Home to Harlem · First Part · Chapter 7 (1/2)

VII

Zeddy’s Rise and Fall

Zeddy was scarce in Harlem. And Strawberry Lips was also scarce. It was fully a week after the Myrtle Avenue gin-fest before Jake saw Zeddy again. They met on the pavement in front of Uncle Doc’s saloon.

“Why, where in the sweet name of niggers in Harlem, buddy, you been keeping you’self?”

“Whar you think?”

“Think? I been very much thinking that Nije Gridley done git you.”

“How come you git thataway, boh? Nije Gridley him ain’t got a chawnst on the carve or the draw ag’inst Zeddy Plummer so long as Ise got me a black moon.”

“Well, what’s it done git you, then?”

“Myrtle Avenue.”

“Come outa that; you ain’t talking.⁠ ⁠…”

“The trute as I knows it, buddy.”

“Crazy dog bite mah laig!” cried Jake. “You ain’t telling me that you done gone.⁠ ⁠…”

“Transfer mah suitcase and all mah pohsitions to Susy.”

“Gin-head Susy!”

“Egsactly; that crechur is mah ma-ma now. I done express mahself ovah theah on that very mahv’lously hang-ovah afternoon of that ginnity mawnin’ that you left me theah. And Ise been right theah evah since.”

“Well, Ise got to wish you good luck, buddy, although youse been keeping it so dark.”

“It’s the darkness of new loving, boh. But the honeymoon is good and well ovah, and I’ll be li’l moh in Harlem as usual, looking the chippies and chappies ovah. I ain’t none at all stuck on Brooklyn.”

“It’s a swah hole all right,” said Jake.

“But theah’s sweet stuff in it.” Zeddy tongue-wiped his fleshy lips with a salacious laugh.

“It’s all right, believe me, boh,” he informed Jake. “Susy ain’t nothing to look at like you’ fair-brown queen, but she’s tur’bly sweet loving. You know when a ma-ma ain’t the goods in looks and figure, she’s got to make up foh it some. And that Susy does. And she treats me right. Gimme all I wants to drink and brings home the goodest poke chops and fried chicken foh me to put away under mah shirt⁠ ⁠… Youse got to come and feed with us all one o’ these heah evenings.”

It was a party of five when Jake went again to Myrtle Avenue for the magnificent free-love feast that Susy had prepared. It was Susy’s free Sunday. Miss Curdy and Strawberry Lips were also celebrating. Susy had concocted a pitcherful of knockout gin cocktails. And such food! Susy could cook. Perhaps it was her splendid style that made her sink all her wages in gin and sweetmen. For she belonged to the ancient aristocracy of black cooks, and knew that she was always sure of a good place, so long as the palates of rich Southerners retained their discriminating taste.

Cream tomato soup. Ragout of chicken giblets. Southern fried chicken. Candied sweet potatoes. Stewed corn. Rum-flavored fruit salad waiting in the icebox.⁠ ⁠… The stars rolling in Susy’s shining face showed how pleased she was with her art.

She may be fat and ugly as a turkey, thought Jake, but her eats am sure beautiful.

“Heah! Pass me you’ plate,” Susy gave Jake a leg. Zeddy held out his plate again and got a wing. Strawberry Lips received a bit of breast.⁠ ⁠…

“No more chicken for me, Susy,” Miss Curdy mumbled, “but I will have another helping of that there stewed corn. I don’t know what ingredients yo-all puts in it, but, Lawdy! I never tasted anything near so good.”

Susy beamed and dipped up three spoonfuls of corn. “Plenty, thank you,” Miss Curdy stopped her from filling up her saucer.⁠ ⁠… Susy drank off a tumbler of cocktail at a draught, and wiped her lips with the white serviette that was stuck into the low neck of her vermillion crepe-de-chine blouse.⁠ ⁠…

When Jake was ready to leave, Zeddy announced that he would take a little jaunt with him to Harlem.

“You ain’ta gwine to do no sich thing as that,” Susy said.

“Yes I is,” responded Zeddy. “Wha’ there is to stop me?”

“I is,” said Susy.

“And what foh?”

“ ’Causen I don’t wanchu to go to Harlem. What makes you niggers love Harlem so much? Because it’s a bloody ungodly place where niggers nevah go to bed. All night running around speakeasies and cabarets, where bad, hell-bent nigger womens am giving up themselves to open sin.”

Susy stood broad and aggressive against the window overlooking Myrtle Avenue.

“Harlem is all right,” said Zeddy. “I ain’t knocking round no cabarets and speakeasies. Ahm just gwine ovah wif Jake to see somathem boys.”

“Can that boy business!” cried Susy. “I’ve had anuff hell scrapping wif the women ovah mah mens. I ain’t agwine to have no Harlem boys seducin’ mah man away fwom me. The boy business is a fine excuse indeedy foh sich womens as ain’t wise. I always heah the boss say to the missus, ‘I gwine out foh a little time wif the boys, dearie,’ when him wants an excuse foh a night off. I ain’t born yestiday, honey. If you wants the boys foh a li’l game o’ poky, you bring ’em ovah heah. I ain’t got the teeeniest bit of objection, and Ise got plenty o’ good Gordon Dry foh eve’body.”

“Ise got to go scares them up to bring them heah,” said Zeddy.

“But not tonight or no night,” declared Susy. “You kain do that in the daytime, foh you ain’t got nothing to do.”

Zeddy moved toward the mantelpiece to get his cap, but Susy blocked his way and held the cap behind her.

Zeddy looked savagely in her eyes and growled: “Come outa that, sistah, and gimme mah cap. It ain’t no use stahting trouble.”

Susy looked steadily in his eyes and chucked the cap at him. “Theah’s you cap, but ef you stahts leaving me nights you⁠ ⁠…”

“What will you do?” asked Zeddy.

“I’ll put you’ block in the street.”

Zeddy’s countenance fell flat from its high aggressiveness.

“Well s’long, eve’body,” said Jake.

Zeddy put on his cap and rocked out of the apartment after him. In the street he asked Jake, “Think I ought to take a crack at Harlem with you tonight, boh?”

“Not ef you loves you’ new home, buddy,” Jake replied.

“Bull! That plug-ugly black woman is ornery like hell. I ain’t gwineta let her bridle and ride me.⁠ ⁠… You ain’t in no pickle like that with Rose, is you?”

“Lawd, no! I do as I wanta. But I’m one independent cuss, buddy. We ain’t sitchuate the same. I works.”

“Black womens when theyse ugly am all sistahs of Satan,” declared Zeddy.

“It ain’t the black ones only,” said Jake.

“I wish I could hit things off like you, boh,” said Zeddy.⁠ ⁠… “Well, I’ll see you all some night at Billy Biasse’s joint⁠ ⁠… S’long. Don’t pick up no bad change.”

From that evening Zeddy began to discover that it wasn’t all fine and lovely to live sweet. Formerly he had always been envious when any of his pals pointed out an extravagantly-dressed dark dandy and remarked, “He was living sweet.” There was something so romantic about the sweet life. To be the adored of a Negro lady of means, or of a pseudo grass-widow whose husband worked on the railroad, or of a hardworking laundress or cook. It was much more respectable and enviable to be sweet⁠—to belong to the exotic aristocracy of sweetmen than to be just a common tout.

But there were strings to Susy’s largesse. The enjoyment of Harlem’s low night life was prohibited to Zeddy. Susy was jealous of him in the proprietary sense. She believed in free love all right, but not for the man she possessed and supported. She warned him against the ornery hussies of her race.

“Nigger hussies nevah wanta git next to a man ’cep’n’ when he’s a-looking good to another woman,” Susy declared. “I done gived you fair warning to jest keep away from the buffet-flat widdahs and thim Harlem street floaters; foh ef I ketch you making a fool woman of me, I’ll throw you’ pants in the street.”

“Hi, but youse talking sistah. Why don’t you wait till you see something before you staht in chewing the rag?”

“I done give you the straight stuff in time so you kain watch you’self when I kain’t watch you. I ain’t bohding and lodging no black man foh’m to be any other nigger woman’s daddy.”

So, in a few pointed phrases, Susy let Zeddy understand precisely what she would stand for. Zeddy was well kept like a prince of his type. He could not complain about food⁠ ⁠… and bed. Susy was splendid in her matriarchal way, rolling her eyes with love or disapproval at him, according to the exigencies of the moment.

The Saturday-night gin parties went on as usual. The brown and high-brown boys came and swilled. Miss Curdy was a constant visitor, frequently toting Strawberry Lips along. About her general way of handling things Susy brooked no criticism from Zeddy. She had bargained with him in the interest of necessity and of rivalry and she paid and paid fully, but grimly. She was proud to have a man to boss about in an intimate, casual way.

“Git out another bottle of gin, Zeddy.⁠ ⁠…”

“Bring along that packet o’ saltines.⁠ ⁠…”

“Put on that theah ‘Tickling Blues’ that we’s all just crazy about.”

To have an aggressive type like Zeddy at her beck and call considerably increased Susy’s prestige and clucking pride. She noticed, with carefully-concealed delight, that the interest of the yellow gin-swillers was piqued. She became flirtatious and coy by turns. And she was rewarded by fresh attentions. Even Miss Curdy was now meeting with new adventures, and she was prompted to expatiate upon men and love to Susy.

“Men’s got a whole lot of women in their nature, I tell you. Just as women never really see a man until he’s looking good to another woman and the hussies want to steal him, it’s the same thing with men, mah dear. So soon as a woman is all sugar and candy for another man, you find a lot of them heartbreakers all trying to get next to her. Like a set of strutting game cocks all priming themselves to crow over a li’l piece o’ nothing.”

“That’s the gospel trute indeed,” agreed Susy. “I done have a mess of knowledge ’bout men tucked away heah.” Susy tapped her head of tight-rolled kinks knotted with scraps of ribbon of different colors. “I pays foh what I know and I’ve nevah been sorry, either. Yes, mam, I done larned about mah own self fust. Had no allusions about mahself. I knowed that I was black and ugly and no-class and unejucated. And I knowed that I was bohn foh love.⁠ ⁠… Mah mammy did useter warn me about love. All what the white folks call white slavery theseadays. I dunno ef theah’s another name foh the nigger-an’-white side ovit down home in Dixie. Well, I soon found out it wasn’t womens alone in the business, sposing thimselves like vigitables foh sale in the market. No, mam! I done soon l’arned that the mens was most buyable thimselves. Mah heartbreaking high-yaller done left me sence⁠—how miny wintahs I been counting this heah Nothan snow? All thim and some moh⁠—dawggone ef I remimber. But evah since I been paying sistah, paying good and hard foh mah loving feelings.”

“Life ain’t no country picnic with sweet flute and fiddle,” Miss Curdy sighed.

“Indeed not,” Susy was emphatic. “It ain’t got nothing to do with the rubbish we l’arn at Sunday school and the sweet snooziness I used to lap up in thim blue-cover story books. My God! the things I’ve seen! Working with white folks, so dickty and high-and-mighty, you think theyse nevah oncet naked and thim feets nevah touch ground. Yet all the silks and furs and shining diamonds can’t hide the misery a them lives.⁠ ⁠… Servants and heartbreakers from outside stealing the husband’s stuff. And all the men them that can’t find no sweet-loving life at home. Lavinia, I done seen life.”

“Me, too, I have seen the real life, mixing as I used to in real society,” said Miss Curdy.

“I know society, too, honey, even though I only knows it watching from the servant window. And I know it ain’t no different from us. It’s the same life even ef they drink champagne and we drink gin.”

“You said it and said it right,” responded Miss Curdy.

Zeddy discovered that in his own circles in Harlem he had become something of a joke. It was known that he was living sweet. But his buddies talked about his lady riding him with a cruel bit.

“He was kept, all right,” they said, “kept under ‘Gin-head’ Susy’s skirt.”

He had had to fight a fellow in Dixie Red’s poolroom, for calling him a “skirt-man.”

He was even teased by Billy Biasse or Billy, the Wolf, as he was nicknamed. Billy boasted frankly that he had no time for women. Black women, or the whole diversified world of the sex were all the same to him.

“So Harlem, after the sun done set, has no fun at all foh you, eh, boh?” Billy asked Zeddy.

Zeddy growled something indistinct.

“Sweet with the bit in you’ mouf. Black woman riding her nigger. Great life, boh, ef you don’t weaken.”

“Bull! Wha’s the matter with you niggers, anyhow?” Zeddy said in a sort of general way. “Ain’t it better than being a wolf?”

“Ise a wolf, all right, but I ain’t a lone one,” Billy grinned. “I guess Ise the happiest, well-feddest wolf in Harlem. Oh, boy!”

Zeddy spent that evening in Harlem drinking with Jake and two more longshoremen at Uncle Doc’s saloon. Late in the night they went to the Congo. Zeddy returned to Myrtle Avenue, an hour before it was time for Susy to rise, fully ginned up.

To Susy’s “Whar you been?” he answered, “Shut up or I’ll choke you,” staggered, swayed, and swept from the dresser a vase of chrysanthemums that broke on the floor.

“Goddam fool flowers,” he growled. “Why in hell didn’t you put them out of the way, hey, you Suze?”

“Oh, keep quiet and come along to bed,” said Susy.

A week later he repeated the performance, coming home with alarming symptoms of gin hiccup. Susy said nothing. After that Zeddy began to prance, as much as a short, heavy-made human could, with the bit out of his mouth.⁠ ⁠…

One Saturday night Susy’s gin party was a sad failure. Nobody came beside Miss Curdy with Strawberry Lips. (Zeddy had left for Harlem in the afternoon.) They drank to themselves and played coon-can. Near midnight, when Miss Curdy was going, she said offhandedly, “I wouldn’t mind sampling one of those Harlem cabarets now.” Susy at once seized upon the idea.

“Sure. Let’s go to Harlem for a change.”

They caught the subway train for Harlem. Arrived there they gravitated to the Congo.

Before Susy left Myrtle Avenue, Zeddy was already at the Congo with a sweet, timid, satin-faced brown just from down home, that he had found at Aunt Hattie’s and induced to go with him to the cabaret. Jake sat at Zeddy’s table. Zeddy was determined to go the limit of independence, to show the boys that he was a cocky sweetman and no skirt-man. Plenty of money. He was treating. He wore an elegant nigger-brown sports suit and patent-leather shoes with cream-light spats such as all the sweet swells love to strut in. If Zeddy had only been taller, trimmer, and well-arched he would have been one of Harlem’s dandiest sports.

His newfound brown had a glass of Virginia Dare before her; he was drinking gin. Jake, Scotch-and-soda; and Rose, who sat with them when she was not entertaining, had ordered White Rock. The night before, or rather the early morning after her job was done, she had gone on a champagne party and now she was sobering up.

Billy Biasse was there at a neighboring table with a longshoreman and a straw-colored boy who was a striking advertisement of the Ambrozine Palace of Beauty. The boy was made up with high-brown powder, his eyebrows were elongated and blackened up, his lips streaked with the dark rouge so popular in Harlem, and his carefully-straightened hair lay plastered and glossy under Madame Walker’s absinthe-colored salve “for milady of fashion and color.”

“Who’s the doll baby at the Wolf’s table?” Zeddy asked.

“Tha’s mah dancing pardner,” Rose answered.

“Another entertainer? The Congo is gwine along fast enough.”

“You bet you,” said Jake. “And the ofays will soon be nosing it out. Then we’ll have to take a back seat.”

“Who’s the Wolf?” Timidly Zeddy’s girl asked.

Zeddy pointed out Billy.

“But why Wolf?”

“K‑hhhhhhh⁠—K‑hhhhhhhh⁠ ⁠…” Zeddy laughed. “ ’Causen he eats his own kind.”