Strivers Row (45 page)

“That so?” he said, apprehensive—still trying to smile for Laura, and make her think that he wanted nothing more.

He was flattered that they had discussed his future between them, but not shocked, knowing Ella as he did. When he had brought Laura home, his sister had all but fainted over her. Swooning around, rushing to set tea and cake before her—cooing over each example of Laura's impeccable manners, ecstatic to see him with such a nice Hill girl. And Laura, as was her way, had not been haughty or high hat with his sister, joking and talking with her as if they were old friends. He had sat and watched them, smiling nervously, able to see these two women taking up his whole future in their hands between them.

He couldn't help but wonder what that might mean. By that day at Harvard, he had already seen that Ella, like all her friends on the Hill, was not exactly what she seemed. He had noticed that she still wore her layers and layers of bulky clothing, even in the mildest spring weather, and one day when she hadn't expected him to be at home, he had watched her let herself in through the kitchen door, and pull one item after another out of her pockets. A small can of stewed tomatoes, a quarter pound of chuck chop; a few cents' worth of cold cuts. Some penny candy, a stick of butter. More and more groceries coming out of one hidden pocket after another like some kind of circus clown act.

Malcolm hadn't known what to say to her, so he had just walked softly away. At first he had thought bitterly that she must be lying to him, that she was like all those pretend men and women on the Hill, and didn't really own anything, not even the house over their heads. But she had shown him the lease many times, bragging on her own business ability, and her bank account to boot. He had gone with her to her other properties, watching her harangue the tenants and extract her rent as only a real landlord could. Men came to the house, to discuss with her lots that she might buy from them, or vice versa, and she was wealthier than any colored woman—or man, for that matter—he had ever known.

He could not fathom why she would steal anything, especially anything so small, right down to penny candy from the grocery store. But one evening soon after he and Laura had made the trip to Harvard, Malcolm had come home to find Ella physically blocking him from coming through the front door of her house. When he tried to go in, she had insisted that he go back out, and not return home until he brought back some food. He had pleaded and joked with her, trying to pretend that he thought she was kidding, frightened by how her whole demeanor had changed. But she remained adamant, her face glazed over almost as if she were in a trance, demanding that he go back out on the streets for her.

“But I don't got any money!” he finally wailed, unable to shove past the great bulk of her body.

“You used to lift things back in Lansing, didn't you?” she pointed out. “Least that's what those social workers told me!”

“Yeah. I guess,” he admitted—feeling stunned and betrayed by the idea that Mr. Maynard Allen would have said anything about it, to anyone else.

“Then why you got such airs 'bout doin' it in Boston? Ain't I as good as your Momma? Ain't I worth stealin' for?”

“I guess—”

“Then you get out there, don' you come back till you got somet'in' for supper!”

He had wandered through the Hill for hours, grieving over her demand, unable to figure out why she would want such a thing from him. He lingered outside the shops on Humboldt and Waumbeck Avenues, halfheartedly thinking to fulfill her order, but he could not make himself go inside. The stores here so much brighter and sharper than they had been back in Michigan, the cops even bigger and more intimidating.

Finally he had broken away, and run down the Hill into the Town, where all the poor and unruly Negroes that Ella disapproved of lived. Half-blind, the tears filling his eyes, he had been both battered and cosseted by the crowded nighttime streets, all the restless activity eventually soothing him, distracting him from the turmoil inside himself. He wandered around for hours in the Town, peering into its corner groceries and the fish-fry restaurants, the storefront churches and pawnshops. Staring down the narrow, littered alleys, at the little boys there fighting and swearing, shooting craps and pitching pennies with grown-ups. He watched the hipsters pouring into crowded bars, greeting each other with their cool, whispered patter. The other couples, too, going into the dark bars and nightclubs— black men with white women, looking furtive and guilty but holding hands in public.

He had stopped at last in front of a poolroom. There, his cheeks still stained by tears, still bewildered about what he should do, or where he should go, he had stood and gaped at how sharp and bright everything looked inside—the green felt of the tables and the whirring balls; the hustlers' suits and the way their conked hair fell back over their heads as flat and straight as a white man's. He noticed above all another object constantly in motion, a dark, stubby man moving back and forth between the tables. He threw towels at the players and chalked their sticks; fetched drinks and food for them, and filled aluminum cans with the powder they shook into their hands, all without the least indication that his every task was anything but what he chose to do out of his own munificence. And in his confusion, Malcolm knew he wanted nothing more than to be that man. Knowing he wasn't up to being a true hustler or a pool sharp yet, but just wanting to work at their side every day, the same as that stubby little man did.

He had finally been able to lift a beefsteak for Ella that night, taking it right out of a narrow, hole-in-the-wall, colored butcher's shop when the owner had to go in the back for more paper. Looking him in the face before he did so, Malcolm all but daring the man to do anything before he picked up the steak and strolled out.

It had seemed to satisfy Ella, at least for the moment, but afterward he had worried less about all her rules, and all her fine things. He had gone back down to the Town every night for the next week—knowing how much she would hate it, not even trying to disguise his destination. There, he always stopped at the same pool-room, watching the players inside with his nose shoved up against the glass—until one night the stubby little man with the powder had caught his eye, and grinned, and waved him in. Malcolm had all but fallen over himself to obey. The feeling inside electric the moment he passed through the door, everything louder and flashier. He had just stood there for a long moment, listening to the players calling their shots, taunting and boasting; the smack and clatter of the ivory balls banging off each other. Soaking in the smells of talc and chalk, tobacco and whiskey.

The stubby man had come up to him, wriggling his nose as if he smelled something bad, a grin still creasing his broad face. Malcolm was surprised to see that he wasn't much older than himself.

“Mmm-mmm-mmm! The cat still
smells
country!” the stubby man said, looking him up and down and shaking his head. “That your hair, or you just fall down in a briar patch, son?”

Malcolm didn't know what to say, but the man only chuckled and held out his hand.

“Name's Malcolm, Malcolm Jarvis. What's yours, son? You just get in off the bus from Alabama?”

When Malcolm told him what his name was, and where he was from, the little man's eyes had lit up.

“Homeboy! Gimme some skin! Same name, same town! I come from Lansing ten years ago. What you lookin' for here, son? These hustlers gonna scoff up a square shuffler like you an' spit out the seeds.”

But when Malcolm had managed to get out that he wanted a job just like his, Jarvis only shook his head.

“Nah, nah, man. You can do better'n rackin' balls,” he insisted. “But you're doin' it—”

“That's only till I get enough scratch to put my ork together,” he said, still smiling at Malcolm. “We gonna put the word out. Then we gonna get you fixed up so you look like you didn't just step out of a cotton field. You stick wit' me, Nome. I'm gonna school you to the happenings.”

The slave Jarvis had gotten him was shining shoes down at the Roseland State, the huge ballroom down on Mass Ave. At first he had felt let down that he had just been stuck with Jarvis's leavings. He couldn't believe that this job or anything else could compare to working in the pool hall, although he had long been fascinated by the Roseland. He had passed it many times with Laura on their way back from the Loew's, which was right next door, but he had never dared to take her inside—afraid to have her discover how little dancing he had actually done.

Yet all of his disappointment had vanished once Jarvis had taken him down there, and left him with Freddie, the resident shoeshine, who was leaving because he had finally hit it big on the numbers. He was a sinewy brown man, with arms as powerful as streetcar cables, but who moved hunched over at all times like a crab. Malcolm realized that Freddie, too, was at most only a few years older than he was himself, though he seemed to have already picked up a world of knowledge.

“Once they leave that piss stand, you run right up to 'em with a towel,” he instructed him. “Lot of 'em don't plan to wash their hands, but you offer the towel an' shame 'em into it. Towel's the best hustle you got in here. Cost you a penny apiece to launder 'em, an' you always get at least a nickel tip.”

His hands were in constant motion as he talked, Malcolm noticed—filling up the soap basins, checking the toilet paper; piling up the downy white hand towels in the huge, gleaming, tiled bathroom. He held up a whisk broom from his shoeshine kit, like something a baseball umpire would use to sweep home plate—a wry, almost painful smile creasing his face.

“After they take the towel, give 'em a couple licks wit' this. They tip you anything over a dime, you tom it up some. Make a big fuss, run it all over they suit jacket, the pants. Let 'em
feel
it. The white cats like to see that. They come back two, three times a night, just for the feel of it.”

He led Malcolm over to the shoeshine stand itself then, just outside the bathroom door, and squatted down before it, motioning him to put his right foot up. Malcolm slipped it gingerly into the ornate copper shoe plate, riveted into the stand and worn smooth by thousands of feet. Freddie set upon it at once, his hands moving so fast Malcolm could barely follow them.

“You keep everything in its place. When it gets rushed you never have a wasted motion,” he told him, pulling out the drawer of his kit with one hand.

“Keep your shoelaces in this drawer here, an' don't be afraid to tell a cat if he needs a new pair. Buy 'em two for a nickel, charge 'em a quarter. Make sure an' get some rubbers before you go in, too. Cost you two bits each, you charge 'em a dollar.

“You got your rags an' brushes here by the footstand. Polish, paste wax, an' suede brushes
here
. Brush, polish, brush. Paste wax, shine rag, lacquer. Dig the action? Only you got to go faster than I'm doin' it now. You got to make that rag
pop
!”

His hands moved even faster, until they were just brown blurs over his black shoes. There was a burst of popping noises that sounded as loud as gunshots and made Malcolm jump. Freddie grinned up at him.

“It's a jive noise. The cats tip if they know you're knockin' yourself out. Remember, Red: Everything in this world is a hustle.
Everything
.”

But Malcolm barely heard him, distracted by the music now floating up from the ballroom. He recognized the tune, of course, and even the band—Benny Goodman's orchestra, slowly building into “Why Don't You Do Right.” A woman's reedy voice growling over the bass line:

Only then did it truly dawn on him that they were
live
, rehearsing right now, just a floor below him. And that he would be working in the midst of such music every night. He turned back reluctantly, to see Freddie was still smiling at him, already popping the rag over his second shoe.

“Ain't you ever seen a big dance, Country? Ah, but this ain't nothin'. Wait'll you see a colored dance. Our people know how to carry
on
.”

“Really?” Malcolm breathed, leaning toward the stairs.

“Sure. Run on an' watch awhile. You got your whole life to shine shoes,” Freddie told him.

Malcolm was halfway down the stairs before Freddie had finished his sentence, racing to see the splendid ballroom, the band playing all alone across it.
Playing just for him
. Only dimly aware of Freddie calling softly down the stairs:

“Remember what I told you, Red. Everything in this world is a hustle!”

He never forgot the giddy realization of that moment—that here, live and in person, would be all the top musicians and hits he had heard for years, coming from the radio, or some scratched-up record, or out of some local high school band playing bad, slow covers. He had never been that musical himself, for all that he wanted to be a singer, like his half-brother, Jimmy Carlton, but it excited him now, seeing how fast the bands played, and all those people moving to them. He spent as much time as he could at the Roseland watching the dancers, despite everything Freddie had schooled him in about soliciting tips. He would jump up and down at the edge of the floor, until the house manager had to holler at him to get back up and tend to the customers.

Later, he would find how small the dance floor was compared to those of the Savoy, or the Renaissance; the action limited, just as everything was compared to
Harlem.
But it was so much more than anything he had seen before. When a good band was in, he could barely be bothered with the men who drifted up to his shoe-shine stand, unless they were in fact the band leaders themselves, or their sidemen. He sat idolatrously at their feet, hoping they might notice him—Ellington and Hampton, Cootie Williams and Jimmy Lunceford. Lester Young and Dickie Wells, and Johnny Hodges and Sonny Greer who got into such a furious argument over “Day Dream” that they forgot to tip him, though Malcolm didn't care. He would have gladly shined all their shoes for free, just to listen to them.