The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim by Iceberg Slim Page A

Messmer Junior High. I wasn’t welcome to visit the goddess at home. You see, her Creole mother didn’t approve of me. I was too black.
    It was in the spring of ’33, I think, that I met the goddess. Hilarious jokes were making the rounds, like: “That wasn’t no girl yousaw me with last night; that was my brother.” Anyway, it was just a short time before that fabulous cripple charmed himself into the most exclusive club there ever was.
    Mama was on earth then. I remember how attractive and regal she was. Once a month Mama and I would pass that corner. I’d stare at it and feel little firecrackers of excitement popping off inside me.
    We’d be on our way to a gigantic barnlike building. Mama would always proudly square her shoulders before we stepped inside. The slippery sawdust on the rough pine floor would be like shredded ice against the slick, stiff soles of my county relief brogans. There was a fresh pungency in the melded odors of prunes, onions and potatoes stacked inside chicken-wire cubicles.
    Tattered paupers filed past the cubicles. Anemic joy lit their drawn faces as bored county clerks shoved a month’s ration of relief groceries across the dusty cubicle counters. They would eagerly fill their gunny sacks and shuffle away to the street with their treasures.
    When our turn came, Mama would hold her chin high in the manner of a queen accepting gifts from her subjects. You can’t imagine how my skinny six-foot frame would tremble when I’d hoist our sacks to my back. I remember how the coarse burlap would sear my palms as I stumbled to the sidewalk.
    Mama always brought a twenty-five cent piece with her. There were bootleg taxis about the building. The hustlers would be waiting in flivvers to haul people with gunny sacks home.
    Many times Mama saved the quarter. A good guy called Giggling George would be out there on the hustle. He and Mama had been kids together down in Nashville, Tennessee. He’d take us home, and the only time he’d stop giggling was when Mama would try to give him the quarter fee. He’d get real serious and act like Mama had insulted him when he turned it down.
    One Christmas, George gave me an exciting gift. It was an old .22 rifle. He had cleaned it and polished the walnut stock to a richpatina. I enjoyed blasting out the brains of the hunchback rats nesting in our cellar. Sure, old George drank too much. It’s true he had that ugly giggle, and yes, he cursed a lot. But he was the kindest guy that ever was.
    Oh yes, after I met the goddess, I’d often have a crazy wish that Phillippa (that was her name) and her mother would be standing in that charity line for groceries. I guess I thought at least we could have had hunger in common. It never happened.
    Her mother was a beautiful widow, a coldly arrogant octoroon. She was color sensitive too, acting like a half-white house nigger in slavery times who was suddenly made boss of the whole damn plantation. Cordelia Cordray was her name, and she was to blame for that corner at Third and Galena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, being the most poignant corner there ever was.
    Now, I’m not so sure about the year that I met the goddess. But I’m damn sure of the day of the week. It had to be on a Sunday morning. Two slightly uncommon events had occurred the night before. Mama and I lived in a flat over Steve’s Bar, at Eighth and Galena streets.
    A curvy pushover called Three-way Rosie lived up at Tenth and Galena. Her old man was an ex-heavyweight fighter who ran a sneak poker game in his home every Saturday night.
    Rosie had given me this time slot in her very busy schedule. We were on the grass in her backyard. I was fiddling with one of her buttons and looking up at the Big Dipper in the brilliant sky. Strange thing about her was, one of her buttons was a dud. Every Saturday night I’d fritter away crucial time. I’d forget which button lit her fire. Finally Rosie flamed,