"What species?" I asked.
Michael laughed. "What are you wanting me to say? You are an eagle?"
"Oh no," I said, "that's a white folk's bird. Blackbird will do."
"There you're starting again," Michael said. "You know I haven't been in Harlem since you left."
I said that I was living in the same place and invited him to come up. I told him that my landlord, Mr. Morris, had asked after him.
Michael shook his head. "It ain't like before. I'm in with a rotten gang. We'se all suspicious of one another. If I came around to see you, they'd soon get wise to it and want to mess around there, thinking there was something to make."
I said I wouldn't care, since there was nothing. And knowing them might be another exciting diversion, I thought.
Michael's face became ugly. "No, you're better off without knowing that gang. They couldn't understand you like me. They're just no good. They're worse than me. And lookit that guy what send you out to me. He was looking at me as if I wasn't human. I know that my mug ain't no angel's since that wop bastard gashed me, but all the same I ain't no gorilla."
"Couldn't you find another job and start working again?" I asked.
He shook his head. "It's too late now. I can't get away or escape. I'm not like you. Perhaps if I had had some talent, like you."