J. Poindexter, Colored

by Irvin S. Cobb

Well, to make a long story no longer, he goes over and whispers something to the director and first-off the director he shakes his head like he's dead set against the proposition but Mr. Simons keeps on arguing with him and after a little bit the director flings up both hands sort of despairful and goes over and sets down at a little table, looking very sulky. Then, Mr. Simons he tells the blacked-up man to take off his apron and his jacket and tells me to put 'em on me and then he tells me very slow just what he wants me to do, but he says I'm to do it my own way and if, as I goes along, I thinks of anything else which a real colored waiter would do under such-like circumstances, why, I'm to stick that in, too.

"Try to forget that it's all pretending," he says, "and try to forget that there's a camera grinding in front of you. Just remember that you're a waiter in a cheap dump serving a couple of young people that have run away from home to be married and are in a hurry to get something to eat. Try to register your expectations of getting a nice big tip from the young fellow. And when you slip the girl the note that'll tip her off to the fact that her old sweetheart is waiting outside and wants to see her, you want to make sure that the man at the table with her can't see you, but that people sitting out in the audience watching the show will see the note pass. Get me? We won't have any rehearsals—too much preliminary stuff might make you self-conscious. I'll have 'em start shooting just as soon as you come on. Now go to it!"

Which I does it all according to orders. I must've gave utter satisfaction, too, because when we gets through, everybody setting round claps their hands and applauses me same as if they was at a regular show—that is, everybody does so except the director; which he continues to act peevish. This here Mr. Simons he goes yet farther than applausing; he comes over to me and he says I has put him under obligations to me by helping him out and if ever I feels like doing some more moving-picture work just to call on him either down at his office or up here at the studios, because he says there ain't no telling when he may have another show with a part in it for a smart spry colored person. And with that he slips his card into my hand and along with it a ten dollar bill, which that is more money than ever I has earned before in my whole life for a light job, let alone just acting natural for about five or six minutes.

He starts on away then but suddenly he turns round like a notion had just hit him between the eyes and he comes back to me and says he wants to speak to me a minute and I follows him back around a corner where nobody won't be liable to hear us.

"I want to ask you about something," he says, when we arrives there. "You seem to be a person who keeps his eyes and his ears open; besides, you're colored yourself and what I need here, I think, is somebody who can look at a proposition from a colored man's slant rather than from a white man's. And finally, my guess is that you haven't been away from your own part of the country very long and that probably means you haven't lost your perspective. Do you get my drift?"

I wouldn't know a perspective if I met up with one in the big road but I ain't aiming to expose my ignorance before this strange gentleman. I tries to look like I'm mighty glad that I've been so careful as not to lose it and I tells him yes, sir, I gets his drift.

"Good," he says. "Well, making it snappy, the idea is just this: New York City is full of colored actors—not merely singers and dancers but real artists, some of 'em, who can act and are especially strong in comedy. That's point number one. In nearly every good-sized town in this country, North and South, there's at least one moving-picture house catering to your people. That's point number two. But day after day and night after night those patrons see nothing but pictures written by white people, directed by white men, and acted by white people. That's point number three. Now, I've been carrying round a scheme in my head for quite awhile—a scheme to try the experiment of turning out a line of two-reelers, say, done by colored casts, and selling them, if I can, to these three or four thousand houses run by colored people and playing to colored people. I've got the studio right here—I've got the organization and the equipment. And at any time I need it I can put my hand on plenty of acting material—colored people, I mean—who'll only need a little training to make 'em fit for my purposes. Some of 'em have already had some training—as extras around the local plants. As I dope it out, if I can produce pictures which will appeal particularly to your people I'll have a steady market through the big exchanges; because, if I know anything about the tastes of the general public, white people will enjoy all-colored comedies—if they're done right—almost as much as colored people will. And that's point number four. Now then, give me your idea of the value of the notion?"

"Mister," I says, "I kin only tell you how one cullid pusson feels, w'ich 'at one is me: The way I looks at it, you ain't needin' to bother much 'bout fancy scenery an' special fixin's—wid a crowd of niggers the mainest p'int will be the actin'. The actin' part is whar you can't fool 'em. An'," I says, "ef you kin git holt of a crowd of cullid actors w'ich is willin' to ack lak the sho'-nuff ole-time cullid an' not lak onbleached imitations of w'ite folks, it seems lak to me the rest of it oughter be plum' easy. Mostly I'd mek the pitchers comical, ef I wuz you. You kin do 'at an' still not hurt nobody's feelin's, w'ite nur black. Ef you wants to perduce a piece showin' a lot of niggers gittin' skinned, let it be another nigger w'ich skins 'em. Then," I says, "w'en, at the last, they gits even wid him it'll still be nigger ag'inst nigger. An' ef, once't in awhile, you meks a kind of a serious-lak pitcher, showin', mebbe, how the race is a-strivin' to git ahaid in the world, 'at ought to fetch these yere new-issue cullid folks w'ich," I says, "is seemin'ly become so plentiful up Nawth. But mainly I'd stick to the laffin' line ef I wuz you—niggers is one kind of folks in 'is country w'ich they ain't afeard to laff. An' whutever else you does," I says, "don't mess wid no race problem. We gits mouty tired, sometimes, of bein' treated the way we of'en is. Tek my own case," I says. "I ain't no problem, I's a pusson. I craves to be so reguarded. An' tha's the way I alluz is been reguarded by my own kind of w'ite folks down whar I comes frum," I says.

"Say," he says, when I gets through saying this, "I think you've earned another ten-spot." And with that he shoves one more of them desirable bills at me; which he don't have no real struggle inducing me to take it. Because I'm a powerful easy person to control in such matters. And always has been, from a child up.

"I was practically convinced all along that the proposition was worth trying," he says. "What you say helps to confirm a judgment I already had. Well, don't forget about coming to see me if you want work in my line—there may be plenty of it if this thing pans out." And he shakes hands with me again and walks off.