He started talking. Told me colored folks ain’t got a chance in hell to make a life in this mean ol’ town. Said he believed white folk, not colored boys, was killing all them Black girls — it was a warning. Keep out, the warning said.
We drove past ragged shacks, me thinking about the warning. Directly, we turnt onto a pretty street named Central. Seem like the whole town cheered up. Stores and buildings everywheres, brand new. Fancy cars and jalopies pushed in around us. Like we was joining a parade. Loud music played a ways down. Horns honked, folks jumped on the running boards, cheering.
I asked Officer Kimbrow, “What’s the matter? They all happy. Ain’t they heard ’bout the poor girl?”
“Naw, they ain’t heard,” Officer Kimbrow said. “They happy about the fight.”
“What fight?” I said.
“Goodness, boy, don’t you know? Joe Louis just knocked out Baer in four. He’s the number one contender now. A colored man is gonna be champion of the world. And there ain’t nothing these crackers can do to stop it.”
3
Officer Kimbrow fount a parking space and pulled me through the crowd. When we reached the hotel, seem like the whole block reared up right in front of me. Balconies and windows jumped into the clouds.
Officer Kimbrow said, “Hurry up, son,” and walked in.
I couldn’t move. That Dunbar Hotel looked like a secret golden palace for white folks, tucked smack in the middle of Negro town. The white folks I knew about didn’t truck no colored boy walking, bold as a prince, in through the front doors of they personal palaces. I wanted to hunt for the colored entrance.
“Come on, boy,” Officer Kimbrow said again. I followed him, on the lookout for a whuppin’.
There was fountains, paintings, and flowers everywheres. Some ceilings was glass, staring at the cloudy sky. Walls was done up with sand-colored tiles. Flowers and gold curlicues twisted ’round them. The front rooms and all the shops was filled with peoples.
Nobody talked about the murdered girl. Everybody was trying to say something important about the big fight. We went to the front desk. A man, around seventeen, asked if we was booking a room. He was dressed in a fantastic brown suit covered with buttons. A little red hat sat on his head neat as a cherry. On his pocket was the words Tiger Smalls, Bell Captain.
Officer Kimbrow told Mr. Smalls we was looking for my uncle, Mr. Pin. When Mr. Smalls smiled at me I could tell my uncle was sho-nuff a poo-bah of some quality there.
“Captain Pin is in the barbershop,” Mr. Smalls said. “Follow me.”
The shop had four brass chairs. The barbers moved like dancers. They conks slick as race cars. Pearl buttons ran acrost they white shirts. A sign above the mirrors said, House of Style.
A giant radio sat beside the front window. Folks was watching it like a picture show. The colored station KGFJ was replaying the fight.
The head barber seen us come in. Before we could talk, he pointed to a tall, prosperous-looking gentleman getting his conk did back of the shop. The gentleman peeked his head out from the hair dryer as we approached. His conk sparkled like glass. He stepped to the mirror. Patted his doo, studying hisself. He looked back at us in the mirror. “Something the matter, officer?” my Uncle Balthazar said.
4
His office was big enough to fit a desk and a visitor’s chair. A sign on his desk said, Balthazar Pin, Plant Captain. The walls was decorated with photographs of my uncle in his brown tuxedo, posing with rich colored folks. I didn’t recognize but one of them, the famous runner Jesse Owens.
Uncle Balthazar sat at his desk; I sat in the visitor’s chair. The cop talked about murdered girls — four since June. They’d died awful ways. Cut, beat, strangled, raped — then kilt and throwed away.
Just before he left out, Officer Kimbrow said, “Mr. Pin, I am honor bound to tell you, you can’t rely on any of the sworn officers of the LAPD, colored nor white, to protect you. I suggest you look to your own menfolk. To stand up as men must; and, if it comes to it, to trust in the authority of Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson to deliver due justice on our behalf.”
5
Uncle Balthazar stared at me a long time after Officer Kimbrow left out. Then he came ’round the desk and studied me some more. “Mercy, you got some big feets, boy,” he said at last. “How tall is you?”
“About five seven,” I said.
“Well, that won’t last long.”
He took a step back. Studying me. “Your daddy was a runt as a kid. Grew tall and big as a bear. Mean too, quiet as it’s kept. I loved your ma, though. She was God-fearing and sweet-hearted. Prettiest in the bunch.”
“She ain’t pretty no more. Nor God-fearing neither,” I said. “She stopped loving the Lord when Pa got kilt. She stopped being pretty when the nervous sickness got her. It ruint her. Ruint Dise too.”
“Well, boy, the Good Lord done sent you to me. If you works hard, I’m your man. But if you come up shiftless and short, you out the door — understand?”
“Yes suh.”
He pressed a button on his desk. Directly, a lady, ’bout eighteen, stepped in. Pretty as a movie star. The writing on her pocket said, Cleopatra Chimes, Chief Housekeeper.
“Miss Chimes, take his young man down to the infirmary. Dress his wounds, give him some proper vines, and feed him.”
“But there ain’t no room, Captain Pin,” Miss Chimes said. “We full up with help: janitorial, bellboys, waitstaff. We don’t need no more staff.”
“Then we’ll just have to make a place outta no place,” my Uncle Balthazar snapped. He thought on it. “He’ll serve as my personal factotum until we can find him suitable employment.”
They was using words I’d never heard of. “Fact... fact... tote...” I tried.
“Factotum,” my uncle corrected me. “That mean, every damn thing I say is a fact. And if I point to a heap of satchels yonder by the elevator, I expects you to hop up and tote ’em where they needs to go. Fact-tote-um — get me?” He turnt to Miss Chimes, said, “Now, he can’t bunk here. F’now, get one of the bellhops to make him a pallet back of the pantry. He can stay there till we find lodging downtown.”
“Yes sir, Captain Pin,” Miss Chimes said.
She cleared a space behind the pantry. A bellboy named Chipper came with the bedding. He didn’t say nothin’ to me, nor hardly look at me all the while he made the pallet. He knew there wasn’t no jobs, and here I was, the captain’s pet, getting one.
Chipper left out soon. In the infirmary Miss Chimes brought in supper, some cornbread and a bowl of gumbo. I swallowed it all before it stopped steaming. Then Miss Chimes pulled out a first aid kit. “Be strong, shorty. This is gonna hurt,” she said.
’Cepting my ma, I ain’t never had a growed-up woman touch me like Miss Chimes did that night. Now, she wasn’t trying to touch me in no sinning way (I don’t think), but all while she was rubbing me and dabbing me with Vaseline and stinging cream, and sticking bandages and cotton balls all up and down my legs, seem like my privates (which she never touched) was getting healed and scrubbed and rubbed and pampered some too. I thanked the Lord when she quit.
6
The smell of biscuits got me up ’round four a.m. ’Round five, Flip Cromwell, one of the busboys working mornings, brought me a pressed white shirt and pants and a white-and-black cap a milkman would wear.