Dark Stain

by Appel, Benjamin

  “Whose mother?”

  “Suzy’s.” He gazed beseechingly at his friend.

  “Why?”

  “She’s gone, Suzy. She’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  Sam gasped and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “I got to pull myself together.” He watched Johnny suck in his lips, the red edges pulling in under the teeth.

  “Missing!” Johnny said.

  Sam was trembling from head to foot. He tried to speak but his tongue choked him.

  “I’ll wait for you,” Johnny said. “I knew something — On the phone — Clair said — I’ll wait for you, Sammy.”

  Sam rushed into the lobby like a charging beast with a bullet in its vitals. One final flicker of resolution was burning his brain alive, pushing his legs forward, opening his eyes on a giddy world like a photograph on paper; young Negroes made of paper were reading magazines in the lobby; there were paper chairs, a paper desk clerk. To the desk clerk he said. “They expect me at ten thirty. My name’s Miller.” He was aware of the clerk staring at him.

  “Yes,” said the brown paper. “They’re expecting you. Go right in. Turn to your right. You can’t miss it.”

  Sam charged forward, his head on his chest. He felt as if there were a compass inside of him, his resolution the pointing needle. Glazed of eye, blinded, he found his path to the room on the right, knocked on the door, and the door opened and another paper face, a white paper face, this time, with a paper smile said. “I’m glad to see you, Miller.” It was Hal Clair. Sam nodded and Clair conducted him into a square room full of people on chairs arranged in rows, and in front of the first row there was a table at which more people were sitting, and one of the people at the table stood up and announced “Mr. Sam Miller.” And the heads of the people in the room turned on their necks and Sam felt as if he had returned to the Silver Trumpet Ballroom on Lenox Avenue and it was Sunday again. No, it wasn’t Sunday he thought; it wasn’t Sunday. His head cleared and he knew where he was and what he had to do. He recognized the man who had announced him.

  “Come forward, Mr. Miller,” Councilman Vincent was saying. The Councilman’s lips were parted in a smile, the well-known smile Sam had seen in photographs. The Councilman’s roving eyes were leaping from committee member to committee member. Sam walked around the side of the room to the table, the room suddenly full of light, white intense light like the exploding light by which a cameraman takes an indoor picture. Against dazzling light, he noticed the Councilman’s smile, the pursed lips of a woman Committee member next to the Councilman, the blue necktie and pearl stickpin of an elderly Negro next to the woman. So had it been before, so had it happened in another lifetime, in another place, somewheres before he had come forward as he was doing now, somewheres, at the hearing in the station house the night of Randolph’s death when he had approached the mother, there and yet again, and again since that Monday night, he had come forward through the vast halls of consciousness and experience, searching for an answer, groping towards a self that was not himself, Sam Miller, policeman, but a self mightier than all the earth-born, earth-twisted suspicions and prejudices, a self like the son all men hope to have, a son to the future, newer, cleaner, better than the parent. He sensed now that this in him, this glimpse, this hope, was of Suzy.

  He heard the Councilman saying that Mr. Miller had come here on his own request, to tell them all what had happened in the fatal shooting of Fred Randolph. The Councilman introduced Hal Clair. Sam heard Clair explain to the committee members how Miller had first come to the H.E.L. office to volunteer his help in tracking down the people distributing the leaflets they all deplored. He heard their voices and he heard their silence as they waited for him to speak. It was a silence deeper than any silence he had ever known, the silence that comes to a man when he searches his heart for words to reach the hearts of other men.

  “I’ve just come from Police Headquarters,” he began. “I went there because my girl, the girl I want to marry, has disappeared. You must know that Suzy Buckles volunteered to work for Mr. Clair the day after I did. Today, she is missing. She was lured out of the office by a Negro who claimed to be sent by my friend, Johnny Ellis. Johnny Ellis is a Negro. I got in touch with Ellis. He had sent nobody. I went to Police Headquarters to report her missing.” And he heard their voices and he said, “I have to see her mother tonight. Tomorrow morning, the newspapers’ll carry the story.” And he heard their voices. “I came here tonight because that’s what she would want me to do. I am not a killer although I killed Randolph. He was a victim of circumstances. So was I. I tried not to kill him. The crowd that day, the Negro crowd, wanted him to get me. I was a white cop and Harlem has suffered from white cops. They hated me. I tried to save him. You see I believed in equality before all this happened. I did nothing to get equality but I believed in it. I meant well. I didn’t understand Negroes but I meant well. You must know I’m not blaming the crowd. They didn’t know what I thought. Then O’Riordan came to help me. O’Riordan attacked Randolph with his baton. I joined in. And then it was over and Randolph was dead. I honestly felt that there was nothing more I could’ve done. But when I spoke to Johnny, he told me Randolph might’ve been alive if O’Riordan hadn’t used his baton, swinging me along with him. I’m not trying to shift the blame to O’Riordan. I admit my own blame. I asked myself if O’Riordan would’ve used his baton right away if Randolph had been a white? Maybe. Maybe not. The mad Esposito brothers killed a number of people, including a cop, and they weren’t killed. They were captured alive — ”

  “Mr. Chairman,” a Negro in the front row shouted.

  “You’re out of order,” the Councilman said. “Please continue, Mr. Miller.”

  “I know this. Randolph is dead because Negroes are hated and feared by whites. I was a part of this hate and fear. Believe me, I’m not your enemy. All I ask is for you to try and understand me. We must understand each other. My way still isn’t clear to me. Should I have resigned instead of taking a leave of absence? I don’t know. I know I won’t be used to stir up hate by anybody. The whole city’s full of hate. My girl is missing. Tomorrow, the newspapers’ll carry the story. I saw Detective Wajek of the Identification Bureau. He promised that the story won’t be sensational. He seemed sincere to me but he’s prejudiced. Every white man is, no matter how liberal. I’m prejudiced. All whites are. We’ve grown up in too much prejudice to free ourselves overnight even if we want to. I’m a Jew. We’re all prejudiced and suffer from prejudice. Wajek, now, Wajek believes Suzy is kidnapped by a Negro white slave mob.” He heard their voices and grimly added, “I’ve taken up a lot of time here. I’m upset. I’ve left out things I should’ve mentioned. But I know one thing. Let’s uncover the mob trying to promote a riot in Harlem.” His lips closed and he stood in a long profound silence. Then the room hummed with whispers and the Councilman said.

  “On behalf of our Committee, I wish to thank you for your sincere talk. Are there any questions?”

  “Mr. Councilman Chairman.” The Negro who had broken in before stood up. “I have a question. I have listened to this policeman’s story and I don’t think you have any right to thank him on behalf of the Committee until you ascertain the sentiments of the Committee. To me, all his talk is completely nonsensical. His girl kidnapped out of the Harlem Equality League offices! If it is in order, I would ask the Committee to reprimand Mr. Clair for being so gullible as to enroll this policeman as a worker in the cause of better racial relations, God help us! I admit being prejudiced against this policeman and all policemen. If he was shooting in self-defense, why did he not shoot Randolph at the time he claimed Randolph slashed him? That was the moment when his life was presumably in danger. Everyone knows that cops do not take chances with armed men, and especially with mental cases armed with knives. This killing smells of murder. Don’t wave at me to sit down, Mr. Councilman Chairman. I am not out of order. You asked the Committee if there were any questions. I am a member of this Committee. How
do we know this cop isn’t a stooge of the Police Department? Did he or did he not kill Randolph? Do all the eyewitnesses testify that he did or did not? Does he not admit being swung along by the other cop? Swung along to murder! A pretty phrase! Hasn’t he admitted, after apologizing for the Identification Bureau and the Police Department, in general, that tomorrow the metropolitan press will have another sensation, another anti-Negro story to splash across their front pages? Can’t you smell the headlines, my fellow committee members and Mr. Councilman Chairman? ‘White Girl kidnapped By Negro Rapists.’ Won’t those headlines strike a familiar chord in our memories? Many of us are from the South, and good God, have we forgotten the white women and the white girls who have perjured themselves to frame some unfortunate Negro and the Negro people? How many white women have claimed to have been raped and kidnapped by Negroes only to make a smiling appearance, months later, not raped, not kidnapped. Let us not be steamrollered by this emotional story we have heard. Let us remember the facts so easily misused and misquoted by our enemies. Let us remember that last Sunday we packed the Silver Trumpet Ballroom with six thousand Negroes, a demonstration never seen in all Harlem’s history. A demonstration that has caused the echo of fear to resound in City Hall and in the City Halls of this entire nation. Let us remember that we Negroes have heard other pathetic kidnapping stories before. Let us remember that such stories have served as acts of provocation before. How do we know this kidnapping isn’t such a frenzied attempt by our enemies to split our newfound unity which our enemies fear, a unity that has not appeared among us Negroes since the stirring days of the Civil War, when the immortal Douglass cried out those immortal words that will forever inspire us: ‘Men of color, to arms!’ Let me repeat those words. ‘Men of color, to arms!’ Let us not be split into a dozen squabbling groups. I beg of you, I implore of you, let us not be divided in this critical hour.”

  Sam closed the door of the meeting room after him, walked out. The desk clerk was reading a newspaper; the letters to the men who lived in the “Y” slanted like knives in their cubbyholes. Johnny was outside on the street, smoking a cigarette. Johnny looked at him and Sam shrugged his shoulders. The intense resolution he had felt before was as if it had never been. The only light in the world were the lights manufactured by man; the dim beams of the headlights in the passing cars, the windows yellowed by Mazda bulbs, the red end of Johnny’s cigarette. The intense silence he had felt before was shattered by the street noises: roller skates on the sidewalks, voices laughing, joking. “Status quo,” said Sam.

  “What do you mean, status quo?”

  “Let’s beat it out of here.” Side by side they cut up to the avenue. “I did it because Suzy — For her. Waste of breath! What a waste of breath!”

  “What happened?”

  “What I might’ve expected. Talk your heart out!” he laughed. “Talk your heart out and the cops sent me. That’s what that Negro lawyer or whoever he was figured. I’m a cop stool pigeon. Suzy isn’t gone. Suzy’s at the Waldorf, safe and sound with her mother.”

  “Gee, Sam. Did you say Suzy was missing?”

  “What didn’t I tell them? How I felt. The whole works. It’s no use.” The night was a shouting in his ears, kids yelling in the gutters, men and women gossiping outside their houses. Disjointedly, he told Johnny of how the Councilman had thanked him but that no decision could be arrived at right away. “What do I care as long as I get her back. Let them figure me for a Gestapo stool pigeon trying to frame them.” The black faces he saw in the night seemed to be in retreat from him, forever hostile and curious. “What do I care if I never square myself. All I want is Suzy. It’s my fault!” he sobbed.

  “Sam,” Johnny said gently. “Maybe I better go home with you?”

  “Got to call her mother before Wajek gets there in the morning. With his distinctive marks!” He bit down on his lower lip. His temple and forehead were burning. “Distinctive marks!” he exclaimed loud and crazy-voiced. “Everybody’s got distinctive marks. Mine’s a white skin.”

  “Get hold of yourself, kid.”

  “Easy to say. Everything’s easy to say. Ask Wajek.”

  “Who’s Wajek?”

  “Detective I saw tonight. Read all about it, read all about it.”

  “Here’s a drugstore, Sam, if you want to make your call.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here, Sam.”

  Sam lurched towards the neons, seeing them as a fish sees the light in the depth. Johnny guided him past the counters of syringes, soaps, tooth powders, all blazing in the cut-rate’s glitter, to the booths in the rear. “Give me a nickel, Johnny,” he asked hoarsely. He was sweating, his hair plastered to his forehead, his lips like two pieces of meat, not a mouth. He took the nickel, dropped it in the slot, dialed Suzy’s number and was stunned by what his dialing finger was doing. He remembered that Suzy had intended to call her mother about the two of them coming up early tonight. Tonight! The two of them! “Hello,” Mrs. Buckles voice said to him.

  “Hello,” Sam replied. “This is Sam Miller.”

  “How are you, Sam?”

  “All right, thanks. I want to — ”

  “Where are you and Suzy, Sam?”

  “Downtown.”

  “I realize that I am an old woman and it isn’t too exciting for young people …” As she rambled on, he was thinking that he might say Suzy’d been hit by a car; an accident, he could say; she’d gone away to another city; and not to believe the papers in the morning; he might say: “Brace yourself for a shock!” and suppose Mrs. Buckles fainted at the other end of the wire, an old lady alone in an apartment. The hair stood up on the nape of his neck. He glared at the mouthpiece, hypnotized by its round enameled eye and he heard her voice. “Sam, are you there? Are we disconnected? Operator!”

  “Mrs. Buckles, I’ll be right up.”

  “I thought we were disconnected.”

  “No.”

  “Do you prefer tea to coffee? Suzy never told me.”

  “Anything. Good-bye.” He hung up. There was no spine in his body, no bones. He leaned against the phone booth wall, the sweat streaming down his cheeks but he couldn’t lift his hand to get at his handkerchief. Johnny pushed the narrow door wide open and said.

  “You did a good thing not to tell her over the phone.”

  “Hell!”

  “Sam — ”

  “I’m not seeing her mother.” With a stupendous effort, he willed bone into his arm and hand, tugging his handkerchief out of his pocket. His fingers were shaking. The handkerchief dropped to the floor. Johnny picked it up for him and then dropped it again.

  “Spit. I got a clean one.” Johnny searched in his pocket and held out a clean white handkerchief to Sam. Sam’s shaking fingers reached for the handkerchief. “Let me,” Johnny said and wiped Sam’s face. Then he pushed the handkerchief into Sam’s pocket. “Gee, try and get hold, Sam.”

  Sam stumbled forward. Johnny grabbed him and led him out into the street. “Breathe in, Sam.” Automatically, Sam obeyed. “Where does her mother live, Sam?”

  “Can’t.” He wanted to die, to forget the sound of Suzy’s mother’s voice.

  “Watch out!” Johnny’s voice crescendoed and he yanked Sam backwards. A car swished in front of them, almost on their toes. “Rat don’t care if he kills us! Let’s get a drink.”

  “Drink?”

  “A shot of booze.”

  Sam laughed. “In an Italian grill. In an Italian gr — ” His voice was knocked out of him as Johnny grabbed his coat lapels and shook him up and down.

  “Sam,” Johnny shouted. “Who you helping this way? Punchdrunk, this way? Who you helping this way? Suzy?”

  SUZY … Her name tore into Sam’s brain. “Let go of me!” he snarled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “All right. Cool off.”

  “Beat it. You’re like the rest of them.”

  “Who you helping this way,” Johnny pleaded with him.

  “Never you m
ind. I’ve had enough of all of you. Let me alone, for God’s sake. I don’t want to see another Negro again.”

  Johnny flinched. “Don’t you want to help Suzy?” he asked.

  SUZY … From where did they come, those thunderbolts in the heart. “Let me alone,” he begged.

  “You’re going to snap out of this punchdrunk.”

  Sam’s head pivoted towards Johnny and his eyes opened wide. He saw a black man, a Negro like all those other Negroes whom he had spoken to at the “Y,” a Negro like the Negro who had called him a stooge of the Police Department. “No use,” he mumbled.

  “What’s no use?”

  “Everything. They’re black and I’m white.”

  “That’s Klan baloney, Sam.”

  “I don’t care what it is.”

  “You do care. There’s cracks in us all like Butch says. We’re all cracked but we don’t have to stay that way all our lives.”

  “Beat it,” Sam groaned.

  “No. I’m your friend. You’re seeing Suzy’s mother. It’s a job you don’t want but it’s yours.”

  “Don’t preach to me.”

  Bitingly Johnny said. “You wanted the Committee to hand you a bokay of roses. Didn’t you say: ‘I’m with you, boys.’ That meant bokays. Sam, can’t you see it’s too big to be made up by words. You got to prove you’re a friend of the Negro over and over again and some of us’d still be suspicious. It’s too big, Sam. It’s hundreds of years slavery and lying. You’re no ordinary white man. You killed a Negro. You got to prove even more than you’ve done that you’re a friend. And you can’t quit. You are a friend, Sam.”

  “Even you said O’Riordan’d swung me along — ”

  “So I did. What counts is to keep on plugging. It’s not easy. Can’t expect it to be easy. You’re just at the beginning. You killed Randolph and got all wound up about the poor old Negro and how you were going to help the poor old Negro. But that’s over now. You’re getting the socks so you want to quit. Now, you got to keep on plugging more than ever. You got to have faith. A start’s been made. The Committee gave you the needle but when I spoke to Clair on the phone, he said both Negro papers are running some editorial Clair wrote asking people to be on the alert. That’s a start. Me and you are a start. Our union’s stirring up the other unions about conditions in Harlem. That’s a start. You going to the ‘Y’ tonight even though you were busted up inside, that’s a big start. You’ve shown guts but a man’s got to keep on showing guts over and over again.”