Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/204

 Byron to a locker. Dis one jes' lately been worn by a jig dat's fired. You better lock yo' clothes up. Heah's duh key. Ah can' 'count fo' duh actions an' movements o' dis bunch o' smokes.

As Byron on his bench began to pull off his trousers, the boys on the adjoining benches babbled on. They spoke freely about their amorous adventures, about games of craps, about dives on Lenox Avenue, about Numbers. He listened to accounts of the prowess of Tiger Flowers, of Leanshanks Pescod. To Byron the atmosphere was vaguely distasteful. You want to be a writer, he adjured himself, and this is probably first-class material. Nevertheless, his immediate pendent thought was that he would never write about this life, that he could never feel anything but repugnance for these people, because they were black. I can't bear to think of myself as a part of this, he sighed, and they. ..

Well, presently he knew what they thought. As a couple whispered, they gave sly nods in his direction; they laughed and winked. Soon, they carelessly raised their voices. He caught phrases: posin' an' signifyin', high-toned mustard-seed, arnchy yaller boy, sheik from Strivers' Row. . . Joel rescued him.

Come along, he commanded.

Byron, in his ill-fitting uniform of navy blue, embellished with brass buttons, obeyed. Joel led him to one of the elevators and explained to him how to adjust the lever.