Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/208

 They made their way to the Lafayette, the Jew’s gift of entertainment to Harlem colored folk. Each week the management of this theater presents a new musical revue of the three a day variety with motion pictures—all guaranteed to be from three to ten years old—sandwiched in between. On Friday nights there is a special midnight performance lasting from twelve o'clock until four or four-thirty the next morning, according to the stamina of the actors. The audience does not matter. It would as soon sit until noon the next day if the “high yaller” chorus girls would continue to undress, and the black face comedians would continue to tell stale jokes, just so long as there was a raucous blues singer thrown in every once in a while for vulgar variety.

Before Emma Lou and Alva could reach the entrance door, they had to struggle through a crowd of well dressed young men and boys, congregated on the sidewalk in front of the theater. The midnight show at the Lafayette on Friday is quite a social event among certain classes of Harlem folk, and, if one is a sweetback or a man about town, one must be seen standing in front of the theater, if not inside. It costs nothing to obstruct the entrance way, and it adds much to one’s prestige. Why, no one knows.

Without untoward incident Emma Lou and Alva found the seats he had reserved. There was much