And Then We Heard the Thunder

by John Oliver Killens

  The squad car stopped. The little cop said, “All right, you niggers.”

  They escorted them into the Ebbensville police station and he was separated from the other soldier. They took Solly into a small musty room with a big bright light and the Chief of Police came in to take a look at him. The big cracker cop said, “Here that bad nigger is, Chief.”

  “You can’t hold me here. I’m a soldier.” And even as he said it he realized how ridiculous he sounded.

  The Chief of Police, a great big handsome blue-eyed man with hair as white as cotton in the cottonfield, stood over Solly. “Goddammit, when we git through with you, old up-the-country nigger, you ain’t gon never want to see no soldier suit the longest day you live.”

  Solly was scared now, with perspiration all over his body and draining from his armpits, and his crotch was wet with perspiration. They could beat him to death or blow his brains out and have his dead body locked up for resisting an officer. “Where’s the telephone? I demand to call my first sergeant and my company commander.”

  At that moment a white man came through the door in a soldier uniform and a great hope formed and grew inside of Solly Saunders, almost popping out of his chest, as the tall white colonel came into the room. After all he was a soldier in the Army of the United States, and these civilians wouldn’t give the colonel any stuff. They’d have to listen to him.

  “What’s going on here?” the colonel asked. The MPs were no bargain, but he would take his chances with them in preference to the Ebbensville police force. Maybe, Solly thought, maybe—they would have to listen to an Army colonel. Goddammit, maybe—the colonel did not sound like a Southerner.

  “Got one of them monkeys from the camp in here, Colonel. Thinks he’s a soldier cause they let him wear a soldier suit.”

  The long tall handsome colonel wore an MP insignia on his arm. “What did you lock him up for? What did he do?” They had to answer the colonel, because Solly was a soldier in the U.S. Army, and even the Georgia police could not supersede the U.S. Army.

  “They have no right to arrest me. You’re the head of the MPs in this town, sir. Will you kindly tell them they have no jurisdiction?”

  The colonel turned and stared at Solly and Solly knew what a fool he had allowed himself to be for a couple of desperate minutes. “Did anybody ask you anything?” the colonel said. He turned to the chief again. “What’s he been up to?”

  The chief grinned. “Nothing much. He ain’t got no pass and he was insubordinate to two of my officers. In other words, he’s a sassy nigger, and we intend to teach him a thing or two. You know how it is.”

  The colonel said, “Must be one of them niggers from up my way. Let that uniform go to his head.”

  Solly heard his own stupid helpless voice shouting at the colonel: “Don’t you call me a nigger! I’m a soldier in the Army of the United States. I’m a man, goddammit!”

  The colonel walked over to Solly. “So you’re a man?” He slapped Solly with his open hand with all of his might and white spots danced in front of Solly’s eyes and his head swam around in an ocean of whiteness and he was temporarily deaf but he heard the colonel clearly.

  “You are nothing but a nigger, nigger,” the colonel said. “You are a nigger, your mammy is a nigger blacker than you, and your mammy’s mammy is the blackest nigger that ever was a nigger.”

  Solly must have lost his mind temporarily as he broke away from the two cracker cops who held him and charged toward the colonel and knocked him halfway across the room. He walked up and down the colonel like he was doing a dance. Before the cops could move into action, Solly had the colonel by the throat and was bumping his head against the concrete floor, and might have killed him, had not the two cops pulled him off. They began to beat him around his shoulders and his arms and his hands with their nightsticks.

  The chief shouted, “Kill that nigger! Y’all ain’t doing nothing but playing with him.”

  A wild kind of panic seized hold of him as he realized they might really kill him then and there, he might be dead in the next five minutes, and he didn’t want to die! He didn’t want to die! He tried to shield his head with his hands, and his arms felt like they were pieces of iron. They meant to kill him! He tried to grab the nightstick from the little cracker cop. If he could make it to the door and run for it—but then they might take a notion to shoot him in the back.

  “Don’t kill him,” the colonel said. “Just sit him in that chair and we’ll teach him a lesson.”

  They forced him back into the chair and held him down. He had the colonel to thank for his life being spared.

  The colonel said, “Pull his legs apart and keep them apart.”

  And through all of his pain and his desperate anguish Solly wondered helplessly why the colonel had told the Ebbensville cops to pull his legs apart. He didn’t have long to ponder the question.

  The colonel grabbed a nightstick from the big cracker cop, his gray eyes gleaming, and he began to beat Solly about his legs and thighs and in the direction of his groins, but Solly closed his legs and fell forward in self-defense. The fear was so great he thought his heart had stopped beating. The fear far greater than the pain. They forced him back into the chair again, and the colonel moved in with the nightstick and blow after blow fell upon Solly’s thighs and almost in between his legs as he wrestled and struggled in a maddening kind of wild desperation and kept them from holding his legs apart. At the moment he feared for his manhood, and he had forgotten to fear for his life. White stabs of pain set his knees on fire, as the Army colonel kept swinging the nightstick like he was trying his best to break it in halves. But the colonel’s age was not exactly in his favor, his strength was quickly spent, and the blows were as soft as a baby’s now, but heavy as a sledge hammer to Solly’s flaming thighs tenderized with throbbing pain. And everything began to go white around him, and he was sinking in an awful suck-hole of briny whiteness, sinking, sinking, and at that last moment he thought of Millie away off in New York City, sleeping peacefully and in her dreams pushing him onward and upward on the ladder to success, and Mama sleeping undisturbed, and only a few blocks away from this place Fannie Mae sleeping and Bookworm fast asleep on Guard Duty, and he had to keep these crackers from beating him in between his legs—he had to—had to—had to—even if they killed him. He had to—had to . . . .

  The last thing he remembered was the little baby-faced sissified cracker cop going over in the corner and puking his guts. “Goddammit, colonel, sir, don’t you think that’s enough? I mean, after all, I ain’t no nigger-lover, but he don’t hardly know you hitting him now.”

  And Solly could hold on no longer, and save me! Save me! Somebody save me from sinking down—and everything completely white now as he fell forward to the floor.

  And finally Solly Saunders slept.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next morning the Topkick and Lieutenant Samuels came to the jail for him and took him limping and smoldering with pain to one of the colored wards in the post hospital at Camp Johnson Henry.

  As they left him, Topkick came back to the bed and said almost in a whisper, “Don’t worry about the AWOL. I told the captain I know you had a pass because I made it out and he signed it with a batch of others. I told him you must have lost it in town, cause I know you had one when you left.”

  Solly said, “Thanks.” He couldn’t care less.

  Topkick said, “Hurry back to the company before that office goes to the dogs. And the next time you get ready to whip all the white folks in Georgia, let the rest of Hell Company in on the party.” And he smiled and left to catch up with Lieutenant Samuels.

  And for the next two weeks Solly had loads and loads of time to himself. Lying there in his snowy-white bed with everything around him spick-and-span and gleamingly white, the walls the ceiling the bedpans all reminding him of MPs and Army colonels, as did the nurses and doctors, everything and everybody pure-and-divine and everlastingly driven-snow white as the whitest dove and the whitest
of the whitest angels. All was white excepting the patients in the colored wards, and the colored mop brigade. And he was sick and tired of whiteness.

  He hated the Great White Democratic Army of the United States of America. They had taken one of their mighty cannons and placed it up against his forehead and blown away forever the brains of his grand illusion about the Army and the war. And now he hated everything about the Army. The individual asphyxiation, the principle of dumbly following-the-leader-who-never-knew-where-the-hell-he-was-going-or-why-he-was-going-and-what-he-was-going-to-do-when-he-got-there. K.P. and Guard Duty and Week-end Pass and saluting and drilling and bucking and passing-the-buck and apple-polishing and brown-nosing and Inspection, and more than anything else he hated the Dictatorship of the Brass and his own ambitions to join the Brass. His cup ran over with hate and spilled onto the ones he liked and loved.

  Millie and her goddamn onward and upward philosophy he hated, and Bookworm because he was too damn uncomplicated and honest to be for real; Lieutenant Samuels and his phony Liberal Ethical Culture Brotherhood, and hated Rutherford who wanted to be his Great White Father. And Fannie Mae Branton most of all because she was too damn beautiful too militant too forthright too human and too much woman and too much in love with Solly and too damn sure he was in love with her.

  The first time Worm visited him they were like strangers to each other, choosing their words carefully like fumbling with a foreign language. Finally Bookworm stood up to leave, and then Solly sat up in the bed with the pain shooting through him as if his entire body were a rotten tooth. Worm’s good-natured face looked like the blessed angels had kissed him, and Solly wouldn’t let him get away with it.

  Solly said almost angrily, “You know why I was in town?”

  Worm said quietly, “The cats in the company are salty as a barrel of mackerels. They want to go over into Ebbensville and turn that mother-huncher out once and for all. And they proud of you, man. I knew you had it in you all the time.”

  Solly said, “I took Fannie Mae home. That’s why.”

  “It figures,” Worm said without changing his expression. “All the cats talking about the way you stood up to the man, and they—”

  Solly said, “What do you mean, it figures?” He’d like to slap the complacency from Bookworm’s face. Who in the hell did he think he was?

  Worm said, “Course it figures. I was on Guard Duty and you were at the PX and she asked you to take her home and you were Johnny-on-the-Spot looking out for the Kid. I always knew you wan’t no cracker-lover. I told that buckethead bastard, Baker—”

  “That is not the way it was,” Solly said. “I wanted to take her home, and I wasn’t thinking about looking out for you, my good cut buddy.”

  “So what’s wrong with that? She like you a lot. Maybe she love you. How the hell do I know? When I’m with her all she talk about is Corporal Saunders, the company clerk. Anyhow, she ain’t my broad.”

  “She ain’t anybody’s broad.”

  Worm said, “Anyhow, she’s crazy about you. I’ve known it for the longest kind of time. I told Buck Rogers last night, I always knew you ain’t never been no cracker-lover.”

  A shameful warmth ran through Solly’s entire body, made him forget the throbbing pain he lived with. The only thing he could say was something stupid like, “You—you never told me—I mean—about Fannie Mae—”

  “Why should I tell you anything? You’re married. You’re always telling me you’re married. Besides, the Kid don’t give up so easy—see?”

  There was nothing for Solly to say. Just be silent and look stupid. “What did Rogers say about me and about what happened at the police station?”

  Bookworm asked him, “Did you tell her you were married?”

  “Why in the hell should I?” Solly could not keep the heat out of his voice or his face. “I just rode home with her. That’s all there was to it.” He was the biggest phony in the world.

  “There’s a heap more to it and you damn well know it. And if you don’t know, you damn sight better ask somebody. She ain’t the kinda girl to mess around with.”

  Solly almost lost his voice. “Don’t worry about it, buddy boy.”

  “I ain’t worried, but you better worry. She’s the greatest—”

  Solly said, “Do me a favor, Worm, and drop dead quietly and unceremoniously.” He lay down in his bed again and turned on his side with his back to the Worm and listened to his Army buddy as he walked angrily away from him toward the entrance to the colored ward and the pain moved in on him again, more than ever, his entire body flaming throbbing glowing with it. He could bite his lips no longer and he cried quietly to himself. Nobody heard.

  Fannie Mae came to see him the second evening and she brought him fruit and flowers and a couple of books, and she came every evening afterwards during her hour off for supper. Each time she came she would kiss him briefly on his mouth and do the same before she left. And while she was with him he would feel whole again and alive and purposeful and know he was somebody. If Fannie Mae Branton loved him, he couldn’t be the first-class phony he thought he was. After she left he would make up his mind and promise himself all day long to tell her on her next visit that he was a married man. This time for real he would tell her without fail, he would certainly tell her, he would give it to her straight.

  When she came she never spoke directly about the incident.

  During her second visit she said, “Well, the war will be over one of these days and things will be different for us, after all the sacrifices the colored soldiers are making over there and down here.”

  He knew she was trying desperately to wash the bitter taste from his mouth, but he would not be a party to it. “Don’t bet your bottom dollar on it.” His voice was trembling.

  He heard the love in her own voice and the anxiety, and he also heard a brand-new thing—uncertainty. “You’ll see,” she said. “It’ll have to be different. And that’s why we say Double-V, So we don’t mark time or lose any ground here in this place, even as we fight them over there.” But her dear voice lacked the ring of conviction he had become accustomed to, had depended on, and he felt like crying because he wanted her always to have the strength of her convictions. He wanted her perfect, but he realized she was human. Angels did not copulate. He reached frantically around in his mind for words to encourage her, even as she tried to give him consolation. He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her and love her, and at the same time he wanted to strike her hurt her deeply. Shake her up.

  He laughed bitterly. “You actually can still believe in the war?”

  She said shakily, “Yes—of course. Nothing has changed. I mean, darling—” He knew she was lying. He would always know when she was lying. She was not a lying expert—like him. He was an old pro.

  He said, “Don’t be sure too sure the war will ever end. And especially don’t make any book on it being any different for us club members.”

  She put her hand in his and a soothing warmth went the length of his aching existence. She said with conviction this time, “One sure thing, it’ll be different for you and me.”

  “Don’t be sure about that either.”

  Her eyes widened with concern.

  He should have told her then and there that even for her and him there was no afterward. Especially for her and him. But he was scared she would not come back to see him if he told her he was married, and if she didn’t he would die. He would just lie there and stop breathing. He said, “I mean the war may never end for us. It happens to a thousand soldiers every day—in Europe and the South Pacific and Georgia and Mississippi.”

  She took his hand and squeezed it hard. “Don’t say that, Solly! Hold on fast and never turn loose. We cannot let them get us down.” Her eyes were terror-stricken. “Promise me—no matter what happens, you’ll never die inside of you. Don’t let them kill you off like that. I’m not saying it right, because I’m not sure of anything anymore after what happened, except I’m sure of you and me—
” Her voice choked off and she did not trust herself to speak. She did not want to cry in front of him. She had come to cheer him up, to give him strength and confidence in a better day somewhere sometime, and especially for him and her. She wanted it so desperately. He understood.

  He shook his head from side to side.

  She said almost in a whisper, “I don’t know much, but one thing I do know with all my heart. You will come back. And you’re going to be a great lawyer. And maybe I’ll go to law school now, while you’re in the service, and when you get back, we can be a team together. Saunders and Saunders.” She was running way out in front a hundred miles ahead of him.

  “I’m not going to be a lawyer!” he shouted softly. “If I ever do get back, I’m going to be a writer. I don’t care what anybody else thinks about it.”

  She said, “Wonderful! Writers are the greatest people in the world. They never die. They live on and on in their books and plays. And you will be a great one too. And when you’re back and we’re married, you can try everything out on me. Every page right after you write it, every chapter. Hot off the typewriter! And maybe you will teach me how to write—”

  Take her into your arms and tell her she’s the only one who understands; kiss her here and now from her head to her feet and especially her wide black eyes and especially her full sweet curving trembly mouth. He felt like crying in her arms and telling her everything he ever dreamed. At the same time blame her for his present condition, his being in the hospital, his Army expectations down the drain forever, and he wanted not to hear the great conviction in her voice nor see her face aglow with love. Because he loved her, and against his will he shouted softly at her, “Shut up!” And then he said, “I’m sorry, Fannie Mae. But I don’t feel that way today. I’m sick and tired of everybody building me up so they can weight me down with obligations. I don’t owe anybody anything but myself myself.” Not even Millie, he thought. Everybody’s got their eyes on me. Everybody with their ax to grind. But I don’t owe a damn thing to Millie or to Fannie Mae or Bookworm or Samuels or Rutherford or Officer Candidate School. Or even to Mama. “If I choose to stop living at three o’clock tomorrow morning, it’s no damn body’s business if I do.” He felt his face filling up but he wouldn’t cry in front of her.