John P. Davis, "Verisimilitude" (1927)
By JOHN P. DAVIS
I am a rather young man, with no especial knack for writing, who has a story to tell. I want to tell it as I feel it- without restraint-but I can't do that. Critics are already waxing sarcastic about this way of doing things. They think it is too emotional, too melodramatic. I am going to attempt to tell the story I have in me without any fuss or sensation.
To achieve "grandeur of generality," to attain the "universal" rather than the "specific" -these are the things I am trying to do. I want you to say when you have finished reading : "That reminds me of...," or "There are thousands like that character; I may never have known one, but there are thousands, thousands. There must be."
Now you can help me, if you will forget everything else in the world except this story. Whether it actually happened or not is of little consequence. The important thing is that it might have happened, that, in mathematical or scientific terms, given such causes working on such characters, the results about which I am going to tell you would have happened. If at any time you feel that there is something in the story that couldn't happen on your own main street then stop reading. I don't want to create monsters, but real, living characters.
Now this is the story of a man. A man is the hero of most stories. Man is the hero of life. This man was a Negro. Negroes are common enough. There are fifteen million, more or less, in the United States alone. This Negro man was in love. Love is the theme of ninety percent of all fiction. I doubt that it is the theme of ninety per cent of life. But no matter, it is common enough in these days.
The next fact in the plot may seem to point the way to something grotesque, something that veers away off from the center of normal human existence like a comet.
The Negro man loved a white woman. Are you disappointed already? Well, I am sorry. But I was a census- taker in Virginia. And you woud be surprised at the number of cases of intermarriage I found. That is why they passed an anti- intermarriage law there. There are such laws in nearly all southern states. There must be a reason back of these statutes. Legislatures don't pass laws for nothing. So it wouldn't be strange if I wrote a story about a Negro man who loved a white woman and married . her. But I have no intention of marrying my characters. In fact my plot exists because they did not marry. I say only that he loved her. Whether she loved him, I leave you to judge when you have read the story.
This Negro man was tall, young, and brown. There is nothing to quarrel with here. I haven't said he was handsome. Surely, young, tall, brown Negro bundle-wrappers in down-town New York department stores are common enough not to shock you out of belief. And just as ordinary and matter-of-fact are slim, little, rather nice-looking white salesgirls.
You see these two characters now, don't you? You see them working side by side ten hours a day. One is selling yard after yard of vari- colored cambric to fat housewives who are harder to please than you would expect Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan to be. You see these termagants snarl at the shopgirl and then go to buy cambric at a cheaper price in one of the cut-rate stores. Of course, it is the most natural thing in the world that the shopgirl should get angry and stick her tongue out at them when they have turned their backs.
Take a look at the other character. He is at the end of the counter wrapping up package after package which the girl hands him. He hears the housewives quarrel- some babble. He sees the girl make faces at them. He sympathizes and smiles at her as if to say : "I understand how it is with you.' The girl has caught the smile and thrown it back. She wants to talk about that last old biddy who put on the airs of her mistress. And she doesn't see why she shouldn't talk to this bundle-wrapper.
He smiled; he would understand. She goes over while there is a lull in the sale of cambric and chats with him about " that old fool who expected to get something for nothing and blamed me because Gimbels charged a cent less per yard for cambric than we did. Why the heck didn't she go there in the first place?" He laughs at the way she got back at the woman. She laughs. The tension is broken. They understand. Isn't all this about as natural and plausible as may be? Put yourself in place of either of the characters. Would you have acted differently?
Common suffering leads to mutual interest. That's why men forced to fight against tyranny form friendships for one another. It is just as plausible, then, that this girl and this man, united by laughter, should form a combine against stupid cus- tomers. Talk with a man and you find out that he isn't so different after all. "You can't know a man and hate him," said Woodrow Wilson. The girl, Mame, ( we might as well call her that as anything else ) probably never heard that statement, but she was human nature just the same. She talked with this bundle-wrapper. Let's call him "Paul." Mame found that Paul went to movies, read the Daily Graphic, and was on the whole a normal human being. She forgot to notice any difference in him.
And in the little respites from selling cambric she liked to talk to him about this, that, or the other thing. What they actually said doesn't matter. This will serve as a specimen of what they might have said.
Mame: "I'll sure be glad when six o'clock comes."
Paul: "So will I."
Now right here I had better tell you that I am not trying to reproduce Paul's southern accent or Mame's American cockney dialect. How they said things doesn't matter. It is sufficient to give you the impression of what they thought. Your imagination will have to do the rest.
Paul: "Have you heard anything about the new rule for closing on Saturdays beginning in June?"
Mame: " I haven't heard anything definite, but I certainly hope they do. "
But enough of this. The things they talked about, then, were just every- day matters - of- fact about work, life, and movies. Paul never tried to go any farther. Mame never said more than : "See you tomorrow," when she pulled the black cloth over the cambric counter and arranged her cloche hat on her sleek round head.
In real life things don't continue as they began ever. You come to know a person as an acquaintance. Then you are thrown into more intimate contact with him. After that it isn't long before you like him better or like him less. That was the case with Abelard and Heloise. It was true of Paul and Mame.
It won't take much imagination to suppose that Mame lived on 119th street and Paul on 131st. White people live on 119th; black people inhabit 131st. It shouldn't strain your fancy either to imagine that they both usually rode home from work on top of a Seventh Avenue bus. Suppose that coming out from work one evening, some two or three months after their first laugh together, Mame should be waiting for a bus at the same time and the same corner as Paul. This might not have happened.
Paul might have lived in Brooklyn and Mame have been accustomed to going home on the subway. But it isn't being sensational to throw characters together to aid the action of the plot. So they did meet each other one night about a quarter after six o'clock waiting for a bus. Paul tipped his hat; Mame smiled. Bus Number Two came along crowded. They went up to the top. There was one seat vacant. They sat down together. They talked of everything you think they would talk about. There were no distractions to interrupt their conversation. They talked as they passed throngs of tired everyday toilers pouring out of stores and warehouses at 42nd street.
They talked as they passed alongside Central Park. They talked as the bus trundled into upper Seventh Avenue. Mame got off at 119th street. She smiled and said goodbye. There are flaws in this little episode, I admit. A little too much coincidence.
A bit too little motivation. But if you are not too fastidious a reader, I think you will let it pass. For at least it is within the realms of plausibility.
Let us say that Paul and Mame did not meet again for a week, two weeks, a month. But don't let us say they never met again. They did. Perhaps Paul covertly planned it. Perhaps Mame did. That doesn't matter. They met. That is sufficient.
And they met several times. In fact, it became a habit for them to ride up on the bus together. Am I losing reality? I think not. You see after all the thing I am suggesting is a mere mechanical detail. Although I handle it clumsily, the intrinsic design of the life I am trying to depict cannot be destroyed.
"So far so good," you say, " but whither go we?" or, if you incline to slang, "What has their riding home from work together got to do with the wholesale price of onions?" The answer is simple. It was on such occasions that Mame found in Paul something she liked. What was the " something," you ask? Say Mame discovered that Paul was going to night school in preparation for a clerical examination for a position in the municipal department of New York. Not much to admire from your point of view. But suppose all Mame's life had been one of crowded tenements.
Say she lived with a cross old aunt, wanted an escape, wanted to get away from humdrum life, to be something better, to marry a decent man- (God knows every woman wants that. ) Every woman admires a man who is doing things. And Paul from Mame's point of view was doing things. She said to herself : "This colored fellow is different from anybody else I've ever known. He is a man. I like him. I wish Albert (let Albert be what we Americans would call Mame's " steady feller") I wish Albert would go to night school. "
And Paul probably thought : "This white girl is a lot less stuck-up than some colored girls I know. She's darn decent to talk with me like this. I wonder if she would go to the movies some night with me."
Here we are hundreds of sentences and thousands of words from the beginning and never a sign of complications. Well, they will be with us in a moment. First
I must get Paul and Mame in love. I could spare myself a great deal of tedious detail by just saying they came to love one another. But you would not believe me.
All readers come from Missouri. Anyway I am going to compromise with principle and say that Paul came to love Mame first because of novelty and then because he was forced to admire a woman who broke convention to love him. And Mame fell in love with Paul because to her he represented a somewhat better man than any other she had ever known. The process of falling in love is an evasive thing at best.
You somehow know you are in love, but when and how and, above all, why defy analysis. It is an elusive something. Say, then, that these two characters fell in love.
If you want a dash of sentiment say they saw dawn in each others eyes. There are lovers that do. If you are practical say Mame saw possibilities of a three room apartment and no more drudgery. Repeat for emphasis : they fell in love. What about Albert. Well, let Albert be a wastrel, a drunkard, a loafer. You will find a great many like him. Doubtless, you know a few.
I promised you complications. Life demands them as well as you. Complications? Here they are. Paul takes Mame to see Lya de Putti in "Variety" at the Rialto. A colored fellow whom he knows sees them. Next morning all Harlem is gossiping about Paul who has turned " pink-chaser” - (apologies to Mr. Carl Van Vechten). When Harlem talks about you it means that you feel curious eyes staring at you. The spirit of scandal stalks your path. People you know avert their eyes as you pass. Stand on the street corner and you stand alone. That is the effect of the colored Mrs. Grundy on a man. The white Mrs. Grundy may look different, but "the lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skins. On 119th street houses have just as many eyes as on 131st. So when Mame let Paul take her home once or twice, people talked. Albert heard about it and "raised Hell." The aunt heard about it and threatened to kick Mame out if she didn't stop "going around with a nigger." Mame looked guilty.
Does this suit you? You have the sunshine and now you see the clouds. Are you worried? You should be. I am not one to lead you up to tragedy and then turn aside to talk about flowers. Well, you know and I know that life wouldn't let this end happily. There has got to be death, there has got to be sorrow. And since it must be, let it come soon.
But I am not quite ready for the show- down. Like a woman who powders her nose before every great moment of her life, I must hesitate, demur- in a word- build up suspense. We need emotional intensification here. For that purpose let Paul be happy enough with Mame to forget the snubs of his own people. Let Mame pacify her aunt temporarily by threatening to leave and thus deplete the family revenue eleven dollars a week. The eleven dollars represents Mame's contribution for room and board. Leave a cancerous wound in the souls of both characters, if you must; but let them live yet awhile. For, like Alamanzor, they have " not leisure yet to die. "
Don't be provoked with me. Don't accuse me of " playing in wench- like words with something serious. " Peace! brother. Peace! sister. All will be clear in only a little while. Soon you will know. Soon you will sit back in your chair and see Mame and Paul as duly garnished sacrifices. And whether you like them or not, you will know them as they are.
Paul and Mame were happy. They went to Staten Island on picnics. They went to movies. Paul gave Mame candy. Mame gave Paul a tie for his birthday. And love—the ideal of humanity-lived in their hearts. Or if this is too poetic, just say they enjoyed being with one another. I have not explained their love fully enough, maybe-but can you explain it better? If you can, please fill in the facts for yourself.
When two persons become intimate with one another they lose their sense of proportion. They respect neither time, custom, nor place. This fact got Paul and Mame into trouble. They didn't know when it was time to stop talking and pay atten tion to their work. You see, it was one thing to exchange a few commonplaces while at work; but, it was quite another to delay customers or to smile at each other while the world was waiting for a yard of cambric. Business men know such delays irritate their customers. That is why they hire floor- managers to snoop on their salesgirls. You see what I am driving at, don't you? I am getting Paul and Mame into more trouble. Soon I'll have them discharged. But, not before I give a sidelight on the episode.
Shopgirls have had love affairs before. They have kept customers waiting before; and have got away with it under the very eyes of floor managers. It isn't enough, therefore, for me to offer this as the only excuse for getting Mame and Paul discharged.
But I can suggest others. A young Negro man talking to a young white woman for more than five minutes is always subject to suspicion. And when this is repeated again and again, scandal gets busy. You know this as well as I do. There is still another reason. Perhaps, you remember Albert. I shouldn't have had any justification for naming him if I did not intend to weave him into the plot. It would have been faulty technique. So Albert comes in here. He enters through the department store door and makes his way to the cambric counter. Now he is on the scene. He is half-drunk and a little loud. It is ten-thirty in the morning and Albert has come to tell Paul that he had better "damn sight" leave his woman alone-all white women, in fact. That's just what Albert did. He "bawled Paul out" right before a crowd of people. And Mame couldn't keep her temper. She turned red in the face. She dug her nails in her hands and wanted to fly at Albert. Paul held her back. He put his arm around her. The crowd grew larger. A policeman took Albert away. That is all there is for Albert to do in this story. The floor- manager whispered something to Paul and about two hours later both Paul and Mame had their salaries in little manila envelopes. You can't blame the floor- manager very much. It was for the good of the business. Anyway as he told Paul, he had noticed for some time that they were not paying attention to business. He didn't get angry. He was simply hard, cold and matter-of-fact. That was all.
Here we are facing the climax of this personally conducted tour of a short story. Mame and Paul are out of a job. They have to live. Mame is crying. Life seems unfair, bitter, unkind. Don't weep because Mame did. Stand on the sidelines and see the show. What are Hecuba's tears to you, or Mame's? I only record that she wept because, under the circumstances, I think she would have done so. Paul gritted his teeth. They would get a job soon, he told her. And it wouldn't be long before he would be able to take the clerical examination. Then they could get married and go to Atlantic City for a honeymoon. All that is needed here is a little time and a little sanity. But life would cease to be a tragedy, if time would wait for us. The harsh reality, the bitterness of life comes because everything in the world is run by clocks and whistles. Time to get up. Time to retire. Time to live. And time to die. To use a slang expression- Mame and Paul "didn't get the break. ”
If you have ever hunted for a job in New York, you know what it is like to do so. Your feet hurt after the first two or three days. You get tired of being told that there are no vacancies. Sometimes you go back to the same place on five or six occasions before you can find the employment manager in his office, and then he only shakes his head. Sometimes you think you've got a job; then you are asked where you worked last, how long, why you quit, if you have any references. Your heart sinks and you go out of the door of the inner office, through the outer office, down the elevator and out into the street. And all the time you are saying to yourself : "Oh God, dear God, am I your creature?" A man can stand a great deal more of this sort of thing than a woman. Mame gave up; Paul lasted. There were other reasons for Mame's surrender but this had its share in the result.
Mame, I have said, contributed eleven dollars a week to her aunt. A week or so after she was fired her contributions ceased. Mame hadn't saved up much. Soon that was gone. You understand how that might happen, I know. Money doesn't come from the skies. And the girl's name was Mame and not Cinderella. Mame's aunt was angry with Mame in the first place for " taking up with a nigger." She was angrier when Mame lost her job. " I- told -you - so's" dinned in Mame's ears and buzzed in her head. It was too much for the aunt to stand when Mame couldn't pay her the eleven dollars. Mame had to do one thing or the other : " either get out or give up that nigger. " Those were the aunt's own words. Do you think that the aunt is too hard. a character? Read any metropolitan daily. The world is getting hard and cold. All the world wants is money. Money was all Mame's aunt wanted. So she turned Mame out. But she wasn't altogether cold. She didn't really mean to turn her out. She wanted only to each Mame a lesson. After all blood is thicker than water. She didn't believe Mame would really go. She wanted her to stop being a fool and come down to earth. There were plenty of decent young white men she could marry. It was infatuation or something that got Mame this way. If she had her way, she'd either put Maine in the insane asyum or that " nigger" in jail. Whoever heard of such "carryings - on?" She was tired of having people talk about her. She wasn't going to be related to a "nigger" even by marriage.
Don't blame Mame's aunt any more than you did the floor-manager or Albert. All-all of them are just cogs in the wheels of the world. If you must fume and fret, say simply that all the world's a pasture and each one in the world, a jackass.
This is what human beings such as Mame's aunt and Albert and the floor- manager might have done to such a girl as Mame. What would Mame have done? Probably, gone to Paul. She did. But he could not take care of her. He had no money. He was being threatened himself with being put out of his rooming house because he didn't pay his rent. It was a poor time to try to bring a young, unmarried white woman into a respectable Harlem rooming house. Go... go where? Somewhere, you say? But where? There are streets. But streets in New York are either covered with soft, cold snow, or melted by the rays of a hot blazing sun. Try living in New York without money. Try living anywhere without money. Friends, you suggest? I wish I could. But where are friends when your aunt turns you out of doors and you have done what Mame had done? Then, who with pride would go a begging? Only one thing remains : it whispers in your ear every time there seems no way out- suicide.
Suicide isn't normal. Only abnormal people think of it. Joy may drop from you like a dead bird from a leafless tree, but, somehow, life is still sweet. But too much defeat, too much bitterness make people abnormal. Consider a woman who has drudged all her life; put her in Mame's place. You will find that she is like the string on a violin : draw her too tightly and she snaps. Something snapped in Mame.
She kissed Paul goodnight in the park, spent her last dollar and a half to get a room in a settlement house-and turned on the gas. Don't blame Paul . He didn't know she was going to commit suicide. He thought he would see her the next day. Don't say Mame isn't true to life. If you believe she is not, live her life over. Spend two months looking for a job; wandering willy-nilly. Then put her back into the picture as a human being. I think you will succeed.
What about Paul. There isn't much to tell. He stood it. He stood Mame's death. But how he stood it I leave you to imagine. You will agree that he grew bitter. You will not agree that he would commit suicide. That is the sort of melodramatic thing I want to avoid. I am sorry Mame had to commit suicide. But I don't see how she could help it. Do you?
Suppose that after Mame's death Paul got a job as a longshoreman on the New York docks. Not as clerk in the municipal department, mind you. He had given up night school when he lost his job. Then Mame had died and he hadn't gone back.
He was bitter, he grew cynical... No money, no job, Mame, were the causes. He might have got over it some time, but that time didn't come. Is this anti- climactic? Not quite. Remember Paul is really the chief character.
When you have gone through what Paul went through, you won't be happy and optimistic. You are apt to look on the world and people in it as just so much damned rot. You are apt to walk around with a chip on your shoulder. And a chip on vour shoulder doesn't help you any if you are a longshoreman. They are hard working, hard swearing, sweating Negroes, Irish and what-nots- these longshore gangs. And the dock is no place for Hamlet. Even Falstaff would have a hard time getting along. You've got to laugh loudly, work hard, and mix with the gang. Paul did none of these things. He felt just a little above them. He was always moody, introspective, hard to get along with. Even Negroes despised him. You can imagine the opinion that the Irish held.
Under the circumstances can't you imagine Paul becoming a flaming pillar of rage. when an Irish longshore boss yelled at him: "Hey, nigger, stop dreaming and go to work. Yes I mean you, you son of a...." But the Irish fellow didn't finish his oath.
Paul hit him over the head with a chisel. Chisels are common on the docks. They are used to open boxes. Paul opened the fellows head with one. He didn't kill him. The Irish foreman lived to testify against Paul. He was quite well when the District Attorney painted a gaudy word picture of how Paul lost his last job. He saw twelve ordinary men, readers of the Daily Graphic, cigar salesmen, shopkeepers, butchers, insurance agents- all, somehow, a little influenced by the way Paul glared at people in the courtroom and by the District Attorney's subtle suggestion that Paul had been the cause of a white woman's suicide. Of course, they thought more about the affair than actually happened. Can't you see that District Attorney? He's running on the State ticket next year. He's got to make a record. Some cases he can't prosecute to win.
Politics won't let him. Here is one in which he can have a free hand. Here he can make a name for himself. Look at the jury. They don't know much about sociology, but they know where to get the best beer in New York City. Look at the judge. He's a scholarly man, but he's sick of the crime wave. Something's got to be done. And Paul to him is obviously a criminal. Look at the young man who calls himself a lawyer. He is defending Paul and he means well. But his best is not good enough. Maybe next year or year after he'll be a good lawyer. Paul won't smile, he won't plead. He is obstinate. I think you will find little fault with the verdict. Guilty. The law is the law. He was lucky to get only seven years.
I have outlined this story and set it in New York. If you like you may write it to please your taste and set it any place under the sun. The results would not vary a great deal. If you must have a happy ending, pardon Paul, or, bring him back from prison and regenerate him. But I doubt if you will succeed. It is hard to get a pardon. It is harder to reform a man who looks on life pessimistically for seven years.
At least grant that what I have outlined is true or might be true. As someone has written (a Jewish poet, I think):
The sum and substance of the tale is this
The rest is but the mise en scéne
And if I have painted it amiss
I am a prattler and a charlatan.
Oh yes, you will want a moral. I had forgot. Take it from Shakespeare : -
"Golden lads and girls all must
Like chimney sweepers come to dust. "
Published in Ebony and Topaz, 1927