Home To Harlem

XIII. ONE NIGHT IN PHILLY

ONE NIGHT IN PHILLY XIII C/NE night in Philadelphia Jake breezed into the waiters' quarters in Market Street, looking for Ray. It was late. Ray was in bed. Jake pulled him up. "Come on outa that, you slacker. Let's go over to North Philly." "What for?" "A liT fun. I knows a swell outfit I wanta show you." "Anything new?" "Don't know about anything new, chappie, but I know there's something good right there in Fifteenth Street." "Oh, I know all about that. I don't want to go." "Come on. Don't be so particular about you7 person. You gotta go with me." "I have a girl in New York." "Tha's awright. This is Philly." [188] One Night in Philly "I tell you, Jake, there's no fun in those kinds for me. They'll bore me just like that night in Baltimore." "Oh, these here am different chippies, I tell you. Come on, le's spend the night away from this damn dump. Wese laying ovah all day tomorrow." "And some of them will say such rotten things. Pretty enough, all right, but their mouths are loaded with filth, and that's what gets me." "Them's different ovah there, chappie. I'll kiss the Bible on it. Come on, now. It's no fun me going alone." They went to a house in Fifteenth Street. As they entered Jake was greeted by a mulatto woman in the full vigor of middle life. "Why, you heart-breaker! It's ages and ages since I saw you. You and me sure going to have a bust-up tonight." Jake grinned, prancing a little, as if he were going to do the old cake-walk. [189] Home to Harlem "Here, Laura, this is mah friend," he introduced Ray casually. "Bring him over here and sit down," Madame Laura commanded. She was a big-boned woman, but very agile. A long, irregular, rich-brown face, roving black eyes, deep-set, and shiny black hair heaped upon her head. She wore black velvet, a square-cut blouse low down on her breasts, and a string of large coral beads. The young girls of that house envied her finely-preserved form and her carriage and wondered if they would be anything like that when they reached her age. The interior of this house gave Ray a shock. It looked so much like a comfortable boarding-house where everybody was cheerful and nice coquettish girls in colorful frocks were doing the waiting. . . • There were a few flirting couples, two groups of men playing cards, and girls hovering around. An attractive black woman was serving sandwiches, gin and bottled beer. At the piano, a slim yellow youth was playing a "blues." . . . A [ 190 ] One Night in Philly pleasant house party, similar to any other among colored people of that class in Baltimore , New Orleans, Charleston, Richmond, or even Washington, D. C. Different, naturally , from New York, which molds all peoples into a hectic rhythm of its own. Yet even New York, passing its strange thousands through its great metropolitan mill, cannot rob Negroes of their native color and laughter. "Mah friend's just keeping me company," Jake said to the woman. "He ain't regular— you get me? And I want him treated right" "He'll be treated better here than he would in church." She laughed and touched Ray's calf with the point of her slipper. "What kind o' bust-up youse gwine to have with me?" demanded Jake. "I'll show you just what I'm going to do with you for forgetting me so long." She got up and went into an adjoining room. When she returned an attractively made-up brown girl followed her carrying a tray with glasses and a bottle of champagne. [ 191 ] Home to Harlem . . . The cork hit the ceiling, bang! And deftly the woman herself poured the foaming liquor without a wasted drop, "There! That's our bust-up," she said. "Me and you and your friend. Even if he's a virgin he's all right. I know you ain't never going around with no sap-head." "Give me some, too," a boy of dull-gold complexion materialized by the side of Madame Laura and demanded a drink. He was about eleven years old. Affectionately...