Hoyne Avenue and Lake Street. We scrambled out and walked into the dusty lot.

  There were several Puerto Rican men and women with just a few black women and children on the lot. About a dozen canvas tents in a rough circle squatted in the gray dust like tattered buzzards.

  In the center were the ferris wheel, a midget car ride and food stands. A candy-striped merry-go-round spun in the champagne sun like a mammoth musical top. It was calliope-ing Stairway to the Stars, I felt a quick quake of sorrow. It was Phala’s favorite tune.

  I noticed that Blue was the only black operator on the lot. He was counting stacks of coins glinting on the joint’s long counter.

  I saw Pocket casually walk to the front of Blue’s joint. I saw Pocket’s index finger scratching the point of his chin. Mule and Precious drifted into the joint seconds after I got there.

  Pocket gave each of us three dollars in quarters to play the numbers on a long oilcloth strip stretched the length of the pine-board counter. Those numbers matched the numbers on the wheel in the center of the counter.