Chapter II: An Art to Art Talk

“Boss,” Vinegar inquired, the moment they stepped out of the bank, “is you gwine converse me ’bout some kind of wuck?”

“Yes, I have a little proposition which----”

“Please, suh, less you an’ me go somewheres an’ set down,” Vinegar pleaded in a tone which throbbed with fatigue. “Nothin’ don’t make me as tired as talkin’ ’bout wuck.”

Vinegar led him through the narrow, winding streets of the negro settlement known as Dirty-Six, and conducted him finally to the Shoofly church. Opening the door, he brought out two rickety chairs, placed them in the shade of a chinaberry tree, sighed audibly, and sat down. Rouke placed his chair against the trunk of the tree and leaned back.

“Now, boss, beller dem sad news to me easy!” Vinegar admonished. “Don’t fergit it offen yo’ mind dat my maw fetched me up meek an’ mild an’ de good Lawd called me to preach. A real, stiddy job of reg’lar wuck would shore bust my cornstitution down.”

Being totally unaccustomed to negro whimsicalities, Mr. Shirley Rouke listened to this without a smile. His cool, steady eyes gazed at Vinegar deliberately, appraisingly, captiously, and Vinegar felt the fountains of fun turn dry as dust within him. This man would not take any nigger foolishness.

Without knowing it, Rouke had made his task doubly hard by causing Vinegar to feel ill at ease.

“I’m a motion picture director and producer for the Gitagraft Company,” Rouke began in a voice which clicked like the keys of a typewriter. “I want to produce an All-Negro picture, und’stand? I want you to help me get the actors and extras, help me to find my locations, give me the right steer on everything, and dope out everything I need to know about the blacks, see?”

There was one minute of perfect silence. Vinegar broke out in a profuse perspiration. He removed his hat, placed it on the ground, wiped the sweat off the top of his bald head by the simple process of rubbing the sleeve of his coat over it, and sighed like a bellows. Then he asked timidly:

“Boss, would you mind pourin’ all dem buckshots back in de pouch? Dey rattled an’ spluttered all aroun’ me, but dey didn’t hit nowhar.”

“How’s that? I don’t get you!” Rouke snapped.

The two gazed at each other like glass-eyed china dogs, both devoid of comprehension. Then Vinegar wailed:

“Marse Tom hadn’t oughter shoved me inter dis jam. Mebbe ef he’d tole me ’bout dis hisself, I might could ketch on!”

“I don’t get you!” Rouke barked.

“Yes, suh, dat’s right!” Vinegar assured him.

Rouke slapped the upper pocket of his fancy waistcoat, snatched out two fat cigars, and held them out to Vinegar Atts. Without knowing it, he had made an overwhelming hit!

Vinegar took a cigar, carefully removed the large purple and gold band, placed it on his little finger, held up his gorilla-like hand and gazed at the ornament as admiringly as a maiden views her engagement ring. Then he leaned back and puffed the smoke in a cloud around his head.

“Dis shore is a good stogie, boss,” he remarked. “I’s powerful sorry dar ain’t no women folks aroun’ to see me smoke it. It makes me feel a whole heap better. Whut did you say you done fer a livin’?”

“I make moving pictures,” Rouke answered.

“Movin’--which?” Vinegar asked.

“Moving pictures,” Rouke repeated in a sharp tone. “Didn’t you ever see any movies?”

“Yes, suh, mebbe so, suh, when I wus a little shaver, ’way back befo’ de war. But I ain’t seem to rickoleck nothin’ ’bout it.”

“Aw, gosh!” Rouke snapped. “Are you kidding me?”

“Naw, suh, dunno, suh, ’spose not, suh.”

The Gitagraft Company suffered an inestimable loss by not having a camera artist present at this interview to preserve the facial expressions of these two men as they sat glaring at each other. Finally a gleam of intelligence penetrated the armor-plated skull of Vinegar, and he said:

“Boss, it ’pears like you an’ me don’t sop gravy outen de same dish. When you talks, nothin’ don’t specify; an’ when I talks my argumint don’t show wharin. Us is bofe jes’ wuckin’ our jaws widout chawin’ no cud. Whut I axes you is dis: Does you sells pictures or does you takes pictures?”

“I takes pictures,” Shirley grinned.

“Dar now!” Vinegar grinned back. “Now us is bofe lickin’ offen de same spoon. You keep yo’ mouf sot till I axes you anodder ’terrogation: Is dese here movin’ pictures jes’ de same as livin’ pictures?”

“Yes--no--I suppose so,” Rouke answered, wondering how he could explain to the negro without getting him all balled up again.

“Ef dat’s so, den I understand whut you signifies,” Vinegar boomed. “A feller come to my chu’ch las’ year an’ he had somepin like dat. He had a Noer’s Ark, an’ de Chillum of Israel, an’ a Daniel in de lions’ pen--an’ dat wus all pretty pious an’ proper. But atter dat, he had whut he called a _Tablow Vevong_ of livin’ pictures, an’ I didn’t favor ’em much. He put some black little tight underclothes on me an’ made me stand in a wash tub an’ called me ‘September Mawn.’”

“Aw, hell!” Shirley Rouke remarked. “That ain’t it at all.”

“Sorry, boss,” Vinegar said in troubled tones. “I figgered dat us wus jes’ ’bout to ketch on to each yuther.”

“Don’t you colored persons ever put on any plays?” Rouke inquired.

“Does you mean do us pull off any shows?” Vinegar asked.

“Yes.”

“Suttinly, boss. Us gin a show las’ week.”

“That’s good,” Rouke declared. “Now a moving picture is simply a show, a play, all the parts taken an’ acted by colored persons, and while they are playing we will take pictures of them. See?”

“I sees!”

“The actors won’t have a thing to do with the pictures. They only play the parts which I teach them. Und’stand?”

“Ain’t you gwine gib us no koodak shotsnaps of ourse’ves?” Vinegar demanded in a disappointed tone.

“Oh, sure!” Rouke assented in an acidulous voice. “Any dang little thing to please. Do you think you could round me up a bunch of colored people who would like to act in a show?”

“Git ’em?” Vinegar bellowed. “Boss, my job is gwine be to keep ’em away! When de news gits aroun’ dat eve’y nigger gits a free picture of hisse’f an’ a chance to speak a piece on de flatform--Mister Man, I tells you honest--us better keep dis a secret! You’ll wear yo’ koodak plum’ out takin’ nigger pictures!”

“All right!” Rouke agreed. “Keep it quiet. Don’t tell anybody except those you want in the play. See? Now let’s discuss terms.”

“Cuss--which?”

“Talk money!” Rouke barked.

Vinegar’s face fell.

“I thought de pictures wus free!” he protested.

“Oh, I don’t mean that!” Rouke grated through his teeth. “Listen! I want to know how much you will charge me to get the actors for the play and help me stage it. Get that?”

“I ketch on!” Vinegar beamed. “You wants to make a trade. Well, suh, when Marse Tom wants me to git him some plantation hands, he pays me one dollar apiece per each nigger an’ one dollar per day extry fer knowin’ whar dey is at an’ how to argufy ’em loose from de yuther planters.”

“I’ll pay you two dollars for every negro I employ in the play and five dollars a week for wages. When I see the actors, I’ll arrange rates with them. Is that all right?”

“Yes, suh, dat shore sounds like free charity,” Vinegar agreed.

“What about a contract?” Rouke asked.

“A which?”

“A contract--a writing--write up the agreement!” Rouke explained.

“You means a obscribe!” Vinegar said. “Naw, suh, ’tain’t wuth writin’ up. Niggers don’t favor obscribes. Us gits in lawsuits wid de cotehouse when us scratches on paper. Ef you pays us eve’y day, us niggers will wuck. Ef de pay stops, restin’ time is done come.”

“Very good!” Rouke said, as he rose from his chair. “Go out now and get all the niggers who have ever acted in a show. Tell them to meet me here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. I’ll see you then. So long!”

He turned and walked back toward the village of Tickfall.

Vinegar watched him until he disappeared from view; then he said:

“Dat’s a nice white man, but more’n half de time his mouf don’t understan’ his mind. Eve’y time I esplained to him whut he wus tryin’ to say, he specify dat wusn’t it!”

Rouke returned to his hotel, opened the door to his room, and found the chair by his typewriter pre-empted by Peter Pellet.

“What’s the grouch, Pete?” Rouke demanded. “You got a pout on your mug like a camel. I bet you can’t walk without stepping on your lip.”

“Oh, sugar, Shirley,” Peter mourned. “I just came in to tell you what a hellarious town this Tickfall is. During the day the men just sit in front of the stores and chew tobacco and kid the niggers. If a dog-fight happens the town gets so excited the doctors are called out to quiet their nerves. At night the whole bunch goes home and goes to bed. If it ain’t so, you may hang my body on a sour apple tree. I asked one of ’em what they did on Sunday and he said they went to church! What do you know about that? Two days of dissipation have dragged me down, Shirley--I’m a faint and feeble frazzle! Fan me with a brick!”

“Aw, can that!” Rouke growled. “Have you been out finding those locations I told you about?”

“You bet!” Peter answered, and now his tone changed to admiration. “These swamps are the real thing, Shirley. I saw a jungle so thick that a raccoon could not crawl through it without scraping all the hair off of his tail. I saw a lake that’s got no bottom, one side of it hot water and the other cold. I saw mosquitoes as big as a daddy longlegs--felt ’em, too; when they bite they feel like a red-hot poker and when you slap ’em you are a murderer with a raw and bleeding corpse upon your hands!”

“I saw a swamp rattlesnake five feet long, big around as my leg, full of fight as Jess Willard or Jesse James, and hungry enough to manifest a carnivorous desire for my acquaintance, but I moved the free lunch about forty feet away before he got a bite. I found a place where you could stick a pole down in the swamp mud, pull it out all dripping with water, and light it like a torch--the mud is so full of gas. I----”

“Get out of here!” Rouke said. “Order that reel from New Orleans to come up to-night and fix it up with the movie man so we can show it to-morrow morning!”

Left alone with his typewriter, Rouke slipped a sheet of paper in the machine and wrote:

THE JEWEL OF THE JUNGLE

“Gee,” he grinned, as he began his scenario, “that’s an utterly wretched title, I don’t think!”