Cotton Comes to Harlem Read Online Free Page B

the thief.
    Lightning flashed, revealing the thief leaping to one side and the big broad buttocks in rose-colored pants twitching in fury. Andbefore the sound of thunder was heard, the rain came down.
    The thief leapt blindly into the street. Before the church sister could follow, a meat delivery truck coming at blinding speed hit the thief head-on and knocked the body somersaulting ten yards down the street before running over it. The driver lost control as the truck went over the body. The truck jumped the curb and knocked down a telephone pole at the corner of Seventh Avenue; it slewed across the wet asphalt and crashed against the concrete barrier enclosing the park down the middle of the avenue.
    The church sister ran toward the mangled body and snatched her purse still clutched in the dead man’s hand, unmindful of the bright lights of the armored truck rushing towards her like twin comets out of the night, unmindful of the rain pouring down in torrents.
    The driver of the armoured car saw the rose-encased buttocks of a large black woman as she bent over to snatch something from what looked like a dead man lying in the middle of the street. He was convinced he had d.t.’s. But he tried desperately to avoid them at the speed he was going on that wet street, d.t.’s or not. The armored truck skidded, then began wobbling as though doing the shimmy. The brakes meant nothing on the wet asphalt of Seventh Avenue and the car skidded straight on across the avenue and was hit broadside by a big truck going south.
    The church sister hurried down the street in the opposite direction, holding the purse clutched tightly in her hand. Near Lexington Avenue, men, women and children crowded about the body of another dead colored man lying in the street, being washed for the grave by the rain. It lay in a grotesque position on its stomach at right angle to the curb, one arm outflung, the other beneath it. The side of the face turned up had been shot away. If there had been a pistol anywhere, now it was gone.
    A police cruiser was parked nearby, crosswise to the street. One of the policemen was standing beside the body in the rain. The other one sat in the cruiser, phoning the precinct station.
    The church sister was hurrying past on the opposite side of the street, trying to remain unnoticed. But a big colored laborer, wearing the overalls in which he had worked all day, saw her. His eyes popped and his mouth opened in his slack face.
    “Lady,” he called tentatively. She didn’t look around. “Lady,” he called again. “I just wanted to say, your ass is out.”
    She turned on him furiously. “Tend to your own mother-raping business.”
    He backed away, touching his cap politely, “I didn’t mean no harm, lady. It’s
your
ass.”
    She hurried on down the street, worrying more about her hair in the rain than about her behind showing.
    At the corner of Lexington Avenue, an old junk man of the kind who haunt the streets at night collecting old paper and discarded junk was struggling with a bale of cotton, trying to get it into his cart. Rain was pouring off his sloppy hat and wetting his ragged overalls to dark blue. His small dried face was framed with thick kinky white hair, giving him a benevolent look. No one else was in sight; everybody who was out on the street in all that rain was looking at the body of the dead man. So when he saw this big strapping lady coming towards him he stopped struggling with the wet bale of cotton and asked politely, “Ma’am, would you please help me get this bale of cotton into my cart, please, ma’am?”
    He hadn’t seen her from the rear so he was slightly surprised by her sudden hostility.
    “What kind of trick is you playing?” she challenged, giving him an evil look.
    “Ain’t no trick, ma’am. I just tryna get this bale of cotton into my cart.”
    “Cotton!” she shouted indignantly, looking at the bale of cotton with outright suspicion. “Old and evil as you is you ought to