“Anyway, Mr. Harris what owned this store was a right nice man and he told me–it were not his fault Baltimore had them kinds of customs because in the Old Country where he come from there was no prejudices against colored folks, just against Jews. He said some places was RESTRICTED to Jews in the Old Country when he was a kid. That was the first time I knowed this. We used to talk about race problems quite a heap, because Mr. Harris were what he called a ‘liberal,’ which meant he voted for Roosevelt three times.

“I used to love to hear them Jewish people-talk in their own language to each other and with their hands, too. I got so I used my hands a lot myself, throwing them up in the air, which is maybe why Isabel thought sometimes I was going to hit her. I never hit no woman—although I have sometimes been forced to protect myself and push them off of me. The only woman I sometimes wish I had hit now is Cherie—that girl that run when Mabel looked her in the eyes in the beer booth. Cherie were really no-good—like Zarita. Except that Zarita will drink you up for fun, whereas Cherie drunk you up only for money. But I did not know that then. I used to talk big around the store about little slick Cherie and how glamorous she was. I never did mention Mabel at work, only Cherie. I used to tell the nice old head Jewish lady clerk about how swell she looked.

“That old lady must of knowed I was young and foolish because she would say to me, ‘Swell—smell! Swell is what swell does, not how swell she looks!’

“‘But this girl is beautiful!’ I’d say.

“‘Beautiful, snootiful,’ this old Jewish lady clerk said—which was just about right. Cherie was snooty. As long as a man was putting down cash, she was O.K. But don’t pay, and she snubbed you in public. When the contest come, she run off and left me to face Mabel in that booth by myself. She rooked me, then shook me. If I had not met Isabel, I would have been alone again.

“Working in that dress shop, I used to hear the Jewish people talking all the time about Palestine, like the Irish talk about Ireland. I wondered how come Negroes don’t talk much about Africa. But we don’t. And practically nobody wants to go back there. I guess because it is so different and so dark and so far away. We been here in America longer than lots of other folks have, yet we can’t even buy a pair of shoes in them downtown shops in Baltimore. That is Baltimore. That is one reason why when I got here to Harlem, I stayed.”