The Nigger Factory

by Gil Scott-Heron

  Earl felt the muscles at the hinges of his mouth tightening to form knots of energy. He looked like a cracker ballplayer on the Baseball Game of the Week with a quarter package of Bull O’ the Woods chewing tobacco poking his mouth out a foot and nowhere to spit.

  He knew he must not allow himself the luxury of rage. He knew he could never accomplish anything that way; barging into the MJUMBE meeting room and screaming, ‘Just what the fuck is everybody tryin’ to pull?’ He decided to play it New York-style. Be cool. They had him by the balls. Everybody knew that. But if he acted as though he didn’t know it or didn’t care he might be able to jive them into a mistake. Then what? He didn’t even know if he wanted them to make a mistake. He couldn’t decide which side of the fence he was on.

  He thought about the election that had taken place the previous spring. When March rolled around and the first signs about nomination procedures were pinned on dormitory bulletin boards he had thought little of it. He had never run for a school office and often thought that the only reason he had been a high school basketball captain was because he was the only returning letterman his senior year. But one afternoon after a heated argument between him and his Political Science teacher he had been halted in the hall by a classmate he knew only by sight.

  ‘Excuse me, brother,’ the other had said. ‘My name is Roy Dean, but people here call me Lawman. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.’

  ‘Sure,’ Earl had replied, caught off guard. ‘I’m Earl Thomas.’

  ‘I know,’ Lawman said as they started walking. ‘I couldn’t help but know you after all the hell you raise in Poli Sci.’

  ‘The man bugs me.’

  ‘Me, too . . . where were you goin’? You got a class? . . . how ’bout a cup of coffee in the SUB on me?’

  ‘All right,’ Earl said a bit hesitantly.

  ‘Poli Sci is my major,’ Lawman said, going on. ‘Everybody calls me Lawman because I’m thinking seriously of going into law . . . we used to have a thing called ‘The Courtroom’ when we were freshmen. If somebody on our wing of the dorm did something questionable, like trying to steal another cat’s woman or something like that, we would have a mock trial. I was a laywer for the defense.’

  ‘You win a lot of cases?’

  ‘It was just a joke, but I pulled a lot of fast ones on the jury. Most of law is just semantics anyway. You can say a thing one way and make it sound entirely different from the way it appears if you rearrange a few words.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Earl agreed.

  ‘But what I wanted to talk to you about was your political thing,’ Lawman continued.

  ‘My political thing?’ Earl laughed. ‘I don’t really guess I have one. Just trying to be Black, I guess.’

  The two of them walked on toward the Student Union Building, leaving Washington Hall where liberal arts classes were taught, Carver Hall, the science building, Adler Annex, and the mini-square referred to by students as the ‘quadrangle,’ where students sat and studied and talked on the benches.

  ‘Sutton is fucked up,’ Lawman began as they entered the crowded Student Union Building. ‘A lotta in quotes Black schools are fucked up, but they seem to be gettin’ something done about their problems. If Sutton is doing anythin’ it’s digressin’, you know what I mean?’

  Earl nodded.

  ‘This school was founded in eighteen eighty-three and for all intents and purposes it’s still eighteen eighty-three here, because there hasn’t been much progress.’

  ‘What about the things the Student Government president, Peabody, planned to do?’ Earl asked as they left the service area with their coffee.

  ‘Peabody ain’ nuthin’ but a lot of mouth,’ Lawman snorted. ‘What I mean is that the man is disorganized. He’s spent the whole year havin’ Calhoun twist his mind around like a rubber band . . . he goes to Calhoun and sez: “The students want this and that.” Calhoun laughs and sez: “So what?” You dig?’

  Earl nodded for Lawman to continue.

  ‘So next month ther’s gonna be another Student Government election and something needs to be done . . .’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’ Earl cut in.

  Lawman laughed uneasily. He wasn’t sure how to handle Earl, how to handle the question he was fed.

  ‘I personally can’t do very much. I can’t dedicate the kind of time you need to give to the Student Government job to run for office ’cause I have an outside job that pays for my schooling. The point of this conversation is to find whether or not you’d like to run.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You care, don’choo?’

  ‘Yeah. I do, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But I’m a transfer student. This is just my second semester here. I don’t think I know enough about the place to . . .’

  ‘You mean,’ Lawman cut in, ‘that until I mentioned it you hadn’t had one thought about the kinda things that might be happ’ning if you had anything to do with it?’

  ‘I suppose I had some thoughts . . .’

  ‘What did you decide you would do?’

  ‘It didn’t matter since I wasn’t the president,’ Earl said.

  ‘Give it some thought,’ Lawman suggested. ‘You’ve got a good political mind. Anybody who can hold his own with old man Mills has to have a good political mind.’

  ‘What about the two guys I’ve seen listed as candidates already?’

  ‘Worthless,’ Lawman spat out. ‘Hall is a “egghead” dude from Boston or somewhere. He spends about thirty hours a day in the library reading Emily Dickinson and shit like that. He’s a brown-nosed jackass as far as I’m concerned. I go to the SGA meetings sometimes and see him rapping. He’s a junior class senator. Calls himself filibusterin’ when he gets up with a little Robert’s rule book on parliamentary procedure and starts hangin’ everything up with points of order . . . thass what democracy has done for niggers. They lay in that idealistic crap all day and smell like shit all night.’

  ‘What about Baker, the football player? He’s runnin’.’

  ‘Yeah. So what? He’s a maniac as far as I’m concerned, although he’ll prob’bly win unless you or someone like you goes against him. I never heard a sound political thought come from his direction. Him and King go through political issues like they’re runnin’ an off-tackle play. Everything that they don’t like is wrong. I can’t . . .’

  ‘I understand,’ Earl said thoughtfully.

  ‘Good!’ Lawman said as he got up. ‘You give it some thought, brother, and I’ll be talkin’ to you.’

  That was the beginning. Earl and Lawman talked about it again the next day. Earl admitted that he had often thought about things that would be done differently if he were president. Somehow it had never gone any further than that. Together, the two men constructed a platform for Earl to run on. Odds, Earl’s best friend, was drafted as a campaign manager. They were on their way.

  The memory of all the things he had been through with Odds and Lawman brought still another question to the surface. Why hadn’t either one of them called to say anything about the meeting with MJUMBE and the students?

  Earl came out of his bedroom and locked the door behind him. He checked his pocket for the keys he needed. Door key and car keys were there. It was then that his light sweater and slacks almost collided with Zeke’s khakis and T-shirt.

  ‘You got troubles?’ Zeke asked.

  ‘No,’ Earl lied. ‘Why?’

  ‘You in such a durn hurry yo’ leavin’ shavin’ cream stuck behin’ yo’ ear,’ Zeke pointed out.

  Earl wiped at the spot and Zeke nodded.

  ‘Dumplin’s t’night?’ Earl asked mischievously.

  ‘Naw, but we’da had’um if I’da wanned ’um.’

  ‘Yeah. You an’ Miz G. runnin’ a game on me an’ Ol’ Hunt.’

  ‘Shit!’ Zeke waved. ‘Mosatime you ain’ here an’ Hunt could be eatin’ cobras an’ drinkin’ elephant piss fo’ all he know. May as well have chic
ken an’ dumplin’s since I lak ’um.’

  ‘Naw,’ Earl laughed. ‘That ain’ it. Tell me, man, whuss happ’nin’ wit’yo’ kitchen thing?’

  Zeke played the game. He looked both ways down the narrow hall and then lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone. ‘I shouldn’ be tellin’,’ he admitted, ‘but since you an’ me s’pose to be boys . . . I, uh, sneaks down to the galley wit’ Miz G. every other day o’ so an’ we gits high on Barracuda wine. Then I starts talkin’ ’bout hi’ I been all over the worl’ an’ still ain’ dug nothin that tastes as good t’me as her chicken an’ dumplin’s. Jus’ lak that they out there on the table. Same as when you talk ’bout banana puddin’.’

  ‘Without the Barracuda wine.’

  ‘Wit’out that.’

  Earl laughed aloud. Zeke maintained a straight face somehow, but the thought of Mrs Gilliam drinking anything stronger than iced tea was too much for him. Zeke was notorious for drinking anything that could be classified as liquid and Earl had often met the handyman at O’Jay’s, a local bar, but Mrs Gilliam? A pillar of Mt Moriah? Sacrilege!

  ‘We love dem grapes!’ Zeke said as Earl scurried down the stairs.

  ‘Right!’

  Zeke was a good man as far as Earl was concerned. The older man had never had a family or a real home until Mrs Gilliam had started renting rooms. There was nothing that could be described as his real profession either. He mowed lawns or shoveled snow or worked on cars at Ike’s garage and come the first of every month he always had his rent money and he rarely missed a night at O’Jay’s. At forty-five he was a slightly built, balding man with a coffee complexion and a contagious sense of humor.

  Mrs Gilliam was stirring the evening stew when Earl rushed through the kitchen with a quick ‘Good evening.’ He was halfway to the back door when she stopped him.

  ‘Where might you think you goin’ this evenin’ befo’ you eat yo’ dinner?’ she asked indignantly.

  ‘I got a meetin’ to go to,’ he said. ‘It jus’ came up.’

  Mrs Gilliam looked at him fondly for a second. With purpose she clamped the lid down on the stew pot and wiped her hands on the red trim apron. She took Earl by the arm and led him to the kitchen table where she sat him down.

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ she began. ‘I’ve been in Sutton a long time. A long time to realize certain things. When I got here Sutton University was sittin’ right where it is today. My husban’ went to Sutton fo’ a year at night . . . why you runnin’ yo’sef into a fit fo’ them? They ain’ never been organized. Why you think you got to do so much to organize ’um? Why you got to be there every blessed minnit? No, I take that back. You ain’ over there half as much as my daughter was. Laurie was there all day an’ wuzn’ no studen’ . . . how she got away wit’out havin’ one a them men’s babies is still beyon’ me. Go on, chile, do what you think you got to do.’

  Earl nodded constantly during her monologue as though he understood all of the things that she was trying to say. But as he reached the porch he was more sure than ever that he didn’t understand her and he wanted to go back and tell her to talk, say everything that was on her mind.

  ‘Earl,’ she called, ‘I don’ wanna hear you ramblin’ ’roun’ in my kitchen at no thousan’ o’clock like las’ night. I know you gon’ be wantin’ some a this somethin’ t’eat, but you can’ have it so if you don’ git it na you won’ have it.’

  ‘Yes ma’am, I hear you,’ he said.

  Zeke heard Earl leaving as he came down to the kitchen. Mrs Gilliam still sat resting her elbows on the kitchen table as though she was tired. It was always a strain for her to deal with her youngest tenant. He never seemed to think twice before agreeing to skip a meal to attend something on campus. She personally didn’t understand why so many meetings demanded his presence.

  ‘Earl ain’ eatin’ again,’ Zeke surmised.

  ‘That boy gonna run hisself to death,’ the landlady commented getting up and walking back over to the stew pot.

  Outside, Sutton was just feeling the first kisses of autumn. The wind was a baby chick wiggling inside an egg beneath its mother. Evening came gliding down early to chase the sun and bring in Father Night with a blanket of black air to cloak the dying leaves. Though not a moment had passed since Earl’s hasty exit, both Zeke and Mrs Gilliam heard the footsteps on the back porch. Earl reentered the room allowing the screen door to slam behind him.

  ‘Uh, it’s not too cold now, but I think I’m gonna need my coat later,’ he announced looking around. ‘Uh, where is it?’

  Zeke smiled and Mrs Gilliam put on her sternest face.

  ‘Iss hangin’ in the hall closet, but I oughta not let’choo have it ’cause it was layin’ ’cross the kitchen table when I got up this mornin’. You mussa lef’ it here when you sneaked in las’ night tryin’ t’git somethin’ t’eat . . . I’m tellin’ you Zeke, ain’ he somethin’?’ They exchanged glances. Earl smiled.

  Earl grabbed his jacket off the hook in the hall closet and went back outside. His car was parked and the motor hummed a throaty tune. The night held a tingle of expectation. When Earl thought about the things that lay ahead for him there was a feathery tickle in his stomach. The sidewalk yawned up at him. The lawn was speckled with leaves of a thousand shades, dead or dying. At the side of the house Earl spotted Old Man Hunt pawing the ground with a toothless yard rake. They exchanged waves.

  Earl’s car was a ’64 Oldsmobile; a gift from his father two summers past. It had been just the sort of thing he had come to expect from his father. The car had been in an accident and the left side had been caved in near the driver’s door. The owner had been asking three hundred dollars for it, but after a brief conversation with John Arthur Thomas he had been willing to let it go for half that price. The elder Thomas said nothing about the purchase to his son, but kept the car parked in a garage and presented it to his son as a going-away present after Earl’s graduation from the two-year Community College.

  ‘It ain’ but a small thing,’ John Arthur Thomas declared struggling for words. ‘It ain’ like what I really want you to have, but I knew you wuz gon’ need a car to git around in.’

  There was a stiff handshake and a rugged smile from the older man. Everything had been warm but awkward, sincere and yet limited. Earl had wanted to ask if his father had talked to his mother or seen her but had been afraid. The subject was a sore point; a constantly aching tooth that one became used to after awhile.

  When he had been fifteen and his mother and father had been apart for almost a year, Earl had asked his father outright why the couple didn’t live together any more.

  ‘Yo’ mama’s a good woman,’ John Thomas had said softly. ‘She a independent woman by nature, but I convinced her when we wuz seein’ each other that she could depend on me an’ be a woman for a while. I knew that wuz what she wanned to be. But I wasn’t a good provider for her. Everything wuz workin’ out bad for me an’ her. We wuz damn near at razor’s edge when we found out you wuz comin’ . . . I guess that saved our marriage if you can call what we ended up havin’ somethin’ worth bein’ saved. We said we wuzn’t gon’ bring you out without some people lookin’ after you. So we tried to keep things together, but we stopped talkin’ to one another an’ really stopped havin’ anything for one another exceptin’ the fact that you were a link b’tween us.’

  ‘I’m s’pose to be grown now?’ the fifteen-year-old Earl had asked.

  ‘Grown enough to understand, I reckon,’ his father had replied.

  ‘I really don’t,’ Earl had confessed.

  ‘Whoa!’ John Thomas said laughing a bit. ‘Neither do yo’ mama an’ me. Folks don’t never really understand themselves, but they always rely on havin’ someone that they love understand. Thass what we wuz doin’.’

  Earl pulled away from the curb thinking about his father. He would have to write the man a letter and admit that he had received some valuable information. Things were happening in his life that he didn’t understand. Yet he w
as the only one who could be held responsible for them.

  In the rear-view mirror Earl caught sight of a black Ford that seemed to be trailing him. He was brought back to the present, hoping that the car was the Ford supplied by the school to members of the Sutton newspaper staff who had to travel to get their stories. Just as he was about to pull over and allow the Ford to draw abreast of him, the trailing car pulled off down a side street.

  But now Victor Johnson was on his mind again. Somewhere at that moment he knew Vic was working on a backbreaking story against him. The move by MJUMBE would probably be built up as a great blow against the Sutton establishment, which included the SGA. It didn’t matter that Earl hated the establishment as much as any of the rest of them or even more since he knew exactly how it sucked in Black students and warped their minds. It only mattered that during the course of the election none of Earl’s speeches had made reference to faculty members as ‘racist bastards’ and that he hadn’t filled students’ ears with militant denunciations of Calhoun or the administrators. To many narrow-minded students anyone who didn’t carry out the flimsy, outraged rhetoric of a television revolutionary was a Tom. It was just circumstance blown up out of proportion to truth. Earl could already picture the front-page story in the student paper asserting that his inactivity had spurred MJUMBE’s movement.

  ‘Shit!’ he swore loudly.

  Earl’s mind was busy trying to organize strategy. It was too late for any of the moves that came readily to mind. He was now under the eight ball. The only thing that he could do was wait.

  ‘One more week,’ he grumbled again without conviction. ‘Johnson would have had the story of his life. There would be no way for any demands to be turned down!’

  MJUMBE COUP D’ETAT! the headline would scream.