Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  Oh, you better run, Stackalee!

  Run, Stackalee

  Run! Run! Run!

  Stackalee, Stackalee!

  Just listen to the running and the jumping of

  To the hopping and a-skipping and the

  Digging and the gripping of

  That BAD

  MAN

  Stack-Ah-LEE!

  Yes, he thought, and you let some of the brothers and sisters hear you singing that stuff and it’ll be Hickman who’s doing the running…. But this boy, why is he still running from us? He must realize by now that we mean him no harm, so how long does he think we’re going to keep being thrown out of places trying to see him before some newspaper reporter hears about it and gets the idea that there’s more to our trying to see him than meets the eye?… What a terrible thing is power! Especially when it lets you forget how other people—poor people, weak people—can react to bad treatment. To being ignored and forgotten with promises unkept, to mean acts and casual insults…. But Hickman, you’re forgetting that men of power don’t have to know about such matters. In place of knowing and the feeling that goes with it they have a heap of unknowing, unfeeling folks on the payroll to force an unknowing, unfeeling wall around them. That’s how it works. A high wall, like those around some of the

  buildings in this town…. That young secretary, now, she’s a wall. Yes, and her being from

  way down home in her attitudes—another wall. A private untouchable wall in a public place that’s been set up to make any black face a fool…. Thinks it’s hidden, but a wall just the … Run, Stackalee! … Lord, it’s so hard to tackle … and inside herself a stubborn wall…. Better turn on the cold, get braced for action—no, not yet. Relax. Cleanliness ain’t godliness, but it helps…. Ho, a wall around a wall within a wall of white-walled womanhood—that’s some kind of riddle, no? Holes for eyes a cotton sack and a gal now and a maiden then and a babe awash in the water, but no bulrushes there in Georgia! So where was Moses when the lights went out? But still the sparrow watches the watching of his watchers. Oh, he’s somewhere out there, somewhere behind the walls within walls though no wall willing nor withering…. No seams, no runners, just bold defiance, narrow-nosed with folded arms trying to stare us down. Looking straight at us with eyes like pistol barrels but with no hint of savvy or sympathy…. Oh, speak the truth…. Crying, Please don’t take my life…. Oh, I tried, I truly tried! Talked to her all that time, riffed about him and the shadow on the wall and kept back only what I couldn’t say. So maybe that’s why on the Mall I spoke the unspoken tongue but still split out with a busted lip and flubbed the notes…. Spoke to her earnestly, pleadingly and all but calling “O sinner come home,” but she never heard a word! Oh, watchful dove—But no, it ain’t gonna be like that! He stole the hat and the money, so she probably calls him honey…. Under the clock still deaf but not dumb with dumbness, eyes in the head but they see not. Just Caldonia-headed hard. Walled up in thick walls of attitude! It’s in the grain, under the bark—and that’s the bite! Yes, Lord! Words within walls within walled words and no word able to breach the wall…. And now the needles—cold! Brrr! God’s gonna trouble the water, Yes! But this I must still confirm:

  Seek

  Find

  Knock

  Open

  Ask

  And ye shall

  Receive

  Though no wall withering

  Without resistance….

  But somehow, Lord, somehow….

  Soon, soon! But no wall can wall out or wall in the Word. For wherever the tree liveth the kernel sprouteth and leaves come forth to tremble in the winds of life, and now trembling is truly in order…. Yes, but Hickman, but do you realize that you have got the Word up against a wall? How so? Oh, boxed, boxed, boxed! But I didn’t do it, or did I? Hidden within boxes without topses, that’s our boy! Walled within a walnut wall and yet stirring, God willing, even though no one has yet heeded our cry…. Now that’s it … cold … cold, needling cold….

  [CONTRAST]

  AFTER SUPPER HE SAT in the quiet of the Longview’s lounge fingering a copy of LIFE while Wilhite returned to his room for a long-distance talk with his wife. And as he waited for news of developments back home he thought of Janey, and how their presence in Washington had begun with her letter.

  Poor woman, he thought, if she’s been trying to reach me I hope Sister Wilhite was at home. Because if her angry young man is still in her area it could affect what we’re trying to do here. And if she’s stopped her pouting long enough to talk some sense into his mixed-up head it could save us all kinds of trouble.

  And now, gazing from the subdued light of the lounge toward the lobby’s brightness, he watched the coming and going of guests and visitors. The sounds of a string quartet were floating from one of the dining rooms and the lobby humming with lilting cadences of talk and laughter. And from the many couples streaming toward the elevators in evening dress he assumed that a formal dance or reception was being held in one of the ballrooms.

  Marked by high spirits and elegance, the scene was warm and cosmopolitan, but although unfolding only a few yards from where he was sitting its actors were of a lifestyle so different from his own that they seemed to be inhabitants of a far distant world. And as he watched three brown-skinned couples joining a group of formally attired whites with an exchange of warm greetings, he noted that they appeared to be as unmistakably Negro American as he did himself. And with his sense of remoteness increasing, the scene took on a mocking dimension of mystery.

  Change, Hickman, he chided himself with an ironic grin. Endless change is the name of this American game! So there’s no use in your speculating as to who those colored folks are, or how they happen to be here. They’re HERE, and even a home-boy like you should know that with features standing out like headlines on a newspaper they sho ain’t passing!

  Sure, in the old days you could spot most of us by color, occupation, and where we found pleasure, but up here in Washington times have changed so much that if you presume that you know any more about people like them than you know about the whites around them you’d be making a big mistake—which means that after years of being barred even from Capitol restrooms—Flies in the buttermilk, shoo, fly, shoo!—some of us are welcome and becoming almost as mysterious as white folks—yes, and just as anonymous!

  Amused by his joke, he shook his gray head. But as he studied the style, dress, and manners of the interracial group before him, he was taken with a feeling that the clue to the mystery that united and divided them, one from the other, was a matter of perception. They were both individuals and members of groups, products of the past and of changes wrought by the present—which made for mystery that challenged the observer even when there were no attempts being made to deceive him. So for the outsider it was a matter of unraveling details of background and contrast that could work either way, depending upon what he saw or didn’t. Like the whiteness hidden in blackness, or blackness concealed in the whiteness. Yes, and there’s our American habit of adopting the styles and manners of groups other than our own. Which is a tricky form of freedom through which some folks are able to take advantage of our tendency to ignore the products of our diversity while refusing to see how common and extensive they really are. And with a chuckle he recalled a black scam-man from Birmingham who moved to Washington and found acceptance in segregated theaters simply by faking a French accent and wearing a turban.

  But now, struck by the implication of the turban-wearer’s feat, it occurred to him that Janey’s shadowy young man might be somewhere within range of his vision. He turned and gave the lounge a searching sweep of his eyes.

  But what he saw was a scattering of elderly men, some reading and smoking while others engaged in quiet conversation. And with a sigh of relief he turned back to his view of the lobby, but with an increased awareness that he, a brown-skinned Southerner and therefore an outsider twofold, was enjoying the rare privilege of being able to observe such an affluent se
gment of the Capital’s life while seated unnoticed in a comfortable chair.

  And now his eyes were drawn to a bellman dressed in a cream-colored, gold-striped uniform who moved into view bearing a huge basket of red roses for an elderly woman who hurried beside him cuddling a tiny poodle.

  Thin, tall, and red of lip, the woman wore a flared black evening gown and a tiara sparkled in her hair, and as she spoke to the bellman with regal gestures her arms glittered with bracelets. Then, noticing with a start that her fluffy hair was tinted the same pale blue as that of her poodle he smiled, thinking, Admire me, admire my dog….

  Watching the grand manner with which the woman swayed beside the bellman he judged her to be about the age of Sister Gipson, but reminded himself that her dress was far shorter than Sister Gipson or any of the sisters would have approved of.

  And yet, he thought, there was a time when several of the same sisters were proud to display their legs—oh, yes!—and strut their stuff with a seductive twisting of shoulder and hip. It’s hard to imagine, but they were the same type that today’s young men call “African Queens,” and their hips and behinds were of the same shape and plumpness.

  So Hickman, he thought, there you go: The scene and the actors change, but the old story of Eden continues. And while the sisters went on to become pillars of the church and community leaders they also passed through the flapper phase like most young women of their time. And why not? They were only expressing what came naturally in what was then the acceptable style and trying to project an image that was as attractive and as American as they could manage.

  Oh, I wish I could shimmy like my Sister Kate….

  But then came the bodily and spiritual changes which come to us all, and they put that world away—and so completely that today just mentioning it would be like charging them with crimes committed while they were dream-walking, and during a time long gone and forgotten. And what right have I to remind them? Me, a preacher who enjoyed the pleasures of that wild free life? The main difference is that unlike the sisters I was cursed—or blessed—with a memory that forces me to remember things which they’ve managed to put aside. For all of us the song is ended, but for me its melody clings to my mind. And who knows, maybe the sisters’ blackout of memory is a blessing that’s left them less troubled in mind and more secure in their struggle with sin….

  And yet, as he watched a laughing group of young people enter the lobby, he questioned the sisters’ stance of unquestionable rectitude. Especially Sister Gipson’s. For while they were steadfast in their belief and conduct it was possible that the virtues of charity and sympathy depend as much upon one’s memory of the past as upon one’s hopes for heaven. Yes, and perhaps true conscientiousness depended upon one’s ability to retain in memory—and without hypocritical regrets—the complex motives that led to a change in one’s worldly ways. For perhaps true charity depends upon our memory as much as upon our willingness to identify with those to whom it’s extended—which seems to be such a complex involvement of the past with the present that most Americans are unwilling to risk it. Maybe that’s why we spend so much time looking down on others—especially the young—who repeat in slightly different styles the mistakes we made in the past.

  One thing is sure, he thought, Sister Gipson is perfectly willing to forgive our truant for committing his outrages, but not that woman with the dog—no, sir! Without the slightest idea of who she is or what she’s like morally she’d probably find her a special place in South east Hell and say No better for you…. And no doubt Madame Bluehair would do the same

  for Sister Gipson. If so, they’d end up in a version of hell that’s truly democratic. And while standing chin-deep in liquid fire and arguing over who deserved superior rights and privileges, the lost souls of other countries will be looking on and crooning, “Don’t make a move or you’ll get us all drowned….”

  That’s an unkind thought, but as the saying goes, women ain’t gentlemen. What’s more, both of these are American, so even in hell they’d probably keep depending on their difference in color to tell them who in hell they really were and weren’t. But before you can see the other fellow for what he thinks he is you have to have the confidence of accepting yourself for who you are inside. Differences aren’t necessarily negative or signs of inferiority—not by a long shot. And since diversity and variety are said to be the spice of life, maybe we’ve been blessed with such an abundance that we don’t know what to do with it. Here I have the questionable privilege of looking at a style of life that not only requires more money than we’ve ever had down home, but one that springs from a different frame of mind and a different set of values. Not that it’s better or worse than ours—beyond the question of justice and money, which are important—but they’re different because they started from a different point in time and in place, and that long before this government got started. Anyway, this is a country in which the past and the present are mixed like the ingredients in a stew, and even when they fail to blend they come together in people from many levels and countless places—like it or not, and even if it’s only touch and go, Madame Bluehair and the bellman are united by a purpose which will end in an exchange of clichés and hard cash. Then they’ll go their separate ways, but each will have made an impression on the other that’s bound to surface somewhere down the line. Then they’ll remember and make a judgment and act on it. And I should know, because here now, up North off to the side and unnoticed in this fancy hotel—Hickman, are you listening to all those if’s you’re using?—this old cat can sit down while looking at the Queen! And what’s more, he can do it without a horn in his hands! Which in the broader scheme of things doesn’t amount to much, and it’s costing me more than I can afford, but just knowing that it has come to pass clears away a little of the confusion that’s accumulated through time and change…. Abe, old friend, are you listening?

  And now, with strands of music drifting from the distance, he recalled the many occasions during which he played dances in such hotels as the Longview. Times when he had been forced to enter through rear doors and ride service elevators to the ballrooms—often after arriving hungry and tired from traveling all day by bus or by car. And then the torture of passing through a riot of kitchen aromas which drifted from the fine fare available to others but denied to him in spite of his ability to pay for a meal in good, In-God-we-trust American cash. And then the irony of watching from the bandstand as his music gradually took over and inspirited the activity of those whose power assigned him a pariah’s place in society; watching their gyrations, graceful or wild, as they flung themselves with varying skills about the hard polished floor.

  In those days, such people as these passing now through the lobby had seemed blissfully unaware that although they ruled him out of their dancing fellowship they had also given themselves over to his power to control, if only for brief, spasmodic moments, their most intimate moods and emotions. For although isolated there in the gray, undefined, and carefully avoided no-man’s-land assigned to those like himself, they had an undeniable need for his talent as a dispenser of joy. And thus gradually he had come to recognize that he was not only the master of their revelry, but a lion tamer and intermediary who presided over the powerful instinctive urges whose attractions were undeniable but socially dangerous. He had come to view himself as an ambiguous figure whose role it was through the magic of jazz to provide an atmosphere which muted the threat of those powerful urges which his employers feared as too uncouth or dangerous for forthright display. It was a situation which he had come to dislike for reducing him to a black object of white convenience and assigning him a role like that of legendary Sam the shit-house man; or Frank, the Sabbath Day fire and candle-flame lighter. And yet because of his love for his art, his delight in performing, and the satisfaction which sprang from his ability to release the hidden pleasures of the dance, he had clung to jazz as to his innermost sense of his identity. Thus more often than not he had given his employers his best out of a rec
ognition that one part of his dual role went with the other, and that no matter how deeply their artistic roles were examined, and regardless of their color or backgrounds, all entertainers—including opera singers and virtuoso violinists, were just that—entertainers. Like them he was an artist who served the whims of the anonymous public. But beyond that there remained those mysterious aspects of what one did through one’s art which could not be reduced to terms of money, social status, or color. And somewhere in that mystery he had found the saving grace of his art.

  “Sidemen,” they called us and sat us aside, and though often a leader I was still set aside—and doubly.

  Yes, but how many parties had depended upon his mood, energy, or condition of lip for their success or failure? How many marriages had he made or broken simply through the effects of his playing, his art? And on a more abstract and mysterious level, how many children, wanted or unwanted, had sprung into life through the coupling of lovers enthralled by the mocking spell of his horn?

  How many dancers, experiencing dreams and emotions which their protected lives had left them unprepared to contain, had plunged for the first time into a quickened sense of those realms of life’s complexity that lay beyond the narrow, respectable definitions of words while swinging and swaying, smiling and playing at the youthful game called “love”? He knew of some, had come upon their names in the newspapers now and then in his present life and wanderings. Famous names, important people, even a well-known minister or two. Perhaps things had changed since he left that life behind him, but who among the thousands for whom he had played had expected that even then he had been an observer? An inside-outsider who peered beyond any wall erected to restrict his powers of judgment? That although relegated to a platform at the back of society’s glamorous room where he was ever cautioned to be more heard than seen, and where you were carefully ignored by the revelers who hired you and acted as though you didn’t exist, or weren’t governed by the same laws, whether moral or physical—even to the extent that when under the excitement created by your music secret intimacies which were so carefully hidden from their fellows’ eyes were casually, even brazenly, revealed to your ironic gaze? Who noticed that you marked the groping hands, the hot surrendering of breasts, or saw limbs explored and caressed, even sometimes drunkenly defiled? Observed the infidelities of husbands and wives, the crude initiations of finishing-school girls by clumsy college boys made bold by bootleg gin? At first, back there, it had been so amazing that you felt invisible, because it was all there for a blank-faced band boy to see; revealed, exposed, even flaunted. And only because you were safely outside their scheme of things, their code of conduct. So if you smelled the hot odor of quivering flesh taking over the cloying of expensive perfume, so what? If you observed the signs of horny old Adam lifting his head, or caught sight of a flagrant Jezebel emerging from behind the mask of girls in debutantes’ gowns—again, so what? Even if you intruded by riffing a snatch of “Squeeze Me,” or “Meet Me in the Bottom” on your wha-wha-muted horn either as a taunt or warning they took it as no more than the envious applause of an outsider doomed never to be let in. So again, so what? Don’t you wish you were as free as me was their only response. Or: Black boy, you can gaze at these peaches but you’ll never shake this tree—so dream a while, Sambo, dream a while! No, you didn’t count beyond the heat of the rhythm’s beat and the lilt of the blaring horns….