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about how many people I had to get. Some people could perform twice, so I figured seven should do it. Fourteen performances would be the whole forty minutes with a little over. I would be the main dancer, and I knew I could probably get Simmy Long to dance. I needed one more colored dancer and some white performers. I hadan idea of where I was going to get the white performers, but I wasn’t sure about the colored dancer. I didn’t want to even talk to the one I knew best, but I knew I at least needed to feel him out.
    â€œJuba, I needed to get the job at the auditions,” Freddy said. “Look around this place. This is how I’m living. I deserve better than this.”
    It had been easy for me to find Freddy. I knew he lived on Cherry Street, and I just asked some kids where the colored man who always carried a cane stayed, and they pointed out his place. A round-faced woman sitting on the stoop told me Freddy lived on the second floor and that he had just moved in a little while ago.
    The place smelled horrible. It was dark in the middle of the day, with people sleeping in the corners. The sewer ran right under the building, and you could smell the waste.
    â€œI don’t even have my own place,” Freddy said. “I rent a space here to sleep on the floor. I don’t have no decent place to live, and I can barely get up enough money to eat proper. When John Diamond was calling to me to make my act more like a minstrel show, it hurt me. It truly did, because I know I’m better than that. I am not nobody’s nigger. But look at the way I’m living. You got to see what was pulling on my coattail, Juba.”
    There was a noise, and I looked to see a pile of rags on thefloor move. A woman, rags tied around her legs, was sleeping against the wall with a coat pulled partway over her. The whole place was dreary, dark, and disgusting.
    â€œYou’re not living well, Freddy,” I said. “But to throw yourself away completely didn’t make any sense. If you’re going to let people put you in whatever place they want, you’re never going to have their respect. And when you jumped into that place, grinning and carrying on, you dragged me right in with you.”
    â€œLook, I’m sorry, Juba. I truly am, but we can work together on this. Peter talked to me about putting on a show, and I was all for it. He said you and me could pull it off. We could work together.”
    â€œHe said we could work together ?”
    â€œMiss Lilly was pulling for you. She didn’t think you wanted to work with me,” Freddy said. “But I think we could do well together. We could put on a good show. What do you say?”
    Freddy held out his hand. I didn’t take it.
    â€œWhen did he talk to you, Freddy?” I asked.
    â€œRight after the auditions,” Freddy answered. “We need to put bygones behind us, Juba. You and I are the best entertainers around here. I know we can do it!”
    I was getting mad at Pete again for talking to Freddy before he talked to me.
    â€œWe can’t work together, Freddy,” I said. “I’ll bring you in on this if you do what I say. If you don’t want to do what I tellyou, then you got to move away from me.”
    â€œI’ll do whatever you say, Juba,” Freddy said. “Just give me a chance.”
    I didn’t feel right when I left Freddy. What I knew, or thought I knew, was that if the chance came for him to throw his manhood and his talent away to get over, he would do it. Peter Williams didn’t care about that. Pete didn’t even think of himself as a black man. He thought of himself as a money man. Still, I needed another colored dancer, and Freddy could dance. He could carry himself well, too, when he wanted. But I had to make the show good enough that he would want to be something special.
    â€œIsn’t it funny, Stubby, that you got to convince people not to hurt themselves?”