A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes

Author:Chester Himes [Himes, Chester]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780307803290
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-07-19T14:00:00+00:00

15

Goldy was standing in the dark, watching through the glass front door of the tobacco shop, when Jackson got down from the junk wagon. He opened the door for Jackson to enter, and locked it behind him.

“Did you find out where she’s at?” Jackson asked immediately.

“Come on back to my room where we can talk.”

“Talk? What for?”

“Be quiet, man.”

They groped through the black dark like two ghosts, invisible to each other. Jackson begrudged every second wasted. Goldy was trying to figure out where to hide the gold ore when he’d finally gotten it.

Goldy turned on the light in his room and padlocked the door on the inside.

“What you locking the door for?” Jackson complained. “Ain’t you found out where she’s at?”

Before replying, Goldy went around the table and sat down. His wig and bonnet lay on the table beside a half-empty bottle of whiskey. With his round black head poking from the bulging black gown, he looked like an African sculpture. He was so high he kept brushing imaginary specks from his gown.

“I found out where she’s at all right, but first I got to know what happened.”

Jackson stood just inside the door. He began swelling with rage. “Goldy, unlock this door. I feel like I’m just two feet away from jail as it is.”

Goldy got up to unlock the door, shoulders twitching from the gage.

“Aw, God damn it, set down and cool off,” he muttered. “Drink some of that whiskey there. You’re making me nervous.”

Jackson drank from the bottle. His teeth chattered so loudly on the bottle neck that Goldy jumped.

“Man, quit making those sudden noises. You sound like a rattlesnake.”

Jackson banged the bottle on the table and gave Goldy a look of blue violence.

“Be careful, Brother, be careful. I’ve taken all I’m going to take this night from anybody. You just tell me where my woman is and I’ll go get her.”

Goldy sat down again and began shining his cross with quick, jerky motions. “You tell me first what happened.”

“You ought to know what happened if you found out where she’s at.”

“Listen, man, we’re just wasting time like this. I wasn’t back there when the rumble happened. I was setting in a taxi out front when she and Slim came out and got in and he said she was his wife and had taken poison and he had to get her to Knickerbocker Hospital. They rode with me to the hospital then got out and switched taxis and rode over to the place on Park Avenue where they stay. I followed them and that’s all I know. Now you tell me what happened back there in the shack so we can figure out what to do.”

Jackson began to worry again.

“Do they know you followed them?”

“How do I know? Slim don’t know, anyway, unless Imabelle told him. He was in too much pain to notice anything.”

“Did some get in his eyes too?”

“Naw, just on his neck and face.”

“Did they act suspicious of you?”

“I don’t know. Quit asking so many questions and just tell me what you know.

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