Cotton Comes to Harlem Read Online Free Page A

sister by the prissy way she kept pursing up her mouth. One could tell right off that her soul was really saved. She was wearing a big black skirt and a lavender blouse and her lips pursed and her face shone with righteous indignation when he said:
    “So I just out and asked Jesus who was the biggest sinner; my wife going with this man, or this man going with my wife, and Jesus say: ‘How come you ask me that, John? You ain’t thinking ’bout doing nothing to them, is you?’ I say, ‘No, Jesus, I ain’t gonna bother ’em, but this man, he’s married just like my wife, and I ain’t going to be responsible for what might break out between him and his wife,’ and Jesus say, ‘Don’t you worry, John, there’s always going to be some left.’ ”
    Suddenly they were lit by a flash of lightning, which showed up a second man on his knees directly in back of the fascinated church sister. He held a safety razor blade between his right thumb and forefinger and he was cutting away the back of her skirt with such care and silence she didn’t suspect a thing. First, holding the skirt firmly by the hem with his left hand, he split it in a straight line up to the point where it began to tighten over her buttocks. Then he split her slip in the same manner. After which, holding the right halves of both skirt and slip firmly but gently between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he cut out a wide half-circle down through the hem and carefully removed the cutout section and threw it carelessly against the wall of the church behind him. The operation revealed one black buttockencased in rose-colored rayon pants and the bare back of one thick black thigh showing above the rolled top of a beige rayon stocking. She hadn’t felt a thing.
    “ ‘Anyone who commits adultery, makes no difference whether it be man or woman, breaks one of my Father’s commandments,’ Jesus say: ‘Makes no difference how good it is,’ ” John said.
    “Amen!” the church sister said. Her buttocks began to tremble as she contemplated this enormous sin.
    Behind her, the kneeling man had begun to cut away the left side of her skirt, but the trembling of her buttocks forced him to exercise greater caution.
    “I say to Jesus, ‘That’s the trouble with Christianity, the good things is always sinful,’ ” John said.
    “Lawd, ain’t it the truth,” the church sister said, leaning forward to slap John on the shoulder in a spontaneous gesture of rising joy. The cutout left side section of the skirt and slip came off in the kneeling man’s hand.
    Now revealed was all the lower part of the big wide rose-encased buttocks and the backs of two thick black thighs above beige stockings. The black thighs bulged in all directions so that just below the crotch, where the torso began, there was a sort of pocket in which one could visualize the buttocks of some man gripped as in a vice. But now, in that pocket, hung a waterproof purse suspended from elastic bands passing up through the pants and encircling the waist.
    With breathless delicacy but a sure touch and steady hand, as though performing a major operation on the brain, the kneeling man reached into the pocket and began cutting the elastic band which held the purse.
    John leaned forward and touched her on the shoulder like a spontaneous caress. His voice thickened with suggestion. “But Jesus say, ‘Commit all the ’dultry you want to, John. Just be prepared to roast in hell for it.’ ”
    “He-he-he,” laughed the church sister and slapped him again on the shoulder. “He was just kidding you. He’d forgive us for just
one
time,” and she suddenly switched her trembling buttocks, no doubt to demonstrate Jesus’s mercy.
    In so doing she felt the hand easing the purse from between her legs. She slapped back automatically before she could begin to turn her body, and struck the kneeling man across the face.
    “Mother-raper, you is trying to steal my money,” she screamed, turning on