"We keep our place clean and respectable and we don't want you field niggers coming up here from the South and ruining things," she shouted with blazing hate.
People were stopping to look. A super from a building down the block came out and stood in the middle of the walk, pounding his fist against his palm with a dry, smacking sound. I hesitated, embarrassed and annoyed. Was this woman crazy?
"I mean it! Yes, you! I'm talking to you! Just take it right out! Rosalie," she called to someone inside the house, "call the police, Rosalie!"
I can't afford that, I thought, and walked back to the can. "What does it matter, Miss?" I called up to her. "When the collectors come, garbage is garbage. I just didn't want to throw it into the street. I didn't know that some kinds of garbage were better than others."
"Never mind your impertinence," she said. "I'm sick and tired of having you southern Negroes mess up things for the rest of us!"
"All right," I said, "I'll get it out."
I reached into the half-filled can, feeling for the package, as the fumes of rotting swill entered my nostrils. It felt unhealthy to my hand, and the heavy package had sunk far down. Cursing, I pushed back my sleeve with my clean hand and probed until I found it. Then I wiped off my arm with a handkerchief and started away, aware of the people who paused to grin at me.
"It serves you right," the little woman called from the stoop.
And I turned and started upward. "That's enough out of you, you piece of yellow gone-to-waste. Unless you still want to call the police." My voice had taken on a new shrill pitch. "I've done what you wanted me to do; another word and I'll do what I want to do --"
She looked at me with widening eyes. "I believe you would," she said, opening the door. "I believe you would."
"I not only would, I'd love it," I said.
"I can see that you're no gentleman," she called, slamming the door,
At the next row of cans I wiped off my wrist and hands with a piece of newspaper, then wrapped the rest around the package. Next time I'd throw it into the street.
Two blocks further along my anger had ebbed, but I felt strangely lonely. Even the people who stood around me at the intersection seemed isolated, each lost in his own thoughts. And now just as the lights changed I let the package fall into the trampled snow and hurried across, thinking, There, it's done.
I had covered two blocks when someone called behind me, "Say, buddy! Hey, there! You, Mister... Wait a second!" and I could hear the hurried crunching of footsteps upon the snow. Then he was beside me, a squat man in worn clothes, the strands of his breath showing white in the cold as he smiled at me, panting.
"You was moving so fast I thought I wasn't going to be able to stop you," he said. "Didn't you lose something back there a piece?"
Oh, hell, a friend in need, I thought, deciding to deny it. "Lose something?" I said. "Why, no."
"You sure?" he said, frowning.
"Yes," I said, seeing his forehead wrinkle with uncertainty, a hot charge of fear leaping to his eyes as he searched my face.
"But I seen you -- Say, buddy," he said, looking swiftly back up the street, "what you trying to do?"
"Do? What do you mean?"
"I mean talking 'bout you didn't lose nothing. You working a con game or something?" He backed away, looking hurriedly at the pedestrians back up the street from where he'd come.
"What on earth are you talking about now?" I said. "I tell you I didn't lose anything."
"Man, don't tell me! I seen you. What the hell you mean?" he said, furtively removing the package from his pocket. "This here feels like money or a gun or something and I know damn well I seen you drop it."
"Oh, that," I said. "That isn't anything -- I thought you --"
"That's right, 'Oh.' So you remember now, don't you? I think I'm doing you a favor and you play me for a fool. You some kind of confidence man or dope peddler or something? You trying to work one of those pigeon drops on me?"
"Pigeon drop?" I said. "You're making a mistake --"
"Mistake, hell! Take this damn stuff," he said, thrusting the package in my hands as though it were a bomb with a lighted fuse. "I got a family, man. I try to do you a favor and here you trying to get me into trouble -- You running from a detective or somebody?"
"Wait a minute," I said. "You're letting your imagination run away; this is nothing but garbage --"
"Don't try to hand me that simple-minded crap," he wheezed. "I know what kind of garbage it is. You young New York Negroes is a blip! I swear you is! I hope they catch you and put your ass under the jail!"
He shot away as though I had smallpox. I looked at the package. He thinks it's a gun or stolen goods, I thought, watching him go. A few steps farther along I was about to toss it boldly into the street when upon looking back I saw him, joined by another man now, gesturing toward me indignantly. I hurried away. Give him time and the fool'll call a policeman. I dropped the package back into the brief case. I'd wait until I got downtown.
On the subway people around me were reading their morning papers, pressing forward their unpleasant faces. I rode with my eyes shut, trying to make my mind blank to thoughts of Mary. Then turning, I saw the item Violent Protest Over Harlem Eviction, just as the man lowered his paper and moved out of the breaking doors. I could hardly wait until I reached 42nd Street, where I found the story carried on the front page of a tabloid, and I read it eagerly. I was referred to only as an unknown "rabble rouser" who had disappeared in the excitement, but that it referred to me was unmistakable. It had lasted for two hours, the crowd refusing to vacate the premises. I entered the clothing store with a new sense of self-importance.
I selected a more expensive suit than I'd intended, and while it was being altered I picked up a hat, shorts, shoes, underwear and socks, then hurried to call Brother Jack, who snapped his orders like a general. I was to go to a number on the upper East Side where I'd find a room, and I was to read over some of the Brotherhood's literature which had been left there for me, with the idea of my making a speech at a Harlem rally to be held that evening.
The address was that of an undistinguished building in a mixed Spanish-Irish neighborhood, and there were boys throwing snowballs across the street when I rang the super's bell. The door was opened by a small pleasant-faced woman who smiled.
"Good morning, Brother," she said. "The apartment is all ready for you. He said you'd come about this time and I've just this minute come down. My, just look at that snow."
I followed her up the three flights of stairs, wondering what on earth I'd do with a whole apartment.
"This is it," she said, removing a chain of keys from her pocket and opening a door at the front of the hall. I went into a small comfortably furnished room that was bright with the winter sun. "This is the living room," she said proudly, "and over here is your bedroom."
It was much larger than I needed, with a chest of drawers, two upholstered chairs, two closets, a bookshelf and a desk on which was stacked the literature to which he'd referred. A bathroom lay off the bedroom, and there was a small kitchen.
"I hope you like it, Brother," she said, as she left. "If there's anything you need, please ring my bell."
The apartment was clean and neat and I liked it -- especially the bathroom with its tub and shower. And as quickly as I could I drew a bath and soaked myself. Then feeling clean and exhilarated I went out to puzzle over the Brotherhood books and pamphlets. My brief case with the broken image lay on the table. I would get rid of the package later; right now I had to think about tonight's rally.
Chapter 16
At seven-thirty Brother Jack and some of the others picked me up and we shot up to Harlem in a taxi. As before, no one spoke a word. There was only the sound made by a man in the corner who drew noisily on a pipeful of rum-flavored tobacco, causing it to glow on and off, a red disk in the dark. I rode with mounting nervousness; the taxi seemed unnaturally warm. We got out in a side street and went down a narrow alley in the dark to the rear of the huge, barn-like building. Other members had already arrived.