Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  And as little Miss Maud thrust out her arms to blow him a kiss he saw her robe fall apart and was shocked to see a tiny brown breast flip from the embroidered bodice of her scarlet nightgown.

  “Watch it, you slut,” a woman beside her screamed hysterically, “or you’ll end up letting him see that boat in the bulrushes you been boasting about!”

  “Oh, woman,” Sister Maud said as she calmly rearranged her nightgown and robe, “you give me a pain in my bottom! Can’t you see that’s no ordinary man? Shucks, he’s already looked deeper into womenfolks than the place you’re so worried about. This man is looking into the depths of my soul!

  “So please, darlin’, don’t stop now,” she said as she fixed him again in her cross-focusing gaze, “because no matter what these others think about you, Maud understands. Just tell her some more. Tell her that she hasn’t really lost her three little babies! Tell her it isn’t so! Tell her—you hear me, darlin’? Tell her! Tell her! Good God almighty, darlin’, say something! And if you tired, then let your friend take over! Tell me that stone is stone-gone stone! Tell me my flesh is still flesh with bone underneath it! Tell me I’m not awake and standing here in the middle of the night but really up there in my bed with my three little babies safe beside me while I wait for my righteous bridegroom! Speak to me, darlin’, SPEAK to me!”

  “BRIDEGROOM?” Barnes bellowed. “Now she’s really blowing her store-bought wig!”

  “… Tell me that pretty soon my righteous bridegroom will come tipping over that pretty blue carpet that Mister Rockmore had laid in my room, and that those pretty pink roses will still be there on my wallpaper! Oh, yes! It’ll be so goo-ood! So tell me all, tell me everything!”

  “Woman,” Barnes roared, “have you up and blown that beat-up wig you’re wearing? Answer me!”

  “Ignore him, darlin’, and tell me! And after that they can do with me whatever they will, but you tell me! Speak to my soul! And then, darlin’…”

  And extending her clasped hands in a gesture of prayer the little woman leaned toward him, crying, “Please answer a question which no good woman should ever have to ask: When will my bridegroom with those sweet, soothing hands start protecting us from white men like that nasty, stinking, little mammy-grabber who’s down there doing his best to knock the foundation out from under our home! So you tell me now! I say, TELL ME! AND THEN SHOW ME YOU MEAN WHAT YOU SAY!”

  Poor woman, he thought, she’s losing control, and from the stares they’re giving this white man so are some of the men….

  “Go ahead,” Barnes said, “prove what she says about your being a leader by showing us how Uncle Toms like you and your buddy’ll go about dealing with this D.C. policeman!”

  “Very well, Brother Barnes, but I’ll start by warning them against listening to an opportunist like you!”

  “Opportunist!” Barnes roared with a jerk of his head. “Y’all heard him, folks, so y’all be the judge. I’m urging you to defend your God-given rights against a cracker policeman and he calls me a hustler! Hell, if that’s his idea of leadership his friend Mister Charlie has him and his buddy bowing and scraping!”

  “Listen, you,” the detective said, stepping forward, “that’s enough of that!”

  “The hell it is,” a man called from the stairs. “And what’s more, we’re tired as hell of being told to turn the other cheek for somebody like you!”

  “Tell whitey about it,” Barnes called. “Let the sucker know we’re tired of that kind of leadership—yeah! And if this one and his buddy don’t like it, I’ll start kicking butt ‘til they bleed like fountains! The nerve of them coming in here insulting folks like us with some Uncle Tom bullshit!”

  “Well, now,” Wilhite said with a quick step forward, “since it’s your idea, why don’t you give it a try?”

  “No, Wilhite,” Hickman warned, “we didn’t come here for that!”

  And seeing a man moving closer to Barnes with a hostile glare, he grabbed Wilhite’s arm.

  “I know, A.Z.,” Wilhite said, “but it’s time somebody taught this clown the difference between our character and the region we come from!”

  “No, Wilhite,” he said, holding on, “because he’ll still go on thinking that all black Southerners are clowns and all white folks racists!”

  “Hell, let the sucker go,” Barnes yelled from a prizefighter’s posture, “let’s get it over with….”

  “Right on, Lonnie,” a man called from nearby. “You take him and I’ll take the big one!”

  “Yeah,” another man said as he moved to join Barnes, “and we’ll see that whitey keeps out of it!”

  “Oh, no,” the detective warned as he unbuttoned his jacket, “not if you consider the consequences!”

  And in looking past Wilhite, Hickman saw Barnes’ defender’s startled expression as suddenly those around him fell back at the sight of a gun in the detective’s white hand.

  “That’s right,” the detective warned with a gesture toward Hickman, “and before things get out of hand, you two get into that room behind you—now move!”

  And seeing Wilhite still staring at Barnes, Hickman whirled him around and propelled him forward.

  “Wait, darlin’, WAIT,” he heard from the stair. And seeing the detective facing the crowd with his gun raised for action, he pushed Wilhite into the room and followed.

  [TERROR]

  WHERE, partially blinded by the sudden intensity of light, he let go of Wilhite and heard shouts from the vestibule become suddenly muted by the slam of the door.

  “This way,” the detective said, “and watch your step, this place is a booby trap.”

  And hearing Wilhite and the detective moving away, he proceeded slowly forward by ear and by touch. And now, his eyes adjusting, he found himself moving through an aisle crowded with appliances and furniture and was surprised by the change of environment.

  For now he was passing a collection of small circular tables and stacked wooden chairs, the carved headboards of mahogany bedsteads, an ancient wash-stand with a washbowl and pitcher. Two movie projectors stood surrounded by stacks of circular film cans, a tin weather vane in the shape of an eagle stood on a table with its wings spread wide above a troop of miniature Minutemen armed with flintlock muskets, a toy fire wagon drawn by galloping horses, a bugle, a banjo, and an old phonograph with a flared wooden horn. And in recalling the metallic sounds of such early machines his eyes were assaulted by the blinding glare of electric lamps.

  Attached to the wall on his right, the lamps were fashioned in the forms of torch-bearing cherubs, and suddenly struck by their angelic smiling, he paused.

  I get it, he thought with a surge of amusement: In case I’m here in all this blinding confusion in search for something important you little fellows will help me, but you’re smiling because you know that otherwise I’d never lay hands on it.

  But now, moving toward where Wilhite and the detective were standing, in what appeared to be the only clear space in the wall-to-wall clutter, his puzzlement was increased by the disorder around him. And as he gazed upward and wondered at the waste of electricity he realized that the source of much of the dust-filtered glare were four theatrical spotlights attached near the tops of the high-ceilinged walls.

  “Officer,” Wilhite was saying, “what is this mare’s nest, some kind of storeroom for second-hand goods?”

  “I’m still not sure,” the detective said, “but it’s a hell of a mess to find in a historical building.”

  “Historical,” Wilhite said, “are you serious?”

  “Why not?” the detective said. “This is one of the District of Columbia’s oldest areas.”

  “So there you go, A.Z.,” Wilhite said, “the old saying holds true even up here in Washington. What comes around, goes around! So now here’s a historical building that’s ended up in the care of Aubrey McMillen!”

  “That is if he’s actually the janitor,” the detective said, “and I doubt it.”

  “Either way,” Wilhite s
aid, “he’s still in the picture. But what I don’t get, is why everything out front is so neat while this part of the house is so junky. It reminds of my grandfather’s advice when he gave me a pony. ‘Take good care of him, Primus,’ he said, ‘because a man who doesn’t appreciate his belongings is sure to abuse them.’ ”

  “Yes, Deacon,” Hickman said with a nod toward the detective, “and having been a slave he knew that even if the owner took care of his property other folks would abuse it. And all the more if his property was black. Because if he struck back the next thing he knows all hell would erupt with folks arguing over whether his property had human rights. And next thing he knows everybody’s waving a gun in the air.”

  “Don’t worry,” the detective said with a shrug, “because at least this one’s on safety. What’s more, I agree with his grandfather’s advice, a man should look out for his property. But as far as this gun is concerned I’d prefer not to use it. That’s right, but since it could make the difference between living or dying I’m ready and willing to use it.”

  “I understand,” Hickman said, “but would you actually have fired that thing in that hall full of people?”

  “Only if I had to, but then, as a wise man once said, one never knows—do one?”

  “No,” Hickman said with a start. “One never do.”

  And, surprised that a man whose attempt at jive talk had been so inept would now take a potshot at proper English—and before two Southern Negroes—he felt partially disarmed. And watching the detective punctuate his remark by spinning the gun like a sheriff in an old Western movie, he chuckled.

  “No, sir,” he said, “one never knows, but it’s unusual to hear a policeman quoting Fats Waller. So now maybe you’ll explain why you hurried us out of the hall….”

  “Because I have orders to learn what you two are doing here at this time of night. Which was impossible with that loudmouth exciting a riot.”

  “Oh, come on, Officer,” Wilhite said. “Down South we call that ‘barking at the big gate.’ Barnes reminds me of a character I knew years ago who hobbled around Atlanta with empty pockets and broken-down shoes while claiming he was building a nationwide movement which would boycott General Motors until they renamed the Cadillac in honor of Abraham Lincoln and Booker T. Washington!”

  “He what?”

  “That’s right,” Hickman said, “I remember.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a character,” the detective said, “but it sounds as though he and Barnes might be one and the same. Still, with his friends chiming in things were beginning to sound pretty serious.”

  “Sure,” Wilhite said, “because most folks out there were already upset by having you policemen swoop down on this place in the middle of the night. But Barnes? Shucks, he’s just putting on an act. And as long as anyone listens he’ll woof and growl ‘til he foams at the mouth. You heard him, he thinks he’s a militant leader, so having an audience who couldn’t escape he felt free to bass at the law and badmouth us strangers. That’s what was happening, and if you two hadn’t stopped me I’d have taught him a lesson.”

  “He needs one,” the detective said, “but I had enough on my hands without you adding to it. What happened, did you two have a hassle with him on some other occasion?”

  “Why, no,” Hickman said, “this is the first time we’ve ever seen the man.”

  “And you’ve never been on these premises before?”

  “Never!”

  “And how about you?”

  “Neither of us,” Wilhite said, “and that’s the truth.”

  “Then why …”

  “Listen, Officer,” Hickman said, “as I tried to tell you out in the hall, Aubrey McMillen is the brother of one of our members and …”

  “… Members? Members of what?”

  “Of our church, our congregation….”

  “Are you telling me that you two are actually preachers?”

  “Now let’s get this straight,” Hickman said, “as leaders of our church we work together, but officially my friend here is a deacon and I’m a minister. Which means that he assists me in everything from conducting sacred services to sharing the burden of seeing to the needs of our members.”

  “Very well,” the detective said, “but my chief wants to know your personal relationship with this fellow McMillen.”

  “Good! And since we can save time by our telling him directly, where is he?”

  “He’s here on the scene, but since he’s having trouble getting a fix on exactly what happened here tonight it’s best that we don’t disturb him.”

  “I see,” Hickman said, “but no matter what happened he’ll discover that we had nothing to do with it! And all we know is that we came here on behalf of one of our members who’s terminally ill.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “McMillen’s sister, Mrs. Caroline Prothoroe. And since he’s her only survivor she wants to see him before it’s too late. That’s why we came here hoping to persuade McMillen to see her while she’s still alive.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” the detective said, “but why did you pick this time of night?”

  “Simply because we thought it would give us the best chance at catching McMillen at home.”

  Studying his face as though weighing his answer the detective removed a notebook and pen from inside his jacket.

  “Reverend,” he said, “give me your name and address.”

  “My name is Alonzo Z. Hickman, and I live with Deacon Wilhite and his wife at number ———— Street, Waycross, Georgia.”

  “What does the ‘Z’ stand for?”

  “For ‘Zuber.’ My mother’s people were Zubers….”

  “And is preaching your full-time profession?”

  “Yes, sir, preaching and performing the duties that go with my ministry. Such as coming here in the middle of the night on behalf of one of our oldest and most respected members.”

  “And that’s your only reason for entering these premises?”

  “No, not altogether. Because I also wanted to have a talk with a man I haven’t seen for years.”

  “I see,” the detective said as he wrote in his notebook and turned to face Wilhite.

  “And your name?”

  “Primus Davidson Wilhite.”

  “First born and son Number One, eh? And you came here with Doctor Hickman as a favor for McMillen’s sister?”

  “Yes, sir, and she well deserves it.”

  “Very well. But now, Doctor Hickman, I’ll have to point out an inconsistency in what you’ve told me. Because while you say that you’ve never visited this house before, that hysterical woman out there seems to have known you. Can you explain that inconsistency?”

  “I can’t, but maybe it’s because preachers have a certain look about them—with or without the collar. She might have guessed it, or heard me preach on some occasion.”

  “Heard you where?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Being evangelists, Deacon Wilhite and I do quite a bit of traveling.”

  “But you’ve never seen her before?”

  “No, sir, not that I recall.”

  “And you, Deacon?”

  “No, sir, before tonight I’ve never laid eyes on the woman. But I can tell you this: If I’ve ever seen a woman who’s high-tensioned nervous she’s one of the worst. And when a woman in her condition gets excited she’s liable to see preachers and policemen everywhere. And the sad thing about it is that she’s apt to confuse either one with some boyfriend she had, or thinks she had, or wishes she’d had—you heard that business about her having a bridegroom! That type of nervousness can cause a woman to see things which normal folks wouldn’t even imagine. She’s like a time bomb just waiting for something to explode her, so maybe something you said got her going….”

  “Oh, no,” the detective said, “I was only following procedures. But when I ordered them to clear the hall she got upset. Then you two showed up and she really got raving. I tell you, believe it or
not, these days there’s at least one screwball in every crowd, and with Barnes on the scene I’ve had the bad luck of dealing with two! But tell me, Reverend, how long have you known this fellow McMillen?”

  “Since he was a boy,” Hickman said, “but it’s been years since I’ve seen him.”

  “It’s the same with me,” Wilhite added, “we both knew him as a boy, but when he reached his twenties he took off for Kentucky. And after a few years or so he stopped coming home, even for visits. Back in those days he was following the horses.”

  “Horses?”

  “Racehorses,” Wilhite said. “He worked around the racetracks.”

  “Now that’s interesting,” the detective said. “What was he doing?”

  “I can remember when it was exercising and grooming,” Hickman said. “Aubrey loved horses—but where do you have him? We’d like to give him his poor sister’s message and get out of here.”

  Turning, the detective pointed to the tall double doors at the end of the room, “He’s in there, being questioned.”

  “Is he under arrest?”

  “If not by now, he’s well on his way.”

  “And what are the charges?”

  “That’s depends on the chief, but it could be anything from bootlegging to something far more serious.”

  “Like what?”

  “That’s up to the chief, but I’d bet on homicide….”

  “Homicide! So who did he kill—don’t tell me it was his employer, his friend….”

  “I’m afraid so, but that’s not unusual. Homicide victims usually turn out to be close friends of the culprit, or members of his or her family.”

  Shaking his head, Hickman turned.

  “Wilhite, does that sound believable, McMillen a murderer?”

  “Listen, Reverend,” the detective said with a burst of emotion, “these days there’s nothing so outrageous that it can’t be believed! Not when you see life from my perspective! Just last week, right here in Washington, a Southern congressman—who should damn well have known better—violated everything he holds sacred by turning up in a colored whorehouse where he gets himself beaten to a pulp, robbed of two thousand dollars, and thrown into the street—and I mean naked as a jaybird!”