Juba! by Walter Dean Myers Page B

You said you wanted something, and that’s the only reason I asked Juba to come over here. Now, don’t make me look like a fool, because I don’t have a use for being foolish.”
    Pete looked at me and then away. He sighed deeply and crossed one leg over the other.
    â€œThere was some things I liked about what went on that day and some things I could forget about,” he said. “What I liked was that there were people in here who were never in here before. They were looking around and seeing that it wasn’t a bad-looking place and seeing that white people—I mean classy white people, not no riffraffers—looked comfortable. I liked that and I know that idea could bring in some money.
    â€œI don’t know what everyone did when they left the place. They could have been slave traders, or they could have been slave owners. I don’t know. A lot of people living in New York City and running around with their noses in the air got plantations down South. But what I know is that if somebodycan get them all coming into Almack’s, I can build this business up so it looks respectable, feels respectable, and makes some respectable money. Miss Lilly thinks you’re the man who can pull it off for me.”
    â€œJuba, you know dancing, and you know a lot of people.” Miss Lilly leaned toward me. “What you were doing—your kind of dancing—wasn’t what they were expecting, but I could see how you were drawing the people in. They weren’t clapping along with anybody else. You’ve got class, and they know it and I know it and Peter knows it. Don’t you, Peter?”
    â€œHe’s all right.”
    â€œ Don’t you, Peter?”
    â€œFor a young man, he’s got a lot of class, Miss Lilly,” Pete said. “But what I want is a whole forty-minute show, like they have in the regular theaters. I want some white dancers and some black dancers. I want some singers, some decent food, a forty-minute show, and whatever it takes to let people know this is a top-of-the-line establishment. If I get them in here one time and show them they don’t have anything to be afraid of, maybe I can get them in here two times. And if I can get them in here two times, maybe I can keep them coming.”
    â€œWhat do you think, Juba?” Miss Lilly asked.
    â€œYou want food, too?”
    â€œWhatever it takes,” Miss Lilly said.
    â€œWhy didn’t you ask John Diamond to do it?” I asked. “Youtwo seemed to be hitting it off pretty swell.”
    â€œBecause deep in my heart, I’m a race man!” Pete said. “I don’t need any white boy running my business! I’m throwing twenty dollars into this adventure, and I need somebody who has my interest in their heart! Are you the man? That’s a very simple question, Juba. Are you the man?”
    â€œI think he is,” Miss Lilly said. “I truly do. And maybe he can get Cissy going.”
    â€œCissy?”
    â€œYou didn’t know she sings?” Miss Lilly asked. “You’ve got to use her in the show.”
    She glanced over at her husband, who rolled his eyes away.
    â€œYou mean to tell me that Peter Williams, after ruining your audition the other day, had the nerve to ask you to set up a show for him?” Jack Bishop sat up in his bed. “And what did he say when you told him to bugger off?”
    â€œI said I would do it,” I said. “I didn’t mean to say I would do it, but that’s the way it came out.”
    â€œYour tongue and your lips were having a fight or something?” Stubby asked. “If you didn’t mean to say something, how come you said it?”
    â€œBecause he’s figured out that there’s things you have to do in life because they’re the right things to do at the moment,” Jack said. “That’s the way life is sometimes, withrighteous stink on both ends of the