young people my age" who were to be seen in the Townsend Drugstore two blocks from her
house, and a couple of other places. But even before I came to Boston, I had always felt and
acted toward anyone my age as if they were in the "kid" class, like my younger brother Reginald.
They had always looked up to me as if I were considerably older. On weekends back in Lansing
where I'd go to get away from the white people in Mason, I'd hung around in the Negro part of
town with Wilfred's and Philbert's set. Though all of them were several years older than me, I was
bigger, and I actually looked older than most of them.
I didn't want to disappoint or upset Ella, but despite her advice, I began going down into the town
ghetto section. That world of grocery stores, walk-up flats, cheap restaurants, poolrooms, bars,
storefront churches, and pawnshops seemed to hold a natural lure for me.
Not only was this part of Roxbury much more exciting, but I felt more relaxed among Negroes
who were being their natural selves and not putting on airs. Even though I did live on the Hill, my
instincts were never-and still aren't-to feel myself better than any other Negro.
I spent the first month in town with my mouth hanging open. The sharp-dressed young "cats" who
hung on the comers and in the poolrooms, bars and restaurants, and who obviously didn't work
anywhere, completely entranced me. I couldn't get over marveling at how their hair was straight
and shiny like white men's hair; Ella told me this was called a "conk." I had nevertasted a sip of
liquor, never even smoked a cigarette, and here I saw little black children, ten and twelve years
old, shooting craps, playing cards, fighting, getting grown-ups to put a penny or a nickel on their
number for them, things like that. And these children threw around swear words I'd never heard
before, even, and slang expressions that were just as new to me, such as "stud" and "cat" and
"chick" and "cool" and "hip." Every night as I lay in bed I turned these new words over in my mind.
It was shocking to me that in town, especially after dark, you'd occasionally see a white girl and a
Negro man strolling arm in arm along the sidewalk, and mixed couples drinking in the neonlighted
bars-not slipping off to some dark corner, as in Lansing. I wrote Wilfred and Philbert about
that, too.
I wanted to find a job myself, to surprise Ella. One afternoon, something told me to go inside a
poolroom whose window I was looking through. I had looked through that window many times. I
wasn't yearning to play pool; in fact, I had never held a cue stick. But I was drawn by the sight of
the cool-looking "cats" standing around inside, bending over the big, green, felt-topped tables,
making bets and shooting the bright-colored balls into the holes. As I stared through the window
this particular afternoon, something made me decide to venture inside and talk to a dark, stubby,
conk-headed fellow who racked up balls for the pool-players, whom I'd heard called "Shorty." One
day he had come outside and seen me standing there and said "Hi, Red," so that made me figure
he was friendly.
As inconspicuously as I could, I slipped inside the door and around the side of the poolroom,
avoiding people, and on to the back, where Shorty was filling an aluminum can with the powder
that pool players dust on their hands. He looked up at me. Later on, Shorty would enjoy teasing
me about how with that first glance he knew my whole story. "Man, that cat still smelled country!"
he'd say, laughing. "Cat's legs was so long and his pants so short his knees showed-an' his head
looked like a briar patch!"
But that afternoon Shorty didn't let it show in his face how "country" I appeared when I told him I'd
appreciate it if he'd tell me how could somebody go about getting a job like his.
"If you mean racking up balls," said Shorty, "I don't know of no pool joints around here needing
anybody. You mean you just want any slave you can find?" A "slave" meant work, a job.
He asked what kind of work I had done. I told him that I'd washed restaurant dishes in Mason,
Michigan. He nearly dropped the powder can. "My homeboy! Man, gimme some skin! I'm from
Lansing!"
I never told Shorty-and he never suspected-that he was about ten years older than I. He took us
to be about the same age. At first I would have been embarrassed to tell him, later I just never
bothered. Shorty had dropped out of first-year high school in Lansing, lived awhile with an uncle
and aunt in Detroit, and had spent the last six years living with his cousin in Roxbury. But when I
mentioned the names of Lansing people and places, he remembered many, and pretty soon we
darsice
(darsice)
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