Joree-jaw

RAINBOW ROUND MY SHOULDER--Howard W. Odum--Bobbs-Merrill ($3).

"I never stays in one place mo' 'n fo' weeks," boasts Black Ulysses. "Leastwise, never mo' 'n five. . . . Sometimes I knows where I wants to go, an' sometimes I jes' git on to go anywhere, jes' anywhere at all, jes' anywhere but where I is." Little matter where, for this colored travelin' man is of versatile profession. Not yet 35, he has covered 40 states, as cotton picker in Alabama, meat packer in Chicago, harvest hand out West, sailor to Honolulu, janitor to mayors of two towns, hand on Mississippi delta, thief cooped in an occasional jail, miner in West Virginia, song-leader in many a construction camp, cook to a Peoria golf club, waiter and porter on trains shuttling to and fro--in short, adept at any job which offers food and money enough for catbone dice and women: "one high yellow and two teasin' browns" among them.

Nigger be nigger whatever he do,

Tie red ribbon round toe of his shoe,

Jerk his vest on over his coat,

Snatch his britches up round his throat,

Singin', "High-stepper, Lawd, you shall be free."

Free to bust up a prayer meetin' or a quiltin' jamboree: lights out, shots in the dark, screams, "Lawd, my daddy hurt?"--and all "jes' for the hell of it."

Then back to the road again, on foot, riding the bars, and occasionally even "riding the cushions." In search of--the Jack of Diamonds? Ace of Clubs? More women? Experience of a "heap o' towns" indicates that "the most fastest, mo' freer women" are to be found in New Orleans, where "they give you clothes and liquor an' all the lovin' you want, an' when you go to leave have all sorts grievin' fits ... then writes you most sweetest letters man ever read."

Cities are well enough, but in the railroad gangs and outlaw camps there's more joree-jaw (raillery, chaff), and, better still, the singing. "Speerchials" still persist:

When I git to Heaven gwine ease, ease,

Me 'n' my God goin' do as we please,

Settin' down side o' de Lamb,

but the same old sorrows and self pity are fast taking new expression in "sweet Blues comin' from a black man's soul--achin' hearted Blues, all alone Blues, baby-won't-you-please-come-home Blues, chain-gang Blues, mo' Blues than angels in Heaven can sing."

Professor of sociology, the author recognizes one of America's "problems" in the itinerant Negro "with the don't keer spirit, go day, come day, God send Sunday." But he sees the sociological evil in a setting of romance, and suggests graphically, if a bit lengthily, that his black hero's vaguely discontented lack of ambition is somewhat atoned by the charm of his sudden optimism:

Looks like rain, Lawd, looks like rain.

I got rainbow tied round my shoulder;

Ain't gonna rain, Lawd, ain't gonna rain.