A PLACE TO LIE DOWN
7
fever-bright, and burning hollowly. Tex took his arm, but he
would not budge one inch.
"You.
Gimme that sock."
He took the boy by the lapel, and the boy dropped a book.
"Saaaaay-I'll call a cop on you I will." The boy's voice
quavered shrilly as a frightened school-girl's; his eyes besought
pleadingly those of the crowd.
This time two silver badges; two rows of brass buttons–
two pairs of pointed black boots shining in the sun.
"Here, niggers-at it again? All right, Smitty, take 'em
both along."
• Tex McKay cocked his head, unable, for one moment, to
believe what he had heard. Slowly then, he understood: A
white man who walked with a 'nigger' was a 'nigger' too. He
'recognized the park bull as the other took his arm, and he said,
~'Ah'm
no nigger."
· · Tex was too weary to feel keen fear; and going to jail was
all
a
part of this life anyhow. No one escaped it for very long,
and he 'd been lucky for a long time now. What he didn't like,
what got him by the short hairs, was that crack about a nigger.
He saw the big park bull start reaching for Mack when
Mack was still five feet away and Specs stood in between.
Specs ducked wildly when the cop's paw came over his shoulder;
the paw seized Mack's shirt and pulled him free of the sidewalk
with a yank which ripped the sleazy cloth down to the navel.
Mack came straight forward, so that his head would have
rammed the cop's Sam Browne belt had not the cop stiffarmed
him with his open palm.
Tex glanced at the cop who was holding his wrist.
"Ah aint no nigger, mister," he said; but the bull didn't
seem to hear.
It was shameful to see the Negro so, his shirt in tatters so
that his navel showed thru.
A man in the crowd barked brief hard laughter; a girl fled
titillating-"Ooooooo-What I
saw!"
"Ah aint no nigger, mister," Tex repeated; but the bull
didn't look like he'd heard.
Mack's voice was a low moan. "You got no right!" he
said, and his arms flailed
stiffly
against the brass buttons. The
edge
of
his sleeve caught in the cop's star; the cop jerked away,
and the star was
left
hanging
lop-sidedly.
"You got no right!" Mack's fingers clawed weakly upward
