If He Hollers Let Him Go (26 page)

Someone tried the handle of the door, rattled it. ‘Why is this door locked?’ a voice with authority asked. ‘Is it supposed to be locked?’

‘Nooo, not as I know of,’ another voice replied. The lock was tried again.

‘Is there anyone in there?’ the first voice asked.

My eyes sought Madge’s, warning. Hers were panicky, trapped. Neither of us breathed.

‘I say, is anyone in there?’ the voice asked again. ‘Do you suppose there’s anyone in there, Mr. Nelson?’

‘Well …’ The second voice hesitated, then said, ‘There must be. It’s locked from within.’

The first voice was crisp this time. ‘Open up, this is the Navy inspector.’ It waited. A fist banged on the door. Then it said, ‘Get a burner, Mr. Nelson, we’ll take off the lock.’

I let out my breath, gave Madge a last warning look, then said aloud, ‘Okay, I’ll open up, just a minute.’

Madge came into me from the angle, caught me off guard, flung me toward the bunk. The side of my right leg, just below the knee, clipped against the side of the bunk, broke me into a spinning fall. My head hit against the bulkhead and I sprawled face down on the mattress. I wheeled over, got one foot on the deck, and was coming up when she began to scream.

‘Help! Help! My God, help me! Some white man, help me! I’m being raped.’

I saw the stretch and pop of her lips, the tautening of her throat muscles, the distortion and constriction of her face, the flare of her, nostrils and the bucking of her eyes with a weird stark clarity as if her face were ten feet high. I was in the middle of a breath and the air got rock-hard in my lungs, like frozen steam, and wouldn’t budge. My whole body got rigid and my head swelled as if it would explode. My eyes felt as if they were five times their natural size; as if they were bursting in their sockets, popping out of my head. Then cold numbing terror swept over me in a paralysing wave.

‘Stop, nigger! Don’t, nigger! Nigger, don’t! Oh, please don’t kill me, nigger… .’

I heard the sudden shouts from outside; the banging on the door, the startled curses, the savage commands. ‘Open up this goddamn door, you black bastard! Open up, I say, or by God—’ The confused orders, ‘Get a torch! Get a sledge hammer! Call that chipper over here.’ Heard the scuffling sounds of abrupt activity. Footsteps running, going and coming. New voices. More shouts.

But my mind could not rationalize it, could get no sense out of it. I could see and hear but could not move.

I watched Madge fumble at the latch, rattle it. She slammed against the door once but didn’t open it. From without it sounded as if we were struggling, brought on a new chorus of pleading. Then she turned and sprang toward me, rolled me over on the bunk, beat at me with her fists, clawed at my face, scratched me with her nails, bit me on the arm.

Abruptly a raw wild panic exploded within me. The overwhelming fear of being caught with a white woman came out in me in a great white flame. I gave one great push, threw her off of me and half-way across the room, jumped to my feet, grabbed at the first thing I touched, and leaped at her to beat out her brains. She had landed off balance and when I hit at her she ducked, went sprawling on her back on the deck. I went to swing again, slipped, and my foot sailed in the air and I sat down on the end of my spine on the iron deck. Pain shot up my spine like a needle, shocked the fury out of me. I braced my hands on the deck, pushed to my feet. She lay there without moving and looked up at me. But there was no fear in her face.

I stood trembling in a strange bewilderment. The din of activity from without vaguely penetrating my consciousness—the shouts, the threats, the pleas—had no meaning in my mind. My reason was shattered; my senses outraged.

There were only the two of us in pressing chaos. Looking at each other; our eyes locked together as in a death embrace; black and white in both our minds; not hating each other; just feeling extreme outrage. I felt buck-naked and powerless, stripped of my manhood and black against the whole white world.

Then I came out of it. Sanity returned. I started toward the door to open it. ‘Wait, I’ll let you in,’ I shouted above the din. ‘Wait, this woman is crazy!’

I touched the latch; snatched my hand away. It was burning hot. ‘Wait, goddamnit!’ I shouted, looking around at Madge. She hadn’t moved; she lay on the deck in a daze. Her mouth was half open and her eyes looked glazed. I thought for a moment she was dead.

Sparks showered into the room where the burner had cut through. I stepped over and shook her to see if she was alive, fighting against panic. Without moving she said in a low flat voice, ‘I’m gonna get you lynched, you nigger bastard.’

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the door swinging inward; people were surging into the room from the companionway. I saw a hundred million white faces, distorted with rage.

For one fleeting moment I tried to talk. ‘Goddamnit, listen,’ I shouted.

A fist in my mouth cut it off. The sight of one hard hating face across my vision shook loose my reason again. Now I was moved by a rage, impelled by it, set into motion by it, lacerated by it. I started hitting, kicking, butting, biting, pushing. I carried the mob outside into the companionway, striking at faces, kicking at bodies. Somebody fell and I stepped on him. The soft roll of muscle over bone sent goose flesh through me. I looked up, saw a white guy wielding a sledge hammer, his face sculptured in unleashed fury. A flat cold wave of terror spread out underneath my skull, freezing the roots of my hair.

I wheeled into the tight mob of bodies, half squatted, put my arms about three pairs of legs, straightened up with the strength of insanity. I threw them back over my shoulder in the direction of the guy with the sledge, started a mad surging rush forward that got me through to the midship companionway; went into a flailing spin that freed me for an instant, started down the jack ladder toward the engine room.

A guy leaned over the hole and swung at my head with a ballpeen hammer. I was going down forward with my hands on the railings and saw the hammer coming. It didn’t look like a hard blow; it looked as though it floated into me. I saw the guy’s face, not particularly malevolent, just disfigured, a white man hitting at a nigger running by. But I couldn’t do a thing; I couldn’t let go the railing to get my hands up; couldn’t even duck. I didn’t feel the blow; just the explosion starting at a point underneath my skull and filling my head with a great flaming roar. And then what seemed like falling a million miles through space and hitting something hard to splatter into pieces.

I came to once as I lay crumpled on the deck at the bottom of the ladder. A lot of guys were kicking me. Then again when I was being lifted from the ambulance on a stretcher. I was in a sort of half and half state when the doctors began working on me. I remember swallowing some pills and getting a shot in the arm; and I felt it when they shaved my head and clamped the metal stitches in my skull. They were doing something to my mouth when I just drifted on away.

When I came to again I was in the room back of minor surgery, lying on a cot. My mouth felt dry, cottony; and my head throbbed with a steady ache.

Then I saw the guard sitting in a chair by the door, puffing slowly on a pipe. He was huge, tremendous, the biggest man I’d ever seen, with a squarish, knotty, weather-reddened face, and small colourless eyes, cold and inscrutable. When he saw I was looking at him he got on a look of joviality that didn’t change the expression of his eyes at all.

‘You’re a lucky boy,’ he said in a big intimidating voice, and got that phoney lipless smile that the coppers down at the old Thirty-seventh Street station in Cleveland were famous for when they beat a Negro half to death with a loaded hose. ‘No bones broke. All in one piece. Just skinned up a little.’

I looked away from him without replying, threw back the covers, propped myself up on my elbows. The slight movement sent the pain through my body. I was nude. My knees, elbows, and one wrist were bandaged and taped and I was splotched all over with mercurochrome. I reached for my head, felt the thick turban of bandages. My face felt raw and my lips were swollen several times their natural size. I explored with my tongue and felt teeth out in front but I couldn’t tell how many. I hurt in the groin as if I was ruptured.

I lay back and closed my eyes and tried to remember just what had happened. But my brain was fuzzy. It wouldn’t come back clear. I remembered Madge screaming. Then I’d gone panicky. Then I remembered her lying there on the deck, saying, 
‘I’m gonna get you lynched …’
Well, she got me lynched all right.

But something was missing. Something important. Then suddenly I knew what it was. I hadn’t even tried to rape her; I’d been trying to get away from her. I’d gone up there to case the new job for the gang and had run into her accidentally. She’d kept me there, cornered me, hadn’t let me go. I’d wanted to go, but she hadn’t let me. She couldn’t get away with that. This wasn’t Georgia.

I opened my eyes, propped myself up on my elbows again, and said, ‘I didn’t bother that woman. She’s crazy!’ My voice was a lisp. My lips felt like two big balloon tyres beating together. I had to push the words half formed through the gap in my teeth.

‘I don’t have nothing to do with that, sonny,’ the guard said jovially. ‘You’ll have to tell it to somebody who knows more about it than me.’

‘I’ll tell anybody,’ I lisped belligerently.

‘There ain’t anybody to tell,’ he said. ‘Now ain’t that hell?’

I’d see somebody first thing in the morning, I thought, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed and sitting up. I was dizzy and had to brace myself with my hands. Hell, I’d see the president of the company. I’d get it straightened out. I wouldn’t make any charges against the fellows for beating me up; I’d let that go. But I’d make the company pay my hospital bill, pay for fixing my teeth. And I’d get that bitch fired if it was the last thing I did. She couldn’t get away with that, even if she was a white woman. But I wasn’t worried, wasn’t in any particular hurry.

‘You wanna get dressed now?’ the guard asked, nodding toward a cabinet. ‘Your clothes are in there.’

When I stood up to go after them my knees wobbled; I had to catch hold of the foot of the bed to keep from falling. I felt out of balance, uncoupled, like a little tin soldier out of whack. When I took down my things I noticed dried blood about the collar of my coveralls and the upper part of my underwear shirt. I must have bled like a hog, I thought. Leaning against the cabinet to steady myself, I got into my underwear and coveralls without tearing off the bandages. But when I bent over to draw on my socks I almost fell forward on my face. And my ankles were swollen so I couldn’t lace up my boots.

The guard sat there watching me curiously. ‘Just as good as new,’ he remarked jovially. ‘By God, I never saw a man what could take so much punishment.’

I didn’t see my watch, billfold, key ring, leather jacket, tin hat, or identifications. ‘Where are my other things?’ I asked, lisping the words carefully.

He chuckled. ‘That tap on the noggin ain’t bothered your memory any,’ he said, pulling my watch, keys, and billfold from his pocket. ‘Here you are, sonny. You’re lucky somebody was good enough to turn ‘em in.’

I didn’t ask about my badges and identifications; I was through, I wouldn’t need them any more anyway. The crystal of my watch was broken and it had stopped. I checked my keys; they were all there. I thought of my brass tool checks but didn’t ask about them. I’d get all that straightened out in the morning. Then I looked to see if anything had been taken from my billfold. My driver’s licence, draft classification, a small snapshot of Alice, and the other papers were there, but my money, two tens and four ones, was gone. I didn’t ask about it either. I’d make the whole goddamned bunch sorry for everything that had happened, I resolved, stuffing all of it into my pocket.

‘That’s a pretty gal’s picture you got there,’ the guard observed. ‘Is she white?’

I didn’t reply.

‘Better get your medicine too,’ he said.

I looked on the bedside stand, saw a bottle of brown pills and a paper cup of water that had been sitting there until bubbles had formed in it. I picked up the bottle, dropped it into my other pocket.

The guard stood up. In his uniform, the regular olive drab with the Sam Browne belt and the auxiliary police insignia on his sleeve, he looked impressive, six feet four or more, and a good two-fifty pounds. ‘Wanna go ‘long with me now?’ he said, opening the door into minor surgery.

I took a deep breath and went out ahead of him, weak and wobbly. There were two white-clad doctors, a nurse, and several patients in minor surgery. They stopped in the middle of what they were doing to stare at me. I looked straight ahead, stepped out into the yard.

It was dark; I had an idea it was pretty late. On the ground hundreds of lights made a sort of sketchy daylight, but overhead it was night. Here and there the arcs of welders were bluewhite flashes. The shipways were to my back, big dark eerie shapes with a million lights; but I didn’t look about. Workers scurried about, trucks moved by, the noise was still there; the work went on. I had an idea it was the graveyard shift.

‘We’ll go over to the truck gate,’ the guard said.

I headed in that direction; he fell in beside me. When we came to the glass-enclosed guards’ room he held open the door. I went inside. There was a slanting draftsman’s desk against the window toward the entrance, littered with pads, papers, temporary badges, and the usual forms gatekeepers have to make out before permitting vehicles to enter.

Two heavy-set gatekeepers in blue uniforms with holstered pistols sat on high stools, their feet hooked in the rungs and their elbows propped on the desk, listening to a short, pudgy, grey-haired man in the uniform of a guard captain who stood before them. He had a round rosy face and twinkling grey eyes, but at sight of me his eyes got hard.

‘That the boy?’ he asked the guard.

‘This is him,’ the guard said.

For a moment all of them looked at me curiously. Then one of the gatekeepers chuckled. ‘Damn if they didn’t beat hell out of you,’ he said.