Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Only my Bledsoe-trustee inspired compulsion to read all papers that touched my hands prevented me from throwing the envelope aside. It was unstamped and appeared to be the least important item in the morning's mail:

Brother,
This is advice from a friend who has been watching you closely. Do not go too fast. Keep working for the people but remember that you are one of us and do not forget if you get too big they will cut you down. You are from the South and you know that this is a white man's world. So take a friendly advice and go easy so that you can keep on helping the colored people. They do not want you to go too fast and will cut you down if you do. Be smart . . .

I shot to my feet, the paper rattling poisonously in my hands. What did it mean? Who'd send such a thing?
"Brother Tarp!" I called, reading again the wavery lines of a handwriting that was somehow familiar. "Brother Tarp!"
"What is it, son?"
And looking up, I received another shock. Framed there in the gray, early morning light of the door, my grandfather seemed to look from his eyes. I gave a quick gasp, then there was a silence in which I could hear his wheezing breath as he eyed me unperturbed.
"What's wrong?" he said, limping into the room.
I reached for the envelope. "Where did this come from?" I said.
"What is it?" he said, taking it calmly from my hands.
"It's unstamped."
"Oh, yes—I saw it myself," he said. "I reckon somebody put it in the box late last night. I took it out with the regular mail. Is it something that wasn't for you?"
"No," I said, avoiding his eyes. "But—it isn't dated. I was wondering when it arrived—Why are you staring at me?"
"Because looks to me like you seen a ghost. You feel sick?"
"It's nothing," I said. "Just a slight upset."
There was an awkward silence. He stood there and I forced myself to look at his eyes again, finding my grandfather gone, leaving only the searching calm. I said, "Sit down a second, Brother Tarp. Since you're here I'd like to ask you a question."
"Sure," he said, dropping into a chair. "Go 'head."
"Brother Tarp, you get around and know the members—how do they really feel about me?"
He cocked his head. "Why, sure—they think you're going to make a real leader —"
"But?"
"Ain't no buts, that's what they think and I don't mind telling you."
"But what about the others?"
"What others?"
"The ones who don't think so much of me?"
"Them's the ones I haven't heard about, son."
"But I must have some enemies," I said.
"Sure, I guess everybody has 'em, but I never heard of anybody here in the Brotherhood not liking you. As far as folks up here is concerned they think you're it. You heard any different?"
"No, but I was wondering. I've been going along taking them so much for granted that I thought I'd better check so that I can keep their support."
"Well, you don't have to worry. So far, nearly everything you had anything to do with has turned out to be what the folks like, even things some of 'em resisted. Take that there," he said, pointing to the wall near my desk.
It was a symbolic poster of a group of heroic figures: An American Indian couple, representing the dispossessed past; a blond brother (in overalls) and a leading Irish sister, representing the dispossessed present; and Brother Tod Clifton and a young white couple (it had been felt unwise simply to show Clifton and the girl) surrounded by a group of children of mixed races, representing the future, a color photograph of bright skin texture and smooth contrast.
"So?" I said, staring at the legend:

"After the Struggle: The Rainbow of America's Future"

"Well, when you first suggested it, some of the members was against you."
"That's certainly true."
"Sho, and they raised the devil about the youth members going into the subways and sticking 'em up in place of them constipation ads and things—but do you know what they doing now?"
"I guess they're holding it against me because some of the kids were arrested," I said.
"Holding it against you? Hell, they going around bragging about it. But what I was about to say is they taking them rainbow pictures and tacking 'em to their walls 'long with 'God Bless Our Home' and the Lord's Prayer. They're crazy about it. And same way with the Hot-Footers and all that. You don't have to worry, son. They might resist some of your ideas, but when the deal goes down, they with you right on down to the ground. The only enemies you likely to have is somebody on the outside who's jealous to see you spring up all of a sudden and start to doing some of the things what should of been done years ago. And what do you care when some folks start knocking you? It's a sign you getting some place."
"I'd like to believe so, Brother Tarp," I said. "As long as I have the people with me I'll believe in what I'm doing."
"That's right," he said. "When things get rough it kind of helps to know you got support —" His voice broke off and he seemed to stare down at me, although he faced me at eye level acrosis the desk.
"What is it, Brother Tarp?"
"You from down South, ain't you, son?"
"Yes," I said.
He turned in his chair, sliding one hand into his pocket as he rested his chin upon the other. "I don't really have the words to say what just come into my head, son. You see, I was down there for a long time before I come up here, and when I did come up they was after me. What I mean is, I had to escape, I had to come a-running."
"I guess I did too, in a way," I said.
"You mean they were after you too?"
"Not really, Brother Tarp, I just feel that way."
"Well this ain't exactly the same thing," he said. "You notice this limp I got?"
"Yes."
"Well, I wasn't always lame, and I'm not really now 'cause the doctors can't find anything wrong with that leg. They say it's sound as a piece of steel. What I mean is I got this limp from dragging a chain."
I couldn't see it in his face or hear it in his speech, yet I knew he was neither lying nor trying to shock me. I shook my head.
"Sure," he said. "Nobody knows that about me, they just think I got rheumatism. But it was that chain and after nineteen years I haven't been able to stop dragging my leg."
"Nineteen years!"
"Nineteen years, six months and two days. And what I did wasn't much; that is, it wasn't much when I did it. But after all that time it changed into something else and it seemed to be as bad as they said it was. All that time made it bad. I paid for it with everything I had but my life. I lost my wife and my boys and my piece of land. So what started out as an argument between a couple of men turned out to be a crime worth nineteen years of my life."
"What on earth did you do, Brother Tarp?"
"I said no to a man who wanted to take something from me; that's what it cost me for saying no and even now the debt ain't fully paid and will never be paid in their terms."
A pain throbbed in my throat and I felt a kind of numb despair. Nineteen years! And here he was talking quietly to me and this no doubt the first time he'd tried to tell anyone about it. But why me, I thought, why pick me?
"I said no," he said. "I said hell, no! And I kept saying no until I broke the chain and left."
"But how?"
"They let me get close to the dogs once in a while, that's how. I made friends with them dogs and I waited. Down there you really learn how to wait. I waited nineteen years and then one morning when the river was flooding I left. They thought I was one of them who got drowned when the levee broke, but I done broke the chain and gone. I was standing in the mud holding a long-handled shovel and I asked myself, Tarp, can you make it? And inside me I said yes; all that water and mud and rain said yes, and I took off."
Suddenly he gave a laugh so gay it startled me.
"I'm tellin' it better'n I ever thought I could," he said, fishing in his pocket and removing something that looked like an oilskin tobacco pouch, from which he removed an object wrapped in a handkerchief.
"I've been looking for freedom ever since, son. And sometimes I've done all right. Up to these here hard times I did very well, considering that I'm a man whose health is not too good. But even when times were best for me I remembered. Because I didn't want to forget those nineteen years I just kind of held on to this as a keepsake and a reminder."
He was unwrapping the object now and I watched his old man's hands.
"I'd like to pass it on to you, son. There," he said, handing it to me. "Funny thing to give somebody, but I think it's got a heap of signifying wrapped up in it and it might help you remember what we're really fighting against. I don't think of it in terms of but two words, yes and no; but it signifies a heap more . . ."
I saw him place his hand on the desk. "Brother," he said, calling me "Brother" for the first time, "I want you to take it. I guess it's a kind of luck piece. Anyway, it's the one I filed to get away."
I took it in my hand, a thick, dark, oily piece of filed steel that had been twisted open and forced partly back into place, on which I saw marks that might have been made by the blade of a hatchet. It was such a link as I had seen on Bledsoe's desk, only while that one had been smooth, Tarp's bore the marks of haste and violence, looking as though it had been attacked and conquered before it stubbornly yielded.
I looked at him and shook my head as he watched me inscrutably. Finding no words to ask him more about it, I slipped the link over my knuckles and struck it sharply against the desk.
Brother Tarp chuckled. "Now there's a way I never thought of using it," he said. "It's pretty good. It's pretty good."
"But why do you give it to me, Brother Tarp?"
"Because I have to, I guess. Now don't go trying to get me to say what I can't. You're the talker, not me," he said, getting up and limping toward the door. "It was lucky to me and I think it might be lucky to you. You just keep it with you and look at it once in a while. Course, if you get tired of it, why, give it back."
"Oh, no," I called after him, "I want it and I think I understand. Thanks for giving it to me."
I looked at the dark band of metal against my fist and dropped it upon the anonymous letter. I neither wanted it nor knew what to do with it; although there was no question of keeping it if for no other reason than that I felt that Brother Tarp's gesture in offering it was of some deeply felt significance which I was compelled to respect. Something, perhaps, like a man passing on to his son his own father's watch, which the son accepted not because he wanted the old-fashioned time-piece for itself, but because of the overtones of unstated seriousness and solemnity of the paternal gesture which at once joined him with his ancestors, marked a high point of his present, and promised a concreteness to his nebulous and chaotic future. And now I remembered that if I had returned home instead of coming north my father would have given me my grandfather's old-fashioned Hamilton, with its long, burr-headed winding stem. Well, so my brother would get it and I'd never wanted it anyway. What were they doing now, I brooded, suddenly sick for home.
I could feel the air from the window hot against my neck now as through the smell of morning coffee I heard a throaty voice singing with a mixture of laughter and solemnity:

Don't come early in the morning
Neither in the heat of the day
But come in the sweet cool of the
Evening and wash my sins away . . .

A whole series of memories started to well up, but I threw them off. There was no time for memory, for all its images were of times passed.
There had been only a few minutes from the time that I'd called in Brother Tarp about the letter and his leaving, but it seemed as though I'd plunged down a well of years. I looked calmly now at the writing which, for a moment, had shaken my total structure of certainty, and was glad that Brother Tarp had been there to be called rather than Clifton or some of the others before whom I would have been ashamed of my panic. Instead he'd left me soberly confident. Perhaps from the shock of seeming to see my grandfather looking through Tarp's eyes, perhaps through the calmness of his voice alone, or perhaps through his story and his link of chain, he had restored my perspective.
He's right, I thought; whoever sent the message is trying to confuse me; some enemy is trying to halt our progress by destroying my faith through touching upon my old southern distrust, our fear of white betrayal. It was as though he had learned of my experience with Bledsoe's letters and was trying to use that knowledge to destroy not only me but the whole Brotherhood. Yet that was impossible; no one knew that story who knew me now. It was simply an obscene coincidence. If only I could get my hands upon his stupid throat. Here in the Brotherhood was the one place in the country where we were free and given the greatest encouragement to use our abilities, and he was trying to destroy it! No, it wasn't me he was worrying about becoming too big, it was the Brotherhood. And becoming big was exactly what the Brotherhood wanted. Hadn't I just received orders to submit ideas for organizing more people? And "a white man's world" was just what the Brotherhood was against. We were dedicated to building a world of Brotherhood.
But who had sent it—Ras the Exhorter? No, it wasn't like him. He was more direct and absolutely against any collaboration between blacks and whites. It was someone else, someone more insidious than Ras. But who, I wondered, forcing it below my consciousness as I turned to the tasks at hand.
The morning began with people asking my advice on how to secure relief; members coming in for instructions for small committee meetings being held in corners of the large hall; and I had just dismissed a woman seeking to free her husband, who had been jailed for beating her, when Brother Wrestrum entered the room. I returned his greeting and watched him ease into a chair, his eyes sweeping over my desk-with uneasiness. He seemed to possess some kind of authority in the Brotherhood, but his exact function was unclear. He was, I felt, something of a meddler.
And hardly had he settled himself when he stared at my desk, saying, "What you got there, Brother?" and pointed toward a pile of my papers.
I leaned slowly back in my chair, looking him in the eye. "That's my work," I said coldly, determined to stop any interference from the start.
"But I mean that," he said, pointing, his eyes beginning to blaze, "that there."
"It's work," I said, "all my work."
"Is that too?" he said, pointing to Brother Tarp's leg link.
"That's just a personal present, Brother," I said. "What could I do for you?"
"That ain't what I asked you, Brother. What is it?"
I picked up the link and held it toward him, the metal oily and strangely skinlike now with the slanting sun entering the window. "Would you care to examine it, Brother? One of our members wore it nineteen years on the chain gang."
"Hell, no!" He recoiled. "I mean, no, thank you. In fact, Brother, I don't think we ought to have such things around!"
"You think so," I said. "And just why?"
"Because I don't think we ought to dramatize our differences."
"I'm not dramatizing anything, it's my personal property that happens to be lying on my desk."
"But people can see it!"
"That's true," I said. "But I think it's a good reminder of what our movement is fighting against."
"No, suh!" he said, shaking his head, "no, suh! That's the worse kind of thing for Brotherhood—because we want to make folks think of the things we have in common. That's what makes for Brotherhood. We have to change this way we have of always talking about how different we are. In the Brotherhood we are all brothers."
I was amused. He was obviously disturbed by something deeper than a need to forget differences. Fear was in his eyes. "I never thought of it in just that way, Brother," I said, dangling the iron between my finger and thumb.
"But you want to think about it," he said. "We have to discipline ourselves. Things that don't make for Brotherhood have to be rooted out. We have enemies, you know. I watch everything I do and say so as to be sure that I don't upset the Brotherhood—'cause this is a wonderful movement, Brother, and we have to keep it that way. We have to watch ourselves, Brother. You know what I mean? Too often we're liable to forget that this is something that's a privilege to belong to. We're liable to say things that don't do nothing but make for more misunderstanding."
What's driving him, I thought, what's all this to do with me? Could he have sent me the note? Dropping the iron I fished the anonymous note from beneath the pile and held it by a corner, so that the slanting sun shone through the page and outlined the scrawling letters. I watched him intently. He was leaning upon the desk now, looking at the page but with no recognition in his eyes. I dropped the page upon the chain, more disappointed than relieved.
"Between you and me, Brother," he said, "there are those amongst us who don't really believe in Brotherhood."
"Oh?"
"You damn right they don't! They're just in it to use it for their own ends. Some call you Brother to your face and the minute you turn your back, you're a black son of a bitch! You got to watch 'em."
"I haven't encountered any of that, Brother," I said.
"You will. There's lots of poison around. Some don't want to shake your hand and some don't like the idea of seeing too much of you; but goddam it, in the Brotherhood they gotta!"
I looked at him. It had never occurred to me that the Brotherhood could force anyone to shake my hand, and that he found satisfaction that it could was both shocking and distasteful.
Suddenly he laughed. "Yes, dammit, they gotta! Me, I don't let 'em get away with nothing. If they going to be brothers let 'em be brothers! Oh, but I'm fair," he said, his face suddenly self-righteous. "I'm fair. I ask myself every day, 'What are you doing against Brotherhood?' and when I find it, I root it out, I burn it out like a man cauterizing a mad-dog bite. This business of being a brother is a full-time job. You have to be pure in heart, and you have to be disciplined in body and mind. Brother, you understand what I mean?"
"Yes, I think I do," I said. "Some folks feel that way about their religion."
"Religion?" He blinked his eyes. "Folks like me and you is full of distrust," he said. "We been corrupted 'til it's hard for some of us to believe in Brotherhood. And some even want revenge! That's what I'm talking about. We have to root it out! We have to learn to trust our other brothers. After all, didn't they start the Brotherhood? Didn't they come and stretch out their hand to us black men and say, 'We want y'all for our brothers?' Didn't they do it? Didn't they, now? Didn't they set out to organize us, and help fight our battle and all like that? Sho they did, and we have to remember it twenty-four hours a day. Brotherhood. That's the word we got to keep right in front of our eyes every second. Now this brings me to why I come to see you, Brother."
He sat back, his huge hands grasping his knees. "I got a plan I want to talk over with you."
"What is it, Brother?" I said.
"Well, it's like this. I think we ought to have some way of showing what we are. We ought to have some banners and things like that. Specially for us black brothers."
"I see," I said, becoming interested. "But why do you think this is important?"
" 'Cause it helps the Brotherhood, that's why. First, if you remember, when you watch our people when there's a parade or a funeral, or a dance or anything like that, they always have some kind of flags and banners even if they don't mean anything. It kind of makes the occasion seem more important like. It makes people stop look and listen. 'What's coming off here?' But you know and I know that they ain't none of 'em got no true flag—except maybe Ras the Exhorter, and he claims he's Ethiopian or African. But none of us got no true flag 'cause that flag don't really belong to us. They want a true flag, one that's as much theirs as anybody else's. You know what I mean?"
"Yes, I think I do," I said, remembering that there was always that sense in me of being apart when the flag went by. It had been a reminder, until I'd found the Brotherhood, that my star was not yet there . . .
"Sure, you know," Brother Wrestrum said. "Everybody wants a flag. We need a flag that stands for Brotherhood, and we need a sign we can wear."
"A sign?"
"You know, a pin or a button."
"You mean an emblem?"
"That's it! Something we can wear, a pin or something like that. So that when a Brother meets a Brother they can know it. That way that thing what happened to Brother Tod Clifton wouldn't have happened . . ."
"What wouldn't have happened?"
He sat back. "Don't you know about it?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"It's something that's best forgot about," he said, leaning close, his big hands gripped and stretched before him. "But you see, there was a rally and some hoodlums tried to break up the meeting, and in the fighting Brother Tod Clifton got holt to one of the white brothers by mistake and was beating him, thought he was one of the hoodlums, he said. Things like that is bad, Brother, very bad. But with some of these emblems, things like that wouldn't happen."
"So that actually happened," I said.
"Sure did. That Brother Clifton goes wild when he gits mad . . . But what do you think of my idea?"
"I think it should be brought to the attention of the committee," I said guardedly, as the phone rang. "Excuse me a moment, Brother," I said.
It was the editor of a new picture magazine requesting an interview of "one of our most successful young men."
"That's very flattering," I said, "but I'm afraid I'm too busy for an interview. I suggest, however, that you interview our youth leader, Brother Tod Clifton; you'll find him a much more interesting subject."
"No, no!" Wrestrum said, shaking his head violently as the editor said, "But we want you. You've —"
"And you know," I interrupted, "our work is considered very controversial, certainly by some."
"That's exactly why we want you. You've become identified with that controversy and it's our job to bring such subjects to the eyes of our readers."
"But so has Brother Clifton," I said.
"No, sir; you're the man and you owe it to our youth to allow us to tell them your story," he said, as I watched Brother Wrestrum leaning forward. "We feel that they should be encouraged to keep fighting toward success. After all, you're one of the latest to fight his way to the top. We need all the heroes we can get."
"But, please," I laughed over the phone, "I'm no hero and I'm far from the top; I'm a cog in a machine. We here in the Brotherhood work as a unit," I said, seeing Brother Wrestrum nod his head in agreement.
"But you can't get around the fact that you're the first of our people to attract attention to it, can you now?"
"Brother Clifton was active at least three years before me. Besides, it isn't that simple. Individuals don't count for much; it's what the group wants, what the group does. Everyone here submerges his personal ambitions for the common achievement."
"Good! That's very good. People want to hear that. Our people need to have someone say that to them. Why don't you let me send out an interviewer? I'll have her there in twenty minutes."
"You're very insistent, but I'm very busy," I said.
And if Brother Wrestrum hadn't been wig-wagging, trying to tell me what to say I would have refused. Instead, I consented. Perhaps, I thought, a little friendly publicity wouldn't hurt. Such a magazine would reach many timid souls living far from the sound of our voices. I had only to remember to say little about my past.
"I'm sorry for this interruption, Brother," I said, putting down the phone and looking into his curious eyes. "I'll bring your idea to the attention of the committee as quickly as possible."
I stood to discourage further talk and he got up, fairly bursting to continue.
"Well, I've got to see some other brothers myself," he said, "I'll be seeing you soon."
"Anytime," I said, avoiding his hand by picking up some papers.
Going out, he turned with his hand on the door frame, frowning. "And, Brother, don't forget what I said about that thing you got on your desk. Things like that don't do nothin' but cause confusion. They ought to be kept out of sight."
I was glad to see him go. The idea of his trying to tell me what to say in a conversation only part of which he could have heard! And it was obvious that he disliked Clifton. Well, I disliked him. And all that foolishness and fear over the leg chain. Tarp had worn it for nineteen years and could laugh, but this big—
Then I forgot Brother Wrestrum until about two weeks later at our downtown headquarters, where a meeting had been called to discuss strategy.


EVERYONE had arrived before me. Long benches were arranged at one side of the room, which was hot and filled with smoke. Usually such meetings sounded like a prizefight or a smoker, but now everyone was silent. The white brothers looked uncomfortable and some of the Harlem brothers belligerent. Nor did they leave me time to think about it. No sooner had I apologized for my lateness than Brother Jack struck the table with his gavel, addressing his first remarks to me.
"Brother, there seems to be a serious misunderstanding among some of the brothers concerning your work and recent conduct," he said.
I stared at him blankly, my mind groping for connections. "I'm sorry, Brother Jack," I said, "but I don't understand. You mean there's something wrong with my work?"
"So it seems," he said, his face completely neutral. "Certain charges have just been made . . ."
"Charges? Have I failed to carry out some directive?"
"About that there seems to be some doubt. But we'd better let Brother Wrestrum speak of this," he said.
"Brother Wrestrum!"
I was shocked. He hadn't been around since our talk, and I looked across the table into his evasive face, seeing him stand with a slouch, a rolled paper protruding from his pocket.
"Yes, Brothers," he said, "I brought charges, much as I hated to have to do it. But I been watching the way things have been going and I've decided that if they don't stop soon, this brother is going to make a fool out of the Brotherhood!"
There were some sounds of protest.
"Yes, I said it and I mean it! This here brother constitutes one of the greatest dangers ever confronted by our movement."
I looked at Brother Jack; his eyes were sparkling. I seemed to see traces of a smile as he scribbled something on a pad. I was becoming very hot.
"Be more specific, Brother," Brother Garnett, a white brother, said. "These are serious charges and we all know that the brother's work has been splendid. Be specific."
"Sho, I'll be specific," Wrestrum boomed, suddenly whipping the paper from his pocket, unrolling it and throwing it on the table. "This here's what I mean!"
I took a step forward; it was a portrait of me looking out from a magazine page.
"Where did that come from?" I said.
"That's it," he boomed. "Make out like you never seen it."
"But I haven't," I said. "I really haven't."
"Don't lie to these white brothers. Don't lie!"
"I'm not lying. I never saw it before in my life. But suppose I had, what's wrong with it?"
"You know what's wrong!" Wrestrum said.
"Look, I don't know anything. What's on your mind? You have us all here, so if you have anything to say, please get it over with."
"Brothers, this man is a—a—opportunist! All you got to do is read this article to see. I charge this man with using the Brotherhood movement to advance his own selfish interests."
"Article?" Then I remembered the interview which I had forgotten. I met the eyes of the others as they looked from me to Wrestrum.
"And what does it say about us?" Brother Jack said, pointing to the magazine.
"Say?" Wrestrum said. "It doesn't say anything. It's all about him. What he thinks, what he does; what he's going to do. Not a word about the rest of us who's been building the movement before he was ever heard of. Look at it, if you think I'm lying. Look at it!"
Brother Jack turned to me. "Is this true?"
"I haven't read it," I said. "I had forgotten that I was interviewed."
"But you remember it now?" Brother Jack said.
"Yes, I do now. And he happened to be in the office when the appointment was made."
They were silent.
"Hell, Brother Jack," Wrestrum said, "it's right here in black and white. He's trying to give people the idea that he's the whole Brotherhood movement."
"I'm doing nothing of the sort. I tried to get the editor to interview Brother Tod Clifton, you know that. Since you know so little about what I'm doing, why not tell the brothers what you're up to."
"I'm exposing a double-dealer, that's what I'm doing. I'm exposing you. Brothers, this man is a pure dee opportunist!"
"All right," I said, "expose me if you can, but stop the slander."
"I'll expose you, all right," he said, sticking out his chin. "I'm going to. He's doing everything I said, Brothers. And I'll tell you something else—he's trying to sew things up so that the members won't move unless he tells them to. Look at a few weeks ago when he was off in Philly. We tried to get a rally going and what happens? Only about two hundred people turned out. He's trying to train them so they won't listen to no one but him."
"But, Brother, didn't we decide that the appeal had been improperly phrased?" a brother interrupted.
"Yeah, I know, but that wasn't it . . ."
"But the committee analyzed the appeal and —"
"I know, Brothers, and I don't aim to dispute the committee. But, Brothers, it just seems that way 'cause you don't know this man. He works in the dark, he's got some kind of plot . . ."
"What kind of plot?" one of the brothers said, leaning across the table.
"Just a plot," Wrestrum said. "He aims to control the movement uptown. He wants to be a dictator!"
The room was silent except for the humming of fans. They looked at him with a new concern.
"These are very serious charges, Brother," two brothers said in unison.
"Serious? I know they're serious. That's how come I brought them. This opportunist thinks that because he's got a little more education he's better than anybody else. He's what Brother Jack calls a petty—petty individualist!"
He struck the conference table with his fist, his eyes showing small and round in his taut face. I wanted to punch that face. It no longer seemed real, but a mask behind which the real face was probably laughing, both at me and at the others. For he couldn't believe what he had said. It just wasn't possible. He was the plotter and from the serious looks on the committee's faces he was getting away with it. Now several brothers started to speak at once, and Brother Jack knocked for order.
"Brothers, please!" Brother Jack said. "One at a time. What do you know about this article?" he said to me.
"Not very much," I said. "The editor of the magazine called to say he was sending a reporter up for an interview. The reporter asked a few questions and took a few pictures with a little camera. That's all I know."
"Did you give the reporter a prepared handout?"
"I gave her nothing except a few pieces of our official literature. I told her neither what to ask me nor what to write. I naturally tried to co-operate. If an article about me would help make friends for the movement I felt it was my duty."
"Brothers, this thing was arranged," Wrestrum said. "I tell you this opportunist had that reporter sent up there. He had her sent up and he told her what to write."
"That's a contemptible lie," I said. "You were present and you know I tried to get them to interview Brother Clifton!"
"Who's a lie?"
"You're a liar and a fat-mouthed scoundrel. You're a liar and no brother of mine."
"Now he's calling me names. Brothers, you heard him."
"Let's not lose our tempers," Brother Jack said calmly. "Brother Wrestrum, you've made serious charges. Can you prove them?"
"I can prove them. All you have to do is read the magazine and prove them for yourself;"
"It will be read. And what else?"
"All you have to do is listen to folks in Harlem. All they talk about is him. Never nothing about what the rest of us do. I tell you, Brothers, this man constitutes a danger to the people of Harlem. He ought to be thrown out!"
"That is for the committee to decide," Brother Jack said. Then to me, "And what have you to say in your defense, Brother?"
"In my defense?" I said, "Nothing. I haven't anything to defend. I've tried to do my work and if the brothers don't know that, then it's too late to tell them. I don't know what's behind this, but I haven't gotten around to controlling magazine writers. And I didn't realize that I was coming to stand trial either."
"This was not intended as a trial," Brother Jack said. "If you're ever put on trial, and I hope you'll never be, you'll know it. Meantime, since this is an emergency the committee asks that you leave the room while we read and discuss the questioned interview."
I left the room and went into a vacant office, boiling with anger and disgust. Wrestrum had snatched me back to the South in the midst of one of the top Brotherhood committees and I felt naked. I could have throttled him—forcing me to take part in a childish dispute before the others. Yet I had to fight him as I could, in terms he understood, even though we sounded like characters in a razor-slinging vaudeville skit. Perhaps I should mention the anonymous note, except that someone might take it to mean that I didn't have the full support of my district. If Clifton were here, he'd know how to handle this clown. Were they taking him seriously just because he was black? What was wrong with them anyway, couldn't they see that they were dealing with a clown? But I would have gone to pieces had they laughed or even smiled, I thought, for they couldn't laugh at him without laughing at me as well . . . Yet if they had laughed, it would have been less unreal—Where the hell am I?
"You can come in now," a brother called to me; and I went out to hear their decision.
"Well," Brother Jack said, "we've all read the article, Brother, and we're happy to report that we found it harmless enough. True, it would have been better had more wordage been given to other members of the Harlem district. But we found no evidence that you had anything to do with that. Brother Wrestrum was mistaken."
His bland manner and the knowledge that they had wasted time to see the truth released the anger within me.
"I'd say that he was criminally mistaken," I said.
"Not criminal, over-zealous," he said.
"To me it seems both criminal and over-zealous," I said.
"No, Brother, not criminal."
"But he attacked my reputation . . ."
Brother Jack smiled. "Only because he was sincere, Brother. He was thinking of the good of the Brotherhood."
"But why slander me? I don't follow you, Brother Jack. I'm no enemy, as he well knows. I'm a brother too," I said, seeing his smile.
"The Brotherhood has many enemies, and we must not be too harsh with brotherly mistakes."
Then I saw the foolish, abashed expression on Wrestrum's face and relaxed.
"Very well, Brother Jack," I said. "I suppose I should be glad you found me innocent —"
"Concerning the magazine article," he said, stabbing the air with his finger.
Something tensed in the back of my head; I got to my feet.
"Concerning the article! You mean to say that you believe that other pipe-dream? Is everyone reading Dick Tracy these days?"
"This is no matter of Dick Tracy," he snapped. "The movement has many enemies."
"So now I have become an enemy," I said. "What's happened to everybody? You act as though none of you has any contact with me at all."
Jack looked at the table. "Are you interested in our decision, Brother?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "Yes, I am. I'm interested in all manner of odd behavior. Who wouldn't be, when one wild man can make a roomful of what I'd come to regard as some of the best minds in the country take him seriously. Certainly, I'm interested. Otherwise I'd act like a sensible man and run out of here!"
There were sounds of protest and Brother Jack, his face red, rapped for order.
"Perhaps I should address a few words to the brother," Brother MacAfee said.
"Go ahead," Brother Jack said thickly.
"Brother, we understand how you feel," Brother MacAfee said, "but you must understand that the movement has many enemies. This is very true, and we are forced to think of the organization at the expense of our personal feelings. The Brotherhood is bigger than all of us. None of us as individuals count when its safety is questioned. And be assured that none of us have anything but goodwill toward you personally. Your work has been splendid. This is simply a matter of the safety of the organization, and it is our responsibility to make a thorough investigation of all such charges."
I felt suddenly empty; there was a logic in what he said which I felt compelled to accept. They were wrong, but they had the obligation to discover their mistake. Let them go ahead, they'd find that none of the charges were true and I'd be vindicated. What was all this obsession with enemies anyway? I looked into their smoke-washed faces; not since the beginning had I faced such serious doubts. Up to now I had felt a wholeness about my work and direction such as I'd never known; not even in my mistaken college days. Brotherhood was something to which men could give themselves completely; that was its strength and my strength, and it was this sense of wholeness that guaranteed that it would change the course of history. This I had believed with all my being, but now, though still inwardly affirming that belief, I felt a blighting hurt which prevented me from trying further to defend myself. I stood there silently, waiting their decision. Someone drummed his fingers against the table top. I heard the dry-leaf rustle of onionskin papers.
"Be assured that you can depend upon the fairness and wisdom of the committee," Brother Tobitt's voice drifted from the end of the table, but there was smoke between us and I could barely see his face.
"The committee has decided," Brother Jack began crisply, "that until all charges have been cleared, you are to have the choice of becoming inactive in Harlem, or accepting an assignment downtown. In the latter case you are to wind up your present assignment immediately."
I felt weak in my legs. "You mean I am to give up my work?"
"Unless you choose to serve the movement elsewhere."
"But can't you see —" I said, looking from face to face and seeing the blank finality in their eyes.
"Your assignment, should you decide to remain active," Brother Jack said, reaching for his gavel, "is to lecture downtown on the Woman Question."
Suddenly I felt as though I had been spun like a top.
"The what!"
"The Woman Question. My pamphlet, 'On the Woman Question in the United States,' will be your guide. And now, Brothers," he said, his eyes sweeping around the table, "the meeting is adjourned."
I stood there, hearing the rapping of his gavel echoing in my ears, thinking the woman question and searching their faces for signs of amusement, listening to their voices as they filed out into the hall for the slightest sound of suppressed laughter, stood there fighting the sense that I had just been made the butt of an outrageous joke and all the more so since their faces revealed no awareness.
My mind fought desperately for acceptance. Nothing would change matters. They would shift me and investigate and I, still believing, still bending to discipline, would have to accept their decision. Now was certainly no time for inactivity; not just when I was beginning to approach some of the aspects of the organization about which I knew nothing (of higher committees and the leaders who never appeared, of the sympathizers and allies in groups that seemed far removed from our concerns), not at a time when all the secrets of power and authority still shrouded from me in mystery appeared on the way toward revelation. No, despite my anger and disgust, my ambitions were too great to surrender so easily. And why should I restrict myself, segregate myself? I was a spokesman—why shouldn't I speak about women, or any other subject? Nothing lay outside the scheme of our ideology, there was a policy on everything, and my main concern was to work my way ahead in the movement.
I left the building still feeling as though I had been violently spun but with optimism growing. Being removed from Harlem was a shock but one which would hurt them as much as me, for I had learned that the clue to what Harlem wanted was what I wanted; and my value to the Brotherhood was no different from the value to me of my most useful contact: it depended upon my complete frankness and honesty in stating the community's hopes and hates, fears and desires. One spoke to the committee as well as to the community. No doubt it would work much the same downtown. The new assignment was a challenge and an opportunity for testing how much of what happened in Harlem was due to my own efforts and how much to the sheer eagerness of the people themselves. And, after all, I told myself, the assignment was also proof of the committee's goodwill. For by selecting me to speak with its authority on a subject which elsewhere in our society I'd have found taboo, weren't they reaffirming their belief both in me and in the principles of Brotherhood, proving that they drew no lines even when it came to women? They had to investigate the charges against me, but the assignment was their unsentimental affirmation that their belief in me was unbroken. I shivered in the hot street. I hadn't allowed the idea to take concrete form in my mind, but for a moment I had almost allowed an old, southern backwardness which I had thought dead to wreck my career.
Leaving Harlem was not without its regrets, however, and I couldn't bring myself to say good-bye to anyone, not even to Brother Tarp or Clifton—not to mention the others upon whom I depended for information concerning the lowest groups in the community. I simply slipped my papers into my brief case and left as though going downtown for a meeting.