Home To Harlem

Jakeis seen by an ambitious young doctor—one struggling to get established since his black clients prefer the Jewish doctors—recommended to him by Ray. Out in the hall, his landlady rants to Billy about how sinful the city is and how promiscuous the women are. Billy tells her he has nothing to do with such things, but the landlady remarks that she has never seen so many frivolous and wicked black people as in Harlem. They had all better repent before the judgment comes: she has had a sign that tells her so.

The doctor tells Jake to stop drinking or he won’t make it. Jake says he has just been drinking a little beer, which the landlady says is a lie. The doctor tells Jake beer is the worst thing for him. If he must drink, wine would be better. Jake says he hates wine. The doctor ends the appointment by telling Jake he is sure he has been ill like this before; if he acts with restraint he will heal, but if he insists on not taking the illness seriously, things could go poorly for him.

When Ray comes back from his run, he is concerned when he hears about Jake’s relapse. Jake just laughs it off, begging Ray not join the landlady and doctor in scolding him. Jake, who is having problems with his legs because of the infection (likely syphilis), tells Ray that he has more life left in him. Ray is not convinced and tells Jake how shocked he has been to discover the high incidence of the disease since he started working on the railroad. Even the fourth cook has it.

Jake is unhappy to hear that Ray told Madame Laura that he is sick and his address. Women like her are fine as long as they stay in their place, but if they know where a man lives, they might show up unannounced and cause trouble. Ray tells him there is a room to let in his lodging house. Jake’s lease is up the next day, so he is happy to move and asks Ray to get a message to Billy to help him move.

Ray is far from happy, however, being forced to leave Haiti and his life as a workingman have thrust him into “the underworld” (224). Rayhad always dreamed of being a writer, and his sensibilities had been shaped first by the great books of the nineteenth century and later by “the great scintillating satirists of the age” (225). He wanted to write great stories, romances of life. Having come of age between the carnage of war and the “ultimate splendor” ofthe Russian Revolution, Ray now dimly understands that he is living in a moment of historical transformation, and the writers he had idolized had not “crossed with him into the new” (226).

Having begun reading contemporary writers associated with realism during the war,Ray wonders if he has it in him to be a writer in this vein, to create something worthy of being called art. Is art, he wonders, “more than a clear-cut presentation of a vivid impression of life?”(228) To his mind, only the nineteenth century Russian writers had managed to stay relevant in this new century and then only because they had mastered the ability to represent real life.

Ray is glad his exile in the U.S. ended his dreams of being a writer like those nineteenth century ones. He isn’t sure if he can transform the vivid but depressing reality of the lives of people like Jake into art. Watching these lives convinces him that perhaps life is “one big disease and the world a vast hospital” (229).

Madame Laura sends Jake a letter telling him that she is postponing a party for him and her other clients because Ray told her that Jake is stick. She plans on coming to New York to shop and will stop by to see him. Jake overlooked the letter and does not read it until Billy Biasse finds it. When Billy asks about her, Jake tells him he enjoys his interactions with her but does not want her to find him. At Billy’s prompting, Jake decides to trick Madame Laura by giving her Rose’s address instead of his own.

Madame Laura travels in style and is impeccably dressed for her trip to New York. She is treated well at the Fifth Avenue shops she patronizes that morning. Later that afternoon she goes in search of Jake. When Rose goes to the door, shedoesn’t recognize the woman there, but she is so intrigued by the possibility that the woman is connected with Jake that she lets her in.

When Rose questions Madame Laura about why she is looking for Jake at this address, Rose is pleased to find out that Jake has left her address because she assumes that he has no other place to stay yet.Madame Laura’s questions anger Rose, who finally tells her that she is Jake’s girlfriend and that Jake doesn’t need another woman to look after him. Madame Laura and Rose accuse each other of being prostitutes, after which Madame Laura angrily departs. Rose gossips about the encounter and exaggerates their conversation by claiming she slapped Madame Laura.

Jake hears this piece of gossip from Yaller Prince, a kept man whom he met at Ginhead Susy’s place. Yaller Prince is currently being supported by three women at the same time. While he is superficially likeable, there is something “slimy about him” (237). Yaller Prince admires Jake’s popularity with women and brings him food and other treats when he learns that Jake is ill.

The two catch up with each other during a visit at which Billy is also present. Yaller Prince tells Jake he no longer socializes with Susy and Mrs. Curdy, finding them too old and ugly to be around, a sentiment with which Jake agrees. Zeddy is attempting to settle down with a Yonkers woman but finding it hard since he is still gambling heavily.

Ray stops by with James Grant, a fourth waiter who is also working to earn money for school.After Yaller Prince and Billy leave, James asks who Yaller is. When Jake tells him Yaller is a pimp, James is disgusted and wonders why people who exploit women don’t hide. Ray deflects the question by telling him that there is no reason for it, just asthere is no explanation for why light-skinned blacks have disagreeable voices, a jab at Grant since this description fits him exactly.

Jake tells Ray he doesn’t mind James’s disapproval, but he knows of many women who chase after men for money; why should a pimp be blamed for capitalizing on their efforts? Ray points out that there are many varieties of parasitism, but James compares such behavior to living off of rotten flesh: such behavior should exclude a person from humanity. Jake says such a life is rotten, but Ray argues that it’s fine to have noble ideals when you lead a privileged life, but in real life, few people can afford to live by such ideals—especially not black people.

James is taken aback. He sees no reason why blacks can’t have fine ideals and culture. Ray dismisses this idea, explaining that what he calls ideals is just the leftover junk of white civilization and, given the atrocities committed in the name of these ideals, there is no virtue in them. “Civilization is rotten. We are all rotten who are touched by it,” says Ray (243). Every man who participates in civilization is essentially a pimp. James is appalled by this argument, but Jake agrees. On the other hand, one of the noblestthings Ray ever saw was done by a pimp. Grant asks to hear this story.

In the winter of 1916, Ray came to New York to look for a job. He had no money and wasn’t even sure of how to go about finding work. He was five weeks past due on his rent, something that worried him and his landlady, Ma Lawton, a South Carolina woman who was kind but had to pay her own bills. Ma Lawton moved Ray from his room to a shared room that already housed four other men in order to economize on her costs. Ray slept in the room in a cot and was grateful for it.His old room went to new lodgers—a well-groomed woman who always wore a mink coat and a man who dressed in out-of-date clothes and wore a gold watch.

The woman was Rosalind Whicher and the man was Jericho Jones, called “Jerco” by his acquaintances. When Ma Lawton introduced Ray to them, they were so sympathetic to his poverty that they took him out for a big meal accompanied by gin and good beer. Ray’s fortune improved even more the next day when Ma Lawton found him a job in a free-lunch saloon downstairs from the rooms she rented out. Ray received his pay in meals and tips from regulars. Rosalind and Jerco liked Ray, so they would come to his job to eat and leave him a big tip. He was even invited to fine dinners in their room from time to time. For the first time that winter, Ray felt like he would be able to survive the season.

One day, Ray saw Jerco come into the saloon with a white or near-white man. The two men went into a back room usually reserved for sex workers and their johns. Men never sat in the room by themselves and doing so was seen as effete behavior. The saloon boss got nervous about the two men sitting there and kept finding excuses to check on what the two were doing there. He was relieved when Rosalind finally went to the back room and all three later made their way to their room at Ma Lawton’s place.

When Ray went upstairs, he found two of his roommates—elevator workers who were “queerly quiet and pious” (250)—telling Ma Lawton that they would have to quit renting from her because they were unhappy with what was happening in Rosalind and Jerco’s room. Ma Lawton asked Ray if he had noticed anything improper happening in the rooms, but Ray told her he hadn’t and was usually so tired that he fell asleep immediately after work.

Ma Lawton reluctantly decided that she had to investigate. She didn’t want to lose her two “gentlemen lodgers” (251), but she liked Rosalind and Jerco because—despite not having any visible employment—they always paid their rent on time.Ray knew that Jerco frequently brought treats for Ma Lawton and helped her with minor repairs. Ray hasheard a rumor that Jerco was a vicious fighter when provoked and had supposedly stabbed a man. Jerco also had a long razor scar on his face.

The two gentlemen lodgers never liked the couple. One of the men, a student working on becoming a preacher, thought the two were living together rather than married, and he had even been asked by a white woman one night where the two lived. Ray remonstrated with him, explaining that some black people are so light-skinned that you can’t tell if they are black or white. Perhaps the man had been mistaken. The second elevator man said he completely dismissed them as upright people when he ran across them in the company of a petty marine officer in the red-light district. Ma Lawton told them she wanted to run a decent place but didn’t want to get too deeply into people’s personal affairs.

Later that night at the saloon, Jerco told Ray that Rosalind was sick and that he needed a pail of beer because that was what she wanted. Jerco told Ray he was worried because if Rosalind got worse, they wouldn’t have any money. Ray told him that perhaps Rosalind would get better soon. During his lunch break the next day, Ray checked on Rosalind. He ran into Ma Lawton, who told him that since Rosalind was sick, she was so glad she didn’t follow up on the gentlemen lodgers’ complaints.

Rosalind was very ill. Ma Lawton thought it was stomach flu and treated Rosalind with hot toddies and a water bottle on her feet, but her treatments did little to relieve Rosalind. When Ma Lawton told Jerco they needed to get the white doctor (she distrusted black ones), Jerco explained that he had no money. When Rosalind suggested that they pawn the mink coat, Jerco refused to because Rosalind would need it again once she got better. Rosalind asked him what would happen if she never got better. She collapsed, too much in pain to continue talking.

Jerco pawned his watch to pay for treatment from a Jewish doctor, but nothing the doctor did improved Rosalind’s health. She developed paralysis in her legs (a symptom of advanced, untreated syphilis). Jerco told the doctor that Rosalind had had the same symptoms in the past. The student preacher gave her a Bible—one with a passage about an adulterous woman marked—and even volunteered to pray over her, a service Rosalind refused, much to his shock.

Jerco gave Rosalind beer even though the doctor told her to stop drinking it. Jerco pawned their remaining valuable items to get money. Ray came across Jerco crying one day over his finances. Jerco told Ray he would do anything, no matter how low, to get more money. When Ray suggested that he pawn Rosalind’s mink coat, Jerco told him he couldn’t do it because Rosalind would need her clothes when she got better. When Ray suggested that Jerco get a job, Jerco told him he didn’t know how and that he wished he were a woman. With clothes, Rosalind was always the one to get money for them.

After lunch, Ray came upon Jerco kneeling in front of the wardrobe where Rosalind kept her fine clothes, including the mink coat, which Ray describes as looking more like Rosalind than the diminished woman in the bed. Jerco pawned his own expensive clothing. Later, Jerco came into the free-lunch saloon in his undershirt, complaining to an unsympathetic Ray that he wouldn’t be able to live without Rosalind. An exasperated Ray told him to put on a happy face for Rosalind, but Jerco told him she didn’t know about his misery and that she was the best woman he had ever known.Rosalind died that night. Ma Lawton told Jerco to sell the mink so Rosalind could be buried properly.

When Ray saw Jerco that night, the grieving man explained that he would never be able to replace Rosalind. He knew that Ray might not have approved of their lifestyle, but deep down Rosalind had been a good person. Ray felt uncomfortable with the conversation but told Jerco the couple had never been anything but kind to him. Jerco told Ray he was kind, after which Ray fell asleep.

The next morning, a panicked Ma Lawton woke Ray to tell him that she was scared and that there was trouble in the hallway and bathroom. When Ray walked into the hall, he noticed a stain of dark liquid on the floor. He broke into the locked bathroom and discovered Jerco. He was leaning on the toilet, surrounded by empty cocaine packets and blood. He had cut his own throat.

Ray and James Grant findjobs on a freighter running from the Pacific to Australia. Ray couldn’t take working on the railroad any longer. Agatha’s desire to settle down is another reason for his departure. He knows that if he stays with her, he willgive in to his physical desires and a longing for a mundane life, becoming just like every other black man in Harlem—trapped. He starts to hate Agatha and “wrapped himself darkly in self-love” to deal with this emotion (264).

He also hates the railroad. He had always wondered how people could go to work day in and day out in boring jobs, “nice cages.” He stayed on the railroad so long because its tumultuous physical environment had been enough to balance out the “dynamo roaring in him” for a time (265). Unlike Jake, Ray has such an intense inner life that he cannever be content.

Ray is“a reservoir of that intense emotional energy so peculiar to his race” (265). News of racial violence causes intense despair, while a glimpse of “beauty and wonder” like a pretty girl takes him to the heights. He had felt just such happiness one morning when he heard a blues song— “the key to himself and his race” in its “strange, child-like capacity for wistfulness-and-laughter” (266). This capacity has been civilized out of whites, who hate blacks for their ability to make art out of their depressing environment. Ray loves and hates Harlem and wonders how long he will be able to bear life working on a ship.Jake tries to convince Ray that working on a ship will be even worse than working on a train.

Jake throws a farewell party for Ray and James, with the bill footed by Billy. Billy and Jake have remained friends despite rumors of Billy’s unsavory behavior as the owner of a gambling den and perhaps because they have never competed for sexual partners. Billy in turn likes Jake because heseems to be able to enjoy himself and then stop whatever it is once he has had his fill. The party is held at Aunt Hattie’s. Jake tells her hasn’t been around because he was working on the train and later got sick. Aunt Hattie tells him she would have fed him had she known.

The people at the party share a toast, after which Jake tries once again to convince Ray not to work on the freighter. Life on a ship is “hell” and when you come back to shore, it is just the same (272). Ray agrees with this sentiment and tells Jake it is one he has also come across in the writing of German author Goethe.

Jake is, as always, impressed with Ray’s erudition and tells Ray he wishes he could be educated like him. When Ray asks him why, Jake tells him it is because he likes Ray. Jake gazes at Ray “like a black Pan out of the woods…with savage affection” that leads Billy to accuse them of going “‘all soft’” (272). Ray tells Jake he sees no difference in their affection for each other. There is no one he would rather be with and like than Jake.

Jake rejects this idea and argues that if he (Jake) were educated, he might understand things more easily or be capable of making alife for his sister that would have allowed for her to be with Ray. Then they all could have used this education to get good jobs instead of Ray going off to sea and Jake constantly chasing after the next woman. Billy is disgusted by the sentimentality of this vision. Jake tells Billy to hush. He isn’t a “lonesome wolf” like Billy (273). Billy says a wolf is just fine if he knows the jungle.

Ray tells Jake that his education is useless and has made him a misfit. He sometimes wonders if he would be happier without it because then he would be able to focus on just making money like everyone else. Jake says he doesn’t know about that. If he had Ray’s education, he wouldn’t be a cook on a train. Ray argues that Jake is happier as he currently is and that the “more [he learns] the less [he] understands and loves life” (274). He doesn’t even know why they are alive, to which Billy responds that everything is as God wants it.

The party heads to Uncle Doc’s and then Leroy’s Cabaret, and the group passes the night drinking. Ray leaves the next day to begin work in the kitchen of the freighter.