I slumped down in my seat, feeling sick. I always do when somebody steals from me. For a while, I sat there thinking about my overcoat and how it had been part of the friendly continuity of my life. Then I got to my feet and went through my pockets and came up with fifty cents. I had lost my money, my Social Security card, and even my passport. I began to feel cold and hot alternately, and around Aberdeen I began to feel cramps and nausea. I figured it was the tuna-fish sandwich. Just outside of Baltimore, I became desperately sick and went to the men’s room and threw up. I was sick again between Baltimore and Washington, and when the train finally pulled into Union Station and I stepped out into the cold, rainy afternoon, I felt like hell.
I didn’t have enough money for a cab, and it was no use calling home. My family was out of town, visiting my sister’s husband’s family in Maryland. They would be coming back to Washington in the morning. So I got on a bus, and about twenty minutes later got off, in the rain, and transferred to another bus. While I was on the bus, the nausea and cramps came back and I decided I’d have to get off. I began to look for a bar or restaurant or hotel along the way, and when I saw a gasoline station in a very old, shabby neighborhood — a Negro neighborhood — I pulled the cord and picked up my suitcase and got off.
In the men’s room of the gasoline station, I bathed my face in cold water, and went outside again. I was feeling much better, but weak. The rain was cold, and the wind had grown stronger, and I was shivering. I was about to cross the street and wait by a little yellow bus-stop sign, when I saw that I was in front of a small grocery store with a green awning slanting down over a dimly lighted display window. I decided to stand under the awning and watch for the bus from there.
Inside the grocery store, three Negroes were leaning against a long, white refrigerated case, or counter, talking and laughing. Another Negro, in a white apron, was behind the counter, leaning on it and reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich. I thought of going into the store and getting warm, but I had no excuse for going in, really — no money to buy anything with. So I stayed under the awning, which was flapping wildly in the wind. My teeth were chattering, and I felt a sore throat coming on, when I saw a Negro man and woman walking down the street in the rain, arguing. They’d walk without speaking, then stop and argue, then walk some more. Actually, it was more of a dramatic exercise than an argument. The woman would make wordless faces at the man, which unsettled him. He would get ready to say something, and then she would laugh at him. Then he would look surprised and cautious, as though he was searching for a little balance and leverage, and she would scream at him. Then she would tell him to shut up, and he would look surprised, and finally he would begin to scream at her, and then she would begin to laugh at him, which made him more unsteady. The man was squat and round, with a black moonface crowned by a porkpie hat. He was wearing a frayed and very wet fatigue jacket. His companion was mocha brown, and tall and wide. She was large-boned and hefty, but not fat, and although she was obviously strong, she was unmistakably feminine. She wore a man’s raincoat and a pair of bedroom slippers without backs. She didn’t wear stockings, and she didn’t wear a hat. She had a wide nose and a wide mouth, and large, beautiful eyes. She walked ahead of the man into the grocery store, slamming the door after her, and he followed her in, looking worried and confused.
I leaned my back against the window and watched the rain water pour off the awning and splash over my shoes. I was standing in a puddle about an inch deep, but it hardly mattered any more. I was beginning to feel sick again. There was no sign of the bus. To take my mind off myself, I turned and faced the window, and I saw the woman dancing around the store with her arms outstretched and her eyes half closed. The men standing near the refrigerated case kept up a rhythmic clapping. She went on dancing around, having a marvelous time, while the man in the porkpie hat looked sullenly at the floor.
After a while, I turned around and faced the street again. I felt like a shipwreck hanging on a reef, or a piece of driftwood. I think I had a touch of delirium. I was thinking about what to do next, when the woman and the man in the porkpie hat came out of the grocery store.
“You deny that? You deny that?” he yelled at her. He was standing next to me under the awning.
“Go on, man. Go on. Go on,” she said, walking away from him and moving indifferently into the rain.
“Now, you deny that?” he said. “Now where you going? You come on back here.”
“You don’t own me, baby,” she said, walking on.
He gave a few preliminary grunts of frustration, and then he began to scream at her to come back, but she paid no attention to him. “You hear me? I’m talking to you! You come on back here,” he said.
Halfway down the block, she stopped and turned around, put her hands on her hips, yelled something obscene at him, and then stretched out her arms and began to laugh.
“Honey, you getting wet. Now, you come on back here,” he called imploringly.
She yelled something at him again.
“Now, honey, why you talk that way to me?” he yelled.
“Man, leave me alone. You make me sick,” she said, moving on.
“Come on, honey, you know I don’t feel good,” he cried at her in a sad whine.
The woman crossed the street quickly, and the man watched her, moving his mouth without saying anything. He seemed too tired to go after her. For a while, he stood with his arms folded and shook his head. He didn’t seem to know that I was there, even though only about a foot separated us. I was slightly behind him, still leaning against the window, when he turned around and looked surprised; then he closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes and looked angry.
“How are you?” I said.
“What you say?” he asked, putting a hand over his eyes.
“I said, ‘How are you?’”
He held his hand over his eyes, considering the question. “That ain’t what you said,” he told me finally, still covering his eyes.
“O.K., that’s not what I said.”
I looked down at my feet, at the puddle I was standing in, trying to ignore him. I noticed that he was wearing a ripped pair of black, misshapen shoes and no socks, and that his pants legs were rolled up a little above his ankles. Suddenly he jumped into the puddle I was standing in and splashed me. I couldn’t believe it.
“Now, what did you say?” he asked, folding his arms.
I didn’t answer.
“You trying to make a fool out of me?” he asked.
“I’m not trying to make a fool out of you,” I said. I looked down the street, feeling sick and desperate, but the street was empty and it was raining harder than ever.
“You mean you ain’t trying but I am a fool anyhow. Right?” he said.