George Schuyler: Black No More

A short, plump, cherubic black fellow, resplendent in a narrow-brimmed brown fedora, camel’s hair coat and spats, strolled up and clapped him on the shoulder: “Hello, Max!” greeted the newcomer, extending a hand in a fawn-colored glove, “What’s on your mind?”

“Everything, Bunny,” answered the debonair Max. “That damn yallah gal o’ mine’s got all upstage and quit.”

“Say not so!” exclaimed the short black fellow. “Why I thought you and her were all forty.”

“Were, is right, kid. And after spending my dough, too! It sure makes me hot. Here I go and buy two covers at the Honky Tonk for tonight, thinkin’ surely she’d come and she starts a row and quits!”

“Shucks!” exploded Bunny. “I wouldn’t let that worry me none. I’d take another skirt. I wouldn’t let no dame queer my New Year’s.”

“So would I, Wise Guy, but all the dames I know are dated up. So here I am all dressed up and no place to go.”

“You got two reservations, ain’t you? Well, let’s you and me go in,” Bunny suggested. “We may be able to break in on some party.”

Max visibly brightened. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “You never can tell, we might run in on something good.”

Swinging their canes, the two joined the throng at the entrance of the Honky Tonk Club and descended to its smoky depths. They wended their way through the maze of tables in the wake of a dancing waiter and sat down close to the dance floor. After ordering ginger ale and plenty of ice, they reared back and looked over the crowd.

Max Disher and Bunny Brown had been pals ever since the war when they soldiered together in the old 15th regiment in France. Max was one of the Aframerican Fire Insurance Company’s crack agents, Bunny was a teller in the Douglass Bank and both bore the reputation of gay blades in black Harlem. The two had in common a weakness rather prevalent among Aframerican bucks: they preferred yellow women. Both swore there were three things essential to the happiness of a colored gentleman: yellow money, yellow women and yellow taxis. They had little difficulty in getting the first and none at all in getting the third but the yellow women they found flighty and fickle. It was so hard to hold them. They were so sought after that one almost required a million dollars to keep them out of the clutches of one’s rivals.

“No more yallah gals for me!” Max announced with finality, sipping his drink. “I’ll grab a black gal first.”

“Say not so!” exclaimed Bunny, strengthening his drink from his huge silver flask. “You ain’t thinkin’ o’ dealin’ in coal, are you?”

“Well,” argued his partner, “it might change my luck. You can trust a black gal; she’ll stick to you.”

“How do you know? You ain’t never had one. Ever’ gal I ever seen you with looked like an ofay.”

“Humph!” grunted Max. “My next one may be an ofay, too! They’re less trouble and don’t ask you to give ’em the moon.”

“I’m right with you, pardner,” Bunny agreed, “but I gotta have one with class. None o’ these Woolworth dames for me! Get you in a peck o’ trouble … Fact is, Big Boy, ain’t none o’ these women no good. They all get old on the job.”

They drank in silence and eyed the motley crowd around them. There were blacks, browns, yellows, and whites chatting, flirting, drinking; rubbing shoulders in the democracy of night life. A fog of tobacco smoke wreathed their heads and the din from the industrious jazz band made all but the loudest shrieks inaudible. In and out among the tables danced the waiters, trays balanced aloft, while the patrons, arrayed in colored paper caps, beat time with the orchestra, threw streamers or grew maudlin on each other’s shoulders.

“Looky here! Lawdy Lawd!” exclaimed Bunny, pointing to the doorway. A party of white people had entered. They were all in evening dress and in their midst was a tall, slim, titian-haired girl who had seemingly stepped from heaven or the front cover of a magazine.

“My, my, my!” said Max, sitting up alertly.

The party consisted of two men and four women. They were escorted to a table next to the one occupied by the two colored dandies. Max and Bunny eyed them covertly. The tall girl was certainly a dream.

“Now that’s my speed,” whispered Bunny.

“Be yourself,” said Max. “You couldn’t touch her with a forty-foot pole.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Big Boy,” Bunny beamed self-confidently, “You never can tell! You never can tell!”

“Well, I can tell,” remarked Disher, “’cause she’s a cracker.”

“How you know that?”

“Man, I can tell a cracker a block away. I wasn’t born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, for nothin’, you know. Just listen to her voice.”

Bunny listened. “I believe she is,” he agreed.

They kept eyeing the party to the exclusion of everything else. Max was especially fascinated. The girl was the prettiest creature he’d ever seen and he felt irresistibly drawn to her. Unconsciously he adjusted his necktie and passed his well-manicured hand over his rigidly straightened hair.

Suddenly one of the white men rose and came over to their table. They watched him suspiciously. Was he going to start something? Had he noticed that they were staring at the girl? They both stiffened at his approach.

“Say,” he greeted them, leaning over the table, “do you boys know where we can get some decent liquor around here? We’ve run out of stuff and the waiter says he can’t get any for us.”

“You can get some pretty good stuff right down the street,” Max informed him, somewhat relieved.

“They won’t sell none to him,” said Bunny. “They might think he was a Prohibition officer.”

“Could one of you fellows get me some?” asked the man.

“Sure,” said Max, heartily. What luck! Here was the very chance he’d been waiting for. These people might invite them over to their table. The man handed him a ten-dollar bill and Max went out bareheaded to get the liquor. In ten minutes he was back. He handed the man the quart and the change. The man gave back the change and thanked him. There was no invitation to join the party. Max returned to his table and eyed the group wistfully.

“Did he invite you in?” asked Bunny.

“I’m back here, ain’t I?” answered Max, somewhat resentfully.

The floor show came on. A black-faced comedian, a corpulent shouter of mammy songs with a gin-roughened voice, three chocolate soft-shoe dancers and an octette of wriggling, practically nude, mulatto chorines.

Then midnight and pandemonium as the New Year swept in. When the din had subsided, the lights went low and the orchestra moaned the weary blues. The floor filled with couples. The two men and two of the women at the next table rose to dance. The beautiful girl and another were left behind.

“I’m going over and ask her to dance,” Max suddenly announced to the surprised Bunny.

“Say not so!” exclaimed that worthy. “You’re fixin’ to get in dutch, Big Boy.”

“Well, I’m gonna take a chance, anyhow,” Max persisted, rising.

This fair beauty had hypnotized him. He felt that he would give anything for just one dance with her. Once around the floor with her slim waist in his arm would be like an eternity in heaven. Yes, one could afford to risk repulse for that.

“Don’t do it, Max!” pleaded Bunny. “Them fellows are liable to start somethin’.”

But Max was not to be restrained. There was no holding him back when he wanted to do a thing, especially where a comely damsel was concerned.

He sauntered over to the table in his most shiekish manner and stood looking down at the shimmering strawberry blonde. She was indeed ravishing and her exotic perfume titillated his nostrils despite the clouds of cigarette smoke.