XVII
A casual visitor to Seventh Avenue that bright Sunday noontime might have thought, on seeing the released congregations, that many had already entered triumphant into the promised land.
This weekly promenade is characterized not only by an extravagant and competitive elegance but also by an all pervading air of criticism. Hither come self-satisfied, varicolored flocks from every fold in Harlem, to mingle and browse, to inspect and sniff, to display and observe and censure.
It must be explained that of Manhattan’s two most famous streets, neither Broadway nor Fifth Avenue reaches Harlem in proper guise. Fifth Avenue reverts to a jungle trail, trod almost exclusively by primitive man; while Broadway, seeing its fellow’s fate, veers off to the west as it travels north, avoiding the dark kingdom from afar. A futile dodge, since the continued westward spread of the kingdom threatens to force the sidestepping Broadway any moment into the Hudson; but, for the present, successful escape.
And so Seventh Avenue, most versatile of thoroughfares, becomes Harlem’s Broadway during the week and its Fifth Avenue on Sunday; remains for six days a walk for deliberate shoppers, a lane for tumultuous traffic, the avenue of a thousand enterprises and the scene of a thousand hairbreadth escapes; remains for six nights a carnival, bright with the lights of theaters and night clubs, alive with darting cabs, with couples moving from house party to cabaret, with loiterers idling and ogling on the curb, with music wafted from mysterious sources, with gay talk and loud Afric laughter. Then comes Sunday, and for a few hours Seventh Avenue becomes the highway to heaven; reflects that air of quiet, satisfied self-righteousness peculiar to chronic churchgoers. Indeed, even Fifth Avenue on Easter never quite attains to this; practice makes perfect, and Harlem’s Seventh Avenue boasts fifty-two Easters a year.
Shine and Linda, released from church with the others, might have overheard much critical comment as they walked along Seventh Avenue:
“My Gawd—did you see that hat?”
“Hot you, babu—!”
“—’co’se it’s a homemade dress—can’t you see that crooked hem?”
“Wonder where the fire sale was?”
“Whut is these young folks comin’ to—dat gal’s dress ain’ nuthin’ but a sash!”
“Now you know a man that black ain’t got no business in no white linen suit—”
But Shine and Linda had issues of their own to decide.
“How’d you like it?” she asked.
“He’s a smart guy, that dude,” Shine passed judgment. “After he got through tellin’ ’bout that bird, Joshua, I didn’t know what the—what it was all about. Where’s he get that stuff ’bout knowin’ y’self? How’s a guy go’n’ help knowin’ hisself? What’s the grand secret?”
“It’s easy,” said Linda. “ ’Spose a girl thinks she likes a fellow. Likes him better than anyone else. Then s’pose somebody else comes along and she falls head over heels in love with him. Well, see? She didn’t know herself the first time.”
He grinned. “Who was the guy ahead o’ me?”
And she answered with merry eyes, “There wasn’t any. You’re the first one. I’m talking ’bout the one that’ll come next.”
“Hope I don’t have to spank nobody ’bout you,” he said gravely.
“You make me tired,” she declared. “Just because you’re big you’ve got the idea that nobody can lick you. You think muscle’s everything.”
“It’s all that ever done me any good.”
“Did.”
“I mean did.”
“Well, why don’t you say what you mean?”
“Aw right—listen. Here’s what I mean. I ain’ never yet hurt nobody as much as I could’ve, see? But, what I mean, the first bird gets in between me and my girl—”
“Oh—you didn’t tell me you had a girl.”
“Well I have—and she’s the owl’s-feathers.”
“Really?”
“No lie. She’s right, what I mean. All ’cept one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Yea. She looks like an angel, but talk about one evermore hard woman to get along with—”
“I am not!”
“Who’s talkin’ ’bout you? Girl I mean ain’ nothin’ like you. This girl likes to go to church a lot and it’s near ’bout ruint her. She’s jes’ as evil and tight and hard to get along with as all d’ other church folks.”
“That isn’t true!”
“What isn’t?”
“That about church folks. They’re the best peoples on earth. Kind and nice and—everything. They’re the only ones that even make believe doin’ to others as they’d have others do to them.”
“Make believe is right. Look at my landlady. My landlady lives in church—all day Sunday and mos’ every night in the week. Yea. But jes’ let me miss a week’s room rent—jes’ one, that’s all.”
“Is she the girl you were talking about?”
“Girl! Shuh—that woman’s got a grandson in the old men’s home.”
“Do you mean you don’t believe in church?”
“Ain’t talkin’ ’bout church. Talkin’ ’bout folks. ’Tain’t the church that makes the folks, it’s the folks that makes the church. Only trouble with church is, folks ain’t no ’count. All time kiddin’ themselves, jes’ like the man said this mornin’. He’s right. Take my girl. My girl kids herself sump’m terrible. She thinks she’s the hardheartedest Hannah that ever poured water on a drownin’ man. But she ain’t. Naw. Say, she’s soft as a baby.”
“Is that so?”
“Yea. She ain’t foolin’ nobody but herself. Say—that’s what that guy meant, huh?”
Linda sniffed and changed the subject. “I’m going to change my job.”
“No!”
“Uh-huh. Got a new job starting next week—pays twenty dollars a week.”
“Pretty good for a girl. Y’know I always wonder how come you ain’t in some show. Make lots mo’ money.”
“Never tried—haven’t had a chance. I was in the Home till I was sixteen and I’ve been in service these other two years.”
“Well you’re lucky. Where you go’n’ work now?”
“Right on the same street. For a man named Merrit.”
“Merrit!”
“He’s a jig.”
“Don’ do it.”
“What?”
“I said don’ do it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I know that bird. I done—I did a job for him once. He’s funny.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“First thing is, he’s a jig. Jigs is bad to work for.”
“He isn’t. He’s a—”
“Nex’ thing he’s too doggone yaller. Yaller men ain’ no good.”
“No good! Huh—he’s got money enough to—”
“Nex’ thing is, he’s a big-time dickty. Dickties is evil—don’ never trust no dickty.”
“Well—is that all?”
“No. Worst thing is, he drinks too much licker.”
“Really?”
“Patmore was crazy to get his trade a while back—claimed it was enough by itself to support him. I don’ think you ought t’ have no licker-head for a boss.”
“Huh! I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe. But where you’re at now, you don’t have to take care o’ yourself. Th’ extra money ain’ worth th’ extra worry.”
They had turned west, leaving Seventh Avenue, and were now entering progressively quieter neighborhoods.
“But I’ve got to take it. I talked with his housekeeper, and she said I could probably go to night school ’n everything. In a little while I could get a job in an office.”
“And turn dickty.”
“Well, you don’t think I want to be a K.M. all my life?”
“I don’t mean you to be. I’m go’n’ have my own business one these days. Long distance movin’. Good money.”
“Really?”
The sarcasm was ignored. “You won’t have to be nobody’s K.M. then.”
“You mean nobody else’s.”
“Well, jes’ since you get what I mean.”
“Well, I don’t. And even if I did I’d take that job.”
“Why?”
“Because if I do I’ll learn to typewrite.”
“You sure are the hard-headest woman—”
“Hush—and if I learn to typewrite you can give me a job in your office—when you get one.”
In astonishment he stopped to stare at her. The expression of mingled amusement, decision, and tenderness with which she returned his look gave him a sudden overwhelming happiness. It almost upset him.
“Gee!” he said, his face shining. “Gee—Lindy—”
He had an impulse to catch her up and kiss her right there, on the street corner oblivious to broad daylight and possible observation. Had he done so, spontaneously, on the crest of that emotional wave, the result would doubtless have been different. But the old habit of hardness, which for the instant he had almost escaped, promptly clamped itself down on his exuberance and distorted his natural impulse into a presumably safer substitute. Every act must be sentimentally airtight. The device he adopted to make this one so, lost for them both that surging moment to which the girl would have responded.
“Ain’t it somewhere in the Bible sump’m ’bout turnin’ th’ other cheek?”
Puzzled, her own spell broken, she answered, “You mean—if a man smite you on one cheek, turn him the other also?”
Before she sensed his intention, he had pinioned her arms and kissed her on one cheek. “Well, turn me th’ other one, then,” he grinned.
But Linda could play as safe as he. For answer she snatched herself away, and the sounding smack that met his face must have made the girl’s palm burn.
Shocked, strangely hurt within, gigantically helpless without, Shine stood rubbing his cheek and watching her stride indignantly away.
What he eventually said was:
“Now ain’t she a hell of a Christian?”