Chapter 14



The odor of Mary's cabbage changed my mind. Standing en-
gulfed in the fumes filling the hall, it struck me that I couldn't
realistically reject the job. Cabbage was always a depress-
ing reminder of the leaner years of my childhood and I suf-
fered silently whenever she served it, but this was the third
time within the week and it dawned on me that Mary must be
short of money.

And here I've been congratulating myself for refusing a
job, I thought, when I don't even know how much money I owe
her. I felt a quick sickness grow within me. How could I face
her? I went quietly to my room and lay upon the bed, brooding.
There were other roomers, who had jobs, and I knew she
received help from relatives; still there was no mistake, Mary
loved a variety of food and this concentration upon cabbage
was no accident. Why hadn't I noticed? She'd been too kind,
never dunning me, and I lay there hearing her, "Don't come
bothering me with your little troubles, boy. You'll git something
bye and bye" -- when I would try to apologize for not paying my
rent and board. Perhaps another roomer had moved, or lost his
job. What were Mary's problems anyway; who "articulated her
grievances," as the redheaded man had put it? She had kept
me going for months, yet I had no idea. What kind of man was I
becoming? I had taken her so much for granted that I hadn't
even thought of my debt when I refused the job. Nor had I
considered the embarrassment I might have caused her should
the police come to her home to arrest me for making that wild
speech. Suddenly I felt an urge to go look at her, perhaps I had
really never seen her. I had been acting like a child, not a
man.

Taking out the crumpled paper, I looked at the telephone
number. He had mentioned an organization. What was it call-
ed? I hadn't inquired. What a fool! At least I should
have learned what I was turning down, although I distrusted
the redheaded man. Had I refused out of fear as well as from
resentment? Why didn't he just tell me what it was all about
instead of trying to impress me with his knowledge?

Then from down the hall I could hear Mary singing, her
voice clear and untroubled, though she sang a troubled song.
It was the "Back Water Blues." I lay listening as the sound
flowed to and around me, bringing me a calm sense of my
indebtedness. When it faded I got up and put on my coat.
Perhaps it was not too late. I would find a telephone and call
him; then he could tell me exactly what he wanted and I could
make a sensible decision.

Mary heard me this time. "Boy, when you come home?" she said,
sticking her head out of the kitchen. "I didn't even hear
you."

"I came in a short while ago," I said. "You were busy so I
didn't bother you."

"Then where you going so soon, ain't you going to eat
supper?"

"Yes, Mary," I said, "but I've got to go out now. I forgot
to take care of some business."

"Shucks! What kind of business you got on a cold night
like this?" she said.

"Oh, I don't know, I might have a surprise for you."

"Won't nothing surprise me," she said. "And you hurry
on back here and git something hot in your stomach."

Going through the cold seeking a telephone booth I realiz-
ed that I had committed myself to bring her some kind of
surprise, and as I walked I became mildly enthusiastic. It was,
after all, a job that promised to exercise my talent for public
speaking, and if the pay was anything at all it would be more
than I had now. At least I could pay Mary something of what I
owed her. And she might receive some satisfaction that her
prediction had proved correct.

I seemed to be haunted by cabbage fumes; the little
luncheonette in which I found the telephone was reeking.
Brother Jack didn't sound at all surprised upon
receiving my call.

"I'd like some information about --"

"Get here as quickly as you can, we're leaving shortly,"
he said, giving me a Lenox Avenue address and hanging up
before I could finish my request.

I went out into the cold, annoyed both by his lack of sur-
prise and by the short, clipped manner in which he'd spoken,
but I started out, taking my own time. It wasn't far, and
just as I reached the corner of Lenox a car pulled up and I
saw several men inside, Jack among them, smiling.

"Get in," he said. "We can talk where we're going. It's a
party; you might like it."

"But I'm not dressed," I said. "I'll call you tomorrow --"

"Dressed?" he chuckled. "You're all right, get in."

I got in beside him and the driver, noticing that there
were three men in the back. Then the car moved off.

No one spoke. Brother Jack seemed to sink immediately
into deep thought. The others looked out into the night.
It was as though we were mere chance passengers in a sub-
way car. I felt uneasy, wondering where we were going,
but decided to say nothing. The car shot swiftly over the
slush.

Looking out at the passing night I wondered what kind of
men they were. Certainly they didn't act as though they were
heading for a very sociable evening. I was hungry and I
wouldn't get back in time for supper. Well, maybe it would be
worth it, both to Mary and to me. At least I wouldn't have
to eat that cabbage!

For a moment the car paused for the traffic light, then
we were circling swiftly through long stretches of snow-
covered landscape lighted here and there by street lamps
and the nervously stabbing beams of passing cars: We were
flashing through Central Park, now completely transformed by
the snow. It was as though we had plunged suddenly into mid-
country peace, yet I knew that here, somewhere close by in the
night, there was a zoo with its dangerous animals. The lions
and tigers in heated cages, the bears asleep, the snakes coiled
tightly underground. And there was also the reservoir of dark
water, all covered by snow and by night, by snow-fall and by
night-fall, buried beneath black and white, gray mist and gray
silence. Then past the driver's head I could see a wall of
buildings looming beyond the windshield. The car nosed slowly
into traffic, dropped swiftly down a hill.

We stopped before an expensive-looking building in a strange
part of the city. I could see the word Chthonian on the
storm awning stretched above the walk as I got out with the
others and went swiftly toward a lobby lighted by dim bulbs set
behind frosted glass, going past the uniformed doorman with
an uncanny sense of familiarity; feeling now, as we entered a
soundproof elevator and shot away at a mile a minute, that I
had been through it all before. Then we were stopping with a
gentle bounce and I was uncertain whether we had gone up or
down. Brother Jack guided me down the hall to a door on which
I saw a bronze door-knocker in the shape of a large-eyed owl.
Now he hesitated a moment, his head thrust forward as though
listening, then his hand covered the owl from view, producing
instead of the knock which I expected, an icy peal of clear
chimes. Shortly the door swung partly open, revealing a
smartly dressed woman, whose hard, handsome face broke into
smiles.

"Come in, Brothers," she said, her exotic perfume filling
the foyer.

I noticed a clip of blazing diamonds on her dress as I tried
to stand aside for the others, but Brother Jack pushed me
ahead.

"Excuse me," I said, but she held her ground, and I was
pressing tensely against her perfumed softness, seeing her
smile as though there were only she and I. Then I was past,
disturbed not so much by the close contact, as by the sense
that I had somehow been through it all before. I couldn't decide
if it were from watching some similar scene in the movies, from
books I'd read, or from some recurrent but deeply buried
dream. Whatsoever, it was like entering a scene which, because
of some devious circumstance, I had hitherto watched only
from a distance. How could they have such an expensive place,
I wondered.

"Put your things in the study," the woman said. "I'll go
see about drinks."

We entered a room lined with books and decorated with
old musical instruments: An Irish harp, a hunter's horn, a
clarinet and a wooden flute were suspended by the neck from
the wall on pink and blue ribbons. There were a leather divan
and a number of easy chairs.

"Throw your coat on the divan," Brother Jack said.

I slid out of my overcoat and looked around. The dial of the
radio built into a section of the natural mahogany bookshelf
was lighted, but I couldn't hear any sound; and there was an
ample desk on which rested silver and crystal writing things,
and, as one of the men came to stand gazing at the bookcase,
I was struck by the contrast between the richness of the room
and their rather poor clothing.

"Now we'll go into the other room," Brother Jack said,
taking me by the arm.

We entered a large room in which one entire wall was hung
with Italian-red draperies that fell in rich folds from
the ceiling. A number of well-dressed men and women were
gathered in groups, some beside a grand piano, the others
lounging in the pale beige upholstery of the blond wood chairs.
Here and there I saw several attractive young women but
carefully avoided giving them more than a glance. I felt
extremely uncomfortable, although after brief glances no one
paid me any special attention. It was as though they hadn't
seen me, as though I were here, and yet not here. The others
were moving away to join the various groups now, and Brother
Jack took my arm.

"Come, let's get a drink," he said, guiding me toward
the end of the room.

The woman who'd let us in was mixing drinks behind a
handsome free-form bar which was large enough to have
graced a night club.

"How about a drink for us, Emma?" Brother Jack said.

"Well, now, I'll have to think about it," she said, tilting
her severely drawn head and smiling.

"Don't think, act," he said. "We're very thirsty men. This
young man pushed history ahead twenty years today."

"Oh," she said, her eyes becoming intent. "You must tell
me about him."

"Just read the morning papers, Emma. Things have begun
to move. Yes, leap ahead." He laughed deeply.

"What would you like, Brother?" she said, her eyes
brushing slowly over my face.

"Bourbon," I said, a little too loudly, as I remembered
the best the South had to offer. My face was warm, but I
returned her glance as steadily as I dared. It was not the harsh
uninterested-in-you-as-a-human-being stare that I'd known in
the South, the kind that swept over a black man as though he
were a horse or an insect; it was something more, a direct,
what-type-of-mere-man-have-we-here kind of look that seemed
to go beneath my skin . . . Somewhere in my leg a muscle
twitched violently.

"Emma, the bourbon! Two bourbons," Brother Jack said.

"You know," she said, picking up a decanter, "I'm
intrigued."

"Naturally. Always," he said. "Intrigued and intriguing.
But we're dying of thirst."

"Only of impatience," she said, pouring the drinks. "I
mean you are. Tell me, where did you find this young hero
of the people?"

"I didn't," Brother Jack said. "He simply arose out of a
crowd. The people always throw up their leaders, you know...."

"Throw them up," she said. "Nonsense, they chew them up
and spit them out. Their leaders are made, not born. Then
they're destroyed. You've always said that. Here you are,
Brother."

He looked at her steadily. I took the heavy crystal glass
and raised it to my lips, glad for an excuse to turn from her
eyes. A haze of cigarette smoke drifted through the room. I
heard a series of rich arpeggios sound on the piano behind
me and turned to look, hearing the woman Emma say not quite
softly enough, "But don't you think he should be a little
blacker?"

"Shhh, don't be a damn fool," Brother Jack said sharply.
"We're not interested in his looks but in his voice. And I
suggest, Emma, that you make it your interest too . . ."

Suddenly hot and breathless, I saw a window across the
room and went over and stood looking out. We were up very
high; street lamps and traffic cut patterns in the night below.
So she doesn't think I'm black enough. What does she want, a
black-face comedian? Who is she, anyway, Brother Jack's wife,
his girl friend? Maybe she wants to see me sweat coal tar, ink,
shoe polish, graphite. What was I, a man or a natural resource?

The window was so high that I could barely hear the sound of
traffic below . . . This was a bad beginning, but hell, I was
being hired by Brother Jack, if he still wanted me, not this
Emma woman. I'd like to show her how really black I am, I
thought, taking a big drink of the bourbon. It was smooth, cold.
I'd have to be careful with the stuff. Anything might happen if
I had too much. With these people I'll have to be careful. Always
careful. With all people I'll have to be careful . . .

"It's a pleasant view, isn't it?" a voice said, and I whirled
to see a tall dark man. "But now would you mind joining us in
the library?" he said.

Brother Jack, the men who had come along in the car,
and two others whom I hadn't seen before were waiting.

"Come in, Brother," Jack said. "Business before pleasure is
always a good rule, whoever you are. Some day the rule shall
be business with pleasure, for the joy of labor shall have been
restored. Sit down."

I took the chair directly before him, wondering what this
speech was all about.

"You know, Brother," he said, "we don't ordinarily interrupt
our social gatherings with business, but with you it's
necessary."

"I'm very sorry," I said. "I should have called you earlier."

"Sorry? Why, we're only too glad to do so. We've been wait-
ing for you for months. Or for someone who could do what
you've done."

"But what . . . ?" I said.

"What are we doing? What is our mission? It's simple;
we are working for a better world for all people. It's that
simple. Too many have been dispossessed of their heritage, and
we have banded together in brotherhood so as to do something
about it. What do you think of that?"

"Why, I think it's fine," I said, trying to take in the full
meaning of his words. "I think it's excellent. But how?"

"By moving them to action just as you did this morning.
. . Brothers, I was there," he said to the others, "and he
was magnificent. With a few words he set off an effective
demonstration against evictions!"

"I was present too," another said. "It was amazing."

"Tell us something of your background," Brother Jack said,
his voice and manner demanding truthful answers. And I
explained briefly that I had come up looking for work to pay
my way through college and had failed.

"Do you still plan to return?"

"Not now," I said. "I'm all done with that."

"It's just as well," Brother Jack said. "You have little to
learn down there. However, college training is not a bad thing -
- although you'll have to forget most of it. Did you study
economics?"

"Some."

"Sociology?"

"Yes."

"Well, let me advise you to forget it. You'll be given
books to read along with some material that explains our
program in detail. But we're moving too fast. Perhaps you
aren't interested in working for the Brotherhood."

"But you haven't told me what I'm supposed to do," I
said.

He looked at me fixedly, picking up his glass slowly and
taking a long swallow.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "How would you like to
be the new Booker T. Washington?"

"What!" I looked into his bland eyes for laughter, seeing
his red head turned slightly to the side. "Please, now,"
I said.

"Oh, yes, I'm serious."

"Then I don't understand you." Was I drunk? I looked at
him; he seemed sober.

"What do you think of the idea? Or better still, what do
you think of Booker T. Washington?"

"Why, naturally, I think he was an important figure. At
least most people say so."

"But?"

"Well," I was at a loss for words. He was going too fast
again. The whole idea was insane and yet the others were
looking at me calmly; one of them was lighting up an
underslung pipe. The match sputtered, caught fire.

"What is it?" Brother Jack insisted.

"Well, I guess I don't think he was as great as the
Founder."

"Oh? And why not?"

"Well, in the first place, the Founder came before him and
did practically everything Booker T. Washington did and a
lot more. And more people believed in him. You hear a lot of
arguments about Booker T. Washington, but few would argue
about the Founder . . ."

"No, but perhaps that is because the Founder lies outside
history, while Washington is still a living force. However,
the new Washington shall work for the poor . . ."

I looked into my crystal glass of bourbon. It was unbeliev-
able, yet strangely exciting and I had the sense of being
present at the creation of important events, as though a
curtain had been parted and I was being allowed to glimpse
how the country operated. And yet none of these men was well
known, or at least I'd never seen their faces in the news-
papers. "During these times of indecision when all the old
answers are proven false, the people look back to the dead to
give them a clue," he went on. "They call first upon one and
then upon another of those who have acted in the past."

"If you please, Brother," the man with the pipe interrupted,
"I think you should speak more concretely."

"Please don't interrupt," Brother Jack said icily.

"I wish only to point out that a scientific terminology
exists," the man said, emphasizing his words with his pipe.
"After all, we call ourselves scientists here. Let us speak
as scientists."

"In due time," Brother Jack said. "In due time . . . You
see, Brother," he said, turning to me, "the trouble is that there
is little the dead can do; otherwise they wouldn't be the dead.
No! But on the other hand, it would be a great mistake to
assume that the dead are absolutely powerless. They are
powerless only to give the full answer to the new questions
posed for the living by history. But they try! Whenever they
hear the imperious cries of the people in a crisis, the dead
respond. Right now in this country, with its many national
groups, all the old heroes are being called back to life --
Jefferson, Jackson, Pulaski, Garibaldi, Booker T. Washington,
Sun Yat-sen, Danny O'Connell, Abraham Lincoln and countless
others are being asked to step once again upon the stage of
history. I can't say too emphatically that we stand at a terminal
point in history, at a moment of supreme world crisis.
Destruction lies ahead unless things are changed. And things
must be changed. And changed by the people. Because,
Brother, the enemies of man are dispossessing the world! Do
you understand?"

"I'm beginning to," I said, greatly impressed.

"There are other terms, other more accurate ways of saying
all this, but we haven't time for that right now. We speak
now in terms that are easy to understand. As you spoke to the
crowd this morning."

"I see," I said, feeling uncomfortable under his stare.

"So it isn't a matter of whether you wish to be the new
Booker T. Washington, my friend. Booker Washington was
resurrected today at a certain eviction in Harlem. He came out
from the anonymity of the crowd and spoke to the people. So
you see, I don't joke with you. Or play with words either. There
is a scientific explanation for this phenomenon -- as our learned
brother has graciously reminded me -- you'll learn it in time,
but whatever you call it the reality of the world crisis is a fact.
We are all realists here, and materialists. It is a question of
who shall determine the direction of events. That is why we've
brought you into this room. This morning you answered the
people's appeal and we want you to be the true interpreter of
the people. You shall be the new Booker T. Washington, but
even greater than he."

There was silence. I could hear the wet cracking of the
pipe.

"Perhaps we should allow the Brother to express himself
as to how he feels about all this," the man with the pipe
said.

"Well, Brother?" Brother Jack said.

I looked into their waiting faces.

"It's all so new to me that I don't know exactly what I do
think," I said. "Do you really think you have the right man?"

"You mustn't let that worry you," Brother Jack said. "You
will rise to the task; it is only necessary that you work hard
and follow instructions."

They stood up now. I looked at them, fighting a sense of
unreality. They stared at me as the fellows had done when I
was being initiated into my college fraternity. Only this was
real and now was the time for me to decide or to say I thought
they were crazy and go back to Mary's. But what is there to
lose? I thought. At least they've invited me, one of us, in at
the beginning of something big; and besides, if I refused to
join them, where would I go - to a job as porter at the railroad
station? At least here was a chance to speak.

"When shall I start?" I said.

"Tomorrow, we must waste no time. By the way, where are you
living?"

"I rent a room from a woman in Harlem," I said.

"A housewife?"

"She's a widow," I said. "She rents rooms."

"What is her educational background?"

"She's had very little."

"More or less like the old couple that was evicted?"

"Somewhat, but better able to take care of herself.
She's tough," I said with a laugh.

"Does she ask a lot of questions? Are you friendly with
her?"

"She's been very nice to me," I said. "She allowed me to
stay on after I was unable to pay my rent."

He shook his head. "No."

"What is it?" I said.

"It is best that you move," he said. "We'll find you a
place further downtown so that you'll be within easy
call . . ."

"But I have no money, and she's entirely trustworthy."

"That will be taken care of," he said, waving his hand.
"You must realize immediately that much of our work is
opposed. Our discipline demands therefore that we talk to no
one and that we avoid situations in which information might
be given away unwittingly. So you must put aside your past.
Do you have a family?"

"Yes."

"Are you in touch with them?"

"Of course. I write home now and then," I said, beginning
to resent his method of questioning. His voice had become
cold, searching.

"Then it's best that you cease for a while," he said.
"Anyway, you'll be too busy. Here." He fished into his
vest pocket for something and got suddenly to his feet.

"What is it?" someone asked.

"Nothing, excuse me," he said, rolling to the door and
beckoning. In a moment I saw the woman appear.

"Emma, the slip of paper I gave you. Give it to the new
Brother," he said as she stepped inside and closed the door.

"Oh, so it's you," she said with a meaningful smile.

I watched her reach into the bosom of her taffeta
hostess gown and remove a white envelope.

"This is your new identity," Brother Jack said. "Open it."

Inside I found a name written on a slip of paper.
"That is your new name," Brother Jack said. "Start
thinking of yourself by that name from this moment. Get it
down so that even if you are called in the middle of the
night you will respond. Very soon you shall be known by
it all over the country. You are to answer to no other,
understand?"

"I'll try," I said.

"Don't forget his living quarters," the tall man said.

"No," Brother Jack said with a frown. "Emma, please,
some funds."

"How much, Jack?" she said.

He turned to me. "Do you owe much rent?"

"Too much," I said.

"Make it three hundred, Emma," he said.

"Never mind," he said as I showed my surprise at the sum.
"This will pay your debts and buy you clothing. Call me in
the morning and I'll have selected your living quarters. For
a start your salary will be sixty dollars a week."

Sixty a week! There was nothing I could say. The woman had
crossed the room to the desk and returned with the money,
placing it in my hand.

"You'd better put it away," she said expansively.

"Well, Brothers, I believe that's all," he said. "Emma,
how about a drink?"

"Of course, of course," she said, going to a cabinet and
removing a decanter and a set of glasses in which she poured
about an inch of clear liquid.

"Here you are, Brothers," she said.

Taking his, Brother Jack raised it to his nose, inhaling
deeply. "To the Brotherhood of Man . . . to History and to
Change," he said, touching my glass.

"To History," we all said.

The stuff burned, causing me to lower my head to hide
the tears that popped from my eyes.

"Aaaah!" someone said with deep satisfaction.

"Come along," Emma said. "Let's join the others."

"Now for some pleasure," Brother Jack said. "And remember
your new identity."

I wanted to think but they gave me no time. I was swept
into the large room and introduced by my new name. Everyone
smiled and seemed eager to meet me, as though they all knew
the role I was to play. All grasped me warmly by the hand.

"What is your opinion of the state of women's rights,
Brother?" I was asked by a plain woman in a large black velvet
tarn. But before I could open my mouth, Brother Jack had
pushed me along to a group of men, one of whom seemed to
know all about the eviction. Nearby, a group around the piano
were singing folk songs with more volume than melody. We
moved from group to group, Brother Jack very authoritative,
the others always respectful. He must be a powerful man, I
thought, not a clown at all. But to hell with this Booker T.
Washington business. I would do the work but I would be no
one except myself -- whoever I was, I would pattern my life on
that of the Founder. They might think I was acting like Booker
T. Washington; let them. But what I thought of myself I would
keep to myself. Yes, and I'd have to hide the fact that I had
actually been afraid when I made my speech. Suddenly I felt
laughter bubbling inside me. I'd have to catch up with this
science of history business.

We had come to stand near the piano now, where an intense
young man questioned me about various leaders of the
Harlem community. I knew them only by name, but pretended
that I knew them all.

"Good," he said, "good, we have to work with all these
forces during the coming period."

"Yes, you're quite right," I said, giving my glass a tinkling
twirl. A short broad man saw me and waved the others to a
halt. "Say, Brother," he called. "Hold the music, boys, hold
it!"

"Yes, uh . . . Brother," I said.

"You're just who we need. We been looking for you."

"Oh," I said.

"How about a spiritual, Brother? Or one of those real
good ole Negro work songs? Like this: Ah went to Atlanta --
nevah been there befo'," he sang, his arms held out from his
body like a penguin's wings, glass in one hand, cigar in the
other. "White man sleep in a feather bed, Nigguh sleep on the
flo' . . . Ha! Ha! How about it, Brother?"

"The Brother does not sing!" Brother Jack roared staccato.

"Nonsense, all colored people sing."

"This is an outrageous example of unconscious racial
chauvinism!" Jack said.

"Nonsense, I like their singing," the broad man said
doggedly.

"The Brother does not sing!" Brother Jack cried, his
face turning a deep purple.

The broad man regarded him stubbornly. "Why don't you let
him say whether he can sing or not . . . ? Come on, Brother,
git hot! Go Down, Moses," he bellowed in a ragged baritone,
putting down his cigar and snapping his fingers. "Way down
in Egypt's land. Tell dat ole Pharaoh to let ma colored
folks sing! I'm for the rights of the colored brother to
sing!" he shouted belligerently.

Brother Jack looked as if he would choke; he raised his
hand, signaling. I saw two men shoot from across the room and
lead the short man roughly away. Brother Jack followed them
as they disappeared beyond the door, leaving an enormous
silence.

For a moment I stood there, my eyes riveted upon the door,
then I turned, the glass hot in my hand, my face feeling as
though it would explode. Why was everyone staring at me as
though I were responsible? Why the hell were they staring at
me? Suddenly I yelled, "What's the matter with you? Haven't
you ever seen a drunk --" when somewhere off the foyer the
broad man's voice staggered drunkenly to us, "St. Louis
mammieeeee -- with her diamond riiiings . . ." and was clipped
off by a slamming door, leaving a roomful of bewildered faces.
And suddenly I was laughing hysterically.

"He hit me in the face," I wheezed. "He hit me in the face
with a yard of chitterlings!" -- bending double, roaring, the
whole room seeming to dance up and down with each rapid
eruption of laughter.

"He threw a hog maw," I cried, but no one seemed to under-
stand. My eyes filled, I could barely see. "He's high as a
Georgia pine," I laughed, turning to the group nearest me.
"He's absolutely drunk . . . off music!"

"Yes. Sure," a man said nervously. "Ha, ha . . ."

"Three sheets in the wind," I laughed, getting my breath
now, and discovering that the silent tension of the others was
ebbing into a ripple of laughter that sounded throughout the
room, growing swiftly to a roar, a laugh of all dimensions,
intensities and intonations. Everyone was joining in. The room
fairly bounced.

"And did you see Brother Jack's face," a man shouted,
shaking his head.

"It was murder!"

"Go down Moses!"

"I tell you it was murder!"

Across the room they were pounding someone on the back to
keep him from choking. Handkerchiefs appeared, there was
much honking of noses, wiping of eyes. A glass crashed to
the floor, a chair was overturned. I fought against the painful
laughter, and as I calmed I saw them looking at me with a sort
of embarrassed gratitude. It was sobering and yet they seemed
bent upon pretending that nothing unusual had happened.
They smiled. Several seemed about to come over and pound my
back, shake my hand. It was as though I had told them
something which they'd wished very much to hear, had
rendered them an important service which I couldn't
understand. But there it was, working in their faces. My
stomach ached. I wanted to leave, to get their eyes off me.

Then a thin little woman came over and grasped my hand.
"I'm so sorry that this had to happen," she said in a slow
Yankee voice, "really and truly sorry. Some of our Brothers
aren't so highly developed, you know. Although they mean very
well. You must allow me to apologize for him . . ."

"Oh, he was only tipsy," I said, looking into her thin, New
England face.

"Yes, I know, and revealingly so. I would never ask our
colored brothers to sing, even though I love to hear them.
Because I know that it would be a very backward thing. You
are here to fight along with us, not to entertain. I think
you understand me, don't you, Brother?"

I gave her a silent smile.

"Of course you do. I must go now, good-bye," she said,
extending her little white-gloved hand and leaving.

I was puzzled. Just what did she mean? Was it that she
understood that we resented having others think that we were
all entertainers and natural singers? But now after the mutual
laughter something disturbed me: Shouldn't there be some way
for us to be asked to sing? Shouldn't the short man have the
right to make a mistake without his motives being considered
consciously or unconsciously malicious? After all, he was
singing, or trying to. What if I asked him to sing? I watched the
little woman, dressed in black like a missionary, winding her
way through the crowd. What on earth was she doing here?
What part did she play? Well, whatever she meant, she's nice
and I like her.

Just then Emma came up and challenged me to dance and I
led her toward the floor as the piano played, thinking of
the vet's prediction and drawing her to me as though I danced
with such as her every evening. For having committed myself, I
felt that I could never allow myself to show surprise or up-
set -- even when confronted with situations furthest from my
experience. Otherwise I might be considered undependable, or
unworthy. I felt that somehow they expected me to perform
even those tasks for which nothing in my experience -- except
perhaps my imagination -- had prepared me. Still it was
nothing new, white folks seemed always to expect you to know
those things which they'd done everything they could think of
to prevent you from knowing. The thing to do was to be
prepared -- as my grandfather had been when it was demanded
that he quote the entire United States Constitution as a test of
his fitness to vote. He had confounded them all by passing the
test, although they still refused him the ballot . . . Anyway,
these were different.

It was close to five A.M., many dances and many bourbons
later, when I reached Mary's. Somehow, I felt surprised that
the room was still the same -- except that Mary had changed
the bed linen. Good old Mary. I felt sadly sobered. And as
I undressed I saw my outworn clothes and realized that I'd
have to shed them. Certainly it was time. Even my hat would
go; its green was sun-faded and brown, like a leaf struck by
the winter's snows. I would require a new one for my new name.
A black broad-brimmed one; perhaps a homburg . . . humbug? I
laughed. Well, I could leave packing for tomorrow -- I had very
little, which was perhaps all to the good. I would travel light,
far and fast. They were fast people, all right. What a vast
difference between Mary and those for whom I was leaving her.
And why should it be this way, that the very job which might
make it possible for me to do some of the things which she
expected of me required that I leave her? What kind of room
would Brother Jack select for me and why wasn't I left to select
my own? It didn't seem right that in order to become a Harlem
Leader I should live elsewhere. Yet nothing seemed right and I
would have to rely upon their judgment. They seemed expert in
such matters.

But how far could I trust them, and in what way were
they different from the trustees? Whatever, I was committed;
I'd learn in the process of working with them, I thought,
remembering the money. The bills were crisp and fresh and I
tried to imagine Mary's surprise when I paid her all my back
rent and board. She'd think that I was kidding. But money
could never repay her generosity. She would never understand
my wanting to move so quickly after getting a job. And if I
had any kind of success at all, it would seem the height of
ingratitude. How would I face her? She had asked for nothing
in return. Or hardly anything, except that I make something of
myself that she called a "race leader." I shivered in the cold.
Telling her that I was moving would be a hard proposition. I
didn't like to think of it, but one couldn't be sentimental. As
Brother Jack had said, History makes harsh demands of us all.
But they were demands that had to be met if men were to be
the masters and not the victims of their times. Did I believe
that? Perhaps I had already begun to pay. Besides, I might as
well admit right now, I thought, that there are many things
about people like Mary that I dislike. For one thing, they
seldom know where their personalities end and yours begins;
they usually think in terms of "we" while I have always tended
to think in terms of "me" -- and that has caused some friction,
even with my own family. Brother Jack and the others talked in
terms of "we," but it was a different, bigger "we."

Well, I had a new name and new problems. I had best leave
the old behind. Perhaps it would be best not to see Mary
at all, just place the money in an envelope and leave it on the
kitchen table where she'd be sure to find it. It would be better
that way, I thought drowsily; then there'd be no need to stand
before her and stumble over emotions and words that were at
best all snarled up and undifferentiated . . . One thing about
the people at the Chthonian, they all seemed able to say just
what they felt and meant in hard, clear terms. That too, I'd
have to learn . . . I stretched out beneath the covers, hearing
the springs groan beneath me. The room was cold. I listened to
the night sounds of the house. The clock ticked with empty
urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the
street a siren howled.



Chapter 15



Then I was awake and not awake, sitting bolt upright in
bed and trying to peer through the sick gray light as I sought
the meaning of the brash, nerve-jangling sound. Pushing the
blanket aside I clasped my hands to my ears. Someone was
pounding the steam line, and I stared helplessly for what
seemed minutes. My ears throbbed. My side began itching
violently and I tore open my pajamas to scratch, and suddenly
the pain seemed to leap from my ears to my side and I saw gray
marks appearing where the old skin was flaking away beneath
my digging nails. And as I watched I saw thin lines of blood
well up in the scratches, bringing pain and joining time and
place again, and I thought, The room has lost its heat on my
last day at Mary's, and suddenly I was sick at heart.

The clock, its alarm lost in the larger sound, said seven
thirty, and I got out of bed. I'd have to hurry. There was
shopping to do before I called Brother Jack for my instructions
and I had to get the money to Mary -- Why didn't they stop that
noise? I reached for my shoes, flinching as the knocking
seemed to sound an inch above my head. Why don't they stop, I
thought. And why do I feel so let down? The bourbon? My
nerves going bad?

Suddenly I was across the room in a bound, pounding the
pipe furiously with my shoe heel.

"Stop it, you ignorant fool!"

My head was splitting. Beside myself, I struck pieces of
silver from the pipe, exposing the black and rusted iron. He
was using a piece of metal now, his blows ringing with a
ragged edge.

If only I knew who it was, I thought, looking for something
heavy with which to strike back. If only I knew!

Then near the door I saw something which I'd never noticed
there before: the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lip-
ped and wide-mouthed Negro, whose white eyes stared up at
me from the floor, his face an enormous grin, his single large
black hand held palm up before his chest. It was a bank, a
piece of early Americana, the kind of bank which, if a coin is
placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise
its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth. For a second I
stopped, feeling hate charging within me, then dashed over and
grabbed it, suddenly as enraged by the tolerance or lack of
discrimination, or whatever, that allowed Mary to keep such a
self-mocking image around, as by the knocking.

In my hand its expression seemed more of a strangulation
than a grin. It was choking, filled to the throat with coins.

How the hell did it get here, I wondered, dashing over
and striking the pipe a blow with the kinky iron head. "Shut
up!" I screamed, which seemed only to enrage the hidden
knocker. The din was deafening. Tenants up and down the
entire line of apartments joined in. I hammered back with the
iron naps, seeing the silver fly, striking like driven sand against
my face. The pipe fairly hummed with the blows. Windows were
going up. Voices yelled obscenities down the airshaft.

Who started all this, I wondered, who's responsible?

"Why don't you act like responsible people living in the
twentieth century?" I yelled, aiming a blow at the pipe.
"Get rid of your cottonpatch ways! Act civilized!"

Then came a crash of sound and I felt the iron head crumble
and fly apart in my hand. Coins flew over the room like crick-
ets, ringing, rattling against the floor, rolling. I stopped
dead.

"Just listen to 'em! Just listen to 'em!" Mary called from
the hall. "Enough noise to wake the dead! They know when the
heat don't come up that the super's drunk or done walked off
the job looking for his woman, or something. Why don't folks
act according to what they know?"

She was at my door now, knocking stroke for stroke with the
blows landing on the pipe, calling, "Son! Ain't some of
that knocking coming from in there?"

I turned from side to side in indecision, looking at the
pieces of broken head, the small coins of all denominations
that were scattered about.

"You hear me, boy?" she called.

"What is it?" I called, dropping to the floor and reaching
frantically for the broken pieces, thinking, If she opens the
door, I'm lost . . .

"I said is any of that racket coming from in there?"

"Yes, it is, Mary," I called, "but I'm all right . . . I'm
already awake."

I saw the knob move and froze, hearing, "Sounded to me like
a heap of it was coming from in there. You got your
clothes on?"

"No," I cried. "I'm just dressing. I'll have them on in a
minute."

"Come on out to the kitchen," she said. "It's warm out
there. And there's some hot water on the stove to wash your
face in . . . and some coffee. Lawd, just listen at the racket!"

I stood as though frozen, until she moved away from the
door. I'd have to hurry. I kneeled, picking up a piece of the
bank, a part of the red-shirted chest, reading the legend, FEED
ME in a curve of white iron letters, like the team name on an
athlete's shirt. The figure had gone to pieces like a grenade,
scattering jagged fragments of painted iron among the coins. I
looked at my hand; a small trickle of blood showed. I wiped it
away, thinking, I'll have to hide this mess! I can't take her
this and the news that I'm moving at the same time. Taking a
newspaper from the chair I folded it stiffly and swept the
coins and broken metal into a pile. Where would I hide it, I
wondered, looking with profound distaste at the iron kinks, the
dull red of a piece of grinning lip. Why, I thought with anguish,
would Mary have something like this around anyway? Just
why? I looked under the bed. It was dustless there, no place to
hide anything. She was too good a housekeeper. Besides, what
of the coins? Hell! Maybe the thing was left by the former
roomer. Anyway, whose ever it was, it had to be hidden. There
was the closet, but she'd find it there too. After I was gone a
few days she'd clean out my things and there it'd be. The
knocking had gone beyond mere protest over heatlessness now,
they had fallen into a ragged rumba rhythm:

Knock!
Knock-knock
Knock-knock!
Knock!
Knock-knock!
Knock-knock!

vibrating the very floor.

"Just a few minutes more, you bastards," I said aloud,
"and I'll be gone! No respect for the individual. Why don't you
think about those who might wish to sleep? What if someone is
near a nervous breakdown . . . ?"

But there was still the package. There was nothing to
do but get rid of it along the way downtown. Making a tight
bundle, I placed it in my overcoat pocket. I'd simply have to
give Mary enough money to cover the coins. I'd give her as
much as I could spare, half of what I had, if necessary. That
should make up for some of it. She should appreciate that. And
now I realized with a feeling of dread that I had to meet her
face to face. There was no way out. Why can't I just tell her
that I'm leaving and pay her and go on off? She was a landlady,
I was a tenant -- No, there was more to it and I wasn't hard
enough, scientific enough, even to tell her that I was leaving.
I'll tell her I have a job, anything, but it has to be now.
She was sitting at the table drinking coffee when I went
in, the kettle hissing away on the stove, sending up jets of
steam.

"Gee, but you slow this morning," she said. "Take some
of that water in the kettle and go wash your face. Though
sleepy as you look, maybe you ought to just use cold water."

"This'll do," I said flatly, feeling the steam drifting upon
my face, growing swiftly damp and cold. The clock above the
stove was slower than mine.

In the bathroom I put in the plug and poured some of the hot
water and cooled it from the spigot. I kept the tearwarm
water upon my face a long time, then dried and returned
to the kitchen.

"Run it full again," she said when I returned. "How you
feel?"

"So-so," I said.

She sat with her elbows upon the enameled table top, her
cup held in both hands, one work-worn little finger deli-
cately curved. I went to the sink and turned the spigot,
feeling the cold rush of water upon my hand, thinking of
what I had to do . . .

"That's enough there, boy," Mary said, startling me.
"Wake up!"

"I guess I'm not all here," I said. "My mind was
wandering."

"Well, call it back and come get you some coffee. Soon's
I've had mine, I'll see what kind of breakfast I can whip
together. I guess after last night you can eat this morning.
You didn't come back for supper."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Coffee will be enough for me."

"Boy, you better start eating again," she warned,
pouring me a full cup of coffee.

I took the cup and sipped it, black. It was bitter. She
glanced from me to the sugar bowl and back again but
remained silent, then swirled her cup, looking into it.

"Guess I'll have to get some better filters," she mused.
"These I got lets through the grounds along with the coffee,
the good with the bad. I don't know though, even with the best
of filters you apt to find a ground or two at the bottom of your
cup."

I blew upon the steaming liquid, avoiding Mary's eyes.
The knocking was becoming unbearable again. I'd have to get
away. I looked at the hot metallic surface of the coffee,
noticing on oily, opalescent swirl.

"Look, Mary," I said, plunging in, "I want to talk to you
about something."

"Now see here, boy," she said gruffly, "I don't want you
worrying me about your rent this morning. I'm not worried
'cause when you get it I know you'll pay me. Meanwhile you
forget it. Nobody in this house is going to starve. You hav-
ing any luck lining up a job?"

"No -- I mean not exactly," I stammered, seizing the oppor-
tunity. "But I've got an appointment to see about one this
morning . . ."

Her face brightened. "Oh, that's fine. You'll get something
yet. I know it."

"But about my debt," I began again.

"Don't worry about it. How about some hotcakes?" she asked,
rising and going to look into the cabinet. "They'll stick
with you in this cold weather."

"I won't have time," I said. "But I've got something for
you . . ."

"What's that?" she said, her voice coming muffled as
she peered inside the cabinet.

"Here," I said hurriedly reaching into my pocket for the
money.

"What? -- Let's see if I got some syrup . . ."

"But look," I said eagerly, removing a hundred-dollar
bill.

"Must be on a higher shelf," she said, her back still
turned.

I sighed as she dragged a step ladder from beside the
cabinet and mounted it, holding onto the doors and peering
upon an upper shelf. I'd never get it said. . .

"But I'm trying to give you something," I said.

"Why don't you quit bothering me, boy? You trying to
give me what?" she said looking over her shoulder.
I held up the bill. "This," I said.

She craned her head around. "Boy, what you got there?"

"It's money."

"Money? Good God, boy!" she said, almost losing her bal-
ance as she turned completely around. "Where'd you get all
that much money? You been playing the numbers?"

"That's it. My number came up," I said thankfully --
thinking, What'll I say if she asks what the number was? I
didn't know. I had never played.

"But how come you didn't tell me? I'd have at least put a
nickel on it."

"I didn't think it would do anything," I said.

"Well, I declare. And I bet it was your first time too."

"It was."

"See there, I knowed you was a lucky one. Here I been play-
ing for years and the first drop of the bucket you hits for
that kinda money. I'm sho glad for you, son. I really am. But
I don't want your money. You wait 'til you get a job."

"But I'm not giving you all of it," I said hastily. "This is
just on account."

"But that's a hundred-dollar bill. I take that an' try to
change it and the white folks'll want to know my whole life's
history." She snorted. "They want to know where I was born,
where I work, and where I been for the last six months, and
when I tell 'em they still gonna think I stole it. Ain't you
got nothing smaller?"

"That's the smallest. Take it," I pleaded. "I'll have enough
left."

She looked at me shrewdly. "You sho?"

"It's the truth," I said.

"Well, I declare -- Let me get down from up here before
I fall and break my neck! Son," she said, coming down off the
ladder, "I sho do appreciate it. But I tell you, I'm just going
to keep part of it for myself and the rest I'm going to save
for you. You get hard up just come to Mary."

"I think I'll be all right now," I said, watching her fold
the money carefully, placing it in the leather bag that always
hung on the back of her chair.

"I'm really glad, 'cause now I can take care of that bill
they been bothering me about. It'll do me so much good to go
in there and plop down some money and tell them folks to quit
bothering me. Son, I believe your luck done changed. You
dream that number?"

I glanced at her eager face. "Yes," I said, "but it was a
mixed-up dream."

"What was the figger -- Jesus! What's this!" she cried,
getting up and pointing at the linoleum near the steam line.

I saw a small drove of roaches trooping frantically down
the steam line from the floor above, plummeting to the floor as
the vibration of the pipe shook them off.

"Get the broom!" Mary yelled. "Out of the closet there!"

Stepping around the chair I snatched the broom and joined
her, splattering the scattering roaches with both broom
and feet, hearing the pop and snap as I brought the pressure
down upon them vehemently.

"The filthy, stinking things," Mary cried. "Git that one under
the table! Yon' he goes, don't let him git away! The nasty
rascal!"

I swung the broom, battering and sweeping the squashed insects
into piles. Breathing excitedly Mary got the dust pan and hand-
ed it to me.

"Some folks just live in filth," she said disgustedly. "Just
let a little knocking start and here it comes crawling out. All
you have to do is shake things up a bit."

I looked at the damp spots on the linoleum, then shakily
replaced the pan and broom and started out of the room.

"Aren't you going to eat no breakfast?" she said. "Soon's
I wipe up this mess I'm going to start."

"I don't have time," I said, my hand on the knob. "My appoint-
ment is early and I have a few things to do beforehand."

"Then you better stop and have you something hot soon as you
can. Don't do to go around in this cold weather without some-
thing in your belly. And don't think you goin' start eating
out just 'cause you got some money!"

"I don't. I'll take care of it," I said to her back as she
washed her hands.

"Well, good luck, son," she called. "You really give me a
pleasant surprise this morning -- and if that's a lie, I hope
something big'll bite me!"

She laughed gaily and I went down the hall to my room
and closed the door. Pulling on my overcoat I got down my
prized brief case from the closet. It was still as new as the
night of the battle royal, and sagged now as I placed the
smashed bank and coins inside and locked the flap. Then I
closed the closet door and left.

The knocking didn't bother me so much now. Mary was singing
something sad and serene as I went down the hall, and still
singing as I opened the door and stepped into the outside
hall. Then I remembered, and there beneath the dim hall light I
took the faintly perfumed paper from my wallet and carefully
unfolded it. A tremor passed over me; the hall was cold. Then it
was gone and I squinted and took a long, hard look at my new
Brotherhood name.

The night's snowfall was already being churned to muck by the
passing cars, and it was warmer. Joining the pedestrians
along the walk, I could feel the brief case swinging against my
leg from the weight of the package, and I determined to get rid
of the coins and broken iron at the first ash can. I needed
nothing like this to remind me of my last morning at Mary's.
I made for a row of crushed garbage cans lined before a
row of old private houses, coming alongside and tossing the
package casually into one of them and moving on -- only to hear
a door open behind me and a voice ring out,

"Oh, no you don't, oh, no you don't! Just come right back
here and get it!"

Turning, I saw a little woman standing on the stoop with a
green coat covering her head and shoulders, its sleeves
hanging limp like extra atrophied arms.

"I mean you," she called. "Come on back an' get your
trash. An' don't ever put your trash in my can again!"

She was a short yellow woman with a pince-nez on a
chain, her hair pinned up in knots.

"We keep our place clean and respectable and we don't
want you field niggers coming up here from the South and
ruining things," she shouted with blazing hate.

People were stopping to look. A super from a building
down the block came out and stood in the middle of the walk,
pounding his fist against his palm with a dry, smacking sound.
I hesitated, embarrassed and annoyed. Was this woman crazy?

"I mean it! Yes, you! I'm talking to you! Just take it right
out! Rosalie," she called to someone inside the house, "call the
police, Rosalie!"

I can't afford that, I thought, and walked back to the can.
"What does it matter, Miss?" I called up to her. "When the
collectors come, garbage is garbage. I just didn't want to throw
it into the street. I didn't know that some kinds of garbage
were better than others."

"Never mind your impertinence," she said. "I'm sick and
tired of having you southern Negroes mess up things for the
rest of us!"

"All right," I said, "I'll get it out."

I reached into the half-filled can, feeling for the package,
as the fumes of rotting swill entered my nostrils. It felt
unhealthy to my hand, and the heavy package had sunk far
down. Cursing, I pushed back my sleeve with my clean hand
and probed until I found it. Then I wiped off my arm with
a handkerchief and started away, aware of the people who
paused to grin at me.

"It serves you right," the little woman called from the
stoop.

And I turned and started upward. "That's enough out of you,
you piece of yellow gone-to-waste. Unless you still want to
call the police." My voice had taken on a new shrill pitch. "I've
done what you wanted me to do; another word and I'll do what
I want to do --"

She looked at me with widening eyes. "I believe you would,"
she said, opening the door. "I believe you would."

"I not only would, I'd love it," I said.

"I can see that you're no gentleman," she called, slamming
the door,

At the next row of cans I wiped off my wrist and hands
with a piece of newspaper, then wrapped the rest around the
package. Next time I'd throw it into the street.

Two blocks further along my anger had ebbed, but I felt
strangely lonely. Even the people who stood around me at the
intersection seemed isolated, each lost in his own thoughts.
And now just as the lights changed I let the package fall into
the trampled snow and hurried across, thinking, There, it's
done.

I had covered two blocks when someone called behind me,
"Say, buddy! Hey, there! You, Mister . . . Wait a second!"
and I could hear the hurried crunching of footsteps upon the
snow. Then he was beside me, a squat man in worn clothes, the
strands of his breath showing white in the cold as he smiled
at me, panting.

"You was moving so fast I thought I wasn't going to be
able to stop you," he said. "Didn't you lose something back
there a piece?"

Oh, hell, a friend in need, I thought, deciding to deny it.
"Lose something?" I said. "Why, no."

"You sure?" he said, frowning.

"Yes," I said, seeing his forehead wrinkle with uncertain-
ty, a hot charge of fear leaping to his eyes as he searched
my face.

"But I seen you -- Say, buddy," he said, looking swiftly
back up the street, "what you trying to do?"

"Do? What do you mean?"

"I mean talking 'bout you didn't lose nothing. You work-
ing a con game or something?" He backed away, looking
hurriedly at the pedestrians back up the street from where
he'd come.

"What on earth are you talking about now?" I said. "I tell
you I didn't lose anything."

"Man, don't tell me! I seen you. What the hell you mean?"
he said, furtively removing the package from his pocket.
"This here feels like money or a gun or something and I
know damn well I seen you drop it."

"Oh, that," I said. "That isn't anything -- I thought you --"

"That's right, 'Oh.' So you remember now, don't you? I
think I'm doing you a favor and you play me for a fool. You
some kind of confidence man or dope peddler or something?
You trying to work one of those pigeon drops on me?"

"Pigeon drop?" I said. "You're making a mistake --"

"Mistake, hell! Take this damn stuff," he said, thrusting
the package in my hands as though it were a bomb with a
lighted fuse. "I got a family, man. I try to do you a favor and
here you trying to get me into trouble -- You running from a
detective or somebody?"

"Wait a minute," I said. "You're letting your imagination
run away; this is nothing but garbage --"

"Don't try to hand me that simple-minded crap," he wheezed.
"I know what kind of garbage it is. You young New York Ne-
groes is a blip! I swear you is! I hope they catch you
and put your ass under the jail!"

He shot away as though I had smallpox. I looked at the
package. He thinks it's a gun or stolen goods, I thought,
watching him go. A few steps farther along I was about to toss
it boldly into the street when upon looking back I saw him,
joined by another man now, gesturing toward me indignantly. I
hurried away. Give him time and the fool'll call a policeman. I
dropped the package back into the brief case. I'd wait until I
got downtown.

On the subway people around me were reading their morning
papers, pressing forward their unpleasant faces. I rode
with my eyes shut, trying to make my mind blank to thoughts
of Mary. Then turning, I saw the item Violent Protest Over
Harlem Eviction, just as the man lowered his paper and
moved out of the breaking doors. I could hardly wait until I
reached 42nd Street, where I found the story carried on the
front page of a tabloid, and I read it eagerly. I was referred
to only as an unknown "rabble rouser" who had disappeared in
the excitement, but that it referred to me was unmistakable. It
had lasted for two hours, the crowd refusing to vacate the
premises. I entered the clothing store with a new sense of
self-importance.

I selected a more expensive suit than I'd intended, and
while it was being altered I picked up a hat, shorts, shoes,
underwear and socks, then hurried to call Brother Jack, who
snapped his orders like a general. I was to go to a number on
the upper East Side where I'd find a room, and I was to read
over some of the Brotherhood's literature which had been left
there for me, with the idea of my making a speech at a Harlem
rally to be held that evening.

The address was that of an undistinguished building in
a mixed Spanish-Irish neighborhood, and there were boys
throwing snowballs across the street when I rang the super's
bell. The door was opened by a small pleasant-faced woman
who smiled.

"Good morning, Brother," she said. "The apartment is all
ready for you. He said you'd come about this time and I've
just this minute come down. My, just look at that snow."

I followed her up the three flights of stairs, wondering
what on earth I'd do with a whole apartment.

"This is it," she said, removing a chain of keys from her
pocket and opening a door at the front of the hall. I went into
a small comfortably furnished room that was bright with the
winter sun. "This is the living room," she said proudly, "and
over here is your bedroom."

It was much larger than I needed, with a chest of drawers,
two upholstered chairs, two closets, a bookshelf and a
desk on which was stacked the literature to which he'd
referred. A bathroom lay off the bedroom, and there was a
small kitchen.

"I hope you like it, Brother," she said, as she left. "If
there's anything you need, please ring my bell."

The apartment was clean and neat and I liked it -- especial-
ly the bathroom with its tub and shower. And as quickly
as I could I drew a bath and soaked myself. Then feeling clean
and exhilarated I went out to puzzle over the Brotherhood
books and pamphlets. My brief case with the broken image lay
on the table. I would get rid of the package later; right now I
had to think about tonight's rally.



Chapter 16



At seven-thirty Brother Jack and some of the others picked
me up and we shot up to Harlem in a taxi. As before, no
one spoke a word. There was only the sound made by a man in
the corner who drew noisily on a pipeful of rum-flavored
tobacco, causing it to glow on and off, a red disk in the dark.
I rode with mounting nervousness; the taxi seemed unnaturally
warm. We got out in a side street and went down a narrow alley
in the dark to the rear of the huge, barn-like building. Other
members had already arrived.

"Ah, here we are," Brother Jack said, leading the way through
a dark rear door to a dressing room lighted by naked, low-
hanging bulbs -- a small room with wooden benches and a
row of steel lockers with a network of names scratched on the
doors. It had a football-locker smell of ancient sweat, iodine,
blood and rubbing alcohol, and I felt a welling up of memories.

"We remain here until the building fills," Brother Jack
said. "Then we make our appearance -- just at the height of
their impatience." He gave me a grin. "Meanwhile, you think
about what you'll say. Did you look over the material?"

"All day," I said.

"Good. I suggest, however, that you listen carefully to the
rest of us. We'll all precede you so that you can get pointers
for your remarks. You'll be last."

I nodded, seeing him take two of the other men by the
arm and retreat to a corner. I was alone, the others were
studying their notes, talking. I went across the room to a torn
photograph tacked to the faded wall. It was a shot, in fighting
stance, of a former prizefight champion, a popular fighter who
had lost his sight in the ring. It must have been right here in
this arena, I thought. That had been years ago. The photograph
was that of a man so dark and battered that he might have
been of any nationality. Big and loose-muscled, he looked like
a good man. I remembered my father's story of how he had been
beaten blind in a crooked fight, of the scandal that had been
suppressed, and how the fighter had died in a home for the
blind. Who would have thought I'd ever come here? How things
were twisted around! I felt strangely sad and went and
slouched on a bench. The others talked on, their voices low.
I watched them with a sudden resentment. Why did I have to
come last? What if they bored the audience to death before I
came on! I'd probably be shouted down before I could get
started . . . But perhaps not, I thought, jabbing my suspicions
away. Perhaps I could make an effect through the sheer
contrast between my approach and theirs. Maybe that was the
strategy . . . Anyway, I had to trust them. I had to.

Still a nervousness clung to me. I felt out of place. From
beyond the door I could hear a distant scrape of chairs, a
murmur of voices. Little worries whirled up within me: That I
might forget my new name; that I might be recoginzed from the
audience. I bent forward, suddenly conscious of my legs in new
blue trousers. But how do you know they're your legs? What's
your name? I thought, making a sad joke with myself. It was
absurd, but it relieved my nervousness. For it was as though I
were looking at my own legs for the first time -- independent
objects that could of their own volition lead me to safety or
danger. I stared at the dusty floor. Then it was as though I were
returning after a long suspension of consciousness, as though I
stood simultaneously at opposite ends of a tunnel. I seemed to
view myself from the distance of the campus while yet sitting
there on a bench in the old arena; dressed in a new blue suit;
sitting across the room from a group of intense men who talked
among themselves in hushed, edgy voices; while yet in the
distance I could hear the clatter of chairs, more voices, a
cough. I seemed aware of it all from a point deep within me,
yet there was a disturbing vagueness about what I saw, a
disturbing unformed quality, as when you see yourself in a
photo exposed during adolescence: the expression empty, the
grin without character, the ears too large, the pimples,
"courage bumps," too many and too well-defined. This was a
new phase, I realized, a new beginning, and I would have to
take that part of myself that looked on with remote eyes and
keep it always at the distance of the campus, the hospital
machine, the battle royal -- all now far behind. Perhaps the part
of me that observed listlessly but saw all, missing nothing, was
still the malicious, arguing part; the dissenting voice, my
grandfather part; the cynical, disbelieving part -- the traitor-
self that always threatened internal discord. Whatever it was, I
knew that I'd have to keep it pressed down. I had to. For if I
were successful tonight, I'd be on the road to something big.
No more flying apart at the seams, no more remembering forgot-
ten pains . . . No, I thought, shifting my body, they're the
same legs on which I've come so far from home. And yet they
were somehow new. The new suit imparted a newness to me. It
was the clothes and the new name and the circumstances. It
was a newness too subtle to put into thought, but there it
was. I was becoming someone else.

I sensed vaguely and with a flash of panic that the
moment I walked out upon the platform and opened my mouth
I'd be someone else. Not just a nobody with a manufactured
name which might have belonged to anyone, or to no one. But
another personality. Few people knew me now, but after tonight
. . . How was it? Perhaps simply to be known, to be looked
upon by so many people, to be the focal point of so many
concentrating eyes, perhaps this was enough to make one
different; enough to transform one into something else,
someone else; just as by becoming an increasingly larger boy
one became one day a man; a man with a deep voice --
although my voice had been deep since I was twelve. But what
if someone from the campus wandered into the audience? Or
someone from Mary's -- even Mary herself? "No, it wouldn't
change it," I heard myself say softly, "that's all past." My
name was different; I was under orders. Even if I met Mary
on the street, I'd have to pass her by unrecognized. A de-
pressing thought -- and I got up abruptly and went out of
the dressing room and into the alley.

Without my overcoat it was cold. A feeble light burned
above the entrance, sparkling the snow. I crossed the alley to
the dark side, stopping near a fence that smelled of carbolic
acid, which, as I looked back across the alley, caused me to
remember a great abandoned hole that had been the site of a
sports arena that had burned before my birth. All that was left,
a cliff drop of some forty feet below the heat-buckled walk, was
the shell of concrete with weirdly bent and rusted rods that had
been its basement. The hole was used for dumping, and after a
rain it stank with stagnant water. And now in my mind I stood
upon the walk looking out across the hole past a Hooverville
shanty of packing cases and bent tin signs, to a railroad yard
that lay beyond. Dark depthless water lay without motion in the
hole, and past the Hooverville a switch engine idled upon the
shining rails, and as a plume of white steam curled slowly from
its funnel I saw a man come out of the shanty and start up the
path which led to the walk above. Stooped and dark and
sprouting rags from his shoes, hat and sleeves, he shuffled
slowly toward me, bringing a threatening cloud of carbolic
acid. It was a syphilitic who lived alone in the shanty between
the hole and the railroad yard, coming up to the street only to
beg money for food and disinfectant with which to soak his
rags. Then in my mind I saw him stretching out a hand from
which the fingers had been eaten away and I ran -- back to
the dark, and the cold and the present.

I shivered, looking toward the street, where up the alley
through the tunneling dark, three mounted policemen loomed
beneath the circular, snow-sparkling beam of the street lamp,
grasping their horses by their bridles, the heads of both men
and animals bent close, as though plotting; the leather of
saddles and leggings shining. Three white men and three black
horses. Then a car passed and they showed in full relief, their
shadows flying like dreams across the sparkle of snow and
darkness. And, as I turned to leave, one of the horses violently
tossed its head and I saw the gauntleted fist yanked down.
Then there was a wild neigh and the horse plunged off in the
dark, the crisp, frantic clanking of metal and the stomping of
hooves followed me to the door. Perhaps this was something for
Brother Jack to know.

But inside they were still in a huddle, and I went back and
sat on the bench.

I watched them, feeling very young and inexperienced and yet
strangely old, with an oldness that watched and waited quiet-
ly within me. Outside, the audience had begun to drone; a
distant, churning sound that brought back some of the terror of
the eviction. My mind flowed. There was a child standing in
rompers outside a chicken-wire fence, looking in upon a huge
black-and-white dog, log-chained to an apple tree. It was
Master, the bulldog; and I was the child who was afraid to
touch him, although, panting with heat, he seemed to grin back
at me like a fat good-natured man, the saliva roping silvery
from his jowls. And as the voices of the crowd churned and
mounted and became an impatient splatter of hand claps, I
thought of Master's low hoarse growl. He had barked the same
note when angry or when being brought his dinner, when lazily
snapping flies, or when tearing an intruder to shreds. I liked,
but didn't trust old Master; I wanted to please, but did not
trust the crowd. Then I looked at Brother Jack and grinned:
That was it; in some ways, he was like a toy bull terrier.

But now the roar and clapping of hands became a song
and I saw Brother Jack break off and bounce to the door.
"Okay, Brothers," he said, "that's our signal."

We went in a bunch, out of the dressing room and down
a dim passage aroar with the distant sound. Then it was
brighter and I could see a spotlight blazing the smoky haze. We
moved silently, Brother Jack following two very black Negroes
and two white men who led the procession, and now the roar of
the crowd seemed to rise above us, flaring louder. I noticed the
others falling into columns of four, and I was alone in the rear,
like the pivot of a drill team. Ahead, a slanting shaft of
brightness marked the entrance to one of the levels of the
arena, and now as we passed it the crowd let out a roar. Then
swiftly we were in the dark again, and climbing, the roar
seeming to sink below us and we were moved into a bright blue
light and down a ramp; to each side of which, stretching away
in a curve, I could see rows of blurred faces -- then suddenly I
was blinded and felt myself crash into the man ahead of me. "It
always happens the first time," he shouted, stopping to let me
get my balance, his voice small in the roar. "It's the spotlight!"

It had picked us up now, and, beaming just ahead, led us into
the arena and encircled us full in its beam, the crowd thun-
dering. The song burst forth like a rocket to the marching
tempo of clapping hands:

John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
-- His soul is marching on!

Imagine that, I thought, they make the old song sound
new. At first I was as remote as though I stood in the highest
balcony looking on. Then I walked flush into the vibrations of
the voices and felt an electric tingling along my spine. We
marched toward a flag-draped platform set near the front of
the arena, moving through an aisle left between rows of people
in folding chairs, then onto the platform past a number of
women who stood when we came on. With a nod Brother Jack
indicated our chairs and we faced the applause standing.
Below and above us was the audience, row after row of
faces, the arena a bowl-shaped aggregation of humanity. Then I
saw the policemen and was disturbed. What if they recognized
me? They were all along the wall. I touched the arm of the man
ahead, seeing him turn, his mouth halting in a verse of the
song.

"Why all the police?" I said, leaning forward on the back
of his chair.

"Cops? Don't worry. Tonight they're ordered to protect us.
This meeting is of great political consequence!" he said,
turning away.

Who ordered them to protect us? I thought -- But now the
song was ending and the building rang with applause, yells,
until the chant burst from the rear and spread:

No more dispossessing of the dispossessed!
No more dispossessing of the dispossessed!

The audience seemed to have become one, its breathing
and articulation synchronized. I looked at Brother Jack. He
stood up front beside a microphone, his feet planted solidly on
the dirty canvas-covered platform, looking from side to side; his
posture dignified and benign, like a bemused father listening to
the performance of his adoring children. I saw his hand go up
in a salute, and the audience thundered. And I seemed to move
in close, like the lens of a camera, focusing into the scene and
feeling the heat and excitement and the pounding of voice and
applause against my diaphragm, my eyes flying from face to
face, swiftly, fleetingly, searching for someone I could
recognize, for someone from the old life, and seeing the faces
become vaguer and vaguer the farther they receded from the
platform.

The speeches began. First an invocation by a Negro preach-
er; then a woman spoke of what was happening to the children.
Then came speeches on various aspects of the economic and
political situation. I listened carefully, trying to snatch a phrase
here, a word there, from the arsenal of hard, precise terms. It
was becoming a high-keyed evening. Songs flared between
speeches, chants exploded as spontaneously as shouts at a
southern revival. And I was somehow attuned to it all, could
feel it physically. Sitting with my feet on the soiled canvas
I felt as though I had wandered into the percussion section
of a symphony orchestra. It worked on me so thoroughly that
I soon gave up trying to memorize phrases and simply allowed
the excitement to carry me along.

Someone pulled on my coat sleeve -- my turn had come.
I went toward the microphone where Brother Jack himself
waited, entering the spot of light that surrounded me like a
seamless cage of stainless steel. I halted. The light was so
strong that I could no longer see the audience, the bowl of
human faces. It was as though a semi-transparent curtain had
dropped between us, but through which they could see me --
for they were applauding -- without themselves being seen. I
felt the hard, mechanical isolation of the hospital machine
and I didn't like it. I stood, barely hearing Brother Jack's
introduction. Then he was through and there was an encour-
aging burst of applause. And I thought, They remember,
some of them were there.

The microphone was strange and unnerving. I approached it
incorrectly, my voice sounding raspy and full of air, and
after a few words I halted, embarrassed. I was getting off
to a bad start, something had to be done. I leaned toward
the vague audience closest to the platform and said, "Sorry,
folks. Up to now they've kept me so far away from these shiny
electric gadgets I haven't learned the technique . . . And to
tell you the truth, it looks to me like it might bite! Just
look at it, it looks like the steel skull of a man! Do you
think he died of dispossession?"

It worked and while they laughed someone came and made
an adjustment. "Don't stand too close," he advised.
"How's that?" I said, hearing my voice boom deep and
vibrant over the arena. "Is that better?"

There was a ripple of applause.

"You see, all I needed was a chance. You've granted it,
now it's up to me!"

The applause grew stronger and from down front a man's
far-carrying voice called out, "We with you, Brother. You
pitch 'em we catch 'em!"

That was all I needed, I'd made a contact, and it was as
though his voice was that of them all. I was wound up, nervous.
I might have been anyone, might have been trying to speak in a
foreign language. For I couldn't remember the correct words
and phrases from the pamphlets. I had to fall back upon
tradition and since it was a political meeting, I selected one of
the political techniques that I'd heard so often at home: The old
down-to-earth, I'm-sick-and-tired-of-the-way-they've-been-
treating-us approach. I couldn't see them so I addressed the
microphone and the co-operative voice before me.

"You know, there are those who think we who are gathered
here are dumb," I shouted. "Tell me if I'm right."

"That's a strike, Brother," the voice called. "You pitched
a strike."

"Yes, they think we're dumb. They call us the 'common people.'
But I've been sitting here listening and looking and trying
to understand what's so common about us. I think they're
guilty of a gross mis-statement of fact -- we are the
uncommon people --"

"Another strike," the voice called in the thunder, and I
paused holding up my hand to halt the noise.

"Yes, we're the uncommon people -- and I'll tell you why.
They call us dumb and they treat us dumb. And what do they do
with dumb ones? Think about it, look around! They've got a
slogan and a policy. They've got what Brother Jack would call a
'theory and a practice.' It's 'Never give a sucker an even
break!' It's dispossess him! Evict him! Use his empty head for a
spittoon and his back for a door mat! It's break him! Deprive
him of his wages! It's use his protest as a sounding brass to
frighten him into silence, it's beat his ideas and his hopes and
homely aspirations, into a tinkling cymbal! A small, cracked
cymbal to tinkle on the Fourth of July! Only muffle it! Don't let
it sound too loud! Beat it in stoptime, give the dumb bunnies
the soft-shoe dance! The Big Wormy Apple, The Chicago Get
Away, the Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me!

"And do you know what makes us so uncommon?" I whispered
hoarsely. "We let them do it."

The silence was profound. The smoke boiled in the spotlight.

"Another strike," I heard the voice call sadly. "Ain't no
use to protest the decision!" And I thought, Is he with me or
against me?

"Dispossession! Dis-possession is the word!" I went on.
"They've tried to dispossess us of our manhood and woman-
hood! Of our childhood and adolescence -- You heard the
sister's statistics on our infant mortality rate. Don't you know
you're lucky to be uncommonly born? Why, they even tried to
dispossess us of our dislike of being dispossessed! And I'll tell
you something else -- if we don't resist, pretty soon they'll
succeed! These are the days of dispossession, the season of
homelessness, the time of evictions. We'll be dispossessed of
the very brains in our heads! And we're so uncommon that we
can't even see it! Perhaps we're too polite. Perhaps we don't
care to look at unpleasantness. They think we're blind --
uncommonly blind. And I don't wonder. Think about it, they've
dispossessed us each of one eye from the day we're born. So
now we can only see in straight white lines. We're a nation of
one-eyed mice -- Did you ever see such a sight in your life?
Such an uncommon sight!"

"An' ain't a farmer's wife in the house," the voice called
through the titters of bitter laughter. "It's another strike!"

I leaned forward. "You know, if we aren't careful, they'll
slip up on our blind sides and -- plop! out goes our last good
eye and we're blind as bats! Someone's afraid we'll see
something. Maybe that's why so many of our fine friends are
present tonight -- blue steel pistols and blue serge suits and all!
-- but I believe one eye is enough to lose without resistance and
I think that's your belief. So let's get together. Did you ever
notice, my dumb one-eyed brothers, how two totally blind men
can get together and help one another along? They stumble,
they bump into things, but they avoid dangers too; they get
along. Let's get together, uncommon people. With both our
eyes we may see what makes us so uncommon, we'll see who
makes us so uncommon! Up to now we've been like a couple of
one-eyed men walking down opposite sides of the street.
Someone starts throwing bricks and we start blaming each
other and fighting among ourselves. But we're mistaken!
Because there's a third party present. There's a smooth, oily
scoundrel running down the middle of the wide gray street
throwing stones -- He's the one! He's doing the damage! He
claims he needs the space -- he calls it his freedom. And he
knows he's got us on our blind side and he's been popping
away till he's got us silly -- uncommonly silly! In fact, In fact,
his freedom has got us damn-nigh blind! Hush now, don't call
no names!" I called, holding up my palm. "I say to hell with this
guy! I say come on, cross over! Let's make an alliance! I'll look
out for you, and you look out for me! I'm good at catching and
I've got a damn good pitching arm!"

"You don't pitch no balls, Brother! Not a single one!"

"Let's make a miracle," I shouted. "Let's take back our pill-
aged eyes! Let's reclaim our sight; let's combine and spread
our vision. Peep around the corner, there's a storm coming.
Look down the avenue, there's only one enemy. Can't you see
his face?"

It was a natural pause and there was applause, but as it
burst I realized that the flow of words had stopped. What would
I do when they started to listen again? I leaned forward,
straining to see through the barrier of light. They were mine,
out there, and I couldn't afford to lose them. Yet I suddenly
felt naked, sensing that the words were returning and that
something was about to be said that I shouldn't reveal.

"Look at me!" The words ripped from my solar plexus. "I
haven't lived here long. Times are hard, I've known despair. I'm
from the South, and since coming here I've known eviction. I'd
come to distrust the world . . . But look at me now, something
strange is happening. I'm here before you. I must confess . . ."

And suddenly Brother Jack was beside me, pretending to adjust
the microphone. "Careful now," he whispered. "Don't end your
usefulness before you've begun."

"I'm all right," I said, leaning toward the mike.

"May I confess?" I shouted. "You are my friends. We share a
common disinheritance, and it's said that confession is
good for the soul. Have I your permission?"

"Your batting .500, Brother," the voice called.

There was a stir behind me. I waited until it was quiet
and hurried on.

"Silence is consent," I said, "so I'll have it out, I'll confess
it!" My shoulders were squared, my chin thrust forward and
my eyes focused straight into the light. "Something strange
and miraculous and transforming is taking place in me right
now . . . as I stand here before you!"

I could feel the words forming themselves, slowly falling
into place. The light seemed to boil opalescently, like liquid
soap shaken gently in a bottle.

"Let me describe it. It is something odd. It's something
that I'm sure I'd never experience anywhere else in the world. I
feel your eyes upon me. I hear the pulse of your breathing. And
now, at this moment, with your black and white eyes upon me, I
feel . . . I feel . . ."

I stumbled in a stillness so complete that I could hear the
gears of the huge clock mounted somewhere on the balcony
gnawing upon time.

"What is it, son, what do you feel?" a shrill voice cried.

My voice fell to a husky whisper, "I feel, I feel suddenly
that I have become more human. Do you understand? More
human. Not that I have become a man, for I was born a man.
But that I am more human. I feel strong, I feel able to get
things done! I feel that I can see sharp and clear and far down
the dim corridor of history and in it I can hear the footsteps of
militant fraternity! No, wait, let me confess . . . I feel the urge
to affirm my feelings . . . I feel that here, after a long and
desperate and uncommonly blind journey, I have come home...
Home! With your eyes upon me I feel that I've found my true
family! My true people! My true country! I am a new citizen of
the country of your vision, a native of your fraternal land. I feel
that here tonight, in this old arena, the new is being born and
the vital old revived. In each of you, in me, in us all.

"SISTERS! BROTHERS!
"WE ARE THE TRUE PATRIOTS! THE CITIZENS OF
TOMORROW'S WORLD!
"WE'LL BE DISPOSSESSED NO MORE!"

The applause struck like a clap of thunder. I stood, trans-
fixed, unable to see, my body quivering with the roar. I
made an indefinite movement. What should I do -- wave to
them? I faced the shouts, cheers, shrill whistling, my eyes
burning from the light. I felt a large tear roll down my face
and I wiped it away with embarrassment. Others were starting
down. Why didn't someone help me get out of the spot before I
spoiled everything? But with the tears came an increase of
applause and I lifted my head, surprised, my eyes streaming.
The sound seemed to roar up in waves. They had begun to
stomp the floor and I was laughing and bowing my head now
unashamed. It grew in volume, the sound of splitting wood
came from the rear. I grew tired, but still they cheered until,
finally, I gave up and started back toward the chairs. Red
spots danced before my eyes. Someone took my hand, and
leaned toward my ear.

"You did it, goddamnit! You did it!" And I was puzzled by
the hot mixture of hate and admiration bursting through his
words as I thanked him and removed my hand from his
crushing grasp.

"Thanks," I said, "but the others had raised them to the
right pitch."

I shuddered; he sounded as though he would like to throttle
me. I couldn't see and there was much confusion and suddenly
someone spun me around, pulling me off balance, and I felt
myself pressed against warm feminine softness, holding
on.

"Oh, Brother, Brother!" a woman's voice cried into my ear,
"Little Brother!" and I felt the hot moist pressure of her
lips upon my cheek.

Blurred figures bumped about me. I stumbled as in a
game of blindman's buff. My hands were shaken, my back
pounded. My face was sprayed with the saliva of enthusiasm,
and I decided that the next time I stood in the spotlight
it would be wise to wear dark glasses.

It was a deafening demonstration. We left them cheering,
knocking over chairs, stomping the floor. Brother Jack
guided me off the platform. "It's time we left," he shouted.
"Things have truly begun to move. All that energy must be
organized!"

He guided me through the shouting crowd, hands continuing
to touch me as I stumbled along. Then we entered the dark
passage and when we reached the end the spots faded from
my eyes and I began to see again. Brother Jack paused at
the door.

"Listen to them," he said. "Just waiting to be told what
to do!" And I could still hear the applause booming behind us.
Then several of the others broke off their conversation and
faced us, as the applause muffled down behind the closing
door.

"Well, what do you think?" Brother Jack said enthusia-
stically. "How's that for a starter?"

There was a tense silence. I looked from face to face,
black and white, feeling swift panic. They were grim.

"Well?" Brother Jack said, his voice suddenly hard.
I could hear the creaking of someone's shoes.

"Well?" he repeated.

Then the man with the pipe spoke up, a swift charge of
tension building with his words.

"It was a most unsatisfactory beginning," he said quietly,
punctuating the "unsatisfactory" with a stab of his pipe.
He was looking straight at me and I was puzzled. I looked
at the others. Their faces were noncommittal, stolid.

"Unsatisfactory!" Brother Jack exploded. "And what
alleged process of thought led to that brilliant
pronouncement?"

"This is no time for cheap sarcasm, Brother," the
brother with the pipe said.

"Sarcasm? You made the sarcasm. No, it isn't a time for
sarcasms nor for imbecilities. Nor for plain damn-fooleries!
This is a key moment in the struggle, things have just begun
to move -- and suddenly you are unhappy. You are afraid of
success? What's wrong? Isn't this just what we've been working
for?"

"Again, ask yourself. You are the great leader. Look into
your crystal ball."

Brother Jack swore.

"Brothers!" someone said.

Brother Jack swore and swung to another brother.

"You," he said to the husky man. "Have you the courage to
tell me what's going on here? Have we become a street-corner
gang?"

Silence. Someone shuffled his feet. The man with the pipe
was looking now at me.

"Did I do something wrong?" I said.

"The worst you could have done," he said coldly.

Stunned, I looked at him wordlessly.

"Never mind," Brother Jack said, suddenly calm. "Just what
is the problem, Brother? Let's have it out right here. Just
what is your complaint?"

"Not a complaint, an opinion. If we are still allowed to
express our opinions," the brother with the pipe said.

"Your opinion, then," Brother Jack said.

"In my opinion the speech was wild, hysterical, political-
ly irresponsible and dangerous," he snapped. "And worse
than that, it was incorrect!" He pronounced "incorrect"
as though the term described the most heinous crime im-
aginable, and I stared at him open-mouthed, feeling a vague
guilt.

"Soooo," Brother Jack said, looking from face to face,
"there's been a caucus and decisions have been made. Did you
take minutes, Brother Chairman? Have you recorded your wise
disputations?"

"There was no caucus and the opinion still holds," the
brother with the pipe said.

"No meeting, but just the same there has been a caucus
and decisions have been reached even before the event is
finished."

"But, Brother," someone tried to intervene.

"A most brilliant, operation," Brother Jack went on,
smiling now. "A consummate example of skilled theoretical
Nijinskys leaping ahead of history. But come down. Brothers,
come down or you'll land on your dialectics; the stage of history
hasn't built that far. The month after next, perhaps, but not yet.
And what do you think, Brother Wrestrum?" he asked, pointing
to a big fellow of the shape and size of Supercargo.

"I think the brother's speech was backward and reactionary!"
he said.

I wanted to answer but could not. No wonder his voice
had sounded so mixed when he congratulated me. I could only
stare into the broad face with its hate-burning eyes.

"And you," Brother Jack said.

"I liked the speech," the man said, "I thought it was quite
effective."

"And you?" Brother Jack said to the next man.

"I am of the opinion that it was a mistake."

"And just why?"

"Because we must strive to reach the people through their
intelligence . . ."

"Exactly," the brother with the pipe said. "It was the anti-
thesis of the scientific approach. Ours is a reasonable point
of view. We are champions of a scientific approach to society,
and such a speech as we've identified ourselves with tonight
destroys everything that has been said before. The audience
isn't thinking, it's yelling its head off."

"Sure, it's acting like a mob," the big black brother said.

Brother Jack laughed. "And this mob," he said, "Is it a
mob against us, or is it a mob for us -- how do our muscle-
bound scientists answer that?"

But before they could answer he continued, "Perhaps you're
right, perhaps it is a mob; but if it is, then it seems to be
a mob that's simply boiling over to come along with us. And I
shouldn't have to tell you theoreticians that science bases
its judgments upon experiment! You're jumping to conclusions
before the experiment has run its course. In fact, what's
happening here tonight represents only one step in the
experiment. The initial step, the release of energy. I can
understand that it should make you timid -- you're afraid of
carrying through to the next step -- because it's up to you to
organize that energy. Well, it's going to be organized and not
by a bunch of timid sideline theoreticians arguing in a vacuum,
but by getting out and leading the people!"

He was fighting mad, looking from face to face, his red head
bristling, but no one answered his challenge.

"It's disgusting," he said, pointing to me. "Our new brother
has succeeded by instinct where for two years your 'science'
has failed, and now all you can offer is destructive
criticism."

"I beg to differ," the brother with the pipe said. "To point
out the dangerous nature of his speech isn't destructive
criticism. Far from it. Like the rest of us, the new brother
must learn to speak scientifically. He must be trained!"

"So at last it occurs to you," Brother Jack said, pulling
down the corners of his mouth. "Training. All is not lost.
There's hope that our wild but effective speaker may be tamed.
The scientists perceive a possibility! Very well, it has been
arranged; perhaps not scientifically but arranged nevertheless.
For the next few months our new brother is to undergo a
period of intense study and indoctrination under the guidance
of Brother Hambro. That's right," he said, as I started to speak.
"I meant to tell you later."

"But that's a long time," I said. "How am I going to live?"

"Your salary will continue," he said. "Meanwhile, you'll
be guilty of no further unscientific speeches to upset our
brothers' scientific tranquillity. In fact, you are to stay
completely out of Harlem. Perhaps then we'll see if you
brothers are as swift at organizing as you are at criticizing.
It's your move, Brothers."

"I think Brother Jack is correct," a short, bald man said.

"And I don't think that we, of all people, should be afraid of
the people's enthusiasm. What we've got to do is to guide it
into channels where it will do the most good."

The rest were silent, the brother with the pipe looking
at me unbendingly.

"Come," Brother Jack said. "Let's get out of here. If we
keep our eyes on the real goal our chances are better than ever
before. And let's remember that science isn't a game of chess,
although chess may be played scientifically. The other thing to
remember is that if we are to organize the masses we must first
organize ourselves. Thanks to our new brother, things have
changed; we mustn't fail to make use of our opportunity. From
now on it's up to you."

"We shall see," the brother with the pipe said. "And as for
the new brother, a few talks with Brother Hambro wouldn't
harm anyone."

Hambro, I thought, going out, who the hell is he? I suppose
I'm lucky they didn't fire me. So now I've got to go to
school again.

Out in the night the group was breaking up and Brother Jack
drew me aside. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll find Brother
Hambro interesting, and a period of training was inevitable.
Your speech tonight was a test which you passed with flying
colors, so now you'll be prepared for some real work. Here's
the address; see Brother Hambro the first thing in the morning.
He's already been notified."

When I reached home, tiredness seemed to explode within me.
My nerves remained tense even after I had had a hot shower
and crawled into bed. In my disappointment, I wanted only
to sleep, but my mind kept wandering back to the rally. It
had actually happened. I had been lucky and had said the
right things at the right time and they had liked me. Or
perhaps I had said the wrong things in the right places --
whatever, they had liked it regardless of the brothers, and from
now on my life would be different. It was different already. For
now I realized that I meant everything that I had said to the
audience, even though I hadn't known that I was going to say
those things. I had intended only to make a good appearance,
to say enough to keep the Brotherhood interested in me. What
had come out was completely uncalculated, as though another
self within me had taken over and held forth. And lucky that
it had, or I might have been fired.

Even my technique had been different; no one who had
known me at college would have recognized the speech. But
that was as it should have been, for I was someone new -- even
though I had spoken in a very old-fashioned way. I had been
transformed, and now, lying restlessly in bed in the dark, I felt
a kind of affection for the blurred audience whose faces I had
never clearly seen. They had been with me from the first word.
They had wanted me to succeed, and fortunately I had spoken
for them and they had recognized my words. I belonged to
them. I sat up, grasping my knees in the dark as the thought
struck home. Perhaps this was what was meant by being
"dedicated and set aside." Very well, if so, I accepted it.
My possibilities were suddenly broadened. As a Brotherhood
spokesman I would represent not only my own group but one
that was much larger. The audience was mixed, their claims
broader than race. I would do whatever was necessary to serve
them well. If they could take a chance with me, then I'd do
the very best that I could. How else could I save myself from
disintegration?

I sat there in the dark trying to recall the sequence of the
speech. Already it seemed the expression of someone else.
Yet I knew that it was mine and mine alone, and if it was
recorded by a stenographer, I would have a look at it to-
morrow. Words, phrases skipped through my mind; I saw the
blue haze again. What had I meant by saying that I had become
"more human"? Was it a phrase that I had picked up from some
preceding speaker, or a slip of the tongue? For a moment I
thought of my grandfather and quickly dismissed him. What
had an old slave to do with humanity? Perhaps it was some-
thing that Woodridge had said in the literature class back
at college. I could see him vividly, half-drunk on words and
full of contempt and exaltation, pacing before the blackboard
chalked with quotations from Joyce and Yeats and Sean
O'Casey; thin, nervous, neat, pacing as though he walked a
high wire of meaning upon which no one of us would ever dare
venture. I could hear him: "Stephen's problem, like ours, was
not actually one of creating the uncreated conscience of his
race, but of creating the uncreated features of his face. Our
task is that of making ourselves individuals. The conscience of
a race is the gift of its individuals who see, evaluate, record . . .
We create the race by creating ourselves and then to our great
astonishment we will have created something far more
important: We will have created a culture. Why waste time
creating a conscience for something that doesn't exist? For,
you see, blood and skin do not think!"

But no, it wasn't Woodridge. "More human" . . . Did I mean
that I had become less of what I was, less a Negro, or
that I was less a being apart; less an exile from down home, the
South? . . . But all this is negative. To become less -- in
order to become more? Perhaps that was it, but in what way more
human? Even Woodridge hadn't spoken of such things. It was a
mystery once more, as at the eviction I had uttered words that
had possessed me.

I thought of Bledsoe and Norton and what they had done.
By kicking me into the dark they'd made me see the possi-
bility of achieving something greater and more important
than I'd ever dreamed. Here was a way that didn't lead through
the back door, a way not limited by black and white, but a way
which, if one lived long enough and worked hard enough, could
lead to the highest possible rewards. Here was a way to have a
part in making the big decisions, of seeing through the mystery
of how the country, the world, really operated. For the first
time, lying there in the dark, I could glimpse the possibility
of being more than a member of a race. It was no dream, the
possibility existed. I had only to work and learn and survive in
order to go to the top. Sure I'd study with Hambro, I'd learn
what he had to teach and a lot more. Let tomorrow come. The
sooner I was through with this Hambro, the sooner I could get
started with my work.



Chapter 17



Four months later when Brother Jack called the apartment
at midnight to tell me to be prepared to take a ride I
became quite excited. Fortunately, I was awake and dressed,
and when he drove up a few minutes later I was waiting
expectantly at the curb. Maybe, I thought, as I saw him
hunched behind the wheel in his topcoat, this is what I've
been waiting for.

"How have you been, Brother?" I said, getting in.

"A little tired," he said. "Not enough sleep, too many
problems."

Then, as he got the car under way, he became silent, and
I decided not to ask any questions. That was one thing I
had learned thoroughly. There must be something doing at the
Chthonian, I thought, watching him staring at the road as
though lost in thought. Maybe the brothers are waiting to put
me through my paces. If so, fine; I've been waiting for an
examination . . .

But instead of going to the Chthonian I looked out to
discover that he had brought me to Harlem and was parking
the car.

"We'll have a drink," he said, getting out and heading for
where the neon-lighted sign of a bull's head announced the
El Toro Bar.

I was disappointed. I wanted no drink; I wanted to take
the next step that lay between me and an assignment. I
followed him inside with a surge of irritation. The bar-
room was warm and quiet. The usual rows of bottles with
exotic names were lined on the shelves, and in the rear,
where four men argued in Spanish over glasses of beer, a
juke box, lit up green and red, played "Media Luz." And as
we waited for the bartender, I tried to figure the purpose
of the trip.

I had seen very little of Brother Jack after beginning my
studies with Brother Hambro. My life had been too tightly
organized. But I should have known that if anything was go-
ing to happen, Brother Hambro would have let me know. In-
stead, I was to meet him in the morning as usual. That Hambro,
I thought, is he a fanatic teacher! A tall, friendly man, a
lawyer and the Brotherhood's chief theoretician, he had prov-
ed to be a hard taskmaster. Between daily discussions with
him and a rigid schedule of reading, I had been working harder
than I'd ever found necessary at college. Even my nights were
organized; every evening found me at some rally or meeting in
one of the many districts (though this was my first trip to
Harlem since my speech) where I'd sit on the platform with the
speakers, making notes to be discussed with him the next day.
Every occasion became a study situation, even the parties that
sometimes followed the meetings. During these I had to make
mental notes on the ideological attitudes revealed in the
guests' conversations. But I had soon learned the method in
it: Not only had I been learning the many aspects of the
Brotherhood's policy and its approach to various social
groupings, but the city-wide membership had grown familiar
with me. My part in the eviction was kept very much alive,
and although I was under orders to make no speeches, I had
grown accustomed to being introduced as a kind of hero.

Yet it had been mainly a time for listening and, being a
talker, I had grown impatient. Now I knew most of the
Brotherhood arguments so well -- those I doubted as well as
those I believed -- that I could repeat them in my sleep, but
nothing had been said about my assignment. Thus I had hoped
the midnight call meant some kind of action was to begin . . .
Beside me, Brother Jack was still lost in thought. He
seemed in no hurry to go elsewhere or to talk, and as the slow-
motion bartender mixed our drinks I puzzled vainly as to why
he had brought me here. Before me, in the panel where a
mirror is usually placed, I could see a scene from a bullfight,
the bull charging close to the man and the man swinging the
red cape in sculptured folds so close to his body that man and
bull seemed to blend in one swirl of calm, pure motion. Pure
grace, I thought, looking above the bar to where, larger than
life, the pink and white image of a girl smiled down from a
summery beer ad on which a calendar said April One. Then, as
our drinks were placed before us, Brother Jack came alive,
his mood changing as though in the instant he had settled
whatever had been bothering him and felt suddenly free.

"Here, come back," he said, nudging me playfully.

"She's only a cardboard image of a cold steel civilization."

I laughed, glad to hear him joking. "And that?" I said,
pointing to the bullfight scene.

"Sheer barbarism," he said, watching the bartender and low-
ering his voice to a whisper. "But tell me, how have you
found your work with Brother Hambro?"

"Oh, fine," I said. "He's strict, but if I'd had teachers like
him in college, I'd know a few things. He's taught me a lot, but
whether enough to satisfy the brothers who disliked my arena
speech, I don't know. Shall we converse scientifically?"

He laughed, one of his eyes glowing brighter than the other.
"Don't worry about the brothers," he said. "You'll do very
well. Brother Hambro's reports on you have been excellent."

"Now, that's nice to hear," I.said, aware now of another
bullfight scene further down the bar in which the matador was
being swept skyward on the black bull's horns. "I've worked
pretty hard trying to master the ideology."

"Master it," Brother Jack said, "but don't overdo it. Don't
let it master you. There is nothing to put the people to
sleep like dry ideology. The ideal is to strike a medium between
ideology and inspiration. Say what the people want to hear, but
say it in such a way that they'll do what we wish." He laughed.
"Remember too, that theory always comes after practice. Act
first, theorize later; that's also a formula, a devastatingly
effective one!"

He looked at me as though he did not see me and I could not
tell whether he was laughing at me or with me. I was sure
only that he was laughing.

"Yes," I said, "I'll try to master all that is required."

"You can," he said. "And now you don't have to worry about
the brothers' criticism. Just throw some ideology back at
them and they'll leave you alone -- provided, of course, that
you have the right backing and produce the required results.
Another drink?"

"Thanks, I've had enough."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

"Good. Now to your assignment: Tomorrow you are to become
chief spokesman of the Harlem District . . ."

"What!"

"Yes. The committee decided yesterday."

"But I had no idea."

"You'll do all right. Now listen. You are to continue what
you started at the eviction. Keep them stirred up. Get them
active. Get as many to join as possible. You'll be given guidance
by some of the older members, but for the time being you are
to see what you can do. You will have freedom of action -- and
you will be under strict discipline to the committee."

"I see," I said.

"No, you don't quite see," he said, "but you will. You must
not underestimate the discipline, Brother. It makes you
answerable to the entire organization for what you do. Don't
underestimate the discipline. It is very strict, but within its
framework you are to have full freedom to do your work. And
your work is very important. Understand?" His eyes seemed to
crowd my face as I nodded yes. "We'd better go now so that you
can get some sleep," he said, draining his glass. "You're a
soldier now, your health belongs to the organization."

"I'll be ready," I said.

"I know you will. Until tomorrow then. You'll meet with the
executive committee of the Harlem section at nine A.M. You
know the location of course?"

"No, Brother, I don't."

"Oh? That's right -- then you'd better come up with me
for a minute. I have to see someone there and you can take a
look at where you'll work. I'll drop you off on the way down,"
he said.


THE district offices were located in a converted church
structure, the main floor of which was occupied by a pawn
shop, its window crammed with loot that gleamed dully in the
darkened street. We took a stair to the third floor, entering
a large room beneath a high Gothic ceiling.

"It's down here," Brother Jack said, making for the end of
the large room where I saw a row of smaller ones, only one
of which was lighted. And now I saw a man appear in the door
and limp forward.

"Evening, Brother Jack," he said.

"Why, Brother Tarp, I expected to find Brother Tobitt."

"I know. He was here but he had to leave," the man said.
"He left this envelope for you and said he'd call you later
on tonight."

"Good, good," Brother Jack said. "Here, meet a new brother . . ."

"Pleased to meet you," the brother said, smiling. "I heard
you speak at the arena. You really told 'em."

"Thanks," I said.

"So you liked it, did you, Brother Tarp?" Brother Jack
said.

"The boy's all right with me," the man said.

"Well, you're going to see a lot of him, he's your new
spokesman."

"That's fine," the man said. "Looks like we're going to
get some changes made."

"Correct," Brother Jack said. "Now let's take a look at
his office and we'll be going."

"Sure, Brother," Tarp said, limping before me into one
of the dark rooms and snapping on a light. "This here is
the one."

I looked into a small office, containing a flat-top desk
with a telephone, a typewriter on its table, a bookcase with
shelves of books and pamphlets, and a huge map of the world
inscribed with ancient nautical signs and a heroic figure of
Columbus to one side.

"If there's anything you need, just see Brother Tarp,"
Brother Jack said. "He's here at all times."

"Thanks, I shall," I said. "I'll get oriented in the morning."

"Yes, and we'd better go so you can get some sleep. Good
night, Brother Tarp. See that everything is ready for him
in the morning."

"He won't have to worry about a thing, Brother. Good
night."

"It's because we attract men like Brother Tarp there that
we shall triumph," he said as we climbed into the car. "He's
old physically, but ideologically he's a vigorous young man.
He can be depended upon in the most precarious circum-
stance."

"He sounds like a good man to have around," I said.

"You'll see," he said and lapsed into a silence that lasted
until we reached my door.


THE committee was assembled in the hall with the high Goth-
ic ceiling when I arrived, sitting in folding chairs around
two small tables pushed together to form a unit.

"Well," Brother Jack said, "you are on time. Very good,
we favor precision in our leaders."

"Brother, I shall always try to be on time," I said.

"Here he is, Brothers and Sisters," he said, "your new
spokesman. Now to begin. Are we all present?"

"All except Brother Tod Clifton," someone said.

His red head jerked with surprise. "So?"

"He'll be here," a young brother said. "We were working
until three this morning."

"Still, he should be on time -- Very well," Brother Jack said,
taking out a watch, "let us begin. I have only a little time
here, but a little time is all that is needed. You all know the
events of the recent period, and the role our new brother has
played in them. Briefly, you are here to see that it isn't
wasted. We must achieve two things: We must plan methods of
increasing the effectiveness of our agitation, and we must
organize the energy that has already been released. This calls
for a rapid increase of membership. The people are fully
aroused; if we fail to lead them into action, they will become
passive, or they will become cynical. Thus it is necessary that
we strike immediately and strike hard!

"For this purpose," he said, nodding toward me, "our brother
has been appointed district spokesman. You are to give
him your loyal support and regard him as the new instrument
of the committee's authority . . ."

I heard the slight applause splatter up -- only to halt with
the opening of the door, and I looked down past the rows
of chairs to where a hatless young man about my own age was
coming into the hall. He wore a heavy sweater and slacks, and
as the others looked up I heard the quick intake of a woman's
pleasurable sigh. Then the young man was moving with an easy
Negro stride out of the shadow into the light, and I saw that he
was very black and very handsome, and as he advanced mid-
distance into the room, that he possessed the chiseled, black-
marble features sometimes found on statues in northern
museums and alive in southern towns in which the white
offspring of house children and the black offspring of yard
children bear names, features and character traits as identical
as the rifling of bullets fired from a common barrel. And now
close up, leaning tall and relaxed, his arms outstretched stiffly
upon the table, I saw the broad, taut span of his knuckles upon
the dark grain of the wood, the muscular, sweatered arms, the
curving line of the chest rising to the easy pulsing of his throat,
to the square, smooth chin, and saw a small X-shaped patch of
adhesive upon the subtly blended, velvet-over-stone, granite-
over-bone, Afro-Anglo-Saxon contour of his cheek.

He leaned there, looking at us all with a remote aloofness
in which I sensed an unstated questioning beneath a friendly
charm. Sensing a possible rival, I watched him warily,
wondering who he was.

"Ah so, Brother Tod Clifton is late," Brother Jack said.

"Our leader of the youth is late. Why is this?"

The young man pointed to his cheek and smiled. "I had to see
the doctor," he said.

"What is this?" Brother Jack said, looking at the cross of
adhesive on the black skin.

"Just a little encounter with the nationalists. With Ras the
Exhorter's boys," Brother Clifton said. And I heard a gasp
from one of the women who gazed at him with shining, com-
passionate eyes.

Brother Jack gave me a quick look. "Brother, you have heard
of Ras? He is the wild man who calls himself a black nation-
alist."

"I don't recall so," I said.

"You'll hear of him soon enough. Sit down, Brother Clifton;
sit down. You must be careful. You are valuable to the
organization, you must not take chances."

"This was unavoidable," the young man said.

"Just the same," Brother Jack said, returning to the dis-
cussion with a call for ideas.

"Brother, are we still to fight against evictions?" I said.
"It has become a leading issue, thanks to you."

"Then why not step up the fight?"

He studied my face. "What do you suggest?"

"Well, since it has attracted so much attention, why not
try to reach the whole community with the issue?"

"And how would you suggest we go about it?"

"I suggest we get the community leaders on record in
support of us."

"There are certain difficulties in face of this," Brother
Jack said. "Most of the leaders are against us."

"But I think he's got something there," Brother Clifton
said. "What if we got them to support the issue whether they
like us or not? The issue is a community issue, it's non-
partisan."

"Sure," I said, "that's how it looks to me. With all the ex-
citement over evictions they can't afford to come out against
us, not without appearing to be against the best interests of
the community . . ."

"So we have them across a barrel," Clifton said.

"That is perceptive enough," Brother Jack said.

The others agreed.

"You see," Brother Jack said with a grin, "we've always
avoided these leaders, but the moment we start to advance on
a broad front, sectarianism becomes a burden to be cast off.
Any other suggestions?" He looked around.

"Brother," I said, remembering now, "when I first came to
Harlem one of the first things that impressed me was a man
making a speech from a ladder. He spoke very violently and
with an accent, but he had an enthusiastic audience . . . Why
can't we carry our program to the street in the same way?"

"So you have met him," he said, suddenly grinning.

"Well, Ras the Exhorter has had a monopoly in Harlem. But
now that we are larger we might give it a try. What the
committee wants is results!"

So that was Ras the Exhorter, I thought.

"We'll have trouble with the Extortor -- I mean the Ex-
horter," a big woman said. "His hoodlums would attack and
denounce the white meat of a roasted chicken."

We laughed.

"He goes wild when he sees black people and white people
together," she said to me.

"We'll take care of that," Brother Clifton said, touching
his cheek.

"Very well, but no violence," Brother Jack said. "The Bro-
therhood is against violence and terror and provocation of
any kind -- aggressive, that is. Understand, Brother Clifton?"

"I understand," he said.

"We will not countenance any aggressive violence. Under-
stand? Nor attacks upon officials or others who do not
attack us. We are against all forms of violence, do you
understand?"

"Yes, Brother," I said.

"Very well, having made this clear I leave you now," he
said. "See what you can accomplish. You'll have plenty sup-
port from other districts and all the guidance you need.
Meanwhile, remember that we are all under discipline."

He left and we divided the labor. I suggested that each
work in the area he knew best. Since there was no liaison
between the Brotherhood and the community leaders I assign-
ed myself the task of creating one. It was decided that
our street meetings begin immediately and that Brother Tod
Clifton was to return and go over the details with me.

While the discussion continued I studied their faces. They
seemed absorbed with the cause and in complete agreement,
blacks and whites. But when I tried to place them as to
type I got nowhere. The big woman who looked like a south-
ern "sudsbuster" was in charge of women's work, and spoke
in abstract, ideological terms. The shy-looking man with
the liver splotches on his neck spoke with a bold directness
and eagerness for action. And this Brother Tod Clifton, the
youth leader, looked somehow like a hipster, a zoot suiter,
a sharpie -- except his head of Persian lamb's wool had never
known a straightener. I could place none of them. They seem-
ed familiar but were just as different as Brother Jack and
the other whites were from all the white men I had known.
They were all transformed, like familiar people seen in a
dream. Well, I thought, I'm different too, and they'll see
it when the talk is finished and the action begins. I'll
just have to be careful not to antagonize anyone. As it is,
someone might resent my being placed in charge.

But when Brother Tod Clifton came into my office to discuss
the street meeting I saw no signs of resentment, but a com-
plete absorption in the strategy of the meeting. With great
care he went about instructing me how to deal with hecklers,
on what to do if we were attacked, and upon how to recognize
our own members from the rest of the crowd. For all his seem-
ing zoot-suiter characteristics his speech was precise and
I had no doubt that he knew his business.

"How do you think we'll do?" I said when he had finished.

"It'll go big, man," he said. "It'll be bigger than anything
since Garvey."

"I wish I could be so sure," I said. "I never saw Garvey."

"I didn't either," he said, "but I understand that in
Harlem he was very big."

"Well, we're not Garvey, and he didn't last."

"No, but he must have had something," he said with sudden
passion. "He must have had something to move all those peo-
ple! Our people are hell to move. He must have had plenty!"

I looked at him. His eyes were turned inward; then he smiled.
"Don't worry," he said. "We have a scientific plan and you
set them off. Things are so bad they'll listen, and when they
listen they'll go along."

"I hope so," I said.

"They will. You haven't been around the movement as I have,
for three years now, and I can feel the change. They're
ready to move."

"I hope your feelings are right," I said.

"They're right, all right," he said. "All we have to do is
gather them in."


THE evening was almost of a winter coldness, the corner
well lighted and the all-Negro crowd large and tightly
packed. Up on the ladder now I was surrounded by a group of
Clifton's youth division, and I could see, beyond their backs
with upturned collars, the faces of the doubtful, the curious
and the convinced in the crowd. It was early and I threw my
voice hard down against the traffic sounds, feeling the damp
coldness of the air upon my cheeks and hands as my voice
warmed with my emotion. I had just begun to feel the pulsing
set up between myself and the people, hearing them answering
in staccato applause and agreement when Tod Clifton caught
my eye, pointing. And over the heads of the crowd and down
past the dark storefronts and blinking neon signs I saw a
bristling band of about twenty men quick-stepping forward.
I looked down.

"It's trouble, keep talking," Clifton said. "Give the boys
the signal."

"My Brothers, the time has come for action," I shouted.

And now I saw the youth members and some older men move
around to the back of the crowd, and up to meet the advancing
group. Then something sailed up out of the dark and landed
hard against my forehead, and I felt the crowd surge in close,
sending the ladder moving backwards, and I was like a man
tottering above a crowd on stilts, then dropping backwards into
the street and clear, hearing the ladder clatter down. They
were milling in a panic now, and I saw Clifton beside me. "It's
Ras the Exhorter," he yelled. "Can you use your hands?"

"I can use my fists!" I was annoyed.

"Well, all right then. Here's your chance. Come on, let's
see you duke!"

He moved forward and seemed to dive into the whirling crowd,
and I beside him, seeing them scatter into doorways and pound
off in the dark.

"There's Ras, over there," Clifton cried. And I heard the
sound of breaking glass and the street went dark. Someone had
knocked out the light, and through the dimness I saw Clifton
heading to where a red neon sign glowed in a dark window as
something went past my head. Then a man ran up with a length
of pipe and I saw Clifton close with him, ducking down and
working in close and grabbing the man's wrist and twisting
suddenly like a soldier executing an about-face so that now he
faced me, the back of the man's elbow rigid across his shoulder
and the man rising on tiptoe and screaming as Clifton straight-
ened smoothly and levered down on the arm.

I heard a dry popping sound and saw the man sag, and the pipe
rang upon the walk; then someone caught me hard in the stomach
and suddenly I knew that I was fighting too. I went to my
knees and rolled and pulled erect, facing him. "Get up,
Uncle Tom," he said, and I clipped him. He had his hands and I
had mine and the match was even but he was not so lucky. He
wasn't down and he wasn't out, but I caught him two good ones
and he decided to fight elsewhere. When he turned I tripped
him and moved away.

The fight was moving back into the dark where the street
lights had been knocked out clear to the corner, and it
was quiet except for the grunting and straining and the sound
of footfalls and of blows. It was confusing in the dark and I
couldn't tell ours from theirs and moved cautiously, trying to
see. Someone up the street in the dark yelled, "Break it up!
Break it up!" and I thought, Cops, and looked around for
Clifton. The neon sign glowed mysteriously and there was a lot
of running and cursing, and now I saw him working skillfully
in a store lobby before a red CHECKS CASHED HERE sign and I
hurried over, hearing objects sailing past my head and the
crash of glass. Clifton's arms were moving in short, accurate
jabs against the head and stomach of Ras the Exhorter, punch-
ing swiftly and scientifically, careful not to knock him into
the window or strike the glass with his fists, working Ras
between rights and lefts jabbed so fast that he rocked like a
drunken bull, from side to side. And as I came up Ras tried to
bull his way out and I saw Clifton drive him back and down into
a squat, his hands upon the dark floor of the lobby, his heels
back against the door like a runner against starting blocks.
And now, shooting forward, he caught Clifton coming in, butt-
ing him, and I heard the burst of breath and Clifton was on
his back and something flashed in Ras's hand and he came
forward, a short, heavy figure as wide as the lobby now with
the knife, moving deliberately. I spun, looking for the length
of pipe, diving for it and crawling on hands and knees and here,
here -- and coming up to see Ras reach down, getting one hand
into Clifton's collar, the knife in the other, looking down at
Clifton and panting, bull-angry. I froze, seeing him draw back
the knife and stop it in mid-air; draw back and stop, cursing;
then draw back and stop again, all very quickly, beginning to
cry now and talking rapidly at the same time; and me easing
slowly forward.

"Mahn," Ras blurted, "I ought to kill you. Godahm, I ought
to kill you and the world be better off. But you black, mahn.
Why you be black, mahn? I swear I ought to kill you. No
mahn strike the Exhorter, godahmit, no mahn!"

I saw him raise the knife again and now as he lowered it
unused he pushed Clifton into the street and stood over him,
sobbing.

"Why you with these white folks? Why? I been watching you
a long time. I say to myself, 'Soon he get smart and get
tired. He get out of that t'ing.' Why a good boy like you
still with them?"

Still moving forward, I saw his face gleam with red angry
tears as he stood above Clifton with the still innocent
knife and the tears red in the glow of the window sign.

"You my brother, mahn. Brothers are the same color; how
the hell you call these white men brother? Shit, mahn.
That's shit! Brothers the same color. We sons of Mama Africa,
you done forgot? You black, BLACK! You -- Godahm, mahn!" he
said, swinging the knife for emphasis. "You got bahd hair! You
got thick lips! They say you stink! They hate you, mahn. You
Afrian. AFRICAN! Why you with them? Leave that shit, mahn.
They sell you out. That shit is old-fashioned. They enslave
us -- you forget that? How can they mean a black mahn any
good? How they going to be your brother?"

I had reached him now and brought the pipe down hard, see-
ing the knife fly off into the' dark as he grabbed his wrist,
and I raised the pipe again, suddenly hot with fear and hate,
as he looked at me out of his narrow little eyes, standing
his ground.

"And you, mahn," the Exhorter said, "a reg'lar little
black devil! A godahm sly mongoose! Where you think you
from, going with the white folks? I know, godahm; don't I
know it! You from down South! You from Trinidad! You from
Barbados! Jamaica, South Africa, and the white mahn's foot in
your ass all the way to the hip. What you trying to deny by
betraying the black people? Why you fight against us? You
young fellows. You young black men with plenty education; I
been hearing your rabble rousing. Why you go over to the
enslaver? What kind of education is that? What kind of black
mahn is that who betray his own mama?"

"Shut up," Clifton said, leaping to his feet. "Shut up!"

"Hell, no," Ras cried, wiping his eyes with his fists. "I
talk! Bust me with the pipe but, by God, you listen to the
Exhorter! Come in with us, mahn. We build a glorious
movement of black people. Black People! What they do, give
you money? Who wahnt the dahm stuff? Their money bleed
black blood, mahn. It's unclean! Taking their money is shit,
mahn. Money without dignity -- That's bahd shit!"

Clifton lunged toward him. I held him, shaking my head.
"Come on, the man's crazy," I said, pulling on his arm.

Ras struck his thighs with his fists. "Me crazy, mahn?
You call me crazy? Look at you two and look at me -- is this
sanity? Standing here in three shades of blackness! Three
black men fighting in the street because of the white enslaver?
Is that sanity? Is that consciousness, scientific understahnding?
Is that the modern black mahn of the twentieth century? Hell,
mahn! Is it self-respect -- black against black? What they give
you to betray -- their women? You fall for that?"

"Let's go," I said, listening and remembering and suddenly
alive in the dark with the horror of the battle royal, but
Clifton looked at Ras with a tight, fascinated expression,
pulling away from me.

"Let's go," I repeated. He stood there, looking.

"Sure, you go," Ras said, "but not him. You contahminated
but he the real black mahn. In Africa this mahn be a chief,
a black king! Here they say he rape them godahm women with
no blood in their veins. I bet this mahn can't beat them
off with baseball bat -- shit! What kind of foolishness is it?
Kick him ass from cradle to grave then call him brother? Does
it make mahthematics? Is it logic? Look at him, mahn; open
your eyes," he said to me. "I look like that I rock the blahsted
world! They know about me in Japan, India -- all the colored
countries. Youth! Intelligence! The mahn's a natural prince!
Where is your eyes? Where your self-respect? Working for them
dahm people? Their days is numbered, the time is almost here
and you fooling 'round like this was the nineteenth century. I
don't understahnd you. Am I ignorant? Answer me, mahn!"

"Yes," Clifton burst out. "Hell, yes!"

"You t'ink I'm crazy, is it c'ase I speak bahd English?
Hell, it ain't my mama tongue, mahn, I'm African! You really
t'ink I'm crazy?"

"Yes, yes!"

"You believe that?" said Ras. "What they do to you, black
mahn? Give you them stinking women?"

Clifton lunged again, and again I grabbed him; and again
Ras held his ground, his head glowing red.

"Women? Godahm, mahn! Is that equality? Is that the black
mahn's freedom? A pat on the back and a piece of cunt
without no passion? Maggots! They buy you that blahsted
cheap, mahn? What they do to my people! Where is your
brains? These women dregs, mahn! They bilge water! You know
the high-class white mahn hates the black mahn, that's simple.
So now he use the dregs and wahnt you black young men to do
his dirty work. They betray you and you betray the black
people. They tricking you, mahn. Let them fight among
themselves. Let 'em kill off one another. We organize --
organization is good -- but we organize black. BLACK! To hell
with that son of a bitch! He take one them strumpets and tell
the black mahn his freedom lie between her skinny legs -- while
that son of a gun, he take all the power and the capital and
don't leave the black mahn not'ing. The good white women he
tell the black mahn is a rapist and keep them locked up and
ignorant while he makes the black mahn a race of bahstards.

"When the black mahn going to tire of this childish perfid-
ity? He got you so you don't trust your black intelligence?
You young, don't play you'self cheap, mahn. Don't deny
you'self! It took a billion gallons of black blood to make you.
Recognize you'self inside and you wan the kings among men! A
mahn knows he's a mahn when he got not'ing, when he's naked
-- nobody have to tell him that. You six foot tall, mahn. You
young and intelligent. You black and beautiful -- don't let 'em
tell you different! You wasn't them t'ings you be dead, mahn.
Dead! I'd have killed you, mahn. Ras the Exhorter raised up his
knife and tried to do it, but he could not do it. Why don't you do
it? I ask myself. I will do it now, I say; but somet'ing tell me,
'No, no! You might be killing your black king!' And I say, yas,
yas! So I accept your humiliating ahction. Ras recognized your
black possibilities, mahn. Ras would not sahcrifice his black
brother to the white enslaver. Instead he cry. Ras is a mahn --
no white mahn have to tell him that -- and Ras cry. So why don't
you recognize your black duty, mahn, and come jine us?"

His chest was heaving and a note of pleading had come into
the harsh voice. He was an exhorter, all right, and I was
caught in the crude, insane eloquence of his plea. He stood
there, awaiting an answer. And suddenly a big transport plane
came low over the buildings and I looked up to see the firing
of its engine, and we were all three silent, watching.

Suddenly the Exhorter shook his fist toward the plane
and yelled, "Hell with him, some day we have them too! Hell
with him!"

He stood there, shaking his fist as the plane rattled the
buildings in its powerful flight. Then it was gone and I looked
about the unreal street. They were fighting far up the block in
the dark now and we were alone. I looked at the Exhorter. I
didn't know if I was angry or amazed.

"Look," I said, shaking my head, "let's talk sense. From
now on we'll be on the street corners every night and we'll be
prepared for trouble. We don't want it, especially with you, but
we won't run either . . ."

"Goddam, mahn," he said, leaping forward, "this is Harlem.
This is my territory, the black mahn's territory. You think
we let white folks come in and spread their poison? Let
'em come in like they come and take over the numbers racket?
Like they have all the stores? Talk sense, mahn, if you talking
to Ras, talk sense!"

"This is sense," I said, "and you listen as we listened to
you. We'll be out here every night, understand. We'll be out
here and the next time you go after one of our brothers with a
knife -- and I mean white or black -- well, we won't forget it."

He shook his head, "Nor will I forget you either, mahn."

"Don't. I don't want you to; because if you forget there'll
be trouble. You're mistaken, don't you see you're outnumbered?
You need allies to win . . ."

"That there is sense. Black allies. Yellow and brown allies!"

"All men who want a brotherly world," I said.

"Don't be stupid, mahn. They white, they don't have to be
allies with no black people. They get what they wahnt, they
turn against you. Where's your black intelligence?"

"Thinking like that will get you lost in the backwash of
history," I said. "Start thinking with your mind and not your
emotions."

He shook his head vehemently, looking at Clifton.

"This black mahn talking to me about brains and thinking.
I ask both of you, are you awake or sleeping? What is
your pahst and where are you going? Never mind, take your
corrupt ideology and eat out your own guts like a laughing
hyena. You are nowhere, mahn. Nowhere! Ras is not ignorant,
nor is Ras afraid. No! Ras, he be here black and fighting for
the liberty of the black people when the white folks have
got what they wahnt and done gone off laughing in your face
and you stinking and choked up with white maggots."

He spat angrily into the dark street. It flew pink in the
red glow.

"That'll be all right with me," I said. "Only remember what
I said. Come on, Brother Clifton. This man's full of pus,
black pus."

We started away, a piece of glass crunching under my
foot.

"Maybe so," Ras said, "but I ahm no fool! I ahm no black
educated fool who t'inks everything between black mahn and
white mahn can be settled with some blahsted lies in some
bloody books written by the white mahn in the first place. It's
three hundred years of black blood to build this white mahn's
civilization and wahn't be wiped out in a minute. Blood calls for
blood! You remember that. And remember that I am not like
you. Ras recognizes the true issues and he is not afraid to be
black. Nor is he a traitor for white men. Remember that: I am
no black traitor to the black people for the white people."

And before I could answer Clifton spun in the dark and
there was a crack and I saw Ras go down and Clifton breathing
hard and Ras lying there in the street, a thick, black man with
red tears on his face that caught the reflection of the CHECKS
CASHED HERE sign.

And again, as Clifton looked gravely down he seemed to ask a
silent question.

"Let's go," I said. "Let's go!"

We started away as the screams of sirens sounded, Clifton
cursing quietly to himself.

Then we were out of the dark onto a busy street and he turned
to me. There were tears in his eyes.

"That poor, misguided son of a bitch," he said.

"He thinks a lot of you, too," I said. I was glad to be out
of the dark and away from that exhorting voice.

"The man's crazy," Clifton said. "It'll run you crazy if you
let it."

"Where'd he get that name?" I said.

"He gave it to himself. I guess he did. Ras is a title of res-
pect in the East. It's a wonder he didn't say something about
'Ethiopia stretching forth her wings,' " he said, mimicking Ras.
"He makes it sound like the hood of a cobra fluttering . . . I
don't know . . . I don't know . . ."

"We'll have to watch him now," I said.

"Yes, we'd better," he said. "He won't stop fighting . . .
And thanks for getting rid of his knife."

"You didn't have to worry," I said. "He wouldn't kill his
king."

He turned and looked at me as though he thought I might mean
it; then he smiled.

"For a while there I thought I was gone," he said.

As we headed for the district office I wondered what Brother
Jack would say about the fight.

"We'll have to overpower him with organization," I said.

"We'll do that, all right. But it's on the inside that Ras is
strong," Clifton said. "On the inside he's dangerous."

"He won't get on the inside," I said. "He'd consider himself
a traitor."

"No," Clifton said, "he won't get on the inside. Did you
hear how he was talking? Did you hear what he was saying?"

"I heard him, sure," I said.

"I don't know," he said. "I suppose sometimes a man has
to plunge outside history . . ."

"What?"

"Plunge outside, turn his back . . . Otherwise he might
kill somebody, go nuts."

I didn't answer. Maybe he's right, I thought, and was
suddenly very glad I had found Brotherhood.


THE next morning it rained and I reached the district
before the others arrived and stood looking through the
window of my office, past the jutting wall of a building, and on
beyond the monotonous pattern of its bricks and mortar I saw a
row of trees rising tall and graceful in the rain. One tree grew
close by and I could see the rain streaking its bark and its
sticky buds. Trees were rowed the length of the long block
beyond me, rising tall in dripping wetness above a series of
cluttered backyards. And it occurred to me that cleared of its
ramshackle fences and planted with flowers and grass, it might
form a pleasant park. And just then a paper bag sailed from a
window to my left and burst like a silent grenade, scattering
garbage into the trees and pancaking to earth with a soggy,
exhausted plop! I started with disgust, then thought, The sun
will shine in those backyards some day. A community clean-up
campaign might be worthwhile for a slack season, at that.
Everything couldn't possibly be as exciting as last night.
Turning back to my desk I sat facing the map now as Brother
Tarp appeared.

"Morning, son, I see you already on the job," he said.

"Good morning. I have so much to do that I thought I'd better
get started early," I said.

"You'll do all right," he said. "But I didn't come in here
to take up your time, I want to put something on the wall."

"Go right ahead. Can I give you a hand?"

"No, I can make it all right," he said, clambering with his
lame leg upon a chair that sat beneath the map and hanging
a frame from the ceiling molding, straightening it carefully,
and getting down to come over beside my desk.

"Son, you know who that is?"

"Why, yes," I said, "it's Frederick Douglass."

"Yessir, that's just who it is. You know much about him?"

"Not much. My grandfather used to tell me about him though."

"That's enough. He was a great man. You just take a look
at him once in a while. You have everything you need --
paper and stuff like that?"

"Yes, I have, Brother Tarp. And thanks for the portrait of
Douglass."

"Don't thank me, son," he said from the door. "He belongs
to all of us."

I sat now facing the portrait of Frederick Douglass, feel-
ing a sudden piety, remembering and refusing to hear the
echoes of my grandfather's voice. Then I picked up the
telephone and began calling the community leaders.

They fell in line like prisoners: preachers, politicians,
various professionals, proving Clifton correct. The eviction
fight was such a dramatic issue that most of the leaders feared
that their followers would have rallied to us without them. I
slighted no one, no matter how unimportant; bigshots, doctors,
real-estate men and storefront preachers. And it went so fast
and smoothly that it seemed not to happen to me but to some-
one who actually bore my new name. I almost laughed into the
phone when I heard the director of Men's House address me with
profound respect. My new name was getting around. It's very
strange, I thought, but things are so unreal for them normal-
ly that they believe that to call a thing by name is to make
it so. And yet I am what they think I am . . .


OUR work went so well that a few Sundays later we threw a
parade that clinched our hold on the community. We worked
feverishly. And now the clashing and conflict of my last
days at Mary's seemed to have moved out into the struggles of
the community, leaving me inwardly calm and controlled. Even
the hustle and bustle of picketing and speechmaking seemed to
stimulate me for the better; my wildest ideas paid off.

Upon hearing that one of the unemployed brothers was an ex-
drill master from Wichita, Kansas, I organized a drill
team of six-footers whose duty it was to march through the
streets striking up sparks with their hobnailed shoes. On the
day of the parade they drew crowds faster than a dogfight on
a country road. The People's Hot Foot Squad, we called them,
and when they drilled fancy formations down Seventh Avenue
in the springtime dusk they set the streets ablaze. The
community laughed and cheered and the police were dumfound-
ed. But the sheer corn of it got them and the Hot Foot
Squad went shuffling along. Then came the flags and banners
and the cards bearing slogans; and the squad of drum major-
ettes, the best-looking girls we could find, who pranced
and twirled and just plain girled in the enthusiastic interest
of Brotherhood. We pulled fifteen thousand Harlemites into the
street behind our slogans and marched down Broadway to City
Hall. Indeed, we were the talk of the town.

With this success I was pushed forward at a dizzy pace.
My name spread like smoke in an airless room. I was kept
moving all over the place. Speeches here, there, everywhere,
uptown and down. I wrote newspaper articles, led parades and
relief delegations, and so on. And the Brotherhood was going
out of its way to make my name prominent. Articles, telegrams
and many mailings went out over my signature -- some of which
I'd written, but most not. I was publicized, identified with the
organization both by word and image in the press. On the way
to work one late spring morning I counted fifty greetings from
people I didn't know, becoming aware that there were two of
me: the old self that slept a few hours a night and dreamed
sometimes of my grandfather and Bledsoe and Brockway and
Mary, the self that flew without wings and plunged from great
heights; and the new public self that spoke for the Brotherhood
and was becoming so much more important than the other that
I seemed to run a foot race against myself.

Still, I liked my work during those days of certainty. I
kept my eyes wide and ears alert. The Brotherhood was a world
within a world and I was determined to discover all its secrets
and to advance as far as I could. I saw no limits, it was the one
organization in the whole country in which I could reach the
very top and I meant to get there. Even if it meant climbing a
mountain of words. For now I had begun to believe, despite all
the talk of science around me, that there was a magic in
spoken words. Sometimes I sat watching the watery play of
light upon Douglass' portrait, thinking how magical it was that
he had talked his way from slavery to a government ministry,
and so swiftly. Perhaps, I thought, something of the kind is
happening to me. Douglass came north to escape and find work
in the shipyards; a big fellow in a sailor's suit who, like me,
had taken another name. What had his true name been? Whatever
it was, it was as Douglass that he became himself, defined
himself. And not as a boatwright as he'd expected, but as an
orator. Perhaps the sense of magic lay in the unexpected
transformations. "You start Saul, and end up Paul," my
grandfather had often said. "When you're a youngun, you Saul,
but let life whup your head a bit and you starts to trying to
be Paul -- though you still Sauls around on the side."

No, you could never tell where you were going, that was a
sure thing. The only sure thing. Nor could you tell how
you'd get there -- though when you arrived it was somehow
right. For hadn't I started out with a speech, and hadn't it
been a speech that won my scholarship to college, where I had
expected speechmaking to win me a place with Bledsoe and
launch me finally as a national leader? Well, I had made a
speech, and it had made me a leader, only not the kind I had
expected. So that was the way it was. And no complaints, I
thought, looking at the map; you started looking for red men
and you found them -- even though of a different tribe and in
a bright new world. The world was strange if you stopped to
think about it; still it was a world that could be controlled
by science, and the Brotherhood had both science and history
under control.

Thus for one lone stretch of time I lived with the inten-
sity displayed by those chronic numbers players who see
clues to their fortune in the most minute and insignificant
phenomena: in clouds, on passing trucks and subway cars, in
dreams, comic strips, the shape of dog-luck fouled on the
pavements. I was dominated by the all-embracing idea of
Brotherhood. The organization had given the world a new
shape, and me a vital role. We recognized no loose ends,
everything could be controlled by our science. Life was all
pattern and discipline; and the beauty of discipline is
when it works. And it was working very well.



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 any-
body 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 some-
times 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, call-
ing 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 call-
ed 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
deskwith 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 differ-
ences."

"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 deep-
er 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 Bro-
therhood could force anyone to shake my hand, and that he
found satisfaction that it could be 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 sud-
denly 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 show-
ing 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 al-
ways 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, lean-
ing 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 com-
mittee," 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 re-
member 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, frown-
ing. "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 ar-
ranged 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 consti-
tutes 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 whip-
ping 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 for-
gotten. I met the eyes of the others as they looked from me
to Wrestrum.

"And what does it say about us?" Brother Jack said, point-
ing 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 liter-
ature. 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 dec-
ision, 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 wis-
dom 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 vio-
lently 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.



Chapter 19



I went to my first lecture with a sense of excitement.
The theme was a sure-fire guarantee of audience interest and
the rest was up to me. If only I were a foot taller and a
hundred pounds heavier, I could simply stand before them with
a sign across my chest, stating i KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM, and
they'd be as awed as though I were the original boogey man --
somehow reformed and domesticated. I'd no more have to speak
than Paul Robeson had to act; they'd simply thrill at the
sight of me.

And it went well enough; they made it a success through
their own enthusiasm, and the barrage of questions after-
wards left no doubts in my mind. It was only after the
meeting was breaking up that there came the developments
which even my volatile suspicions hadn't allowed me to fore-
see. I was exchanging greetings with the audience when she
appeared, the kind of woman who glows as though consciously
acting a symbolic role of life and feminine fertility. Her
problem, she said, had to do with certain aspects of our
ideology.

"It's rather involved, really," she said with concern, "and
while I shouldn't care to take up your time, I have a feeling
that you --"

"Oh, not at all," I said, guiding her away from the others
to stand near a partly uncoiled firehose hanging beside the
entrance, "not at all."

"But, Brother," she said, "it's really so late and you must
be tired. My problem could wait until some other time . . ."

"I'm not that tired," I said. "And if there's something
bothering you, it's my duty to do what I can to clear it up."

"But it's quite late," she said. "Perhaps some evening
when you're not busy you'll drop in to see us. Then we could
talk at greater length. Unless, of course. . ."

"Unless?"

"Unless," she smiled, "I can induce you to stop by this
evening. I might add that I serve a fair cup of coffee."

"Then I'm at your service," I said, pushing open the
door.

Her apartment was located in one of the better sections of
the city, and I must have revealed my surprise upon entering
the spacious living room.

"You can see, Brother" -- the glow she gave the word was
disturbing -- "it is really the spiritual values of Brotherhood
that interest me. Through no effort of my own, I have economic
security and leisure, but what is that, really, when so much is
wrong with the world? I mean when there is no spiritual or
emotional security, and no justice?"

She was slipping out of her coat now, looking earnestly
into my face, and I thought, Is she a Salvationist, a Pur-
itanwith-reverse-English? -- remembering Brother Jack's private
description of wealthy members who, he said, sought political
salvation by contributing financially to the Brotherhood. She
was going a little fast for me and I looked at her gravely.

"I can see that you've thought deeply about this thing,"
I said.

"I've tried," she said, "and it's most perplexing -- But
make yourself comfortable while I put away my things."
She was a small, delicately plump woman with raven
hair in which a thin streak of white had begun almost
imperceptibly to show, and when she reappeared in the rich
red of a hostess gown she was so striking that I had to avert
my somewhat startled eyes.

"What a beautiful room you have here," I said, looking
across the rich cherry glow of furniture to see a life-sized
painting of a nude, a pink Renoir. Other canvases were hung
here and there, and the spacious walls seemed to flash alive
with warm, pure color. What does one say to all this? I thought,
looking at an abstract fish of polished brass mounted on a
piece of ebony.

"I'm glad you find it pleasant, Brother," she said. "We like
it ourselves, though I must say that Hubert finds so little
time to enjoy it. He's much too busy."

"Hubert?" I said.

"My husband. Unfortunately he had to leave. He would
have loved to've met you, but then he's always dashing off.
Business, you know."

"I suppose it's unavoidable," I said with sudden discomfort.

"Yes, it is," she said. "But we're going to discuss Bro-
therhood and ideology, aren't we?"

And there was something about her voice and her smile
that gave me a sense of both comfort and excitement. It was
not merely the background of wealth and gracious living, to
which I was alien, but simply the being there with her and the
sensed possibility of a heightened communication; as though
the discordantly invisible and the conspicuously enigmatic
were reaching a delicately balanced harmony. She's rich but
human, I thought, watching the smooth play of her relaxed
hands.

"There are so many aspects to the movement," I said.
"Just where shall we start? Perhaps it's something that I'm
unable to handle."

"Oh, it's nothing that profound," she said. "I'm sure you'll
straighten out my little ideological twists and turns. But
sit here on the sofa, Brother; it's more comfortable."

I sat, seeing her go toward a door, the train of her gown
trailing sensuously over the oriental carpet. Then she turned
and smiled.

"Perhaps you'd prefer wine or milk instead of coffee?"

"Wine, thank you," I said, finding the idea of milk strange-
ly repulsive. This isn't at all what I expected, I thought.
She returned with a tray holding two glasses and a decanter,
placing them before us on a low cocktail table, and I could hear
the wine trickle musically into the glasses, one of which she
placed in front of me.

"Here's to the movement," she said, raising her glass with
smiling eyes.

"To the movement," I said.

"And to Brotherhood."

"And to Brotherhood."

"This is very nice," I said, seeing her nearly closed eyes,
her chin tilting upward, toward me, "but just what phase of our
ideology should we discuss?"

"All of it," she said. "I wish to embrace the whole of it.
Life is so terribly empty and disorganized without it. I sincerely
believe that only Brotherhood offers any hope of making life
worth living again -- Oh, I know that it's too vast a philosophy
to grasp immediately, as it were; still, it's so vital and alive that
one gets the feeling that one should at least make the try. Don't
you agree?"

"Well, yes," I said. "It's the most meaningful thing that I
know."

"Oh, I'm so pleased to have you agree with me. I suppose
that's why I always thrill to hear you speak, somehow
you convey the great throbbing vitality of the movement. It's
really amazing. You give me such a feeling of security --
although," she interrupted herself with a mysterious smile,
"I must confess that you also make me afraid."

"Afraid? You can't mean that," I said.

"Really," she repeated, as I laughed. "It's so powerful, so
-- so primitive!"

I felt some of the air escape from the room, leaving it
unnaturally quiet. "You don't mean primitive?" I said.
"Yes, primitive; no one has told you, Brother, that at
times you have tom-toms beating in your voice?"

"My God," I laughed, "I thought that was the beat of
profound ideas."

"Of course, you're correct," she said. "I don't mean really
primitive. I suppose I mean forceful, powerful. It takes
hold of one's emotions as well as one's intellect. Call it
what you will, it has so much naked power that it goes straight
through one. I tremble just to think of such vitality."

I looked at her, so close now that I could see a single jet-
black strand of out-of-place hair. "Yes," I said, "the emotion
is there; but it's actually our scientific approach that releases
it. As Brother Jack says, we're nothing if not organizers. And
the emotion isn't merely released, it's guided, channelized --
that is the real source of our effectiveness. After all, this very
good wine can please emotion, but I doubt seriously that it can
organize anything."

She leaned gracefully forward, her arm along the back of the
sofa, saying, "Yes, and you do both in your speeches. One
just has to respond, even when one isn't too clear as to your
meaning. Only I do know what you're saying and that's even
more inspiring."

"Actually, you know, I'm as much affected by the audience
as it is by me. Its response helps me do my best."

"And there's another important aspect," she said; "one
which concerns me greatly. It provides women the full
opportunity for self-expression, which is so very important,
Brother. It's as though every day were Leap Year -- which is
as it should be. Women should be absolutely as free as men."

And if I were really free, I thought, lifting my glass, I'd
get the hell out of here.

"I thought you were exceptionally good tonight -- it's time
the woman had a champion in the movement. Until tonight
I'd always heard you on minority problems."

"This is a new assignment," I said. "But from now on
one of our main concerns is to be the Woman Question."

"That's wonderful and it's about time. Something has to
give women an opportunity to come to close grips with life.
Please go on, tell me your ideas," she said, pressing forward,
her hand light upon my arm.

And I went on talking, relieved to talk, carried away by
my own enthusiasm and by the warmth of the wine. And it was
only when I turned to ask a question of her that I realized
that she was leaning only a nose-tip away, her eyes upon my
face. "Go on, please go on," I heard. "You make it sound so
clear -- please."

I saw the rapid, moth-wing fluttering of her lids become
the softness of her lips as we were drawn together. There was
not an idea or concept in it but sheer warmth; then the bell
was ringing and I shook it off and got to my feet, hearing it
ring again as she arose with me, the red robe falling in hea-
vy folds upon the carpet, and she saying, "You make it all so
wonderfully alive," as the bell sounded again. And I was trying
to move, to get out of the apartment, looking for my hat and
filling with anger, thinking, Is she crazy? Doesn't she hear? as
she stood before me in bewilderment, as though I were acting
irrationally. And now taking my arm with sudden energy, saying,

"This way, in here," almost pulling me along as the bell
rang again, through a door down a short hall, a satiny
bedroom, in which she stood appraising me with a smile,
saying, "This is mine," as I looked at her in outrageous
disbelief.

"Yours, yours? But what about that bell?"

"Never mind," she cooed, looking into my eyes.

"But be reasonable," I said, pushing her aside. "What about
that door?"

"Oh, of course, you mean the telephone, don't you, darling?"

"But your old man -- your husband?"

"In Chicago --"

"But he might not --"

"No, no, darling, he won't --"

"But he might!"

"But, Brother, darling, I talked with him, I know."

"You what? What kind of game is this?"

"Oh, you poor darling! It isn't a game, really you have
no cause to worry, we're free. He's in Chicago, seeking his
lost youth, no doubt," she said, bursting into laughter of
self-surprise. "He's not at all interested in uplifting things --
freedom and necessity, woman's rights and all that. You know,
the sickness of our class -- Brother, darling."

I took a step across the room; there was another door to
my left through which I saw the gleam of chromium and tile.

"Brotherhood, darling," she said, gripping my biceps
with her little hands. "Teach me, talk to me. Teach me the
beautiful ideology of Brotherhood." And I wanted both to smash
her and to stay with her and knew that I should do neither. Was
she trying to ruin me, or was this a trap set by some secret
enemy of the movement waiting outside the door with cameras
and wrecking bars?

"You should answer the phone," I said with forced calm,
trying to release my hands without touching her, for if I
touched her --

"And you'll continue?" she said.

I nodded, seeing her turn without a word and go toward
a vanity with a large oval mirror, taking up an ivory telephone.
And in the mirrored instant I saw myself standing between her
eager form and a huge white bed, myself caught in a guilty
stance, my face taut, tie dangling; and behind the bed another
mirror which now like a surge of the sea tossed our images
back and forth, back and forth, furiously multiplying the time
and the place and the circumstance. My vision seemed to pulse
alternately clear and vague, driven by a furious bellows, as her
lips said soundlessly, I'm sorry, and then impatiently into the
telephone, "Yes, this is she," and then to me again, smiling as
she covered the mouthpiece with her hand, "It's only my sister;
it'll only take a second." And my mind whirled with forgotten
stories of male servants summoned to wash the mistress's
back; chauffeurs sharing the masters' wives; Pullman porters
invited into the drawing room of rich wives headed for Reno --
thinking, But this is the movement, the Brotherhood. And now I
saw her smile, saying, "Yes, Gwen, dear. Yes," as one free hand
went up as though to smooth her hair and in one swift motion
the red robe swept aside like a veil, and I went breathless, at
the petite and generously curved nude, framed delicate and
firm in the glass. It was like a dream interval and in an instant
it swung back and I saw only her mysteriously smiling eyes
above the rich red robe.

I was heading for the door, torn between anger and a fierce
excitement, hearing the phone click down as I started
past and feeling her swirl against me and I was lost, for the
conflict between the ideological and the biological, duty and
desire, had become too subtly confused. I went to her, think-
ing, Let them break down the door, whosoever will, let them
come.


I DIDN'T know whether I was awake or dreaming. It was dead
quiet, yet I was certain that there had been a noise and
that it had come from across the room as she beside me
made a soft sighing sound. It was strange. My mind revolved. I
was chased out of a chinkapin woods by a bull. I ran up a hill;
the whole hill heaved. I heard the sound and looked up to see
the man looking straight at me from where he stood in the dim
light of the hall, looking in with neither interest nor surprise.
His face expressionless, his eyes staring. There was the sound
of even breathing. Then I heard her stir beside me.

"Oh, hello, dear," she said, her voice sounding far away.
"Back so soon?"

"Yes," he said. "Wake me early, I have a lot to do."

"I'll remember, dear," she said sleepily. "Have a good night's
rest . . ."

"Night, and you too," he said with a short dry laugh.

The door closed. I lay there in the dark for a while,
breathing rapidly. It was strange. I reached out and touched
her. There was no answer. I leaned over her, feeling her breath
breezing warm and pure against my face. I wanted to linger
there, experiencing the sensation of something precious
perilously attained too late and now to be lost forever -- a
poignancy. But it was as though she'd never been awake and if
she should awaken now, she'd scream, shriek. I slid hurriedly
from the bed, keeping my eye on that part of the darkness from
where the light had come as I tried to find my clothes. I
blundered around, finding a chair, an empty chair. Where were
my clothes? What a fool! Why had I gotten myself into such a
situation? I felt my way naked through darkness, found the
chair with my clothes, dressed hurriedly and slipped out,
halting only at the door to look back through the dim light from
the hall. She slept without sigh or smile, a beautiful dreamer,
one ivory arm flung above her jet-black head. My heart
pounded as I closed the door and went down the hall, expecting
the man, men, crowds -- to halt me. Then I was taking the
stairs.

The building was quiet. In the lobby the doorman dozed,
his starched bib buckling beneath his chin with his breath-
ing, his white head bare. I reached the street limp with
perspiration, still unsure whether I had seen the man or had
dreamed him. Could I have seen him without his seeing me? Or
again, had he seen me and been silent out of sophistication,
decadence, over-civilization? I hurried down the street, my
anxiety growing with each step. Why hadn't he said something,
recognized me, cursed me? Attacked me? Or at least been
outraged with her? And what if it were a test to discover how I
would react to such pressure? It was, after all, a point upon
which our enemies would attack us violently. I walked in a
sweat of agony. Why did they have to mix their women into
everything? Between us and everything we wanted to change
in the world they placed a woman: socially, politically,
economically. Why, goddamit, why did they insist upon
confusing the class struggle with the ass struggle, debasing
both us and them -- all human motives?

All the next day I was in a state of exhaustion, waiting
tensely for the plan to be revealed. Now I was certain that the
man had been in the doorway, a man with a brief case who had
looked in and given no definite sign that he had seen me. A
man who had spoken like an indifferent husband, but who yet
seemed to recall to me some important member of the Bro-
therhood -- someone so familiar that my failure to identify
him was driving me almost to distraction. My work lay un-
touched before me. Each ring of the telephone filled me with
dread. I toyed with Tarp's leg chain.

If they don't call by four o'clock, I'm saved, I told myself.
But still no sign, not even a call to a meeting. Finally I
rang her number, hearing her voice, delighted, gay and dis-
creet; but no mention of the night or the man. And hearing
her so composed and gay I was too embarrassed to bring it up.
Perhaps this was the sophisticated and civilized way? Perhaps
he was there and they had an understanding, a woman with full
rights.

Would I return for further discussion, she wanted to know.

"Yes, of course," I said.

"Oh, Brother," she said.

I hung up with a mixture of relief and anxiety, unable to
shrug off the notion that I had been tested and had failed. I
went through the next week puzzling over it, and even more
confused because I knew nothing definite of where I stood. I
tried to detect any changes in my relations with Brother Jack
and the others, but they gave no sign. And even if they had, I
wouldn't have known its definite meaning, for it might have
had to do with the charges. I was caught between guilt and
innocence, so that now they seemed one and the same. My
nerves were in a state of constant tension, my face took on a
stiff, non-committal expression, beginning to look like Brother
Jack's and the other leaders'. Then I relaxed a bit; work had to
be done and I would play the waiting game. And despite my
guilt and uncertainty I learned to forget that I was a lone guilty
black Brother and to go striding confidently into a roomful of
whites. It was chin up, a not too wide-stretched smile, the out-
thrust hand for the firm warm hand shake. And with it just the
proper mixture of arrogance and down-to-earth humility to sat-
isfy all. I threw myself into the lectures, defending, asserting
the rights of women; and though the girls continued to buzz
around, I was careful to keep the biological and ideological
carefully apart -- which wasn't always easy, for it was as
though many of the sisters were agreed among themselves (and
assumed that I accepted it) that the ideological was merely a
superfluous veil for the real concerns of life.

I found that most downtown audiences seemed to expect
some unnamed something whenever I appeared. I could
sense it the moment I stood before them, and it had nothing to
do with anything I might say. For I had merely to appear before
them, and from the moment they turned their eyes upon me
they seemed to undergo a strange unburdening -- not of
laughter, nor of tears, nor of any stable, unmixed emotion. I
didn't get it. And my guilt was aroused. Once in the middle of
a passage I looked into the sea of faces and thought, Do they
know? Is that it? -- and almost ruined my lecture. But of one
thing I was certain, it was not the same attitude they held for
certain other black brothers who entertained them with stories
so often that they laughed even before these fellows opened
their mouths. No, it was something else. A form of expectancy,
a mood of waiting, a hoping for something like justification; as
though they expected me to be more than just another speaker,
or an entertainer. Something seemed to occur that was hidden
from my own consciousness. I acted out a pantomime more
eloquent than my most expressive words. I was a partner to it
but could no more fathom it than I could the mystery of the
man in the doorway. Perhaps, I told myself, it's in your voice,
after all. In your voice and in their desire to see in you a
living proof of their belief in Brotherhood, and to ease my
mind I stopped thinking about it.

Then one night when I had fallen asleep while making notes
for a new series of lectures, the phone summoned me to
an emergency meeting at headquarters, and I left the house
with feelings of dread. This is it, I thought, either the charges
or the woman. To be tripped up by a woman! What would I say
to them, that she was irresistible and I human? What had that
to do with responsibility, with building Brotherhood?

It was all I could do to make myself go, and I arrived
late. The room was sweltering; three small fans stirred the
heavy air, and the brothers sat in their shirtsleeves around a
scarred table upon which a pitcher of iced water glistened with
beads of moisture.

"Brothers, I'm sorry I'm late," I apologized. "There were
some important last-minute details concerning tomorrow's
lecture that kept me."

"Then you might have saved yourself the trouble and
the committee this lost time," Brother Jack said.

"I don't understand you," I said, suddenly feverish.

"He means that you are no longer to concern yourself
with the Woman Question. That's ended," Brother Tobitt said;
and I braced myself for the attack, but before I could
respond Brother Jack fired a startling question at me.

"What has become of Brother Tod Clifton?"

"Brother Clifton -- why, I haven't seen him in weeks. I've
been too busy downtown here. What's happened?"

"He has disappeared," Brother Jack said, "disappeared!
So don't waste time with superfluous questions. You weren't
sent for for that."

"But how long has this been known?"

Brother Jack struck the table. "All we know is that he's
gone. Let's get on with our business. You, Brother, are to return
to Harlem immediately. We're facing a crisis there, since
Brother Tod Clifton has not only disappeared but failed in his
assignment. On the other hand, Ras the Exhorter and his gang
of racist gangsters are taking advantage of this and are
increasing their agitation. You are to get back there and take
measures to regain our strength in the community. You'll be
given the forces you need and you'll report to us for a strategy
meeting about which you'll be notified tomorrow. And please,"
he emphasized with his gavel, "be on time!"

I was so relieved that none of my own problems were discus-
sed that I didn't linger to ask if the police had been
consulted about the disappearance. Something was wrong with
the whole deal, for Clifton was too responsible and had too
much to gain simply to have disappeared. Did it have any
connection with Ras the Exhorter? But that seemed unlikely;
Harlem was one of our strongest districts, and just a month ago
when I was shifted Ras would have been laughed off the street
had he tried to attack us. If only I hadn't been so careful not
to offend the committee I would have kept in closer contact
with Clifton and the whole Harlem membership. Now it was as
though I had been suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.



Chapter 20



I had been away long enough for the streets to seem strange.
The uptown rhythms were slower and yet were somehow faster;
a different tension was in the hot night air. I made my
way through the summer crowds, not to the district but to
Barrelhouse's Jolly Dollar, a dark hole of a bar and grill
on upper Eighth Avenue, where one of my best contacts,
Brother Maceo, could usually be found about this time,
having his evening's beer.

Looking through the window, I could see men in working
clothes and a few rummy women leaning at the bar, and
down the aisle between the bar and counter were a couple
of men in black and blue checked sport shirts eating barbecue.
A cluster of men and women hovered near the juke box at the
rear. But when I went in Brother Maceo wasn't among them
and I pushed to the bar, deciding to wait over a beer.

"Good evening, Brothers," I said, finding myself beside
two men whom I had seen around before; only to have them
look at me oddly, the eyebrows of the tall one raising at a
drunken angle as he looked at the other.

"Shit," the tall man said.

"You said it, man; he a relative of yourn?"

"Shit, he goddam sho ain't no kin of mine!"

I turned and looked at them, the room suddenly cloudy.
"He must be drunk," the second man said. "Maybe he
thinks he's kin to you."

"Then his whiskey's telling him a damn lie. I wouldn't be
his kin even if I was -- Hey, Barrelhouse!"

I moved away, down the bar, looking at them out of a feel-
ing of suspense. They didn't sound drunk and I had said
nothing to offend, and I was certain that they knew who I
was. What was it? The Brotherhood greeting was as familiar
as "Give me some skin" or "Peace, it's wonderful."

I saw Barrelhouse rolling down from the other end of the
bar, his white apron indented by the tension of its cord so
that he looked like that kind of metal beer barrel which has
a groove around its middle; and seeing me now, he began to
smile.

"Well, I'll be damned if it ain't the good brother," he said,
stretching out his hand. "Brother, where you been keeping
yourself?"

"I've been working downtown," I said, feeling a surge of
gratitude.

"Fine, fine!" Barrelhouse said.

"Business good?"

"I'd rather not discuss it, Brother. Business is bad. Very
bad."

"I'm sorry to hear it. You'd better give me a beer," I said,
"after you've served these gentlemen." I watched them in
the mirror.

"Sure thing," Barrelhouse said, reaching for a glass and
drawing a beer. "What you putting down, ole man?" he said to
the tall man.

"Look here, Barrel, we wanted to ask you one question,"
the tall one said. "We just wanted to know if you could tell us
just whose brother this here cat's supposed to be? He come in
here just now calling everybody brother."

"He's my brother," Barrel said, holding the foaming glass
between his long fingers. "Anything wrong with that?"

"Look, fellow," I said down the bar, "that's our way of
speaking. I meant no harm in calling you brother. I'm sorry
you misunderstood me."

"Brother, here's your beer," Barrelhouse said.

"So he's your brother, eh, Barrel?"

Barrel's eyes narrowed as he pressed his huge chest across
the bar, looking suddenly sad. "You enjoying yourself,
MacAdams?" he said gloomily. "You like your beer?"

"Sho," MacAdams said.

"It cold enough?"

"Sho, but Barrel --"

"You like the groovy music on the juke?" Barrelhouse said.

"Hell, yes, but --"

"And you like our good, clean, sociable atmosphere?"

"Sho, but that ain't what I'm talking about," the man said.

"Yeah, but that's what I'm talking about," Barrelhouse said
mournfully. "And if you like it, like it, and don't start trying
to bug my other customers. This here man's done more for the
community than you'll ever do."

"What community?" MacAdams said, cutting his eyes around
toward me. "I hear he got the white fever and left . . ."

"You liable to hear anything," Barrelhouse said. "There's
some paper back there in the gents' room. You ought to wipe
out your ears."

"Never mind my ears."

"Aw come" on, Mac," his friend said. "Forgit it. Ain't the
man done apologized?"

"I said never mind my ears," MacAdams said. "You just tell
your brother he ought to be careful 'bout who he claims as
kinfolks. Some of us don't think so much of his kind of pol-
itics." I looked from one to the other. I considered myself
beyond the stage of street-fighting, and one of the worst things
I could do upon returning to the community was to engage in a
brawl. I looked at MacAdams and was glad when the other man
pushed him down the bar.

"That MacAdams thinks he's right," Barrelhouse said. "He's
the kind caint nobody please. Be frank though, there's
lots feel like that now."

I shook my head in bafflement. I'd never met that kind of
antagonism before. "What's happened to Brother Maceo?" I
said.

"I don't know, Brother. He don't come in so regular
these days. Things are kinda changing up here. Ain't much
money floating around."

"Times are hard everywhere. But what's been going on up
here, Barrel?" I said.

"Oh, you know how it is, Brother; things are tight and lots
of folks who got jobs through you people have lost them.
You know how it goes."

"You mean people in our organization?"

"Quite a few of them are. Fellows like Brother Maceo."

"But why? They were doing all right."

"Sure they was -- as long as you people was fighting for 'em.
But the minute y'all stopped, they started throwing folks
out on the street."

I looked at him, big and sincere before me. It was unbe-
lievable that the Brotherhood had stopped its work, and
yet he wasn't lying. "Give me another beer," I said. Then
someone called him from the back, and he drew the beer and
left.

I drank it slowly, hoping Brother Maceo would appear before
I had finished. When he didn't I waved to Barrelhouse and
left for the district. Perhaps Brother Tarp could explain; or
at least tell me something about Clifton.

I walked through the dark block over to Seventh and started
down; things were beginning to look serious. Along the
way I saw not a single sign of Brotherhood activity. In a hot
side street I came upon a couple striking matches along the
curb, kneeling as though looking for a lost coin, the matches
flaring dimly in their faces. Then I found myself in a strangely
familiar block and broke out in a sweat: I had walked almost to
Mary's door, and turned now and hurried away.

Barrelhouse had prepared me for the darkened windows of
the district, but not, when I let myself in, to call in
vain through the dark to Brother Tarp. I went to the room
where he slept, but he was not there; then I went through the
dark hall to my old office and threw myself into my desk chair,
exhausted. Everything seemed to be slipping away from me
and I could find no quick absorbing action that would get it
under control. I tried to think of whom among the district
committee I might call for information concerning Clifton, but
here again I was balked. For if I selected one who believed that
I had requested to be transferred because I hated my own
people it would only complicate matters. No doubt there would
be some who'd resent my return, so it was best to confront
them all at once without giving any one of them the opportunity
to organize any sentiment against me. It was best that I talk
with Brother Tarp, whom I trusted. When he came in he could
give me an idea of the state of affairs, and perhaps tell me what
had actually happened to Clifton.

But Brother Tarp didn't arrive. I went out and got a con-
tainer of coffee and returned to spend the night poring over
the district's records. When he hadn't returned by three A.M.
I went to his room and took a look around. It was empty, even
the bed was gone. I'm all alone, I thought. A lot has occurred
about which I wasn't told; something that had not only stifled
the members' interest but which, according to the records, had
sent them away in droves. Barrelhouse had said that the
organization had quit fighting, and that was the only
explanation I could find for Brother Tarp's leaving. Unless, of
course, he'd had disagreements with Clifton or some of the
other leaders. And now returning to my desk I noticed his gift
of Douglass' portrait was gone. I felt in my pocket for the leg
chain, at least I hadn't forgotten to take that along. I pushed
the records aside; they told me nothing of why things were as
they were. Picking up the telephone I called Clifton's number,
hearing it ring on and on. Finally I gave it up and went to sleep
in my chair. Everything had to wait until the strategy meeting.
Returning to the district was like returning to a city of the
dead.

Somewhat to my surprise there were a good number of mem-
bers in the hall when I awoke, and having no directives
from the committee on how to proceed I organized them into
teams to search for Brother Clifton. Not one could give me any
definite information. Brother Clifton had appeared at the
district as usual up to the time of his disappearance. There
had been no quarrels with committee members, and he was as
popular as ever. Nor had there been any clashes with Ras the
Exhorter -- although in the past week he had been increasingly
active. As for the loss of membership and influence, it was a
result of a new program which had called for the shelving of
our old techniques of agitation. There had been, to my surprise,
a switch in emphasis from local issues to those more national
and international in scope, and it was felt that for the moment
the interests of Harlem were not of first importance. I didn't
know what to make of it, since there had been no such change
of program downtown. Clifton was forgotten, everything which
I was to do now seemed to depend upon getting an explanation
from the committee, and I waited with growing agitation to be
called to the strategy meeting.

Such meetings were usually held around one o'clock and we
were notified well ahead. But by eleven-thirty I had
received no word and I became worried. By twelve an uneasy
sense of isolation took hold of me. Something was cooking,
but what, how, why? Finally I phoned headquarters, but could
reach none of the leaders. What is this, I wondered; then I
called the leaders of other districts with the same results.
And now I was certain that the meeting was being held. But
why without me? Had they investigated Wrestrum's charges and
decided they were true? It seemed that the membership had
fallen off after I had gone downtown. Or was it the woman?
Whatever it was, now was not the time to leave me out of a
meeting; things were too urgent in the district. I hurried
down to headquarters.

When I arrived the meeting was in session, just as I ex-
pected, and word had been left that it was not to be dis-
turbed by anyone. It was obvious that they hadn't forgotten
to notify me. I left the building in a rage. Very well, I thought,
when they do decide to call me they'll have to find me. I should
never have been shifted in the first place, and now that I was
sent back to clean up the mess they should aid me as quickly as
possible. I would do no more running downtown, nor would I
accept any program that they sent up without consulting the
Harlem committee. Then I decided, of all things, to shop for a
pair of new shoes, and walked over to Fifth Avenue.

It was hot, the walks still filled with noontime crowds mov-
ing with reluctance back to their jobs. I moved along close
to the curb to avoid the bumping and agitated changes of pace,
the chattering women in summer dresses, finally entering the
leather-smelling, air-cooled interior of the shoe store with a
sense of relief.

My feet felt light in the new summer shoes as I went back
into the blazing heat, and I recalled the old boyhood
pleasure of discarding winter shoes for sneakers and the
neighborhood foot races that always followed, that light-footed,
speedy, floating sensation. Well, I thought, you've run your last
foot race and you'd better get back to the district in case you're
called. I hurried now, my feet feeling trim and light as I moved
through the oncoming rush of sunbeaten faces. To avoid the
crowd on Forty-second Street I turned off at Forty-third and it
was here that things began to boil.

A small fruit wagon with an array of bright peaches and
pears stood near the curb, and the vendor, a florid man with
bulbous nose and bright black Italian eyes, looked at me
knowingly from beneath his huge white-and-orange umbrella
then over toward a crowd that had formed alongside the
building across the street. What's wrong with him? I thought.
Then I was across the street and passing the group standing
with their backs to me. A clipped, insinuating voice spieled
words whose meaning I couldn't catch and I was about to pass
on when I saw the boy. He was a slender brown fellow whom I
recognized immediately as a close friend of Clifton's, and who
now was looking intently across the tops of cars to where down
the block near the post office on the other side a tall policeman
was approaching. Perhaps he'll know something, I thought, as
he looked around to see me and stopped in confusion.

"Hello, there," I began, and when he turned toward the
crowd and whistled I didn't know whether he was telling me to
do the same or signalling to someone else. I swung around,
seeing him step to where a large carton sat beside the building
and sling its canvas straps to his shoulder as once more he
looked toward the policeman, ignoring me. Puzzled, I moved
into the crowd and pressed to the front where at my feet I saw
a square piece of cardboard upon which something was moving
with furious action. It was some kind of toy and I glanced at the
crowd's fascinated eyes and down again, seeing it clearly this
time. I'd seen nothing like it before. A grinning doll of orange-
and-black tissue paper with thin flat cardboard disks forming
its head and feet and which some mysterious mechanism was
causing to move up and down in a loose-jointed, shoulder
shaking, infuriatingly sensuous motion, a dance that was
completely detached from the black, mask-like face. It's no
jumping-jack, but what, I thought, seeing the doll throwing
itself about with the fierce defiance of someone performing a
degrading act in public, dancing as though it received a
perverse pleasure from its motions. And beneath the chuckles
of the crowd I could hear the swishing of its ruffled paper,
while the same out-of-the-corner-of-the-mouth voice con-
tinued to spiel:

Shake it up! Shake it up!
He's Sambo, the dancing doll, ladies and gentlemen.
Shake him, stretch him by the neck and set him down,
-- He'll do the rest. Yes!
He'll make you laugh, he'll make you sigh, si-igh.
He'll make you want to dance, and dance --
Here you are, ladies and gentlemen, Sambo,
The dancing doll.
Buy one for your baby. Take him to your girl friend and
she'll love you, loove you!
He'll keep you entertained. He'll make you weep sweet -
-
Tears from laughing.
Shake him, shake him, you cannot break him
For he's Sambo, the dancing, Sambo, the prancing,
Sambo, the entrancing, Sambo Boogie Woogie paper
doll.
And all for twenty-five cents, the quarter part of a dollar
. . .
Ladies and gentlemen, he'll bring you joy, step up and
meet him, Sambo the --

I knew I should get back to the district but I was held
by the inanimate, boneless bouncing of the grinning doll and
struggled between the desire to join in the laughter and to leap
upon it with both feet, when it suddenly collapsed and I saw the
tip of the spieler's toe press upon the circular cardboard that
formed the feet and a broad black hand come down, its fingers
deftly lifting the doll's head and stretching it upward, twice its
length, then releasing it to dance again. And suddenly the voice
didn't go with the hand. It was as though I had waded out into
a shallow pool only to have the bottom drop out and the water
close over my head. I looked up.

"Not you . . ." I began. But his eyes looked past me delib-
erately unseeing. I was paralyzed, looking at him, knowing
I wasn't dreaming, hearing:

What makes him happy, what makes him dance,
This Sambo, this jambo, this high-stepping joy boy?
He's more than a toy, ladies and gentlemen, he's
Sambo, the dancing doll, the twentieth-century miracle.
Look at that rumba, that suzy-q, he's Sambo-Boogie,
Sambo-Woogie, you don't have to feed him, he sleeps
collapsed, he'll kill your depression
And your dispossession, he lives upon the sunshine of
your lordly smile
And only twenty-five cents, the brotherly two bits of a
dollar because he wants me to eat.
It gives him pleasure to see me eat.
You simply take him and shake him . . . and he does the
rest.
Thank you, lady . . .

It was Clifton, riding easily back and forth on his knees,
flexing his legs without shifting his feet, his right shoulder
raised at an angle and his arm pointing stiffly at the bouncing
doll as he spieled from the corner of his mouth.

The whistle came again, and I saw him glance quickly toward
his lookout, the boy with the carton.

"Who else wants little Sambo before we take it on the lambo?
Speak up, ladies and gentlemen, who wants little . . . ?"

And again the whistle. "Who wants Sambo, the dancing,
prancing? Hurry, hurry, ladies and gentlemen. There's no
license for little Sambo, the joy spreader. You can't tax joy,
so speak up, ladies and gentlemen . . ."

For a second our eyes met and he gave me a contemptu-
ous smile, then he spieled again. I felt betrayed. I looked
at the doll and felt my throat constrict. The rage welled
behind the phlegm as I rocked back on my heels and crouched
forward. There was a flash of whiteness and a splatter like
heavy rain striking a newspaper and I saw the doll go over
backwards, wilting into a dripping rag of frilled tissue, the
hateful head upturned on its outstretched neck still grinning
toward the sky. The crowd turned on me indignantly. The
whistle came again. I saw a short pot-bellied man look down,
then up at me with amazement and explode with laughter,
pointing from me to the doll, rocking. People backed away from
me. I saw Clifton step close to the building where beside the
fellow with the carton I now saw a whole chorus-line of dolls
flouncing themselves with a perverse increase of energy and
the crowd laughing hysterically.

"You, you!" I began, only to see him pick up two of the
dolls and step forward. But now the lookout came close. "He's
coming," he said, nodding toward the approaching policeman
as he swept up the dolls, dropping them into the carton and
starting away.

"Follow little Sambo around the corner, ladies and gentle-
men," Clifton called. "There's a great show coming up..."

It happened so fast that in a second only I and an old
lady in a blue polka-dot dress were left. She looked at me then
back to the walk, smiling. I saw one of the dolls. I looked. She
was still smiling and I raised my foot to crush it, hearing her
cry, "Oh, no!" The policeman was just opposite and I reached
down instead, picking it up and walking off in the same motion.
I examined it, strangely weightless in my hand, half expecting
to feel it pulse with life. It was a still frill of paper. I drop-
ped it in the pocket where I carried Brother Tarp's chain link and
started after the vanished crowd. But I couldn't face Clifton
again. I didn't want to see him. I might forget myself and attack
him. I went in the other direction, toward Sixth Avenue, past
the policeman. What a way to find him, I thought. What had
happened to Clifton? It was all so wrong, so unexpected. How
on earth could he drop from Brotherhood to this in so short a
time? And why if he had to fall back did he try to carry the
whole structure with him? What would non-members who knew
him say? It was as though he had chosen -- how had he put it
the night he fought with Ras? -- to fall outside of history. I
stopped in the middle of the walk with the thought. "To
plunge," he had said. But he knew that only in the Brotherhood
could we make ourselves known, could we avoid being empty
Sambo dolls. Such an obscene flouncing of everything human!
My God! And I had been worrying about being left out of a
meeting! I'd overlook it a thousand times; no matter why I
wasn't called. I'd forget it and hold on desperately to
Brotherhood with all my strength. For to break away would be
to plunge . . . To plunge! And those dolls, where had they found
them? Why had he picked that way to earn a quarter? Why not
sell apples or song sheets, or shine shoes?

I wandered past the subway and continued around the corner
to Forty-second Street, my mind grappling for meaning.
And when I came around the corner onto the crowded walk
into the sun, they were already lining the curb and shading
their faces with their hands. I saw the traffic moving with the
lights, and across the street a few pedestrians were looking
back toward the center of the block where the trees of Bryant
Park rose above two men. I saw a flight of pigeons whirl out of
the trees and it all happened in the swift interval of their
circling, very abruptly and in the noise of the traffic -- yet
seeming to unfold in my mind like a slow-motion movie run off
with the sound track dead.

At first I thought it was a cop and a shoeshine boy; then
there was a break in the traffic and across the sun-glaring
bands of trolley rails I recognized Clifton. His partner had
disappeared now and Clifton had the box slung to his left
shoulder with the cop moving slowly behind and to one side of
him. They were coming my way, passing a newsstand, and I
saw the rails in the asphalt and a fire plug at the curb and the
flying birds, and thought, You'll have to follow and pay his fine .
. . just as the cop pushed him, jolting him forward and Clifton
trying to keep the box from swinging against his leg and saying
something over his shoulder and going forward as one of the
pigeons swung down into the street and up again, leaving a
feather floating white in the dazzling backlight of the sun, and I
could see the cop push Clifton again, stepping solidly forward
in his black shirt, his arm shooting out stiffly, sending him in a
head-snapping forward stumble until he caught himself, saying
something over his shoulder again, the two moving in a kind of
march that I'd seen many times, but never with anyone like
Clifton. And I could see the cop bark a command and lunge
forward, thrusting out his arm and missing, thrown off balance
as suddenly Clifton spun on his toes like a dancer and swung
his right arm over and around in a short, jolting arc, his torso
carrying forward and to the left in a motion that sent the box
strap free as his right foot traveled forward and his left arm
followed through in a floating uppercut that sent the cop's cap
sailing into the street and his feet flying, to drop him hard,
rocking from left to right on the walk as Clifton kicked the box
thudding aside and crouched, his left foot forward, his hands
high, waiting. And between the flashing of cars I could see the
cop propping himself on his elbows like a drunk trying to get
his head up, shaking it and thrusting it forward -- And
somewhere between the dull roar of traffic and the subway
vibrating underground I heard rapid explosions and saw each
pigeon diving wildly as though blackjacked by the sound, and
the cop sitting up straight now, and rising to his knees looking
steadily at Clifton, and the pigeons plummeting swiftly into the
trees, and Clifton still facing the cop and suddenly crumpling.

He fell forward on his knees, like a man saying his prayers
just as a heavy-set man in a hat with a turned-down brim
stepped from around the newsstand and yelled a protest. I
couldn't move. The sun seemed to scream an inch above my
head. Someone shouted. A few men were starting into the
street. The cop was standing now and looking down at Clifton
as though surprised, the gun in his hand. I took a few steps
forward, walking blindly now, unthinking, yet my mind reg-
istering it all vividly. Across and starting up on the curb, and
seeing Clifton up closer now, lying in the same position, on his
side, a huge wetness growing on his shirt, and I couldn't set my
foot down. Cars sailed close behind me, but I couldn't take the
step that would raise me up to the walk. I stood there, one leg
in the street and the other raised above the curb, hearing
whistles screeching and looked toward the library to see two
cops coming on in a lunging, big-bellied run. I looked back to
Clifton, the cop was waving me away with his gun, sounding
like a boy with a changing voice.

"Get back on the other side," he said. He was the cop that
I'd passed on Forty-third a few minutes before. My mouth
was dry.

"He's a friend of mine, I want to help . . ." I said, finally
stepping upon the curb.

"He don't need no help, Junior. Get across that street!"

The cop's hair hung on the sides of his face, his uniform
was dirty, and I watched him without emotion, hesitated,
hearing the sound of footfalls approaching. Everything seemed
slowed down. A pool formed slowly on the walk. My eyes
blurred. I raised my head. The cop looked at me curiously.
Above in the park I could hear the furious flapping of wings; on
my neck, the pressure of eyes. I turned. A round-headed, apple-
cheeked boy with a thickly freckled nose and Slavic eyes leaned
over the fence of the park above, and now as he saw me turn,
he shrilled something to someone behind him, his face lighting
up with ecstasy . . . What does it mean, I wondered, turning
back to that to which I did not wish to turn.

There were three cops now, one watching the crowd and the
others looking at Clifton. The first cop had his cap on
again.

"Look, Junior," he said very clearly, "I had enough trou-
ble for today -- you going to get on across that street?"
I opened my mouth but nothing would come. Kneeling,
one of the cops was examining Clifton and making notes on a
pad.

"I'm his friend," I said, and the one making notes looked
up.

"He's a cooked pigeon, Mac," he said. "You ain't got any
friend any more."

I looked at him.

"Hey, Mickey," the boy above us called, "the guy's out
cold!"

I looked down. "That's right," the kneeling cop said.
"What's your name?"

I told him. I answered his questions about Clifton as best
I could until the wagon came. For once it came quickly. I
watched numbly as they moved him inside, placing the box of
dolls in with him. Across the street the crowd still churned.
Then the wagon was gone and I started back toward the
subway.

"Say, mister," the boy's voice shrilled down. "Your friend
sure knows how to use his dukes. Biff, bang! One, two, and the
cop's on his ass!"

I bowed my head to this final tribute, and now walking
away in the sun I tried to erase the scene from my mind.


I WANDERED down the subway stairs seeing nothing, my
mind plunging. The subway was cool and I leaned against a
pillar, hearing the roar of trains passing across on the other
side, feeling the rushing roar of air. Why should a man
deliberately plunge outside of history and peddle an obscenity,
my mind went on abstractedly. Why should he choose to disarm
himself, give up his voice and leave the only organization
offering him a chance to "define" himself? The platform
vibrated and I looked down. Bits of paper whirled up in the
passage of air, settling quickly as a train moved past. Why had
he turned away? Why had he chosen to step off the platform
and fall beneath the train? Why did he choose to plunge into
nothingness, into the void of faceless faces, of soundless voices,
lying outside history? I tried to step away and look at it from a
distance of words read in books, half-remembered. For history
records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with
whom and with what results; who fought and who won and who
lived to lie about it afterwards. All things, it is said, are duly
recorded -- all things of importance, that is. But not quite, for
actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those
events that the recorder regards as important that are put
down, those lies his keepers keep their power by. But the cop
would be Clifton's historian, his judge, his witness, and his
executioner, and I was the only brother in the watching crowd.
And I, the only witness for the defense, knew neither the extent
of his guilt nor the nature of his crime. Where were the
historians today? And how would they put it down?

I stood there with the trains plunging in and out, throwing
blue sparks. What did they ever think of us transitory
ones? Ones such as I had been before I found Brother-
hood -- birds of passage who were too obscure for learned
classification, too silent for the most sensitive recorders of
sound; of natures too ambiguous for the most ambiguous
words, and too distant from the centers of historical decision to
sign or even to applaud the signers of historical documents?
We who write no novels, histories or other books. What about
us, I thought, seeing Clifton again in my mind and going to sit
upon a bench as a cool gust of air rolled up the tunnel.

A body of people came down the platform, some of them
Negroes. Yes, I thought, what about those of us who shoot up
from the South into the busy city like wild jacks-in-the-box
broken loose from our springs -- so sudden that our gait
becomes like that of deep-sea divers suffering from the bends?
What about those fellows waiting still and silent there on the
platform, so still and silent that they clash with the crowd in
their very immobility; standing noisy in their very silence;
harsh as a cry of terror in their quietness? What about those
three boys, coming now along the platform, tall and slender,
walking stiffly with swinging shoulders in their well-pressed,
too-hot-for-summer suits, their collars high and tight about
their necks, their identical hats of black cheap felt set upon the
crowns of their heads with a severe formality above their hard
conked hair? It was as though I'd never seen their like before:
Walking slowly, their shoulders swaying, their legs swinging
from their hips in trousers that ballooned upward from cuffs
fitting snug about their ankles; their coats long and hip-tight
with shoulders far too broad to be those of natural western
men. These fellows whose bodies seemed -- what had one of my
teachers said of me? -- "You're like one of these African
sculptures, distorted in the interest of a design." Well, what
design and whose?

I stared as they seemed to move like dancers in some kind
of funeral ceremony, swaying, going forward, their black
faces secret, moving slowly down the subway platform, the
heavy heel-plated shoes making a rhythmical tapping as they
moved. Everyone must have seen them, or heard their muted
laughter, or smelled the heavy pomade on their hair -- or
perhaps failed to see them at all. For they were men outside of
historical time, they were untouched, they didn't believe in
Brotherhood, no doubt had never heard of it; or perhaps like
Clifton would mysteriously have rejected its mysteries; men of
transition whose faces were immobile.

I got up and went behind them. Women shoppers with bundles
and impatient men in straw hats and seersucker suits
stood along the platform as they passed. And suddenly I found
myself thinking, Do they come to bury the others or to be
entombed, to give life or to receive it? Do the others see them,
think about them, even those standing close enough to speak?
And if they spoke back, would the impatient businessmen in
conventional suits and tired housewives with their plunder,
understand? What would they say? For the boys speak a jived-
up transitional language full of country glamour, think
transitional thoughts, though perhaps they dream the same old
ancient dreams. They were men out of time -- unless they found
Brotherhood. Men out of time, who would soon be gone and
forgotten . . . But who knew (and now I began to tremble so
violently I had to lean against a refuse can) -- who knew but
that they were the saviors, the true leaders, the bearers of
something precious? The stewards of something uncomfortable,
burdensome, which they hated because, living outside the
realm of history, there was no one to applaud their value
and they themselves failed to understand it. What if
Brother Jack were wrong? What if history was a gambler,
instead of a force in a laboratory experiment, and the boys his
ace in the hole? What if history was not a reasonable citizen,
but a madman full of paranoid guile and these boys his agents,
his big surprise! His own revenge? For they were outside, in
the dark with Sambo, the dancing paper doll; taking it on the
lambo with my fallen brother, Tod Clifton (Tod, Tod) running
and dodging the forces of history instead of making a
dominating stand.

A train came. I followed them inside. There were many
seats and the three sat together. I stood, holding onto the
center pole, looking down the length of the car. On one side I
saw a white nun in black telling her beads, and standing before
the door across the aisle there was another dressed completely
in white, the exact duplicate of the other except that she was
black and her black feet bare. Neither of the nuns was looking
at the other but at their crucifixes, and suddenly I laughed and
a verse I'd heard long ago at the Golden Day paraphrased itself
in my mind:

Bread and Wine,
Bread and Wine,
Your cross ain't nearly so
Heavy as mine . . .

And the nuns rode on with lowered heads.

I looked at the boys. They sat as formally as they
walked. From time to time one of them would look at his
reflection in the window and give his hat brim a snap, the
others watching him silently, communicating ironically with
their eyes, then looking straight ahead. I staggered with the
lunging of the train, feeling the overhead fans driving the
hot air down upon me. What was I in relation to the boys, I
wondered. Perhaps an accident, like Douglass. Perhaps each
hundred years or so men like them, like me, appeared in
society, drifting through; and yet by all historical logic we, I,
should have disappeared around the first part of the nineteenth
century, rationalized out of existence. Perhaps, like them, I was
a throwback, a small distant meteorite that died several
hundred years ago and now lived only by virtue of the light that
speeds through space at too great a pace to realize that its
source has become a piece of lead . . . This was silly, such
thoughts. I looked at the boys; one tapped another on the knee,
and I saw him remove three rolled magazines from an inner
pocket, passing two around and keeping one for himself. The
others took theirs silently and began to read in complete
absorption. One held his magazine high before his face and for
an instant I saw a vivid scene: The shining rails, the fire
hydrant, the fallen policeman, the diving birds and in the mid-
ground, Clifton, crumpling. Then I saw the cover of a comic
book and thought, Clifton would have known them better than
I. He knew them all the time. I studied them closely until they
left the train, their shoulders rocking, their heavy heel plates
clicking remote, cryptic messages in the brief silence of the
train's stop.

I came out of the subway, weak, moving through the heat
as though I carried a heavy stone, the weight of a moun-
tain on my shoulders. My new shoes hurt my feet. Now,
moving through the crowds along 125th Street, I was painfully
aware of other men dressed like the boys, and of girls in dark
exotic-colored stockings, their costumes surreal variations of
downtown styles. They'd been there all along, but somehow I'd
missed them. I'd missed them even when my work had been
most successful. They were outside the groove of history, and it
was my job to get them in, all of them. I looked into the design
of their faces, hardly a one that was unlike someone I'd known
down South. Forgotten names sang through my head like
forgotten scenes in dreams. I moved with the crowd, the sweat
pouring off me, listening to the grinding roar of traffic, the
growing sound of a record shop loudspeaker blaring a languid
blues. I stopped. Was this all that would be recorded? Was this
the only true history of the times, a mood blared by trumpets,
trombones, saxophones and drums, a song with turgid,
inadequate words? My mind flowed. It was as though in this
short block I was forced to walk past everyone I'd ever known
and no one would smile or call my name. No one fixed me in his
eyes. I walked in feverish isolation. Near the corner now a
couple of boys darted out of the Five and Ten with handfuls of
candy bars, dropping them along the walks as they ran with a
man right behind. They came toward me, pumping past, and I
killed an impulse to trip the man and was confused all the more
when an old woman standing further along threw out her leg
and swung a heavy bag. The man went down, sliding across the
walk as she shook her head in triumph. A pressure of guilt
came over me. I stood on the edge of the walk watching the
crowd threatening to attack the man until a policeman
appeared and dispersed them. And although I knew no one
man could do much about it, I felt responsible. All our work had
been very little, no great change had been made. And it was all
my fault. I'd been so fascinated by the motion that I'd forgotten
to measure what it was bringing forth. I'd been asleep,
dreaming.



Chapter 21



When I got back to the district a small group of youth
members stopped their joking to welcome me, but I couldn't
break the news. I went through to the office with only a nod,
shutting the door upon their voices and sat staring out through
the trees. The once fresh green of the trees was dark and
drying now and somewhere down below a clothesline peddler
clanged his bell and called. Then, as I fought against it, the
scene came back -- not of the death, but of the dolls. Why had I
lost my head and spat upon the doll, I wondered. What had
Clifton felt when he saw me? He must have hated me behind
his spiel, yet he'd ignored me. Yes, and been amused by my
political stupidity. I had blown up and acted personally instead
of denouncing the significance of the dolls, him, the obscene
idea, and seizing the opportunity to educate the crowd. We lost
no opportunity to educate, and I had failed. All I'd done was to
make them laugh all the louder . . . I had aided and abetted
social backwardness . . . The scene changed -- he lay in the sun
and this time I saw a trail of smoke left by a sky-writing plane
lingering in the sky, a large woman in a kelly-green dress stood
near me saying, "Oh, Oh!" . . .

I turned and faced the map, removing the doll from my pocket
and tossing it upon the desk. My stomach surged. To die for
such a thing! I picked it up with an unclean feeling, looked
at the frilled paper. The joined cardboard feet hung down,
pulling the paper legs in elastic folds, a construction of tissue,
cardboard and glue. And yet I felt a hatred as for something
alive. What had made it seem to dance? Its cardboard hands
were doubled into fists, the fingers outlined in orange paint,
and I noticed that it had two faces, one on either side of the
disk of cardboard, and both grinning. Clifton's voice came to
me as he spieled his directions for making it dance, and I held
it by the feet and stretched its neck, seeing it crumple and slide
forward. I tried again, turning its other face around. It gave a
tired bounce, shook itself and fell in a heap.

"Go on, entertain me," I said, giving it a stretch. "You
entertained the crowd." I turned it around. One face grinned
as broadly as the other. It had grinned back at Clifton as it
grinned forward at the crowd, and their entertainment had
been his death. It had still grinned when I played the fool and
spat upon it, and it was still grinning when Clifton ignored me.
Then I saw a fine black thread and pulled it from the trilled
paper. There was a loop tied in the end. I slipped it over my
finger and stood stretching it taut. And this time it danced.
Clifton had been making it dance all the time and the black
thread had been invisible.

Why didn't you hit him? I asked myself; try to break his
jaw? Why didn't you hurt him and save him? You might have
started a fight and both of you would have been arrested with
no shooting . . . But why had he resisted the cop anyway? He'd
been arrested before; he knew how far to go with a cop. What
had the cop said to make him angry enough to lose his head?
And suddenly it occurred to me that he might have been angry
before he resisted, before he'd even seen the cop. My breath
became short; I felt myself go weak. What if he believed I'd
sold out? It was a sickening thought. I sat holding myself as
though I might break. For a moment I weighed the idea, but it
was too big for me. I could only accept responsibility for the
living, not for the dead. My mind backed away from the notion.
The incident was political. I looked at the doll, thinking, The
political equivalent of such entertainment is death. But that's
too broad a definition. Its economic meaning? That the life of a
man is worth the sale of a two-bit paper doll . . . But that didn't
kill the idea that my anger helped speed him on to death. And
still my mind fought against it. For what had I to do with the
crisis that had broken his integrity? What had I to do with his
selling the dolls in the first place? And finally I had to give that
up too. I was no detective, and, politically, individuals were
without meaning. The shooting was all that was left of him now,
Clifton had chosen to plunge out of history and, except for the
picture it made in my mind's eye, only the plunge was recorded,
and that was the only important thing.

I sat rigid, as though waiting to hear the explosions again,
fighting against the weight that seemed to pull me down.
I heard the clothesline peddler's bell . . . What would I tell
the committee when the newspaper accounts were out? To hell
with them. How would I explain the dolls? But why should I say
anything? What could we do to fight back. That was my worry.
The bell tolled again in the yard below. I looked at the doll. I
could think of no justification for Clifton's having sold the
dolls, but there was justification enough for giving him a public
funeral, and I seized upon the idea now as though it would save
my life. Even though I wanted to turn away from it as I'd
wanted to turn from Clifton's crumpled body on the walk. But
the odds against us were too great for such weakness. We had
to use every politically effective weapon against them; Clifton
understood that. He had to be buried and I knew of no
relatives; someone had to see that he was placed in the ground.
Yes, the dolls were obscene and his act a betrayal. But he was
only a salesman, not the inventor, and it was necessary that we
make it known that the meaning of his death was greater than
the incident or the object that caused it. Both as a means of
avenging him and of preventing other such deaths . . . yes, and
of attracting lost members back into the ranks. It would be
ruthless, but a ruthlessness in the interest of Brotherhood, for
we had only our minds and bodies, as against the other side's
vast power. We had to make the most of what we had. For they
had the power to use a paper doll, first to destroy his integrity
and then as an excuse for killing him. All right, so we'll use his
funeral to put his integrity together again . . . For that's all
that he had had or wanted. And now I could see the doll only
vaguely and drops of moisture were thudding down upon its
absorbent paper . . .

I was bent over, staring, when the knock came at the
door and I jumped as at a shot, sweeping the doll into my
pocket, and hastily wiping my eyes.

"Come in," I said.

The door opened slowly. A group of youth members crowded
forward, their faces a question. The girls were crying.

"Is it true?" they said.

"That he is dead? Yes," I said, looking among them. "Yes."

"But why . . . ?"

"It was a case of provocation and murder!" I said, my
emotions beginning to turn to anger.

They stood there, their faces questioning me.

"He's dead," a girl said, her voice without conviction.
"Dead."

"But what do they mean about his selling dolls?" a tall
youth said.

"I don't know," I said. "I only know that he was shot
down. Unarmed. I know how you feel, I saw him fall."

"Take me home," a girl screamed. "Take me home!"

I stepped forward and caught her, a little brown thing in
bobby socks, holding her against me. "No, we can't go home," I
said, "none of us. We've got to fight. I'd like to get out into
the air and forget it, if I ever could. What we want is not
tears but anger. We must remember now that we are fighters,
and in such incidents we must see the meaning of our struggle.
We must strike back. I want each of you to round up all the
members you can. We've got to make our reply."

One of the girls was still crying piteously when they went
out, but they were moving quickly.

"Come on, Shirley," they said, taking the girl from my
shoulder.

I tried to get in touch with headquarters, but again I
was unable to reach anyone. I called the Chthonian but there
was no answer. So I called a committee of the district's lead-
ing members and we moved slowly ahead on our own. I tried to
find the youth who was with Clifton, but he had disappeared.
Members were set on the streets with cans to solicit funds for
his burial. A committee of three old women went to the morgue
to claim his body. We distributed black-bordered leaflets,
denouncing the police commissioner. Preachers were notified
to have their congregations send letters of protest to the
mayor. The story spread. A photograph of Clifton was sent to
the Negro papers and published. People were stirred and
angry. Street meetings were organized. And, released (by the
action) from my indecision, I threw everything I had into
organizing the funeral, though moving in a kind of numb
suspension. I didn't go to bed for two days and nights, but
caught catnaps at my desk. I ate very little.

THE funeral was arranged to attract the largest number.
Instead of holding it in a church or chapel, we selected
Mount Morris Park, and an appeal went out for all former
members to join the funeral march.

It took place on a Saturday, in the heat of the afternoon.
There was a thin overcast of clouds, and hundreds of people
formed for the procession. I went around giving orders and
encouragement in a feverish daze, and yet seeming to observe
it all from off to one side. Brothers and sisters turned up
whom I hadn't seen since my return. And members from downtown
and outlying districts. I watched them with surprise as they
gathered and wondered at the depths of their sorrow as the
lines began to form.

There were half-draped flags and black banners. There
were black-bordered signs that read:

BROTHER TOD CLIFTON
OUR HOPE SHOT DOWN

There was a hired drum corps with crape-draped drums.
There was a band of thirty pieces. There were no cars
and very few flowers.

It was a slow procession and the band played sad, romantic,
military marches. And when the band was silent the drum
corps beat the time on drums with muffled heads. It was
hot and explosive, and delivery men avoided the district and
the police details were increased in number. And up and down
the streets people looked out of their apartment windows and
men and boys stood on the roofs in the thin-veiled sun. I
marched at the head with the old community leaders. It was a
slow march and as I looked back from time to time I could see
young zoot-suiters, hep cats, and men in overalls and pool-hall
gamblers stepping into the procession. Men came out of barber
shops with lathered faces, their neckcloths hanging, to watch
and comment in hushed voices. And I wondered, Are they all
Clifton's friends, or is it just for the spectacle, the slow-
paced music? A hot wind blew from behind me, bringing the sick
sweetish odor, like the smell of some female dogs in season.

I looked back. The sun shone down on a mass of unbared
heads, and above flags and banners and shining horns
I could see the cheap gray coffin moving high upon the
shoulders of Clifton's tallest companions, who from time to
time shifted it smoothly on to others. They bore him high and
they bore him proudly and there was an angry sadness in their
eyes. The coffin floated like a heavily loaded ship in a channel,
winding its way slowly above the bowed and submerged heads.
I could hear the steady rolling of the drums with muffled
snares, and all other sounds were suspended in silence.
Behind, the tramp of feet; ahead, the crowds lining the curbs
for blocks. There were tears and muffled sobs and many hard,
red eyes. We moved ahead.

We wound through the poorest streets at first, a black
image of sorrow, then turned into Seventh Avenue and down
and over to Lenox. Then I hurried with the leading brothers
to the park in a cab. A brother in the Park Department had
opened the lookout tower, and a crude platform of planks and
ranked saw horses had been erected beneath the black iron
bell, and when the procession started into the park we were
standing high above, waiting. At our signal he struck the bell,
and I could feel my eardrums throbbing with the old, hollow,
gut-vibrant Doom-Dong-Doom.

Looking down, I could see them winding upward in a mass to
the muffled sound of the drums. Children stopped their play-
ing on the grass to stare, and nurses at the nearby hospital
came out on the roof to watch, their white uniforms glowing in
the now unveiled sun like lilies. And crowds approached the
park from all directions. The muffled drums now beating, now
steadily rolling, spread a dead silence upon the air, a prayer
for the unknown soldier. And looking down I felt a lostness.
Why were they here? Why had they found us? Because they knew
Clifton? Or for the occasion his death gave them to express
their protestations, a time and place to come together, to stand
touching and sweating and breathing and looking in a common
direction? Was either explanation adequate in itself? Did it
signify love or politicalized hate? And could politics ever
be an expression of love?

Over the park the silence spread from the slow muffled roll-
ing of the drums, the crunching of footsteps on the walks.
Then somewhere in the procession an old, plaintive, masculine
voice arose in a song, wavering, stumbling in the silence at first
alone, until in the band a euphonium horn fumbled for the key
and took up the air, one catching and rising above the other
and the other pursuing, two black pigeons rising above a skull-
white barn to tumble and rise through still, blue air. And for
a few bars the pure sweet tone of the horn and the old man's
husky baritone sang a duet in the hot heavy silence. "There's
Many a Thousand Gone." And standing high up over the park
something fought in my throat. It was a song from the past, the
past of the campus and the still earlier past of home. And now
some of the older ones in the mass were joining in. I hadn't
thought of it as a march before, but now they were marching to
its slow-paced rhythm, up the hill. I looked for the euphonium
player and saw a slender black man with his face turned
toward the sun, singing through the upturned bells of the horn.
And several yards behind, marching beside the young men
floating the coffin upward, I looked into the face of the old man
who had aroused the song and felt a twinge of envy. It was a
worn, old, yellow face and his eyes were closed and I could see
a knife welt around his upturned neck as his throat threw out
the song. He sang with his whole body, phrasing each verse as
naturally as he walked, his voice rising above all the others,
blending with that of the lucid horn. I watched him now, wet-
eyed, the sun hot upon my head, and I felt a wonder at the
singing mass. It was as though the song had been there all the
time and he knew it and aroused it; and I knew that I had
known it too and had failed to release it out of a vague,
nameless shame or fear. But he had known and aroused it.
Even white brothers and sisters were joining in. I looked into
that face, trying to plumb its secret, but it told me nothing. I
looked at the coffin and the marchers, listening to them, and
yet realizing that I was listening to something within myself,
and for a second I heard the shattering stroke of my heart.
Something deep had shaken the crowd, and the old man and
the man with the horn had done it. They had touched upon
something deeper than protest, or religion; though now images
of all the church meetings of my life welled up within me with
much suppressed and forgotten anger. But that was past, and
too many of those now reaching the top of the mountain and
spreading massed together had never shared it, and some had
been born in other lands. And yet all were touched; the song
had aroused us all. It was not the words, for they were all the
same old slave-borne words; it was as though he'd changed the
emotion beneath the words while yet the old longing, resigned,
transcendent emotion still sounded above, now deepened by
that something for which the theory of Brotherhood had given
me no name. I stood there trying to contain it as they brought
Tod Clifton's coffin into the tower and slowly up the spiral
stairs. They set it down upon the platform and I looked at the
shape of the cheap gray coffin and all I could remember was
the sound of his name.

The song had ended. Now the top of the little mountain
bristled with banners, horns and uplifted faces. I could look
straight down Fifth Avenue to 125th Street, where policemen
were lined behind an array ot hot-dog wagons and Good Humor
carts; and among the carts I saw a peanut vendor standing
beneath a street lamp upon which pigeons were gathered, and
now I saw him stretch out his arms with his palms turned
upward, and suddenly he was covered, head, shoulders and
outflung arms, with fluttering, feasting birds.

Someone nudged me and I started. It was time for final words.
But I had no words and I'd never been to a Brotherhood
funeral and had no idea of a ritual. But they were waiting. I
stood there alone; there was no microphone to support me,
only the coffin before me upon the backs of its wobbly
carpenter's horses.

I looked down into their sun-swept faces, digging for the
words, and feeling a futility about it all and an anger. For
this they gathered by thousands. What were they waiting to
hear? Why had they come? For what reason that was different
from that which had made the red-cheeked boy thrill at
Clifton's falling to the earth? What did they want and what
could they do? Why hadn't they come when they could have
stopped it all?

"What are you waiting for me to tell you?" I shouted sudden-
ly, my voice strangely crisp on the windless air. "What good
will it do? What if I say that this isn't a funeral, that it's a
holiday celebration, that if you stick around the band will end
up playing 'Damit-the-Hell the Fun's All Over'? Or do you
expect to see some magic, the dead rise up and walk again? Go
home, he's as dead as he'll ever die. That's the end in the
beginning and there's no encore. There'll be no miracles and
there's no one here to preach a sermon. Go home, forget him.
He's inside this box, newly dead. Go home and don't think
about him. He's dead and you've got all you can do to think
about you." I paused. They were whispering and looking
upward.

"I've told you to go home," I shouted, "but you keep stand-
ing there. Don't you know it's hot out here in the sun? So
what if you wait for what little I can tell you? Can I say in
twenty minutes what was building twenty-one years and ended
in twenty seconds? What are you waiting for, when all I can tell
you is his name? And when I tell you, what will you know that
you didn't know already, except perhaps, his name?"

They were listening intently, and as though looking not at me,
but at the pattern of my voice upon the air.

"All right, you do the listening in the sun and I'll try to
tell you in the sun. Then you go home and forget it. Forget it.
His name was Clifton and they shot him down. His name was
Clifton and he was tall and some folks thought him handsome.
And though he didn't belilve it, I think he was. His name was
Clifton and his face was black and his hair was thick with
tight-rolled curls -- or call them naps or kinks. He's dead,
uninterested, and, except to a few young girls, it doesn't matter
. . . Have you got it? Can you see him? Think of your brother or
your cousin John. His lips were thick with an upward curve at
the corners. He often smiled. He had good eyes and a pair of
fast hands, and he had a heart. He thought about things and he
felt deeply. I won't call him noble because what's such a word
to do with one of us? His name was Clifton, Tod Clifton, and,
like any man, he was born of woman to live awhile and fall and
die. So that's his tale to the minute. His name was Clifton and
for a while he lived among us and aroused a few hopes in the
young manhood of man, and we who knew him loved him and he
died. So why are you waiting? You've heard it all. Why wait
for more, when all I can do is repeat it?"

They stood; they listened. They gave no sign.

"Very well, so I'll tell you. His name was Clifton and he
was young and he was a leader and when he fell there was a
hole in the heel of his sock and when he stretched forward he
seemed not as tall as when he stood. So he died; and we who
loved him are gathered here to mourn him. It's as simple as
that and as short as that. His name was Clifton and he was
black and they shot him. Isn't that enough to tell? Isn't it all
you need to know? Isn't that enough to appease your thirst for
drama and send you home to sleep it off? Go take a drink and
forget it. Or read it in The Daily News. His name was Clifton
and they shot him, and I was there to see him fall. So I know it
as I know it.

"Here are the facts. He was standing and he fell. He fell
and he kneeled. He kneeled and he bled. He bled and he died.
He fell in a heap like any man and his blood spilled out like any
blood; red as any blood, wet as any blood and reflecting the sky
and the buildings and birds and trees, or your face if you'd
looked into its dulling mirror -- and it dried in the sun as blood
dries. That's all. They spilled his blood and he bled. They cut
him down and he died; the blood flowed on the walk in a pool,
gleamed a while, and, after awhile, became dull then dusty,
then dried. That's the story and that's how it ended. It's an old
story and there's been too much blood to excite you. Besides,
it's only important when it fills the veins of a living man. Aren't
you tired of such stories? Aren't you sick of the blood? Then
why listen, why don't you go? It's hot out here. There's the odor
of embalming fluid. The beer is cold in the taverns, the
saxophones will be mellow at the Savoy; plenty good-laughing-
lies will be told in the barber shops and beauty parlors; and
there'll be sermons in two hundred churches in the cool of the
evening, and plenty of laughs at the movies. Go listen to 'Amos
and Andy' and forget it. Here you have only the same old story.
There's not even a young wife up here in red to mourn him.
There's nothing here to pity, no one to break down and shout.
Nothing to give you that good old frightened feeling. The
story's too short and too simple. His name was Clifton, Tod
Clifton, he was unarmed and his death was as senseless as his
life was futile. He had struggled for Brotherhood on a hundred
street corners and he thought it would make him more human,
but he died like any dog in a road.

"All right, all right," I called out, feeling desperate. It
wasn't the way I wanted it to go, it wasn't political. Brother
Jack probably wouldn't approve of it at all, but I had to keep
going as I could go.

"Listen to me standing up on this so-called mountain!" I
shouted. "Let me tell it as it truly was! His name was Tod
Clifton and he was full of illusions. He thought he was a man
when he was only Tod Clifton. He was shot for a simple mistake
of judgment and he bled and his blood dried and shortly the
crowd trampled out the stains. It was a normal mistake of
which many are guilty: He thought he was a man and that men
were not meant to be pushed around. But it was hot downtown
and he forgot his history, he forgot the time and the place. He
lost his hold on reality. There was a cop and a waiting audience
but he was Tod Clifton and cops are everywhere. The cop?
What about him? He was a cop. A good citizen. But this cop had
an itching finger and an eager ear for a word that rhymed with
'trigger,' and when Clifton fell he had found it. The Police
Special spoke its lines and the rhyme was completed. Just look
around you. Look at what he made, look inside you and feel his
awful power. It was perfectly natural. The blood ran like blood
in a comic-book killing, on a comic-book street in a comic-book
town on a comic-book day in a comic-book world.

"Tod Clifton's one with the ages. But what's that to do
with you in this heat under this veiled sun? Now he's part of
history, and he has received his true freedom. Didn't they
scribble his name on a standardized pad? His Race: colored!
Religion: unknown, probably born Baptist. Place of birth: U.S.
Some southern town. Next of kin: unknown. Address: unknown.
Occupation: unemployed. Cause of death (be specific): resisting
reality in the form of a .38 caliber revolver in the hands of the
arresting officer, on Forty-second between the library and the
subway in the heat of the afternoon, of gunshot wounds
received from three bullets, fired at three paces, one bullet
entering the right ventricle of the heart, and lodging there, the
other severing the spinal ganglia traveling downward to lodge
in the pelvis, the other breaking through the back and traveling
God knows where.

"Such was the short bitter life of Brother Tod Clifton.
Now he's in this box with the bolts tightened down. He's in the
box and we're in there with him, and when I've told you this
you can go. It's dark in this box and it's crowded. It has a
cracked ceiling and a clogged-up toilet in the hall. It has rats
and roaches, and it's far, far too expensive a dwelling. The air is
bad and it'll be cold this winter. Tod Clifton is crowded and he
needs the room. 'Tell them to get out of the box,' that's what he
would say if you could hear him. 'Tell them to get out of the box
and go teach the cops to forget that rhyme. Tell them to teach
them that when they call you nigger to make a rhyme with
trigger it makes the gun backfire.'

"So there you have it. In a few hours Tod Clifton will be
cold bones in the ground. And don't be fooled, for these bones
shall not rise again. You and I will still be in the box. I don't
know if Tod Clifton had a soul. I only know the ache that I feel
in my heart, my sense of loss. I don't know if you have a soul. I
only know you are men of flesh and blood; and that blood will
spill and flesh grow cold. I do not know if all cops are poets,
but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers. And I know
too how we are labeled. So in the name of Brother Clifton
beware of the triggers; go home, keep cool, stay safe away
from the sun. Forget him. When he was alive he was our hope,
but why worry over a hope that's dead? So there's only one
thing left to tell and I've already told it. His name was Tod
Clifton, he believed in Brotherhood, he aroused our hopes and
he died."

I couldn't go on. Below, they were waiting, hands and
handkerchiefs shading their eyes. A preacher stepped up and
read something out of his Bible, and I stood looking at the
crowd with a sense of failure. I had let it get away from me,
had been unable to bring in the political issues. And they stood
there sun-beaten and sweat-bathed, listening to me repeat
what was known. Now the preacher had finished, and someone
signaled the bandmaster and there was solemn music as the
pallbearers carried the coffin down the spiraling stairs. The
crowd stood still as we walked slowly through. I could feel the
bigness of it and the unknownness of it and a pent-up tension --
whether of tears or anger, I couldn't tell. But as we walked
through and down the hill to the hearse, I could feel it. The
crowd sweated and throbbed, and though it was silent, there
were many things directed toward me through its eyes. At the
curb were the hearse and a few cars, and in a few minutes they
were loaded and the crowd was still standing, looking on as we
carried Tod Clifton away. And as I took one last look I saw not a
crowd but the set faces of individual men and women.

We drove away and when the cars stopped moving there was
a grave and we placed him in it. The gravediggers sweated
heavily and knew their business and their brogue was Irish.
They filled the grave quickly and we left. Tod Clifton was
underground.

I returned through the streets as tired as though I'd dug
the grave myself alone. I felt confused and listless moving
through the crowds that seemed to boil along in a kind of mist,
as though the thin humid clouds had thickened and settled
directly above our heads. I wanted to go somewhere, to some
cool place to rest without thinking, but there was still too
much to be done; plans had to be made; the crowd's emotion
had to be organized. I crept along, walking a southern walk in
southern weather, closing my eyes from time to time against
the dazzling reds, yellows and greens of cheap sport shirts
and summer dresses. The crowd boiled, sweated, heaved; women
with shopping bags, men with highly polished shoes. Even
down South they'd always shined their shoes. "Shined shoes,
shoed shines," it rang in my head. On Eighth Avenue, the
market carts were parked hub to hub along the curb,
improvised canopies shading the withering fruits and
vegetables. I could smell the stench of decaying cabbage. A
watermelon huckster stood in the shade beside his truck,
holding up a long slice of orange-mealed melon, crying his
wares with hoarse appeals to nostalgia, memories of childhood,
green shade and summer coolness. Oranges, cocoanuts and
alligator pears lay in neat piles on little tables. I passed,
winding my way through the slowly moving crowd. Stale and
wilted flowers, rejected downtown, blazed feverishly on a cart,
like glamorous rags festering beneath a futile spray from a
punctured fruit juice can. The crowd were boiling figures seen
through steaming glass from inside a washing machine; and in
the streets the mounted police detail stood looking on, their
eyes noncommittal beneath the short polished visors of their
caps, their bodies slanting forward, reins slackly alert, men and
horses of flesh imitating men and horses of stone. Tod Clifton's
Tod, I thought. The hucksters cried above the traffic sounds
and I seemed to hear them from a distance, unsure of what
they said. In a side street children with warped tricycles were
parading along the walk carrying one of the signs, BROTHER
TOD CLIFTON, OUR HOPE SHOT DOWN.

And through the haze I again felt the tension. There was no
denying it; it was there and something had to be done
before it simmered away in the heat.



Chapter 22



When I saw them sitting in their shirtsleeves, leaning for-
ward, gripping their crossed knees with their hands, I wasn't
surprised. I'm glad it's you, I thought, this will be business
without tears. It was as though I had expected to find them
there, just as in those dreams in which I encountered my
grandfather looking at me from across the dimensionless space
of a dream-room. I looked back without surprise or emotion,
although I knew even in the dream that surprise was the
normal reaction and that the lack of it was to be distrusted,
a warning.

I stood just inside the room, watching them as I slipped
off my jacket, seeing them grouped around a small table upon
which there rested a pitcher of water, a glass and a couple of
smoking ash trays. One half of the room was dark and only one
light burned, directly above the table. They regarded me
silently, Brother Jack with a smile that went no deeper than
his lips, his head cocked to one side, studying me with his
penetrating eyes; the others blank-faced, looking out of eyes
that were meant to reveal nothing and to stir profound un-
certainty. The smoke rose in spirals from their cigarettes as
they sat perfectly contained, waiting. So you came, after all, I
thought, going over and dropping into one of the chairs. I
rested my arm on the table, noticing its coolness.

"Well, how did it go?" Brother Jack said, extending his
clasped hands across the table and looking at me with his
head to one side.

"You saw the crowd," I said. "We finally got them out."

"No, we did not see the crowd. How was it?"

"They were moved," I said, "a great number of them. But be-
yond that I don't know. They were with us, but how far I
don't know . . ." And for a moment I could hear my own voice
in the quiet of the high-ceilinged hall.

"Sooo! Is that all the great tactician has to tell us?"
Brother Tobitt said. "In what direction were they moved?"

I looked at him, aware of the numbness of my emotions;
they had flowed in one channel too long and too deeply.

"That's for the committee to decide. They were aroused,
that was all we could do. We tried again and again to reach
the committee for guidance but we couldn't."

"So?"

"So we went ahead on my personal responsibility."

Brother Jack's eyes narrowed. "What was that?" he said.
"Your what?"

"My personal responsibility," I said.

"His personal responsibility," Brother Jack said. "Did you
hear that, Brothers? Did I hear him correctly. Where did
you get it, Brother?" he said. "This is astounding, where did
you get it?"

"From your ma --" I started and caught myself in time.
"From the committee," I said.

There was a pause. I looked at him, his face reddening, as
I tried to get my bearings. A nerve trembled in the center of
my stomach.

"Everyone came out," I said, trying to fill it in. "We saw
the opportunity and the community agreed with us. It's too bad
you missed it . . ."

"You see, he's sorry we missed it," Brother Jack said. He
held up his hand. I could see the deeply etched lines in his
palm. "The great tactician of personal responsibility regrets
our absence . . ."

Doesn't he see how I feel, I thought, can't he see why I did
it? What's he trying to do? Tobitt's a fool, but why is he
taking it up?

"You could have taken the next step," I said, forcing the
words. "We went as far as we could . . ."

"On your personal re-spon-sibility," Brother Jack said,
bowing his head in time with the words.

I looked at him steadily now. "I was told to win back our
following, so I tried. The only way I knew how. What's your
criticism? What's wrong?"

"So now," he said, rubbing his eye with a delicate circular
movement of his fist, "the great tactician asks what's
wrong. Is it possible that something could be wrong? Do you
hear him, Brothers?"

There was a cough. Someone poured a glass of water and I
could hear it fill up very fast, then the rapid rill-like
trickle of the final drops dripping from the pitcher-lip into
the glass. I looked at him, my mind trying to bring things
into focus.

"You mean he admits the possibility of being incorrect?"
Tobitt said.

"Sheer modesty, Brother. The sheerest modesty. We have here
an extraordinary tactician, a Napoleon of strategy and per-
sonal responsibility. 'Strike while the iron is hot' is his
motto. 'Seize the instance by its throat,' 'Shoot at the whites
of their eyes,' 'Give 'em the ax, the ax, the ax,' and so forth."

I stood up. "I don't know what this is all about, Brother.
What are you trying to say?"

"Now there is a good question, Brothers. Sit down, please,
it's hot. He wants to know what we're trying to say. We
have here not only an extraordinary tactician, but one who
has an appreciation for subtleties of expression."

"Yes, and for sarcasm, when it's good," I said.

"And for discipline? Sit down, please, it's hot . . ."

"And for discipline. And for orders and consultation when
it's possible to have them," I said.

Brother Jack grinned. "Sit down, sit down -- And for
patience?"

"When I'm not sleepy and exhausted," I said, "and not
overheated as I am just now."

"You'll learn," he said. "You'll learn and you'll surrender
yourself to it even under such conditions. Especially under
such conditions; that's its value. That makes it patience."

"Yes, I guess I'm learning now," I said. "Right now."

"Brother," he said drily, "you have no idea how much
you're learning -- Please sit down."

"All right," I said, sitting down again. "But while ignor-
ing my personal education for a second I'd like you to
remember that the people have little patience with us these
days. We could use this time more profitably."

"And I could tell you that politicians are not personal per-
sons," Brother Jack said, "but I won't. How could we use it
more profitably?"

"By organizing their anger."

"So again our great tactician has relieved himself.
Today he's a busy man. First an oration over the body of
Brutus, and now a lecture on the patience of the Negro
people."

Tobitt was enjoying himself. I could see his cigarette
tremble in his lips as he struck a match to light it.

"I move we issue his remarks in a pamphlet," he said, run-
ning his finger over his chin. "They should create a natural
phenomenon . . ."

This had better stop right here, I thought. My head was
getting lighter and my chest felt tight.

"Look," I said, "an unarmed man was killed. A brother, a
leading member shot down by a policeman. We had lost our
prestige in the community. I saw the chance to rally the people,
so I acted. If that was incorrect, then I did wrong, so say it
straight without this crap. It'll take more than sarcasm to deal
with that crowd out there."

Brother Jack reddened; the others exchanged glances.

"He hasn't read the newspapers," someone said.

"You forget," Brother Jack said, "it wasn't necessary; he
was there."

"Yes, I was there," I said. "If you're referring to the
killing."

"There, you see," Brother Jack said. "He was on the
scene."

Brother Tobitt pushed the table edge with his palms.

"And still you organized that side show of a funeral!"
My nose twitched. I turned toward him deliberately,
forcing a grin.

"How could there be a side show without you as the star
attraction, who'd draw the two bits admission, Brother
Twobits? What was wrong with the funeral?"

"Now we're making progress," Brother Jack said, straddling
his chair. "The strategist has raised a very interesting
question. What's wrong, he asks. All right, I'll answer.
Under your leadership, a traitorous merchant of vile
instruments of anti-Negro, anti-minority racist bigotry has
received the funeral of a hero. Do you still ask what's wrong?"

"But nothing was done about a traitor," I said.

He half-stood, gripping the back of his chair. "We all
heard you admit it."

"We dramatized the shooting down of an unarmed black
man."

He threw up his hands. To hell with you, I thought. To
hell with you. He was a man!

"That black man, as you call him, was a traitor," Brother
Jack said. "A traitor!"

"What is a traitor, Brother?" I asked, feeling an angry
amusement as I counted on my fingers. "He was a man and a
Negro; a man and a brother; a man and a traitor, as you say;
then he was a dead man, and alive or dead he was jam-full of
contradictions. So full that he attracted half of Harlem to come
out and stand in the sun in answer to our call. So what is a
traitor?"

"So now he retreats," Brother Jack said. "Observe him, Bro-
thers. After putting the movement in the position of forcing
a traitor down the throats of the Negroes he asks what a traitor
is."

"Yes," I said. "Yes, and, as you say, it's a fair question,
Brother. Some folks call me traitor because I've been working
downtown; some would call me a traitor if I was in Civil Service
and others if I simply sat in my corner and kept quiet. Sure, I
considered what Clifton did --"

"And you defend him!"

"Not for that. I was as disgusted as you. But hell, isn't
the shooting of an unarmed man of more importance politically
than the fact that he sold obscene dolls?"

"So you exercised your personal responsibility," Jack said.

"That's all I had to go on. I wasn't called to the strategy
meeting, remember."

"Didn't you see what you were playing with?" Tobitt said.
"Have you no respect for your people?"

"It was a dangerous mistake to give you the opportunity,"
one of the others said.

I looked across at him. "The committee can take it away,
if it wishes. But meantime, why is everyone so upset? If even
one-tenth of the people looked at the dolls as we do, our work
would be a lot easier. The dolls are nothing."

"Nothing," Jack said. "That nothing that might explode
in our face."

I sighed. "Your faces are safe, Brother," I said. "Can't
you see that they don't think in such abstract terms? If they
did, perhaps the new program wouldn't have flopped. The
Brotherhood isn't the Negro people; no organization is. All you
see in Clifton's death is that it might harm the prestige of the
Brotherhood. You see him only as a traitor. But Harlem doesn't
react that way."

"Now he's lecturing us on the conditioned reflexes of
the Negro people," Tobitt said.

I looked at him. I was very tired. "And what is the source
of your great contributions to the movement, Brother? A
career in burlesque? And of your profound knowledge of
Negroes? Are you from an old plantation-owning family? Does
your black mammy shuffle nightly through your dreams?"

He opened his mouth and closed it like a fish. "I'll have
you know that I'm married to a fine, intelligent Negro girl,"
he said.

So that's what makes you so cocky, I thought, seeing now
how the light struck him at an angle and made a wedge-
shaped shadow beneath his nose. So that's it . . . and how
did I guess there was a woman in it?

"Brother, I apologize," I said. "I misjudged you. You have
our number. In fact, you must be practically a Negro yourself.
Was it by immersion or injection?"

"Now see here," he said, pushing back his chair. Come
on, I thought, just make a move. Just another little move.

"Brothers," Jack said, his eyes on me. "Let's stick to the
discussion. I'm intrigued. You were saying?"

I watched Tobitt. He glared. I grinned.

"I was saying that up here we know that the policemen
didn't care about Clifton's ideas. He was shot because he was
black and because he resisted. Mainly because he was black."

Brother Jack frowned. "You're riding 'race' again. But
how do they feel about the dolls?"

"I'm riding the race I'm forced to ride," I said. "And as for
the dolls, they know that as far as the cops were concerned
Clifton could have been selling song sheets. Bibles, matzos.
If he'd been white, he'd be alive. Or if he'd accepted being
pushed around . . ."

"Black and white, white and black," Tobitt said. "Must we
listen to this racist nonsense?"

"You don't, Brother Negro," I said. "You get your own in-
formation straight from the source. Is it a mulatto source,
Brother? Don't answer -- the only thing wrong is that your
source is too narrow. You don't really think that crowd turned
out today because Clifton was a member of the Brotherhood?"
"And why did they turn out?" Jack said, getting set as if
to pounce forward.

"Because we gave them the opportunity to express their
feelings, to affirm themselves."

Brother Jack rubbed his eye. "Do you know that you have
become quite a theoretician?" he said. "You astound me."

"I doubt that, Brother, but there's nothing like isolating
a man to make him think," I said.

"Yes, that's true; some of our best ideas have been thought
in prison. Only you haven't been in prison, Brother, and
you were not hired to think. Had you forgotten that? If so,
listen to me: You were not hired to think." He was speaking
very deliberately and I thought, So . . . So here it is, naked
and old and rotten. So now it's out in the open . . .

"So now I know where I am," I said, "and with whom --"

"Don't twist my meaning. For all of us, the committee does
the thinking. For all of us. And you were hired to talk."

"That's right, I was hired. Things have been so brotherly
I had forgotten my place. But what if I wish to express an
idea?"

"We furnish all ideas. We have some acute ones. Ideas are
part of our apparatus. Only the correct ideas for the correct
occasion."

"And suppose you misjudge the occasion?"

"Should that ever happen, you keep quiet."

"Even though I am correct?"

"You say nothing unless it is passed by the committee.
Otherwise I suggest you keep saying the last thing you were
told."

"And when my people demand that I speak?"

"The committee will have an answer!"

I looked at him. The room was hot, quiet, smoky. The
others looked at me strangely. I heard the nervous sound of
someone mashing out a cigarette in a glass ash tray. I pushed
back my chair, breathing deeply, controlled. I was on a
dangerous road and I thought of Clifton and tried to get off
of it. I said nothing.

Suddenly Jack smiled and slipped back into his fatherly
role.

"Let us handle the theory and the business of strategy,"
he said. "We are experienced. We're graduates and while you
are a smart beginner you skipped several grades. But they
were important grades, especially for gaining strategical
knowledge. For such it is necessary to see the overall picture.
More is involved than meets the eye. With the long view and
the short view and the overall view mastered, perhaps you
won't slander the political consciousness of the people of
Harlem."

Can't he see I'm trying to tell them what's real, I thought.
Does my membership stop me from feeling Harlem?

"All right," I said. "Have it your way, Brother; only the
political consciousness of Harlem is exactly a thing I know
something about. That's one class they wouldn't let me skip.
I'm describing a part of reality which I know."

"And that is the most questionable statement of all,"
Tobitt said.

"I know," I said, running my thumb along the edge of the
table, "your private source tells you differently. History's
made at night, eh, Brother?"

"I've warned you," Tobitt said.

"Brother to brother, Brother," I said, "try getting around
more. You might learn that today was the first time that they've
listened to our appeals in weeks. And I'll tell you something
else: If we don't follow through on what was done today, this
might be the last . . ."

"So, he's finally gotten around to predicting the future,"
Brother Jack said.

"It's possible . . . though I hope not."

"He's in touch with God," Tobitt said. "The black God."
I looked at him and grinned. He had gray eyes and his
irises were very wide, the muscles ridged out on his jaws.
I had his guard down and he was swinging wild.

"Not with God, nor with your wife, Brother," I told him.
"I've never met either. But I've worked among the people up
here. Ask your wife to take you around to the gin mills and the
barber shops and the juke joints and the churches, Brother.
Yes, and the beauty parlors on Saturdays when they're frying
hair. A whole unrecorded history is spoken then, Brother. You
wouldn't believe it but it's true. Tell her to take you to stand
in the areaway of a cheap tenement at night and listen to what is
said. Put her out on the corner, let her tell you what's being
put down. You'll learn that a lot of people are angry because we
failed to lead them in action. I'll stand on that as I stand on
what I see and feel and on what I've heard, and what I know."

"No," Brother Jack said, getting to his feet, "you'll stand
on the decision of the committee. We've had enough of this.
The committee makes your decisions and it is not its practice to
give undue importance to the mistaken notions of the people.
What's happened to your discipline?"

"I'm not arguing against discipline. I'm trying to be useful.
I'm trying to point out a part of reality which the commit-
tee seems to have missed. With just one demonstration
we could --"

"The committee has decided against such demonstrations,"
Brother Jack said. "Such methods are no longer effective."

Something seemed to move out from under me, and out of
the corner of my eye I was suddenly aware of objects on the
dark side of the hall. "But didn't anyone see what happened
today?" I said. "What was that, a dream? What was ineffective
about that crowd?"

"Such crowds are only our raw materials, one of the raw
materials to be shaped to our program."

I looked around the table and shook my head. "No wonder
they insult me and accuse us of betraying them . . ."

There was a sudden movement.

"Repeat that," Brother Jack shouted, stepping forward.

"It's true, I'll repeat it. Until this afternoon they've been
saying that the Brotherhood betrayed them. I'm telling you
what's been said to me, and that it's why Brother Clifton
disappeared."

"That's an indefensible lie," Brother Jack said.

And I looked at him slowly now, thinking, If this is it, this
is it . . . "Don't call me that," I said softly. "Don't ever call
me that, none of you. I've told you what I've heard." My hand
was in my pocket now, Brother Tarp's leg chain around my
knuckles. I looked at each of them individually, trying to hold
myself back and yet feeling it getting away from me. My head
was whirling as though I were riding a supersonic merry-go-
round. Jack looked at me, a new interest behind his eyes,
leaned forward.

"So you've heard it," he said. "Very well, so now hear this:
We do not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile
notions of the man in the street. Our job is not to ask them
what they think but to tell them!"

"You've said that," I said, "and that's one thing you can
tell them yourself. Who are you, anyway, the great white
father?"

"Not their father, their leader. And .your leader. And
don't forget it."

"My leader sure, but what's your exact relationship to
them?"

His red head bristled. "The leader. As leader of the Bro-
therhood, I am their leader."

"But are you sure you aren't their great white father?" I
said, watching him closely, aware of the hot silence and feeling
tension race from my toes to my legs as I drew my feet quickly
beneath me. "Wouldn't it be better if they called you Marse
Jack?"

"Now see here," he began, leaping to his feet to lean a-
cross the table, and I spun my chair half around on its hind
legs as he came between me and the light, gripping the edge of
the table, spluttering and lapsing into a foreign language,
choking and coughing and shaking his head as I balanced on
my toes now, set to propel myself forward; seeing him above
me and the others behind him as suddenly something seemed
to erupt out of his face. You're seeing things, I thought, hearing
it strike sharply against the table and roll as his arm shot out
and snatched an object the size of a large marble and dropped
it, plop! into his glass, and I could see the water shooting up in
a ragged, light-breaking pattern to spring in swift droplets
across the oiled table top. The room seemed to flatten. I shot to
a high plateau above them and down, feeling the jolt on the end
of my spine as the chair legs struck the floor. The merry-go-
round had speeded up, I heard his voice but no longer listened.
I stared at the glass, seeing how the light shone through,
throwing a transparent, precisely fluted shadow against the
dark grain of the table, and there on the bottom of the glass lay
an eye. A glass eye. A buttermilk white eye distorted by the
light rays. An eye staring fixedly at me as from the dark waters
of a well. Then I was looking at him standing above me,
outlined by the light against the darkened half of the hall.
". . . You must accept discipline. Either you accept
decisions or you get out . . ."

I stared into his face, feeling a sense of outrage. His left
eye had collapsed, a line of raw redness showing where the lid
refused to close, and his gaze had lost its command. I looked
from his face to the glass, thinking, he's disemboweled himself
just in order to confound me . . . And the others had known it
all along. They aren't even surprised. I stared at the eye, aware
of Jack pacing up and down, shouting.

"Brother, are you following me?" He stopped, squinting at me
with Cyclopean irritation. "What is the matter?"

I stared up at him, unable to answer.

Then he understood and approached the table, smiling malic-
iously. "So that's it. So it makes you uncomfortable, does
it? You're a sentimentalist," he said, sweeping up the glass and
causing the eye to turn over in the water so that now it seemed
to peer down at me from the ringed bottom of the glass. He
smiled, holding the tumbler level with his empty socket,
swirling the glass. "You didn't know about this?"

"No, and I didn't want to know."

Someone laughed.

"See, that demonstrates how long you've been with us."

He lowered the glass. "I lost my eye in the line of duty. What
do you think of that?" he said with a pride that made me all the
angrier.

"I don't give a damn how you lost it as long as you keep
it hidden."

"That is because you don't appreciate the meaning of sac-
rifice. I was ordered to carry through an objective and I
carried it through. Understand? Even though I had to lose my
eye to do it . . ."

He was gloating now, holding up the eye in the glass as
though it were a medal of merit.

"Not much like that traitor Clifton, is it?" Tobitt said.
The others were amused.

"All right," I said. "All right! It was a heroic act. It saved
the world, now hide the bleeding wound!"

"Don't overevaluate it," Jack said, quieter now. "The heroes
are those who die. This was nothing -- after it happened.
A minor lesson in discipline. And do you know what discipline
is, Brother Personal Responsibility? It's sacrifice, sacrifice,
SACRIFICE!"

He slammed the glass upon the table, splashing the water on
the back of my hand. I shook like a leaf. So that is the
meaning of discipline, I thought, sacrifice . . . yes, and
blindness; he doesn't see me. He doesn't even see me. Am I
about to strangle him? I do not know. He cannot possibly. I still
do not know. See! Discipline is sacrifice. Yes, and blindness.
Yes. And me sitting here while he tries to intimidate me. That's
it, with his goddam blind glass eye . . . Should you show him
you get it? Shouldn't you? Shouldn't he know it? Hurry!
Shouldn't you? Look at it there, a good job, an almost perfect
imitation that seemed alive . . . Should you, shouldn't you?
Maybe he got it where he learned that language he lapsed into.
Shouldn't you? Make him speak the unknown tongue, the
language of the future. What's mattering with you? Discipline.
Is learning, didn't he say? Is it? I stand? You're sitting here,
ain't I? You're holding on, ain't I? He said you'd learn so you're
learning, so he saw it all the time. He's a riddler, shouldn't we
show him? So sit still is the way, and learn, never mind the eye,
it's dead . . . All right now, look at him, see him turning now,
left, right, coming short-legged toward you. See him, hep, hep!
the one-eyed beacon. All right, all right . . . Hep, hep! The
short-legged deacon. All right! Nail him! The short-changing
dialectical deacon . . . All right. There, so now you're learning .
. . Get it under control . . . Patience . . . Yes . . .

I looked at him again as for the first time, seeing a little
bantam rooster of a man with a high-domed forehead and a raw
eye-socket that wouldn't quite accept its lid. I looked at him
carefully now with some of the red spots fading and with the
feeling that I was just awakening from a dream. I had
boomeranged around.

"I realize how you feel," he said, becoming an actor who'd
just finished a part in a play and was speaking again in
his natural voice. "I remember the first time I saw myself this
way and it wasn't pleasant. And don't think I wouldn't rather
have my old one back." He felt in the water for his eye now, and
I could see its smooth half-spherical, half-amorphous form slip
between his two fingers and spurt around the glass as though
looking for a way to break out. Then he had it, shaking off the
water and breathing upon it as he walked across to the dark
side of the room.

"But who knows, Brothers," he said, with his back turned,
"perhaps if we do our work successfully the new society
will provide me with a living eye. Such a thing is not at all
fantastic, although I've been without mine for quite a while . . .
What time is it, by the way?"

But what kind of society will make him see me, I thought,
hearing Tobitt answer, "Six-fifteen."

"Then we'd better leave immediately, we've got a long way
to travel," he said, coming across the floor. He had his eye
in place now and he was smiling. "How's that?" he asked me.
I nodded, I was very tired. I simply nodded.

"Good," he said. "I sincerely hope it never happens to you.
Sincerely."

"If it should, maybe you'll recommend me to your oculist,"
I said, "then I may not-see myself as others see-me-not."

He looked at me oddly then laughed. "See, Brothers, he's
joking. He feels brotherly again. But just the same, I hope
you'll never need one of these. Meanwhile go and see Hambro.
He'll outline the program and give you the instructions. As for
today, just let things float. It is a development that is important
only if we make it so. Otherwise it will be forgotten," he said,
getting into his jacket. "And you'll see that it's best. The
Brotherhood must act as a co-ordinated unit."

I looked at him. I was becoming aware of smells again and I
needed a bath. The others were standing now and moving
toward the door. I stood up, feeling the shirt sticking to my
back.

"One last thing," Jack said, placing his hand on my should-
er and speaking quietly. "Watch that temper, that's
discipline, too. Learn to demolish your brotherly opponents
with ideas, with polemic skill. The other is for our enemies.
Save it for them. And go get some rest."

I was beginning to tremble. His face seemed to advance and
recede, recede and advance. He shook his head and smiled
grimly.

"I know how you feel," he said. "And it's too bad all that ef-
fort was for nothing. But that in itself is a kind of discipline.
I speak to you of what I have learned and I'm a great deal older
than you. Good night."

I looked at his eye. So he knows how I feel. Which eye is
really the blind one? "Good night," I said.

"Good night, Brother," they all except Tobitt said. It'll
be night, but it won't be good, I thought, calling a
final "Good night."

They left and I took my jacket and went and sat at my desk.
I heard them passing down the stairs and the closing of
the door below. I felt as though I'd been watching a bad
comedy. Only it was real and I was living it and it was the
only historically meaningful life that I could live. If I left it,
I'd be nowhere. As dead and as meaningless as Clifton. I felt
for the doll in the shadow and dropped it on the desk. He was
dead all right, and nothing would come of his death now. He was
useless even for a scavenger action. He had waited too long,
the directives had changed on him. He'd barely gotten by with
a funeral. And that was all. It was only a matter of a few days,
but he had missed and there was nothing I could do. But at
least he was dead and out of it.

I sat there a while, growing wilder and fighting against
it. I couldn't leave and I had to keep contact in order to fight.
But I would never be the same. Never. After tonight I wouldn't
ever look the same, or feel the same. Just what I'd be, I didn't
know; I couldn't go back to what I was -- which wasn't much --
but I'd lost too much to be what I was. Some of me, too, had
died with Tod Clifton. So I would see Hambro, for whatever it
was worth. I got up and went out into the hall. The glass was
still on the table and I swept it across the room, hearing it
rumble and roll in the dark. Then I went downstairs.



Chapter 23



The bar downstairs was hot and crowded and there was a
heated argument in progress over Clifton's shooting. I
stood near the door and ordered a bourbon. Then someone
noticed me, and they tried to draw me in.

"Please, not tonight," I said. "He was one of my best
friends."

"Oh, sure," they said, and I had another bourbon and
left.

When I reached 125th Street, I was approached by a group
of civil-liberties workers circulating a petition demand-
ing the dismissal of the guilty policeman, and a block
further on even the familiar woman street preacher was
shouting a sermon about the slaughter of the innocents. A
much broader group was stirred up over the shooting than I
had imagined. Good, I thought, perhaps it won't die down
after all. Maybe I'd better see Hambro tonight.

Little groups were all along the street, and I moved
with increasing speed until suddenly I had reached Seventh
Avenue, and there beneath a street lamp with the largest
crowd around him was Ras the Exhorter -- the last man in the
world I wanted to see. And I had just turned back when I saw
him lean down between his flags, shouting, "Look, look, Black
ladies and gentlemahn! There goes the representative of the
Brotherhood. Does Ras see correctly? Is that gentlemahn trying
to pass us unnoticed? Ask him about it. What are you people
waiting for, sir? What are you doing about our black youth shot
down beca'se of your deceitful organization?"

They turned, looking at me, closing in. Some came up
behind me and tried to push me further into the crowd. The
Exhorter leaned down, pointing at me, beneath the green
traffic light.

"Ask him what they are doing about it, ladies and gentlemahn.
Are they afraid -- or are the white folks and their black
stooges sticking together to betray us?"

"Get your hands off me," I shouted as someone reached
around and seized my arm.

I heard a voice cursing me softly.

"Give the brother a chance to answer!" someone said.

Their faces pressed in upon me. I wanted to laugh, for
suddenly I realized that I didn't know whether I had been part
of a sellout or not. But they were in no mood for laughter.
"Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters," I said, "I
disdain to answer such an attack. Since you all know me and
my work, I don't think it's necessary. But it seems highly
dishonorable to use the unfortunate death of one of our most
promising young men as an excuse for attacking an organ-
ization that has worked to bring an end to such outrages.
Who was the first organization to act against this killing? The
Brotherhood! Who was the first to arouse the people? The
Brotherhood! Who will always be the first to advance the c
ause of the people? Again the Brotherhood!

"We acted and we shall always act, I assure you. But in our
own disciplined way. And we'll act positively. We refuse to
waste our energies and yours in premature and ill-considered
actions. We are Americans, all of us, whether black or white,
regardless of what the man on the ladder there tells you,
Americans. And we leave it to the gentleman up there to abuse
the name of the dead. The Brotherhood grieves and feels
deeply the loss of its brother. And we are determined that his
death shall be the beginning of profound and lasting changes.
It's easy enough to wait around for the minute a man is safely
buried and then stand on a ladder and smear the memory of
everything he believed in. But to create something lasting of
his death takes time and careful planning --"

"Gentlemahn," Ras shouted, "stick to the issue. You are
not answering my question. What are you doing about the
shooting?"

I moved toward the edge of the crowd. If this went any
further, it could be disastrous.

"Stop abusing the dead for your own selfish ends," I
said. "Let him rest in peace. Quit mangling his corpse!"

I pushed away as he raged, hearing shouts of, "Tell him
about it!" "Grave robber!"

The Exhorter waved his arms and pointed, shouting,

"That mahn is a paid stooge of the white enslaver! Wheere has
he been for the last few months when our black babies and
women have been suffering --"

"Let the dead rest in peace," I shouted, hearing someone
call "Aw man, go back to Africa. Everybody knows the
brother."

Good, I thought, good. Then there was a scuffle behind
me and I whirled to see two men stop short. They were Ras's
men.

"Listen, mister," I said up to him, "if you know what's
good for you, you'll call off your goons. Two of them seem
to want to follow me."

"And that is a dahm lie!" he shouted.

"There are witnesses if anything should happen to me. A man
who'll dig up the dead hardly before he's buried will try
anything, but I warn you --"

There were angry shouts from some of the crowd and I saw
the men continue past me with hate in their eyes, leaving
the crowd to disappear around the corner. Ras was attacking
the Brotherhood now and others were answering him from the
audience, and I went on, moving back toward Lenox, moving
past a movie house when they grabbed me and started
punching. But this time they'd picked the wrong spot, and the
movie doorman intervened and they ran back toward Ras's
street meeting. I thanked the doorman and went on. I had been
lucky; they hadn't hurt me, but Ras was becoming bold again.
On a less crowded street they might have done some damage.
Reaching the Avenue I stepped to the curb and signaled
a cab, seeing it sail by. An ambulance went past, then another
cab with its flag down. I looked back. I felt that they were
watching me from somewhere up the street but I couldn't see
them. Why didn't a taxi come! Then three men in natty cream-
colored summer suits came to stand near me at the curb, and
something about them struck me like a hammer. They were all
wearing dark glasses. I had seen it thousands of times, but
suddenly what I had considered an empty imitation of a
Hollywood fad was flooded with personal significance. Why
not, I thought, why not, and shot across the street and
into the air-conditioned chill of a drugstore.

I saw them on a case strewn with sun visors, hair nets, rubber
gloves, a card of false eyelashes, and seized the darkest
lenses I could find. They were of a green glass so dark that it
appeared black, and I put them on immediately, plunging into
blackness and moving outside.

I could barely see; it was almost dark now, and the streets
swarmed in a green vagueness. I moved slowly across to
stand near the subway and wait for my eyes to adjust. A
strange wave of excitement boiled within me as I peered out
at the sinister light. And now through the hot gusts from the
underground people were emerging and I could feel the trains
vibrating the walk. A cab rolled up to discharge a passenger
and I was about to take it when the woman came up the stairs
and stopped before me, smiling. Now what, I thought, seeing
her standing there, smiling in her tight-fitting summer dress;
a large young woman who reeked with Christmas Night perfume
who now came close.

"Rinehart, baby, is that you?" she said.

Rinehart, I thought. So it works. She had her hand on
my arm and faster than I thought I heard myself answer,
"Is that you, baby?" and waited with tense breath.

"Well, for once you're on time," she said. "But what you
doing bareheaded, where's your new hat I bought you?"

I wanted to laugh. The scent of Christmas Night was en-
folding me now and I saw her face draw closer, her eyes
widening.

"Say, you ain't Rinehart, man. What you trying to do?
You don't even talk like Rine. What's your story?"

I laughed, backing away. "I guess we were both
mistaken," I said.

She stepped backward clutching her bag, watching me,
confused.

"I really meant no harm," I said. "I'm sorry. Who was it
you mistook me for?"

"Rinehart, and you'd better not let him catch you pre-
tending to be him."

"No," I said. "But you seemed so pleased to see him that
I couldn't resist it. He's really a lucky man."

"And I could have sworn you was -- Man, you git away
from here before you get me in trouble," she said, moving
aside, and I left.

It was very strange. But that about the hat was a good
idea, I thought, hurrying along now and looking out for Ras's
men. I was wasting time. At the first hat shop I went in and
bought the widest hat in stock and put it on. With this, I
thought, I should be seen even in a snowstorm -- only they'd
think I was someone else.

Then I was back in the street and moving toward the subway.
My eyes adjusted quickly; the world took on a dark-green
intensity, the lights of cars glowed like stars, faces were
a mysterious blur; the garish signs of movie houses muted
down to a soft sinister glowing. I headed back for Ras's
meeting with a bold swagger. This was the real test, if it
worked I would go on to Hambro's without further trouble. In
the angry period to come I would be able to move about.

A couple of men approached, eating up the walk with long
jaunty strides that caused their heavy silk sport shirts to
flounce rhythmically upon their bodies. They too wore dark
glasses, their hats were set high upon their heads, the brims
turned down. A couple of hipsters, I thought, just as they
spoke.

"What you sayin', daddy-o," they said.

"Rinehart, poppa, tell us what you putting down," they
said.

Oh, hell, they're probably his friends, I thought, waving
and moving on.

"We know what you're doing, Rinehart," one of them
called. "Play it cool, ole man, play it cool!"

I waved again as though in on the joke. They laughed
behind me. I was nearing the end of the block now, wet with
sweat. Who was this Rinehart and what was he putting down?
I'd have to learn more about him to avoid further mis-
identifications . . .

A car passed with its radio blaring. Ahead I could hear
the Exhorter barking harshly to the crowd. Then I was moving
close, and coming to a stop conspicuously in the space left for
pedestrians to pass through the crowd. To the rear they were
lined up two deep before the store windows. Before me the
listeners merged in a green-tinted gloom. The Exhorter
gestured violently, blasting the Brotherhood.

"The time for ahction is here. We mahst chase them out
of Harlem," he cried. And for a second I thought he had caught
me in the sweep of his eyes, and tensed.

"Ras said chase them! It is time Ras the Exhorter become
Ras the DESTROYER!"

Shouts of agreement arose and I looked behind me, seeing
the men who had followed me and thinking, What did he
mean, destroyer?

"I repeat, black ladies and gentlemahn, the time has come
for ahction! I, Ras the Destroyer, repeat, the time has
come!"

I trembled with excitement; they hadn't recognized me. It
works, I thought. They see the hat, not me. There is a magic
in it. It hides me right in front of their eyes . . . But suddenly
I wasn't sure. With Ras calling for the destruction of everything
white in Harlem, who could notice me? I needed a better test.
If I was to carry out my plan . . . What plan? Hell, I don't know,
come on . . .

I weaved out of the crowd and left, heading for Hambro's.

A group of zoot-suiters greeted me in passing. "Hey now,
daddy-o," they called. "Hey now!"

"Hey now!" I said.

It was as though by dressing and walking in a certain way
I had enlisted in a fraternity in which I was recognized at a
glance -- not by features, but by clothes, by uniform, by gait.
But this gave rise to another uncertainty. I was not a zoot-
suiter, but a kind of politician. Or was I? What would happen in
a real test? What about the fellows who'd been so insulting at
the Jolly Dollar? I was halfway across Eighth Avenue at the
thought and retraced my steps, running for an uptown bus.

There were many of the regular customers draped around
the bar. The room was crowded and Barrelhouse was on duty.
I could feel the frame of the glasses cutting into the ridge
of my nose as I tilted my hat and squeezed up to the bar.
Barrelhouse looked at me roughly, his lips pushed out.

"What brand you drinking tonight, Poppa-stopper?" he
said.

"Make it Ballantine's," I said in my natural voice.
I watched his eyes as he set the beer before me and
slapped the bar with his enormous hand for his money. Then,
my heart beating faster, I made my old gesture of payment,
spinning the coin upon the bar and waited. The coin
disappeared into his fist.

"Thanks, pops," he said, moving on and leaving me puzzled.
For there had been recognition of a kind in his voice
but not for me. He never called me "pops" or "poppa-stopper."
It's working, I thought, perhaps it's working very well.

Certainly something was working on me, and profoundly.
Still I was relieved. It was hot. Perhaps that was it.
I drank the cold beer, looking back to the rear of the room
to the booths. A crowd of men and women moiled like nightmare
figures in the smoke-green haze. The juke box was dinning and
it was like looking into the depths of a murky cave. And now
someone moved aside and looking down along the curve of the
bar past the bobbing heads and shoulders I saw the juke box,
lit up like a bad dream of the Fiery Furnace, shouting:

Jelly, Jelly
Jelly,
All night long.

And yet, I thought, watching a numbers runner paying
off a bet, this is one place that the Brotherhood definitely
penetrated. Let Hambro explain that, too, along with all the
rest he'd have to explain.

I drained the glass and turned to leave, when there across
at the lunch counter I saw Brother Maceo. I moved impulsive-
ly, forgetting my disguise until almost upon him, then
checked myself and put my disguise once more to a test.
Reaching roughly across his shoulder I picked up a greasy
menu that rested between the sugar shaker and the hot-sauce
bottle and pretended to read it through my dark lenses.
"How're the ribs, pops?" I said.

"Fine, least these here I'm eatin' is."

"Yeah? How much you know about ribs?"

He raised his head slowly, looking across at the spitted
chickens revolving before the low blue rotisserie flames.
"I reckon I know as much about 'em as you," he said, "and
probably more, since I probably been eatin' 'em a few years
longer than you, and in a few more places. What makes you
think you kin come in here messing with me anyhow?"

He turned, looking straight into my face now, challeng-
ing me. He was very game and I wanted to laugh.

"Oh, take it easy," I growled. "A man can ask a question,
can't he?"

"You got your answer," he said, turning completely around
on the stool. "So now I guess you ready to pull your
knife."

"Knife?" I said, wanting to laugh. "Who said anything
about a knife?"

"That's what you thinking about. Somebody say something
you don't like and you kinda fellows pull your switch
blades. So all right, go ahead and pull it. I'm as ready
to die as I'm gon' ever be. Let's see you, go ahead!"

He reached for the sugar shaker now, and I stood there
feeling suddenly that the old man before me was not Brother
Maceo at all, but someone else disguised to confuse me. The
glasses were working too well. He's a game old brother, I
thought, but this'll never do.

I pointed toward his plate. "I asked you about the ribs,"
I said, "not your ribs. Who said anything about a knife?"

"Never mind that, just go on and pull it," he said.

"Let's see you. Or is you waiting for me to turn my back.
All right, here it is, here's my back," he said, turning swiftly
on the stool and around again, his arm set to throw the shaker.

Customers were turning to look, were moving clear.

"What's the matter, Maceo?" someone said.

"Nothing I caint handle; this confidencing sonofabitch
come in here bluffing --"

"You take it easy, old man," I said. "Don't let your mouth
get your head in trouble," thinking, Why am I talking like
this? "You don't have to worry about that, sonofabitch, pull
your switch blade!"

"Give it to him, Maceo, coolcrack the motherfouler!"

I marked the position of the voice by ear now, turning
so that I could see Maceo, the agitator, and the customers
blocking the door. Even the juke box had stopped and I could
feel the danger mounting so swiftly that I moved without
thinking, bounding over quickly and sweeping up a beer
bottle, my body trembling.

"All right," I said, "if that's the way you want it, all
right! The next one who talks out of turn gets this!"
Maceo moved and I feinted with the bottle, seeing him
dodge, his arm set to throw and held only because I was
crowding him; a dark old man in overalls and a gray long-billed
cloth cap, who looked dreamlike through the green glasses.

"Throw it," I said. "Go on," overcome with the madness
of the thing. Here I'd set out to test a disguise on a friend and
now I was ready to beat him to his knees -- not because I
wanted to but because of place and circumstance. Okay, okay, it
was absurd and yet real and dangerous and if he moved, I'd let
him have it as brutally as possible. To protect myself I'd have
to, or the drunks would gang me. Maceo was set, looking at me
coldly, and suddenly I heard a voice boom out, "Ain't going to
be no fighting in my joint!" It was Barrelhouse. "Put them
things down y'all, they cost money."

"Hell, Barrelhouse, let 'em fight!"

"They can fight in the streets, not in here -- Hey, y'all,"
he called "look over here . . ."

I saw him now, leaning forward with a pistol in his huge
fist, resting it steady upon the bar.

"Now put 'em down y'all," he said mournfully. "I done
ask you to put my property down."

Brother Maceo looked from me to Barrelhouse.

"Put it down, old man," I said, thinking, Why am I acting
from pride when this is not really me?

"You put yourn down," he said.

"Both of y'all put 'em down; and you, Rinehart," Barrel-
house said, gesturing at me with his pistol, "you get out
of my joint and stay out. We don't need your money in here."
I started to protest, but he held up his palm.

"Now you all right with me, Rinehart, don't get me
wrong. But I just can't stand trouble," Barrelhouse said.
Brother Maceo had replaced the shaker now and I put
my bottle down and backed to the door.

"And Rine," Barrelhouse said, "don't go try to pull no
pistol neither, 'cause this here one is loaded and I got a
permit."

I backed to the door, my scalp prickling, watching them
both.

"Next time don't ask no questions you don't want answered,"
Maceo called. "An' if you ever want to finish this argument
I be right here."

I felt the outside air explode around me and I stood just
beyond the door laughing with the sudden relief of the joke
restored, looking back at the defiant old man in his long-billed
cap and the confounded eyes of the crowd. Rinehart, Rinehart,
I thought, what kind of man is Rinehart?

I was still chuckling when, in the next block, I waited
for the traffic lights near a group of men who stood on the
corner passing a bottle of cheap wine between them as they
discussed Clifton's murder.

"What we need is some guns," one of them said. "An eye
for an eye."

"Hell yes, machine guns. Pass me the sneakypete,
Muckleroy."

"Wasn't for that Sullivan Law this here New York wouldn't
be nothing but a shooting gallery," another man said.
"Here's the sneakypete, and don't try to find no home in
that bottle."

"It's the only home I got, Muckleroy. You want to take
that away from me?"

"Man, drink up and pass the damn bottle."

I started around them, hearing one of them say, "What
you saying, Mr. Rinehart, how's your hammer hanging?"
Even up here, I thought, beginning to hurry. "Heavy,
man," I said, knowing the answer to that one, "very heavy."
They laughed.

"Well, it'll be lighter by morning."

"Say, look ahere, Mr. Rinehart, how about giving me a
job?" one of them said, approaching me, and I waved and
crossed the street, walking rapidly down Eighth toward the
next bus stop.

The shops and groceries were dark now, and children were
running and yelling along the walks, dodging in and out
among the adults. I walked, struck by the merging fluidity of
forms seen through the lenses. Could this be the way the world
appeared to Rinehart? All the dark-glass boys? "For now we see
as through a glass darkly but then -- but then --" I couldn't
remember the rest.

She was carrying a shopping bag and moved gingerly on her
feet. Until she touched my arm I thought that she was
talking to herself.

"I say, pardon me, son, look like you trying to pass on by
me tonight. What's the final figger?"

"Figure? What figure?"

"Now you know what I mean," she said, her voice rising
as she put her hands on her hips and looked forward. "I
mean today's last number. Ain't you Rine the runner?"

"Rine the runner?"

"Yas, Rinehart the number man. Who you trying to
fool?"

"But that's not my name, madame," I said, speaking as
precisely as I could and stepping away from her. "You've made
a mistake."

Her mouth fell wide. "You ain't? Well, why you look so
much like him?" she said with hot doubt in her voice. "Now,
ain't this here something. Let me get on home; if my dream
come out, I'm-a have to go look that rascal up. And here I
needs that money too."

"I hope you won," I said, straining to see her clearly,
"and I hope he pays off."

"Thanks, son, but he'll pay off all right. I can see you
ain't Rinehart now though. I'm sorry for stopping you."

"It's all right," I said.

"If I'd looked at your shoes I woulda known --"

"Why?"

" 'Cause Rine the runner is known for them knobtoed
kind."

I watched her limp away, rocking like the Old Ship of
Zion. No wonder everyone knows him, I thought, in that racket
you have to get around. I was aware of my black-and-white
shoes for the first time since the day of Clifton's shooting.
When the squad car veered close to the curb and rolled
along slowly beside me I knew what was coming before the cop
opened his mouth.

"That you, Rinehart, my man?" the cop who was not driving
said. He was white. I could see the shield gleaming on
his cap but the number was vague.

"Not this time, officer," I said.

"The hell you say; what're you trying to pull? Is this a
holdout?"

"You're making a mistake," I said. "I'm not Rinehart."

The car stopped, a flashlight beamed in my green-lensed
eyes. He spat into the street. "Well, you better be by
morning," he said, "and you better have our cut in the regular
place. Who the hell you think you are?" he called as the car
speeded up and away.

And before I could turn a crowd of men ran up from the
corner pool hall. One of them carried an automatic in his
hand. "What were those sonsabitches trying to do to you,
daddy?" he said.

"It was nothing, they thought I was someone else."

"Who'd they take you for?"

I looked at them -- were they criminals or simply men
who were worked up over the shooting?

"Some guy named Rinehart," I said.

"Rinehart -- Hey, y'all hear that?" snorted the fellow
with the gun. "Rinehart! Them paddies must be going stone
blind. Anybody can see you ain't Rinehart."

"But he do look like Rine," another man said, staring at
me with his hands in his trousers pockets.

"Like hell he does."

"Hell, man, Rinehart would be driving that Cadillac this
time of night. What the hell you talking about?"

"Listen, Jack," the fellow with the gun said, "don't let
nobody make you act like Rinehart. You got to have a smooth
tongue, a heartless heart and be ready to do anything. But if
them paddies bother you agin, just let us know. We aim to stop
some of this head-whupping they been doing."

"Sure," I said.

"Rinehart," he said again. "Ain't that a bitch?"

They turned and went arguing back to the pool hall and
I hurried out of the neighborhood. Having forgotten Hambro
for the moment I walked east instead of west. I wanted to
remove the glasses but decided against it. Ras's men might
still be on the prowl.

It was quieter now. No one paid me any special attention,
although the street was alive with pedestrians, all moil-
ing along in the mysterious tint of green. Perhaps I'm out
of his territory at last, I thought and began trying to place
Rinehart in the scheme of things. He's been around all the
while, but I have been looking in another direction. He was
around and others like him, but I had looked past him until
Clifton's death (or was it Ras?) had made me aware. What on
earth was hiding behind the face of things? If dark glasses and
a white hat could blot out my identity so quickly, who actually
was who?

The perfume was exotic and seemed to roll up the walk
behind me as I became aware of a woman strolling casually
behind me.

"I've been waiting for you to recognize me, daddy," a
voice said. "I've been waiting for you a long time."

It was a pleasant voice with a slightly husky edge and
plenty of sleep in it.

"Don't you hear me, daddy?" she said. And I started to look
around, hearing, "No, daddy, don't look back; my old man might
be cold trailing me. Just walk along beside me while I tell
you where to meet me. I swear I thought you'd never come.
Will you be able to see me tonight?"

She had moved close to me now and suddenly I felt a
hand fumbling at my jacket pocket.

"All right, daddy, you don't have to jump evil on me,
here it is; now will you see me?"

I stopped dead, grabbing her hand and looking at her, an
exotic girl even through the green glasses, looking at me
with a smile that suddenly broke. "Rinehart, daddy, what's
the matter?"

So here it goes again, I thought, holding her tightly.

"I'm not Rinehart, Miss," I said. "And for the first time
tonight I'm truly sorry."

"But Bliss, daddy -- Rinehart! You're not trying to put
your baby down -- Daddy, what did I do?"

She seized my arm and we were poised face to face in
the middle of the walk. And suddenly she screamed,
"Oooooooh! You really aren't! And me trying to give you his
money. Get away from me, you dumb John. Get away from me!"

I backed off. Her face was distorted as she stamped her
high heels and screamed. Behind me I heard someone say,
"Hey, what was that?" followed by the sound of running feet
as I shot off and around the corner away from her screams.
That lovely girl, I thought, that lovely girl.

Several blocks away I stopped, out of breath. And both
pleased and angry. How stupid could people be? Was everyone
suddenly nuts? I looked about me. It was a bright street, the
walks full of people. I stood at the curb trying to breathe. Up
the street a sign with a cross glowed above the walk:


HOLY WAY STATION
BEHOLD THE LIVING GOD


The letters glowed dark green and I wondered if it were from
the lenses or the actual color of the neon tubes. A couple of
drunks stumbled past. I headed for Hambro's, passing a man
sitting on the curb with his head bent over his knees. Cars
passed. I went on. Two solemn-faced children came passing out
handbills which first I refused, then went back and took. After
all, I had to know what was going on in the community. I took
the bill and stepped close to the street light, reading.

Behold the Invisible
Thy will be done O Lord!
I See all, Know all. Tell all, Cure all.
You shall see the unknown wonders.
-- REV. B. P. RINEHART,
Spiritual Technologist.

The old is ever new
Way Stations in New Orleans, the home of mystery,
Birmingham, New York, Chicago, Detroit and L. A.

No Problem too Hard for God.

Come to the Way Station.

BEHOLD THE INVISIBLE!
Attend our services, prayer meetings Thrice weekly
Join us in the NEW REVELATION of the OLD TIME
RELIGION!

BEHOLD THE SEEN UNSEEN
BEHOLD THE INVISIBLE
YE WHO ARE WEARY COME HOME!
I DO WHAT YOU WANT DONE! DON'T WAIT!

I dropped the leaflet into the gutter and moved on. I
walked slowly, my breath still coming hard. Could it be? Soon
I reached the sign. It hung above a store that had been
converted into a church, and I stepped into the shallow lobby
and wiped my face with a handkerchief. Behind me I heard the
rise and fall of an old-fashioned prayer such as I hadn't heard
since leaving the campus; and then only when visiting country
preachers were asked to pray. The voice rose and fell in a
rhythmical, dreamlike recital-part enumeration of earthly trials
undergone by the congregation, part rapt display of vocal
virtuosity, part appeal to God. I was still wiping my face and
squinting at crude Biblical scenes painted on the windows
when two old ladies came up to me.

"Even', Rever'n Rinehart," one of them said. "How's our
dear pastor this warm evening?"

Oh, no, I thought, but perhaps agreeing will cause less
trouble than denying, and I said, "Good evening, sisters,"
muffling my voice with my handkerchief and catching the odor
of the girl's perfume from my hand.

"This here's Sister Harris, Rever'n. She come to join our
little band."

"God bless you, Sister Harris," I said, taking her extend-
ed hand.

"You know, Rever'n, I once heard you preach years ago. You
was just a lil' ole twelve-year-old boy, back in Virginia. And
here I come North and find you, praise God, still preaching the
gospel, doing the Lord's work. Still preaching the ole time
religion here in this wicked city --"

"Er, Sister Harris," the other sister said, "we better get
on in and find our seats. Besides, the pastor's kind of got things
to do. Though you are here a little early, aren't you, Rever'n?"

"Yes," I said, dabbing my mouth with my handkerchief.
They were motherly old women of the southern type and I
suddenly felt a nameless despair. I wanted to tell them that
Rinehart was a fraud, but now there came a shout from inside
the church and I heard a burst of music.

"Just lissen to it, Sister Harris. That's the new kind of
guitar music I told you Rever'n Rinehart got for us. Ain't it
heavenly?"

"Praise God," Sister Harris said. "Praise God!"

"Excuse us, Rever'n, I have to see Sister Judkins about
the money she collected for the building fund. And, Rever'n,
last night I sold ten recordings of your inspiring sermon.
Even sold one to the white lady I work for."

"Bless you," I found myself saying in a voice heavy with
despair, "bless you, bless you."

Then the door opened and I looked past their heads into
a small crowded room of men and women sitting in folding
chairs, to the front where a slender woman in a rusty black
robe played passionate boogie-woogie on an upright piano
along with a young man wearing a skull cap who struck
righteous riffs from an electric guitar which was connected to
an amplifier that hung from the ceiling above a gleaming white
and gold pulpit. A man in an elegant red cardinal's robe and a
high lace collar stood resting against an enormous Bible and
now began to lead a hard-driving hymn which the congregation
shouted in the unknown tongue. And back and high on the wall
above him there arched the words in letters of gold:

LET THERE BE LIGHT!

The whole scene quivered vague and mysterious in the
green light, then the door closed and the sound muted down.

It was too much for me. I removed my glasses and tucked
the white hat carefully beneath my arm and walked away.
Can it be, I thought, can it actually be? And I knew that it
was. I had heard of it before but I'd never come so close. Still,
could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler
and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the
Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? What is
real anyway? But how could I doubt it? He was a broad man, a
man of parts who got around. Rinehart the rounder. It was true
as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it. He was
years ahead of me and I was a fool. I must have been crazy and
blind. The world in which we lived was without boundaries. A
vast seething, hot world of fluidity, and Rine the rascal was at
home. Perhaps only Rine the rascal was at home in it. It was
unbelievable, but perhaps only the unbelievable could be
believed. Perhaps the truth was always a lie.

Perhaps, I thought, the whole thing should roll off me like
drops of water rolling off Jack's glass eye. I should search
out the proper political classification, label Rinehart and his
situation and quickly forget it. I hurried away from the church
so swiftly that I found myself back at the office before I
remembered that I was going to Hambro's.

I was both depressed and fascinated. I wanted to know
Rinehart and yet, I thought, I'm upset because I know I don't
have to know him, that simply becoming aware of his existence,
being mistaken for him, is enough to convince me that Rinehart
is real. It couldn't be, but it is. And it can be, is, simply be-
cause it's unknown. Jack wouldn't dream of such a possibility, nor
Tobitt, who thinks he's so close. Too little was known, too much
was in the dark. I thought of Clifton and of Jack himself; how
much was really known about either of them? How much was known
about me? Who from my old life had challenged me? And after
all this time I had just discovered Jack's missing eye.

My entire body started to itch, as though I had just
been removed from a plaster cast and was unused to the new
freedom of movement. In the South everyone knew you, but
coming North was a jump into the unknown. How many days
could you walk the streets of the big city without encount-
ering anyone who knew you, and how many nights? You could
actually make yourself anew. The notion was frightening, for
now the world seemed to flow before my eyes. All boundaries
down, freedom was not only the recognition of necessity, it was
the recognition of possibility. And sitting there trembling I
caught a brief glimpse of the possibilities posed by Rinehart's
multiple personalities and turned away. It was too vast and
confusing to contemplate. Then I looked at the polished lenses
of the glasses and laughed. I had been trying simply to turn
them into a disguise but they had become a political instrument
instead; for if Rinehart could use them in his work, no doubt I
could use them in mine. It was too simple, and yet they had
already opened up a new section of reality for me. What would
the committee say about that? What did their theory tell them
of such a world? I recalled a report of a shoeshine boy who had
encountered the best treatment in the South simply by wearing
a white turban instead of his usual Dobbs or Stetson, and I fell
into a fit of laughing. Jack would be outraged at the very
suggestion of such a state of things. And yet there was truth in
it; this was the real chaos which he thought he was describing -
- so long ago it seemed now . . . Outside the Brotherhood we
were outside history; but inside of it they didn't see us. It was
a hell of a state of affairs, we were nowhere. I wanted to back
away from it, but still I wanted to discuss it, to consult someone
who'd tell me it was only a brief, emotional illusion. I wanted
the props put back beneath the world. So now I had a real need
to see Hambro.

Getting up to go, I looked at the wall map and laughed
at Columbus. What an India he'd found! I was almost across the
hall when I remembered and came back and put on the hat and
glasses. I'd need them to carry me through the streets.
I took a cab. Hambro lived in the West Eighties, and
once in the vestibule I tucked the hat under my arm and put
the glasses in my pocket along with Brother Tarp's leg chain
and Clifton's doll. My pocket was getting overloaded.
I was shown into a small, book-lined study by Hambro
himself. From another part of the apartment came a child's
voice singing Humpty Dumpty, awakening humiliating
memories of my first Easter program during which I had stood
before the church audience and forgotten the words . . .

"My kid," Hambro said, "filibustering against going to
bed. A real sea lawyer, that kid."

The child was singing Hickory Dickory Dock, very fast,
as Hambro shut the door. He was saying something about the
child and I looked at him with sudden irritation. With Rine-
hart on my mind, why had I come here?

Hambro was so tall that when he crossed his legs both
feet touched the floor. He had been my teacher during my
period of indoctrination and now I realized that I shouldn't
have come. Hambro's lawyer's mind was too narrowly logical.
He'd see Rinehart simply as a criminal, my obsession as a fall
into pure mysticism . . . You'd better hope that is the way he'll
see it, I thought. Then I decided to ask him about conditions
uptown and leave . . .

"Look, Brother Hambro," I said, "what's to be done about
my district?"

He looked at me with a dry smile. "Have I become one
of those bores who talk too much about their children?"

"Oh, no, it's not that," I said. "I've had a hard day. I'm
nervous. With Clifton's death and things in the district so
bad, I guess . . ."

"Of course," he said, still smiling, "but why are you
worried about the district?"

"Because things are getting out of hand. Ras's men tried
to rough me up tonight and our strength is steadily going
to hell."

"That's regrettable," he said, "but there's nothing to be
done about it that wouldn't upset the larger plan. It's
unfortunate, Brother, but your members will have to be
sacrificed."

The distant child had stopped singing now, and it was
dead quiet. I looked at the angular composure ot his face
searching for the sincerity in his words. I could feel some deep
change. It was as though my discovery of Rinehart had opened
a gulf between us over which, though we sat within touching
distance, our voices barely carried and then fell flat, without an
echo. I tried to shake it away, but still the distance, so great
that neither could grasp the emotional tone of the other,
remained.

"Sacrifice?" my voice said. "You say that very easily."

"Just the same, though, all who leave must be consider-
ed expendable. The new directives must be followed
rigidly."

It sounded unreal, an antiphonal game. "But why?" I said.
"Why must the directives be changed in my district when
the old methods are needed -- especially now?" Somehow I
couldn't get the needed urgency into my words, and beneath it
all something about Rinehart bothered me, darted just beneath
the surface of my mind; something that had to do with me
intimately.

"It's simple, Brother," Hambro was saying. "We are making
temporary alliances with other political groups and the
interests of one group of brothers must be sacrificed to
that of the whole."

"Why wasn't I told of this?" I said.

"You will be, in time, by the committee -- Sacrifice is
necessary now --"

"But shouldn't sacrifice be made willingly by those who
know what they are doing? My people don't understand why
they're being sacrificed. They don't even know they're being
sacrificed -- at least not by us . . ." But what, my mind went
on, if they're as willing to be duped by the Brotherhood as by
Rinehart?

I sat up at the thought and there must have been an odd
expression on my face, for Hambro, who was resting his elbows
upon the arms of his chair and touching his fingertips together,
raised his eyebrows as though expecting me to continue. Then
he said, "The disciplined members will understand."
I pulled Tarp's leg chain from my pocket and slipped it
over my knuckles. He didn't notice. "Don't you realize that we
have only a handful of disciplined members left? Today the
funeral brought out hundreds who'll drop away as soon as they
see we're not following through. And now we're being attacked
on the streets. Can't you understand? Other groups are
circulating petitions, Ras is calling for violence. The com-
mittee is mistaken if they think this is going to die down."

He shrugged. "It's a risk which we must take. All of us
must sacrifice for the good of the whole. Change is achieved
through sacrifice. We follow the laws of reality, so we make
sacrifices."

"But the community is demanding equality of sacrifice,"

I said. "We've never asked for special treatment."

"It isn't that simple, Brother," he said. "We have to protect
our gains. It's inevitable that some must make greater
sacrifices than others . . ."

"That 'some' being my people . . ."

"In this instance, yes."

"So the weak must sacrifice for the strong? Is that it,
Brother?"

"No, a part of the whole is sacrificed -- and will continue
to be until a new society is formed."

"I don't get it," I said. "I just don't get it. We work our
hearts out trying to get the people to follow us and just when
they do, just when they see their relationship to events, we
drop them. I don't see it."

Hambro smiled remotely. "We don't have to worry about the
aggressiveness of the Negroes. Not during the new period
or any other. In fact, we now have to slow them down for
their own good. It's a scientific necessity."

I looked at him, at the long, bony, almost Lincolnesque face.
I might have liked him, I thought, he seems to be a really
kind and sincere man and yet he can say this to me . . .
"So you really believe that," I said quietly.

"With all my integrity," he said.

For a second I thought I'd laugh. Or let fly with Tarp's
link. Integrity! He talks to me of integrity! I described a circle
in the air. I'd tried to build my integrity upon the role of
Brotherhood and now it had changed to water, air. What was
integrity? What did it have to do with a world in which Rinehart
was possible and successful?

"But what's changed?" I said. "Wasn't I brought in to arouse
their aggressiveness?" My voice fell sad, hopeless.

"For that particular period," Hambro said, leaning a little
forward. "Only for that period."

"And what will happen now?" I said.

He blew a smoke ring, the blue-gray circle rising up boiling
within its own jetting form, hovering for an instant then
disintegrating into a weaving strand.

"Cheer up!" he said. "We shall progress. Only now they
must be brought along more slowly . . ."

How would he look through the green lenses? I thought, say-
ing, "Are you sure you're not saying that they must be held
back?"

He chuckled. "Now, listen," he said. "Don't stretch me
on a rack of dialectic. I'm a brother."

"You mean the brakes must be put on the old wheel of his-
tory," I said. "Or is it the little wheels within the wheel?"
His face sobered. "I mean only that they must be

brought along more slowly. They can't be allowed to upset the
tempo of the master plan. Timing is all important. Besides, you
still have a job to do, only now it will be more educational."

"And what about the shooting?"

"Those who are dissatisfied will drop away and those who
remain you'll teach . . ."

"I don't think I can," I said.

"Why? It's just as important."

"Because they are against us; besides, I'd feel like Rine-
hart . . ." It slipped out and he looked at me.

"Like who?"

"Like a charlatan," I said.

Hambro laughed. "I thought you had learned about that,
Brother."

I looted at him quickly. "Learned what?"

"That it's impossible not to take advantage of the
people."

"That's Rinehartism -- cynicism . . ."

"What?"

"Cynicism," I said.

"Not cynicism -- realism. The trick is to take advantage
of them in their own best interest."

I sat forward in my chair, suddenly conscious of the un-
reality of the conversation. "But who is to judge? Jack? The
committee?"

"We judge through cultivating scientific objectivity," he
said with a voice that had a smile in it, and suddenly I saw
the hospital machine, felt as though locked in again.

"Don't kid yourself," I said. "The only scientific
objectivity is a machine."

"Discipline, not machinery," he said. "We're scientists.
We must take the risks of our science and our will to achieve.
Would you like to resurrect God to take responsibility?" He
shook his head. "No, Brother, we have to make such decisions
ourselves. Even if we must sometimes appear as charlatans."

"You're in for some surprises," I said.

"Maybe so and maybe not," he said. "At any rate, through
our very position in the vanguard we must do and say the
things necessary to get the greatest number of the people
to move toward what is for their own good."

Suddenly I couldn't stand it.

"Look at me! Look at me!" I said. "Everywhere I've turned
somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my good -- only
they were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the
old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?
Is this the new true definition, is Brotherhood a matter of
sacrificing the weak? If so, at what point do we stop?"

Hambro looked as though I were not there. "At the proper
moment science will stop us. And of course we as individuals
must sympathetically debunk ourselves. Even though it does
only a little good. But then," he shrugged, "if you go too
far in that direction you can't pretend to lead. You'll lose
your confidence. You won't believe enough in your own
correctness to lead others. You must therefore have confidence
in those who lead you -- in the collective wisdom of
Brotherhood."

I left in a worse state than that in which I'd come. Several
buildings away I heard him call behind me, watched him
approach through the dark.

"You left your hat," he said, handing it to me along with
the mimeographed sheets of instructions outlining the new
program. I looked at the hat and at him, thinking of Rinehart
and invisibility, but knew that for him it would have no reality.
I told him good night and went through the hot street to Central
Park West, starting toward Harlem.

Sacrifice and leadership, I thought. For him it was simple.
For them it was simple. But hell, I was both. Both sacri-
ficer and victim. I couldn't get away from that, and Hambro
didn't have to deal with it. That was reality too, my real-
ity. He didn't have to put the knife blade to his own throat.
What would he say if he were the victim?

I walked along the park in the dark. Cars passed. From time
to time the sound of voices, squealing laughter, arose from
beyond the trees and hedges. I could smell the sun-singed
grass. The sky against which an airplane beacon played was
still overcast. I thought of Jack, the people at the funeral,
Rinehart. They'd asked us for bread and the best I could give
was a glass eye -- not so much as an electric guitar.

I stopped and dropped to a bench. I should leave, I
thought. That would be the honest thing to do. Otherwise I
could only tell them to have hope and try to hold on to those
who'd listen. Was that also what Rinehart was, a principle of
hope for which they gladly paid? Otherwise there was nothing
but betrayal, and that meant going back to serve Bledsoe, and
Emerson, jumping from the pot of absurdity to the fire of the
ridiculous. And either was a self-betrayal. But I couldn't leave; I
had to settle with Jack and Tobitt. I owed it to Clifton and Tarp
and the others. I had to hold on ... and then I had an idea that
shook me profoundly: You don't have to worry about the people.
If they tolerate Rinehart, then they will forget it and even with
them you are invisible. It lasted only the fraction of a second
and I rejected it immediately; still it had flashed across the
dark sky of my mind. It was just like that. It didn't matter
because they didn't realize just what had happened, neither my
hope nor my failure. My ambition and integrity were nothing to
them and my failure was as meaningless as Clifton's. It had
been that way all along. Only in the Brotherhood had there
seemed a chance for such as us, the mere glimmer of a light,
but behind the polished and humane facade of Jack's eye I'd
found an amorphous form and a harsh red rawness. And even
that was without meaning except for me.

Well, I was and yet I was invisible, that was the funda-
mental contradiction. I was and yet I was unseen. It was
frightening and as I sat there I sensed another frightening
world of possibilities. For now I saw that I could agree with
Jack without agreeing. And I could tell Harlem to have hope
when there was no hope. Perhaps I could tell them to hope
until I found the basis of something real, some firm ground for
action that would lead them onto the plane of history. But until
then I would have to move them without myself being moved . .
. I'd have to do a Rinehart.

I leaned against a stone wall along the park, thinking of
Jack and Hambro and of the day's events and shook with rage.
It was all a swindle, an obscene swindle! They had set
themselves up to describe the world. What did they know of us,
except that we numbered so many, worked on certain jobs,
offered so many votes, and provided so many marchers for
some protest parade of theirs! I leaned there, aching to
humiliate them, to refute them. And now all past humiliations
became precious parts of my experience, and for the first time,
leaning against that stone wall in the sweltering night, I began
to accept my past and, as I accepted it, I felt memories welling
up within me. It was as though I'd learned suddenly to look
around corners; images of past humiliations flickered through
my head and I saw that they were more than separate
experiences. They were me; they defined me. I was my
experiences and my experiences were me, and no blind men,
no matter how powerful they became, even if they conquered
the world, could take that, or change one single itch, taunt,
laugh, cry, scar, ache, rage or pain of it. They were blind, bat
blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their own voices.
And because they were blind they would destroy themselves
and I'd help them. I laughed. Here I had thought they accepted
me because they felt that color made no difference, when in
reality it made no difference because they didn't see either
color or men . . . For all they were concerned, we were so many
names scribbled on fake ballots, to be used at their
convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a
joke, an absurd joke. And now I looked around a corner of my
mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one
single white figure. They were very much the same, each
attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither
giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a
material, a natural resource to be used. I had switched from
the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack
and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same -- except I
now recognized my invisibility.

So I'd accept it, I'd explore it, rine and heart. I'd plunge
into it with both feet and they'd gag. Oh, but wouldn't they gag.
I didn't know what my grandfather had meant, but I was ready
to test his advice. I'd overcome them with yeses, undermine
them with grins, I'd agree them to death and destruction. Yes,
and I'd let them swallow me until they vomited or burst wide
open. Let them gag on what they refused to see. Let them
choke on it. That was one risk they hadn't calculated. That was
a risk they had never dreamt of in their philosophy. Nor did
they know that they could discipline themselves to destruction,
that saying "yes" could destroy them. Oh, I'd yes them, but
wouldn't I yes them! I'd yes them till they puked and rolled in
it. All they wanted of me was one belch of affirmation and I'd
bellow it out loud. Yesl Yes! YES! That was all anyone wanted of
us, that we should be heard and not seen, and then heard only
in one big optimistic chorus of yassuh, yassuh, yassuh! All
right, I'd yea, yea and oui, oui and si, si and see, see them too;
and I'd walk around in their guts with hobnailed boots. Even
those super-big shots whom I'd never seen at committee
meetings. They wanted a machine? Very well, I'd become a
supersensitive confirmer of their misconceptions, and just to
hold their confidence I'd try to be right part of the time. Oh, I'd
serve them well and I'd make invisibility felt if not seen, and
they'd learn that it could be as polluting as a decaying body, or
a piece of bad meat in a stew. And if I got hurt? Very well again.
Besides, didn't they believe in sacrifice? They were the subtle
thinkers -- would this be treachery? Did the word apply to an
invisible man? Could they recognize choice in that which
wasn't seen . . . ?

The more I thought of it the more I fell into a kind of
morbid fascination with the possibility. Why hadn't I discovered
it sooner? How different my life might have been! How terribly
different! Why hadn't I seen the possibilities? If a sharecropper
could attend college by working during the summers as a
waiter and factory hand or as a musician and then graduate to
become a doctor, why couldn't all those things be done at one
and the same time? And wasn't that old slave a scientist -- or at
least called one, recognized as one -- even when he stood with
hat in hand, bowing and scraping in senile and obscene
servility? My God, what possibilities existed! And that spiral
business, that progress goo! Who knew all the secrets; hadn't I
changed my name and never been challenged even once? And
that lie that success was a rising upward. What a crummy lie
they kept us dominated by. Not only could you travel upward
toward success but you could travel downward as well; up and
down, in retreat as well as in advance, crabways and crossways
and around in a circle, meeting your old selves coming and
going and perhaps all at the same time. How could I have
missed it for so long? Hadn't I grown up around gambler-
politicians, bootlegger-judges and sheriffs who were burglars;
yes, and Klansmen who were preachers and members of human-
itarian societies? Hell, and hadn't Bledsoe tried to tell
me what it was all about? I felt more dead than alive. It had
been quite a day; one that could not have been more shattering
even if I had learned that the man whom I'd always called
father was actually of no relation to me.

I went to the apartment and fell across the bed in my clothes.
It was hot and the fan did little more than stir the heat
in heavy leaden waves, beneath which I lay twirling the dark
glasses and watching the hypnotic flickering of the lenses as
I tried to make plans. I would hide my anger and lull them to
sleep; assure them that the community was in full agreement
with their program. And as proof I would falsify the attendance
records by filling out membership cards with fictitious names --
all unemployed, of course, so as to avoid any question of dues.
Yes, and I would move about the community by night and
during times of danger by wearing the white hat and the dark
glasses. It was a dreary prospect but a means of destroying
them, at least in Harlem. I saw no possibility of organizing a
splinter movement, for what would be the next step? Where
would we go? There were no allies with whom we could join as
equals; nor were there time or theorists available to work out
an overall program of our own -- although I felt that somewhere
between Rinehart and invisibility there were great
potentialities. But we had no money, no intelligence apparatus,
either in government, business or labor unions; and no
communications with our own people except through
unsympathetic newspapers, a few Pullman porters who brought
provincial news from distant cities and a group of domestics
who reported the fairly uninteresting private lives of their
employers. If only we had some true friends, some who saw us
as more than convenient tools for shaping their own desires!
But to hell with that, I thought, I would remain and become a
well-disciplined optimist, and help them to go merrily to hell.
If I couldn't help them to see the reality of our lives I
would help them to ignore it until it exploded in their faces.

Only one thing bothered me: Since I now knew that their
real objectives were never revealed at committee meetings
I needed some channel of intelligence through which I could
learn what actually guided their operations. But how? If
only I had resisted being shifted downtown I would now have
enough support in the community to insist that they reveal
themselves. Yes, but if I hadn't been shifted, I would still be
living in a world of illusion. But now that I had found the
thread of reality, how could I hold on? They seemed to have me
blocked at every turn, forcing me to fight them in the dark.
Finally I tossed the glasses across the bed and dropped into a
fitful nap during which I relived the events of the last few days;
except that instead ot Clifton being lost it was myself, and I
awoke stale, sweaty and aware of perfume.

I lay on my stomach, my head resting upon the back of
my hand thinking, where is it coming from? And just as I
caught sight ot the glasses I remembered grasping Rinehart's
girl's hand. I lay there unmoving, and she seemed to perch on
the bed, a bright-eyed bird with her glossy head and ripe
breasts, and I was in a wood afraid to frighten the bird away.
Then I was fully awake and the bird gone and the girl's image
in my mind. What would have happened if I had led her on, how
far could I have gone? A desirable girl like that mixed up with
Rinehart. And now I sat breathless, asking myself how Rinehart
would have solved the problem of information and it came
instantly clear: It called for a woman. A wife, a girl friend, or
secretary of one ot the leaders, who would be willing to talk
freely to me. My mind swept back to early experiences in the
movement. Little incidents sprang to memory, bringing images
of the smiles and gestures of certain women met after rallies
and at parties: Dancing with Emma at the Chthonian; she close,
soft against me and the hot swift focusing of my desire and my
embarrassment as I caught sight of Jack holding forth in a
corner, and Emma holding me tight, her bound breasts
pressing against me, looking with that teasing light in her eyes
saying, "Ah, temptation," and my desperate grab for a
sophisticated reply and managing only, "Oh, but there's always
temptation," surprising myself nevertheless and hearing her
laughing, "Touche! Touche! You should come up and fence with
me some afternoon." That had been during the early days when
I had felt strong restrictions and resented Emma's boldness
and her opinion that I should have been blacker to play my role
of Harlem leader. Well, there were no restrictions left, the
committee had seen to that. She was fair game and perhaps
she'd find me black enough, after all. A committee meeting was
set for tomorrow, and since it was Jack's birthday, a party at the
Chthonian would follow. Thus I would launch my two-pronged
attack under the most favorable circumstance. They were
forcing me to Rinehart methods, so bring on the scientists!