“Now Red,” he said, “you been with a woman, right?” I nodded, even though I never gotten any further than kisses with Rosaline. Dandy studied my face in the darkness. “That hinky midnight girl I seen you with before, she probably ain’t really give you any, though. Nothing like this.” Then: “You go first, my treat.” I shook my head, which felt so light it might separate from my neck, and again started toward the door, but Dandy said, “You gonna get you some of this grade A first.” I was trying to decide what to do when I saw the lady putting her hand between her thighs, saying something I couldn’t understand, it was in a foreign language and I was already dizzy but getting excited too, I knew being in this room with this white woman was forbidden and if they caught us they would hang us, but Dandy was stroking the outside of his pants and saying “She and I is both waiting, Red,” so I looked for a place to put my clothes. I untied my cravat and removed my shirt and waistcoat, then started to remove my boots when Dandy said, “Naw, leave everything on but tie and shirt, put them on this chair right here, we gotta hurry and I sure ’on’t wanna see ya little red ass.” He pulled a long knife from somewhere in his suit coat, which he draped over the edge of the chair. Following his lead I left my shirt, tie and waistcoat there, unbuttoned my pants, and shuffled to the bed, where the woman kept saying “Leave, leave.” I told Dandy that she telling us to go away and he said, “Fool, she saying she want you in German, hurry up.” I climbed onto the bed, I could smell her woman smell, and from somewhere shit and vinegar, the sheets were damp but not soaked, I couldn’t really see her face because she still was concealing it under a pillow, maybe I didn’t want to see it, I could see her back curving up white as soapstone in front of me, her behind as fair arching, the thick fair hair on her sex, I leaned closer, kneeling, my knees sinking into the soft mattress, and—
— Dandy was next to me saying, “Put it in, Red,” as she hiked her buttocks up to me and threw her head around to see me, I glimpsed her face and saw she was probably the same age as the brother at the door, her long brown hair falling all over her back as she took me in her, Dandy putting me hard in her, pressing us together and I thought of Rosaline and how this felt. I started to push into the softness the woman sliding back and forth, I reached down to grab her hips and at that moment I thought about Horatio and how he had described this all once, I could see him and kept pushing harder my hands on her sweaty hips, she pulling my insides out of myself and I shot out everything like I had never done before and cried out as Dandy pulled me away, handed me the knife and a handkerchief and said, “Use that bowl of water there to clean yourself up good,” and I stepped off the bed as he clambered onto it, telling me, “Soon as you done cleaning up good guard that door,” and she barked out something and he grunted and started pumping and I almost forgot to wash myself, his pants fell around his knees and he gripped down between her thighs and still hard and aroused again I couldn’t stop watching them, his dark mounds hammering back and forth, her legs clamping onto his. “Red,” he said glancing at me and I checked the door, it was still closed and he howled real loud and shook and she screamed out “Leave, leave” till he jumped up and said, panting, “You cleaned up completely?” and “That was good, right?” and “Way we did it she won’t get knocked up by neither of us bulls,” and he grabbed the handkerchief from me and scrubbed himself several times, as the woman sat up in the bed, now calling out to us. Dandy said, “See, you done made her forget her real man,” then “Red, tie your tie, “ he straightened it for me, took the knife, donned his suit jacket, when all of a sudden we heard a street whistle and banging—
— Dandy threw open the door, his eyes darting, “I seen stairs,” I said, he seized my hand and I led him to them, there was a white cop’s voice, maybe two, below us, no sign of the brother outside our door, we could hear chairs being overturned below us and somebody screaming as something tumbled down the stairwell, we were halfway up to the roof when Dandy said, “My hat, Cuz, you go on!” and I told him, “I’ll wait, I can’t leave you,” and he say, “No, you got to get to your job,” and I realized I forgotten all about it, I was probably already late, but I told him, “I can’t leave you,” the white voices were ascending, nearing us, we could hear the batons or maybe tire irons hitting the walls, bannisters, flesh, I stayed there on the stairs as he ran back and I heard a cop voice holler, “It’s a god-awful hive of ’em,” and Dandy yelled from the room, “You got to go, I don’t want you to get sent up, they’d break our necks for that white girl,” but I did not move till he came barreling up behind me pushing me through the hatch onto the roof, it was evening now, the roofs of Philadelphia like silver-black waves, strewn with pearls and gold.
Dandy replaced the hatch, but we could still hear voices just below us and he said, “Red, we gonna to have to jump,” and I said, “Where, off the roof?” not even thinking about how we would reach the street, and he pointed, “Over there,” from the stretch of roof we stood on to one lower, then there was another with a parapet, and the hatch started to open and he stomped it back closed and said, “Let’s go,” so we rared back and sprinted and soared—
— Onto the next roof half a story below, I hit the surface first and skidded to a halt, Dandy did the same thing, we stood and ran and jumped again, onto the parapet roof, rolling as we landed, “One more,” he said and we leapt, over a gap my whole body length, closing my eyes upon as we crossed it, I spotted a chimney and a water tank and we hid ourselves behind them, Dandy clutching his hat and laughing, “Red, even in the dark it’s clear you black as a chimney sweep,” and I looked at myself and him, he appeared to be all smeared in tar, his face and palms and shirt, like my cravat and tie and waistcoat, my pants and palms all black and sticky, even my hair, a thick layer of pitch from one of the roofs all over both of us, and we could hear the cops yelling from the building but they couldn’t see us, and they were not about to jump. I knew once we somehow came down there was no way I could show up like this at Mr. Linde’s, and I tried to think of an excuse to tell Dameron, but began formulating plans to talk to his rival, Mr. Thomas Dorsey, first thing Monday about joining his catering company since I already foresaw what was going to happen. Dandy was still laughing and saying in a low voice that rode the blackness, “You hear them cops still up there trying to figure where we disappeared to?” and “You know I want to do that with you again,” and “Red, Cuz, you really flew!”
Dameron fired me and must have sent word to Mr. Dorsey, who refused to bring me on, so I got only a few jobs here and there with the smaller caterers. Sometimes when I was julienning carrots or making a roux I formulated the extreme idea of working down on the docks, though I also thought it was a good idea to avoid being anywhere near the Schuylkill, because if the cops didn’t spot me one of them from that house might, while the Delaware side, brimming with far more wharves, was not only locked down by immigrants, but Dandy’s usual territory. Jonathan wanted to know what had really happened, though I would not tell him, but I considered asking if he could get me on with his boss, Mr. Kahnweiler, though in truth I didn’t want another job in his shadow nor be a stockboy. I recounted the story to Horatio, only I said the woman was one of us, I was ashamed to tell him the truth, just like I didn’t tell Dandy I’d thought of Horatio when I was with her. Nevertheless Horatio asked me to describe it over and over, to paint a spoken picture of me and then Dandy inside her. I tried not to think about what happened though whenever I patted my empty pockets I cursed and then grinned at the memory of that evening with my cousin.