Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “Bliss?”

  Was it Mary? No, here to forget is best. They criticize me, me a senator now, especially Karp who’s still out there beating hollow wood to hully rhythms all smug and still making ranks of dead men flee the reality of the shadow upon them, then Who? What cast it? stepping with the fetch to the bank and Geneva with tithes for Israel while ole man Muggin has to keep on bugging his eyes and rolling those bales so tired of living but they refuse to let him die Who’s Karp kidding? Who’s kidding Karp? making a fortune in bleaching cream, hair straightener, and elevator shoes, buying futures in soy beans, corn, and porkers and praising his God but still making step fetch it for the glory of getting but keeping his hands clean, he says. And how do they feel, still detroiting my mother who called me Goodrich Hugh Cuddyear in the light of tent flares then running away and them making black bucks into millejungs and fraud pieces in spectacu-larmythics on assembly lines? Who’ll speak the complicated truth? With them going from pondering to pandering the nation’s secret to pandering their pondering? So cast the stone if you must and if you see a ghost rise up, make him bleed. Hell, yes, primitives were right—mirrors do steal souls. So Odysseus plunged that matchstick into Polyphemus’ crystal! Here in this country it’s change the reel and change the man. Don’t look! Don’t listen! Don’t say and the living is easy! O.K., so they can go fighting the war but soon the down will rise up and break the niggonography and those ghosts who created themselves in the old image won’t know why they are what they are and then comes a screaming black babel and white connednation! Who, who, who, boo, are we? Daddy, I say where in the dead place between the shadow where does mothermatermammy—mover so moving on? Where in all the world-pile hides?

  “Bliss?”

  … but instead of chasing me away this kindly blue-eyed, cotton-headed Georgia-grinder smiled down and said, What is it, little boy? Would you like a ticket? We have some fine features today.

  And trembling I hid my face, hoping desperately that the epiderm would hide the corium and corium rind the natural man. Stood there wishing for a red neck and linty head, a certain expression of the eyes. Then she smiled, saying, Why of course you do. And you’re lucky today because it’s only a quarter and some very very fine pictures and cartoons….

  I watched her eyes, large and lucid behind their lenses, then tiptoed and reached, placing my dollar bill through the golden bars of the ticket booth.

  My, My! but we’re rich today. Aren’t we now, she said.

  No, mam, I said, ‘cause it’s only a dollar.

  And she said, That’s true, and a dollar doesn’t go very far these days. But I’m sure you’ll get plenty more because you’re learning about such things so early. So live while you may, I say, and let the rosebuds bloom tomorrow—ha! ha!

  She pushed the pink ticket through the bars so I could reach it.

  Now wait for your change, she said. Two whole quarters, two dimes, and a nickel—which still leaves you pretty rich for a man of your years, I’d say.

  Yes, mam. Thank you, mam, I said.

  She shook her blond head and smiled. We have some nice fresh buttered popcorn just inside, she said, you might want to try some. It’s very good.

  Yes, mam, thank you, mam, I said, knotting the change in the corner of my handkerchief and hurrying behind the red velvet barrier rope. Then I was stepping over two blue naked men with widespread wings who were flying on the tiled lobby floor, only the smaller one was falling into the white tile water, and approached the tall man who took the tickets. He wore a jaunty, square-visored cap and a blue uniform with white spats and I saw him look down at me and look away disgusted, making me afraid. He stood stiff like a soldier and something was wrong with his eyes. I crossed my fingers. I didn’t have a hat to spit in. Then suddenly he looked down again and smirked and though afraid I read him true. You’re not a man, I thought, only a big boy. You’re just a big ole freckly face….

  Peckerwood, peckerwood,

  You can’t see me!

  You’re just a redhead gingerbread

  Five cents a cabbage head—

  All right, kid, he said, where’s your maw?

  Sir?

  You heard me, Ezra. I’m not supposed to let you little snots in here without your folks. So come on now, Clyde, where’s ya’ maw?

  Watching his face, I pointed into the dark, thinking, I ain’t your Clyde and I ain’t your Ezra, I’m Bliss…. She’s in there, I said. She’s waiting for me.

  She’s in dere, he mimicked me, his eyes crossing upon my face and then quickly away. You wouldn’t kid me would you, Ezra, he said.

  Oh no, sir, I said, she’s really and truly in there, like I said.

  Then in the dark I could hear the soaring of horns and laughter.

  Oh, yeah—he began and broke off, holding down his white gloved hand for silence. Out on the walk some girls in white silk stockings and pastel dresses came to a giggling halt before the billboards, looking at the faces and going “Oooh! Aaaah!”

  Well, did Ah evuh wet dream of Jeannie and her cawn sulk hair, he said, snapping his black bow tie hard against his stiff white collar. He stood back in his knees, like Deacon Wilhite then, and drummed his fingers on the edge of the ticket hopper and grinned.

  Inside the music surged and flared.

  Hold it a minit, Clyde, he said, Hold it!, looking out at the giggling girls.

  Sir? I said, Sir?

  Hush, son, he said, and pray you’ll understand it better by-’n-by. ‘Cause right now I got me some other fish to fry. Y’all come on in gals, he said in a low, signifying voice. Come on in, you sweet miss-treaters, you fluffy teasers. I got me a special show for evuh one of you lily-white dewy-delled mama’s gals. Yes, suh! You chickens come to papa, ‘cause I got the cawn right here on the evuh-lovin’ cob!

  Here mister, I said….

  He rubbed his white gloves together, watching the girls. What’s that you say, kid?

  I say my mama’s in there waiting for me, I said.

  He waved his hand at me. Quiet, son, quiet! he said.

  Then the girls moved again. Oh, hell, he said, watching them as they turned on their toes, their skirts swirling as they flounced away, laughing and tossing their hair.

  Then he was looking down again.

  Clyde, he said, what’s your mama’s name?

  Her name’s “Mama”—I mean Miz Pickford, I said.

  Suddenly his mouth came open and I could see the freckles bunch together across his nose.

  Lissen, kid—you trying to kid me?

  Oh, no sir, I said. That’s the honest truth.

  Well, I’ll be dam!

  He shook his head.

  Honest, mister. She’s waiting in there just like I said…. I held out my ticket.

  He pulled hard on the top of his glove, watching me.

  Honest, I said.

  Dammit, Clyde, he said, if that’s the truth your daddy shore must have his hands full, considering all the folks who are just dying to help him out. I guess you better hurry on in there and hold on to her tight. Protect his interest, Ezra. Because with a name like that somebody big and black might get holt to her first. Yas, suh! An’ mah mammy calls me Tee-bone!

  Smirking, he took the ticket, tearing it in half and holding out the stub. Here, Mister Bones, Mister Tambo, he said, take this and don’t lose it. And you be quiet, you hear? I ain’t here for long but don’t let me come in there and find y’all down front making noise along with those other snotty-shitty little bastards. You hear?

  Yes, sir, I said, starting away.

  Hey, wait a minit! Hold it right there, Clyde!

  Sir?

  Lissen here, you lying little peckerwood—why aren’t you in school today?

  I looked at him hard. Because it’s Saturday, mister, I said, and because my mamma is in there waiting for me.

  He grinned down at me. Okay, Ezra, he said, you can scoot—and watch the hay. But mamma or no mamma, you be quiet, you hear? This is way down South and de l
an’ uv cotton, as the nigger boys say, but y’all be quiet, y’all heah-uh? An’ Rastus, Ah mean it!

  I hesitated, watching him and wondering whether he had found me out.

  Well, go on! he barked.

  And I obeyed.

  Then I was moving through the sloping darkness and finding my way by the dim lights which marked the narrow seat rows, going slowly until the lights came up and then there were red velvet drapes emerging and eager faces making a murmuring of voices, and golden cherubim, trumpets, and Irish harps flowing out in space above the high proscenium arch, while in the hidden pit the orchestra played sweet, soothing airs. Then in the dimming of the lights I found a seat, and horses and wagons flowed into horses and wagons surrounded by cowboys and Indians and Keystone Kops and bathing beauties and flying pies and collapsing flivvers and running hoboes and did ever so many see themselves comfortably, humorously in quite so few? And ads on the backdrop asking Will the Ladies Please Remove Their Masks and Reveal Their True … and everyone and everything moving too swiftly, vertigoing past, so that I couldn’t go in, couldn’t enter even when they came close and their faces were not her face. So in the dark I squirmed and waited for her to come to me but there were only the others, big-eyed and pretty in their headbands and bathing suits and beaded gowns but bland with soft-looking breasts like Sister Georgia’s only unsanctified and with no red fire in green eyes. She called me Goodhugh Gudworthy and I couldn’t go in to search and see….

  On the hill the cattle tinkled their bells and she said, Mister Movie-man, I have to live here, you know. Will you be nice to me and the blossoms were falling where the hill hung below the afternoon and we sprawled embraced and out of time that never entered into future time except as one nerve cell tooth hair and tongue and drop of heart’s blood into the bucket. Oh, if only I could have controlled me my she I and the search and have accepted you as the dark daddy of flesh and Word—Hickman? Hickman, you after all. Later I thought many times that I should have faced them down—faced me down and said, Look, this is where I’ll make my standing place and with her in all her grace and sweet wonder. But how make a rhyme of a mystery? If I had only known then what I came to know about the shape of honor and the smell of pride—I say, HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET LOVE INTO POLITICS OR COMPASSION INTO HISTORY? And if you can’t get here from there, that too is truth. If he can’t drag the hill on his shoulders must a man wither beneath the stone? Yes, the whole hill moved, the cattle lowed, birds sang and blossoms fell, fell gently but I was … I was going in but couldn’t go in and then it ended and the lights came on. But still I waited, hoping she’d appear in the next run, so I sat low in my seat, hiding from the ticket man as they moved in and out around me. Then it was dark again and I knew I should leave but was afraid lest she appear larger than life and I would go in…. Why couldn’t you say, Daddy Hickman: Man is born of woman but then there’s history and towns and states and between the passion and the act there are mysteries. Always. Appointive and elective mysteries so I told myself: Man and woman are a baby’s device for achieving governments—ergo-ego and I’m a politician. Or again, shadows that move on screens and words that dance on pages are a stud’s device for mounting the nightmare that gallops by day. And I told myself years ago, Let Hickman wear black, I, Bliss, will wear a suit of sable. Being born under a circus tent in the womb of wild women’s arms I reject circumstance, live illusion. Then I told myself, speed up the process, make them dance. Extend their vision until they disgust themselves, until they gag. Stretch out their nerves, amplify their voices, extend their grasp until history is rolled into a pall. The past is in your skins, I cried. Face fortune and be filled. No, there’s never a gesture I’ve made since I’ve been here that hasn’t tried to say, Look, this is me, me; can’t you hear? Change the rules! Strike back hard in angry collaboration and you’re free—but I couldn’t go in I have to live here, Mister Movie-man, she said, and I found a resistance of buttons and bows. Imagine, there and in those times, a flurry of fluffy things, an intricacy of Lord knows what garment styles, there beneath the hill….

  “Bliss, are you there?”

  So I waited, hoping I could get into it during the next show and she would be there and I waited yearning for one more sight word goodhugh even if seventy outraged deaconesses tore through the screen to tear down the house around us. But couldn’t go in and sat wet and lonely and ashamed and wet down my leg and outside all that racing life swirling before me but once more the scenes came and tore past, sweeping me deeper into anguish yet when I came out of all that intensified time into the sun the world had grown larger for my having entered that forbidden place and yet smaller for now I knew that I could enter in if I entered there alone…. I ran—Bliss ran.

  … Where are we? Open the damper, Daddy; it heats hard. So I told myself that I shall think sometime about time. It was all a matter of time; just a little time. I shall think too of the camera and the swath it cut through the country of my travels, and how after the agony I had merely stepped into a different dimension of time. Between the frames in blackness I left and in time discovered that it was no mere matter of place which made the difference, but time. And not chronology either, only time. Because I was no older and although I discovered early that in different places I became a different me. What did it all mean? Was time only space? How did she who called Cud forth become shadow and then turn flesh? She broke the structure of ritual and the world erupted. A blast of time flooded in upon me, knocking me out of the coffin into a different time…. My grandpap said the colored don’t need rights, Donelson said; they only need rites. You get it? Just give niggers a baptism or a parade or a dance and they’re happy. And that, Karp said, is pappy crap…. And I was stunned.

  So now when I changed places I changed me, and when I entered a place that place changed imperceptibly. The mystery went with me, entered with me, realigning time and place and personality. When I entered all was changed, as by an odorless gas. So the mystery pursued me, shifting and changing faces. Understand?

  And later whenever instead of taking in a scene the camera seemed to focus forth my own point of view I felt murderous, felt that justifiable murder was being committed and my images a blasting of the world. I felt sometimes that a duplicity was being commissioned, an ambuscado trained upon those who thought they knew themselves and me. And yet I felt that I was myself a dupe because there was always the question aroused by my ability to see into events and the awareness of the joke implicit in my being me. Who? So I said, What is the meaning of this arrangement of time place and circumstance that flames and dampens murder in my heart? And what is this desire to identify with others, this need to extend myself and test my most far-fetched possibilities with only the agency of shadows? Merely shadows. All shadowy they promised me my mother and denied me solid life. Oh, yes, mirrors do steal souls. So indeed Narcissus was weird….

  “Rev. Bliss,” Hickman was saying, “in the dark of night, alone in the desert of my own loneliness I have thought long upon this. I have thought upon you and me and all the old scriptural stories of Isaac and Joseph and upon our slave forefathers who killed their babes rather than have them lost in bondage, and upon my life here and the trials and tribulations and the jokes and laughter and all the endless turns-about that mark man’s life in this world. And each time I return, each time my mind returns and makes its painful way back to the mystery of you and the mystery of birth and resurrection and hope which now seems endless in its complication. Yes, and I think upon the mystery of my involvement in it. Me, a black preacher’s wilful son, a gambler-musician who rejoiced in the sounds of our little hidden triumph in this world of deceitful triumphs. Me, given you and your gifts, your possibilities in this whirlwind of circumstance. How and why did it happen? Why was I, the weakest of vessels, chosen to give so much and to have to try to understand so much which hardly seems understandable? Why did He give me this mysterious burden and then seem to mock me and challenge me and let men revile and despise me and wipe my h
eart upon the floor of this world after I had suffered and offered it up in sacrifice because in the coming together of hate and love and life and death, that marked the beginning, I looked upon those I love and upon them who caused their deaths and was unable to accept it except as I’d already accepted the blues, the clap, the loss of love, the fate of man…. I bared my breast, I lowered my head into the ashes where they had burned my own, my loved ones, and accepted Thy will. Why didst Thou choose me, single me out for further humiliation who had been designated for humiliation by men unworthy, by men most unworthy, Lord? Why? Why me? Me who had accepted my blackness as my fate, in the dark and shadowy complication of Thy will? And yet, down there in the craziness of the southland, in the madhouse of downhome, the old motherland where I in all my ignorance and desperation was taught to deal with the complications of Thy plan, yes, and at a time when I was learning to live and to glean some sense of how Thy voice could sing through the blues and even speak through the dirty dozens if only the players were rich-spirited and resourceful enough, comical enough, vital enough and enough aware of the disciplines of life. In the zest and richness Thou were there, yes! But still, still, still, my question, Lord! Though I say, Quiet, quiet, my tongue. So teach me, Lord, to move on and yet be still; to question and not cry out, Lord, Lord, WHY?… WHY?”