Black Like Us

by Devon Carbado

  “Now,” he said, “what do you mean when you say that is the story we are to tell Agnes?”

  “Just that.”

  “You mean—” he paused “that it isn’t true?”

  “No, it isn’t true.”

  “Bob didn’t die that way?”

  “No.”

  I felt myself stiffening in my chair and my two hands gripping the two arms of my chair tightly. I looked at Jim. I sensed the same tensioning in him. There was a long pause. Joe was examining his shoes again. The flickering in his cheeks I saw was more noticeable.

  Finally Jim brought out just one word:

  “How?”

  “There was a little trouble,” he began and then paused so long Jim said:

  “You mean he was—injured in some way?”

  Joe looked up suddenly at Jim, at that, and then down again. But his expression even in that fleeting glance set me to trembling all over. Jim, I saw, had been affected too. He sat stiffly bent forward. He had been in the act of raising his cigarette to his lips and his arm seemed as though frozen in mid-air.

  “Yes,” he said, “injured.” But the way in which he said “injured” made me tremble all the more.

  Again there was a pause and again Jim broke it with his one word: “How?”

  “You don’t read the papers, I see,” Joe said.

  “Yes, I read them.”

  “It was in all the papers.”

  “I missed it, then.”

  “Yes.”

  It was quiet again for a little.

  “Have you ever lived in the South?” Joe asked.

  “No.”

  “Nice civilized place, the South,” Joe said.

  And again I found myself trembling violently. I had to fight with might and main to keep my teeth from chattering. And yet it was not what he had said but his tone again.

  “I hadn’t so heard it described,” Jim said after a little.

  “No?—You didn’t know, I suppose, that there is an unwritten law in the South that when a colored and a white person meet on the sidewalk, the colored person must get off into the street until the white one passes?”

  “No, I hadn’t heard of it.”

  “Well, it’s so. That was the little trouble.”

  “You mean—”

  “Bob refused to get off the sidewalk.”

  “Well?”

  “The white man pushed him off. Bob knocked him down. The white man attempted to teach the ‘damned nigger’ a lesson.” Again he paused. “Well?”

  “The lesson didn’t end properly. Bob all but killed him.”

  It was so still in that room that although Jim was sitting across the room I could hear his watch ticking distinctly in his vest pocket. I had been holding my breath when I was forced to expel it, the sound was so loud they both turned quickly towards me, startled for a second.

  “That would have been Bob.” It was Jim speaking.

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose it didn’t end there?”

  “No.”

  “Go on, Joe.” Even Jim’s voice sounded strained and strange.

  And Joe went on. He never raised his voice, never lowered it. Throughout, his tone was entirely colorless. And yet as though it had been seared into my very soul I remember word for word, everything he said. “An orderly mob, in an orderly manner, on a Sunday morning— I am quoting the newspapers—broke into the jail, took him out, slung him up to the limb of a tree, riddled his body with bullets, saturated it with coal oil, lighted a fire underneath him, gouged out his eyes with red hot irons, burnt him to a crisp an’ then sold souvenirs of him, ears, fingers, toes. His teeth brought five dollars each.” He ceased for a moment.

  “He is still hanging on that tree.—We are not allowed to have even what is left.”

  There was a roaring in my ears. I seemed to be a long way off. I was sinking into a horrible black vortex that seemed to be sucking me down. I opened my eyes and saw Jim dimly. His nostrils seemed to be two black wide holes. His face was taut, every line set. I saw him draw a great deep breath. The blackness sucked me down still deeper. And then suddenly I found myself on my feet struggling against that hideous darkness and I heard my own voice as from a great distance calling out over and over again, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  They both came running to me, but I should have fainted for the first and only time in my life but that I heard suddenly above those strange noises in my ears a little choking, strangling sound. It revived me instantly. I broke from them and tried to get to the door.

  “Agnes! Agnes!” I called out.

  But they were before me. Jim tore the portiere aside. They caught her just as she was falling.

  She lay unconscious for hours. When she did come to, she found all three of us about her bed. Her bewildered eyes went from Jim’s face to mine and then to Joe’s. They paused there, she frowned a little. And then we saw the whole thing slowly come back to her. She groaned and closed her eyes. Joe started to leave the room but she opened her eyes quickly and indicated that he was not to go. He came back. Again she closed her eyes. And then she began to grow restless.

  “Agnes!” I asked, “is there anything you want?”

  She quieted a little under my voice.

  “No,” she said, “No.”

  Presently she opened her eyes again. They were very bright. She looked at each of us in turn a second time.

  Then she said: “I’ve had to live all this time to find out.”

  “Find out what, Agnes?” It was Jim’s voice.

  “Why I’m here—why I’m here.”

  “Yes, of course.” Jim spoke oh! so gently, humoring her. His hand was smoothing away the damp little curls about her forehead.

  “It’s no use your making believe you understand, you don’t.”

  It was the first time I had ever heard her speak irritably to Jim. She moved her head away from his hand.

  His eyes were a little hurt and he took his hand away.

  “No.” His voice was as gentle as ever. “I don’t understand, then.”

  There was a pause and then she said abruptly:

  “I’m an instrument.” No one answered her.

  “That’s all—an instrument.”

  We merely watched her.

  “One of the many.”

  And then Jim in his kindly blundering way made his second mistake. “Yes, Agnes,” he said, “Yes.”

  But at that, she took even me by surprise. She sat up in bed suddenly, her eyes wild and staring and before we could stop her, began beating her breast.

  “Agnes,” I said, “Don’t! Don’t!”

  “I shall,” she said in a strange high voice.

  Well, we let her alone. It would have meant a struggle.

  And then amid little sobbing breaths, beating her breast the while, she began to cry out: “Yes!—Yes!—I!—I!—An instrument of reproduction!—another of the many!—a colored woman doomed!— cursed!—put here!—willing or unwilling! For what?—to bring children here—men children—for the sport—the lust of possible orderly mobs— who go about things—in an orderly manner—on Sunday mornings!”

  “Agnes,” I cried out. “Agnes! Your child will be born in the North. He need never go South.”

  She had listened to me at any rate.

  “Yes,” she said, “in the North. In the North.—And have there been no lynchings in the North?”

  I was silenced.

  “The North permits it too,” she cried. “The North is silent as well as the South.”

  And then as she sat there her eyes became less wild but more terrible. They became the eyes of a seeress. When she spoke again she spoke loudly, clearly, slowly:

  “There is a time coming—and soon—when no colored man—no colored woman—no colored child, born or unborn—will be safe—in this country.”

  “Oh Agnes,” I cried again, “Sh! sh!”

  She turned her terrible eyes upon me.

  “There is no more nee
d for silence—in this house. God has found us out.”

  “Oh Agnes,” the tears were frankly running down my cheeks. “We must believe that God is very pitiful. We must. He will find a way.”

  She waited a moment and said simply:

  “Will He?”

  “Yes, Agnes! Yes!”

  “I will believe you, then. I will give Him one more chance. Then, if He is not pitiful, then if He is not pitiful,—” But she did not finish. She fell back upon her pillows. She had fainted again.

  Agnes did not die, nor did her child. She had kept her body clean and healthy. She was up and around again, but an Agnes that never smiled, never chuckled any more. She was a grey pathetic shadow of herself. She who had loved joy so much, cared more, it seemed, for solitude than anything else in the world. That was why, when Jim or I went looking for her we found so often only the empty room and that imperceptibly closing, slowly closing, opposite door.

  Joe went back to Mississippi and not one of us, ever again, mentioned Bob’s name.

  And Jim, poor Jim! I wish I could tell you of how beautiful he was those days. How he never complained, never was irritable, but was always so gentle, so full of understanding, that at times, I had to go out of the room for fear he might see my tears.

  Only once I saw him when he thought himself alone. I had not known he was in his little den and entered it suddenly. I had made no sound, luckily, and he had not heard me. He was sitting leaning far forward, his head between his hands. I stood there five minutes at least, but not once did I see him stir. I silently stole out and left him.

  It was a fortunate thing that Agnes had already done most of her sewing for the little expected stranger, for after Joe’s visit, she never touched a thing.

  “Agnes!” I said one day, not without fear and trepidation it is true. “Isn’t there something I can do?”

  “Do?” she repeated rather vaguely.

  “Yes. Some sewing?”

  “Oh! sewing,” she said. “No, I think not, Lucy.”

  “You’ve—you’ve finished?” I persisted.

  “No.”

  “Then—” I began.

  “I hardly think we shall need any of them.” And then she added, “I hope not.”

  “Agnes!” I cried out.

  But she seemed to have forgotten me.

  Well, time passed, it always does. And on a Sunday morning early Agnes’ child was born. He was a beautiful, very grave baby with her great dark eyes.

  As soon as they would let me, I went to her.

  She was lying very still and straight, in the quiet, darkened room, her head turned on the pillow towards the wall. Her eyes were closed. “Agnes!” I said in the barest whisper. “Are you asleep?”

  “No,” she said. And turned her head towards me and opened her eyes. I looked into her ravaged face. Agnes Milton had been down into Hell and back again.

  Neither of us spoke for some time and then she said:

  “Is he dead?”

  “Your child?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should say not, he’s a perfect darling and so good.”

  No smile came into her face. It remained as expressionless as before. She paled a trifle more, I thought, if such a thing was possible.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

  “Agnes!” I spoke sharply. I couldn’t help it.

  But she closed her eyes and made no response.

  I sat a long time looking at her. She must have felt my gaze for she slowly lifted her lids and looked at me.

  “Well,” she said, “what is it, Lucy?”

  “Haven’t you seen your child, Agnes?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you wish to see it?”

  “No.”

  Again it was wrung out of me:

  “Agnes, Agnes, don’t tell me you don’t love it.”

  For the first and only time a spasm of pain went over her poor pinched face.

  “Ah!” she said, “That’s it.” And she closed her eyes and her face was as expressionless as ever.

  I felt as though my heart were breaking.

  Again she opened her eyes.

  “Tell me, Lucy,” she began.

  “What, Agnes?”

  “Is he—healthy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite strong?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think he will live, then?”

  “Yes, Agnes.”

  She closed her eyes once more. It was very still within the room. Again she opened her eyes. There was a strange expression in them now. “Lucy!”

  “Yes.”

  “You were wrong.”

  “Wrong, Agnes?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “You thought your God was pitiful.”

  “Agnes, but I do believe it.”

  After a long silence she said very slowly:

  “He—is—not.”

  This time, when she closed her eyes, she turned her head slowly upon the pillow to the wall. I was dismissed.

  And again Agnes did not die. Time passed and again she was up and about the flat. There was a strange, stony stillness upon her, now, I did not like, though. If we only could have understood, Jim and I, what it meant.

  Her love for solitude, now, had become a passion. And Jim and I knew more and more that empty room and that silently, slowly closing door. She would have very little to do with her child. For some reason, I saw, she was afraid of it. I was its mother. I did for it, cared for it, loved it.

  Twice only during these days I saw that stony stillness of hers broken.

  The first time was one night. The baby was fast asleep, and she had stolen in to look at him, when she thought no one would know. I never wish to see such a tortured, hungry face again.

  I was in the kitchen, the second time, when I heard strange sounds coming from my room. I rushed to it and there was Agnes, kneeling at the foot of the little crib, her head upon the spread. Great, terrible racking sobs were tearing her. The baby was lying there, all eyes, and beginning to whimper a little.

  “Agnes! Oh, my dear! What is it?” The tears were streaming down my cheeks.

  “Take him away! Take him away!” she gasped. “He’s been cooing, and smiling and holding out his little arms to me. I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it.”

  I took him away. That was the only time I ever saw Agnes Milton weep.

  The baby slept in my room, Agnes would not have him in hers. He was a restless little sleeper and I had to get up several times during the night to see that he was properly covered.

  He was a noisy little sleeper as well. Many a night I have lain awake listening to the sound of his breathing. It is a lovely sound, a beautiful one—the breathing of a little baby in the dark.

  This night, I remember, I had been up once and covered him over and had fallen off to sleep for the second time, when, for I had heard absolutely no sound, I awoke suddenly. There was upon me an overwhelming utterly paralyzing feeling not of fear but of horror. I thought, at first, I must have been having a nightmare, but strangely instead of diminishing, the longer I lay awake, the more it seemed to increase.

  It was a moonlight night and the light came in through the open window in a broad, white, steady stream.

  A coldness seemed to settle all about my heart. What was the matter with me? I made a tremendous effort and sat up. Everything seemed peaceful and quiet enough.

  The moonlight cut the room in two. It was dark where I was and dark beyond where the baby was.

  One brass knob at the foot of my bed shone brilliantly, I remember, in that bright stream and the door that led into the hall stood out fully revealed. I looked at that door and then my heart suddenly seemed to stop beating! I grew deathly cold. The door was closing slowly, imperceptibly, silently. Things were whirling around. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again the door was no longer moving; it had closed.

  What had Agnes Milton wanted in my room? And the more I asked mysel
f that question the deeper grew the horror.

  And then slowly, by degrees, I began to realize there was something wrong within that room, something terribly wrong. But what was it?

  I tried to get out of bed, but I seemed unable to move. I strained my eyes, but I could see nothing—only that bright knob, that stream of light, that closed white door.

  I listened. It was quiet, very quiet, too quiet. But why too quiet? And then as though there had been a blinding flash of lightning I knew—the breathing wasn’t there.

  Agnes Milton had taken a pillow off of my bed and smothered her child.

  One last word. Jim received word this morning. The door was finished closing for the last time—Agnes Milton is no more. God, I think, may be pitiful, after all.

  LANGSTON HUGHES

  [1902–1967]

  THE BEST-REMEMBERED WRITER OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE and possibly the most famous African American author of the first half of the last century, James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, to a historically prominent family. Among his maternal ancestors were the first dean of Howard University Law School, John Mercer Langston, who also served a term in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1888, and an abolitionist grandfather who had fought with John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. In spite of this distinguished heritage, however, Hughes’s home life was characterized by parental neglect and the family’s frequent relocation. Consoling his feelings of isolation with books, he discovered an aptitude for writing at an early age. He was just nineteen when he published both his first short story, “Mexican Games,” and his first poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which he dedicated to W. E. B. DuBois, who printed both pieces in 1921. Hughes abruptly dropped out of Columbia University that same year and sailed to Europe and West Africa, where he performed a series of menial jobs until returning to Harlem in 1924.

  The author’s prolific career took off in 1926 with the simultaneous publication of his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, and his landmark essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” which argued on behalf of racial pride in art. With his first novel, Not Without Laughter (1931), Hughes became increasingly outspoken on behalf of leftist politics, traveling to Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Spain on the proceeds earned from the book. He also addressed racial concerns, prominently in The Chicago Defender and New Masses, among other periodicals of the 1940s. Jazz music was another influential component in his writings, notably in Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951), a book of poetry incorporating the frenetic, discordant sounds of bebop, and in Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961), which has been called his finest collection. By the time of the Civil Rights era, however, Hughes had fallen out of favor with black militants, many of whom perceived his once-radical work as outdated and no longer sufficiently representative of African Americans. Nevertheless, the author demonstrated a profound understanding of and devotion to the many modes of black life in America, writing poems, short stories, plays, and journalism until his death in 1967.