Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim

got pussies in you own neighborhood.”
    The girl cut in. She said, “He didn’t hit on me.”
    He said, “You dumb bitch, get on the dummy.”
    I said, “Hell, buddy, what’s the matter? You high or something? This is a free country. I got a right to—”
    The punk sucker-punched me hard in my right cheek bone.
    The room reeled. I fell to the floor next to the counter. I held my hand against my cheek and looked up at him.
    He reached into his pocket. I heard a metallic click and saw thewicked gleam of the switchblade in his hand. His eyes were spinning in his head. He bent over toward me.
    I rolled away toward the door and threw my feet up to keep him from gutting me. The door opened and a pair of khakied legs stepped across me. It was a young soldier. He was between me and the shiv man.
    The soldier looked down curiously at me. I scooted backward through the closing door to the sidewalk. I got to my feet and raced down Forty-third Street.
    I heard pounding feet behind me. I looked back. The whole pack was running toward me.
    I hollered as loud as I could, “I’m a Nigger! I’m a Nigger! I’m a Nigger!”
    I turned into the el station. I threw a handful of coins across the fare collector’s counter. I raced up the stairs to the train platform. A Jackson Park el was closing its doors. I slipped through the closing slit. I fell into a cushion and looked down on Forty-third Street.
    The pack was down there looking up at me. Three of them waved knives that glinted under a street lamp. I settled back in the seat, closed my eyes and started to figure my next move.
    The train had stopped at Fifty-first Street. I realized that I didn’t have the leatherette case filled with my paintings and art materials. I had left it on the floor beneath the stool in the chili joint. I wouldn’t have gone back for it if it had been stuffed with Rembrandts.
    A pair of hippy-dippys came into the car. They had two fancy brown-skinned broads with them. They sat down in the two seats directly in front of me.
    The train pulled out toward Garfield Boulevard. The young broad with the hippy just in front of me turned her head back toward me. She smiled hotly at me. My eyes scrambled to the coach ceiling. I felt the throbbing lump on my cheekbone. I escaped down the aisle to another seat.
    An elderly black woman was nodding next to the window. Herpurse was on the seat between us. I eased my right hand across my thigh to the side of the purse. My fingers touched the heavy brass clasp on the top of it.
    I looked at the wrinkled side of her face as I slowly worked her purse open. My fingers were suddenly frozen numb. I jerked my hand away to my lap. I couldn’t rob her. The old lady’s coarse kindly face had reminded me of sweet Grandma Annie.
    The train stopped at Garfield Boulevard. In the distance I saw Aunt Pearl’s building. I wondered if she had felt any regret after she had driven me away. I had an urge to go back to see if she had had a change of heart. Then I remembered that sweetly poisonous voice. I just couldn’t understand, how could she have been so cruel? Phala and I needed her so much.
    I rode to the Sixty-third Street stop. I got off and went to the opposite platform. I took a Howard Street train going toward the Loop.
    I tried to think of someone who could advise me about Phala. There was no one. I felt lost, lonely and desperate.
    I decided to get off at Forty-seventh Street. I wasn’t due to report for work at the theatre until three o’clock. I wasn’t excited about going to work in that darkness, the way I was feeling and all.
    I walked east down Forty-seventh Street. I didn’t know what to do about Phala or anything else. I was friendless and homeless in the cold heart of Chicago’s Southside.
    I got to Calumet Avenue. I walked around the corner to a poolroom. A silent crowd stood watching a straight pool game at the front table.
    I