Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether Read Free Book Online Page B

truth,” Sukie agreed, and showing off she backed up and with a flying leap jumped to the other roof.Then just to show how easy it was, she jumped back to our side again.
    â€œGo ahead, Francie,” Vallie urged. “Sukie’s legs ain’t even as long as yours.”
    â€œLeave me alone, pretty brown girl,” I said, knowing that would make him mad. Any hint about him wearing Rebecca’s clothes did.
    Vallie stopped smiling and leaped at me. In ducking away from him I bumped into Sonny who grabbed my arm.
    â€œShould I throw her over the roof for you, Vallie?” he asked.
    Sonny was big for his age and square as a box, and as he held me I thought for a moment that he might not be kidding. Vallie didn’t answer.
    â€œThrow her over,” Sukie said calmly.
    â€œY’all stop playing like that with me,” I said, nervous now. “I’m gonna tell Junior.”
    â€œYou can’t tell nobody nothing if you’re dead, dead, dead,” Sonny said, his eyes half-closed.
    â€œAw, leave her alone,” Vallie said.
    Sonny released me, crossed the divider to the next roof and ran to the door. “Y’all wait here a minute,” he said, “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared inside and a moment later came back out holding a black cat by the nape of its neck. A rope dangled from its head and apparently Sonny had tied the cat to the banister earlier.
    â€œWhatcha gonna do with your grandma’s cat?” Sukie asked.
    â€œWait and see.” Sonny walked to the side of the roof and dangled the cat over the edge. Suddenly his fingers sprung open and the cat fell.
    I screamed.
    â€œYou sonofabitch,” Vallie yelled. “Whatcha do that for?”
    â€œCome on,” Sonny said, running toward the door.
    Vallie followed him and I trailed behind, not wanting to go. I turned around to see if Sukie was coming and saw that she was quietly vomiting up her lunch.
    I raced down the stairs behind the boys to the basement and out into the yard where the cat lay in a tangled mess of broken bones and black fur slimy with blood.
    Sonny bent over the cat and then straightened up. “The bastard is dead.”
    â€œWhat the hell did you expect?” Vallie asked. “For him to jump up and kiss you?”
    â€œI expected him to have nine lives like they always say a cat has,” Sonny said. He turned away in disgust. “They lied.”
    I started to whimper.
    â€œIt’s all right, Francie,” Vallie said, pulling me up the basement steps. “Sonny is just a crazy nigger. I hope his grandma whips his ass for killing her cat like that.”
    A FTER breakfast on Sunday Mother and I went to Abyssinian Baptist Church to hear Adam. Mother was a born Methodist but she had been going to Abyssinian ever since we lived in Brooklyn. The Old Man was preaching then, Adam’s father, and I used to think that he looked just like God, with his long white hair and all.
    We never could get Daddy to go to church with us, although he did admit that Adam had done a lot of good in Harlem, particularly last year when he opened a free food kitchen and fed a thousand people a week. Adam was also a leader in the rent strikes. Daddy said that was good, otherwise more people would have been set out on the street.But on the whole, Daddy would have nothing to do with churches and preachers.
    â€œKing James of England wrote the Bible,” he was always telling Mother, “and he made you niggers happy hewers of wood and told you to serve your masters faithfully and you’d get your reward in heaven. You all believe that shit and been worshiping a white Jesus ever since. How in the hell could God take the black earth and make himself a white man out of it? Answer me that?”
    But Mother never tried to answer. She just hauled me off with her to church and sometimes sent me to Mt. Olivet Sunday school on 120th Street and Lenox Avenue. Daddy didn’t