cursed us and raced on. Again, it didn't cross the white men's minds that a trick like that might be
pulled on them by Negroes.
The suits that I wore, the finest, I bought hot for about thirty-five to fifty dollars. I made it my rule
never to go after more than I needed to live on. Any experienced hustler will tell you that getting
greedy is the quickest road to prison. I kept "cased" in my head vulnerable places and situations
and I would perform the next job only when my bankroll in my pocket began to get too low.
Some weeks, I bet large amounts on the numbers. I still played with the same runner with whom
I'd started in Small's Paradise. Playing my hunches, many a day I'd have up to forty dollars on
two numbers, hoping for that fabulous six hundred-to-one payoff. But I never did hit a big number
full force. There's no telling what I would have done if ever I'd landed $10,000 or $12,000 at one
time. Of course, once in a while I'd hit a small combination figure. Sometimes, flush like that, I'd
telephone Sophia to come over from Boston for a couple of days.
I went to the movies a lot again. And I never missed my musician friends wherever they were
playing, either in Harlem, downtown at the big theaters, or on 52nd Street.
Reginald and I got very close the next time his ship came back into New York. We discussed our
family, and what a-shame it was that our book-loving oldest brother Wilfred had never had the
chance to go to some of those big universities where he would have gone far. And we exchanged
thoughts we had never shared with anyone.
Reginald, in his quiet way, was a mad fan of musicians and music. When his ship sailed one
morning without him, a principal reason was that I had thoroughly exposed him to the exciting
musical world. We had wild times backstage with the musicians when they were playing the Roxy,
or the Paramount. After selling reefers with the bands as they traveled, I was known to almost
every popular Negro musician around New York in 1944-1945.
Reginald and I went to the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theater, the Braddock Hotel bar, the
nightclubs and speakeasies, wherever Negroes played music. The great Lady Day, Billie Holiday,
hugged him and called him "baby brother." Reginald shared tens of thousands of Negroes'
feelings that the living end of the big bands was Lionel Hampton's. I was very close to many of
the men in Hamp's band; I introduced Reginald to them, and also to Hamp himself, and Hamp's
wife and business manager, Gladys Hampton. One of this world's sweetest people is Hamp.
Anyone who knows him will tell you that he'd often do the most generous things for people he
barely knew. As much money as Hamp has made, and still makes, he would be broke today if his
money and his business weren't handled by Gladys, who is one of the brainiest women I ever
met. The Apollo Theater's owner, Frank Schifrman, could tell you. He generally signed bands to
play for a set weekly amount, but I know that once during those days Gladys Hampton instead
arranged a deal for Hamp's band to play for a cut of the gate. Then the usual number of shows
was doubled up-if I'm not mistaken, eight shows a day, instead of the usual four-and Hamp's
pulling power cleaned up. Gladys Hampton used to talk to me a lot, and she tried togive me good
advice: "Calm down, Red." Gladys saw how wild I was. She saw me headed toward a bad end.
One of the things I liked about Reginald was that when I left him to go away "working," Reginald
asked me no questions. After he came to Harlem, I went on more jobs than usual. I guess that
what influenced me to get my first actual apartment was my not wanting Reginald to be knocking
around Harlem without anywhere to call "home." That first apartment was three rooms, for a
hundred dollars a month, I think, in the front basement of a house on 147th Street between
Convent and St. Nicholas Avenues. Living in the rear basement apartment, right behind Reginald
and me, was one of Harlem's most successful narcotics dealers.
With the apartment as our headquarters, I gradually got Reginald introduced around to Creole
Bill's, and other Harlem after-hours spots. About two o'clock every morning, as the downtown
white nightclubs closed, Reginald and I would stand around in front of this or that Harlem afterhours
place, and I'd school him to what was happening.
Especially after the nightclubs downtown closed, the taxis and black limousines would be driving
uptown, bringing those white people who never could get enough of Negro soul. The places
popular with these whites ranged all the way from the big locally famous ones such as Jimmy's
Chicken Shack, and Dickie Wells', to the little here-tonight-gone-tomorrow-night private clubs, socalled,
darsice
(darsice)
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