Black Boy (19 page)

He paused dramatically and no one answered. All the techniques of his appeal were familiar to me and I sat there feeling foolish, wanting to leap through the window and go home and forget about it. But I sat still, filled more with disgust than sin.

“Would any man in this room dare fling no into God’s face?” the preacher asked.

There was silence.

“Now, I’m going to ask all of you to rise and go into the church and take a seat on the front bench,” he said, edging on to more definite commitments. “Just stand up,” he said, lifting his hands, palms up, as though he had the power to make us rise by magic. “That’s it, young man,” he encouraged the first boy who rose.

I followed them and we sat like wet ducks on a bench facing the congregation. Some part of me was cursing. A low, soft hymn began.

They sang it, hummed it, crooned it, moaned it, implying in sweet, frightening tones that if we did not join the church then and there we might die in our sleep that very night and go straight to hell. The church members felt the challenge and the volume of song swelled. Could they sing so terrifyingly sweet as to make us join, burst into tears and drop to our knees? A few boys rose and gave their hands to the preacher. A few women shouted and danced with joy. Another hymn began.

During the singing the preacher tried yet another ruse; he intoned mournfully, letting his voice melt into the singing, yet casting his words above it:

“How many mothers of these young men are here tonight?”

Among others, my mother rose and stood proudly.

“Now, good sweet mothers, come right down in front here,” said the preacher.

Hoping that this was the night of my long-deferred salvation, my mother came forward, limping, weeping, smiling. The mothers ringed their sons around, whispering, pleading.

“Now, you good sweet mothers, symbols of Mother Mary at the tomb, kneel and pray for your sons, your only sons,” the preacher chanted.

The mothers knelt. My mother grabbed my hands and I felt hot tears scalding my fingers. I tried to stifle my disgust. We young men had been trapped by the community, the tribe in which we lived and of which we were a part. The tribe, for its own safety, was asking us to be at one with it. Our mothers were kneeling in public
and praying for us to give the sign of allegiance. The hymn ended and the preacher launched into a highly emotional and symbolic sermon, recounting how our mothers had given birth to us, how they had nursed us from infancy, how they had tended us when we were sick, how they had seen us grow up, how they had watched over us, how they had always known what was best for us. He then called for yet another hymn, which was hummed. He chanted above it in a melancholy tone:

“Now, I’m asking the first mother who really loves her son to bring him to me for baptism!”

Goddamn, I thought. It had happened quicker than I had expected. My mother was looking steadily at me.

“Come, son, let your old mother take you to God,” she begged. “I brought you into the world, now let me help to save you.”

She caught my hand and I held back.

“I’ve been as good a mother as I could,” she whispered through her tears.

“God is hearing every word,” the preacher underscored her plea.

This business of saving souls had no ethics; every human relationship was shamelessly exploited. In essence, the tribe was asking us whether we shared its feelings; if we refused to join the church, it was equivalent to saying no, to placing ourselves in the position of moral monsters. One mother led her beaten and frightened son to the preacher amid shouts of amen and hallelujah.

“Don’t you love your old crippled mother, Richard?” my mother asked. “Don’t leave me standing here with my empty hands,” she said, afraid that I would humiliate her in public.

It was no longer a question of my believing in God; it was no longer a matter of whether I would steal or lie or murder; it was a simple, urgent matter of public pride, a matter of how much I had in common with other people. If I refused, it meant that I did not love my mother, and no man in that tight little black community had ever been crazy enough to let himself be placed in such a position. My mother pulled my arm and I walked with her to the
preacher and shook his hand, a gesture that made me a candidate for baptism. There were more songs and prayers; it lasted until well after midnight. I walked home limp as a rag; I had not felt anything except sullen anger and a crushing sense of shame. Yet I was somehow glad that I had got it over with; no barriers now stood between me and the community.

“Mama, I don’t feel a thing,” I told her truthfully.

“Don’t you worry; you’ll grow into feeling it,” she assured me.

And when I confessed to the other boys that I felt nothing, they too admitted that they felt nothing.

“But the main thing is to be a member of the church,” they said.

The Sunday of the baptism arrived. I dressed in my best and showed up sweating. The candidates were huddled together to listen to a sermon in which the road of salvation was mapped out from the cradle to the grave. We were then called to the front of the church and lined up. The preacher, draped in white robes, dipped a small branch of a tree in a huge bowl of water and hovered above the head of the first candidate.

“I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” he pronounced sonorously as he shook the wet branch. Drops trickled down the boy’s face.

From one boy to another he went, dipping the branch each time. Finally my turn came and I felt foolish, tense; I wanted to yell for him to stop; I wanted to tell him that all this was so much nonsense. But I said nothing. The dripping branch was shaken above my head and drops of water wet my face and scalp, some of it rolling down my neck and wetting my back, like insects crawling. I wanted to squirm, but I held still. Then it was over. I relaxed. The preacher was now shaking the branch over another boy’s head. I sighed. I had been baptized.

Even after receiving the “right hand of fellowship,” Sunday school bored me. The Bible stories seemed slow and meaningless when compared to the bloody thunder of pulp narrative. And I was not alone in feeling this; other boys went to sleep in Sunday school. Finally the boldest of us confessed that the entire thing was a fraud and we played hooky from church.

As summer neared, my mother suffered yet another stroke of paralysis and again I had to watch her suffer, listen to her groans, powerless to help. I used to lie awake nights and think back to the early days in Arkansas, tracing my mother’s life, reliving events, wondering why she had apparently been singled out for so much suffering, meaningless suffering, and I would feel more awe than I had ever felt in church. My mind could find no answer and I would feel rebellious against all life. But I never felt humble.

Another change took place at home. We needed money badly and Granny and Aunt Addie decided that we could no longer share the entire house, and Uncle Tom and his family were invited to live upstairs at a nominal rental. The dining room and the living room were converted into bedrooms and for the first time we were squeezed for living space. We began to get on each other’s nerves. Uncle Tom had taught school in country towns for thirty years and as soon as he was under the roof he proceeded to tell me what was wrong with my life. I ignored him and he resented it.

Rattling pots and pans in the kitchen would now awaken me in the mornings and I would know that Uncle Tom and his family were getting breakfast. One morning I was roused by my uncle’s voice calling gently but persistently. I opened my eyes and saw the dim blob of his face peering from behind the jamb of the kitchen door.

“What time have you?” I thought he asked me, but I was not sure.

“Hunh?” I mumbled sleepily.

“What time have you got?” he repeated.

I lifted myself on my elbow and looked at my dollar watch, which lay on the chair at the bedside.

“Eighteen past five,” I mumbled.

“Eighteen past five?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, is that the right time?” he asked again.

I was tired, sleepy; I did not want to look at the watch again,
but I was satisfied that, on the whole, I had given him the correct time.

“It’s right,” I said, snuggling back down into my pillow. “If it’s a little slow or fast, it’s not far wrong.”

There was a short silence; I thought he had gone.

“What on earth do you mean, boy?” he asked in loud anger.

I sat up, blinking, staring into the shadows of the room, trying to see the expression on his face.

“What do I mean?” I asked, bewildered. “I mean what I said.” Had I given him the wrong time? I looked again at my watch. “It’s twenty past now.”

“Why, you impudent black rascal!” he thundered.

I pushed back the covers of the bed, sensing trouble.

“What are you angry about?” I asked.

“I never heard a sassier black imp than you in all my life,” he spluttered.

I swung my feet to the floor so that I could watch him.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You asked me the time and I told you.”

“‘If it’s a little fast or slow, it’s not far wrong,’” he said, imitating me in an angry, sarcastic voice. “I’ve taught school for thirty years, and by God I’ve never had a boy say anything like that to me.”

“But what’s wrong with what I said?” I asked, amazed.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “Or I’ll take my fist and ram it down your sassy throat! One more word out of you, and I’ll get a limb and teach you a lesson.”

“What’s the matter with you, Uncle Tom?” I asked. “What’s wrong with what I said?”

I could hear his breath whistling in his throat; I knew that he was furious.

“This day I’m going to give you the whipping some man ought to have given you long ago,” he vowed.

I got to my feet and grabbed my clothes; the whole thing seemed unreal. I had been confronted so suddenly with struggle
that I could not pull all the strings of the situation together at once. I did not feel that I had given him cause to say I was sassy. I had spoken to him just as I spoke to everybody. Others did not resent my words, so why should he? I heard him go out of the kitchen door and I knew that he had gone into the back yard. I pulled on my clothes and ran to the window; I saw him tearing a long, young, green switch from the elm tree. My body tightened. I was damned if he was going to beat me with it. Until a few days ago he had never lived near me, had never had any say in my rearing or lack of rearing. I was working, eating my meals out, buying my own clothes, giving what few pennies I could to Granny to help out in the house. And now a strange uncle who felt that I was impolite was going to teach me to act as I had seen the backward black boys act on the plantations, was going to teach me to grin, hang my head, and mumble apologetically when I was spoken to.

My senses reeled in protest. No, that could not be. He would not beat me. He was only bluffing. His anger would pass. He would think it over and realize that it was not worth all the bother. Dressed, I sat on the edge of the bed and waited. I heard his footsteps come onto the back porch. I felt weak all over. How long was this going to last? How long was I going to be beaten for trifles and less than trifles? I was already so conditioned toward my relatives that when I passed them I actually had a nervous tic in my muscles, and now I was going to be beaten by someone who did not like the tone of voice in which I spoke. I ran across the room and pulled out the dresser drawer and got my pack of razor blades; I opened it and took a thin blade of blue steel in each hand. I stood ready for him. The door opened. I was hoping desperately that this was not true, that this dream would end.

“Richard!” he called me in a cold, even tone.

“Yes, sir!” I answered, striving to keep my tension out of my voice.

“Come here.”

I walked into the kitchen, my eyes upon him, my hands holding the razors behind my back.

“Now, Uncle Tom, what do you want with me?” I asked him.

“You need a lesson in how to live with people,” he said.

“If I do need one, you’re not going to give it to me,” I said.

“You’ll swallow those words before I’m through with you,” he vowed.

“Now, listen, Uncle Tom,” I said, “you’re not going to whip me. You’re a stranger to me. You don’t support me. I don’t live with you.”

“You shut that foul mouth of yours and get into the back yard,” he snapped.

He had not seen the razors in my hand. I ducked out the kitchen door and jumped lightly off the porch to the ground. He ran down the steps and advanced with the lifted switch.

“I’ve got a razor in each hand!” I warned in a low, charged voice. “If you touch me, I’ll cut you! Maybe I’ll get cut too, but I’ll cut you, so help me God!”

He paused, staring at my lifted hands in the dawning light of morning. I held a sharp blue edge of steel tightly between thumb and forefinger of each fist.

“My God,” he gasped.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings this morning,” I told him. “You insist I did. Now, I’ll be damned if I’m going to be beaten because of your hurt feelings.”

“You’re the worst criminal I ever saw,” he exclaimed softly.

“If you want to fight, I’ll fight. That’s the way it’ll be between us,” I told him.

“You’ll never amount to anything,” he said, shaking his head and blinking his eyes in astonishment.

“I’m not worried about that,” I said. “All I want you to do is keep away from me, now and always…”

“You’ll end on the gallows,” he predicted.

“If I do, you’ll have nothing to do with it,” I said.

He stared at me in silence; evidently he did not believe me, for he took a step forward to test me.

“Put those razors down,” he commanded.

“I’ll cut you! I’ll cut you!” I said, hysteria leaping into my voice, my hands slicing out with points of steel as I backed away.

He stopped; he had never in his life faced a person more grimly determined. Now and then he blinked his eyes and shook his head.