A Different Drummer

by William Melvin Kelley

  “You think you’ll be able to get a decent job?” This was the only way I could express it, my concern. I wanted to say so much more, but did not want to be embarrassing or sentimental. Still, in some veiled way, I wanted Bennett to know I was sorry he did not have the means to finish school immediately. I realize such things are almost a normal, expected part of a negro’s life, that negroes are conditioned, almost resigned, to dashed, or at least delayed, dreams; I wanted him to know I regretted the delay, not just out of pity for the deprived ones, but because I, myself, would be deprived of Bennett’s companionship.

  “Yes. I wrote the society and they said they could probably find something for me with them.” We were on the steps leading to the marble hall, overseen by a fortlike information desk.

  “You won’t be doing that long. They’ll give you something important to do in no time.”

  “I certainly hope so. Forty years is a relatively short time to work miracles.” We both laughed at our idealism. I realize now we wanted to laugh desperately.

  Redcaps, most of them without uniforms or badges, carried luggage or pulled iron carts along the shadowy platform. Here and there stood groups of denim-clad mechanics; blue-suited conductors, with gold stars on their sleeves, checked schedules or waited, like party hostesses, in train doorways. Besides these, there were people. A family was crying good-bys to an old woman peering at them through a window. Bennett and I walked until, far down the platform, we came to an empty doorway. Bennett handed me my bag. “Well now, write, will you?” He paused, then added, “I’ll be waiting for those reports.”

  “They won’t start coming until I’m home for good, but I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens in Cambridge.” I put down the bag and, with my foot, pushed it up against the wall of the doorway. I was standing in the vestibule.

  “Well…” Bennett stretched out his hand.

  But I just looked at it; I did not take it, did not want to say good-by so soon, and grabbed for something to say: “Let me know what you think of that Federal aid idea I talked about.”

  “All right, I will. But I can say now I don’t think it will work. In the first place…yes, well…” He reached out his hand again; this time I had to take it.

  “Take care of yourself, Bennett.”

  “Certainly…I will.” We shook hands. “Good-by, David.”

  Steam was beginning to rise into our faces from under the car. Down the platform, working his way toward us, a conductor was slamming doors and flipping switches.

  “Good-by, Bennett.” We shook hands again and he turned away just as the conductor arrived and closed the bottom half of the door. I turned into the car, then back, but Bennett had disappeared behind a bank of people. I saw him once again walking away, short, stocky, and determined, his arms swinging like marching at his sides. Then he disappeared for good as the train began to move slowly out.

  Wednesday, January 2, 1935:

  I arrived in Cambridge at about 9:30 p.m. A letter was waiting for me from Bennett. He started at the national society for colored affairs on Monday. He seems to enjoy it and says it is not just a clerical job. I did not do any studying at home (who ever does?), so I will have to get to it.

  Tuesday, January 8, 1935:

  I received a letter from Bennett today. He says he will try his best to write every week. I find myself almost completely friendless with him absent. At least I will get some studying done.

  Thursday, June 20, 1935:

  Well, I made it through. I graduated today. This week has been very hectic and I have not had a chance to write here. My parents came up, seemed to enjoy it all very much. Bennett could not make it. He thought he might. I looked forward to seeing him; I have not seen him since before Christmas. The weekly letters have helped to make our separation a bit easier. Perhaps I will get to New York in August.

  Tomorrow we go home and Monday I start at the Almanac-Telegraph as a cub reporter. I hope I like it; I think I will. The four years on the Crimson gave me a great deal of enjoyment and excitement and I learned something too.

  Monday, August 26, 1935:

  I did not get to New York last week as I had planned. I was assigned a long piece on the Governor and had to go to Willson instead.

  I sent Bennett a piece, Trade Unionism and the Southern Negro today. He will try to get it published up there. As he recommended I used a pseudonym: Warren Dennis. I have ideas for several others, but let us wait and see how this one does.

  Monday, September 2, 1935:

  I received a letter from Bennett. He liked the article “very much.” He said: “It shows great insight. More of the same, dear friend.” He got me forty dollars for it. I am just glad someone wanted it. I told him to accept the money as a donation to the Society. Well, I will start on those others now. I guess articles are not anything special, but at least I am doing what I can to help out—and it is far better than collecting my father’s rents.

  Friday, July 10, 1936:

  I met—well, I did not actually meet her; I do not know her name, but I will find out somehow—the nicest, prettiest girl tonight at a party on the Northside. A pretty girl with dark brown eyes and brown hair; she was wearing a blue dress, which was a little too good for her to be a part of that wild bunch. She did not look like she belonged there at all, but there she was swilling—I first noticed her at the sink mixing a drink—with the rest of them. She was not like the others there at all, not noisy or a Bohemian. She hardly opened her mouth. She made me a couple of drinks, and sat next to me when I asked her to, but when the party broke up she had already gone. I did not see the boy she came with. I hope she is not married to someone. Anyway, I will find out.

  Thursday, August 20, 1936:

  I found out her name: Camille DeVillet. But when Howard told me, it was too late to call; I will try tomorrow after work.

  Sunday, February 7, 1937:

  I got married today; what more is there to say?

  Monday, February 7, 1938:

  Today is my first anniversary: one happy, good, sweet year. If, a year and three quarters ago, someone, anyone had said, “Willson, there will be a year in your life filled with nothing but happiness. You will not be so nervous; you will not smoke so much; you will eat right and sleep soundly and warm at night, and you will not, not once during that year, be lonely,” I would not have believed him; I would have thought him incurably insane. But wonder of wonders, it is all true. This last year has been the happiest of my life. And the thing is, the miraculous, glorious thing is that the next fifty or so will be just as happy, just as dear, just as good.

  This is no storybook, fairy tale, ever-after, never-never-land marriage. We have our squabbles. She will clean up my desk and I will not be able to find anything and will call her down for it. I will get peevish and snappy with her when I cannot seem to get a story out on paper. She will get a backache once every twenty-eight days and blame it on me as if I had anything to do with that. But those are tiny things, nothing compared to the days, the weeks on end when we’ll just enjoy being with each other. I love her more every day; every day I learn more about her to love, and what is more, I like her. If she was not a girl, a woman (and what a woman), if she was a man, she would most certainly be my best friend.

  The only thing we lack is children, a child, and this is because right now we just make ends meet. I ought to get a raise soon and then we can “git to gitting ’at young’un.”

  We got a card from Bennett today. He also enclosed a note saying he had sold the article I wrote: The Corrosive Effects of Segregation on Southern Society. The magazine, he said, is way, way, Left, but if they are the people who want what I have to say, I imagine that is all right.

  Saturday, March 5, 1938:

  Camille told me her period is overdue by two weeks. She did not mention it because she thought it could be that tennis we played last Sunday.


  Actually she did not out and tell me; I forced it from her. There is a high shelf in the closet, where we keep some junk, some boxes of summer clothes. The boxes are quite heavy; last fall when I put them up there I had trouble with them myself. When I came in last night, she was just getting up on a chair to lug them down. I asked what she was doing.

  “I’m looking for something.”

  I took off my coat. “Here, let me help you. They’re heavy.”

  She looked down at me. “That’s all right. I can manage. I’ll do it. You sit down and rest.”

  “What do you mean you can manage? I could hardly manage those boxes myself. Come on, get off the chair.”

  Those brown eyes of hers glazed over; when she gets mad, they go flat and hard like bits of tree bark. “You don’t have to help me. I can manage.”

  For an instant I was going to joke with her, but then I decided to let her alone. I forgot about it (I did not even mention it here yesterday). But this morning I got up late and heard the water in the kitchen whistling and went in to say hello and she was on the floor, on her back, her legs lifted about six inches off the floor, her face red with strain, her whole body quaking, talking to herself: “Come on, come on, come on, come on!” She dropped her legs, waited a few seconds, lifted them those same six inches, held them, threw them apart, pulled them together, apart, together.

  I was standing behind her; she could not see me. The kettle was whistling and I had not worn any shoes; she could not hear me, but finally I said: “Hey, Camille, the Olympics aren’t until 1940, if then, what with the situation in Europe. What are you doing?”

  She sat up startled, looking at me, a little afraid.

  “What are you doing?”

  And then she told me she was two weeks behind. “And that’s strange because if watches had never been invented, I would have been able to keep track of time since I was thirteen. First the backache, then the headache, then the cramps, and then the rest. Just like that, like a train schedule or the phases of the moon.”

  I told her not to worry; it would come. And if it did not—so what? Maybe it is wrong for us to wait because we might wait too long. It is not of course that we do not want children; we want huge numbers of them; we want to fill a house with them. But we did want to wait until we had some money in the bank. But anyway, I will be getting that raise soon. So there is no need to worry. Of course, we do not know for certain she is pregnant, but being a father does not seem like a bad idea at all to me. If I am going to be a Daddy, I think I will break with Willson tradition, will not give the child a name beginning with “D.” And if it is a boy, I would like to name him Bennett Bradshaw Willson.

  Saturday, March 12, 1938:

  No sign of anything yet and Camille is no longer doing those foolish exercises. It looks like I am going to be a father. My God! How can I be so calm. I am actually going to be a father!

  Monday, March 14, 1938:

  I went into the office today, expecting to get a raise and got fired instead. Someone, I do not know who, read the article on the corrosive effect of segregation, found out I wrote it, I do not know how, and I got fired for it. Well, hell! I am glad it is out in the open. Now I can write them under my own name. There is no reason for me to be ashamed of the truth. I will go around to other papers starting tomorrow. I have been doing good work and people know it. I do not think it will be too hard to get another job.

  Monday, March 21, 1938:

  Camille went to the doctor. He says it is a bit too soon to tell, but he is pretty sure she is pregnant. He will know more in two or three weeks.

  I have been to three of the seven papers here. No soap. If anything, they are more conservative than the A-T.

  Thursday, April 14, 1938:

  Camille is quite definitely pregnant.

  Tuesday, April 26, 1938:

  No paper in New Marsails will touch me. I have been blackballed. What the hell am I going to do?

  I got a letter from Bennett. I had told him it looked like I would not be able to get work. He said to come on to New York. But I cannot pack up Camille now and make a total move. Suppose I could not get anything in New York. We would be even worse off. I have to find something here. Perhaps this will all die down, and someone will take a chance on me. God damn it! I am a capable journalist.

  Thursday, May 5, 1938:

  Nothing! Nothing!

  I got a letter from Bennett. “Be brave, my friend. Come to New York. Your writing has made an impression here. You will definitely, I promise, find work. But if you can’t, I am working, and thus, you are working too.”

  I asked Camille about it. She did not hesitate a second. “I can have everything packed in…let me see…four days.”

  But I suspect this is just her concept of stoic and unwordly southern womanhood. I do not think she really wants to go. I think she is more afraid than I am, if this is possible.

  As much as I hate the idea, we may have to move back to Sutton, back to the Swells and my family and the collecting of rents.

  But I’m not defeated yet; perhaps something will open up here.

  Wednesday, June 1, 1938:

  I had another talk with Camille. She still maintains she would go to New York. “I love you, David. We’ll go. The baby has to go because I go.” She laughed. “And I want to go because you do. If you move back to Sutton, you won’t get over it. It’ll never be the same. So come on now, let’s go to New York. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

  I do not believe her. She tries so hard to do the right thing, but she does not want to go. I can see it plainly.

  I wrote a letter to Bennett telling him I would definitely be moving back to my family.

  Tuesday, June 7, 1938:

  I received Bennett’s answer: “Now that you have made your decision, I will attempt in every way I know, fair or foul, to make you rededicate yourself and come to New York.”

  I am afraid it is no use, Bennett. My rebuttals to you will not be adequate to convince you, or even myself. I am watching a parade and I know I should be marching proudly, but I am shackled to the curb. I have to do what I feel is my first responsibility. There is nothing else I can do.

  Wednesday, June 29, 1938:

  I received a final long letter from Bennett yesterday, his last attempt to get me to change my mind. It ended:

  Together, you and I planned a great deal, arrived at some remarkable conclusions about things—I thank you for your part in all this—and I hoped we could use these together to lead our peoples to the things we felt were right for them, but now you will not be with me. The enthusiasm we shared for our futures can no longer be shared. One of the important touchstones of our friendship has disappeared! All this is to say that I cannot see any reason for us to communicate with each other from this day on. This will certainly be my loss.

  Of course, I will never forget you completely. You may not be a part of my future, but you will remain a part of my past.

  Good-by, David, and Luck to you,

  Bennett

  Monday, August 15, 1938:

  We moved to the Swells. My family is understanding. But I know they are patronizing me. All of them! Camille too.

  Thursday, September 1, 1938:

  I collected rents for my father.

  Wednesday, October 20, 1954:

  I clipped this article from a national magazine today:

  RELIGION

  “Jesus is Black!”

  As the torchlight glinted off his six-inch, watch-fob crucifix, and cries of “Jesus is black!” died in the packed hall, The Rev. Bennett T. Bradshaw, founder of the Resurrected Church of the Black Jesus Christ of America, Inc., harangued his flock in a not quite legitimate English accent: “We have declared war on the white man! To the white world and all it stands for, we vow death!”

  The group, known as the Black J
esuits, founded in 1951 by New York-born, Ivy-educated, red-dipped Bradshaw, claims 20,000 members. (“And growing all the time.”)

  The Man…

  Bitten by a Redhumbug early in his dear, old, incomplete (he left after 3½ years) college days, Bradshaw joined the staff of the National Society for Colored Affairs in 1935, was purged from that organization in 1950 when his communist affiliations hustled him before various congressional committees.

  After the NSCA gave him the gate, finding all other gates closed to him, Bradshaw decided to sneak in by the back door of race relations: religion. Says he: “It’s true that I received my calling soon after my forced resignation from the Society, but I assure you, one thing has nothing to do with the other.”

  Bradshaw, a bachelor, lives alone on the top floor of the Harlem building which houses his church, prowls the area in a new, black, chauffeur-driven limousine donated by a devout, brick-laying follower. (“I couldn’t very well refuse it; the man saved three years to give it to me.”)

  …And the Movement

  Organized like the Marines, the Black Jesuits have a doctrine which is a mixture of Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, and the Bible. The group is anti-Semitic. (“The Jews do most of the exploitation for the white man; look at the people who hold the leases on Harlem tenements.”) The Black Jesuits believe only those parts of the Bible which support black supremacy, believe Jesus to have been a Negro. (“The rest was added or changed to keep the dark-skinned people in place; the Romans had their race problem too.”) But even this line is not fixed. What Bradshaw preaches, the Black Jesuits believe. And though his bulls are not always consistent, Bradshaw claims they are direct-from-heaven, revised revelation.

  As concern grows over the adverse effect the Black Jesuits have had on New York race relations, says Bradshaw in his best Bible-pounding style: “We have them running scared now. They know we’ll take our rights, if they don’t give them to us.”