Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “‘All right, all right!’ I said, ‘you’re talking about the blackness of truth….’

  “‘That’s right, and about illusion, reality, and the key to the lock….’

  “‘But I’m confused because you also taught us that truth is a snare and a dee-lusion….’

  “‘Mistake number six,’ you yelled, ‘and I will not be misquoted! I said that their truth is tricky, and that therefore ours must be even trickier! Look long into blackness! Whales dive four fathoms five and see in the darkest depths of the deep. Therefore ye must think deep black thoughts like the whale! Learn to impose our own truth upon the truth which oppresses, and then wail it on the highways, the byways, and in the barbershops!’

  “And, Chief, when you said that I was so inspired that I wondered where you had been all this long, long time—but that’s when I made another mistake!

  “Because when I thought it you rose up and yelled, ‘Mistake number seven! I am that which I am wherever I am, and ye shall be that which ye see in me, verily! But only after ye grasp in thyself that which ye sense in me! Therefore I repeat: Think! Reflect! Remember! And bear this in mind—yea, in mind bear thee this lest ye be deceived: If a smell ariseth which requires chemical analysis for its identification—it is not, was not, and cannot ever have been unnatural!’

  “Chief, I swear: You came on like gangbusters and had me so shook up and inspired that I really began to smell something—oh, sure, I know today what it was, but then it was in the future—so I wanted to ask you, but before I could make up my mind to risk making another one of my mistakes, you began to disappear.

  “Oh, yes! I remember, because then all of a sudden I was simply looking into the blackness and listening to your voice fading. Yeah, but before it was fully gone I could hear you saying, ‘Go ye now and find a place to have thy say, and until I come again this way learn ye to say with true feeling that which ye have heard me say….’ And then, Chief, you were gone, gone, GONE! Yes, sir! But I want you to know that I remembered and have been following your instructions ever since.

  “Wait, Chief, don’t go! Then a few days after you came to me I was looking through some old newspapers and came across this picture of you and it brought you alive again in my mind. That’s right! That picture made me remember the way it used to be back there—how long ago was it? Let’s see—Eva left me, and then Abel died…. Yeah, and I hit the numbers for a thousand bucks—that’s right, Chief; four-eleven-forty-four, that was my lucky combination. Hell, Chief, that was over twenty-the-fucking-five dam’ years ago! Would you believe it? But it didn’t make no difference, ‘cause when I come across your picture I just sat there and stared and asked myself how the hell it could have happened. What I mean is: How could it have taken me all that time to understand how much you had me fooled! But then as I read your statement to that cracker judge and jury it dawned on me for the first time how wrong I’d been about you….”

  “Yes, and you still are,” Hickman said, “even though I did undergo quite a change….”

  “… Who you telling,” Leroy said. “I know! Oh, but don’t I know it! That’s why I need to get this out of my system! So listen to me, Chief—hell, man, I was there when they tried you! But last month when I read in black and white how you told the court that you didn’t rape those pale-face bitches for the sake of some uneducated pussy—which it stands to reason that a stone stud like you didn’t have to do—I understood! So for the very first time I dug that you were telling the truth! You took those broads like you were somewhere across the street looking down from a ten-story window….”

  “… WHAT!” Hickman yelled. “Are you saying that I …”

  “… And you did it out of revenge for all the wrongs those folks—and especially their damn women—had been doing to our people!”

  “Now wait, man! Who are you,” Hickman said. “I’ve never—Do you know what you’re saying….”

  “… But up to the time I read about it those bastards had me brainwashed—that’s right! But then the scales fell from my goddamn eyes. That’s right, man! And when that happened I understood for the first time that what you had really done was to change what the white folks call rape into something that they hadn’t even thought about!

  “Because, hell, Chief,” Leroy said, reaching out and stabbing Hickman’s chest with a discolored finger’s manicured nail, “you [thump!] turned [thump!] their little chicken-shit game [thump-thump-thump!] into a form of Black [thump!] fucking [thump!] Political [thump-thump—thump] ACTION!”

  Resisting an impulse to bash Leroy’s face, Hickman whirled to see if anyone else was listening and shouted, “I DID WHAT!”

  “Oh, come on, Chief,” Leroy said, flashing white teeth in a smile of delight, “don’t go acting surprised over my taking so damn long to dig it, ‘cause after all, man, I’m not educated like you. But I finally dug it, and that’s exactly what you did! I didn’t dig it at the time, but you upped and turned the tables on those crackers! Yes, sir! You ran their own filthy game against them! And baby, what I mean is, you changed that stale crap of theirs into something black and beautiful!”

  For a moment Hickman stared open-mouthed into the exalted discoloration of Leroy’s face, torn between a feeling of repulsion and a need to learn the identity of the man—ghost, rapist, agitator—for whom he was being so outrageously mistaken.

  “But, Leroy—please,” he pleaded, “I don’t know who on earth it is you think I

  am, but I swear that I’ve never been the kind of man you’re describing…. I’m a preacher….”

  Throwing up his palms Leroy racked his body backwards and braced himself with an admiring smile. “Sure, Chief, I know, and a dam’ good one! You been preaching freedom from way back. I dig you, Daddy—understand? So don’t be standing there trying to look so modest and all. You did a great thing and it was beautiful. Because not only did you tell them what you were going to do, you did it! And then you went to the pen like a man and paid your righteous dues! Yes, sir, you did it! And like I say, when I finally figured it out all I could do was just sit there with the tears running down my cheeks. And that’s when I told myself—I said, ‘Leroy, you were a mindless, gutless fool! That’s what you were for ever doubting that good brave black man!’ Yes, sir; that’s what I said.

  “Chief, that’s the truth! And that’s why it does me so much good to finally be able to admit it. Because I realized that back there when I was seeking for some direction I had found me a real man and a true leader! But then, after finding you, I was too dam’ dumb to recognize you and give you the loyalty you deserved. Even now it dam’ near breaks my heart to even think about it, because after I’d found me a black man who was a true, natural-born leader with the courage to git down in the mud and do battle with the bastards on their own fucking terms I messed up. So sitting there in my crummy little room I told myself that in a man like you we had found what we always needed—which was a man ready and willing to start down in the stone rock bottom of the shit pile and rise up shining with the pride and beauty of Black BEING! What I mean is: a man who had discovered the black dynamics of Black leadership! And I mean one who was ready and willing and able to pull himself up by his bootstraps and reach down and draw the rest of the race up to the top of the fucking mountain along with him! Yes, sir!”

  Aware of sweat bursting from his pores, Hickman started away, thinking, If this wasn’t happening to me, I wouldn’t believe it—but before he could take a step Leroy reached out and seized him by the wrists.

  “That’s the way it was back then,” Leroy said, “and I finally figured out that my problem with you was that you came to us as a mystery wrapped in a mystery, or a brightness shrouded in darkness….”

  “Now, just hold it and listen to me carefully,” Hickman began, but as he tried to free his wrists Leroy tightened his grip and stared searchingly into his eyes.

  “Please, Chief, don’t try to deny it,” Leroy sang out with a sudden burst of fervor. “Because I know!
I know that my redeemer liveth! Some folks said that you rose up out of Canada. Others said it was out of Africa, while still others claimed it was either Gulfport, Mississippi, or Boley, Oklahoma…. Some knew you as Prince Marcus, others as Swami Joe, and some by such names as Clexo, Newfoundland Ike, and Sweet-the-Monkey. And then you faded a while and turned up again as Ras the Cleanser, the Hot Wind Out of Africa; and in Detroit you were Dennis the Inspirer; and in Chicago, Black John, otherwise known as the Compound Cathartic-for-all-forms-of-white-sickness; and in L.A. you came as Matt the Revelator and the Dark Sequoia—oh, yes! You were known by different names in different places, but to me, my man, you were always none other than Chief SAM, the fucking Liberator!”

  “… Hickman!” Hickman shouted, “It’s HICKMAN!”

  “… You were celebrated far and wide, but the main thing for me was that you came to us out of a mystery. And that was as a test to see if we were ready to be led. Yes, sir, that was it! Because brave leaders have to have brave followers. But like I said, I failed the test. And although it took me years and years, at last I know it. I was too dam’ dumb to come up with the necessary, and you knew it. That was the trap you set for all like me who wasn’t ready—just like you told that cracker judge, and, man, man, how you told him! You remember?”

  “Oh, no,” Hickman said, sighing, “but I’m sure you can tell me….”

  “You’re damn right I can! You said, ‘Look, Judge, you don’t have to waste your breath asking me why I’m protesting, all you have to do is look into this scumbag you people have been using to reenslave us after all these years of our so-called emancipation! Think about it! You did us wrong! You slapped us square in the face but we told ourselves, “Peace, for they know not what they do.” And so we turned the other cheek and hoped that you would see the error of your ways. But what did you do? Hell, I’ll tell you what you did: You ran around and kicked us in the right cheek of our high black innocent behinds!

  “‘And when we stood there shaking and reeling and didn’t go down, you hauled off with all your might and tried to kick all the patience and humility out of the left cheek of our behinds. And when we still held our peace and still tried to play by your so-called Golden Rules, you got mad and kicked us square in the middle of our ass! And that ain’t all, because when at last we got upset and called out to you, “Cease! Halt! Let’s discuss this mess like men and brothers,” you rose up and came down on our heads, and on the poor bewildered heads of our innocent wives and our children!’

  “And Chief, that’s when you reached way down deep in our bag of sore trials and tribulations and hit him with some deep, deep shit from the nitty-gritty!

  “You told him, ‘Every time we look around you’re crying rape, and when we look to see what you mean we discover that it means anything and everything that a black man can do! That’s right!

  “‘To live is to rape! And to work is to rape! And trying to learn to read and write in a broken-down school is to rape! And to pray bowed down on our bended knees is to rape—but the worst rape of all is for one of us to be innocent and have some lying woman swear on your dog-eared Bible that we raped her!’

  “Oh, you really told him! Chief, you said, ‘Hell, according to y’all even knocking out a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound white-assed prizefighter with sixteen-ounce boxing gloves in a ring under the control of a white referee and with five thousand mostly white folks looking on is rape! And what’s more, just asking for what is rightfully ours, and which we have earned fair—if not square—is to rape!

  “‘Oh, yes! And trying to vote in Ala-the-goddam-bama can get us charged with ninety-nine counts of rape for attacking a broken-down eighty-nine-year-old ballot box!’

  “Then, Chief, they tried to shut you up, and you really laid it on ‘em!

  “I can see it now, just like it’s still happening: Two had you by the arms, two had you by the legs, and a whole gang of the bastards had you by the neck, but they couldn’t stop you—oh, no! ‘Cause with all those crackers hanging on you r’ared back and roared in thunder:

  “‘Rape! Rape! RAPE!’ you blasted. ‘Please, won’t somebody be so kind as to get me a law book and a dictionary and explain to me what the hell is this rape I keep hearing so much about? I keep hearing it and I ask myself how can it be that it’s all these things for you folks and only one for me? Haven’t I got a right to the tree of life? Don’t I have the need and the right to chase me some happiness? I think and feel it in my bones that I do! I believe in my heart that most of my people do too! Therefore I’m letting you know how we feel….’

  “You told them, Chief; you said, ‘I’m a patient man of a patient people, but, hell, Judge, patience don’t mean forever! Time is growing short, so listen to what I’m saying! Look at our condition and see your mistakes and clean up this raping mess you been making of anything and everything!’

  “And that’s when they hit you over the head and throwed you into the slammer! But then, Chief, God bless you, you served your time, and when they let you out, you went into righteous action! That’s when you struck a match like back there in ‘35 and ‘43 and led us in that mighty chorus of ‘BURN, BABY, BURN!’

  “And when the buildings flamed and the windowpanes shattered and you saw that they still wasn’t paying heed to your warning, you turned the tables on the bastards by grabbing you a whole gang of those bitches and turning them inside out—and oh, what a mighty strategy and glorious tactic it was!

  “‘Out, Out!’ you cried, ‘Life is but a raping shadow, therefore who’s to be or not to be, if we can’t be free? The tide has turned, the righteous soot has streaked the snow and time still marches, so we’re in time and in step with time! So what shall it be? You, or me, or us together?…’

  “Chief, I tell you, I just sat there reading your confession—oh, no! That’s not what I mean! It was a great oration! That’s what it truly was! And there I was reading it and hearing it and laughing like crazy and crying like a baby! And my heart was breaking with pride and sadness…. And it was all because I understood for the first time what had happened to all our poor people who should have understood what you were trying to do. They should have learned the lesson you were teaching, but they let you down!

  “I know, because when they charged you with rape I gave up all hope and didn’t want to think about you anymore. I was so dumb and ashamed that I couldn’t think straight enough to work out the puzzle you were laying down for our instruction! Chief, that’s the truth! That’s the truth as I finally came to see it—no, Chief, wait! Don’t leave me now because I’m not about finished! There’s more to it—and please, Chief, don’t look at me like that! Forgiveness, Chief! I’m asking for your forgiveness! And after I’m through you don’t have to say a mumbling word, not even a smile if you don’t feel like it….

  “Because I’ve been punished; yes, sir, I’ve been punished. After that trial I gave up and just lived from day to day, and I told myself that instead of being my true leader you were just one more hustler who’d come down with white-fever. So I tried to put it all behind me and lived my life in a hound-dog way—God damn it! It’s shameful but that’s what I did! I confess it! And not until I was reading that newspaper did I finally admit to myself that I was only that way on the surface. That’s right! It raised me from the dead and showed me the light! Because way deep down in my heart there was a part of what you had made happen that just wouldn’t die. I know it now, yes, sir! Because whenever I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, or maybe when I was sipping me a little taste of gin, the thought would come to me like a little voice way back in the rear of my head, and then the high hopes and excitement of the old days would come alive again, and I’d find myself thinking about you and getting worked up over how it used to be—the pride and the hope, I mean. That’s when your image would rise up and glow in my mind, and I could see you on the soapbox agitating, and leading those glorious marches! And I could see your gestures and hear your voice as clear as a bell! And that’s
when deep down I’d truly feel the lost hope you gave us.

  “But it wouldn’t last but a few seconds, and then I’d have to turn it off and think about something else. I simply couldn’t stand it! I couldn’t bear to think about those wonderful days and all we lost when they throwed you in jail. And especially when I considered that all that glorious promise was lost over some prissy pieces of poontang! Man, I tell you, that thing almost killed me! And in a way of speaking it did, ‘cause until only a minute ago when I happened to look out and see you walking along the street I’ve been a living dead man….”

  “Dammit, Lee-roy,” Hickman heard suddenly from behind him, “you’re ‘bout the damndest fool in all D.C.! Here I been waiting to finish up with you and you’re out here fooling with some stranger! Leave that man alone!”

  And now with mixed feelings of relief and distrust Hickman whirled, wondering what to expect next, and saw a short, rotund, freckle-faced man who wore a barber’s tunic with a fine-toothed comb sticking from its breast pocket.

  “Oh, to hell with him, Chief,” Leroy said with a scowl and wave of his hand, “That’s Ivey, a cat who thinks cutting hair makes him some kind of philosopher….”

  “Mister,” Ivey said, “you’ll have to excuse Lee-roy for hitting you with all that crap of his, because he don’t mean no harm, not really. It’s just that he’s what they call a ‘moon freak’—which means that when the moon’s in the full he simply can’t help but act the fool. Did he rough you up?”

  “Why, no,” Hickman said, “but he’s certainly got me confused with someone I’ve never even heard about….”

  “I know what you mean,” Ivey said, “‘cause when Lee-roy’s like this he’s apt to grab any big, well-dressed black man who comes along and insist that he’s some cat who goes by the name of Chief Sam. Hell, Lee-roy ain’t even seen the man, he only heard about him from his granddaddy who’s supposed to have run into him years ago somewhere out west. What’s more, Lee-roy’ll admit it when he’s normal. But when he’s like he is today he thinks every big, dark-complected fellow who comes along is some kind of cross between a conjur-man, a pimp, a prizefighter, a foot-racer—you name it—and some kind of chippy-chasing civil-rights leader—who he claims is operating somewhere underground. That’s just how scrambled he gets. It’s never a doctor, lawyer, educator, scientist, or judge—much less a politician, of whom we do have a few in Congress—hell, no! It’s got to be some cat who so far as anybody has been able to find out, has never even existed!”