African music is too real, too obsessive, too wonderfully monotonous

epub or mobi, with thanks to the original sharer

‘Who comes here mostly, Mr Tamberlaine?’

‘If white like yourself, they’s wreckage of jazz musicians, chiefly, a lot on the needle and full of despair; if coloured, well, ponces and other hustlers like myself.’

‘You’re a hustler, then?’

‘You might say I pimp around the town, picking the pounds up where I can. I don’t often gamble, though, because the winner is the table, and like all these boys I never know when to stop if fortune does the bitch on me like she do. But coloureds like gambling, don’t you see – it’s part of our carefree nature.’

He gave me a sarcastic grin.

‘Who gambles mostly?’ I said. ‘Africans or West Indians?’

‘What! You recognise some difference? Ain’t we all just coal-black coloured skins to you?’

‘Don’t be offensive, Mr Tamberlaine. Like so many West Indians I’ve met, you seem to have, if I may say so, a large chip sitting on your shoulder.’

‘Not like your African friends? They have less chip, you say?’

He got up, put on his tailored duffel coat, and said, ‘Now I must get out in the cold and do me pimpin’. You’re not interested in anything I have to offer, I suppose?’

‘Such as what, Mr Tamberlaine?’

‘A little coloured lady for you? You go with her, and add to your education of these different races.’

‘All right. Is it far?’

‘We go down Brixton way, man, and see there. I hope you have money for the taxi, there’s no all-night bus.’