South Central Noir

He pushed the button on his desk and directly Miss Chimes walked in. “Miss Chimes will give you a comprehensive tour of the facilities,” he said. He winked at her and began his rounds.

My uncle wasn’t gone good before Miss Chimes grabbed me by my factotum shirt and jerked me outside, back to the trash bins in the alley on 42nd. She shoved me against a bin. Smiled. Her bottomless brown eyes was especially frightening.

“Now listen, squirt,” she said. “I know Captain Pin said I got to work with you. But I ain’t got to like you. Understand? If you don’t pull your weight, I’ll kick your Black ass myself.” She jerked her hand inside her pocket and took out a pack of smokes. Pulled one out. Perched it between her lips. Stopped fussing long enough to stare at me. “Got a light?” she said finally.

Said it like a girl who don’t want no light but just want to shame you and show you that you ain’t got nothing she can use. So don’t try to ack like you do. You ain’t got nothing I want, Negro, she was saying without saying it.

I searched my pockets and shook my head no. Shamed.

“Thought so,” she said, real mean.

I liked to died when she pulled a lighter out her own pocket and lit the smoke. “You mens is always buttin’ in where you ain’t needed,” she said. “And as for protecting me, I don’t need no damn man, ’specially no half-squirt half-a-worm like you running behind me. If that killer or any-damn-body run up on me, he gonna take his johnson home in a thimble. We clear?”

“Yes, Miss Chimes,” I said.

I was shaking inside, looking for somewheres to run. She blew out a cloud of smoke and said, all serious, “Now, here are the rules, Wormboy. More important, these are my personal laws for getting along with me anytime you walk past me in this fabulous hotel. First, ain’t no cussing on the premises. Got that, mutherfucker? And two, ain’t no smoking, at no time, and that mean from right now till Doomsday, y’understand?” Another toke. She added: “No drinking, no dawdling, no overt familiarity with the guests — they’re our patrons, not your buddies — no offensive or boisterous behavior, no spitting, in the street or nowheres, no stealing. And no sassing your betters, that mean me. Understand?” She flicked the butt into the street.

8

There are a hundred bedroom suites in the Dunbar. Sixty of them luxury, with private bath, sitting room, and gardens. Radio in every suite. Phonographs when requested. Miss Chimes pointed out the quirks in every room. Each flaw and flourish now my personal responsibility. She showed me what she called “hidden nooks” where dust and the occasional spider hid. How the beds must be made, pillows fluffed, linens folded; the daily flowers set out, watered, and arranged.

She showed me lockers lined with mops and brooms; shelves of brushes and rags. Disinfectants, bleaches, candles, soap, scents. I managed to pocket a small box of matches.

When I was ’bout wore out, I followed Miss Chimes into the cool darkness of the ballroom. Seats for a hundred. She summoned the head chef and all the waitstaff. Made me tell my name and shake hands. Our tour took four hours to complete. When we was done, Miss Chimes took me to the entrance on 41st.

“Look down, little Negro,” she said.

My big socks was standing on the threshold of the hotel. The flagstone was imprinted with the words Hotel Somerville.

“They calls it Dunbar now,” Miss Chimes said. “After the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, and that’s all well and good. But every time I say ‘Dunbar’ with my mouth, I say ‘Mrs. Somerville’ in my head. This is her hotel, not his’n. Sure, Mrs. Somerville had a good man — Dr. Somerville — to help her, with love and support and cash like a good man should, but she was a doctor too, and rich as hell, and all this pomp and majesty you see around us is her doing; the work of a single colored woman — Mrs. Vada Somerville. Her husband didn’t do shit but get married to a lady genius. Understand?”

I did.

9

A sharecropper’s boy ain’t no stranger to hard work, and I decided I was gonna make my Uncle Balthazar, Miss Chimes, and all them California Negroes confess I was the hardest-workinest feller, colored or white, any of them ever seen. I shot up at four a.m., threw on my factotum uniform and cap, swallowed a biscuit, and had the bannisters, tables, and main room floors sparkling before the six a.m. meeting. I kept up a hot sweat till well after quitting time. Made sure every wandering eye seen me. I didn’t take no break, nor dawdle, nor cuss, nor sass back at my betters, nor slacken my pace till moonlight rose over the avenue.