The Nigger Factory

by Gil Scott-Heron

  ‘Goddamn hick bastard Johnson,’ Earl breathed. ‘Goddamn hick bastards! I need a damn drink!’

  4

  Lawman and Odds

  When Earl Thomas arrived on Sutton University’s campus for the very first time he had in his pocket a letter that he had received over the summer from a junior named Kenny Smith. The letter was actually a mimeographed note from the Dean of Admissions office designating Kenny as a student orientation assistant who should be looked up when the newcomer arrived; he was the person who would help the incoming student find his way around campus.

  Kenny Smith had been easy to locate. Earl found him sitting in the Admissions Office reading a copy of the special Statesman that welcomed freshmen and transfer students. The thing that immediately warmed Earl to his orientation assistant was the young man’s dress. Kenny was wearing a pair of low-cut sneakers, no socks, cut-off blue jean shorts, and a Sutton sweat shirt. He was a world apart from the other orientators lining the walls dressed in slacks, shirts with collars; even a suit and tie or two could be seen.

  ‘My whole wardrobe is odds and ends,’ Kenny told Earl when the transfer student pointed out the contrast.

  It had become understood between the two young men, who hit it off immediately, that Kenny could not be held to tradition and conformity of any description. Kenny did not seem to care in the least what any other students did, thought, wore, or acted like. He was his own man and described himself as the odd one even in his family circle. The nickname ‘Odds’ became quite natural between them.

  At approximately the time that Earl was leaving Mrs Gilliam’s boarding house for his meeting with MJUMBE, Odds was just learning of the day’s political activities. Earl’s campaign manager had been in bed all day with a cold and had managed to sleep through the afternoon MJUMBE announcements in his room. Only a trip to the bathroom and an open dormitory door gave him any inkling of the ingredients that were bubbling in the political cauldron.

  ‘Wonder why Thomas let Baker take over?’ someone was asking as Odds passed the open door.

  ‘Aw, bruh, c’mon,’ was the reply. ‘Thomas ain’ lettin’ Baker do nothin’. Thomas ain’ never been nowhere. Baker just dug that we was gittin’ ready to have another bullshit year an’ did his thing. The bullshit intellectuals voted for Egghead Hall, the brothers voted for Baker, and the bitches put Thomas in office from the col’ ass jump.’

  Odds tried to place the voices and couldn’t. He wanted to hear more about the ‘takeover’ they were discussing and he didn’t particularly like being referred to as a bitch. He had voted for Earl.

  ‘Ya gotta be tough to deal wit’ Calhoun, man. You know what happened to Peabody las’ year,’ the voice went on. ‘He bullshitted an’ Tommed jus’ like Thomas an’ in the end didn’ nuthin’ git done.’

  ‘As usual,’ someone added.

  ‘An’ Baker’s gonna mess with Calhoun?’ Odds asked entering the room.

  ‘Whuss happ’nin’? . . . Fuckin’ right!’ The speaker went on. He was a tall, bearded boy wearing sunglasses. ‘Baker’ll git over.’

  ‘Kin I git a match?’ Odds asked.

  ‘Yo, bruh. I got one,’ a second student with sunglasses offered.

  ‘Did’joo see the thing today when MJUMBE got it together? They came out on that platform bad wit’ capital letters!’

  ‘I didn’ dig it, man,’ Odds admitted. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Man,’ came the enthusiastic reply. ‘You missed a helluva thing. Lemme tell you. All day long they was announcin’ this meetin’ for fo’ o’clock in fronta the SUB, right? Nobody knows who’s callin’ it or what it’s about. So at four bells damn near the whole school is millin’ ’roun’ in front a the platform steps leadin’ t’the SUB, but the only thing there is a mike. No people. Up through the crowd comes Baker and King an’ them. They all dressed in black dashikis with gold trim. All five of ’um got bald heads except my man from New York, whuss his name? Abul. Abul Menka. You know that dude wit’ the big ‘fro an’ the T-bird? . . . well, they read out this list a deman’s, grievances that they got t’gether for the Head Nigger an’ they say they gonna lay the shit on ’im t’night. That mean this muthafuckuh gonna be jumpin’ in the mornin,’ Jim.’

  ‘Or not,’ Odds said. ‘What did Earl Thomas have to say?’

  ‘Nuthin’, man. I didn’ even see him. What could he say? Iss all true. Most a the shit is stuff he been sayin’ he wuz gittin’ t’gether, but he ain’ done nuthin’.’

  Odds already knew where Earl had been. Chances were that Baker had known too. Earl seldom came on campus on Wednesday since he didn’t have a class. For a second Odds was tempted to point this out to the students in the room, but he decided that there would be little reason. He wanted to tell them that Earl had been trying to get things together too, but his association with Earl would have made everything sound like a mere cop out.

  ‘Later,’ he said, sliding back out into the hall. Echoes of the discussion followed Odds back into his room, but his mind was far away. What should he do? Call Earl? No. Earl probably wouldn’t be at home by now. What time was it? Just past seven his watch told him. The best thing would be to try and find Earl and get something started. Started? Ended? Stopped?

  It was at that moment that Odds thought of Lawman. Lawman was a good friend. He was surprised, as he thought about it, that Lawman had not called him. If ever there was a guy who could sort out a political mess it was the ever-serious pre-law major.

  Odds grabbed a dime from the top of his desk and padded back out into the darkened hall. Quickly he uncradled the receiver and dropped a dime into the pay phone. He turned the dial seven times and waited. The phone rang twice.

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Hello. Lawman?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look, brother. This is Odds. We got problems. Have you heard?’

  “Bout what?’

  ‘As near as I can tell Baker an’ his knuckleheads took over Earl’s program this afternoon an’ s’pose to be goin’ to Calhoun’s t’night.’

  ‘Goddamn!’ Lawman breathed. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘This afternoon. Were you on campus?’

  ‘I had a one o’clock class. I went to it an’ then I split.’

  ‘You didn’ hear?’

  ‘Nuthin, man. I met this bitch over here at two. She was talkin’ ’bout calculus, but you know better than that.’

  ‘Yeah. I know ’bout what got calculated . . .’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘In bed. Man, I had me a ass-kickin’ chest cold all week.’

  ‘You sound like it. Where’s Earl?’

  ‘You got me. Out makin’ like a hero I guess.’

  ‘Tryin’ to carry it by himself too. He didn’t call me.’ Lawman was thoughtful. ‘Whew! Man, this is too much. I can hardly get this shit together.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Where you at?’ Lawman asked.

  ‘In the dorm.’

  ‘Let’s get together an’ talk this over. I was jus’ sittin’ down to eat when you buzzed. You want to come over here and have a bite to eat?’

  ‘No grit, man. I figger with a half-gallon of Esso Extra or something I might be able to deal . . . why don’ you meet me at O’Jay’s ’bout eight o’clock?’

  ‘All right,’ Lawman agreed. They hung up.

  Odds scuffled back down the hall to his room and prepared to wash up and brush his teeth. He was no longer concerned with the nagging cough and chest cold that had kept him in bed.

  The Lawman turned back to a small pot of soup and the slices of ham that rimmed his plate. His small one-room apartment was a mess. Records were scattered all over the floor near his record player. The books he had been attempting to deal with when the young woman arrived earlier in the afternoon were still open and loose-leaf notes from his notebook had blown onto the floor. His small army cot in the corner was a disarranged mess with the stained sheets from three hours of love-making tangled up at the foot of the
bed. He stepped over to the sink next to the hot plate and rinsed his mouth out and splashed his face with a double handful of cold water.

  ‘Rraugh!’ he snorted as the water shocked his circled, reddened eyes. He felt around the wall for the wrinkled towel and rubbed his face roughly when he ripped it from the rack.

  ‘Fuck!’ he cursed out loud. Then he sat down to eat.

  5

  Confrontation

  Earl’s green Oldsmobile wheeled through the open gates at the mouth of the university. The arch stretching between two twenty-foot-high stone pillars announced: SUTTON UNIVERSITY. A small wooden plaque nailed into one of the columns noted that the arch had been donated by the class of 1939.

  Fifty feet from the gate was a huge oval flower bed, containing now, in autumn, only dead reminders of the blazing color that had decorated the front of Sutton’s administration building from early spring until late summer. An arrow in front of the flower bed pointed all traffic to the right, around the famous circle that emptied into a large parking lot.

  Earl drove slowly past the Ad Building, Washington Hall, the remodeled Student Union Building, Adler Annex, Paul Lawrence Dunbar Library, and Simmons Hall which housed almost six hundred men. To his left, the old science building, Carver Hall, Garvey Plaza for freshmen women, Mallory Hall for upperclass women, and the three-story fraternity house which had once been for home economics (before Adler Annex) completed the other half of the oval.

  Earl parked in the ample lot, took a look at himself in the rear-view mirror, lit a cigarette, and got out. The newborn wind whistled at him. Smoke came from the chimney atop the small wooden hut that housed the security guard in the corner of the area. He saw through the naked branches of trees a pale-eyed, unblinking moon that hovered low in the sky like an oval of cold, shadowy clay.

  Jonesy was standing on the steps of the frat building. The stocky MJUMBE chieftain, who played linebacker on the football team, was dressed in a black, short-sleeved dashiki and dark trousers.

  ‘Niggers always rather be hip than warm,’ Earl thought as he contemplated how strongly the wind was whipping against the short-sleeved African shirt.

  Jonesy looked as though he wanted to say something, but noting the cold indifference on Earl’s face he merely nodded. He led the way into the building.

  The first floor was in total darkness. Earl could hear couples positioning themselves in the dark. It was against school regulations for women to be in the frat houses unless there was a chaperoned dance or some other university-sanctioned function going on. The frat men gave little attention to what school regulations stipulated. They unscrewed the first floor lightbulbs and did as they damn well pleased.

  ‘Upstairs,’ Jonesy mumbled.

  The two men took the stairs quickly and entered the thirdfloor meeting room where Baker, King, and Cotton sat around a square card table. Abul Menka sat in the corner staring intently out of the window. Earl took the chair directly opposite Baker. Jonesy stood by the door and folded his arms, looking over his shoulder out into the hall from time to time.

  ‘Happ’nin’, Earl?’ Baker asked.

  ‘Nothin’ much,’ Earl replied lightly. He hated bullshit like this, but he had expected a great deal of it. ‘I could use a run-down on the score.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Baker said as though bored. ‘We got a lista shit t’gether fo’ the Head Nigger.’ He grinned and continued to look through a pile of papers in front of him. ‘We figgered maybe you could take ’um over there if you wanned to.’

  Here we go, Earl thought as he took the list from Baker. If I wanted to.

  There was a tight feeling in the pit of the SGA president’s stomach. He could feel his pulse vibrating and drumming an uptempo solo next door to his brain. He lit a cigarette and left the pack on the table. He could feel the pairs of eyes drilling holes into his forehead. Though he noticed that Abul Menka had not looked up when he entered, he felt that even the notorious Captain Cool was tense, watching and waiting.

  ‘Yeah,’ was all that Earl said when he had completed his reading of the list.

  Ben King snorted like a bull. Earl cast a glance in the black giant’s direction and the returned stare blazed dislike. He met the look head-on. He was by no means intimidated by the huge football hero, though he had no eagerness to test the myths that had been built up pertaining to the larger man’s strength and ferocity.

  ‘So, uh, this is the score,’ Baker stammered uneasily. ‘We decided that perhaps, uh, things might be working out a little slowly for your office. We know how hard it is to get organized since we’re always tryin’ to organize things in the frat . . . we thought maybe you could, uh, use a little help to get the ball rollin’ an’ get people behind you.’ Baker was choosing his words very carefully. ‘Uh, it was shapin’ up like another one a them years like las’ year.’ The tension in the room could be felt as Baker dragged on. Earl did nothing to ease the pressure. He did not move or frown.

  ‘So we got things off the ground!’ King said suddenly.

  Earl chose to ignore King and did not even look to his left in the challenger’s direction. He wondered how much more he would be told about the things that were lying beneath the surface. He didn’t buy what Baker was saying for a second and the lie was infuriating him more than the overall maneuver. Everything was too hazy, but Baker was waiting for Earl to start the name-calling. Earl would have to force any direct split that became visible between the two groups. Baker could then go back and report that he had tried to work with the SGA leader without success. Ice. Ice. Ice.

  ‘Everybody knows the problems around here,’ the MJUMBE spokesman said slowly.

  Earl almost laughed. He could see that he was rattling Baker instead of the other way around. Baker had wanted to see him squirming, nervous, and uneasy in the unfamiliar position of follower. Earl’s deadpan composure was reversing the pressure and anxiety was crawling deeper and deeper into Baker’s eyes.

  ‘We got the same pains in the ass that they had here forty years ago if you read back issues of The Statesman. But whenever it comes time for a direct confrontation the students shy away. They so concerned wit’ a fuckin’ piece a bullshit paper that they refuse to pull their heads outta the fuckin’ groun’. Who cares if they spent four years in hell and lived like pigs in a sty? Thass why I sed: “if you wanted to get involved.” I don’t know how concerned you are about graduatin’ on time.’ Baker leaned back.

  ‘You may git in trubble,’ Ben King baby-talked. ‘We wudn’t wan’ anything like that.’

  ‘Look aroun’,’ Baker injected. ‘We all seniors. Fo’ uv us are on football grants that they could snatch in a minnit, but ain’ no man s’pose to sit fo’ alla this shit! We cain’ live with a pipe up our assholes, can we?’

  He was talking to keep Ben King quiet. Ben was spoiling for an argument with Thomas. He had been told to lay cool. They had everything on their side. Earl had nothing. But the SGA leader’s apparent calm was unnerving.

  ‘What do you expec’ Calhoun t’say ’bout these?’ Earl said, fingering the demands.

  ‘He has ’til tomorrow noon. We don’ expec’ him t’say anything in particular t’night. When you take him a copy a the things, you need not even ask what he thinks. We’ll wait ’til tomorrow when the new copy a The Statesman hits. We boun’ t’git some readin’ out befo’ he does. Then we’ll be in good shape wit’ trustees, faculty, all the resta the bullshit artists . . . what we want ’um to see is some laid-out thought ’bout whuss happ’nin’.’

  ‘That’s short notice,’ Earl commented. Baker’s last lines about The Statesman had let him know that Victor Johnson was lined up with MJUMBE.

  ‘Shit! We too damn late!’ Speedy Cotton snorted.

  There was a pause and the only sound that could be heard was the tap-tap-tapping of Jonesy’s foot on the hollow floor.

  Earl was glad that shadows cloaked most of the room. He knew that a smile was creeping into his face. If he stayed there much longer he was a cinch
to blow everything.

  ‘Waddaya think?’ Baker asked suddenly.

  Earl almost laughed. If anyone had ever told him that Ralph Baker would ever ask his opinion on anything he would have called them absolutely insane.

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ Earl breathed. ‘Like I sed: thass pretty short notice.’

  The room stirred. Something was going on in the doorway behind Earl. He didn’t bother to turn around.

  ‘What, man?’ Baker asked someone.

  ‘Dude name Johnson downstairs t’see you.’

  Baker watched Earl. No reaction.

  ‘Tell ’im ta wait. I be there.’ Baker snorted.

  ‘What time is Calhoun comin’ home?’ Earl asked.

  “Bout ten,’ Cotton said. ‘From the thee-ate-uh.’

  ‘Ol’ bag bitch!’ King cursed, recalling the maid.

  ‘Does he know about these?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ King said. ‘The firs’ thing you do when people start plottin’ on you’ shit ain’ goin’ to the movie.’

  Earl got up. ‘I’ll be goin’ over there ’bout ten.’ He turned toward the door. He could feel that heat rising to his head. Somehow he could feel that Abul Menka was looking at him for the first time since he entered the room. He turned and caught the stare head on. Yeah, he thought. I got alla these muthafuckuhs shook . . . thass good. But it’s not time fo’ you yet, Captain Cool. Or you, unfriendly Giant, as he thought of King. Time will come though.

  ‘You can wait here!’ King exclaimed on the verge of rage. Earl confidently estimated that he had upset King more than any of the others.

  ‘No. I missed dinna, man. I’m goin’ to O’Jay’s for a bite befo’ I go to the Plantation.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Baker mumbled.

  ‘Later,’ Earl said, leaving.

  When Baker next looked up Earl had gone and the only reminder of his presence was the echo of Ben King hammering the already battered card table time and time again.

  6

  The Plan

  ‘Jonesy? Do me a favor and go down ta git Johnson.’