Home To Harlem

IV. CONGO ROSE

CONGO ROSE IV 0 2 LL the old cabarets were going still. Connor's was losing ground. The bed of red roses that used to glow in the ceiling was almost dim now. The big handsome black girl that always sang in a red frock was no longer there. What a place Connor's was from 1914 to 1916 when that girl was singing and kicking and showing her bright green panties there! And the little ebony drummer, beloved of every cabaret lover in Harlem, was a fiend for rattling the drum 1 Barron's was still Barron's, depending on its downtown white trade. Leroy's, the big common rendezvous shop for everybody. Edmond 's still in the running. A fine new place that was opened in Brooklyn was freezing to death. Brooklyn never could support anything . Goldgraben's on Lenox Avenue was leading [28] Congo Rose all the Negro cabarets a cruel dance. The big-spirited Jew had brought his cabaret up from the basement and established it in a hall blazing with lights, overlooking Lenox Avenue . He made a popular Harlem Negro manager. There the joy-loving ladies and gentlemen of the Belt collected to show their striking clothes and beautiful skin. Oh, it was some wonderful sight to watch them from the pavement! No wonder the lights of Connor 's were dim. And Barron's had plunged deeper for the ofay trade. Goldgraben was grabbing all the golden-browns that had any spendable dough. But the Congo remained in spite of formidable opposition and foreign exploitation. The Congo was a real throbbing little Africa in New York. It was an amusement place entirely for the unwashed of the Black Belt. Or, if they were washed, smells lingered telling the nature of their occupation. Pot-wrestlers, third cooks, W. C. attendants, scrub maids, dish-washers, stevedores. Girls coming from the South to try their [29] Home to Harlem future in New York always reached the Congo first. The Congo was African in spirit and color. No white persons were admitted there. The proprietor knew his market. He did not cater to the fast trade. "High yallers" were scarce there. Except for such sweetmen that lived off the low-down dark trade. When you were fed up with the veneer of Seventh Avenue, and Goldgraben's Afro-Oriental garishness, you would go to the Congo and turn rioting loose in all the tenacious odors of service and the warm indigenous smells of Harlem, fooping or jig-jagging the night away. You would if you were a black kid hunting for joy in New York. Jake went down to the Baltimore. No.sign of his honey girl anywhere. He drank Scotch after Scotch. His disappointment mounted to anger against himself—turned to anger against his honey girl. His eyes roved round the room, but saw nobody. "Oh what a big Ah-Ah I was!" All round the den, luxuriating under the little colored lights, the dark dandies were Congo Rose loving up their pansies. Feet tickling feet under tables, tantalizing liquor-rich giggling, hands busy above. "Honey gal! Honey gal! What other sweet boy is loving you now? Don't you know your last night's daddy am waiting for you?" The cabaret singer, a shiny coffee-colored girl in a green frock and Indian-waved hair, went singing from table to table in a man's bass voice. "You wanta know how I do it, How I look so good, how I am so happy, All night on the blessed job— How I slide along making things go snappy ? It is easy to tell, I ain't got no plan— But I'm crazy, plumb crazy About a man, mah man. "It ain't no secret as you think, The glad heart is a state o' mind— Throw a stone in the river and it will sink; But a feather goes whirling on the wind. It is easy to tell. . . ." She stopped more than usual at Jake's table. He gave her a half dollar. She danced a jag- [31] Home to Harlem ging jig before him that made the giggles rise like a wave in the room. The pansies stared and tightened their grip on their dandies. The dandies tightened their hold on themselves . They looked the favored Jake up and down. All...