Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “‘Well, you picked the wrong time,’ Mister Jessie yells, ‘this is a private affair and I want none of you color-struck Negroes invading my house!’

  “And with that the man turns red and yells, ‘But I’m white!’ and Mister Jessie yells, ‘You are, are you? Well, even though I’m no segregationist I want no white folks stinking up my house!’

  “Then for the first time the man realizes that Mister Jessie’s sitting there yelling from a coffin and his eyes bug out of his head and he sputters something so strange that I couldn’t believe it….”

  And now, looking at each of the detectives in turn, McMillen said, “Gentlemen, you have to understand that after Mister Jessie climbed in that coffin things happened pretty fast, and with me drinking pretty heavy just to keep sober my memory is probably a little bit cloudy. But I swear I heard that white man yell, ‘Rockmore, what the hell are you doing up there in my coffin?’ ”

  “What!”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” McMillen said, “but that’s the truth! And when Mister Jessie hears it he stares at the man like he’s seeing a ghost. Then he yells, ‘Now I know who you are! You’re that cutthroat son of a bitch on television,’ and yells out a name. And with that the white man spins and staggers like he’s been hit by a bullet and heads for the door. Then Mister Jessie yells, ‘Grab him, McMillen’— which I’m not even about to do—but as the man starts past Miss Duval she rolls over and grabs him by the ankle and yells, ‘Wait, good-looking, and have a look at my number.’ And next thing I know the man’s going hippety-hop for the door and she’s skidding on the floor like a kid on a sled. Then with Miss Duval laughing like crazy and the man struggling to get loose Mister Jessie yells, ‘Wait ‘til I’m finished, you phony highbinder!’ And when the man snatches free and heads for the door Mister Jessie tries to climb out of his coffin. And that’s when he gets hit by whatever left him looking the way he does now. It must’ve been some kind of stroke, because nobody touched him. And that goes for me, Miss Duval, and the white man. And gentlemen, believe it or not, that’s all I can tell you.”

  Staring wide-mouthed at McMillen, the Sergeant shouted, “Like hell it is! What was the white man’s name?”

  “I can’t recall it,” McMillen said, “because in looking out for Mister Jessie’s interests I’d been holding my liquor too long. Then with all hell breaking loose and that white man probably on his way to have us arrested because of Miss Duval’s being here entertaining I took another big drink and tried to phone for a doctor. And when that didn’t work I did what I could for poor Mister Jessie. I do remember somebody coming in and letting out a scream, but when I looked to see who it was they were gone. So not wanting folks upstairs down here scrambling around in Mister Jessie’s apartment I went to the door and locked it. But after that I truly don’t know what happened.”

  Taking a look at Rockmore, the Sergeant turned back to McMillen.

  “Aubrey,” he said, “I want you to think back and consider this carefully: What kind of name did your friend call the white man?”

  “He called him a cutthroat sonofabitch and a jackleg highbinder, just like I said.”

  “No! I mean his surname!”

  “I don’t know, because Mister Jessie was so mad he sounded like he was yelling with his mouth spewing crackers. So all I can tell you about the name is that it sounded familar. But it wasn’t what I’d call ordinary.”

  “Was it Russian or Chinese?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “How about Italian or Cuban?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “How do you know, had you heard it before?”

  “Now that’s what’s so puzzling,” McMillen said. “I feel that maybe I’d heard it sometime or other on national TV. But if I did, what would a man like that be doing here? And besides, white folks who deal with Mister Jessie know better than to come here at night. And since there’s no dope pushers or whores living in the building his being here didn’t make sense. At least not to me …”

  “And what was that … that Miss Duval doing after the man left?”

  “She was still on the floor struggling to get up.”

  “Then what did she do?”

  “I don’t know, I was too busy trying to figure what happened between Mister Jessie and that white man.”

  Whereupon one of the officers looked up and pointed behind us.

  “Sergeant,” he said, “you’re wanted,” and I looked back to see Officer Morrison staring through the door’s splintered paneling.

  “Sergeant,” he called, “could you step out here for a second?”

  “Not now,” the Sergeant called with annoyance, “I’m busy enough as it is.”

  “I understand,” Morrison said, “but I’ve a couple of colored fellows out here who say they have a message for McMillen. One says he’s a minister but I suspect they’re really here after some of that booze I keep smelling.”

  Suddenly turning in his chair, McMillen called, “Who the hell says I’m a bootlegger?”

  “Listen you,” the Sergeant said as he reached down and swung McMillen around, “I’m asking the question!”

  “So go on and ask him,” McMillen said. “Yeah, and read me my rights! Because when somebody accuses me of bootlegging I have a right to know who it is.”

  “What shall I do with him, Sergeant?” Officer Morrison called.

  “Hold him,” the Sergeant said and added with a glare at McMillen, “I’ll get to him as soon as I’m finished with his supplier.”

  “Supplier,” McMillen groaned. “Now ain’t this the shits! After what’s happened to Mister Jessie all they can do is signify that I’m a bootlegger!”

  And now after listening to the Sergeant resume his questioning to little effect I moved away and had a look at Cordelia Duval.

  Sprawled beneath the policeman’s jacket she appeared to be sleeping, but after McMillen’s account of her unconventional ways I couldn’t be sure. And as I gazed at her bare arms and legs I wondered what had led her to choose such an unseemly profession. And from whom had she learned her semi-underworld version of Negro idiom? Was it a really a long-range effect of a failed love affair? And as I stared at her sprawled in the chair my memory whirled with contrasting images:

  My mother in her garden clad in a blue denim dress and white floppy hat arranging a bouquet of freshly cut roses. Sara Delano Roosevelt moving along Pennsylvania Avenue in a chauffeur-driven convertible wearing a choker of pearls that gleam in the sun and a luxurious fur that ripples in the breeze of her passage. A trio of pretty young bridesmaids imitating Gilbert and Sullivan’s “three little maids at school are we” with corsages in hand while posing for a photographer who looks on through the unblinking eye of his camera. And the stately, plump Buck Mulligan figure of a young woman descending a staircase wearing a Lillian Russell hat and voluminous dress who delights passing pedestrians with her swaying imitation of a Mae-Westian walk …

  And as I stared I wondered how it would be to have known a woman like Miss Duval; who, apparently, had rejected such bewitching feminine roles to the extent of turning up willingly in Rockmore’s chaotic establishment. For now her rowdy condition seemed to imply an utter rejection of everything that respectable women—and especially white women—considered desirable….

  So could it be, I thought, that while we fortunate Americans move through our bright blaze of lights unaware an outer darkness constantly explores our most flattering pretensions and makes silent fun of our dreams and our certainties? Cordelia Duval—who was the reality behind that unlikely name? And what would a man like McGowan make of her presence? Was he aware of such women, or did his strongly held views prevent his acknowledging their very existence? And I recalled McGowan’s arguing that by unmasking woman’s primeval mystery for the eyes of men like Rockmore and McMillen the nude photographs presented by certain girlie magazines were leading to racial imbalance and social disorder. Of course the mystery that concerned him was limited to white
women alone, but as she sprawled half-naked in shadows Miss Duval seemed far more mysterious than she could ever have been fully clothed.

  Indeed, there was even a mystery in the language she used, as there was in certain details of her past as related by McMillen. And that mystery would remain even if his account proved to be false. She was shrouded in mystery, and as she slouched under the blue policeman’s jacket I wondered if it were possible that she and McMillen had actually murdered Rockmore and tried to conceal their crime by jamming him into a worm-eaten coffin.

  And with that I looked at my watch and realized that I had little time left for filing my story. And hoping to meet my deadline I decided I’d learn whatever I could from Cordelia Duval and get on with it. It was then that she looked up and saw me.

  “Listen, doll,” she said, “why the hell don’t you two-bit gumshoes leave McMillen alone? The poor bastard’s told you everything he can tell you, so why don’t you go ‘n find that stuffed shirt who left Dad sitting up there in a coma?”

  “But I’m not a detective,” I said, “I’m a newspaper reporter.”

  “Oh, yeah, so what’s the dif? Like the dicks you think McMillen’s lying just because he’s a spade. Otherwise you’d go find that white dude he told you about. Dammit, just when everything was going fine the bastard barges in and ruins it. I’ve never known it to fail! Let a spook get near me and every damn thing starts coming unraveled!”

  “Tell me, Miss Duval,” I said, “did you recognize the white man?”

  “Hell, no,” she said, “but he’s probably some drunk who busted in here hoping to find him a spade broad who’d give him a ride and brighten his luck. Or maybe he’s hoping to find one who looks like his mother in blackface.”

  “What?”

  “What’s so strange about that, Mister Reporter? Hell, a heap of you johns go for black magic if it’s dressed in a bra and silk panties.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “The hell you don’t, I know all about you johns and the spook gals. Yes, and even more about spooks who wear britches. You want to hear about one I kept for a while?”

  “Not now, Miss Duval,” I said, “but do you think you’d recognize the white man if you saw him again?”

  “Recognize him? Hell, I want to forget the bastard! But you want to hear a secret?”

  “All right,” I said, “but about this white man …”

  “Forget him, doll, and learn about life on the dark side: I once lived with a black dude who turned out to be the damndest man who ever kicked off his shoes and punished a gal and a bed. Not that he wasn’t good at his business, which he sure as hell was. Doll, he spook-handled everybody—johns, house detectives, bellhops, madams, and cops on the beat. And he took care of me like a prince. But that’s not what I’m getting at, doll. My spook was the type who didn’t give a hoot in hell for any kind of rules or any kind of law. What’s more, he got a kick out of doing any damn thing that folks like you say spooks tend to do because they’re naturally inferior. And I mean any damn thing!

  “Matter of fact, I wish he’d get hold of the bastard who broke up our party. He was a good-looking spook, and after jiving a high-society broad into setting him up with a penthouse apartment—doormen, elevators, stereos, TVs, and everything—the spook made a play for her teenage sister and lost it. And laughed about it, doll. That’s the truth! Then I gave him cash for a car, and like the prime spook he was he buys a white Cadillac. Then to celebrate he gets dressed in a white suit, white shoes, white hat and gloves, and with his white bitch of a bulldog sitting beside him he drives down South to visit his family. To Miss-iss-ip-pi, doll! Can you believe it? And in the month of July! That’s right! And if his sister hadn’t spent years working like a slave for the mayor he’d have got himself lynched and burned to a frazzle! Doll, the spook was so ornery that he’d do anything! Once he showed up at a dance wearing everything backwards—shirt, coat, and pants—left shoe on his right foot and right shoe on his left foot. And then he insists that we dance back to back! It got both of us thrown out of the hall but all he did was laugh. And don’t mess with the spook when he’s high on his liquor!

  “One morning after a hard night’s hustling I get home limp as a dishrag to find that he’s killed my canaries! All sixteen of them, doll. And why did he do it?

  Because he couldn’t teach them to sing ‘The Funky Butt Blues’! Can you imagine a canary singing ‘I thought I heard somebody say / funky-butt, funky-butt, take it away?’ And then, doll, would you believe it, the spook baked the poor little things in a pie and ate them! I tell you, doll, that spook was a frigging e-nig-ma!”

  “He ate your canaries?”

  “Yes, doll! And you know something else he did?”

  “No, Miss Duval,” I said, “but if you’ll get back to the white man I’m willing to listen.”

  “So come closer, doll, and bend down. I won’t bite you!”

  And seeing me hesitate she pouted like a young girl and said, “What’s with you, doll, you never been close to a woman before?”

  So with a shrug I bent closer—which was a mistake. For suddenly Cordelia Duval grasped my face in her hands and planted a wet kiss on my lips! And as I tried to escape she thrust the moist tip of her tongue in my right ear and giggled!

  “So now, doll,” she said, “you’ve an idea of my spook’s kissing style—hey! What’s with you, doll? You been spooked by a spook-kiss?”

  Shocked by her blatant behavior, I stepped back in anger. But now behind her flushed face quite a different Cordelia Duval seemed to be gauging the effects of her teasing. And torn between laughing and slapping her face I whirled to see the Sergeant pointing a finger at McMillen and Rockmore glaring from the coffin as though shouting a curse at the universe. And with a final look at Cordelia Duval I bumped my way through the warehouse of a ballroom to the vestibule—where among the tenants in nightclothes I saw one of the males calmly viewing scenes of early America through the cloudy lens of a stereoscope. And clutching my recorder I rushed past the grandfather’s clock and into the the dim, but most welcome, light of a new day’s dawning.

  PART III

  A SELECTION OF ELLISON’S NOTES

  Editors’ Note: Ralph Ellison’s notes pertaining to his second novel constitute a rich body of work unto themselves. Written over forty years, the hundreds, maybe thousands, of notes track the shifting course of the novel’s composition as Ellison grappled with matters of craft and theme. They testify to his sustained commitment to the story of Hickman and Bliss/Sunraider from soon after Invisible Man’s publication, in 1952, until shortly before Ellison’s death, in 1994. One sees Ellison refining plotting and characterization, as well as offering sometimes startling insights into broader concerns of culture, society, and politics. He kept few notebooks related to the second novel; instead, he most often scribbled on loose scraps of paper. A fair number of the notes are typed (on a manual typewriter, an electric, and finally on the computers he used throughout the 1980s and 1990s), while others are scrawled, sometimes nearly indecipherably, on whatever happened to be close at hand. Most are undated, though it is possible to ascertain an approximate time period for some thanks to Ellison’s habit of jotting on the backs of postmarked envelopes.

  Read alongside the manuscripts published here, these notes illuminate Ellison’s core themes of identity and nationhood, love and sacrifice, kinship and estrangement. A sampling of notes follows that bear upon Ellison’s compositional practice, the range of his characters and themes, and the cast of his imagination as he continued to reshape his fiction over the years. Everything below is as Ellison wrote it except for the bracketed editorial corrections and notations listed in parentheses; the numbers listed at the end of each note correspond to that note’s box and folder location in the Ralph Ellison Papers.

  On the day of April, 1953 a chartered airplane load of elderly Southern Negroes put down at the … (140/4)

  WHAT MUST BE DONE // Narrative must be kept moving, and
if possible, stepped-up in pace. If we begin with Senator’s version of the shooting, we plunge immediately into his consciousness, his past and we are introduced to Hickman at one remove, even while we are wondering about his presence in the Hospital. (139/6)

  How to begin before the action? What is the tragic mistake? And who makes it? As things stand we do begin before one tragic mistake, that of the Senator’s, when he refuses to see Hickman and company. But if we consider the mistake from the point of Severen then it would require beginning before he acts. ‘Two days before the shooting … ‘ begins the first section as it now stands; ‘I was there, etc.” is how the Second section begins—what is there to prevent our starting the Severen section with ‘Several months before the shooting … (140/3)

  Hickman and the group go to Washington to warn Sunraider that he is in danger but in so doing they lead Severen to him and bring about his death. This is a peripeteia. And, ironically, it is Sunraider’s refusal to see them which ruins him. He must recognize this fatal irony. The crucial mistake is, of course, Hickman’s. He is the hero and set[s] the plan going out of his love for the little Bliss. // The hospital becomes a sanctuary (and a death room) wherein the sickness of American society comes into conscious focus. Hickman and company, being Christians, turn the other cheek; that is why they come to Washington. But Bliss-Sunraider is pagan. He seeks power and has sought to be formidable and thus above race, human ties and history. // Hickman struggles to understand his “Americanness.” (138/4)

  Why have they undertaken the trip? To warn him and to see what he has become, this child they all loved in whom they invested such mystical hope. // Why? Out of their fidelity to Hickman. Hickman knows that he is acting obsessively but the circumstances under which he received [the] child are charged with emotion. He lost his brother and mother, his life was endangered by the presence of the white woman and he had taken the child in defiance of the very absurdity of his situation. He feels guilty for having rejected his parents’ religion, and feels that had he followed his father’s wishes he might have prevented the tragic incident. In other words he has been pushed into an extreme situation and withdrawn from his old free life of jazz. Coupled with this is his acceptance of the religious life and his hope of bringing up the child as a bridge between the old savage relationship which obtained between the races and his vision of a more human society. His vision is a version of the peaceful kingdom, unreal but compelling precisely because it defies the state of things. He undergoes a period of withdraw[al] after the lynching, then emerges a changed man. He fasts, gives up drinking, and although attractive to women abstains from sex. After Bliss runs away he becomes a reader and [he] and his group raise money with which they send young people north to college. // How do they keep in touch with activities of Bliss? // They do so through members of the group who have scattered to the west and north, people who recognize him but whom he fails to see, once he passes and thinks he is secure. Sometimes they are mistaken, but they recognize him as a minstrel man, movie maker, Billy Sunday type preacher, etc. They lose him, only to have him turn up in another part of the country playing a different role. Hickman, realizing the need to keep up with the lives of his people, has persuaded those who leave the state to write him letters, especially those who were Bliss’s age. And it’s through this that he is able to track the runaway—up to a point, learns also of his triumphs and reversals of expectation in the North and West. (140/1)