Juneteenth

by Ralph Ellison

  No, no, no, she’s my mother, my mind said and I lay rigid, listening.

  I don’t know, Body’s mother said, Maybe she is and maybe she ain’t. Maybe she just knew she could get away with it and went on and did it.

  You mean she started to do it but she didn’t count on us women.… Neither on the outrage of the Lord.

  That’s right, she didn’t take the child but she busted up the meeting. She still got no regard for other folks but this time she went too far. She’s strong-willed even for a high-tone white woman, girl. Let me tell you something! One day I was out there to see Irene and just as I got around in the back I heard all this shooting and yelling and what do I see? Over there down where the grass runs down to the lake she’s got a half-dozen or so little black boys and has them pitching up those round things rich white folks shoot at all the time when they ain’t shooting partridges or doves, and girl, I tell you, it was something to see. Girl, she’s got them standing in a big half-circle and she’s yelling at first one and then the other to sail those things up in the air and bang! she’s shooting them down just—

  WHO? NOT THOSE CHILDREN?

  No, noo, girl, those clay birds.

  Thank goodness, that’s what I thought, but with her you can’t be too sure.

  I know, Body’s mother said. But girl, you never saw such a sight. She’s yelling and those little boys are raring back and flinging those round black things into the air with all their might, and her dancing from side to side with that shotgun and busting them to dust. And as fast as she empties one gun here comes another little boy running up with a fresh one all loaded, and bang! bang! bang! she’s busting ’em again. I stood there with my mouth open trying to take it all in and looking to see if Body was amongst those boys—thank God he wasn’t, because the way she looked, with her red hair all wild and wearing pants and some kind of coat with leather patches on the shoulder she’s liable to—

  Girl, Mrs. Proctor said, that was a shooting jacket.

  A shooting jacket?

  Mrs. Proctor laughed a high falsetto ripple. Why sho, girl. You know these rich folks have a different set of clothes for everything they do. They have tea gowns for drinking tea, cocktail dresses for drinking their gin and whiskey, ball gowns for doing what they call dancing. Yes! And riding habits, then they got their riding habits on—that’s what she was wearing when she almost run me down. Then they even have dressing gowns for wearing when they’re putting on their other clothes.

  Oh yes? Body’s mother said. Well, I guess they have to have something to do to take up all the time they have on their hands. But tell me something—

  What’s that?

  What was the red thing she was wearing when she tried to take our little preacher?

  Well, Mrs. Proctor said, without making a joke about something religious I’d say maybe it was a maternity dress….

  If it was, Body’s mother said, she was dressed for the wrong occasion. She surely was. Anyway, girl, she was really shooting that day. Jesse James couldn’t have done no better. She ain’t hardly missed a one. And if one of those children didn’t pitch in time to suit her she’d cuss him for a little gingersnap bastard and the rest of them would just laugh. Oh, but it made me mad, hearing her abuse those children like that. Not that it seemed to bother those little boys though. In fact, when she cussed one of ’em he just laughed and sassed her right back. Said, Miss Lor, don’t come blaming me ’cause you cain’t shoot a shotgun. You missed that bird a country mile….

  And what happened then? Mrs. Proctor said.

  Something crazy just like always with her. She started to laughing like a panther and gave out one of those rebel yells. Said, Enloe, you are a sassy little blue-gummed bastard, but if I miss the next twenty birds I’ll have Alberta freeze you a gallon of ice cream!

  Now you see what I mean: That woman is dangerous! You take that boy Enloe, she oughtn’t to treat him that way, because he’s liable to pull that with some other white woman and git hisself kilt.

  You’re right, and somebody had better speak to his mama about him. And that’s the truth. Only when children reach the size of those boys they usually know when they dealing with a fool. But it’s her I’m worried about. Anybody who plays around with the Lord’s work that way is heading for trouble. In fact, that po’ woman is already in trouble and I been thinking a heap about what she did. But did it occur to you that she might really be Revern’ Bliss’s mother?

  Who, a child like that, girl? No!

  She said he was hers, didn’t she?

  She surely did, wasn’t I listening like everybody else? But how is a woman like that going to be his mamma? It would’ve made more sense if she’d a claimed Jack Johnson and all those white wives of his and his uncles and cousins too. How she going to be that child’s mamma even in a dream I simply can’t see.

  How! Are you asking me? Man is born of woman, and skinny as she is she still appears to have all the equipment. Besides, does anybody know who his mamma is?

  No, they don’t; less’n it’s Revern’ and he ain’t said. But remember now, Revern’ brought that child here with him so he can’t be from around here anywhere….

  And how do you know that? Half the devilment in this country caint be located on account of it’s somewhere in between black and white and covered up with bedclothes in the dark.

  That’s the truth—but, girl, Revern’ ain’t no fool! He wouldn’t bring that baby back here if that was the case. Not even if he’d found him in a grocery basket with a note saying the child was a present from Pharaoh’s favorite daughter. Besides, that woman would have to either be drunk or out of her mind to claim him anyway. And you know that while a white man might recognize his black bastards once in a while, if they turn out white enough, and if he’s stuck tight enough to the mother, he might even send them up north to go to school—but who in this lowdown South ever heard of a white woman claiming anything a black man had something to do with?

  Yes, that’s true, Mrs. Proctor said, ’cept he don’t show no sign in his skin or hair or features, only in his talking. But this here ain’t no ordinary chile and everything has its first time to happen. Besides, there’s quite a few of them who have turned their heads and made their sweet-talking motions as if to say, “Come on, mister nigger, here’s my peaches—you can shake my tree if you man enough or crazy enough to take the consequences.” And as you well know, some of ours is both man enough and crazy enough and prideless enough to take hold to the branch and swing the dickens out of it—even knowing that if they git caught she gon’ scream and swear he stole her.

  Yes, I know all that. And as Mamma told me long ago, all those who cries denied in darkness ain’t black, and a woman’s lot is a woman’s lot from the commencing of her flow on. It sure does make you wonder. Still, a woman like that is apt to do what she did just for the notoriety and the scandal for the rest of her own folks. But what can you expect from somebody who got started out wrong like she done?

  What you mean? Mrs. Proctor said. Who?

  Their voices fell and I strained to hear, finally rolling over softly and over again, until I was directly beneath them, hearing:

  … And Irene told me her ownself that whenever Miss Lorelli comes around, which ain’t too regular, she screams like a cat in heat. Says she has such pain they almost have to tie her to the bedposts and keep the ice packs on her belly all the time. Irene said it’s worse than somebody birthing triplets.

  Talking about the curse, she’s got a real curse, Mrs. Proctor said. That woman is damned!

  Ain’t it the truth; Irene said it’s really something to witness. Said that the first time it come down on her the poor child was tomboying around up on top of the grape arbor….

  Well, I hope she was prepared, Mrs. Proctor said.

  Prepared my foot! Is a sow prepared? Is a blue-tick bitch? Irene said that it was at a time when her mamma was entertaining some ladies on the lawn too, but instead of being there learning how to entertain like any othe
r young girl would’ve been, this Miss Lorelli is so uncontrollable she’s up there on that grape arbor climbing around! Well suh, Irene said it was like a dam bursting or something. The po’ thing come tumbling out of that tree like a scalded cat and come running across the lawn, straight to where Irene was serving those ladies. She almost knocked over the teacart and with it all over her hands and all. Irene said when she realized what was happening she got so mad at the child’s mamma that she dropped a whole tray of fine china. Said she’d wanted to prepare the chile for what all the signs—her birthday, the calendar, and the sign of the moon—all of them. Said she was fixing to happen soon, but no, the mamma was so jealous and so vain about her age that she wouldn’t let Irene tell the child a thing. She was going to do it herself when she got ready.

  As though nature was going to wait on her, Mrs. Proctor said.

  Well, girl, it didn’t. Irene said it come right on schedule, right up on that grape arbor.

  Girl, that’s enough to make anybody act peculiar.

  Are you telling me? So there it was, Irene has to stop serving and teach the child right then and there and she said she didn’t bite her tongue in telling her either. Told her in plain language right there in front of all those fine ladies.

  Oh no, girl! You must be yeasting this mess!

  She sho did, told her all about her womanhood and about boys while she snatched off her apron and wrapped it around the child and carried her upstairs and went to work on her. Poor thing, she thought she was bleeding to death and giving birth, all at the same time. She had it all mixed up, poor thing. Irene said she asked her where her baby was and everything and Irene had some time calming her. Can you imagine that, having to fall out of a tree in order to pick up your woman’s burden?

  That woman shoulda been whupped for doing that to that child, Mrs. Proctor said. One woman acts a fool out of her vanity and pride and ignorance. So now everybody has to suffer for it. That woman was just plain ignorant! Yes, that’s what it is. Whenever I think about it I remember what the monkey said when the man cut off his tail with the lawn mower. Poor monkey just looked at his tail laying there in the grass, and tears came to his eyes, and he shook his head and said: My people, my people!…

  CHAPTER 11

  Bliss, Daddy Hickman said, you keep asking me to take you even though I keep telling you that folks don’t like to see preachers hanging around a place they think of as one of the Devil’s hangouts. All right, so now I’m going to take you so you can see for yourself, and you’ll see that it’s just like the world—full of sinners and with a few believers, a few good folks and a heap of mixed-up and bad ones. Yes, and beyond the fun of sitting there looking at the marvelous happenings in the dark, there’s all the same old snares and delusions we have to sidestep every day right out here in the bright sunlight. Because you see, Bliss, it’s not so much a matter of where you are as what you see….

  Yes, sir, I said.

  No, don’t agree too quick, Bliss; wait until you understand. But like old Luke says, “The light of the body is the eye,” so you want to be careful that the light that your eye lets into you isn’t the light of darkness. I mean you always have to be sure that you see what you’re looking at.

  I nodded my head, watching his eyes. I could see him studying the Word as he talked.

  That’s right, he said, many times you will have to preach goodness out of badness, little boy. Yes, and hope out of hopelessness. God made the world and gave it a chance, and when it’s bad we have to remember that it’s still his plan for it to be redeemed through the striving of a few good women and men. So come on, we’re going to walk down there and take us a good look. We’re going to do it in style too, with some popcorn and peanuts and some Cracker Jacks and candy bars. You might as well get some idea of what you will have to fight against, because I don’t believe you can really lead folks if you never have to face up to any of the temptations they face. Christ had to put on the flesh, Bliss; you understand? And I was a sinner man too.

  Yes, sir.

  But wait here a second, Bliss—

  He looked deep into me and I felt a tremor. Sir? I said.

  His eyes became sad as he hesitated, then:

  Now don’t think this is going to become a habit, Bliss. I know you’re going to like being in there looking in the dark, even though you have to climb up those filthy pissy stairs to get there. Oh yes, you’re going to enjoy looking at the pictures just about like I used to enjoy being up there on the bandstand playing music for folks to enjoy themselves to back there in my olden days. Yes, you’re going to like looking at the pictures, most likely you’re going to be bug-eyed with the excitement; but I’m telling you right now that it’s one of those pleasures we preachers have to leave to other folks. And I’ll tell you why, little preacher: Too much looking at those pictures is going to have a lot of folks raising a crop of confusion. The show hasn’t been here but a short while but I can see it coming already. Because folks are getting themselves mixed up with those shadows spread out against the wall, with people that are no more than some smoke drifting up from hell or pouring out of a bottle. So they lose touch with who they’re supposed to be, Bliss. They forget to be what the Book tells them they were meant to be—and that’s in God’s own image. The preacher’s job, his main job, Bliss, is to help folks find themselves and to keep reminding them to remember who they are. So you see, those pictures can go against our purpose. If they look at those shows too often they’ll get all mixed up with so many of those shadows that they’ll lose their way. They won’t know who they are is what I mean. So you see, if we start going to the picture-show all the time, folks will think we’re going to the devil and backsliding from what we preach. We have to set them an example, Bliss; so we’re going in there for the first and last time—

  Now don’t look at me like that; I know it seems like every time a preacher turns around he has to give up something else. But, Bliss, there’s a benefit in it too; because pretty soon he develops control over himself. Self-control’s the word. That’s right, you develop discipline, and you live so you can feel the grain of things and you learn to taste the sweet that’s in the bitter and you live more deeply and earnestly. A man doesn’t live just one life, Bliss, he lives more lives than a cat—only he doesn’t like to face it because the bitter is there nine times nine, right along with the sweet he wants all the time. So he forgets.

  You too, Daddy Hickman? I said. Do you have more than one life?

  He smiled down at me.

  Me too, Bliss, he said. Me too.

  But how? How can they have nine lives and not know it?

  They forget and wander on, Bliss. But let’s us leave this now and go face up to those shadows. Maybe the Master meant for them to show us some of the many sides of the old good-bad. I know, Bliss, you don’t understand that, but you will, boy, you will….

  Ah, but by then Body had brought the news:

  We were sitting on the porch-edge eating peanuts—goober peas, as Deacon Wilhite called them. Discarded hulls littered the ground below the contented dangling of our feet. We were barefoot, I was allowed to be that day, and in overalls. A flock of sparrows rested on the strands of electric wire across the unpaved road, darting down from time to time and sending up little clouds of dust. Body was humming as he chewed. Except in church we were always together, he was my right hand. Body said,

  Bliss, you see that thing they all talking about?

  Who? I said.

  All the kids. You see it yet?

  Seen what, Body. Why do you always start preaching before you state your text?

  You the preacher, ain’t you? Look like to me a preacher’d know what a man is talking about.

  I looked at him hard and he grinned, trying to keep his face straight.

  You ought to know where all the words come from, even before anybody starts to talk. Preachers is suppose to see visions and things, ain’t they?

  Now don’t start playing around with God’s work, I w
arned him. Like Daddy Hickman says, Everybody has to die and pay their bills—Have I seen what?

  That thing Sammy Leaderman’s got to play with. It makes pictures.

  No, I haven’t. You mean a Kodak? I’ve seen one of those. Daddy Hickman has him a big one. Made like a box with little pearly glass windows in it and one round one, like an eye.

  He shook his head. I put down the peanuts and fitted my fingers together. I said,

  Here’s the roof,

  Here’s the steeple,

  Open it up and see

  the people.

  Body sneered. That steeple’s got dirt under the fingernails. Why don’t you wash your hands? You think I’m a baby? Lots of folks have those Kodaks, this here is something different.

  Well, what is it then?

  I don’t rightly know, he said. I just heard some guys talking about it down at the liberty stable. But they was white and I didn’t want to ask them any questions. I rather be ignorant than ask them anything.

  So why didn’t you ask Sammy, he ain’t white.

  Naw, he a Jew; but he looks white, and sometimes he acts white too. ’Specially when he’s with some of those white guys.

  He always talks to me, I said, calls me rabbi.

  The doubt came into Body’s eyes like a thin cloud. He frowned. He was my right hand and I could feel his doubt.

  You look white too, Rev. Why you let him call you “rabbit”?

  I looked away, toward the dusting birds.

  Body, can’t you hear? I said he calls me rabbi.

  Oh, it sounds like my little brother trying to spell rabbit. Reabbi-tee, rabbit, he say. He a fool, man.

  He sure is, he’s your brother, ain’t he?

  Don’t start that now, you a preacher, remember? How come you let Sammy play the dozens with you, you want to be white?

  No! And Sammy ain’t white and that’s not playing the dozens, it means preacher in Jewish talk. Quit acting a fool. What kind of toy is this you heard them talking about?