Pop said, “You know, I knew Echol Cole.”
Malcolm said, “Who?”
“Him and Robert Walker, they was the two men got crushed up in the back of one of them trucks, reason we’s on strike. Never knew Walker, but I knowed Cole, at least a little. We was on the same crew awhile. Nice guy. Good worker. And what happened to him and Walker…”
His voice fluttered. He fell silent.
Malcolm said, “I’m sorry, Pop.” He didn’t know why he said it. He wasn’t even sure what he was sorry for.
“We told ’em about them trucks,” said Pop after a moment, his voice leaden now with bitterness. “Told ’em they wasn’t safe. But they ain’t cared. Now them men’s dead, and they still don’t care. Ten years from now, 20 years from now, ain’t nobody gon’ even remember Echol’s name. Ain’t even gon’ remember he was here. That ain’t right. But that’s the way it is, ain’t it?”
Malcolm let it breathe for a moment. Then he said, “Yeah, Pop. That’s the way it is.” He wondered where this was going.
His father stopped and regarded him closely. Then he said, “You know, sometime it get to where you been takin’ it so long, you start thinkin’ that’s the way it supposed to be. You start thinkin’ you s’pose to take it. Like that’s the whole reason God put you on the Earth. But that ain’t right. Ain’t no one put here for that. And I guess I just come to realize that now, with Echol dead and Walker dead and people not givin’ a damn. I guess I done just got to the point, I’m tired of takin’ it, son. You understand that?”
His eyes searched Malcolm. Malcolm nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I do.”
“Okay, then,” said Pop, “okay. Let’s go home.”
And they did.
The following afternoon, Melvin came by to pick Malcolm up for the promised job interview. Malcolm threw on a windbreaker and rode with Melvin over to the hotel on the river. There he stood, mute as a block of wood, next to Melvin as Melvin spoke to a white man he introduced respectfully as “Mr. Rupert Pruitt,” promising what a good worker Malcolm would be. And Pruitt, bald and fat as a baby, rolled a cigar stub around in his mouth as he sat there in his booth in the darkened hotel lounge, a shot glass of some brown liquid on the table before him, appraising Malcolm. Abruptly, the man’s mouth opened in something that was not quite a smile, revealing small teeth the color of tobacco. “Well, now,” he said, cutting Melvin off in mid-sentence, “if Melvin Cotter willin’ to stand for you, you must be somethin’ special. Melvin’s one of our best workers, don’t you know? Been here only a year now and been named employee of the month four times.”
Malcolm saw Melvin grinning under the praise. Pulling the cigar from his mouth, Pruitt braced himself on the table and worked his bulk up out of the booth. “I swear,” he said, clapping Melvin hard on the shoulder, “this boy do so much around here, and do it so well, sometimes I think he’s after my job.”
Melvin ducked his head, still grinning. It made him look like a ten-year-old. “No, sir,” he said. “It ain’t like that. But my pappy always told me, any job worth doin’ worth doin’ right.”
“Your pappy a smart man,” said the white man, his hand still on Melvin’s shoulder. He shot a calculating glance at Malcolm. “So,” he said, “you think he’d be a good hire, do you?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Well, then, that’s all I need to hear. You two go see Della in the office. She’ll show you all the paperwork. We gon’ put you in maintenance, son. We can always use a good cleanup man. That be all right with you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Malcolm. “That would be fine. Do you know—”
He stopped when he realized Pruitt had stopped listening. The white man’s attention had gone to a pretty young sister who was coming their way, balancing a tray of empty drink glasses. Malcolm stood aside to let her pass, but Pruitt stepped forward so that she would have to go around him, then stuck out a thumb and forefinger and grabbed himself a chunk of her backside as she did. The sister yelped. He laughed.
“Better get a move on there, gal,” he told her. The woman moved away at a quickstep, glancing once over her shoulder. Malcolm felt paralyzed by anger and confusion, by the sudden, urgent sense that he could not just let this pass, that he ought to do something. But had no idea what it was. Pruitt, replacing the cigar in his mouth, noticed none of this. He followed the sister with an appreciative stare. After a moment, his gaze returned to Malcolm and Melvin and he started a little, as if surprised to find them still standing there.
He made a shooing motion. “You boys run on and talk to Della,” he said. And he began the work of wedging himself back into the booth to finish his drink.
Malcolm, still stunned by the collision of his own emotions, followed numbly as his best friend obeyed the white man’s command. And still, Melvin was grinning. “Told you I could get you on,” he said, triumph brimming in his voice like coffee in a cup.
Malcolm stared. It was as if he had never seen Melvin Cotter before.
“What about the sister?” he asked.
“Lynette? What about her?” Then he realized. “Oh, that,” he said. He shrugged. “Yeah, Mr. Pruitt a little free with his hands sometime.”
“More than a little.”
“Yeah, but what you gon’ do about it?” he asked. “That’s just the way it is, nigger. You know that well as I do.”
Malcolm glanced back. The woman, Lynette, was at the bar, putting fresh drink glasses on her tray. Her brow was furrowed with concentration, as if she were focused on this task in front of her and nothing else. Pruitt was reading his newspaper, similarly oblivious. It was as if Malcolm were the only one who felt the pull of a…wrongness here. He stared again at Rupert Pruitt and felt a sudden need to rush back in there, haul the fat honky up by his collar, and beat him upside the head with his own shot glass. He could see himself doing this. He could feel the flat smack of his fist against Pruitt’s jowls. The need was so strong it made Malcolm tremble.
“You all right?” Melvin was watching him.
“I’m fine,” said Malcolm.
But he wasn’t. He knew it now, knew it for sure. He had left something behind on Main Street and still, he didn’t even know what it was.
“You all right there, boy?”
This was his father, two days later, watching him over the kitchen table.
“I’m fine,” said Malcolm.
“Don’t look fine.”
“Just a headache.”
“You done had a headache ever since you got home, then, ’cause you ain’t been right since then.”
“Pop, can you just drop it?”
His father was dressed to go out. He was wearing his good clothes: a suit coat from Goodwill that he’d had for ten years and a pair of black slacks shiny in the seat from years of use. Behind him, leaning against a wall, was a picket sign. Four bright red words took up the face of it.
I AM A MAN, it said.
This was the new sign the men were walking with. It was their response to what had happened Friday, to being treated like kitchen pests on the main street of their own city. Something about it made Malcolm sad.
I AM A MAN.
He knew they intended it as a dramatic assertion of dignity and self. But there was, he thought, something deeply humiliating in the very fact of those words needing to be said. This was what Pop meant by not taking it anymore? Malcolm pitied him.
“Heard you done changed your name,” Pop said now.
It took Malcolm by surprise. “Who told you?”
“Never mind.”
“Melvin,” said Malcolm. The answer, now that he thought of it, was obvious. “He told you when I went to get my coat for the interview.”
“He might of let it slip. That ain’t what’s important. Why ain’t you told me?”
“Knew you wouldn’t like it.”
Pop grunted. “So… ‘Malcolm,’ now? That’s your name?”
Malcolm nodded. “Malcolm Toussaint,” he said. “Malcolm Mar
cus Toussaint.”
“Changed the whole thing.”
“Yes,” said Malcolm.
“You done this legally, did you? Filed court papers and everything?”
“Yes.”
“So ain’t nothin’ I can do about it, I guess, ’cause you of age.”
Malcolm swallowed. “No,” he said. “Nothing you can do.”
“Just like that Cassius Clay done,” said Pop. “Guess that’s what all you young ones is doing now. Guess I should just be glad you ain’t changed your name to Muhammad like he done.” He pronounced it MO-hammed. “Or X,” he added, “like that black Muslim fella you like so much. Ain’t never understood that for a name. Just X.”
Malcolm nodded. “Well, I did get part of my name from him. Not the X, but the Malcolm.”
“Never knew you ain’t liked your old name.”
“I liked it fine,” said Malcolm, a soft lie to spare his father’s feelings. “But the new name, it’s…” He paused then, groping for words. “It’s who I am,” he finally said.
“Who you are.” The tone revealed nothing.
“Yes.”
Pop extended his hand. “Well, I’m Mozell Uriah Wilson, Mr. Toussaint. Pleased to meet you.”
“Pop…”
“Thought you was Mozell Uriah Wilson, Jr., Mr. Toussaint, but I guess I’s wrong about that. Wrong about a lot of things, I expect. You gon’ shake my hand, Mr. Toussaint, or you gon’ leave it hangin’?”
With a sigh, Malcolm clasped his father’s cool, rough hand and gave it a single, perfunctory pump. “Pop,” he said, “this ain’t about you and me, man.”
“No? Then what it’s about, then?”
“I just wanted a name that said something.”
“And what your name say, Junie?”
Again, Malcolm sighed. “Revolution, Pop. It says revolution.”
“Revolution.”
It wasn’t a question, but Malcolm answered it anyway. “Yes, sir.” And he explained to his father, as he had explained to Melvin, the significance of the three names.
His father regarded him dully as he spoke. When Malcolm was finished, he simply repeated the word. “Revolution.”
Something in Pop’s voice threw a challenge, made the word sound… foolish. “Yes, sir,” said Malcolm. “Revolution.” He spoke the word in order to reclaim it from his father’s mockery.
“You expectin’ to fight a revolution here, son?”
“Black people need to do something more than just march, Pop.” Malcolm saw something wounded settle into his father’s gaze when he said it. “I’m just trying to say I want things to be different in my life,” he explained.
“Different how?”
Malcolm didn’t respond.
“Different than they was in my life, is that it?”
Malcolm didn’t respond.
Pop smiled. It was the saddest smile Malcolm had ever seen. “I don’t right blame you for that,” he said.
It was the last thing Malcolm would have expected. He would have expected Pop to yell. He would have expected Pop to curse. But this sad smile and quiet admission? No. He would not have expected that. Not in a million years.
There was a moment when neither of them spoke. Then Pop shrugged and said, “I been callin’ you Junie your whole life. Be hard to stop now. I’m still gon’ call you Junie, if that’s all right.”
It was, Malcolm realized with a start, not a declaration. Pop was asking for permission. Malcolm felt something shifting in the air between them. He felt something change.
“Yeah, Pop,” he said. “That’d be fine.”
His father looked away. “I know things ain’t never been…good between us,” he said.
“Pop…”
“I expect you blame me for that. I expect you got your reasons. So I probably got that comin’, you keepin’ that from me. And you right. Once upon a time, and not too long ago, mind, I’d of been mad, all right. Mad as a hive of bees.”
He paused, still looking away. Malcolm waited.
“But I wasn’t never mad at you, son. Even when I thought I was. Seem like just recently here, first time in my life, I done finally figured out who I really been mad at all along.”
Now he looked at Malcolm, held his eyes for a long, precious moment. He said, “Fight your revolution, Junie. I’ll fight mine, best I can. Marching.” A glance at the clock on the wall. “I got to go.”
And he hauled himself out of the chair, the tatty sport coat hanging loose on his wiry frame. He had never had a suit that fit, thought Malcolm distractedly.
Pop picked up the sign. He put on his hat. “I see you, later,” he said. And he walked out the door, the placard tucked under his arm, its sad, defiant declaration visible for the world to see.
I AM A MAN.
Malcolm sat there a moment after his father was gone. Then he went out to the porch. Nanny Parker was sitting on her own porch drinking a cup of coffee, watching the world pass. She waved to him. “How you and Mozell gettin’ along?” she asked.
“Doin’ fine,” he called.
He took a seat on the steps, knees drawn up, something unsettled rattling inside him.
Wasn’t never mad at you, son. Even when I thought I was.
And the hell of it was, Malcolm believed him. He didn’t know why, but somehow, he did.
Never mad at you, son…
No. Mad at himself. Mad at what white folks forced him to be.
Forced him before he even knew. Forced him from the moment he was born, the youngest child on a tobacco farm owned by a white man named Lem Johnston, his mother a sickly, exhausted woman who died on him before he was out of diapers and his father a beat-down remnant of a man who signed Lem Johnston’s contracts every year with a mark. Pop had 12 older siblings who regarded him with little interest—another competitor for what little they had of food and living space—and who got the hell out of there as fast as they could. Got married, got pregnant, found work, went off.
Mozell had been the last to go. Malcolm’s mother had told him the story. How, in 1943, at 16 years of age, Pop had left his own father, too broken by age and infirmity to work but permitted to live out his last years on land now owned by Lem Johnston’s son. How Malcolm’s father had not wanted to end up like his father, so he had gone to the city looking for work, looking for a chance to be something different.
But he had ended up working as a tub toter and, excluding a two-year hitch in the Army during the Korean War, there he had stayed. Just as if it had been ordained. Just as if this fate had been stamped on his forehead when he came, screaming and brown-skinned, into the world.
“How that strike comin’?” asked Nanny Parker.
“Slow,” said Malcolm.
“Got to give them mens credit,” she said. “They done held out. Never thought they had it in ’em.”
“Yeah,” said Malcolm.
“You seen that sign they carryin’ now? Say, ‘I AM A MAN.’ Seen your father with his’n just a minute ago. Seem like somethin’ done got into them men.”
“Well,” said Malcolm, “you push a man long enough, he’s going to push you back. You keep hitting him and what’s he supposed to do, stand there and let you keep doing it? Sooner or later, he’s got to hit back, or what kind of a man is he? He’s no kind of man at all, you know?”
“I guess you got a point there,” she said. “I remember—”
He plowed right through her words. “That’s what all the good reverends in your so-called civil rights movement don’t understand. That’s why every time you turn around, there’s another riot in another ghetto. And even the tub toters don’t get it, not really. You take your signs out there, you march around in circles, and what does it change? When you march in circles, you never get anywhere. And see, the white man knows that, that’s why he ignores you. Or he slaps you down. Or maybe he even throws you a few crumbs to shut your mouth. But what does he really care about you marching in circles? If you want to get his attention, you better
speak to him in a way he understands. And I tell you, the only thing the honky understands, the only thing he respects, is power.”
Malcolm fell silent. He felt himself breathing.
“Junie?” The old woman’s voice was gentle.
It surprised him. He had almost forgotten she was there. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Are you all right?”
Malcolm smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “Just tired is all.”
She nodded, but he could tell she didn’t really believe him. He stopped wasting the smile.
Malcolm went inside a few minutes later. The hotel had him working an overnight shift, so he slept the rest of the afternoon away. That night at nine, he woke up, bathed himself, and pulled on the gray janitor’s shirt that had been issued him. In the front room, his father was slumped in a chair before the television, which was playing loudly. The opening credits of I Spy were running, a silhouette figure firing a pistol, then running to escape inside the logo of the show. Mozell Wilson, Sr. saw none of this. He slept. His sign lay on the floor, where it had fallen.
I AM A MAN.
Malcolm lifted it so his father wouldn’t step on it when he rose. He leaned it against the chair.
For a silent moment, Malcolm regarded his father. Once upon a time, he had seemed so large he filled the sky. So large, his rages shook the Earth. Now he seemed shrunken—just a tired, beaten garbage man sleeping in a chair with dirty gray cotton showing through the broken seams.
Malcolm touched his father on the shoulder, softly, so as not to wake him, then moved toward the door.
His bicycle—the same bicycle he had used as a boy in high school—was leaning there. He wheeled it outside, closed the door behind him, and carried it down to the sidewalk. Then he climbed on and rode slowly through the shadow-darkened city of his birth. It took him half an hour. He traveled north and west, toward where the hotel sat on a bluff looking down on the big, brown river.
The neighborhoods slept, little houses with small porches and dirt yards, with cracked sidewalks and weathered wood badly in need of paint. But Beale Street, when he detoured up to it on a sudden impulse, seethed with traffic, music from the bars drifting into the street, pawn shops still open for business, their neon “Loan” signs casting garish shadows on passersby. “Things go better with Coke,” promised a sign painted on the brick face of one of the buildings. Malcolm passed a group of Negroes huddled on a street corner in front of a bar, men with beers and stingy brim hats laughing too loudly together, women watching them, smoking cigarettes behind patient, waiting smiles. He saw two white men standing across the street watching the Negroes, their faces pinched shut, their arms folded across their chests. He biked faster.
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