The Third Generation

by Chester B Himes

  Professor Taylor followed them. He realized her purpose and thought that it was wrong. He felt that Charles should realize the consequences of his actions, and suffer in whatever way God saw to punish him. No matter who was right and who was wrong, his son had been the one who drove the car, and he should be the one to face it, he thought.

  “Honey, you can’t do this,” he argued. “The boy must know what he’s done.”

  But she stood between them, shielding Charles with her body as well as with her soul. “Don’t you dare come out here and accuse my son of any wrong,” she cried. “You’re the one to blame. You had no right to let him drive that woman’s car. God is going to punish you as surely as I’m standing here for the way you’ve let your relatives abuse and mistreat your son.”

  He couldn’t stand up to her.

  Finally the attorney arrived and Charles was released in the custody of his parents. The hearing was set for the following day. His mother ordered a taxicab to take them home. They passed the scene of the accident. Charles noticed that the car was gone and the shattered glass removed. He looked curiously at the spot where the injured had fallen. And still it didn’t register; his mind would not accept the pain and horror.

  His mother shielded him from all discussion of the accident. She took him out to dinner and remained with him until bedtime. He dreamed as he’d always done, but only of the usual fantasies that made sleeping such a pleasure. It didn’t touch him even in his sleep.

  He sat between his parents at the hearing. He felt like a spectator. He’d been charged with reckless driving. When it came his turn to testify, he spoke in a clear, untroubled voice. His father was shocked by his detachment. The court was puzzled. Afterwards policemen testified in his behalf—the boy on the bicycle had ridden thoughtlessly across his path; he had turned to avoid running over him, and the faulty brake mechanism had failed to stop the car. Two of the persons were severely injured, two others were temporarily hospitalized, and the remainder had received superficial bruises. Charles listened to the proceedings in a state of mild amazement, as if they were discussing someone other than himself.

  The court reprimanded him for driving without a license and prohibited him from driving again. He was released. There was an action against the Coopers, but he didn’t know of it.

  His mother took him away immediately. They went to see a motion picture. Afterwards they lunched in a pleasant cafe. They talked of happy things and once he made her laugh. The accident had drawn them closer than they’d been in years. He talked bravely of all the great things he hoped to do. She felt again the intense love she’d always held for him. He was her baby, her beautiful, brilliant baby. And now they’d been through one more crisis and she prayed it was the last. Soon they’d have a house, she promised. And then things would be better again. She promised herself to give him more attention. She’d neglected him dreadfully, but she’d make it up to him.

  It hadn’t touched him. Secretly he was glad it had happened. After all, no one had died. And it freed him from the curse of anonymity. Already it had acquired the quality of adventure. People he’d never seen before spoke to him by name.

  “How’d you make out, Chuck?”

  “Oh, I beat it,” he answered proudly.

  They looked at him curiously, wondering whom he knew, what sort of importance his folks had. “You’re lucky, kid.”

  Now girls seemed thrilled to meet him. Their eyes widened coyly and they ruffled their tails like pullets. “Oh, you’re the man who was in that accident.”

  “Aw, it wasn’t serious. Just a great to-do about nothing.”

  “You should have seen all the people standing ‘round. Must have been thousands of them. I don’t know where they all came from.”

  “I saw ‘em. You know, people can smell an accident.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Scared? What for? I was just sorry for the people I ran over.”

  “When that man had that meat cleaver? Mr. Johnson took it away from him. Weren’t you scared he was gonna chop you in the head?”

  “Naw, he was only bluffing.”

  “No, he wasn’t bluffing, either. The white people were going to lynch you if the colored people hadn’t stopped them.”

  “Lynch me!” He was shocked. But it was a pleasant kind of shock since the danger had passed. It added to the mystery that surrounded him.

  Afterwards he’d say: “You know, for a moment, I thought those white guys were going to lynch me. They might have tried at that if there hadn’t been so many colored people there.”

  Mrs. Robinson was very tender with him after that, and even Greg and the gang seemed awed by his experience.

  He never knew that the Coopers had been fined, that they’d lost their home and all their life’s savings to settle the damages of the injured. His mother kept it from him. Even William knew, but she wouldn’t let him tell. Why should he have to know and suffer guilt all his life for what was done to him, she reasoned. His father felt differently. The boy should know; it would teach him to be more careful in the future. But he hadn’t the courage to defy his wife. He was doing no better in Cleveland than he had in St. Louis, still working at odd jobs in carpentry to make ends meet. She’d gotten the upper hand. She dominated him by nagging and disparagement. He couldn’t stand up to it any longer. To fight back had become depletive. It was easier to let her have her way.

  Although they had no legal claim, the Coopers held them morally responsible for half the damages. Professor Taylor felt obligated to pay his share. But the money they’d received from the sale of their property in St. Louis was deposited in Mrs. Taylor’s name. She refused to share one cent. Instead she bought a house. Professor Taylor’s people never forgave her.

  But she felt that she had saved her son from some dreadful kind of horror.

  19

  IT WAS A SEVEN-ROOM frame house out in the northeast residential section, across from the high school, and they were the only colored family. Its location in a white neighborhood gave them the prestige of suburbanites. Their colored friends were proud to know someone who lived so far away.

  Mrs. Taylor loved the hard, waxed floors and gleaming banisters and flower plots out back. She sent to St. Louis for her furniture and everything was polished to a turn. Their first Sunday they celebrated as a family reunion. For his contribution to the dinner, Charles made a wilted lettuce salad they thought delicious. He was proud and delighted by his success, although he never could recall the ingredients he’d used. He never made another salad although they often begged him. He stood on his laurels to the end.

  The house did something wonderful for Charles. He was home again. He’d never realized how much he’d missed a home. First he had Harvard Eaton for dinner one evening after school. Then he invited all the gang of boys and girls for tea one Sunday afternoon. They were impressed by the house and loved his mother. She could be charmingly gracious when she chose. It made all the difference with his friends. Now they took him seriously. Even Greg began to call him Chuck and treat him as an equal.

  The brothers were happy to be together again. Charles built a crystal radio set with headphones for them both. The sweet lilting music coming from the swank restaurants about the city stirred Charles with a poignancy he couldn’t bear. He’d take off the headphones and walk out in the back garden and cry it out. Home! It was home! It was the only house in which he’d ever lived that he could actually see. He loved it with a deep wonderful passion.

  William’s friend, Ramsey, was often there, and the Douglas family came to dinner several times. Then there would be a great chattering and laughing as the young men vied to be the wittiest. Afterwards Mrs. Douglas helped their mother with the dishes and the warm, affectionate voices of the women sang above the clatter. The fathers sat in the living room and smoked cigars. Professor Taylor told of his experiences as a teacher and expanded in the pleasant memories. The young men gathered upstairs about the radio. Charles was relaxed, everything s
eemed to fit. He felt that he belonged.

  “What’s got into you, Chuck?” Ramsey asked. “I never heard you talk so much.”

  “It’s the spinach,” his brother teased. “He’s drunk off spinach juice.”

  Charles laughed. “‘Speech is the window of great thought,’” he quoted from some forgotten source. “If I never said anything you wouldn’t know how wise I was.”

  “What Chuck means is he wished he’d kept his big mouth shut,” William said.

  “Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas,” quoted Ramsey, who was studying French.

  “In that case you’d better watch your step,” said William.

  Their father contracted a great deal of carpentry work in the neighborhood and employed two helpers. He had an ingratiating manner with white employers. They liked and respected him. He wasn’t servile or submissive, but possessed a profound tolerance for human foibles. Whenever someone said to him, “Well, I don’t know, I’ve never had a colored man do this sort of work,” he assumed his most indulgent attitude and quizzically replied, “Now I doubt very seriously if the work will know the difference.”

  Charles did his mother’s nails and often at night she let him brush her hair again. When she decided to wear it short she let him cut it for her. He was careful of each strand and worked hard to get it just the way she wanted it. She let him keep a lock. Quite often he helped about the house. She said that he was as fastidious as a girl. He had a great skill for mending broken china, repairing locks, replacing knife handles and other delicate chores which no one else could do. “If Charles can’t do it, no one can,” his mother was wont to boast.

  His friends organized themselves as the Gnothi Seauton fraternity, and felt quite sophisticated when someone asked the meaning of the name.

  “Know thyself,” the the proud reply. “It’s the inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.”

  “Greg will never know himself,” Marie teased. “He’s his own worst enigma.” Bright sayings were the rage and the remark clung to Greg to his annoyance.

  Charles was elected sergeant-at-arms, and when they gave their first dance took his duties seriously and marched about the Y gymnasium ordering fellows to douse their cigarettes. They charged admission, made enough to hire an orchestra for their first formal dance, which they hoped would be a social event of great importance, comparable to the annual formals given by the college fraternities. They had a crest embossed on the invitations and the programs printed in Gothic script. Everything was elaborately planned.

  As the date approached, Charles was filled with trepidation. He ordered a correspondence course in dancing and got Harvard to coach him after school. They danced together after Charles had memorized the various steps. But he was stiff and awkward.

  “Relax, Chuck, relax,” Harvard cried exasperatedly. “If you move with the rhythm you can’t go wrong.”

  “I’m trying,” Charles said stubbornly.

  “I believe you’re tone-deaf.”

  “No, I can hear the rhythms all right. But they just don’t go to my feet. There isn’t any connection. I hear them with my mind.”

  “You’re just self-conscious. Relax. No girl’s gonna bite you.”

  “I’m not scared of girls,” he snapped.

  His mother bought him a tuxedo and patent leather pumps. He’d need them later, anyway, for the senior prom, she reasoned. It gave him quite an important feeling in the big department store instructing the clerk that he wished midnight-blue instead of black. When the big night arrived the house was turned upside down getting him prepared. His mother tied his bow and William stood by and gave him sage advice.

  “Now when the dance starts, hold the girls at a distance.

  They’ll be worried about their clothes. But at the end—that’s when you hold them close.”

  Their mother laughed. “How do you know so much?”

  “I’ve been around.”

  “Now, Charles, be a good boy,” she cautioned smilingly. She looked at him with eyes of pride.

  “If he’s too good he won’t get any dances,” William said.

  “Anyway, if I can’t be good I’ll be careful,” he quipped.

  While in the presence of his family he felt grown up and assured. But on the streetcar, dressed in his new tuxedo and carefully handling the corsage of sweet peas and yellow rose buds which his mother had selected, he felt foolish and conspicuous. Outside the house where Delia lived, stage fright suddenly overwhelmed him and his legs began to tremble. It was his first date. She was a new girl he’d met at Sunday school. He felt such a sense of dread he was tempted to throw away the flowers and go home.

  But her parents had already seen him.

  “How nice you look, Charles,” Mrs. Lane greeted, opening the door.

  Mr. Lane offered him a glass of wine. “Drink it, son, you’ll need it.”

  Then Delia entered the living room. She was an exquisite girl with a rose-brown complexion, dark liquid eyes and long, luxuriant hair. She was wearing a beautiful long gown of pale blue organdy. He glowed with pride.

  Silently he presented the flowers.

  She took them solemnly with downcast eyes, whispering, “Thank you.”

  “Oh, you must pin them on her,” the mother said.

  He fumbled with the pin, his fingers turned to thumbs.

  “Oh, dear, let me,” the mother offered. Her eyes were bright with tears.

  It was Delia’s first dress affair also. She wouldn’t sit for fear of wrinkling her gown. They stood apart from each other, mute and wooden, waiting for the taxicab. The parents chattered nervously.

  When the horn blew, everyone started as if caught in the commission of a crime. Charles fumbled awkwardly with her cape and she placed her hand shyly on his arm. She wore the cape loosely so as not to crush her flowers and they went down to the taxi and rode in complete silence to the Y. Upstairs she went immediately to the powder room.

  Charles noticed that the young men and women stood apart. Everyone seemed solemn and constrained. He joined the group of club members who stood conspicuously aloof. Although everything seemed to be going as they’d planned, they suffered all manner of apprehensions. Greg suggested that Charles, as sergeant-at-arms, go down to the entrance and direct the guests upstairs. Harvard accompanied him and they stood in the cold on the sidewalk and greeted the couples as they arrived. A group of rowdies had collected about the entrance and picked at the pretty girls. Charles wanted to call a policeman. But Harvard said they always hung around a formal dance. The best thing was to ignore them.

  One of the girls who lived across the street ran down for a trinket she had left. Charles felt it his duty to escort her. He tried to wear the mantle of Sir Galahad lightly and be secure and poised in his behavior. But he couldn’t take part in any social rite in a normal manner. Inside he was tense lest he make an ass of himself. But he felt impelled to act gallantly, attract attention and be indifferent all at once. His emotions attained a high, explosive quality.

  When, on their return, some rowdy touched her arm, he wheeled and struck blindly, releasing all his tension in the act of violence. He hit the man solidly on the bridge of his nose and stretched him his length on the pavement. Sharp bone hurt ran up his arm. He recoiled in violent shock; he’d no idea he’d struck so hard. Then terror overcame him. There was the man lying unconscious at his feet. The girl had fled upstairs. Harvard had run for a policeman. He stood alone, facing the crowd, without the slightest notion of what to do. But no one took the rowdy’s part.

  “That’s Dick Hanson,” he heard someone say.

  The younger men looked at him in awe. Shortly Harvard returned with the officer who dispersed the crowd. The man regained consciousness and the officer helped him to his feet. Charles and Harvard went upstairs. Everyone was talking about his feat. The girls made a great fuss over him. Soon all semblance of his terror left and he expanded with emotion. The driving excitement returned. He felt as if his head would burst. For
a time he felt himself vested with supernatural powers, dipped in the river of invincibility. He danced and talked as he never had before. All of his dances were taken with the most popular girls. He soared in delirious ecstasy and found himself saying the most extravagant things.

  “Where have you been all my life?” he whispered in their ears. “You dance so heavenly in my blue heaven.” He chanted in a low caressing voice, looking deep into their eyes:

  Where’d you get those eyes

  Where’d you get those ears

  Where’d you get that hair so curly

  Where’d you get those teeth so pearly…

  They danced the Charleston and the one-step and the waltz; and they fox-trotted and cakewalked and did the old collegiate crawl. And he excelled in all of these.

  Everything turned out perfectly. Delia was a great hit with the men because he’d brought her. When he took her home she let him kiss her in the taxi. Their eyes sparkled with excitement as their sweet hot breath glowed on each other’s mouths. In the dim light he noticed a film of perspiration on her upper lip. Her body felt hot and damp in his arms. They touched the tips of their tongues. Hers was like a small hot rapier. Then the taxi drew up before her house. She ran up the steps. He caught up with her and held her hand. And suddenly he was inarticulate.

  He could scarcely mutter, “Good night.”

  “Good night,” she whispered softly.

  He turned abruptly away. At his back he heard the door click shut. He felt the urge to run, but the taxi waited. He paid it off and walked toward Harvard’s house where he’d planned to spend the night. Young swains couldn’t afford to taxi home after delivering their girls. Following every formal dance the nearby streets were filled with tuxedoed dandies wending their way home, many walking in their stocking feet, carrying the too-tight pumps.

  Suddenly he was assailed with the feeling of having funked out in the end. After all the high excitement, the passionate responses and his own overwhelming sense of invincibility, he’d walked off right at the very climax. Always it was the same, he fumed inwardly. No matter how intense the build-up, what ardent heights he’d reached, always at the climax he failed to carry through. He should have taken her, he told himself. If not that, made her promise to give herself at some other time. Now he knew she’d expected him to ask; now—after it was over. He wondered what she thought of him, if she considered him too young to know. She must have been keenly disappointed, sick with letdown from her hot passion, he thought. Unbearable chagrin tormented his very soul. He cursed himself bitterly and without mercy.