I am reminded again that the greatest phrase ever written is “words, words, words.”
Mind, there are numerous things I hate in you (hate is advisedly used), but they are excrescences on the essential you that dovetail into the essential me. You stand apart from the others in Harlem, whom I can only describe as being festering gumboils. I can stomach them no longer. And I’ve gone away as you too should go. I have a room at the enclosed address. You can bring me my clothes. I can’t come back but I must see you … and talk. It will get us nowhere, but maybe you’ll see the light and have compassion. My phobia has become so pronounced that I automatically changed my seat in the subway last night when a Negro man sat down beside me.
You think it strange then that I should want to see and talk to you? But it isn’t, however garbled and psychopathic it seems. You never have been and never will be a Negro to me. You’re just you. But again words repeated three times. Note the ’phone number. I await your call.
Until then,
Steve.
Raymond pocketed the letter quickly.
“What’s happened to the goddamned Swede?” Paul inquired.
“Nothing,” Raymond responded curtly and without another word got up, opened the door, ushered them out of the room, and was soon busy at his typewriter.
My dear Steve:
A messenger boy will bring your clothes. I do not care to see you just yet. I cannot see that any good can come out of it. There would surely be a gulf between us of your own making which would be difficult to bridge.
I am not angry, only surprised and a trifle chagrined that you felt it necessary to slip away without confiding in me.
I most certainly do understand your phobia and its accompanying reactions. God knows I too have experienced similar lunacies. This environment is enough to provoke almost any type of mental or physical malady. It is much easier for you to flee than for me. You know I’m not a social creature in the accepted sense of the word. I cannot bear to associate with the ordinary run of people. I have to surround myself with individuals, unusual individuals who for the most part are more than a trifle insane. Unless buttressed by stimulating personalities, I am lost, no matter how despicable or foolish those personalities may appear in retrospect. They are the life of me. And unable to find many people who, like you, stimulate me intellectually, people with companionate minds (you know how scarce they are in my world), I am forced to surround myself with case studies in order not completely to curdle and sour.
Your trouble can frankly be diagnosed as this: Your difference in color, as I have warned, has been impressed upon you. Your distaste has been externally administered. To be pedestaled and fawned over is nauseating to any sensible being, to become a pale god in a black world rests equally foul upon the mind and stomach of a person of your type. You want me to believe that some dormant racial antipathy has been aroused in your Nordic breast. Were that true it would not be necessary for you to retain your affection and mental affinity for me. I, too, would be flung on the dung heap, a stinking carcass not to be suffered. Maybe I am. Maybe you are just testing yourself in wanting to see me agairç. Then, perhaps, you are right after all, and our friendship may be a catalytic agent conjoining two incompatible elements.
However, seek your balance. A few days temperance, a few days meditation and sane living, a change of scene, may work wonders.
Meanwhile, I wonder about the “excrescences on the essential me.”
Always,
Ray.
Raymond re-read the letter he had written, then addressed an envelope and prepared it for mailing. This done, he unlocked his door and going to the head of the stairs called Paul.
“Wha chu want?”
“Help me pack Steve’s clothes.”
“Pack his clothes?”
“That’s what I said. And don’t ask any fool questions.”
They had just finished their task and called for a messenger boy when the door bell rang. Eustace admitted Dr. Parkes and Samuel. He ushered them into Raymond’s studio, excused himself, and ordered Paul to follow him to the kitchen. When they had gone, and the visitors were comfortably seated, Dr. Parkes cleared his throat and began to talk.
“Samuel and I have been discussing you.”
Raymond anticipated what was to follow. His manner was by no means conducive to further conversation.
“Your interest is appreciated, I’m sure.”
“Now don’t misunderstand,” Samuel spoke hurriedly. “We may seem to be taking liberties with your personal affairs, but you’ll understand, won’t you, that we are your friends?”
Raymond laughed. “What crime have I committed now?”
“None at all, none at all,” Dr. Parkes clucked professionally in his best campus manner. “We just think it best that you move.”
“Move?” Raymond had not been prepared for this.
“Yes. You see, it’s like this. The newspapers here in Harlem are bound to make a sensation out of Pelham’s case. They’ll embroil you in it and all who come here.”
”Nonsense. None of us have been mentioned, nor are any of us going to be called for witnesses when his trial comes up.”
“It’s not that entirely,” Samuel proceeded. “It’s that the house is getting a bad reputation. Did you see this editorial in the New York Call?”
He pulled a clipping from his pocket and handed it to Raymond. The New York Call was Harlem’s most respectable news weekly. The editorial was typical of its columns. There was, it went on to say, a house in Harlem which had for its residents a number of young Negro writers and artists. Instead of pursuing their work, they were spending their time drinking and carousing with a low class of whites from downtown. Racial integrity they had none. They were satisfied to woo decadence, satisfied to dedicate their life to a routine of drunkenness and degeneracy with cheap white people, rather than mingle with the respectable elements of their own race. This showed of course in their work, which was, almost without exception, a glorification of the lowest strata of Negro life. Led on by their white friends, they were pandering to a current demand for the sensational, libeling their own people, injuring them, insulting them by being concerned only with Jezebels, pimps and other underworld fauna. Thus they aided and abetted those whites who would have the world believe that the Negro was an inferior, worthless creature, not capable of appreciating or indulging in the better things in life. Should this be allowed to continue? No. These young people should be brought to their senses. They should be made to realize the futility and danger of the path they had chosen, the rosy path to hell. They should be taken aside and reasoned with, then if this failed the white light of publicity should be shed upon their activities and their innate viciousness and duplicity exposed to the world.
Raymond laughed as he finished reading.
“Surely you don’t take this tripe seriously?”
“It’s not a matter of taking it seriously,” Dr. Parkes answered solemnly. “It’s a matter of protecting yourself from unnecessary attacks on your reputation. This is a new day in the history of our race. Talented Negroes are being watched by countless people, white and black, to produce something new, something tremendous. They are waiting for you to prove yourselves worthy so that they can help you. Scandal stories in the newspapers certainly won’t influence the public favorably.”
“My habits and life are my own business. I intend to live just as I please, regardless of yellow journalism, or a public which might offer me material aid should I, in their opinion, prove myself worthy” Raymond’s words were crisp and angry.
“But you owe it …” Samuel began.
“I don’t owe anything to anyone except myself.”
Dr. Parkes made a final effort.
“But I’m afraid you don’t understand. That party last night, for instance. Suppose the white press should take up this business of whites and Negroes mingling so indiscriminately and drunkenly together?”
“Well, suppose they should?” Raymond in
quired sarcastically. “Are we to be isolationists? Don’t you always spend fifty per cent of your time in New York with white people?”
“I’m glad you asked that,” Dr. Parkes replied calmly. “It’s not a matter of associating with white people. It’s a matter of the type of white person with whom you associate.”
“All right. But what was wrong with those people at the party last night? Granted they were for the most part seekers after thrills and sensation. Granted they were not paunchy philanthropists, or like Samuel here, sympathetic uplifters. Granted they were part and parcel of the lunatic fringe. But, after all, they are the people who take the lead in instituting new points of view, in exploring slightly known territory. You’ll admit too that through them we meet really worth while people, people who can give us certain contacts we need, not necessarily because we are Negroes, but because we happen to be human beings with talent who deserve some consideration. Can’t you see that my generation, or at least the more forward of my generation, is tired of being patronized and patted on the head by philanthropists and social service workers? We don’t always want to have to beg and do tricks. We want to lose our racial identity as such and be acclaimed for our achievements, if any. And by achievements I do not mean the usual two penny, mediocre, undistinguished natural events which are hysterically acclaimed by your N. double A. C. P. and Urban League officials.”
“I’m afraid,” Dr. Parkes advanced when Raymond had finished his heated harangue, “that you have gone off on a tangent. We are concerned now only with you. I think you misjudge Samuel. He really has your welfare at heart, and so have I. We are not trying to make you lead a certain life. We are only trying to make you see that remaining in this house, as notorious as it is bound to become, as notorious as it has already become, is inimical to your development. You can’t create to the best of your ability, being constantly surrounded by a group of parasites and drunken nonentities. They sap your energy. And they also give rise to public legends which will eventually include and harm you.”
“I agree with you perfectly. But I insist it is my own business. My friends are my friends. They may be parasites and drunken nonentities, but they are my friends. Any protection I need from them will spring from within. And as for public legends,” he shrugged his shoulders, “the public being what it is, is most welcome to any legend which may spring up around me.”
“But,” Samuel started to speak.
Raymond silenced him. “There is no more to say. And if you don’t mind, I wish you’d excuse me. I’ve got to get dressed and go downtown.”
Dr. Parkes and Samuel exchanged glances. They realized that their mission had failed, and that Raymond was too stubborn, too intent on following his own path, to be dissuaded by outsiders.
“Well … I must run along,” Dr. Parkes said calmly. “Forgive us for breaking in on you this way after a strenuous night. It wasn’t very considerate. And by the way, Ray, I have an interesting idea to take up with you. I’ll write you soon.”
“All right, Dr. Parkes. Good day.”
“Good-by, Ray …. Coming, Sam?”
”Not this minute. There’s something I must say to Ray.”
“All right, then. Good-by.” He quietly left the room.
“Where’s Steve?” Samuel asked when Dr. Parkes had gone.
“I don’t know. Now get out of here and get out damn quick. I’m sick of you, Sam, and I hope to God you never come back here again.”
“But … Ray …”
“But Ray, hell. Confine your crusading to niggers who get lynched. I don’t need it. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of all you goddamned whites, you twentieth century abolitionists. You’re a bunch of puking hypocrites. And that goes for reformers of your type and the lily-livered bastards that come up here seeking thrills and pleasures.”
“Then you admit …”
“I don’t admit anything. Do you think I’m entirely a fool? Don’t you think I have any sense whatsoever? Don’t you think I see through all of you? Oh, get out, Sam, and for Christ’s sake, leave me alone.”
When Samuel had gone and the messenger boy had finally come for Stephen’s clothes, Raymond suddenly decided to make an expedition to the Tombs to visit Pelham. Although he had a splitting headache, he felt that he must escape from Niggeratti Manor and from all it had come to stand for, and he also had the perverse thought that he might do penance—for what he didn’t know—by making this humanitarian gesture. After all, it was rather cruel to ignore Pelham’s plight altogether. Especially since he felt that he and his friends were more or less responsible for Pelham’s current difficulties.
Reaching the Tombs, Raymond paced the sidewalk, circling the building four times before he could decide to enter. The grim outlines of this city prison, etched in a shadowed canyon of skyscrapers, was repulsive to view and forbidding to enter. But Raymond was bent on completing his experiment, and he entered, despite the compelling urge to return home.
Steel gates clanged shut behind him. Dour guards marked his line of progress. A register book was thrust forward for him to sign. His pockets were surreptitiously patted. There was a moment of record searching, then he was led to a huge chamber dissected by a meshed screen. On one side were the prisoners, on the other their visitors.
Raymond was placed between the Irish mother of an incriminated policeman, and the Jewish sweetheart of an Italian gangster. While waiting for Pelham, he observed the other people in the room. Some were weeping, some were laughing, all were shouting through the screen, trying to be heard above the din which they were helping to create. Strange accents and unfamiliar snatches of foreign dialects imbued the room with a tower of Babel aspect. It was all so poignantly mad that Raymond wanted to flee immediately. Couples trying to kiss through the screen. Others caressing its meshed surface, striving for a feel of the flesh on the other side. An unkempt vagabond talking baby talk to a sniveling peroxide blonde. An Armenian woman clipping the air with shrill foreign expletives. A rabbi reading from a Yiddish Bible to a surly Jewish youth. A Negro in flashy clothes stage whispering and guffawing with a similarly attired Negro prisoner. Raymond’s head began to reel. The scene was phantasmagorical, unreal, oppressing. The room a lethal chamber. The people flabby puppets jingling at the end of strings over which a master hand had lost control.
Raymond leaned against the screen and faced Pelham. Forcing a smile and consciously regulating the tone of his voice, informing it with an assured nonchalance, he shouted, “Hello, Pelham.”
Pelham was crying. His rubicund black face was pallid, ashy. He blubbered like a baby.
“I ain’t done nothin’. I ain’t done nothin’,” he reiterated over and over again.
Raymond was still cheery.
“We know it. Everything’s going to be all right.”
He had to shout this through the screen four times before Pelham seemed to have heard. The Irish woman glared at Raymond and increased the volume of her own Gaelic accents. The rabbi droned on in a piercing monotone. The Negro’s stage whisper and guffaws became more boisterous. The sniveling blonde blew her nose. The Jewish sweetheart blasphemed “stool pigeons.” The clamor became crescendo, contrapuntal and dissonant. And from far away Pelham whined:
“I’m ruined, Ray, I’m ruined. I ain’t done nothin’, and they keep me in jail. An’, Ray, they beat me at the station that first night, knocked me around and kicked me. An’ God knows I ain’t done nothin’. They’ll keep me in jail forever. I’m ruined.”
“Nonsense,” Ray announced curtly. But the word did not carry.
“Everyone’ll look down on me,” Pelham continued incoherently. “I’ll be a convict. My grandmother in heaven’ll suffer. I’m bein’ punished for not bein’ a Christian like her. I’m wicked, Ray, but I ain’t done nothin’ an’ I want a minister.”
Raymond could stand no more. He felt dizzy, faint. His ears hummed with disparate echoes, jumbled, monotonous and insistent. He perspired freely as if in a sweat box. The din enveloped him, b
ecame a crushing vise, enfeebling his mind and senses. And on the other side of the screen, Pelham continued his hysterical monologue. Raymond could stand no more.
“Shut up, God damn you.” He turned and hurried from the room. The guards were interminably slow in opening the gates. People and walls and steel barriers impeded his progress, but finally, he was once more in the street. The fresh air and the intermittent shafts of skyscraper-obstructed sunshine were tonic in their effect. He breathed deeply, bared his head, and walked hurriedly away. Automatically, he plunged into the first subway kiosk he saw, then as abruptly plunged upward into the open air. The rumble of an approaching train, the dimly lit subterranean interior, the clicking of the turnstiles and the bedlam of the crowd’s cross currents were too akin to that from which he had just fled. He wanted to be in the open, to be away from constricting walls, jabbering people, and ear deafening noises. But the street afforded a poor sanctuary.
The sidewalks were crowded. Raymond walked in confused circles. He had lost all sense of direction. Excruciating pains racked his head. The conflicting currents of pedestrians pushed him first one way and then another, jostling him back and forth like an inanimate bean bag. Perspiration streamed down his face. Shrapnels of flame ricocheted from the pavement to sear his weakening body. He grew dizzy, distraught, and unexpectedly found himself leaning against a building. He felt an urge to bore into its surface and lose himself in its chilled immunity. Then the noises of the street began to recede into the distance. The people passing became inflated and floated haphazardly above the surface of the sidewalk. The buildings on the opposite side of the street leered from their multitudinous windows, and leaned precariously, a flashback to the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
He pressed harder and harder against the surface of the building. After what seemed hours of effort, it gave way, and his body began to penetrate into its stone. He became chilled. The buildings across the way toppled crazily downward. Let them fall. He was safe in his cranny. The protective stone had entombed him. He had achieved Nirvana, had finally found a sanctuary, finally found escape from the malevolent world which sought to destroy him. He sank back into his protective nook. The opening through which he had bored closed as if by magic and shut him out from insensate chaos. Oblivion resulted. His body slumped to the pavement, lay inert, lifeless, and was booted by the careless, rushing feet of passing pedestrians.
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