I WAS A DESPERATE MAN. Quarterly, I got that crawly feeling in my wafer-thin stomach. During these fasting days, I had the temper of a Greek mountain dog. It was hard to maintain a smile; everyone seemed to jet toward the goal of The Great Society, while I remained in the outhouse, penniless, without “connections.” Pretty girls, credit cards, charge accounts, Hart Schaffner & Marx suits, fine shoes, Dobbs hats, XK-E Jaguars, and more pretty girls cluttered my butterscotch-colored dreams. Lord—I’d work like a slave, but how to acquire an acquisitional gimmick? Mercy—something had to fall from the tree of fortune! Tom-toms were signaling to my frustrated brain; the message: I had to make it.
As a consequence, I was seized with a near epileptic fit early one Thursday morning. I stood in the center of my shabby though genteel furnished room, shivering and applauding vigorously. Sweet Jesus!—my King James-shaped head vaulted toward the fungus-covered ceiling pipes where cockroach acrobatics had already begun. The cockroaches seemed extraordinarily lively, as if they too were taking part in the earthshaking revelation. Even the late March sun was soft and sweet as moonlight, and the beautiful streets of Harlem were strangely quiet.
Smiling ecstatically, tears gushing from my Dutch-almond eyes, I recalled what the man in the drugstore had said: “With this, you may become whatever you desire.”
Indeed, I did have a Mongolian chance, perhaps even a brilliant future; the black clouds would soon recede. I had tried so hard. Masqueraded as a silent Arab waiter in an authentic North African coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. I’d been quite successful too. Tempting dreamers of Gide, Ivy League derelicts, and hungry pseudo-virgins. Barefoot, marijuana-eyed, fezzed, wearing nothing under my candy-striped djellaba, I was finally unmasked by two old-maid sisters, one club-footed, both with mushroom-colored mustaches, who had lived for a decade in Morocco. The sisters swooned at the deception, left a two-dollar tip and their hashish-scented calling card. Those sisters turned me on, and that night I had a mild attack of Napoleon fever and began insulting the customers. The Zen Buddhist owner was going to New Zealand anyway.
What happened after that? More of the crawly worms in the stomach. Misery. I tap-danced in front of the Empire State Building for a week and collected only one dollar and twenty-seven cents. I was refused unemployment insurance, maybe because I looked foreign and spoke almost perfect English. Naturally, I could have got on welfare, but who has the guts to stand on the stoop, hands in pockets, chewing on a toothpick ten hours a day, watching little kids pass by, their big eyes staring up at you like the eyes of extras in some war movie? There are some things a man can’t do.
No, a man tries another gimmick. But what? For me a Spanish façade would be simple, but very uncool. Filipino? American Indian? I wondered. Eurasian might provide a fetish glamour. Was I capable of bringing off a Jewish exterior? I wondered. Becoming a nice little white Protestant was clearly impossible. Born with a vermeil question mark in my mouth, twenty-one years ago, I have been called the son of the Devil; my social-security card is silent on the point of whether or not I’m human. I suppose that’s why I’m slightly schizophrenic.
Hump psyche reports! I was going to attack my future.
I rushed to the bathroom, the meeting place of exactly seventy-five Negroes of various racial origins. Standing rigidly, religiously, in the white-tiled room, my heart exploded in my eyes like the sea. My brain whirled.
Do not the auburn-haired gain a new sense of freedom as a blonde (see Miss Clairol)? Who can deny the madness of a redesigned nose (see Miami Beach)? The first conference of Juvenile Delinquents met in Riis Park and there was absolutely no violence: a resolution was passed to send Seconal, zip guns, airplane glue, and contraceptives to the Red Chinese (see The Daily News). The American Medical Association announced indignantly that U. S. abortion and syphilis quotas are far below the world average (see Channel 2). Modern gas stations have coin-operated air pumps in the ladies’ room so the under-blessed may inflate their skimpy boobs (see Dorothy Kilgallen). Undercover homosexuals sneak into the local drugstores and receive plastic though workable instruments plus bonus Daisy trade stamps (see Compliments of a newfound friend). Schizo wisdom? Remember, I said to myself, you are living in the greatest age mankind has known. Whereupon, I went to the washbasin, picked up the Giant Economy jar of long-lasting Silky Smooth Hair Relaxer, with the Built-in Sweat-proof Base (trademark registered). Carefully, I read the directions. The red, white, and gold label guarantees that the user can go deep-sea diving, emerge from the water, and shake his head triumphantly like any white boy. This miracle with the scent of wild roses looks like vanilla ice cream and is capable of softening in sufficiently Negroid hands.
I took a handful of Silky Smooth and began massaging my scalp. Then, just to be on the safe side, I added Precautionary Oil, thick, odorless, indigenous to the Georgia swamps. Massaging deftly, I remembered that old-fashioned hair aids were mixed with yak dung and lye. They burned the scalp and if the stuff got in your eye you could go blind from it. One thing was certain: you combed out scabs of dried blood for a month. But a compassionate northern senator had the hair aids outlawed. Said he, in ringing historic words: “Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to this great Spade tragedy! These people are real Americans and we should outlaw all hair aids that makes them lose their vibrations and éclat.” Silky Smooth (using a formula perfected by a Lapp tribe in Karasjok, Norway) posed no problems.
Yes indeed. A wild excitement engulfed me. My mirrored image reflected, in an occult fashion, a magnificent future. I hadn’t felt so good since discovering last year that I actually disliked watermelon.
But the next step was the most difficult act of my life. I had to wait five minutes until the pomade penetrated, stiffened, evaporated. Five minutes of suffering. I stood tall like the great-great-grandson of slaves, sharecroppers, Old World royalty. Tall, like a storm trooper, like an Honor Scout. Yes! I’d stalk that druggist if the experiment failed. Lord—it couldn’t fail! I’m Walter Mitty’s target-colored stepson. Sweet dreams zipped through my mind. A politician had prophesied that it was extremely likely a Negro would be elected President of the United States in the year 2,000. Being realistic, I could just picture myself as Chairman of the Handyman’s Union, addressing the Committee on Foreign Relations and then being castrated. At least I’d no longer have to phone Mr. Fishback, the necrophilic funeral director, each time I went downtown. What a relief that would be. The dimes I’d save!
While the stuff dried I thought of Mr. Fishback. Sweet Daddy Fish, Nonnie called him, but Nonnie liked to put the bad mouth on people. I owed Mr. Fishback for my latest (was it counterfeit?) Credit Card.
Beams of the morning sun danced through the ice-cube-size window as I began to wash the pomade out of my hair. I groaned powerfully. The texture of my hair had changed. Before reaching for a towel, I couldn’t resist looking in the cracked mirror while milky-colored water ran down my flushed face.
Hail Caesar and all dead Cotton Queens! Who the hell ever said only a rake could get through those gossamer locks?
Indeed! I prayed. I laughed. I shook my head and watched each silky curl fall into place. I had only one regret: I wished there were a little wind blowing, one just strong enough to give me a windswept look; then I’d be able to toss a nonchalant lock from my forehead. I’d been practicing a week and had the bit down solid.
You could borrow an electric fan, I was telling myself, and just then I heard Nonnie Swift scream.
“Help! Won’t somebody please help me?” The voice came from the hall.
Let the brandy bitch scream her head off, I thought. A Creole from New Orleans, indeed. If there’s anyone in this building with Creole blood, it’s me.
“I’m dying. Please help a dying widow . . .” the voice wailed from the hall.
I unwillingly turned from the mirror. The Wig was perfection. Four dollars and six cents’ worth of sheer art. The sacrifice had been worth it. I was reborn, purified, anointed, beautified.
“I’m just a poor helpless widow . . .”
Would the bitch never shut up? With the majesty of a witch doctor, I went to Nonnie Swift’s rescue.
She was sprawled on the rat-gnawed floorboards of the hall, clutching a spray of plastic violets, rhinestone Mother Hubbard robe spread out like a blanket under her aging, part-time-whore’s body, which twitched rhythmically. Nonnie’s blue-rinse bouffant was a wreck. It formed a sort of African halo. Tears sprang from her sea-green contact lenses. She jerked Victorian-braceleted arms toward the ceiling and whimpered pitifully.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Nonnie folded her arms across her pancake stomach and moaned.
I knelt down beside her, peered at her contorted rouged face, and got a powerful whiff of brandy.
Like a blind thief’s, Nonnie’s trembling hands pawed at my chin, nose, forehead, and The Wig.
I wanted to break her goddamned hand. “Don’t mess with the moss,” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m in great pain, Les.”
I tried to lift her into a sitting position. The lower part of her body seemed anchored to the floorboards.
“Feel it,” Nonnie said, belching.
“Feel what?”
“Feel it,” Nonnie repeated tersely.
“Don’t you ever give up? You’re old enough to be my mother.”
She screamed again. Cracked lips showed through her American Lady lipstick, which is a deep, deep purple shade.
“Thank you, son,” Nonnie sighed.
“Are you stoned?” I asked. I had a feeling she wasn’t talking to me.
“Stoned?” Nonnie sneered. “I’m in pain!”
“Just try to sit up,” I pleaded. “Then put your arm on the banister.”
“What us poor women go through.”
“Do you want me to call the doctor?”
“Yes! Call the doctor! Call the fire department! Call the militia!” Nonnie shouted. “It’s coming. Two years overdue.”
Disgusted, I stood up. “You’re really loaded.”
“I ain’t no such thing. I’ve been trying to have this baby for a long time. I even said I’d have it on television. But they wouldn’t let me. Of course you know why, don’t you? I come from one of the oldest families in New Orleans, too. I’m only living among you people because of him. I want my son to see all the good and bad things in this world. Understand?”
I understood only too well. “Do you want me to help you to your pad?” I said. “I ain’t got all day.”
“You’d leave a pregnant woman flat on her back?”
Just then Mrs. Tucker opened her rusty tin-covered door. Resplendent in a pleated burlap sack dress, domed head, always sucking rotten gums, she stood and glared.
I glared right back. “Hey,” I said (that’s Carolina talk for “hello”). “Hey, you dried-up old midwife.”
“Harlem riffraff,” Mrs. Tucker spat. “A young punk and a common slut. You’d be lynched down home.”
Nonnie raised up and said sweetly: “Mrs. Tucker, my baby is coming at last. Aren’t you delighted?”
“A sin,” Mrs. Tucker shuddered. She pulled her seventy-nine pounds up and slammed the tin-covered door.
“She just ain’t friendly,” Nonnie commented sadly.
“Don’t let it get you down, cupcake.”
“At least she could have offered to nurse my baby.”
“Is the father a white man?”
“I hardly think so,” Nonnie said slowly. “But you never can tell, can you?”
Suddenly, Nonnie was choked with sobs. Strong tears washed away the sea-green contact lenses, leaving only the true color of her sky-blue eyes. “No more pain, Les. I’ve paid the cost. But just think what he’ll have to go through in Harlem. Leaving the warm prison of my womb. Born into unchained slavery.”
I looked down at Nonnie. Perhaps she was Creole. “Things are getting better every day,” I said.
“Oh. I hope so,” Nonnie cried. “Things have got to change, or else I’ll go back to my old mansion in the Garden District, where the weeds have grown and the Spanish moss just hangs and hangs, and the wind whistles through it like a mockingbird.”
Does that chick read? I asked myself, can she? and decided probably not, she probably saw it and heard it all in the movies.
I had an urge to tell Nonnie she ought to be on the stage or in a zoo. I’d listened to all this fancy jazz for three years. I realize people have to have a little make-believe. It’s like Mr. Fishback says: “Son, try it on for size because after you see me there’ll be no more changes.” Sooner or later, though, you have to step into the spotlight of reality. You’ve got to do your bit for yourself and society. I was trying for something real, concrete, with my Wig.
So I said to Nonnie, “I’m gonna make the big leap. I’m cutting out.”
“You? Where the hell are you going?”
“Just you wait and see,” I teased. “I’m gonna shake up this town.”
“And just you wait and see,” Nonnie mocked. “You curly-headed son of a bitch. You’ve conked your hair.”
“Not conked,” I corrected sharply. I wanted to give her a solid blow in the jaw and make her swallow those false teeth. “Just a little water and grease, Miss Swift.”
“Conked.”
“Do you want me to bash your face in?”
“I’m sorry, sweetcakes,” Nonnie said.
“That’s more like it. You’re always putting the bad mouth on people. No wonder you people never get nowhere. You don’t help each other. You people should stick together like the gypsies.”
“It’s a pity, ain’t it?”
Although I was fuming mad, I managed to lower my voice and make a plea for sympathy. “I can’t help it if I have good hair. You can’t blame a man for trying to better his condition, can you? I’m not putting on or acting snotty.”
“I didn’t wanna hurt your feelings,” Nonnie said tearfully. “Honest, Les. You look sort of cute.”
“Screw, baby.”
“I really mean it. I hope my son has good hair. God knows he’ll need something to make it in this world.”
“That’s a fact,” I agreed solemnly. “The Wig is gonna see me through these troubled times.”
Nonnie questioned the plastic violets for confirmation. “It gives me a warm feeling to know that I can buy bread in my old age,” she remarked with great dignity. “My baby boy will be a great something. I’m sure high-school diplomas and college degrees are on the way out, now you can get them through the mail for a dollar ninety-eight, plus postage. Look at the mess all those degrees have got us in. By the time he’s a grown man success might depend on something else. Might well be a good head of hair.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. Then, blushing, I couldn’t help but add: “You know, Nonnie, I feel like a new person. I know my luck is changing. My ship is just around the bend.”
“I suppose so,” Nonnie said bitchily. “I suppose that’s the way you feel when your hair is conked.”
I turned and began walking away. Otherwise, I would have strangled Nonnie Swift.
Now, she began to cry, to plead. “Les—Lester Jefferson. Don’t leave me flat on my back. Please. I’m all alone. Mrs. Tucker won’t help me. You’ll have to sub for the doctor.”
“Screw.”
I had no time for the drunken hag. How could a New Orleans tramp appreciate The Wig? That’s the way people are. Always trying to block the road to progress. But let me tell you something: no one, absolutely no one—nothing—is gonna stop this boy. I’ve taken the first step. All the other steps will fall easily into place.
Who was I talking to? Myself. Feeling at peace with myself and proud of my clear reasoning, I decided to make it up to Miss Sandra Hanover’s on the third floor, to what Miss Sandra called her pied-à-terre.
Miss Sandra Hanover was intelligent, understanding. A lady with class.