Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/114

 him boldly. He looked at her, then over her, and passed on.

Seventh Avenue was becoming more crowded now. School children were out for their lunch hour, corner loafers and pool-hall loiterers were beginning to collect on their chosen spots. Knots of people, of no particular designation, also stood around talking, or just looking, and there were many pedestrians, either impressing one as being in a great hurry, or else seeming to have no place at all to go. Emma Lou was in this latter class. By now she had reached 142nd Street and had decided to cross over to the opposite side and walk south once more. Seventh Avenue was a wide, well-paved, busy thoroughfare, with a long, narrow, iron fenced-in parkway dividing the east side from the west. Emma Lou liked Seventh Avenue. It was so active and alive, so different from Central Avenue, the dingy main street of the black belt of Los Angeles. At night it was glorious! Where else could one see so many different types of Negroes? Where else would one view such a heterogeneous ensemble of mellow colors, glorified by the night?

People passing by. Children playing. Dogs on leashes. Stray cats crouching by the sides of buildings. Men standing in groups or alone. Black men. Yellow men. Brown men. Emma Lou eyed them.