Cobb Irvin Shrewsbury
J. Poindexter, Colored

Chapter VIII
Dark Secrets

SOME of the folks which has been following our experiences, as I has wrote them down, might think it was my bounden duty to go straight-away to Mr. Dallas and promulgate to him these here remarks which I hears pass betwixt Mr. H. C. Raynor and the permanent-wavy lady on that Sunday night six weeks ago, coming back from our week-end in the country. But I does not by no means see my way clear to doing so. In the first place, I ain't never been what you might call a professional promulgator. In the second place, I figures the time ain't ripe to start in telling what I believes and what I suspicions. In the third place, I don't know yet if it ever will be ripe.

Some white folks, seems like, is just naturally beset with a craving to bust into colored folkses' business and try for to run their personal affairs for 'em. Mr. Dallas, he is not gaited that way in no particular whatsoever; him having been born and raised South and naturally knowing better anyhow; but some I might mention is. Still, and even so, most white folks don't care deeply for anybody at all, much less it's somebody which is colored, to be telling 'em onpleasant and onwelcome tidings. And he is white and I is black – and there you is!

Another way I looks at it is this way: There's a whole heap of white folks, mainly Northerners, which thinks that because us black folks talks loud and laughs a-plenty in public that we ain't got no secret feelings of our own; they thinks we is ready and willing at all times to just blab all we knows into the first white ear that passes by. Which I reckon that is one of the most monstrous mistakes in natural history that ever was. You take a black boy which he working for a white family. Being on close relations that-a-way with 'em he's bound to know everything they does – what they is thinking about, what-all they hopes and what-all they fears. But does they, for their part, know anything about how he acts amongst his own race? I'll say contrary! They maybe might think they knows but you take it from J. Poindexter they positively does not do nothing of the kind. All what they gleans about him – his real inside emotions, I means – is exactly what he's willing for 'em to glean; that and no more. And usually that ain't so much.

Yes sir, the run of colored folks is much more secretious than what the run of the white folks give 'em credit for. I reckon they has been made so. In times past they has met up with so many white folks which taken the view that everything black men and black women done in their lodges or their churches or amongst their own color was something to joke about and poke fun at. Now, you take me. I is perfectly willing to laugh with the white folks and I can laugh to order for 'em, if the occasion appears suitable, but I is not filled up with no deep yearnings to have 'em laughing at me and my private doings. 'Specially if it's strange white folks.

Furthermore there's this about it: I've taken due notice that, whites and blacks alike, pretty near anybody will resent your coming to 'em on your own say-so and telling 'em right out of a clear sky that they is making a grievous big mistake in doing this or that. If they themselves takes the lead – if they seeks you out of their own accord and says to you, confidential-like, they is in a peck of trouble and craves to know how they is going to get out from under the load – why, that's different. Then you can step in, in friendship's name, and do your best to help 'em unravel the tangle which they has got themselves snarled up in it. If you asks me, I would say that advice gets a heap warmer welcome where you goes hunting for it than where it comes hunting for you. And, likewise, sympathy is something which you appreciates all the more if you went out shopping for it yourself. You don't want it to come knocking at the door like one of these here old peddlers taking orders for enlarging crayon portraits and forcing its way right into your fireside circle whether or no, and camping there in your lap.

Moreover, speaking in particular of our own case, what right has I got to be intimating to Mr. Dallas my private beliefs about the private characters of this here brisk crowd which he has gone and got so thick with since we arrived here on the scene? Right from the first I has had my own personal convictions about the set he's in with. I has made up my mind that they ain't the genuine real quality; that they is just a slicked-up, highly-polished imitation of the real quality; that they ain't doing things so much as they is overdoing 'em. The way I looks at it, they bears the same relation to regulation high-toney folks which a tin minnow does to sure-enough live bait. You maybe might fool a fish with it but you couldn't fool the world at large for so very long. And as for me, I ain't been fooled at all, not at no time. But I naturally can't go stating my presenterments to Mr. Dallas without he the same as practically invites me first for to do so. Now, can I? But if he finds it out for himself and approaches me, that's a roan horse of another color.

So the above reasons is why I is at present keeping my mouth shut in front of him about what concerns him solely. Besides, so many things continues to happen from day to day here in New York it keeps me right busy just staying up with the procession and not overlooking the stray bets. For instances, now, there's my moving-picture scheme which I thinks up out of my own head and which promises to turn out mighty profitable if everything goes well.

Chapter IX
Movie-Land

HAVING so much else to keep track of I has plumb forgot up till now to set forth how comes it we gets ourselves interested in the movies. You see, both Miss Pat and Miss Bill-Lee is in that line, although not working at it very steady. In fact, practically all our crowd lets on to be doing something or other for to earn a living when they can't think of nothing else to do. It seems like Mr. Bellows sets himself up to be one of these here interior decorators, which I don't know exactly what that is, though I has my notions for I has seen him decorating.

Let somebody else provide the materials and he's right there with the interior. Mrs. Gaylord she's an alimony-collector by profession and doing right well at her trade, too, from all I can gather. And Mr. Raynor he calls himself a broker. I hears Mrs. Gaylord saying once, sort of joking, that being a broker is the present tense of being broke, which I reckon that is not only grammar but facts, except when somebody like Mr. Dallas comes along with ready cash on hand. But the two young ladies has both been in theatricals for going on several years now, first on the old-fashioned talking stage and more lately with the films; so naturally there's a right smart talk about films and screens and all, going on from time to time.

It seems like all hands amongst 'em agrees there's a heap of money in the film business if only the right folks was to take hold of it and get it away from the parties which is now trying to run it. It also seems that if only Miss Bill-Lee could get the proper sort of a chance, which she can't on account of jealousy and one thing and another, she'd be a brightly shining star in no time. All she needs is for somebody to put her out in a piece which'll suit her and then she'll be a sensational success and all concerned will make more money than they'll know what to do with. I hears her saying so more than once to Mr. Dallas, all the time looking at him with them yearning big black eyes of hers. It seems like that is the one thing which she requires for to make her perfectly happy. And seeing as how that appears to be Mr. Dallas' chief aim in life these times – making Miss Bill-Lee more happy – I says to myself that first thing we know we'll be investing in a new line on the side. Mr. Raynor, though, he ain't so favorable to the notion. I can tell that he don't want Mr. Dallas to be spreading his play 'round so promiscuous. It ain't so much what he says; it's by the way he looks when the subject comes up that I can figure out what his private emotions is.

Anyhow, the upshot is that Mr. Dallas takes to spending considerable of his spare time at a studio up-town where the two young ladies works, getting pointers and so on. One evening – I should say, one afternoon – he telephones down to the apartment for me to bring one of his heavy overcoats up there to him because, what with late fall-time being here now, the weather has turned off sort of cold; and that's how befalls that I gets my look at the insides of one of these here studio places, which I must say, alongside of the one I seen, a crazy-house is plumb rational and abounding in restfulness.

From the outsides it looks to be like something suitable for a tobacco stemmery or maybe a skating-rink, but once I gets past the watchman on the outer door —Who-ee! That's all —Who-ee! I stops close by the door and for a spell I watches what's going on and I thinks to myself that whilst there may be a-plenty of money in the moving-picture business, and doubtless is, the bulk of it is liable to stay in it permanent. Never before in my whole life has I seen so many folks letting on like they was fixing for to transact something important and then not doing it. If they was all on piece-work they couldn't earn enough to pay for half-soling the shoes which they wears out running about getting in one another's way. But as I understands it, they mainly is hired by the day and not by the job, and my heart certainly goes out in sympathetical feelings for the man, whoever he may be, that's footing the bills at the end of the week. If I was him I'd charge general admittance for the public to come in and witness these here carryings-on, and thereby get some part of my wastage back.

Almost the first thing which distracts my attention is a pestered-looking man with a pair of these here high leather leggings on, like he was fixing to go horse-back riding but in his frenzy has mislaid the horse; which he is full of authority and dashing to and fro with a big megaphone in one hand and in the other a bunch of wadded-up paper with writing on it. He appears to be in sole charge; and if hollowing loud was worth fifty cents a hollow he'd be a millionaire inside of a month if his voice didn't give out on him. I finds out a little later that he's what they calls the director. Well, he certainly does directicate.

One minute he's yelling at a couple of the hands up in the loft overhead, which their job is to handle some of the lights and then he's yelling at the little fellow which is running the picture-taking machinery, and then he's yelling at a bunch of men which has charge of the scenery, only this crowd don't pay no attention to him but just goes on doing their work very languid-like; so I judges they must belong to a union and therefore can afford to be independent. But most in general he devotes his yelling to a whole multitude of folks all dressed up in acting clothes with their faces painted the curiousest ever I seen. And, at that, I seen a sight of face-painting since I come to New York! Under them funny lights their skins is an awful corpsy greenish-yellowish-whitish and their lips is purple, like as if they has been drownded nine days and has just now come to the top.

He herds all these people together and gets 'em set to act a piece. And then something goes wrong. Either he ain't satisfied with the lights or with their actions or else he remembers something important which has been forgotten and he yells for somebody to fetch it, and six or eight runs to get it and brings the wrong thing back, and he raves and cusses under his breath and tells everybody to go back to their marks and start in all over again.

And the next try is just the same as the first. And the third try is not no more successful than the other two was. So then the director he shooes the whole crowd back out of the way and walks up and down and waves his arms and wildly states that he hopes he may be hanged if he's going to go on until they learns how to rehearse. And I remarks to myself that if I was them white folks I certainly would give him his wish and hang him!

So then everybody loafs round a spell, whilst the director confabs with a little thin nervoused-looking man called Mr. Simons, with glasses on. And then the director announces that they won't try to shoot the mob scene today and all the extras can go till nine o'clock tomorrow morning, and in the meantime he trusts and prays that they may get a little sense or something in their heads. So, accordingly, most of the multitude departs leaving only about a dozen or more actor ladies and gentlemen setting round on odds and ends and seemingly very grateful for the peaceful lull.

By this time I has done localized Mr. Pulliam where he's standing over in a corner talking with Miss Bill-Lee and a couple more ladies, and I makes my way to him. Doing so, I has to pass behind some of the scenery. On the other side it's just like a row of houses with roofs and porches and all, but here on the behind-side of it there ain't nothing only plastering laths and raggedy ends of burlaps and chicken-coop wire and naked joists. It puts me right sharply in mind of some of these folks we has been associating with up here – everything in stock devoted to making a show for the front and nothing except the rubbish left over for the backing. Well, I reckons it's always like that when you is making-believe to be something you truly ain't, whether it's in a moving-picture studio or out in the great world at large.

After I gives Mr. Dallas his coat he tells me to hang round if I wishes to do so and watch 'em working. So I hangs round. But there ain't much working done for quite a spell but, instead, a lot of general speechifying and explaining betwixt this one and that one. Finally though, the pestered man he yells out something about being ready to shoot an interior. All hands rambles over to another part of the building where there is more scenery which is fixed up to look like the insides of a short-order restaurant. One of the young ladies and one of the young gentlemen sets down at a table in front of the camera and lets on to be eating a quick snack whilst a white man, which is dressed up like a waiter and blacked up to look like he's colored, waits on 'em. The two at the table appears to be giving satisfaction but the ruler of the roost ain't pleased with the way the waiter acts out his part.

I ain't blaming him for not being pleased, neither. To start with, the waiter is blacked up too much. He don't look like he's genuine colored; he looks more like he's been shining up a cook stove and got most of the polish rubbed off onto his face and hands. He don't act like he's genuine colored, neither. I judges he must have studied the business of acting like colored folks from watching nigger minstrel shows. He keeps rolling his eyes up in his head and smacking his lips, the same as an end-man does, which is all right, I reckon, when you is an end-man but which does not fill the bill when you is letting on to be a sure-enough black person; because for years past I ain't never seen scarsely no minstrel man which really deported himself as though he had colored feelings inside of him.

Still, I must say for him that he's doing his level best to oblige. But what with him trying to remember to keep the eyes rolling and the lips smacking, and the director yelling at him through that megaphome to do the next step this-a-way or that-a-way, he's presently so muddled up in his mind that it seems like he can't get nothing at all accomplished. It makes me feel actually sorry for him; but I ain't sorry for the director. One of 'em is ignorant and willing to admit it; the other one is ignorant but is trying to cover it up by behaving bossified and making loud sounds and laying the blame on somebody else. Leastwise, that's how I figures it out. I says to myself, I says:

"It's all wrong frum who laid the rail. Yas suh, I'll tell the waitin' world they don't neither one of 'em onderstan' the leas' particle 'bout nigger actions an' nigger depotemint."

I must've said it out loud without thinking, because right alongside me somebody speaks up and says:

"What do you know about this business?"

I turns my head and looks, and it's that there quiet little man with the big glasses on, name of Mr. Simons.

I says to him, I says:

"I don't know nothin' 'bout this yere bus'ness, but I does know somethin' 'bout bein' cullid, seein' ez I is one myse'f."

He sort of squints up his eyes like he's got an idea. He says:

"Could you take the director's place there and show that man how to get through with his scene?"

"Who, boss, me?" I says. "No suit! I mebbe mout could tek his place pervidin' w'ite folkses didn't mind havin' me th'owin' awders at 'em, but even so, I couldn't never plant the right idees in 'at other gen'elman's mind."

"Why not?" he says.

"'Cause it's plain to me," I says, "'at in the fust place he ain't got no notion ez to how a black boy would carry hisse'f whilst waitin' on a table. 'Scuse me fur sayin' so ef he's a friend of yours, but tha's the facts of the case, boss – the feelin's ain't thar."

"All right," he says, "then could you play the waiter's part yourself?"

"Well suh," I says, "mebbe I could ef they wouldn't 'spect me to act lak a actor but just 'lowed me to act lak a human bein'. I ain't never done no actin'," I says, "but I been a human bein' fur ez fur back ez I kin remember."

"You've got it!" he says. "What this business needs in it is fewer people trying to act and more people willing to behave like human beings. How would you like to put on the jacket and the apron that man is wearing and see if you could get away with the job he's trying to do?"

"Ef 'twould be a favor to you – yas, suh," I says. "But I'm' skeered the directin' gen'elman mout object."

"I think possibly I could fix that," he says. "I happen to be the owner of this plant. I'll go speak to him."

"Hole on," I says, "ef you please, suh. The onliest way I could do it," I says, "would be fur you to tell me jest whut you wanted done an' 'en you'd have to mek all hands stand back an' keep quiet whilst I wuz tryin' to do it. It sho'," I says, "would git me all razzle-dazzled to have some gen'elman yellin' at me th'ough 'at megaphome ever' half secont or so."

"There's another idea that's worth experimenting with," he says. "I've thought the same thing myself before now. You stay right here a minute."

Well, to make a long story no longer, he goes over and whispers something to the director and first-off the director he shakes his head like he's dead set against the proposition but Mr. Simons keeps on arguing with him and after a little bit the director flings up both hands sort of despairful and goes over and sets down at a little table, looking very sulky. Then, Mr. Simons he tells the blacked-up man to take off his apron and his jacket and tells me to put 'em on me and then he tells me very slow just what he wants me to do, but he says I'm to do it my own way and if, as I goes along, I thinks of anything else which a real colored waiter would do under such-like circumstances, why, I'm to stick that in, too.

"Try to forget that it's all pretending," he says, "and try to forget that there's a camera grinding in front of you. Just remember that you're a waiter in a cheap dump serving a couple of young people that have run away from home to be married and are in a hurry to get something to eat. Try to register your expectations of getting a nice big tip from the young fellow. And when you slip the girl the note that'll tip her off to the fact that her old sweetheart is waiting outside and wants to see her, you want to make sure that the man at the table with her can't see you, but that people sitting out in the audience watching the show will see the note pass. Get me? We won't have any rehearsals – too much preliminary stuff might make you self-conscious. I'll have 'em start shooting just as soon as you come on. Now go to it!"

Which I does it all according to orders. I must've gave utter satisfaction, too, because when we gets through, everybody setting round claps their hands and applauses me same as if they was at a regular show – that is, everybody does so except the director; which he continues to act peevish. This here Mr. Simons he goes yet farther than applausing; he comes over to me and he says I has put him under obligations to me by helping him out and if ever I feels like doing some more moving-picture work just to call on him either down at his office or up here at the studios, because he says there ain't no telling when he may have another show with a part in it for a smart spry colored person. And with that he slips his card into my hand and along with it a ten dollar bill, which that is more money than ever I has earned before in my whole life for a light job, let alone just acting natural for about five or six minutes.

He starts on away then but suddenly he turns round like a notion had just hit him between the eyes and he comes back to me and says he wants to speak to me a minute and I follows him back around a corner where nobody won't be liable to hear us.

"I want to ask you about something," he says, when we arrives there. "You seem to be a person who keeps his eyes and his ears open; besides, you're colored yourself and what I need here, I think, is somebody who can look at a proposition from a colored man's slant rather than from a white man's. And finally, my guess is that you haven't been away from your own part of the country very long and that probably means you haven't lost your perspective. Do you get my drift?"

I wouldn't know a perspective if I met up with one in the big road but I ain't aiming to expose my ignorance before this strange gentleman. I tries to look like I'm mighty glad that I've been so careful as not to lose it and I tells him yes, sir, I gets his drift.

"Good," he says. "Well, making it snappy, the idea is just this: New York City is full of colored actors – not merely singers and dancers but real artists, some of 'em, who can act and are especially strong in comedy. That's point number one. In nearly every good-sized town in this country, North and South, there's at least one moving-picture house catering to your people. That's point number two. But day after day and night after night those patrons see nothing but pictures written by white people, directed by white men, and acted by white people. That's point number three. Now, I've been carrying round a scheme in my head for quite awhile – a scheme to try the experiment of turning out a line of two-reelers, say, done by colored casts, and selling them, if I can, to these three or four thousand houses run by colored people and playing to colored people. I've got the studio right here – I've got the organization and the equipment. And at any time I need it I can put my hand on plenty of acting material – colored people, I mean – who'll only need a little training to make 'em fit for my purposes. Some of 'em have already had some training – as extras around the local plants. As I dope it out, if I can produce pictures which will appeal particularly to your people I'll have a steady market through the big exchanges; because, if I know anything about the tastes of the general public, white people will enjoy all-colored comedies – if they're done right – almost as much as colored people will. And that's point number four. Now then, give me your idea of the value of the notion?"

"Mister," I says, "I kin only tell you how one cullid pusson feels, w'ich 'at one is me: The way I looks at it, you ain't needin' to bother much 'bout fancy scenery an' special fixin's – wid a crowd of niggers the mainest p'int will be the actin'. The actin' part is whar you can't fool 'em. An'," I says, "ef you kin git holt of a crowd of cullid actors w'ich is willin' to ack lak the sho'-nuff ole-time cullid an' not lak onbleached imitations of w'ite folks, it seems lak to me the rest of it oughter be plum' easy. Mostly I'd mek the pitchers comical, ef I wuz you. You kin do 'at an' still not hurt nobody's feelin's, w'ite nur black. Ef you wants to perduce a piece showin' a lot of niggers gittin' skinned, let it be another nigger w'ich skins 'em. Then," I says, "w'en, at the last, they gits even wid him it'll still be nigger ag'inst nigger. An' ef, once't in awhile, you meks a kind of a serious-lak pitcher, showin', mebbe, how the race is a-strivin' to git ahaid in the world, 'at ought to fetch these yere new-issue cullid folks w'ich," I says, "is seemin'ly become so plentiful up Nawth. But mainly I'd stick to the laffin' line ef I wuz you – niggers is one kind of folks in 'is country w'ich they ain't afeard to laff. An' whutever else you does," I says, "don't mess wid no race problem. We gits mouty tired, sometimes, of bein' treated the way we of'en is. Tek my own case," I says. "I ain't no problem, I's a pusson. I craves to be so reguarded. An' tha's the way I alluz is been reguarded by my own kind of w'ite folks down whar I comes frum," I says.

"Say," he says, when I gets through saying this, "I think you've earned another ten-spot." And with that he shoves one more of them desirable bills at me; which he don't have no real struggle inducing me to take it. Because I'm a powerful easy person to control in such matters. And always has been, from a child up.

"I was practically convinced all along that the proposition was worth trying," he says. "What you say helps to confirm a judgment I already had. Well, don't forget about coming to see me if you want work in my line – there may be plenty of it if this thing pans out." And he shakes hands with me again and walks off.

Right after that a young white gentleman he comes looking for me to take down my full entitlements and he says I will be honorably mentioned by name on the program of the picture which they now is making, when it's done. And Mr. Dallas he tells me I can take the rest of the day off for to celebrate having broke into the movies.