Invisible Man

by Ralph Ellison

  He wagged his round red head. “Oh, no, brother; you’re mistaken and you’re sentimental. You’re not like them. Perhaps you were, but you’re not any longer. Otherwise you’d never have made that speech. Perhaps you were, but that’s all past, dead. You might not recognize it just now, but that part of you is dead! You have not completely shed that self, that old agrarian self, but it’s dead and you will throw it off completely and emerge something new. History has been born in your brain.”

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never lived on a farm and I didn’t study agriculture, but I do know why I made that speech.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because I was upset over seeing those old folks put out in the street, that’s why. I don’t care what you call it, I was angry”

  He shrugged. “Let’s not argue about it,” he said. “I’ve a notion you could do it again. Perhaps you would be interested in working for us.”

  “For whom?” I asked, suddenly excited. What was he trying to do?

  “With our organization. We need a good speaker for this district. Someone who can articulate the grievances of the people,” he said.

  “But nobody cares about their grievances,” I said. “Suppose they were articulated, who would listen or care?”

  “They exist,” he said with his knowing smile. “They exist, and when the cry of protest is sounded, there are those who will hear it and act.”

  There was something mysterious and smug in the way he spoke, as though he had everything figured out—whatever he was talking about. Look at this very most certain white man, I thought. He didn’t even realize that I was afraid and yet he speaks so confidently. I got to my feet, “I’m sorry,” I said, “I have a job and I’m not interested in anyone’s grievances but my own …”

  “But you were concerned with that old couple,” he said with narrowed eyes. “Are they relatives of yours?”

  “Sure, we’re both black,” I said, beginning to laugh.

  He smiled, his eyes intense upon my face.

  “Seriously, are they your relatives?”

  “Sure, we were burned in the same oven,” I said.

  The effect was electric. “Why do you fellows always talk in terms of race!” he snapped, his eyes blazing.

  “What other terms do you know?” I said, puzzled. “You think I would have been around there if they had been white?”

  He threw up his hands and laughed. “Let’s not argue that now,” he said. “You were very effective in helping them. I can’t believe that you’re such an individualist as you pretend. You appeared to be a man who knew his duty toward the people and performed it well. Whatever you think about it personally, you were a spokesman for your people and you have a duty to work in their interest.”

  He was too complicated for me. “Look, my friend, thanks for the coffee and cake. I have no more interest in those old folks than in your job. I wanted to make a speech. I like to make speeches. What happened afterwards is a mystery to me. You picked the wrong man. You should have stopped one of those fellows who started yelling at the policeman …” I stood up.

  “Wait a second,” he said, producing a piece of envelope and scribbling something. “You might change your mind. As for those others, I know them already.”

  I looked at the white paper in his extended hand.

  “You are wise to distrust me,” he said. “You don’t know who I am and you don’t trust me. That’s as it should be. But I don’t give up hope, because some day you will look me up on your own accord and it will be different, for then you’ll be ready. Just call this number and ask for Brother Jack. You needn’t give me your name, just mention our conversation. Should you decide tonight, give me a ring about eight.”

  “Okay,” I said, taking the paper. “I doubt if I’ll ever need it, but who knows?”

  “Well, you think about it, brother. Times are grave and you seem very indignant.”

  “I only wanted to make a speech,” I said again.

  “But you were indignant. And sometimes the difference between individual and organized indignation is the difference between criminal and political action,” he said.

  I laughed, “So what? I’m neither a criminal nor a politician, brother. So you picked the wrong man. But thanks again for the coffee and cheese cake—brother.”

  I left him sitting with a quiet smile on his face. When I had crossed the avenue I looked through the glass, seeing him still there, and it occurred to me that he was the same man who had followed me over the roof. He hadn’t been chasing me at all but only going in the same direction. I hadn’t understood much of what he had said, only that he had spoken with great confidence. Anyway, I had been the better runner. Perhaps it was a trick of some kind. He gave the impression that he understood much and spoke out of a knowledge far deeper than appeared on the surface of his words. Perhaps it was only the knowledge that he had escaped by the same route as I. But what had he to fear? I had made the speech, not he. That girl in the apartment had said that the longer I remained unseen the longer I’d be effective, which didn’t make much sense either. But perhaps that was why he had run. He wanted to remain unseen and effective. Effective at what? No doubt he was laughing at me. I must have looked silly hurtling across the roofs, and like a black-face comedian shrinking from a ghost when the white pigeons shot up around me. To hell with him. He needn’t be so smug, I knew of some things he didn’t know. Let him find someone else. He only wanted to use me for something. Everybody wanted to use you for some purpose. Why should he want me as a speaker? Let him make his own speeches. I headed for home, feeling a growing satisfaction that I had dismissed him so completely.

  It was turning dark now, and much colder. Colder than I had ever known. What on earth was it, I mused, bending my head to the wind, that made us leave the warm, mild weather of home for all this cold, and never to return, if not something worth hoping for, freezing for, even being evicted for? I felt sad. An old woman passed, bent down with two shopping bags, her eyes upon the slushy walk, and I thought of the old couple at the eviction. How had it ended and where were they now? What an awful emotion. What had he called it—a death on the city pavements? How often did such things occur? And what would he say of Mary? She was far from dead, or of being ground to bits by New York. Hell, she knew very well how to live here, much better than I with my college training—training! Bledsoing, that was the term. And I was the one being ground up, not Mary. Thinking of her made me feel better. I couldn’t imagine Mary being as helpless as the old woman at the eviction, and by the time I reached the apartment I had begun to lose my depression.

  Chapter fourteen

  The odor of Mary’s

  cabbage changed my mind. Standing engulfed in the fumes filling the hall, it struck me that I couldn’t realistically reject the job. Cabbage was always a depressing reminder of the leaner years of my childhood and I suffered 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 red-headed 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 called? I hadn’t inquired. What a fool! At least I should have learned what I was turning down, although I distrusted the red-headed 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 realized 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 surprise 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 subway 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 sound-proof 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 Jac
k 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?”