Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  Outside it was cold, silent along the avenue. I looked around for the exposed preacher, but no one was in sight. Pellets of ice whistled past in the brisk wind, peppered my face. Drops of blood were splattered at intervals along the walk past the silent buildings. In front, signs of struggle and the trampled tambourine showed in the snow piled along the curb before the club. Looking directly across the avenue through the slowly lifting light, I faced a high sheer wall of gray-hued rock which swept northward on a gradual rise to become, two blocks away, a slanting, tree-strewn park showing white with crystal shrubs and drifted branches, and then arose, silently exalting the drifted snow, to emerge again, metamorphosed—gray rock again, but chiseled now and mortar-bound into a line of college buildings set like battlements, crenelled and merloned, embrasured and bartizaned, yet looming serene and decorous in the first light, high on the hill.

  There soon the flags would fly, rippling briskly in the wind, and students clad in winter wool would gather from throughout the city, and girls with snowflaked breath would slowly trudge fresh paths upon the drifted whiteness. And would Laura, with our hidden secret, climb that hill today, rise to the invincible battlements? I turned. How could I have hoped to see her here? The laughter beneath the walk would continue into the middle morning, the horns contending through the day. They were wild there below, laughing at chimeras; locked out of time….

  I shook my head, baffled by what I’d seen and by what I couldn’t face. Vague currents of thought swirled up and away as I tried vainly to bind basement and battlement into a skein of meaning, while far up the curving avenue below the colleged hill, the traffic lights were turning green, green.

  I turned, preparing to start south for the subway, then high above the street two black cats with crooks in their tails streaked past along the snowy ridge of the rock—just as the basement behind me exploded with an up-roarous version of an old spiritual tune, “Ain’t Gon’ Study War No More,” through which wild accents of laughter sounded.

  Going to lay down

  my sword and shield

  Down

  by

  the riverside

  Down

  by

  the riverside

  Down

  by

  the riverside

  Going to lay down

  my

  sword and shield

  Down

  by

  the

  riverside …

  Stud-day-eh

  War

  No

  More!

  It was a rowdy farewell fanfare, I later realized, announcing both the end to my relation with Laura and to my efforts at social action. I turned up my collar and hurried away, feeling myself the victim of an impossible and impractical love.

  CHAPTER 11

  MY LOSS, HOWEVER, had not been easy to accept. Emotionally I did not so soon surrender. I fell into a depression which led to several fruitless consultations with an analyst (who told me little that I was prepared to understand, things about my psyche which seemed ridiculous). Then, as suddenly as one’s hair is said to turn white overnight, I forgot it. Both my concern with the social future and my shame and sorrow were buried beneath a burst of activity brought on by the war. And all that had defeated me had become, it seemed, part of a time out of mind, a life lived and lost. But now as I stood there in the hospital corridor, it was all back and ripping me apart.

  A wave of humiliation swept over me, shaking me, and I thought, So it was that and then that has me now. Two dark women and a piece of lost time bound to a section of a city left long ago which I haven’t seen in years…. Here and now dark things and dark people lost in the dark places of my mind are with me, and no search for peace nor pining for the past released them here, but him, sitting there! And I looked at Hickman, feeling as though my chest, my throat, were splitting apart.

  Then an amused voice like that of McGowan drawled to me sotto voce but with the penetrating clarity of a mosquito’s drone: “Now take it easy, McIntyre; don’t go letting a thing like that get you down. Not with that Hickman watching you. Sit down, man, or he’ll see you. And don’t forget, we’ve all got something to hide; we wouldn’t be men if we hadn’t. Besides, whoever heard of a bastard born out of a plasma bottle, or a nigra bred of a transfusion of blood through a hollow needle!”

  As the outrageous joke exploded in my head I heard a wild burst of laughter rip from my lips and quickly stifled it, looking behind me for McGowan.

  Emptiness!

  The elevator droned, dropping past with a blur of slitted light. Things seemed suddenly darker. Then completely without warning I was bounding down the corridor through a hot thickness of light and shadow, heading toward Hickman and shouting within myself, How dare you force your way into my secret mind, intrude on memories!

  I was standing over him then, with the eerie sounds of collapsing structures, the blaring of an automobile horn, echoing through my head. I stared at him, still sitting with closed eyes, unaware and yet seeming to judge me. And still unaware as my arm moved. Then I could feel the fierce swing of it, starting from my right thigh and scything upward. And even as my hand snaked out palmwise, I was listening with savage expectation for the sound, the impact against the smooth dark face. Now we’ll test that moral superiority of yours, I thought. Now—

  But there was no sound, only a dream-like floating moment, during which it was as though my frenzied anticipation had short-circuited my hearing, destroying time and sequence. I seemed to see the start of my hand’s flight again, yet even as it streaked toward its target I was aware of a flash of movement beneath me, felt a crunch of pain—“Oh!”—and, looking down, found my wrist clamped in old Hickman’s huge fingers.

  I winced, seeing a ripple pass over his features as I spun sideways and tilted toward him—finding myself held by the eruptive throbbing of a single vein in the middle of his forehead, then staring into his questioning eyes.

  Someone called my name from far away now, and I turned to see Tolliver moving across the corridor through a pink mist. He yelled, “McIntyre!” clearly now, coming on.

  “What the hell’s happening here?” I heard, trying vainly to free my wrist.

  I looked at Hickman silently. The pressure in my wrist was building rapidly, pounding. I could hear quick footsteps hurrying up the corridor as Tolliver moved around me, facing Hickman.

  “What’re you doing?” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Hickman shook his head, and I could feel his grip suddenly tighten.

  “Mister, you’re asking the wrong man.”

  The footsteps had ceased. It was Bates, his face looming close to mine, his eyes bright.

  “Damn it, don’t we have enough trouble without this?”

  “We certainly have,” Tolliver said, “and I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

  I watched Hickman, waiting tensely. Then his eyes met mine and I returned his gaze with mixed feelings of anger and defiance, expecting him to denounce me as his great chest rose and fell. Then—hazzzzzzz—he sighed softly, a slow emission of breath, pursed his lips, and his eyes were on Tolliver.

  All right, I thought, why’re you holding back? Get on with it—wondering what my next move would be.

  From somewhere in the building a rapid thudding, like that of a dental chair being elevated, began—ceased. Outside, an approaching siren sounded surprisingly near, whirred lazily to a dying fall, quickly revived, rising to a hysterical screaming as it sped away, fading.

  “I’m talking to you and I want an answer,” Tolliver said. “Who started this ruckus?”

  Hickman’s head tilted alertly, his face a brown pattern of dark highlights above a grotesque shadow which Tolliver cast across his chest. I felt a pain knife through my wrist as he watched Tolliver, then I was free and he shifted his position, grasping the arms of the chair as I took a step backwards. Now, I thought, now he’ll spill it.

  “Take it easy, Marv,” Bates said. “I saw part of it. McIntyre
swung on the old guy. That much I saw. Didn’t you see him?”

  “Yes,” Tolliver said, “but can’t you see there’s more to it than that? I want to know what caused him to do it!”

  Hickman’s voice seemed to resonate the floor. “Maybe,” he said, “he wanted to see if I believed in turning the other cheek.”

  I flushed, searching his face for signs of mockery. He knows, I thought with growing conviction. Somehow he knows more than I know he knows…. But why is he waiting? To tease?

  “Now you listen to me,” Tolliver said. “If you think this is a kidding matter you’re mistaken. Answer the question!”

  The pressure of Hickman’s grip seemed to have passed from my wrist to my eyes, demanding that I speak, and I opened my mouth, inhaled sharply, feeling a furious pounding in my throat, closed it immediately. An urge to confess was upon me, a compulsion to explain myself and to—Hickman. But I was embarrassed and afraid that, once begun, I’d lose all control and speak not only of Laura but of other forgotten and perhaps compromising things. I dropped my eyes.

  “You’ll still have to ask him,” Hickman said, “because I actually don’t know. Now, you saw me sitting here, and if you still want to know what I was doing, I was thinking. I’ve got a heap on my mind, and I don’t mean Mister McIntyre. I’ve got that shot-up boy in there to worry about. I’ve got those old folks to worry about. I’ve got tomorrow to worry about. I’ve got enough on my mind without thinking about Mister McIntyre…. Though now that I’ve come to think about it, he could go and find out what happened to my people and get me a lawyer for them. That is, if he had the charity of heart—”

  His voice broke off as though he were awaiting a reply. “Charity of heart!”I thought. What kind of talk is that here?

  “Is that what you asked him to do?” Tolliver said.

  “No, sir, I didn’t, although I wish I’d thought of it.”

  “What did you ask him?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Then did you make some gesture toward him?”

  “Gesture?” Hickman frowned, studying Tolliver. “You mean did I beckon him?”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “I mean did you insult him, challenge him, or make some kind of provoking gesture toward him?”

  “You mean like thumbing my nose?”

  “Yes, anything of that order.”

  Hickman smiled, “Mister, you’d better take a good look at my gray head of hair. I told you I have things on my mind. So no, I didn’t gesture toward him. In fact, I didn’t even raise my hand—neither to beckon nor to bless him, nor make the sign of the cross. In fact, until I felt him come up on me, my eyes were closed.”

  “Then why were you holding him?”

  “Oh, be reasonable, man,” Hickman said. “He tried to strike me!”

  “But why? That’s my question.”

  Hickman shook his head. “Mister,” he said, “I’ve seen fairer judges hanging around courthouse squares in Mississippi.” Then pointing to me, “Why don’t you ask him? You see him down here standing over me. I’m not up there where he was sitting, am I? Are you interested in the truth, or are you trying to blot out your God-given vision?”

  Tolliver reddened, leaning toward him. “Never mind my eyes, you’re not answering the question!”

  “Well, it’s the best I can do,” Hickman said. “Mister McIntyre can talk, and he’s standing right here. Besides, you were close enough to have seen or heard me if I’d said or done anything. I can’t figure what you’re trying to do. Is there a rule which says that you can’t ask him about what happened? Maybe I need a lawyer for myself! You must know that it takes at least two to tell the truth about a thing like this, so even if I could tell you something you’d still have to let Mister McIntyre speak.”

  Tolliver shook his head disgustedly, turning to me.

  “All right, McIntyre, maybe you can help us get somewhere. What’d he do?”

  I could feel perspiration coursing down the small of my back, my mouth dry with embarrassment. I was unable to speak, shook my head.

  Tolliver cursed beneath his breath.

  “Are you two playing some kind of game? What the hell’s going on? I look up and see two men about to fight, and now neither of them wants to talk!”

  “But Marv,” Bates said, “maybe the reverend here doesn’t know anything. He was just sitting there when McIntyre shot down here like someone had give him a hotfoot.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” Hickman said. “Maybe he was dreaming or something….”

  Now it’ll come, I thought. He’s going to pretend to read my mind. But could he know—even about Laura? Could she have gone to live in his town? How long ago? Or could one of the old folks he’s worried about be her grandmother?

  “No,” Bates was saying, “he wasn’t dreaming, not the way he was swinging.”

  “Then maybe he just came to understand something he’s been puzzled about, or overlooking for a long time,” Hickman said.

  “Like what?” Tolliver said.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Hickman said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Why can’t you answer a simple question?” Tolliver said. “Just say what you mean.”

  “I’ll try, but it won’t be simple. What I meant was that sometimes a man will have such a sudden revelation that the shock will make him act before he knows what he’s doing. Like sometimes in church, when the Spirit strikes right past a man’s brain and hits his heart and limbs and gets him going. One minute he’s just sitting there in the heat of the service, looking and listening and maybe thinking that the preaching and the singing has nothing to do with him. But then—hallelujah!—and next thing he knows he’s already on his feet and heading to the mourners’ bench. Way deep inside he’s on fire and thirsty for that old healing water. But even though his legs are moving, he’s confused in his mind, because he’s in the midst of a transformation. He’s both lost and found. He’s passing among strangers who are friends and friends who are strangers. His mind is confused but he’s already saved and celebrating in his transformed heart. Understand?”

  Tolliver stepped back, staring at him. “Is that supposed to explain something?” he said.

  Hickman returned his gaze. “Well, I tried,” he said.

  “What has all that to do with what he asked you?” Bates said.

  “I was trying to discuss what happened in the blanks between seeing and not-seeing,” Hickman said. “Between acting and understanding the act; between the tick and the tock, the now and the then….”

  The voice trailed off, and Tolliver stared at the old man with great distaste. I shivered.

  Hickman sighed, his eyes turned inward, and I could hear the silence of the corridor, the click and slide of distant elevator doors. What on earth was the old Negro talking about? Is he kidding the three of us, I wondered, or is he simply poor at similes; with his status outside the complexities of society making for a hazy sense of correspondences? Where was he taking me?

  His eyes fluttered then and he was looking up at Tolliver.

  “I was only speculating on what happens in the still moment between the now and the then,” he said. “All I know for certain is that today the depths have been stirred up. The grave has yawned and the house has rocked and the mighty laid low. So that anybody is likely to act strange. Maybe something happened in Mr. McIntyre’s head, some kind of unusual connection was made that caused him to act before he knew what he was doing. On the other hand, he might just have gotten impatient with sitting around here waiting and decided to see how I’d take it if he was to hit me one. But whatever it was, it isn’t important.”

  “I’ll decide what’s important,” Tolliver said. “Anything that happens around this case is important.”

  “Of course, and you’re right,” Hickman said. “All I meant, as the prizefighters say, is that he didn’t lay a glove on me. I’ve been struck at before, so I was prepared.”

>   Suddenly his face changed, his voice becoming briskly matter-of-fact as he looked at me. “Son, will you tell this man what it was you thought you were doing?”

  And with his “son” my voice was back again. “You know what happened,” I shouted, almost convinced by the words. “And don’t pretend to defend me!”

  He watched me calmly. “No, son,” he said, “you might think that I do, but I really don’t know what happened. But you might look at it this way: I have to defend you so that I can defend myself. This officer thinks I did something to bring you down here, but you know that I didn’t and I think you should tell him so.”

  The old sound of authority was back in his voice and his eyes calmly demanding. I felt trapped, held by the presence of some dark and insidious force. Tolliver was growing visibly annoyed with both of us. And puzzled. “You must have done something to provoke this incident,” he said, “and if McIntyre didn’t have such a misplaced sense of honor he’d tell us what it was. He’s a reasonable man, a liberal man, and I intend to get to the bottom of this before you leave here.”

  He turned. “And you, McIntyre, you must be as upset as hell to think you can get away with hitting a man in my custody. You shouldn’t be here, you know. Another move like that and I’ll throw you the hell out; I don’t care what he did to provoke you. And it doesn’t matter to me whether you get a story or not. In fact, it might be better for everyone if you didn’t. So now get back there and sit down!”

  “Before it’s all over, the truth will show its face,” Hickman said. “So go in peace, Mister McIntyre.”

  “Oh, shut up!” Tolliver said.

  I moved away, still feeling the imprint of Hickman’s fingers cutting into my wrist, his eyes pressing against the back of my skull. Recalling the strength which he’d displayed in the visitors’ gallery, I wondered how I had been so overwhelmed as to attack him. He’d picked off my blow like an outfielder snagging a long, slow fly….