Invisible Man (23 page)

“You’re going too fast,” I said, beginning to laugh.

“Okay, I’m slowing down. I’ll verse you but I won’t curse you— My name is Peter Wheatstraw, I’m the Devil’s only son-in-law, so roll ’em! You a southern boy, ain’t you?” he said, his head to one side like a bear’s.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, git with it! My name’s Blue and I’m coming at you with a pitchfork. Fe Fi Fo Fum. Who wants to shoot the Devil one, Lord God Stingeroy!”

He had me grinning despite myself. I liked his words though I didn’t know the answer. I’d known the stuff from childhood, but had forgotten it; had learned it back of school …

“You digging me, daddy?” he laughed. “Haw, but look me up sometimes, I’m a piano player and a rounder, a whiskey drinker and a pavement pounder. I’ll teach you some good bad habits. You’ll need ’em. Good luck,” he said.

“So long,” I said and watched him going. I watched him push around the corner to the top of the hill, leaning sharp against the cart handle, and heard his voice arise, muffled now, as he started down.

What does it mean, I thought. I’d heard it all my life but suddenly the strangeness of it came through to me. Was it about a woman or about some strange sphinxlike animal? Certainly his woman,
no
woman, fitted that description. And why describe anyone in such contradictory words? Was it a sphinx? Did old Chaplin-pants, old dusty-butt, love her or hate her; or was he merely singing? What kind of woman could love a dirty fellow like that, anyway? And how could even
he
love her if she were as repulsive as the song described? I moved ahead. Perhaps everyone loved someone; I didn’t know, I couldn’t give much thought to love; in order to travel far you had to be detached, and I had the long road back to the campus before me. I strode along, hearing the cartman’s song become a lonesome, broad-toned whistle now that flowered at the end of each phrase into a tremulous, blue-toned chord. And in its flutter and swoop I heard the sound of a railroad train highballing it, lonely across the lonely night. He was the Devil’s son-in-law, all right, and he was a man who could whistle a three-toned chord … God damn, I thought, they’re a hell of a people! And I didn’t know whether it was pride or disgust that suddenly flashed over me.

At the corner I turned into a drugstore and took a seat at the counter. Several men were bent over plates of food. Glass globes of coffee simmered above blue flames. I could feel the odor of frying bacon reach deep into my stomach as I watched the counterman open the doors of the grill and turn the lean strips over and bang the doors shut again. Above, facing the counter, a blonde, sunburned college girl smiled down, inviting all and sundry to drink a coke. The counterman came over.

“I’ve got something good for you,” he said, placing a glass of water before me. “How about the special?”

“What’s the special?”

“Pork chops, grits, one egg, hot biscuits and coffee!” He leaned over the counter with a look that seemed to say, There, that ought to excite you, boy. Could everyone see that I was southern?

“I’ll have orange juice, toast and coffee,” I said coldly.

He shook his head. “You fooled me,” he said, slamming two pieces of bread into the toaster. “I would have sworn you were a pork chop man. Is that juice large or small?”

“Make it large,” I said.

I looked silently at the back of his head as he sliced an orange, thinking, I should order the special and get up and walk out. Who does he think he is?

A seed floated in the thick layer of pulp that formed at the top of the glass. I fished it out with a spoon and then downed the acid drink, proud to have resisted the pork chop and grits. It was an act of discipline, a sign of the change that was coming over me and which would return me to college a more experienced man. I would be basically the same, I thought, stirring my coffee, yet so subtly changed as to intrigue those who had never been North. It always helped at the college to be a little different, especially if you wished to play a leading role. It made the folks talk about you, try to figure you out. I had to be careful though, not to speak too much like a northern Negro; they wouldn’t like that. The thing to do, I thought with a smile, was to give them hints that whatever you did or said was weighted with broad and mysterious meanings that lay just beneath the surface. They’d love that. And the vaguer you told things, the better. You had to keep them guessing—just as they guessed about Dr. Bledsoe: Did Dr. Bledsoe stop at an expensive white hotel when he visited New York? Did he go on parties with the trustees? And how did he act?

“Man, I bet he has him a fine time. They tell me when Ole Doc gets to New York he don’t stop for the red lights. Say he drinks his good red whiskey and smokes his good black cigars and forgets all about you ole know-nothing-Negroes down here on the campus. Say when he gets up North he makes everybody call him
Mister
Doctor Bledsoe.”

I smiled as the conversation came back to my mind. I felt good. Perhaps it was all to the best that I had been sent away. I had learned more. Heretofore all the campus gossip had seemed merely malicious and disrespectful; now I could see the advantage for Dr. Bledsoe. Whether we liked him or not, he was never out of our minds. That was a secret of leadership. Strange I should think of it now, for although I’d never given it any thought before, I seemed to have known it all along. Only here the distance from the campus seemed to make it clear and hard, and I thought it without fear. Here it came to hand just as easily as the coin which I now placed on the counter for my breakfast. It was fifteen cents and as I felt for a nickel I took out another dime, thinking, Is it an insult when one of us tips one of them?

I looked for the counterman, seeing him serving a plate of pork chops and grits to a man with a pale blond mustache, and stared; then I slapped the dime on the counter and left, annoyed that the dime did not ring as loud as a fifty-cent piece.

W
HEN
I reached the door of Mr. Emerson’s office it occurred to me that perhaps I should have waited until the business of the day was under way, but I disregarded the idea and went ahead. My being early would be, I hoped, an indication of both how badly I wanted work, and how promptly I would perform any assignment given me. Besides, wasn’t there a saying that the first person of the day to enter a business would get a bargain? Or was that said only of Jewish business? I removed the letter from my brief case. Was Emerson a Christian or a Jewish name?

Beyond the door it was like a museum. I had entered a large reception room decorated with cool tropical colors. One wall was almost covered by a huge colored map, from which narrow red silk ribbons stretched tautly from each division of the map to a series of ebony pedestals, upon which sat glass specimen jars containing natural products of the various countries. It was an importing firm. I looked around the room, amazed. There were paintings, bronzes, tapestries, all beautifully arranged. I was dazzled and so taken aback that I almost dropped my brief case when I heard a voice say, “And what would your business be?”

I saw the figure out of a collar ad: ruddy face with blond hair faultlessly in place, a tropical weave suit draped handsomely from his broad shoulders, his eyes gray and nervous behind clear-framed glasses.

I explained my appointment. “Oh, yes,” he said. “May I see the letter, please?”

I handed it over, noticing the gold links in the soft white cuffs as he extended his hand. Glancing at the envelope he looked back at me with a strange interest in his eyes and said, “Have a seat, please. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I watched him leave noiselessly, moving with a long hip-swinging stride that caused me to frown. I went over and took a teakwood chair with cushions of emerald-green silk, sitting stiffly with my brief case across my knees. He must have been sitting there when I came in, for on a table that held a beautiful dwarf tree I saw smoke rising from a cigarette in a jade ash tray. An open book, something called
Totem and Taboo
, lay beside it. I looked across to a lighted case of Chinese design which held delicate-looking statues of horses and birds, small vases and bowls, each set upon a carved wooden base. The room was quiet as a tomb—until suddenly there was a savage beating of wings and I looked toward the window to see an eruption of color, as though a gale had whipped up a bundle of brightly colored rags. It was an aviary of tropical birds set near one of the broad windows, through which, as the clapping of wings settled down, I could see two ships plying far out upon the greenish bay below. A large bird began a song, drawing my eyes to the throbbing of its bright blue, red and yellow throat. It was startling and I watched the surge and flutter of the birds as their colors flared for an instant like an unfurled oriental fan. I wanted to go and stand near the cage for a better view, but decided against it. It might seem unbusinesslike. I observed the room from the chair.

These folks are the Kings of the Earth! I thought, hearing the bird make an ugly noise. There was nothing like this at the college museum—or anywhere else that I had ever been. I recalled only a few cracked relics from slavery times: an iron pot, an ancient bell, a set of ankle-irons and links of chain, a primitive loom, a spinning wheel, a gourd for drinking, an ugly ebony African god that seemed to sneer (presented to the school by some traveling millionaire), a leather whip with copper brads, a branding iron with the double letter MM … Though I had seen them very seldom, they were vivid in my mind. They had not been pleasant and whenever I had visited the room I avoided the glass case in which they rested, preferring instead to look at photographs of the early days after the Civil War, the times close to those blind Barbee had described. And I had not looked even at these too often.

I tried to relax; the chair was beautiful but hard. Where had the man gone? Had he shown any antagonism when he saw me? I was annoyed that I had failed to see him first. One had to watch such details. Suddenly there came a harsh cry from the cage, and once more I saw a mad flashing as though the birds had burst into spontaneous flame, fluttering and beating their wings maliciously against the bamboo bars, only to settle down just as suddenly when the door opened and the blond man stood beckoning, his hand upon the knob. I went over, tense inside me. Had I been accepted or rejected?

There was a question in his eyes. “Come in, please,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, waiting to follow him.

“Please,”
he said with a slight smile.

I moved ahead of him, sounding the tone of his words for a sign.

“I want to ask you a few questions,” he said, waving my letter at two chairs.

“Yes, sir?” I said.

“Tell me, what is it that you’re trying to accomplish?” he said.

“I want a job, sir, so that I can earn enough money to return to college in the fall.”

“To your old school?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see.” For a moment he studied me silently. “When do you expect to graduate?”

“Next year, sir. I’ve completed my junior classes …”

“Oh, you have? That’s very good. And how old are you?”

“Almost twenty, sir.”

“A junior at nineteen? You
are
a good student.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, beginning to enjoy the interview.

“Were you an athlete?” he asked.

“No, sir …”

“You have the build,” he said, looking me up and down. “You’d probably make an excellent runner, a sprinter.”

“I’ve never tried, sir.”

“And I suppose it’s silly even to ask what you think of your Alma Mater?” he said.

“I think it’s one of the best in the world,” I said, hearing my voice surge with deep feeling.

“I know, I know,” he said, with a swift displeasure that surprised me.

I became alert again as he mumbled something incomprehensible about “nostalgia for Harvard yard.”

“But what if you were offered an opportunity to finish your work at some other college?” he said, his eyes widening behind his glasses. His smile had returned.

“Another
college?” I asked, my mind beginning to whirl.

“Why, yes, say some school in New England …”

I looked at him speechlessly. Did he mean Harvard? Was this good or bad? Where was it leading? “I don’t know, sir,” I said cautiously. “I’ve never thought about it. I’ve only a year more, and, well, I know everyone at my old school and they know me …”

I came to a confused halt, seeing him look at me with a sigh of resignation. What was on his mind? Perhaps I had been too frank about returning to the college, maybe he was against our having a higher education … But hell, he’s only a secretary … Or
is
he?

“I understand,” he said calmly. “It was presumptuous of me to even suggest another school. I guess one’s college is really a kind of mother and father … a sacred matter.”

“Yes, sir. That’s it,” I said in hurried agreement.

His eyes narrowed. “But now I must ask you an embarrassing question. Do you mind?”

“Why, no, sir,” I said nervously.

“I don’t like to ask this, but it’s quite necessary …” He leaned forward with a pained frown. “Tell me, did you
read
the letter which you brought to Mr. Emerson? This,” he said, taking the letter from the table.

“Why, no, sir! It wasn’t addressed to me, so naturally I wouldn’t think of opening it …”

“Of course not, I know you wouldn’t,” he said, fluttering his hand and sitting erect. “I’m sorry and you must dismiss it, like one of those annoying personal questions you find so often nowadays on supposedly impersonal forms.”

I didn’t believe him. “But was it opened, sir? Someone might have gone into my things …”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. Please forget the question … And tell me, please, what are your plans after graduation?”

“I’m not sure, sir, I’d like to be asked to remain at the college as a teacher, or as a member of the administrative staff. And … Well …”

“Yes? And what else?”

“Well—er, I guess I’d really like to become Dr. Bledsoe’s assistant …”