Juneteenth

by Ralph Ellison

  I don’t think I can, he said. But his throat was silent and yet Hickman seemed to get it, to understand.

  I taught you how, Bliss. You start it, you draw your strength and inspiration out of the folks. If they’re cold, you heat them up; when they get hot, you guide the flame. It’s still the same. You did it in the Senate when you told them about those Nazi fellows and swung the vote.…

  What? the Senator said. You knew even then?

  Eatmore, Bliss. Never mind the rest; let’s talk about you preaching Eatmore in a white church. Do I have to start you off like I used to do when you were a baby? Didn’t Eatmore begin something like this: He’d be walking back and forth with his head looking up at the ceiling and his hands touching prayer-like together? Then stop suddenly and face them, still looking out over their heads, saying:

  Brothers and sisters, I want to take you on a trip this morning. I want to take you back to the dawn of Time. I want to let you move at God’s rate of speed. Yes, let’s go way back to the time of that twilight that had settled down upon the earth after Eden. Ah, yes! I want you to see those times because Time is like a merry-go-round within a merry-go-round, it moves but it is somehow the same even if you’re riding on an iron tiger. Eden’s fruit had done gone bad with worms and flies. Yes! The flowers that had been the dazzling glory of Eden had run wild and lost their God-given bloom. Everything was in shambles. It was a mess. Things were hardly better than jimson and stinkweeds. The water was all muddy and full of sulfur. The air back there stunk skunk-sharp with evil. And the beasts, the beasts of the jungle had turned against Man who had named them, and they no longer recognized him as the head of the animal kingdom. In fact, they considered him the lesser of the animals instead. Oh, Man had come down so low that he was eating snakes. Brothers and sisters, it was an unhappy time—Yes, but even then, even in his uncouth condition, Man somehow remembered that he was conceived in the image of Almighty God. He had forgotten how to take a bath and John the Baptist was yet unborn, but still he was conceived in the image of the Almighty and even though he had sinned and strayed, he still knew he was Man. He was like that old crazy king I once heard about, who had messed up his own life and that of everyone else because he demanded more of everybody than they were able to give him and was living off of roots and berries in the woods but who knew deep down in his crazy mind that he was still a king, and knew it even though the idea made him sick at the stomach. Kingship was so hard and manship was so disgusting! He wanted to have it both ways. He wanted folks to love him like he wasn’t king when he was carrying around all that power. Yes, Man had sinned and he had strayed; he was just doing the best he could, and that wasn’t much.

  Now that’s enough for me, Bliss; you take it from there. Let’s hear the old Eatmore, boy.

  It’s been a long time.

  Bliss, all time is the same. Preach. Time is just like Eatmore used to say, a merry-go-round within a merry-go-round; only people fall off or out of time. Men forget or go blind like I’m going. But time turns, Bliss, and remembering helps us to save ourselves. Somewhere through all the falseness and the forgetting there is something solid and good. So preach me some Eatmore.…

  You won’t like it, the Senator said, closing his eyes.

  I’ll be the judge, Hickman said.

  Amen. Yes, Man had sinned, brothers and sisters, and he had strayed. But he was still the handiwork of a merciful God. He carried within him two fatal weaknesses—he was of little faith and he had been contaminated by the great gust of stardust that swept over the earth when Proud Lucifer fell like a blazing comet from the skies. For Man had breathed the dust of pride, and it wheezed in his lungs like a hellish asthma. Thus even though he mingled with the beasts of the forest and Eden had become a forgotten condition rankling with weeds and tares, a lost continent, a time out of his brutish mind, still he retained his pride and his knowledge that he was conceived in the image of God. Two legs God gave him to walk around, two hands to build up God’s world, and his two eyes had seen the glory of the Lord. His voice and tongue had praised the firmament and named the things of the earth.

  Thus it was, brothers and sisters, that remembering his past grace Man called upon the Lord to give him fire. Fire now! Just think about it. In those times—fire! Even God in his total omniscience must have been surprised. Man crying for fire when he couldn’t even deal with water. Remember, Old Noah was long since forgot. Man drank dregs standing unpurified in the muddy tracks of the tigers and the rhinoceroses! Fire! Why my Lord, what did he want with fire?

  He ate raw roots and the raw, still-quick flesh of beasts.

  He drank the living blood jetting from the severed jugular veins of cattle—and yet he cried for fire. Ah yes, today, long past we now know it! Give a man wood and he will learn to make fire. But back there in those days Man knew nothing about wood. Oh yes, oh sure—he slept in trees, he swung from vines. He dug in the earth for tender roots—but wood? What in the world was wood? He used clubs of hickory and oak and even ebony … but wood—what was wood? Did old Nero know about steel? Man knew no more about wood than a hill of butter beans!

  Ha! Now that was a true Eatmore line, Bliss. Preach it.

  Suddenly Hickman turned. The door had opened and he saw a severe-looking, well-scrubbed young nurse, her blond hair drawn back severely beneath her starched cap, looking in.

  “Don’t you think you should leave and get some rest?” she said.

  The Senator opened his eyes. “Leave us, nurse. I’ll ring when I want you.”

  She hesitated.

  “It’s all right, daughter,” Hickman said. “You go on like he said.”

  She studied the two men silently, then reluctantly closed the door.

  Don’t lose it, Bliss, Hickman said. Where did Eatmore go from there?

  … knew no more about wood than a hill of butter beans … And still, this ignorant beast, this dusty-butted clown, this cabbagehead without a kindergarten baby’s knowledge of God’s world—brothers and sisters, this lowest creature of creatures was asking God for fire! I imagine that the Holy Creator didn’t know whether to roar with anger or blast Man from the face of the earth with holy laughter. Fire! Man cried, Give me fire! I tell you it was unbelievable. But then time and circumstance caught up with him. Give me fire! he cried. Give me fire! Man became so demanding that finally God did rage in righteous outrage at Man’s mannish pride. Oh yes!

  For Man was beseeching the Lord for warmth when it was the Sun itself he coveted. And God knew it. For he knoweth all things. Not fire, oh no, that wasn’t what Man was yelling about, he wanted the Sun!

  Oh, give a man wood and he will learn—to make fire!

  Amen!

  So God erupted Hell in answer to Man’s cries of pride. For Man had told himself he no longer wished to wear the skins of beasts for warmth. He wanted to rise up on his two hind legs and be somebody.

  That’s what he did! He had seen the sun and now coveted the warmth of the blue vault of heaven!

  Ah Man, ah Man, thou art ever a child. One named Hadrian, a Roman heathen, he built him a tomb as big as a town. Well, brothers and sisters, it’s a jailhouse now!

  One named Morgan built the great Titanic and tried to out-fathom one of God’s own icebergs. Even though they should have known God’s icebergs were still God’s and not to be played with. Where are they now, Lord?

  Full fathom five thy father lies, that’s where. Down in the deep six with eyes frozen till Judgment Day. There they lie, encased in ice beneath the seas like statues of stone awaiting the Day of Judgment to blast them free.

  Ho, ho they forgot to sing as the poet was yet to sing:

  Lo, Lord, Thou ridest!

  Lord, Lord, Thy swifting heart

  Nought stayeth, nought now bideth

  But’s smithereened apart!

  Ay! Scripture flee’th stone!

  Milk-bright, Thy chisel wind

  Rescindeth flesh from bone

  To quivering whittlings thinned—
<
br />   Swept, whistling straw! Battered,

  Lord, e’en boulders now outleap

  Rock sockets, levin-lathered!

  No, Lord, may worm outdeep

  Thy drum’s gambade, its plunge abscond!

  Lord God, while summits crashing

  Whip sea-kelp screaming on blond

  Sky-seethe, dense heaven dashing—

  Thou ridest to the door, Lord!

  Thou bidest wall nor floor, Lord!

  Bliss, that’s not Eatmore but it’s glorious.

  No, it’s Crane, but Eatmore would have liked it, he would have sung it, lined it out for the congregation and they would have all joined in.

  Yes, he would. Go on, boy.…

  Thus did God send the lava streaming and scorching, searing and destroying, floating warmth and goodness within the concentric circles of evil which Man had evoked through his thunderous fall, his embrace of pride, though he had his chance. And now was time for God to laugh, because you see, sisters and brothers, just as today Man was blind to the mysterious ways of God, and thus Man ran screaming among the mastodons and dinosaurs. Ran footraces with the flying dragons, the hairy birds and saber-toothed tigers—tigers, Ha! Imagine it, with tusks as sharp, as long, as cruel as the swords of the Saracens who did attempt by bloodshed and fire to keep the Lord’s message from the Promised Land, the land of Bathsheba’s bright morning, of Solomon’s enraptured song …

  Preach it, Bliss. Now you’re preaching Genesis out of Eatmore.…

  Yes, ran screaming among the hellish beasts and his beastly fellowmen, all wrapped in the furs of beasts, with his hair streaming and his voice screaming. Running empty-handed, his crude tools and weapons, his stone axes and bows and arrows and knives of bone abandoned in his beastly flight before the fire of God! Ho, he stampeded in a beastly panic. Ha! He scrambled in terror under his own locomotion—for Ezekiel was not yet and Man knew not the wheel. Ho yes!

  Yes!

  Yes!

  Yes!

  Do you love?

  Ah,

  Ah,

  Ah, do

  you love?

  Man ran crying, Fire! And running as fast as Man can away from the true gift of God, crying Fire! and flinging himself in wild-eyed and beastly terror away from the fire that was his salvation had he but the eyes of faith to see. Running! Leaping!—Slipping and sliding!—Leaving in his wake even those lesser gifts, those side products of God’s Holy Mercy and His righteous chastisement of Man’s misguided pride. Man missed, brothers and sisters, missed in this flight the lesser good things: the huge wild boars, those great, great, great granddaddies of our greatest pigs, that in the fury of the eruption were now succulent and toasted to a turn by the unleashed volcanic fire. Ran past these most recent wonders, yes; and past whole sizzling carcasses of roasted beeves, and great birds covered with hair instead of feathers, for in those days nothing could look like angels’ wings. Yes, and moose that stood some forty hands high, with noble countenance, a true and nobly cooked creature of God. But on Man ran, past rare cooked bears; those truly rare bears that made their lesser descendants of the far north, the Grizzlies, the great Kodiaks, the great Brown bears—yes, and the white Polar bears, even the Cinnamon bears, made all them bears seem like the pygmies of darkest Africa … Ah yes! Yes, yes-es-yes! Do-you-love? Doyoulove!

  (Preach, Bliss. That’s the true Eatmore now. Go get it!)

  I say that Man ran! Ran in his headlong plunge, in hectic heathen flight, stumbling over acres of roasted swans and barbecued turkeys and great geese—yes, Lawd!—Great geese that fed on wild butternuts and barley grain—imagine, ignored and lost for centuries now but then there they were, cooked in that uncurbed fire. Yes, and God laughing at the godly joke of prideful, ignorant, limited Man.

  For, Dearly Beloved, Man in his ignorant pride had called for that for which in his God-like ambition he was unwilling to suffer. So, having asked and received that for which he asked, he fled with ears that heard not and eyes that saw not, ran screaming away from this second Eden of fire, headlong to the highest hill he fled. He leaped out of there like popcorn roasting on a red-hot stove and with his nose dead to all that scrumptious feast God had spread for his enjoyment.

  Now what should he have done? What was Man’s mistake?

  HE SHOULD have asked for WOOD! That’s what he should have asked! Because give a man wood, and he will learn to make his own fire! But, Man-like, he asked for a gift too hot to handle. Yes indeed! So he bolted. He ran. He fled headlong to the highest hill. Yelling, Fire! Fire! Fire, Lawd! Then gradually he realized what had happened and Man yelled Ho! This hot stuff that’s nipping me on the heels, this is fire!

  This wind that’s scorched my shoulder is fire!

  This heat that’s singeing my head bald is fire!

  Yes! He yelled it so strong that God remembered in his infinite and mysterious mercy that now was not His time to destroy the world by fire and sent down the water from the rocks.

  Yes, brothers and sisters, He sent down the cooling water. He unleashed the soothing spring within the heart of stones that lay where the wild red roses grew. Up there, up yonder, where the bees labored to bright humming music as they stored their golden grub. And He, God the Father, did give Man another chance. Ah, yes.

  For although in his pride, Man had sacrificed whole generations of forests and beasts and birds, and though in the terror of his pride he had raised himself up a few inches higher than the animals, he was moved, despite himself he was moved a bit closer, I say, to the image of what God intended him to be. Yes. And though no savior in heathen form had yet come to redeem him, God in His infinite mercy looked down upon His handiwork, looked down at the clouds of smoke, looked down upon the charred vegetation, looked down at the fire-shrunk seas with all that broiled fish, looked down at the bleached bones piled past where Man had fled, looked down upon all that sizzling meat and natural gravy, parched barley, boiled roasting-ears and mustard greens … Yes, He looked down and said, Even so, My work is good; Man knows now that he can’t handle unleashed hell without suffering self-destruction! The time will come to pass when he shall forget it, but now I will give him a few billion years to grow, to shape his hand with toil and to discover a use of his marvelous thumb for other than pushing out the eyes of his fellow-man. After all, I put a heap of work into that thumb of Man. And he’ll learn that his index and second fingers are meant for something other than playing the game of stink-finger and pulling his bow. I’ll give him time, time to surrender the ways of the beasts to the beasts, time to raise himself upright and arch his back and swing his legs. I shall give him time to learn to look straight forward and unblinking out of his eyes and to study the movement of the constellations without disrespecting My essential mystery, My prerogatives, My decisions. Yes, it will take him a few billion years before he’ll discover pork chops and perhaps two more for fried chicken. It will take him time and much effort to learn the taste of roast beef and baked yams and those apples he shall name Mack and Tosh.

  Until then he will only know charred flesh and a little accidental beer. And if he ever learns to take the stings along with the sweets, I’ll let him have some of that honey those bees he’s busy slapping at down there are storing up right beside him. He’ll come to love it even as much as the burly bears and long before he learns about bear steaks and kidneys, and he’ll take it from the hollow trees and learn to take his stings and like it. Yes, and I’ll give him a little maize and breadfruit and maybe a squash or two. And it won’t be long before he’ll live in caves and then he’ll start to worshipping me in magic and conjuration and a lot of other ignorant foolishness and confusion. But in time Man will learn to eat like a man and he’ll rule his herds and he’ll move slowly toward the birth of Time.

  Oh yes, but now Man is but a babe, hardly more than a cub like the children of the bear or the wolf. And like these he soils himself. It will take him a few million years of a few seconds of My time. I shall watch and suffer with him as he goe
s his arduous way, and meanwhile I shall give him wood and I shall send him down a ray of light, send him a bright prismatic refraction of a drop of crystal dew and then onto a piece of dry wood and Man will in time see the divine spark and have his fire.

  Give a man wood, and he will learn—to make fire. Give him a new land and he will learn to live My way.

  Yes, and it took all that time, brothers and sisters. Man went on starving amid plenty; thirsting in the midst of all that knowledge being spelled out for him by the birds, the beasts, the lilies of the field. But in time the smoke cleared away and it all came to pass.…

  The Senator’s voice was silent now, his eyes closed.

  Hickman shook his head and smiled. Amen, Bliss. You haven’t forgot your Eatmore and you haven’t forgot the holy laughter. I like that about the gift of roast pork, though I think Eatmo’ used to throw in some pigs’ feet and lamb chops. Yes, and those luscious chitterlings. And when he did he could make them cry over the sad fact of Man’s missing such good grub out of his proud ignorance. He was a joke to some but a smart wordman just the same. He knew the fundamental fact, that you must speak to the gut as well as to the heart and brain. Then they’ve got to hear you one way or the other. Eatmore did all that, sure, but it’s been a long time and you smoothed up his style a bit. Ole Eatmore had mush in his mouth too, till he worked up to the hollering stage, then it didn’t really matter what he said because by then he was shaking them like the Southern Pacific doing a highball. By the way, you were signifying about that new state, weren’t you?

  Yes, but they were so surprised by the sermon that they forgot they were in a new state.

  Bliss, the old man laughed, that was a pretty mean thing you did, springing Eatmore on those folks. But the last part was true. Even here in this aggravating land God gave Man a new chance. In fact, He gave him forty-eight new chances. And He’s even left enough land for a few more—though I think by now the Lord’s disgusted.… Well, don’t let me get started on that; but how about Greater Calvary, Bliss, was that you too?