Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “Watch it, baby, you mustn’t squeeze!”

  The heavy weight barely missed my foot as it plunged to the floor of the porch. I stepped back, staring as it rocked with a dull rumbling, back and forth on its feet. I looked quickly around. Except for the roar of a distant truck, it was silent. Hell, I’m hearing things, I thought. I bent, lifting the figure again.

  “What are you staring at, McGowan, baby?”

  Still stooping, I looked around. There was no one in sight. The door to the house was closed, the street empty. There was no doubt about it; the sound had come from the hitching-post boy. He had spoken. And now the eyes appeared to have come alive with malicious fire.

  “Why are you staring, McGowan?” the voice said.

  “Sir? McGowan? Hell, my name is McIntyre!”

  “Really now,” it said, regarding me with the fixed intensity of a hypnotist. “Well, baby, you’re McGowan to me. All of you ofays are McGowan to me—McGowan.”

  McGowan! I shook my head and closed my eyes, then opened them rapidly. He was still there, blazing back at me.

  Are you drunk? I thought. You must be. True, it is said that on rare occasions animals and birds have been known to talk to human beings who are in tune with nature, and I know too that this is the age of the semiconductor, the transistor, space probes—But hell, this is obviously a piece of old iron, a hitching-post groom. There’s even rust on his pants leg….

  “Hitching post?” he said. “It’s been a hell of a time since I had anything to do with a horse, so why are you staring? Answer me, baby!”

  “This,” I said aloud, “is insanity!”

  Whereupon I gave a mighty heave, determined to lift it out of the way, and discovered that it had suddenly become so heavy that I staggered with the weight.

  This time the voice was imperious: “I demand an answer, baby!”

  This was too much. I banged it upon the white floor of the porch and stepped back, looking down. What trick was this? Who wired this thing for sound?, I thought, seeing the eyes widen and stare up at me indignantly.

  “Well, McGowan, I’m waiting!”

  What on earth? My mind flew up and around. Overhead, three black-and-yellow wasps flew in circles, intersecting my field of vision. It’s all rationally explainable, I told myself. And remember, this is a nation of practical jokers, so play along with the gag. Don’t be taken in….

  I stopped and set it on its feet again, carefully.

  “Forgive me,” I said, forcing a pleasant tone. “And just how did you come to be here? I mean, who left you here?”

  The eyes narrowed. “Take it easy, baby; I’m asking the question. Where are your manners? And take your drink before you answer!”

  “Drink?” I said. “An iron tonic, I suppose. But thank you, no. A drink’s the last thing I want just now.”

  “Oh, but you do, baby. You really do, you know you do. And of course if I say you do, you doooo!”

  I didn’t know what to make of it. The voice was getting to me, irritating me. The speech was precise, even cultured, with a certain archness and theatrical stridency. It was the very last type of speech I’d have associated with a hitching-post figure—even taking into account the absurd clothing. Indeed, that voice and diction would have been incredible even if I’d encountered him in the window of a women’s shop, dressed in ballooning pantaloons and silken turban and holding the train of a high-fashion mannequin bride. Clearly, things were quite mixed up. How are they getting this stuff into his head? Because obviously Mac and some of his friends are behind it all, having fun with a Yankee. Very well, we’ll see.

  “Listen,” I said, touching its shoulder with my index finger, “it’s all a mistake. I didn’t order a drink because I had quite enough hours ago, and I didn’t even ring for you….”

  “Oh, but you didn’t have to ring, McGowan. I have the ring in my pocket. So why be rude simply because you sent for me yesterday and and I’ve arrived today?”

  “But I’m not being rude,” I said, feeling suddenly hot and, despite myself, on the defensive.

  “Variety,” he said, “after all, and no matter how intensely one would deny it, is the very froth of existence, baby. So now drink your medicine and when you’ve finished I’ve got your bathwater on.”

  “Bathwater!” I cried, “BATHWATER! Now you listen: My name is Mc-In-Tyre! Get that into your iron head! What’s more, I don’t want a bath, and I don’t want a drink!”

  “McGowan, dear—” he began.

  “Mc-IN-TYRE!”

  He grinned. “So solly please, not interested in fetal position. Most blad. Bathwasser so necessary for be born one more in time fugit. WE splesiall, if you wish to follow me. Please, no speak now. Because, baby, you’ll bathe! Because you see,” he said, rocking his head delicately on his slender neck, “there’ll be no funky blues here tonight. Mister Crump forbids it, Miss Vanderbilt rejects it, Miss Otis regrets, and I abhor it. So, McGohard, you’ll bathe …”

  I studied him silently, thinking: If I ignore him he’ll simply talk on. Perhaps if I move him and remain silent, I can be done with him. And besides, this is sheer foolishness, a delusion….

  This time I managed to take a few steps before it spoke again, in a coy, ingratiating tone.

  “McGow-wand, baby, tell me true—do you fine me repulsive?”

  I was silent, aware now of an odor like that of old tennis shoes.

  “You’d better answer, McGowan; repression is bad for the bowels, and we won’t mention the soul.”

  I gave a brisk shove, trying to push him out of the doorway as he laughed maliciously. It was oppressively warm and he moved barely an inch.

  “Take it easy, baby. Even if it hurts you to do so. And by the way, McGowan, everything seems to hurt you. That’s because you think only of yourself. That’s why you’re no damn good. You find me repulsive, and you have absolutely no feeling for my suffering, simply because I don’t choose to reveal it to every passerby. You refuse to recognize my humanity, you really do, so admit it!”

  Wow, I thought, I am drunk. Imagine imagining a piece of iron speaking of its humanity! Sam the waiter must have Finned the drinks. Wake up, McIntyre.

  “Did you say iron, baby?” the voice said. “If so, you’re wrong. Mine is a human figure. Keep holding me and you’ll fiind out. This indicates clearly enough that you find me repulsive. Well, I’ll admit that I’m repulsive—but so are you, baby. We both are. As repulsive and as noxious as crows. That’s how it is: black crows and white crows. But you love it, baby; or you will love it, just as soon as you admit it. Face up to reality, baby. Because that’s the way it is. It’s a simple equation. Repeat after me, and it’ll do you worlds of good. Indeed, it’ll allow you to achieve humanity:

  I am contemptible

  You are contemptible

  They are contemptible

  She is contemptible

  We are contemptible

  He-she-it is contemptible.

  The black face smiled mockingly as it spoke and despite myself, I found my lips silently forming the words. I felt unclean.

  “See,” he said, “that’s the way it is, only you won’t admit it. And because you refuse to admit it, you’re the most contemptible of all!”

  Whereupon, at the sound of wild laughter, the hot fumes of old tennis shoes or Limburger cheese filled the air, and I released my hold, watching him land on the floor with a deafening thud.

  “McIntyre?” McGowan’s voice arose once more behind me, plaintive and tired.

  “Did you get him to go away, McIntyre? Did you get rid of that little nigra?”

  Suddenly furious, I yelled, “Shut up, you indecent bastard,” looking around for him.

  The street was empty, without shade.

  “I’ll get rid of this thing if it’s the last thing I do,” I said. Then, squatting in the recommended manner for lifting heavy objects with the least danger of ruptures, strains, or slipped disks, I lifted him chest-high and began taking short shuffling ste
ps toward the right side of the doorway.

  As I did so, the groom cleared his throat in my ear. “Oh, so you’ve returned,” the voice said blandly. “Are you becoming used to my repulsiveness, baby? No? Well, just keep holding me and you will. You have my permission to squeeze me if you like. And don’t be upset if I speak to you; eloquence is eloquence, no matter how we attain it, and I am nothing if not eloquent. Nor should you confuse irony with iron, baby.”

  “Listen,” I exploded, “I’ve had enough—”

  “No, you listen, McGowan; or I’ll step on your toes. I’ll bump you! Do you know, McOldcowhand, that I’m really very beautiful? You refuse to see it because you are not. You aren’t and neither are most hitching-post boys. In fact, they’re quite ugly. What’s more, they act ugly. You made them act ugly, McGowan, even to me. And before I learned to defend myself, they used to chase me and treat me something awful. Through vacant lots and under stairways and through empty hallways, all foul and filthy, McGowan. And they did awful things to me, baby. Terrible things. Things so terrible that I had to accept them. They were, I grew to believe, preordained for me. And I tell you, baby, they did happen to me. Now of course I know that they happen to everyone. It’s la condition humaine, baby—nez pas? Everyone is thrown into the alley like choice pieces of airmail garbage. So why should I complain?

  “And I’ll tell you something else. Do you know that now, after having lived this long and having seen and done so much, I’m willing to concede you any and everything you might think about me? That’s because I’ve put you down, baby. You don’t really matter to me anymore. And now you’ll learn that little wisdom which has escaped you for so long: You never miss your water until your well runs dry, you’ll never miss your wise man ‘til your fool gets shy. And if you doubt me, look at the details. I never entered your head before, did I? Yet, here I am in all the factual details you pretend you love so much. ‘Significant details,’ I believe you call them. But what’s significant, baby? Am I? Is the cloud on the horizon, the pimple on the nose, the missed tick in the tock, the Snicker in the chocolate box?”

  I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the spell and feeling the weight bearing me down as I moved again.

  “Oh, no, none of that,” he said. “None of that! Obviously, you wish to convince yourself that I’m not here. You’d rather pretend that I’m simply a ‘figment of the imagination,’ a trace of the ‘irrational’ which has seeped in with your liquor. You’d rather plead insanity than deal with me honestly, such is your McGowan pride. But don’t cliché me, baby. I’m real and there’s nothing simple about me. I’m here and very much myself. Do you still doubt me?”

  A stream of sweat was running into my right eye now, and I wished to wipe it away but kept inching silently toward the door frame.

  “Very well, baby, since you wish to act rude, I shall commune with myself—in ironic, as it were; and now you’ll consider me a ‘hard case.’ Very well, I am indeed a hard case. You might even say that I’m a rough case, but what I tell you about yourself is nonetheless true. You’re no good, McGowan! You suffer from the puritan chill; that is, pure tan chills you—which is worse, to my mind, than a compounded case of VD—or déjà vu. You drug yourself with easy answers, and you probably think that I’m taking horse. Well, allow me to suggest this, baby: I ride horses, they don’t ride me. I’m in the saddle and I’ve sharpened my spurs. It’s you who’s on the needle, baby, on the very point. So coo-coo cock-a-doodle-do to you, McGowan. Now shall we talk crow?”

  Straining, inching sideways again, I held my peace. For some reason I seemed to make little progress. My arms ached. I felt breathless.

  “You have no feeling for my suffering, McGoldinhand, and you deliberately refuse to understand. And that’s why you have so little insight into yourself. You fail to grasp your own nature. You insist upon a stance of innocence and …”

  Where, I thought, does one’s human obligation end? Here an iron monster is demanding—

  “Iron? IRON?” he shouted. “Why, mine is a human figure, McFoldedhand! Ask your mother, she’d know. Women have fine perceptions in these matters. Yes, and a capacity for telling the truth—if only those like you would let them! Now put me down!”

  And despite my determination to hold on, he fell, landing squarely in the doorway.

  Thank God that we’re alone, I thought, looking wildly around me. Down near the corner of the block a flag fluttered high from a pole, its colors translucent in the sunlight. Then a burst of yellow butterflies swirled up and around the little porch. How-when-where had I learned that they were once regarded as symbols of the soul?

  “Look down this lonesome road a moment, baby,” the voice said, as he gestured floorward with his head. “And don’t go dreaming off, you might miss your cue, your train, your ‘flang,’ as the old-fashioned colored say. Remember the famous cartoon of the old man and his grandson watching Indians dancing in the smoke from a pile of burning leaves? You should, it was fall in the spring and all you know is what you read in the newspapers. But now ask yourself seriously what it was you saw. Under the bare trees beyond the fence and the fading bush beyond, the old man and the boy saw ‘Indians’— so you saw Indians. But did you see them truly? Think now on those Indians, baby. And on that smoke. Oh, you had a ball!

  “War bonnets!

  “Smoke signals!

  “Bare bucks buck-dancing with tomahawks!

  “Braided scalp locks!

  “War paint!

  “Battle chants!

  “Ghost Dancers going, ‘Woo-woo-whoo-whooo-whoo, whah-whah, whah-ha!’ Are you recalling? Are you with it? Because now comes the question, baby: Was the smoke from an Indian tribe? Really?

  “Mohican?

  “Seneca?

  “An Algonquin round-robin?

  “Rubber-tired moccasins burning on a Pontiac?

  “Was that it, baby? Or were those ‘Indians’ a tribe of smokes slow-dragging a jubajumping, boondoggling, tea-dumping hoedown in the land of rum, four masters, and molasses? Don’t blink, just tell me what you saw. Was the grandfather the son of the son? Did he raise up the smokes Lazarus-like, or put out the fire when he saw them burning for the shore? When your heart’s on fire there are smokes in it, baby. And even when he smoked tea in the bay? Yes, and was Finny more of a cooper than he knew? Killdeers no kill deer, so what did dearslayer slay? And when you’ve answered, baby, then tell me where are the smokes of yesteryear. Think on it, baby. Think on it hard!”

  Suddenly he was silent, his face frozen once more into its fixed, ingratiating smile.

  I stepped over his body, circling him slowly, as one does a sculpture displayed in a museum, noting the Italianate suit, the thyroid eyes. He lay rigid, silent. I shook my head, laughing quietly at myself. Obviously, I was drunk. Yes, and just as obviously, McGowan and the others were playing a clever joke on me. They’d had the boy wired for sound, that was it. That explained it. Somehow they’d gotten a transmitter-receiver inside the peaked iron head, or into the chest, and somewhere along the citizen’s broadcast band there were some jokers giving it taunting voice, bugging me. Very well, to hell with them. I’d play along and bide my time. Let them keep fighting the war if they chose, my time would come to retaliate. Besides, it was possible that they were actually after McGowan rather than me. Perhaps that’s why he’s made me the goat. They’d simply scared hell out of him….

  Yes, but what if the groom was actually speaking to me, actually knew that my name was McIntyre, and his insistence on calling me “McGowan” was deliberate? Or was it that I had in fact become McGowan? Whatever the case, there he was, lying in the doorway and as clear and present a danger to anyone trying to enter the house as I could imagine. So it was still my obligation to remove him, for I was still under the conditioning of my Boy Scout days not to leave such items as carpet tacks, broken glass, banana peels, roller skates, and the like in the path of the myopic and/or drunken citizenry—so why not this voluble piece of iron? In such situat
ions one has to be true to something, so what is more suitable than to be constant to the ideals of one’s early youth? Therefore, there’s nothing to do but pick up McGowan’s burden and walk….

  And for a moment it seemed to work. I handled him gently and managed to take four short steps before I heard him yawn lazily and address me again.

  “Well, baby, so here you go waltzing me around again—and so roughly!”

  This time I kept silent, looking out into the empty vista of the street as I inched him along. The sun was high, the shadows near nonexistent. High on the pole the flag still fluttered beneath a cloudless sky in which a faded three-quarters of a pale moon still showed. Then, when I lowered my eyes, the porch seemed to have narrowed.

  I’ll have to set him in the yard, I thought—whereupon his voice shrilled up in protest.

  “Not out there, dammit! There’s a dog around here who likes to take liberties with my leg—the canine sonofabitch!”

  I paused, holding my breath.

  He laughed. “Shocked you, didn’t I, McGowan? So now you don’t know what to do. It’s always the little things that matter with you, McGowan. All I did was call a dog his bitch’s son, and your teeth are on edge. Such facile identifications make for confusion, baby; learn to call a spade a spade! I’m sorry for you, baby. I am indeed. I speak of a bitch and the cat gets your tongue. Very well, be quiet for a while, it’ll be good for you. Don’t talk. Make like Pete the rabbit, who had the habit of eating turnip tops and Welsh rarebit—the gummy kind. You make too much noise anyway, filling the air with static and double-talk. In fact, you live a life of noisy desperation, McCoolhand; with your tintin-timbulating anti-dialogue way of speaking. You sound the brass and tinkle the symbols all over the place, but in the clinches you’re as silent as the proverbial mouse taking advantage of the mythical cotton. Only the nose knows you’re there. You’re a fraud, McGowan. You went over the cliff with the swine a long, long time ago, but you pretend to yourself and to the world that you’re as white as the driven snow. But I’ll tell you something, baby: You’re driven but you’ve only had a snow job. Imagine giving oneself a snow job! And what’s more amazing, baby, is that you’re insensitive to those who can never be snowed. You believe it to be a natural phenomenon. Yes, that’s the way it is with you, McGobback. And you feel definitely superior to me because I will not be, cannot be, snowed! Isn’t it true? Why don’t you confess, McGee? Why don’t you try for once in your life to be a man!”