Henry Dumas

A Harlem Game

Mack and Jayjay stopped at the stoop and while Jayjay bounced the basketball around for practice, Mack slumped down on the concrete steps and fingered an iron spike jutting from the metal rail on the stoop. Up the street the block lights came on and the glow blended with the drugstore's orange-red neons. Mack looked up at the broken lamp in front of his stoop.

"Let's go to the show, Jay."

"I ain't got no money."

"Don't punk out. I can get some."

"You can't," said Jayjay, "You can't get nothin from them if they're playin cards."

"Don't punk out. If my old lady's got even a dollar, half of it's mine."

"Look, she just gave you fifty cents this mornin', didn't she?"

"So what? Come on, go with me upstairs again."

He watched Jayjay dribble the ball. Then he got up and his shadow formed on the sidewalk beside Jayjay.

"Look, she just gave you fifty cents this mornin, didn't you enough to get in."

"I don't know," said Jayjay. "It's gettin late and I got to take Frisky's ball back." He faced up the street as the ball slapped the sidewalk pow pow pow pow across Mack's shadow.

"Then wait two minutes. If I'm not back. .." He turned and ran op the stairway. At the top a familiar odor came at him from the darkened hail. Beer cans sprawled near his doot and a blood stain streaked the top step where somebody had been cut in a fight.

He hesitated for a minute against the knife-caned wood of his door, his sweaty hand gripping the handle. He leaned. The door opened. He moved in. He was panting.

Down the hallway in the kitchen he saw the back of the hunched figure in the usual position at the card table in the center of the kitchen floor.

He eased into the room. His sneakers made no noise but the loose floor boards gave his presence away.

The big man shifted his shoulders and poised himself if he were listening for footsteps. But he didn't look at MA He continued to watch the woman, Lola, deal. Mack stood there panting. No one spoke.

Lola sat opposite Jim Davis. Mack glanced at her. She was pretty and Jim Davis was saying she was a queen of hearts.

Mack looked at his mother as the picked up her cards. She held them in her left hand and brought a can of beer to her mouth with her right. She glanced at him over the rim of the can. He hoped she would say something.

He looked at the pile of change in front of her. She was winning a lot. No one else had much except maybe Jim Davis and Lola. He sensed the vacant table in front of his father. He could feel the big man breathing like a bull. Jim Davis grunted and scratched his stubbled chin. Mack moved toward his mother.

The big man shifted himself in the seat.

"Punk," he said to Mack, "where you been all day? What you want now?"

Mack stood still. He saw a lone dime in front of his father. He opened his mouth to speak but only grunted something.

"How much bread you got?" the big man asked.

"I'm broke," Mack said. He looked at his mother. She was opening a can of beer. "I'm broke and I was sorta needin. .

"I didn't ask you what you needed," the big man said softly, staring at the center of the table.

Jim Davis wiggled his chair and hastily glanced at Mack. "Say kid, it would be good if you would lend your old man here some coins. He's been losin kinda heavy. We all been losin to your old lady here." He chuckled at Mack, but Mack didn't know whether to smile back or to say, yes, it would be good, or just to come right out and ask his mother for show fare.

He looked at her steadily but it was a long time before she looked at him.

"What you standin there for, Mackie?" she asked. Then she turned to her cards again.

"I He approached the table. "Jay and me want to

make that last show. He's waitin for me downstairs."

The big man cleared his throat and raised a can to his mouth. There was a sound of gulping and the can was empty.

"Stop rubbin them things," Lola said to Jim Davis, who was scratching his chin.

Mack watched his mother. She smirked a couple of times as if deciding what to do. Then she plucked two quarters from her pile and jammed them into Mack's palm.

He felt like running. He turned toward the hall door.

"Punk, you forgettin somethin, ain't you?"

Mack paused.

"Don't you like potato chips?

Mack wanted to say yes, but he didn't. He trembled and watched the fat arm flex on the table edge. The twist of muscles looked like twin ridges of metal stripping bent back to a rebound point.

Lola was frowning at Jim Davis. "Can't you stop that damn noise? It makes my flesh crawl."

Jim Davis said something about how rubbing his chin brought out the man in him and made him think fast. He wiggled his chair, snickering at the same time.

Mack glanced quickly at all of them and stepped off again.

"I said somethin to you, punk."

Mack clenched his teeth. "Yeah, maybe I could use-"

"What about that wise kid, Jayjerk? He eats chips, don't he?"

"Guess so."

"Okay then," he said, looking at the cards dealt out by Mack's mother, "give 'im four more bits."

Mack looked at his mother. She hesitated and smacked her lips, making sounds of disgust with her tongue.

"How much is it to get in?" she asked.

Mack didn't know what to say. He just stood there. He tried to mumble something, but he caught a sudden movement of the arm on the table.

The big man stood up. His body pushed the tiny table and a can of beer fell. He laid his cards down and leaned slowly over the table. His body was like a steel beam bent by some force. It was ready to snap back when the force was released.

"What did I say give 'im?" He looked at the pile of coins in front of Mack's mother.

"This here's enough," Mack said, looking from face to face and holding two quarters out in his hand.

No one spoke. The sound of Lola blowing smoke over the table surface mixed with the sound of the big man breathing. That was all. Then Mack took two steps toward the hail. Lola smashed the butt.

"I thought I said somethin." The big arm flexed.

And Mack's mother, weakly shaking her head at her pile, pushed two more quarters to the edge of the table.

"Okay," she snapped, "but I want my money back."

It all happened so fast that Mack was still standing poised to retreat down the hall.

"Now, punk," the big man said, grinning, "you got nough coins, right?"

Mack said yes, and looked at the extra quarters.

"So looky here," his old man continued, "sposin I told you somethin." He grabbed Mack's wrist and jerked him to the edge of the table. He sat down and smiled at Mack.

Mack's mother said something about leaving the boy alone, but she was draining a can of beer and her words were swallowed.

"Like I was sayin," and he squeezed the wrist. Mack began to feel the sweat gathering up in him. "Like I was sayin, if you was playin a gamblin game here, see, like all is, and your old lady over there just kept on winnin, see, and then I comes along with a pocket full of coins, what do you think I'd do?"

Mack's mother got up and went to the refrigerator where she began gathering and opening beer cans.

"Okay, son, what do you think would happen to me if I had bread like that and didn't want to lend you a few pieces?"

Mack frowned and took a deep breath.

"Well . . . I don't know, I don't know . . ." He felt tight inside and began to try to wrench his arm free.

"What the hell you mean?"

Jim Davis studied the cards after shuffling them; as he dealt he looked at the beer being opened.

Mack stopped struggling and clenched his teeth. He looked into his old man's eyes. But words wouldn't come.

"Son, son, son, son, don't you know that if I was to do that you'd haul off and knock the blue hell outa me, wouldn't you?"

Mack lowered his eyes. The big man gently tugged his arm for an answer. He glanced around at the others. They were busy and did not see him, and before he knew what he was doing he was putting three of the four quarters in front of the big man.

"Thank you, son. You're a smart punk. Now let me see,' He pretended he was counting his money. "How about lendin me two bits?"

Mack frowned. He felt the lone quarter in his palm and wondered if he should try to break away and run. He looked at Lola lighting a cigarette. Jim Davis was rubbing his chin and Mack's mother was mumbling something about anybody wanting cheese with the beer. Her face was searching the refrigerator.

"But I . . ." He felt a squeeze and his wrist throbbed. He wanted to punch out at the big man or use a knife.

But he was alone. Looking at the arm digging into his wrist like a steel clamp, he tossed the last coin on the table. Lola's cigarette was jarred from the ashtray to the floor. "Maybe I'll lend you some show fare." He grabbed Mack's arm again and flicked a quarter into it.

Mack stared at the floor. "I ain't goin," he said.

"'What the hell you mean?"

Mack stepped away from the table. "I ain't goin."

"Look here, punk, I don't want to hear none of that jive talk." He stood up again, hunching over Mack. "What did you want with that two bits in your hand?"

Mack took in a breath and gritted his teeth.

"Okay then, punk, let's get this all straight right now. Who did you just borrow a dollar from?"

Mack turned his head in the direction of his mother.

"You damn right. Now, who did you borrow that last quarter from?"

Mack looked at Jim Davis. Jim was dealing cards with a cigarette hanging so that the smoke made his left eye squint. Lola and Mack's mother were now talking about something.

"Who? "

"Maybe you," he gasped.

"What the hell you mean?"

"You, I guess."

"How much you owe all together? You heard your old lady say she wanted hers back, right?"

"But I ain't got. .

"Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?" The big man leaned closer to Mack.

"Buck and a quarter." He stepped toward the hall.

"Now what you goin to do with what I lent you?"

"I was goin to the show."

"Then get the hell out of here. We're playin a game of cards, can't you see?" He sat back down and hunched his shoulders. He gripped the sweaty coins in his hands, then slowly stacked them in a neat pile in front of him.

Mack went out the door and down the steps. Along the street the block lights made shadows of people. He did not see Jayjay.

He slumped to the stoop, wiping his face. Punk, punk, punk, punk. When he got bigger ....

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