by Howard Fast
“Easy, mam—”
Outside, the crowd lingered. No reason to go away, when there was high drama within. Marie lingered, too. What would happen? And where was Ollie? Where was Ollie?
She saw Ollie coming down the street, dirty and bloody. He had been fighting—always fighting. She saw how white his face was—white as a sheet. Now what would Ollie do? What would Ollie do now?
The crowd made way for him; nobody spoke. First, he hesitated, and the crowd wondered whether he knew. Or didn’t he know? Wouldn’t he go in? He went in very slowly.
He went in, and in the kitchen, he saw the policeman. He shivered, started to go back, and then he saw Thomas Edison. Oloman said nothing. Slowly, he approached the table, until he stood next to his brother, weak, feeling sick, feeling that any moment his knees would give beneath him.
“You’ll torture him no more,” the old lady said.
He went out, and again the crowd made way for him. Marie followed him, as he started up the block.
“Ollie—Ollie!”
He began to run. Reaching the avenue, he ran until it seemed that surely his heart must break. Then, sobbing, he sank against a building. In great gasps, he cried, his chest heaving, his heart swelling up inside of him.
On and on and on, his legs working under him like pistons. The lots were ahead of him, beyond that, the river. Then he remembered.
Blackbelly was dead.
He swerved aside, but he could run no more. On one corner, he sank into a little pile against a building. His mouth dropped open, hot saliva running from between his lips. But there was no rest here—none. He had to go back to the house.
It seemed to him that he could not find the way back to the block. How long had he been walking? When he came to the block again, the sun was low, the afternoon already gone. No crowd in front of his house now. Had it been all a dream?
He came back to the house. Now it was empty, except for Oloman, who sat alone. Where was Thomas Edison? Slipping in, he peered at Oloman. Then she turned around and saw him.
“Come here,” she said.
He came, slowly, trembling.
“You see the black sin on your soul?”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
Her eyes softened then, and she held out one hand. Then he was in her arms, sobbing out the story. Night fell on them, and Oloman stared ahead of her—her face stony and silent.
THIRTY-TWO
KIPLEG WENT BACK, HESITATINGLY, BECAUSE THE FASCINATION was greater than the fear. Trembling, he crept down the slope, felt his way through the underbrush, and came to the place where they had lynched Blackbelly.
All gone now, but Blackbelly was still there, hanging, not swaying now. Kipleg knew that he was dead.
Kipleg stared at him, trembled, wiped the sweat from his face, and continued to stare. It was so peaceful. Now Blackbelly was no longer struggling; his head drooped forward. No challenge now. No hate. No defiance. Only Blackbelly hanging there, while the breeze from above the river moved his clothes.
(He’s dead. Kipleg, isn’t he dead? I don’t know. Oh, my God, I don’t—)
But no hate is left. Kipleg stared without hating, curiously, wonderingly. What had made the change? Was it so awful, now Blackbelly was dead? But what did they do to men who killed? What would they do to him?
He crept away, but all the time he kept looking back. He couldn’t help but look back.
And all the time he climbed back up the bluff he looked down to where Blackbelly hung. Death hung over him, like a still, dreadful mystery—dreadful as Blackbelly was in his death. It was more than fear.
“Dirdy nigger,” he whispered.
But it meant nothing to him now, for death was the great master, and he crawled on up the bluff, leaving the Negro behind him, not hating. He stood up, and the breeze from above the river played over him.
He walked on, always looking behind him, and as he walked, fear reasserted itself. If they came for him, he would hang, like Blackbelly. Death was a grim master.
Ahead, he saw Shomake, all in a heap. Now he wanted company—any company in his misery. He called, “Shomake!”
Shomake turned around, saw him.
“Whaddya cryin’ fer?”
“I dunno.”
“Geesus, don’ be a baby.”
“Is he dead?” Shomake whispered.
“I dunno.”
“What’ll dey do tuh us?”
“Howda I know?”
They sat down together, staring over the river. Sho make wept silently. Then they stood up, as by some unspoken accord.
“Less git oudda here.”
“Yeah.”
They walked to the block, looking back, always looking back. Shomake was tired, terribly tired. He wanted to be home, to be solidly encased in the darkness of the back room.
Just before they reached the block, they began to run. Kipleg turned off, ran down the avenue, but Shomake dashed for the safety of his store. His father glanced up at him, but Shomake didn’t pause. He ran into the back room, plunged onto the bed; gripping the covers, he lay there, and the close twilight of the place closed over him.
Dark and comfortable here, where they could never come for him. Blackbelly was dead, but the dark mystery wouldn’t come in here. Warm smells and good smells, and close comfort. He crawled onto the bed, up to the pillow, and then he forced his face down onto the pillow, wetting it with dirty tears.
When his mother came into the room, she saw him lying there, his clothes torn and covered with long streaks of dirt.
“Child,” she said.
Turning over, he looked at her, his eyes filled with such fear as she had never seen before. He had been crying, and the tears had furrowed lines on his face. Now he stared at her as if she were a thing of horror; then he put a hand in front of his face. His lips were trembling.
“Child, what is it?”
“Nothing—nothing.”
“What are you afraid of here? Is there anything to be afraid of here? Tell me—”
“Nothing.”
“You were fighting—”
“No, no, no—I swear that I wasn’t, mother mine. No, I wasn’t fighting. No.”
“It’s all right, child. Perhaps you were only playing. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Come—and let me clean your face.” But when she put her hands on him, she felt how he was trembling.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
He thought rapidly. He mustn’t tell—anything but that. Blackbelly he must never speak of, never. Otherwise, he would hang in the same way—and he was afraid.
“Tell me—”
“My fiddle. I want the fiddle.”
“Yes—yes, you’ll have it, child. Ishky took it, and he'll bring it back …”
“Ishky! He took my fiddle? Ishky took it?” The world was crumbling all around him.
“Yes, yes, but not for any dreadful reason. I tell you he’ll bring it back.”
“No—he won’t.”
“Child, stop trembling—look at me!”
But how could he stop, how, with fear and hurt and terror surging all over his body? Blackbelly was hanging there, dead. Only, she didn’t know. She would never know.
THIRTY-THREE
THE WORLD GOES ON, AROUND, THE RIVER FLOWS AND THE sun shines. If Blackbelly is dead, Ishky is alive, and others are alive, too. They must go on.
My story is almost over—almost, but not quite. Blackbelly died, hanging from the tree; and from him came death, the strange master. Death comes like night comes, and if you understand, neither are terrible.
But I was afraid—God, how filled with fear I was! Blackbelly’s legs, kicking and kicking. It made a picture for me, fastening itself over my eyes. I turned around, plunged down the bluff.
Now, what difference does it make if I plunge to my death? Death, the strange master, has taken me. Blackbelly is dying back there—
I go all the way down the bluff, as quickly as I can, and then I run frantically toward the river. M
y heart pounds, and all the time I am looking behind me. Somewhere up there, Blackbelly is dead—swinging. Like a branch in the breeze.
The river stops me. What now? I stand upon the edge, swaying, looking down. Sewage and dirt—but water to take me in, and payment there to the strange master.
Do you see? I killed Blackbelly!
All over me, inside of me, the words are written. I killed him, right from the beginning, with my heart full of hate. The gang was mine—not Ollie’s. I had thought of it; I led Ollie on—
(Turn around, Ishky, and look at the bluff, where Blackbelly swings. Blood is all over you.)
I begin to scream, hard frantic screams that come from far down in my belly, and I throw myself on the wet, brown earth, burying my face in it. Then I roll over, and I see that a man is watching me. What does he think? Does he know? Does he know? But, of course, he knows—
(You killed him.)
“What’ll he say—what’ll he say?”
I spring to my feet, and run from him. I must run forever, from everyone; and now I keep looking back at the man. No, he isn’t following me. But he knows; he knows. They all know. Sooner or later—
I have to walk, I am so tired; I can run no longer. So I walk, and I find that I am saying to myself, “You don’t hate him, you don’t hate him, you don’t hate him.”
That is so. In death, hate is gone.
All things have gone now, all my dreams. But the sun still shines; the wind still blows.…
“Where duh hell duh yuh tink yer goin’?” the cop says.
(Not to me. Traffic is passing. I stand and look at him, and then I begin to run.)
Run, run—run, run—
(All the music of Shomake’s fiddle. I destroyed the fiddle. I destroyed Blackbelly. Death, the strange master, and I have become one—one and together.)
Run, run—run, run—
(That will never stop. Time passes, but time means nothing to me anymore. I must keep on, and on—or they will find me. And when they find me, they will hang me by the neck until I am dead. I will have to tell them.)
“I killed Blackbelly!”
“Yer lost, sonny?”
“I killed Blackbelly!”
“Run along now, sonny.”
(That’s my torture, standing large and terrible in his dark uniform. Will he follow me? I run again, looking behind me. God help me, what will I do when I can run no longer, when my feet break beneath me?)
Run, run—run, run—
(Shomake is playing his fiddle. What did he ever do to me, that I should take his fiddle from him? I am sorry. I am sorry. Shomake, I swear to God that I am sorry.)
The king sits in the jungle, broad and black,
And under jungle trails I pass, seeking,
Where are you, Blackbelly, noble king?
Three of us then, me and the master death,
And Blackbelly. I killed Blackbelly, Laughing and laughing and laughing—
(I stop, panting, crying, laughing. Good God, I have to rest. I can’t run forever.)
No, run, run—run, run—
Send the drums from the jungle, men are children.
There. Blackbelly is king of all the jungle land.
Beat the drums—play the children’s game,
While death, the strange master, comes.
(Where am I? The sun is setting, and all the streets are in shadow, streets I have never seen before. How did I get here?)
Run, run, run—Ishky.
(No, I can’t run anymore. But I will be caught out here in the dark—with Blackbelly. Go on!)
Only tell me why, Ishky? Why, Ishky? Tell me why?…
I begin to walk home. What a long way I have come—afraid, always afraid! It’s no use, because I know what the end will be, when they have me and Ollie and Kipleg—all of us.
I go on walking. The sun is setting, throwing light on the clouds. But there is no promise for me. Only terror—
(Try to think of the magic garden, of Marie, of all the beautiful things—)
No, all gone now.…
Why is my mother so glad to see me? Does she know? Does everybody know?
“Eat,” she says, “eat, my heart of all hearts. How worried I was! Where were you this lunchtime?”
“Playin’.”
“Yes, yes, and fighting—and eating out your mother’s heart. Why are you trembling so?”
“Runnin’.”
Then she tells me about Thomas Edison, and I know why. Oh, I know well enough. The strange master and I. I can’t eat any more. I push the food away.
“You are sick, my child?” she asks in her Yiddish.
“Naw. I don’ wanna eat.”
I hide in the bedroom, but it all follows me in there. Thomas Edison is dead; Blackbelly is dead. And I did it. I have done it all.
I creep out into the hall, and fear follows me. The strange master is with me. He will always be with me. Slowly, I go down the stairs to the street, praying all the time. If God is good, he will understand.
There is a small, wan figure sitting on my stoop. I sit down next to him. In the deepening darkness, we sit there, together. Our hands creep out, find each other.
“Shomake,” I say, “I took duh fiddle.”
“Yeah—I know.”
“It’s all smashed.”
“Yeah.”
“Yuh ain’ saw?”
“Naw—”
Night comes, and a strange peace. The block is still. Does the strange master go with night?
“Shomake?”
“Yeah?”
We look at each other. Our world is gone, but we have found something. We both sigh. Shomake moves closer to me. Across the street, Kipleg is coming home. Very slowly, we begin to grin.…
BIOGRAPHY
Howard Fast (1914-2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast's commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.
Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast's mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London's The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.
Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.
Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast's appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own p
ress, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin's purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.
Fast's career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast's books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).
Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side's Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. "They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage," Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he "fell in love with the area" and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.
Fast (left) with his older brother, Jerome, in 1935. In his memoir Being Red, Fast wrote that he and his brother "had no childhood." As a result of their mother's death in 1923 and their father's absenteeism, both boys had to fend for themselves early on. At age eleven, alongside his thirteen-year-old brother, Fast began selling copies of a local newspaper called the Bronx Home News. Other odd jobs would follow to make ends meet in violent, Depression-era New York City. Although he resented the hardscrabble nature of his upbringing, Fast acknowledged that the experience helped form a lifelong attachment to his brother. "My brother was like a rock," he wrote, "and without him I surely would have perished."