Entrapment and Other Writings (4 page)

The boy seemed to feel a surge of sudden manhood in his veins. He thrust out his chest, spat on the ground, and laughed a brief, nervous little laugh that came out of his throat in tiny tortured jerks. As though making an unprecedented announcement he called out twice: “The puny yaller bitch. The puny yaller bitch.” The voice quavered. Christopher repeated this phrase to himself, revolving it over and over in his dazed brain, as though it must, somehow, explain the thing he had just seen. There was something here he could not quite grasp, and over and over he repeated it to himself, seeking a hidden meaning. “The puny yaller bitch. The puny yaller bitch. Yes, that must be so, But why ‘puny’? Why not ‘little’ yaller bitch, or even ‘gentle’ yaller bitch? That would have been much better, because it would have made things so much clearer.”

The sight of her pale throat, lying so still on the moonlit grass, twisted up now to the quiet stars, reminded Christopher of the throat of a German soldier he had seen one night at St. Mihiel. It was so naked and helpless. It was so long and soft.

Christopher listened to the three as they untied the horses. Lloyd was still trying to laugh, and Luther, irritated by the attempt, spoke sharply: “Ef you-all aint got the livin’ sense to thank yer paw an’ me fer gettin’ yo’ outen this unnateral mess yo’ can anyhow keep yer
goddam nasty little trap shet—Yo’ little side-winding bastard.” Then he heard Bryan speak firmly, yet without anger: “You-all got no call to preach, Major, yo’ aint missed a Sunday night with that uptown nigger whore sense Easter.” Christopher listened to the rhythmic hooves of the horses falling swiftly away into distance.

The black girl named Queenie Lee laughed a soft little laugh in her sleep—more like a dream than a laugh. On the sleepy mountain of her breast the great dark head of Christopher Morgan lay warmly pressed. Christopher was not asleep. His eyes were opened wide, agleam with fear, and something more than fear. Twice he spoke her name before she woke. “Queenie honey,” he said. “Queenie honey.” She passed her warm hand down his side in soft reply but did not open her eyes. “Queenie honey, I’se worried. I’s skeered. I’se skeered and worried bad.” She opened her eyes then, took his wooly head in her hands, and looked directly into the broad, good-natured face, heavy now with trouble. She read running terror there, and it leaped across like living flame into her own brain, so that the hands with which she held him clenched with a sudden chill.

“Lawd, nigger, what’s skeerin’ yo’ lak dis?”

“Ah seen somethin’ bad. Somethin’ powerful bad. Ah seen it with mah own eyes, an’ ah got to tell,—ah got to tell. Oney promise—”

“Ah promise.”

“Promise what?”

“Ah’ll promise anythin’ yo’ want me to promise.”

“Promise yo’ wont tell nobody then—never.”

“Ah promise.”

Every Sunday night Christopher sat on the courthouse steps. It was quiet there, and quite dark, and he enjoyed the chimes which tolled out above his head every half hour. He would sit there until twelve
o’clock was struck, then would rise slowly and start toward his cottage. Eleven-thirty had just chimed, and he was beginning to feel a bit tired. It had been a week since he had slept well, but since last night, since he had unburdened himself to Queenie, he had been at peace in his mind. Before that he had been so torn between fear and shame that he had been able to get no rest. At first he had been afraid that somehow the white folks would learn that he had seen and would come after him. He had been so afraid of that, that once he had risen from his cot in the middle of the night, dressed himself hurriedly, fully determined to run away. He didn’t know where. Just to run, run, run, was all he had been able to think, like a panic-stricken horse. Only the thought of Queenie Lee had, at the last moment, brought him back to sanity and self-control. She had gotten into his blood. He didn’t want to go away to some ol’ place where he’d never see Queenie on Saturday nights.

Then he had been ashamed—ashamed of his fear—ashamed of his desire to run—ashamed, above all, that he had not had the courage to interfere in the killings. He could have saved them, but his courage had run out of him like so much water. So intense had his shame become that he had resolved to go to Mayor Breck and tell what he had seen. He knew just where he would be able to find Breck—in that little room on the second floor, right above where he was sitting now, with all the big lawyers and Judge Hafey and Editor Regan sitting around smoking and talking. He had resolved to go there even though it should cost him his life, but even as he had resolved he had cautioned himself: “Careful, nigger, careful.” He had reasoned with himself then: Actually, wouldn’t it be foolish to tell? Telling couldn’t bring the dead alive. And what if he should be telling them a thing they all knew?—Why, he’d just be giving himself away, putting his head in the noose. And didn’t they all know?—Hadn’t the bodies been buried with only the merest outward gesture of an inquest? Hadn’t the verdict of suicide been returned before the bodies had been thoroughly examined? Hadn’t Kurt Regan failed to print a single line concerning the murders in the
Herald
?

Christopher turned the cold facts over in his mind, dreading the conclusion to which they were so rapidly driving him—that every white authority in town knew precisely what had occurred. He dreaded this conclusion because he didn’t wish to believe that those who had taught him to place utter faith in a just and omnipotent God had no faith in such a being themselves, and because he did not wish to believe this of them deliberately he desired to let his innate Negroid credulity master him. He wished to find them innocent; and if he could not find them innocent he wanted an excuse to find forgiveness for them. It was necessary to forgive them, if they were guilty, in order to recover his peace of mind. But were they guilty? Did they require forgiveness? Could they, come to think of it, be anything but innocent? Almost feverishly now he searched his mind for some evidence of Christian charity, however fragmentary, which he must have observed among them sometime in the past. He remembered that Judge Hafey had once given him a pint of dry gin; he remembered that Breck had shaken his hand when he had come back from France; he remembered that the pastor of the First Colored Baptist church had once changed pulpits with the Rev. Hugh Breckenbridge, of the White Baptist; and he remembered the florid kindness which always shone from the face of Kurt Regan, no matter upon whom Kurt Regan looked. No, they couldn’t actually know what had happened. Old Bryan had told them it was a suicide, and because they were pure in heart themselves, and had the True Faith, they had believed his story. Why, it simply stood to reason that they didn’t, couldn’t know, or they would have done something to Bryan, wouldn’t they? They were good men—all of them. Even Luther and Lloyd and Bryan might not be really bad at heart: Maybe the girl had wronged Lloyd first. Maybe it was for her own good that they had killed her. They would have used a rope if they’d been really mad with her, wouldn’t they? He asked himself this last question angrily, half-irritated as increasingly he became aware that his attempt at self-deception was failing rapidly. In a last frantic grab at self-conviction he said aloud: “Forgive them, Lord,
they know not what they doeth.” This ancient flummery, so vapid, childish, irrelevant and unreal, yet gave him the peace he sought. What was past was past—he had forgiven. He could go on now as though nothing had happened, be as happy as he had been before the murders. He had forgiven.

One night he had dreamed of the dead child—dreamed that he stood beside her in front of the altar of the First Colored Baptist church. She was dressed in white, and was holding a tiny baby in her arms. She had smiled up at him with gentle eyes, and he had lowered his head to kiss her; but as he did so she raised her lips to his, and the fierce dark blood had come bubbling over them. It had splashed over the white of her dress, had spattered the front of his coat, and flowed in an even faster and greater flood until he could see nothing but blood about him, until he felt himself sinking in a sea of blood. Then everything had grown dark, and terrible, and strange, and he had awakened in a cold sweat, sitting upright on his cot.

Slouched now on the deserted courthouse steps, his head bowed heavily in his hands as though with both its own great weight and the weight of its heavy trouble, he resolved that, should he ever dream that dream again, he would not try to kiss her. It had been his attempt to kiss her, he felt, that had brought the blood to her lips. Next time, should it happen again, he would say, very loudly and quickly: “Forgive them, Honey, they know not what they doeth.” Saying it like that, he felt, would somehow ward off that terrible dark flood.

The chimes above his head began to toll. He did not raise his head at their sound, but sat counting the slow strokes to himself until twelve had chimed. Then he looked up.

Four faces. Four hard faces. Regan, Luther, Bryan, Breck.

He knew, with an odd certainty, that they had been standing above him since the seventh stroke of the chimes.

(Scene: West Madison Street, Chicago)

The rain came straight down one morning at Taylor and Halstead and pigeons flocked on a roof. I’d been cursing the clock all night at the Olive Branch Mission, and I thought to mooch a little down Taylor. I thought of a song learned in another city and I hummed that song to myself.

But gimme somethin’ in my pocket and you can keep that Lord stuff.

On the corner of Morgan and Harrison a man was handing out little books. I seen he didn’t give one to a girl who came past, so I thought, I should like one of them little books too. A Greek in a coat came by and the guy give him three and the Greek threw ’em all away except one. I walked past slow an’ the guy didn’t see me, so I went past again an’ he didn’t move. So I stopped dead still in front of him an’ says, “Partner, I’ll have one of them little books.” So he picked the one up off the ground an’ he give me that.

I must be gettin’ to look kind of crummy, I thought, I must be gettin’ to look pretty bad. But I didn’t say a word. I just went off with my head in the little blue book, readin’ it hard like I had buboes and wanted to know from the book where to go. The book says, Are You the Wreck of a Man, Consultation Free. And I tried to mooch a bit down Morgan, but every other guy is a cop these days.

I threw the book away when I come into the shelter on account they stink your clothes every night here an’ if the louser sees I am readin’ such a book he will ask have I got a hard chancre or what, that I am reading such a book.

Then I’d have to get undressed just to show him I ain’t.

When I got into bed I thought of a song I learned once, so I hummed that song to myself.

Then I fell asleep. Are you the Wreck of a Man, I thought, Consultation free.

All that night it rained.

In the morning I walked west down Harrison and that was when I seen this parade. Niggers was walkin’ with white men, carryin’ banners, so I stood an’ watched.

“Them’s mighty cocky niggers,” I said to a guy.

“We all came out of a hole, didn’t we?” the guy said back.

“Maybe you’re a nigger yourself,” I said.

“Maybe I am and maybe I’m not,” he answered.

I thought for a second and then I said, “Say, guy, you want some o’ me?” And I doubled up both fists.

“I got no time for fightin’ now, ’cause I’m getting in the parade,” said the guy and before I could spit through my teeth he was gone.

“Black and White. Unite and Fight,” said a sign a white guy was carryin’ and I could read every letter.

I went up to a guy and said, “Mister, I ain’t got a
goddamn
thing,” and he looked the other way.

“I’ll get McGinnes after you,” I said, and the guy said, “Who’s McGinnes?”

Consultation free, I thought, only I didn’t know where to go.

“If I could just get some chippie to marry me,” I thought, “I bet I could get on relief.”

I kept thinking of them Black and White signs all morning, till it stopped raining.

And in the afternoon I thought, “The trouble with the whole works is Jews an’ Niggers. That’s why I’m down and out.”

Right before dark I ran into Sully, selling a newspaper called
The American Progress
, with big red headlines on it. “It’s for Long,” Sully told me. “You could sell too if you wanted.”

So that’s what I’m doing now. It’s a better job than the guy with the books has got.

Each day I go down to the dime burlesque, to watch the mulatto girl. She dances third from the left, her eyes half closed, while old men lean forward in their seats. This is deep in the heart of the city, where every man seems to go alone and every woman walks quietly. The mulatto girl dances slowly, without effort, with the stage-dust rising uneasily beneath her bare feet. Ten hours a day she breathes this dust, and on Saturday nights puts in an extra two hours. This is a vast and terrible city, with small lights burning all in a row. Within their gleam the ragged men wait, the men from the farms that are mortgaged now and the men from the mines that long since closed down. The men wait in a row beneath the lamps, and the mulatto girl sways slowly.

On South State Street are many rooms, and in each one somebody lives. Someone who sells razor blades to live, or who works in a button factory, or who dances in a burlesque house. The mulatto girl lives in such a room, three flights up and two doors to the rear. There is no running water here, and in summer the smells hang in the air all down the winding staircase. She walks up slowly, her hands on her hips, counting the steps as she walks. I think that when she reaches the top she pauses and thinks, I am alone in this city now, and all about me are the alone men. They lean forward in their seats, or watch beneath the street lamps, or sit with bowed heads in the saloons.