Flying Home and Other Stories

by Ralph Ellison

  The old man motioned for me to take a sandwich. I shook my head in refusal, but he insisted. I took the sandwich. I had some grub in Morrie’s coat pocket up on top, but he insisted and I was curious and wanted to see what would happen. It was a good sandwich—cold beef with mustard.

  “Are you going far?” the old man shouted.

  “To Alabama.”

  Even though he was old and I had been taught to say “sir,” I did not. Saying “sir” was too much a part of knowing your place. I had learned that on the road you really had no place; you were all the same though some of them did not understand that.

  The old lady turned and looked at me, silently.

  “But Alabama is south,” the old man said. “We’re traveling north.”

  “Yes, I know. But this way I’ll see part of the country I might not have a chance to see again.”

  “That’s right. It’s good for a young fellow to travel.”

  I was glad he thought so. I had left home to earn money for my school tuition and ended up on the freights.

  I had hitchhiked out to Denver and felt the mountains in the morning mist, high and mysterious and psychic before the sun came, as I rode with a family headed for California in an old Ford car. But there had been no work in Denver. I had roamed around. I had gone back to Oklahoma for a while, and later grabbed a freight away. I had gone through the Ozarks, where orange flowers with splashes of red like tiger lilies lined the tracks. Through western Kansas, with the fields bare and buzzards flying and the fields in motion with black-tailed rabbits and blowing dust; and boys and men with sticks marching forward and the rabbits bounding before them in droves; and the swift rush of water in the irrigation canals and the fish panting in the mud where the canals were dry and rotting in the sun where the mud had dried. I had come back to Kansas City and rode the Rock Island and the MK&T through Topeka, Wichita, and Tulsa. It was Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado, and no jobs, from spring to fall. Now it was September.

  “What will you do in Alabama?” he said.

  “Go to school. Work my way.”

  “And you will study …?”

  “Music.”

  “Very fine. Negroes make fine musicians. We wish you luck, don’t we, Mother?” He touched the old woman.

  She turned from looking out the door, the distance still in her eyes.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “He’s going to study music. I said we wish him luck, don’t we?”

  “Oh, yes. Great luck. Won’t you have another sandwich? There’s plenty.”

  I took the sandwich. It was very good, and I broke it to save half for Morrie.

  “How far have you come?” I asked.

  “All the way from Mexia, Texas.”

  “Never been to Texas,” I said. “Lived in Oklahoma all my life, but never got down that far.”

  “That’s too bad. It’s a fine country.”

  I smiled. It was a fine country for his kind; mine didn’t fare so well there, from what I’d heard.

  “If things were as they were a few years ago, I’d invite you down. Our oldest boy had a colored boy for his companion the whole four years he was in school up at Amherst. Fine fellow.”

  The old lady brightened.

  “We have a boy ’bout your age,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” the old man said. “He ran away five years ago. We didn’t hear hide nor hair of him until six months ago. We’re on our way to see him now, at Joplin. It will be a big surprise for him. Five years ago, we would not have had to make the trip in this manner.”

  “He’s at Joplin, Missouri?”

  “That’s right. He’s to be released tomorrow. We haven’t seen him for five years. He was a fine boy then. He’s still a fine boy,” he added hopefully.

  I did not know what to say. Joplin was where the Missouri State Reformatory was located.

  “I hope you find him well,” I said finally.

  “Thank you. We are very happy, and very anxious to see him. When we had money, we lost our boy. Now the money is gone, and our boy will be back with us. We are very happy.”

  “I guess I had better get out and find my buddy,” I said. “We’ll have to go over to Kentucky to catch the L&N freight going south.”

  “You must be careful. We need more musicians, like Roland Hayes. You said you sing, didn’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “I play the piano.”

  “Well, you be careful.”

  The old lady’s face was still bright from the talk of her son.

  “Goodbye,” I said.

  “Goodbye, and be careful.”

  He handed me a wrapped sandwich. I stuck it in my pocket and climbed out of the car.

  When the manifest slowed into the yards at St. Louis, I dropped down into the car and said goodbye again. They were very fine people. I thought of them a few days later when we got into Decatur. The bulls were in the railroad yards as we rolled into town. They came into the cars looking for girls and took me off and threw me into jail. In jail I learned about Scottsboro, and I was glad when Morrie made his way down to Montgomery and got in touch with the school officials, who finally got me out. I thought of the old couple often during those days I lay in jail, and I was sorry that I had not learned their names.

  A Hard Time Keeping Up

  The train pulled in town at 4 A.M. It had been snowing for thirty miles back, and the warm air in the diner made frost on the glass panes. Snow was piled along the window ledges.

  There had been few people in for the last meal, and looking out the car window I had seen five or six rabbits hopping along at leisure in the falling snow. It was very comfortable in the car. The jingle of silver and ice in the pitchers had been very cheerful. When we pulled into the station, we hated to leave the train, but the crew came up to switch the cars, so we decided to grab a trolley across town to the Negro section for a room. Ma Brown’s would be swell if she could take us. We walked over to the trolley and waited, but no car came. Overhead the elevated went streaking along, leaving a haze of blue sparks in the white snow.

  We stood there watching them sail by.

  “Let’s grab one of them,” I said. “It’s faster.”

  “Yeah but tonight the damn things all go in the wrong direction,” Joe said.

  “Well, let’s get a cab then,” I said.

  I was getting cold.

  “Seem like they’re all gone too,” Joe said. “No cabs, no trolley, the El going in the wrong direction, and here it is a million below.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get going.”

  Joe was tall and stoopy, with a friendly grin and eye-glasses and the stride of a walking champ. I had a hard time keeping up. I always had a hard time keeping up with Joe. The snow was falling fast, very fast, and the wind blew some of it down my collar. After everyone had gone in for the night, the snow had filled in the path along where the sidewalk had been.

  “Let’s get the hell out in the street,” Joe said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s easier going.”

  We walked along where the trolley had cut ruts in the snow. The snow had turned to ice, and under the street-lights the rusting rails made it look like a cigarette stain. The ruts were filling rapidly with the fresh snow. By the time the cars came to carry folks to work, the tracks would be well hidden.

  The streetlights and the neon signs made you think of Christmas as they sparkled on the whiteness. It was pleasant to think about the snow, and a piece of red candy some kid dropped had melted into a red frozen stream, reminding me of the first snow I’d seen with blood on it. It was beautiful and sad. We kids had been playing with our new toys and had watched them carry the man away. He was cut and had been there freezing all through the night.

  Joe and I passed a cat standing on a door step, howling. His folks had forgotten to let him in for the night, and he sounded like the whole world had gone away to Florida and there was no one left in town but him, the ice, and the snow.r />
  “Listen at that bastard,” Joe said.

  “He’s cold,” I said.

  “Serves him right. Cats are unlucky as hell.”

  “Remember the story about ‘You Gonna Be Here When Martin Come’?” I said.

  “Yeah, girl in Topeka told it to me.”

  “Women can tell all the dirty stories—worse than men any day.”

  “Yeah, they sho can.”

  We passed a corner, and the wind whipped our coattails between our legs. Off somewhere we could hear the elevated rattling along, wheels screeching as it came to a stop. Snow powdered the blue of Joe’s coat. There were toys in one of the store windows along the street, and a mouse was building a nest of the stuffing he pulled from a teddy bear. The teddy made no protest as I stopped to watch.

  “Come on, damn fool,” Joe called.

  The wind was from the north, and we had to bend slightly forward as we pushed into the rush of air. Sometimes we turned our backs to the wind.

  “It’s a killer, boy,” I said.

  “You ain’t no lying chile,” Joe said.

  “How’d you like to be in Pensacola now?”

  “Come on, man, don’t start that stuff.”

  “Think of the sun, and the boats coming up the gulf all clean and white from Nassau and Cuba, and the fish in the blue water, and the long rides around the gulf road at night we used to take with the girls and beer, and the fat guy singing Cuban love songs …”

  “You think about it. This damn wind won’t let me,” Joe said. “Besides, there’s too many crackers down that way for me.”

  We were climbing a steep hill, and no cars had been along that way all day. The snow was deep, and when we reached the level stretch at the top it was like walking through high grass after rabbits. A piece of newspaper flew up ahead of us, flopping and crackling in the wind.

  “What the hell’s this?” Joe said.

  I laughed.

  An old white fellow popped out of a doorway. He wore no overcoat, and talked with a drawl.

  “Would one of you gents …?”

  “Now what?” asked Joe.

  “Would one of you gents please …?”

  “Give him some change.”

  “I don’t have any change.”

  “Well, give him something and let’s get the hell on outa this wind.”

  I gave the old fellow a bag of sandwiches I’d brought from the diner.

  “Thank you, gents,” he said. “Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much.”

  “Yeah,” said Joe.

  The old fellow looked at him a second, then disappeared between two buildings. We walked on in the snow. It was quiet now, and the packed snow went crunch crunch beneath our feet.

  “That guy’ll see you tomorrow with two bits in his pocket and call you a black son-uva-bitch,” Joe said.

  “Oh well,” I said.

  We had come to where most of the boys used to stop when they were in overnight from a run, and we were glad to get there. Ma Brown ran the place and she cooked the best meals in town. It was like coming home. We put up our bags and walked over across the street to Tom’s place to drink Hot Toddies before turning in. Tom’s place was an old storefront that he had made into a bar and restaurant and that tended to be dark like Tom. Inside there was a group of fellows standing around the bar, and the nickel phonograph was playing “Summertime,” Two fellows were rolling dice on a table in the back of the room, and those at one end of the bar were laughing at some joke. A girl in blue-and-white was drinking Pink Ladies with two fellows at a table. She had nice hands, and a stone sparkled from one of her red-tipped fingers. The fellows were pretty high, and were dressed well. One was a big guy, a hell of a guy. Big as Paul Robeson, with a complexion of a shade that Ma Brown would call “right dark.” He was dark as east hell at midnight.

  “That boy kinda bring out the color in that gal’s cheeks,” Joe said.

  “She looks like a fay chick.”

  “Pretty close to the old Mason and Dixon Line for that kind of stuff,” Joe said.

  “Hell, she’s one of us,” I said.

  “Sure, we know it, but do they know it?”

  “This is not the South, you know.”

  “So what,” Joe said. “Did you you ever hear about the riot they had here?” he said.

  “Oh sure, but that was a hell of a time ago,” I said.

  “Poor little damn fool,” Joe said.

  He emptied his glass. The drinks were good.

  “Aw you long-legged bastard,” I said. “Old Joe from the Glory Hole.”

  The girl and the fellows ordered another round of drinks. They were becoming noisy. She got up from the table and walked around to the big guy’s chair and leaned over his back with her arms around his neck. She laughed and her teeth flashed between her red lips. She hollered over to Tom, who was mixing drinks at the bar.

  “Tommy! This is my sweet papa Charlie, Tommy,” she called. “He’s Mama’s little boy.”

  Tom, in his white apron and white teeth, was mixing drinks and laughing with the fellows around the bar. His head, bald and black, shone in the light from the back bar.

  The girl rubbed the fellow’s head. He grinned and continued to drink. He liked it though, the rubbing and the hugging. She had on a heavy perfume.

  “Don’t you think he’s cute, Tommy?” she called.

  Tommy was busy.

  “Tommy! Tommy darling! Don’t you think my baby’s cute?”

  “Yeah, babe,” laughed Tom. “The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice.”

  The big guy snuggled up to her like a big cat.

  • • •

  “Look at that clown,” Joe said, pointing at the door.

  “He’s got something there,” I said.

  The fellows at the bar broke out with a gale of laughter just as the man entered the brightness of the room. He stood there blinking his eyes at the light and swaying.

  “Ain’t none of you sons-a-bitches gonna mess wid me or nona my family,” he said.

  He swayed, looking around the room.

  “Nawsuh,” he said. “Or nona my goddamn family.”

  There was white on his knees where he had fallen in the snow.

  “Jack’s got his correct gauge and is ready,” somebody said.

  “I mean!” the fellow said, still swaying.

  He was gauged all right. The boys failed to challenge him, so he walked over to the bar.

  “Don’t nobody mess wid me when I’m in my liquor,” he said. “My boss mon don’t fool with me then.”

  The others returned to their drinks.

  “Come on, let’s get over to Ma’s,” Joe said, “before Big Ike comes in here to collect his cut. He and his boys’ll see that little broad and maybe think she’s white and start raising hell.”

  Big Ike controlled all the clubs in the district.

  “Ike won’t give a damn,” I said.

  “Come on, Mister Bastard, we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “Okay. I’ve had enough anyway.”

  As we turned to leave the bar, Big Ike and his boys came pushing through the door in a mass. We could smell their liquor as we started past them near the door.

  “Don’t rush off, boys,” Tom called.

  “Naw,” Joe hollered back. “We’re turning in. Had a tough run.”

  “Well, good night, boys,” Tom said.

  “Good night, boys,” called the girl.

  Some of the boys around the bar started to sing “Good Night, Ladies,” but one of Ike’s crowd put a nickel in the phonograph and they stopped suddenly.

  The girl was very lovely as I looked back from the door. All in blue-and-white and the smile still nice in spite of her being high. And when the fellow stood up, they made a fine sight. Even though he staggered, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand and holding on to the back of his chair with the other, his teeth milk-white in his black face, you could not help but see what a swell-looking animal a big
bastard could be. Down South they call them “buck niggers,” and he was the kind they had kept at stud. As I walked back to Ma’s with Joe, I wondered what it was they had done to us. Take a big guy like that; there were plenty of them down South, but they got it in the behind like all the rest. They must have trained something out of us during slavery like they do wildness in a hunting dog. Up to a certain point we had something; then, after that, whatever it is, we didn’t have it anymore. One thing, we are all lone wolves, each one trying to fight it out alone—like the guy in Birmingham who stood off a whole police force by himself. Once I’d had a fight with a gang of fay boys myself. I was on my way to the swimming hole and passed the fay boy sitting on an orchard fence.

  “Hello, Coon. Coon. Coon! Coon, I bet your name’s Rastus,” he’d yelled. He was about my size and wore the same kind of overalls. I walked past him, but he continued to holler, “Coon, coon, look at tha’ coon,” so I said, “This white peck wants a fight,” and I turned and went back. The boy kept on hollering and when I reached him he started to laugh. I was pretty mad by then, and when I came to him, I didn’t say a word. I snatched him off the fence and let him have one in the mouth and he yelled … Joe and I were back to Ma Brown’s by now and were climbing the stairs to our rooms on the second floor. At the turn of the stairs there was a table with a copy of the Singing Boys hanging from the wall. I’d read about them in high school … Anyway this fay kid yelled, “Come on, gang,” and rocks started shooting down on my head from the trees, and he reached out and grabbed me. I was thinking of all this when there was a shot, then four fast ones, coming from somewhere very close to Ma’s place.

  “That Ike, I bet,” said Joe.

  “Come on, we can see Tom’s place from the window in my room.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t like that big guy and that broad being together,” he said.

  We ran up the stairs and looked out the window. Down the street we could see Ike and his boys out in front of Tom’s. A bullet went zinging up the street, and knocked an insulator off the lamppost in front of Ma’s house, and I could hear the crack crack crack of the guns. There was about seven of them, all shooting.