Invisible Man (24 page)

“Oh, I see,” he said, sitting back and forming his mouth into a thin-lipped circle. “You’re very ambitious.”

“I guess I am, sir. But I’m willing to work hard.”

“Ambition is a wonderful force,” he said, “but sometimes it can be blinding … On the other hand, it can make you successful—like my father …” A new edge came into his voice and he frowned and looked down at his hands, which were trembling. “The only trouble with ambition is that it sometimes blinds one to realities … Tell me, how many of these letters do you have?”

“I had about seven, sir,” I replied, confused by his new turn. “They’re—”

“Seven!”
He was suddenly angry.

“Yes, sir, that was all he gave me …”

“And how many of these gentlemen have you succeeded in seeing, may I ask?”

A sinking feeling came over me. “I haven’t seen any of them personally, sir.”

“And this is your last letter?”

“Yes, sir, it is, but I expect to hear from the others … They said—”

“Of course you will, and from all seven. They’re all loyal Americans.”

There was unmistakable irony in his voice now, and I didn’t know what to say.

“Seven,” he repeated mysteriously. “Oh, don’t let me upset you,” he said with an elegant gesture of self-disgust. “I had a difficult session with my analyst last evening and the slightest thing is apt to set me off. Like an alarm clock without control— Say!” he said, slapping his palms against his thighs. “What on earth does that mean?” Suddenly he was in a state. One side of his face had begun to twitch and swell.

I watched him light a cigarette, thinking, What on earth is this all about?

“Some things are just too unjust for words,” he said, expelling a plume of smoke, “and too ambiguous for either speech or ideas. By the way, have you ever been to the Club Calamus?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it, sir,” I said.

“You haven’t? It’s very well known. Many of my Harlem friends go there. It’s a rendezvous for writers, artists and all kinds of celebrities. There’s nothing like it in the city, and by some strange twist it has a truly continental flavor.”

“I’ve never been to a night club, sir. I’ll have to go there to see what it’s like after I’ve started earning some money,” I said, hoping to bring the conversation back to the problem of jobs.

He looked at me with a jerk of his head, his face beginning to twitch again.

“I suppose I’ve been evading the issue again—as always. Look,” he burst out impulsively. “Do you believe that two people, two strangers who have never seen one another before can speak with utter frankness and sincerity?”

“Sir?”

“Oh, damn! What I mean is, do you believe it possible for us, the two of us, to throw off the mask of custom and manners that insulate man from man, and converse in naked honesty and frankness?”

“I don’t know what you mean exactly, sir,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“I …”

“Of course, of course. If I could only speak plainly! I’m confusing you. Such frankness just isn’t possible because all our motives are impure. Forget what I just said. I’ll try to put it this way—and remember this, please …”

My head spun. He was addressing me, leaning forward confidentially, as though he’d known me for years, and I remembered something my grandfather had said long ago:
Don’t let no white man tell you his business, ’cause after he tells you he’s liable to git shame he tole it to you and then he’ll hate you. Fact is, he was hating you all the time …

“… I want to try to reveal a part of reality that is most important to you—but I warn you, it’s going to hurt. No, let me finish,” he said, touching my knee lightly and quickly removing his hand as I shifted my position.

“What I want to do is done very seldom, and, to be honest, it wouldn’t happen now if I hadn’t sustained a series of impossible frustrations. You see—well, I’m a thwarted … Oh, damn, there I go again, thinking only of myself … We’re both frustrated, understand? Both of us, and I want to help you …”

“You mean you’ll let me see Mr. Emerson?”

He frowned. “Please don’t seem so happy about it, and don’t leap to conclusions. I want to help, but there is a tyranny involved …”

“A
tyranny?”
My lungs tightened.

“Yes. That’s a way of putting it. Because to help you I must disillusion you …”

“Oh, I don’t think I mind, sir. Once I see Mr. Emerson, it’ll be up to me. All I want to do is speak to him.”

“Speak
to him,” he said, getting quickly to his feet and mashing his cigarette into the tray with shaking fingers. “No one speaks to him.
He
does the speaking—” Suddenly he broke off. “On second thought, perhaps you’d better leave me your address and I’ll mail you Mr. Emerson’s reply in the morning. He’s really a very busy man.”

His whole manner had changed.

“But you said …” I stood up, completely confused. Was he having fun with me? “Couldn’t you let me talk to him for just five minutes?” I pleaded. “I’m sure I can convince him that I’m worthy of a job. And if there’s someone who has tampered with my letter, I’ll prove my identity … Dr. Bledsoe would—”

“Identity! My God! Who has any identity anymore anyway? It isn’t so perfectly simple. Look,” he said with an anguished gesture. “Will you trust me?”

“Why, yes, sir, I trust you.”

He leaned forward. “Look,” he said, his face working violently, “I was trying to tell you that I know many things about you—not you personally, but fellows like you. Not much, either, but still more than the average. With us it’s still Jim and Huck Finn. A number of my friends are jazz musicians, and I’ve been around. I know the conditions under which you live— Why go back, fellow? There is so much you could do here where there is more freedom. You won’t find what you’re looking for when you return anyway; because so much is involved that you can’t possibly know. Please don’t misunderstand me; I don’t say all this to impress you. Or to give myself some kind of sadistic catharsis. Truly, I don’t. But I do know this world you’re trying to contact—all its virtues and all its unspeakables— Ha, yes, unspeakables. I’m afraid my father considers
me
one of the unspeakables … I’m Huckleberry, you see …”

He laughed drily as I tried to make sense of his ramblings.
Huckleberry?
Why did he keep talking about that kid’s story? I was puzzled and annoyed that he could talk to me this way because he stood between me and a job, the campus …

“But I only want a job, sir,” I said. “I only want to make enough money to return to my studies.”

“Of course, but surely you suspect there is more to it than that. Aren’t you curious about what lies behind the face of things?”

“Yes, sir, but I’m mainly interested in a job.”

“Of course,” he said, “but life isn’t that simple …”

“But I’m not bothered about all the other things, whatever they are, sir. They’re not for me to interfere with and I’ll be satisfied to go back to college and remain there as long as they’ll allow me to.”

“But I want to help you do what is best,” he said. “What’s
best
, mind you. Do you wish to do what’s best for yourself?”

“Why, yes, sir. I suppose I do …”

“Then forget about returning to the college. Go somewhere else …”

“You mean leave?”

“Yes, forget it …”

“But you said that you would help me!”

“I did and I am—”

“But what about seeing Mr. Emerson?”

“Oh, God! Don’t you see that it’s best that you do
not
see him?”

Suddenly I could not breathe. Then I was standing, gripping my brief case. “What have you got against me?” I blurted. “What did I ever do to you? You never intended to let me see him. Even though I presented my letter of introduction. Why? Why? I’d never endanger
your
job—”

“No, no, no! Of course not,” he cried, getting to his feet. “You’ve misunderstood me. You mustn’t do that! God, there’s too much misunderstanding. Please don’t think I’m trying to prevent you from seeing my—from seeing Mr. Emerson out of prejudice …”

“Yes, sir, I do,” I said angrily. “I was sent here by a friend of his. You read the letter, but still you refuse to let me see him, and now you’re trying to get me to leave college. What kind of man are you, anyway? What have you got against me? You, a northern white man!”

He looked pained. “I’ve done it badly,” he said, “but you must believe that I am trying to advise you what is best for you.” He snatched off his glasses.

“But
I
know what’s best for me,” I said. “Or at least Dr. Bledsoe does, and if I can’t see Mr. Emerson today, just tell me when I can and I’ll be here …”

He bit his lips and shut his eyes, shaking his head from side to side as though fighting back a scream. “I’m sorry, really sorry that I started all of this,” he said, suddenly calm. “It was foolish of me to try to advise you, but please, you mustn’t believe that I’m against you … or your race. I’m your friend. Some of the finest people I know are Neg—Well, you see, Mr. Emerson is my father.”

“Your father!”

“My father, yes, though I would have preferred it otherwise. But he is, and I could arrange for you to see him. But to be utterly frank, I’m incapable of such cynicism. It would do you no good.”

“But I’d like to take my chances, Mr. Emerson, sir…. This is very important to me. My whole career depends upon it.”

“But you
have
no chance,” he said.

“But Dr. Bledsoe sent me here,” I said, growing more excited. “I
must
have a chance …”

“Dr. Bledsoe,” he said with distaste. “He’s like my … he ought to be horsewhipped! Here,” he said, sweeping up the letter and thrusting it crackling toward me. I took it, looking into his eyes that burned back at me.

“Go on, read it,” he cried excitedly. “Go on!”

“But I wasn’t asking for this,” I said.

“Read it!”

My dear Mr. Emerson:

The bearer of this letter is a former student of ours (I say
former
because he shall never, under any circumstances, be enrolled as a student here again) who has been expelled for a most serious defection from our strictest rules of deportment.

Due, however, to circumstances the nature of which I shall explain to you in person on the occasion of the next meeting of the board, it is to the best interests of the college that this young man have no knowledge of the finality of his expulsion. For it is indeed his hope to return here to his classes in the fall. However, it is to the best interests of the great work which we are dedicated to perform, that he continue undisturbed in these vain hopes while remaining as far as possible from our midst.

This case represents, my dear Mr. Emerson, one of the rare, delicate instances in which one for whom we held great expectations has gone grievously astray, and who in his fall threatens to upset certain delicate relationships between certain interested individuals and the school. Thus, while the bearer is no longer a member of our scholastic family, it is highly important that his severance with the college be executed as painlessly as possible. I beg of you, sir, to help him continue in the direction of that promise which, like the horizon, recedes ever brightly and distantly beyond the hopeful traveler.

Respectfully, I am your humble servant,

A. Hebert Bledsoe

I raised my head. Twenty-five years seemed to have lapsed between his handing me the letter and my grasping its message. I could not believe it, tried to read it again. I could not believe it, yet I had a feeling that it all had happened before. I rubbed my eyes, and they felt sandy as though all the fluids had suddenly dried.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“What did I do? I always tried to do the right thing …”

“
That
you must tell me,” he said. “To what does he refer?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know …”

“But you must have done
something.”

“I took a man for a drive, showed him into the Golden Day to help him when he became ill … I don’t know …”

I told him falteringly of the visit to Trueblood’s and the trip to the Golden Day and of my expulsion, watching his mobile face reflecting his reaction to each detail.

“It’s little enough,” he said when I had finished. “I don’t understand the man. He is very complicated.”

“I only wanted to return and help,” I said.

“You’ll never return. You can’t return now,” he said. “Don’t you see? I’m terribly sorry and yet I’m glad that I gave in to the impulse to speak to you. Forget it; though that’s advice which I’ve been unable to accept myself, it’s still good advice. There is no point in blinding yourself to the truth. Don’t blind yourself …”

I got up, dazed, and started toward the door. He came behind me into the reception room where the birds flamed in the cage, their squawks like screams in a nightmare.

He stammered guiltily, “Please, I must ask you never to mention this conversation to anyone.”

“No,” I said.

“I wouldn’t mind, but my father would consider my revelation the most extreme treason … You’re free of him now. I’m still his prisoner. You have been freed, don’t you understand? I’ve still my battle.” He seemed near tears.

“I won’t,” I said. “No one would believe me. I can’t myself. There must be some mistake. There must be …”

I opened the door.

“Look, fellow,” he said. “This evening I’m having a party at the Calamus. Would you like to join my guests? It might help you—”

“No, thank you, sir. I’ll be all right.”

“Perhaps you’d like to be my valet?”

I looked at him. “No, thank you, sir,” I said.

“Please,” he said. “I really want to help. Look, I happen to know of a possible job at Liberty Paints. My father has sent several fellows there … You should try—”

I shut the door.

The elevator dropped me like a shot and I went out and walked along the street. The sun was very bright now and the people along the walk seemed far away. I stopped before a gray wall where high above me the headstones of a church graveyard arose like the tops of buildings. Across the street in the shade of an awning a shoeshine boy was dancing for pennies. I went on to the corner and got on a bus and went automatically to the rear. In the seat in front of me a dark man in a panama hat kept whistling a tune between his teeth. My mind flew in circles, to Bledsoe, Emerson and back again. There was no sense to be made of it. It was a joke. Hell, it couldn’t be a joke. Yes, it is a joke … Suddenly the bus jerked to a stop and I heard myself humming the same tune that the man ahead was whistling, and the words came back: