The Last Leaf of Harlem Page 6

  He thought of that eager Negro lad of seventeen who had come North to seek his fortune. He had walked jauntily down Boylston Street, and even his own kind had laughed at the incongruity of him. But he had thrown up his head and promised himself:

  “You’ll have an office here some day. With plate-glass windows and a real mahogany desk.” But, though he didn’t know it then, he was not the progressive type. And he became successively, in the years (that followed), bellboy, porter, waiter, cook, and finally janitor in a downtown office building.

  He had married Net when he was thirty-three and a waiter. He had married her partly because-though he might not have admitted it -- there was no one to eat the expensive delicacies the generous cook gave him every night to bring home. And partly because he dared hope … But Millie had come, and after her, twin girls who had died within two weeks, then Daisy, and it was tacitly understood that Net was done with child-bearing.

  Life, though flowing monotonously had flowed peacefully enough until that sucker of sanity became a sitting room fixture.

  Intuitively, at the very first, he had felt its undesirability. He had suggested hesitatingly that they couldn’t afford it.

  Three dollars: food and fuel. Times were hard, and the twenty dollars apiece, the respective husbands of Miz Hicks and Miz Berry irregularly paid, was only five dollars more than the thirty-five a month he paid his own Hebraic landlord. And the Lord knew his salary was little enough. At which point Net spoke her piece, her voice rising shrill.

  “God knows I never complain’ bout nothin’. Ain’t no other woman got less than me. I bin wearin’ this same dress here five years an’ I’ll wear it another five. But I don’t want nothin’. I ain’t never wanted nothin’. An’ when I does as’, it’s only for my children. You’re a poor sort of father if you can’t give that child Jes’ three dollars a month to rent that typewriter. Ain’t ‘nother girl in school ain’t got one. An’ none of ’ems bought an’ paid for. You know yourself how Millie is. She wouldn’t as’ me for it till she had to. An’ I ain’t going to disappoint her. She’s goin’ to get that typewriter Saturday, mark my words.”

  On a Monday then it had been installed. And in the months that followed, night after night he listened to the murderous “tack, tack, tack” that was like a vampire slowly drinking his blood. If only he could escape. Bar a door against the sound of it. But tied hand and foot by the economic fact that “Lord knows we can’t afford to have fires burnin’ an’ lights lit all over the flat. You’all gotta set in one room. An’ when y’get tired settin’ y’a c’n go to bed. Gas bill was somep’n scandalous last month.”

  He heaped a final shovel full of coal on the fire and watched the first blue flames. Then, his overcoat under his arm, he mounted the cellar stairs. Mrs. Hicks was standing in her kitchen door, arms akimbo. “It’s warmin’,” she volunteered.

  “Yeh,” he said, conscious of his grime-streaked face and hands, “it’s warmin’. I’m sorry ‘bout all day.”

  She folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Tending a furnace ain’t a woman’s work. I don’t blame your wife none ‘tall.”

  Unsuspecting, he was grateful. “Yeh, it’s pretty hard for a woman. I always look after it ‘fore I goes to work, but some days it jes ac’s up.”

  “V’oughta have a janitor, that’s what y’ought (do),” she flung at him. “The same cullud man that tends them apartments would be willin’. Mr. Taylor has him. It takes a man to run a furnace, and when the man’s away all day.”

  “I know,” he interrupted, embarrassed and hurt, ÏI know. Tha’s right, Miz Hicks tha’s right. But I ain’t in a position to make no improvements. Times is hard.”

  She surveyed him critically. “Your wife called down ‘bout three times while you was in the cellar. I reckon she wants you for supper”.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled and escaped up the back stairs.

  He hung up his overcoat in the closet, tell himself, a little lamely that it wouldn’t take him more’n a minute to clean it up himself after supper. After all Net was tired and prob’bly worried what Miz Hicks and all. And he hated men who made slaves of their women folk.

  Good old Net.

  He tidied up in the bathroom, washing his face and hands carefully and cleanly so as to leave no -- or very little -- stain on the roller towel. It was hard enough for Net, god knew.

  He entered the kitchen. The last spirals of steam were rising from his supper. One thing about Net, she served a full plate. He smiled appreciatively at her unresponsive back, bent over the kitchen sink. There was no one could bake beans just like Net’s. And no one who could find a market with frankfurters quite so fat.

  He sank down at his place. “Evenin, hon.

  He saw her back stiffen. “If your supper’s cold, ‘tain’t my fault. I called and called.”

  He said hastily, “It’s fine, Net, fine.”

  She was the usual tired housewife. “You ‘oughta et your supper ‘fore you fooled with that furnace. I ain’t bothered ‘bout them niggers. I got all my dishes washed ‘cept yours. An’ I hate to mess up my kitchen after I once get it straightened up.”

  He was humble. “I’ll give that old furnace an extra lookin’ after in the mornin’. It’ll las’ all day to-morrow, hon.”

  “An’ on top of that,” she continued, unheeding him and giving a final wrench to her dish towel, “that confounded bell don’t ring.”

  “I’ll fix it after supper,” he interposed hastily.

  She hung up her dishtowel and came to stand before him looming large and yellow. “An that old Mix Berry, she claimed she was expectin’ comp’ny. And she knows they must’a come and gone while she was in her kitchen an’ couldn’t be at her winder to watch for ‘em. Old liar,” she brushed back a lock of naturally straight hair. “She wasn’t expectin’ nobody.”

  “Well, you know how some folks are.”

  “Fools! Half the world,” was her vehement answer. “I’m going in the front room an’ set down a spell. I bin on my feet all day. Leave them dishes on the table. God knows I’m tired, but I’ll come back an’ wash ‘em.” But they both knew, of course, that he, very clumsily would.

  At precisely quarter past nine when he, strained at last to the breaking point, uttering an inhuman, strangled cry, flung down his paper, clutched at his throat and sprang to his feet. Millie’s surprised, young voice, shocking him to normalcy, heralded the first of that series of great moments that every humble little middle-class man eventually experiences.

  “What’s the matter, poppa? You sick? I wanted you to help me.”

  He drew out his handkerchief and wiped his hot hands. “I declare I must ‘a fallen asleep an’ had a nightmare. No, I ain’t sick. What you want, hon?”

  “Dictate me a letter, poppa. I c’n do sixty words a minute. You know, like a business letter. You know, like those men in your building dictate to their stenographers. Don’t you hear ‘em sometimes?”

  “Oh sure, I know, hon. Poppa’ll help you. Sure. I hear that Mr. Browning, sure.”

  Net rose. “Guess I’ll put this child to bed. Come on now, Daisy, without no fuss. Then I’ll run up to pa’s. He ain’t bin well all week.”

  When the door closed behind them, he crossed to his daughter, arranged himself, and coughed importantly.

  “Well, Millie.”

  “Oh, poppa, is that what you’d call your stenographer?” she teased. “And anyway, pretend I’m really one and you’re really my boss, and this letter’s real important.”

  A light crept into his dull eyes. Vigor through his thin blood. In a brief moment the weight of years fell from him like a cloak. Tired, bent, little old man that he was, he smiled, straightened, tapped impressively against his teeth with a toil-strained finger, and became that enviable emblem of American life: a business man.

  “You be Miz Hicks, hun, honey? Course we can’t both use the same name. I’ll be J. Lucius Jones. J. Lucius. All them real big doin’ men use their middle names. Jus’ ki
nda looks (like) big doin’, doncha think, hon? Looks like money, huh? J. Lucius.” He uttered a sound that was like the proud cluck of a strutting hen. “J. Lucius.” It rolled like oil from his tongue.

  His daughter twisted impatiently. “Now poppa. I mean Mr. Jones, sir, please begin. I am ready for dictation sir.”

  He was in that office on Boylston Street, looking with visioning eyes through its plate-glass windows, tapping with impatient fingers on its real mahogany desk.

  “Ah -- Beaker Brothers, Park Square Building, Boston, Mass. Ah -- Gentlemen: In reply to yours at the seventh instant I would state--”

  Every night thereafter in the weeks that followed, with Daisy packed off to bed, and Net “gone up to pals or nodding inobtrusively in her corner, there was the chameleon change of a Court Street janitor to J. Lucius Jones, dealer in stocks and bonds. He would stand, posturing importantly, flicking imaginary dust from his coat lapel, or, his hands locked behind his back, he would stride up and down, earnestly and seriously debating the advisability of buying copper with the market in such a fluctuating state. Once a week, too, he stopped in at Jerry’s, and after a preliminary purchase of cheap cigars, bought the latest trade papers, mumbling an embarrassed explanation: “I got a little money. Think I’ll invest it in reliable stock.”

  The letters Millie typed and subsequently discarded, he rummaged for later, and under cover of writing to his brother in the South, laboriously with a great many fancy flourishes, signed each neatly typed sheet with the exalted J. Lucius Jones.

  Later, when he mustered the courage, he suggested tentatively to Millie that it might be fun-just fun, of course! -to answer his letters. One might-he laughed a good deal louder and longer than necessary - he’d be J. Lucius Jones, and the next night-here he swallowed hard and looked a little frightened - Rockefeller or Vanderbilt or Morgan - just for fun, y’understand’ Millie gave consent. It mattered little to her one way or the other. It was practice, and that was what she needed. Very soon now she’d be in the hundred class. Then maybe she could get a job!

  He was growing very careful of his English. Occasionally-and it must be admitted, ashamedly-he made surreptitious ventures into the dictionary. He had to, of course. J. Lucius Jones would never say “Y’got to” when he meant, “It is expedient.” And, old brain though he was, he learned quickly and easily, juggling words with amazing facility.

  Eventually he bought stamps and envelopes - long, important looking envelopes -and stammered apologetically to Millie, “Honey, poppa thought it’d help you if you learned to type envelopes, too. Reckon you you’ll have to do that, too, when y’get a job. Poor old man,” he swallowed painfully, “he came round selling these envelopes. You know how’tis. So I had to buy’em.” This was satisfactory to Millie. If she saw through her father, she gave no sign. After all, it was practice, and Mr. Hennessey had said that-though not in just those words.

  He had got in the habit of carry those self-addressed envelopes in his inner pocket where they bulged impressively. And occasionally he would take them out -- in the car usually -- and smile upon them. This one might be from J.P. Morgan. This one from Henry Ford. And a million-dollar deal involved each. That narrow, little spinster, who upon his sitting down, had drawn herself away from his contact, was shunning J. Lucius Jones!

  Once, led by some sudden, strange impulse, as outgoing car rumbled up out of the subway, he got out a letter, darted a quick, shamed glance about him, dropped it in an adjacent box, and swung aboard the car, feeling, dazedly, as if he had committed a crime. And the next night he sat in the sitting-room quite on edge until Net said suddenly, “Look here, a real important letter come to-day for you, pa. Here ‘tis. What you s’pose it says,” and he reached out a hand that trembled. He made brief explanation. “Advertisement, hon. Thas’ sal.”

  They came quite frequently after that, and despite the fact that he knew them by heart, he read them slowly and carefully, rustling the sheet, and making inaudible, intelligent comments. He was, in these moments, pathetically earnest.

  Monday, as he went about his janitor’s duties, he composed in his mind the final letter from J.P. Morgan that would consummate a big business deal. For days now letters had passed between them J.P. had been at first quite frankly uninterested. He had written tersely and briefly. He wrote glowingly of the advantages of a pact between them. Daringly he argued in terms of billions. And at last J.P. had written his next letter. He would be decisive. … The next letter … this Monday … was writing itself on his brain.

  That night Millie opened the door for him. Her plain face was transformed. “Poppa, -- poppa, I got a job! Twelve dollars a week to start with! Isn’t that swell!”

  He was genuinely pleased. “Honey, I’m glad. Right glad,” and went up the stairs unsuspecting.

  He ate his supper hastily, went down into the cellar to see about his fire, returned and carefully tidied up, informing his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Well, J. Lucius, you c’n expect that final letter any day now.”

  He entered the sitting room. The phonograph was playing. Daisy was singing lustily. Strange. Net was talking animatedly to Millie, busy with needle and thread over a neat, little frock. His wild glance darted to the table. The pretty, little centerpiece, the bowl and wax flowers all neatly arranged: the typewriter gone from its accustomed place. It seemed an hour before he could speak. He felt himself trembling. He went hot and cold.

  “Millie-your typewriter’s -gone!”

  She made a deft little in and out movement with her needle. “It’s the eighth, you know. When the man came to day for the money, I sent it back. I won’t need it no more now! The money’s on the mantle piece, poppa.”

  “Yeh,” he muttered. “All right.”

  He sank down in his chair, fumbled for the paper, found it.

  Net said, “Your poppa wants to read. Stop your noise, Daisy.”

  She obediently stopped both her noise and the phonograph, took up her book, and became absorbed. Millie went on with her sewing in placid anticipation of the morrow. Net immediately began to nod, gave a curious snort, slept.

  The silence that crowded in on him, engulfed him. It blurred his vision, dulled his brain. Vast, white, impenetrable.… His ears strained for the old, familiar sound. And silence beat upon them.… The words of the evening paper jumbled together. He read: J. P. Morgan goes… It burst upon him. Blinded him. His hands groped for the bulge beneath his coat. Why this was the end! The end of those great moments-the end of everything! Bewildering pain tore through him. He clutched at his heart and felt, almost, the jagged edges drive into his hand. A lethargy swept down upon him. He could not move, nor utter sound. He could not pray, nor curse.

  Against the wall of that silence, J. Lucius Jones crashed and died.

  Funeral

  Saturday Evening Quill,

  April 1928

  Judy could not feel her mother. Nowhere in the wide expanse of bed was her large, warm body. And Judy dared not peer under the bed to see if some desperado had killed and concealed her. Tremors ran up and down her small body. Her hands grew hot and damp, and her feet quite cold and clammy. She wanted to scream for one of the aunts but could not.

  Someone was creaking up the stairs. It was probably the desperado come back to finish her off. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to think of Jesus.

  The blackness was suddenly thinned with silver. A drawer opened and shut. She heard her mother’s unmistakable sniff and opened her eyes.

  “You go back to sleep,” said mother.

  But Judy sat up and stared solemnly. “You’re crying.

  “You go back to sleep,” said the mother.

  There was movement in the aunts’ room. Judy could hear her father blowing his nose. A terrible fear wrenched her heart.

  “Mums, mums, is my kitty dead?”

  The mother laughed sharply and bitterly. Ì The hospital phoned. Poor Uncle Eben has passed away.”

  Judy lay back on her pillow. “Has he gone some
where?” she asked doubtfully.

  “He’s go home to God,” said the mother with conviction.

  Judy closed her eyes to shut out the comic image of an angelic Uncle Eben. When she opened them again it was day and time to get up for school.

  She dressed leisurely. She had the realization that it did not matter whether she was late for school. She thought, “There is death in my family,” and was proud.

  She would go and say good morning to the aunts. The frail spinster sisters of her father adored her, and she liked to be petted. She always let a lock of hair hang over one eye, so that the favorite aunt might brush it away with a caressing hand and kiss her fore head.

  The aunts sat silently by their coal fire. They were dressed in black. Their plain, dark faces were gaunt. Their hands were not steady in their laps.

  Judy felt chilled and distressed. She went awkwardly to the favorite aunt and leaned against her knee. But the somber face was alien, and the unquieted hands did not flutter to her hair.

  The elder aunt turned quietly to her sister. “Do you think the child has heard?”

  “God spared her,” said the favorite aunt, piously.

  “Do you mean,” Judy asked shrilly, “about Uncle Eben?”

  The sharpness of it knifed their pathetic silence. Their mute mouths quivered. Their stricken eyes overflowed.

  The image of Uncle Even returned. But he was no longer amusing in robe and wings. Judy’s breast burned. Her throat ached. She knew with intense agony that she was going to cry.

  She turned and fled the room, gained her own, and flung herself prone on the bed. She burrowed her mouth in the pillow. She did not weep because Uncle Eben was dead. She wept out of vast pity at the anguish of the living.