Chapter 13

Chapter 13

At first I had turned away from the window and tried to read but my mind kept wandering back to my old problems and, unable to endure it any longer, I rushed from the house, extremely agitated but determined to get away from my hot thoughts into the chill air.
At the entrance I bumped against a woman who called me a filthy name, only causing me to increase my speed. In a few minutes I was several blocks away, having moved to the next avenue and downtown. The streets were covered with ice and soot-flecked snow and from above a feeble sun filtered through the haze. I walked with my head down, feeling the biting air. And yet I was hot, burning with an inner fever. I barely raised my eyes until a car, passing with a thudding of skid chains whirled completely around on the ice, then turned cautiously and thudded off again.
I walked slowly on, blinking my eyes in the chill air, my mind a blur with the hot inner argument continuing. The whole of Harlem seemed to fall apart in the swirl of snow. I imagined I was lost and for a moment there was an eerie quiet. I imagined I heard the fall of snow upon snow. What did it mean? I walked, my eyes focused into the endless succession of barber shops, beauty parlors, confectioneries, luncheonettes, fish houses, and hog maw joints, walking close to the windows, the snowflakes lacing swift between, simultaneously forming a curtain, a veil, and stripping it aside. A flash of red and gold from a window filled with religious articles caught my eye. And behind the film of frost etching the glass I saw two brashly painted plaster images of Mary and Jesus surrounded by dream books, love powders, God-Is-Love signs, money-drawing oil and plastic dice. A black statue of a nude Nubian slave grinned out at me from beneath a turban of gold. I passed on to a window decorated with switches of wiry false hair, ointments guaranteed to produce the miracle of whitening black skin. "You too can be truly beautiful," a sign proclaimed. "Win greater happiness with whiter complexion. Be outstanding in your social set."
I hurried on, suppressing a savage urge to push my fist through the pane. A wind was rising, the snow thinning. Where would I go? To a movie? Could I sleep there? I ignored the windows now and walked along, becoming aware that I was muttering to myself again. Then far down at the corner I saw an old man warming his hands against the sides of an odd-looking wagon, from which a stovepipe reeled off a thin spiral of smoke that drifted the odor of baking yams slowly to me, bringing a stab of swift nostalgia. I stopped as though struck by a shot, deeply inhaling, remembering, my mind surging back, back. At home we'd bake them in the hot coals of the fireplace, had carried them cold to school for lunch, munched them secretly, squeezing the sweet pulp from the soft peel as we hid from the teacher behind the largest book, the World's Geography. Yes, and we'd loved them candied, or baked in a cobbler, deep-fat fried in a pocket of dough, or roasted with pork and glazed with the well-browned fat; had chewed them raw—yams and years ago. More yams than years ago though the time seemed endlessly expanded, stretched thin as the spiraling smoke beyond all recall.
I moved again. "Get yo' hot, baked Car'lina yam," he called. At the corner the old man, wrapped in an army overcoat, his feet covered with gunny sacks, his head in a knitted cap, was puttering with a stack of paper bags. I saw a crude sign on the side of the wagon proclaiming YAMS, as I walked flush into the warmth thrown by the coals that glowed in a grate underneath.
"How much are your yams?" I said, suddenly hungry.
"They ten cents and they sweet," he said, his voice quavering with age. "These ain't none of them binding ones neither. These here is real, sweet, yaller yams. How many?"
"One," I said. "If they're that good, one should be enough."
He gave me a searching glance. There was a tear in the corner of his eye. He chuckled and opened the door of the improvised oven, reaching gingerly with his gloved hand. The yams, some bubbling with syrup, lay on a wire rack above glowing coals that leaped to low blue flame when struck by the draft of air. The flash of warmth set my face aglow as he removed one of the yams and shut the door.
"Here you are, suh," he said, starting to put the yam into a bag.
"Never mind the bag, I'm going to eat it. Here . . ."
"Thanks." He took the dime. "If that ain't a sweet one, I'll give you another one free of charge."
I knew that it was sweet before I broke it; bubbles of brown syrup had burst the skin.
"Go ahead and break it," the old man said. "Break it and I'll give you some butter since you gon' eat it right here. Lots of folks takes 'em home. They got their own butter at home."
I broke it, seeing the sugary pulp steaming in the cold. "Hold it over here," he said. He took a crock from a rack on the side of the wagon. "Right here."
I held it, watching him pour a spoonful of melted butter over the yam and the butter seeping in. "Thanks."
"You welcome. And I'll tell you something."
"What's that?" I said.
"If that ain't the best eating you had in a long time, I give you your money back."
"You don't have to convince me," I said. "I can look at it and see it's good."
"You right, but everything what looks good ain't necessarily good," he said. "But these is."
I took a bite, finding it as sweet and hot as any I'd ever had, and was overcome with such a surge of homesickness that I turned away to keep my control. I walked along, munching the yam, just as suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of freedom—simply because I was eating while walking along the street. It was exhilarating. I no longer had to worry about who saw me or about what was proper. To hell with all that, and as sweet as the yam actually was, it became like nectar with the thought. If only someone who had known me at school or at home would come along and see me now. How shocked they'd be! I'd push them into a side street and smear their faces with the peel. What a group of people we were, I thought. Why, you could cause us the greatest humiliation simply by confronting us with something we liked. Not all of us, but so many. Simply by walking up and shaking a set of chitterlings or a well-boiled hog maw at them during the clear light of day! What consternation it would cause! And I saw myself advancing upon Bledsoe, standing bare of his false humility in the crowded lobby of Men's House, and seeing him there and him seeing me and ignoring me and me enraged and suddenly whipping out a foot or two of chitterlings, raw, uncleaned and dripping sticky circles on the floor as I shake them in his face, shouting:
"Bledsoe, you're a shameless chitterling eater! I accuse you of relishing how bowels! Ha! And not only do you eat them, you sneak and eat them in private when you think you're unobserved! You're a sneaking chitterling lover! I accuse you of indulging in a filthy habit, Bledsoe! Lug them out of there, Bledsoe! Lug them out so we can see! I accuse you before the eyes of the world!" And he lugs them out, yards of them, with mustard greens, and racks of pigs' ears, and pork chops and black-eyed peas with dull accusing eyes.
I let out a wild laugh, almost choking over the yam as the scene spun before me. Why, with others present, it would be worse than if I had accused him of raping an old woman of ninety-nine years, weighing ninety pounds . . . blind in one eye and lame in the hip! Bledsoe would disintegrate, disinflate! With a profound sigh he'd drop his head in shame. He'd lose caste. The weekly newspapers would attack him. The captions over his picture: Prominent Educator Reverts to Field Niggerism! His rivals would denounce him as a bad example for the South. Editorials would demand that he either recant or retire from public life. In the South his white folks would desert him; he would be discussed far and wide, and all of the trustees' money couldn't prop up his sagging prestige. He'd end up an exile washing dishes at the Automat. For down South he'd be unable to get a job on the honey wagon.
This is all very wild and childish, I thought, but to hell with being ashamed of what you liked. No more of that for me. I am what I am! I wolfed down the yam and ran back to the old man and handed him twenty cents, "Give me two more," I said.
"Sho, all you want, long as I got 'em. I can see you a serious yam eater, young fellow. You eating them right away?"
"As soon as you give them to me," I said.
"You want 'em buttered?"
"Please."
"Sho, that way you can get the most out of 'em. Yessuh," he said, handing over the yams, "I can see you one of these old-fashioned yam eaters."
"They're my birthmark," I said. "I yam what I am!"
"Then you must be from South Car'lina," he said with a grin.
"South Carolina nothing, where I come from we really go for yams."
"Come back tonight or tomorrow if you can eat some more," he called after me. "My old lady'll be out here with some hot sweet potato fried pies."
Hot fried pies, I thought sadly, moving away. I would probably have indigestion if I ate one—now that I no longer felt ashamed of the things I had always loved, I probably could no longer digest very many of them. What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste! But what of those things which you actually didn't like, not because you were not supposed to like them, not because to dislike them was considered a mark of refinement and education—but because you actually found them distasteful? The very idea annoyed me. How could you know? It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple . . .
But not yams, I had no problem concerning them and I would eat them whenever and wherever I took the notion. Continue on the yam level and life would be sweet—though somewhat yellowish. Yet the freedom to eat yams on the street was far less than I had expected upon coming to the city. An unpleasant taste bloomed in my mouth now as I bit the end of the yam and threw it into the street; it had been frost-bitten.
The wind drove me into a side street where a group of boys had set a packing box afire. The gray smoke hung low and seemed to thicken as I walked with my head down and eyes closed, trying to avoid the fumes. My lungs began to pain; then emerging, wiping my eyes and coughing, I almost stumbled over it: It was piled in a jumble along the walk and over the curb into the street, like a lot of junk waiting to be hauled away. Then I saw the sullen-faced crowd, looking at a building where two white men were toting out a chair in which an old woman sat; who, as I watched, struck at them feebly with her fists. A motherly-looking old woman with her head tied in a handkerchief, wearing a man's shoes and a man's heavy blue sweater. It was startling: The crowd watching silently, the two white men lugging the chair and trying to dodge the blows and the old woman's face streaming with angry tears as she thrashed at them with her fists. I couldn't believe it. Something, a sense of foreboding, filled me, a quick sense of uncleanliness.
"Leave us alone," she cried, "leave us alone!" as the men pulled their heads out of range and sat her down abruptly at the curb, hurrying back into the building.
What on earth, I thought, looking about me. What on earth? The old woman sobbed, pointing to the stuff piled along the curb. "Just look what they doing to us. Just look," looking straight at me. And I realized that what I'd taken for junk was actually worn household furnishings.
"Just look at what they doing," she said, her teary eyes upon my face.
I looked away embarrassed, staring into the rapidly growing crowd. Faces were peering sullenly from the windows above. And now as the two men reappeared at the top of the steps carrying a battered chest of drawers, I saw a third man come out and stand behind them, pulling at his ear as he looked out over the crowd.
"Shake it up, you fellows," he said, "shake it up. We don't have all day."
Then the men came down with the chest and I saw the crowd give way sullenly, the men trudging through, grunting and putting the chest at the curb, then returning into the building without a glance to left or right.
"Look at that," a slender man near me said. "We ought to beat the hell out of those paddies!"
I looked silently into his face, taut and ashy in the cold, his eyes trained upon the men going up the steps.
"Sho, we ought to stop 'em," another man said, "but ain't that much nerve in the whole bunch."
"There's plenty nerve," the slender man said. "All they need is someone to set it off. All they need is a leader. You mean you don't have the nerve."
"Who me?" the man said. "Who me?"
"Yes, you."
"Just look," the old woman said, "just look," her face still turned toward mine. I turned away, edging closer to the two men.
"Who are those men?" I said, edging closer.
"Marshals or something. I don't give a damn who they is."
"Marshals, hell," another man said. "Those guys doing all the toting ain't nothing but trusties. Soon as they get through they'll lock 'em up again."
"I don't care who they are, they got no business putting these old folks out on the sidewalk."
"You mean they're putting them out of their apartment?" I said. "They can do that up here?"
"Man, where you from?" he said, swinging toward me.
"What does it look like they puttin' them out of, a Pullman car? They being evicted!"
I was embarrassed; others were turning to stare. I had never seen an eviction. Someone snickered.
"Where did he come from?"
A flash of heat went over me and J turned. "Look, friends," I said, hearing a hot edge coming into my voice. "I asked a civil question. If you don't care to answer, don't, but don't try to make me look ridiculous."
"Ridiculous? Hell, all scobos is ridiculous. Who the hell is you?"
"Never mind, I am who I am. Just don't beat up your gums at me," I said, throwing him a newly acquired phrase.
Just then one of the men came down the steps with an armful of articles, and I saw the old woman reach up, yelling, "Take your hands off my Bible!" And the crowd surged forward.
The white man's hot eyes swept the crowd. "Where, lady?" he said. "I don't see any Bible."
And I saw her snatch the Book from his arms, clutching it fiercely and sending forth a shriek. "They can come in your home and do what they want to you," she said. "Just come stomping in and jerk your life up by the roots! But this here's the last straw. They ain't going to bother with my Bible!"
The white man eyed the crowd. "Look, lady," he said, more to the rest of us than to her, "I don't want to do this, I have to do it. They sent me up here to do it. If it was left to me, you could stay here till hell freezes over . . ."
"These white folks, Lord. These white folks," she moaned, her eyes turned toward the sky, as an old man pushed past me and went to her.
"Hon, Hon," he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. "It's the agent, not these gentlemen. He's the one; He says it's the bank, but you know he's the one. We've done business with him for over twenty years."
"Don't tell me," she said. "It's all the white folks, not just one. They all against us. Every stinking low-down one of them."
"She's right!" a hoarse voice said. "She's right! They all is!"
Something had been working fiercely inside me, and for a moment I had forgotten the rest of the crowd. Now I recognized a selfconsciousness about them, as though they, we, were ashamed to witness the eviction, as though we were all unwilling intruders upon some shameful event; and thus we were careful not to touch or stare too hard at the effects that lined the curb; for we were witnesses of what we did not wish to see, though curious, fascinated, despite our shame, and through it all the old female, mind-plunging crying.
I looked at the old people, feeling my eyes burn, my throat tighten. The old woman's sobbing was having a strange effect upon me-as when a child, seeing the tears of its parents, is moved by both fear and sympathy to cry. I turned away, feeling myself being drawn to the old couple by a warm, dark, rising whirpool of emotion which I feared. I was wary of what the sight of them crying there on the sidewalk was making me begin to feel. I wanted to leave, but was too ashamed to leave, was rapidly becoming too much a part of it to leave.
I turned aside and looked at the clutter of household objects which the two men continued to pile on the walk. And as the crowd pushed me I looked down to see looking out of an oval frame a portrait of the old couple when young, seeing the sad, stiff dignity of the faces there; feeling strange memories awakening that began an echoing in my head like that of a hysterical voice stuttering in a dark street. Seeing them look back at me as though even then in that nineteenth-century day they had expected little, and this with a grim, unillusioned pride that suddenly seemed to me both a reproach and a warning. My eyes fell upon a pair of crudely carved and polished bones, "knocking bones," used to accompany music at country dances, used in black-face minstrels; the flat ribs of a cow, a steer or sheep, flat bones that gave off a sound, when struck, like heavy castanets (had he been a minstrel?) or the wooden block of a set of drums. Pots and pots of green plants were lined in the dirty snow, certain to die of the cold; ivy, canna, a tomato plant. And in a basket I saw a straightening comb, switches of false hair, a curling iron, a card with silvery letters against a background of dark red velvet, reading "God Bless Our Home"; and scattered across the top of a chiffonier were nuggets of High John the Conqueror, the lucky stone; and as I watched the white men put down a basket in which I saw a whiskey bottle filled with rock candy and camphor, a small Ethiopian flag, a faded tintype of Abraham Lincoln, and the smiling image of a Hollywood star torn from a magazine. And on a pillow several badly cracked pieces of delicate china, a commemorative plate celebrating the St. Louis World Fair . . . I stood in a kind of daze, looking at an old folded lace fan studded with jet and mother-of-pearl.
The crowd surged as the white men came back, knocking over a drawer that spilled its contents in the snow at my feet. I stooped and starting replacing the articles: a bent Masonic emblem, a set of tarnished cuff links, three brass rings, a dime pierced with a nail hole so as to be worn about the ankle on a string for luck, an ornate greeting card with the message "Grandma, I love you" in childish scrawl; another card with a picture of what looked like a white man in black-face seated in the door of a cabin strumming a banjo beneath a bar of music and the lyric "Going back to my old cabin home"; a useless inhalant, a string of bright glass beads with a tarnished clasp, a rabbit foot, a celluloid baseball scoring card shaped like a catcher's mitt, registering a game won or lost years ago; an old breast pump with rubber bulb yellowed with age, a worn baby shoe and a dusty lock of infant hair tied with a faded and crumpled blue ribbon. I felt nauseated. In my hand I held three lapsed life insurance policies with perforated seals stamped "Void"; a yellowing newspaper portrait of a huge black man with the caption: MARCUS GARVEY DEPORTED.
I turned away, bending and searching the dirty snow for anything missed by my eyes, and my fingers closed upon something resting in a frozen footstep: a fragile paper, coming apart with age, written in black ink grown yellow. I read: FREE PAPERS. Be it known to all men that my negro, Primus Provo, has been freed by me this sixth day of August, 1859. Signed: John Samuels Macon . . . I folded it quickly, blotting out the single drop of melted snow which glistened on the yellowed page, and dropped it back into the drawer. My hands were trembling, my breath rasping as if I had run a long distance or come upon a coiled snake in a busy street. It has been longer than that, further removed in time, I told myself, and yet I knew that it hadn't been. I replaced the drawer in the chest and pushed drunkenly to the curb.
But it wouldn't come up, only a bitter spurt of gall filled my mouth and splattered the old folk's possessions. I turned and stared again at the jumble, no longer looking at what was before my eyes, but inwardly-outwardly, around a corner into the dark, far-away-and-long-ago, not so much of my own memory as of remembered words, of linked verbal echoes, images, heard even when not listening at home. And it was as though I myself was being dispossessed of some painful yet precious thing which I could not bear to lose; something confounding, like a rotted tooth that one would rather suffer indefinitely than endure the short, violent eruption of pain that would mark its removal. And with this sense of dispossession came a pang of vague recognition: this junk, these shabby chairs, these heavy, old-fashioned pressing irons, zinc wash tubs with dented bottoms—all throbbed within me with more meaning than there should have been: And why did I, standing in the crowd, see like a vision my mother hanging wash on a cold windy day, so cold that the warm clothes froze even before the vapor thinned and hung stiff on the line, and her hands white and raw in the skirt-swirling wind and her gray head bare to the darkened sky—why were they causing me discomfort so far beyond their intrinsic meaning as objects? And why did I see them now as behind a veil that threatened to lift, stirred by the cold wind in the narrow street?
A scream, "I'm going in!" spun me around. The old couple were on the steps now, the old man holding her arm, the white men leaning forward above, and the crowd pressing me closer to the steps.
"You can't go in, lady," the man said.
"I want to pray!" she said.
"I can't help it, lady. You'll have to do your praying out here."
"I'm go'n in!"
"Not in here!"
"All we want to do is go in and pray," she said, clutching her Bible. "It ain't right to pray in the street like this."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Aw, let the woman go in to pray," a voice called from the crowd. "You got all their stuff out here on the walk—what more do you want, blood?"
"Sure, let them old folks pray."
"That's what's wrong with us now, all this damn praying," another voice called.
"You don't go back, see," the white man said. "You were legally evicted."
"But all we want to do is go in an' kneel on the floor," the old man said. "We been living right here for over twenty years. I don't see why you can't let us go just for a few minutes . . ."
"Look, I've told you," the man said. "I've got my orders. You're wasting my time."
"We're go'n in!" the woman said.
It happened so suddenly that I could barely keep up with it: I saw the old woman clutching her Bible and rushing up the steps, her husband behind her and the white man stepping in front of them and stretching out his arm. "I'll jug you," he yelled, "by God, I'll jug you!"
"Take your hands off that woman!" someone called from the crowd.
Then at the top of the stairs they were pushing against the man and I saw the old woman fall backwards, and the crowd exploded.
"Get that paddie sonofabitch!"
"He struck her!" a West Indian woman screamed into my ear. "The filthy brute, he struck her!"
"Stand back or I'll shoot," the man called, his eyes wild as he drew a gun and backed into the doorway where the two trusties stood bewildered, their arms full of articles. "I swear I'll shoot! You don't know what you're doing, but I'll shoot!"
They hesitated. "Ain't but six bullets in that thing," a little fellow called. "Then what you going to do?"
"Yeah, you damn sho caint hide."
"I advise you to stay out of this," the marshal called.
"Think you can come up here and hit one of our women, you a fool."
"To hell with all this talk, let's rush that bastard!"
"You better think twice," the white man called.
I saw them start up the steps and felt suddenly as though my head would split. I knew that they were about to attack the man and I was both afraid and angry, repelled and fascinated. I both wanted it and feared the consequences, was outraged and angered at what I saw and yet surged with fear; not for the man or of the consequences of an attack, but of what the sight of violence might release in me. And beneath it all there boiled up all the shock-absorbing phrases that I had learned all my life. I seemed to totter on the edge of a great dark hole.
"No, no," I heard myself yelling. "Black men! Brothers! Black Brothers! That's not the way. We're law-abiding. We're a law-abiding people and a slow-to-anger people."
Forcing my way quickly through the crowd, I stood on the steps facing those in front, talking rapidly without thought but out of my clashing emotions. "We're a law-abiding people and a slow-to-anger people . . ." They stopped, listening. Even the white man was startled.
"Yeah, but we mad now," a voice called out.
"Yes, you're right," I called back. "We're angry, but let us be wise. Let us, I mean let us not . . . Let us learn from that great leader whose wise action was reported in the newspaper the other day . . ."
"What, mahn? Who?" a West Indian voice shouted.
"Come on! To hell with this guy, let's get that paddie before they send him some help . . ."
"No, wait," I yelled. "Let's follow a leader, let's organize. Organize. We need someone like that wise leader, you read about him, down in Alabama. He was strong enough to choose to do the wise thing in spite of what he felt himself . . ."
"Who, mahn? Who?"
This was it, I thought, they're listening, eager to listen.
Nobody laughed. If they laugh, I'll die! I tensed my diaphragm.
"That wise man," I said, "you read about him, who when that fugitive escaped from the mob and ran to his school for protection, that wise man who was strong enough to do the legal thing, the law-abiding thing, to turn him over to the forces of law and order . . ."
"Yeah," a voice rang out, "yeah, so they could lynch his ass."
Oh, God, this wasn't it at all. Poor technique and not at all what I intended.
"He was a wise leader," I yelled. "He was within the law. Now wasn't that the wise thing to do?"
"Yeah, he was wise all right," the man laughed angrily. "Now get out of the way so we can jump this paddie."
The crowd yelled and I laughed in response as though hypnotized.
"But wasn't that the human thing to do? After all, he had to protect himself because —"
"He was a handkerchief-headed rat!" a woman screamed, her voice boiling with contempt.
"Yes, you're right. He was wise and cowardly, but what about us? What are we to do?" I yelled, suddenly thrilled by the response. "Look at him," I cried.
"Yes, just look at him!" an old fellow in a derby called out as though answering a preacher in church.
"And look at that old couple . . ."
"Yeah, what about Sister and Brother Provo?" he said. "It's an ungodly shame!"
"And look at their possessions all strewn there on the sidewalk. Just look at their possessions in the snow. How old are you, sir?" I yelled.
"I'm eighty-seven," the old man said, his voice low and bewildered.
"How's that? Yell so our slow-to-anger brethren can hear you."
"I'm eighty-seven years old!"
"Did you hear him? He's eighty-seven. Eighty-seven and look at all he's accumulated in eighty-seven years, strewn in the snow like chicken guts, and we're a law-abiding, slow-to-anger bunch of folks turning the other cheek every day in the week. What are we going to do? What would you, what would I, what would he have done? What is to be done? I propose we do the wise thing, the law-abiding thing. Just look at this junk! Should two old folks live in such junk, cooped up in a filthy room? It's a great danger, a fire hazard! Old cracked dishes and broken-down chairs. Yes, yes, yes! Look at that old woman, somebody's mother, somebody's grandmother, maybe. We call them 'Big Mama' and they spoil us and—you know, you remember . . . Look at her quilts and broken-down shoes. I know she's somebody's mother because I saw an old breast pump fall into the snow, and she's somebody's grandmother, because I saw a card that read 'Dear Grandma' . . . But we're law-abiding . . . I looked into a basket and I saw some bones, not neckbones, but rib bones, knocking bones . . . This old couple used to dance . . . I saw—What kind of work do you do, Father?" I called.
"I'm a day laborer . . ."
". . . A day laborer, you heard him, but look at his stuff strewn like chitterlings in the snow . . . Where has all his labor gone? Is he lying?"
"Hell, no, he ain't lying."
"Naw, suh!"
"Then where did his labor go? Look at his old blues records and her pots of plants, they're down-home folks, and everything tossed out like junk whirled eighty-seven years in a cyclone. Eighty-seven years, and poof! like a snort in a windstorm. Look at them, they look like my mama and papa and my grandma and grandpa, and I look like you and you look like me. Look at them but remember that we're a wise, law-abiding group of people. And remember it when you look up there in the doorway at that law standing there with his forty-five. Look at him, standing with his blue steel pistol and his blue serge suit. Look at him! You don't see just one man dressed in one blue serge suit, or one forty-five, you see ten for every one of us, ten guns and ten warm suits and ten fat bellies and ten million laws. Laws, that's what we call them down South! Laws! And we're wise, and law-abiding. And look at this old woman with her dog-eared Bible. What's she trying to bring off here? She's let her religion go to her head, but we all know that religion is for the heart, not for the head. 'Blessed are the pure in heart,' it says. Nothing about the poor in head. What's she trying to do? What about the clear of head? And the clear of eye, the ice-water-visioned who see too clear to miss a lie? Look out there at her cabinet with its gaping drawers. Eighty-seven years to fill them, and full of brick and brack, a bric-a-brac, and she wants to break the law . . . What's happened to them? They're our people, your people and mine, your parents and mine. What's happened to 'em?"
"I'll tell you!" a heavyweight yelled, pushing out of the crowd, his face angry. "Hell, they been dispossessed, you crazy sonofabitch, get out the way!"
"Dispossessed?" I cried, holding up my hand and allowing the word to whistle from my throat. "That's a good word, 'Dispossessed'! 'Dispossessed,' eighty-seven years and dispossessed of what? They ain't got nothing, they caint get nothing, they never had nothing. So who was dispossessed?" I growled. "We're law-abiding. So who's being dispossessed? Can it be us? These old ones are out in the snow, but we're here with them. Look at their stuff, not a pit to hiss in, nor a window to shout the news and us right with them. Look at them, not a shack to pray in or an alley to sing the blues! They're facing a gun and we're facing it with them. They don't want the world, but only Jesus. They only want Jesus, just fifteen minutes of Jesus on the rug-bare floor . . . How about it, Mr. Law? Do we get our fifteen minutes worth of Jesus? You got the world, can we have our Jesus?"
"I got my orders, Mac," the man called, waving the pistol with a sneer. "You're doing all right, tell 'em to keep out of this. This is legal and I'll shoot if I have to . . ."
"But what about the prayer?"
"They don't go back!"
"Are you positive?"
"You could bet your life," he said.
"Look at him," I called to the angry crowd. "With his blue steel pistol and his blue serge suit. You heard him, he's the law. He says he'll shoot us down because we're a law-abiding people. So we've been dispossessed, and what's more, he thinks he's God. Look up there backed against the post with a criminal on either side of him. Can't you feel the cold wind, can't you hear it asking, 'What did you do with your heavy labor? What did you do?' When you look at all you haven't got in eighty-seven years you feel ashamed —"
"Tell 'em about it, brother," an old man interrupted. "It makes you feel you ain't a man."
"Yes, these old folks had a dream book, but the pages went blank and it failed to give them the number. It was called the Seeing Eye, The Great Constitutional Dream Book, The Secrets of Africa, The Wisdom of Egypt—but the eye was blind, it lost its luster. It's all cataracted like a cross-eyed carpenter and it doesn't saw straight. All we have is the Bible and this Law here rules that out. So where do we go? Where do we go from here, without a pot —"
"We going after that paddie," the heavyweight called, rushing up the steps.
Someone pushed me. "No, wait," I called.
"Get out the way now."
There was a rush against me and I fell, hearing a single explosion, backward into a whirl of milling legs, overshoes, the trampled snow cold on my hands. Another shot sounded above like a bursting bag. Managing to stand, I saw atop the steps the fist with the gun being forced into the air above the crowd's bobbing heads and the next instant they were dragging him down into the snow; punching him left and right, uttering a low tense swelling sound of desperate effort; a grunt that exploded into a thousand softly spat, hate-sizzling curses. I saw a woman striking with the pointed heel of her shoe, her face a blank mask with hollow black eyes as she aimed and struck, aimed and struck, bringing spurts of blood, running along beside the man who was dragged to his feet now as they punched him gauntlet-wise between them. Suddenly I saw a pair of handcuffs arc gleaming into the air and sail across the street. A boy broke out of the crowd, the marshal's snappy hat on his head. The marshal was spun this way and that, then a swift tattoo of blows started him down the street. I was beside myself with excitement. The crowd surged after him, milling like a huge man trying to turn in a cubbyhole—some of them laughing, some cursing, some intently silent.
"The brute struck that gentle woman, poor thing!" the West Indian woman chanted. "Black men, did you ever see such a brute? Is he a gentleman, I ask you? The brute! Give it back to him, black men. Repay the brute a thousandfold! Give it back to him unto the third and fourth generations. Strike him, our fine black men. Protect your black women! Repay the arrogant creature to the third and fourth generations!"
"We're dispossessed," I sang at the top of my voice, "dispossessed and we want to pray. Let's go in and pray. Let's have a big prayer meeting. But we'll need some chairs to sit in . . . rest upon as we kneel. We'll need some chairs!"
"Here's some chairs down here," a woman called from the walk. "How 'bout taking in some chairs?"
"Sure," I called, "take everything. Take it all, hide that junk! Put it back where it came from. It's blocking the street and the sidewalk, and that's against the law. We're law-abiding, so clear the street of the debris. Put it out of sight! Hide it, hide their shame! Hide our shame!
"Come on, men," I yelled, dashing down the steps and seizing a chair and starting back, no longer struggling against or thinking about the nature of my action. The others followed, picking up pieces of furniture and lugging them back into the building.
"We ought to done this long ago," a man said.
"We damn sho should."
"I feel so good," a woman said, "I feel so good!"
"Black men, I'm proud of you," the West Indian woman shrilled. "Proud!"
We rushed into the dark little apartment that smelled of stale cabbage and put the pieces down and returned for more. Men, women and children seized articles and dashed inside shouting, laughing. I looked for the two trusties, but they seemed to have disappeared. Then, coming down into the street, I thought I saw one. He was carrying a chair back inside.
"So you're law-abiding too," I called only to become aware that it was someone else. A white man but someone else altogether.
The man laughed at me and continued inside. And when I reached the street there were several of them, men and women, standing about, cheering whenever another piece of furniture was returned. It was like a holiday. I didn't want it to stop.
"Who are those people?" I called from the steps.
"What people?" someone called back.
"Those," I said, pointing.
"You mean those ofays?"
"Yes, what do they want?"
"We're friends of the people," one of the white men called.
"Friends of what people?" I called, prepared to jump down upon him if he answered, "You people."
"We're friends of all the common people," he shouted. "We came up to help."
"We believe in brotherhood," another called.
"Well, pick up that sofa and come on," I called. I was uneasy about their presence and disappointed when they all joined the crowd and started lugging the evicted articles back inside. Where had I heard of them?
"Why don't we stage a march?" one of the white men called, going past.
"Why don't we march!" I yelled out to the sidewalk before I had time to think.
They took it up immediately.
"Let's march . . ."
"It's a good idea."
"Let's have a demonstration . . ."
"Let's parade!"
I heard the siren and saw the scout cars swing into the block in the same instant. It was the police! I looked into the crowd, trying to focus upon their faces, hearing someone yell, "Here come the cops," and others answering, "Let 'em come!"
Where is all this leading? I thought, seeing a white man run inside the building as the policemen dashed from their cars and came running up.
"What's going on here?" a gold-shield officer called up the steps.
It had become silent. No one answered.
"I said, what's going on here," he repeated. "You," he called, pointing straight at me.
"We've . . . we've been clearing the sidewalk of a lot of junk," I called, tense inside.
"What's that?" he said.
"It's a clean-up campaign," I called, wanting to laugh. "These old folks had all their stuff cluttering up the sidewalk and we cleared the street . . ."
"You mean you're interfering with an eviction," he called, starting through the crowd.
"He ain't doing nothing," a woman called from behind me.
I looked around, the steps behind were filled with those who had been inside.
"We're all together," someone called, as the crowd closed in.
"Clear the streets," the officer ordered.
"That's what we were doing," someone called from back in the crowd.
"Mahoney!" he bellowed to another policeman, "send in a riot call!"
"What riot?" one of the white men called to him. "There's no riot."
"If I say there's a riot, there's a riot," the officer said. "And what are you white people doing up here in Harlem?"
"We're citizens. We go anywhere we like."
"Listen! Here come some more cops!" someone called.
"Let them come!"
"Let the Commissioner come!"
It became too much for me. The whole thing had gotten out of hand. What had I said to bring on all this? I edged to the back of the crowd on the steps and backed into the hallway. Where would I go? I hurried up to the old couple's apartment. But I can't hide here, I thought, heading back for the stairs.
"No. You can't go that way," a voice said.
I whirled. It was a white girl standing in the door.
"What are you doing in here?" I shouted, my fear turning to feverish anger.
"I didn't mean to startle you," she said. "Brother, that was quite a speech you made. I heard just the end of it, but you certainly moved them to action . . ."
"Action," I said, "action —"
"Don't be modest, brother," she said, "I heard you."
"Look, Miss, we'd better get out of here," I said, finally controlling the throbbing in my throat. "There are a lot of policemen downstairs and more coming."
"Oh, yes. You'd better go over the roof," she said. "Otherwise, someone is sure to point you out."
"Over the roof?"
"It's easy. Just go up to the roof of the building and keep crossing until you reach the house at the end of the block. Then open the door and walk down as though you've been visiting. You'd better hurry. The longer you remain unknown to the police, the longer you'll be effective."
Effective? I thought. What did she mean? And what was this "brother" business?
"Thanks," I said, and hurried for the stairs.
"Good-bye," her voice rose fluidly behind me. I turned, glimpsing her white face in the dim light of the darkened doorway.
I took the flight in a bound and cautiously opened the door, and suddenly the sun flared on the roof and it was windy cold. Before me the low, snow-caked walls dividing the buildings stretched hurdle-like the long length of the block to the corner, and before me empty clotheslines trembled in the wind. I made my way through the wind-carved snow to the next roof and then to the next, going with swift caution. Planes were rising over an airfield far to the southeast, and I was running now and seeing all the church steeples rising and falling and stacks with smoke leaning sharp against the sky, and below in the street the sound of sirens and shouting. I hurried. Then, climbing over a wall I looked back, seeing a man hurrying after me, slipping, sliding, going over the low dividing walls of the roofs with puffing, bustling effort. I turned and ran, trying to put the rows of chimneys between us, wondering why he didn't yell "Halt!" or shout, or shoot. I ran, dodging behind an elevator housing, then dashing to the next roof, going down, the snow cold to my hands, knees striking, toes gripping, and up and running and looking back, seeing the short figure in black still running after. The corner seemed a mile away. I tried to count the number of roofs that bounced before me yet to be crossed. Getting to seven, I ran, hearing shouts, more sirens, and looking back and him still behind me, running in a short-legged scramble, still behind me as I tried to open the door of a building to go down and finding it stuck and running once more, trying to zig-zag in the snow and feeling the crunch of gravel underneath, and behind me still, as I swung over a partition and went brushing past a huge cote and arousing a flight of frantic white birds, suddenly as large as buzzards as they beat furiously against my eyes, dazzling the sun as they fluttered up and away and around in a furious glide and me running again and looking back and for a split second thinking him gone and once more seeing him bobbing after. Why doesn't he shoot? Why? If only it were like at home where I knew someone in all the houses, knew them by sight and by name, by blood and by background, by shame and pride, and by religion.
It was a carpeted hall and I moved down with pounding heart as a dog set up a terrific din within the top apartment. Then I moved quickly, my body like glass inside as I skipped downward off the edges of the stairs. Looking down the stairwell I saw pale light filtering through the door glass, far below. But what had happened to the girl, had she put the man on my trail? What was she doing there? I bounded down, no one challenging me, and I stopped in the vestibule, breathing deeply and listening for his hand upon the door above and brushing my clothing into order. Then I stepped into the street with a nonchalance copied from characters I had seen in the movies. No sound from above, not even the malicious note of the barking dog.
It was a long block and I had come down into a building that faced not the street but the avenue. A squad of mounted policemen lashed themselves around the corner and galloped past, the horseshoes thudding dully through the snow, the men rising high in their saddles, shouting. I picked up speed, careful not to run, heading away. This was awful. What on earth had I said to have brought on all this? How would it end? Someone might be killed. Heads would be pistol-whipped. I stopped at the corner, looking for the pursuing man, the detective, and for a bus. The long white stretch of street was empty, the aroused pigeons still circling overhead. I scanned the roofs, expecting to see him peering down. The sound of shouting continued to rise, then another green and white patrol car was whining around the corner and speeding past me, heading for the block. I cut through a block in which there were close to a dozen funeral parlors, each decked out with neon signs, all set up in old brownstone buildings. Elaborate funeral cars stood along the curb, one a dull black with windows shaped like Gothic arches, through which I saw funeral flowers piled upon a casket. I hurried on.
I could see the girl's face still, below the short flight of stairs. But who was the figure that had crossed the roof behind me? Chased me? Why had he been so silent, and why was there only one? Yes, and why hadn't they sent a patrol car to pick me up? I hurried out of the block of funeral parlors into the bright sun that swept the snow of the avenue, slowing to a leisurely walk now, trying to give the impression of a complete lack of haste. I longed to look stupid, utterly incapable of thought or speech, and tried to shuffle my feet over the walk, but quit with distaste after stealing a glance behind me. Just ahead I saw a car pull up and a man leap out with a physician's bag.
"Hurry, Doctor," a man called from the stoop, "she's already in labor!"
"Good," the doctor called. "That's what we've been waiting for, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but it didn't start when we expected it."
I watched them disappear inside the hall. What a hell of a time to be born, I thought. At the corner I joined several people waiting for the lights to change. I had just about convinced myself that I had escaped successfully when a quiet, penetrating voice beside me said, "That was a masterful bit of persuasion, brother."
Suddenly wound tight as a tensioned spring I turned almost lethargically. A short insignificant-looking bushy-eyebrowed man, with a quiet smile on his face stood beside me, looking not at all like a policeman.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice lazy, distant.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, "I'm a friend."
"I've got nothing to be alarmed about, and you're no friend of mine."
"Then say that I'm an admirer," he said pleasantly.
"Admirer of what?"
"Of your speech," he said. "I was listening."
"What speech? I made no speech," I said.
He smiled knowingly. "I can see that you have been well trained. Come, it isn't good for you to be seen with me in the street. Let's go somewhere for a cup of coffee."
Something told me to refuse, but I was intrigued and, underneath it all, was probably flattered. Besides, if I refused to go, it would be taken as an admission of guilt. And he didn't look like a policeman or a detective. I went silently beside him to a cafeteria down near the end of the block, seeing him peer inside through the window before we entered.
"You get the table, brother. Over there near the wall where we can talk in peace. I'll get the coffee."
I watched him going across the floor with a bouncy, rolling step, then found a table and sat watching him. It was warm in the cafeteria. It was late afternoon now only a few customers were scattered at the tables. I watched the man going familiarly to the food counter and ordering. His movements, as he peered through the brightly lighted shelves of pastry, were those of a lively small animal, a fyce, interested in detecting only the target cut of cake. So he's heard my speech; well, I'll hear what he has to say, I thought, seeing him start toward me with his rapid, rolling, bouncy, heel-and-toey step. It was as though he had taught himself to walk that way and I had a feeling that somehow he was acting a part; that something about him wasn't exactly real—an idea which I dismissed immediately, since there was a quality of unreality over the whole afternoon. He came straight to the table without having to look about for me, as though he had expected me to take that particular table and no other—although many tables were vacant. He was balancing a plate of cake on top of each cup, setting them down deftly and shoving one toward me as he took his chair.
"I thought you might like a piece of cheese cake," he said.
"Cheese cake?" I said. "I've never heard of it."
"It's nice. Sugar?"
"Go ahead," I said.
"No, after you, brother."
I looked at him, then poured three spoonfuls and shoved the shaker toward him. I was tense again.
"Thanks," I said, repressing an impulse to call him down about the "brother" business.
He smiled, cutting into his cheese cake with a fork and shoving far too large a piece into his mouth. His manners are extremely crude, I thought, trying to put him at a disadvantage in my own mind by pointedly taking a small piece of the cheesy stuff and placing it neatly into my mouth.
"You know," he said, taking a gulp of coffee, "I haven't heard such an effective piece of eloquence since the days when I was in—well, in a long time. You aroused them so quickly to action. I don't understand how you managed it. If only some of our speakers could have listened! With a few words you had them involved in action! Others would have still been wasting time with empty verbiage. I want to thank you for a most instructive experience!"
I drank my coffee silently. Not only did I distrust him, I didn't know how much I could safely say.
"The cheese cake here is good," he said before I could answer. "It's really very good. By the way, where did you learn to speak?"
"Nowhere," I said, much too quickly.
"Then you're very talented. You are a natural. It's hard to believe."
"I was simply angry," I said, deciding to admit this much in order to see what he would reveal.
"Then your anger was skillfully controlled. It had eloquence. Why was that?"
"Why? I suppose I felt sorry—I don't know. Maybe I just felt like making a speech. There was the crowd waiting, so I said a few words. You might not believe it, but I didn't know what I was going to say . . ."
"Please," he said, with a knowing smile.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"You try to sound cynical, but I see through you. I know, I listened very carefully to what you had to say. You were enormously moved. Your emotions were touched."
"I guess so," I said. "Maybe seeing them reminded me of something."
He leaned forward, watching me intensely now, the smile still on his lips.
"Did it remind you of people you know?"
"I guess it did," I said.
"I think I understand. You were watching a death —"
I dropped my fork. "No one was killed," I said tensely. "What are you trying to do?"
"A Death on the City Pavements—that's the title of a detective story or something I read somewhere . . ." He laughed. "I only mean meta-phor-ically speaking. They're living, but dead. Dead-in-living . . . a unity of opposites."
"Oh," I said. What kind of double talk was this?
"The old ones, they're agrarian types, you know. Being ground up by industrial conditions. Thrown on the dump heaps and cast aside. You pointed it out very well. 'Eighty-seven years and nothing to show for it,' you said. You were absolutely correct."
"I suppose that seeing them like that made me feel pretty bad," I said.
"Yes, of course. And you made an effective speech. But you musn't waste your emotions on individuals, they don't count."
"Who doesn't count?" I said.
"Those old ones," he said grimly. "It's sad, yes. But they're already dead, defunct. History has passed them by. Unfortunate, but there's nothing to do about them. They're like dead limbs that must be pruned away so that the tree may bear young fruit or the storms of history will blow them down anyway. Better the storm should hit them —"
"But look —"
"No, let me continue. These people are old. Men grow old and types of men grow old. And these are very old. All they have left is their religion. That's all they can think about. So they'll be cast aside. They're dead, you see, because they're incapable of rising to the necessity of the historical situation."
"But I like them," I said. "I like them, they reminded me of folks I know down South. It's taken me a long time to feel it, but they're folks just like me, except that I've been to school a few years."
He wagged his round red head. "Oh, no, brother; you're mistaken and you're sentimental. You're not like them. Perhaps you were, but you're not any longer. Otherwise you'd never have made that speech. Perhaps you were, but that's all past, dead. You might not recognize it just now, but that part of you is dead! You have not completely shed that self, that old agrarian self, but it's dead and you will throw it off completely and emerge something new. History has been born in your brain."
"Look," I said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I've never lived on a farm and I didn't study agriculture, but I do know why I made that speech."
"Then why?"
"Because I was upset over seeing those old folks put out in the street, that's why. I don't care what you call it, I was angry."
He shrugged. "Let's not argue about it," he said. "I've a notion you could do it again. Perhaps you would be interested in working for us."
"For whom?" I asked, suddenly excited. What was he trying to do?
"With our organization. We need a good speaker for this district. Someone who can articulate the grievances of the people," he said.
"But nobody cares about their grievances," I said. "Suppose they were articulated, who would listen or care?"
"They exist," he said with his knowing smile. "They exist, and when the cry of protest is sounded, there are those who will hear it and act."
There was something mysterious and smug in the way he spoke, as though he had everything figured out—whatever he was talking about. Look at this very most certain white man, I thought. He didn't even realize that I was afraid and yet he speaks so confidently. I got to my feet, "I'm sorry," I said, "I have a job and I'm not interested in anyone's grievances but my own . . ."
"But you were concerned with that old couple," he said with narrowed eyes. "Are they relatives of yours?"
"Sure, we're all black," I said, beginning to laugh.
He smiled, his eyes intense upon my face.
"Seriously, are they your relatives?"
"Sure, we were burned in the same oven," I said.
The effect was electric. "Why do you fellows always talk in terms of race!" he snapped, his eyes blazing.
"What other terms do you know?" I said, puzzled. "You think I would have been around there if they had been white?"
He threw up his hands and laughed. "Let's not argue that now," he said. "You were very effective in helping them. I can't believe that you're such an individualist as you pretend. You appeared to be a man who knew his duty toward the people and performed it well. Whatever you think about it personally, you were a spokesman for your people and you have a duty to work in their interest."
He was too complicated for me. "Look, my friend, thanks for the coffee and cake. I have no more interest in those old folks than in your job. I wanted to make a speech. I like to make speeches. What happened afterwards is a mystery to me. You picked the wrong man. You should have stopped one of those fellows who started yelling at the policemen . . ." I stood up.
"Wait a second," he said, producing a piece of envelope and scribbling something. "You might change your mind. As for those others, I know them already."
I looked at the white paper in his extended hand.
"You are wise to distrust me," he said. "You don't know who I am and you don't trust me. That's as it should be. But I don't give up hope, because some day you will look me up on your own accord and it will be different, for then you'll be ready. Just call this number and ask for Brother Jack. You needn't give me your name, just mention our conversation. Should you decide tonight, give me a ring about eight."
"Okay," I said, taking the paper. "I doubt if I'll ever need it, but who knows?"
"Well, you think about it, brother. Times are grave and you seem very indignant."
"I only wanted to make a speech," I said again.
"But you were indignant. And sometimes the difference between individual and organized indignation is the difference between criminal and political action," he said.
I laughed, "So what? I'm neither a criminal nor a politician, brother. So you picked the wrong man. But thanks again for the coffee and cheese cake—brother."
I left him sitting with a quiet smile on his face. When I had crossed the avenue I looked through the glass, seeing him still there, and it occurred to me that he was the same man who had followed me over the roof. He hadn't been chasing me at all but only going in the same direction. I hadn't understood much of what he had said, only that he had spoken with great confidence. Anyway, I had been the better runner. Perhaps it was a trick of some kind. He gave the impression that he understood much and spoke out of a knowledge far deeper than appeared on the surface of his words. Perhaps it was only the knowledge that he had escaped by the same route as I. But what had he to fear? I had made the speech, not he. That girl in the apartment had said that the longer I remained unseen the longer I'd be effective, which didn't make much sense either. But perhaps that was why he had run. He wanted to remain unseen and effective. Effective at what? No doubt he was laughing at me. I must have looked silly hurtling across the roofs, and like a black-face comedian shrinking from a ghost when the white pigeons shot up around me. To hell with him. He needn't be so smug, I knew of some things he didn't know. Let him find someone else. He only wanted to use me for something. Everybody wanted to use you for some purpose. Why should he want me as a speaker? Let him make his own speeches. I headed for home, feeling a growing satisfaction that I had dismissed him so completely.
It was turning dark now, and much colder. Colder than I had ever known. What on earth was it, I mused, bending my head to the wind, that made us leave the warm, mild weather of home for all this cold, and never to return, if not something worth hoping for, freezing for, even being evicted for? I felt sad. An old woman passed, bent down with two shopping bags, her eyes upon the slushy walk, and I thought of the old couple at the eviction. How had it ended and where were they now? What an awful emotion. What had he called it—a death on the city pavements? How often did such things occur? And what would he say of Mary? She was far from dead, or of being ground to bits by New York. Hell, she knew very well how to live here, much better than I with my college training—training! Bledsoing, that was the term. And I was the one being ground up, not Mary. Thinking of her made me feel better. I couldn't imagine Mary being as helpless as the old woman at the eviction, and by the time I reached the apartment I had begun to lose my depression.