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  Crushed and angry, Max returned to his place without a word. Bunny laughed aloud in high glee.

  “You said she was a cracker,” he gurgled, “an’ now I guess you know it.”

  “Aw, go to hell,” Max grumbled.

  Just then Billy Fletcher, the headwaiter, passed by. Max stopped him. “Ever see that dame in here before?” he asked.

  “Been in here most every night since before Christmas,” Billy replied.

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “Well, I heard she was some rich broad from Atlanta up here for the holidays. Why?”

  “Oh, nothin’; I was just wondering.”

  From Atlanta! His home town. No wonder she had turned him down. Up here trying to get a thrill in the Black Belt but a thrill from observation instead of contact. Gee, but white folks were funny. They didn’t want black folks’ game and yet they were always frequenting Negro resorts.

  —

  At three o’clock Max and Bunny paid their check and ascended to the street. Bunny wanted to go to the breakfast dance at the Dahomey Casino but Max was in no mood for it.

  “I’m going home,” he announced laconically, hailing a taxi. “Good night!”

  As the cab whirled up Seventh Avenue, he settled back and thought of the girl from Atlanta. He couldn’t get her out of his mind and didn’t want to. At his rooming house, he paid the driver, unlocked the door, ascended to his room and undressed, mechanically. His mind was a kaleidoscope: Atlanta, sea-green eyes, slender figure, titian hair, frigid manner. “I never dance with niggers.” Then he fell asleep about five o’clock and promptly dreamed of her. Dreamed of dancing with her, dining with her, motoring with her, sitting beside her on a golden throne while millions of manacled white slaves prostrated themselves before him. Then there was a nightmare of grim, gray men with shotguns, baying hounds, a heap of gasoline-soaked faggots and a screeching, fanatical mob.

  He awoke covered with perspiration. His telephone was ringing and the late morning sunshine was streaming into his room. He leaped from bed and lifted the receiver.

  “Say,” shouted Bunny, “did you see this morning’s Times?”

  “Hell no,” growled Max, “I just woke up. Why, what’s in it?”

  “Well, do you remember Dr. Junius Crookman, that colored fellow that went to Germany to study about three years ago? He’s just come back and the Times claims he’s announced a sure way to turn darkies white. Thought you might be interested after the way you fell for that ofay broad last night. They say Crookman’s going to open a sanitarium in Harlem right away. There’s your chance, Big Boy, and it’s your only chance.” Bunny chuckled.

  “Oh, ring off,” growled Max. “That’s a lot of hooey.”

  But he was impressed and a little excited. Suppose there was something to it? He dressed hurriedly, after a cold shower, and went out to the newsstand. He bought a Times and scanned its columns. Yes, there it was:

  NEGRO ANNOUNCES

  REMARKABLE DISCOVERY

  CAN CHANGE BLACK TO WHITE IN THREE DAYS.

  Max went into Jimmy Johnson’s restaurant and greedily read the account while awaiting his breakfast. Yes, it must be true. To think of old Crookman being able to do that! Only a few years ago he’d been just a hungry medical student around Harlem. Max put down the paper and stared vacantly out of the window. Gee, Crookman would be a millionaire in no time. He’d even be a multimillionaire. It looked as though science was to succeed where the Civil War had failed. But how could it be possible? He looked at his hands and felt at the back of his head where the straightening lotion had failed to conquer some of the knots. He toyed with his ham and eggs as he envisioned the possibilities of the discovery.

  Then a sudden resolution seized him. He looked at the newspaper account again. Yes, Crookman was staying at the Phyllis Wheatley Hotel. Why not go and see what there was to this? Why not be the first Negro to try it out? Sure, it was taking a chance, but think of getting white in three days! No more jim crow. No more insults. As a white man he could go anywhere, be anything he wanted to be, do most anything he wanted to do, be a free man at last . . . and probably be able to meet the girl from Atlanta. What a vision!

  He rose hurriedly, paid for his breakfast, rushed out of the door, almost ran into an aged white man carrying a sign advertising a Negro fraternity dance, and strode, almost ran, to the Phyllis Wheatley Hotel.

  He tore up the steps two at a time and into the sitting room. It was crowded with white reporters from the daily newspapers and black reporters from the Negro weeklies. In their midst he recognized Dr. Junius Crookman, tall, wiry, ebony black, with a studious and polished manner. Flanking him on either side was Henry (“Hank”) Johnson, the “Numbers” banker and Charlie (“Chuck”) Foster, the realtor, looking very grave, important and possessive in the midst of all the hullabaloo.

  “Yes,” Dr. Crookman was telling the reporters while they eagerly took down his statements, “during my first year at college I noticed a black girl on the street one day who had several irregular white patches on her face and hands. That intrigued me. I began to study up on skin diseases and found out that the girl was evidently suffering from a nervous disease known as vitiligo. It is a very rare disease. Both Negroes and Caucasians occasionally have it, but it is naturally more conspicuous on blacks than whites. It absolutely removes skin pigment and sometimes it turns a Negro completely white but only after a period of thirty or forty years. It occurred to me that if one could discover some means of artificially inducing and stimulating this nervous disease at will, one might possibly solve the American race problem. My sociology teacher had once said that there were but three ways for the Negro to solve his problem in America,” he gestured with his long slender fingers, “‘To either get out, get white or get along.’ Since he wouldn’t and couldn’t get out and was getting along only differently, it seemed to me that the only thing for him was to get white.” For a moment his teeth gleamed beneath his smartly waxed mustache, then he sobered and went on:

  “I began to give a great deal of study to the problem during my spare time. Unfortunately there was very little information on the subject in this country. I decided to go to Germany but I didn’t have the money. Just when I despaired of getting the funds to carry out my experiments and studies abroad, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Foster,” he indicated the two men with a graceful wave of his hand, “came to my rescue. I naturally attribute a great deal of my success to them.”

  “But how is it done?” asked a reporter.

  “Well,” smiled Crookman, “I naturally cannot divulge the secret any more than to say that it is accomplished by electrical nutrition and glandular control. Certain gland secretions are greatly stimulated while others are considerably diminished. It is a powerful and dangerous treatment but harmless when properly done.”

  “How about the hair and features?” asked a Negro reporter.

  “They are also changed in the process,” answered the biologist. “In three days the Negro becomes to all appearances a Caucasian.”

  “But is the transformation transferred to the offspring?” persisted the Negro newspaperman.

  “As yet,” replied Crookman, “I have discovered no way to accomplish anything so revolutionary but I am able to transform a black infant to a white one in twenty-four hours.”

  “Have you tried it on any Negroes yet?” queried a skeptical white journalist.

  “Why of course I have,” said the Doctor, slightly nettled. “I would not have made my announcement if I had not done so. Come here, Sandol,” he called, turning to a pale white youth standing on the outskirts of the crowd, who was the most Nordic-looking person in the room. “This man is a Senegalese, a former aviator in the French Army. He is living proof that what I claim is true.”

  Dr. Crookman then displayed a photograph of a very black man, somewhat resembling Sandol but with bushy Negro hair, flat nose an
d full lips. “This,” he announced proudly, “is Sandol as he looked before taking my treatment. What I have done to him I can do to any Negro. He is in good physical and mental condition as you all can see.”

  The assemblage was properly awed. After taking a few more notes and a number of photographs of Dr. Crookman, his associates and of Sandol, the newspapermen retired. Only the dapper Max Disher remained.

  “Hello, Doc!” he said, coming forward and extending his hand. “Don’t you remember me? I’m Max Disher.”

  “Why certainly I remember you, Max,” replied the biologist, rising cordially. “Been a long time since we’ve seen each other but you’re looking as sharp as ever. How’s things?”

  The two men shook hands.

  “Oh, pretty good. Say, Doc, how’s chances to get you to try that thing on me? You must be looking for volunteers.”

  “Yes, I am, but not just yet. I’ve got to get my equipment set up first. I think now I’ll be ready for business in a couple of weeks.”

  Henry Johnson, the beefy, sleek-jowled, mulatto “Numbers” banker, chuckled and nudged Dr. Crookman. “Old Max ain’t losin’ no time, Doc. When that niggah gits white Ah bet he’ll make up fo’ los’ time with these ofay girls.”

  Charlie Foster, small, slender, grave, amber-colored, and laconic, finally spoke up: “Seems all right, Junius, but there’ll be hell to pay when you whiten up a lot o’ these darkies and them mulatto babies start appearing here and there. Watcha gonna do then?”

  “Oh, quit singin’ th’ blues, Chuck,” boomed Johnson. “Don’t cross bridges ’til yuh come tuh ’em. Doc’ll fix that okeh. Besides, we’ll have mo’ money’n Henry Ford by that time.”

  “There’ll be no difficulties whatever,” assured Crookman rather impatiently.

  “Let’s hope not.”

  —

  Next day the newspaper carried a long account of the interview with Dr. Junius Crookman interspersed with photographs of him, his backers and of the Senegalese who had been turned white. It was the talk of the town and was soon the talk of the country. Long editorials were written about the discovery, learned societies besieged the Negro biologist with offers of lecture engagements, magazines begged him for articles, but he turned down all offers and refused to explain his treatment. This attitude was decried as unbecoming a scientist and it was insinuated and even openly stated that nothing more could be expected from a Negro.

  But Crookman ignored the clamor of the public, and with the financial help of his associates planned the great and lucrative experiment of turning Negroes into Caucasians.

  The impatient Max Disher saw him as often as possible and kept track of developments. He yearned to be the first treated and didn’t want to be caught napping. Two objects were uppermost in his mind: To get white and to Atlanta. The statuesque and haughty blonde was ever in his thoughts. He was head over heels in love with her and realized there was no hope for him to ever win her as long as he was brown. Each day he would walk past the tall building that was to be the Crookman Sanitarium, watching the workmen and delivery trucks; wondering how much longer he would have to wait before entering upon the great adventure.

  At last the sanitarium was ready for business. Huge advertisements appeared in the local Negro weeklies. Black Harlem was on its toes. Curious throngs of Negroes and whites stood in front of the austere six-story building gazing up at its windows.

  Inside, Crookman, Johnson and Foster stood nervously about while hustling attendants got everything in readiness. Outside they could hear the murmur of the crowd.

  “That means money, Chuck,” boomed Johnson, rubbing his beefsteak hands together.

  “Yeh,” replied the realtor, “but there’s one more thing I wanna get straight: How about that darky dialect? You can’t change that.”

  “It isn’t necessary, my dear Foster,” explained the physician, patiently. “There is no such thing as Negro dialect, except in literature and drama. It is a well-known fact among informed persons that a Negro from a given section speaks the same dialect as his white neighbors. In the South you can’t tell over the telephone whether you are talking to a white man or a Negro. The same is true in New York when a Northern Negro speaks into the receiver. I have noticed the same thing in the hills of West Virginia and Tennessee. The educated Haitian speaks the purest French and the Jamaican Negro sounds exactly like an Englishman. There are no racial or color dialects; only sectional dialects.”

  “Guess you’re right,” agreed Foster, grudgingly.

  “I know I’m right. Moreover, even if my treatment did not change the so-called Negro lips, even that would prove to be no obstacle.”

  “How come, Doc,” asked Johnson.

  “Well, there are plenty of Caucasians who have lips quite as thick and noses quite as broad as any of us. As a matter of fact there has been considerable exaggeration about the contrast between Caucasian and Negro features. The cartoonists and minstrel men have been responsible for it very largely. Some Negroes like the Somalis, Filanis, Egyptians, Hausas and Abyssinians have very thin lips and nostrils. So also have the Malagasys of Madagascar. Only in certain small sections of Africa do the Negroes possess extremely pendulous lips and very broad nostrils. On the other hand, many so-called Caucasians, particularly the Latins, Jews and South Irish, and frequently the most Nordic of peoples like the Swedes, show almost Negroid lips and noses. Black up some white folks and they could deceive a resident of Benin. Then when you consider that less than twenty per cent of our Negroes are without Caucasian ancestry and that close to thirty per cent have American Indian ancestry, it is readily seen that there cannot be the wide difference in Caucasian and Afro-American facial characteristics that most people imagine.”

  “Doc, you sho’ knows yo’ onions,” said Johnson, admiringly. “Doan pay no ’tenshun to that ole Doubtin’ Thomas. He’d holler starvation in a pie shop.”

  —

  There was a commotion outside and an angry voice was heard above the hum of low conversation. Then Max Disher burst in the door with a guard hanging onto his coat tail.

  “Let loose o’ me, Boy,” he quarreled. “I got an engagement here. Doc, tell this man something, will you?”

  Crookman nodded to the guard to release the insurance man. “Well, I see you’re right on time, Max.”

  “I told you I’d be Johnny-on-the-spot, didn’t I?” said Disher, inspecting his clothes to see if they had been wrinkled.

  “Well, if you’re all ready, go into the receiving room there, sign the register and get into one of those bathrobes. You’re first on the list.”

  The three partners looked at each other and grinned as Max disappeared into a small room at the end of the corridor. Dr. Crookman went into his office to don his white trousers, shoes and smock; Johnson and Foster entered the business office to supervise the clerical staff, while white-coated figures darted back and forth through the corridors. Outside, the murmuring of the vast throng grew more audible.

  Johnson showed all of his many gold teeth in a wide grin as he glanced out the window and saw the queue of Negroes already extending around the corner. “Man, man, man!” he chuckled to Foster, “at fifty dollars a th’ow this thing’s gonna have th’ numbah business beat all hollow.”

  “Hope so,” said Foster, gravely.

  —

  Max Disher, arrayed only in a hospital bathrobe and a pair of slippers, was escorted to the elevator by two white-coated attendants. They got off on the sixth floor and walked to the end of the corridor. Max was trembling with excitement and anxiety. Suppose something should go wrong? Suppose Doc should make a mistake? He thought of the Elks’ excursion every summer to Bear Mountain, the high yellow Minnie and her colorful apartment, the pleasant evenings at the Dahomey Casino doing the latest dances with the brown belles of Harlem, the prancing choruses at the Lafayette Theater, the hours he had whiled away at Boogie’s and the Hon
ky Tonk Club, and he hesitated. Then he envisioned his future as a white man, probably as the husband of the tall blonde from Atlanta, and with firm resolve, he entered the door of the mysterious chamber.

  He quailed as he saw the formidable apparatus of sparkling nickel. It resembled a cross between a dentist’s chair and an electric chair. Wires and straps, bars and levers protruded from it and a great nickel headpiece, like the helmet of a knight, hung over it. The room had only a skylight and no sound entered it from the outside. Around the walls were cases of instruments and shelves of bottles filled with strangely colored fluids. He gasped with fright and would have made for the door but the two husky attendants held him firmly, stripped off his robe and bound him in the chair. There was no retreat. It was either the beginning or the end.

  TWO

  Slowly, haltingly, Max Disher dragged his way down the hall to the elevator, supported on either side by an attendant. He felt terribly weak, emptied and nauseated; his skin twitched and was dry and feverish; his insides felt very hot and sore. As the trio walked slowly along the corridor, a blue-green light would ever and anon blaze through one of the doorways as a patient was taken in. There was a low hum and throb of machinery and an acid odor filled the air. Uniformed nurses and attendants hurried back and forth at their tasks. Everything was quiet, swift, efficient, sinister.

  He felt so thankful that he had survived the ordeal of that horrible machine so akin to the electric chair. A shudder passed over him at the memory of the hours he had passed in its grip, fed at intervals with revolting concoctions. But when they reached the elevator and he saw himself in the mirror, he was startled, overjoyed. White at last! Gone was the smooth brown complexion. Gone were the slightly full lips and Ethiopian nose. Gone was the nappy hair that he had straightened so meticulously ever since the kink-no-more lotions first wrenched Aframericans from the tyranny and torture of the comb. There would be no more expenditures for skin whiteners; no more discrimination; no more obstacles in his path. He was free! The world was his oyster and he had the open sesame of a pork-colored skin!