“Maybe they had somp’n else to do.”
“You’re here, you didn’t have anything else to do.”
“Maybe we’s the bravest.”
Lee Gordon turned with a quick gesture to hide his irritation and ordered drinks for all, wondering vaguely as he did so why only the most ignorant of Negroes participated in such militant movements as unionism. Was it just in Los Angeles where the migrant Negro workers were in predominance? But even so, there were scores of Negro college graduates in war industries; he knew seven of them employed by Comstock who had never signed a union card or attended a union meeting. Did they feel it in some way beneath their dignity? Only Lester McKinley had shown any signs of active interest in the union. Was it that the others had been bought out like island natives with a few glass trinkets of education and a few bright baubles of wealth? Was this all the educated Negro wanted, or did they expect to some day earn their wings and fly to high heaven with their Cæsars?
The procession of his thoughts was interrupted by the woman’s voice, “We earning our little money same as usual.”
Calmer now, he turned to her. “Look, Susie, for God’s sake cut out the clowning! What’s happened?”
“Course ain’t nobody we can sell out so we just naturally has to be honest,” the man named Johnson interposed.
“What?” Lee asked with a sinking of his stomach. “What did you say?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” Play Safe confessed, “we heard you folks was selling out.”
First into Lee’s memory came McKinley’s parting admonition, “Beware!” and then the voice of Foster speaking spitefully of betrayal. Foster, of course, would know since it was likely he would be the one to supply the purveyor with the Judas gold. But how could Lester? Yet he must have known from the beginning. Did he have powers of mysticism, or was it just as he had hinted—given Foster for the man and the union for the object, the betrayal of a leader would be the inevitable result?
Who then was the Judas? He could not believe it was Joe or Smitty. Both seemed fanatical in their zealous unionism—Communists, perhaps, but never traitors. And then the mocking voice of introspection asked, were the two so far apart? But what could the Communists seek to gain? he now asked himself. Control of the union? That’s what they wanted, of course. But how could they hope to gain this by breaking the campaign down? Benny Stone? But he was a Communist, too. And that left Marvin Todd. But Foster had said it was a “big boy.” And who would be so foolish as to buy the treachery of Todd? But then, Jackie had said he had a following. The rebels had been known to elect a president, of course, but only of the Confederate states. Was this to be another Dixie rebellion?
Aloud he said: “That’s foolish! Who told you that?”
Even as the denial came rushing from his lips, he recalled that at their first union meeting Lester had been talking too loudly concerning someone selling out. Was this then just the repetition of his words mushroomed into rumor?
“We heard it,” Susie said.
And Johnson elaborated: “I got it straight from high up.”
“High up where?” Lee asked.
“High up,” Johnson repeated.
“Look,” Lee started to explain with a patience that was alien, “no one can sell out the union. The union is too big. The union does not belong to anyone for them to sell it out. It’s your union. If an organizer tried to sell it out, you could go right ahead and organize it yourself and then apply to the national union for a charter. And after that you could ask for an NLRB election in the plant just as we intend to do. The company is well aware that we are organizing the union. You workers have a right by law to organize and join a union—it is the law that you may do this. The company can not stop you. If they take any reprisals or try to harm you in any way for joining the union, the company has broken the law and can be convicted in court—”
“You say it’s the law,” Play Safe asked seriously.
“I say it’s the law. A law called the National Labor Relations Act.” Now he said to Johnson: “You go to the person ‘high up’ and ask them if they have ever heard of the National Labor Relations Act, commonly known as the Wagner Act, and they will tell you yes.”
“They will, eh?”
“They have to.”
“They ain’t tol’ me yet and they tol’ me you was sellin’ out.”
“He don’t mean you,” Susie said quickly with a nervous laugh. “He means one of y’all.”
“An’ we got our s’picions who,” Johnson said.
Luther had come up to the group in time to hear the statement. “S’picions ‘bout what?” he asked.
When Lee had informed him of the rumor, he brushed it off as a gag. “You go back ‘n tell Foster he got to come again,” he said to the workers.
“You go tell ‘im!” Play Safe said. “You the bigges’.”
Luther chuckled. “You tell ‘im, Lee, you the smartes’.”
Lee caught the spirit of the thing since it seemed to be incredibly effective. “I’ll let Joe Ptak tell him, he’s the baddest.”
They all laughed. “He the lion, eh,” Luther remarked. “We just the ol’ signifying monkeys.”
“Who dat, man?” Play Safe asked.
“You never heard ‘bout the signifying monkey?”
Play Safe shook his head.
“It was thissaway,” Luther prefaced, leaning against the bar to order drinks for the lot, and then began to recite:
It was one bright sunny day
The Monkey an’ the Lion met across the way.
The Monkey said to the Lion
Leo I know you’re king
An’ you can ‘bout beat mos’ any ol’ thing,
But there’s a big motherforyou across the way
Says he’ll whip yo’ ass mos’ any ol’ day.
Now he talked ‘bout your mother
An’ your grandma too,
An’ it was a downright dirty shame
The way he talked ‘bout you.
Now this made the Lion mad
An’ he got all in a rage.
He took off through the jungle
Like some frantic 4-F jodie
Who’s high off’n gage
Like the swift of the breeze
Knockin’ down gorillas
An’ bringing giraffes to their knees.
Now he ran up on the Elephant
Under an old shady tree.
He says up you big motherforyou,
It’s either you or me.
But the Elephant just rolled over
An’ looked out the sides of his eyes.
He said you better go on
You little motherforyou
An’ mess with somebody yo’ own shrimp size.
Just then the Lion made a pass:
That’s when he tore his ass.
The Elephant kicked him in the face,
Broke his two front legs,
An’ knocked his eyesight out of place.
Now they fit all that night
An’ half the next day,
An’ I can’t see how in the hell
That Lion got away,
Now dragging through the jungles
Mo’ dead than alive.
That’s when the ol’ Monkey
Started his signify in’ jive.
He said Oh Oh Oh Leo,
You have sure caught hell.
That Elephant have whipped yo’ ass
To a form frazzle-well.
Now you say you’re the king of the jungles.
Ain’t you a bitch?
Why yo’ face looks like you done broke out
With the seven year’s itch.
Now every morning when I’m trying
To sleep just a wee bit mo’,
Here you come with some of that who-shot-Joe.
Now you big motherforyou,
Don’t you dast ro’
‘Cause I’ll get down horn this tree
An’ whip yo’ ass s
ome mo’.
So the Monkey got frantic
An’ began jumpin up an’ down.
He broke off the limb
An’ come tumblin’ to the groun’.
It was like a streak of lightnin’
And a bolt of white heat
That Lion was on ‘im
With his las’ two feet.
But the Monkey lay there
With tears in his eyes.
He says Oh King Leo,
I apologize.
Leo says no you little motherforyou,
Don’t you dass shed a tear,
‘Cause right here is where
I’m gonna end yo’ jungle signifyin’ career.
Now the Monkey pleaded and he pleaded
Until he got hisself free
And he jumped right back
Into that same coconut tree.
He says now you big motherforyou.
You needn’t get so so’
‘Cause I’ll go get that Elephant
An’ have him whip yo’ ass some mo’.
So the Lion walked off
With tears in his eyes.
He said I’d rather be dead
Than alive
So I wouldn’t have to lissen to
That ol’ Monkey’s signifyin’ jive.
Luther looked at his audience with a grin. “Thass me,” he said. “Man, thass you, ain’t it?” Play Safe echoed, roaring with laughter.
“Thass me, man.”
“Got that ol’ lion cryin’ out his eyes.”
“Mos’ beat to death.”
Despite the fact that the suspicions of these workers seemed momentarily allayed, Lee continued to worry. At home he was restless, uneasy, disturbed by a sense of negligence. If he had reported McKinley’s charges to Smitty, perhaps all of this could have been averted. Finally he called Smitty at the union council hall, but Smitty had heard nothing of the rumor and attached no significance to it.
“Take a drink and forget it,” he advised. “By tomorrow it will have blown over.”
But while they slept the rumor spread like an insidious plague. It moved down the assembly lines, hovered in the latrines, found voice at the lunch hours. Possessed of no actual facts, it fed on the instinctive fear of double cross and was kept alive by minds escaping the realities of war, change, and strangeness in a strange land. And during the dull, endless hours before dawn when foremen and workers alike were wont to “ride the dog,” it flourished and became fantastic. By noon of the next day it had touched them all, leaving its imprint of anger, apprehension, and resentment.
When Lee finally came upon Joe Ptak in the union shack he found him in an angry mood.
“If it made any goddamn sense we could refute it easily,” Joe said angrily. “But it’s one of those things without reason. And that’s where we’re at fault.”
“How so?” Lee wanted to know.
“If we had really sold the union, a crazy lie like this would make no difference.”
“There must be something we can do.”
“If I knew it, I’d have done it. I’m an organizer, not a goddamned mealy-mouthed evangelist! That’s what’s needed here. Give me something definite to work on, a strike or a raise, and I’ll organize anybody. But this goddamn campaign is driving me nuts! What the hell do these goddamned sharecropping patriots want with a union? All they want is to make a little money and go back to the farm and starve to death. They ain’t never been able to see from one goddamned crop to another, so how the hell do you expect them to see a couple or so years ahead!”
But he called a conference for that night. Marvin Todd, Benny Stone, Joe Ptak, Smitty, and Lee were present. Now how could a rumor be stopped that the workers were willing to believe? If the workers had confidence in the organizers’ integrity there would be no rumor. And if they could be made to listen to reason they would have listened to the reason of themselves.
Plain words of refutation would be of no avail, they knew. A concrete plan was needed—something visual, actual, a sign, a token, some definite symbol of good faith, if not more credible than the rumor, at least more exciting to believe. Marvin Todd, with the gristly humor of a Montressor drawing a trowel from beneath his robe, suggested that they frame someone and put the blame on him. Lee violently objected to this with his deep abhorrence of any form of lynching, and the two almost came to blows.
“Men! Men!” Smitty exclaimed. “We came here to achieve unity.”
Benny Stone then suggested that they pay someone to confess and vanish. “You can get one of these Okies to take a rap like that and never be seen again,” he said, looking obliquely at Todd.
“Men! Men!” Smitty exclaimed again.
Lee suggested offering a reward for information pointing out the traitor, but Joe was opposed to that. “The instant we give any credence to the goddamn rumor, these scatterbrained workers will begin suspecting everyone.”
Nothing was accomplished but ill will and a vague suspicion of each other. So again Lee tried to see McKinley.
“Do you think you should keep bothering him?” Mrs. McKinley asked.
“Why, it’s about the union,” Lee replied, perplexed.
“Well—” she hesitated. “You come back again and maybe he will see you.” And she closed the door gently in his face.
Now Lee was positive that Lester knew the truth, and he became increasingly fearful of the traitor’s being Smitty or Joe. Why then would Lester hesitate to reveal the truth to him? It was as if he was slowly becoming embroiled in some sinister conspiracy of which he knew nothing. He felt the need of someone sympathetic to get another point of view. The night before, Ruth had been solicitious, trying to draw his confidence, but he had repulsed her, his pride still rankling from the hurt she had inflicted. Now it was to Jackie he turned again.
“I was hoping you would call,” she said. “Can you come up?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.” And then: “I love you.”
“I want you to.”
It was not the answer he had expected and it left a funny taste. So he bought the daily papers to read on the bus to rid himself of the feeling of always being a fool. And reading them, he learned of the growing racial tensions throughout the city—A Negro had cut a white worker’s throat in a dice game at another of the aircraft companies and was being held without bail; and a white woman in a shipyard had accused a Negro worker of raping her. A group of white sailors had stripped a Mexican lad of his zoot suit on Main Street before a host of male and female onlookers. Mistaken for Japanese, a Chinese girl had been slapped on a crowded streetcar by a white mother whose son had been killed in the Pacific. And down on the bottom of page thirteen there was a one-line filler, “Negro Kills Self. Charles Bolden, known to intimates as ‘Fatso,’ an unemployed diemaker, took his life this morning by slashing his wrists with a razor.”
Well—yes, Lee Gordon thought and laid the paper down. A Negro called “Fatso” could have hurts too that would make life unendurable—
Arriving at Jackie’s, he found that Luther and Mollie had preceded him. But before he could ascertain the purpose of their presence, Jackie admitted another caller, “Oh, come right in, Bart, we’re waiting for you,” fawning upon him with a deference only befitting a district commissar.
To Lee’s surprise even Luther jumped to his feet, although there seemed to be a pretense in his effusiveness; but when Mollie replaced her sardonic attitude with a polite attentiveness, Lee turned again to view the man.
Elderly, his heavy-set body clad in a dark-blue suit, he had coal-black, African features and a longish head as smooth as a billiard ball. “Good evening, comrades,” he greeted in a high, precise voice, startling from a man of so stolid an appearance.
Lee had often heard the name even as far back as when he had attended the meetings of the antidiscrimination committee during his employment in the post office. But this was the first he had seen of the man who was West Coast
Chairman of the Communist Party. He was amazed to find him so blatantly a worker and so black.
Selecting the most comfortable chair, which was conveniently vacant at the time, Bart surveyed each of his sycophants in turn, then addressed himself to Lee, his cold, brown eyes devoid of all emotion.
“How do you like the job of selling people a democratic ideology, Gordon?”
“The job’s okay.”
“It has its compensations.”
“That’s true.”
“And it also presents its challenges.”
“Well—yes,” Lee replied uncertainly, resentful at being grilled by this Communist official.
“Don’t become discouraged, Gordon,” Bart propounded in his high, colorless voice. “For twenty-seven years, three months, and thirteen days, I worked in a fertilizer factory. I started off at eight dollars a week and when I quit I was making twenty-two. Somewhere something was wrong, I knew. But I did not set out to solve it by myself. I reasoned that there must be others who knew that something was wrong. So I set out to find them. The problem of humanity is indivisible. That is why you find a bourgeois nation such as ours fighting on the side of the Russian proletariat. Do you read John Pittman in the People’s World?” he asked abruptly.
“No, I don’t,” Lee replied defiantly.
Bart dismissed him without another glance. “Well, Jackie, how do you like Los Angeles by this time?”
“Oh, I like it fine.”
“Since you’ve been working?”
“Yes. The job gives me a chance to do something. I don’t like to sit around and watch the others do all the work.”
“There must be followers too.”
“I don’t mind following but I want to help too.”
“You are of great help in the job you now have.”
“I hope so.”
Now he turned to Mollie. “You’re looking in fit condition.”
She broke suddenly into laughter. “I am fit as a fiddle, Bart—as Heifetz’s fiddle.”
“It would naturally be a bourgeois fiddle,” he commented dryly. “Is Luther making you a good husband?”
She laughed again. “From anyone else that would be impertinence.”
“To ask about your husband?”
“To ask about his excellence.”
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