Cast the First Stone

by Chester Himes

  They were skinning; a group of vari-colored faces ringed about the table, cards spinning face-upward from the box, soft intense curses rising like thick smoke. Some stood, others sat. Black shiny niggers with bluish scars, brown niggers with seal-smooth skin, spotted yellow niggers, and pimply white niggers. Black Boy was dealing. He had a shaved head and a scarred face. I stopped to watch.

  “Wanna pike, Jimmy?” someone asked. I shook my head.

  Black Boy looked up, looked down, wearing his white, perpetual grin. He was serving life for killing a white cop; as bad a nigger as ever grew to be a man. A card fell. A tall white nigger in a pressed shirt, shiny tan shoes and creased pants turned over the card he was playing. He had greased hair and dull eyes. Hands reached tor the stacks of chips about him. He picked out the trey of spades and said, “Throw back, all you niggahs who caught me.”

  Black Boy brought him a tall stack of chips. Others carried their bets to him. He paid the bets. Black Boy spun the cards. The eight spot fell.

  “Mah hatred,” someone said.

  The tall white nigger called St. Louis Slick picked up a stack of chips.

  Black Boy said, “Ah am’ got no hatred, lesson it be de man. Wanna bet some mo’, Slick?”

  “Throw down.”

  They pressed their bet. Black Boy turned a card. “Some mo’?”…“Throw down.”…He turned another card. “Some mo’?”…“Throw down.” Chips were stacked high. Black Boy drew a card half out the box, knocked it back. “Hotdammit, betcha some mo’!”…“Throw down.”

  Johnny Brothers stood up and called over his shoulder, “Hey, Cue Ball Red, come look at this one. Chips stacked knee-deep.” Black Boy spun the card. The trey of clubs flashed in the spill of light and fell on its face.

  “Dead men falls on their face,” someone said.

  Black Boy raked in the stack of chips. Slick turned ashy. “You shot me, din yer?” he stated in a flat, accusing voice. “You shot me!”

  “Who, meeee? Me shot you. Whataya mean, Slick?” Black Boy looked as innocent as a new-born babe.

  Slick snatched up the card box and flung the cards through the air. “Now ast me tuh pay for ‘em, you black son of a bitch.”

  Black Boy never lost his grin. “Sho, Slick, pay for ‘em,” he said. His voice was flatter but untroubled. Slick walked away. Some convicts began picking up the cards. Off to one side another colored convict strummed a uke. Feet patted time. A slurred baritone recited: “Dat’s whut Harlem means tuh me.” Another convict cut a step, shoulders swaggering. Hands clapped in rhythmic beat.

  The days passed and they didn’t know it, I thought. I went up front, feeling out of place down there. On the way I passed two colored convicts sitting side-by-side on a lower bunk, with a Bible opened between them, rocking from side-to-side and singing a repetitious chant, “Oh, de li’l black train’s a’comin’…Oh, de li’l black train’s a’comin’…Oh, de li’l black train, she’s a’comin’ down de track…”

  One was a shiny black man with a chunky body and kinky, cotton-white hair. The other was a lean, dull black man with jutting knotty eyebrows and a cast in one eye. Probably in for rape, both of them, I thought. Singing a black man’s song to a white man’s God. They didn’t know what the hell it was all about, I thought. They didn’t want to know. It was just an emotional outlet, a substitute for sex. Just getting off, I thought.

  I walked on. My feet felt heavy and my mouth tasted sour. I took a squashed cigarette from my side pants pocket and lit it. I noticed that my hands were trembling. The cigarette tasted like hell. The dormitory began getting into my eyes again. I stopped stock-still and closed them tight. But I could still see the dormitory through my closed eyelids; I could see it from memory. I could see all those rotten years strung out, like putrid stinking corpses rising from their graves. I walked quickly over to a window and looked out into the night. Searchlights illumined the yard in a sketchy brilliance. Buildings loomed dark and ghostly. A guard turned the corner of the chapel, trudging his weary rounds, coat collar turned up against the rain.

  And then a queer, rushing kaleidoscope of faces and places and things came out of the past as to a drowning man…The girl and I were sitting on the stairs of the darkened apartment, making love. I was kissing her. I wondered why she wouldn’t, when I knew she wanted to so badly. A dim light on the landing above made her face a white blur beneath black hair…I was saying, “Stick ‘em up!” and the man’s face was turning suddenly, desperately white…I caught the high skyey punt running back, turned in a wide sweep, whirled away from the first tackier, stiff-armed the second; the stands were yelling frenziedly for a touchdown, the din was a tangible quality about me, inspiring me with a wild desire to push on…The girl across the bed from me hesitated before stripping off her panties and I slowly turned my gaze from her…

  I came out of it feeling stifled. A wet towel steamed on the radiator beside me. The vapor caught in my nostrils. I couldn’t breathe. I opened the window. The cold, wet air blew against my hot face. I breathed deeply. I stared into the night. My mind sped up as if a foot had been jammed on the accelerator of my thought-impulses, began whirling like a runaway disk. My thoughts began to fuse together like white-hot melting glass…

  Is there no pity 7 ? I thought. Is there no pity in this goddamned world? f didn’t want to beg for it to whoever I was begging. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted pity. Goddammit, somebody please pity me. I begged inside.

  A convict on a near-by bunk called to another convict, “Aw, go to hell, you convict bastard!” That’s me, I thought.

  I squeezed back to the center aisle and went back down to the latrine. I felt brimming full, another drop of anything would overflow me. I leaned against the washtroughs, took out my last squashed cigarette and tossed away the package. A crowd was collected near by in a noisy discussion. “That ain’t the last you’ll hear of that guy, you mark my words…” I looked at the speaker. He was a very young boy, as young as I had been five years ago.

  Another convict took the subject away from him. “Hell, he’ll get caught in a week and that’ll be the last you’ll ever hear of him.” His voice got on my nerves.

  Then a colored convict took it up, “Ah’ll bet mah life ‘gainst a copper cent that wen they ketch that guy—”

  “Make it even money,” I said.

  All of them stopped talking to look at me. I knew most of them by name. I looked at them and spat on the floor. Then I moved over to the other side of the trough so my back was to them. I lit the cigarette and took three rapid drags without exhaling. I could feel the smoke down to the bottom of my lungs. My skin felt tight on my face. But I felt a vague, sour satisfaction. I had killed the conversation. I had killed something, anyway.

  For a time it was comparatively quiet. I heard the convicts walking away, as the crowd broke up. Then sounds crept into my mind. A broken commode leaked with a monotonous gurgle. It was the monotony I heard. I felt suddenly that something was wrong with me. It was as if I wasn’t working right any more, as if something had come loose inside of me.

  I started back to my bunk. I felt if I could just get back to my bunk and lie down I’d be all right. It was as if I had hurt myself in some kind of way and was trying to get home. If I could just get home I’d be all right. But it seemed like miles back to my bunk. I seemed to be walking all right but I didn’t feel as if I was moving. I began getting scared I wouldn’t be able to make it to my bunk. Off to my right a wail arose: “AllllllLLLLLLLL night loooooo-OOOOOOONNNNNGGG Ah set in ma cellllllLLLLL an’ moooooaaaaaaaAAAAAAAANNNNNNN…”

  I could feel the muscles tightening all over my body. I could feel my right eye jumping in my head. I tried to steady my vision, but everything was flashing in a mad, weird dance. Vision lost all sense of perspective. Steel bars closed in upon me from all ungodly angles. I got to get home, I thought, or I’m going to vomit on the floor. I tried to move but I didn’t seem to be able to move. It was as if I was standing still, through the relentless march
of time. I’m being left behind, I thought. Don’t leave me behind, please don’t leave me behind, I was begging in my mind. I bent forward and tensed myself for a running start. But when I tried to run I felt as if I couldn’t move. I gave up. I’ll never make it now, I thought. If I could run I might make it. But I can’t make it, dragging along as I am now. It’s too goddamned far.

  It was then I came upon the idea of killing myself. It was more as if I had come up on it than thought it out. It was as if I had known for a long time that I would meet it somewhere on the road and had tried to keep from taking that road, but even then I had known that it would be on any road I took and that sooner or later I was going to meet it. It was more as if I had just recognized it when I came up on it finally.

  And when I recognized it I just stood there and let it come up to me rather than trying to run from it, or running forward to meet it. I just let it come and take me. I couldn’t make it home, anyway, and so it was the next best thing. It was all right, too, because it wouldn’t even hurt anybody. It would be the best thing for everybody. My mother wouldn’t have to keep on worrying about whether I was a good boy or not and nobody else would even give a damn. And it would be the best thing for me. I would do it and then I would be through with it and I wouldn’t have to be afraid of meeting it on any other road. I wouldn’t have to worry any more about whether what I did was good or bad. I would do it and then I would be completely through with all the doubts and fears and all this misery.

  But even after I’d made up my mind to kill myself I didn’t know how to do it. I stood at the end of the aisle, weakly bracing myself against the table. There was something wrong with my breathing and I felt myself gasping slightly. I felt a little nauseated, too. My mind quickly turned over a number of ways I could kill myself. I could borrow a knife and cut my throat, but the picture of the colored convict who had gotten his throat cut years ago in the 5-6 dormitory came to my mind and I discarded it. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that blood slavering from my mouth and nostrils. I thought of cutting my wrists with a safety-razor blade but I was afraid somebody would see me and try to save me before I died and I didn’t want anybody trying to stop me. That would be intolerable, I thought. Hanging would be the best, I thought. I could tie the rope to one of the overhead stanchions and jump over the wire enclosure and the fall would break my neck immediately. But I couldn’t think of where I could get enough rope unless I waited until the next day and I had to kill myself right then. There was no need of fooling around waiting any longer. I had waited too long as it was.

  Finally I decided to climb up on the wire and jump off to the first floor. It was only about a ten-foot drop, but if I dove headfirst I could probably burst my skull, anyway. I decided to do that. I felt very confident that it would kill me because it was my time and any way I tried I knew would work. I pushed away from the table and started over toward the side of the dormitory. I was very weak and had to cling to the bunk frames for support. I got to the wire and began to climb up one of the supporting posts. I noticed a couple of convicts sitting near by on their bunks, watching me curiously, but I didn’t even care about them seeing me. They wouldn’t know what I was doing until it was too late to stop me.

  The wire was about chest-high, but I was pretty weak and before I got to the top of it the lights flashed for bedtime. I thought, “Goddammit, that would happen. I can’t even kill myself because I’ve got to go to bed.” I stepped back off the wire and went back into the aisle. I didn’t have any difficulty at all getting back to my bunk. But I felt such a stifling hatred for the routine I could hardly breathe. A convict can’t even kill his damned self, I thought. Nothing about it struck me as being even vaguely funny or ridiculous. It seemed only natural to be stopped from doing something I wanted to do. I didn’t even think of defying the signal and going ahead and killing myself, anyway, as I might have a half-hour earlier. I felt only an intense frustration. I felt smothered by the routine. They’ll be sorry they flashed those goddamned lights, I thought.

  I undressed automatically and climbed into my bunk. I was very tired and I went to sleep immediately. But I kept dreaming that I was falling. Each time, just before I landed, I woke up. But as soon as I got back to sleep I began dreaming again that I was falling. I’d wake up again and try to stay awake, but I’d doze off and begin falling over again. I don’t know how many times I fell before daylight.

  The next day I remembered every detail of trying to kill myself. But I wasn’t shocked by it. I felt a vague sense of regret, of postponement. It was as if something had failed to happen that should have happened. I didn’t feel so much as if I’d gotten by it, as that it was just postponed. It had just gone on up the road a little way and after a time I’d come up on it again. I felt as if there were two of me and one of me was death. It didn’t make me rebellious or indifferent. But it made me desperate for freedom. I didn’t want to meet my death again inside the walls. I wanted to get outside to die. I didn’t even think to figure out the difference but I became very conscious of the outside world.

  For the first few nights afterward I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake and tried to make up pictures of the outside world. I called to mind various undertaking establishments I had seen and then I would try to rid myself of the picture of my body lying in a casket in one of them. At times I thought of how old I was getting. I was twenty-four. I had never voted, I thought, once. It started me off to crying in my pillow, even though I knew had I been outside all the time I probably wouldn’t have voted, anyway. But it seemed as if something very vital had been taken away from me.

  I thought of all the chances I’d thrown away and of all the people I’d hurt and disappointed. I thought of Margie, whom I’d got pregnant, stepping from my car and being run down and killed. I had kept that one buried for a long time. My head would grow so tight with my thoughts that my stomach would get a hollow, sick feeling and Yd find myself gagging slightly, as if I wanted to vomit. I’d feel I couldn’t bear my thoughts another single minute without dying. But they stayed with me for hours, days on end.

  I wrote to my mother and asked her to go see the governor herself and plead for my release. “Just sit in his office until he talks to you,” I wrote. “Tell him how badly you need me. Tell him you are old and can’t support yourself. Play on his sympathy. He must have some kind of feelings. Get Reverend Bentley and all the other influential people you know to write him in my behalf. Please, Mother. I can’t stand this any more.”

  Then I sat down and wrote the governor a long letter myself. I had to get the warden’s permission first. He let me have the letter form because I’d been in five years. I told the governor about my studying law and short-story writing and touch-typing, in an effort to improve myself. I told him I had become converted to religion.

  At all times I may not have appeared the model prisoner, but I swear, Honorable Sir, that at all times my intentions were the best and the discrepancies in my record are the result of honest misunderstandings. I have never tried to hide my wrongdoings from the officials, for the simple reason that I have at no time realized they were wrongdoings until it was too late to amend them, for they all grew out of intentions that were right. I will admit, Honorable Sir, that I have never become oriented to the life of prison, and many of the measures which are necessary for the preservation of discipline I have never truly understood.

  As perhaps you know, Honorable Sir, a perfect record is not always indicative of good purposes: nor does it always prove that a convict is ready for freedom; but oft-times it is merely the manifestation of what we term “stir wisdom,” or in other words, the result of knowing how to serve time, and that, I must confess, I do not know and perhaps never shall. But I contend that I do know how to be a good citizen, and that is my highest ambition.

  Then followed the weeks of waiting, of suspense and anxiety and half-scared hopes. And all the time I was tight inside and sick and going crazy. I kept to my bunk mostly, reading, studying a little, sullen an
d uncommunicative and tense. I practiced typing and now and then I played a game of cards, but my heart was never in it. I was too empty, I thought, too drained of all emotion. I was like a spring gone dry. There were days I felt light enough to fly.

  22

  WRINKLEHEAD. Dutch Henry, Signifier and I were playing Canasta, with Dew Baby kibitzing, that Saturday morning when Nick, the deputy’s runner, brought in a new convict. We stopped playing to stare at him. A banjo ukulele, swung from plaited shoestrings was looped about his neck and he carried a small grimy pillowcase of belongings. At each step his knees buckled and knocked together as if the strength had suddenly gone out of them, and his feet flew out at grotesque angles. He seemed to catch himself at the brink of collapse at each step, so as to make mere walking seem extremely hazardous. It reminded me of the wobbly motions of a splay-legged colt learning how to walk. I felt a strong impulse to laugh.

  “Who’s the kid?” Signifier asked Nick when he came back up the aisle.

  “Duke Dido.”

  “Not the brother of the Princess?” I said, recalling my year of Virgil.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Dutch asked. “Walks like a hobbled horse.”

  “Don’t no one seem to know,” Nick said. “The doctor thinks he stiffing to dodge work.”

  “Does he throw his knee out of joint himself?” Dew Baby asked.

  Nick grinned. “He’s got it bad, ain’t he?”

  “He’s about to fall out with it,” Signifier said.

  “He’d be a bitch of a panhandler,” Dew Baby said.

  Wrinklehead began dealing again.

  “Don’t forget what I told you,” Dutch said to Nick.

  “About that—”

  “Yeah, about that little business,” Dutch cut him off.