J. Poindexter, ColoredCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
General
J. Poindexter, Colored
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
African Americans -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Some time back, as I remembers, I made brief mention about having
affiliated myself into the Pastime Colored Pleasure and Recreation Club,
Inc. Only, the last word--_Inc._--is not usually spoke when you is
naming the club, by reason of its sounding so much like a personal
reflection upon the prevailing complexion of some of the members. Still,
that is the way it is wrote out on the letter-heads and the initiation
blanks.
I has belonged for going on more than a month now and I spends much of
my spare time in the club-rooms. I feels more comfortable among my
fellow-affiliators than I does any place else in this town. Looking back
on it I'm convinced 'twas up there I first began to get shut of the
grievous homestick pangs which afflicted me so sorefully following after
our advent into these parts. Up to now I has not spoke of my being
homesick because it seemed like to me the mainest job was to set down
what come to pass without paying much heed to private sensations upon
the part of the scribe thereof, but, if the truth must now be confessed,
I oftentimes was mighty nigh completely overcome by my sufferings from
the same during them opening weeks of the present sojourn.
At the beginning I used to get so tired, night-times, tramping about
streets which was full of utter strangers and not never speaking a word
to nobody nor seeing a friendly face, that I liked to died, dad-blame if
I didn't! If I stood still they'd run right on over me and if I walked
on I didn't have nowheres to go and I'd be so exhaustified from looking
at sights all by myself that I'd get to wishing I'd never see another
sight again as long as I lived, without I had somebody I knowed along
with me to help me look at it. And then I'd come morosing on back to the
apartment and probably Mr. Dallas he'd be out and nobody there but that
there slick-headed Japanee boy. I tried sociable talk with him once or
twice but you really don't derive no great amount of nourishment from
talking with somebody which thinks language is sucking your breath in
through your front teeth and once in awhile grinning like one of these
here pumpkin Jack-mer-lanterns. So I soon learned the lesson of just
letting him be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account