Invisible Man (31 page)

“Sir?” I said.

“I said, how does that strike you?”

“All right, sir,” I said in an unreal voice. “I’ll be glad to get back to work.”

He looked at the chart, frowning. “You’ll be released, but I’m afraid that you’ll be disappointed about the work,” he said.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“You’ve been through a severe experience,” he said. “You aren’t ready for the rigors of industry. Now I want you to rest, undertake a period of convalescence. You need to become readjusted and get your strength back.”

“But, sir—”

“You mustn’t try to go too fast. You’re glad to be released, are you not?”

“Oh, yes. But how shall I live?”

“Live?” his eyebrows raised and lowered. “Take another job,” he said. “Something easier, quieter. Something for which you’re better prepared.”

“Prepared?” I looked at him, thinking, Is he in on it too? “I’ll take anything, sir,” I said.

“That isn’t the problem, my boy. You just aren’t prepared for work under our industrial conditions. Later, perhaps, but not now. And remember, you’ll be adequately compensated for your experience.”

“Compensated, sir?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “We follow a policy of enlightened humanitarianism; all our employees are automatically insured. You have only to sign a few papers.”

“What kind of papers, sir?”

“We require an affidavit releasing the company of responsibility,” he said. “Yours was a difficult case, and a number of specialists had to be called in. But, after all, any new occupation has its hazards. They are part of growing up, of becoming adjusted, as it were. One takes a chance and while some are prepared, others are not.”

I looked at his lined face. Was he doctor, factory official, or both? I couldn’t get it; and now he seemed to move back and forth across my field of vision, although he sat perfectly calm in his chair.

It came out of itself: “Do you know Mr. Norton, sir?” I said.

“Norton?” His brows knitted. “What Norton is this?”

Then it was as though I hadn’t asked him; the name sounded strange. I ran my hand over my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It occurred to me that you might. He was just a man I used to know.”

“I see. Well”—he picked up some papers—“so that’s the way it is, my boy. A little later perhaps we’ll be able to do something. You may take the papers along if you wish. Just mail them to us. Your check will be sent upon their return. Meanwhile, take as much time as you like. You’ll find that we are perfectly fair.”

I took the folded papers and looked at him for what seemed to be too long a time. He seemed to waver. Then I heard myself say, “Do you know him?” my voice rising.

“Who?”

“Mr. Norton,” I said. “Mr. Norton!”

“Oh, why, no.”

“No,” I said, “no one knows anybody and it was too long a time ago.”

He frowned and I laughed. “They picked poor Robin clean,” I said. “Do you happen to know Bled?”

He looked at me, his head to one side. “Are these people friends of yours?”

“Friends? Oh, yes,” I said, “we’re all good friends. Buddies from way back. But I don’t suppose we get around in the same circles.”

His eyes widened. “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose we do. However, good friends are valuable to have.”

I felt light-headed and started to laugh and he seemed to waver again and I thought of asking him about Emerson, but now he was clearing his throat and indicating that he was finished.

I put the folded papers in my overalls and started out. The door beyond the rows of chairs seemed far away.

“Take care of yourself,” he said.

“And you,” I said, thinking, It’s time, it’s past time.

Turning abruptly, I went weakly back to the desk, seeing him looking up at me with his steady scientific gaze. I was overcome with ceremonial feelings but unable to remember the proper formula. So as I deliberately extended my hand I fought down laughter with a cough.

“It’s been quite pleasant, our little palaver, sir,” I said. I listened to myself and to his answer.

“Yes, indeed,” he said.

He shook my hand gravely, without surprise or distaste. I looked down, he was there somewhere behind the lined face and outstretched hand.

“And now our palaver is finished,” I said. “Good-bye.”

He raised his hand. “Good-bye,” he said, his voice noncommittal.

Leaving him and going out into the paint-fuming air I had the feeling that I had been talking beyond myself, had used words and expressed attitudes not my own, that I was in the grip of some alien personality lodged deep within me. Like the servant about whom I’d read in psychology class who, during a trance, had recited pages of Greek philosophy which she had overheard one day while she worked. It was as though I were acting out a scene from some crazy movie. Or perhaps I was catching up with myself and had put into words feelings which I had hitherto suppressed. Or was it, I thought, starting up the walk, that I was no longer afraid? I stopped, looking at the buildings down the bright street slanting with sun and shade. I
was
no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid. Was that it? I felt light-headed, my ears were ringing. I went on.

Along the walk the buildings rose, uniform and close together. It was day’s end now and on top of every building the flags were fluttering and diving down, collapsing. And I felt that I would fall, had fallen, moved now as against a current sweeping swiftly against me. Out of the grounds and up the street I found the bridge by which I’d come, but the stairs leading back to the car that crossed the top were too dizzily steep to climb, swim or fly, and I found a subway instead.

Things whirled too fast around me. My mind went alternately bright and blank in slow rolling waves. We, he, him—my mind and I—were no longer getting around in the same circles. Nor my body either. Across the aisle a young platinum blonde nibbled at a red Delicious apple as station lights rippled past behind her. The train plunged. I dropped through the roar, giddy and vacuum-minded, sucked under and out into late afternoon Harlem.

W
hen I came out of

the subway, Lenox Avenue seemed to careen away from me at a drunken angle, and I focused upon the teetering scene with wild, infant’s eyes, my head throbbing. Two huge women with spoiled-cream complexions seemed to struggle with their massive bodies as they came past, their flowered hips trembling like threatening flames. Out across the walk before me they moved, and a bright orange slant of sun seemed to boil up and I saw myself going down, my legs watery beneath me, but my head clear, too clear, recording the crowd swerving around me: legs, feet, eyes, hands, bent knees, scuffed shoes, teethy-eyed excitement; and some moving on unhalting.

And the big dark woman saying,
Boy, is you all right, what’s wrong?
in a husky-voiced contralto. And me saying,
I’m all right, just weak
, and trying to stand, and her saying,
Why don’t y’all stand back and let the man breathe? Stand back there y’all
, and now echoed by an official tone,
Keep moving, break it up.
And she on one side and a man on the other, helping me to stand and the policeman saying,
Are you all right?
and me answering,
Yes, I just felt weak, must have fainted but all right now
, and him ordering the crowd to move on and the others moving on except the man and woman and him saying,
You sure you okay, daddy
, and me nodding yes, and her saying,
Where you live son, somewhere around here?
And me telling her Men’s House and her looking at me shaking her head saying,
Men’s House, Men’s House, shucks that ain’t no place for nobody in your condition what’s weak and needs a woman to keep an eye on you awhile.
And me saying,
But I’ll be all right now
, and her,
Maybe you will and maybe you won’t. I live just up the street and round the corner, you better come on round and rest till you feel stronger. I’ll phone Men’s House and tell ’em where you at.
And me too tired to resist and already she had one arm and was instructing the fellow to take the other and we went, me between them, inwardly rejecting and yet accepting her bossing, hearing,
You take it easy, I’ll take care of you like I done a heap of others, my name’s Mary Rambo, everybody knows me round this part of Harlem, you heard of me, ain’t you?
And the fellow saying,
Sure, I’m Jenny Jackson’s boy, you know I know you, Miss Mary.
And her saying,
Jenny Jackson, why, I should say you do know me and I know you, you Ralston, and your mama got two more children, boy named Flint and gal named Laura-jean, I should say I know you—me and your mama and your papa useta
—And me saying,
I’m all right now, really all right.
And her saying,
And looking like that, you must be worse off even than you look
, and pulling me now, saying,
Here’s my house right here, hep me git him up the steps and inside, you needn’t worry, son, I ain’t never laid eyes on you before and it ain’t my business and I don’t care what you think about me but you weak and caint hardly walk and all and you look what’s more like you hungry, so just come on and let me do something for you like I hope you’d do something for ole Mary in case she needed it, it ain’t costing you a penny and I don’t want to git in your business, I just want you to lay down till you rested and then you can go.
And the fellow taking it up, saying,
You in good hands, daddy, Miss Mary always helping somebody and you need some help ’cause here you black as me and white as a sheet, as the ofays would say—watch these steps.
And going up some steps and then some more, growing weaker, and the two warm around me on each side of me, and then inside a cool dark room, hearing,
Here, here’s the bed, lie him down there, there, there now, that’s it, Ralston, now put his legs up—never mind the cover—there, that’s it, now go out there in the kitchen and pour him a glass of water, you’ll find a bottle in the ice-box.
And him going and her placing another pillow beneath my head, saying,
Now you’ll be better and when you git all right you’ll know how bad a shape you been in, here, now taka sip of this water
, and me drinking and seeing her worn brown fingers holding the bright glass and a feeling of old, almost forgotten relief coming over me and thinking in echo of her words,
If I don’t think I’m sinking, look what a hole I’m in
, and then the soft cool splash of sleep.

I
SAW
her across the room when I awoke, reading a newspaper, her glasses low across the bridge of her nose as she stared at the page intently. Then I realized that though the glasses still slanted down, the eyes were no longer focused on the page, but on my face and lighting with a slow smile.

“How you feel now?” she said.

“Much better.”

“I thought you would be. And you be even better after you have a cup of soup I got for you in the kitchen. You slept a good long time.”

“Did I?” I said. “What time is it?”

“It’s about ten o’clock, and from the way you slept I suspects all you needed was some rest … No, don’t git up yet. You got to drink your soup, then you can go,” she said, leaving.

She returned with a bowl in a plate. “This here’ll fix you up,” she said. “You don’t get this kind of service up there at Men’s House, do you? Now, you just sit there and take your time. I ain’t got nothing to do but read the paper. And I like company. You have to make time in the morning?”

“No, I’ve been sick,” I said. “But I have to look for a job.”

“I knowed you wasn’t well. Why you try to hide it?”

“I didn’t want to be trouble to anyone,” I said.

“Everybody has to be trouble to
some
body. And you just come from the hospital too.”

I looked up. She sat in the rocking chair bent forward, her arms folded at ease across her aproned lap. Had she searched my pockets?

“How did you know that?” I said.

“There you go getting suspicious,” she said sternly. “That’s what’s wrong with the world today, don’t nobody trust nobody. I can smell that hospital smell on you, son. You got enough ether in those clothes to put to sleep a dog!”

“I couldn’t remember telling you that I had been in the hospital.”

“No, and you didn’t have to. I smelled that out. You got people here in the city?”

“No, ma’m,” I said. “They’re down South I came up here to work so I could go to school, and I got sick.”

“Now ain’t that too bad! But you’ll make out all right. What you plan to make out of yourself?”

“I don’t know now; I came here wanting to be an educator. Now I don’t know.”

“So what’s wrong with being an educator?”

I thought about it while sipping the good hot soup. “Nothing, I suppose, I just think I’d like to do something else.”

“Well, whatever it is, I hope it’s something that’s a credit to the race.”

“I hope so,” I said.

“Don’t hope, make it that way.”

I looked at her, thinking of what I’d tried to do and of where it had gotten me, seeing her heavy, composed figure before me.

“It’s you young folks what’s going to make the changes,” she said. “Y’all’s the ones. You got to lead and you got to fight and move us all on up a little higher. And I tell you something else, it’s the ones from the South that’s got to do it, them what knows the fire and ain’t forgot how it burns. Up here too many forgits. They finds a place for theyselves and forgits the ones on the bottom. Oh, heap of them
talks
about doing things, but they done really forgot. No, it’s you young ones what has to remember and take the lead.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you have to take care of yourself, son. Don’t let this Harlem git you. I’m in New York, but New York ain’t in me, understand what I mean? Don’t git corrupted.”

“I won’t. I’ll be too busy.”

“All right now, you looks to me like you might make something out of yourself, so you be careful.”

I got up to go, watching her raise herself out of her chair and come with me to the door.