I didn't say anything.
'You know as well as I do that part of your job was to help me keep down trouble between the white and coloured workers,' he went on. 'That was one of the reasons I put you on that job. I figured you'd have sense enough to get along with the people you had to work with instead of running around with a chip on your shoulder like most coloured boys.'
I let him talk.
'You know I put you on that job against Mr. Kelly's wishes. Kelly-Mr. Kelly said I wasn't doing nothing but borrowing trouble but I told him you were the most intelligent coloured boy I knew and you'd be able to help us.' He took an aggrieved attitude. 'I'm surprised at you, Bob. I figured you were too intelligent to lose your head about something like that. I figured you had better manners, more respect for women than that. You know how Southern people talk, how they feel about working with you coloured boys. They have to get used to it, you gotta give them time. What makes me so mad with you is, goddamnit, you know this. I don't have to tell you what could have happened by your cursing a white woman, you know as well as I do.' He paused and jerked his head back. 'Don't you?' He pressed.
'Sure, I know,' I said.
His face got a swollen look and his eyes filled up. 'I'm not going to have you or any other coloured boy in this department who can't maintain a courteous and respectful manner toward the white men and women you have to work with,' he said. His voice shook with anger. He unhooked his hands and shook his fist at me. 'I'm not going to have it, goddamnit, that's all!'
'I'm not going to have nobody call me a nigger either," I said. I wasn't angry; I was just telling him.
He was through with it. 'You stay on through Saturday. Monday you start in as a mechanic.' He jerked his head toward the fellow sitting at the end of the desk. 'This is Dan Tebbel. Danny's going to work with you this week and beginning Monday he takes your place.'
I'd known Mac was going to give me hell; but I didn't think he'd downgrade me and put a white boy in my place. I thought he'd be afraid of the coloured workers making trouble. It shocked me to find out he didn't give a goddamn about the coloured workers, one way or the other. I looked at Tebbel sort of vacantly. He was a thin, undernourished man with a beaked nose, pale blue eyes, and reddish hair.
But I didn't really begin to feel it until Mac said, 'You'll lose your job deferment too. You're a single boy and they'll put you in 1A.'
All of a sudden I got that crazy, scared feeling I'd waked up with that morning. It had happened in a second; my job was gone and I was facing the draft; like the Japanese getting pulled up by the roots. But I couldn't find a thing to say in my defence. I had to say something, so I said, 'What's Tebbel going to do? My gang's a Jim Crow gang. Maybe they won't work for Tebbel.'
Mac reddened. 'That's all, Bob,' he said, dismissing me.
'What about Ben for my job?' I kept on; I couldn't let it go like that. 'He's a college graduate-U.C.L.A. Just as smart as — '
The phone rang. Mac picked it up. He wasn't listening to me. I stood there for a moment, listening to him talk over the phone, not knowing what to do. When I should have challenged him was when he said, 'Monday you start in as a mechanic.' But I had let it pass. Now with the bastard not even listening it was too late to quit. I turned and walked off.
Outside, I stood for a time, feeling cheated, trapped. I couldn't decide whether I'd been a coward or a fool. I debated whether to go back and split him. I'd get a fine and some days, perhaps. Probably a sapping at police headquarters. I'd lose my car. I think that was what made me decide that my pride wasn't worth it. My car was proof of something to me, a symbol. But at the time I didn't analyse the feeling; I just knew I couldn't lose my car even if I lost my job.
The whistle blew for lunch but I couldn't eat. The taste of bile was in my mouth, tart, brackish, bitter as gall. I wanted something to do with my hands, action. I began looking for a crap game. Finally I found one over between the plate racks. A dozen or so white fellows and two coloured were ringed on the concrete. There was money in the centre and two big green white-eyed dice were rolling.
I took out six ones and a ten and two of the white fellows made room for me. A big, seamed-faced, bald-headed welder with gnarled hands was shooting eight bucks. I tossed in a ten to fade him and a thin, sallow-faced man gave me a cursing look.
'He done hit me twice,' he snarled in an Okie voice. 'Think I'm gonna let you have him now?'
I took down my ten. He took his time, counted out eight ones, tossed them in the pot. He kept grumbling under his breath. 'Comin' in here tryna bull de game.' He gave me another hard, hostile look. 'One of these slick guys, think you gonna grab the gravy. Goddamn smart-' He was working himself up to call me a nigger and I figured I'd better stop him.
'If you say another word I'll knock your eyes out,' I grated in a low voice.
He popped to his feet like a jumping jack, a stooped, undernourished, middle-aged man with the damnedest expression of baffled indignation on his face. I didn't even look up at him. He puffed and he blew. The shooter had come out on a five and he kept working at it until he made it-four, one.
'Shoot it all,' the welder said.
I looked up at my Okie friend. He had turned beet-red. 'He's all yours,' I said.
He muttered some words in his mouth, dribbling saliva. I began feeling better.
'Take down some,' somebody said to the shooter. 'You're holding up the game.'
'I got it,' I said, and tossed my sixteen bucks in the centre.
The shooter nursed the dice, blew on them, said, 'Now do your stuff, babies. Come out on seven.' He cocked his arm, turned them loose. They stopped trey. one.
'Liddle Joe from Kokomo,' one of the coloured fellows murmured, looking at me.
The big bald-headed welder picked them up and rubbed them on his leather pants leg. I looked at him.
'Come on,' a Texas drawl said impatiently. 'You're holding up the game.'
The shooter was getting ready to unlock 'em but now he rubbed them up some more. He gave the speaker a defiant look. Then he threw a beautiful seven.
'A lick too late,' I crowed. I picked up my thirty-two bucks, feeling good for the first time that day.
Then a little waspish, rat-mouthed cracker snatched the dice and tossed six bits in the centre. 'I shoot a nigger lick,' he said.
I didn't move. I squatted there with my eyes on the ground and couldn't look up. When I looked up it was toward one of the coloured fellows. He was looking down too, unmoving; and when he looked up it was toward me. A ripple went through the ring for just an instant; nobody moved. Then the third coloured fellow tossed six bits in the centre and the game went on. I caught several white fellows giving me furtive looks; but I kept looking at the shooter.
When the dice got to me I blew the air out of my lungs, got another lungful, and said, 'I'm gonna shoot my hand.' I tossed the bills in the centre.
'How much is it?' somebody asked.
The little rat-mouthed cracker started to count it. I leaned forward and pushed his hand away. 'It's thirty-two bucks,' I said.
He gave me a hard look and said, 'I got six bits of it.'
I squatted back and waited. I knew they wanted to tell me to take some down and let the game go on. If I'd been white they'd have cursed me. But because I was coloured they didn't say anything; they kept it bottled up and began getting mean.
Finally one of the coloured fellows said, 'Let's gang him.'
Every player in the game took a piece, each pulling his bet in front of him. I picked up the dice with my right hand, passed them to my left, rolled them softly on the concrete. One came to a stop six up; the other dropped in a deep crevice and cocked with the five facing me, the six facing away.
'Throw in, good losers,' I said. 'I ain't going no farther.'
'Throw in what for?' the rat-mouthed fellow challenged.
'Cocked dice,' somebody said.
I began to choking up. 'Listen, I ain't giving away a goddamned thing. I made my goddamned eleven and no
w I'm gonna take my goddamned money.'
'You'll take hell, you nigger bastard,' the rat-mouthed guy said, feeling covered by the other twelve white guys.
Blood rushed to my head, stung me blind. I jack-knifed up and kicked at him with one motion. He rolled to one side and my boot heel went over his shoulder, throwing me off balance. I wheeled to my left, falling half forward, my right arm stuck out to catch my fall and my right foot flattened in a pigeon-toed stance.
'I'll cool the nigger!' I heard a voice grate, and I raised my chin, looking for the guy.
I just had time to see him: a tall young blond guy about my age and size. His mouth was twisted down in one corner so that the tips of his dogteeth showed like a gopher's mouth and his blue eyes were blistered with hate. I'll never forget that bastard's eyes. Then that sick, gone feeling came in the pit of my stomach-just a flash. And a blinding explosion went off just back of my eyes as if the nerve centres had been dynamited. I had the crazy sensation of my eyes popping out of my head and catching a telescopic photo of ringed figures, some half up, others squatting in a circle. Then I didn't know a thing.
When I came to the whistle was blowing. I lay flat on my back in the shade of a rack of plates. Two white fellows and a coloured fellow were bent over me, waiting for me to come to. When I opened my eyes they helped me to get to thy feet.
One of the white fellows gave me a sympathetic grin. 'You stuck your chin right straight into his fist.'
The other one said, 'I got some of your money for you- twenty-five dollars and some change.' He stuck it in my hand.
The coloured fellow's eyes were muddy, opaque. His flat brown face was unsmiling. He didn't say anything.
I was still dazed. I braced myself against the plates, shook my head to clear it.
One of the white fellows said, 'Take it easy, son.' They both waited a moment longer and when I didn't say anything they moved off together, grinning. They were elderly, kindly men. I wasn't angry at them; I just hadn't given them a thought. I leaned there for a while, half in the noonday sun, feeling a little faint. I put my hand up tentatively and stroked my chin. When I looked up I saw a couple of other white fellows who had been in the game standing at a distance, watching me.
Then I remembered the blond boy's eyes. I recalled his words, 'I'll cool the nigger!' I felt that sick, gone feeling again. I began trembling; I felt weak, scared. I knew I couldn't take it; but I was scared of what I might do. Scared of what might happen to me afterward. If I could just stop thinking; every time I thought of trouble I thought of death. Then I looked at the coloured fellow again. His face was impassive.
'You see which way he went?' I asked.
He studied me for a moment. 'Ah know whar he work,' he said. His expression didn't change.
I licked my lips, tried to keep the sick, scared feeling out of my eyes. 'Where?' I asked.
He stood there looking at me as if time meant nothing. A curious animal change came over his face. I noticed him take his hand out of his pocket. It struck me funny. But now we seemed closer, as if we'd struck an understanding or come to an agreement about something.
'He in de copper shop,' he said. 'He work on a 'chine down in de back end. You doan need tuh go through de shop, you ken cum in de back do'.'
I started off. My first step was wobbly, more from the sick, gone feeling in my stomach then from any effects of the blow. The coloured fellow stepped in beside me; his eyes slid from side to side.
'You got a chiv?' he asked.
I knew I didn't have one but I fanned myself. 'Musta left it in my box,' I said.
He looked around again, then slipped me his. I didn't look at it, but by its feel it must have been eight inches long. I slipped it in my pocket.
'Ah'da cut de bastard's throat mahself,' he said. 'But Ah thought you'd wanna do it yuhself.'
He split off and I kept on toward the copper shop. My hand rested on the knife in my pocket. I began thinking of how I ought to cut him. Whether I ought to slip up and begin stabbing him in the back, trying to get his heart; or wheel him about to face me and begin slashing him across the face, cutting out his eyes and slashing up his mouth. Maybe he'd be on the lookout for me, I thought, and would have a knife himself. Then we'd dodge about and keep cutting at each other until one dropped.
Bile rolled up in my stomach and spread out in my mouth. I started retching and caught myself. The sun beat down on my bared head like showers of rain. My skin was tight and burning hot, but it wouldn't sweat. Only in the palm of my hand holding the knife did I sweat. I had lost my hat; I didn't know where.
I could see the blond boy's bloody body lying half across his machine, blood all over the floor, all over the shapes; blood on my hands; his face all cut to pieces, one eye hanging out and wrinkled like an empty grape skin. I came to the copper shop, kept on around to the back. For a moment at the back door I stopped and steadied myself. I took the knife out and opened it and got it in a stabbing grip. Then I saw a piece of wood on the ground. I picked it up and held it in my left hand, the knife in my right.
I stepped through the door and stopped. The blond boy looked up at that instant and our gazes locked. He stuck his right hand out slowly and gripped a ball-peen hammer on his work-bench.
It was then I decided to murder him cold-bloodedly, without giving him a chance. What the hell was the matter with me, running in there to fight him? I thought. What the hell did I want to fight him for? I wanted to kill the son of a bitch and keep on living myself. I wanted to kill him so he'd know I was killing him and in such a way that he'd know he didn't have a chance. I wanted him to feel as scared and powerless and unprotected as I felt every goddamned morning I woke up. I wanted him to know how it felt to die without a chance; how it felt to look death in the face and know it was coming and know there wasn't anything he could do but sit there and take it like I had to take it from Kelly and Hank and Mac and the cracker bitch because nobody was going to help him or stop it or do anything about it at all.
The sick, scared, gone feeling left my stomach. I kept looking at him, thinking. There's one goddamned thing, you can't take your colour with you, until I felt only a cold disdain. I turned around and went out.
CHAPTER V
I went to Mac's office and asked Marguerite for a sick pass to go home. She gave it to me in her cold business manner without saying a word. But I felt she was all right, she was a fine person, she didn't have anything against me. I smiled at her and said, 'Thank you,' and went out.
That was what it did for me. 'Unchain 'em in the big corral,' the boys used to say in Hot Stuff's crap game back in Cleveland. That was what it did for me; it unchained me, made me free. I felt like running and jumping, shouting and laughing; I felt something I'd felt the time Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling-only better.
When I checked out Gate No. 2 the gatekeeper looked at me and said, 'What, you going home already? You just got here a few minutes ago.'
I wagged a finger at him. 'You don't know how tempus fugits.'
He didn't like that. 'You coloured boys better lay off that gin,' he said, winking at the guard.
I laughed. 'The only way you can make me mad now,' I told him, 'is to get a mouthful of horse manure and blow it through your teeth at me.'
He turned red and started to say something else, but I didn't stop. I backed out my car, circled in the parking lot, crossed the Pacific Electric tracks, and turned into the harbour road, just idling along. I didn't feel like speeding. The car drove easy all of a sudden, I thought. Not a jerk in it, not a squeak; it took the bumps like a box-spring mattress. It was a pleasure just sitting there, my fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel, just idling along.
I was going to kill him if they hung me for it, I thought pleasantly. A white man, a supreme being. Just the thought of it did something for me; just contemplating it. All the tightness that had been in my body, making my motions jerky, keeping my muscles taut, left me and I felt relaxed, confident, strong. I felt just like I thought a wh
ite boy oughta feel; I had never felt so strong in all my life.
A warm glow went all over me as if I had just stepped out of a Turkish bath and had had a good massage. My mind was light, relieved, without a care in the world. As I idled along past the long line of industries I felt a sudden compelling friendliness toward the white people I passed. I felt like waving to them and saying, 'It's all right now. It's fine, solid, it's a great deal.'
A well-dressed, slenderly built middle-aged white woman stepped from the curb in the path of my car. I eased to a stop and waited for her to pass. She looked up; surprise was first in her eyes, then she gave a tentative, half-decided smile. I smiled in return, warm and friendly. It made all the difference in the world; the weights had gone out of my head.
Now I felt the heat of the day, saw the hard, bright California sunshine. It lay in the road like a white, frozen brilliance, hot but unshimmering, cutting the vision of my eyes into unwavering curves and stark unbroken angles. The shipyards had an impressive look, three-dimensional but infinite. Colours seemed brighter. Cranes were silhouetted against the grey-blue distance of sky.
I felt the size of it, the immensity of the production. I felt the importance of it, the importance of the whole war. I'd never given a damn one way or the other about the war excepting wanting to keep out of it; and at first when I wanted the Japanese to win. And now I did; I was stirred as I had been when I was a little boy watching a parade, seeing the flag go by. That filled-up feeling of my country. I felt included in it all; I had never felt included before. It was a wonderful feeling.
Glancing up, I saw a dine-dance cafe across from the Consolidated. I pulled into the parking lot and coasted to a stop, got out, and went inside. It was cool inside and so dark I had to pause just inside the doorway for my sight to pick out objects. The bar was flat across one side, and the dining-room circled out in front of it.
If he hollers let him go Page 4