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In fact, my father had described Harlem with pride, and showed us pictures of the huge parades by the Harlem followers of Marcus Garvey. Even as far back as Lansing, I had been hearing about how fabulous New York was, and especially Harlem. Since I had been in Roxbury, I had heard a lot about "the Big Apple," as it was called by the well-traveled musicians, merchant mariners, salesmen, chauffeurs for white families, and various kinds of hustlers I ran into. For a long time I'dw anted to visit New York City. I went along with the railroad job for my own reasons. She would have loved nothing better than to have seen me like one of those Negroes who were already thronging Roxbury in the Army's khaki and thick shoes-home on leave from boot camp. Ella wanted to get me out of Boston and away from Sophia. He had told her the war was snatching away railroad men so fast that if I could pass for twenty-one, he could get me on. sandwiches! Coffee! Candy! Cake! Ice Cream!" Rocking along the tracks every other day for four hours between Boston and New York in the coach aisles of the New York, New Haven & Hartford's "Yankee Clipper." Old Man Rountree, an elderly Pullman porter and a friend of Elk's, had recommended the railroad job for me.