Chester Himes - If he hollers let him go

Now it was my turn to hesitate. I tried to think of some way to let her down light but couldn't think of anything she wouldn't know was a lie. Finally I said, 'Not tonight, baby.'

'I want to talk to you, darling,' she said. I could tell she didn't want to let me go.

But I wanted her to hang up; it was getting inside of me, touching me. 'Not tonight, baby,' I said gruffly. 'I've got something to do tonight. I'll see you tomorrow night.'

I could hear her sighing over the phone. 'Tomorrow night might be too late, darling.'

I didn't say anything at all.

Finally she asked, 'Is this goodbye, Bob?'

'Look baby,' I said. 'I'm not in the mood to listen to your all this and heaven too.'

She hung up. 'Goddamnit!' I said. Now I was beat. I didn't even feel like going to see Madge any more, but I knew I had to.

I went out, drove down to Forty-ninth Street, and turned over to Broadway. I stopped at a Thrifty's drugstore and bought a bottle of brandy-'27 Years Old,' it said on the label. Then I got on Figueroa and kept straight down to the Hotel Mohave near Third Street.

It was a narrow four-storey building with a dry-cleaning joint on the first floor. The hotel entrance was to one side, a narrow stairway leading to the second floor with a round white dirty globe over the doorway. The neighbourhood was spotted with vacant lots and cheap hotels, a stagnant part of town between the downtown section to the east and the residential district to the west.

I drew up across the street and tried to spot Madge's room. Don had said it was a second-floor front but I didn't know which side. There were double windows on each side with drawn venetian blinds and a bare centre hallway window. Both front rooms were dark.

I knew these joints; if I walked in there dressed as I was, everybody who saw me would be hostile and curious; and the chances were somebody would call the police and have me arrested on general principles.

So I drove down the street until I came to a beer joint with a telephone sign outside. It was one of those dingy, dirty joints, but the moment I stepped inside everybody in the joint got on their muscle.

I stifled an impulse to say, 'Don't worry, folks, I don't want to be served,' said quickly in the direction of the bar, 'Just wanna use the phone,' kept on back to the booth. I found the Mohave's number and dialled.

A dried-up querulous voice said, 'Hotel Mohave.'

'I'd like to speak to Madge Perkins in room 202,' I said.

'She's out,' the voice said impatiently.

I hesitated. 'Do you know when she'll be back?'

'Don't know,' the voice said, and hung up.

I went out, turned around, and drove down on the same side as the hotel, parked several doors up the street, and waited. That way I'd see her when she came in. I got a swing programme on the radio and puffed a cigarette. People passed, glanced at me, then turned to stare with hard hostility when they saw I was a Negro. It was a rebbish neighbourhood, poor white; I'd have felt much better parked in Beverly Hills.

After a while I became conscious of somebody watching me. I looked around, didn't see anyone. Then I noticed that I was parked in front of a rooming house. Someone inside, maybe the landlady, had noticed the car, and several faces were peering furtively around the corners of the curtains in the front room. It made me nervous. I knew if I stayed there for any length of time they'd call the police. Any Negro in the neighbourhood after dark was a 'suspicious person.' So I pulled up beyond the hotel and watched the entrance through the rear-view mirror.

It seemed as if I'd been there for hours. I glanced at my watch. It was only eight-thirty. I got out, walked across the street, and took another gander at the second-storey front. Both rooms were still dark. For a moment I debated whether to call again, decided against it. I knew there wasn't any use trying to get by the desk. If I went up there and told the guy who owned the voice I'd talked to over the phone that I wanted to see Madge Perkins in 202, he was liable to shoot me on sight or drop dead of heart failure.

Suddenly I decided to give it up, go over, and take Alice out to Lawson's lecture, and afterwards take her to the Down Beat. Madge wasn't worth the effort, I thought. The whole idea of going to bed with her to get even with Kelly and Mac and the other peckerwoods out at the yard seemed silly now. She wasn't nothing but trouble any way you looked at it, I told myself; and I'd always figured myself too smart to let the white folks catch me out there on their own hunting-grounds.

I mashed the starter and drove out Figueroa, thinking about what a fool I'd been to go down there looking for Madge in the first place. Nobody but a pure and simple chump would skip a date with a chick like Alice for an off-chance shot at a tramp like Madge. I was feeling so good about it I'd forgotten all about the row I'd had with Alice the night before. My mind had jumped back to the good times we'd had together, and I felt relieved and kind of half-way clever, as if I'd gotten out of a trap the white folks had set for me.

Fifteen minutes later I pulled up behind a Pontiac coupe parked in front of the Harrisons' house and started to get out. Then I saw Alice coming down the walk from her house with Leighton. All thought and emotion just stopped, went blank. I got out slowly and waited for them.

'Why, it's Mr. Jones.' Leighton recognized me, sticking out his hand. He gave me a cordial, friendly smile. 'How are you tonight?'

I shook his hand. 'Fine,' I said. 'How are you?'

'Well…' He hesitated, then said, 'I'm fine too,' giving a friendly laugh.

Finally Alice said, 'Hello, Bob,' without asking any questions or showing any surprise.

I looked at her then. She was sharp in a hunter's-green suit and white, lacy-looking blouse. But her skin looked too white, as if she had powdered it with chalk. I got the evil thought that she was trying to make herself look as white as possible so people would think she and Leighton were a white couple.

' 'Lo, baby,' I said. I waited for a moment, thinking she might give an explanation, and when I saw she wasn't going to, I said, 'I know this is impolite and all that, but may I talk to you a moment.. ' I hesitated, then added, 'In private.'

'I'm sorry, darling,' she said, giving me her social worker's smile. 'We're going to the lecture and we're late now. Tom gave me a ring after you said you couldn't go.'

'Well…' I began, then stepped aside to let them pass. 'That's fine.' After a moment I added, 'Enjoy yourselves.'

Her expression softened, went tentative. 'Would you like to go with us?' she asked.

'By all means, come along,' he corroborated quickly. 'We'd be delighted.'

It was an embarrassing moment. I wasn't going to have him share my girl with me; but I didn't want to say anything rude. 'Well, I really can't,' I fumbled. 'I have an appointment.'

Now he looked embarrassed. 'Well, I hope to see you again soon, Mr. Jones,' he said, sticking out his hand. We shook hands again.

'Well, yes,' I said, turning to look at Alice.

For a moment I thought she might send Leighton on by himself; there was a slight concerned look in her eyes. Then she braced herself and said, 'Call me tomorrow, darling,' and walked on toward the coupe.

I turned back toward my car, stopped with my hand on the handle of the door, and looked back at the coupe. She was already seated and Leighton was going around the front toward the other door.

I climbed in, swung around in a sharp U, making my tyres cry, and headed back toward town. At Western I turned south to Jefferson, east toward the South Side. I felt for the brandy bottle, uncorked it, tipped it to my lips, and drank.

It really galled me to have a white guy take my girl out on a date. I wouldn't have minded so much if he had been the sharpest, richest, most important coloured guy in the world; I'd have still felt I could compete. But a white guy had his colour-I couldn't compete with that. It was all up to the chick-if she liked white, I didn't have a chance; if she didn't, I didn't have anything to worry about. But I'd have to know, and I didn't know about Alice.