Invisible Man (20 page)

N
EXT
morning I was up before the bugle sounded and already on a bench in Dr. Bledsoe’s outer office when he appeared. The jacket of his blue serge suit was open, revealing a heavy gold chain linked between his vest pockets as he moved toward me with a noiseless tread. He passed without seeming to see me. Then as he reached his office door he said, “I haven’t changed my mind about you, boy. And I don’t intend to!”

“Oh, I didn’t come for that, sir,” I said, seeing him turn quickly, looking down upon me, his eyes quizzical.

“Very well, as long as you understand that. Come in and state your business. I have work to do.”

I waited before the desk, watching him place his homburg on an old brass hall-tree. Then he sat before me, making a cage of his fingers and nodding for me to begin.

My eyes burned and my voice sounded unreal. “I’d like to leave this morning, sir,” I said.

His eyes retreated. “Why this morning?” he said. “I gave you until tomorrow. Why the hurry?”

“It isn’t hurry, sir. But since I have to leave I’d like to get going. Staying until tomorrow won’t change matters …”

“No, it won’t,” he said. “That’s good sense and you have my permission. And what else?”

“That’s all, sir, except that I want to say that I’m sorry for what I did and that I hold no hard feelings. What I did was unintentional, but I’m in agreement with my punishment.”

He touched his fingertips together, the thick fingers meeting delicately, his face without expression. “That’s the proper attitude,” he said. “In other words, you don’t intend to become bitter, is that it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, I can see that you’re beginning to learn. That’s good. Two things our people must do is accept responsibility for their acts and avoid becoming bitter.” His voice rose with the conviction of his chapel speeches. “Son, if you don’t become bitter, nothing can stop you from success. Remember that.”

“I shall, sir,” I said. Then my throat thickened and I hoped he would bring up the matter of a job himself.

Instead, he looked at me impatiently and said, “Well? I have work to do. My permission is granted.”

“Well, sir, I’d like to ask a favor of you …”

“Favor,” he said shrewdly. “Now that’s another matter. What kind of favor?”

“It isn’t much, sir. You suggested that you would put me in touch with some of the trustees who would give me a job. I’m willing to do anything.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “yes, of course.”

He seemed to think for a moment, his eyes studying the objects on his desk. Then touching the shackle gently with his index finger, he said, “Very well. When do you intend to leave?”

“By the first bus, if possible, sir.”

“Are you packed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Go get your bags and return here in thirty minutes. My secretary will give you some letters addressed to several friends of the school. One of them will do something for you.”

“Thanks, sir. Thank you very much,” I said as he stood.

“That’s all right,” he said. “The school tries to look out for its own. Only one thing more. These letters will be sealed; don’t open them if you want help. White folk are strict about such things. The letters will introduce you and request them to help you with a job. I’ll do my best for you and it isn’t necessary for you to open them, understand?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of opening them, sir,” I said.

“Very well, the young lady will have them for you when you return. What about your parents, have you informed them?”

“No, sir, it might make them feel too bad if I told them I was expelled, so I plan to write them after I get there and get a job …”

“I see. Perhaps that is best.”

“Well, good-bye, sir,” I said, extending my hand.

“Good-bye,” he said. His hand was large and strangely limp.

He pressed a buzzer as I turned to leave. His secretary brushed past me as I went through the door.

The letters were waiting when I returned, seven of them, addressed to men with impressive names. I looked for Mr. Norton’s but his was not among them. Placing them carefully in my inside pocket, I grabbed my bags and hurried for the bus.

T
he station was empty,

but the ticket window was open and a porter in a gray uniform was pushing a broom. I bought my ticket and climbed into the bus. There were only two passengers seated at the rear of the red and nickel interior, and I suddenly felt that I was dreaming. It was the vet, who gave me a smile of recognition; an attendant sat beside him.

“Welcome, young man,” he called. “Imagine, Mr. Crenshaw,” he said to the attendant, “we have a traveling companion!”

“Morning,” I said reluctantly. I looked around for a seat away from them, but although the bus was almost empty, only the rear was reserved for us and there was nothing to do but move back with them. I didn’t like it; the vet was too much a part of an experience which I was already trying to blot out of my consciousness. His way of talking to Mr. Norton had been a foreshadowing of my misfortune—just as I had sensed that it would be. Now having accepted my punishment, I wanted to remember nothing connected with Trueblood or the Golden Day.

Crenshaw, a much smaller man than Supercargo, said nothing. He was not the type usually sent out to accompany violent cases and I was glad until I remembered that the only violent thing about the vet was his tongue. His mouth had already gotten me into trouble and now I hoped he wouldn’t turn it upon the white driver—
that
was apt to get us killed. What was he doing on the bus anyway? God, how had Dr. Bledsoe worked that fast? I stared at the fat man.

“How did your friend Mr. Norton make out?” he asked.

“He’s okay,” I said.

“No more fainting spells?”

“No.”

“Did he bawl you out for what happened?”

“He didn’t blame me,” I said.

“Good. I think I shocked him more than anything else he saw at the Golden Day. I hoped I hadn’t caused you trouble. School isn’t out so soon, is it?”

“Not quite,” I said lightly. “I’m leaving early in order to take a job.”

“Wonderful! At home?”

“No, I thought I might make more money in New York.”

“New York!” he said. “That’s not a place, it’s a dream. When I was your age it was Chicago. Now all the little black boys run away to New York. Out of the fire into the melting pot. I can see you after you’ve lived in Harlem for three months. Your speech will change, you’ll talk a lot about ‘college,’ you’ll attend lectures at the Men’s House … you might even meet a few white folks. And listen,” he said, leaning close to whisper, “you might even dance with a white girl!”

“I’m going to New York to work,” I said, looking around me. “I won’t have time for that.”

“You will though,” he teased. “Deep down you’re thinking about the freedom you’ve heard about up North, and you’ll try it once, just to see if what you’ve heard is true.”

“There’s other kinds of freedom beside some ole white trash women,” Crenshaw said. “He might want to see him some shows and eat in some of them big restaurants.”

The vet grinned. “Why, of course, but remember, Crenshaw, he’s only going to be there a few months. Most of the time he’ll be working, and so much of his freedom will have to be symbolic. And what will be his or any man’s most easily accessible symbol of freedom? Why, a woman, of course. In twenty minutes he can inflate that symbol with all the freedom which he’ll be too busy working to enjoy the rest of the time. He’ll see.”

I tried to change the subject. “Where are you going?” I asked.

“To Washington, D.C.,” he said.

“Then you’re cured?”

“Cured? There is no cure—”

“He’s being transferred,” said Crenshaw.

“Yes, I’m headed for St. Elizabeth’s,” the vet said. “The ways of authority are indeed mysterious. For a year I’ve tried to get transferred, then this morning I’m suddenly told to pack. I can’t but wonder if our little conversation with your friend Mr. Norton had something to do with it.”

“How could he have anything to do with it?” I said, remembering Dr. Bledsoe’s threat.

“How could he have anything to do with your being on this bus?” he said.

He winked. His eyes twinkled. “All right, forget what I’ve said. But for God’s sake, learn to look beneath the surface,” he said. “Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don’t have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don’t believe in it—that much you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way—part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how
you
operate—I wish I had time to tell you only a fragment. Were an ass-backward people, though. You might even beat the game. It’s really a very crude affair. Really pre-Renaissance—and that game has been analyzed, put down in books. But down here they’ve forgotten to take care of the books and that’s your opportunity. You’re hidden right out in the open—that is, you would be if you only realized it. They wouldn’t see you because they don’t expect you to know anything, since they believe they’ve taken care of that …”

“Man, who’s this
they
you talking so much about?” said Crenshaw.

The vet looked annoyed. “They?” he said. “They? Why, the same
they
we always mean, the white folks, authority, the gods, fate, circumstances—the force that pulls your strings until you refuse to be pulled any more. The big man who’s never there, where you think he is.”

Crenshaw grimaced. “You talk too damn much, man,” he said. “You talk and you don’t say nothing.”

“Oh, I have a lot to say, Crenshaw. I put into words things which most men feel, if only slightly. Sure, I’m a compulsive talker of a kind, but I’m really more clown than fool. But, Crenshaw,” he said, rolling a wand of the newspaper which lay across his knees, “you don’t realize what’s happening. Our young friend is going North for the first time! It
is
for the first time, isn’t it?”

“You’re right,” I said.

“Of course. Were you ever North before, Crenshaw?”

“I been all over the country,” Crenshaw said. “I know how they do wherever they do it. And I know how to act too. Besides, you ain’t going North, not the real North. You going to Washington. It’s just another southern town.”

“Yes, I know,” the vet said, “but think of what this means for the young fellow. He’s going free, in the broad daylight and alone. I can remember when young fellows like him had first to commit a crime, or be accused of one, before they tried such a thing. Instead of leaving in the light of morning, they went in the dark of night. And no bus was fast enough—isn’t that so, Crenshaw?”

Crenshaw stopped unwrapping a candy bar and looked at him sharply, his eyes narrowed. “How the hell I know?” he said.

“I’m sorry, Crenshaw,” the vet said. “I thought that as a man of experience …”

“Well, I ain’t had that experience. I went North of my own free will.”

“But haven’t you
heard
of such cases?”

“Hearing ain’t ’speriencing,” Crenshaw said.

“No, it isn’t. But since there’s always an element of crime in freedom—”

“I ain’t committed no crime!”

“I didn’t mean that you had,” the vet said. “I apologize. Forget it.”

Crenshaw took an angry bite from his candy bar, mumbling, “I wish you’d hurry up and git depressive, maybe then you won’t talk so damn much.”

“Yes, doctor,” the vet said mockingly. “I’ll be depressive soon enough, but while you eat your candy just allow me to chew the rag; there’s a kind of substance in it.”

“Aw, quit trying to show off your education,” Crenshaw said. “You riding back here in the Jim Crow just like me. Besides, you’re a nut.”

The vet winked at me, continuing his flow of words as the bus got under way. We were going at last and I took a last longing look as the bus shot around the highway which circled the school. I turned and watched it recede from the rear window; the sun caught its treetops, bathed its low-set buildings and ordered grounds. Then it was gone. In less than five minutes the spot of earth which I identified with the best of all possible worlds was gone, lost within the wild uncultivated countryside. A flash of movement drew my eye to the side of the highway now, and I saw a moccasin wiggle swiftly along the gray concrete, vanishing into a length of iron pipe that lay beside the road. I watched the flashing past of cotton fields and cabins, feeling that I was moving into the unknown.

The vet and Crenshaw prepared to change busses at the next stop, and upon leaving, the vet placed his hand upon my shoulder and looked at me with kindness, and, as always, he smiled.

“Now is the time for offering fatherly advice,” he said, “but I’ll have to spare you that—since I guess I’m nobody’s father except my own. Perhaps that’s the advice to give you: Be your own father, young man. And remember, the world is possibility if only you’ll discover it. Last of all, leave the Mr. Nortons alone, and if you don’t know what I mean, think about it. Farewell.”

I watched him following Crenshaw through the group of passengers waiting to get on, a short, comical figure turning to wave, then disappearing through the door of the red brick terminal. I sat back with a sigh of relief, yet once the passengers were aboard and the bus under way again, I felt sad and utterly alone.

N
OT UNTIL
we were sailing through the Jersey countryside did my spirits begin to rise. Then my old confidence and optimism revived, and I tried to plan my time in the North. I would work hard and serve my employer so well that he would shower Dr. Bledsoe with favorable reports. And I would save my money and return in the fall full of New York culture. I’d be indisputably the leading campus figure. Perhaps I would attend Town Meeting, which I had heard over the radio. I’d learn the platform tricks of the leading speakers. And I would make the best of my contacts. When I met the big men to whom my letters were addressed I would put on my best manner. I would speak softly, in my most polished tones, smile agreeably and be most polite; and I would remember that if he (“he” meant any of the important gentlemen) should begin a topic of conversation (I would never begin a subject of my own) which I found unfamiliar, I would smile and agree. My shoes would be polished, my suit pressed, my hair dressed (not too much grease) and parted on the right side; my nails would be clean and my armpits well deodorized—you had to watch the last item. You couldn’t allow them to think
all
of us smelled bad. The very thought of my contacts gave me a feeling of sophistication, of worldliness, which, as I fingered the seven important letters in my pocket, made me feel light and expansive.