Harlem Shuffle(20)
The AC was one part of the treatment, Elizabeth’s old house another. She’d grown up in the Strivers’ Row townhouse, and a visit never failed to fortify her. Her room was as she’d left it, on the second floor overlooking the alley. W. C. Handy used to live across the way and Elizabeth liked to tell the story of watching the Father of the Blues in his study, his hands like doves fluttering in the air to the songs on his Victrola. The artist surveying a kingdom that only he could see. As far as views went, it beat the elevated and its discordant symphony of metal on metal. Her favorite blanket on the bed, the annual marks on the doorframe that tracked her height. Carney held no such nostalgia for the apartment he’d grown up in.
Leland turned the AC’s dial to demonstrate. “You should look into one of these,” he said, aware that Carney’s budget forbade the expense.
“One day,” Carney said.
“They have payment plans,” Leland said.
Elizabeth grabbed Carney’s waist. He put his hand on May’s shoulder. He didn’t know what she made of today’s round of jousting between her father and grandfather, but she sure understood that cool air. She exposed her belly to the contraption and looked off into a dream.
Despite the company, he liked coming up to his in-laws’ place on Strivers’ Row. As a kid he’d admired the neat yellow brick and white limestone houses, plopped down in the middle of Harlem. Looking over from Eighth Avenue, the sidewalks were always swept, the gutters unclotted, the alleyways between the houses strange domains. What kind of block had its own name? What would they call his old stretch of 127th? Crooked Way. Striver versus crook. Strivers grasped for something better—maybe it existed, maybe it didn’t—and crooks schemed about how to manipulate the present system. The world as it might be versus the world as it was. But perhaps Carney was being too stark. Plenty of crooks were strivers, and plenty of strivers bent the law.
His father-in-law, for example. Leland Jones was one of black Harlem’s premier accountants, squaring the books of the best doctors, lawyers, and politicians, all the big Negro-owned 125th Street businesses. He’d get you off the hook. He bragged about his collection of loopholes and dodges, the fat-envelope bribes passed over in the drawing room of the Dumas Club. Brandy and a cigar: I got you. Let’s keep this between us, but he didn’t care who spoke of it because it was cheap advertising. “I eat audits like cornflakes,” Leland liked to say, grinning. “With milk and a spoon.” He was a tall man, with a wide, moon face and thick white mustache and muttonchops. His grandfather had been a preacher, and a taste for the lecture had been passed down, the righteous address from the front of the room.
Alma called them to dinner. It smelled good from the kitchen and looked good on the nice china: a big ham with sweet potatoes and greens. Carney slid May into Elizabeth’s old high chair, courtesy of a defunct mail-order company that the Jones family held in high esteem, from how they cooed and clucked at its name. It creaked. Leland sat at the head of the table and tucked a light blue napkin into his shirt. He asked when the baby was due.
The conversation permitted Carney a return to his dilemma. That morning, Rusty had asked why he wanted the front door closed on such a hot day. Carney felt exposed with the store open to the street, not that an unlocked door provided any defense. He steeled himself each time a customer stepped inside. No one stayed long—the store was too hot, the owner’s twitchy approaches off-putting. The dead time allowed Carney to run scenarios, like the ones performed at the end of the month to find the combinations of sales that’d put him into next month’s rent: One dinette, three couches…one complete Argent living-room set, five lamps, and a rug…
Scenarios:
Chink Montague discovers the identity of the thieves and takes his revenge but it doesn’t reach Carney. Freddie is killed.
Chink Montague roots out the crew, including tangential party Ray Carney—is he off the hook if he’s merely the fence? Freddie is killed. Or just maimed, squeaked an optimistic voice that sounded like Aunt Millie.
Chink Montague roots out the crew, but there’s enough time for Carney to get out of town. With his family? By himself? Freddie is killed.
Carney goes to Chink Montague himself, tells the mobster he had no idea what was going on. Carney is taught some variety of lesson. Freddie is killed. Or just maimed.
“What happened to you?”
“Oh, I got maimed a little once.”
He closed the store an hour early and stalked Riverside Drive to calm himself down. This apartment, that apartment, he couldn’t focus. A sedan nearly hit him as he stood in the street looking up. Then he picked up the girls for the trip to 139th Street.
Alma reeled him into the dinner table with a mention of Alexander Oakes.
“Alexander was accepted into the Dumas Club,” Alma said. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth. “Your father said it was unanimous.”
“It was,” Leland said. “He’s been doing very well for himself. We’ve been trying to recruit that younger generation for a long time.”
“Good for him,” Elizabeth said. “That’s the sort of thing he likes.” She and Alexander had grown up together. His family lived three doors down and socialized in the same hoity-toity atmosphere. Alexander had gone to a Catholic high school, so Carney didn’t know him from those days, but over the years Alma had filled him in. Football team, president of the debate club, then on to Howard where he continued his Talented Tenth scrabbling. His law degree got him a prosecutor’s job with the Manhattan district attorney. He’d be one of the city’s Negro judges when it all came together, write-up in the Amsterdam News with a grainy photo. Shady enough to go into politics. Membership in the Dumas Club meant he’d get help from fellow members—and lend a hand if trouble came someone else’s way.