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T H E W A IT E R S





THE
WAITERS
by William Fisher
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
Yet if I am for myself only, what am I?
And if not now, when?
From THE TALMUD
THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Cleveland New York
---


Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52:13237
32 &
F S 333 as a F I R S T E D IT I on
No person or place described in this novel is based on any living person
or place known to the author. Any resemblance to actual persons or places
is entirely coincidental.
- HC 153
Copyright 1953 by William Fisher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher, except for brief passages
included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine. Manufactured
in the United States of America.


Note of thanks:
I would like to thank Robert Smith
and Eric Swenson for the aid and encouragement
given me in the writing of this novel.





For my wife
R U TH
With love as ever





T H E W A IT E R S





l
E WAS about to enter the colonial white entrance to the
Fishbowl on City Island Road when he slowed down,
mumbling to himself this sure won't get me off to a
good start. So he rounded the corner of Rochelle
Street and entered the restaurant through the delivery court.
It was a steaming hot Decoration Day—his first day to report for
work—and the heat in the delivery court was almost tangible, hang-
ing in the air like spots dancing before one's eyes. A long, narrow
alley divided the restaurant into two wings. On the left, near the neck
of this alley, a door led into the butcher shop where, besides the
quartering of steaks and chops, fish and lobsters were cleaned. The
alley was littered—garbage cans filled with fish innards, cases of
empty beer bottles, baskets of crabs crawling in seaweed.
As he paused momentarily in the gateway of the delivery court, his
eyes darted about, and he twisted his mouth wryly. His nostrils flared
as the stench of decay shut out the salt air of the island. The same
ol' crap everywhere you work, he said to himself. He spit contemptu-
ously on the sidewalk. Any ol' thing is suppose to be good enough
for us.
Then, picking a path carefully through the stinking gutter and
making certain not to rub against the refuse cans, Asher Brown made
his way into the butcher shop and down a flight of stairs into the
waiters' quarters, his nose screwed up as if he were breathing
chloroform.


* *
*
A rambling colonial cottage, the Fishbowl catered to some --
twelve thousand of the upper middle class and assorted hangers-on—
chiefly over weekends and on holidays, although it had a comfortable
following during the week. Serving a fine bill of fare at a moderate
charge, the eatery had a good reputation. It was City Island's finest
restaurant.
The help's food was poor and the boss was known to be mean, but
the tips were not bad. The place, however, was always in need of
waiters. They constantly came and just as constantly left. Few sur-
vived long enough to acquire the nickname “old ace.” It was, indeed,
a down-and-out waiter's last resort—a job that could be got over the
telephone. Asher, too, had received his job in this manner when, the
day before, he had been told to report for work Decoration Day on
the morning shift. Nothing could have been more misleading than the
morning shift, which opened the doors of the restaurant at eleven and
quit at eleven, only two hours before the place closed for the night.
Thus a new waiter was always as welcome as a “Mr. Good,” the
waiters’ name for a free spender with a party of twelve.
Asher Brown hesitated on the bottom step of the stairwell leading
into the dressing-room and mopped his face and neck with a handker-
chief.
The headwaiter, known only as Chief, looked up from the desk in
his tiny, storage-bin-like office to the left of the waiters' room and
seemingly read the newcomer's mind.
“Just as I say! Just as I say! You'll make a fistful of dollars today.
We'll do a land-office business this day.”
“It sure is hot,” Asher retorted.
“Pay it no mind,” Chief said as he winked at another waiter. “You
won’t know it's hot when you get to making money. Here's your
locker.” He pointed to the one at the end of a row of six which flanked
a rickety old settee.
Asher grabbed a camp chair and plopped down on it, leaning
backward until the back of the chair rested on the grimy, slate-gray,
rough stone wall near the entrance to the headwaiter's office. He
watched the other waiters changing their clothes.
4.


º did the inmates of the waiters' dressing-room in the Fish-
bowl reflect the passing mood of the Boss, but so did that most primi-
tive of all winged insects, the cockroach, which had as much freedom
to roam the walls of these basement quarters as cattle on a range.
Like everything about this seafood eatery, the Fishbowl's stable of
roaches was the finest to be found anywhere. A day-old roach was
easily the size of a horsefly and, without exaggeration, in a week he
had become an adult—a big, strapping, healthy fellow the size of a
half dollar.
The thousands who preferred to eat their chowder at the famous
Fishbowl on City Island might be inclined to doubt that the King of
the Island kept such a blue-ribbon kennel of roaches. Why, they
would say, the dining-room was always so spotless, with its white
table linen.
Well trained, like everyone and everything bought by the King-
fish's money, the cockroaches never ventured across the threshold of
the stairwell that led from the basement. Down here, however, they
had complete freedom, with the sanction of the Kingfish, who always
said a waiter represented the lowest form of restaurant life. “I can
always get another waiter,” was the way he put it, turning up his
nose as if he had caught a whiff of a full garbage can soured by a
week's standing.
Yes, these cockroaches were a well-trained lot. On a bright, sun-
shiny day—that Decoration Day—when the crowds had gone else-
where, when the cash register played the pianissimo, rather than the
Crescendo, of the symphony of mounting profit, the Kingfish cracked
his “whip” at a waiter over any minute infraction of any one of his
million rules. The roaches scurried wildly in the tense air of the
waiters' quarters. Their huge, brown, flat bodies darted in fast, short
spurts over the dirty walls. Long, paired, lateral feelers jutting out
of their heads fended furiously and blindly before them as though
they instinctively knew a hundred waiters, goaded by the Boss's hell-
raising, waited to flay them to death with folded newspapers.
In this atmosphere, charged with the zip of the Kingfish's cracking
whip, the cockroaches made for a thousand hideouts—cracks and
5


crevices which they knew well in this large, low-ceilinged room. Some
darted under the rusty, red lockers which lined the walls in spaces
just large enough to hold a waiter's shoes. Some climbed over the
tops of the upper tier of lockers where, here and there, a waiter's hat
had been shoved. Others made for timeworn cracks in the cement
floor. They scampered over suits or workshirts left on hangers to dry.
A crack of the whip meant, simply, that ten, twenty or thirty-
five waiters would not receive the fifteen-dollar “bonus” which the
Boss so graciously added to their fifteen-dollar weekly salary when
he was in high spirits. And, in his slave-house, the Kingfish never felt
good when the jingle of the cash register was on a low beat. No mat-
ter if the day before the Fishbowl had outdone a twenty-year record.
“The dining-room sure is empty and the boss sure has her rag on,”
said a waiter seated on a camp chair with his work clothes draped
over the open door of his locker.
Another waiter, with his foot propped on the rim of a rusty gar-
bage can sagging against a post near the door, answered: “You better
walk the chalk line or you'll come up on no bonus this week.”
A waiter seated on the battered, sweat-stained wicker settee, looked
up as he tied his shoes and said: “You ain't no lying man.”
Then one waiter took to swatting roaches. Then another. And yet
another. Soon every waiter in the room was at work killing the King-
fish's blue-ribbon roaches. And with each wallop cries of “You dirty
son-of-a-bitch!” grew louder. For, on the shiny, brown backs of these
fat roaches, each waiter saw the smile of the Kingfish, a smile like
that of a young female turning into womanhood—stolen, secretive,
elusive—learning to crack a whip to have her way.
Asher had not joined in the roach killing, but he looked upon the
festival meditatively. He thought of other places he had worked—in
Greenwich Willage, at Saratoga Springs, in Atlantic City—under the
same filthy conditions. Wherever you find us, we're wallowing in dirt,
he told himself.
Partly in idleness, partly in search of a notch to hook his jacket
to, he had been running the index finger of his right hand along the
6


had put on, said to Asher in the unctuous manner he usually reserved
for customers:
“Yessir, what can I do for you?”
Asher started as he noticed a faint trace of a grin flicker across
the waiter's face. But he contained himself. “Nothing, pal.”
“Don’t let it get you down, Jackson,” said the waiter.
“The name's Asher, Asher Brown.”
“Well, well, well! Bet you won't tell the guests that when they call
you George or Sam,” the waiter said. “Jackson is just a expression
with me. Was gonna tip you off to Chief's jive, big boy.”
Just then the roly-poly waiter shoved his head outside the head-
waiter's cubbyhole and beckoned Asher in. The headwaiter sat, im-
pressive in an upright position, at an over-sized mahogany desk. The
little slips of paper Asher had seen before were gone. The edges of
the desk were scalloped with countless burns from cigarette butts.
The fat waiter stationed himself just inside the room, his broad back
facing the waiters' room, screening the headwaiter from prying eyes.
Asher stood between the fat waiter and the headwaiter's desk.
Chief let the seconds tick into minutes while he looked Asher up
and down. “Look here, young man, I ain't running no waiter's school
here.” Then, as if Asher were not there, he said to the fat waiter,
“Cap'n Logan, think he'll do?”
“I don't know, Chief,” the captain replied. “Looks sort of weaklike
to me.”
Chief seemed to ponder that a few minutes. Then he turned his at-
tention to Asher again. “What's your game, drinking or the girlies?”
“Sure, Chief, I’m regular. What the hell!”
Believing he'd made a good impression, Asher began to relax a
little. But the headwaiter soon straightened him up again as he
drummed the seconds away, beating his fingers on the arm of his
swivel chair.
“You know a bright young man like you should take out some in-
surance,” Chief said. Then he shot right over Asher's shoulder to his
captain, “Shouldn't he, Cap'n?”
“That sure would be a smart thing,” said the captain.
8


“What—what's insurance?”
“Come, now,” Chief exclaimed, “how do you expect to make a
dollar in there in the dining-room? Don't be so slow, 'cause a dollar
in there will get you five hundred here.”
“The numbers?” Asher inquired. “Sure, I play 'em. I'm as regular
as the next guy.”
“Atta boy. He's hipped,” the captain put in. “You can just see
me every morning. Same time, same place.”
The headwaiter lit a fresh cigarette from a half-finished one and
smiled up at Asher as the smoke curled out of the corners of his
mouth.
“Just as I say, let everybody have a piece of the pie. You do right
by old Chief and old Chief will look out for you. Tell you what!
I'm gonna put you on a good station. Yessir, you go tell Jordon I
said for you to work next to him. Chief's orders.”
It was an unusually large kitchen that Asher entered. He had
made his way down a short ramp connecting the butcher shop with
the kitchen. The rough, exposed beams, stretching across the room,
were encrusted with a thick layer of greasy, brown dust. At the side,
where the beams joined the top of the frame walls, they were heavy
with cobwebs.
Along the right wall of the kitchen there were a number of fry sta-
tions and opposite them on the other side of a broad corridor was
the pantry with its wide, high counters running nearly the entire
length of the kitchen. As Asher walked along the cement-paved cor-
ridor the chicken-broiler yelled to the lobster-broiler, “New blood.”
The latter replied by asking the chicken cook if he thought the new-
comer knew “what made the wheels of a wagon go 'round.”
“Do you, buddy?” the chicken cook asked Asher.
“The horse, of course.”
“Horse your Aunt Minnie,” needled the lobster-broiler. “Grease,
my boy. Same kind those people in the dinin’-room will give you
for rushin' 'em out.”
Asher smiled knowingly at the cook and asked him to point out
Jordon.
9


“There he is,” the cook said. “That great big black boy up there
drinking that white water.” He pointed toward the water-cooler at
the far end of the kitchen. “Tell him I called him black boy and your
mother's a liar.”
Asher, eying Jordon as he approached the water-cooler, said to
himself, He's a reeal nervous waiter, a ol’-timer. Jordon's round
head with its closely cropped gray hair reminded Asher of a bowling
ball; yet the man's chin, which vanished in rolls of rubbery fat, told
Asher instantly that he “had been carryin' the pan a many a year.”
Jordon, in a sense, was one of the thirty-five or forty old aces at
the Fishbowl. In a sense, because when the cold air from Long
Island Sound began to stir toward the end of each October, Jordon
would say, “Jesus, this ain't no fit place for me.” Then he would
disappear, only to return with the May flowers. For the last twenty
years he had been working at the Fishbowl when “the weather's
warm enough to beat on my backsides.”
A veteran of the First World War, Jordon put to good use the
rumor that he had been gassed. He was a hardened waiter who
stood for no foolishness from the guests or the headwaiter, the boss
or the cooks. His constant explanation after flying off the handle
was, “It’s my complaint.” Even then, Jordon would work more or
less when he felt like it. Three or maybe four days a week, but never
the full six days. That would have interfered with his drinking. Of
late, his record had gone from bad to worse. He had taken to work-
ing only two days a week. Neither the headwaiter, the boss, nor any-
body in the place could get him to work any more, and they were
too short of waiters to fire him. So they had put him to work in a
section of the restaurant the boys called the “farm.” It was so called
because most of the tables in this section were reserved for couples
and, at the boss's orders, these tables were served by the waiters
who had grown old and feeble making money for him. Not that
Jordon was in that class. No, he still had a small but tidy for-
tune left in his body to contribute to the boss. But he wouldn’t
work, and the boss had a million and one ways to get even with
him.
10


“What the hell!” Jordon said when Asher introduced himself.
“Chief put you in the farm.”
“That’s all right by me,” Asher replied. “Where do you get some-
tin’ to eat?”
“Listen, man, they pay you to work in this place, not to eat. But
if they got anythin’, Hughie's got it.” He pointed to the steam-table.
“The boss is too hot, I’m cuttin’ outa here.”
Asher looked over at the steam-table in back of the pantry. In
front of him was a row of shiny, silvery coffee urns. He could see
the dark brown liquid coursing through the slender glass tubes that
extended up both sides of the huge pots. The rich aroma of the steam
wafting from the urns made the juices bubble in his mouth. He
walked over to Hughie.
“I ain't got nothin’ left,” Hughie growled before Asher could say
anything. Asher just stood his ground. Finally Hughie threw a plate
of food on the high counter that separated him from Asher.
Asher walked back to the coffee urns, reached beneath and got a
cup and saucer from a shelf under the row of urns and drew himself
a cup of coffee. He made a seat and table for himself out of several
orange crates beside the water-cooler and looked at the stuff on his
plate.
There was a lump of cold, stewed fish-ends and a dab of grayish-
looking mashed potatoes which he speared into gobbets with his fork.
He managed to get down only one or two swallows. A waiter passed
the pantry counter and swooped up a freshly prepared plate of cold
shrimp, putting them into his mouth, one shrimp at a time. The stale
fish rose in Asher's throat. He swallowed hard. Then he stuck to
coffee and stale bread. He had two extra cups of coffee while he got
his first glimpse of the Kingfish.
The Kingfish stood in front of the service bar near the checker's
desk, waving his arms like a man taking his morning exercises. He
was waving so violently, in fact, that the checker had had to close
the swinging door to the left of him and route the waiters through
the door on his right.
“Just because I stand here in the kitchen,” the Kingfish purred
II


at the bartender, “don’t think I'm nobody.” His voice rising to a
shout, he informed the red-faced unfortunate, “I’ll have you to un-
derstand I’m Mr. Maddox.”
The bartender growled a threat to quit.
“I dare you,” whispered the Kingfish. “Why, you'll never work in
the Bronx again. That's how big I am.”
That was about the best exhibition of himself the Kingfish could
give a newcomer.
He preferred to be called simply Boss. Although, to those of his
employees that that little four-letter word all but choked, he would
smile slyly and demurely when they addressed him as Kingfish.
Patrons who had eaten their chowder at the Fishbowl for twenty
years had never in all those years seen Mr. Maddox perambulating
furtively about the joint as he did when its doors were closed for
the night. For when the dining-room was open, the Kingfish was in
his kitchen like a queen in her boudoir.
In his kitchen the Kingfish was always present, always an irritant.
Whether silent or unendingly talkative, he was there. Sometimes he
could be seen switching along the kitchen's broad corridors with his
hands neatly folded behind him. More often he was lolling near the
checker's desk just inside the swinging doors through which the
waiters either entered the dining-room or exited from it with trays
laden with fish or fishtails. An ordinary-looking man, of ordinary
build and ordinary height, he was never seen without a hat on his
head. Beneath its narrow brim, his small, black eyes pierced every-
one and everything before they momentarily and daintily closed.
Although the kitchen itself was four times the size of the average
restaurant, at times it was none too large. What with an army of
clam-openers, bartenders, dishwashers, fry cooks, fish-fryers, vege-
table cooks, fish-broilers, chowder-dispensers, pantrymen, pie men,
lobster-broilers, chicken-broilers, steak cooks, potato-fryers and
sundry others, plus several hundred waiters—tray-carrying steve-
dores—it was like an army dispersing on a parade ground, each
company going its own way.
When Asher went into the dining-room he found Jordon in ani-
12


mated conversation with a waiter who was folding napkins at a
service buffet near the swinging door he had entered. The waiter
was a large-boned, jolly fellow with a sallow complexion. Named
Dave, he was more familiarly known to the waiters as Pardner be-
cause he called everybody Pardner. As he talked, he continually
cocked his head to one side. -
“I sure need one, pardner,” Asher heard Dave say.
“It ain't you, man,” Jordon said, “it’s me.” He turned to Asher.
“How's about gettin' us a drink?”
Asher looked at Jordon, then at Dave. “I jus’ got here.”
“That's why the boss won't know what it's all about, pardner,” ex-
plained Dave.
“All right, I’ll chance it,” Asher said. “I can stand one myself
after that slop they're dishin’ out in the kitchen.”
“Atta boy, pardner,” Dave said. “Suppose we make 'em whisky
sours like the white folks drink, then they won’t know. Be sure to git
that frog-eyed bartender. Tell him no garbage. He'll know they're
for the boys. Fix us up fine.”
Jordon's eyes danced in anticipation of the drink as he reached
for the large checkbook sticking out of Asher's pocket, but Asher
pulled himself beyond his reach.
“We’ve both cut checks already,” Jordon explained. “I’ll show
you how to palm it off on some snake.”
Asher handed Jordon the checkbook reluctantly. “Here, man,
they’ll never read that writin’ when it gits cold,” Jordon said.
Dave pointed to the swinging door to the right of the one through
which Asher had entered the dining-room. “Shoot out that one, pard-
ner,” he said, “and Mr. Jerry—he's the checker—he'll think they're
for some fish-eaters.” Then he waved in the opposite direction.
“We'll be up there behind the piano.”
Asher took a quick look about the place as he moved toward the
kitchen. It certainly is one large joint, he said to himself. No won-
der they called it the track. He could see that there were really three
dining-rooms connected by frame portals. From one end of the place
to the other a shoulder-high copper screen ran down the center aisle,
13


decorated here and there with large, potted ferns. Long banquet
tables, which could be pulled apart for separate parties, stood at
right angles to the partition. The log-cabin walls of the place were
painted white; its beamed ceilings a flaming red.
As he came out of the kitchen with the drinks on a small tray,
Asher looked first to the right, then to the left. Then he shot up
the narrow aisle on the right-hand side of the screen which would
shield him had he been followed.
A waiter was talking across the screen to another waiter near where
the frame portal led into the back room.
“Looka here! Jack, he just threw his hat in the door a few min-
utes ago.”
Asher looked back over his shoulder as he passed through the
tiny arcade, and almost walked into the massive concert grand that
stood in the center of the back room.
“No you don’t, man,” Jordon said as he reached across the
rounded end of the piano and took one of the whisky sours off Asher's
tray. Dave took one of the two remaining glasses and he and Jor-
don tossed off their drinks. Asher looked about for a service stand
on which to set the tray.
“Well, this is it,” Jordon said, waving his hand about. “The big
house. Go on, knock your drink off, man. I’ll git you some snake
with a pocketful o' money to pay for 'em. A snake ain't gonna give
you anythin’ nohow.”
“The big house!” Asher chuckled. “The boss was sure blowin’ his
top in the kitchen a few minutes ago. That was him, wasn't it—the
girlish-looking thing with the brown hat pulled down to his eyes?”
“That was him all right,” Dave chimed in. “Mr. Maddox—the
one an' only Kingfish. But don't get no notion in your head that his
top is gone.”
Jordon said: “It’s a wonder his wig don't snap, though. The man's
got too much on his mind—running this great big place. Trouble is
ain't no one man can do it all. But he acts like the joint would fold
up if he wasn't here to see to everything.”
“Ain’t there no manager here?” Asher said, as he fingered his drink.
14


“Sure!” Jordon replied. “Mr. Dunkel's the manager. But that
don’t mean a thing. You oughta see that Dutchman when the boss
gets on the warpath. Man, the King chases him around like he was
a messenger boy or somethin'.”
Asher took a sip of his drink.
Dave turned to Jordon. “But you can’t get around it, pardner—the
Kingfish is a smart man. Made a million dollars peddlin' fish. Built
it up from nothin’. Remember when it was jus’ a beat-up clam
bar 'cross the road. Now it's the biggest seafood house in the world.”
“You brings nothin’ in this world an' you takes nothin’ with you,”
Jordon said, sardonically. “An’ if he don't watch out he's gonna
drop dead right in the kitchen. Then what?”
“His brothers and sisters will keep on livin' offa the gravy,” Dave
said, “jus’ like they're doin' now, pardner.”
“A bunch of liquor heads an’ freaks,” Jordon snorted.
“All messed up, huh?” Asher said.
“That's all right, pardner,” Dave replied. “Jus' you remember
when the Kingfish rubs all up close to you pretendin’ to inspect your
tray and says”—he lowered his voice to a girlish whisper—“‘Now
doesn’t that look nice,' you better watch out—'cause first thing you
know he'll be pattin' you.”
“Jesus!” Asher said. “A fairy!”
Dave smiled broadly. “Now don't tell me you'd mind? 'Specially
if nobody sees you, pardner—all the money he's got . . .”
“I don't go that way,” Asher cut him off.
“Look out, here comes Chief,” Jordon shouted.
Asher had not finished his drink. He tried to hide it on a service
stand behind the post that the headwaiter was approaching.
“What goes on here?” Chief asked as he walked up to the three
waiters. He turned around and saw the drink. “Nobody knows a
thing about this?” Then he walked over to the service buffet, picked
the drink up and smelled it.
“Can't fool me! Been in this business too long,” he said. Then he
drained the glass. “That'll teach you a lesson.”
Jordon's peanut-eyes snapped but he did not answer. Dave"and
15


Asher stood motionless. Then the headwaiter walked off, laughing to
himself.
“Wonder what dog told him?” Jordon said when he finally got
himself together.
“Huh?” Asher said.
“There ain't nothin’ happens in this place that hound don't know
'bout,” Dave said. “Better luck next time, pardner. But you gotta
be faster than that.”
Asher did not like to work on a holiday. A veteran in the business
of “carrying roast beef,” he knew that the people who came day
in and week out, month in and year out—the “steadies,” as the wait-
ers called them—did not go to the Fishbowl or to any of their other
favorite eating-places on a holiday. They were the shopkeepers, the
small manufacturers, the furriers, the small middlemen, who on a
holiday joined the vast pleasure-seeking throngs at some other place,
turning the Fishbowl over to a rip-rahing crowd—searchers after
something different.
Look at 'em, Asher said to himself, as he leaned against one of
the posts which supported the small arcade between the second and
third dining-rooms. Poor white hungry trash. Nothin' but a whole
lot of work an’ no money. I’ll sho’ be glad when this day is over
and done. A bunch of fish-eaters.
Smirking scornfully, he looked about the dining-room. For a
holiday, especially a summertime day of rest, brought all manner
of people to City Island, just like every other place he'd ever worked.
And, of course, nobody thought of coming out to the Island without
eating at the Fishbowl. Asher knew that even if the prices allowed
them only a plate of clams or pie and coffee at the Fishbowl, and then
dinner at any one of the several greasy forks that lined City Island
Road, they would still be rated among the multitudes who could
boast of having dined in the world-renowned Fishbowl.
Rolling his icy eyes about the eatery he watched the Smiths with
their next-door neighbors, the Joneses, from Long Island; the genteel
old ladies, on their annual out-for-the-day expedition, having a glass
16


of sherry with their dinner to warm their half-dead carcasses; the
mean-eyed who “oh-myed” the colored waiters; the out-of-towners,
green-arrowed to the place by the billboards; the scrub-faced young
women who patterned themselves after the models in the slick maga-
zines; the shopgirls enthralled with the place, and their sleek-haired
young dappers in open-necked, yellow shirts and two-toned slack
coats that looked liked sawed-off bathrobes; the schemers who after
whispering among themselves cut their tips a third or even half be-
cause the colored boys didn't need as much to live on as white waiters;
the fat and frowzy in bursting halters, their midriffs billowing out
like accordions; the white-haired with the twinkle of the old rascal
in their paunchy eyes, gay-ninety-ing their sweethearts; salty City
Islanders who boasted of living in the country within the city; and
a host of others a little surprised at themselves in their new sur-
roundings, but nevertheless there.
He gave an involuntary start. For the dream he'd had the night
before now came back to him. He had come half-awake, yelling
aloud, almost in the middle of the dream, and the people about him
now seemed like the faces, without bodies, which had been after
him. They had been spurred on by a medium-sized dark-complexioned
stranger, perfect in shape and form, who was brandishing over their
heads what seemed to Asher to be a policeman's nightstick studded
with the prongs of a rake.
“Jesus, no!” he muttered aloud, as he peered sheepishly about to
see whether or not anyone had noticed him unwittingly jump away
from the post.
A rush of business was just then flooding the Fishbowl, and al-
though the second dining-room was by no means filled, Chief had,
with a wave of his hand, chased the newcomers through the front
rooms and back to the farm. That was another way, as Jordon ex-
plained it, the Chief had of getting back at the waiters for drinking
on the job without inviting him to have one.
Asher's four tables for four, their narrow ends flush with the
back wall of the room, were on the inside of the dining-room at the
17


man was asked what he had selected and everyone decided to have
the same—a broiled filet of sole dinner. Humph! Asher snorted under
his breath. I knew it all the time. You turkeys can't fool me. The
cheapest thing on the menu. I'll betcha you ain't got as much cash
in your pocket as I got.
He went out to the kitchen for their first course, the chowder and
the bread and butter and water, for the Fishbowl did not believe in
the institution of bus boys. They were not needed with Negro waiters.
The Kingfish had quieted down by then and was at his usual resting
place—the counter of the clam bar just inside the kitchen's swinging
doors. A girlish little pantryman was placing a cup of coffee before
him. As Asher passed the Kingfish and made for the opposite cor-
ner of the kitchen to place his order with the fish-broiler, he felt
the boss's eyes sweep him from head to foot.
“Don’t you go trying to cut in, Ronald,” Asher heard the King-
fish stage-whisper to the pantryman. “‘Cause he belongs to me. I
saw him first.”
Jesus! Asher said to himself, the place is a fairy's nest.
No sooner had Asher placed the water and bread on the table
before the guests, and walked a few steps back to the serving stand
at the end of the copper screen to get the steaming cups of soup,
than the biscuits had disappeared from the bread plate.
“My gracious, the little cookies are so delicious,” said the pleas-
ant-faced lady when Asher returned with the soup. “Could we have
more?”
Asher made the three-block-long journey back to the kitchen for
the biscuits and returned. Then he went for their plates of fish. On
one plate was to be mashed potatoes and green peas; on another
French fries and corn-on-the-cob; on the third, julienne potatoes
and cauliflower; and on the fourth, a boiled potato and string beans.
God damn, Asher swore to himself as the vegetable cook swore at
him, do they all have different vegetables with each meal at home?
When he had finally placed their dinners before them, one wanted
tomato catsup, another Worcestershire sauce. He had to hunt all over
the dining-room, not daring to take the condiments from other
19


diners. Then they wanted more water. After that, they wanted more
“little cookies.”
Jordon had been looking Asher's party over, “casing them,” as
he put it. When he had found whatever it was he had been looking
for in the man's face he called Asher to the service buffet.
“He’ll do, man,” he said. “Hand him the drink check 'long wid
his own, face down, and tell him what his bill is at the same time.
But don't take your hand off it.”
“Jesus, but they ain't even had anything to drink,” Asher said.
“Don’t matter, man. That dope wouldn't open his mouth if you
took the money outa his pocket. I’ll be right here standing like the
cap'n, should he holler. I’ll fix it like it was a mistake. You're new,
man, ain't you?”
“Sure hope you know what you talkin' 'bout,” Asher said nervously
as he looked at the frightened-faced man.
Finally the family finished their long-to-be-remembered dinner.
The man thanked Asher for being such a “nice waiter” and asked
for his check.
Asher poked the two checks toward him, and the frightened-looking
man reached his hand out, and, very suddenly, he grabbed the
checks out of Asher's hand. But he did not look at them. He began
to fumble in his pockets with his other hand. “Can't see without my
glasses,” he said.
The girl reached for the checks. “Let me read them, Dad,” she
said.
Asher's body became as erect as a telegraph pole.
“Your bill's nine dollars,” he finally managed to say.
“That's fine,” smiled the man as he handed the checks back to
Asher. He pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to
Asher. “Keep the change, waiter.”
By now people were standing everywhere in the restaurant: in the
aisles, between tables. Suddenly, every head in the dining-room
swiveled around like the crowd at a football game. Chief was snake-
20


dancing a group, single file, through the restaurant. From the front
of the dining-room straight through to the farm, Chief elbowed and
shouldered this high-toned party with Mr. Jack right behind him.
Yes, this was Mr. Jack's party and nobody in the Fishbowl could
wait on him but Jordon. Had he been another and less imposing per-
sonage, Chief would, perhaps, have persuaded him that he had a
better waiter to serve him. But Mr. Jack was Mr. Jack, and Chief
would all but have given him Mr. Maddox's restaurant had he asked
for it.
“Yessir, Mr. Jack,” beamed Jordon when he saw the florid six-
footer.
“How you, boy,” Mr. Jack puffed.
Chief and Jordon went into a hurried conference over how to ar-
range the tables for Mr. Jack's party. It was just loud enough for the
people sitting at the nearby tables to learn they were trespassing on
the big man's personal property. Mr. Jack marched nervously back
and forth, stopping every so often to whisper a word to his haughty
party. There were thirty-two in the party—about five more than
Jordon could wait on by himself. So Asher was assigned to help
him, that is, to be something akin to his bus boy. Their tables would
be strung lengthwise across the room.
Chief surveyed the people who had been standing about before
the party had arrived, waiting for tables, and chased them back to
the crowded front room.
Finally, after Jordon and the headwaiter had all but taken the
diners bodily from eight tables, cleared the dirty dishes, and spread
fresh linen—all in the space of ten minutes—the party ranged them-
selves at the long, picnic-like board, the women on one side of Mr.
Jack, the men on the other side.
The women were mostly in the out-of-shape bloom of middle age,
gaudily dressed, some in black chi-chi, others in giddy flowered
dresses—with blatant little things on their heads. And the men were
loud and prosperous in their silk gabardines and flowing, surrealist-
patterned ties.
21


“Yessir, Mr. Jack,” said Chief as he spread a napkin in the big
man's lap. “I was just saying to myself, ‘I haven't seen Mr. Jack in
a month.’”
Mr. Jack smiled all over himself. A buxom lady sitting next to him
appeared slightly, ever so slightly interested, as she toyed with her
mink dog-collar. -
Asher stood an appropriate distance from the table while Jordon
hovered over the guests, straightening the folds in the table linen and
moving salt-and-pepper shakers about. Chief took down the drink
order himself as Mr. Jack called out an assortment of mixed drinks,
two for everyone, to save time. Then the big man handed the head-
waiter a crumpled bill in such a way that everyone at the table knew
it was a five-spot.
“What do you want?” Mr. Jack asked as Asher took a good look.
Before Asher could think up an answer, the big man said to Jor-
don, “You boys get what you want and bring Chief his. Or do I have
to tell you?”
Mr. Jack was what you would call a good-natured, free-spending
wolf. Many of the old aces, including Jordon, remembered him as
a gangling boy who came regularly to the Fishbowl with his parents
who, they said, had made a barrel of money running a small grocery
on Lenox Avenue, in Harlem. It was whispered about that Mr. Jack
had a large wholesale business somewhere downtown. He came regu-
larly to the Fishbowl, once or twice a month, always bringing a
large party with him.
Now there was nothing that Mr. Jack liked so much as push-
button service. So the drinks were left to Asher to serve while Jor-
don took the food order. Starting with the women first, he went
from one to the other. They ordered seafood and chops and
steak and all the trimmings that go to make a feast—as if it were
their last supper. Mountains of steamed clams. Lobsters and steak
for all. Huge platters of vegetables and salads. And they ordered
wine—sixteen bottles of champagne—for the party.
Asher's eyes bulged as Jordon filled up four large-sized order
checks. That's enough stuff for a hundred people, he calculated to
22


himself as he placed the drinks on the table. Jordon went to the
kitchen for part of the carload while Asher remained at Mr. Jack's
elbow. The party drank and laughed and talked among themselves.
But Mr. Jack was impatient and Asher was anxious. It seemed to
them both that Jordon would never return.
It was one of those unavoidable things that detained Jordon in
the kitchen. The boss's gaiety. Such was even the Kingfish's reaction
when Mr. Jack was in the restaurant. Forgetting he was angry with
Jordon, he held him up for a long conversation, promising to pick
the lobsters for the party himself. He even inquired if Jordon thought
the good-looking lad working with him was a good waiter.
Jordon had a little trick that he delighted his best customers with.
Holding the tray in the palm of his hand, he would walk rapidly
until he was within a few feet of the table, then break into a run, the
tray sailing through the air high above his head. Mr. Jack grinned
contentedly when he saw the tray laden with the platters of food
piled one on top of the other like rough-dry clothes.
This way, hopping and jumping, Jordon rushed tray after tray
of food to Mr. Jack's party. And Asher picked up dish after dirty
dish from the table, setting down clean ones and pouring the wine.
After each course, the men would rise and stretch their legs. The
women fidgeted in their seats, pulling at their dresses and easing
their girdles down an inch or two.
Once, during the feast, a bald-headed man yelled to the other end
of the table, “Elsie, George is eating clams, you better look out
tonight.”
Elsie, her full mouth open, smiled hopefully, expectantly. A cutie
seated near Elsie wanted to know if they helped. “Works like magic,”
Elsie replied. The cutie called to the boys to make Harold eat clams
and everyone at the table had a good laugh at the expense of the red-
faced man.
Asher said, “I’ll be damned,” to himself, and smiled, too.
On every trip from the kitchen Jordon brought himself a drink,
one for Asher, and one for the headwaiter. But Jordon made it his
business to be out of sight every time the headwaiter Uncle Tommed
23


“Come on, man,” Jordon commanded Asher. “Let’s git away from
these here wolves.”
They started for the kitchen. Jordon walked ahead, trying care-
fully to steer a straight course, for he was by then in a rosy haze.
Asher followed at a respectful distance, carrying the trimmings on
his tray. Jordon lunged into the kitchen door and held it for
Asher. Mr. Jerry, the checker, rose from his high stool, leaned over
the counter-desk and looked into Asher's tray.
“You boys sure are gonna dine in style tonight,” he said.
Chief was standing in front of the steam-table talking with Mr.
Dunkel, the manager. He watched Jordon sway down the broad
kitchen corridor toward the dishwashing machine. When Jordon
came abreast of the headwaiter, Chief stepped out and planted him-
self squarely in Jordon's path.
“Just as I say! You're not worth a damn,” Chief said, shaking his
finger in Jordon's face. “You would forget your old Chief.”
Jordon's lips were parted and his red-rimmed eyes looked off into
space. He stared hard at nothing in particular. Slowly, it seemed to
make sense to him. “You got somethin’ there. You ain’t worth a
damn. You got me in the farm, what more you want.”
Jordon's body lurched forward, and he grasped Chief's left arm
as he sought to brace himself. The headwaiter brought a wallop up
from the floor that missed its mark and brushed the side of Jordon's
neck. His hand went around the waiter's neck and in the next minute
they were locked in an embrace, rolling over and over on the cement
floor. Mr. Dunkel, the manager, rushed in to pull Jordon off the head-
waiter. Then Asher jumped on Mr. Dunkel's back.
Heavy trays rattled and dishes shattered as they bounced on the
hard floor. Waiters rushed from every point in the kitchen to get a
better view of the fight. What had started as just one of Chief's rou-
tine “shows” for the benefit of Mr. Jerry, the checker, who would,
of course, report it to the boss in Chief-was-on-the-job fashion, had
turned into a free-for-all.
It wasn't much of a fight as fights go. Mr. Dunkel tripped and was
kicked in the shoulder and small of his back twice, before he could
get to his feet again. A heavy steel table near the coffee urns went
25


over with a bang, and with it two large cartons of cut sugar. Gradu-
ally, Chief and Mr. Dunkel were subdued.
The fight had whirled around and over Jordon's stretched-out body.
He lay where he had fallen, his arms folded about his head for pro-
tection. The sleeve of Asher's jacket was torn and his slight, strong
forearm dripped blood.
Into this mad scene the Kingfish rushed. He had been summoned
from his upstairs office by Mr. Jerry over the house phone. The girlish
little pantryman had picked up his apron and rushed to the kitchen
ramp to escort the boss into this mess of sugar, broken dishes and
bashed-in heads.
“Oh! Oh! My poor business,” the Kingfish shrieked. “What shall
I do?”
Turning to Asher, who was dusting himself off, the Kingfish said:
“Look what you've done to me. And just to think, when I first saw
you this morning I said to myself, ‘I know we're going to be’”—
he arched his eyebrows—“‘special friends.’ You! You young fool,
why have you done this to me?”
“He started it,” Asher blurted out, nodding in Mr. Dunkel's direc-
tion. “Lousy white . . .”
“There are no white or colored in my place,” the Kingfish shrilled.
“We all work together here like one big, happy family. I only want
men who are on my side. I should fire . . .” With a sudden jerk of
his head, he looked contemptuously at Jordon. “You’re going to pay
for this,” he cried. “And I don't care if you don't have another
pay check until this time next year.” Then he turned and walked
away.
Asher's eyes bulged with amazement as he watched the Kingfish go,
swishing and switching, along the broad corridor toward the check-
er's desk. They're all the same, he told himself, the minute you stand
up to 'em and let 'em know you ain’t gonna stand to see no white
guy sopping up one of your kind. Then they come tellin' you you're
the same as them. Well, anyway, I didn't get the gate. And then
he recalled the odd look of excitement which had come into the King.
fish's eyes as he had spoken to him. Jesus! He's really on the make.
26


I hope he ain't around all the time 'cause it'll be rough trying to
keep out of his way.
2
IT RAINED off and on the second day that Asher worked at the Fish-
bowl. It rained as it does only in June, sprinkling now, clearing for
an hour or so, the sun coming out blazing hot, followed by a torren-
tial downpour.
The air hung in the restaurant as it does in a barn filled with ma-
nure—dank, musty, mildewed. Asher felt itchy all over, as if there
were cobwebs on him. Rain had begun to fall long before he reported
for work that day. And by the time he was “on the floor,” as Chief
said, the rain had cut out for him little chores about the restaurant.
Irksome and laborious, they made him feel more like a porter.
Whenever it rained, as it did that day, the clam yard, the Fish-
bowl's sidewalk café, had to be dismantled, packed and stored away.
The heavy iron lattice-worked tables and chairs that the more arty
customers ohed and ahed over and the Kingfish cherished as he did
the softer moments of his childhood had to be carted to the basement.
And, of course, this back-buster fell to the newer waiters.
Besides this, there was a seeming lull in business. At first, Asher
attributed the slowness to the rain and the holiday's aftermath. But
then, he decided, neither the rain nor the slow-motioning of the day-
after had anything to do with the change. The restaurant was crowded,
but with a different kind of patron. Jesus! he said to himself, they're
cheaper than the bunch that was in here yesterday. I ain't served a
shore dinner all day. And steak—they act like they ain't never heard
of it. This is strictly a fried fish and potato and beer day. No wonder
my pocket's so empty.
Asher wished he could have this day off—his only one in seven—
every week. But he remembered Chief had said “only forty-year men
could take off Fridays.” Thus his dislike for working this day be-
27


set up. Suddenly he screwed up his face in a deep frown, as he real-
ized he did not know where the menus were kept. Everybody's got
the jump on me, he told himself. Even the chairs on this old crummy
station are so jammed up, I can't turn 'em up. Turning about, he
walked rapidly toward a corner of the room where three service
stands stood end to end, forming a long low buffet. Hope, I hope, I
hope this is my lucky night, he thought, as he started to fold a stack
of napkins.
Within a few minutes the crowd had begun drifting into the farm.
Ignoring the improvised reservation signs, they seized upon tables
on a first-come-first-served basis. And by five o'clock the room was
nearly full of diners, mostly middle-aged men and women—managers
of chain groceries, office-workers, department store junior executives,
cashiers from the gas company, schoolteachers—drumming impa-
tiently on unattended tables or stretching their necks as they looked
demandingly about them.
In the corner of the room, Asher went purposely about putting the
folded napkins away. With great care he spread out several of the
napkins which, although freshly laundered, still bore faded grease
stains, on the bottom ledge of the service stands. Then, taking no
more than half a dozen of the long, narrowly folded napkins in his
hand at a time, he slowly and neatly arranged them in the storage
space. Working in a crouch, he glanced up every now and then to
learn whether or not his tables had been taken. Once he looked di-
rectly into the face of a mean-eyed man who, seated with four male
companions, was pounding on a nearby banquet table. Jesus! Asher
said to himself, as he bent down again, his head going closer to the
floor, I’m sure glad he ain't for me. You can see the spitefulness jump-
ing out all over him.
The sharp rap of heels behind him made Asher glance up over his
shoulder again. Three parties of four, all headed for his tables, were
moving so fast they appeared to be running. They seemed to Asher
to sit down at the several tables in a photo-finish. Immediately Asher
became even more engrossed in his work, as he pondered which party
to go to first. He fumbled with forks and knives in the upper draw-
29


ers of the service stand and deliberately smoothed out the ends of
a bundle of already smoothed-out linen table cloths.
Then Asher heard a man's voice, loud, insistent.
“BOY—ain’t there no waiter here?”
Asher, hunching his shoulders as if he'd suddenly felt a sharp pain
in the middle of his back, came slowly out of his crouch and looked
from one to the other of his parties. At the table nearest where
he stood he saw a bright, merry-faced young man in clerical garb
sitting with three elderly people, two women and a man; at the second
table sat a hard-faced man with a genteel old lady who was speaking
softly to two squirming children, a boy and girl, neither of whom
appeared to be more than ten years old; while at the table furthest
away sat a red-lidded, hollow-eyed man with three women wearing
large frumpy straw hats that reminded Asher of stuffed birds. The
man fixed Asher with a vacant stare, while the three women looked
on with sullen expressions.
Oh hell! Asher muttered to himself. A bunch of drunks. Then he
said aloud, “Yessir! I'll be with you in a few minutes.”
The red-lidded man's face took on a disgruntled look. “Whatta you
mean a few minutes?” he said loudly. “We ain't got all night.”
Asher, who was now walking toward the man with a water pitcher,
did not answer. The people at his other two tables turned their heads
in the direction of the loud voice.
Just then, Jordon rushed up to Asher. “Go on, take care of him,'
he whispered. “‘Fore that joker makes trouble for you. I'll take the
other orders an’ start 'em for you.”
Asher moved over to the red-lidded man's side and stood fidgeting
at his table. But the patrons’ blank faces indicated a complete lack of
interest in Asher. Suddenly they struck up an animated conversation,
laughing and gesturing at one another.
Finally Asher asked, his voice very quiet, “Would you like to order,
sir?”
The red-lidded man, who sat with both elbows spread out on the
table, looked up at Asher. Slowly he straightened up on his chair and
reared back, forcing his trouser-belt to gather itself tightly about his
30


paunchy waist. Then he gave Asher a contemplative stare. “Now,
that’s better,” he said.
“Yessir,” Asher smiled. “Yessir?”
“Bring us some lobsters,” the man snapped.
“How'd you like them, sir?” Asher ventured timidly.
“Fat and—” The man flashed a broad grin at his companions who
scowled at Asher. “Listen, boy! Are you on the ball or not?”
Asher tried again. “Would you like them boiled or broiled, sir?”
“Bring us four large broiled lobsters,” the man commanded, in a
morose growl. “And bring us some bread an’ butter right away, some
of them biscuits.”
Asher had moved only a few feet away from the table, preparing
to go to the kitchen, when the man called him back. “Hey, George,”
he said importantly. Asher turned to face him with a tight-lipped ex-
pression. George, he repeated to himself. He oughta drop dead right
here.
The man smiled victoriously and turned to his companions. “You
girls want anything first?”
The three women shook their heads.
“Bring me a cup of coffee so I’ll have something to keep me going
while we're waiting.”
You gonna have a long wait, Asher said to himself as he walked
back through the second dining-room and headed for the kitchen.
These donkeys is just like them peckerwoods down South. Irishmen
an’ poor-ass Southern crackers is all alike. Mean an' hateful as all
get-out. Just hate to see you makin' a buck.
Out in the kitchen, Asher learned from Jordon that his two other
parties had selected identical dinners. Each party had ordered a plate
of broiled scallops, a dish of fried filet of sole, two French fries, a
side order of cauliflower, and one broiled bluefish to be divided
among each of the groups of four along with two draught beers apiece
for each of the adults.
“Everything's ordered,” Jordon told Asher. “All you gotta do is
pick up. Cut your checks an’ leave 'em with Mr. Jerry an' I'll run the
beers in. What'd them bad folks order—lunch-time stuff?”
31


“Lobsters,” Asher said, spitting out the word. “An' that's all.”
“Whatta you expect?” Jordon queried. “There ain't a shore dinner
in the joint. Man, these people don't make as much as you an’ me.
That's what makes 'em so hard to get along with. For my part, I'll
take the kind of people we had las’ night. Business folks. 'Course,
they make a man carry a lotta chowder. But they is the only ones
who can afford to pay a man after takin' up his time. Not these
bastards. They're damn near starvin' to death.”
It took Asher all of seven or eight minutes, going first from the
potato cook to the fish-frier then to the broiler, to load his tray. But
to get even, he drew the red-lidded man's coffee from the urn before
he went for his orders. And he placed the cup of steaming black liquid
under the large urn close to where a gas jet gave off a bright flame
until he was ready to leave the kitchen. This’ll fix you, Asher said
to himself. I’ll let this cup burn your goddam mouth off.
Back in the dining-room, Asher made a great flourish, bending low
at the waist, as he placed the cup of coffee in front of the man be-
fore he served his other customers. As he did so, the man merely
grunted, looking Asher up and down. But as soon as Asher had re-
traced his footsteps to his service stand and picked up a handful of
dishes, the man called Asher back to his table. Asher looked the man
squarely in the eye. Then he glanced down at the dishes he held, and,
finally, looked up again, smiling into the man's face. Go screw your-
self, he thought.
That is how it went with Asher all that night. Every time he was
in the midst of serving one of his other parties, the red-lidded man
would call him for something—more drawn butter, more salad, more
coffee. Long after Asher had served a second setting of people at his
other tables, the trouble-makers were still there. In fact, they were the
last party to leave the room, departing just before ten o'clock, allow-
ing Asher to draw his first breath of gladness since the dinner hour
had begun.
Yes, Asher was glad when that day was over. And he sang a song
of lamentation in the locker-room that night—as only a waiter who
has been bitten by a lot of cheap snakes can. The waiters welcomed
32


standing, as the singer of this unhappy moodiness repeated each
second line of the song with only a slight variation:
“I never seen a real tough town befo'
“Things are tough, an’ money is tight
“Soon’s I ketch the tough town number
“I’ll be long gone from here”
At the bar were the waiters: a homesick stray from Chicago; an
actor down on his luck waiting tables between shows; an older man
whom the waiters had named Ole Man Mose because every diner was
for him cap'n or madam; a waiter who, because he had served on
an African-bound transport during the war, called everyone he liked
a “Casablanca boy”; a youngish-looking fellow who nightly fed the
juke-box a two-dollar stack of nickels, rocking and swaying to hi-
hi-ho; a Georgian with bright tan shoes, a yellow tie, a swarthy face,
forever sullen before the guests he served, whose constant hope was
“that his day would come”; an effeminate young man from one of
the city's conservatories who forever dreamed of becoming another
Paul Robeson; a “broken-down,” middle-aged waiter who limped
through the dining-room beseeching life to let him “get off these
burning dogs”; a jaded, bedraggled fellow who always needed one
drink to chase the last one; the waiter to whom everybody—Gentile,
Jew, Italian, Frenchman, Irishman, Greek—was a Southern cracker;
the Preacher so called because whatever the occasion he had an
ever-ready Bible quotation; a tall, childless, gray-haired man who
by dint of half a century's saved tips was buying a five-story tenement
on Seventh Avenue, Harlem's Great Black Way; the recently-married
man from Mississippi, hostile, and bewildered by an inflated mort-
gage on a seventeen-year-old “bungaloo” in Jamaica, Long Island;
two West Indians, brown as coffee beans, with high cheekbones; a
dark, greasy, and flabby-looking but jolly waiter to whom the num-
bers were what the Church is to the devout; the flashy, zoot-suited
New York-born boy; the would-be card shark, sly-looking and hard-
eyed; a young Virginian, his mouth forever going like a bell-clapper,
35


dreaming of his unborn child, an undertaking business; the smartly-
dressed “sportsman,” doping the horses for the next day's races.
They were all manner of men: college-trained, with bright, alert
faces, from the Southern schools, burning with the spirit of the New
Negro; the middle-aged victims of a lack of educational opportunity,
rejoicing in their offspring and the bright, alert faces; the “beat,”
the defiled, those besmeared by a life that had taught them “all Ne-
groes are alike,” distrustful and suspicious of the bright, alert faces;
the rum pots; the muckworms; the gamblers; the part-time whore-
masters—America's black neglects and America's black hopefuls—
all sprung from Southern infancy “over in nigger town” or door-
keyed through the Harlems of big, industrial, Northern cities.
One of them, Walters, walked from the head of the bar where he
had been perched on a stool to where Asher was sitting in front of
the beer-cooler. He was a dried-up little fellow with red eyes; several
of his upper molars missing. An old-timer, he had been a steamship
and dining-car waiter for some fifteen years.
“No, pal, it can't be like that,” he said to Asher, waving a high-
ball glass with a scant half-inch of whisky in it. “Hey, Mike, give him
a shot. A man can't drink that beer all night. Just ain't right. Set us
both up.”
“Sure bet,” said Mike as he set down two whisky tumblers and
fingered the bottles on the shelf behind him. He found Walters’ brand
and poured the drinks.
Asher mixed the rye and soda-water and touched the rim of his
glass with that of Walters. “Here's to you, old man,” he said, and
turned his glass up to his mouth. Throwing his head back, he let the
liquid funnel into his throat. Then he ordered another round for him.
self and Walters. Soon, the two waiters were exchanging common
experiences they had had in other houses and in other cities. One
drink led to another and eventually they fell to discussing girls.
“Say, pal,” Walters said jubilantly, “I know where there's some
fine chicks. Wanna come with me?”
“Not tonight. Got to get my things outa pawn 'fore I start out.”
36


Walters traced little circles on the bar in the puddle from his sweat-
ing glass. “Stop foolin' yourself, kid,” he said. “You was born in
hock and you gonna be in hock all your natural life.”
“In or out, I’m gonna get my clothes first,” Asher said. “This here
is the only suit I’ve got to wear.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with it,” Walters said as he looked Asher
over in his neat, double-breasted blue suit. “‘Cause I can under-
stand. When I was a young fellow I didn't wanna go chasing no
chicks with my workin' pants on, either. Might get caught short.”
Up and down the bar, in little groups of threes and fours, the
waiters were treating one another, crying about the cheap snakes they
had served that day, cursing the Kingfish, telling stories about what
had happened to them on other jobs or making dates to go girl-
hunting. Some were waiting for their girls or even wives to pick them
up at the bar. -
Yet, perhaps from long association with this and other shanties,
the waiters were indifferent to their surroundings. It was not a place
they came to admire. It was a place they came to treat one another.
A drink in that place with their waiter-companion of the moment
might spell the difference between unemployment or employment the
next month or the next year in some other house or city. For in such
terms was security measured for these men.
Nor did it matter to them that the Kingfish netted a pretty penny
from their treating; that Mike had had it written into his contract
when he had rented the old house from the Kingfish that the welcome
mat would not be thrown out to the waiters at the other bars along
City Island Road. But such was the way of things along that road,
with the Kingfish owning almost every parcel of property of any
value on the Island.
While Walters was talking to Asher, Dave, the waiter who called
everybody pardner, walked into the bar jauntily. He waved an in-
fectious hello to everyone. Behind him came the two girls who worked
in the ladies' room in the Fishbowl. They were Hattie, a moon-faced
girl, snapping on a wad of chewing gum, and a black-eyed girl whose
37


name Asher did not know. Mike joined the waiters in a chorus of
hello's such as are ordinarily reserved for someone just returned from
a trip.
Dave and the girls looked about for a place at the bar, but it was
crowded so they moved toward the booths. Asher watched the black-
eyed girl's image in the mirror as she walked, her shoulders high,
the skirt of her dress swaying gently as her hips undulated like those
of a dancer. Jesus, Asher said to himself. She's hot stuff.
Walters kept up a rapid-fire chatter about the time he was in a
bar in Rio de Janeiro with the crew of the Santa Clair and a fight
started. As he talked, he gesticulated with his hands and arms, but
Asher was not listening to him. He kept looking at the girl in the
mirror. Suddenly, Walters gave him a wallop on his shoulder that
made Asher jump. The girl looked up and her eyes met Asher's in the
mirror. She narrowed her eyes very suddenly, giving him a faintly
cynical look. Asher felt sick all over, as if the last drink had been
one too many. But it was not an unpleasant sensation at all—pain-
ful but strongly agreeable; and then he felt quite weak. The girl
dropped her eyes quickly.
“Who’s that baby?” Asher said, almost as if he were talking to
himself. Then he reached for his drink.
Walters turned his body halfway round on the stool to have a
good look at Dave and the girls. The black-eyed girl sat on one side
of the narrow table across from Dave and Hattie. Then Walters
turned back to Asher. “That's Dave's old lady chewing the gum,”
he said, giving Asher a measured look.
“Not her, the other dame, I mean.”
“Listen, pal,” cautioned Walters, “that empty seat over there will
put you further in hock. That's Miss Ester. She's high-powered. But
she's a real woman. Everybody falls for her, but she never loses her
head over it.” Walters sipped his drink and took another look at
Asher eying the girl in the mirror. “Right now, Monroe's shooting
after her. Don't know why he ain't over there right now, unlessen his
wife came out here for him tonight. An’, pal, you gotta have the long
foldin’ green to go after what he likes.”
38


“Who in the hell is Monroe?” Asher said, his eyes still on the mir-
ror. It seemed to him that Dave and the girls were discussing the men
standing at the bar. “Who’s Monroe?” he repeated.
“Are you jokin’? You worked over 'cross the way two whole days
now and don't know Monroe. He's the boss's right-hand man. Acts
like he's the Kingfish himself, dippin' up those steam clams.”
Just then Dave stood up, and stretched himself languidly. He
studied the backs at the bar and their faces in the dingy mirror. Then
he walked over, and put his arm on Asher's shoulder.
“How'd you like to come over, pardner, and meet the folks,” Dave
said. “Now don't get no idea in your head that anybody sent for you.
I just thought maybe you'd rather pass the time with us than with
these turkeys.”
Asher turned completely around on the high stool and looked at
the black-eyed girl. She reminded him of the picture he saw every
time he heard Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady”—a tall, tan,
terrific dame.
“Okay by me,” he said. He turned to Walters. “Be seein' you, pal.”
“What the hell you puttin’ down,” Walters said good-naturedly to
Dave. “Framin’ my boy?”
“Not on your life, pardner,” Dave replied. “I’m just gonna fix him
up right. He don't have to be 'round ninety years like you, pardner.
before he's got nerve to put one over on the Kingfish.”
The boys walked over to the booth and Dave made the introduc-
tions. Ester nodded and smiled as Asher slid onto the bench beside
her.
“How's the joint usin' you?” Hattie said in a pleasant, rehearsed
Imanner.
“Me?” parried Asher. “I’m as green behind the ears as a new-
born babe.”
Ester turned her head sharply to one side and fixed Asher with a
steady, opaque look. Becoming instantly restive, Asher looked off in
space, wondering if he was making a good impression.
“He’s all right,” double-talked Dave, looking from Asher to Ester.
Joe, a red-faced old man with a toothpick stuck in his mouth, the
39


combination waiter and porter about the place, hobbled over and
whipped at the table with a damp rag. Dave gave the order: “Four
Scotches with soda.” He looked from one to the other of his com-
panions. Asher wondered if the Scotch on top of the rye he had had
would throw him. Not this night, he said to himself.
The old man returned and placed the whisky glasses on the table.
Then he placed the soda tumblers before each of them on a round
cardboard mat. Hundreds of tiny air bubbles pushed one another to
the surface, bursting on the rim of the glasses.
Mike, that super-salesman, yelled from his side of the bar, “All
right, folks, this one's on me.” He raised his glass with an inch or
two of straight whisky in it. The party saluted him back before they
drank.
“Do you stop in here every night?” Asher asked Ester.
Ester looked into Asher's face for a split second. Her full red
mouth was open and it quivered at the edges angrily as she coun-
tered, “What do you think I am?” Then she picked up a cigarette,
rolled it between her fingers, thumped both of its ends on the table
slowly. “All you men are the same. Like a bunch of children. Just
'cause you live in these bars you think every woman you meet is
a bar-fly.”
“Just a minute,” Asher said. “I didn't mean no harm.”
Ester smiled, very suddenly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn't have
any right soundin’ off like that.”
Asher studied her face. It was difficult to guess her age, but figur-
ing—as best he could—he took her to be thirty-five. And that much,
only because of the way she carried herself. Yet she did not look as
old as that. Her face was unlined and her skin was as smooth as a
child's. She did not have very good features. They certainly would
not put her up among the winners of a beauty contest, Asher thought.
They were too blunt. Her short nose was a little thick; but her eyes
had a deep blackness and they smiled with her lips, red and sensual.
And her smile was the most friendly he had ever seen.
Nature had given her a heavy, sad look—the kind so many of life's
dispossessed have—but when she smiled her sadness became sud-
40


denly attractive, like the warmth of a child. Her face was a very pale
brown like chocolate mocha, which gave to her black hair a brownish
cast in the dim light.
She carried her head thrown back in a way that accentuated the
brown beauty of her neck. She was slender, but her shapely breasts
stood out firmly and her hips were well defined. Asher's face smarted
as he watched her light her cigarette. His throat was dry but his lips
were wet. The corners of his mouth twitched.
The long-headed waiter who nightly fed the juke-box, solo-dancing
to its rapturous tunes but never missing what went on in the bar,
apparently saw the rapt expression on Asher's face. He put his nickel
on “If I Had You,” shaking his head in time with the music. The
hard-luck actor left the bar and walked over to the juke-box, stand-
ing near the party's booth, and called off another of its tunes, “It
Ain't Gonna Be Like That.” Such was the spirit of goodfellowship in
the bar, so deeply rooted for the moment was that transient quality
of cameraderie, that another waiter yelled from the bar, “Five
Minutes More.” Another joined in with “Baby You Can Count
On Me.” The effeminate waiter Billie Hollidayed, “My Sugar Is Re-
fined.” Even Mike, that Irishman turned inside out—that is, turned
colored by his trade—joined in the sport with, “G Man Got the
T Man.”
The whole bar was, by then, in love with love or impassioned with
passion. More drinks were ordered and there was a general clinking
of glasses.
Dave and Hattie showed signs of becoming enamoured with one
another all over again. Ester looked dreamily at the men standing
at the bar. Then she turned her sad, heavy face to Asher. And Asher
looked into her face, then hid his hot blood and his flushed face
behind his drink, emulating the dried-up indifference of an old
rounder as best he could.
The little party talked on, as the waiters at the bar again became
interested in their drinks and conversation. At the table, Dave and
Hattie were doing most of the talking, mostly wisecracking at Ester
and Asher. They took it good-naturedly. More and more rounds of
41


drinks were ordered. Soon, everyone was mellow; glowing in a dif-
ferent world untouched by the Fishbowl realities of their lives.
Hattie began to feel sick. Ester noticed it first and suggested that
they go out in the air. They walked along City Island Road to where
Dave's car was parked. Ester stayed with Hattie to let the cool night
air blow on her friend while the boys crossed the street and went
into the Fishbowl's parking lot.
“Looks like you made a hit, pardner,” Dave said. “But I just
wanna warn you, she ain't no push-over. She got a rough deal once.
So you'll have to play her slow and easy and be nice to her. Inside
a month's time, you'll have things your way.”
“Jesus, that's like next year,” Asher said as he slammed the door
of the black sedan.
Dave wheeled the car onto the roadway. “Yeah, pardner! Come
next year and she'll be jus’ another gal to you,” he said.
By the time they had pulled up in front of the house where the
girls lived, Hattie was feeling herself again. She wisecracked to
Asher, hoping he would be able to get to work on time in the morn-
ing. Then she and Dave went into the vestibule of the apartment
house, leaving Asher and Ester standing on the squat stoop two short
steps up from the pavement.
It was an ordinary-looking, red brick tenement in 158th Street just
east of Amsterdam Avenue. A cat jumped out of an ashcan which
stood near the stoop as a taxi came to a noisy halt at the corner. The
cat knocked over an empty milk bottle.
Asher pointed to it and started to say something when Ester
laughed.
“So what,” she said.
She took the lapel of Asher's blue suit, pulled his face to hers and
kissed him. She kissed him as one would kiss a relative. It was neither
quick nor hot. But long enough for Asher to feel her very full lips,
warm and soft against his. Gently and slowly she withdrew them,
looking into his eyes. Then she pressed the vestibule door open with
the back of her heel, turned, and ran up the long, narrow stairway.
Asher stood there, limp, for the next few minutes. Then he turned
42


and walked off like an old man hurrying along when small children
have laughed at him.
When Asher trudged through the butcher shop, the Kingfish stood
at his usual early-morning haunt by the stairwell which led to the
waiters’ locker-room. He had been watching Mr. Dunkel check the
day's incoming supplies. Asher opened his squinty eyes and looked
at the Kingfish for a moment.
“Just look at him,” taunted the Kingfish. “Why, he's got all day.”
“Good morning, boss.”
The frown on the Kingfish's face faded when he heard the title
boss bestowed upon him.
“Never mind the good morning. Just you remember I pay a good
bonus. But I have a million ways to take it from you.”
It was already five minutes to eleven and Asher was due on the
floor at eleven, dressed and smiling. But he did not walk with the
sprightliness of a waiter intent upon catering to a customer's whims.
Instead, he lumbered down the flight of stairs like a person descend-
ing from one boat dock to another. Propelled by the pitch of the
stairs, he swayed from side to side, clutching the banister.
His eyelids were heavy from lack of sleep and his face was fixed
in a masklike expression that not even the penetrating, fishy smell of
the dressing-room could alter. It was a good thing, he thought, that
he wasn’t railroading and had to get back to the yards in some
strange town to find his diner at six-thirty in the morning. But the
thought of having been out with Ester sent a warm shudder through
his body. That gal made it worth being beat for his sleep.
The rain of the day before had left the cement-plastered stone
walls of the locker-room sweaty. Even the rusty steel lockers were
clammy. Little pools of water had formed on the floor from the drip-
ping pipes. Dead roaches, bloated with eggs, floated on the surface
of the scummy water. Soiled newspapers, used by the waiters as
dressing-rugs, carpeted the dry spots. In front of Asher's locker there
was a small lake. The water covered the soles of his shoes as he set
about removing his shirt.
43


“Kid, you sho’ play it hard,” said Walters from his camp chair
where he was busy clasping the band of his ready-made black bow
tie around his neck. “That's the way it is with you lovers. Can't get
your eyes open fo’ nothin' in the mornin'. Looka me, fresh as a . . .”
“Lover?” the Casablanca boy cut in. “That's Daddy. Man, he
comes on with the girls.”
Asher's waxen face relaxed. “Hi, fellows,” he said.
The waiter who nightly played the juke-box rocked and swayed
his shoulders to an imaginary hi-hi-ho.
“What you mean, Daddy! Man, that gal was jus’ drinkin' herself
up some free Scotch. I’ll bet a man. If she looks at him again he'll
know he's Daddy-O.”
Asher continued to smile as he occupied the center of this little
stage. Again the thought of Ester sent a warm surge through his
body. His chest puffed out as if he had taken a deep breath and he
arched his shoulders, for he had been associated with someone the
Fishbowl waiters felt was a big-timer. And it gave him a lift.
But for the most part, the waiters were preoccupied with getting
their numbers in for the day, and they soon forgot Asher.
“Sure dunno what I done,” moaned a waiter, one foot propped
on a garbage can, counting a handful of coins. “After that ol' bastard,
Jones, the cook who use to be here, died last month, I laid on the
dead man number up 'til last week. Soon's I git of'n it here she comes
buck-jumping.”
“You dunno what's wrong wid you?” queried a waiter standing
behind him. “You jus’ got a bad break outa life. That’s all. The white
folks didn't take no hand in raisin' you.”
“Mind your mouth now.”
“Goldarn, mon, youse always cuttin' she fool ’nd I’m here tryin'
to get me business straight. Dant say I didn't tell it to you. Mon, the
nappy hair number is it for today. I’m tellin' you-all.”
Cap'n Logan, the number-writer, strode to the center of the room
from the headwaiter's office and looked about him.
“Off and on,” he commanded in an authoritative voice. “Off your
ass and on your feet. Ain't no time for prayin'. Put up or shut up.”
44


He moved from one waiter to another, taking a dollar from one,
two from another. Some he marked in a little brown notebook—they
paid their number bills by the week. Soon he had collected a stack
of little slips of paper—about the thickness of a pack of cigarettes—
with each waiter's play for the day. Chief stood in the doorway to
his office, watching the money roll in. The waiter who did not feed
his kitty would not last long at the Fishbowl.
“What you like today?” Cap'n Logan said when he reached Asher.
But Asher did not answer fast enough to satisfy him. “I know you
need some fresh money.”
Asher finally got his wits together. The dream which had awakened
him that morning now came back to him. An incoherent series of
apparitions—the marble-walled public hallway of a six-story walkup;
his seeming inability to climb the stairs, as if he were being pinned
down by mountainous sea waves; the figure of a dark-complexioned
stranger, perfect in shape and form, rushing down the stairs to meet
him, swinging a spike-studded policeman's nightstick. The fantasy
vanished the instant Asher awakened, and somehow he'd gained the
impression he was in the house where Ester lived. So he put seventy-
five cents straight on 501, her house number, and “combinated”
twenty-five cents on each of the other five ways the number could play.
Cap'n Logan raised his eyebrows as he pocketed the coins. “Boy,
you sure like them high numbers.”
Asher was still jittery when the luncheon crowd streamed in. The
entire dining-room was never opened for the noonday meal, and
those waiters who worked in the farm for dinner took up stations in
the second dining-room. Asher had only three small tables, but he
found it difficult to keep the courses moving to each party with his
usual assembly-line precision. There was either too much delay, on
his part, between the soup and the entree—or he brought the des-
sert before his customers were through their main course. In short,
he was up a tree, as the waiters said, and there he stayed for the en-
tire noonday meal.
Even the noises in the kitchen played on his nerves. For at the
45


height of the lunch hour, the kitchen hummed with the frantic cry of
waiters demanding, insistently and excitedly, to pick up their orders.
“Order three fried soles”. ... “I’ll take mine” ... “A porgy, a bass,
a snapper”... “Let me go” ... “Pickin' up a halibut”... “Double
that order of broiled scallops, hold the French fries, give me a side
of boiled.”
Cooks yelled at waiters. “Three boiled soles”. . . “You want 'em
raw?” ... “Drop your draws if you wanta pick up” . . . “Take it
easy” . . . “How many bass you pickin' up?” ... “Rock bass your
ass, it ain't left the icebox yet.”
Waiters struggled in front of the cook's counter like a crowd in
the restaurant trying to get a glimpse of a bride cutting her recep-
tion cake. Some elbowed their way backwards, pulling trays laden
with fish from the shoulder-high counter; others sought to wedge
their way up to the counter. Still others were after luncheon plates
which were kept on the shelves beneath the counter—for the King-
fish had not bothered to equip his kitchen with steam cabinets which in
most restaurants are standard equipment for keeping crockery warm.
It was a small matter, he said, for a waiter to walk with a stack of
plates up the kitchen's broad corridor to the coffee urns where the
water was boiling-hot at all times. How else would they make use
of all the hot water he provided?
A short, pot-bellied waiter stood on his toes, trying to yell his
order to the cooks over the shoulders of the others. He spied Asher,
in a crouch, pushing his way through the crowd of milling waiters.
“Look out, men,” he yelled. “Here's tree-top Brown plowing on
through.”
When Asher sought to straighten up with his load of dishes, they
slithered out of his hands—echoing throughout the kitchen long
after the last fragment had come to its final resting spot on the ce-
ment floor. Instantly the little knot of waiters in front of the counter
scattered in all directions as if hot water had unexpectedly geysered
out of the coffee urns, spattering on them. Some ran down to the
potato cook's stand; some darted across the broad kitchen corridor
and engaged the pantryman in conversation; others busied them-
46


selves wiping trays with their side towels. Only Asher was left in
front of the counter, shaken and crestfallen over his mishap. Waiters
in other parts of the kitchen muttered curses to themselves, their
lips barely moving, while the eyes of others flashed hot with resent-
ment. Mr. Jerry, the checker, left his desk between the swinging doors
which led to the dining-room, and hobbled halfway across the kitchen.
With one foot he moved the broken pieces around, like a kitten
pawing little chunks of meat, until each piece had been joined to its
mate. As Mr. Jerry started back to his desk, Walters walked over to
Asher and whispered:
“Take it easy man. That's comin’ outa your pay.”
“Like hell you say!”
“You can take it or leave it. But if you work at the Fishbowl long
'nough, you’ll pay for the bowl, too. They’ll charge you accordin’ to
what mood the boss is in. And they'll throw in whatever the dish-
washers break up besides.”
“You’re kiddin’?” Asher said suspiciously. “Yeah, you must be.
Tellin' me I’m gonna pay for the dishes them tramps break up. Well
how d'you like that.”
“They may be bums but they're white just the same. What started
it, is the boss can’t get no regular dishwashers. These lushes just
wanna work three or four days to get a few dollars to go on another
binge. An’ if he was to take the breakage outa their pay the em-
ployment agency wouldn't send him any more help. So one day, so
many dishes got smashed up the boss just up and said, we'll pay and
like it.”
“Humph! I ain't chained to this place. There's too many jobs
around.”
“But look at the money you knock out here.”
“Yeah!” Asher replied. “You got somethin’ there.”
On Asher's next trip to the kitchen to load up with a luncheon
order, he dumped a freshly broiled sea bass into a garbage can when
nobody was looking, to get even for what he'd have to pay for the
broken dishes. Later, when he returned to the kitchen with a plate of
unused bread, he threw that in the garbage can, too.
47


Jesus, he said to himself, it sure is a crime to throw this away.
To hell with it. It ain't no worser to throw it away than for that
bastard to charge me for them dishes.
A week passed before Asher took Ester out again. Every time he
ran into her in the restaurant she had a date or was otherwise busy.
Finally, Dave tipped him off that Ester would be free that Saturday
night. He suggested to Asher that he meet her up at the other end
of the Island.
They met in the Nickel Palace, a hot-dog stand at the corner of
Sutherland Street and City Island Road, just across from the Honor
Roll—a war memorial—in front of the suspension bridge that led to
the Bronx mainland.
At Ester's request, they lingered along the bank of Pelham Bay
near the bridge, until long after the last Fishbowl employee who
might have been going home about that time had ridden by on the
bus. Then they went to Sugar Hill, a region of the newer Harlem,
so named when Negroes had first begun moving up on Washington
Heights which overlooked the old Harlem settlement down in the
“valley.” But, as they say, the Hill is still there but the white folks
took the sugar with them when they left, for the buldings in this
neighborhood now show evidence of decay. All the high stoops of the
old-fashioned brownstone, three-story, private houses have been
hacked away to make room for store fronts.
When they came up out of the subway kiosk on St. Nicholas Ave.
nue near 147th Street, the Hill was astir with a stream of people
going in all directions. Slowly, Asher became aware of muted sounds
in the hot summer night air. It had, he thought, a tone like a musical
interval that comes over the radio at times. Softly and steadily it
came—tramp, tramp, tramp. Then off in the distance he heard the
wail of a police patrol-car siren, and the strange sounds came to an
abrupt and cruel halt. -
Ester walked silently at Asher's side, holding firmly to his arm as
they headed toward 145th Street. The two blocks that stretched ahead
48


of them formed an electric-lit line of brilliance: bars, store-front
churches, chop suey parlors, pool halls, food markets and barber
shops.
The weird sounds took form again in Asher's ears. Tramp, tramp,
tramp. It came from the marching crowd, it seemed to him. As he
listened to the slow, plodding, yet rhythmical tramp, tramp, tramp
of the crowd, it became challenging. The more he listened to its
rhythm the louder, the angrier, the more determined its beat became
—only to be met at its crescendo and subdued for a time by the shrill
of the siren. Then the tramp, tramp, tramp again.
There was laughter in the air like the alternating sharps and flats
of a jazz tune. Yet the muted undertone of the tramp, tramp, tramp
persisted: pedestrians seeking the subway or the bus; idlers prowl-
ing in front of pool halls and store-front number dives; men and
women from the monotonous and overcrowded cross streets, living
in dark, mephitic tenements, brownstone fronts, dingy elevator flats
and modern but rundown apartment houses; people going and com-
ing from gin mills; boisterous groups of men and boys congregated
on corners and in the middle of blocks, making passes at unescorted
women; adolescent boys and girls flaunting their youth. Tramp,
tramp, tramp. Then the intermittent and recurring cry of the siren.
Jesus, it's like this everywhere, Asher said to himself—in Phila-
delphia, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis. Crowds of Negroes walking.
Just walking around in circles—always something to stop them. Some
day, things will be better, maybe. He felt Ester tugging at his arm
and it made him warm and secure.
There were in that crowd the sleek, the modish; the sad, the nasty-
looking; women who seemed to be drudges or drunkards; men, pug-
nacious and loud—petty thieves and vicious parasites; children of
ugliness and dirt; evil faces and scowlers; brutish men elbowing the
passersby out of their way; the dreary-looking and the prosperous.
All of them tramping, tramping, tramping—only to be halted at in-
tervals by the commanding wail of the siren.
Ester wanted to go to Paradise, one of the newer bars on Sugar
49


Hill. The place had only recently celebrated the grand opening to
which several thousand Harlemites had been invited by printed in-
vitation (although it took only cash-in-hand to partake of its de-
lights). The place “jumped like a revival meeting,” to quote the bar-
flies.
Paradise was an imposing gin mill at the corner of St. Nicholas
Avenue and 145th Street where the crosstown streetcar rattled
through on its way to the Bronx. From the outside the saloon was
a huge expanse of glass brick, bordered with wide strips of shiny,
black plate glass held together with bronze molding. So brilliant
were the neon lighting effects that they snared passersby on the
avenue three or four blocks away. This was Harry Schmell's gift
to Harlem, where he had raised Scotch whisky to a kingdom and was
charging seventy-five cents a shot for it.
As Asher and Ester were about to cross the threshold, a conked-
haired zoot-suiter lounging in the doorway winked at her and stage-
whispered to his crony, “That's my baby.”
Ester threw her head back involuntarily and tightened her grasp
on Asher's arm. “They ought to send this riffraff back to Georgia.
These bastards just keep us back.”
Before Asher could answer, Harry Schmell bounced in front of
the couple and chased the hangers-on from the doorway, threaten-
ing to call the cops. He was a short, stocky, florid little man with
a tailor-made smile which he snapped on and off like a flashing
electric light.
“Ar, Miss Ester, I thought you was never coming to my place.”
Turning to his wife who sat in the cashier's desk just to the left of
the entrance he announced: “Here is Miss Ester and her friend from
the Fishbowl.”
The Schmells, who lived on Pelham Parkway—the highway over
which all traffic passed to and from City Island—usually ate once or
twice a week at the Fishbowl. However, what with the opening of
their new bar and the rush of business, they had not been out to
the Island for several weeks. Naturally they had much to talk about
and gush over with Ester. They tried to outdo each other in asking
50


about the “boys”—each of them called no less than twenty of the
older waiters by name, and inquired about their health.
Then the little manager ushered Ester and Asher to the corner
booth farthest from the door. His brown eyes flashed. “The best in
the house for you, Miss Ester.”
Ester looked around with satisfaction. The red shade of the small
lamp on the black, glossy table, the sea-green leatherette upholstery
of the booth, the oak-paneled walls, the indirect-lighting fixtures
sunk in long, narrow grooves around the room at the edge of the
ceiling, gave a warm glow to the mural of Negro Greats on the
walls just below. There were Joe Louis, Marion Anderson, Duke Ell-
ington, George Carver, Paul Robeson peering out from an army of
black workers.
“This place is ready,” Asher said.
Ester gave him a smile. She had taken off her jacket, and he saw
that she wore a pale blue summer print, cut low in the front. He
ordered twelve-year-old Scotch, and when it came her eyes sparkled.
“Oh my, you're so good to me.”
“Because of this?” he asked carelessly, as though he never drank
anything else.
“I was so surprised when you asked me to come out with you.
I didn't think you'd ever want to see me again, the way I ran off
the last time.”
Conversation flowed easily. The drinks seemed to have put her in
a vivacious mood, and she talked with a quick, witty intelligence.
Asher made one or two mild jokes, and Ester laughed heartily over
them. For the most part, however, he had only to listen and, of course,
order drinks, while Ester rattled on.
“Well, looka there,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.
“Here's old Sister Wrong with a beat-up straw katie setting on the
back of her neck, almost. It looks like the last turkey running from
old Uncle Jake's shotgun. She musta got two of them for the same
price.”
“Where?” asked Asher, looking around.
“Over there at the other end of the bar—up by the door. That
51


The juke-box played continuously. It gave songs the “sharpies” se-
lected to put their sweater-girls in a mellow mood, the songs that
loosened up the proud-acting woman, the songs that brought misti-
ness to the eyes of the middle-aged—songs of tenderness, of longing,
of heartbreak and of humor. Songs that were played over and over,
night after night, in every Harlem bar. “Ain’t Got Nobody to Love”
took on the rich overtones of that spiritual of lonesome wanderings,
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” The jazzed-up tune, “It
Ain't Gonna Be Like That,” took on the hard trials of “I Been Rebuked
and I Been Scorned.” The moanful love song, “If I Had You,”
sounded like the great tribulations of “If I Had My Way.”
But the most popular song, the one that was played over and over,
was “That Chippy's Not Ready for Pluckin’.” Each time a husky-
voiced “black troubadour” told of his confused reactions to life and
love in this industrial society, the crowd chorused: “Send Her Back
Down Home to Her Mother—Let Her Season Her Up Some More
—Then She'll Be Ready for Pluckin’.”
This was Saturday night, work was done, they were free at the bar.
To earn a living they had to Uncle Tom “Mr. Charley” by day, but
by night they were free. If they worked in a factory, they took orders
from a white boss; if they worked as domestics or public servants
they had to bow and scrape. But not at Paradise.
Asher felt good. Ester seemed to have a knack for making a man
believe he was the most important person on earth, the only one who
mattered to her. She would make witty little remarks, behind which
there were slightly veiled questions, intended to draw from her com.
panion just what she seemed to want to know about him. Not the
sort of questions that would call for a recital of his life's history,
but ones that would tell her, if she was of a mind to play, whether
or not it would prove a matter of playing with fire.
“I’ll bet your chick's not too young to fry?” she asked.
“Are you?” Asher asked in return.
Ester studied Asher's face for a moment. Then a twinkle came into
53


her large black eyes and they smiled with her lips. “You don't have
any business being out on a limb alone. Not you,” she said. “You betta
get yours while the gettin' is good and get all you can get. 'Cause if you
don't they'll get you and when they do they'll get you good and plenty.”
“Is that the way you believe in treatin' your boy friend?” Asher
asked.
“Boy friend? What's all this about?” she said, stopping short as if
she were thinking. “You’re not the jealous kind, are you?”
Again she looked into Asher's face, long and pensively. Asher felt
a warm sensation churn inside him, and little beads of perspiration
popped out around the edges of his hair.
When they left the bar, Asher wanted to ride, for he was itching
to get Ester into a cab and into his arms. But Ester wanted to walk.
Their way led north along St. Nicholas Avenue. So intently had Asher
mapped out his little campaign to get Ester into his arms that he felt
dismayed. As often happens when two people are new to each other,
he did not allow his frustration to flare into open anger, but smoth-
ered his bewilderment like a person choking a yawn. And, for the
first block or two, he walked along in silence. Ester, for her part,
seemed even gayer and more vivacious. Perhaps it was the drinks. It
could have been her intuition that led her to suggest a walk so early
in the morning—it was then almost three. On other occasions with an
older man she might have demanded a taxi to go around the corner.
An early-morning breeze wafted gently in their faces as they
walked. Ester strode along buoyantly, almost playfully pulling Asher
by the arm. The Hill was still agog with people on the move. But at
that hour they did not march with a loud, angry, determined beat.
Some strolled along the street. Others prowled about stealthily, as
if in search of prey or plunder. People in little groups issued from
the innumerable gin mills and eateries along the Avenue—gay in
their boisterousness, lingering for a minute over good-bys before
separating. Traffic moved at a fast clip, coming to a screeching halt
for red lights. Loud “good nights” punctuated the clamor of slam-
ming car doors.
Near the corner of 149th Street where St. Nicholas Place forks
54


“Well?” she said.
“You know I could go for you in a big way.”
“But you scarcely know me.”
Asher took hold of her and drew her towards him. She did not
resist, but bent forward a little, and he kissed her lips again. A tender
look came into her eyes, and she began to stroke his head.
“Don’t be silly. Can't we be just good friends?”
“Not the way you're pattin' my cheek.”
Ester laughed softly, but did not stop. Asher looked into her eyes,
and as he looked he saw them soften and grow liquid. Then he pulled
her toward him and they stretched across the bed. He kissed her
again and her body folded into his. His hand caressed the flank of
her leg. Then he began to fumble with the zipper of her dress. She
sat up on the edge of the bed and slapped his hand.
“You’re so clumsy,” she said as she stood up and set about un-
fastening her dress. She slipped her dress over her head and threw
it across a chair. Then, putting her hands behind her, she unhooked
her brassiere and stood before Asher in her panties. He caught her
in his arms and kissed her, long and violently.
“Put the light out, Daddy.”
Looka me, Asher said to himself. Wish they could see me now.
Bet they'd call me Daddy-O now. I'm a big-timer. That's me . . .
all me. That's what I am. A big shot. Just like they do it in the
movies. Make 'em go wild. Like them there movie stars. Treat 'em
cold . . . indifferent to 'em . . . mean. That makes 'em make you.
Jesus, bet they do it in satin sheets ... sho' would like to try it that
way ... I'll bet a man I'm Daddy-O now. They won't tell me 'bout
no Monroe . . . nobody else.
It was a long time before they stirred. The grayness of dawn
came upon the window shade—a speck in the center, then an
outer rim of light framed the window shade, forcing out the dark
areas.
Ester awakened Asher by kissing him on the mouth. Her hair fall.
56


ing over his face tickled him. “I better get out of here,” she said.
“I don't wanta meet your landlady this morning.”
“Pay her no mind,” he answered sleepily. “She's no trouble.”
Ester sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her clothes lying
in the chair by the window. Her waist was small but her hips were
broad. As she bent forward her large, brown breasts lay heavily upon
her thighs. As she began to dress herself hurriedly she yanked the
bed sheet back from Asher.
“Wake up, lazy-bones,” she said. “And I'll tell you something.”
“What?”
Ester looked at him with her heavy, sad expression. Slowly, Asher
pulled himself up and sat in the center of the bed with his knees
hunched up before him. “What?”
“You really interested?”
“What is this, some sort of a game?”
“I’ve got a little boy,” she said slowly. “And I haven't time to
waste on any man who's out to just play around.”
Asher was speechless for several minutes. Ester looked intently
into his face.
“Where?” he said, when words did come. “Livin' with you and
Hattie?”
“Nope,” she said with a low chuckle. “He’s down South with my
brother.”
“Oh!”
A twinkle came into Ester's eyes as she watched Asher slowly
turning over in his mind what she had told him.
“You know its loads of fun goin’ out with you,” she said after a
while. “Let’s keep it like that. We can't afford to get serious.” She
paused, then continued: “You know everybody says I’m out husband-
hunting.”
“Where's your old man?”
“That bastard? Running around somewhere in Harlem.”
Asher pushed the sheet to one side and one leg slid over the edge
of the bed.
57


Ah, Ester. She had polish, a chic that was new to Asher. And when
he compared her to the women who frequented the Fishbowl—and
he did quite often—he could only mutter, wonderingly, “Jesus, she
sends every inch of my brown body.” They were new to each other
and it was good—achingly good to them. Yet sex was not the only
link in their friendship. Ester had a way about her. Asher felt it in
the spirited way she carried herself, the enticing way she looked into
his face, searching and pensive, the way she talked.
Ester was interested in the life Asher led. She laughed at his
stories of how he had lost a job by “adding a little weight” to a cus-
tomer's check at one resort, how he had lost another job by “going
South” with the cash for a diner's check in some strange town. She
even made him tell her—without seeming to probe—why he had
never settled down to a “steady job in the Post Office, or something.”
For he had no relatives in New York and what few friends he did
have were as broke and shiftless as himself.
“Post Office,” he laughed, sarcastically. “A man's gotta have fresh
foldin’ money every day. Those asses who get theirs once or twice a
month are broke two hours after they get it. I wanta live. Ain't no
chance to get a break locked up in no job like that.”
Asher dimly realized he was somebody for Ester to pet, and scold,
and make a fuss over. Beneath her sophistication, he decided, she
was domestic in temperament. On several occasions, she even seemed
to enjoy cooking a light supper for “Daddy”—as she called him—
in the communal kitchen that Asher's landlady had set aside on the
top floor for the twenty-eight lodgers jammed into her ten-room
house. Ester was young, strong and healthy; and it seemed quite
natural to give herself to Asher. He guessed she liked him because
he let her have her way, and he laughed with her over all the things
in life that amused and interested her.
At times, however, Asher would grow troubled and restless. For
Ester allowed him to see her only a couple of nights a week. On
the nights he was “free to spend with the boys,” as she put it, he
would drown his lonesomeness by joining them in the futile pastime
of trying to drink the Shanty dry. Occasionally, he thought of Ester's
59


little boy. Well, that's no skin off my ass, he would say. And his
thoughts would turn to what Ester might be doing.
Bedeviled by visions of Ester laughing and talking with Monroe,
of Ester in the man's arms, Asher would decide Monroe was his most
hated enemy. An enemy who joined an army of ghosts that had
marched with Asher since early childhood. They were like the dark-
complexioned stranger who was always rushing toward Asher twirl-
ing a spike-studded night stick—vague and illusive, disunited and
disassociated—who constantly appeared and disappeared in Asher's
troubled sleep.
Asher would become afraid, during these moments. His hands
turned cold and clammy. He breathed rapidly, his heart pounding.
Then he had to have a drink and then another and another, and
wasn’t really relaxed until he was fuzzy-headed and bleary-eyed.
Before they had become lovers, Asher had asked himself if there
was “anything between Ester and Monroe,” and afterwards he asked
her. She kissed him.
“Don’t be foolish,” she answered. “Can't I have friends? He just
likes to show me off to his friends—it makes him feel good. We’re
just drinking partners.”
Although her answer did not satisfy Asher, he did not probe
deeper. He feared that to do so would make her angry. He was young,
only twenty-seven, and Monroe seemed an old man to him; yet it did
not seem quite natural to him that Ester and Monroe were only
drinking partners. When he would look at her in the restaurant,
standing in the doorway to the ladies' room, talking to a waiter, he
glowed with self-satisfaction. He thought of the nights they passed
together and would laugh to himself over the waiters’ promising to
call him Daddy-0.
But sometimes he thought that Monroe looked at him as if he
understood. He wondered if Ester had told Monroe that she was go-
ing out with him. He wondered, too, if there was anything in his
manner that made Monroe know. The expression “big fish”—the
waiters’ nickname for Monroe—had stuck in his mind. And when-
ever it came back to him, as it usually did on those nights when he
60


was not with Ester, he became afraid the waiters were laughing at
him. When he told Ester this she looked at him sadly.
“It’s none of their business,” she said. “They've all got nasty
minds anyhow. You're not jealous? Why, I don't snoop around to
find out about your other girl friends, do I?”
Ester was an inveterate moviegoer, and very often she and Asher
made the late show at the neighborhood movie house. On one such
occasion, they saw “The Dark Flower,” a beef-witted Hollywood
drama that was billed as the “greatest love story of all times.” Ester
had been very much excited by the film, and as they returned from
the theater she walked enraptured, clutching Asher's arm. The way
led through 155th Street along a quiet, tree-lined walk beside a
churchyard that occupied an entire city block. As they crossed Am-
sterdam Avenue, Asher suggested that they stop for a drink at Hart-
mann's—one of the waiters' Harlem haunts. Instantly, Ester's can-
tering stride slackened to a stroll.
“Don’t you ever get tired of seeing those buzzards?” she
asked. “You’ve been cooped up with them all day. Here's the Ritz
—let's go there.” Nimbly she pushed Asher into the entrance of the
bar.
The Ritz was an old-fashioned hole-in-the-wall. It had been, in
its heyday, a fashionable drinkery—family entrance and all—that
catered to the lace-curtain Irish who once inhabited Sugar Hill. But
its new owner felt he didn't have to modernize the place for these
people, since he knew this famous and elegant old landmark of the
gas-lamp era—known then as the Fox Head Inn—had been allowed
to deteriorate like almost everything else on the Hill.
Thus, from the era of fancy stone beer-mugs, the place had come
to specialize in trick “double” whisky glasses, the insides of which
deceptively tapered into a thick bottom, holding not two, but about
one and a half drinks. In this way the Ritz attracted a large crowd of
transients—the broke, the near-broke and the bargain hunters.
Ester walked to the corner of the long, narrow bar and headed in
the direction of the dimly lit back room.
61


“Let's sit at the bar,” Asher said sulkily.
“Just as you say, darling.”
A fat, squinty-eyed Italian bartender stationed himself in front of
them. He grinned and said “Yessir” to Asher as he swished the dark-
stained bar with a rag that resembled the soiled end of a bath towel.
“Ain’t you got no Scotch?” Asher barked petulantly.
The bartender turned, and pointed to the lone bottle of Scotch
nearly three-quarters filled, but half-hidden behind several rows of
whisky bottles on a shelf in back of the bar. Asher frowned as he
tried to recollect whether he had ever heard of the brand before.
“Okay,” he said as he hunched his shoulders.
Asher would have liked nothing better than to have swaggered
into Hartmann's with Ester on his arm. Even if none of the waiters
had been on hand, word of their having been there together would
have soon spread in his little circle, for he knew that Ester was a
well-known glamour girl among Hartmann's employees. Now he
could find nothing to talk about. He sat at the bar in stony silence,
downing his drinks morosely.
But Ester kept up a rapid-fire conversation about the movie they
had seen, seeming almost desperate to make herself even more en-
gaging than usual. “Didn't you think that was one gorgeous farm
Ray Chalmers had? It had everything—even down to ducks in the
swimming pool. I can't understand for the life of me why that sappy
dame couldn't go for him. Know one thing, darling? I could spend
the rest of my life in a place like that if you owned it—right in the
middle of all those beautiful deep-tangled woods.”
At last she realized she could not make Asher snap out of his surly
mood, and she said: “What's bitin' you?”
“Nothin”.”
“Don’t be like that, darling,” she pleaded.
“Nothin', I said; you're doin’ the talkin’.”
Ester glanced at Asher sidewise. He did not meet her eyes. But he
could feel her questioning gaze that he knew so well. She said nothing
more, and after another round of drinks they left the bar. Outside,
Asher started to walk rapidly, keeping three or four paces ahead of
62


her. Finally, when she caught up with him, she said: “Don’t you want
me to stop by your place?”
“If you wanta.”
They had only to go around the corner, and in a moment they were
in Asher's room.
“What's makin' you act like this?” Ester asked as she sidled up
to Asher, who was standing in front of the dresser.
For a minute he stood there silently, looking away. Then he said:
“You wouldn't go to Hartmann's with me 'cause you were afraid
Monroe would find out about it.”
“Don’t be silly. Monroe doesn't own me.”
“No?”
“Just because we’re friends must you have such evil thoughts?”
Asher felt the warmth of her body as her firm breasts pressed
against his chest. But he kept his arms hanging loosely at his sides.
“You know, sweets, you men are all alike. If I didn't know any
other man, I’d never be able to find you when I wanted you.”
Then she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. When she
released the pressure on his rigidly held neck, she said: “But I love
you for being the way you are.”
Slowly, Asher put his hands about her waist.
“Don’t get yourself so worked up about nothing,” she said. “I’m
savin’ it all for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course, silly.”
He smiled and she kissed him again.
“But remember, you promised to take me as I am.”
“Okay,” he said half-heartedly.
At the moment, he had not known what else to say, but he won-
dered how he could get Ester the way he wanted her—all to himself.
Am I playing you or you playing me? There ain't gonna be no part-
nership with you, baby. No sir! Then he remembered she had said
she was saving it all for him and he felt exalted.
During the afternoon, the waiters who were not on watch in the
63


main dining-room usually relaxed in the rear of the farm. In little
groups, they gathered about the tables and exchanged dirty stories
or swapped experiences. Some debated the day's crop of newspaper
stories while others cat-napped or lounged about.
The sun that cut an ever narrowing swath along City Island Road
cast its tired, afternoon reflection through the windows into the
snow white room. From where Asher sat, he could see an occasional
sail easing along lazily, and, beyond, the hilly shoreline on the oppo-
site side of Long Island Sound. Gradually, he became drowsy and
stretched his arms out on the table and rested his head on them. But
suddenly every inch of his body was thoroughly awake, as he felt
the wooden table echo the arrival of someone plopping down onto
a chair at the other end of the long banquet table. He heard the new-
comer, imitating an Englishman, say to a waiter: “Jawge, 'ow you?”
“I got your George swinging in my pants.”
Asher raised his head and joined in the laughter that rippled
through the room.
The waiter known as the preacher reared back in his chair and, as
though he were talking to the ceiling, said sonorously: “He who is
not there when supper is served will know not of the supper.”
“It ain’t like that,” another waiter chimed in. “Man, I remember
one year me an’ another boy was bummin’ around, goin' from town
to town, an’ we got broker than hell. An' when you get broke you
sho’ do get hungry. Well, we was making our way to Chi from down
in the southern part of Illinois—min' you not down South but up in
Illinois—when we come to the town of Fulton. Man, it was jus’
around a bend in the road when we seen it first, glistenin’ like a
full dinner pail. Boy oh boy, it sho’ did look good. Jus’ like a well-
turned roast, sizzling in its own juices. You know them crackers
wouldn’t let us get nothin’ to eat nowhere in that town. But we
knowed it was there aplenty.”
Preacher stroked his chin sagely. “I know what you mean.”
“Hey, man, better watch yourself,” warned a small-eyed man with
his glasses resting on the tip of his bulbous nose. “Here comes one
of them black stockho’ers.” The dark-skinned waiter to whom he had
64


spoken faced him with his head and shoulders hunched over the
table. In his hand he held a cigarette which had burned to a long,
tapering column of ashes.
“He betta min’ his own goddam business. I ain't fixin' to take no
tea for the fever this afternoon,” he snorted angrily, without moving.
One waiter laughed, a low snickering laugh. The small-eyed waiter
folded his newspaper and rested it on the table, removed his glasses
and placed them in a leather eye-glass case.
“Boy, it sure is funnier than hell,” he mused sarcastically. “How
well the Kingfish knows us. Man, all he gotta do is put a broom in
a man's hands, give him a couple dollars extra, call him Cap'n an'
he sure will puff up like a cloud-storm fixin' to bust.”
A barrel-chested waiter seated at a two-seat table in front of a
window smiled. “Once a ass-bucket always a ass-bucket.”
The small-eyed waiter looked again at the man with his head rest-
ing on the table. “Come on, Jackson. Get up, man. Charlie's halfway
up the second dinin’-room. I don't feel like hearin’ him run off at
the mouth.”
Charlie came into the farm and strode up to the little group of
waiters. He looked about him with an officious air as if he were
taking inventory. Then he cleared his throat. “When you men finish
smokin', be sure you take your cigarette butts and newspapers with
you,” he said pompously. “Don’t leave the table linen all mussed up,
either. Mus' think you're at home. The ol’ man's raisin’ hell as it is
'bout the linen bill bein’so high these days, an' I don't blame him,
the way you-all mess it up.”
Charlie looked about the room for a moment, importantly. He
pointed a finger toward Asher. “That goes for you, too, Mr. Prize-
fighter.” Then he walked off.
“Wonder how much he paid for his stock in the corporation?” said
the small-eyed waiter.
“Man, he's not only a stockholder, he's a DA also,” put in an-
other waiter.
“DA?” Asher asked inquiringly. “What the hell is that—a dog-ass?”
The waiters looked at Asher and laughed.
65


“He’s that and the district attorney,” the small-eyed waiter giggled.
“If n he catch you doin’ somethin’ he’ll snitch on you to the boss
and plead your case jus’ like a lawyer.”
The dark-skinned waiter gave a grunt. “Lousiest bunch of rats I
ever worked 'round,” he said. “I’ve worked in many a dining-room
but never in all my born days have I seen such a dirty bunch of
scrub captains.”
“How many they got out here?” Asher asked.
“How many. Man, there's over two hundred men workin’ here an’
over fifty of 'em is some kinda half-ass cap'n.”
“I know I jus’ got here,” Asher said, “but don't kid me, pal.”
“He ain't kiddin’,” the small-eyed waiter cut in. “They got a cap'n
to receive the linen, one to put it in the linen closet, one to put it out
in the dinin’-room, one to move it from the servin' stands to the
tables. An’ after we lay it, there's one to inspect the tables.”
The barrel-chested waiter chuckled. “An’ that ain't all. There's
cap'ns in this joint to check on the other cap'ns. You seen Walker
come 'round this mornin’ complainin’ that Harrison musta been
crazy the way he ordered the tables lined up for lunch in the second
room. Man, ain't nothin’ like it in no other dining-room in the
world.”
“What'd they do to become cap'n?” Asher asked. “Be here ninety
years?”
“You interested, buddy?”
“Who me?” Asher said. “No, siree! I ain’t made like that. You’ll
never catch me kow-towin’ to no boss for a few extra bucks.”
“Yeah! That's what they all say,” the dark-skinned waiter replied.
“But by an’ by you see 'em as thick with the Kingfish as two peas in
a pod. Whisperin’ to him 'bout what so-and-so's gettin’ away with in
the dining-room. How this one was whoopin' 'em up in Harlem. An’
as soon as the boss finds out they're his tried an' trusted men, right
away they're cap'ns.”
“He sure must relish it, too,” the small-eyed waiter said. “‘Cause
he goes 'bout it jus’ like they go 'bout the layin' on of hands in
church. Tellin' you to see Cap'n Jones for this an' Cap'n Williams
66


“All right now, pardners, I'm payin' eight bucks to one on the last
figure. You can get yours now.”
The waiters made all sorts of combinations beginning with eighty-
six. They made them out of hunches and dreams, out of children's
names and other so-called lucky sources, out of the number of the
check lying face-up in their sales books, and out of thin air. Dave
was a good number-writer and he did not bat an eye.
When Dave had completed his collection, he took Asher with him
to help count the money at a small table in one of the arched cubby-
holes that lined the wall on the far side of the room. Asher still played
501–Ester's house number—in every conceivable combination. He
had put his dollar on a five.
Asher had been working at the Fishbowl a little over a month.
And he had his troubles over how to make ends meet. Perhaps it was
the money Dave spread on the table before them that prompted him
to speak of his woes. However, with the exception of the weekend
when the last station in the farm was good for ten dollars a day, he
averaged three or four dollars a day. Now and again, he managed to
“luck up on a pound”—five dollars. But he was hard pressed, what
with taking Ester out, meeting his living expenses and paying his
number bill which had become fairly heavy.
“This farm is sure gettin' me down,” he said. “I gotta do some.
thin’.”
Dave placed a wad of one-dollar bills on the table and nodded his
head understandingly. “No, pardner! It ain't no place for a regular
like you. Ain't nothin' but some ol' fart that don’t need much to keep
life together in his bones can make it back here.”
He toyed with the money for a moment in deep study. Then he
said: “We gotta get you in the front room, pardner.”
“How you gonna do it? I jus’ got here—my feet ain't even dry yet.
But I sure gotta do somethin’ or go back to railroadin’. An’ that's
no picnic.”
“Listen, pardner,” Dave said. “Lay a couple bucks on Chief each
week an’ you can jus’ about name your station.”
“You mean I gotta pay that no-good bastard to make money?”
68


Asher asked angrily. “I ain't buyin' no stations for him to get fat
offa me.”
“That's the way it is around here, pardner. He ain't no good but
he's sure got this place sewed up tighter than Dick's hatband. Ain't
but a mighty few of us that don't have to pay him off. Those that
was here before he came and them scrub captains.”
“I can't see it! But I sure gotta git holda some money somehow.
Man, I can't even catch myself a figure.”
“It’s jus’ the same as givin' some greedy customer a extra piece of
butter, pardner, hopin' you'll get a big tip. The boss don't want you
to go givin’ his butter away free, but you do every time.”
“Maybe you're right, after all,” Asher smiled.
Dave folded the wad of bills and put them in his pocket slowly.
Then he asked: “How you and Ester doin’ these days? You oughter
hang on to her. She's okay.”
“That's the trouble. I spend up all my change on the nights when
I don’t see her, when she's with Monroe or somebody.”
“Pardner, he's jus’ a helpin’ hand for her. He's no trouble. But
she's gotta get along an’ take care of her child, too. You got no
squawk coming—you're gettin’ all the gravy. The boss don't pay her
nothin’ for that stinkin’ washroom job. Calls it his ‘concession’—
an’ she sure can't make it offa tips alone.”
“What?”
“That's a fact, pardner,” Dave replied. “You betta think about
what I told you. You'll have to raise the ante for Chief. But don't
go spoilin’ it; two bucks's enough.”
Dinner got under way with a bustle of activity. Everywhere wait-
ers scurried about putting their stations in order. They hauled tables
that were slightly out of line back into the room's diagonal checker-
board pattern. They dusted chairs, and rubbed silverware and glasses
to a gleaming luster. Waiters streamed from the kitchen with earthen-
ware water pitchers and freshly filled condiment containers while
others—the headwaiter’s “pets”—carried tray loads of steaming
place plates to be set at tables with “reserved” signs on them.
Asher, with nothing better to do for the moment, was standing
69


just inside the frame portal that separated the first dining-room from
the second. As he took in this scene—feverish with the waiters' an-
ticipation of a tip-laden dinner—his eyes wandered over to the res-
taurant's parking-lot entrance. In a recessed bay just above the door
lay a huge stuffed lobster—a greenish brown, spiny lobster with
large, pincer-like claws. Asher had seen it many times before, but
now it was as if the lobster were alive. For it seemed to him to be
wriggling contentedly, even lazily, on its ten feet—as if it had just
finished feasting off some thin-skinned fish in its imitatively natural
surroundings. Then his thoughts drifted back to what Ester had said
about Chief: “He’s just like a hard-shelled crawfish reaching and
grasping for everything in sight—the livin', the dead, and the half-
dead.”
Sure thing, he thought, if Chief had spent the better part of his
life “gettin' his from every livin' ass,” as the waiters said of their
headwaiter (and, at times, there was a note of admiration in their
voices), he was not to be judged by ordinary standards.
Andy, the waiter to whom the numbers were what the Church is to
the devout, stood at Asher's side as the room filled to capacity, bid-
ding him “look at ol' Chief wid those white folks eatin’ outa his hand
an’ makin' 'em pay off.” Asher had thought of it, time and again.
Every day, sometimes twice a day, some waiter said: “There's only
one Chief an’ he gets the fat from the duck.” Chief had long ago
acquired that rare trick of making diners—fussy fish-eaters—laugh
at themselves and pay him for the privilege. What he was doing that
night was more or less repetition. “There aren't many of us who can
handle them white folks an’git away wid it,” Andy said.
Suddenly, as if the approving nod of Andy's head had prompted
the thought, Asher compared the waiter with Chief. His perception
made him glow inwardly with pride. Andy was beat; he was satisfied
with such a little. A part of Asher made him say (he addressed Andy
silently) I wish I could be like you—nothing seems to bother you
so long as you can get your number money and somethin’ to drink;
you'll be around when Chief's dead and gone; you ain't burnin'
yourself out strivin' and strainin’; you ain't suckin' nobody's life
70


blood. But simultaneously, Asher remembered how Andy had
once brought a new dream book to work and, when Cap'n Logan
limited his play on a “hot number,” had cried for hours about the
crookedness of the number game until Chief had said only a thief
thinks everybody else is a thief.
How, then, did you figure it out? How did you judge a man?
What made you feel friendly toward one man, indifferent to another?
What was it all about? As he stood, apparently glued to the frame
portal, impressions of the two men flowed within Asher like a quiet
voice whispering to him. It was then six-thirty and every table in the
main dining-room was occupied. Chief had begun to usher parties
to the tables in the second room. “You’ll get a break tonight, kid;
the farm will be jumpin' in a few minutes,” he called at Asher once
as he passed him. .
The quiet voice continued to whisper to Asher. It was his own
voice, saying undeniably contradictory things with such force that
even the grained and knotted lines in the portals were stamped in his
mind forever. Andy's just drifting along with the tide, but Chief's
a big shot, he's bending the tide his way. He's conceited, knows he's
smart . . . a real slave-driver but he'll drive you and make you like
it. He has what you (again he addressed Andy silently) haven't got,
a knack of gettin’ what he wants. All of this surged through Asher,
rising and falling with the hum of activity in the restaurant.
Then, without warning, a few drops of rain about the size of half-
dollar pieces spattered upon the Fishbowl's windows. It reminded
Asher of a wire-brush drumstick being played against a snare-drum.
Then the rain began to fall in a great downpour.
Asher turned and looked down the long aisle of the second dining-
room into the farm. It looked hollow and vacant to him with its row
after row of long tables topped with freshly starched linen. He could
See the glassware turned upside-down on the tables, with tiny, liquid
patches of highlights glistening in the gloomy atmosphere before the
skeleton-backed chairs. He felt depressed. He thought of the two dol-
lars he had made for lunch. Can't make it like this, he thought.
All of this danced up and down in his mind like the great sheets
71


of rain that he saw dancing across City Island Road when he looked
out of the windows—dancing like a well-trained chorus line in elfin
hoods. Up and down it danced, in and out of the reach of the clutch-
ing lobster, until a voice calling to him shattered his thoughts.
“Hey, Asher!” said Chief. “Stay where you are 'til I call you.
You gotta get a check before you go home, an’ the next carload of
fish-eaters that rolls up here is yours. I’ll give you part of some-
body's station. You know me. Do right by ol' Chief and ol' Chief
will look out for you.”
Asher nodded to the headwaiter as he walked off. He listened to
the rain falling hard outside. His eyes wandered in the direction of
the ladies' room near the entrance to the parking-lot and he felt
warm inside. Chief ain't so bad, Asher said to himself. Maybe if I do
right by him I can make it.
It was late the next day when Asher approached Chief. He found
him at his favorite spot—leaning against the arm of an overstuffed
chair near the parking-lot entrance—watching the tiny particles of
dust that hopped about like Mexican jumping beans in the sun
streamers that poured down onto the dark, linoleum-covered floor
of the lounge. Chief seemed to be lost in thought and, for several
minutes, took no notice of Asher standing at his side. Then he
looked up.
“Believe me when I say it, I don't know how some of you-all call
yourselves waiters, as sloppy as you are.”
Asher fidgeted uncomfortably but made no reply to the words he
had heard time and again. One hand fumbled at his side as if it
itched and he did not want to scratch it.
“Thanks for the party last night,” he said finally, handing the
headwaiter a folded dollar bill.
Chief smiled at Asher as his fingers flipped the corners of the bill.
He pocketed the money without taking his eyes off Asher.
“I knew all the time you know what it's all about. You'll make
money around here. Sure thing.”
“I sure would if I could work in the hole regular,” Asher replied.
72


At other times, while strolling about the restaurant or out in the
kitchen, there was a noticeable change in his attitude. It was not
so much that he now walked slower but there was about him a
greater poise—his shoulders held erect, his head thrown back, his
stride lengthened in a more measured cadence—which gave him the
leisurely yet purposeful step of a self-assured man.
Even in the exchange of small talk with his fellow-workers the
change was apparent. For in the wake of his promotion to the main
dining-room many eyes had momentarily widened, many mouths had
fleetingly curled in cynical and knowing grimaces. And the half-
concealed inquiries (always put jokingly) by the curious, the idle
speculators, the wisecracking know-it-alls, the envious, he met with
evasive answers. Once a waiter had smilingly said, “I sure would
like to know who you know 'round here.” And Asher had replied,
“Think it'd do you any good, bud?” thinking to himself, ain’t
nothin’ to you. Just another broke-ass waiter. Like the bear—no-
where. Bet a fat man, I’m gonna make me some money in this place.
'Cause I know this business.
Asher had been at his new station for a week when Ester asked
him to meet her after work. It was Saturday night, and she had her
shopping to do. They met at the corner of Rochelle Street near the
restaurant's delivery court just as the Bronx-bound bus screeched to
a halt across the wide avenue in front of the Shanty.
Ester climbed in breathlessly and made her way to an empty seat
in the middle of the bus. Asher trudged along behind her. He no-
ticed that she nodded to someone sitting a couple of seats further
back. But it was not until he was about to slide into the seat beside
her that he recognized Monroe. The man sat beside his wife, a dark,
bird-faced little woman, as if they were total strangers to each other.
“How you doing?” Ester asked indifferently. Then she smiled at
Asher, her large black eyes dancing mischievously.
“Never mind me,” Asher replied. “Isn't that your ol’ man back
there?”
“My ol’ man, as you call him, is dead, big boy.”
74


Ester's rejoinder caught Asher unprepared and he swallowed hard.
A hard, steely look edged into her eyes and a clearly discernible
bitterness about the corners of her full mouth erased the smile on
her face. “He’s safe now.” Then in a low, harsh voice she added,
“If his wife didn't come and fetch him the poor woman wouldn't
have anything to eat. You men!”
The bus rolled on, bouncing through the moonlit night.
Involuntarily, Asher's eyes were drawn to the window of the bus
and out of the corner of one eye he could see Monroe, fat and gross-
looking, his thick, loose lips puckered in anger as he stared at him
with a contemptuous sidelong glare that bristled with hatred.
Monroe had worked at the Fishbowl for a little over ten years.
Although he had been a cook almost all his forty-seven years, he had
begun in the Kingfish's service as a pot washer. And having washed
pots to the gleeful satisfaction of this most exacting taskmaster he
had, in time, climbed the ladder of success. Advancing to the fish-
broiler's helper, then to the job of potato cook, he had finally be-
come the clam-steamer. In this capacity he was also the Kingfish's
main “seeing-eye” about the kitchen whenever the boss was not about.
Indeed, Monroe never missed a trick. All day long his large, pro-
truding eyes roamed the kitchen spying on the waiters. If he saw as
much as a wedge of pie or a dish of ice cream under a counter, he
would wait for the errant waiter to return for it, and report it to
the Kingfish. Moreover, if he and the boss both saw a waiter break
some petty rule, Monroe would be sure to have seen even more than
the Kingfish. Into his ears, Monroe would whisper detail after detail,
chuckling as he talked. And one could see in the agitated eyes of the
Kingfish, a sort of mental stock-taking of his unlimited store of
penalties as he sought one to fit the crime. Monroe had an ever-ready
explanation for his success in the boss's kitchen: “Not for nothin'
was I born in Guwgeia. I know what white folks like. An’ I’m hard
on these Negroes.”
For services rendered, Monroe was allowed to operate as the Fish-
bowl loan shark. Lending money on the waiters’ weekly pay envelope,
he collected five dollars for every four he put out. If a waiter was
75


still “short” when payday arrived, Monroe took his interest and the
waiter owed him five come the next payday. In return, of course,
he turned a blind eye upon the antics of his loan customers in the
kitchen.
Asher chuckled to himself in the bus seat. Well, I suppose you
know who's boss now, papa, he mused, as though he were addressing
Monroe. Me . . . Asher Brown ... I'm in the saddle. Huh! Always
braggin' out in the kitchen about what a killer he is with the chicks.
A first-class chump ... that's what you are. Boastin’ about how that
ol’ hotel owner you use to cook for down South taught you, you can
buy any woman you want ... go ahead ... see if you can get my ol’
lady. Goddam plow-hand . . . you sure shoulda stayed down home
. . . been up here ten years an’ look like you just came outa the
cotton fields ... ain't even got that Georgia mud offa your shoes yet
. . . Well, that's all right . . . 'cause you're no trouble now, Big
Fish . . . your ol' lady'll take care of you this night ... betcha you
won't have a penny in the mornin'... all that dough you're robbin'
everybody outa . . . Boy! she sure looks like one of them shoutin’
sisters, like they say ... go to church an’ pray up a breeze . . . come
right out an’ go to fightin' ... beat the livin’ daylights outa her 'ol
man if he just bats an eye at some other woman.
It made Asher feel good that Ester was with him. A self-satisfied
grin spread over his face as he watched Monroe hunched behind him
scowling, his wife beside him with an other-worldly expression upon
her beak-nosed face. Just then, the bus bounded around a sweeping
curve and he lunged against Ester. The bus sped along the tree-lined
parkway lit every twenty feet or so by a sentry-like lamp post.
“Get up off my dress,” Ester said, pulling her skirt from beneath
Asher's leg. “And here it is the first time I’ve worn it. Like it?”
He looked at her dress as though he were noticing it for the first
time that night. It was a crisp two-piece dress of faded blue cham-
bray, striped in black and tan. She wore its notched Peter Pan collar
open at the neck, which gave it a young and gay casualness. The
jacket buttoned snugly about her small waist, and out whirled a
wonderful, hip-paring peplum.
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“It's a sender,” Asher said admiringly. “Where did you get it?”
“A friend of mine got it for me from a man who sells “hot”
dresses.” Ester smoothed out a few wrinkles that had gathered in
the skirt; she was as happy with it as if it were her wedding dress.
“What d'you think it would cost in the store?”
“I dunno.”
“Not a penny under thirty-five dollars. I’d never in this world be
able to get my hands on anything like this if it wasn't for those hot-
dress men. Wonder where they stole this one from?”
“Who’s the friend?”
“You really wanta know?” she asked with a chuckle. She nestled
closer to Asher, her eyes shining. “Promise you won't blow your
top? Monroe got it for me the other day; now he won't take the
money.”
Asher turned stiff and a hot shiver shot through his body. He
became gloomy and angry.
“Now you're not sore 'cause I didn't let you get it for me, are
you?” Ester said jokingly.
“It sure seems awfully funny, you an’ Monroe jus’ friends and he
gettin' you a dress like that,” Asher said, trying to keep his voice
casual. -
Ester's eyes danced. “You know he's a show-off.” She rubbed her
fingers along one of the folds of the peplum. “It’s so soft, and any-
one can see it's the very latest thing.”
Asher tried to choke his anger. He did his best to keep the con-
versation going. Ester did not seem to mind what he said. She could
only think of her new dress.
“You must think you're the Queen of Sheba,” Asher snapped.
Ester smiled. “That's just how I feel.” She slipped her hand
through Asher's arm. “He’s a real good thing. You know, darling,
if I didn't have you I might be tempted . . . he can afford it. He's
robbin' everything on two legs.”
Asher did not answer. The bus, by then, had turned off the park-
way into Fordham Road. Sputtering and fuming, it stopped and
started at almost every corner in the heavy traffic. Asher's eyes
77


wandered from the dazzling neon signs in the shop windows to the
advertising posters in the bus. It seemed to him that they had been
riding for hours, and for the remainder of the ride to the Grand
Concourse—where they lost Monroe and his wife in the subway
crowd—he remained silent. He could not speak; he was filled with
jealousy.
The Fancy Grocer sign suspended over Jenks' Amsterdam Avenue
store was a positive misnomer. Canned goods stood in pyramidal
junk mounds in the show window, giving the place the appearance
of a wholesale warehouse. Inside, cardboard cartons of packaged
staples and crates of vegetables were strewn about the floor. The tiled
floor in front of the counter was partially obliterated by dirty saw-
dust. Despite its uninviting interior, the place did a tremendous
volume of late business, catching all and sundry with its jacked.
up prices after the chain store super-markets had closed for the
night.
A large, raw-boned clerk looked over the heads of the seven or
eight people at the counter as Ester entered the store and beamed,
“Good evening, Mrs. Faulks. You sure are a killer-diller this eve-
ning.” Then, seeing Asher behind her, he added, “This is the first
time I’ve seen your husband.” Ester nodded diffidently. But the
clerk's comment touched off a current, sending a warm surge through
Asher. He grinned.
Ester's vivaciousness turned to seriousness. And as she ordered
her supplies, Asher watched her face grow thoughtful. Shall I get
this? Can I do without it? Do I have to have this or can it wait an-
other week? Finally, she said, “That will be all.” As the clerk totaled
the items, she whispered to Asher that the prices were exorbitant in
the neighborhood; that her excessively long working hours prohibited
her from taking advantage of downtown's cheaper prices and better
quality.
This touch of domestic intimacy plumbed the heart of Asher's
loneliness. “She’s just like mama,” he thought, “wise at penny-pinch-
ing.” Almost before he knew what he was about, he offered to pay
78


for the groceries. But Ester, having been cast in the role of a poor
man's wife, elected to pay for them herself. However, she did allow
him to pay for the beer he had suggested.
They had only to go around the corner to Ester's house, and as
she slipped her key into the lock in the vestibule door, she sighed
heavily. To Asher it seemed as if she were saying to herself, “Thank
goodness, another day is over and done.” He followed behind her, car-
rying two huge, brown bags of groceries, one in each arm, as she
slowly climbed the stairs to her fourth-floor apartment. Although it
was an ordinary six-floor walkup he could see that it had seen better
days. The ceilings in the hallway were dingy. Here and there the mar-
ble walls were heavily coated with the grime of time. The red paint on
the doorways was streaked with soot.
Yet the locked front door served to keep out the vice-peddlers and
the roving hoards of door-key children. For it was a house—one of
the few in that section of the city—where the landlord consented to
so nebulous a cut into his profits as to provide front-door lock and
key. It was tenanted by the plain people of Harlem—redcaps, porters,
longshoremen, civil servants, truck drivers. The sort of people white
New Yorkers seldom saw after their hours of work spent in the white
world were over. They were the solid, down-to-earth Harlemites
from various parts of their own country, with a sprinkling of proud
and suspicious West Indians.
The foyer of the three-room kitchenette apartment that Ester and
Hattie shared was no bigger than a clothes closet. And, with one
step, Asher found himself in the living-room. Hattie and Dave were
there, waiting to take them to a party.
Hattie smiled hello to Asher from where she sat on the sofa near
a door that led to the two bedrooms. Then she winked across the
room to Dave. “Look’s like Daddy's movin' in for the weekend, bag-
gage and all,” she said.
“Yeah, he's in there solid,” Dave replied. “Pardner's doing all right
by himself.”
Asher grinned sheepishly. Ester crossed the room, folding back
the curtained, glass-paneled doors to the kitchenette that occupied
79


two-thirds of the wall across from the foyer entrance. She took the
bags from Asher and put them on a white-enameled laundry-tub top.
“All right,” she said. “Give us a break; the grocery-store man's
got me married to him already.”
Dave ogled her from head to foot—his eyes sparkling as they swept
her hips. “I bet my pardner wouldn't mind a bit, good as you look,
babes.”
“Say, handsome, how’s about fixin' your ol' lady a drink,” Hattie
commanded, waving her hand towards a bottle of whisky standing
on an end table at her elbow. “So she can get herself ready to go to
the party.”
“It’ll never happen tonight,” Ester cut in. “The drink part's all
right. But no party.”
For the next hour they lounged about, drinking, talking, and
laughing over various little Fishbowl incidents. They had nearly
emptied the quart bottle and were so mellow that not even the most
affluent among the Fishbowlers could have outshined them. As Asher
put it, “We’re somebody tonight!” Then Hattie and Dave left for the
party. But not before Hattie got a wisecrack off her chest about the
“little fish” swimming in deep waters while the “big fish” was at
home with his wife. Ester smiled demurely while Asher boasted,
“Man, I'm a shark!”
Now that they were alone, Asher noticed a change in Ester, al-
though for a time he could not put his finger on it. He thought of
the night they had met. He recalled with what difficulty he had
guessed her age. And now it puzzled him even more. She did not
carry her head thrown back in that sophisticated manner he had come
to know so well. Her breasts no longer stood out so provocatively.
While her hips filled the ample brunch coat she had put on, there
were no curves indicating a slender waistline. Yet her house dress
puckered in a wrinkled fullness just above her broad hips.
That was it. She did not look like a glamour gal. She had taken
her hair down. And with the hairpins were discarded the sophistica-
tion, the hardened and brittle brilliance that sparkled so when they
were together outside. But there was that about her then that was
80


as comforting as the restfulness he felt go through him when he
slipped his shoes from his tired feet.
It seemed to Asher that Ester looked like the young, simple, whole-
some country girls he had known at home in the South years ago.
She had removed her makeup and this, too, served to emphasize the
blunt-nosed, scrub-faced hominess that appealed to something deep
within him.
She was busy, puttering about in the modern, drawstring kitchen,
preparing a late supper. It was a compact little kitchen unit over
which she worked—a boxlike affair that housed a stove, refrigerator,
storage space and oven. Going about her job with a practiced hand,
she slammed the door of the refrigerator, adjusted the knobs that
regulated the three-burner stove, jumped to reach a long-handled
wooden spoon in the sink to stir the pots. She appeared oblivious of
Asher’s presence. It was as if she were hovering happily above the
very center of her universe, that which gave substance and meaning
to her existence. She hummed to herself. Yet her lips gave life to no
particular tune, just a flutter of jumbled melody. -
Presently, she had the supper ready. They ate at a drop-leaf table
which stood before an areaway window framed in summery flowered
drapes. Ester pronounced it a simple meal hurriedly put together:
the ends of a chicken which she had creamed and poured over toast,
string beans, candied sweet potatoes dripping in a thick, deep brown
syrup, lettuce and tomato salad, all of which they washed down with
beer. Asher ate with a relish that he could not recall having displayed
in years.
When dinner was over, Asher stretched out on the couch con-
tentedly. His eyes wandered about the cozy, cream-colored room. He
had not been prepared for the way Ester lived. For his life was hardly
more than a flophouse existence in a rear room. Ester's living-room
was a castle by comparison. The ceiling was brownish and flaky in
spots and the darkly stained floor was scraped white in places where
the traffic was heaviest. Otherwise, it was clean and neat. Console
radio, upholstered three-piece suite covered in green slip-covers that
matched the window drapes.
81


with something akin to devotion as he wiggled closer to the back of
the divan, making room for her.
“It's sorta good, you and me being here together,” she said. “Like
married people spendin’ a night at home.” Then in a surprised tone
of voice she said, as though she were talking to herself, “Humph, even
I've gone to talking about marriage.”
The look Asher gave her at this remark brought a flush to her
cheeks and a tightening of her full mouth.
“Don’t you go taking me serious, and let the comforts of home
get good to you. That would never do.”
“You’re taking care of that. But we can't make it much longer
like this.”
Ester looked at him: “You gettin’ ready to take a walk out on me
already?”
“Not if we could be like Dave and Hattie.”
She raised startled eyes to his with flickers of something that
could have been amusement or pleasure. For a moment she said
nothing, examining his face as if she were searching for the answer
to an unasked question.
“Hattie's a lucky girl. You don't find men like Dave every day.
Would you know what to do,” she hesitated warily, looking into his
eyes, “if you had things your way?”
“If you think I wouldn't, why don't you try me, baby?”
For a moment Asher thought she was almost ready to say, “I’ll
take you at your word.” Instead, she said: “You know, it's awful hard
for a girl struggling along by herself, and when you got a child look-
ing to you, you have to do a lot of things. Whether you wanta or not
don’t matter.”
“I won't let you down. Look, I'm workin’ in the front room now,
and I’ll soon be on my feet. We can make it.”
For a moment she searched his face. He reached up and took hold
of her shoulders. Then he kissed her tenderly. When he released her,
she rested her head on his shoulder. Her body lay crumpled over his
for a long time, shaking gently. When she was calm again, she said:
83


“Damn it, I didn't mean for this to happen.”
He kissed her again, long and ardently. Then she shook her head
and blew the air violently, and her breasts rose and fell.
“Well, we'll see what happens. I hope you know, life isn't all a
jug of whisky and good times. If you ever mess up, don't come around
tryin' to beg back; just keep on going.”
“No chance of my doin’ that,” he beamed.
He felt a wild, almost insane desire to let out a loud, delirious
whoop.
4.
THE THREAT of rain in the warm, soft haze had cleared. Now a breeze
was blowing, curling the edge of the waves. The water had lost its
gray, misty look and reflected the clear blue of the sky. The ad-
vance guard of the Sunday crowd had collected at the end of City
Island Road, watching the small single-sail boats that moved in the
Sound. For the most part, the crowd leaned against the top bar of
a waist-high white fence that stretched across the broad street where
the asphalt pavement came to an abrupt end. Before them, the road-
way sloped gently down to where a wartime Coast Guard patrol
boat, white and shining in the sunlight, was berthed in an old ferry-
boat slip.
They had not spoken after leaving the bus terminal, a block from
where they were standing. But then, Asher thought, conversation was
hardly necessary. He watched the wide-winged gulls as they wheeled
in the sky, swooping down now and then into the spray of the white-
caps, and wondered if the water was as cool as it looked.
Ester, standing upright with one arm linked in Asher's, inhaled
deeply of the tangy saltiness in the air. She watched the sparrows
skipping through the small trees—like marionettes dancing to a
Viennese waltz—before a row of unoccupied Coast Guard barracks
at right angles to the fence. “Well,” she said, “isn't this better than
84


staying in bed until the last minute and rushing like mad?” There
was a smile on her face, possessive pride in her voice.
Asher smiled too, but not very enthusiastically as he studied Ester
for a moment. Had she been on the boardwalk at Atlantic City or
some place where the rich played, he could have understood her
enjoyment. But this was just the uninviting end of City Island.
What was there about the place that seemed to excite Ester? There
was an enchanted look in her large black eyes. Her voice was gentle,
clear and low. And her dark hair, streaked with brown highlights
which the gleaming sun had turned almost auburn, fluttered in the
breeze.
With a natural grace she led him away from the crowd, along a
narrow footpath which marked the boundary line of a private club's
grounds, to a little knoll where tall grasses grew, overlooking the
mossy rock-strewn shoreline. This tiny hump of ground just to the
left of the white fence was what Ester called her wishing-well. Often,
she came in the early morning before work to this spot to watch the
boats move in the Sound. It was so quiet and restful, she said she
could almost hear herself think.
Asher watched a small cabin-launch riding at anchor offshore.
What a life, he thought, to own one of those things, the way they
can cut through the water like a bat outa hell. A thin young man
in a tan sport shirt had climbed onto the top bar of the fence near
the footpath. He strummed a guitar and sang “Carry me back to the
lone prairie” to a group of youngsters clustered around him. At the
other end of the fence a gnarled shoeshine man, one foot propped on
his box before him, eyed the weather anxiously as he leaned his back
against the fence. Blankly, he croaked to no one in particular, “Shi!
Shi!” Then he hobbled off in the direction of the terminal.
“Poor old man,” Ester said. “Wonder how he makes it?”
“He’s free, white, and over twenty-one,” Asher mused aloud. “He’s
had all the chance in this man's world.”
Ester laughed light-heartedly. “Don’t let it get you down, sweets—
jus’ because you've got to work today. You've got plenty company.”
The night before had been the happiest that Asher had spent with
85


Ester. He had become completely and overwhelmingly enamoured
of her. And the way she had described her favérite spot at the end
of the Island had made him visualize it as a perfect trysting-place.
Now that he had seen her wishing-well, he felt cheated. Apparently
Ester read his thoughts, for she said:
“What did you expect—a love nest? Can't you ever think of any-
thing else?”
Asher winked at her sheepishly. “What could be finer, babes?”
He looked at her inquiringly. “How's about going back today?”
It was an irrational and inexplicable impulse that had taken hold
of him, for he had not thought of taking the day off. But now the
idea took root in Asher's mind; it seemed to him like the most natu-
ral thing for them to do. Ester was saying that a drink on a morning
like this would make her as sick as a yardbird. Her voice was so
low he scarcely caught her words. The desire to take her in his arms
burned hot within him. Ester sighed faintly and Asher watched her
firm breasts rise and fall beneath her clinging dress. “Not today,”
she chided him, as she playfully patted one of his trouser pockets.
“It doesn't feel like you could stand it.” Then, taking him by the
arm, Ester led him uphill toward the Fishbowl, half running and half
walking.
As they approached the bus depot—a frame shed that provided
standing room for not more than ten people—a long, squat bus
circled through the narrow lane that ran around the shack and came
to a halt. A stream of passengers poured out of the bus. A thick-set,
brown-skinned man waved at Asher and Ester in an offhand fashion
as he rushed toward the restaurant. The amused expression on his
face seemed to say, I'm sorry I haven't time to see this. Another pas-
senger stepped down nimbly, turned and lifted an unsteady toddler
onto the ground. Then Mr. Jerry lowered himself out of the bus,
placing one foot on the small step, and turning sidewise to get his
other foot down. Monroe came out next. Completely ignoring Asher,
he greeted Ester, and the four of them walked to the corner of Ro-
chelle Street in silence. When they reached the delivery entrance,
Monroe asked Ester if he might have a word with her. She looked
86


at Asher hesitantly. He shrugged his shoulders. Then she walked
down the street toward the parking lot and Monroe waddled along
at her side, waving his fat arms violently.
Asher turned into the courtyard as Mr. Jerry said: “You sho’
122
know how to treat 'em, Daddy-O!
In the short time Asher had worked at the Fishbowl, he had come
to know Mr. Jerry quite well. While it was true their relationship
began on a note of hostility, it went on to a state of harmonious at-
tachment, then to a sort of calm congeniality.
Not that Mr. Jerry did not do his job. He was always instantly
ready to count one broken saucer or a trayload, but he was so full
of understanding, so unfailingly sympathetic, so unflaggingly hope-
ful that it would not happen again, so at home with the boys, that
no one could possibly have gone on forever being cool toward him.
Perhaps what saved the situation was the lumbering playfulness
which had suggested to the waiters the nickname they called him
behind his back—“the big brown bear.” He was a swarthy Italian,
nearly seven feet tall, with short but powerful arms, clumsy and mas-
sive in his build. Asher's broad-shouldered, slight, athletic body and
fleetness of foot seemed to inspire his friendly overtures from the
beginning. The first time they met—Decoration Day—Asher had
come running up to the food checker's desk with a tray of food to
be tallied. Mr. Jerry began to giggle as Asher slid the tray onto the
counter. Flashing a great expanse of yellow teeth he wagged a play-
ful finger at Asher and asked: -
“You one of us?”
Whenever Asher passed Mr. Jerry in the kitchen during his first
week at the Fishbowl, the man would ask the same question. Asher
thought it very mysterious, and at first could not fathom its mean-
ing or understand why it occasioned an onset of Mr. Jerry's shriek-
ing laughter. And yet, when he asked, the man would wag a finger
at him roguishly, slap his enormous paunch gleefully with his huge
hands, and guffaw.
Asher inferred that this mysterious reference to “one of us” had
87


something to do with the double-talk that the waiters indulged in
when, in the presence of white people, they did not want to use the
word “colored.” However, just when Asher had arrived at this con-
clusion, Mr. Jerry sidetracked him by taking another approach. He
would point him out to another waiter, and ask:
“Is he one of us?”
The waiter would put on a serious expression, sweep Asher studi.
ously from head to foot, shake his head doubtfully, and reply:
“Don’t know if he is or not. Betta be careful.”
“He is—like us! Yeah?”
“Like us an’ one of us ain’t the same. Betta be careful.”
Time and again Asher would come into the kitchen to find Mr.
Jerry sweating as he counted endless platters piled on waiters’ trays,
all the while tugging at the wide belt he wore around his trousers.
Yet, no matter how busy the man was, he always found time to in-
quire with an elaborate, strained, and beseeching courtesy:
“Is he one of us?”
Then came the day that Asher let the stack of luncheon plates
slither out of his hands, and Mr. Jerry had been right on the job
counting every last chip. That had been followed by an itemized bill
which served to explain the three-dollar-and-forty-cent deduction
Asher found in his pay envelope. And for several days after that,
whenever Asher saw Mr. Jerry he glowered at him with hostility.
But Mr. Jerry took care that their eyes did not meet, for he seemed
so completely wrapped up in thought that he appeared not to notice
Asher. Even the irises in his round eyes slurred off furtively to the
corners of the dull, speckled whites as he checked Asher's tray in a
routine, preoccupied manner.
Mr. Jerry had an infinite capacity for making a person feel what
he himself felt. If the kitchen was almost unbearably hot—and it was
twice as hot and humid as any spot on the Island—this ponderous
man would heave a sigh, gasp for breath, and his auditor would
immediately be almost overcome with the heat, too. With this great
capacity, he soon wormed his way back into Asher's good graces. Mr.
Jerry, however, was discreet enough to wait until the glare in Asher's
88


eyes had softened. Then his friskiness got the better of him, and as
Asher passed him one day he said, in a low voice:
“Tough! tough! tough!”
For several days after that, whenever Asher passed, Mr. Jerry
would repeat this outcry in a low, throaty voice. At first, Asher won-
dered if the man were making fun of him. Slowly, however, he became
aware that there was about the man's expression a sad, wailing under-
tone such as he had caught in many a blues song. And in a short
time Asher came to feel, even to throb, with the slow, steady beat of
Mr. Jerry's question as he once had to the moody utterances of
people “down home.” Then, one day, Mr. Jerry asked Asher again:
“You one of us?”
And Asher said: “Sure.”
This reduced Mr. Jerry to such a paroxysm of mirth that, for a
moment, he rocked back and forth. Then he leaned forward over the
desk, holding the sides of his paunch as if he had a stomach-ache, and
chuckled faintly.
“I knew all the time—you in the Boat Club with us!”
There was no mystery for Asher about the Boat Club. For mem-
bership in this club required only that a waiter hold and hide the
silverware during rush hours. He knew the practice had started on
river boats where, because of cramped kitchen facilities, waiters after
washing the silverware themselves carried it about on their trays.
But there at the Fishbowl—unlike any other landlocked place he'd
worked—the more enterprising waiters hid the silverware by the tray-
load. So frugal was the Kingfish that he replaced each two dozen
teaspoons with six new, gleaming ones. What's more, the waiters car-
ried their allotment of cocktail forks in their pockets lest they dis-
appear with the souvenir-hunters among the restaurant's patrons. Not
that cocktail forks were scarce. But this way the waiters did not tilt
the scales of supply and demand. The headwaiter extracted a dollar
for each of the Kingfish's cocktail forks, lost either to some depart-
ing guest or in the soiled linen. Of course, the waiters searched
everywhere for lost cocktail forks, in the soiled-linen hampers, in the
service buffets, on the floors, under the tables, in the huge silverware
89


boxes that were kept in the kitchen. And whenever Mr. Jerry saw
Asher searching frantically for a cocktail fork he would heave a
sigh and say: “It’s a tough way to make a living.”
Asher would sigh and nod his head in complete agreement. Yet
the chant went deeper, encompassing a whole way of life. A way
of life that Mr. Jerry knew, perhaps, as well, if not as intimately, as
Asher. In time Asher gathered that Mr. Jerry was no stranger to
the ways of Harlem and its inmates. After an apprenticeship as an
assistant cashier in the dining-room of a Hudson River pleasure boat
he had come to the Fishbowl as the head cashier. During those years,
while he literally rolled in wealth, he had lived with a Harlem night-
club singer, that is, until he got caught with his hand in the King-
fish's till. After a short stay in jail, and a longer stay on the streets
hustling numbers and supper money from the waiters, the King-
fish had taken him into his kitchen. After that, Mr. Jerry could be
found nightly roaming the streets of Harlem in search of the leg-
endary bordello where Lulu Belle took care of the members of the
Boat Club.
All that Sunday, like the waves that rolled in on the rock-strewn
beach, diners poured into the Fishbowl. In huge family gatherings
of a dozen or more, they swelled and bellowed into the eatery. In
smaller parties of fives and sixes, they came like the whitecaps that
danced shoreward in the wake of the breath-taking rollers. In little
groups of twos and threes, they came in like the tiny ripples of spray
washed high up on the muddy beach.
Up and down the aisles waiters picked their way, carrying heavy
trays, weaving and bobbing through the excited crowds pushing
and shoving one another in the clamor for tables. Perspiring waiters
yelled: “Let me pass if you wanta eat,” “Get outa the way,” “Didn't
you ever eat before?”
In frantic haste, waiters passed steaming platters over the heads
and shoulders of customers—barely missing them—as they sought
to set them before patrons on the opposite side of the tables. Waiters
removed dirty dishes from tables, dumping crumbs into the laps of
90


new diners who, having skillfully moved themselves about like pawns
on a chessboard, had outmaneuvered others in the waiting crowds.
In this atmosphere, the Fishbowlers cried for many things. They
cried for water as though they had been thirsty for days. They cried
for more “little cookies” as if some dark urge out of their subcon-
scious compelled them to make a meal by itself of the Kingfish's
freshly prepared bread. They cried for ketchup as if it were the blood
of human kindness. They cried for more butter as if it were as com-
mon as the salt of the earth. They cried for their orders. And they
cried in general—for they had a handy whipping boy, the waiter!
If the patrons thought the food inferior, they directed their dis-
pleasure to their waiter, not to the steward. If they thought the food
improperly prepared, they complained not to the chef, but to their
waiter. If they thought they waited too long for a table, they directed
their irritableness not to the headwaiter, but to their waiter when
they were finally seated. If for one reason or another they were an-
noyed, they vented it upon their waiter. He was expected to—and
sometimes did—turn the other cheek, smiling, courteous and pleas-
ant.
Asher was leaning against the service buffet which he shared with
another waiter, trying to catch a moment's respite. He had experi-
enced the full share of a waiter's plight that day. His four tables had
kept him hopping and skipping at a fast clip. At three of the tables,
his customers were busy devouring their main courses. At the other
table, four people smoked cigarettes over their after-dinner coffee,
trying to look sophisticated.
A waiter ain't from nothing, Asher thought. Less than a dog. These
bastards think they own you just 'cause they got the price of a meal.
Humph! Don't know where they come from . . . eat like pigs . .
bread crumbs all over the table . . . wonder if they eat that way at
home. Sure wish I could get a break.
The last party had been a particularly trying one for Asher, de-
manding no end of service. They were two solemn-faced and self-
important men approaching middle age, with a pair of youngish-
looking, powdered-up women, self-consciously overdressed.
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They had wanted “the best.” Nothing was too good for them. But
they had had a difficult time deciding what that was. After chang.
ing their order twice, and eying the food of people at nearby tables,
they had finally ordered shore dinners. Even there they had had
difficulty making a choice. The junior shore dinners were too cheap.
The senior shore dinner couldn't be fresh. Ah, the victory shore din-
ner. That was it! It's the best buy, they said.
When Asher had served the dessert, one of the women sent him
back to the kitchen to exchange hers for another kind of pie. She
had cooed, “You don't mind, do you?”
Asher sighed with relief when he finished serving the party. He
had fresh silverware and glasses in the buffet and nothing to do, for
the moment, but wait for another party. He stood, with one hand
stuck deep in his pocket, juggling several coins as he rested against
the service stand.
Suddenly, one of the men called, pompously, “Waiter.” Asher
snapped to attention and bounced to the table with the check in his
outstretched hand.
“What's the matter?” the man asked Asher querulously. “In a
hurry?” He seemed to speak mostly for the benefit of his companions.
This brought forth a giggle from the two women. Then he said: “I
think I’ll have another cup of coffee. Be sure it's good and hot this
time.”
Asher came through the kitchen swinging-door with the steaming
cup of coffee in a small hand tray resting in his outstretched hand.
When he had walked to within five or six tables of his station he
saw that the table was empty. He looked about the dining-room but
the party was nowhere in sight. Gone, too, was the jacket that one of
the women had thrown over the back of the chair she had occupied.
He could see people in the huddle before the parking-lot entrance
gesturing to Chief that there was an empty table.
Asher rushed over to where Chief was standing and gave him the
party's check for $14.95. Chief's face flashed into a scowl. “I told
you, you weren't smart enough for my front room,” he exploded.
“Whatta you think, I’m running a waiter's school, here?”
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“The bastards ordered more coffee. What was I supposed to do?”
Asher asked angrily.
“All right! All right! I'll see what we can do for you tonight. You
know ol' Chief won't let his boy down. But you gotta watch your-
self. They couldn't pull that on me.”
Bitterness showed on Asher's face. He cleared the soiled dishes
from the table, muttering to himself. “Humph!” he said out loud. “If
they don't get it up I’ll be a week payin' for that.” The headwaiter
ushered five people, four women and a man, to the table, and Asher
went off to find a spare chair. When he returned to the table he placed
the chair under the man and as the man folded his legs under the
table Asher felt someone tugging at his jacket-sleeve. He turned and
saw a sallow-faced man with protruding eyes seated with a stoutish,
mean-eyed woman at the table behind him.
“Too bad, boy,” the man said ingratiatingly. “They're all alike.”
Then the man looked disgustedly about him, and brought the palm
of his hand down onto the table as if he were crushing vermin. His
companion grimaced in agreement. Then the man said: “They own
every blessed thing in this country now, these goddam Hebes, and
they’re still stealing.”
Asher shook his head, unable to clear his throat quickly enough
to speak.
“Hey, waiter,” called the man in the new party. “Bring us a round
of Manhattans. Betta make 'em double Manhattans.” He smiled at
Asher. “Save time.”
Asher's understanding of what the sallow-faced man had said grew
very gradually, for at first it did not seem to make sense to him. He
began to repeat parts of the man's remarks over to himself. “They
own everything’. . . ‘they own everything’. . . ‘Hebes' . . . what
the hell does that... oh, Jews. He's got something there. Yeah! They
own everything—grocery stores, drug stores, pawnshops, gin mills.
Harlem’s full of 'em. He stood, with a small bar tray tucked under
his arm as if it were a newspaper, at the end of a long line of per-
spiring waiters lined up before the service bar just inside the kitchen,
waiting for the overworked bartender to take his order. He frowned.
93


Down South it's the Dagoes or the Greeks, he said to himself. What's
the difference? Negroes ain't got nothin' nowhere. We oughta have
our own banks and businesses and stores. Yeah! Then we'd be some-
body . . . wouldn't need the white folks then.
The kitchen stayed in one continuous uproar all that day, with
waiters constantly coming and going. It resembled a huge public
playing field where over a hundred players were engaged simultane-
ously in six or seven soccer games in different corners of the park.
Up and down the broad corridors of the kitchen was a great throng
of tray-laden waiters locked and wedged together in a heaving mass,
pushing and kicking each other, as each man sought an opening.
And it was inconsequential if, in kicking for an opening, one waiter
got kicked in the shins or lost a trayful of food. From this accidental
pushing and kicking, it was a natural step to intentional kicking,
or hacking, as the waiters called it. For a waiter who could not give
and take—that is, to get in or out of the kitchen—was not consid-
ered a “good” waiter.
Asher watched this scene absent-mindedly. He stood, in a crowd
of waiters three deep in front of a huge dishwashing machine, wait-
ing to unload his tray of soiled dishes into a broad dishpan that
rimmed the machine. Already it was piled high with crockery and
swill. Over his shoulders he could see Monroe ladling steamed clams
into a wire basket. Now's the time, he said to himself. If I don't do it
soon, I’ll fall out.
When he had unloaded his tray, he walked toward a huge pot rest.
ing on a table in full view of Monroe. The corners of his mouth
curled in disgust as he spied several chunks of fat meat and chicken
bones floating around in a watery gravy. This was the waiters' Sun-
day bill of fare. It was put out at three o'clock for the waiters to help
themselves. But at that hour most of them were usually too busy
to stop work long enough to eat. In this way, the Kingfish saved a
dollar here, too, for the “pot” was rewarmed for the waiters' dinner.
Humph! Asher snorted. Can't eat slop.
Monroe had been watching Asher as he poured clam broth into
94.


several cups on a counter before him. “Don’t suit your fancy?” he
queried, his voice cracking with sarcasm.
“Mind your own goddam business,” Asher replied, a steady, con-
trolled note of anger coming into his voice. Monroe laughed softly
as he mopped the counter with a wet towel.
Asher moved quickly away from him, and crossed the kitchen to
the meat-broiler's station near the short ramp between the butcher
shop and the kitchen. He placed an order for six steaks, and as the
broiler turned his back slipped a duplicate check for five steaks be-
neath a pile of greasy slips on the counter.
At that time of day the restaurant's food supply usually began to
give out. Almost as fast as one item was listed on the bulletin board
as being “out” another had to be posted. Just then, there were only
about a dozen cuts of watermelon left in the house. Waiters were
ganged up in front of the pantry—on the other side of the corridor
across from the meat-broiler's station—fighting for the last few
orders of melon when Asher went for his steak order. What a break,
he thought, as he headed up the broad corridor with his eyes focus-
ing between the waiters’ bobbing heads, watching Monroe out of the
corner of his eye.
He pushed his way into another crowd of waiters and sat his tray
down at a counter near the fish-frier. He cut one of the steaks into
little chunks about the size of a shrimp, cramming several pieces of
it into his mouth. Then he threw a side towel over the remainder,
lifted it from his tray and buried it under the counter among the
luncheon plates. He looked again at Monroe's back, and a triumphant
smile flooded his face.
That evening, when all but a few stragglers had left the restaurant,
Asher was seated on an orange crate near the water-cooler drinking
a cup of coffee when the Kingfish walked up to him. “Have a good
day?” he smiled at Asher.
Asher shot him a surprised glance, and stumbled to his feet.
“Fair,” he replied, shifting the cup and saucer from one hand to
the other uneasily.
95


“That's nice,” the Kingfish replied slowly in a soft voice. His
body swished slightly. “You like my place, don't you?” He watched
a smile of agreement flood Asher's face. Then the Kingfish dropped
his eyes furtively.
What happened came so suddenly that it took Asher off guard.
Like a spring released, the Kingfish jabbed his forefinger into
Asher's ribs, peering ruthlessly into his eyes. “I know you do—the
way you enjoy my steaks. Was it tender enough for you?”
Asher did not answer. He felt his stomach tighten. And he heard
a voice inside him speaking fast but distinctly, telling him: He would
catch you ... well, Brown, the gate again . . . oh, hell! ... just an-
other hash-slinging job . . . you're so clever . . .
“I saw you this afternoon when you hid it under the counter,” the
Kingfish said, again poking his finger into Asher's side.
Asher wet his lips with his tongue.
“I do so hope it was good enough for you. 'Cause I'll have to
take it out of your salary. Now, if you were on my side, perhaps you
could eat steak once in a while. I wouldn't mind! But you want to
wreck my place.”
Asher heard the voice again: So, what does he think, somebody's
gonna take a lotta crap for the half-ass job . . . He's got another
thought coming . . .
The Kingfish allowed his finger to rest against Asher's side for a
moment longer, then he withdrew it hesitantly. “I’m not such a bad
boss. You might want a favor some day! You're a bright young
man—you could keep me posted about what goes on in my dining.
room.”
Asher felt himself begin to relax. Oh! He wants a stooge? Well,
Brown, you're as smart as him . . . he can't pull a con act on you.
The voice shut off and Asher gave zealous attention to the Kingfish
once more, his eyes bulging.
“I wouldn't want you to tell me anything that wasn't true. But
my friends look out for me. Besides, I see to it they don't have to pay
to work in the front.”
Slowly a feeling of pride borne aloft by the Kingfish's own evalu.
96


ation of him filled Asher. He says it like Ester says it, he thought.
I can go places 'round here. Then he broke into a wide grin.
“Good!” said the Kingfish. “We’ll forget the steak.” He locked his
hands behind him and sidled off toward the clam bar. Asher gulped
the remainder of the cold coffee while Ronald, the pantryman, who
stood nearby at the coffee urn, eyed him daintily.
“The boss likes you,” he laughed.
Asher looked at him blankly. “Yeah?”
“Just thought you might like to know.” He walked rapidly across
the kitchen, carrying a cup of steaming coffee to the Kingfish; and
Asher sat down again on the orange crate, wondering how he had
let the Kingfish back him so neatly into a corner. Goddam, he told
himself, no wonder he's got such a place here; he's smarter than a
steel rat trap.
Gradually, his thoughts turned to a folk-saying he had heard in
his boyhood: “Black boy find yourself a white friend before sun-
down.” He became even more elated than when he had thought of
Ester. He had been telling himself over and over again that the
Kingfish was a millionaire. He looked up at the electric lights glint-
ing feebly through the greasy, smoke-filled haze that hung just below
the rough, exposed beams in the ceiling. Then his eyes wandered
to the narrow casement windows that lined the wall above the fry
stations like lookouts in a fort. Darkness was rapidly pushing out the
late summer twilight. The glass panes in the oblong windows glistened
before Asher like sheets of purple plastic.
Suddenly a vision took shape before his eyes—a dream of a new
day, bright and shining, in the dark splendor of the twilight. It was
a ray of good times, good money, good food and good clothes. He
began to hum softly to himself. A simple jingle, it picked up a drum-
like rhythm through his sheer chanting repetition of it—I hope, I
hope, I hope. As he sat dreaming, Asher punctuated his thoughts
with the chant —Hope-er-hope-er-hope—as the preachers he had
heard in his childhood accentuated the lilt of their words when they
talked of the Great City beyond. And Hope-er-hope-er-hope swelled
within him until it was like a chorus of many surging voices.
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Yes, in this chorus there were many voices. Voices that welled up
from deep within Asher; voices that at times would not be stilled.
One such voice shrilled maybe, maybe, maybe-encouraging him to
lean more and more on his vision of a brighter day. Then another
voice thundered never, never, never. Yet he did not give himself
over entirely to these minor cadences of despair. For each time this
obbligato of doom had carried its part he saw the small, black eyes
in the Kingfish's pale face holding out promises of better things to
come. And Asher changed the tune triumphantly—Hope-er-hope-er-
hope.
Ordinarily, when the time came to go off duty, Asher would have
been among the first to change his clothes. But that night he did not
make a grand rush for the locker-room. His thoughts had turned
again to the walkout he'd had that afternoon. But it did not then
loom so importantly in his mind. It was just one of those things, he
told himself, the ups and downs of this racket . . . the same old
thing every Sunday night . . . with Chief calling upon “his” men to
lend a helping hand. What disturbed him more, was that for a few
minutes—a half-hour at most—he would be the target for his fellow-
workers' scorn, the disdain which the waiters heaped upon “one of
us” who had “played the racket” and lost. -
Chief barricaded himself in the locker-room long before the waiters
came in to change their clothes. He did this ostensibly to “fix the
station board” so that the waiters on the “night watch” would know
where they were to work after the “morning watch” went off duty.
But not until the clamor from the tired, street-thirsty waiters crowded
around the stairwell in the butcher shop was almost uncontrollable
did Chief unlock the door for them to enter.
Asher lingered in the back of the butcher shop as long as he could,
talking to several of the chore boys who were preparing potatoes for
the next day's menu. It was a shallow, recessed bay which contained
a huge mechanical potato-peeler that resembled an agitator-type
clothes washer. Into its conically-mounted top, one kitchen boy fed
the potatoes while the other held a large dishpan under its broad
98


round belly resting on high legs to catch the potatoes as they emerged
cut for frying. Then he dropped them into two aluminum cans about
the size of garbage cans to soak overnight. Water from the hose
which he played into the cans had completely covered the floor of
the bay, and the chore boys were jokingly offering Asher their rub-
bers. But he did not seem to hear them. For, through the open door
and up the flight of stairs that led from the locker-room, Asher
heard the thuds of an occasional shoe hitting the cement floor and
the banging of a locker door, and now and then the sound of voices
raised in approval or derision.
He found Chief standing in the center of the windowless room with
a foot propped on one arm of the wicker settee. The room was dank
and smelled of stale steam. Waiters slouched everywhere on rickety
camp stools, resting their tired bodies. Some were in their under-
wear; others were completely dressed except for their shoes. Chief
stopped talking as Asher entered the room. Waiters looked up at him,
snickering and laughing in a disgruntled fashion.
“’Spects to play all night and keep his mind on this slave all day,”
a middle-aged man barked in Asher's direction. “Gotta get some rest
to keep up with these thieves.”
“Lay offa my boy,” said Casablanca, chortling to himself. “You
didn't hear no belly-achin' outa him when you hada walkout coupla
weeks ago. Chipped in like a man.”
A faint smile came into Asher's face, pushing out the expression
of guilt that hung in his eyes.
Chief eyed him intently over his glasses.
“Well, kid!” he said. “Every man's expected to chip in somethin'
to his own headache. How much you got to go in?”
Asher took a warped black wallet out of his hip pocket.
He put four singles in Chief's hand and the headwaiter's eyes
began to dance merrily as he flashed a broad grin.
“See?” said Chief, turning so that every waiter in the room could
look at the money. “He’s as regular as clockwork. That's a real waiter
for you—my boy.”
Every waiter in the room nodded his head in approval over this
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sporting gesture. Chief jumped into action, moving from one waiter
to another, taking fifty cents from one, a dollar from another. The
waiters proudly put their name on the sheet of paper Chief handed
them, and beside their name the amount they gave. When Chief had
made the rounds, he dumped the money out on a sheet of newspaper
which he had smoothed out in the center of the settee, and started
to count it.
“Ah! Ah! This is fine,” he said. “We got twenty-two bucks. Jus'
enough to cover the walkout and that there breakage ol' Reid had
last week. You know ol' Chief—don't want the boss to think Chief's
boys are too poor to pay their debts.”
Asher had begun to dress. His eyes felt hot and squinty but he
was not tired. But he was suddenly in a hurry to get out into the
fresh air. That means seven bucks for his pocket. But the day'll come
when I won't be feedin' his kitty, Asher told himself, without know-
ing just how. At least he felt better.
5
EveR SINCE Asher had worked at the Fishbowl, he had always been
on the verge of being late for work. Morning after morning, he had
to run all the way from the bus depot to the restaurant, barely cross-
ing the threshold before the hands of “the man's clock” fingered the
eleven o'clock deadline. Arriving in the locker-room in a creepy sweat,
he'd swear to himself, I ain't gonna do this no more. But come the
next morning he'd repeat this same routine, as though some deep-
seated resentment against going to work paralyzed his will to arrive
before the shadow of the deadline fell upon him.
But this Monday morning it was a quarter to twelve when Asher
climbed out of the bus at the depot. He was as tired and exhausted
as he had been the night before when he left the restaurant. And
all that morning he had found the sultriness of the July day almost
100


unbearable. Now as he walked slowly and stiff-legged toward the
restaurant he saw the steam oozing from the cracks in the narrow
paving blocks, curling upwards as it does from a covered pot of
boiling water. But a gentle breeze of warm air coming from the
eatery's parking lot greeted him as he reached the corner of Rochelle
Street, and he idled just outside the delivery court taking the last
couple of draws on a cigarette.
I sure don't wanna be sent back for the day, he told himself. That's
for the dummies he can boot around. Huh! I oughta phone in sick.
I ain’t taken me no time off since I’ve been here. An' I sure got it
coming to me. Yeah, I could tell 'em my leg's gone back on me . . .
get a half a day, anyhow . . . ain't gonna be nothin' here before
night-time. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to move. What
the hell would I do with myself? he thought. He pulled out all the
money he had in his pocket and counted it. In his hand lay two
crumpled dollar bills, three quarters, a dime and three pennies. Grunt-
ing, he thrust the money back into his pocket. Ain't hardly enough
to get a bottle with, he reminded himself. Instantly the image of a
Tom Collins, complete with a red cherry and a slice of orange in a
tall, frothy glass, took possession of him. And he stood there smack-
ing his lips, his mouth watery as if from the lemony drink, until he
saw himself and Ester lounging together in his room sipping tall
drinks. . . . Then, from somewhere up the street, a screen door
banged shut, making a loud rattling noise. Snapped out of his reverie,
Asher looked about cautiously. How can I sneak in without getting
caught? Abruptly he turned into the delivery court and ran the
short distance to the butcher shop.
A clock struck twelve as Asher approached the parking-lot entry
of the eatery. He had had no well-laid plan as to how he'd slip in,
other than the notion of using a side door which led from the
butcher shop to the parking lot. To have come through the kitchen
and pass the checker's desk, he reasoned, would have been a dead
giveaway. But if only he could find “his boy,” Dave, before he ran
into the headwaiter, the manager, the checker, the Kingfish or any
of the scrub captains, then perhaps they could cook up a way.
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Now as he stood in the gravel patio just outside the main dining-
room, with the midday sun shining through the open door, he could
see it was dark and gloomy inside. He heard the scrapes and occa-
sional taps of waiters shuffling back and forth, and now and then the
sound of voices rising and falling in sibilant tones.
Peering furtively about him, he suddenly felt every nerve in his
body atingle. His breath came in short gasps. And he was seized
with the apprehension of one who is not perfectly sure he is going
to find the person he wants to find. But, bracing his shoulders, he
stepped into the doorway, lingering there long enough to make an
elaborate gesture of flinging a freshly lighted cigarette behind him,
as he exhaled a long stream of smoke. Then he turned and darted
into the dimness of the alcove, as if to inspect his station in the
“hole.” From this vantage point, Asher saw that there were no guests
in the dining-room. Except for the center section—called “Broad-
way” by the waiters, with its rows of banquet tables arranged paral-
lel to two shoulder-high copper screens that stretched from the park-
ing-lot entry to the colonial doorway opening onto the street—he
saw that the room was in semi-darkness. Although he could make
out the white-coated forms of waiters huddled together in small
groups on either side of the screens, he could not recognize any of
them.
Satisfied that they had not noticed him, he moved out of the al-
cove and headed in the direction of the kitchen swinging-doors up
at the other end of the room, keeping close to the wall. Watching the
waiters talking in such low tones, he was overcome with curiosity.
Even then he heard a voice rise above the others, sarcastic and bois-
terous as waiters' voices so often are over a headwaiter's misfor-
tune, whether small or large, that takes them for a little while away
from their daily routine.
“Serves him right. Oughta run him outa here,” a waiter said.
“So high an’ mighty!”
Yet, preoccupied as Asher was in his search for Dave, the remarks
went in one ear and out the other. And he walked nearly the whole
length of the dining-room, looking for a glimpse of his friend. Al-
102


though he was supposed to be on the floor, Asher wasn't sure that
Dave would be there. Maybe he'd decided to take the morning off.
After all, it was Monday. And as the idea grew on Asher that perhaps
Dave had not shown up for work, he began to feel helpless and tired
and to consider himself a fool for trying to slip into work late with-
out being caught. Anxiously he went on until he came to the frame
portal which separated the front room from the second dining-room;
and suddenly, sure enough, there was Dave, with his head cocked
in its familiar pose.
Seated at the end of a long table near a window just the other
side of the frame portal, Dave was staring off in space, with his lips
moving as though he were talking aloud to himself, and evidently did
not see Asher.
“Man, I sure thought I wasn't gonna find you,” Asher said, with
obvious relief.
“Yeah!” Dave replied noncommittally.
“Come on, man. Don't go playin' 'round now. You gotta get me
outa this jam. . . .”
Dave's eyes twinkled as he cut Asher off with: “You’re in a jam,
pardner? Well, how d'you like that.”
“I jus’ ducked in. A whole hour late. ... Say, what's wrong, any-
way? Why's everybody actin’so darned strange?”
“Huh! All hell broke loose 'round here this morning. For your
information, the dicks picked up Logan with a batch of number slips
big enough to choke a cow.”
“Go on, you’re kiddin’?”
“Kiddin'! Huh! Well, the Kingfish ain't kiddin’ about puttin' a
end to the figures 'round here. An’ that goes for my single-action
racket, too.”
Asher's eyes widened in surprise. “Now let's go over this from the
beginnin’,” he said. “How'd it happen?”
“They just walked in from the street and went behind that screen,
pardner,” Dave said, pointing to a dark-stained mahogany partition
that stood in the main dining-room across from the cashier's desk.
“An’ nabbed him phoning in the stuff to Papa Slick. Jus' like that.
103


They had it timed to the minute . . . they sho' musta had him well
spotted.”
“Well, I'll be John Brown. He's dumber than I thought he was.”
“You can say that again,” Dave shot back. Then he smiled, his old
familiar smile. “Anyway, you get a break outa it. 'Cause all the pan-
demonium it caused ain't nobody had time to check up on whose
here an’ who ain’t.”
The situation looked ominous to Asher. Nothing like that had ever
happened in any restaurant that he knew of. In Harlem—yes. Many
times in the past, the police had turned the heat on Harlem in what
they promised was to be an all-out effort to put an end to the num-
bers game. On such occasions, five or six number-writers—the small
fry—would be arrested and immediately bailed out by a bondsman
acting for some behind-the-scene number banker. When brought to
trial, the number-writers would be let off with a light fine and a
straight-faced admonition to get themselves an honest job. Mean-
while, the newspapers would have tabloided the news that the police
had smashed the Harlem numbers racket. But this time, the law had
even reached out to City Island. Were the police really out to smash
the numbers game?
That day lunch was a near “bust”—just as Asher had foreseen. Yet
he did not mind that by one o'clock he had not “cut the first check.”
He’d experienced such a flood of relief over the apparent success of
his hastily planned dodge, that nothing else seemed to matter—the
lack of parties or the lack of quarters jingling in his pocket. In fact,
after he had got one of the old aces who worked beside him in the
hole to watch his station, he had gone back into the farm and
barricaded himself behind a row of chairs stacked on top of a ban-
quet table.
But when Asher did stop to think about how slow it was, he told
himself there would be enough customers eventually for “one sit-
ting.” For he'd come to say, like the other waiters, the Fishbowl was
“a poor-ass businessmen's luncheon clubhouse, where they can eat at
half-price.” Almost any hour of the afternoon one could find its
104


-
members and their friends sitting, brooding, hopeful or elated over
the prospects of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar deal, as they noisily
spooned up a clam stew or sucked on the shell of a baby lobster.
Yeah, they'll be here, Asher said to himself. Right at home. Building
themselves up . . . trying to make some waiter think he's got a
couple of big shots until he sees that fifteen cents a head they leave.
... I don't give a happy damn if I get anybody or . . .
Suddenly, a hoarse voice called out from the rear of the second
dining-room: “Brown—hey, Asher, you in there?”
But Asher, purposely sparring for time, did not answer; and the
man muttered aloud: “I ain't got time to run all over the joint to
find that lucky bum.”
Then, as though he'd been half-asleep, Asher rose from his seat.
“Huh?” he said, stretching himself. “I got somebody?”
“You’re damn tootin’. You got Papa Slick.”
With galloping strides, Asher headed toward the main dining-
room. But he had a sneaking suspicion the waiters were playing a
joke on him. What the hell would Papa Slick be doing out here
this time of day? For dinner—yes. But not now. Not the big-time
number banker . . . even if it ain't a joke, he wouldn't be on my
station.
Asher knew all about Chief's relationship with the banker. In fact,
it was an open secret at the Fishbowl. Chief and the banker were
bosom friends. For, with the money coming in hand over fist, Chief
could find fast-spending pals only among the racketeers. Because of
this, and the weekly twelve- or fourteen-hundred-dollar take the head-
waiter brought in, Chief was one of the banker's controllers—a unit
head who usually collected from ten to twenty runners. Thus, Chief
received a twenty-five per cent cut, out of which he gave Cap'n Logan
ten per cent.
By the time Asher reached the main room he had completely con-
vinced himself that it was all a joke. And then he saw Papa Slick
seated at the best table in the hole—a round ten-seater—with five
big, broad-shouldered companions, grouped around the banker as
plainclothesmen might place themselves about a person of note. Asher
105


º
had no difficulty in picking out the banker, because he had seen him
before in various Harlem night spots. Extremely good-looking, he was
a lean-faced mulatto with restless eyes and sharp, strong features.
Chief, with pencil and pad poised in his hands, hovered over Papa
Slick with all the pomp and ceremony at his command. At a respect-
ful distance, the two waiters who had been assigned to the party
stood at attention. Beaming jovially, Chief looked up as Asher ap-
proached the table and said: “Hey! Wine boy, get the wine card for
Mr. Jackson. An’ make it snappy.”
Returning with the card a few minutes later, Asher listened as the
banker discoursed politely and suavely with Chief over the placing
of the order. Solicitous of his companions, he inquired of their prefer-
ences. They would eat what he ate. Chief suggested pompano. No,
it was a most delicious fish but too hearty. Lobster thermidor? That
was too filling. Ah! Lobster creole with hash browned potatoes. And
a shrimp cocktail first. That would be just right. Sauterne had its
merits. But a Chablis—Bourgoyne Blanc, 1937—would go better.
Then, while the meal was prepared, the banker and Chief held a
whispered conversation. It wasn't as much a whispered talk as it was
a parley which Asher, loitering as close to the banker's table as he
could, did not fail to grasp while, out the corner of one eye, he
watched astonished patrons seated at nearby tables looking on with
gaping mouths.
Chief bent over the man almost in a crouch, rolling his large brown
eyes as the banker stage-whispered into his ear. “Everything sewed
up tight . . . bond on the hop . . . double-quick . . . Logan back on
the street with the afternoon papers . . . pay all hits . . . tomorrow
... rearin’ to go like a newborn babe . . . the law? That's a joke
... forget ’em . . . nothin’ to worry about.”
Before the banker stopped talking, Asher saw Chief give the man a
knowing wink. And the thought struck him that this scheme—the
banker's coming to the Fishbowl for lunch—was Chief's idea. Ol'
Chief's as smart as they come, Asher thought. Might know he'd cook
up something. As cool a hustler as he is, he wouldn't let a sweet racket
106


like his slip through his fingers. Then Asher recalled what Dave had
told him earlier. That ain't nothin' but a lot of nonsense, he reassured
himself. Inside a week, Chief'll be collecting up every livin’ again
... sure wish I had somebody like Papa Slick behind me.
Asher knew all about the banker. Everyone did. And it was the
same old story—for Papa Slick was no dummy. After graduating
from a small Southern college, he had railroaded for a few years.
Out of his meager savings he had opened a cigar store. The cut-rate
and cutthroat competition from the white-owned cigar store across
the street from his place was about to force him out of business when
he started taking the numbers.
Now, look at him! Asher thought. A real big shot. Two Cadillacs
. real gone fishtails . . . a wardrobe big enough to clothe a whole
army . . . and money galore. If only I could get a break and make
me some real money like him. Man, I'd have me number joints all
over town, too. In back of shoeshine parlors, candy stores and in
every other old dump I could put 'em. Then he frowned. Why the
hell does one man have to have all the luck in this man's world, he
asked himself. He ain't no better than me. But even then, as he stood
in the grip of envy, Asher looked upon this man with thudding heart
and trembling limbs. For in Papa Slick he had suddenly seen the
image of his heart's desire. One of these days I'll get a break, he
told himself.
That afternoon Asher stood drinking a cup of coffee at the fish-
broiler's station, with a newspaper spread out before him on the
cook's waist-high work counter. With a crisp, new five-dollar bill in
his pocket—his tip from the number banker—he was feeling quite
pleased with himself, until he glanced over his shoulder and saw the
Kingfish on the opposite side of the kitchen walking toward the
cashier's desk.
His stomach dropped with a powerful shock, as he realized he had
not seen the Kingfish all day. He swept the cup and saucer out of the
way, and returned his gaze to the newspaper. But he could not read,
107


for he was suddenly seized with a feeling of panic. What if some jerk
told him I was late this morning, he thought.
Then he heard the Kingfish calling him softly, but he did not turn
around. The Kingfish raised his voice, and called out again com-
mandingly. Asher turned and, using his will power to control his
trembling, hustled across the kitchen. “Mornin', boss,” he said defer-
entially.
“I was beginning to think you weren't here today,” the Kingfish
said in his girlish way.
Asher suffered again. “They kept me pretty busy inside for lunch,”
he replied.
“I bet they did . . .” the Kingfish said, his voice trailing off as
though his mind was on something else, “looking after that number
banker.”
Asher's mouth flew open, but he made no reply.
The Kingfish smiled demurely over the surprise he'd scored. “I
told you I have friends around here,” he said. “Anyway, from now
on there'll be no more number playing in my restaurant. And that
Cap'n Logan—he can't work for me when he does get out of jail.
I just can't afford to have my good reputation spoiled. It's cost me
too much to keep the restaurant's name out of the papers already.
The time has come when Chief has to choose between being my
headwaiter and a common number runner—and he knows I butter
his bread.”
“I don't blame you, boss,” Asher blurted out. “It’s a cryin' shame
what happened here this mornin’.”
“Were you in the front room when they picked Logan up?”
“No! I was in the . . .”
“Oh! That's too bad,” the Kingfish said, “because I was just won-
dering if I could get you to do something for me?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t gamble myself,” the Kingfish said. “But there's nothing
wrong if a man does like to gamble. Is there, Brown?”
“Well, I—I chance twenty-five or thirty cents on 'em once an'
awhile. But I always put 'em in before I get out here.”
108


“That's what I wanted to see you about, Brown. I knew you could
help me.”
“How, boss? What can I. . .” -
“Oh, you won't have to put yourself out any to do this for me.
But I wouldn't want to do it myself. I’d hate to act like a detective
with my own waiters. Why, they're just like my own family. Just
the same, the time has come—this has to stop.”
Asher knew before the Kingfish went any further that he was being
asked to snoop around to find out whether the waiters would con-
tinue to play their numbers with Chief on the quiet. He looked at the
Kingfish, and for a moment he could not take his eyes away, as the
Kingfish looked him steadily in the face. What a conniver you are,
Asher thought. Finally, he said: “I don't think they'd do business
out here, if they knew you didn't want it.”
The Kingfish glanced sidewise, tracing an imaginary circle on the
gray metal top of the clam bar. “Let’s be realistic, Brown. The
chances are ten to one that headwaiter of mine will try every trick
he knows to keep his little racket going.” His voice went on while
Asher struggled with shock again. He came to to hear the Kingfish
saying: “He isn't a young man, any more. Look at it this way. He
should be fired. But he's been here so long, I’d hate to put him out
in the street. He'd just go to pieces. So we do everybody a favor,
Chief, I mean—the waiters, too—we'll keep them from throwing
their money away, and in time Chief'll come to realize he doesn't
need so much money. He'll be glad we didn't let him break his neck.”
Asher got a grip on himself. “Why me?” he said tersely.
The Kingfish yawned and closed his open mouth with a slender
finger. “Up late last night,” he apologized. “Let me see. Chief once
said something about you being a bright young man—when he put
you in the front room.”
Gradually a feeling of superiority grew in Asher, caressing him
gently until he was convinced it was the right thing to do. A faint
smile, beginning at the corners of his mouth, puffed up to a wide
grin. If I don’t, he told himself, some would-be slickster will. It
came to him spontaneously without thought of the difficulties en-
109


tailed, even if somebody in Chief's clique, upon seeing him huddled
with the Kingfish, should mark him one of the boss's “seeing-eye
dogs.” Then he said: “I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“I thought you'd see it my way,” the Kingfish said, giving Asher
a pat on the shoulder. “But be sure to keep your ears open, too.”
And, when Asher went from this bright cook-shop of intrigue to
the farm, where the shuttered coolness seemed different to him, un-
sophisticated, naïve, simple, he turned upon the waiters a smile of
welcome which was really an expression of cunning, of a trickster
who was certain he could trap the unsuspecting.
For at that moment, flushed with kitchen victories and the con-
sciousness of having “conned” the Kingfish into believing he was “in
his corner,” Asher was all the more eager to offer the right bait at
the mourners' bench—that which would lead some waiter to spill his
guts. He was more than usually sympathetic with the old-time Fish-
bowl waiter who continually asked, “What we gonna do?”; with
the melancholy man who said, “They sure is hard on us”; the gray-
haired waiter who, dwelling at length on how difficult it is to pick
the winning number, said, “Hittin' 'em is like gettin' a break from
the white folks”; the waiter with the expression of tolerant scorn who
cried, “If it takes numbers to keep some of us eatin’ regular, well,
that's all it is to it”; and to Dave, who, about this time of the after-
noon, was thoroughly angry and ready to curse everybody. Dave was
really hot and bothered over the loss of his single-action hustle, and
cursed the headwaiter and his number-writer for what he called their
“stupid way of handling things,” the detectives and the Kingfish
whom he swore were working in cahoots. He was very quarrelsome.
He insulted the melancholy waiter, and looking at the old-time
Fishbowl waiter, who, like many a long-winded talker, was a keen
wit, he cried: “I ain't for no crap outa nobody; askin’ ‘What we
gonna do?’ like he ain't in the same boat.”
The old-time waiter, lifting a hand in the air and letting it fall on
the table, and affecting an attitude of growing excitement, his eyes
dancing, began to explain the question. “Have patience,” he said,
110


“they tell us. Rome wasn't built in a day. Ain't nothin' we can do ’til
he gets outa jail. Betcha that'll teach him not to keep them slips on
him. Less he can learn to eat 'em—without salt an’ pepper. 'Cause
when he gets in trouble, we's all in trouble. You know, it takes three
things to be a success in this waitin’ racket: you gotta be a whore-
master, a liquor head an' a gambler. An’ if'n you ain't any one of
them three things, man, they'll call you a communist. ... What they
expect outa us?”
“For Christ sake!” Dave exploded. “Shut up. That's what you can
do, pardner.”
And Asher, smiling still, murmured, “Take it easy, men. Don't get
so excited. The King’ll hear you-all all the way in the kitchen. It's
just a question of-"
He exchanged the smile for a very serious expression, such as he
always used when Dave was giving him advice. This thing sure has
knocked his racket in a cocked hat, he said to himself. Gotta go easy
with my boy.
Everywhere Asher turned he heard the waiters talking about the
numbers game, about “how hard the white folks are on us.” And
they were united in variations of a single song—How we gonna get
a break? Waiters gathered in worried discussion in the dining-room
during the busy hours, in the kitchen as they sought their orders,
in the locker-room before and after work. But what he noticed
mostly was the look on their faces—the nervous, depressed dullness
in their eyes. And, gradually, their sadness gave way to a moroseness
which made them weary and listless, and which, it seemed to him,
would never wear off, plunging them instead into new depths of
anxiety. You'd think the boss had dropped dead, he explained to
himself, and they were gonna close up the joint.
Asher was suspicious, coming into the main dining-room one
afternoon, when he saw Chief, leaving a telephone booth, stop and
whisper to Dave. Going over to Dave, Asher said: “What's hap-
penin', pal?”
“Nothin’ bad, pardner,” Dave replied. “That's for sure—for dead
sure!”
III


filled with the laughter and chatter of the fish-eaters, where formerly
expert Negroes bent and scraped and chuckled over the Fishbowlers
with prayerful grace. Sullen-faced waiters served fish without lemon
or tartar sauce. Indifferently, they set lobsters before diners, forget-
ting cocktail forks, nutcrackers and fingerbowls. Cold steaks and
chops arrived in cold platters. Desserts were placed on tables without
coffee, and sometimes it was the other way round—coffee without
sugar and cream before dessert.
But Asher soon realized the Kingfish was working day and night
to find a solution to this problem. For, as the Kingfish pointed out
to him, “I serve my waiters the best of meals.” And, indeed, since
the letter campaign had started, Asher had noticed that the watery
stews had turned into tasty corned beef and cabbage one day, fol-
lowed by a nourishing meat loaf the next, with desserts thrown in,
too. More silverware, more glassware, and more of everything to
make it easier for the waiters had been put into use.
“But still they butcher my customers,” the Kingfish sobbed.
“They sure do, boss,” Asher replied, shaking his head sadly.
Then the Kingfish said: “How do you think it'll work out if they
serve the steaks and chops separately? And come back for the fish.”
Even though Asher knew that making two trips to serve the main
course would, from the waiters' point of view, slow them down, he
said: “That oughta do it, boss.”
Yet the Kingfish continued to worry about his business going to
pot. And Asher continued to worry over his boss. He watched the
Kingfish's face become drawn, his thin lips purse more tightly, and
a haunting look of fear edge into his sunken eyes. There was some-
thing so tenuous about the Kingfish that, as their relationship grew,
he aroused in Asher a desire to look out for him much as a man
might want to shield a woman from the rigors of life. While Asher
did not then think of his compulsion to find a “white friend before
sundown” it hung, nevertheless, in the back of his mind. Perhaps
this, too, had something to do with his new-found sympathy for the
Kingfish, for whenever he looked at the harried man, Asher would
say to himself, he ain't the worst boss in the world ... I don't know
113


why in the world they treat him like this . . . man, they don't care
'bout nothing or nobody but themselves.
Then, too, Asher soon learned there was another problem that had
the Kingfish perplexed: whether or not his waiters would quit on
him in the middle of his busy season. An experienced employer of
marginal labor, the Kingfish even offered an extra bonus of ten per
cent of the summer's net—from the first of June until Labor Day—
with the drawstring “if you stay with me until November” attached.
But he knew from past experience that, for many among the waiters,
this added inducement became meaningless whenever they heard the
jingle of bigger tips and a better gamble elsewhere. And when he
asked what the boys were talking about, Asher looked into his shy
and haunting eyes a long time before answering, searching the deli-
cate features of his face lest he give the wrong answer. Then Asher
said:
“A few of 'em's thinkin’ of tryin' Saratoga. Think they might get
a break offa the races.” Then a broad, comforting grin spread over
his face: “But they ain't such good waiters, boss! We wouldn't even
miss 'em.”
By Friday the Kingfish seemed to Asher more harried than ever.
“He’ll snap for sure,” Asher said to himself. For every time he came
through the kitchen, he found the Kingfish standing near the checker's
desk, nervously biting his fingernails, seeming utterly helpless.
But Asher did not have time to go into conference with the King-
fish that day. For the business was one constant stream of mad-house
activity. Yet everything he put his hand to that day, from the moment
the doors of the restaurant opened until he left the Fishbowl that
night, turned instantly to gold. Couples left him no less than a dollar,
some of them two dollars. Parties of three and four gave him as much
as he ordinarily received from groups of six. It was a day that al-
lowed him to sing “I’m a waiter” with a deep feeling of pride, with
a feeling of joy in his craft, with the soul-satisfying feeling of doing
a good job.
In the kitchen, his performance was so nearly perfect that several
times during the day the Kingfish stage-whispered to Mr. Jerry, in
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Asher's presence, of course, “He’s my best waiter”—in such a way
that it made Asher feel indispensable. In a way, this was no empty
compliment. For it is not every waiter who could call out long and
complicated orders to the overworked cooks without repeating him-
self. But Asher's voice had just the right pitch, causing other waiters
to stop in the middle of their fumbling bellowing; his thinking
showed the right amount of organization for the cooks to catch
his orders, no matter how long, how detailed, or how involved they
Were.
Furthermore, he got out of the kitchen with the speed of a cham-
pion sprinter, never wasting needless steps collecting countless items
that he piled on his tray. Then, too, on each trip he loaded his tray
with such sureness that the mountain-like loads were balanced ex-
pertly when hoisted onto his shoulder, removing all chances of
“losing a tray.” No wonder the Kingfish was so happy that day at
the sight of Asher, his helpmate.
It was late that night before Asher left the Fishbowl. And, as he
mounted the stairs from the locker-room, he became aware for the
first time that he was tired. The muscles in his legs ached as if they
had been whipped, and a heaviness had settled about his shoulders
that seemed to weigh him down. But he had a late date with Ester.
She had had an appointment with the hairdresser and he had prom-
ised to meet her afterward.
He climbed the stairs slowly and heard the Kingfish's voice.
“I want to see you,” the Kingfish called out. “Don’t hurry away.”
“Sure,” Asher replied, turning from the landing to see the Kingfish
standing with Jake, the night watchman, at the other end of the
butcher shop where the iron guard rail encircled the stairwell and
fastened onto the wall.
The Kingfish turned and faced Jake again. “I’ll tell you later how
we're planning to do it next year,” he said in a way that indicated
his audience with the old man was over.
Asher heard the man say “humph” as if in deep thought as he
passed him.
The Kingfish beckoned Asher to him with a slight and delicate
115


movement of his head. “How'd it go today?” he said. “Don’t you
think it improved the service, having the waiters get the steaks out
first and come back for the rest of their orders?”
“It sure did, boss, one hundred per cent.”
“But now and then I saw some steaks that didn't look too good,”
the Kingfish said wistfully.
“Yeah, that's right, boss,” Asher replied, as though he felt guilty
over the Kingfish's displeasure.
“Well,” the Kingfish sighed, “we’ll just have to keep after some of
those would-be waiters.”
Asher wanted to say something about Jack-the-broiler's attitude.
But he thought he had better not. This cook had the reputation of
being the best in the business. He could manage a hundred broil-
ing steaks with the greatest of ease, remembering who had ordered
them and how many went to each waiter. He was completely the
master of this station—one that on any Sunday would have knocked
out the average cook after he had stood behind the range five hours,
like one of Joe Louis’ haymakers. But not Jack-the-broiler. The
waiters would line up in front of his station, yelling, “Let me go
Jack, 'fore my people walk out,” or “Can I get ’em now?” Standing
sidewise between the range and the counter, Jack-the-broiler would
take a steak as a waiter placed his order from a tray on the shelf
above the counter, put it with a pile on the counter waiting for the
fire, and, with his other hand, flip the steaks already under the fire.
“Ah, God damn,” he would say. “This heat's whippin’ me an’ I’m
gonna make you black bastards wait for 'em until I’m good and
ready.”
That day, every time Asher had gone to pick up a steak, Jack-the-
broiler would say: “Here's the boss's boy.” And Asher would be
the last waiter to get his order. If the Kingfish was within earshot,
he simply turned his back and walked off, hurriedly. Apparently the
Kingfish read Asher's thoughts, for he said:
“Jack's having his day. But my time's coming. I’ll find someone
to replace him yet.”
Asher smiled at this good news.
116


6
ESTER was only partly aware that the areaway had been quiet—
sullenly quiet—during the shower. She had rushed from room to
room automatically slamming the windows shut when no more than
a few drops had spattered the cream-colored window sills. Then, just
as quickly as it had started, the rain had stopped. And instantly
the rebellious mutterings and moody ejaculations issuing from the
apartments facing the areaway electrified the air. Now, as she sat
before the dressing-table that stood near a window in her bedroom,
the tumult from the courtyard pressed in upon her again like a head-
ache. She watched, intently, the opposite grayish brick wall on which
the shadows from the slats of the open blind and the fire escape criss-
crossed to form a menacing, jail-window pattern.
It was a hot, sweltering night—a night on which few grownups
could sleep, and children only fitfully. Outside Ester's window, the
buzzing noises—charged with the weary and despairing protest of the
dejected—mounted until they blared out in ear-splitting dissonance.
They were the harsh, the hostile, the raucous, the morose, the churl-
ish, the brusque noises of the ghetto, punctuated every now and then
by the distant pistol-like crack of a backfiring automobile.
Somewhere out in the darkness of the courtyard, Ester heard the
screech of a clothesline as a heavy wash was hauled out the length
of the line. And a woman's tired voice sang “Nearer my God to
Thee.” Suddenly, through the open window, came the pleading whim-
per of a frightened woman: “I didn't mean to!” Then a man
whooped: “Who am I for you to tell. I don't give a God damn, a
good God damn.” There followed the muted thud of a body falling
against some piece of padded furniture. A watchdog's bark from the
basement stabbed the air. Further up the areaway, an adolescent
cried in mocking sympathy: “A woman's two-faced, a worrisome
thing; she'll lead you to sing the blues in the night.” She heard, as
from a great distance, the faint shouts of children playing in the
* Copyright 1941—Remick Music Corp.–reprinted by special permission.
118


streets, and, near at hand, the loud voices of people in the nearby
houses. No wonder, she thought, white folks don't want us around.
As Ester listened a nameless bitterness welled within her, and she
was suddenly overcome with a longing to escape. Yet a part of her
was singed by guilt. They aren't all loud and uncouth, she thought,
remembering the quiet, pleasant-faced, dignified people who lived
in the old red brick house that she liked so well. No, it was those
nappy-headed buzzards that wouldn't stay where they belonged! “My
people,” she sighed. “My people....”
Pensively, her eyes slanted up to the image of her head in the
mirror of the dressing-table as she went mechanically about brushing
and combing her hair. And as her thoughts crowded in upon her
she suddenly looked at her face in the mirror. She stared at the look
of settled despair in her eyes, at the downcast expression about the
corners of her mouth. My God! Miss Ester, she exclaimed, look at
the lines in your forehead. You'll be a hag before you're forty. Fuss-
ing and pushing stray wisps of hair, she expertly flattened her curls,
pinning them into place with tiny bobby-pins. Then, as she watched
a faint smirk spread into the inviting smile with which she faced the
world, she said aloud, “That's more like it . . . 'cause there isn't
anything you can do about them.”
Yet the constant uproar and the malodorous smells from the area-
way—the air was fetid with the dank humid night, the moldiness
of the rotting buildings, the foulness of stale refuse piled up in the
backyards, the stench of collard greens and cabbage boiling—made
Ester feel sordid and unclean. If only she could get away. Yet she
loved this old house that provided her with an address on the Hill,
with its locked front door; its narrow air-shafts which set it apart
from the others on the street, giving her a sense of protection from
the neighborhood's petty thieves who, coming over the rooftops,
looted people's homes when they were at work. She loved its spacious
hallway, its hardwood floors that creaked, its modern conveniences—
the shower, the clothes drier attached to the bathroom ceiling, the
deep closet space. And above all, she loved the tenants in the house,
for in their solitary, human dignity these plain people seemed to her
119


to have been dropped from another world into the center of this sur-
rounding bedlam.
Sighing unhappily, she turned her back to the pediment-topped
mirror and sat bolt upright on the vanity bench. She looked about
the room—at the chairs, the bed, the dresser, the night table, the
blue-and-brown-checked straw rug—as if she were looking for some
tangible evidence that would establish her status with people on an-
other plane of life: a social sphere removed from the riffraff who
cursed one another, loudly and violently; who talked so casually
and indecently of one another's mothers in the darkened areaway.
This looking about at her material possessions was an old trick of
Ester's. For with a characteristic habit of thought she sought, on
such occasions, to understand this swirl of life in the ghetto in per-
sonal terms.
“Law-w-wd! Law-w-wd!” she said aloud, shaking her head. “These
people!”
But then she thought of her job at the Fishbowl. Of the times when,
for the sake of a dime or a quarter tip, she had smiled and bowed
before elegant Fishbowlers when in reality she could have spat in
their faces, joyously, triumphantly. She saw in that beautifully tiled
toilet the sweat and toil, the sacrifices and privations that had gone
into the making of her home. The sickness that she felt in her stomach
disappeared as the fruits of her labor took on an animate vitality
of their own—the colonial-styled bed, warm and gentle in amber,
with its pineapple posts and roll panels head and foot; the six-drawer
chest on a full platform base, with reeded posts and metal pulls. And,
for the moment, the cool, clean lines of the bedroom suite seemed
to reach out and envelop her.
But only for a moment. For the tumultuous noises in the areaway
—the outcry of those who had been fenced in from the privileges of
first-class citizenship and, yes, the responsibilities—still crashed
about her. And again she was filled with an insatiable longing to es-
cape this wild confusion.
This urge to escape was not new to Ester. Somehow, it seemed to
120


go hand in hand with a visit to the Mellow-Flow Beauty Shoppe.
For the conversation of the hairdressers was one continual round of
prospecting in the pockets of men. How much has he got? How much
can he get a-hold of? How much will he go for? How much . . . oh,
Lord, how much?
There was one in particular—Miss Clara, they called her—who
did Ester's hair. Everyone in the shop was exercised about her. Where
had she been last night? What had happened to her? Who had
bought that for her? Did she have two or a half-dozen “daddies”?
How could she manage so swank an apartment? Such interesting
weekend trips?
Miss Clara was exceedingly attractive. Her short curly hair, her
boyish manner, and her style of dressing—in tailored fashion—did
not in the least disguise the fact that she was, at heart, a very femi-
nine person. She liked to talk, and Ester would listen. Coming at
seventeen from one of the Carolinas to live with her New York cous-
ins, Miss Clara had married at eighteen. But the strain of her double-
duty job as breadwinner for a husband who would work only for
short spells had proved too much. And at twenty she had become
a grass widow. She spoke of herself as being “available,” and, in-
deed, she was as free as she seemed to be and prepared to fly off
with this man and that provided, of course, he had a pocketful of
dollars.
Yet Ester knew that this woman, whose only allegiance seemed to
be toward her hardened and independent love life, often dreamed of
the ideal husband. The man with a steady job, who brought his
money home, who would make it possible for her to live a Holly-
wood version of a life of ease and comfort. But she often said to
Ester:
“There ain't no such animal. They ain't no good, runnin’ with
every whore who'll go to bed with 'em. Then turn around and beat
on you all the time, expectin' you to satisfy 'em when they're ready
for it.”
But then when she and Ester would talk about their problems—
about the fate which had tossed them in the welter of the ghetto, of
121


their own lost, so utterly lost, way of life—Miss Clara would always
wind up saying to Ester:
“Darling, you oughta dig yourself one of those fine oftys, always
flirtin’ with you in that old restaurant over the shoulders of their
fat, sloppy wives. They'd put you right on Easy Street if you played
it right.”
As Ester sat in her bedroom, thinking of the advice Miss Clara
had given her, she heard a radio broadcast announce midnight.
And, at that hour of dying thought, her face was a mask of wordless
pity. The sash of her thin, summer housecoat which had been tied
loosely about her waist had come untied. It was a cream-colored gown
sprinkled with red poppies, the front panels of which had fallen to
her sides, draping the front corners of the bench. Reaching out to
draw the housecoat about her body, she crammed her head down-
ward, and examined the full outline of her breasts and the smooth
brown contours of her stomach and thighs. And the expression that
came into her face when she thought of the pale, pasty-faced Fish-
bowlers was one that a person might make after a dose of unpleasant
medicine.
At that very moment, Asher, smartly, even loudly, dressed in a
brown suit and a long, rolling-collared blue sport shirt, a bright
yellow tie, and a beige-colored pork pie tilted over his right brow,
came bounding round the corner and raised his eyes to Ester's house.
Suddenly he stopped and thrust one hand into his trousers pocket
while, with his other hand, he mopped his face with a large handker-
chief. For he had just come out of the High Hat Bar and Grill, and
the three doubles he'd downed in rapid succession now had him in a
feverish sweat. Man, I’m leapin', he said to himself, looking again at
Ester's house. But wait ’til you get the lowdown, babes, on what's
happened; you'll be leapin’ right along with me.
Asher turned about to look at what he could see of Amsterdam
Avenue. His eyes took in a gang of ten or twelve teen-age boys jump-
ing about in noisy horseplay on the opposite corner, their voices
raised in raucous yet merry outcry, as if each were striving to outyell
122


the others. In the rest of the block there were half a dozen old brick
railroad tenements jammed together; small store fronts flanked both
sides of their dark, narrow, cavelike entrances. Around each of these
stoops Asher watched little clusters of people laughing and talking.
The Avenue had a holiday spell about it. The blue and red neon
lights, issuing from the saloon's overhead electric sign, cast long,
shimmering, zigzag patterns on the sidewalk. An endless procession
of people, young and old, drifted by in both directions. And in the
mistiness of the sultry night the lights made the people's faces glisten
as in the rain, shine brightly for a second and then fade into nothing-
ness. The Avenue, as Asher stood there, was murmurous with the
half-suppressed utterances of affection and pity, the groans of com-
plaint and resentment. And, swaying slightly back and forth on his
heels, Asher felt himself being caught up in the eternal excitement
of the Avenue, and he began to sing aloud, “I got the world in a bag
an’ the string 'round my finger. . . .”
Then, with rapid strides, he walked to Ester's house. He could not
bring himself to give the downstairs bell his customary three short
jabs; instead, he laid on the button until he heard the buzzing click
in the lock. Then, triggering the door open, he leaped up the stairs
to Ester's apartment, and pounded on the door.
“Hi-you, babes,” Asher said, boldly and elatedly, as the door
opened.
Ester's lips tightened, but Asher felt her relief at the sight of him.
“Hello,” she said tartly.
Stepping into the living-room, he sprawled over the sofa. Despite
the stifling temperature, the forest-green drapes which framed the
double window across from the sofa gave the room a cool, inviting
look. Asher watched Ester as she moved silently across the room and
sat down in a chair near the curtained kitchenette doors. A bridge
lamp standing near her cast a small spotlight on the side of her face,
and he could see the annoyed expression in her eyes.
“Well, look who's jumped salty,” he said, jokingly. “What's eatin'
you, baby?” Then he answered his own question. “I’m jus’ plain evil
. . shoulda been by the shop like you promised, to pick me up.”
123


Ester's mouth twisted, but she did not answer. Perhaps she had
counted on showing him off to the girls at the beauty shop. Then
she said:
“You didn't have to come in at this hour like one of those rough-
necks tryin' to break the door down, did you?”
“Break the door down? Humph! I’m ready to break the joint up
tonight, babes. Get a load of this. The boss has put the numbers busi-
ness in my hands. He's gonna back me . . . sky’s the limit, he says.
Told you I'd get a break!”
For several minutes Ester sat stupefied. Asher grinned broadly as
he watched her sitting on the edge of the chair as if she had been
walloped into breathlessness.
“Huh?” she said, panting, when she was able to speak. “Well,
whatta you know.”
“Yeah, babes. Me! Asher Brown . . . all of me.”
Asher watched the perplexed look in Ester's eyes slowly give way
to acceptance and, finally, to an expression of belief.
“Come on and kiss me, baby,” he said.
Ester moved slowly across the room as if she were walking in a
trance. “Oh, Asher, I’m so glad,” she cried excitedly. He grabbed her |
wrist and pulled her down on his lap. Then she tossed her pert little
head toward him and kissed him several times. When she straight-
ened up on his lap there was a misty look in her eyes, and tears began
to stream down her cheeks.
“Well, blow me down,” she said, wiping away the tears with the
back of her hand. “Whatta you goin’ do with all the money you'll
be makin’?”
“You said that right. I’m gonna make money's mammy.” He
stopped talking, like a person impressed by himself. Then he slapped
her thigh with the palm of his hand and repeated the expression:
“Money's mammy.”
He was soaking in the clamminess of the torrid night although
his shirt was open at the neck. Frenzied excitement churned inside
him, rising and falling in his chest. He looked at her, fingers laced
behind his tilted head.
124


“I’m gonna buy the world,” he said. “All the sharp togs I’ve ever
wanted, and one of them fine cars and everythin’ else. I won't have
to need it. If I don't like it I can throw it away jus’ like the white
folks—jus’ see it and buy it. Boy! Oh, boy!”
Ester arched her eyebrows slightly.
“Don’t worry, baby, I ain't gonna forget you.”
A faint smile came into Ester's face. “You sure?” she said. Then
her sad expression returned and her forehead wrinkled.
“Look,” she said. “Suppose you start off gettin' four or five hits a
day, or later on they begin to hit you heavy?”
“Whatta you drivin' at?”
“Do you think the Kingfish will keep you goin’?”
“Sure, why not?”
Ester smiled satirically. “Think he's in love with you?”
He was aware of her studying his face as he turned her question
over in his mind.
“Why bring that up on a night like this?” he asked impatiently.
“The point I wanta make is,” Ester spoke rapidly, “if you do get
a lucky break and make all the money you wanta make . . . salt some
of it away ’til you get on your feet. If anything happens you'll be
able to branch out for yourself ... go into some kind of business.
You know how he is? He'll turn on you like he's turned on that no-
good headwaiter of yours.”
“Sure,” he told her, smiling. A woman always worried like that,
he thought.
At the Fishbowl the news leaked out over the weekend that the
Kingfish had given Asher the numbers concession. Not that the wait-
ers were told, but by way of the grapevine the knowledge of it just
grew up in them. Not that the waiters could prove it, but every waiter
knew it to be a fact. Not for nothing, it was whispered, was Asher
forever “in the Kingfish's face.”
But when the waiters asked Asher, he neither denied nor confirmed
the rumor. Even the Kingfish, when he was approached by several
of the more daring waiters, coyly left them with the impression that
125


he had something good up his sleeve for his waiters. Beyond that,
however, he would not go.
The buzz of argument began. The Fishbowl seethed with rumors
and charges. Had Asher, scheming to get Chief's job, succeeded in
cutting the rope which held the headwaiter chained to the Kingfish?
No, that could not be the case—Asher had only come to the res-
taurant a little while ago. What, then, could the rumor mean? For
it was an ancient and honorable practice at the Fishbowl that dele-
gated to the headwaiter the right to operate a racket for his boys.
On all sides there was talk. Yet nowhere in the little groups of
excited waiters that gathered throughout the restaurant to swap
rumors, avidly and hopefully, was there noticeable even the faintest
trace of sympathy for their headwaiter. Perhaps Andy, the dedicated
number player, summed up most eloquently the waiters’ indifference
to Chief. Serves him right, he said. Bet he ain't got a dime—so busy
matchin' every dollar he can steal with Papa Slick's thousands.
While the talk-fests were going on Asher was, of course, busy
making preparations to set up shop on Monday. There were endless
conferences with the Kingfish. Then, too, he leaned heavily upon
Dave's advice. “Get some washed-out geezer,” Dave said. “With half
his life squeezed out he won’t be aimin’ to steal too much.” Walters,
the dried-up little fellow with the red eyes and several of his upper
molars missing, became the Fishbowl's new number-writer.
Even with all his plans set, Asher was nervous and tense Monday
morning when he arrived at the restaurant shortly before ten o'clock.
He and Walters came into the darkened locker-room together. Wal-
ters reached up, yanked a shoestring cord, and turned on an un-
shaded electric bulb in front of the wicker settee. Instantly the rest
of the room became darker than before. Walters sat down on
the battered sofa while Asher stood at one end of it, staring before
him.
Asher did not seem to mind the heavy dampness in the room.
Neither did he notice the cockroaches crawling over the sweaty walls.
Absently he realized that the sight of the cockroaches, considered by
him so ill an omen, should have had a restraining effect upon him.
126


But today he didn't really see the cockroaches; he did not even look
about the room, for he was intent on looking beyond the door frame
and into Chief's office.
“Told you so,” Walters said. “I woulda bet my bottom dollar ol’
Chief wouldn't show up this morning. No need to worry about him.”
Asher said: “Jus’ the same I wouldn't put it beyond him to try
some trick. Ain't no man wanta see his racket slip outa his hands
like this.”
“Pay him no mind,” Walters said. “Man, all headwaiters is the
same. Give 'em a black coat an’ some poor waiters to boss around
an’, man, they's as happy as four-star generals. I know 'em. They's
the same way on the boats an everywhere. He ain't fixin' to do
nothin’ for the Kingfish to kick him outa here. He'd rather die first.”
Asher spoke proudly: “Well, it's my racket now. If he didn't know
how to protect himself, that's his fault.” Then he lapsed into silence.
Walters didn't say anything. He just sat back quietly waiting.
“You know his boys gonna be 'round stickin’ their necks out,”
Asher said at last. “They already whisperin’ I’m out to get his job.”
Asher squinted, making a grimace. “I don't want no goddam crap
out of 'em this morning.”
“Now look,” Walters cautioned. “You can't run this racket if you
gonna blow your top over nothin'. You'll mess up, sho’ as hell.”
“Suppose you got somethin' there,” Asher said a little dubiously.
“Ain’t nothin’ for you to worry 'bout,” Walters said. Then he
lowered his voice, becoming confidential. “You gotta bankroll big
enough to choke a mule. All you do is flash it, an’ that’ll shut them
dummies up. You want me to collect this jive, don't you? Well, I'm
gonna do jus’ as you say—won't be no number-writin' nowhere but
down here or in the kitchen. An' I'm keepin’ a record of what every
last one of these waiters plays like I usta do on the boats. Cut down
all arguments that way. Now jus' you take it easy 'cause it's gonna
be like takin’ candy from a baby.”
By half-past ten the locker-room was a seething, restless boiler-
room with waiters yawning and grousing as they dressed. Even the
sunniest of personalities became grouchy in passing from the salt-
127


laden air through the stench of the cluttered delivery court into the
ninety-five-degree temperature of the waiters' dressing-quarters. They
groused because their bodies, tired and sore from the weekend
grind, told them it was too early to be coming back, and they yawned
for the same reason.
“Mornin', men,” muttered a waiter.
“Don’t good mornin’ me,” replied a slim waiter. “Save it for them
white folks up there.”
From across the room: “Lord, it sure must be a easier way than
this.”
Asher, seated on a camp stool before his locker, drew his breath
softly lest the sound might betray him. A pulse of excitement beat
fast in his throat, for every second of those few minutes he had ex-
pected to be asked how he had managed to make such early time.
A few of the waiters upon seeing him when they arrived had nodded
half-surprised greetings. Other than that, no one had much to say to
him.
Walters strode to the center of the room. He looked over at Asher
and winked at him.
“Dig the jive we're puttin’ down,” he said. There was a deep
rumble in his voice and a twinkle in his eyes. “New system oper-
atin'. You can git your figures down this mornin’. Taking 'em from
six bits to a fin. Ten-thousand-dollar bankroll—lots more where that
come from.”
“Who you writin' for?” asked a short, rotund man standing just
inside the locker-room doorway.
“Mr. Asher Brown,” Walters replied.
“What's he payin' off wid—toilet paper?”
Several of the waiters chuckled.
“Toilet paper!” Walters jeered. “Well, if you gotta know, the
Kingfish's backin’ him. Suppose that'll hol' you.” Then he turned a
smiling face to a small group of waiters who had begun edging up
close to him. “You can’t lose wid the stuff we’re usin’. Stick wid it
an' you bound to hit 'em bye an’ bye.”
A short, bow-legged man standing in the group looked over at
128


Asher and said: “I knowed it all the time. 'Cause I done seen his
bank.”
Asher's face wore a sedate smile; he looked smug and complacent,
like the Kingfish responding with a superior nod to a compliment
from some brash new waiter.
Instantly there was a wild upsurge in the locker-room. A spirit of
drunken joy was apparent in the waiters, such as is found in the
faces of a crowd drifting in and out of the dazzling attractions at a
carnival. There was a glitter in every waiter's eyes as they dwelt in an
anticipatory paradise, eager to get their money on the numbers. One
waiter, Old Man Tom, said prayerfully:
“God bless the Kingfish. He sure is a good man. Gives us some-
tin’ to eat, a coupla bucks, an’ the numbers too. My! My!”
Walters didn’t move about the locker-room as Cap'n Logan had
done, going from waiter to waiter for his collection. He could not,
had he intended to. For that morning the waiters crowded in upon
him, pushing coins and bills into his outstretched hands as children
scramble on a hot day to get beneath the cooling spray of a water-
sprinkler. Then, too, where Logan's daily collection of number slips
had equaled a pack of cigarettes in thickness, Walters' was nearly
as fat as a cigar box.
As Asher sat watching this scene there began in his breast an
emotional turmoil such as he had never before experienced. And he
said to himself: “I’m a livin' bitch.”
A waiter, who had until then stood quietly in the doorway off
Chief's office almost directly behind Asher, cleared his throat with a
dry, hacking cough such as a cigarette-smoker sometimes inadver-
tently releases. Asher turned about on his stool and saw that it was
Whitie, a massively built man, so called by the waiters because he
was black as tar. In the dining-room he constantly made himself
a doting listener for Chief's recital of his experiences.
“You gonna pay off the new way or the old way?” he asked
Asher.
Asher sat still. His eyes, flashing anger, measured the man from
head to foot.
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“I’m payin' off jus’ like its always been paid off 'round here—
the ol' way,” Asher said sharply.
The man squirmed. “Well—hum! I been playin' the new way in
Harlem all las’ week. Them new-way writers was all I could find,
workin’ late. He lifted his face and looked about the room at the
waiters. “Ain’t such a bad way, that there new way . . .”
Asher cut the man's droning words off deliberately. “Well, I'm
payin' off the ol' way. You can take it or lump it far's I'm concerned.”
“You know the new way keeps down a lotta stuff,” Whitie said,
addressing no one in particular.
Walters said: “That funny system's too messed up.”
“Sure is,” put in the waiter who a few minutes before had sworn
he'd seen Asher's bankroll. “Never did know how they doped it out
that way.”
“Boy, it's as simple as that,” Whitie said, snapping his fingers.
“All they do is take the front figure from the first, second and seven
races; the center figure from the third, fourth and seven; and the
back one they git from the fifth, six an’ seven.”
“We got the real jive here, man,” Walters said. “Ain’t nobody
got time to wait ’til the las’ race to know how their insurance's
runnin’.”
Whitie found his tongue again. “That's jus' it. If you don't get the
number 'til the las’ race's in your money gits more protection that
way. Long's you can call up an’git each number soons its out they can
juggle 'em to suit themselfs. That's why the Negro bankers started
it—to stop them ol' white racketeers from musclin' in on us. Ain't
no stealin’ in the new way.” His voice rose to a high pitch as he
finished talking. He looked about the room at the waiters as though
he were searching for agreement in their faces.
Slowly, deliberately, Asher stood up, walked toward the man, and
his fist suddenly flashed out in a savage blow. Whitie threw up his
arms, reeled back, and fell. The feat made a great impression on the
waiters. While they were staring wordlessly at the fallen man, they
were startled by Asher's voice, which had grown almost unbelievably a
deep: “Ain’t no man gonna 'cuse me of bein’ tied up with no thieves.” .
130


Then he walked to the stairwell and started up the stairs to the
butcher shop. Walters followed behind him.
Despite the piffling attempts of the hecklers—Chief's cronies—
Asher was lucky from the start. During the first three weeks that he
banked the numbers, no waiter at the Fishbowl had the winning num-
ber. Yes, luck was on Asher's side or, perhaps, it was the other way,
with Asher riding high on the side of luck. With the Kingfish's
money behind him and the staggering odds of the numbers game—
one chance in a thousand to win—in those three weeks Asher reaped
the harvest. There ain't no way in the world I can lose, Asher re-
peatedly told himself. Not with three thousand cool simoleons in my
pocket.
7
AFTER THE first week of his new and enchanting career—a week dur-
ing which he was constantly drunk with the frenzy of making fast
money—Asher began to settle down. He felt an odd contentment in
the way he strolled about the restaurant. It was almost as though-he
could see himself. He knew his walk was the gait of a businessman
who had just concluded a successful deal—a little cocky but not
overbearing, with nothing about his carriage to suggest his connec-
tion with anything shady. Banking the numbers was to Asher a
steady, reliable business all his own.
Like a small shopowner, he carried a huge bankroll now and the
money bulged in his pants pocket. He did not believe in banks.
“Somethin’ might happen to 'em overnight,” he reasoned. Yet he was
constantly patting his pocket as if he half-expected to find his money
gone. In Chief's office, which Asher had taken over, when he and
Walters added up each day's receipts he constantly changed the
money from pocket to pocket. Each time he did this, he would
fondle the money as though it were warm and alive. Then he would
13]


peel off the bills and count them over like an anxiety-ridden store-
keeper.
It pleased him, too, that he could solo in business. Chief had
operated in the grip of big bankers and had had to talk and work
his way into the organization, finally winning the right to set up
shop. Even then he had to pay out the lion's share of the take to the
big shot, Papa Slick. But Asher was an independent businessman.
Even if the syndicate was supposed to keep the law off your back, he
reasoned, there was other petty graft that had to be handed out.
Some of the local police whom the Kingfish wined and dined (in
the city-wise spirit that you've got to take care of the boys or they
will not be so willing to come to your aid when needed) had col-
lected ten or twenty dollars a week from Chief. Sometimes it was a
cash handout; occasionally, one would tell Chief he'd like to play
a number just for the fun of it. Chief would not have dreamed of
asking for money if the cop had failed to play the winning num-
ber. But, safe within the Kingfish's roach-infested cellar, there was
nobody to bother Asher. He was free.
Nevertheless, as an independent banker Asher had his problems.
Many a small banker had had a run of bad luck and had been
knocked out overnight. And, although he smiled gaily in front of the
waiters in the locker-room whenever a big-money client laid a bet
with Walters, it was an empty smile, frozen on his face by the tra.
dition of his sporting business. Moreover, cold chills ran up and
down his back whenever the results of the early races, yielding the
“lead,” then the “middle figure,” indicated that some heavy bettor
might have a chance. Then it was not until the last of the three win-
ning digits for the day was out—the number that dashed the big-
money client's hopes—that Asher could breathe normally again.
Yet he was never rude or indifferent to his nickel-and-dime cus-
tomers. For, as he said, “every little bite counts.” But the “penny-
dribblers” got a quick nod and a fast smile unless, of course, they
could be humored out of a few extra pennies. Often, in a jovial frame
of mind, he would assist Walters by needling some frugal number
player.
&
132


“Here's a man that don't want none of this foldin’ money I got
for him. He must be doin’ all right in the dining-room.”
This remark invariably produced a big laugh from Asher's audi-
ence. But if his good-willed humor did not yield the desired results
then, it sometimes paid an extra dividend on other occasions when,
after a harvest of the big payers in the dining-room, the careful gam-
bler would chance a few extra shekels on the numbers. But it was
mostly the big bettors upon whom Asher lavished the small shop-
keeper's overweening pleasantry. Frequently, one of them would have
three or four dollars riding on, say, 525, when 527 “jumped out.”
“That sure was a tough one,” Asher would say, commiserating
with the loser. Then, shaking his head, he would add: “Better change
your way of livin', an’ take another day for it.”
But he considered himself lucky that he could list among his clients
so many heavy number players. These were mostly the semi-profes-
sional gamblers who, although they had been working for years to
get a break, still entertained a vision of becoming big-time gamblers.
It was, they said, the only way to get ahead in this man's world.
Be that as it may, they always seemed to have plenty of cash and
Asher could count on them “to get down with the fast action.”
As a businessman, Asher displayed a rare combination of the
shopkeeper's shrewdness, the reporter's nose-for-news and the states-
man's vision. He almost always knew more about what was happen-
ing in the world of the numbers game than his clients did. Once,
during the early days of his new career, he heard of a numbers
game called the Gold Mine. This was a comparatively new version
of policy which had been started by an enterprising group of New
Jersey racketeers. More like a Chinese lottery than the old-style Har-
lem game, it was an elaborately printed weekly ticket, costing fifty
cents, which came packaged with its sides artistically hand-stitched
like the lapel of a man's fancy-priced suit.
This ticket to riches offered a five-digit “playing number” and
an “office number” which, undoubtedly, was intended to lend it an
air of authenticity. Offering a wide variety of prizes that ranged from
several fifty-cent consolation gifts to a grand prize of eleven hundred
133


dollars, it paid off on twenty-five possible winning combinations
secured from the last five digits of the United States Treasury daily
cash balances—published in the newspapers—on any day of the
week stamped on the ticket.
Although the Gold Mine had not made much headway as a serious
competitor with the old-style numbers game, the fact that Asher saw
several of the waiters about the restaurant with the small white and
blue tickets on which the words “Bonded-Insured” were conspicu-
ously printed was enough to make him as nervous as any other
small shopowner would be at the mere possibility that another busi-
ness similar to his was about to be launched in his neighborhood.
And, almost instantly, an idea clicked in his mind: a receipt for his
customers, a duplicate copy of the numbers they “bought” from him.
This had been the custom back in the days when the number
bankers paid off on the published Federal Reserve Clearing House
figures. But after a crusading District Attorney had “put an end to
the numbers racket” by jailing one or two bankers and politicians,
the new bankers who sprang up overnight merely switched from the
Clearing House to the races and dispensed with issuing receipts.
The disappearance of the Clearing House version of the game had
paved the way for the “fixes” by which one digit was sometimes
“switched” by the ruling hierarchy of Harlem bankers when there
was too much “hot” money riding on a possible winning combina-
tion. For instance, one day the newspapers might headline, say, the
death of some celebrity and it would appear from the first two of
the three digits that the number for death as given in the dream
books might “hop out” and the bankers’ losses be especially heavy.
Then, by a series of chain telephone calls from a banker's office to
men stationed near the track, big bets would be rushed to the mutuel
windows and laid on some horse that didn’t stand a chance to run in
the money; manipulating the prices paid on the winners and thereby
changing the winning number for the day.
Asher wanted no part of the crooked deals that were “put down”
in the policy racket. “Can't afford to have my customers lose faith
in me,” he constantly told himself. And indeed, as time went on and
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he became more and more confident of making money on the up
and up, he came to set great store upon this receipt-giving scheme
of his as if it were a symbol of his honesty. Even the waiters looked
upon it as a token of the first-rate service he offered them.
But behind this seemingly adroit move on his part, there was an-
other and equally important reason why he was eager to give his
customers receipts. For a large part of his business was done on
credit. With the waiters he knew and trusted, he arranged a weekly
settlement. And a receipt signed by himself and the player provided
him with a ready check for his credit accounts. In his “office,” each
day when he and Walters added up the day's business, he would take
these credit slips from his ledger—a discarded cigar-box which when
not in use he kept fastened with a small padlock—and finger them
as if they carried the same guarantee as bank-issued letters of credit.
There were, of course, those waiters not in such good standing
from whom he required daily payments. It was a sort of “drop off
and pickup service,” as he called it. That is, they were allowed to
put their numbers “in” when they reported for work and pay for
them before going off duty. Among them were the usual run of tight-
wads whom he or Walters had to chase all over the dining-room for
payment, but Asher looked upon this chore as just one of the petty
annoyances of his business. Even then, he knew no waiter could work
at the Fishbowl if he “put the evil mouth” on him to the Kingfish.
It was, however, the constant flow of profits—the wrong guessers'
money—into his pockets which permitted Asher's thoughts to rise
from the nightmarish depths of going broke. Then he soared into a
sort of seventh heaven where so many small businessmen commune
with the titans of industry. His philosophy, at such times, was that
whatever was good for his business was good for the waiters. No,
they should not merely play numbers with him up to the hilt. They
should play them up to the armpit, even go overboard playing them.
Yes, it was the very essence of his dream that the more numbers
the waiters played the more he would make. The thought that he
might be taking money from those who could not afford to lose was
of little concern to him. Certainly it was of no more importance to
135


him than it is to the operator of a credit house as to whether creditors
can actually afford his merchandise. Business is business, he rea-
soned simply.
As a number banker, he lived in a world with a code all its own,
where the values of law and ethics, honesty and dishonesty were
blurred. The only moral reasoning he indulged in, he summed up
this way:
“A man's gotta get his bet down. An’ that's what I’m here for.
So why shouldn't they bring it to me? A man would go ravin’ mad
'round this joint if he couldn't get some action for his money.”
There were times, too, when he thought of the people he'd known
in the South. They were the kindly and the God-fearing who, upon
learning that he was bent on leaving home, had warned him no good
would come to him if he joined in with the “midnight ramblers
(and) 'fore day prowlers” up North. But he would merely shrug
this off, muttering to himself:
“They wouldn't understand. Gotta git it one way or the other.
This jive's too deep for 'em. I ain't fixin' to wind up bein’ broke all
my life.”
In Asher's own mind his function at the Fishbowl was a simple
one. He was there to operate the numbers business—to give the boys
a gamble for their money. The suggestion that he had perhaps been
set up in business by the Kingfish to act as a safety valve to draw
off the steam of the waiters' dissatisfaction—a position which put
him in a fair way to being the most influential waiter in the restaurant
—he would have laughed off as a huge joke.
Yet his personality helped him, and he experienced little trouble
establishing or maintaining a steady clientele among the waiters.
They trusted him, which was about the most complimentary thing
anyone could say about him. Then, too, being at heart a good mixer
he remained “one of the boys,” and not once did the waiters find an
occasion to question whether he was “one of us.” Undoubtedly, Casa-
blanca paid him the greatest tribute when he said: “He ain't at
all stuck up; ain't nothin' hincty 'bout my boy—he's as regular as
clockwork.”
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Despite the shadiness of his status he was by no means regarded
as a criminal by the waiters except, of course, by the overly churched.
He had, so the waiters said, an “in” in the kitchen. And perhaps
that was true. For, however long the line might have been at the
lobster-broiler's station, whenever Asher happened by and yelled,
“Can you turn four?” the cook would reply: “Pick up your lob-
sters, man.” Then he'd wink at the other waiters and say: “In the
hole gettin' cold for Mr. Brown.”
Laughter would tinkle through the line of waiters like ice in
a cool drink. And if perchance a new waiter started to grumble
over this fast trick, some waiter would whisper to him almost ec-
statically: “Take it easy, man; he's the number banker 'round these
parts.”
Asher did not abuse his kitchen privileges, however. Most times
he would wait patiently for several waiters to place their orders and
then he'd give his in a measured tone of voice. Each time he did so,
he would cock his head to one side and, adding just a faint sugges-
tion of superiority—you had to catch it instantly lest it fade in the
kitchen-clatter—he would end by saying, “That's for a waiter.” But
that was not often. For, as the banker, whenever he waited table
now, except over the weekends, it was in the Fisherman's Bar. Some-
times, during the week, when the spirit moved him, he worked
through from mid-afternoon until the dinner hour was over. But
more often, he “cut” only one or two checks a day—the barest mini-
mum the Kingfish demanded of his chosen few to remain on the
payroll. This obligation discharged, Asher would then give some
waiter “suffering from the shorts” a dollar to work two stations,
his and Asher's.
This was, of course, the result of the Kingfish's careful planning.
He and Asher had been discussing this the day Asher opened shop
when Chief came into the kitchen.
“I’m putting him in the bar,” the Kingfish told Chief. “I need a
good man in there to take charge and keep an eye on them waiters
and clam-openers.”
“Huh?” Chief answered as though stunned. His mouth hung open
137


In the locker-room in the morning, Asher was even more serious
than usual. He was then, he felt, the brisk, young executive who,
having revealed a pronounced ability to get things done—an ability
due to the ease with which he delegated authority to his number-
writer, Walters—was able to rear back on the hind legs of a folding
camp stool and advise the waiters not only in the interpretation of
their dreams, but also in the translation of their personal experiences
into numbers they could play. -
For this purpose he had committed to memory the entire contents
of a dream book called The Old Witches' Cauldron. He could recite
at great length the “thing to play” for all the common as well as the
important symbols of life which revealed themselves in the waiters'
dreams.
One morning Andy, to whom the numbers were what the Church
is to the devout, rushed into the locker-room. Impatiently, he began
to rummage through his locker in search of his dream book. But, in
the rubble of his possessions, he could not find the dog-eared paper-
bound book fast enough. Asher sat calmly watching the man as he
probed among several soiled shirts in the bottom of the locker.
Faintly, a knowing smile curled around the corners of his mouth.
“Stop knockin' yourself out, Andy,” Asher said. “Bring your
dream to Papa. I won't lead you wrong.” -
“Yeah, I know,” Andy replied, looking over his shoulder. “But
jus’ the same, I want my own book. Don't know what coulda hap-
pened to it.”
“All right! Let's have it.”
Andy gave up looking for the dream book and turned about, con-
fronting Asher with dismay written over his pudgy face. “Man, all
I could see was scads an’ scads of smashed-up cars. They was layin'
there by the side of the road all twisted an’ torn up so you couldn't
hardly tell they was automobiles...” -
“Hum! Thought you had a problem,” Asher cut in. “That's as
simple as one, two, three. You dreamed 'bouta accident.”
Several of the waiters present turned rapt faces in Asher's direction.
“Man, there was so many of 'em,” Andy went on. “It looked
139


packet of papers. There were four sheets of blue- and red-lined papers,
the kind an accountant uses for his daily journal entries, on which
were written every number and the exact date on which it had played
in the last two years. Walters had secured this record for him
through a friend. With a practiced eye, Asher glanced over his rec-
ords, then he said, as if he were refereeing a debate:
“Yeah, 823 comes out every year the week before Thanksgivin'.
But year 'fore las' 238 came out this same week an’ a coupla days
after that it jumped right back—382.”
“I knowed it,” said the waiter who'd been right. “But if you ever
wanta know anythin' 'bout these figures you sho' can ask ol’ Asher.
What he don't know offhand, he's got right here for you in black
an’ white.”
The waiters turned approving eyes upon Asher. They watched him
as he got up from the table and leisurely headed toward the main
dining-room with his head cocked proudly to one side. At such times
Asher knew beyond a doubt that he was it—a big shot.
The desire for the homage of men took violent possession of him
one night in a dream. He saw himself in a huge medieval castle rest-
ing comfortably upon an immense golden throne which was mounted
on a high marble dais. The floor of this vast room was of smooth
black stone. The walls, in contrast to the floor, were of white marble
—pure, dazzling white. On all sides of his dais there stood statuesque
Nubian slaves, fanning him with large palm leaves. Then, suddenly,
he saw a great throng of people converging upon his dais from out
of the very vastness of the beautiful room. As this multitude drew
nearer to him, straining with dignity to reach his throne, he saw in
their outstretched hands huge stacks of dollar bills with the little
wrappers around them that banks use. But, oddly enough, he recog-
nized no one in this crowd, for they were all white. Smiling politely
nevertheless, they pressed on and on toward him.
Then, without warning, the dream changed and he saw himself
sitting at the checker's desk in the Fishbowl kitchen. Yet the throng
of strange whites still surged toward him along the kitchen's broad
corridors. Now he saw that although they were white they, too,
141


were waiters converging on him as though they wanted to pay din-
ner checks with the packages of money in their hands. Then he rec-
ognized one man among the crowd. He was Hans, the big German
who served the Fishbowl waiters pie and ice cream. Several times
this man had laughed in Asher's face when, before he'd become the
number banker, he’d asked for a dessert for himself.
Now, Hans came forward grinning like a donkey, but his hands
were empty. “Well,” Asher said irritably. “How'd you come up
short?” Hans scratched himself and grimaced. “I couldn't help it,”
he said. “I been sick.” Asher raised his head and fixed bleary eyes
on the man. “Sick?” he said slowly, as though struggling to fathom
the meaning of the word. His voice was louder this time, and the
muscles of his face began to twitch. “Sick?” Now it was a roar—
a roar of rage, the roar of pent-up feelings breaking bounds. He
sprang to his feet and lunged at Hans. A huge hand closed about the
back of the man's neck, and he swung up into the air and shook
before the terrible, fury-distorted face of Asher. “What the hell you
doing sick?” Then, abusing him foully, Asher carried him to the
swinging door which led from the kitchen into the dining-room (but
to Asher it then looked like the window of a balcony overlooking
a moonlit body of water far below) and flung him out. He watched
the hurtling body hit the still waters, making a great splash; and
almost immediately from the dark, rocky bank came another splash,
smaller, but charged with menace. From a glistening, moving point,
silvery ripples divided away, as water divides from the prow of a
fast-moving boat. Then he heard a wild and gleeful cheer issue from
the waiters as they continued to file past his desk, respectfully placing
the money before him.
AT THE outset of his banking enterprise, Ester proved herself to be a
kind, considerate helpmeet. Not once during those first weeks, when
142


he was practically forced to live at the restaurant from the moment
it opened until it closed, did she complain of not having him to her-
self after work. She went, quite often, to the movies. Once she spent
the night over in Brooklyn with a childhood chum. The friend was
married and the mother of three children, so they seldom found the
time to spend together. And the excursion amounted to what was
their annual get-together.
But each morning she was eager to learn from Asher how his busi-
ness was getting along. Standing with him in the doorway of the
ladies’ room, she would demand a full recital of the numerous de-
tails of the previous day's activity. Often, after listening to him boast
of his success, she would look into his face and say:
“Dear me! Hope I don't wake up some mornin’ and find that some
hepped chick's walked off with my old man just 'cause I’m not hangin'
onto his neck every minute of the time.”
“No chance, baby,” he would reply. “I’m too busy makin' this
gilt.” Then he'd pat the bulging bankroll in his pocket, tenderly and
caressingly.
On the nights that Ester went to the movies they would first have
dinner and a few drinks at the Shanty. After that, he would hail a
taxi and ride with her as far as the suspension bridge which con-
nected the Island with the Bronx at Sutherland Street. Then he
would press a five- or ten-dollar bill into her hand for cab and movie
fare. And contentedly he'd watch her throw kisses at him through
the back window of the cab as it sped over the bridge. Then he'd
hail another cab and return to the Fishbowl.
Late one afternoon of the third week, however, Asher became
aware of a change in Ester's manner. They stood talking in the
doorway of the parking-lot entry. It was the day on which she was
due to leave the restaurant early. She and Hattie divided their work
hours. Suddenly Ester sighed wearily.
“What's the matter, baby?” Asher asked. “Bored?”
“Nope,” she answered flirtatiously. “But, you know, this could be
jus’ the night for me to get myself in trouble, with so much time
on my hands an’ nothin’ to do with it.”
143


Asher shot her a swift, questioning glance. “Babes, I sho' could
stand some of your fine cookin'. But I'm laying the law down now.
I gotta be back here 'round eleven. Walters is off today.” Although
he did want a home-cooked meal, Asher knew it was doubtful
whether, with Walters away for the day, he would have chosen that
particular night. But as Ester had spoken, it had flashed in his mind
that Monroe was also off that day.
Dinner hit the spot. They had both eaten heartily and neither
showed any desire to get up from the little card table which Ester
had spread before the double window in her living-room. Neverthe-
less, it was clear to Asher that Ester realized he had something on
his mind. He scarcely knew how to say it or where to begin. He sat
across from her, erect on a straight-backed chair, his long legs
stretched out under the table.
“We gotta do somethin’ about us,” he said finally.
“Us!” Ester inquired innocently. “What about us?”
“It’s been almost three weeks since we been together,” he said.
“We can’t make it like this.”
Ester smiled seductively. “It won't kill you to do without me for
a few days. You'll like it better.”
Asher shoved a cup and saucer toward the center of the table and
began to drum steadily on the yellow tablecloth with his fingers.
He was fumbling with his thoughts, while she watched him. Her
mouth opened and quivered as if by her silence she were trying to
force him to speak.
He sat there staring at her, struggling with his feelings. For with
the coming of prosperity into his life, he had felt a strange urge,
one that made him feel awkward and ill at ease. Finally he said:
“You know, baby, it's getting me down lookin' at them four walls
in that ol' room of mine.”
“That so,” Ester said tensely. She stretched the lids of her eyes
wide but said nothing further.
Asher wet his lips and continued: “All this money I'm makin'
ain't gonna mean much, baby, unless I can have somebody like you
to look after me.”
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Then he stopped, for he did not know how to continue. Ester
looked at him with sadness mirrored in her large black eyes. After
several minutes, he asked her: “Well, what we gonna do?”
“What can we do?” she said loudly, as if she might have been
addressing her question to a large gathering. She hesitated and then,
in a low voice, she said: “Are you proposing to me?”
“Sure, baby,” he said, reaching across the table and taking her
hand in his. “Why not?”
The words had tumbled out almost before he realized what he had
said. But in the back of his mind, he remembered that in the cotton
country the legalized marriage ceremony was not always the route
traversed by men and women who wanted to build a life together
at “layin'-back time.” That was the time of year—the festive season
after the crop had been harvested—which had always been asso-
ciated with romance. And it was an old saying which Asher now
recalled: “After pickin' time, good luck comes to those who make
love at layin'-back time.”
And he said quickly: “Babes, you could give me a key to this
place.”
Ester looked at him, fighting her panic. She jumped up, walked
across the room, sat on the sofa. “No!” she cried. “No! No! No!”
She was almost choking. Her eyes flashed angrily. “That's all you
wanted in the first place, and me—damn fool enough to think maybe
you was different.”
“Well, what's wrong wid me havin' a key?” He waited several
minutes, then he added cunningly: “You know I gotta close up that
joint out there every night.”
Ester was calm again but she did not answer, she did not
have the strength to speak, and he asked her again: “How 'bout it,
babes?”
“No, I can't,” she said with a sigh.
Suddenly he was angry, furiously angry.
“Ain’t I good enough for you?” he blurted out.
“How could you say such a thing?” she said, looking him straight
in the face. “But I can't do that. Anyway, if you really want me
145


off the suspension bridge onto the Island. If the driver hadn't
stopped he would certainly have run over the curb and into the tiny
square straight ahead, for there was a slight bend in the roadway
which connected the bridge and the Island's main thoroughfare. The
driver, a stranger in the neighborhood, had approached it unaware
of the stop sign. Turning slightly, he apologized to Asher, who sat
tense, grim. Asher merely waved the man on.
It had been a long and disturbing ride for him. Taxi-drivers on
the prowl for either short-haul fares or midtown-bound passengers
had refused to make the trip. And he'd had to walk from Ester's
house on 158th Street—cursing and snarling aloud to himself—all
the way back to 155th Street and over to the Macombs Dam Bridge
before he found a cab-driver who, headed for his garage in the
Bronx, would make the long run out to the island.
The driver very carefully wheeled the cab onto City Island Road.
And, as he did so, Asher's attention was drawn by joyous screaming
and laughter to a crowd of teen-agers swarming over the sidewalk
in front of the Nickel Palace, the hot-dog stand, where he and Ester
had met for their first real date.
Who the hell does she think she is? Asher said to himself. Miss
Jesus. Can't give me a key! As good as I been to her. What was that
supposed to be—some kind of act? Why, God damn it, I bet a man
I was giving her the best break she ever had.
He was still swearing to himself when the cab zoomed past the
First Methodist Church halfway across the Island. It was a white
frame, colonial building—one of the historic landmarks on the
Island—and something about the simple, austere architecture of the
meeting-house reminded him that he had even talked about getting
married.
Smiling at the thought, he tried to create in his mind a picture of
himself married. But the only image he could manage, seemingly,
was one of himself giving Ester, as he had in the past couple of
weeks, forty dollars or so at different times. “Slipping it to her,”
he called it, for taxi fare and a show. Then, too, he thought of the
occasion when Ester had mentioned something about going shopping
148


for clothes for her little boy and he had given her an extra twenty.
Jesus, he thought, what a chump. I sure was acting like I was mar-
ried to her. Sho’ thought she woulda played it smarter than that.
Balking at giving me a key. Shame on her!
Suddenly he shuddered and his anger seemed to leave him. He
felt lonesome for the first time since he had walked out of her apart-
ment. Perhaps it was because he'd just realized that in thinking
about her he had spoken of their affair in the past tense. Then an
image of Ester appeared before his eyes, sharp and vivid. It sent
a warm current surging through his body. And for several seconds
he was frightened. I don't give a good God damn, he swore to him-
self. She can come to me. I’m gonna be boss of this stall—or else!
The cabbie braked to a halt at the corner of Rochelle Street. Asher
sprang out of the taxi like a prizefighter coming out of his corner,
snorting impatiently. He wondered whether he would find the iron
gate at the entrance to the delivery court open. The gate was locked
after the men who bought the restaurant's waste fat picked it up
each night. If he found it locked he'd have to walk all the way back
to the main entrance and go through the dining-room. Now, as he
made his way toward the court, all he could see in the dim moonlight
were several rows of beer crates piled high on the sidewalk, their
shadowy outlines hanging on the white wall of the building. The
only sounds he heard were the rustling of the evergreens near the
building line, and the chug of a departing motor.
Suddenly a man coming from the direction of the parking lot
slouched into view. Asher stopped short a few feet the other side of
the delivery court. Then he moved closer, crouching stealthily like
a fighter stalking his opponent.
“It's only me,” the Kingfish said. “You needn't be afraid!”
“Oh, hello, boss,” Asher said excitedly. He strained to pitch his
voice pleasantly. “I wasn't afraid, but you never know who's snoopin'
'round this time of night.”
The Kingfish smiled faintly. “I had begun to think maybe we
wouldn't be seeing you again tonight.”
“Oh, no,” Asher grinned. “I wouldn't run off like that without
149


lettin' you know. Jus' had a little business to take care of downtown.”
Just then light from the kitchen flooded the passageway as a chore
boy opened a door and propped a box against it. Involuntarily,
Asher moved closer to the Kingfish.
“Business?” the Kingfish said irritably. He gave Asher a quick
look, and Asher saw surprise in his eyes, a hint of doubt. Then, in
an exasperated manner, the Kingfish said:
“Oh, well, I hope you did it to her good. Now, maybe, she'll
keep the toilets cleaner. They've been simply filthy here of late.”
Asher, taken completely by surprise, stood there awkwardly, his
mouth open in bewilderment.
The Kingfish hesitated for several seconds, then continued: “I
know a better way for us, though.” Furtively, he raised his eyes, and
with a look of longing fixed them on Asher's face. Then, suddenly,
he thrust his arm under Asher's and placed it around his waist in an
impulsive and intimate way.
Asher stiffened instantly, squirming uncomfortably at the man's
touch. The Kingfish dropped his arm and his eyes fluttered away
from Asher's expressionless face. Asher remained tensely silent, and
when the Kingfish cautiously looked at him again, the tip of his
tongue protruded beyond his tightly drawn lips as though he might
have been in deep thought. When at last he did speak, he said:
“You know, I was just thinking when I saw you hop out of that
cab that you ought to have a car.” He stopped talking, perhaps to
allow the benign expression that he now wore on his face to take
effect on Asher. “I said to myself, ‘He’s too nice a person to have
to depend on those nasty taxi-drivers.’” Then he asked: “How'd you
like one?”
“I sure would,” Asher replied, his eyes aglitter.
“They're not so easy to get these days,” the Kingfish said, almost
as if he might have been talking aloud to himself and, at the same
time, as though he might have been teasing a child.
“You bet they ain't easy to get.”
“I know a man—one of my customers . . .” the Kingfish stopped
150


deliberately. “You know, I can do anything I please here in the
Bronx. You wouldn't mind a little thing like the black market?”
“Black market!” Asher said. “Any ol' kind of market would be
all right wid me. But I ain't ready yet, boss.”
The Kingfish's small eyes pierced Asher. “You want a car?” he
demanded.
“Yeah, boss. I want one so bad I can taste it.”
“W-e-l-l,” the Kingfish almost spelled out the word. “You go see
Mr. Jock tomorrow. He's over on Fordham Road. Be sure you tell
him I sent you—Mr. Maddox.” He fixed Asher with an inquiring
stare. “You can pay him half-price in cash, can't you?” He waited
for Asher's nod of agreement, then he continued: “I’ll arrange it
so you can pay the rest on time.” Then, raising his head slightly,
he thrust his chin out aggressively as a man will sometimes do before
a mirror when he has completed the self-inspection. “See, I'm not
such a bad boss,” he said.
The Kingfish stood watching Asher as he hurried along the de-
livery court and disappeared in the kitchen.
Almost as far back as he could remember, Asher had fondly
dreamed of owning a car. And now, on the threshold of realizing
his aim to “get on rubber,” he was not, at first, as elated as he had
thought he'd be when that day arrived. Indeed, he was like a person
constrained from enjoying a stroke of good fortune by a strong
yet unreasoned premonition of danger lurking in the background.
He stood now in the locker-room changing his clothes, struggling
to overcome his bedeviling apprehensions. Then, suddenly, he had
the sensation of the Kingfish's arm around his waist. The lines about
his eyes furrowed in a scowl. He's sure sold on me, he told him-
self. Humph! I can make this queer do anything I want. Keep teasin’
him along—hopin'. That'll drive him almost crazy doing jus’ what
I want him to do. But, it'll never happen. He can have all the money
in the world, but I’ll never be that weak. He thought, too, of the
Kingfish's insulting allusions to his relationship with Ester and
he felt a hot blast of anger well up in him. That no good son-of-a-
151


He was in his early forties, of medium height, a powerful barrel-
chested man.
“We might have something you'd like, young man,” he said.
“How's about a 1942 Chrysler club coupe? A four-door job with
everything—radio, heater, slip covers, excellent tires—and in per-
fect condition, going for around seventeen hundred.”
Asher looked across the man's desk and watched Dave grimace,
the corners of his mouth curling downward deprecatingly.
“Look, mister,” Asher said. “I ain't lookin’ for no ninety-year-ol’
bus. Mr. Maddox told me you could get me somethin' sharp like one
of them fine Cadillacs—a brand-new one.”
The dealer said austerely: “Do you mean Mr. Maddox out on
City Island?”
“That's what I said,” Asher replied impatiently. “He’s the only
Mr. Maddox. Who'd you think I’m talkin’ about?”
“Well!” the man said, as if he were impressed. “You don't mind
if I check on that, do you?” Clutching the sides of the flat-topped
desk, he pulled himself to his feet, and as he did so he said to Dave
in a questioning fashion: “Come to think of it, I believe I have seen
you out there.”
Dave cocked his head: “Well, I’ve been around for a few . . .
Jock waved apologetically as he moved across the rear part of the
office to where a telephone rested on another desk. Asher and Dave
watched the man dial a number and wait for the click at the other
end of the line. They saw his lips barely move as he talked into the
mouthpiece of the phone, but being beyond earshot they could not
make out what it was he said. When he put the phone down he had a
cheerful smile on his face.
“Why, Mr. Brown,” he beamed, “if that's the only thing that'll
satisfy you I think we can arrange it.” Then he became very apolo-
getic. “Now, I hope you won't take that little phone call wrong. But
you know how it is. Can't afford to take chances these days. You
never know who's who.”
Asher nodded understandingly, but said nothing.
99
153


“Now,” Jock continued, still smiling genially, “if we can swing
this deal we'd have to put about a hundred or so miles on it to make
it second-hand.” He had spoken very slowly, and when he stopped
talking his voice seemed merely to have faded away like an overly-
sweet voice in a radio soap-opera. Then he said: “It will cost you
a pretty penny. The dealer that got this one has had it on his order
book for fourteen months.”
“That's all right by me, mister,” Asher said. “You get it an' I'll
buy it.”
“Um-um-um,” Jock said, as though thinking aloud. Rising from
his seat, he waved toward a door at one corner of the room. “If you
gentlemen will come with me, we might have something that'll strike
your fancy, Mr. Brown.”
There were only dim lights hanging in the room behind the office,
and for several minutes Asher could not make out much more than
the outlines of some twenty cars lined up along one wall as Jock
led him and Dave toward a corner of the semi-darkened garage.
“Here we are,” said the dealer, pulling at an electric cord above
a car which stood a little apart from the others.
It was a brilliant and dramatic study in black and white. And its
sparkling finger-streaked nickel seemed to glisten in the car's shiny,
bright ebony finish as the blades of two carving knives glint when
sharpened one against the other. Its light-colored canvas top seemed
to match the spotlessly clean, white-walled tires. It was, indeed, a
magnificent automobile, smart in the sleekness of its lines, the sweep
of its torpedo-like fenders, the broad-beamed, meant-for-pleasure
garb that it wore so proudly.
Asher approached the car as if it might have been a nervous mare.
Keeping a safe distance, he circled it, bending as if looking at crucial
points. His eyes shone and his mouth hung open in homage. Here
was the car he had dreamed of, ever since he was old enough to
think of owning one. He had, upon occasion, pictured himself driv-
ing slowly along a city street with a “sharp chick” at his side, and
pedestrians stopping to stare at him in open-mouthed awe and envy.
At other times, he had seen himself with one hand barely touching
154


the steering-wheel, speeding through the magic of the night air down
a country road that was a ribbon of moonlight with little clouds sail-
ing above like whiffs of smoke coming from a factory chimney.
Here he was standing before this car of his dreams, and he was
dumb! He could not speak.
Completing his circle, he approached the snub-nosed front of the
car and gingerly laid his hand on the fender as if he might have,
in a moment of tenderness, been laying it on Ester's soft, warm
shoulder. But it felt cold to his touch and he took his hand away.
Jock, who had watched his exhibition in bewilderment, opened the
door opposite the steering-wheel side and beckoned to him to sit in
the car. And almost as if he were moving in a trance, Asher obeyed,
sinking into the red leather front seat. The dealer began to say some-
thing to him about the engineering perfection of the car, but his
words went unheeded, for Asher was staring at the speedometer, sunk
in the face of the oak-paneled dashboard, like a child looking into
the bottomlessness of a well. Man, he said to himself, you can save
that crap for somebody else because I’m gonna buy this if it's the
last thing I do in life. After a while he got out of the car, and im-
portantly stretching himself to his full height, he said:
“What you askin’ for it?”
Jock said, “Five grand, half down and the remainder in a year.
And I don't mind telling you, if Mr. Maddox hadn't sent you, you'd
have to pay cash for it.”
“That’s a deal, man,” Asher said.
At the side door of the garage which opened on Fordham Road
the dealer said to Asher: “Have the cash on hand about this time to-
morrow, and we'll have her ready for you with license plates and all.”
Dave's voice followed him as Dave pulled open the door of his car
and ceremoniously bowed Asher into it like a liveried chauffeur.
“You’re solid now, pardner,” he said.
Although Dave's phrase carried with it the ring of congratulation,
Asher did not answer. For his rapture had transported him out of
this world, rendering him speechless. They rode back to the res-
taurant in silence, Dave with an expression of seeming understand-
155


ing on his face, Asher with his thoughts upon himself—basking in
fond pictures his heart drew of the admiration which he knew would
be his from all men when he was seen in his new car.
Asher felt no compulsion to step on the gas when he sat in the car
the next afternoon. He had come alone to pick up the automobile—
not that he had planned it that way. But when lunch was just about
over, Dave, who had promised to come along with him, was still
slowly going about his business serving several parties. So Asher,
wild with anticipation, had come alone.
Now he was gripped by a strange panic as he angled the car away
from the curb in front of Jock's place into the stream of traffic on
Fordham Road. He felt, in a queer way, lonely as a child might feel
out in the open on a summer's day when a storm, a very awful
storm, threatens, and clouds scud across skies filled with rumblings.
But it was all clear sailing as he pulled out behind a truck and
shot across Crotona Avenue. In a minute or two he was rolling along
the broad thoroughfare which divided Bronx Park. He drove very
carefully, moving along at about twenty miles an hour, keeping
close to the curb. Yet his mouth was dry and his breathing came in
hard, fast spurts. Then he saw a car, driven by a woman, zip past
him. And he said to himself, angrily: If she can do it, I can.
He decided to follow the route the bus took out to City Island
through Pelham Parkway which led directly into the City Island
Road just north of the Pelham Bridge where the Parkway emptied
into the New Rochelle Road—the only route he had come to know.
Within a few minutes he'd be out the other side of Bronx Park,
he thought, bouncing around the sharp curve where the roadway
swung into the Parkway. Then, after passing beneath the elevated
structure of the White Plains subway, he’d soon reach the spot where
the imposing apartment houses stopped and the row of two-story, at-
tached red brick dwellings began. He recalled three elegant bunga-
lows which sat some distance back from the Parkway amid well-
trimmed lawns.
He thought all this as he nosed the big car along slowly, and yet
in a way he wasn't really thinking. He knew the route and the dis-
156


tance, having traveled it many times, and he was merely checking
over the obvious and the familiar—settling into it, really—as a way
of relaxing after the tensions of taking the car out of Jock's place.
He had reached a stretch of the three-lane Parkway where on one
side of the center lane there was a dirt bridle path. Almost at the neck
of this stretch he noticed a black asphalt road that swung sharply
off the Parkway in a southerly direction, curving up and around
a slight embankment, and at first he didn't know where he was; for
a moment or two he had the feeling of not belonging he sometimes
had when he suddenly awoke from deep slumber.
Then he saw the murky-colored stucco and the stained-window-
panes of the Pelham Bay subway terminus, standing mute and re-
assuringly off in the distance and to the left of the Parkway, in the
square formed by Colonial Avenue and Eastern Boulevard, where
the City Island bus stopped. He felt really relieved then, and the odd
sense of dullness, or pressure as though a weight had been bearing
on him, went away for the first time since he'd been snailing the
car along in traffic.
The traffic from that point on, bound mostly to and from Orchard
Beach, thinned out considerably; in a few minutes he settled down
to feel and enjoy, for the first time, the cradled smoothness with which
the big car swept over the ruts and bumps in the road. And by the
time he was out on the Island—in fact, within sight of the restaurant
—he was filled with a welter of new and conflicting sensations. Al-
most simultaneously there swelled within him an intense, childlike
excitement and frenzy over possession of the automobile, then a
morbid anxiety and solicitous craving for the waiters to put their
stamp of approval upon it, a furious exultation over it, a sense of
raging triumph over it, and then a blinding fear that made him,
momentarily, want to turn about and go back—anywhere.
When he inched the big convertible up to the curb between the
two canopied entrances of the restaurant he was so carried away with
elation that he didn't notice two waiters airing themselves under the
broad-striped awning which extended from the door of the farm to
the edge of the sidewalk. He sat there trembling in a paroxysm of
157


delight, overflowing with the sheer joy of possession as he toyed
with the cream-colored, finger-notched steering wheel. Then, sud-
denly, he eyed the instrument panel—a marvel of gleaming gadgets
set in a slab of richly grained oak-as if he were seeing it for the
first time. Curious, he lifted a lever that controlled a red light in the
rear of the car's body. He shrugged his shoulders as nothing hap-
pened, turning his attention to the rheostat knob that jutted down
from the dashboard. Then he flipped a tiny, silvery knob, and in-
stantly he felt a draft of cool air from the car's air-conditioner. He
drank in the delightful fragrance, so like the fresh, gentle breezes
that blow in high places after a summer rain.
Once his curiosity had been satisfied he continued to sit there for
several minutes more, oblivious of his surroundings. A new plan was
shaping in his mind. Out of the deep-rooted joy over his possession,
a joy which seemed to fill him with kindness and goodness, he now
wanted to share his sharp car with Ester. Then it occurred to him
that he had not seen her since their quarrel, and he wondered how
she'd greet him. Would she be interested?
Looking about at the luxurious, dark red leather upholstery, he
flashed a broad grin. I’ll bet a man, he said to himself, she'll be easy
to get along wid now.
He hopped out of the car nimbly, and becoming aware of the two
waiters as they recognized him for the first time, he smiled quickly
at them both and said: “How'm I doin’?” He winked at them, trying
to appear at ease. Apparently his question was lost in the awe he
inspired in the two men, for he heard one of them say as he nudged
his companion:
“Holy jumping Jeehovah! Looka that glory wagon Asher's got.”
“Ga—a—a—a—wd damn!”
Asher stood sidewise, gently pushing the car door shut and, at
the same time, watching the waiters out of the corner of his eye.
Then he turned, walked swiftly away, and entered the restaurant
through the main entrance.
No sooner had he crossed the threshold, however, than he stopped
abruptly as though he had been halted by a physical force. Perhaps
158


it was the vague sense of barren waste that the luxury restaurant
conveyed to him during the dull period of its late afternoon naked-
ness. For with the exception of three couples seated in the hole,
and the puffy-faced cashier leisurely arranging a handful of luncheon
checks into three piles as if he might have been playing a game of
solitaire, the room was deserted.
Asher looked over his shoulder quickly as though suspecting
that somebody were watching him. Then, with a rapid, loping stride,
and a wide grin on his face, he crossed the room.
Ester was sitting listlessly in an easy chair in the powder-room,
having just finished her afternoon chores, when Asher stuck his head
inside the doorway.
“Hullo!” he grinned. “You look like you ain't doin' so well?”
“Whatta you care?” she said, trying to put a laugh into her voice.
Her pretense failed.
“Well, I like that,” he said. “Here I come to tell you 'fore anybody
else . . .” He hesitated as if he were rolling something good to eat
around in his mouth: “To tell you I got a brand-new car, babes.”
“That's just like you,” Ester said. “I knew you'd do it or bust.”
“Dave tell you?” he asked with sudden suspicion. “That so-and-so.
He promised he wouldn't open his mouth about it.”
Ester looked at Asher for a minute. “No, he didn't tell me. But
I know you.”
“It’s right outside,” Asher said, waving his hand toward the main
entrance. “Come on out an’ lamp it.”
“I can't now. Hattie's gone off for a while.”
“You act like you ain’t even interested.”
“It’ll keep,” she said. Then she smiled and added banteringly:
“You can come around some rainy night an’ give me a ride home if
you haven't forgotten all your ol' friends by then.”
Asher stared at Ester.
“I—I was countin' on drivin' you home tonight, baby.”
Ester smiled quizzically. “All right,” she said quietly.
He dropped his eyes momentarily and, becoming aware for the
first time that he stood there in his street clothes, said: “I’ll be seeing
159


you down on the corner after supper.” Ester only nodded, but he was
aware of her watching him as he trotted across the dining-room
and went through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
It was a little past eight o'clock when Asher met Ester at the cor-
ner of Rochelle Street. Dusk had begun to settle over the Island, and
the street in front of the restaurant was lined with parked cars. And
as he led her to the automobile his step faltered before a small
sedan parked just in front of his. Then he moved ahead to the big
Cadillac, glimmering in the twilight. Obviously, this magnificent
automobile was more than Ester had expected. For when Asher
climbed in on the other side of her, she whispered: “Well, do Jesus!”
He grinned triumphantly. “You like it, baby?” he asked.
“Do I like it?” She repeated the question as if not knowing what
else to say. “Anybody would like this, and you know it, too, Asher
Brown.”
She snuggled back on the cushiony seat, stretching her legs out
luxuriously. Then she watched with fascination as Asher snapped a
switch on the instrument panel and the power-operated canvas top
slowly rose and folded into the narrow trough behind the rear seat.
It took him several minutes to maneuver the long car out from be-
tween the others. But with Ester at his side he somehow managed
neatly. Slowly, he turned the car around on the wide avenue and
let it idle for a moment with its motor murmuring sweetly. Then in
a burst of speed he made a hair-trigger getaway. And almost within
seconds the car had shot over the bridge and onto the mainland,
having sped over the Island as if it had ghosted through a sleeping
town, in soft, soundless stride.
Looking up into the rear-view mirror, Asher, smiling contentedly
to himself, watched Ester out of the corner of his eye. Gazing off in
space, her face soft and dreamy, she appeared to him half asleep.
And Asher, following her glance, looked about at the receding
Parkway. Oaks and evergreens and elms stood shimmering in the
summer gloaming. Their dark foliage vibrant in the breeze presented
enchantment. When he looked at Ester again he saw that her eyes |
160


were wide open, and after a while Asher heard her voice, hardly
audible, and the whispered hum of a song that he recognized with a
little tingling thrill of delight.
His long, bony hand patted her knee.
She turned her face to him, her eyes puzzled. “I can scarcely be-
lieve it, Asher.” Her gaze shifted in a wondering look at the instru-
ment panel. “Tell me, I’m not dreaming?” Her whispering hum
began again: “You’re living—you're living in a great big way.”
“No, babes,” Asher said in a clear, firm voice. “It ain't no dream.
It's the real thing. You didn't believe me when I told you I'd get
mine outa this man's world, did you? Well, jus' you stick with me
an’ you'll really be livin' on Easy Street.”
Asher drove on in silence. But even then, as he looked occasionally
at Ester, her head tilted against the red leather back-rest, her eyes
delighted, it seemed to him that he could read her mind. Yeah, babes,
you're sent now, he thought, sent all the way like a ton of bricks.
I betcha I won't have no trouble outa you looking at another man.
'Cause you're already on Easy Street.
Wrapped in his thoughts, Asher moved the big car through Bronx
Park. And, as the car zoomed through the night, he became en-
tranced with the nocturnal sights and sounds. He stared up at the
sky, a pastel of white and powdered-blue fleecy clouds, glowing as
if the light from the moon were fluorescent. Then his eyes traveled
in the arc of glareless light that the car's sealed beam lamps cut into
the satiny night. He watched yawning bumps cast shadows ahead of
the car, but the line of the lights never wavered, so level was its
arrow-flight ride. He heard the swishing sound that the light wind
made as it cascaded over the slanting windshield, drifting over his
head like the low, deep, libidinous sighs coming from a person moved
by a haunting blues song.
The Park dropped behind, and now in the heavy traffic of Fordham
Road Asher drove more slowly along the broad avenue which led
past the Fordham University campus and uphill through the fash-
ionable shopping district of the Bronx. Several times he had to halt
for a traffic light. And he watched intently as passersby looked, first
16]


with admiration at the gleaming automobile, and then gawked at
him and Ester with expressions that turned slowly from disbelief
to perplexity then to incredulity, settling finally on a note of envy.
Once, he snorted derisively.
Then he said: “Looka these poor white bastards oglin' us.”
“They make me sick,” Ester replied. “They look at you like they
think you're not supposed to have anything at all.”
Asher, who had to keep his eye on the car ahead, patted her thigh
with one hand.
“Pay 'em no mind, babes,” he said. “Pay 'em no rabbit-ass mind.”
Asher nosed the car along for several blocks in the creeping
stream of automobiles. When he reached the Grand Concourse he
took the wide turn with ease and cruised down the wide boulevard.
A red light blinked on as he approached the next intersection and
he had to swerve the car off its path, to avoid running head-on into
an ancient automobile that slowed down in front of him. Neverthe-
less, he managed to bring the car to a shrieking stop at the corner
just as the jalopy groaned up beside his car. Its driver, a blubbery
man, running sweat, slumped over the wheel. Asher looked from the
man to Ester, and said in a loud voice:
“They oughta run these goddam struggle-buggies offa the street.
Gettin' in people's way an' clutterin' up everything.”
With an expression of disdain, Asher watched out the corner of
his eye as the blubbery driver looked in his direction, heaved his
shoulders once and then let them sag again.
“Just the same,” Ester said, “I’d like to get out of here tonight
with my neck in one piece. It may not be the best neck in the world,
but it suits me. So take it easy, will you, daddy?”
A childish giggle came from the back window of the old car. Asher
turned his head and saw a chalky-faced young girl. Her blonde
bobbed hair was scraggy and her makeup seemed to have been ap-
plied with a paint brush. She winked at Asher, nodding to him in a
suggestive manner.
The lights changed again almost before Asher became aware of the
girl's practiced friendly gesture. He leaned forward on his seat,
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shoulders squared, chest expanded, as he finger-flicked the gearshift.
Then, as the car zoomed ahead in a terrific burst of sprinting power,
Ester's words seemed to float back into his consciousness.
“You’re safe, baby,” he said in a timid voice, keeping his eyes
straight ahead of him. “Handles like a baby carriage. Jus' like singin'
a song, back-and-forth. Nothin’ to it! It's wonderful!”
Asher meanwhile continued to smile contentedly over what he
took to have been an expression of the young girl's respect for him.
But suddenly he became aware of Ester's silence. Casting a cautious
eye in her direction, Asher saw that beneath her “sharp” green hat
her eyes were smouldering. Well, looka here, he said to himself,
she's jealous. How d'you like that. Now, I know she's sent! Boy oh
boy, what a car’ll do to these chicks. That wasn't nothin' but a little
ol' white tramp, babes . . . an’ a chippie to boot. Now, of course, if
she had been one a those fine of ys like those babies that come out
to the joint with lots of money an' everythin’—that'd be a different
story. Glancing sidewise at Ester again, he went on: She sho' would
have to have everything to stand up with you, babes. But not no
cow like that poor-ass bitch. No, sir!
He could not find anything to talk to Ester about during the re-
mainder of the ride, and when he stopped the car in front of her
house, he sat awkwardly as if not knowing how to combat her silence.
Then, inexplicably, Ester snatched the ignition key from its keyhole
in the instrument panel and, hopping out of the car, ran into the
vestibule.
Ester took Asher so completely unaware that several minutes
elapsed before he followed her. She had left the apartment door ajar
for him and when he walked in, looking about the room as if he
were genuinely glad to be there, he found Ester opening the living-
room windows.
“Sit down and take the load off your feet,” she said. “Nobody
will hurt you. Only colored folks live here.”
“Ol' fly you,” he said as he took a chair by the window. “I’ll take
it, baby.”
“Take what?” Ester asked.
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“Come on, cut the playin' 'round. You know what I mean. Gib
me the key.”
“You wouldn't beg for it?” she asked. “Oh, no! Not you! Mr.
Big Shot!” Then, as if she were talking to someone else, she added:
“He just ups and walks out if he can't have what he wants.”
Asher removed his coat and flung it across the room onto the
sofa beside Ester. |
“That's right, babes,” he said scoffingly. “Have your fun. Lay it
on thick.”
Traces of a smile played around the corners of Ester's mouth
as she ignored Asher's gibe. “Gettin' a bit hot for you? How 'bout
a drink to cool you off? There's some of your favorite Scotch 'round
here.”
“That'd be right up my alley, babes.”
As Ester rose from the sofa and started toward the kitchenette,
Asher lunged for her pocketbook which, a minute before, she had
guarded with one arm as it lay beside her on an end table. But she
was too quick for him. Grabbing up the bag, she stood in the center
of the room and held it behind her with both hands. “You don't
have to fight for it, daddy,” she said teasingly.
Asher put his arms around Ester's waist and reached for the bag.
As he did so, she stepped into his embrace. Simultaneously, their
lips met in a long, hungering kiss.
“Now let that do you,” Ester said as she stepped away from him.
“You’ll get it when I’m good and ready for you to have it—the key,
I mean.” -
“Okay, baby,” Asher acquiesced as he looked at her admiringly
from head to foot. “Don’t make it too long.”
Asher sprawled out on the sofa and when Ester handed him his
drink he propped himself up on one elbow and took a long swallow.
Ester watched for a moment, then she said to him:
“Where are you going to keep the car?”
“It all happened so fast, I ain't had time to think 'bout that,” he
said quite frankly.
“Yeah?” Ester said as she seated herself in a corner of the sofa.
164


four o'clock in the morning, he lay sprawled out carelessly in yel-
low pajamas, legs spread wide apart, feet propped against the foot-
rest, as if he were alone in the bed. Surprised at the sound of his
voice, he moved his head cautiously on the pillow and looked at
Ester cuddled in sleep beside him, but she had not even stirred. This
is reeal great! he said aloud again, softly, as though he were talking
to her. Nothin’ like that ol' dump I jus’ left. He gave a little shud-
der, as if the very thought of his former lodging filled him with a
morbid fear of being cooped up. It's a wonder that joint didn't bug
II16. . . .
He raised his head off the pillow, eased his shoulders up and
leaned on one elbow. Before settling himself in another position on
the bed, he jabbed the pillow several times and turned it over. He
found the coolness of the new spot as soothing and relaxing as a tub
of water. He pressed the back of his head down in the softness of
the pillow. And for several minutes he lay perfectly still, for the new
position seemed to have eased the churned-up feeling inside him that
he'd experienced before. Then suddenly he was tense, quivering again.
Humph! he snorted. These women sho’ like to play tricks. They're all
alike. . . .
It all came back to him, then—how Ester had got him to move his
clothing into the apartment. He smiled to himself, feeling almost as
though he'd been outwitted. She had kept him spellbound over what
their new life together would be like, rattling on in her chatter-box
fashion about the kind of home they'd have, until almost two o'clock
that morning. Then, without warning, she had suggested “now”
would be as good a time as any for him to go for his clothing. De-
lighted at the thought of slipping into his new role as the “man of the
house,” as Ester had put it, it had not occurred to him that that
could have been a little stratagem of hers.
Packing his belongings had taken only a few minutes. He left just
enough old clothing at the rooming house to give the impression of
continuing occupancy—an almost threadbare suit which, besides,
was completely out of style, an odd pair of trousers, a mottled pair
of tan and white summer shoes, and his battered wardrobe trunk.
167


For, besides these odds and ends, once he had started to rake in the
big money he had sold the four suits he'd had in the pawnshop (as
well as the blue serge he had been wearing when he started to work
at the Fishbowl), almost giving away the tickets for his pawned suits.
His new wardrobe could be described as modest only because he was
still engaged in picking up new pieces of wearing apparel from time
to time. And thus far, in keeping with his grasshopper existence, he
had acquired only six new suits, all of them broad-shouldered, long-
coated and loose-hugging at the hip, summer lightweights. These,
along with three pairs of new shoes, a dozen shirts and an equal
number of gaudy ties, he put into two bags—a dilapidated, tan cow-
hide suitcase and an oversized canvas valise. His socks and under-
wear he stuffed into an old cardboard hatbox.
The darkened street on which the rooming house faced was de-
serted at that hour of the morning, and he experienced no difficulty
in getting his belongings out of the house and into his car. But a few
minutes later, as he sought to remove his belongings from the car
in front of Ester's house, the string which held together the beaten-
up hatbox broke. He stood beside his shiny, new car for several
minutes, a blue topcoat and a tan trench coat slung over one shoul-
der, surrounded by his luggage, his haberdashery slopping over the
sides of the hatbox, grimacing like a shamefaced child.
Finally, when he had gotten his wits together, he managed—by
making two trips—to get his luggage inside the vestibule of the red
brick house. He rang Ester's doorbell violently and insistently. Clad
in a flare-skirted housecoat, with her shiny shanks showing, Ester
had rushed downstairs, and without uttering a word had snatched
up the hatbox and dashed back up the stairs. It was only after she
had put away his clothes that she spoke of the incident. He had not
paid too much attention at the time. He was happy then, almost
frantically happy. He was at home! She was his, to do with as he
pleased. But now, lying there wide-eyed, it all came back to him. She
had been awake beside him in the bed with a lighted cigarette in
her hand. And she moved slightly away from him, turning to look
him straight in the face.
168


“You oughtn't to have done that,” she'd said a shade remorse-
fully.
“What you . . .”
She continued talking as though she hadn't heard him, her voice
rising with exasperation. “Just like a man! First little thing happens,
an' he's as helpless as a lamb. Bad enough to cart your junk 'round
any ol' way. But you didn't have to get me practically out in the
street to get you in here. I ain't for everybody knowin' our busi-
ness. . . .”
She never finished what she'd been thinking, and soon afterward
she drifted off to sleep.
Now as Asher thought of all this he grew fretful and harassed.
And the suspicion that was so much a part of him began to beat fast
in his burdened heart. The bed suddenly became hot and hard and it
seemed to him as if he were lying on a sheet of corrugated iron.
I ain't studyin' these dicty's in this house myself! he thought.
These poor-ass folks puttin' on airs over nothin'. Ain't got one nickel
to rub against another. Up here living offa ice-cubes. The thought
seemed to amuse him and, at the same time, fill him with content-
ment. He sighed peacefully. She's my ol' lady an’ she don't have to
worry none, 'cause I got what it takes.
He took a cigarette from a pack lying on the night table and,
sticking it into his mouth, struck a match against a cardboard match
container with such force that when it ignited it made a hissing noise
as though he'd put it to an open gas jet. Warmth seemed to pervade
his being after he'd inhaled deeply of the smoke several times, savor-
ing its tangy bite on the tip of his tongue. Well, Jack, you better git
this jive straight right away, he said, talking aloud again.
Ain't nothin’ to worry 'bout, he thought. He'd organize his do-
mestic life just as easily as he had his numbers business, have it
running just as smoothly in no time. Just put his foot down and be
boss. That's all.
He had until then found the very thought of turning out the light
a hideous prospect. But now he was composed and relaxed as if some
compelling force deep within him had, in pushing these thoughts to
169


the surface of his mind, calmed him. He reached down to the foot
of the bed and drew the sheet up over him and turned over to snap
off the light.
If only Ester wouldn't sleep so soundly. The worst of it was, you
couldn't justly accuse Ester of snoring. She only breathed. But she
breathed with such authority—she made such a serious business of in-
hale, pause, exhale, pause. Who did she think she was, anyway?
“Stop breathin’,” he hissed at Ester, but in reply she only turned
to him, on the inhale, and flung her arm across his chest. He
squirmed out from under it to the extreme edge of the bed. Babes,
he whispered to her, you never went to sleep on me like this befo'.
You can't do this to me! I oughta wake her up, he thought. But even
then, as he looked with almost angry longing in his eyes as she lay
beside him coldcreamed and nightgowned with faint traces of her
familiar smile playing suggestively about the corners of her mouth,
he saw her in his mind's eye—her clothes, her skin, her hair, every-
thing about her.
Somewhere in the shimmering borderland between sleep and wak-
ing, Asher felt an insistent tug at his shoulder. “Huh—wha—huh?”
he babbled, rising to a half-sitting position in the bed. His eyes
squinting out of his slumber-swollen face, he yawned as he sought to
focus on Ester, standing beside the bed.
“You must of been having some dream,” Ester said. “You sounded
like somebody was choking you.”
“Huh!” he muttered. “Whee! Don't you ever do that again—shakin'
me like that when I'm sleepin'. You like to scared me to death.”
“Now,” she chided him, “was it that bad?”
“Bad ain't no word for it,” Asher said, a note of fear coming into
his voice. “Why everywhere I looked I saw him coming after me.
Somebody I ain't ever seen before—a coal black stranger. Swinging
a copper's nightstick. It had long prongs stickin’ out all over it like
on a rake. It sho’ was one mixed-up crazy dream. I was in some place
like that house of mirrors down at Coney Island. Everything was
topsy-turvy. An everywhere I looked I saw him.”
170


Ester smiled. “The deep certainly boils like a pot,” she said.
“What you say?”
“You wouldn't understand,” she said, “that's from the Bible.”
“Oh.”
“Come on,” she said, taking him by the wrist. “Stretched out like
you’re here for the rest of the day. But there'll be no days like that,
with me going all the way.”
“A-a-a-ach,” he yawned. “What time is it gettin' to be?”
“Just nine-thirty, darling.”
He sat up and stretched. “My Gawd,” he said, flinging off the
sheet with one determined motion. He swung to the floor, toeing
his feet into brown leather slippers. Then he leaped from the bed
and rushed into the adjoining bathroom. He banged the door,
stripped, sprang into the bath, turned on the shower and broke
into a loud uproarious version of “My Desire.”
It was a tiny bathroom, a mere closet finished in a pinkish tile
which ran halfway up the walls. Against one wall, across from the
doorway, the sunken tub nestled against three sides of the room and
up above it there was a narrow window. On its deep ledge there was
a tidy but crowded array of lotions, creams, unguents, bottles, tubes, .
jars, brushes, and other feminine beauty implements—the overflow
that could not have possibly been put into the toylike medicine chest
sunk behind a small mirror above the washbasin next to the tub.
A sprinkle of water from the shower faucet careened off his shoulder
and sprayed the gadgets. He gawked at the spattered collection and
grunted with annoyance. All this crap gits in a man's way, he said
as he turned down the flow of water. Shouldn’t be here in the first
place. Then, as an idea struck him, he smiled to himself understand-
ingly. That's the jive that makes 'em such solid senders, he thought.
Everything's jive in this world. Ain't what you do, it's how you
lay it. If I hada laid mine last night she wouldna gone to sleep like
that. Oh, well, he told himself as he made ready to step from the
tub, I suppose I'll be buyin' a lot of this stuff from now on. Jive an’
more jive.
171


Suddenly, he let out a scream of rage. “Ester! C'mere!”
She rushed in to find Asher streaming wet, clutching a small blue
guest towel. -
“What's this suppose to be?” he bellowed. “You suppose to dry
yourself with this or tie your hair up in it?”
“I know you're accustomed to those bathrobe-size towels they give
you in the Turkish baths,” she said, laughingly, as she ducked into
the bedroom.
She got the towel in a jiffy. “But, daddy,” she said as she handed
it to him, “take it easy. No need of you alarmin’ the house—Hattie'll
know you're living here soon enough.”
He looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “Is that why you took
a fadeout powder on me las' night?” The twinkle gave way to a
broad grin. “‘Fraid the walls would talk?”
“Last night! You mean this morning, don'tcha?” she quipped,
looking into his face. “Well, look here, you might as well get this
straight now. I can't be standin' on my feet all day takin' care of
the white folks out there an’ entertainin' you all night here, Asher
Brown.”
For a minute he looked at her a little hesitantly and then he asked:
“Ain’t you gonna ride on out with me this mornin’?”
Ester looked at him seriously. “I dunno,” she replied at last.
“Something tells me, I better stick around awhile longer an' get a
few things done. 'Cause I know you won't let me have any peace to-
night.” Then a smile flitted across her face. “Besides, I'm not quite
up to havin' you march me 'round out there like we just came from
church this morning.”
She was conscious of his appraising eyes and dropped her own.
This dropping of the eyes, Asher reflected, was a special trick of hers,
and boy, how she did it. Sho' will make a man weak for you, babes.
All that day, he was so exhilarated with happy thoughts of getting
back home to his “New York wife,” as he called her, that he could
scarcely wait for the hour when he would be free to leave the Fish-
bowl. Besides, Ester managed to keep out of his sight most of the
day and he saw her only once—just a glimpse of her—as he passed
172


through the main dining-room on his way from the Fisherman's Bar
to the kitchen during the dinner hour. So, promptly at ten o'clock that
night, he wound up his late-numbers collection and made a beeline
for home. -
Now with the key to the apartment which she had given him that
morning he stood on the landing, feeling a deep pride—pride like
that of a man about to unlock the door of his newly built suburban
home. He put the key in the keyhole, but his hand trembled as a warm
quiver of eagerness shot through his body and for several seconds
he stood there fumbling with the lock.
Finally, Ester opened the door from the inside and, standing in
the doorway, greeted him with an amused expression. “What's the
matter, daddy?” she said. “Can't you get in?”
He grinned broadly as she took the key out of his hand, and
sought to put it in the keyhole, to demonstrate how it worked. But
he was too quick for her. He encircled her waist with his long, slen-
der arms. Lifting her a little way in the air, he carried her, strug-
gling playfully in his arms, backward across the threshold, and
slammed the door shut with the sole of his shoe.
“Don’t worry, babes,” he said, holding her up in the air in the
cubbyhole foyer. “I ain't never missed gettin’ it in yet.”
She jabbed playfully at his broad shoulder blades with the heel
of her hands several times until with the sheer weight of his power-
ful arms he drew her close to him and pressed his lips against her
mouth.
During the first two weeks of their after-work honeymoon, they
were ecstatically happy. Hattie made herself agreeable and they had
the house to themselves. And never did an hour pass when they were
together in their new-found domestic intimacy that they did not
belabor one another with a love tap or pinch, pull each other's ear
or cheek, slap one another gently on the arm or shoulder.
It was a simple home that Ester made for Asher, one based as
much on the customs and sentiments of their pastoral background
as on the little gentlenesses and kindnesses that lovers bestow upon
173


one another. She was not a person who tried to avoid or escape her
responsibilities. She neither neglected her obligations nor—like the
escapist—made excuses that fooled no one. She set herself the task
of having a perfect home, and every night when Asher came home
he found the table set and the place fragrant with the aroma of good
food.
“What you got in the pot, babes?” he would ask.
“Suppose you wait and see.”
He’d put on a look of mock sternness, the corners of his eyes
crinkling merrily. “Well, do I git fed or must I starve here listenin'
to your jive?”
Ester, unable to control herself any longer, would shriek with glee:
“Yeah, but you like it.”
“All right, Miss Smarty,” his eyes sweeping her from head to foot
in a look of love and hunger, “that's the way you want it to be,
don’tcha?”
“Yes,” she would say. “Yes.”
He would put his arms around her and kiss her violently. “Now
will you feed me?”
“That's the way to ask for it,” she would answer. “As soon as
you're washed up I’ll have it ready.”
“Why do you make me beg for it, baby?”
It was a well-rehearsed act they went through night after night,
for it was music to their hearts.
This was the beginning for Asher of a happiness which seemed
both solid and durable. More importantly, he had the sense to realize
his happiness. It seemed to him that Ester gave him all that a wife
could and, at the same time, he preserved his freedom; she was the
most charming woman he had ever known, with a willingness to care
for him and to please him that he had never found in any other.
Besides being an avid reader of the menu suggestions in the
women's magazines, Ester possessed a natural flair for experiment.
ing in the kitchen. But she had seldom, if ever, had the money be:
fore to indulge this yen to her heart's content. Now that there was
174


my son. Yes, her vision of a better way of life—a well-founded busi-
ness—was something a man would have to place before her first.
Yet, whenever she felt suspicion haunting her, she'd say to Asher:
“Are you certain you know what you want?”
“As sure as the day is long, babes,” he’d answer.
Whenever she was given to these deep silences Asher wanted her
more than ever, this mysterious woman, now so gay and then so
quiet, who set his pulses hammering as nobody else ever had. Then
he always felt a shock of surprise that she was his. He wondered how
long he would be able to keep her. There were stretches when Ester
seemed to be wholly his and there were times when she was withdrawn
and distant, when there was a gulf between them he did not know how
to bridge.
At such times, he'd usually suggest a game of Cooncan. He was a
very skillful card player, and Ester never seemed to tire of the adroit
way he'd appear to be losing, only to win at the last moment. A
great favorite among waiters, the game has, no doubt, evolved out of
the shapes and forms of life that haunt every ghetto. It can best be
described as a private version of gin rummy. It is a simple game, the
object of which is to form three of a kind, fours and sequences of
one suit, by combining the ten cards in the hand with others drawn
from the deck, and the player wins who first lays down eleven cards.
They sat one night at opposite ends of the long green sofa. Ester
lost in silence, staring at an ivy plant which shot up out of a flower-
box resting on the outside window ledge, its green leaves nosing into
the open window. Asher watched her out of the corner of his eyes as
he went methodically about stripping the eights, nines and tens from
the deck of cards. As he shuffled the remainder, he said craftily:
“Sure would be good to git away on a little vacation, you an’ me.”
Ester looked quietly and searchingly at him.
Asher went on: “Some place up in the mountains. Remember a
little place I worked at one summer . . . huh . . . prettiest place you
ever did see. The river dropped down close to the side of the road
near the hotel—what was the name of that place—anyway usta
177


look out the dining-room window an’ see the river runnin' jus’ as
deep an’ green. Look up in the hills an’ see rabbits settin' like statues.
Jus' 'bout dusk the mountains looked like they was on fire . . . all
'round in the valley was half-dark. You couldn't hear nothin' but
fish floppin' up an’ down in the water an’ birds chirpin’ in the
bushes.”
“Yeah,” Ester said, moodily.
Asher looked at her warily as he dealt out the cards, making two
piles of them, one for Ester and the other for himself, and set the
remainder of the stack between them.
“How'd you like to git away to some place like that?” he asked.
“That'd be all right,” she said slowly. “That'd be all right, but . . .”
Asher broke in: “Why don't you look it up in the Amsterdam News.
They tell me you'd be surprised at some of these cottages colored
people got right upstate. Whatta you say?”
For several minutes Ester did not answer, only looking intently
into Asher's face. When she did speak her voice was deep. She re-
peated her words rhythmically as though she had said them many
times before. “Folks like us, that scuffle for a livin', are always
playin' catch-up. 'Cause we're always doing somethin’ like that on
the spur of the moment. Never get ahead. They're not ever free.
Come to a job an' get a few dollars put away, then something hap-
pens, and the first thing you know they're poundin’ the pavements
lookin’ for another job. They never do get ahead.”
“Um-um-um!” Asher nodded his head.
“Remember what you promised me?”
“Huh! What? Oh, yeah—you mean ‘bout settin' you up in busi-
ness?”
“It sure took a long time for it to come back to you,” Ester began.
“Must have gone in one ear and out the other. But I haven’t for-
gotten it, Asher Brown. An’ if you don't live up to your word, you’ll
be looking for me one of these days an’ I’ll be gone.”
“I put you in your own shop,” Asher began, “an' you're subject
to be gone anyway soon as one a them Harlem big deals starts but-
terin' you up.”
178


“You don’t trust me?” Ester said. “So that's it.”
“Can't you take a joke, babes,” Asher said, resignedly. “Okay—
some day we gonna have that business an' we gonna go off on trips
besides.”
Ester picked up her cards and gestured with them, happily. “That'll
be the day.”
Asher looked at his cards absorbedly. He saw that he had the
jack, seven, six and four of spades; five, three and deuce of hearts;
king, seven and five of clubs.
“Whose first play is it?” Ester said.
“Yours. I dealt ’em.”
“Oh me, I never can remember.” She plucked the five of spades
from the deck lying face down on the sofa. But she couldn't use it
and handed the card to Asher. He studied his hand for several min-
utes because the card could be used two ways: by making a run of
three with the four and six of spades, or a triplet with the two other
fives.
“This is gonna be like takin' candy from a baby,” he said boast-
fully. “Um-um-um!” he said aloud as he wondered whether he'd be
lucky enough to draw the queen of spades from the deck before Ester
drew it. He’d already placed the three of spades in her hand by some
inexplicable piece of reasoning. Finally he decided to make a spread
with the fives of hearts and clubs.
Ester picked the ace of spades from the deck and, with two other
aces in her hand, spread aces, discarding the jack of spades.
They each, in turn, plucked several more cards from the deck that
they were unable to use. Then Ester turned up the queen of spades,
and it seemed as if she'd never make up her mind whether to use
it or not.
“Study long an’ study wrong,” Asher prodded her, in an effort to
make her discard the card.
“Oh, you keep quiet a minute. I can't hear myself think for you
talkin’.”
“Look, baby, some coons can an’some coons can't.”
Ester flung her hand down on the sofa in a violent gesture of dis-
179


gust, the cards falling to the floor. “Don’t bring that nasty, stinkin’
locker-room talk in this house. Whatta you think I am?”
“What's the matter, baby?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, her eyes blazing.
He looked at her with a look that was at once a mixture of sur-
prise and sheepishness. “Don’t be like that. It's jus’ a sayin'... huh
. . . you say cooncan, don'tcha . . . you're jus’ a sore loser. Can't
take it, huh?”
Ester grew used to having Asher about. Her days fell into a double-
duty pattern—working all day, shopping every other night or so,
rushing to have dinner; sandwiched in between all this, she some-
how even managed the job of cleaning and keeping the house in
order, sometimes at night while the dinner cooked or in the morn-
ings after Asher had departed. Yes, it was a hard job, but she got a
thrill of happiness and, more important, a sense of accomplishment
out of her new life. She was, nevertheless, aware that the process of
sinking roots—which entwine themselves about men and women who
have been joined together—was at work only in an odd and per-
verse way. For there was no home to be established, no furniture to
be purchased. But whenever she thought of all this, she'd cross her
fingers and say, as if to chase it from her mind:
“If he just don't go crazy over it's coming so fast we'll get straight-
ened out bye and bye.”
Their new-found domestic intimacy made Ester a changed person
almost overnight. When Asher first came to live in the pleasant little
apartment she was lonely for the companionship of not just any man
but for “her man.” She had hated the life she'd led. Until they'd met,
it was with a strong sense of guilt that she had made herself affable
and congenial to an occasional date, whether or not she was par-
ticularly interested. Even now when it crossed her mind she had the
feeling of having been soiled by the touch of something unclean. And
she cried with pity for herself as she thought of the rough way in
which a man would let a woman know what he was after. She looked
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upon Asher as a life-saver, and she was grateful to him for having
come to her rescue.
But several things about Asher annoyed her. Behind closed doors,
he was not a tidy person. She was just as likely to find his pajamas
or trousers on the dresser, his newspapers all over the place, the ash-
tray on the bed. His idea of a home seemed to be a place in which
to eat and sleep. When he came home at night he pulled off his shoes,
shed his shirt and flopped on the sofa. The fact that Ester began her
homework by cooking a fancy dinner after a full day's work didn't
worry him one bit. Never once did he even offer to help her with the
dishes, empty the garbage, or give her a chance to rest by taking
over some of the housework.
More than anything, Ester dreaded the possibility that Hattie
might show up at any moment, and she did not want to face her with
Asher lounging about in his undershirt. While she did not show it,
the very thought made her inwardly restless and vaguely discon-
tented. Yet it could have been that it all went deeper than not want-
ing Hattie to see him thus—stretched out on the long, green sofa in
his undershirt. For she and Hattie were bosom comrades, drawn to-
gether in the welter of the ghetto. Perhaps Asher's going about in his
undershirt symbolized the strangeness of their relationship. A strange-
ness that Ester never once succeeded in pushing completely from her
mind. She was like what the church-minded call a sinner, escaping
the indictment, yet constantly haunted for no crime and living in per-
petual fear of discovery.
The climax came unexpectedly one night toward the end of their
second week together. Asher had come in that night, and, as usual,
shed his shirt and sprawled out on the sofa. As Ester prepared the
dinner and was telling him the story of something she'd witnessed
on the street, the doorbell rang.
“Ah, for Christ sake,” Asher exploded. “You ain't gonna answer
it, are you?”
“The way you got that radio blasting,” she said. “It may be some-
thing important, who knows.”
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together and start panning men. For the moment, he even forgot
the importance he’d felt at being labeled a sheik.
Mother Tucker's laugh was an anti-climax. It was low and really
amused, but not at all catty. “Sorta!” she chortled. “Now, listen here,
honey, my days are numbered, so you can break right down an' do
your ravin' 'bout him to me. I can't do you no harm. . . .”
“I’ll bet you could show me a trick or two yet if you wanted to,”
Ester said. “But there isn't anything to tell, Mother Tucker. He's jus’
nice people.”
“I can see that. He's such a gentleman . . . the way he treats you
when you two is together. What kinda business is he in, honey? I
jus’ knows he's somethin' big—that car an' the way he dresses.”
“He’s got the concession in a private club out on City Island.”
Ester's voice sounded casual enough, but Asher thought he detected
a note of pride in it. As a matter of fact, he didn't merely think it,
he knew it, for her description of his business had even filled him
with pride. My old lady sho’ can handle herself in a tight squeeze,
he said to himself.
“I jus’ knowed it all the time, honey.” Mother Tucker's voice
sounded satisfied and knowing, even a little triumphant. “Jus' knowed
he had to be somethin' big an important. I says to myself, first time
I laid eyes on him, he ain't one of these no-good hustlers 'round here,
runnin’ numbers an' hot stuff. Honey, you better latch on to him
'fore one a these fast hussies getta hold on him ... they'll live wid
'em 'an slave for 'em an' you won't have a look-in wid him.”
“Everybody is tryin’ their darndest, it seems, to marry me off.”
Ester sounded less sure of herself, a little defeated.
Mother Tucker's voice was low and amused again. “Lotta triflin'
bums 'round.” The sound of her voice filled Asher with anger and
he wanted to run away, but there was no place to run. What right
she got meddling in my business, he asked himself defiantly.
“Lord, child, I came over to borrow a yeast cake an' here I am
jus’ gabbing away.”
“You sure one will be enough, Mother Tucker?” Ester said
sweetly.
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Asher grimaced, making the sort of expression he might have made
had a salesman been showing him an inexpensive suit. Ain't even
got money enough to keep a lousy cake of yeast in the house, he
said to himself. Huh! Want everybody to be a square like them and
Starve.
He heard the scrape of feet as the two women walked toward the
door. He strained to catch their voices, hearing Mother Tucker say:
“Remember, honey, they wear the pants but we gotta make somethin'
outa them every time. So don't go playin' too hard to get—'specially
when you got one sweet on you who's smart enough to git a break
from these here white folks.” The next minute, she was at the door
saying good night. Asher heard Ester close the door behind her.
Asher came back into the living-room and for several minutes he
stood in awkward silence, his fingers drumming the edge of the card
table, neatly set with service for two. He watched Ester sitting on the
sofa as she took several long puffs of a cigarette, inhaling the smoke
defiantly.
“Don’t let that trash she was talkin' git you down, babes,” he
said at last.
His remark seemed at first to have startled Ester. Then she blurted
out angrily: “People always gotta get in somebody's business. Why
won't they just let me be? I don't bother nobody. Get me down. ...
Listen here, this time next Thursday I'll be thirty-four years old.
If I ain't old enough to know my own mind now I’ll never know it.
... You coulda backed me up ... but you always layin’ around in
your undershirt. If you’d been lookin’ respectable sittin' here she'd
never got a chance to open up the way she did. . . . Why don't you
buy yourself something cool to wear?”
Asher was obviously taken by surprise. He looked at Ester in-
credulously for several minutes, apparently not knowing what to say.
Finally, when he did get his wits together, he said jokingly:
“I got a reeal ol' lady—thirty-four! Well, I wouldn'ta known it if
it hadn't been for this.”
Ester gave a little amused laugh. Asher sat down beside her, took
the cigarette from her hand and placed it on an ashtray, flung his
184


arms about her and kissed her, while she, laughing and crying, sur-
rendered herself willingly to his embrace.
“You do love me, don't you?” she asked plaintively a few minutes
later.
“Sure, babes,” he said. “Don’t I act like it?”
“You won't let me down?” she questioned, a little breathlessly.
“I can depend on you?”
He held her in his arms for quite a long while without answering.
Then he said:
“Babes, you can make me do anythin' you like.”
“D'you mind?”
“No, babes, it's too good to me to mind.”
10
SHORTLY AFTER five o'clock the next afternoon Asher was sitting in
the headwaiter's office, with several stacks of numbers slips and a
long line of well-sharpened pencils laid out before him on Chief's
over-sized mahogany desk. Walters, whom he'd been expecting, ap-
peared in the doorless entrance.
“Well, what's the last one?” Asher asked impatiently, without
once taking his eyes off the desk.
“A four! Eight twenty-four is the thing for the day,” replied the
number-writer, throwing his voice loudly as if he were signaling to
someone. Asher raised his head slightly, but not high enough to
see Walters rolling his red eyes to indicate a man standing in back
of him.
“Come on—let's git this over wid,” Asher said.
Walters cleared his voice. “Think we got a little nibble in this
go-round,” he said.
The dried-up little man shuffled into the room. Asher sat back in
the swivel chair and saw Amos Dowd standing in the doorway. A
look of surprise came into Asher's eyes, for no waiter ever paid
185


him a visit in his “office” at this time of day. There was something
so professional in his manner, something so business-like and, at
the same time, so forbidding, that those waiters who lingered in the
locker-room behind Chief's five o'clock get-on-the-floor call, hastened
out as soon as Walters arrived, giving them the “too bad, too sad
news.”
But this was Dowd's day. And he stood there grinning like a man
who had just witnessed a long shot on which he'd placed a bet come
galloping in ahead of the field. He was a spare, weather-beaten little
man with a lean, chocolaty face. His entire body shook—just as it
did when he carried a tray perched on his shoulder—like a branch
of a tree swaying in the wind. A loud and long talker, he had only
recently become a “New Yawker.” He'd hailed from “just outside
Raleigh a piece,” with a caneback suitcase in his gnarled hand, and
headed for Harlem to enjoy the “Free Nawth.” He'd worked at
several odd jobs—from moving-man's helper to porter—before com-
ing to the Fishbowl. The waiters had dubbed him Old Man Dowd.
As the old man edged his way inside the room Asher whirled
his chair about and faced him. He scrutinized him suspiciously.
“Well—what can I do for you?” he demanded at last.
“You see,” said Dowd, “well I guess you know that's my figure.
You know I been layin' wid it a long time but, I always did say,
it's a long t'bacco road that ain't got no ashcan in it. Yes, sir! I done
caught up wid this jive at last. Now I ain't tryin'...”
Asher waved his hand for silence. “Well, if you say you got it,”
he said, “you must have it. But you coulda give me a chance to
check up first.” He turned to Walters and addressed him command-
ingly: “Let me have the lowdown on this.”
Dowd began again: “Now I ain't tryin’ to rush you none, Mr.
Asher. It ain't but a quarter hit. You can give me mine later on ifn
you wanta. Only I was wantin' to ask you if you could keep it be.
tween us in here? I don't want Tom an' Jack 'round this here place
knowin’ my business.”
Asher said “Hum,” and he flopped back in his chair. “Don’t know
as we can do that. Can't do that—gotta let the boys know 'bout your
186


good luck. You're the first one to git a hit ... they're beginnin’ to
say I'm puttin' the jinks on ‘em.”
Walters, who’d found the slip with Dowd's play on it, had been
waiting patiently for Asher to finish talking. He had a perplexed:
expression on his face like that of a man casting about in his mind
for soothing words in which to couch his thoughts that would not
offend his two masters—neither Asher, nor his lucky customer—for
his palm itched for the tip a winner always gave the number-writer.
“Ol' luck box,” he began finally. “Man, you can't keep all this good
luck to yourself. It ain't right. You gotta spread the good thing
'round, man.”
“Well, men, you may not believe it—but I been sorta thinkin' of
stagin' a little shindig at my house but I can't invite this whole crew
—it’d get outa hand, surer than hell.”
Asher's mind nosed over what Dowd had said like a man turning
over a salesman's claims for a newly marketed cigar. “A party, did
you say? Hum! That's an idea. I could give my ol' lady a ... how's
'bout lettin' me throw the party?”
“Your ol' lady?” Dowd said. “You an’ Miss Ester married?”
Asher grinned broadly. “Oh, you know—she's jus’ my New York
wife. Listen, next Thursday's her birthday. I’ll buy the food an’ the
liquor an' everything. We can git Hattie an' your wife to fix up
everythin'. Won't cost you one red cent. Whatta you say?”
Dowd's small eyes danced merrily in his lean face as he watched
Asher pull a fat wad of bills from his trousers pocket, counting out
loud as he peeled off $135—the man's winnings—letting the bills
fall casually from his hands onto the desk. -
“You wouldn’t be aimin’ to invite the whole restaurant, would
yóu?” Dowd asked.
“No, man!” Asher said. “Jus’ eight or ten couples—every las’
one of 'em hand picked. An' we won't say a word to nobody 'bout
this.”
“That's a good deal,” Dowd said. He picked up his winnings,
rapidly and hungrily, giving each bill a tender little pat as he passed
it from one hand to the other. When he had counted the money over
187


or two out of his way, just to look at the imposing building that
occupied an irregular corner plot which covered over half the
blockfront on St. Nicholas Avenue from 123rd to 124th Street. Each
time he did this, his face would soften, take on an added wistfulness,
and he'd say to himself: “Lord, I wonder. . . .” -
It was a regal-looking, dark red brick apartment house. The white
stone window ledges and the sparkling white-painted window frames
combined to give the house the appearance of having been inspired
by some old colonial mansion. A blue-and-white-striped canopy ex-
tended from the curb through the deep flagstoned courtyard en-
trance, which was banked on both sides with a flowerbed, dividing
the house into two huge bays. Indeed, Dowd might well have fancied
himself in the more elegant precincts of Park Avenue, instead of
treading a lower middle-class white neighborhood on the outer rim
of Harlem.
Perhaps it was for these reasons—the roominess of their apartment
as well as the airs their neighbors put on—that the Dowds were in-
different to the battle raging between the tenants and the landlord
when they moved into the Big House—a battle that was tied up
with what has come to be known as “bleeding a house” for the last
ounce of juicy profit.
The builder's market was still thriving when Sam Levine, the well-
known speculator, built the house in 1935. A wise man, he had
heard the pleas of many small Harlem tradesmen who, while unable
or unwilling to meet the Riverside Drive rentals, clamored for liv-
ing space within walking distance of their establishments. A man
of the times, he prudently saw that the house was built largely on
borrowed money, sinking only fifty thousand dollars into the ven-
ture himself. Doubling his money within three years he passed the
“good thing” on to other hands—an unidentified woman who oper-
ated the house in the name of the Reserve Stock Corporation, and
after her—during the rain of foreclosures—another unidentified
woman for only one year. Then, in 1941, the West Harlem Savings
Bank, which had advanced Levine three hundred thousand dollars to
build the house, took control and began bleeding the house.
189


door service, the house-supplied Venetian blinds, the annual redec-
oration of apartments. What had been the finest kitchen equipment
and the latest automatic elevators fell into disrepair. Steam heat and
hot water became permanently in short supply. The ornate marble
lobby grew shabby. Almost everything in the lobby showed lack of
care—the coverings of the chairs became soiled and, in places,
threadbare, the tan drapes at the windows in the lobby turned a deep
greenish brown, the rugs and the rubber runners that stretched the
length of the lobby showed neglect.
About this time, when the last few remaining white tenants had
given up the fight and were moving elsewhere, the Dowds applied
for an apartment. The super, doubling as a renting agent, had hesi-
tated over accepting them. But a ten-dollar tip changed his mind—
for that nearly equaled his weekly wage—plus the first two months'
rent which was a hundred and fifty dollars (representing a twenty-
dollar monthly undercover hike which they gladly paid). Thus they
had at long last been domiciled in a three and a half room “suite”
in the Big House that overlooked the courtyard—one flight up, but
the Dowds never walked, using one of the two self-service elevators
at all times.
Now that the party was set to come off, Dowd and Asher talked
about it in the restaurant during the next few days.
“We’re gonna have a ball,” Dowd would say, like an adult trying,
as he emulated an adolescent's slangy language, to find the hidden
meaning in the phrase. “We gonna ball back.”
“Yeah man! We gonna pitch—right in the groove,” Asher would
comment. And tapping one foot as if in time to music, his shoulders
would swing and sway; his eyes turned as if he had an image of the
party—people moving excitedly about, their voices a medley of gay
and rippling laughter. “Man, it's gonna be reeal smooth.”
That was the kind of party Asher's imagination projected. One
that was compounded out of his memory of small and intimate yet
lavish affairs he'd once served in the private-party room of a fash-
ionable men's club—where there had been food and liquor enough
191


for even the waiters to get “theirs.”—and the lush parties he'd seen
in numerous Hollywood dramas where, as he said, “hipped chicks
cavorted with sharp-togged slicksters.”
And since it was to be a small, informal party, each guest on
Asher's hand-picked list measured up in some vague way to his idea
of the kind of person it would take to make the party a success.
Each one got the news from him in strict secrecy, and he used the
phrase “Man, it's gonna be reeal groovy down at Ol' Man Dowd's.”
Everyone lucky enough to get an invite was going; no one in his
right mind would think of missing the party. Since it was to be a
birthday party for Ester given by Asher—the Fishbowl's number
banker—everyone knew it would be a solid party with plenty of
everything.
Occasionally, however, Dowd would rub Asher the wrong way.
Asher, walking about the restaurant, was sometimes surprised and
annoyed to find the old man, his mouth set in a wide grin, standing
quietly by his side, ready and eager to discuss some phase of the
party which they had already gone over before.
“I still say,” the old man would begin, “if it was me givin' my lady
friend a birthday party I’d plaster the place all up wid red, white an'
blue buntin’. Hang up a lotta balloons all over the place. An' man,
I'd find a great big happy birthday sign”—he'd stretch his arms out
wide—“from here to yonder. Women folks eat that sorta stuff up.”
Asher would study the old man offhandedly for a moment. Only
the faintest trace of annoyance touched Asher's tight-set lips. This
old fart, he'd say to himself. If he'd just keep his old-fashioned
notions down in his belly somewhere. I gotta good mind to pull the
party off up the house . . . it sho' would be pretty hard to keep it
from Ester . . . now if we only had a phonograph.
Then he'd put on a condescending smile and say to the old man,
jokingly: “No wonder everybody calls you Ol' Man Dowd. Don't
you know, that crap went out wid the gas-lamps. Ain't nobody but
you-all down home folks goin’ in for that sorta stuff nowadays.”
“Well, I was jus’ tellin' you how I usta do it,” Dowd replied, nod.
192


ding his head dubiously. “But ain't nothin’ like it usta be no more.
But I sho’usta to put on some big blowouts. You know, it was funny
—didn't need much in them days. Couple quarts of any ol' kinda
liquor, a few cans of grapefruit juice an’ some decorations.” He
lapsed into silence long enough to catch his breath. “Things was
sho’ tough in them days. Big ones was eatin’ little ones. Hadda scuffle
mighty hard to make it. Folks would say, don’t see how you do it.
I'd tell 'em a heap sees but a few knows.”
There was, however, one point on which they both agreed. And
that was how the party should go—the shouts of greetings, the
congratulations, the noise and good-fellowship. For all that, Asher
was prepared to go to any expense. For while it was true it was
to be Ester's birthday party, Asher also knew that his reputation
would stand or fall depending on the kind of party he gave her.
And as the planning reached its crescendo, he thought less and
less of Ester and more and more of how he was going to impress
with the evidence of his mounting wealth those waiters lucky enough
to be invited. For, as he said, “Man, I can't afford to play myself
cheap. I ain't one of them small-time hustlers.”
Take the matter of refreshments. Asher and Hattie gave the problem
considerable thought and Hattie came to the conclusion that a buffet
supper—one that would have “that choosy look,” as she put it, where
everybody could help themselves—would be the best solution. Since
the bulk of this supper was to be purchased from the Kingfish's
wholesale supplier, it became Dowd's duty to approach the boss.
(For Asher had been quite wary of discussing any aspect of his
affairs with the Kingfish that might implicate him with Ester since
the night the Kingfish had ridiculed their relationship.) In the com-
mission of this task, the old man experienced a pleasing sense of
power and importance, much like a man who'd just had an honorary
title bestowed upon him by a fraternal society. For the list included
many choice edibles: a twenty-pound turkey, an eighteen-pound
ham, a dozen boiled lobsters, ten pounds of crabmeat and ten pounds
of boiled shrimp. Asher himself bought the whisky. There was a
193


whisky shortage on and he had to shop several stores, but he man-
aged to get six bottles of Ester's favorite Scotch, six quarts of Cana-
dian rye, two quarts of bourbon and two gallons of wine.
Promptly at midnight—the hour Asher had fixed upon for them to
make their grand entry—he brought his automobile to a jolting halt
in front of the Big House. So suddenly, in fact, that Ester and Dave,
riding with him on the front seat, were tossed up, bouncing back
and forward, as though a rut in the roadway had stopped the car.
“Easy—does—it—pardner,” said Dave, panting out the words as
he drew his long legs out of the car.
Ester jumped out nimbly, the hem of her skirt flying up above
her knees. Dave held her loosely about the waist with one arm, and
together they waited while Asher turned off the motor.
Asher walked slowly around the front of his automobile and looked
straight into the stonily set faces of three men lounging about a
nearby lamp post. Although the men did not move, Asher noticed
a faint gleam of recognition in their eyes as they looked from him
to the car. Then he heard one of the men, a short and thickly built
person, with an egg-like head, say out the side of his mouth: “Look
at 'im! Thinks he's like the song, “Got the world by a drawstring.’
But I got news for him.”
I don't know who's worse, Asher said to himself, these damn
stumble bums or the white folks. They sure hate to see a man on top.
Oh well. . . .
He heard Dave talking in his slow and bantering fashion. “You
gotta slip it to this pretty little brown babe slow an’ easy. You gotta
lead her to the jive like you'd lead a lamb to the slaughter—so she
won’t know from nothin’.”
“Humph!” Asher grunted, looking back over his shoulder at the
three men.
Ester smiled gaily. But apparently Dave's quip sailed over her ||
head, for she said: “That's right! Teach him. 'Cause when its slow
an’ easy—ah, that gets it, every time with me.”
In spite of Dave's and Ester's repartee, Asher remained tensely
194


that her hips and feet might get “loose,” too; Raymond, the “hi-de-
ho” boy, who listened to the music as if in a trance, sitting with
Rose, a plump, pleasant-faced young woman, who moved her feet
nervously about as though she, too, itched to dance; Harold Trubee,
the young Virginian who was preparing to be an undertaker, holding
the frail, limp hand of Peggy, his girl friend, a tormented little
creature who wore an expression of forlorn boredom as if she'd be
glad when the party was over so she could take her “future” home;
there was “Big" Jackson, the smartly dressed “sportsman” in a brown
and tan ensemble, looking old and tired as a hawk, whose face in
repose suggested that his stronger passions had now passed over into
his love of the horses. With him sat Mildred, a snub-nosed woman
with ebony curls, who held her head in the manner of a school-
teacher, prim and proper, while her slanting eyes hinted that she
had known and been possessed by many men.
The music stopped, the foyer was suffocatingly hot, and Ester felt
herself trembling with excitement. The scene which she had just
witnessed while peering into the living-room was to her like a blurred
picture, as if she had looked at a snapshot taken out of focus. She
had really been taken quite unaware and, for several minutes, she had
stood on her toes, her body bent slightly forward like that of a
ballet dancer. Now she looked about her, from Dave to Dowd to
Asher, with a flustered expression. -
Then she saw the buffet supper arranged on a long, narrow table
which stood along a wall opposite a red plush sofa. In the center
of the table, there was a large layer cake with a thick white frosting
decorated with six tiny candles. A big turkey, crisply browned all
over, rested on an enormous platter at one end of the table. One
side of its breast had been carved and huge, thick slices of the white
meat were piled high beside the big bird. At the opposite end of the
table, there was a similarly carved ham, with its thick skin removed,
revealing its molasses-browned juicy meat. Between the two platters
and all round-the cake there was a great variety of mouth-watering
salads—chicken, potato, shrimp, lobster, crabmeat. There were also
huge plates of hard-boiled eggs, olives, and cheese and crackers.
197


hooked her arm around that of the young lawyer and clung to him.
“Jimmie, here,” she said demurely, “is such a life-saver to take
mercy on an ol' married woman so she can see you-all carry on.”
Hattie began to clap her hands and tap her feet self-consciously
as she started to sing: “Happy birthday, to you; happy birthday, to
you; happy birthday, dear Ester . . .” One by one, in tune and out
of tune, everyone in the room took up the refrain, their voices creak-
ing and croaking.
Just then Asher and Mrs. Dowd came into the living-room. The
old lady wiped her hands on a plastic tea-apron. And without
waiting for an introduction, she went right up to Ester, threw her
arms about her and kissed her on the cheek as an older woman
might welcome a bride into the fold. “It’s so nice to meet you,” she
exclaimed with generous kindness. “Now, dearie, you jus’ make your-
self right at home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dowd,” Ester replied, her large black eyes
misty with pleasure.
Dowd, who had started to pass a large wooden tray of drinks
around, found Dave and thrust the tray toward him. “Here,” he said,
“you do this. I gotta put some life in this here party 'fore everybody
goes off to sleep. An' believe me, I got jus’ the thing to do it—a real
ol’-time record. Bought it the other day jus’ for this blowout.”
He beckoned to Asher as he walked over to the phonograph. “Got
one a Bessie Smith's ol' records,” he said. “Don’t reckon you ever
heard her, did you?”
Asher nodded his head, dubiously. “No,” he answered, “don’t
know as I have.”
Dowd looked at Asher with a sad expression on his face and shook
his head. “Son,” he said, “you sure missed somethin'. She was the
greatest of all the ol’-time blues singers. The Queen, they called her.
I can remember when I was knee-high to a duck she usta come 'round
down home givin' tent shows. Folks would come from miles around,
from everywhere, to hear ol' Bessie.”
Ester and Hattie and several of the other party-makers had by
then joined Asher and Dowd. And it was as if having an audience
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She sang of parties where, after a week of unrewarding toil, people
got together to forget Mr. Charley's hard knocks. She sang of Satur-
day nights, when work was done and Mr. Charley's restraints were
forgotten and people felt free to invite themselves to other people's
parties—whether wanted or not. She sang these things with a per-
sonal sadness.
Ol' Hannah Brown from cross town
Gets full of corn and starts breaking 'em down
Just at the break of day you can hear ol' Hannah say ...”
She sang of the raw stuff of life in the ghetto, the leftovers,
fashioning them into symbols that spoke boldly of a people's over-
flowing vitality and of their everlasting faith and hope in a new
life that would surely, one day, be a-borning. She sang, too, of their
willingness to offer a token premium to one of their own who some-
how had acquired a polish, a smoothness, even a slickness like that
which seemingly enabled Mr. Charley to lead a life of ease. She
sang of all these things, in a voice that was harsh and volcanic, but
seductive and sensuous, too. And she added a loud and shrill “holler”
to the end of each line that was a maddening and hungering cry.
Gimme a pig foot and a bottle of beer
Send me Gate I don't care
I feel just like I wanna clown
Give the piano-player a drink
Because he's got rhythm—yeah
He sends me right off to sleep”
As the song progressed, Asher grew more and more troubled and
restless. And every time a loud “holler” came out of the loud-speaker
he would give a little involuntary shudder, folding and unfolding
his arms nervously. Finally, unable to stand the tension any longer,
he lunged toward the phonograph. Dowd caught his arm just in time
to stop Asher as he sought to snatch up the machine's playing-arm.
Taking great care, the old man stopped the phonograph.
* By permission of the author, Wesley Wilson.
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“Jesus Christ!” Asher exploded. “That goddam thing’ll give a
man the creeps. Play somethin' somebody can dance by. Ain't no-
body wanna hear that crap. Sounds like some ol' down home re-
vival meetin’.”
Dowd had a hurt expression on his face. He looked about him.
Everybody seemed to be tense and sad. Nobody had anything to say.
Then he hunched his shoulders in defeat. “All right,” he said. “Didn't
mean no harm. Jus’ thought you-all might like hearin’some real ol’-
time blues. But, please, let me handle this here radio.”
Now the party really began to relax. Everybody was trooping back
and forth, from the living-room to the kitchen, where in the parti-
tioned-off section which served as a dining space and opened onto
the foyer, a makeshift bar had been set up on the kitchen table. Dave
mixed the drinks. And as Asher said, “The juice was flowing, flow-
ing back. Everybody's juicing.” Everybody was feeling better and
better. All around, guests were laughing. There was much more
laughter than there was talk, much more gesticulating and ogling
than talk. Everything seemed unrestrained, abandoned, and yet arti-
ficial.
Dancing had begun again. Mrs. Dowd stood in the arched entry-
way, looking on as the last touch of stiffness disappeared. Old Man
Dowd, standing guard over the phonograph, did a tap dance. There
was a strong air of flirtatiousness—the men trying to impress the
women with their gracefulness, the women, in turn, responding with
their wiggling hips and coquettish ways.
Mildred, the snub-nosed woman with the air of a schoolteacher,
bent her arms and elbows in front of Big Jackson. Something in his
old and tired and sensual face seemed to light up faintly as she tossed
her head and rolled her eyes at him. Her hips swaying from side
to side, slowly she began to pull up her dress, exposing lace-trimmed
step-ins and an island of brown flesh. Her stockings were rolled down
below her knees. Finally, she ceased her swaying and began to dance.
Everyone in the room formed a circle about her and gaped, giggled,
and applauded as she did one final split, touching the floor in front
of Big Jackson.
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Ester was a great success. She was the most attractive of all the
women, elegant, gracious, smiling and full of joy. All the men clam-
ored for her, hinting at future dates. All of them danced with her;
some several times. And she danced with enthusiasm, with passion,
intoxicated with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her
birthday party, in the glory of her success, in a kind of cloud of
happiness that came of this homage, and all this admiration, of
all these awakened desires, and this victory so complete and soul-
satisfying to the heart of woman.
Asher was gay and sportive, too. His face warmed and softened,
his pulse beat fast. And he acted as if he were indeed king of the
occasion as he walked about the room, highball in hand, calling
women from other men's arms, demanding a sip from the drink of
any woman he happened to see moving about with a glass in her
hand, laughing uproariously, making ribald jokes to husbands or
boy friends about his own great amorous powers.
It was a gay but well-behaved party. The noise of the fun-makers
never once threatened to become riotous or to get out of hand. And
this was fortunate for, in the Big House, the tenants were supposed
to tune their radios down and never speak above a whisper after
eleven o'clock. Everything was rolling merrily along when, suddenly,
a terrific pounding shook the door. A great voice shouted: “Hey
Amos, open up.”
Dowd seemed to become rooted in an overstuffed chair near the
console combination. He sat up a trifle straighter—or rather, slumped
a trifle less. He looked at some object on the other side of the room.
A bewildered expression filled his face. He locked and unlocked the
fingers of his hands, nervously and rapidly.
Asher, who had been standing near the buffet table, started for
the door, thinking, no doubt, it was Walters, his number-writer, who
was expected as soon as he got away from the restaurant. Asher
opened the door an inch or two, very quietly, so that he saw only a
thin slice of the hallway, but not enough to distinguish the owner
of the voice.
Just then the great voice boomed again: “Come on, open that damn
204


door. It's me, Pretty Willie ... I'se got ev'body wid me. Cryin' Sam
an' Flathead an’ Shorty . . . come on, man . . . we done waked up
one Sam . . . lookin' all evil . . . thought I was gonna have to
straighten him out.”
Asher tried to close the door. But Pretty Willie, lunging against
the door, thrust it open and almost fell across the threshold. He
looked up at Asher. “’Cuse me, thought you was ol' Dowd, man,”
he said.
With one wild surge the Eighth Avenue crowd barged into the
Dowds’ apartment. And the fight was on. Dave, coming from the
kitchen with a whisky bottle, brought it down flush on Pretty Willie's
head, dropping the man to the floor like a bag of loosely packed
sand. Asher caught Flathead with a sledge-hammer blow on his jaw
which sent him back, rocking on his heels. And Cryin’ Sam let go
with a whopper that merely glanced the side of Asher's face, high
on his cheekbone. Big Jackson, leaping from the living-room,
grabbed Cryin’ Sam by the front of his shirt up near the collar and,
shoving him over Pretty Willie's outstretched body, sent him flying
backwards into the hallway. Shorty was firmly gripped by Raymond
and Casablanca and pitched out of the apartment.
The commotion was over so quickly that neither Harold Trubee
nor J. Adams Forbes had a chance to get into the brawl, both of
them having effectively blocked each other's way with their bodies,
so that neither of them could get through the arched entryway that
divided the living-room and the foyer. Dowd, of course, remained in
the living-room with the girls.
Asher and his boys now stood only a few feet away from the
Dowds’ door in the hallway, surrounding the sullen-faced and com-
pletely subdued Eighth Avenue crowd, while they debated whether
to take them out into the street and really work them over thoroughly.
Tenants all up and down the long corridor, who had heard the loud
and profane voices and the door flying open under the impact of
the struggling men, were now peeking from their own doors, uttering
grunts and making little noises of disgust, sucking in the air between
their teeth. Then the police arrived, slinking up to the men, pistols
205


drawn, as though they were trailing gangsters. There were four of
them—two ordinary-sized, red-faced cops, a tall, rangy one and a
short, roundish one. Apparently the rangy one and the roundish one
were both new and were bent on going into the situation with a
maximum of conscientiousness.
“Now, what's going on here?” the rangy one began, after looking
briefly at the well-dressed defenders. Asher gestured toward the
Dowds’ open doorway, but said nothing. Meanwhile, the short cop
had poked his head into the apartment. “Everybody stay where you
are,” he commanded. Then he turned back to Asher. “This your
place?” he asked. Asher explained that they were having a quiet
little birthday party and that everything had been going along nicely
until the strangers had knocked on the door. The two older cops
exchanged knowing frowns. They appeared openly leery of Asher's
explanation. Then, taking charge of the questioning, they backed
Asher and his companions into the Dowds’ apartment, leaving their
younger colleagues to guard the intruders. “What you sellin' in here,
boy?” one asked. “Runnin’ a little crap game, maybe?” the other
cop cross-examined.
“No, sir, officer,” Asher said. “Nothin’ like that! You can see for
yourself. Everything is on the up an' up.”
One of the cops closed the door behind him. Asher called Dowd.
Then he said to the policemen: “It’s his apartment.”
Dowd came out into the foyer, looking from one to the other
policeman, shaking all over.
“This your place?” barked the cop standing nearest Asher.
“Y-yes, s-sir!” Dowd stammered, looking at no one in particular.
“You giving this party?” demanded the other cop.
“I—it—it—it ain't exactly mine,” Dowd said, still staring into
space. “It’s his'm, Mistah Officer.” He pointed in Asher's direction.
“Throwin’ it for his lady friend.”
The cop standing next to Asher nudged him. “Got any identifica-
tion on you?” he said.
“Sure!” Asher said. He reached confidently toward the inside
pocket of his sky-blue, double-breasted jacket, but his movement died
206


in mid-air. “It’s in my other suit,” he said. Then, as if instinctively,
he reached into his trousers pocket and pulled out a fistful of money.
“I’m the captain out to the Fishbowl,” he said impressively. “You
can check on me. These, here, is some of my men.”
The cop that had nudged Asher nodded sardonically and con-
tinued: “Well, I suppose you want me to believe you don't know
those guys.” He nodded in the direction of the door. “What'd they
do? Make a pass at your gal, boy?”
Asher stood now absent-mindedly fumbling with the roll of bills
in his hands. He appeared to be peeling off bills without taking notice
of what he was doing.
The other cop who'd been standing silently observing Asher took
off his blue cap and scratched his sandy hair. Then he cupped his
cap in both hands and stepped between Asher and the group in such
a way that his body blocked the money in Asher's hands from the
view of the others. “It does look sorta like a little private get-
together,” he said.
Asher caught on immediately. “Sure!” he said. “We ain't never
laid eyes on them bums 'til they banged on the door.” Then he
pushed four twenty-dollar bills in the cop's cap.
As the two cops went out into the hallway Asher called to them:
“Come out on the Island any time you like an' have dinner wid me.
Jus' ask anybody 'bout the place for Asher Brown. They'll fine me.”
No sooner had the door closed on the cops than everyone in the
foyer heaved a deep sigh of relief. Casablanca slapped Asher on the
back, resoundingly. “My boy!” he said. “You sure are Mr. Treetop
Tall.”
“You sure played it cool,” Raymond said. “Cool as a cucumber.”
“He sure did,” said Big Jackson, “get down wid some fast action.
Like one of them photo-finishes out to the track. All I saw was that
copper's hand goin’ in his pocket wid the jive.”
Asher, his face wreathed in a grin, stood now surrounded by his
companions, with both hands stuck in his pants pockets, his chest
rising and falling rhythmically. Absent-mindedly he watched Dowd
who, having detached himself from the group, groped about straight-
207


ening up the furnishings in the foyer. In a fumbling and uncertain
manner, the old man picked up a small console table and placed
it beneath a metal-framed mirror which hung on a narrow expanse
of wall space between the kitchen entry and a closet door. Then he
righted a wooden clotheshorse that leaned against another wall.
Suddenly, Asher began to cackle, uproariously, as if he were
laughing over a secret, and his shoulders bobbed up and down the
way a dancer's shoulders move. And there was in his laughter a mix-
ture of merriment and triumph, a note of snickering, of mourning,
of hilarity, of derision, of distress.
He stopped laughing just as suddenly as he had started, the mus-
cles in his face still twitching. “Man, when you got money you got
everythin’,” he said pompously. Then his brow furrowed, as if there
were something he could not quite express. “You can get anythin' in
this man's world when you got the ol’ mazuma. Yessir, all you
gotta do is have it. New York's finest . . . huh! You can buy every
las’ copper. Man, you can make the goddam law.”
Meanwhile, a deep hush had settled in the living-room. Still and
tense, the party-makers were like a theater audience as the curtain
goes down after the climax of an overpowering drama. Hattie stood
near the buffet table, with her hands on her hips. Behind her, Miss
Georgiana and Rose and Mildred huddled together at the end of the
long table, their eyes bulging with unconcealed fright. Over in the
other corner between the window and the phonograph, Peggy and
Anne stood in a sort of sheltered lee formed by their escorts, Harold
Trubee and J. Adams Forbes. The girls, their mouths curled in
scorn, eyes flashing angrily, seemed to be in silent communion with
one another. It seemed as if Peggy were saying “What'd you expect
of these kind of people?”; while Anne seemed to be crying “I’ve
never been so disgraced in all my life.”
Asher strolled into the center of the room, with his head and
shoulders held proudly erect, the little band of happy warriors
trooping behind him, like hangers-on trailing a victorious prize-
fighter. Yet, in spite of his seeming swagger, he'd stepped hurriedly
past Ester who sat with Mrs. Dowd on the divan just inside the
208


entryway. It might well have been that she made him feel a little less
sure of himself, for she had given him a stabbing look with her fiery
black eyes, at the same time seeming to shy away from him, as though
fearful he had intended touching her. -
“All right, folks,” he said, looking about with an impish grin.
“Everything's under control.”
For a moment nobody said anything. But several of the women
heaved deep sighs, like people at a funeral; while others fidgeted
as though uncertain whether or not to move about.
“W-h-e-e!” Hattie exploded. “It like to scared the livin’ daylights
outa me there for a hot minute. They sure made a lotta racket.
Sounded like the roof was fallin' in.”
“Wasn't nothin’ to it,” Asher said. “Jus' one a them things—
a bunch of bums.”
Hattie squinted reflectively. “Wonder how they . . .”
Asher cut her words off deliberately. “Let’s have somethin’ to eat,
Hattie—I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.” Then, talking rapidly,
he went on: “Hey, Dowd, how’s 'bout somethin’ to drink? Man, I
feel jus’ as dry as if I ain't had a drink all night.”
Dowd, appearing relieved to get out of the room, beckoned to Dave
and headed for the kitchen hurriedly. Asher followed behind them.
“I know damn good an’ well you didn't invite them jokers,” he
said. “Not you, Dowd. Didcha? They just happened by.”
“Huh!”
“Don’t huh me.” -
The old man gave a start as he watched a sardonic smile curl
the corners of Asher's mouth. Dowd's eyeballs rolled upward. A
frightened look stole into his face while he watched Asher step
threateningly close to him.
“Well,” he said finally, “it wasn't exactly my fault. That is er-er-er
I couldn't help it. You see, it was like this. Couple of the boys was
standing out on the corner last night when we got outa your car
wid all the food an’ liquor. An’ they just put two an’ two together,
I suppose.”
Asher drew his hand back as though about to give the old man a
209


back-handed clout. “Don’t hand me that stuff. Who do you think
you're talkin' to? A damn fool?”
Dave stepped in front of Asher. “Calm yourself, pardner,” he said.
“We’ve had enough rumblin’ for one night.”
“Honest,” Dowd said, as though he were trying to convince Dave
rather than Asher. “That's the way it happened. 'Cause when I went
out to get the papers they was still down there. An' they had it all
figgered out. I tried to tell 'em one a the cap'ns out the place was
throwin' the shindig for his gal friend.”
For a moment there was a stony silence. Then Dave said, laugh-
ingly: “We know how it is, pal. Once a turkey always a turkey.”
“A first-class turkey at that,” Asher said as he marched out of the
kitchen.
Hattie, meanwhile, like an actor taking his cue from another,
had pressed Miss Georgiana into service. And together the two
women, working rapidly at the munificent buffet table, were prepar-
ing lavish helpings of ham and turkey and various salads. While
they passed the plates around, Asher stood with his back to the
guests, nibbling on olives and cheese and crackers, his eyes nervously
scanning the wall and the ceiling.
Despite this bustle of activity, the party seemed to be dying on
its feet. The party-makers now sat in attitudes of silent watchfulness,
stiff-backed and glum-faced. Their eyes blinked in the light which
flickered every now and then from too much drain on the current,
causing minute circles of blackness to appear, like sunspots before
their eyes. Idly, some fingered the drinks the old man and Dave
rushed to them; while others gulped theirs down, signaling, crafty-
eyed, for another. Everyone eagerly accepted the heaping plates of
food. Yet everyone ate in a nervous and self-conscious manner, try-
ing desperately to avoid each other's furtive glances. Only occasionally
did anyone attempt conversation, half-hearted attempts that died in
mid-air.
Through all this, Ester and Mrs. Dowd continued to sit in with-
drawn silence. Ester's expression remained impassive; not a muscle in
her face quivered. There was, however, something about the way she
210


sat forward, on the edge of the sofa, that made her seem alert to the
sullen undercurrent of shame and defiance in this atmosphere of silent
watchfulness. Her eyes, now small and piercing, semed to take in
everything—the raising of an eyebrow, the inclination of a head
or the pursing of lips—without seeming to look anyone straight in
the eye. And her breath came in short, jerky spurts as if controlled
by the soft but rapid tap, tap, tap of Mrs. Dowd's foot, as the older
woman nervously tapped the hardwood floor.
Then, suddenly, Peggy and Anne simultaneously began signaling
their escorts with their eyes as though indicating their readiness to
leave. Apparently Ester was aware of their intentions, for without
seeming to attract attention she left the room and went out into the
kitchen, shoving the door partly closed behind her. She dropped
into a chair beside a table in the waist-high partitioned-off dining
space. -
“Huh!” she said aloud. For a moment she looked around with an
expression of thoughtfulness. Everything seemed curiously empty—
curious, because so much had happened. Beneath the window ledge,
lined up in a neat row, were eight empty whisky bottles, and in the
corner stood a wooden crate half-full of empty beer bottles. At the
bar there were six bottles of whisky, two of which had already been
partly emptied, and two unopened gallon jugs of wine. Besides them,
there was an array of club soda and ginger-ale bottles, two bowls of
cracked ice, swimming in water, and a number of glasses—some
tall and thick, like jelly glasses, others short and bespeckled with
tiny stars such as dairy concerns use for promotion purposes. “What
a lot of waste,” Ester muttered, shaking her head from side to side.
“All this money thrown away for nothin’.” Then, hearing voices in
the foyer, she stopped to listen.
“It was such a swell party,” Peggy was saying. “Dear me, I hardly
know who to thank for what . . .”
“Isn't it the truth,” put in Anne. “I know you gave it, Mr. Asher.
But you, Mrs. Dowd . . .”
“Now, don't you-all go thankin’ me,” Mrs. Dowd said. “I’m jus’
so sorry it all had to turn out . . .”
211


Do what she wants, for my sake. I wouldn't lead you wrong, son.”
Asher looked at Mrs. Dowd questioningly for a minute. “All
right,” he finally replied.
They said little more then. And in a few minutes Asher took Ester
home without either of them saying good night to the remaining
guests.
11
FRIDAY night, just before dinner got under way, Asher stood outside
the white colonial entrance to the restaurant watching the passersby.
It was a hot, sultry day on City Island and the sky was a patch quilt
of tiny sullen clouds. The sightseers moved aimlessly along in the
silence that had settled over the Island in the absence of a breeze.
Walters was at Asher's side, leaning against the building wall. “I’m
beat,” he said, wearily. “I’m beat right down to my socks.” His
shoulders sagged dejectedly. “Work, work, work—that's all I do. A
man my age ain't got no business workin' this hard.” Defiantly, he
flipped a cigarette out into the roadway. “So goddam tired when I
gits in bed at night I can't sleep. Feel like them waves is beatin’ hell
outa me all night long.”
Asher listened to Walters seriously. But there was nothing he could
say. For at the Fishbowl, all during the months of July, August and
September, the waiters worked seven days a week. They could have
as much “time in the street” during the winter as they wanted, the
Kingfish said, provided they “show up on weekends when I need
them.” But for a waiter to take a day off during his busy season
was indeed an unpardonable sin. Of course the Kingfish did not put
his “no time off” edict into words. He was far too adroit for that.
He merely had his paymaster hand an erring waiter, one who per-
haps needed a day off the first part of the week, his pay envelope
minus the weekly twenty-dollar bonus; if the waiter was out a day
the last half of the week, he lost not only that week's bonus but also
213


the next week's; and if he “slipped up” on a Saturday or Sunday
he became one of the “regular extras”—that is, his bonus was taken
from him for good. And the Kingfish rejected all excuses—proved
illnesses or even death in the family—with a disdainful shrug of his
shoulder.
Asher felt above all this. Besides receiving a forty-dollar weekly
bonus as the captain of the Fisherman's Bar, he could take time off
whenever he wanted to. Consequently, once he'd supervised his num-
bers collection that morning—the morning after the party—he had to
have, as he phrased it, “time to catch up on my sleep.” Had it not
been the beginning of the long, mad-house weekend he'd have taken
the remainder of the day off, but on that day he, too, had to answer
the five o'clock get-on-the-floor call. At the start of the Friday night
dinner hour he had to take over his weekend station in the main
dining-room in part payment for the bounty that was his by virtue
of the Kingfish's generosity.
The bounty had been good to Asher. What's more, like a lucky
find being shared among friends, the bounty had that very day been
divided at the Fishbowl. The winning digit that day was 066 and
two of the waiters were in the chips having won a little over
five hundred dollars. Harris, the recently married man from Missis-
sippi, had collected two hundred dollars; while Kimball, who the
waiters said “ain't got chick nor child,” won the lion's share.”
Asher had returned to the restaurant just in time to pay the win-
ners. The take that day had been good. Even after he'd deducted
the winnings he still had three hundred dollars for himself. He felt
at peace with the world. Looking at Walters out of the corner of his
eye he said: “You got yours, ain'tcha?”
Walters, who had lapsed into a brooding silence, came to life.
“Yeah, I’m satisfied,” he said. “Funny thing 'bout a man. They all
the time cryin' broke but they sho’ can scare it up for these num-
bers. It's a good racket.”
“That's what I’m talkin' 'bout,” Asher said. “Come on. Let's go
on in an’ knock this dinner out. Ain't gonna be nothin' to it.”
214


all week because, as they put it, “there ain't no use slavin’ for nothin'.”
Finally Walters waved his hand in the direction of Broadway and
said: “I was jus’ fixin' to turn my station over to one of them.”
“Why not?” Asher replied, hunching his shoulders. “We got ours.
Ain't no use breakin' your ass.”
“Looka, will you. Chief's got all the greedy ones tied up in here.
An it'll be way after seven 'fore they gits back in the second section.”
“So what?” Asher snapped. “Hungry as they are, they'll snatch
checks all over the joint.”
Walters laughed softly, but did not answer. And for a few minutes
Asher was silent. Suddenly he realized his mouth had been working
as though he had been talking to himself. His body seemed to grow
tense as he finally blurted out: “Poor-ass jokers.”
“You sure said a mouthful that time,” Walters said, chortling.
“They ain't got a pot to use or a window to throw it outa.”
“An’ what gits me, is they suppose to know so goddam much,”
Asher said. “I ain't got no use for broke bastards like them. Oughta
work 'em 'til their tongues drop out.” And he looked over at the extra
waiters in Broadway with an expression that was filled with loathing.
Just then Chief, in his cream-colored dinner jacket, walked down
the center of the dining-room followed by one of his cronies, Thomas,
a husky-shouldered man who carried a sheaf of menus under his
arm. The headwaiter grimaced at Asher, his mouth curled in open
hostility, showing gold teeth.
“Looka ol' Chief,” said Asher. “Sharp as a tack. Must be ex-
pectin’ it to bust open here tonight.”
“Same as every Friday night,” Chief snapped. “Whattsa matter,
afraid you might get a little workout?”
“You know me. You put 'em down an' I'll get 'em up. Every time!”
“Yeah!” Chief replied sarcastically. “Something's gonna drop on
you one of these days an' you ain't gonna be able to get from under
it. An’ real soon, I'm thinkin’.” Thomas shrieked with laughter. Sev.
eral diners seated in the center of the dining-room stretched their
necks, peered over the copper screen and stared at them.
Asher moved along to where three waiters were clustered about
217


a service buffet at the entrance to the alcove. Two of the men were
old aces who worked in the alcove regularly. One of them, Charlie
Hogan, was tall and dark brown. The other, Freddy Rowden, was a
fat shapeless little man with a shiny bald head. Asher had never
seen the third man before. Something about the man puzzled Asher.
He looked intently at the man as he came close. The stranger was
a tall, rangy mulatto. And his small eyes constantly shifted about
in his lynxlike face, never quite meeting those of his companions in
a frank and friendly exchange. He had long mandarin fingernails,
cruel-looking like an eagle's claws, and long, tapering fingers which
showed off a flashy Mexican diamond ring on one hand and a huge
black stone on the other. Indeed, everything about the man gave the
impression of his being as slick as the half-pound of grease he had
plastered on his hair. He stood some five feet off, in front of the two
waiters, staring at them with an expression of surprise. Suddenly
he exploded in derisive laughter.
Just as Asher came abreast of the men he looked across the dining-
room and saw Ester standing in the doorway of the rest room, smiling
at him. She made her lips move as though she were about to say
something to him. But then she looked from one to the other of the
waiters and, as she saw the laughing waiter, the smile on her face
instantly vanished. She turned about immediately and disappeared
inside the rest room. The stranger turned to Asher, tilted his head
back, and looked him up and down.
Who the hell is this jerk? Asher asked himself. Just another ass-
bucket. He returned the man's stare, as the stranger began to jump
up and down in a straight line, chuckling to himself. Something
about the incident made Asher feel queasy all over as though some.
thing were crawling over him. What the hell she run for, he won-
dered.
Hogan and Rowden exchanged glances, snickering nervously.
Asher stared fixedly at them, his eyebrows rising in surprise. But
the two old aces averted their eyes. The stranger now wore a cynical
look, and, as if aware of Asher for the first time, he said:
“How you, boss?”
218


“Not me,” Rowden said, obviously relieved to get an idle conversa-
tion going. “I got myself a sweet little young chick. Give her every-
thin' I got each an' every Tuesday I'm off. Man, I jus’ knock my-
self out with her.”
Slater jumped straight up and down, laughing uproariously. “Must
knock yourself out dreamin’,” he said. “Ol' an’ dried up as you are
—you can’t even remember what you were like twenty years ago.”
“Look out now,” Hogan said. “This here is a young man you
talkin’ to.”
“Whatcha mean, twenty years ago?” Rowden said, feigning a cocky
aggressiveness. “I’m better than I was twenty years ago. I gets better
with age.”
Slater weakly pushed the outstretched palm of his hand toward
Rowden. “You can't jive the jiver,” he said. “I back cap all plays.”
It seemed to Asher that there was something dark and insinuat-
ing in the way Slater had spoken. He had the distinct impression that
the man's words were intended for him. And he began to feel an al-
most uncontrollable stir of anger. The restaurant suddenly seemed
stiflingly hot, and he could feel the perspiration oozing out all over
him. He felt an urge to say something sharp, to put the man in his
place, but he did not have the chance to answer. For, at that moment,
there was a commotion at the parking-lot entry. People coming and 1
leaving the restaurant were pushing and shoving one another, like
shoppers milling about in a department store just before the closing
hour. At the same time, two women were preparing to leave the rest
room, and Ester stood in the doorway, smiling wanly at them. And,
in a flash, Slater had started running across the dining-room, zig-
zagging through the crowd like a broken-field football runner.
Asher snorted violently as he watched Slater dart across the room.
I’d like to put my foot in his ass, he told himself. He looked furtively
after Hogan and Rowden, both of whom had started walking toward
their stations. One of them pretty boys, Asher thought. And he
marched into the alcove to join his co-workers, his head high and
shoulders erect, trying desperately to affect a jaunty indifference.
For all his trying, he couldn't help watching Slater.
220


Ester gasped, an expression of loathing and fear on her face as
Slater came up to her. The two women to whom she'd been talking
looked disapprovingly down their noses at Slater, hastily bade her
good-by and hurried away.
“Hi you, kid?” Slater said breezily, taking Ester's hand in his.
“Long time no see.”
Ester snatched her hand back quickly.
“Whatta you want?” she said, bitterly. “If it's money you're after,
I can tell you right off, nothin’ doin’.”
“Now, now, that's a fine way to greet me. Jus' cause you're ridin'
high these days. But I ain't beggin', kid. I jus’ wanta talk to you.”
“About what?” Ester snapped.
Slater looked at her with his shifty eyes for a minute, then he
dropped his eyelids and smiled cynically.
“’Bout the kid,” he said, with cringing fondness. “But not here.
Tell you what. Know that sandwich place the other side of where the
bus stops, the Irish Peggy? Suppose I wait there for you 'til you get
off tonight.”
Ester looked at him with hatred burning in her eyes, but she did
not anSWer.
“Whattsa matter, kid?” Slater said. “Gotta heavy date, kid? Want
me to tell him I won't be keepin' you long?” He jerked his head
back in the direction of where he'd left Asher. “I don’t wanna have
to spoil the heavy play you puttin' down, kid.”
An expression of utter hopelessness began to creep into Ester's
face and her full lips quivered as though she might have been strug-
gling to hold back tears. Then, without uttering a word, she nodded
her head affirmatively, turned about and went back inside the rest
roorn.
The big rush was under way. Everywhere, diners swarmed about
the dining-room, grabbing chairs and tables from one another, as
people fight for subway seats. Still more diners clustered in front of
every entrance, calling impatiently for the headwaiter. But Chief,
with his customary indifference to what he called “this rabble,” was
221


busy smiling and bowing the carriage trade—three elegant-looking
parties of four—into the alcove. He sat one party at a table in each
station except Asher's. Then he ordered Hogan and Rowden to tilt
the back-rests of the chairs against their other tables. He waved away
a small crowd of unescorted diners who had followed him into the
empty section of the restaurant. “This section's reserved!” he barked
at them.
Three couples, ignoring Chief's command, seated themselves at
Asher's four-seat tables. Now, on any other busy night Asher would
have considered himself most unlucky to have only six people—in-
stead of, say, sixteen—seated at his station. For, as he said, “a man
can't keep himself in shape waitin' on a gang of deuces.” But this
night he did not seem to mind it. He stood now, leaning against a
service buffet in one corner of the alcove, with a vacant stare on his
face, looking from one to the other of the couples.
Just then, Slater walked into the alcove. “Damn! Brown, you-all
loaded up with deuces,” he said, chuckling to himself.
Asher glared at him, but said nothing.
Chief walked over to the two men and winked at Slater. “Mr.
Rich. He don't need much,” he laughed. “Better see what your party's
gonna have, Slater. They's fine people.” The two men exchanged
amused glances.
Asher, wearing a deep scowl, set about working. He moved list.
lessly from table to table, his lips moving wordlessly, as he took each
couple's order. Then he headed for the kitchen. When he returned
to the dining-room he found that he and Slater were to share the same
service buffet. Slater suddenly became very talkative, making endless |
chat about any and everything. -
“Ain’t nothin' but a bunch of cheap people in here tonight,” |
Slater said.
“Yeah,” Asher replied, curtly.
“They oughta go on to the Automat where they belong.”
Asher grimaced, but did not answer. -
Slater tried again. “Jus' come 'round to take up a man's time for |
nothin’,” he said.
222


Still Asher would not be drawn into conversation. But all during
the dinner hour, whenever the two men were together at the service
buffet or passed each other in the narrow spaces between their sta-
tions, Slater made a great show of overweening friendliness toward
Asher.
“Had any luck yet, boss?” he asked once.
“Nope,” Asher muttered.
Once when Asher returned from a trip to the kitchen he found
that Chief had brought Slater a party of twelve people, which neces-
sitated his joining three of his four-seat tables together. But instead
of going to the cubbyhole beside the swinging doors that led into the
kitchen for extra chairs, Slater took all of the chairs from one of
Asher's tables. When Asher returned and saw what had happened he
grabbed Slater by the arm.
“What the hell's the big idea?” Asher demanded angrily.
Slater, who was studiously watching his party study their menus,
turned his head sidewise to Asher. “Sorry, boss,” he said. “Chief's
put so many people on me, I'm up a tree already. But I'll get you
some more chairs jus’ as soon as I get this here order.”
“You damn sight better, 'less you're lookin' for trouble.”
“Shhh!” Slater said, putting one finger across his mouth. “Take
it easy, boss. Don't lose your head.”
One of the men in the party overheard the conversation and
laughed. He nudged an attractive young woman who sat beside him,
and explained the joke to her so loudly that everyone at the table
laughed too. “Yessir, boss,” Slater said, snapping to the man's side,
leaving Asher standing alone in the center of the aisle, glowering at
him.
But, of course, he never did return the chairs to Asher's table.
Had it been any other waiter in the dining-room, Asher would not
have minded the incident, but now he was itching to get back at
Slater in some way. Near the end of the dinner hour, his chance
came. In the section of the room between the hole and the kitchen
swinging doors, Slater, headed for the kitchen with a trayload of
soiled dishes, indicated with a wave of his free hand to Asher, who
223


Then Dave shoved Asher toward the alcove. “I’m surprised at you,
man,” he said. “Don’t you dig what's goin’ down?”
Asher did not answer. But he turned and moved slowly in the
general direction Dave had taken.
“Give me your checkbook,” Dave said. “I’ll finish your folks up
for you. An'go on over an’ let my ol' lady wise you up.”
Asher handed Dave his waiter's checkbook and, without opening
his mouth, walked across the dining-room to where Hattie stood in
the doorway of the ladies’ room.
“You shoulda brained that no-good bastard,” she said.
“Huh!” Asher said, still breathing hard.
“That's Jim Slater—Ester's ex.”
Asher's eyes widened until they looked as though they'd pop out of
their sockets. Then they centered, growing quiet and angry.
“That ol' rotten headwaiter jus’ about got him to come out here
to start trouble,” she went on. “He’d love to frame you an' get the
boss to can you. An’ that no-good Slater's gonna try to get his. He's
already made Ester promise to meet him outside after work. So he
can put the beg on her, I betcha.”
“Yeah,” Asher said, wetting his lips. “I’ll fix his wagon this night.
He won't be no trouble when I get through wid him.”
He went out then into the parking lot and walked along the gravel
path around the back of the restaurant. His heart pounded high in
his chest and his lips quivered. As he charged along in the glimmer-
ing moonlight, he looked about suspiciously at the solid row of auto-
mobiles parked along the outer edge of the driveway. Their shadows
cast menacing figures that cut across the gravel path and crept up
the side of the building in a silhouette of outstretched fingers. Sud-
denly his forehead corrugated, and his underlip pushed out angrily,
as he saw little specks of light emitting from an army of fireflies which
seemed to flash in unison. Jesus Christ! he said to himself. Suppose
I’d really brained that bastard right in there? I'd sure been outa luck
now.
The thought of what might have happened made him halt sud-
denly at the end of the gravel path where it sloped off into the un-
* 225


paved end of Rochelle Street. He lit a cigarette, expelling the smoke
angrily. Not that he was afraid of a fight, nor did he doubt, for one
moment, that he could take care of himself in a row with Slater. Holy
crap, I can't afford to get all messed up in this, he told himself. My
racket would be deader than a doornail. Then an idea flashed into his
mind. He'd have some of the boys do the job for him. Yeah, he said
aloud, that's the way the big shots play it. Some jerk rubs you the
wrong way, and you have 'em take him for a ride. He flicked his
cigarette out into the roadway resolutely. Smart guy! I'll have the
son-of-a-bitch run to hell outa New York. Messin' wid me.
Then he made his way around to the delivery court and back in-
side the restaurant, where he found Casablanca and Raymond stand-
ing near the silverware-washing machine, pulling small chunks of red
meat from the remains of a large T-bone steak which rested in a tray.
“I ain't exactly hungry,” Casablanca said. “But man, there ain't no
use lettin' all this good red meat go to waste. Want some?”
Asher eyed Casablanca intently for a moment, as Raymond winked
at him.
“Think you-all could take care of a real smart guy?” he asked.
Casablanca gave a start and the T-bone dropped onto his aluminum
tray.
“Takin' care of smart guys is right up my alley.” Casablanca was
somewhat flattered. “Man, when I was in the merchant marine I usta
lay for them kinda bastards . . .”
“Cut it,” Asher said, thinking he'd have to listen again to a recital
of Casablanca's many fistic exploits. “This guy might have a switch-
blade on him.”
Casablanca squared his shoulders and laughed. “That don't scare
me,” he said. “A son-of-a-bitch pull a knife on me, I'll make him
eat . . .”
“Jus’ put the finger on 'em, man,” Raymond cut in. “That's all!”
They waited for Asher to go on and, when he didn't, Casablanca
asked, “Who is it, man?”
“Now if you-all can git him back up behind the Shanty soon as
he comes outa here,” Asher went on, ignoring the question, “an'
226 *


3 stomp the hell outa him, I mean sop him up reeal good, I'll make it
all right wid you.”
Casablanca said: “All you gotta do is point him out, pal.”
“Okay. It's that pretty boy workin' long side of me in the hole.”
Casablanca's glance widened with shock. “Him? He's one a your
! old lady's boy friends.”
Asher nodded soberly. “That's why I wanna keep outa it. You got
any parties?”
“They's almost finished,” Raymond put in. -
“Get Dave to finish 'em for you,” Asher commanded. “We ain't
got no time to waste now. I'll be over in the Shanty.”
They agreed that Raymond would plant himself near the entrance
to the Shanty, taking care that the light from the bar did not shine in
his face, and as soon as Slater emerged from the delivery court he'd
invite him over for a drink. In the meanwhile, Casablanca, who'd be
lolling about at the entrance to the alley, would have the job, just
in case Slater refused, of coaxing him across the street.
Asher, who took only a very few minutes to change his clothes,
was out of the restaurant and in the bar in a jiffy. He was as jumpy
; and restless when he entered the Shanty as if he had expected to
find Slater there. But, except for a couple of City Island natives, the
place was deserted. Asher made a place for himself in the middle of
the long, dark-stained bar, so that he'd have an unobstructed view
of the Fishbowl's delivery court diagonally across City Island Road.
: Mike, who was at the end of the counter that jutted out almost into
the doorway, broke off the talk long enough to bring Asher a bottle
and glass, and went back to his talk. Asher took his whisky straight
and poured another.
Mike looked down the bar. “What's the matter, pal?” he asked
Asher. “Them double sixes treat you kinda rough today?”
Asher studied Mike's two customers for a moment, and apparently
satisfied himself that they were not plainclothesmen. “Naw,” he re-
plied, gloomily. “I’m jus’ hotter than a chicken wid the pox.”
Mike waited for Asher to go on, and when he didn't, said: “Yeah—
what's up, pal?”
227


“Ah—some ol' would-be smart guy over there tryin' to git in my
business.”
“You know how to handle smart guys, don'tcha?” Mike said.
Asher eased his weight on the footrail, swinging to have a look out
the door. And as he did so, he saw Casablanca and Raymond emerge
from the delivery court, walking rapidly.
“You bet a man, I know what to do,” Asher said to Mike. “I’m
gonna have the jerk run off'n the Island. But fast.”
He picked up a small glass of club soda which Mike had placed
before him and, tilting it sidewise, allowed the sparkling water to flow
over the brass top of the beer-cooler, and seep down through the
myriad tiny drain holes. Then he very carefully poured three drinks
of straight whisky into the highball glass. Tossing his head back, he
emptied the glass in one gulp. “I’ll straighten you out later,” he said
to Mike as he headed for the back room.
There was only a dim light in the back room, a low-ceilinged,
barnlike place, with a dozen or so four-seat tables strewn about. It
was seldom used except on Saturday nights when the City Islanders,
out for their beer-drinking spree-on-the-town, wanted some privacy
from the waiters. On the side of the room facing the street, up in
the corner, was the family entrance and, running back the length
of the room, there was a long, narrow bay window, the lower part of
which was curtained off with a heavy tan material.
Huddling close in the semi-darkened corner opposite the family
entrance, where he could see across the Island's main street, Asher
stood now, his stomach thumping with excitement. Suddenly, as if he
might have been addressing Ester, he muttered, you won't have no
more trouble outa him, babes. He began to wonder then if deep in
her heart she was still in love with Slater; and the frequent thought
he had had—that she's still carrying a torch for her ol’ man—began
to take hold of him.
As he looked across the street at Casablanca lolling near the deliv-
ery entrance, he found himself talking out loud. Even he knew it.
Everybody in the joint knew what was up, but me. These women is
so goddam tricky. You can't trust a livin' one of 'em. Maybe, I
228


shoulda watched the jive go down first. After all, she didn't put me
wise. But even then, as he looked suspiciously about him, little,
bright-colored memories came to him pleasantly, like the smallest
valentines. In his mind's eye, he saw her then, with her sad black
eyes searching his, and her familiar smile playing suggestively about
the corners of her mouth. He remembered how she had once told
him she was saving it all for him. You may’ve been runnin’ wid him,
he said, almost in a prayerful whisper, but you're mine now. To
hell wid that bastard. He felt fuzzy-headed and his throat was dry
and clogged but the pit of his stomach felt warm, deliciously warm.
He did not see the two men when they first started across City
Island Road. Several automobiles, headed for the mainland, halted
by a stoplight a few feet beyond the white traffic road marker had
temporarily blotted out Asher's view of the delivery court. And by
the time the cars had sped on their way with the changing of the
lights, the two men were halfway across the wide thoroughfare. Slater,
with his long legs gangling and his shoulders arched, like a drum
major, led the way. To one side and slightly behind him strode Casa-
blanca, who looked by comparison like a midget, although he was
powerfully built, walking along as offhandedly limp and languid as
a cat, and he had the same sort of sure, built-in balance. As both
men stepped up onto the curbing in front of the Shanty, Asher saw
Raymond spring into action. Like a ringwise fighter feinting his op-
* ponent, he danced in front of Slater and Casablanca as, at the same
time, he gestured wildly as though they were being watched by some-
one at a window within the restaurant. Then, turning about abruptly,
Raymond led the way, galloping up the shadowy dead-end street
: toward the bar's family entrance.
Asher, grunting to himself, propped one foot up onto the window
sill. Looka this dummy, he said to himself. Walking right into the
trap.
Just as Slater pulled up short to keep from bumping into Ray-
mond at the family entrance, Casablanca, without uttering a word,
grabbed Slater by one shoulder and spun him around. With the side
of his outstretched palm he slashed Slater on the face and neck, his
229


with his arms. As he started to pull himself erect, Raymond caught
him in the seat of his pants with the side of his foot, making a re-
sounding thwack. Slater's shoulders lunged forward several inches,
like a runner practicing a start, and he seemed on the verge of
sprawling over the pavement again. But Casablanca took hold of him
by the slack in his jacket collar, and pulled him onto his feet.
“That's enough,” Asher said. He was laughing softly and vic-
toriously, like a person who'd just won first prize in a contest. He
gave Slater a slight shove. “Now you git off'n this island, an’ stay
to hell away from 'round here,” he said. “You better remember that,
next time Chief tries to put ideas in your head. 'Cause if you ever
come 'round lookin' for trouble again they gonna carry you away
from here.”
Slater cowered, and backed up a few paces toward City Island
Road. Then, wheeling about, he charged across the street and started
running in the direction of the Bronx mainland. Asher followed him,
threateningly, as far as the corner, Casablanca and Raymond trailing
right behind him.
By then a small crowd of passersby had collected at the corner
in front of the Shanty. A pale-faced, balding man, in a short-sleeved
sports shirt, turned to Asher and asked: “What's up?”
Asher looked the man up and down, but he only laughed sar-
donically in reply.
Casablanca, who stood watching Slater's retreating form, now a
block away as he kept on running, said: “Looka that joker tearin'
outa here!”
“Jus' like the crackers was after him,” Asher said, turning to face
Casablanca and Raymond.
Unable to learn what had happened, the little knot of curious on-
lookers now dispersed, drifting off toward the end of City Island
Road down at the water's edge.
Asher, tense with exultation, stood with his cronies, intently star-
ing. Then suddenly he heard a voice say to him: “Look's like you
got everythin' under control.” The voice, low and musical, as though
intended to touch upon some fancied secret of his, first to pique and
231


intended to force the others to lead the way into the bar. Only Hattie
stood her ground, anxiously alert.
Ester turned to Asher. “Please, not tonight,” she said, sniffling.
“I couldn't. . . . Take me home, will you?”
Asher looked from Ester to Hattie. But Hattie only hunched her
shoulders as if agreeing with Ester.
“Okay,” he said stiffly. “Only stop that goddam cryin', will you.”
He waved toward his car which was parked across the street up near
the restaurant's entrance, and walked off slowly with Ester.
He took a thick wad of bills from his pocket and, turning to Casa-
blanca and Raymond, handed them each a twenty-dollar bill. “Tell
Mike I’ll straighten him out tomorrow,” he said. Then, without utter-
ing another word, he followed off behind Ester. They drove home in
silence.
Asher was not given to making a show of his emotions, but when
he pressed Ester's head tightly against his body Ester could feel him
quivering. “Well, I suppose he had to show up sooner or later,”
Ester said, her voice unsteady. “He’s just rotten through and
through.”
“You can forget you ever saw him, babes. 'Cause he won't come
'round here again stickin’ his head in our business. I'll bet a man on
that.”
Dinner was not gay that night. Ester drank cup after cup of
steaming black coffee. But she merely pawed the food on her plate,
pushing it back and forth with her fork. Asher ate heartily. And be-
tween mouthfuls, he talked a lot about how they'd beaten Slater.
“He sho’ was a glutton for punishment,” he said. “We beat that joker
to a pulp.”
“He oughta drop dead,” Ester said.
“Yeah,” Asher prompted, surprised at the violence in her voice.
“How'd you feel if somebody had messed up your life?”
“Tell us all about it, babes?”
Ester, only too relieved, poured out her tale, and Asher listened
with absorbed interest.
233


She had been born on a farm near Plunderville, North Carolina,
she said, and had attended the one-room school which was held in
the Baptist church. When she was eight years old, a split occurred
in the church and her family went with the seceding group. She was
then sent off to Raleigh to Freedman's Institute, which later became
known as the Sloane Normal School. Graduating nine years later,
she'd held her first teaching job in the little church-school she'd first
attended. At Sloane's she had joined the Presbyterian church and,
at the end of her first year of teaching at Plunderville, she'd gone to
North Carolina College to summer school. That fall she'd become a
teacher at the College. During her second year there both her parents
died and, instead of going home that summer, she came to New York
for a visit with another schoolteacher.
At this point, Ester's narrative appeared to come to an end. She
stared at Asher absently, and for so long, that he was finally com-
pelled to prompt her.
“You been to college?” he said.
“Yes,” Ester said, slowly. “For all the good it's done.”
Her voice died away and, after a long pause, Asher learned that
Ester's parents had maintained a strongly rooted patriarchal family
tradition that dated back to the early days of the Civil War. Her
father, Rufus Werner, a pure-blooded Negro freed as a result of the
war, had married a mulatto, Ella Rogers, whose family was known
as “the first Negro family of Plunderville,” because they had been
freed before the war.
Ester's father, who came from the northern part of Georgia, bought
an eighty-acre farm when he married Ester's mother, and they settled
down to raising a family of three boys and two girls. And in the course
of time, having acquired more property and forging ahead, Rufus
himself became a community leader, often acting as an ambassador
for the people of “Blacktown” in their relations with “Whitetown.”
Perhaps because he'd spent only one year in school during his
childhood, he was motivated by a fierce determination to “live to see
my children get a education.” In this he was rewarded, for all of them
finished Freedman's Institute, and, except for Ester and her youngest
234


had put him in charge of supervising the sandpapering and waxing
of the dining-room tables. Until a few weeks before, this task had
fallen to one of the pantrymen who, as jack-of-all-trades, performed
odd carpentering jobs about the restaurant before or after his nine-
hour tour of duty. But a rash of complaints from the gentlewomen
among the eatery's patrons over torn stockings and snagged skirts—
complaints, incidentally, which were always coupled with bills of
damages—had made the task too large an undertaking for a part-
time carpenter.
The Kingfish, in one of his rare administrative moods, had
hit upon the idea of having “his” waiters turn cabinet-makers
for a few hours each week. Saturday morning, so he reasoned, was
as good a day as any for this stint, for the restaurant was usually
deserted until mid-afternoon. (The night watch had their fling at this
business every Friday after the dinner hour.) Of course, this new-
fangled idea was unheard-of elsewhere throughout the restaurant in-
dustry and, needless to say, the waiters were not paid a penny for
their added burden. Those waiters who had been “promoted” to this
“branch work” never failed on this morning to dawdle over their
breakfast of coffee and yesterday's biscuits. Sometimes Asher had to
come into the kitchen as many as four times before he could get them
into the workshop.
This Saturday—the start of the long Labor Day weekend—it was
a warm, miserable day. The unmistakable threat of rain which hung
in the air had turned the kitchen into a sweat-chamber. Despite this,
the kitchen stirred like a beehive in preparation for the holiday week-
end, with waiters everywhere performing the work of pantrymen and
kitchen-helpers. Huddled around ten large trays standing on tray-
racks in front of the coffee urns, twenty-five men were stripping large
stalks of parsley into little sprigs about the size of boutonnieres.
Over in front of the fish-broiler's counter, another group of waiters
busily shelled green peas. Next to them, others opened lima-bean
pods. Farther down the broad corridor, four waiters standing beside
six commercial-sized fruit crates sliced lemons into eighths. On the
other side of the kitchen, still more waiters attended the condiments.
236


Some washed ketchup bottles at a sink, passing them on to others
who poured the viscid, blood-red sauce from gallon cans into bottles,
while others refilled sugar bowls and salt-and-pepper shakers.
Asher seemed totally indifferent to this fever of activity as he
paced impatiently down the broad corridor, squeezing past the groups
of perspiring waiters. He listened as the cooks yelled taunts to the
sullen-faced waiters, above the din of clacking pots and pans.
“Looka these slaves,” a fry cook chortled. “An' they call them-
selves waiters!”
The fish-broiler answered: “Sure is tough when all you can do is
tote a tray. Any dummy can be a dining-room man, all you need is
a strong back an’ a weak mind.”
On any other morning, Asher would have joined in this repartee,
taking sides with the cooks. But now he only smiled, the corners of
his mouth curling contemptuously. For he had just spied his detail
of cabinet-makers—eight waiters standing at the chest-high counter
in front of the fry cook's station, their heads bent disinterestedly
over their coffee cups. Only two waiters were actually eating; the
others appeared simply to be standing there listless and languid, as
though they were inmates of a prison waiting for a work-gong to
boom out—their soggy, perspiration-stained jackets stuck to their
hunched-up shoulders, and the backs of their shirt collars crumpled
like handkerchiefs tied around the necks of fat men.
Asher suddenly coming abreast of the waiters for the fourth time,
after there had been no indication at all from them that they were
even aware of his standing behind them, found the waiter whom the
boys called Preacher stacking a cup and saucer and lunch plate to-
gether. Asher nudged the man in his ribs.
“Expect them tables to walk out here to you-all?” he said. “Don’t
know why I gotta come after you. Come on, let's git wid 'em.”
He left the waiters wearily fumbling with their dishes. After a
minute or two they came out in the farm and took their jackets and
shirts off, draping them over the backs of chairs. Mumbling to them-
selves, they dragged chairs, one turned upside-down in the seat of
another, and pulled them over to the copper screen that divided the
237


long room. Then they hauled the tables out of the room's banquet-
hall formation, making four rows of them which ran the length of
the farm.
The sun, trying feebly to penetrate the torrid haze which hung
over Rochelle Street, made little black spots dance in front of the
windows of the snow-white, log-walled room. From where Asher
stood, near the concert grand piano at the entrance to the room, his
shoulders squared and chest expanded, he watched the waiters dron-
ing through their work. His eyes darted from one to the other with a
look of triumph, even a touch of exhilaration. He opened his mouth
as though on the verge of saying something to spur them on but
apparently thought better of it, for he pressed his lips tightly together
in amusement.
A droopy-faced waiter, bent over a table, looked up as a fat man
planed a piece of sandpaper over a table top, making a prolonged,
nerve-tingling screech as it grated off one edge of the table and
scratched the man's fingernails.
“God damn this crap!” snarled the fat man.
The droopy waiter's brown face glowed for a second in a soft-
mannered smile. “Boy,” he mused, speaking to no one in particular.
“This sure will make business jump for them manicurin’ chicks in the
barber shops up on the Hill.”
“Go on!” snapped the fat man as he nursed his slightly bruised
finger. “An' drop dead, wi' you.”
“Now, now . . .” placated Preacher. “You know how it is. To he
that have shall be given. An' to he who have not that which he seems
to have will be snatched from him.”
“Amen,” chorused several of the waiters who had stopped working.
Asher strolled to the center of the room and found himself a sec-
tion of the copper screening in front of which there were no chairs.
He draped one elbow over the top of the screen carelessly, removed
a toothpick from his mouth and worked his face into a big, cajoling
smile.
“All right now, men!” he said as though about to make an an-
nouncement. “You told the boss you wanted to work in his dining-
238


room. Didn't you?” He looked around at the sweating waiters, their
undershirts dripping wet. “Well, stop knockin' yourselves out wid
all this sad jive. 'Cause you-all got a long way to go yet. Might even
have to polish up them tables down there in the next room. But if'n
you snap into it an' git this room ready, I might let you knock off
in time to git yourself some lemonade 'fore this place starts to bust
wide open here this evenin’. It's gonna be a two-pound dinner this
night—man, I'm tellin' you.”
“Ah! Lay it on me, papa,” said a small-eyed man with his glasses
riding up and down his bulbous nose. “I know it's all jive. But it's
good to me. Huh! Lemonade? Must think you're down home sittin'
on a back porch.”
By now everyone in the room was wide awake and seemingly in a
jovial frame of mind. Setting to work at a brisk pace, they made a
rustle of scraping sounds, smoothing over the splintery tops and legs
of the soft pine tables. It was a task in which the waiters automatically
revealed their skill at creating a division of labor. First, one waiter
wiped the tables free of the ordinary room-blown dust. He was fol-
lowed, in turn, by three men, each with a piece of sandpaper of dif-
ferent coarseness. After that came the waiter who poured the wax
from a four-gallon can slung over his hooked arm. It made a loud,
gurgling noise like a man belching, as he allowed tiny pools of the
liquid to flow onto each table. He was a short, barrel-chested man
with muscles the size of grapefruit. The waiters called him Tickle-
Britches.
Moving slowly from table to table, Tickle-Britches rolled his large
head from side to side dolefully. As he did so, he moaned “Um-
um-um-um! My mother never told me it’d be like this.” In singsong
fashion, like a person repeating a refrain aloud to himself, he'd con-
tinue: “L-o-r-d To-day! . . . Why didn't I finish my schoolin' like
she told me.”
Some of the waiters heaved deep sighs, others nodded their heads
from side to side too, while the eyes of all were lit up with expressions
of understanding.
Then Tickle-Britches spoke again. “Serves me right,” he said.
239


to look forward to in life—not even to their overpowering sense of
guilt (and their need for punishment) which had been so firmly
rooted in their consciousness, drilled as they had been in the hell-
and-damnation school of religion.
Asher stood up straight. “I gotta go to press now,” he said. “Sup-
pose I can trust you-all to put this place back the way it was?” The
waiters watched him as he hurried back through the second dining-
room, and disappeared behind the swinging doors that led into the
kitchen.
Out in the kitchen, Asher found Mr. Jerry standing inside his
three-sided counter-like desk that jutted out from the wall space
between the swinging doors. The checker was readying a batch of
checkbooks for the seventy-five or so incoming night and extra
waiters. He was lining up the books on one side of his desk numeri-
cally, as he recorded their numbers and, beside them, the names of
the men, on a large red-and-blue-lined pad like an accountant's cost
sheet. In addition to this, it was also his job to tabulate each waiter's
hourly earnings, social security deduction, and the cost of his two
daily meals—one dollar—which the Kingfish added onto the waiters'
wages to lighten his tax load.
The checker, eager for conversation, giggled playfully at Asher.
“Rainin’ like hell, huh?” he said, making a question out of a state-
ment of fact.
In reply, Asher merely rolled his eyes. He lit a cigarette, and in-
haled deeply. Smoking in the kitchen was the one relaxation the
Kingfish allowed the waiters and cooks for, as he said, “They do
work so hard.”
Mr. Jerry tried again. “Won't be needin’ all these books today.”
He hesitated for a moment, then he said: “Now if that ol' headwaiter
of yours was on the job I wouldn't have this headache.” He sighed.
“But then he couldn't sell any blues.”
This struck a responsive chord in Asher, and he gave a little grunt
that was at once both contemptuous and belittling. For the sale of
“blues” was another of the unique customs observed at the Fishbowl
whereby Chief issued a “rain check” for a dollar or whatever the
241


traffic would bear, which enabled a regular waiter to go off for half
a day whenever business slowed down.
“He sure has got a lot of suckers to work on 'round here,” Asher
said, turning to look about the kitchen.
The Kingfish, his face set in a deep scowl, was making his way
along the passageway in the rear of the kitchen between the pantry
and bakery. He halted abruptly as he reached the broad corridor that
ran up the left side of the cookroom. His small piercing eyes darted
about furiously beneath his narrow brown snap-brim hat as he saw
five lobster barrels standing in the corridor, like wartime roadblocks.
Each of the barrels stood in a puddle of water from which little
spirals of steam rose, giving off a putrid fishy odor. The cooks had,
only a few minutes before, finished pouring huge potfuls of boiling
water over the lobsters, parboiling them in the barrel—another of
the Kingfish's sleight-of-hand, dollar-making inventions for the prepa-
ration of steamed lobsters.
“God damn it!” the Kingfish shouted, as he screwed up his nose.
He placed his hands on his hips. “What am I supposed to be run-
ning here, a bawdy house?”
Two vegetable cooks, the sweat streaming down their brown faces,
stopped removing frozen garden peas from paper cartons at a nearby
work counter, and stared blankly at the Kingfish.
“If I leave my kitchen for two seconds everything simply goes to
pot,” the Kingfish went on, addressing no one in particular. “I want
this nasty, stinking mess cleaned up at once.”
He walked off then, his hips swaying from side to side, as he
stepped mincingly between the barrels, and continued on up the cor-
ridor. By the time he reached the service clam bar, he was in an al-
most uncontrollable fit of rage. A dozen or more bushel baskets of
clams, stacked two and, in some places, three high, lined the top of
the long, sparkling aluminum counter. The clam-openers—a midget-
like family that consisted of grandfather, father and son—unmind-
ful of the Kingfish's presence jabbered angrily at each other in their
native Syrian behind the basket barricade.
“Michael!” the Kingfish shrieked, exasperated. “Where are you?”
242


again. In fact, this huge machine that stood flush against the wall,
next to the service clam bar, like a metal copy of a Western pioneers'
wagon with both ends open, through which the dishes were tunnelled
in large wooden racks while boiling water cascaded over them, re-
quired the attention of a mechanic every other day or so. And it
almost always broke down during rush hours, which forced the
waiters to wash whatever dishes they needed. But, of course, the
Kingfish would not think of buying a new machine when he had so
many black hands to save or make him an extra dollar.
Now that the machine was operating again, the dishwashers were
working rapidly to catch up with their work. For the apron-like tray
in front of the machine was littered with soiled dishes piled helter-
skelter, like a loosely gathered deck of playing cards. And as fast
as the four dishwashers could get each rack of dishes through the
machine, Chicko, the Puerto Rican chore boy, would take the clean
crockery to the various storage bins about the kitchen. He was a
short, round-faced young fellow, who had narrowly missed death in
the Pacific when one of his patrol buddies had killed a Japanese only
after the soldier had stuck the end of his saber in Chicko's neck.
This had left him with a slight speech defect, causing him to snap up
his drooping bottom lip with a gasp at the end of each sentence. A
happy-go-lucky lad, he was immensely popular with the waiters and,
quite often, they'd give him cigarettes and half-finished drinks that
the guests left, which he'd mix together—beer, wine, whisky, rum
and whatnot—and drink.
Chicko was walking very gingerly over the wet and slippery floor,
his hands clasped beneath a stack of saucers that reached from his
stomach almost to his chin, cradled in the crook of his arm as he
approached the shelves under the coffee urns. Suddenly he slipped,
almost directly behind where the Kingfish stood, and the dishes
crashed upon the cement floor. For a moment Chicko stood there
trembling and stared at the mess of broken crockery with a dumb
and horrified expression. Then the Kingfish, wheeling about, began
to stalk him, like an apache dancer pursuing his partner. Raving
244


and ranting at the chore boy, the Kingfish backed him clear across
the kitchen until Chicko bumped into Mr. Jerry's desk.
Both the checker and Asher exchanged snickering glances, like
two boys amused by an adult's misfortune.
“You little drunken sot!” the Kingfish screamed.
“I-I-am-not,” Chicko stammered. “Why don't you clean the floor?”
“You telling me how to run my business?” the Kingfish said.
“Get out of here!”
“Give me my money. You can have your job.”
“You’ll get it next Monday—that's my payday. And you better
stay out in the delivery court when you come for it. I don't want you
in my kitchen.”
“Not so you can take my money. You ain't no good. All you know
is how to rob everybody.”
The Kingfish gave a little shudder, and his face turned red. “Get
out of here!” he yelled. “You—you dirty filthy spick!”
Chicko seemed then really to go mad and, as he sought to express
himself, sputtering and fuming, he lapsed into a frenzy of unintel-
ligible Spanish. Then reaching upward on his toes, he squared off
clumsily to hit the Kingfish, But the Kingfish warded off the blow
with both hands, like a volley-ball player returning a service.
By now a little band of waiters had crossed the kitchen and stood
huddled near the two men, looking on with amazement, as though
they could not believe their eyes.
At that moment, Asher slipped up behind Chicko and, throwing
his arms around the chore boy, pinned his arms to his sides. Chicko
kicked violently in the direction of the Kingfish, first with one foot
then the other. But Higgins, cutting in between the Kingfish and
Chicko, grabbed the chore boy around the waist, like a footballer
making a tackle.
“Keep still, you crazy bastard,” Asher yelled. “‘Fore I break your
neck.”
“For Christ sake! Don't hit him,” Higgins pleaded. “He’s like
a baby. Let's take him out in the alley an’ let the rain sober him up.”
245


Asher merely grunted in reply. And together they half-dragged and
half-pulled the struggling chore boy through the kitchen to the de-
livery court, like two men carrying a large round pole which was
weighted at both ends.
But no sooner had Asher and Higgins returned to the kitchen, than
Chicko ducked into the butcher shop through a side door, picked up
a meat cleaver and started into the kitchen. With his arms hanging
loose at his sides, Chicko walked in a crouch, slowly. “Where's that
no-good Kingfish?” he said.
Hambone, the lobster cook, who looked like a Coldstream Guards-
man swathed in his cook's white uniform, was standing at his sta-
tion just in front of the ramp through which Chicko entered the
kitchen. He began to inch up very carefully behind the chore boy.
Reaching out suddenly for Chicko as though he intended to grab
him by the shoulder, Hambone threw his arm around the chore boy's
chest, and rabbit-punched him on the back of his neck with the side
of his free hand. Involuntarily, Chicko released his grasp on the
cleaver, which skittered across the cement floor for several feet.
Chicko's inert body dropped onto the floor in a sitting position.
Both Asher and Higgins, who had been halfway up the other side
of the kitchen, retraced their steps and darted through the passage-
way between the pantry and bakery. Meanwhile, Chicko, who had
only been stunned, was trying desperately to get onto his feet. But
Hambone kept him from rising by continually bumping him off bal-
ance with his knee until Asher and Higgins reached his side. The
chore boy looked up at the three men pleadingly, and began bawling
at the top of his lungs. “Let me alone!” he said. “I ain't after you! I
jus’ wanna get my hands on the goddam Kingfish.”
Then, with both hands behind him, Chicko pushed himself up
from his sitting position, his torso suspended in mid-air, as though
about to begin a light calisthenic. Asher, Higgins and Hambone
moved in closer, crowding the chore boy warily. Then suddenly
Chicko kicked out savagely, catching Asher high on the fleshy side
of his thigh. And the other two men set out to punch the boy.
246


“Let me at him!” Asher demanded, puffing and grunting as he
sought to shove the other two men out of his way. “I’ll kill the lousy
sonofabitch! Kickin' me.”
But neither of the two men seemed to have heard Asher. For they
each took turns holding and hitting Chicko, shouldering one another
out of the way the better to clout him, like youngsters trying to outdo
each other in a wood-chopping contest.
The Kingfish stood now, calmly, only a few feet off, with his hands
on his hips. His eyes narrowed into slits, as he watched the three men
pound Chicko unmercifully, drawing the thick blood from his swol-
len face with each wallop. And behind him, the broad corridor was
filled with tense and motionless waiters and cooks, their eyes aglitter
with a horrid fascination.
A tall man stood in the doorway at the top of the ramp. He held
a crushed napkin under his arm while he buttoned his white waiter's
jacket. Like the others the legs of his tuxedo trousers below the
knees were spotted with grease stains. When he finished buttoning his
jacket he moved into the kitchen, and he moved with the regal man-
ner of an African Zulu prince. He was a crackerjack waiter, not just
a “hash-slinger,” capable of boning a shad in three minutes. He could
remove the meat from a lobster and reset it in the shell without
tearing the shell. There was poise in his manner, and a reserve that
prevented the waiters from asking him why, when he was not busy,
he marched back and forth, wearing a preoccupied expression. Be-
hind his back the waiters said he was “still out in the Pacific fightin'
the war.” This was Ray Jones, now in his second month at the Fish-
bowl. His open, frank face was indeed a nut-brown copy of the male
model the slick magazines parade as the American type. His brow
was unlined, like that of a bright young university graduate that
these periodicals show every June entering some giant corporation
at a good salary and a promising future. But his embittered eyes sug-
gested that he was wise in his understanding of what made the Fish-
bowl a going concern. His hands, large and bony, were as delicate in
their action as those of a surgeon.
247


place! he mused. You'd thought it woulda been a washout here to-
night. But look at 'em. Pourin’ in like the man's givin' something
away for free. Rain or nothin’ don't stop these folks from comin' out
here.
In every room in the eatery they sat: plump middle-aged women,
their hair dyed a brilliant auburn or a deep bluish gray, out for din-
ner without their spouses, who spoke of their friends as “the girls”;
stylish young women on the make, their faces frozen in hauteur;
young men with long thin hands which they waved with the languor
of models; young lovers so enamoured of one another that, every now
and then, as they stole a tender pinch or pat, they drank and ate each
other with their eyes, unmindful of the food before them; short, busi-
ness-like men with black mustaches accompanied by dramatic-looking
women in summer furs and silver necklaces. There were about a hun-
dred of the Fishbowlers who streamed into the restaurant that night
for the first sitting—for, to them, it was part of the ceremony of their
lives to dine at this famous seafood eatery.
Like Indians victorious in a predatory tribal war, these owners
of small businesses—and their retinue of assistants and hangers-on—
after a week of conquest in the marketplace, came to the Fishbowl
on the weekend in their finest plumage. And in this ceremonial hub-
bub many a woman whose eyes had very carefully scanned the assem-
blage nudged her companion, and whispered, “Don’t look now, but
there's so-and-so right in back of us.” Her companion, swelling with
pride that they, too, were among those present in this arena where
black servitors catered to them with such grace, would boom: “Hey!
Waiter, how’s about some service here?”
But Asher noticed that the waiters did not hop and skip at the
Fishbowlers’ commands. They did not grin and “yessir” them. They
a did not bow and nod and chuckle over the diners' little jokes. For
they were a sullen lot that night, slow of movement and indifferent.
When asked for quick service, they pretended not to have heard and
proceeded to snail along as though trudging up a long hill. If the
request were repeated, they merely hunched their shoulders, and
replied curtly: “Kitchen's slow, ain't nothin' I can do about it.”
251


that ran from his nose to the corners of his full mouth seemed only
to emphasize his cynical and half-soured outlook on life. As the
waiter hurried along he brought his knees up high with each step he
took, and his gait, proud and prancing, suggested that of a high
jumper, straining for his take-off.
Just another crazy waiter, Asher told himself. Runnin’ round in a
dining-room like he's in a briar patch or somethin'. And with just the
right degree of anxiety and concern for something that he reasoned
had nothing to do with him, Asher continued to watch Spike until
he joined the waiter drying the water glasses in the rear of the room.
Then Asher straightened out of his slouch, leaning forward, intently
studying the two waiters as they began talking in a whisper.
Then something clicked in Asher's mind. The story—rumored
among the waiters—about Spike Burns. As he'd got it, Spike had
once been the prime mover in the organization of a group of railroad
dining-car waiters. Rooted in the grim and merciless struggle to be
somebody—a leader—in the ghetto, Spike had been a tough and
resolute organizer. Tenacious in purpose, he also had proved him-
self a brilliant strategist in the long drawn-out battle with the rail-
road over recognition. But once the fight had been won, his militant
energies appeared to wane, so it was said, and he soon became in-
different if not unmindful of the workers’ needs—a state of affairs
which the rank-and-file of the organization interpreted as a willing-
ness on his part to do business with the bosses. Voted out of office,
he had come to the Fishbowl some five weeks before, a dour and de-
jected young man who, as the waiters said, was “down on his up-
pers.” At the same time, Asher recalled that the waiter with whom
Spike was talking, Clif Jenkins, had also come to the restaurant about
the same time. A prewar law graduate, recently returned from
Australia where he'd served as a Red Cross worker, he was preparing
for the Bar, while working as a “dinner man.”
Then, almost before Asher realized it, he was hurrying down the
outside of the room, keeping close to the copper screen, following
a blind instinct to hear what the two men were whispering about.
But when he came within earshot of them Clif nudged Spike, whose
253


back was turned to Asher, and instantly both men lapsed into silence.
And as Asher passed them heading for the farm, he was conscious
of a little tingle of shock as he looked at Clif's scowling eyes fixed
on him. They were like Spike's had been when he'd come from the
kitchen, guarded and wary. He did not feel suspicious, exactly, yet
he told himself they would both bear a whole lot of watching.
13
THE downpour had stopped by the time Asher left the restaurant that
night. But a murky cloud drifting in from the Sound had dropped
over City Island. The early September fog steamed against the wet
pavement and funneled lazily through courts and alleys.
“What the hell!” he muttered aloud, as he loitered now at the
corner of Rochelle Street a few feet from the delivery court. “It’s
jus’ one of them things.”
He realized he had talked that way to himself several times before
—whenever he thought, momentarily, about the Chicko incident.
And now, for the first time, the expression seemed to make him un-
sure of himself, for he shuddered as he repeated the catch-phrase.
Looking about uneasily, he began to stamp his feet on the slimy
pavement, feeling the damp creeping through his thin-soled, tan and
white shoes. When he'd left home that morning, he'd thought himself
suitably dressed; even for what was such an ungodly hour—eight
o'clock. His tan broad-shouldered English-drape model gabardine
suit was surely sharp enough.
He peered nervously down the broad thoroughfare. Blanketed in
the bewildering gloom, the tip end of the Island was a nightmarish
place. Only the remnants of familiar landmarks, distorted and de-
formed, were visible. The spectacular fog came down at the end of
City Island Road, as if it were a stage backdrop, right behind the
white fence that stretched across the avenue where the asphalt pave.
254


ment came to an abrupt end. Beyond it, the Coast Guard training
boat berthed in the old ferry-boat slip was blotted out, except for
its stern, which penetrated through the dirty gray curtain of mist
like a dark doorway. The black rooftop of the one-story Coast Guard
barracks, which stood at right angles to the fence, resembled an un-
supported canopy hung over a low cloud, while the remainder of the
building seemed to have been shorn away. Even the few people afoot
seemed to materialize out of the thick air—smart silhouettes, exotic
shapes, moving against the shrunken lights.
Asher bent his head slightly and looked at his wristwatch. The
luminous face showed seven minutes past eleven. It was an inex-
pensive, seven-jeweled watch, smart and sleek in design—gold-plated
with a chromium back, with a brassy expansion bracelet made of a
myriad of tiny scroll-like links. He twisted his wrist from side to side,
looking at the watch, appraising it as a badge of honor.
The Kingfish had given him the watch only a few hours before.
Bribery had not entered into it; it was what the Kingfish considered
a well-deserved need. True, he had given both Higgins and Hambone
new, crackling fifty-dollar bills right in front of Asher for their
“bravery in that little kitchen disturbance,” as he'd put it. But he
had later said jestingly to Asher, rather like one businessman speak-
ing to another: “I wanted you to have something you could keep.”
“Hot ziddity!” Asher said now, as he continued to look at the
watch. “I’d boot a whole army of them pearl-divers in the ass for
this. Goddam spicks! Passin' for white.”
Just then Ray Jones came out of the delivery court and headed to-
ward the corner, moving hurriedly in his free-stepping, regal manner.
It was long after the last of the waiters on the morning watch had
gone off duty, but, because Ray had dared to incur the Boss's dis-
favor by speaking out against the beating of Chicko “right in the
Kingfish's kitchen,” Charlie, the scrub captain, had contrived in his
seating of the dinner guests that night to make Ray work overtime—
“stick him,” as he phrased it. As though his mind worked in silent
harmony with that of the Kingfish's—for not so much as one word
255


had passed between the Kingfish and Charlie over how to “freeze t
Ray of the gravy.” All through the dinner hour Charlie had managed
to keep Ray's station fairly empty, allowing him only an occasional
party of two or three. Then, five minutes or so before Chief put up
the revised station board which signaled the closing of the two back
rooms and the taking over of the front room by the waiters on the
night watch, Charlie had “loaded” Ray's eight-seat table with a party
of twelve people—a prosperous-looking, pompous-acting party which,
from long experience in handling counterfeits, Charlie had judged
would sit long and spend so freely of their weekend pleasure money
that they would have to come up short on the tip.
As Ray approached the corner now, Asher, moving his head only
enough to allow him a sidewise glance, eyed the man with distaste.
But just before Ray reached the corner, he turned and, stepping down
off the curbing, walked off in the direction of the bus depot, as though
he hadn’t even seen Asher.
Black Jesus! Asher said to himself spitefully. How I love his kind
all the time stickin' up for poor white trash—would-be whites at that.
Wouldn't even spit on you if they had a dime.
Striding rapidly off in the distance, Ray's broad shoulders seemed
to broaden, and Asher suddenly gave a half-repressed snicker, turn-
ing his head away from the man, as if to hide his contempt. Well,
I ain't got my ass hitched up on my shoulders, he said to himself,
part of his mind still retaining a picture of Ray. Couldn't hear a peep
out of him when he first showed up. Now that he's got the wrinkles
out of his belly, you can hear him all over the place. Huh! You won't
be no trouble much longer. 'Cause your days are numbered. Sure
wouldn't wanta have the King down on my ass.
His thoughts turned to Ester. He had not seen her at all that night;
in fact, he had had no desire to see her. Not that he'd experienced
any qualms over facing her after what had happened in the kitchen.
But just as he knew almost instinctively that she'd learned of the
fight by the grapevine, he also knew she wouldn't approve. And he
had not wanted to risk having her voice her disapproval within ear-
shot of some nosy waiter. I’ll straighten her out later, he decided.
256


After all, I couldn't have just stood there and watch the Kingfish
get killed, good as he's been to me.
He had a picture of Ester hurrying from work, rushing through
the darkened streets, dogged, hunched, as though it afforded her
protection from the wet night. He saw, too, in his mind's eye the
dinner table set with its freshly ironed linen and gleaming silverware.
And he said to himself, I know that rice is ready. Then he turned
and walked stiffly back from the corner toward his car which was
parked near the restaurant's main entrance.
The tiny droplets still fell silently. The mist, which was everywhere,
had blurred the rays of light that came from the brass fixtures which
hung at both sides of the white colonnaded doorway. It was a muffled
and discolored world, like a hospital ward after the lights had been
turned low at night.
Just as Asher reached his automobile he stopped short as though
he had heard someone calling him. Looking about him, he became
aware of the Shanty. Through the mist, the neon signs in the window
of the bar beckoned to him. Think I’ll knock me a few, Asher said
to himself. Keep on breaking my neck to get home every night, she'll
think I ain't got no place else to go.
Leaving his car in front of the restaurant, Asher strode off across
the broad thoroughfare toward the Shanty, walking like an athletic
stockbroker out for an evening stroll, his shoulders held erect, arms
and legs swinging in military cadence. But when he reached the en-
trance to the barroom he halted abruptly; the place was nearly de-
serted; only half a dozen waiters, paired off in twosomes, were drink-
ing at the bar.
Now, as he stood poised in the doorway of the bar, his feeling of
elation changed to one of surprise. To be sure, there was the massive,
dark-stained bar with the rows of bottles behind it. There were the
beer pumps, the juke-box, and the rows of booths opposite the bar.
At the far end of the room, behind the bar, stood the mahogany
cabinets with the bottles inside showing through cut-glass designs,
Something about the look of the place reminded Asher of the run-
down bars he'd seen time and again in the movies. The kind of dimly
257


lit taverns where the villain, on a mission of plunder, stops for a
drink after having ridden into town with the sky tarnished and the
fog blowing slowly.
This sure is one sad-looking dump tonight, Asher thought. Maybe
there'll be some action in here later on. For a minute he watched Joe,
the red-faced old man who acted as combination waiter and porter,
shuffle slowly toward the back room, his shoulders hunched up from
the weight of a beer-laden bar tray. From the back room came the
strains of “Galway Bay” being punched out on an accordion, while
a full-voiced chorus of City Islanders, out for their night on the
town, sang “If you ever go across the sea to Ireland.” Poor-ass white
folks tryin' to have a good time. Stiff as beaver board. Never able to
let their hair down.
His eyes wandered to the corner of the long, narrow bar that jutted
out almost into the doorway, where Charlie Hogan and Freddy Row.
den, the two waiters who worked next to his weekend station in the
main dining-room, were in a huddle with their heads together. He
listened intently to get the drift of their conversation.
“... ain't nowhere in this table-waitin' business,” he heard Hogan
say in a low grumble, as he pushed his empty highball glass toward
the inside edge of the bar. Rowden drained his glass and put it next
to Hogan's. For a minute Rowden remained silent, studying a light
which hung by a length of black wire in front of a large mirror,
the bulb damp and smeary, its shine diluted by the mist.
“You can say that again,” Rowden finally said as he lowered his
gaze to the bar. “A man ain't nothin' but a sucker to get ambushed
in this racket. All the crap you gotta take...”
“What's goin' on in here?” Asher asked as he stepped between
the two men. “A wake or somethin’?”
“Jus' one a these off-nights, I suppose,” Rowden said, as he inched
back to make room for Asher. Turning his head slightly, he looked
down to the other end of the bar, and called out to the weekend bar-
tender: “Hey, Brady, come on an' set my friend up here.”
Brady was a robustly built man with close-cropped gray hair, a
flattened-out nose, and overly large ears. He was leaning back against
258


a section of the mahogany cabinets with his arms folded across his
chest, listening to the back room revelers as they stomped their feet
on the loose planked floor and clapped their hands lustily to the
accordion player's brisk dance notes of “The Stack of Barley.” The
bartender was apparently so entranced that he did not hear Rowden's
call, and Rowden had to thump loudly on the bar with his glass
several times to attract his attention. When Brady finally roused
himself he wobbled along the narrow catwalk behind the bar.
“What's it gonna be, gentlemen?” he said sullenly, his face impas-
sive. .
“Little Scotch,” Asher replied in an offhand manner. “Little Scotch
an’ soda. Better give the boys here a little taste. . .” He stopped
!,
talking for a minute and, looking from Hogan to Rowden, a faint
flicker of a smile played about the corners of his mouth. Then he
went on, “’Course they ain't on this Scotch time. A little too delicate
for 'em. But give 'em the best. Make mine Black Label.”
“Yessir!” Brady said in a clipped fashion.
The bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label was back in the third
row of bottles and it took the bartender several minutes to find it.
But while he studied the bottles he continued to say, almost absent-
mindedly, “Yessir, cap'n.... Yessir, cap'n,” like a person made awk-
ward in the presence of a young child"and trying, at the same time,
to please him. When the drinks were finally poured Rowden pushed a
stack of three or four dollar bills, lying on the bar, over toward the
bartender who started to reach for them.
“Whatta you think you're doin’?” Asher said pointedly, as he
pulled a huge roll of bills from his pocket.
“Something wrong?” Brady said levelly, still fingering the bills.
Rowden pushed the bartender's hand away playfully. “You’re doin'
right,” he said. “I ordered this round.”
“Put that change down,” Asher commanded sternly, throwing a
twenty-dollar bill on the bar.
“Looks like good ol' U. S. currency to me,” Brady said.
“You do as I say,” Asher snapped, as he snatched the dollar bills
out of the bartender's hand. “Who do you think you are?”
259


gang of flowers, roses and buttercups and whatnot, for two or three
cents apiece. Then you wrap a whole lot of that green stuff—that
er-er-er grass—round four or five of 'em. First thing you know you
done made yourself three dollar outa nothin' but some crap—hot-
house flowers.”
“That'd be the day,” Asher said, making a wry face. “You be back
out here beggin' the King to take you back in less time than a month.”
Just then, Mike marched out of the back room. The accordion
player was punching out “Galway Bay” again, as Mike, strutting in
time to the music, carried a round bar tray full of empty beer glasses
in the palm of one hand to the beer pumps.
“Hi-ya, pal,” he called out to Asher, as he nodded to several other
men at the bar. Then, putting the tray down on the brass drainboard
in the center of the bar, he walked up to Asher. “What happened to
the gang?” he said. “Everybody let me down tonight.”
“I suppose the boys wanted to get outa this fog,” Asher said. “Feels
sorta like wintertime out there.”
“That so,” Mike said, reflectively. For a second, he looked at
Asher out of the corner of his eye. Then he asked, “What's the mat-
ter? You on the wagon?”
Asher looked down at his empty glass. “Look’s like this could
stand a little touchin' up,” he said. “Come on an' have one on me.”
“Don’t care if I do see how it feels to have somebody wait on me
for a change.” He turned to Brady who was washing the beer glasses.
“Mr. Brown is treatin’,” he called out to him.
The bartender instantly stopped washing the beer glasses and, with
dripping hands, moved rapidly up the bar.
Asher looked over the waiters at the bar as though he might have
been counting the number present. “Give everybody a little smile,”
he said loudly to the bartender.
When the drinks had been poured, the half-dozen waiters and Mike
raised their drinks in a salute to Asher.
“Drink hearty,” he said as he raised his drink inches above his
mouth. Then he drained his glass nearly empty in one long gulp.
“How's that for drumming up business on a slow night?” Mike
261


-
during the dinner hour. Well, it's about time they get together.
They're doing it all over town. But these good-timing Charlies. Sup-
pose the Kingfish doesn't give in so easy, will they stick together?
They should . . . but I wonder. Oh well, that's their problem. I've
got mine. . . .
The electric lights in the store signs blinking on and off in the
business section of Fordham Road, like cats' eyes made blurry by
bushy eyebrows, diverted her attention for a few minutes. And by
the time the car had turned onto the Grand Concourse, she couldn't
remember at what point they'd come out of the fog, for a drizzly
rain was then falling.
Settling down in the front seat, her mind turned again, as it had
all that night, to her home. All during the dinner hour, she had pro-
jected herself toward the moment when she could shut the door upon
the memory of the waiters stopping to report Asher's doings in the
kitchen. Now she could see her apartment in her mind's eye—the
lamps glowing, the cushions on the sofa and chairs plumped high
and smooth—the coziness of the place reached out to her chilled and
tired spirit like a comforting hand.
God bless my little place, she thought.
But even then something else began to stir inside her. Something
that stemmed from her childhood where she had learned not by pre-
cept or example but just by absorbing what surrounded her—the
judging of people by their personality as it revealed itself through
their labor. -
Ray looked just like papa used to, she thought suddenly, in an old
shirt and faded pants. He's the kind of man the waiters oughta follow.
For a moment, the image of her father stood large in her mind—
the high forehead, the thick, short hair, the eyes lazy and then sharp-
ening, the glitter of anger beginning to come up in them. And the
thought of him caused a wave of pride to surge up in her, flooding
her heart with warmth. They can’t lose with a man like Ray leading
them, she thought; and I hope they get all that’s coming to them.
The car made a continuous heavy rolling sound as it sped uphill
over the 155th Street viaduct. Glancing about her, Ester realized
266


faint tears to her eyes. A lot he cares about how hard I had to work
for it, she thought; I bet he's never given it a thought.
Suddenly she sat upright. What the hell am I getting out of life?
she asked herself. He can walk out on me any time he gets good and
ready. Then her shoulders sagged, and she fell back against the car's
back rest. She felt as though she were drowning. She was in an under-
water world, floundering, sinking helplessly as her thoughts swirled
in dark confusion about her. I’m not going to take this any longer,
she promised herself. If he wants me he'll have to ... The car coming
to a whining stop roused her out of her thoughts. Realizing that
Asher had parked in front of her house, she straightened up abruptly,
and looked at him. He was staring ahead, with his face puckered in
an evil scowl, working his mouth as though he might have been
talking to himself.
A terrible despair gripped her. Oh God, she prayed, please help me
to show him the way. Don't let me go to pieces, dear God. Please
let me show him how happy we can be.
No sooner had they got inside the apartment than the explosion
came. Asher stood leaning against the portal which separated the
tiny foyer from the living-room, every line of his slim body stiff
with belligerence. Only his eyes moved as they followed Ester, who
switched on the ceiling lights, flooding the silent room with a glis-
tening brightness.
“You gonna talk to me now?” Asher demanded.
“Yes,” Ester replied, tentatively, as she turned to face him. “Yes,
of course.”
“Well, whatcha waitin’ for?” he said. “You shoulda been home
here, anyway. Handin’ me that line 'bout gettin' stuck. For all I
know you coulda been out there waitin’ for some joker.”
Ester stood in the middle of the room looking at Asher for several
seconds. “Don’t you want to sit down, Asher?” she finally asked
him, smiling a little.
Ester took the far corner of the sofa, so that she sat cater-cornered
across from Asher; the folds of her dress fell gracefully as she sat,
and her hands were quiet in her lap.
268


Asher's face suddenly blossomed in a wide grin that he apparently
intended to be contagious. He laughed teasingly. Then, becoming
serious, he said: “That ol' union crap. An' you fallin' for it. Now, I
know it ain't the best job in town an’ it ain't the worst. But whatta
those jerks think—they're white? Gonna tell the King how to run his
business? An' he's a millionaire. Why he'll jus’ laugh in their faces
an' sit back an’ let 'em starve. That's what he'll do.” ... * *
Ester, who still sat with her hands folded quietly in her lap, drew
in her breath, as though she had suddenly become frightened. “Sup-
pose they walk out?” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“It’ll never happen,” Asher said, evasively. “I ain't got no time
to spec’late on no such foolishness as that.”
“For the life of me, I don't know what's come over you, Asher,”
Ester said, incredulously. “I can remember when you use to say
yourself that the Kingfish needed to be brought down a peg or two.
'Course you were just one of the boys then. Now that you're on top,
nobody can reason with you. Can't even touch you with a ten-foot
pole.”
Ester's remarks stung Asher. He made a little gesture, like a person
ducking his head as a bee buzzed toward him. He stared at her.
Then in a deep, plaintive voice, he said: “Look, babes, I’ve come
a long ways in life. Believe me. This is the best break I ever had.
I can’t afford to fool round wid it.”
“Yes, I know,” Ester replied, as she eyed him tenderly. “But don't
let it make a damn fool out of you.” Lowering her gaze, she smoothed
out several wrinkles in the center cushion of the sofa.
Asher straightened up abruptly and stared at her, his mouth
twitching. Then suddenly he smiled triumphantly. “I been out here
in this man's world scufflin’ all my life,” he began, in a tone calcu-
lated to arouse sympathy. “Ever since I was able to walk, I been
makin’ it the hard way. An' believe me, I’ve seen some dark days.”
“All Aunt Hagar's children have seen dark days,” Ester said
quietly. “Talk about the curse that fell on Lot's wife. They sure put
one on us. 'Cause a child born of a dark woman is sure to see dark
days. Many . . .”
270


Ester was on the second bus that passed him lumbering slowly
down the slight grade of the avenue toward the bus depot. But he
did not see her until she had walked almost all the way from the
station to the corner. She was in a summer suit, a suit he had never
seen before, a short red cotton skirt with a white bolero jacket,
and she was swinging a small white cap in her hand. Her hair was
as perfectly groomed as it always was, and her face was as smooth as
ever.
Timing himself just right, Asher got out of the car and walked
up to Ester, stopping flush in front of her as she was about to step
up to the sidewalk. “Hello,” he said, hesitantly.
Ester's mouth opened slightly and her eyes showed surprise, but
she circled Asher without stopping.
“What's the matter, babes?” he asked, following along at her side.
“Don’tcha even wanta talk to me?”
“What's there to talk about?” Ester said. “Unless you can make
me believe you're a real man. But you don't wanna stand on your
own feet.”
There was the sound of footsteps in the delivery court, and the
Kingfish appeared at the gate just as Asher and Ester came abreast
of it. Asher had forgotten that the Kingfish often came out into the
court at that hour in the morning to poke among the boxes and cans
of refuse (he'd once found eighteen pounds of parboiled lobsters
that a cook in a raging protest over his drudgery had thrown out).
He couldn't have known Asher and Ester were there—yet Asher felt
an unreasoning anger at the sight of him.
“Oh, my!” the Kingfish said. “I didn't interrupt anything, did I?”
“Good morning,” Ester said coolly, as she continued on down the
street toward the edge of the restaurant's parking lot.
Asher and the Kingfish stood there watching her as she walked
away, her skirt swaying gently in the breeze. Asher wanted to follow
her, to stop and make her talk to him. But, feeling the Kingfish's
eyes on him, he did not move. I’ll get you for this, he promised
himself. His face clouded up in a deep and threatening scowl. As
Ester disappeared into the parking lot, he heard the Kingfish speak-
276


ing to him, barely above a whisper, and it was several seconds before
it sounded to Asher like more than a jumble of hissing sounds. And
then he heard the Kingfish saying derisively: “That's the way it is
when you have a girl—all the time spatting like little snotty-nosed
schoolchildren.”
“Who?” Asher said. “What—me, boss?”
“Who else do you think I’m talking about,” the Kingfish said. He
propped one foot up on a small wooden box that held one side of the
iron gate open, and shifted his weight to his other leg. “You never
have told me anything about her,” he went on cooingly. “But you
know, I'm your friend. Is she-how do the waiters say it? Is she
two-timing you?”
“No, boss, they don't pull that kinda stuff off on me,” Asher re-
plied.
“Well, it must be pretty serious,” the Kingfish said. “She certainly
had her dander up. My goodness! What were you two arguing
about?” He straightened up then, slowly and stiffly. His face became
as hard and tight as stone, and his eyes narrowed into slits. “Was it
over that meeting last night?” he asked Asher.
Asher's eyes bulged and he swallowed hard.
Unable to stand Asher's silence, the Kingfish poked him playfully.
“I never thought you'd let me down!” he said. “But it's all right.
Mike told me all about it.” -
Asher said: “That's why I got out here so early this mornin', boss.
I was gonna come back an’ tell you last night. But it was so late when
I found out 'bout what was happening, I thought maybe you'd al-
ready gone upstairs for the night.”
“Who're the ringleaders behind this?” the Kingfish asked, spitting
out the words.
“I dunno, boss,” Asher said. “I couldn’t git in an’ outa there with-
out bein’ seen.”
The Kingfish's face clouded with distress. “Just to think they’d
went to treat me like this,” he said. “You know, I was just waiting
for them to let up on all these building restrictions ...” He looked at
Asher carefully for a moment, then he went on: “I was planning to
277


put up a first-class dormitory for the men out there in the parking
lot. Showers and a club room and easy chairs, pool tables and every.
thing. Just so they wouldn't have to travel all the way out here.
I know they work hard. So do I. Everybody's got to work hard.
That's my rule. But they don't have to try to ruin my business.”
“Ain’t gonna be nothin’ to it,” Asher said, consolingly. “Ain’t no-
body behind all this but that trouble-maker Ray Jones.”
The Kingfish's chin jutted out and his thin lips became cruel. “I
thought he was in it,” he said. “I’ll take care of him myself.” He
put his hand on Asher's shoulder. “Now, here's what I want you to
do. Change your clothes and get out of the locker-room before they
start showing up. That headwaiter of mine can stay down there and
hear what they're talking about. If he was on the job he'd known
about this anyway. Too busy hustling for himself.”
“Yeah, boss,” Asher said. “That's as right as right can be.”
“Now, I want you to get in the dining-room right away. Be in
there when the waiters come on the floor. Keep circulating about.
Every time you see two of 'em with their heads together, you try
to find out what they're talking about.”
Asher said: “Sure, boss. You can bank on me.”
“Get Dunkel and tell him I want him,” the Kingfish said. And
then as he saw an expression of confusion come into Asher's face,
he added: “Where else do you think you'd find him at this hour
but in his office? Now get a move on you.”
“Okay, boss,” Asher replied. “I’ll fetch him for you.”
The day inside the restaurant began quietly, with morning sun-
light lying mild on the wide spaces in front of the two main en-
trances—the colonial doorway that opened onto the street, the smaller
one that led to the parking lot—and down through the center of the
main dining-room. Later, when the sun was hot, these two stretches of
standing space would be like the entrances to a department store,
where shoppers stood jammed together, waiting for the store to open
for a great bargain sale. And there would be shouts of “It’s simply
awful the way you have to wait for a table! They should have more
278


captains here to seat you,” and the loud noises of agonized im-
patience. But the guests had not yet started arriving, and a kind of
haunted silence now filled the huge dining-room. Asher, moving ab-
stractedly about his work of setting a “table by the window in the
hole” for Mr. Doppler, one of his regular Sunday morning customers,
stepped out into the space before the parking-lot entry and stood for
a moment, not hurrying, shaking his side towel out gently toward
the shadows that came from the long, shoulder-high flowerbox
which formed one side of the alcove. I oughta duck in, before any-
body gets on the floor, and sweeten her up, he thought, as he looked
across at the entrance to the ladies’ rest room. Suddenly his shoulders
began twitching and he stepped hurriedly back into the alcove. “Bet-
ter let her cool off some more,” he muttered aloud.
In the alcove it was dim, with the cream-colored Venetian blinds
lowered against the sunlight, and in the dimness Asher moved absent-
mindedly about his tasks. He wiped out the gray-and-white-streaked
clamshell ashtray carefully, set it back on the table and, with his little
finger, spun it around automatically, rearranged the position of the
salt-and-pepper shakers, moved to the head of the table considering,
and then set the bowl of crackers in between the two place settings
and adjusted the napkins that lay folded, like shirt cuffs, on the
service plates. When he looked up from this, listlessly, reviewing
his next task, his face clouded. Mr. Doppler had appeared. Why the
hell don't he go some place else? Asher thought with a stir of anger.
But then he moved nimbly to one side and, inclining his head po-
litely, pulled a chair back from the table. The old man, striding along
as silently as though barefoot, had come in through the parking-lot
entry. Behind him trailed a plump, youngish-looking man, who also
walked soundlessly. “Good morning, gentlemen,” Asher said.
“Good morning, Brown,” the old man said to Asher graciously.
Then he gave a look of speculative judgment about the dining-room,
coughing a thin cough into his handkerchief. “It’s so nice and peace-
ful in here before the mob gets here,” he said to his companion, as
they sat down at the table. A lean-faced, fastidious old man, he was
dressed in a three-button dark gray suit, the lapels of which stood
279


Asher cocked his head and gave the old man a long, speculative
glance—the kind of glance that a waiter gives to the foolish ques.
tion of a drunken patron—because Sunday after Sunday Mr. Doppler
ordered the same thing, and so did his guest, no matter whom he
brought. Then Asher smiled and said: “How 'bout some steamed
clams? They're not so sandy now.”
The old man turned to his companion. “Can you be tempted,
Henry?” he asked. “They're something special here. Right out of
their own clam beds.”
“Suits me,” the man said.
“One portion between us—a nice huge mess of them—should do
it,” the old man said. “And, oh, yes—two cups of broth and plenty
of drawn butter.”
“Yessir,” Asher said.
“Now that that's taken care of, what else have you got for us,
Brown?”
“A nice half a chicken,” Asher suggested.
The old man rolled his eyes and licked his lips. “Whatta you say
to that, Henry? Broiled spring chicken.”
“Sounds all right by me,” the man said agreeably.
“Well, that about does it for the time being, Brown,” the old man
said, dismissing Asher with a wave of his bony hand.
Smiling to himself over the old man's antics, Asher went off. But
he had scarcely reached his side stand at the entrance to the alcove
when his smile turned into a deep frown. For with sudden terror
he recalled that the Kingfish had instructed him to remain in the
dining-room and keep circulating about. Looking around furtively,
he called Walters.
“Go put this order in for me,” he said loud enough for the old
man to hear, as he handed Walters the order check. “An’ tell 'em
I want it on the double-quick.”
“Gotcha covered, man,” Walters said, with the air of a man glad
to have something to occupy his time.
Asher watched Walters shuffle off to the kitchen and then he turned
to look about the dining-room. A number of the Fishbowl's regular
282


the other sections of the restaurant as it was in the main dining.
room, fear lay like a cold hand on the back of his neck, causing him
to remain where he stood, with the small of his back resting against
the tray stand, drumming on the side of it with his fingers.
And then out of the corner of his eye he saw Charlie Hogan and
Freddy Rowden, both of whom had come out of the alcove into the
passageway. Rowden, with his wrist draped over an upper hook
of a wooden clothestree, had one leg crossed in front of the other so
that only the tip end of his crossed foot touched the floor. He made a
quick, startled movement and his hand dropped loosely to his side,
as Asher turned abruptly to face him.
“Damn, man,” Rowden said. “You like to scared hell outa me.”
Asher stared at him for a moment, and then he walked over to
where the two men stood. “If you-all don't grab yourselves some of
this business comin' in here, somethin’ else is gonna scare you,” he
said. In spite of the brusque way he spoke, he seemed genuinely glad
to have someone to make conversation with, for there was a faint
twinkle about his eyes.
Rowden looked about him suspiciously and watched the people who
were now entering the restaurant through every entrance. His bleak
eyes grew more piercing. “To tell you the truth, I ain't particular
'bout gettin' nobody 'till I see how things is gonna go,” he said.
“‘Cause I got a feelin' holy hell is gonna break out in here today.
An' I ain't fixin' to get caught in the middle of it. You know I’m sixty-
nine years and seven months. I can’t afford to get my head busted in
for nothin’.” His shoulders sagged and he sighed.
Asher said: “Ain’t nothin' gonna happen to you, Pop. In the first
place, ain't nothin' gonna happen, anyway. Nothin' but a lotta talk.”
Hogan snorted. “That's what you say,” he said. “But they was
fightin’-mad downstairs this mornin', I'm tellin' you. Come to think of
it, I don't remember seein' you in the locker-room all mornin’.”
“I had things to do,” Asher said, with a sheepish look. “Think I
ain't got nothin’ to do but waste my time listenin’ to that kinda
crap?”
Hogan screwed up his mouth reflectively. “Well—anyway! I'm
284


tellin' you they was mean an' evil as hell. Simply spoilin’ for a fight.
Linin' up everybody an' his brother that'd listen to 'em, talkin’ about
stoppin’ work this afternoon right in the middle of everything to
make the Kingfish take Ray Jones back. Didn't even pay ol' Chief
no mind. Couple of times there I thought some of 'em was gonna
crack his skull open for him, he an' his big self so busy tryin’ to
find out what was cookin' . . .”
“Everybody was sure touchy as hell,” Rowden cut in.
“You halfway can’t blame 'em,” Hogan replied angrily. “The
Kingfish didn't have no right sendin’ Ray back this mornin’. That
boy didn't do nothin' but speak up like a man yesterday when you-
all was tryin’ to calm that crazy dishwasher down. An' you gotta
admit you was mighty rough on him, poor kid. Yeah, somethin'
tells me he made a hell of a mistake sendin’ that boy back this
mornin’.”
Asher, who had held his breath at the mention of Chicko, re-
mained silent for a moment, studying Hogan with a blank expres-
sion. Finally, he said: “You with 'em or the Kingfish?”
The question took Hogan by surprise. His anger disappeared. His
eyes grew puzzled and a little frightened. “I ain't for nobody but
me,” he said. “I got my own plans. Like I been tellin' you, I'm
scufflin' here for a break so I can go in business for myself. I can't
afford to get messed up in nothin’ like that. That's jus’ somethin'
some of them young fellows done raked up on the spur of the mo-
ment. How far you think they gonna git? Suppose they do pull
somethin’—you know these jokers won't stick together. An' where'll
I be? Out there on my raggedy ass. No that ain't for me.”
Asher's face beamed with satisfaction. “I knew we could depend
on you,” he said. “You got too much sense to be followin' after a
bunch of damn fools always talkin’ about what they gonna do. So
smart—an’ right out here wid us. Usin’ a lot of big words nobody
ever heard of.”
Rowden took a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and wiped his
shiny bald head. “Jus’ the same,” he began, more as though he were
talking to Hogan than Asher, “these young fellows ain't like us.
285


of the tray stands. The air was full of their rebellion, and full of their
discontent.
Asher's eyes bulged with horror as he entered the room, and gazed
about him as though he could hardly believe what he saw. And then
in a small clearing—between the frame portal and the end of the
copper screen—he saw Spike and Clif huddled together, holding a
whispered conversation. Around them, eleven big heavy-shouldered
men—Spike's strong-arm squad—stood guard, their eyes defiant.
Charlie, the scrub captain in charge of the room, was running from
one side to the other of the semicircle trying to talk to Spike. As
Asher walked up to the group, he heard Charlie say: “For Christ
sake! You can’t let the man down like this.”
But Spike refused to be baited into a quarrel. “Keep your shirt
on, bud,” he answered indifferently, as he listened to Clif.
“What's up, Charlie?” Asher asked.
Charlie, who was trembling with fright, merely hunched his shoul-
ders, but made no reply.
Instantly, Spike and Clif stopped talking. The rustle of movement
of the men standing guard around them died in a deep hush. And
stark hatred replaced contempt in their faces, as they watched
Asher. He looked carefully from one to the other of the men, check-
ing off their names in his mind. Suddenly, the strong-arm squad
opened up and shifted, like a football team regrouping itself on the
line of scrimmage in a deceptive maneuver, and as Spike and Clif
stepped outside the semicircle, the men closed ranks around Asher
and Charlie, menacingly. Then, while Asher and Charlie stood there
gaping, Spike and Clif hurried to the back of the room, waving to
every waiter they saw to follow them.
Not a sound issued from the men coming from every nook in the
room as well as from the third dining-room as they bunched around
the two organizers. Spike stood with his back against a column, his
arm around Clif's shoulders. Their heads were six inches above the
heads of the silent men. Spike cried: “This is it, men. We didn't
wanta tell you before. But every scrub captain in this place is run-
ning round trying to find out who's in on this deal, so they can
287


ramp from the kitchen. One of them, a tall, executive-looking cop,
said: “You Asher Brown?”
“Yeah,” Asher said slowly. “Yeah, officer.”
“Well, if you're goin’ down there to talk to 'em like your boss says,
let’s get goin’.”
At the bottom of the stair well Asher beat out a series of loud
rattling thumps on the rusty tin-covered door of the locker-room.
Then, as the door came slowly open, Asher entered the room sur-
rounded by the three policemen. As he advanced into the room, car-
ried forward toward Spike by the protective police wedge, he looked
neither to his right nor to his left. Stopping in the center of the
mass of surprised men, who had quickly edged back to make room
for him, he wheeled and, turning his back to Spike, faced the waiters.
Everyone in the room became instantly motionless and all sound
died. The men glared at Asher. Frightened, he said in a faltering
voice: “You-all can't walk out on the boss like this. Why, he don't
even know what's eatin' you-all. But he's ready to listen to your com-
plaints, if you'll jus’ come on back upstairs an’ talk to him. All he
wants you to do, is come back on the floor.”
For a moment not a sound issued from the press of men. And the
tension mounted until it could be felt like the fleeting aftermath
of an electric shock. The three cops stood alert, gripping their night-
sticks securely.
“That's jus’ what we're planning to do,” Spike cried. “Aren’t we,
men?”
“That's right,” a waiter answered. And the remark was repeated by
every man in the room until it had mounted in a determined and
angry crescendo.
Then, before Asher could think of what to say, Spike took over
the show. “Tell you what, Brown,” he began, addressing Asher's
back. “If it's agreeable with the men, me an’ my sidekick, Clif, will
come upstairs right now and lay the men's demands before the King-
fish.” He looked about the room, seemingly focusing his eyes on
everyone present. “Now, I want a show of hands, men, on my propo-
sition.”
289


As the men solemnly raised their hands in unison, Asher turned
sidewise and stared belligerently at Spike. “All right!” he said, de.
jectedly. “You’ll have to wait up in the butcher shop while I go
an’ tell the boss.”
They went out of the locker-room and up the stairs that led to the
butcher shop, Asher leading the way, followed by Spike and Clif
and the cops trailing behind them. But within a few minutes the
two union organizers returned to the locker-room. The atmosphere
was hushed and edgy as Spike and Clif made their way through
the crowd of men.
The butcher shop was clear of crates and barrels now, but the air
was strong with the smell of fish and fowl. Now six policemen stood
alertly about, and behind them stood Asher and the little band of
cooks. They exchanged opinions and judgments of the strikers in
whispered tones as the waiters came up out of the basement.
A youngish-looking cop, with pencil and notebook in hand, said
to Spike: “How many are going out?”
For a moment Spike gaped at the officer, but made no reply.
The cop said: “You’re in charge of this walkout, aren't you?”
“About seventy-five men,” answered Spike.
“Might as well make it good,” the cop said, a twinkle in his eye.
“It’s only for the police ticker.”
Spike heaved a sigh of relief. “A hundred and fifty,” he said tersely.
Asher, wheeling abruptly about, dashed out of the butcher shop
and headed toward the checker's desk up at the other end of the
kitchen.
Then, with Spike and Clif leading the way, the men marched into
the kitchen, like a straggling parade of weary hikers. They talked
together in low voices. Their feet scuffed heavily against the cement
floor. Spike led them straight up the broad kitchen corridor past
the fry cook's station and on past the broiler's workbench, instead
of through the narrow passageway that lay between the pantry and
the bakery (the route that would have taken them out through the
delivery court). As they trooped along the corridor, cooks and
290


The Kingfish suddenly became very businesslike. He said: “Very
well, you get there right away. Bring as many as you can get ahold
of. I’ll pay 'em forty dollars a week.”
Asher's eyes bulged, and his mouth flew open.
“That's right!” the Kingfish said. “Forty dollars a week. That's
more money than anybody in this business ever paid before. And
I'll give 'em twenty dollars’ bonus, just as I’ve been doing right
along.” -
“Yessir, boss.”
“Before you go,” the Kingfish said, “have some of the boys in the
front room close off the rest of the dining-room. Since they want to
strike, I'll keep the front room going as long as they're out. And I
know how long that'll be. Inside three weeks, they'll all be broke,
begging to come back. They can't run me out of business. I'm a
millionaire.” w
Asher went into the second dining-room then, but it was empty,
the scrub captains having blocked it off from the main room with
a double row of upturned chairs. He stepped over to the frame
portal and looked about the main room. For several minutes he stood
there watching the few remaining waiters frantically scurrying
about, trying to satisfy patrons. The room was crowded, and the
waiters were unable to cope with the customers’ demands. Dirty
dishes remained piled on tables. Patrons were making trips to side
stands, helping themselves to water, trying to find condiments and
clean silverware. Some sat at disordered tables waving dollar bills
in the air, trying to attract the attention of waiters, while others,
tired of waiting, were leaving the eatery by every exit. Then Asher's
eyes went to the ladies’ room. The door was shut. Never in all the
time he'd worked at the restaurant could he recall having seen the
outer door to the ladies' room closed. A wave of apprehension sud.
denly spread through his body, causing him to break out all over
in a hot sweat. Involuntarily, he started toward the ladies’ room,
then turned and, half walking and half running, he charged in the
other direction and went out the main entrance to the sidewalk.
Out in front of the restaurant, near the canopied entrance, the
292


great crowd of striking waiters stood bunched around Spike, listen-
ing to him as he outlined what their next move would be. On the
outer fringe of the crowd, the big, heavy-shouldered strong-arm
squad stood guard, suspiciously glancing back every now and then
in the direction of the white-columned doorway. A whisper ran
through the crowd as the men became aware of Asher standing there
on the sidewalk, with one hand clinging loosely to one of the iron
upright supports of the canopy. Then a deep hush settled over the
naen.
Sullen-faced, Asher surveyed the men with narrowed eyes. Gradu-
ally, however, his face relaxed as he experienced a welcome sense
of relief, for he did not see Ester. And a wide, contemptuous grin
spread across his face.
Asher, who until then had been content to merely stand there
under the canopy, scornfully staring at the crowd of waiters, now
began to laugh. “Hey, you jerks!” he called to them. “What the
hell you guys gonna do when your money runs out? An’ the boss’ll
have all the waiters he needs. He's gonna pay 'em forty bucks a week
an’ a bonus.”
The crowd of men snapped their heads around to Asher upon re-
ceipt of this information. But no one answered him.
Asher, who was now seemingly beyond himself with rage, took
several steps toward the crowd of men. He did not seem to see the
stark hatred that flared in their faces. Nor did he notice several of
the men on the outer fringe of the crowd as, in unison, they began
warily to shift in readiness, their shoulders gradually settling and
widening, their big-muscled necks dropping down between their
shoulders, their arms hooking slowly up, their eyes taking on a fierce
gleam. But in that instant, what began as merely a gesture—the ges-
ture of a man driven by a wild desire to reach out and put an end to
the struggle, and the gesture of a mob goaded into the belief that
that man, and that man alone, stood in the way of their obtaining
their goal—became an act of violence. With catlike precision, a man's
hand reached out and, fastening onto the hem of Asher's white jacket,
293


jerked him forward, making him stumble. Almost at the same mo-
ment another man, stepping deftly to one side of him, thrust his foot
in front of Asher's legs, and sent him sprawling. As he fell, a rain of
punches descended upon him from all sides, as perhaps twenty of the
men sought to do him in. In their eagerness to pommel him, the men
not only hit and kicked him, but also pounded one another, until
Asher, his face swollen and gory, lay on the pavement staring va-
cantly up at the big men glaring at him with venomous eyes.
Ester, meanwhile, had come out on the sidewalk. In one hand she
clutched her white bolero jacket and pocketbook, and her small white
cap sat lopsided on her head, as though pasted there, while stray
wisps of hair fluttered out from beneath it. Terrified, she had looked
on helplessly at the horrible beating the men were giving Asher. On
the verge of fainting, she stood supported by Spike and Clif, both of
whom held her arms, as if to protect her. Now, with a quick nervous
shudder she twisted her shoulders from side to side, flinging her arms
out from her and, as her pocketbook and jacket dropped, freed herself
from their grasp. Her shoulders heaved. A difficult, slow sobbing
began, but she managed to find words as she waded into the fighting
mob.
“For God's sake!” she cried, pushing and shoving the men aside.
“Don’t kill him. He ain't worth getting in trouble over.”
Her shrill words checked the men almost instantly. They stood
momentarily surrounding Asher, like a slow-motion photograph of
athletes in action, some with a hand clenched and drawn back, others
with a foot poised in mid-air. Two of the men nearest Asher, caught
in the flux of their excitement, seemed unable to stop pounding him
until Ester had elbowed her way up to them. “Please, for Christ
sake!” she said. “Let him go.” Then the men moved back from her
and Asher in a little widening circle, flicking glances of satisfaction
at one another.
“Are you all right?” Ester said to Asher, as she bent over him.
He stared up at her vacantly, and no words came from his swollen
lips.
294,











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