Free The End of a Primitive by Chester Himes Page A

chuckled. “No doubt, dear, but not ten gallons!”
    “Just like a Texan. Always exaggerating.”
    “Do you want to hear this story or not?” Dorothy complained jealously.
    “Let Dot tell her story,” Kriss said.
    “Well, this Texan ran into an actor on Broadway dressed like a Quaker. He’d never seen a Quaker before. So he went up to the actor and said, ‘Talk some Quaker for me, will you. Friend.’ The Quaker smiled indulgently and tried to pass, but the Texan took hold of his arm ‘Oh, come on, partner, talk some Quaker for me. Ah never heard nobody talk Quaker.’ The actor tried to disengage his arm, but the Texan held him firmly. ‘Ah tell you what I’ll do. Friend. If you talk some Quaker for me, I’ll buy you the best feed they can throw together at 21.’ When the Texan said that, the actor turned slowly and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Fuck thee!’ he said.”
    Kriss laughed with childish glee. “Someone should tell that to Watson. The last part, I mean.”
    Even Anne giggled. “I’ll tell him,” she said. “You just wait. And I won’t say thee , either!”
    Dorothy glanced at her watch. “Oh, I’ve got to run; Kirby wants me before lunch.” She gave Kriss a beseeching smile. “What I wanted was to ask you to go with me to the Museum of Modem Art this evening. It’s the opening of the Monet exhibition.” Through the corners of her eyes Kriss noticed Anne flick a glance at her as she began stacking the dirty cups and saucers. Once they had discussed Dorothy’s passion for art exhibitions, but now she felt a faint disloyalty for having done so.
    “I’m so tired, baby. Can’t we go some other time,” she begged off.
    Anne carted off the coffee service with no comment.
    “Oh, Kriss—” She’d promised herself not to feel badly if Kriss couldn’t go, but she couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.
    Kriss felt sorry for her. “Oh, baby, I’m just so tired.” Then, relenting, she said, “Why don’t you come and have dinner with me tonight.”
    “But—but—” She couldn’t bring herself to ask.
    “He won’t be there tonight,” Kriss assured her. “Nor any other night,” she thought bitterly.
    Now Dorothy was happy. She looked like a girl who’d been asked on a date. “All right. But you let me do everything. Promise?”
    Kriss wondered again if Dorothy understood her own emotions. Probably not, she thought. A veil lowered over her eyes. “I promise,” she said, chuckling mechanically. If I find myself in bed with Dot, that’ll be the bitter end, she thought. Anyway, I’d like a virgin, she added mentally, chuckling to herself. “Make it around seven-thirty.”
    “All right, then, at seven-thirty.”
    Immediately after Dorothy left, she regretted asking her. But at least Dot would be better than being alone, she confessed. Anything was better than being alone. Although she’d never come to the stage of letting herself be picked up…“You son of a bitch!” she thought with sudden venom, but whether her venom was directed toward Ronny or Ted or Dave or anyone else in particular, she didn’t even know herself.

Chapter 4
    J esse came up from the subway through the arcade with its tobacco shops, barber shops, shoeshine parlours, notion stores, florists, lunch counters, turkish baths, to the north side of 42nd Street, next to the comer drugstore. ‘This is what they mean by the underworld,” he had thought in passing, and now he viewed the upper side with equal distaste.
    From where he stood at the corner of Eighth Avenue—a pesthole of petty thugs where a man could buy a gun, hot or cold, for fifteen dollars up—down to the tri-cornered, old stone Times building in the narrow angle where Broadway crossed Seventh Avenue, was a block of infinite change. Once in the lives of very old men it had been a mudhole; then had come an era of fashion, of furred and diamonded women with their potbellied escorts alighting from lacquered carriages beneath the