against the wall, tables about big enough to get two drinks and four elbows on; the Onyx was one
of those very little places.
Billie, at the microphone, had just finished a number when she saw Jean and me. Her white gown
glittered under the spotlight, her face had that coppery, Indianish look, and her hair was in that
trademark ponytail. For her next number she did the one she knew I always liked so: "You Don't
Know What Love Is"-"until you face each dawn with sleepless eyes... until you've lost a love you
hate to lose-"
When her set was done, Billie came over to our table. She and Jean, who hadn't seen each other
in a long time, hugged each other. Billie sensed something wrong with me. She knew that I was
always high, but she knew me well enough to see that something else was wrong, and asked in
her customary profane language what was the matter with me. And in my own foul vocabulary of
those days, I pretended to be without a care, so she let it drop.
We had a picture taken by the club photographer that night. The three of us were sitting close
together. That was the last time I ever saw Lady Day. She's dead; dope and heartbreak stopped
that heart as big as a barn and that sound and style that no one successfully copies. Lady Day
sang with the soul of Negroes from the centuries of sorrow and oppression. What a shame that
proud,fine, black woman never lived where the true greatness of the black race was appreciated!
In the Onyx Club men's room, I sniffed the little packet of cocaine I had gotten from Sammy. Jean
and I, riding back up to Harlem in a cab, decided to have another drink. She had no idea what
was happening when she suggested one of my main hangouts, the bar of the La Marr-Cheri on
the corner of 147th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. I had my gun, and the cocaine courage, and I
said okay. And by the time we'd had the drink, I was so high that I asked Jean to take a cab on
home, and she did. I never have seen Jean again, either.
Like a fool, I didn't leave the bar. I stayed there, sitting, like a bigger fool, with my back to the
door, thinking about West Indian Archie. Since that day, I have never sat with my back to a door-
and I never will again. But it's a good thing I was then. I'm positive if I'd seen West Indian Archie
come in, I'd have shot to kill.
The next thing I knew West Indian Archie was standing before me, cursing me, loud, his gun on
me. He was really making his public point, floor-showing for the people. He called me foul names,
threatened me.
Everyone, bartenders and customers, sat or stood as though carved, drinks in mid-air. The
jukebox, in the rear, was going. I had never seen West Indian Archie high before. Not a whisky
high, I could tell it was something else. I knew the hustlers' characteristic of keying up on dope to
do a job.
I was thinking, "I'm going to kill Archie... I'm just going to wait until he turns around-to get the
drop on him." I could feel my own .32 resting against my ribs where it was tucked under my belt,
beneath my coat.
West Indian Archie, seeming to read my mind, quit cursing. And his words jarred me.
"You're thinking you're going to kill me first, Red. But I'm going to give you something to think
about. I'm sixty. I'm an old man. I've been to Sing Sing. My life is over. You're a young man. Kill
me, you're lost anyway. All you can do is go to prison."
I've since thought that West Indian Archie may have been trying to scare me into running, to save
both his face and his life. It may be that's why he was high. No one knew that I hadn't killed
anyone, but no one who knew me, including myself, would doubt that I'd kill.
I can't guess what might have happened. But under the code, if West Indian Archie had gone out