J. Poindexter, Colored

Chapter XIV

Oiled Skids

ANYWAY, that's that, as we says up here. I will now pass along to what comes to pass about two weeks later on. All along through them two weeks Mr. Dallas don't impress me like a young man should which he is starting out in the New Year full of good cheer and bright prospects. As the catch-word goes, he ain't at himself. At the breakfast table when I'm passing things to him he's often looking hard at nothing at all. It's plain his thoughts is far away and not so very happy in the place where they've strayed off to, neither.

Well, on this particular day, which it is along toward the middle of the present month of January, he don't get home from down-town until long after dinner-time and when he does get in he don't scarcely touch a morsel to eat; he just pecks at the vittles. After dinner is over and the dishes washed up I passes through the hall on the way out, being bound for the Pastime Club to consultate with 'Lisses Petty touching on our own private affairs. Mr. Dallas had told me at dinner that I could have the evening off and there was not no reason why I should linger on. But as I passes the setting-room door I looks in and he's setting there, sort of haunched down in his chair, with his elbows resting on a little table and his face in his hands, seemingly mighty lonesome. Something seems to come over me and I steps in and I says to him, I says:

"'Scuse me, Mr. Dallas, fur interruptin' yore ponderin's, but is they anythin' I kin do fur you befo' I goes on out?"

He sort of starts and looks up at me, and if ever I sees miserableness staring forth from a person's eyes I sees it now. He speaks to me then and what he says hits me with a jolt. Because this is what he says:

"Jeff, why is it that white people are forever committing suicide on account of their private worries but you never hear of a darky killing himself for the same reason?"

I studies for a minute and then I says:

"Well, Mr. Dallas, I reckin it's 'is yere way: A w'ite man gits hisse'f in trouble an' he can't seem to see no way to git shet of it. An' so he sets down an' he thinks an' he thinks an' he thinks, and after 'w'ile he shoots hisse'f. A nigger-man gits in trouble an' he sets down an' he thinks an' he thinks an' he thinks – an' after 'w'ile he goes to sleep!"

He smiles the least little bit at that. But it is not no regulation smile – it's more like the ha'nting ghost of one.

"But suppose you're brooding so hard you can't sleep?" he says.

"I ain't never seen no nigger yit," I says, "but whut he could sleep ef the baid wuz soft 'nuff. They may not be many 'vantages in bein' black, the way the country is organized," I says, "but this is shore one place whar my culler has it the best."

He don't say anything back at me. So after lingering a little bit I starts to move on out. And then another one of them inmost promptings leads me to speak again:

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "sometimes we kin lif' the load of our pestermints ef only we talks 'bout 'em to somebody else. Sometimes," I says, "it's keepin' 'em all corked up tight on the insides of us w'ich meks the burden bear down so heavy… Wuz they anything else, suh, 'at you wished fur to ast me?"

It seems like my words must have put a fresh notion in his head.

"Jeff," he says, "you're right. I've got to confide in somebody – or else explode. Besides," he says, "I figure that if there is one person in all the five or six million people in this town who's likely to be a real friend to me, it's you. And while my talking to you probably can't do any good, it certainly can't do any harm."

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "I is yore frien' an' yore desperit well-wisher, besides. Sence I been wukkin' fur you you shore is used me mouty kind. I ain't never had nary speck nur grain of complaint to find wid yore way of treatin' me. You's w'ite an' I is black," I says, "an' sometimes, seems lak to me, the two races is driftin' fu'ther apart day by day; but all that ain't henderin' me frum havin' yore bes' intrusts at heart.

"An' so, suh, ef you feels lak givin' me yore confidences I'm yere to heed an' to hearken an' do my humble but level bes' fur to aid you, ef so be ez I kin."

"I believe you," he says, "and I'm grateful to you… Well, Jeff, to put it plainly, I've gone and got myself tangled up in a bad mess."

"Whut way, suh?" I says.

"In two ways," he says; "in business – and in another way. I've been an ass, Jeff – a blind, witless ass. This life here was so different from any I'd ever known – so different and so fascinating – that it just swept me off my feet. I've been drifting along with my eyes shut, having my fling, letting today take care of itself and with no thought of tomorrow. As I look back on it, it strikes me I always have been more or less of a drifter. Down yonder, among our own people, there always was somebody who'd step in once in awhile and check me up. But up here in this big selfish greedy town, among strangers, I've had nobody to advise me or to show me where I was making a fool of myself. And, believe me, I have made a fool of myself. I guess what I need is a guardian – only I doubt whether I'd find the money eventually to pay for his services… Jeff, if I was free of these – these – well, these entanglements – I tell you right now I'd be willing to quit New York tomorrow and take the next train back home where I belong."

He studies a minute and then he continues to resume:

"Yes," he says, "I'd head for home in the morning – if I could. It has taken a hard jolt to open my eyes but, believe me, they're opened now. The chief trouble is, though, that even with them opened I can't see any way out of the tangle I'm in. Jeff, the big mistake I made at the start was that I tied up with the wrong outfit. I thought I was joining in with a group of typical successful live New Yorkers; I know now how wrong I was. There must be plenty of real people here – people who take life in moderation; people who are fair and kindly and reasonable; people who can find pleasure in simple things and who don't pretend to know all there is to know, or to be what they're not. But I haven't met them; I've been too busy running with the other kind."

Down in my soul I says to myself there's a chance for him to pull out yet if he's beginning to see the brass-work shining through the gold plating which has so dazzled him up heretofores. Yes sir, if he's found out all by himself that New York City ain't exclusively and utterly composed of the Mr. H. C. Raynorses and the Mr. Hilary Bellowses and such, there certainly is hope for him still. All along, up to now, I've been saying to myself that it looks like the only future Mr. Dallas has to look forward to, is his past; but now I rejoices that he's done woke up from his happy trance. But of course I don't let on to him that such is my feelings. I merely says to him, I says:

"I ain't the one to 'spute wid you on 'at p'int, suh. Naw suh, not me! But whut's the reason you can't pull out frum yere, ef you's a-mind to?"

At that he lights in and the language just pours out from him like a flood. There's a lot of rigmarole about business, and some parts of this I cannot seem to rightly get the straight of it into my head, but I'm pretty sure I gets the hang of all the main points clear enough. To begin with, I learns now for the first time that him and Mr. Raynor ain't actually been selling oil down-town; they've been selling oil-stocks, which as near as I can figure it out, an oil-stock is the same kin to oil that a milk-ticket is to milk, only it's like as if the man which sells you the milk-tickets ain't really got no cows rounded up yet but trusts in due time he'll be able to do so. Still, if there is folks scattered about who's willing to take the risk that the milkman will amass some cows somewhere and that the cows won't go dry or die on him or be grabbed by the sheriff and thereby leave the customers with a lot of nice new onusable milk-tickets on their hands why, the way I looks at it, there ain't no reason why their craving for to invest should not be gratified.

It seems, furthermore, that Mr. Raynor ain't actually been selling as many oil stocks in the general market as he has let on. Leastwise, that is what Mr. Dallas suspicions, even if he can't prove it. When first they went into partners together last August, Mr. Dallas tells me he put up a large jag of money for his half-interest. He was content to let Mr. Raynor manage the business and keep the run of the books and all that, seeing as how Mr. Raynor had the experience in such matters and he didn't. Anyhow, he felt most amply satisfied with the gratifying amounts which Mr. Raynor kept handing over to him, saying it all was from the profits. But this very day there's been a show-down at the office growing out of Mr. Raynor having called on him to put up another big chunk of cash for running expenses, and whilst all the figures and all the details ain't been made manifest to Mr. Dallas yet, he's got mighty strong reasons to believe there really wasn't no profits to speak of and that the money he's been drawing out all along was just his own money, which Mr. Raynor let him have it in order to keep him happy and contented whilst he was being sucked in deeper and deeper.

And so now, Mr. Dallas says, that's how it stands. If he goes on and on along the way he seems to be headed it's only a question of time till all his money will be plumb drained from him. He tells me that he'd be willing to pull out now and take his losses and charge 'em up to the expenses of getting a Wall Street education only, he says, he can't. I asks him then what's the reason he can't? He says because when the papers was drawed up – by Mr. Raynor – he obligated himself in such a twistified way that it seems he's bound hard and fast to stick to the bitter end. Of course, he says, he might start a lawsuit and throw the whole thing into the courthouse, but, even so, he's afraid he wouldn't have a leg left to stand on by reason of his having tied himself up so tight in writing; and anyway, he says, before he got through with a lawsuit most doubtless the lawyers would have all the leavings.

To myself I says there is still another reason. I knows how much it would hurt Mr. Dallas' pride to have all the folks down home finding out that he's made another disasterful move in business. By roundabout ways it has come to my ears that he's been writing letters back telling about how well he's doing up here in New York and now, if it should come out in the papers that he's made one more bad bustup on top of all them finance mistakes he committed before he come North, and he should have to go South again, broke and shamed at being broke, I reckons it would just about kill him. Besides which I knows full well from hearing Judge Priest talking in the past, that even in medium-sized towns lawyers is plenty costive persons to hire for an important lawsuit, and in the biggest town of all, where the lawyers naturally run bigger, they'd cost a mighty heap more.

When he gets through specifying the situation I gets another notion:

"I wonder," I says, sort of casual-like, "I wonder, Mr. Dallas, w'y it wuz 'at Mr. H. C. Raynor should a-picked this pertic'lar moment fur callin' on you fur a big bunch of cash, 'specially w'en ef he'd a-kept silence you'd a-prob'ly gone on wid him, never 'spicionin' anything wuz wrong?"

"Oh, I'm not so stupid but what I can figure that out," he says. "He's afraid so much of my money will be spent soon in another direction that he'll be deprived of the lion's share of what is left. He wants to strip me down close while the stripping is good."

"In 'nother direction?" I says, kind of musing. "I wonder whut 'at other direction kin be?"

"Can't you guess?" he says.

"Yas suh," I says, "I kin; but I didn' think 'twould be seemly fur me to start guessin' along 'at line widout you opened up the way fust."

"Jeff," he says, "I feel like a low-down dog to be dragging in a woman's name, even indirectly; and so I guess the best thing I can do in that direction is to keep my mouth shut and take my medicine. It appears that here lately I've acquired the habit of committing myself to serious obligations at times when I'm not exactly aware of what I'm doing. At the moment, I don't seem to remember how it all comes about; then I wake up and I find I'm signed, sealed and delivered. I may be the damndest fool alive, but at least I'm an honorable fool. I was raised that way. Where my sense of personal honor is concerned I'm going to stick, no matter what the costs may be. I've been fed fat on flattery; now it's time for me to sup on sorrow awhile. Do you get my drift?"

"Yas suh, I think I does," I says. "Mr. Dallas," I says, "'scuse me fur persumin' to keep on 'long 'is yere track, but is you right downright shore 'at you solemnly engaged yo'se'f in the holy bonds of wedlock to the lady in question?"

"I suppose I did," he says. "I must have. She assumes to think so – everybody else assumes to think so. And yet, as Heaven is my judge, I never intended to lead anybody to believe that I wanted to make a marriage up here. It – it just happened, Jeff – that's all. I can see now how a lot of things have been happening and why. But what can I do to clear myself from either one of these two tangles? I've asked myself the question a hundred times since noon today and there's no answer. I can't lick Raynor at his own game; he's too wise; he's covered his prints too well. When I hinted at a lawsuit this afternoon he laughed in my face and told me to go ahead and sue. And, as for the other thing – well, unless I go through with it, against my will and my better judgment, it means a breach of promise suit, or I miss my guess. Besides, I still have some shreds of self-respect left. I can't deliberately try to break an engagement which, I suppose, I must have made in good faith."

"S'posen' the lady herse'f wuz to up an' brek it on her own 'sponsibility?" I says. He laughed kind of scornful.

"No chance," he says; "no such luck for me! I've walked blindfolded into every trap that was set for me and now it's up to me to play the string out till the last penny is gone. At the present rate that shouldn't take long. But see here, Jeff, I wonder why I sit here unburdening my woes on you? I know you would help me if you could, but what can you do? What can anybody do?"

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "you can't never tell. Sometimes the humblest he'ps out the greates'. Seems lak I heared tell 'at once't 'pon a time 'twuz the gabblin's of a flock of geese w'ich saved one of these yere up-state towns – Utica, or maybe 'twas Rome. I don't rightly remember now whut 'twas ailed 'at town; mebbe 'twuz fixin' to go fur William Jinnin's Bryant? – somethin' lak 'at! Anyway, the geese gits the credit in the records fur the savin' of it. An' ain't you never read whur a mouse comes moseyin' 'long one time an' gnawed a lion loose frum the bindin' snares w'ich helt him? So, ez I says, you can't never tell. But I wonder would you do me a small favor? I wonder would you read a piece out of a su'ttin book ef I wuz to bring it to you out of the liberary, an' w'en you'd done 'at ef you would go on to baid an' try to compose yore min' an' git some needful sleep?"

"What's the idea?" he says.

"Nummine," I says. "Wait 'twell I fetches you the book."

So I goes and gets it down from the shelf where it belongs. It's the furtherest one of a long row of big shiny black books, which all of them has got different names. But the name of this one is: Vet to Zym.

He takes a look at it when I lays it before him, and he says:

"Why, this is a volume of the Encyclopedia! What bearing can this possibly have on what we've just been talking about?"

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "you's no doubt of'en seen ole Pappy Exall, w'ich he is the pastor of Zion Chapel, struttin' round the streets at home in times gone by? Well, the Rev'n. Exall may look lak one-half of a baby-elephant runnin' loose, but lemme tell you, suh, he ain't nobody's bawn fool. One time yere some yeahs back he got hisse'f into a kind of a jam wid his flock 'count of some of 'em bein' mos' onhighly dissatisfied wid the way he wuz handlin' the funds fur to buy a new organ fur the church. Nigh ez they could figger it out, he'd done confisticated the organ money to his own pussonal an' private pu'pposes. Try ez they mout, they couldn't nobody in the congregation git no satisfaction out of him reguardin' of it. So one evenin', unbeknownst to him, a investigatin' committee formed itse'f, an' whilst he was settin' at the supper-table they come bustin' in on him an' demanded then an' thar how 'bout it? Wid one voice they called on him to perduce an' perduce fast, else they gwine start yellin' fur the police. Wid that he jest rise up frum his cheer an' he look 'em right in the eye an' he say to 'em, very ca'mlak: 'My pore bernighted brethren, in response to yore questions I directs yore prayerful considerations to Acts twenty-eighth an' seventeenth, also Timothy fust an' fifth, lakwise Kings sixth an' fust. Return to yore homes in peace an' read the messages w'ich is set fo'th in the 'foresaid Scriptures an' return to me yere on the morrow fur fu'ther guidance.' Well, they all dashes off fur to dig up they Bibles an' see whut the answer is. Bright an' early next mawnin' they comes back to say 'at w'ile them is mighty fine-soundin' verses w'ich he bade 'em to read, still they ain't nary one of 'em w'ich seems to relate in any way whutsomever to a missin' organ fund. Then he smiles sort of pitiful-lak an' he reaches his fat hand down in his britches pocket an' he hauls out the money to the las' cent. The trick w'ich he had done played on 'em had give him a chanc't to slip out an' borrow 'nuff frum a couple of w'ite gen'elmen frien's of his'n fur to mek up the shortage. Whut he needed wuz time an' time wuz whut he got.

"Now, Mr. Dallas, I aims to borrow a lesson frum the example of ole Pappy Exall. I asts you to set yere an' read a chapter out of 'is yere book. It don't mek no diff'ence to me w'ich chapter 'tis you reads, jes' so it's a good long one. I done looked th'ough 'at book the other day an' most of the chapters in it is long an' all of 'em is tiresome. You jes' read 'twell you gits good an' sleepy an' 'en you go on to baid an' refresh yo'se'f in slumber. An' in the meanwhile I aims to steddy right hard over these yere pressin' matters of your'n an' see ef I can't see the daylight breakin' th'ough somewhars."

I can tell by his looks that he ain't got no hope of success on my part, but he's so plumb wore out from worrying that he ain't got the spirit for to resist me. He says to me he won't promise to read the book, but he will promise to try to lay aside his botherments and go to bed early, which that is sufficient for me.

I leaves him there and I goes back to my room, after telephoning to 'Lisses Petty that something important has come up at our place which will detain me away from him for the time being. And then, when I gets to my room, I sets down and takes off my shoes. It seems like I always could think better when my feet was freed from them binding shoes.