They both realized in the same instant that they were looking into the man’s home.
“Sorry to bother you,” Meyer mumbled.
“It’s a mistake,” Hawes said.
“Sorry,” Meyer said.
The man closed the flaps on the carton, picked it up again, and began walking up the street, struggling with its weight.
They almost felt like helping him.
“I WANTED YOU to hear this without any background noise,” Silver said.
Chloe figured this was like being invited up to some guy’s apartment to see his etchings. He’d called her twenty minutes ago, asked if she could stop by on her way to rehearsal. He still thought she worked with some kind of dance group, she’d been pretty vague about what kind of dance. It was now ten-forty, she was due at the club at eleven. She hoped he hadn’t picked tonight to make his move, hoped he really did want her to hear this song he’d written. She’d pretty much decided she’d go to bed with him sooner or later, but there were things she had to sort out first.
Like, for example, why she hadn’t yet quit the job.
Why hadn’t she just marched in, said So long, Tony, it was nice getting groped all these months, and thanks for the use of the hall, but I’ve got twenty grand in the bank now, and what I’m going to do is open a beauty parlor.
Simple thing to do, right?
So why hadn’t she done it?
Something scary about it, she guessed. Going out on her own. Easier to suffer the hands on her. Easier to…
“Nice thing about rap, I can accompany myself,” he said, and grinned.
His apartment was on a stretch of turf that used to be called Honey Lane when Diamondback was in its heyday. Lots of rich and respectable black people used to live right here on this street. The brownstones lining Honey Lane were as fancy as any you could find on the Upper South Side of Isola. Stained-glass panels set in mahogany entrance doors. Polished brass door-knobs and knockers. Sweeping carpeted stairways. This was back when Mr. Charlie came uptown to listen to jazz and watch the high-yeller chicks strutting in their little beaded dresses. Diamondback was the place to go back then.
Dope hit Diamondback long before it hit the rest of America, right after the War—the real war, not the miniseries in the Gulf. There were many blacks—and Chloe Chadderton was one of them—who believed that dope was the white man’s way of keeping the nigger in his place. Spread dope in all the black hoods, the way the British used to do when they were running China, and you subjugated the people, you made sure they never got any power. The fat black cats in Diamondback ran for the hills when dope came in, sold out and left for the suburbs, same as whites did whenever blacks moved in, it was kind of funny. Now Diamondback was a war zone. Half a century of indifference and you had teenagers clocking for big-time dealers and doing crack themselves.
Which was maybe why Chloe was scared of going out there on her own. In a white man’s bar, on a white man’s table top, with a white man’s hands all over her, she sometimes felt…safe. Cared for. Protected. This was what they’d done to her. In the long run, she was still a slave, still afraid to take that leap into freedom.
“It’s called ‘Black Woman,’” Sil said.
“Takeoff on ‘Sister Woman’?” she asked, and was immediately sorry.
His face fell.
“Well…no,” he said. “‘Sister Woman’ is somethin else, Chloe. ‘Sister Woman’ was your husband’s bleat , his way of protestin before rap was even a dream in anybody’s head. You want to know what rap is, it’s calypso without melody, straight out of the West Indies, never mind Africa. That’s why ‘Sister Woman’ fits in so good with what we do. Spit Shine is pure rhythm , and your husband’s lyrics got the beat of the drums in them, right up front, hell, he coulda been writin his words specially for us. But ‘Black Woman’…”
“I didn’t mean you ripped it off,” she said. “I’m sorry if you…”
“No, no, all I’m tryin’a splain is how the two raps are different. ‘Sister Woman’ is a rap we got from calypso , but ‘Black Woman’ is somethin I pulled out of rhythm and blues. Well you’ll see what I mean when you hear it.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“On Saturday, we start the act with your husband’s song, new rap for the group, they sit up and take notice the minute we open our mouths. Then we do ‘Hate,’ which was a hit they all know, and which is just what it says it is, man, it’s about hate , pure and simple. And then we do ‘Black Woman.’ Which is about love. R and B is always about love. And lovers,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” she said again.
“Would you like to hear it?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But I told you, Sil, I have to be at the…the rehearsal starts at…”
“That’s cool, don’t worry,” he said, and grinned, and sat at the table and began beating out a rhythm with the palms of his hands, the gut rhythm of rap, an intricate clickety rhythm that made her want to move her feet in response, a rhythm as immediate as a bulletin from the front. Over the beat of his hands on the tabletop, he began the rap he’d written last Saturday:
“Black woman, black woman, oh yo eyes so black,
“Tho yo skin wants some color, why is that , tell me that.
“Why is that , black woman, don’t confuse me tonight,
“You confusin me, woman, you confusin me quite,
“Cause you look so white
“When i know you black.”
“Black woman, black woman, is you white or black?
“Is you quite black, woman, don’t confuse me tonight,
“You confusin me, woman, I’m a’taken aback
“Cause you look so white
“When i know you black.”
“Now you know where I stand, cause you know how I look, you been hearin my rap, you been readin my book.
“You can see in my hand all the cards I can play, you can read in my eyes all the things I can say.
“Do you spec me to lose all them centuries past,
“Do you spec me to worship at yo lily-white ass?
“Do you spec me to love all that’s white that’s within you?
“Do you spec me to love all the white man that’s in you?
“Well, I will.”
“Black woman, white woman, gonna love you so,
“Be you black, be you white, even so, that is so,
“That is that , white woman, no confusion tonight,
“No confusion, black woman, I’m forgettin the white,
“In the night, in the night,
“All is black, all is white
“Love the black, love the white,
“Love the woman tonight.”
His hands stopped their erratic rhythm on the tabletop. He looked at her very solemnly.
“That’s…lovely,” she said.
“I wrote it for you,” he said.