If He Hollers Let Him Go (15 page)

I woke up overcome with a feeling of absolute impotence; I laid there remembering the dream in every detail. Memory of my fight with Alice came back, and then I saw Madge’s kidneyshaped mouth, brutal at the edges, spitting out the word ‘Nigger’; and something took a heavy hammer and nailed me to the bed.

I was scared to think about my gang; I started drawing in my emotions, tying them, whittling them off, nailing them down. I was so tight inside, I was like wood. My breath wouldn’t go any deeper than my throat and I didn’t know whether I could talk at all. I had to get ready to die before I could get out of the house.

When I picked up Homer and Conway they didn’t say anything; they just looked at me out of the sides of their eyes. Then I stopped for Pigmeat, Smitty, and Johnson, and they had their usual morning squabble.

Finally Smitty asked, ‘Where was you yesditty, Bob?’

I had to think about it before I answered. ‘I was off,’ I said.

Pigmeat turned to Smitty and said, ‘Now that’s that man’s own business. S’pose he tell you he was with you mama.’

‘I don’t play no dozens, boy,’ Smitty growled. ‘You young punks don’t know how far to go with a man.’

I went out Central trying my brakes, timing my stops so thin and my turns so tight that if any chump in front of me had dug to a sudden stop I’d have climbed up on him.

Conway leaned across Homer and said, ‘What’s the matter, chief? You look down in the mouth this morning. You old lady quit you?’

I felt fragile as overheated glass; one rough touch and I’d burst into a thousand pieces. ‘Could happen,’ I said in a thin shallow voice out of the top of my mouth.

‘Bob’s got his own troubles, nigger, why don’t you worry ‘bout yours?’ Pigmeat said.

Conway turned around and gave him a dirty look. ‘You getting too big for yo’ britches,’ he said.

A big air-brake Diesel gripped the ground in front and I almost went inside of it. I braked so short I scrambled my riders.

Homer rubbed his head where he’d butted into the windshield and said, ‘Bob sho ain’t got his mind on driving this morning.’

‘What Bob got his mind on this morning would get yo’ black ass hung where you come from,’ Johnson said.

‘Where who come from?’

‘You, nigger, I s’pose you from Alaska.’

‘Now Bob ain’t said a word,’ Smitty said. ‘If he was to cuss you somoleons out and put you out his car you’d say he was a bad fellow.’

Conway got it out in the open. ‘Say, chief, what’s that grey boy doing in yo’ job? He say he taking your place. You ain’t gonna quit us, chief?’

That silenced them; they knew the story, but they all waited to hear what I had to say.

‘I had to get a cracker chick told yesterday—or rather, day before yesterday—and Mac demoted me,’ I said.

‘What to, a helper?’ Pigmeat wanted to know.

‘No, a mechanic,’ I said.

‘You know they can’t ‘mote the man to no helper,’ Homer said. ‘What the union gonna say?’

‘What the union gonna say? What you think they gonna say? They white too, ain’t they?’

‘Did she go to the man herself?’ Conway asked.

I found suddenly I’d been holding my breath. I let it out and said, ‘I suppose so.’

‘That’s what I tell this lil old boy,’ Conway said, talking about Pigmeat. ‘Always messing with those white women. All they good for is trouble.’

‘Was she that big Gawga pink work as a tacker?’ Pigmeat asked. ‘She in Hank’s gang, ain’t she?’

I didn’t say anything; I didn’t want to talk about it.

‘She always signifying with you,’ he went on. I didn’t know he had noticed; I wondered who else had noticed.

I’d gone away from them; I was playing a game. Whenever I saw some white people crossing the street in front of me I stepped on the gas and blew. If they jumped they could make it; if they didn’t I’d run ‘em down. All of ‘em jumped. I felt a dead absolute quiet inside; I didn’t give a damn whether they jumped or not.

‘That’s all you niggers think of,’ Smitty was saying. ‘I think it’s damn shame they can Bob for something like that…’ You’re probably laughing like hell, you Uncle Tom bastard, I thought to myself. ‘Those grey boys cuss them white women out going and coming,’ he went on.

‘Bob ain’t no grey boy,’ Johnson said.

‘What make Bob so mad is he ain’t got to get none of it yet,’ Pigmeat said.

‘What Bob shoulda did is to gone to the man,’ Smitty said sanctimoniously.

‘Man, where this nigger come from?’ Pigmeat said. ‘Man, where is yo’ grey kinks and yo’ rusty frock? Uncle Tom from way back.’

‘What make me so mad,’ Johnson said, ‘is the white folks got it on you at the start, so why do they have to give you any crap on top of it? That’s what make me so mad.’

I turned on the radio. One of Erskine Hawkins’ old platters, ‘I’m in a Lowdown Groove,’ was playing. Alice and I had discovered it together shortly after we’d met at the Memo on the Avenue. I welled up inside, turned it off. But the words kept on in my mind. I got a hard, grinding nonchalance. To hell with everybody, I thought. To hell with the world; if there were any more little worlds, to hell with them too.

Conway was saying, ‘We oughta get together and go to the man,’ when I wheeled into the parking lot at Atlas. ‘Reason niggers ain’t got nothing now, they don’t stick together.’

I found Tebbel already down in the stuffy compartment when I got there. He was Johnny on the spot, but when he started collecting the time cards I said, ‘I’ll take ‘em.’

He jumped. ‘Oh, I didn’t see you,’ he said. ‘How you making out?’

‘Fine,’ I said without looking at him.

He stood there for a moment. Then he said, ‘What’re the boys doing today?’

I turned and looked at him then. He had a nice friendly smile on his face and was trying to co-operate. But I wasn’t for it. ‘They’re doing what I tell ‘em to as long as I’m in charge,’ I said in a hard level voice, looking through him.

He reddened slightly but didn’t retreat. ‘Kelly said he wanted them to—’

‘Damn that!’

The other workers took their cue from me. ‘Come on, let’s get together and back Bob up,’ Red said. ‘Let’s go down and see the man and tell him what’s what.’

‘Look, fellows, let me handle it,’ I said, but they weren’t listening to me now.

They were going to have their say about it so they gathered around Red. All of them joined but Ben; he went about his work and had nothing to do with them.

Each one had a different idea. Red said they all ought to quit. Smitty was for talking to Mac. Pigmeat said they ought to mess up the work so it’d have to be done over. Conway thought they ought to form a committee to go see some of the big shots in the front office. George said they ought to organize all the coloured workers in the yard and strike.

Tebbel stood at a distance, red and undecided. I knew he wanted to tell them to go to work; I wondered if he would try it. I didn’t say anything to them; I let ‘em beef. I didn’t care whether they worked or not; I didn’t look for ‘em to climb any limbs for me; but it made me feel good that they thought about it.

Two white pipe fitters came into the compartment, but they went about their work without asking any questions. They had a tall, angular, coal-black fellow as their helper. He leaned over Homer’s shoulder and asked him what it was all about. Homer told him. He came closer, was included.

All of a sudden Pigmeat snatched up a hammer and smashed a cast-iron fire pot. It broke into pieces, rang like a gong in my brain. Everybody jumped. Pieces flew through the air; one hit one of the white pipe fitters on the leg. Kerosene ran all over the deck.

‘I wish that was a peckerwood’s head,’ Pigmeat said. His face was distorted, uncontrolled.

Then everybody reacted at once. The white pipe fitter glanced at Pigmeat, reached over, knocked the piece of iron out of the way, went back to work. Ben stopped work just long enough to give Pigmeat a cold, sardonic look.

Red said, ‘Don’t nobody light no match until these fumes blow outa here.’

Tebbel hurried out. Then suddenly Pigmeat grinned. ‘I scared hell outa that sonabitch, didn’t I?’

George said, ‘I don’t know whether you scared hell outa him. You sure scared hell outa me.’

Conway was tearing at his vest, trying to get a burning cigarette out he’d dropped from his mouth. He finally got it, stamped it out, then turned to Pigmeat and said, ‘The man’ll come up here and kick your ass.’

‘Kick whose ass?’

‘Well now, ef’n it come to that,’ Arkansas said, ‘I s’pect just usses in here could whip all these pecks on board this ship.’

Ben had to look up again. One of the white pipe fitters stole a glance at Arkansas.

George said, ‘Man, you are a fool. These peckerwoods’ll come up here and beat all the black off’n us. I bet you be the first one to holler calf rope.’

‘What you bet?’ Arkansas said. ‘You ast anybody ‘bout me. I’ll fight a peck till—’

‘Aw, man, hush!’ George cut him off. ‘The worst whipping I ever got come from me thinking I could whip every grey boy I seen. I was in Chicago, man, and I was going down to the A.C. on Thirty-fifth Street, learning how to duke. Man, I was bad, I was beating up all the little studs on State Street. Man, I dared them chumps to open their chops. Then I run into this grey boy over on Clark and we got to jawing ‘bout a ruff we found on the street. He said it was hisn and I said it was mine and we went back in a vacant lot to settle it. Well, man, I got to dancing around, showing off my footwork I’d learned at the gym and hitting this grey boy anywhere I wanted. All he’d do was just duck his head and bore in. Man, I beat this chump till he was bloody as a hog, and he kept coming in. Man, I got so tired from beating this chump I couldn’t get my hands up no higher’n my belt and this chump kept gritting his teeth and ducking his head and coming in. Just about time I’d decided to broom, this chump hauled off and hit me a haymaker and killed me a year. I’m telling you, man—’

‘Thass you,’ Arkansas said. ‘That ain’t me.’

They had all just about got over their defiance and were about ready to go to work when Tebbel came in with Kelly. Then they just stood there, milling around, looking sullen. Kelly walked around and looked at the work; he stopped and looked at the broken fire pot. Finally he came up to me and said, ‘What’s the matter these boys aren’t working, Bob?’

I looked at him. ‘Ask ‘em,’ I said. I didn’t care whether he fired me or not.

He reddened and looked away. His gaze rested on Smitty. ‘What’s the matter you aren’t working?’ he said.

‘I was just waiting to ask Bob ‘bout this here joint,’ Smitty said. ‘I’m going to work right now.’

Pigmeat said loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Nigger, you got crap up your back.’

Kelly said hurriedly, ‘Well, you better all get to work, I’m telling you,’ and beat it.

They were all silent for a moment and then Peaches said, ‘Bob done just right. There’s more’n one of these dirty white tramps needs cussing out. Course it’s too bad he lost his job,’ she added lamely.

‘What he oughta done ‘stead of cussing her out is to trick her some kinda way,’ Homer said. ‘He shoulda slipped up to Hank and said she was lorating him, or somp’n like that, and get Hank down on her. Ain’t no need of none of us running round here fighting these white folks. All you gotta do is get ‘em fighting ‘mongst themselves. Look what they doing in Europe right this minute, killing each other off like flies.’

‘That reminds me of when I used to be a water boy for a bunch of Irish ganny dancers in Arkinsaw,’ Conway said. ‘They was laying track for the Yellow Dog and it was hotter’n a West Virginia coke oven. Them paddies kept holl’ing, “Come on, coon, with the water! Water Jack, you oughta been here and halfway back! Where’s that black coon?” They made me mad but I knew I couldn’t fit ‘em all. So when I’d go atter a bucket of water I’d pee in it every time.’

‘Conway!’ Peaches said.

Conway gave a shamefaced grin. ‘Well, that’s the truth,’ he said. ‘Every time.’

The three girls withdrew to the end of the compartment, not out of hearing distance but far enough so no one would think they were included.

I took a deep breath and thought, Well, here it goes. I hadn’t expected anything anyway, so I wasn’t disappointed. I’d known from the first that, whatever was done for me, I’d have to do it for myself. But I still stuck around; I didn’t want the guys to think I didn’t appreciate their thinking about me anyway.

Murphy took the ball and started telling dirty jokes. That morning was the first time I’d seen him; he’d been transferred into the gang yesterday when I’d been absent. He was a medium-sized, stoop-shouldered, lean-framed guy, black as the ace of spades, with a long, narrow, egg-shaped head getting bald at the extreme back tip, and eyes that slanted upward at the edges like an Oriental’s.

George bobbed his head at Murphy and winked at me. ‘Come in talking and ain’t let down.’

Johnson said, ‘We oughtn’t be telling them dirty jokes. There’s ladies present.’

‘We ain’t listening to you,’ Zula Mae said. ‘We’s talking ‘bout you.’

Two or three of them looked around to see if Tebbel was still there. He was standing off to one side, listening to everything.

Pigmeat said, ‘That Willie! When he was a little baby he was so black his mama used to have to put flour on his mouth to tell where to feed him.’

‘That’s all right,’ Willie said. ‘You was so black you was four days old before anybody knew you was here.’

‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ George said. ‘I beg you desist.’

The three girls started out. It was getting too rough for them. When Peaches passed Willie she pinched him on the leg with a pair of pliers. He jumped and yelled.

‘That’s what you get,’ Johnson said.

Then all of a sudden Arkansas asked, ‘Kin you run?’

‘Who you talking to?’ Johnson asked.

‘You,’ Arkansas said.

‘Sure, I can run,’ Johnson said. ‘Can you run?’

‘Kin I run!’ Arkansas echoed. ‘Takes three to tell it.’

After a moment Johnson asked dutifully, ‘What they say?’

‘One to say, “Here he come!” The other to say, “Where he at?” The third to say, “I didn’t seen him!” ‘ Arkansas didn’t crack a smile.

‘That reminds me of the coloured fellow what went down to the river—’ Smitty began.