Home To Harlem

X. THE RAILROAD

THE RAILROAD X C/VER the heart of the vast gray Pennsylvania country the huge black animal snorted and roared, with sounding rods and couplings, pulling a long chain of dull-brown boxes packed with people and things, trailing on the blue-cold air its white masses of breath. Hell was playing in the hot square hole of a pantry and the coffin-shaped kitchen of the dining-car. The short, stout, hard-and-horny chef was terrible as a rhinoceros. Against the second, third, and fourth cooks he bellied his way up to the little serving door and glared at the waiters. His tough, aproned front was a challenge to them. In his oily, shining face his big white eyes danced with meanness. All the waiters had squeezed into the pantry at once, excitedly snatching, dropping and breaking things. [123] Home to Harlem "Hey, you there! You mule!"x The chef shouted at the fourth waiter. "Who told you to snitch that theah lamb chops outa the hole?" "I done think they was the one I ordered " "Done think some hell, you down-home black fool. Ain't no thinking to be done on "Chef, ain't them chops ready yet?" a waiter asked. "Don't rush me, nigger," the chef bellowed back. "Wha' yu'all trying to do? Run me up a tree? Kain't run this here chef up no tree. Jump off ef you kain't ride him." His eyes gleamed with grim humor. "Jump off or lay down. This heah white man's train service ain't no nigger picnic." The second cook passed up a platter of chops. The chef rushed it through the hole and licked his fingers. "There you is, yaller. Take it away. Why ain't you gone yet? Show me some service, 1 The fourth waiter on the railroad is nick-named "mule" because he works under the orders of the pantry-man. [124] The Railroad yaller, show me some service." He rocked his thick, tough body sideways in a sort of dance, licked the sweat from his brow with his forefinger and grunted with aggressive self-satisfaction . Then he bellied his way back to the range and sent the third cook up to the serving window. "Tha's the stuff to hand them niggers," he told the third cook. "Keep 'em up a tree all the time, but don't let 'em get you up there." Jake, for he was the third cook, took his place by the window and handed out the orders . It was his first job on the railroad, but from the first day he managed his part perfectly . He rubbed smoothly along with the waiters by remaining himself and not trying to imitate the chef nor taking his malicious advice. Jake had taken the job on the railroad just to break the hold that Harlem had upon him. When he quitted Rose he felt that he ought to get right out of the atmosphere of Harlem. If I don't git away from it for a while, it'll sure git me, he mused. But not ship-and-port- [ 125 ] Home to Harlem town life again, I done had enough a that here and ovah there. . . . So he had picked the railroad. One or two nights a week in Harlem. And all the days on the road. He would go on like that until he grew tired of that rhythm. . . . The rush was over. Everything was quiet The corridors of the dining-car were emptied of their jam of hungry, impatient guests. The "mule" had scrubbed the slats of the pantry and set them up to dry. The other waiters had put away silver and glasses and soiled linen. The steward at his end of the car was going over the checks. Even the kitchen work was finished and the four cooks had left their coffin for the good air of the dining-room. They sat apart from the dining-room boys. The two grades, cooks and waiters, never chummed together, except for gambling. Some of the waiters were very haughty. There were certain light-skinned ones who went walking with pals of their complexion only in the stopover cities. Others, among the older men, were always dignified. They were fathers of [126] The Railroad families, their wives moved in some...