Invisible Man (43 page)

Even my technique had been different; no one who had known me at college would have recognized the speech. But that was as it should have been, for I
was
someone new—even though I had spoken in a very old-fashioned way. I had been transformed, and now, lying restlessly in bed in the dark, I felt a kind of affection for the blurred audience whose faces I had never clearly seen. They had been with me from the first word. They had wanted me to succeed, and fortunately I had spoken for them and they had recognized my words. I belonged to them. I sat up, grasping my knees in the dark as the thought struck home. Perhaps this was what was meant by being “dedicated and set aside.” Very well, if so, I accepted it. My possibilities were suddenly broadened. As a Brotherhood spokesman I would represent not only my own group but one that was much larger. The audience was mixed, their claims broader than race. I would do whatever was necessary to serve them well. If they could take a chance with me, then I’d do the very best that I could. How else could I save myself from disintegration?

I sat there in the dark trying to recall the sequence of the speech. Already it seemed the expression of someone else. Yet I knew that it was mine and mine alone, and if it was recorded by a stenographer, I would have a look at it tomorrow.

Words, phrases, skipped through my mind; I saw the blue haze again. What had I meant by saying that I had become “more human”? Was it a phrase that I had picked up from some preceding speaker, or a slip of the tongue? For a moment I thought of my grandfather and quickly dismissed him. What had an old slave to do with humanity? Perhaps it was something that Woodridge had said in the literature class back at college. I could see him vividly, half-drunk on words and full of contempt and exaltation, pacing before the blackboard chalked with quotations from Joyce and Yeats and Sean O’Casey; thin, nervous, neat, pacing as though he walked a high wire of meaning upon which no one of us would ever dare venture. I could hear him: “Stephen’s problem, like ours, was not actually one of creating the uncreated conscience of his race, but of creating the
uncreated features of his face.
Our task is that of making ourselves individuals. The conscience of a race is the gift of its individuals who see, evaluate, record … We create the race by creating ourselves and then to our great astonishment we will have created something far more important: We will have created a culture. Why waste time creating a conscience for something that doesn’t exist? For, you see, blood and skin do not think!”

But no, it wasn’t Woodridge. “More human” … Did I mean that I had become less of what I was, less a Negro, or that I was less a being apart; less an exile from down home, the South? … But all this is negative. To become less—in order to become more? Perhaps that was it, but in what way
more
human? Even Woodridge hadn’t spoken of such things. It was a mystery once more, as at the eviction I had uttered words that had possessed me.

I thought of Bledsoe and Norton and what they had done. By kicking me into the dark they’d made me see the possibility of achieving something greater and more important than I’d ever dreamed. Here was a way that didn’t lead through the back door, a way not limited by black and white, but a way which, if one lived long enough and worked hard enough, could lead to the highest possible rewards. Here was a way to have a part in making the big decisions, of seeing through the mystery of how the country, the world, really operated. For the first time, lying there in the dark, I could glimpse the possibility of being more than a member of a race. It was no dream, the possibility existed. I had only to work and learn and survive in order to go to the top. Sure I’d study with Hambro, I’d learn what he had to teach and a lot more. Let tomorrow come. The sooner I was through with this Hambro, the sooner I could get started with my work.

F
our months later

when Brother Jack called the apartment at midnight to tell me to be prepared to take a ride I became quite excited. Fortunately, I was awake and dressed, and when he drove up a few minutes later I was waiting expectantly at the curb. Maybe, I thought, as I saw him hunched behind the wheel in his topcoat, this is what I’ve been waiting for.

“How have you been, Brother?” I said, getting in.

“A little tired,” he said. “Not enough sleep, too many problems.”

Then, as he got the car under way, he became silent, and I decided not to ask any questions. That was one thing I had learned thoroughly. There must be something doing at the Chthonian, I thought, watching him staring at the road as though lost in thought. Maybe the brothers are waiting to put me through my paces. If so, fine; I’ve been waiting for an examination …

But instead of going to the Chthonian I looked out to discover that he had brought me to Harlem and was parking the car.

“We’ll have a drink,” he said, getting out and heading for where the neon-lighted sign of a bull’s head announced the El Toro Bar.

I was disappointed. I wanted no drink; I wanted to take the next step that lay between me and an assignment. I followed him inside with a surge of irritation.

The barroom was warm and quiet. The usual rows of bottles with exotic names were lined on the shelves, and in the rear, where four men argued in Spanish over glasses of beer, a juke box, lit up green and red, played “Media Luz.” And as we waited for the bartender, I tried to figure the purpose of the trip.

I had seen very little of Brother Jack after beginning my studies with Brother Hambro. My life had been too tightly organized. But I should have known that if anything was going to happen, Brother Hambro would have let me know. Instead, I was to meet him in the morning as usual. That Hambro, I thought, is
be
a fanatic teacher! A tall, friendly man, a lawyer and the Brotherhood’s chief theoretician, he had proved to be a hard taskmaster. Between daily discussions with him and a rigid schedule of reading, I had been working harder than I’d ever found necessary at college. Even my nights were organized; every evening found me at some rally or meeting in one of the many districts (though this was my first trip to Harlem since my speech) where I’d sit on the platform with the speakers, making notes to be discussed with him the next day. Every occasion became a study situation, even the parties that sometimes followed the meetings. During these I had to make mental notes on the ideological attitudes revealed in the guests’ conversations. But I had soon learned the method in it: Not only had I been learning the many aspects of the Brotherhood’s policy and its approach to various social groupings, but the city-wide membership had grown familiar with me. My part in the eviction was kept very much alive, and although I was under orders to make no speeches, I had grown accustomed to being introduced as a kind of hero.

Yet it had been mainly a time for listening and, being a talker, I had grown impatient. Now I knew most of the Brotherhood arguments so well—those I doubted as well as those I believed—that I could repeat them in my sleep, but nothing had been said about my assignment. Thus I had hoped the midnight call meant some kind of action was to begin …

Beside me, Brother Jack was still lost in thought. He seemed in no hurry to go elsewhere or to talk, and as the slow-motion bartender mixed our drinks I puzzled vainly as to why he had brought me here. Before me, in the panel where a mirror is usually placed, I could see a scene from a bullfight, the bull charging close to the man and the man swinging the red cape in sculptured folds so close to his body that man and bull seemed to blend in one swirl of calm, pure motion. Pure grace, I thought, looking above the bar to where, larger than life, the pink and white image of a girl smiled down from a summery beer ad on which a calendar said April One. Then, as our drinks were placed before us, Brother Jack came alive, his mood changing as though in the instant he had settled whatever had been bothering him and felt suddenly free.

“Here, come back,” he said, nudging me playfully. “She’s only a cardboard image of a cold steel civilization.”

I laughed, glad to hear him joking. “And that?” I said, pointing to the bullfight scene.

“Sheer barbarism,” he said, watching the bartender and lowering his voice to a whisper. “But tell me, how have you found your work with Brother Hambro?”

“Oh, fine,” I said. “He’s strict, but if I’d had teachers like him in college, I’d know a few things. He’s taught me a lot, but whether enough to satisfy the brothers who disliked my arena speech, I don’t know. Shall we converse scientifically?”

He laughed, one of his eyes glowing brighter than the other. “Don’t worry about the brothers,” he said. “You’ll do very well. Brother Hambro’s reports on you have been excellent.”

“Now, that’s nice to hear,” I said, aware now of another bullfight scene further down the bar in which the matador was being swept skyward on the black bull’s horns. “I’ve worked pretty hard trying to master the ideology.”

“Master it,” Brother Jack said, “but don’t overdo it. Don’t let it master you. There is nothing to put the people to sleep like dry ideology. The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration. Say what the people want to hear, but say it in such a way that they’ll do what we wish.” He laughed. “Remember too, that theory always comes after practice. Act first, theorize later; that’s also a formula, a devastatingly effective one!”

He looked at me as though he did not see me and I could not tell whether he was laughing
at
me or
with
me. I was sure only that he was laughing.

“Yes,” I said, “I’ll try to master all that is required.”

“You can,” he said. “And now you don’t have to worry about the brothers’ criticism. Just throw some ideology back at them and they’ll leave you alone—provided, of course, that you have the right backing and produce the required results. Another drink?”

“Thanks, I’ve had enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Now to your assignment: Tomorrow you are to become chief spokesman of the Harlem District …”

“What!”

“Yes. The committee decided yesterday.”

“But I had no idea.”

“You’ll do all right. Now listen. You are to continue what you started at the eviction. Keep them stirred up. Get them active. Get as many to join as possible. You’ll be given guidance by some of the older members, but for the time being you are to see what you can do. You will have freedom of action—
and
you will be under strict discipline to the committee.”

“I see,” I said.

“No, you don’t quite see,” he said, “but you will. You must not underestimate the discipline, Brother. It makes you answerable to the entire organization for what you do. Don’t underestimate the discipline. It is very strict, but within its framework you are to have full freedom to do your work. And your work is very important. Understand?” His eyes seemed to crowd my face as I nodded yes. “We’d better go now so that you can get some sleep,” he said, draining his glass. “You’re a soldier now, your health belongs to the organization.”

“I’ll be ready,” I said.

“I know you will. Until tomorrow then. You’ll meet with the executive committee of the Harlem section at nine
A.M.
You know the location of course?”

“No, Brother, I don’t.”

“Oh? That’s right—then you’d better come up with me for a minute. I have to see someone there and you can take a look at where you’ll work. I’ll drop you off on the way down,” he said.

T
HE
district offices were located in a converted church structure, the main floor of which was occupied by a pawnshop, its window crammed with loot that gleamed dully in the darkened street. We took a stair to the third floor, entering a large room beneath a high Gothic ceiling.

“It’s down here,” Brother Jack said, making for the end of the large room where I saw a row of smaller ones, only one of which was lighted. And now I saw a man appear in the door and limp forward.

“Evening, Brother Jack,” he said.

“Why, Brother Tarp, I expected to find Brother Tobitt.”

“I know. He was here but he had to leave,” the man said. “He left this envelope for you and said he’d call you later on tonight.”

“Good, good,” Brother Jack said. “Here, meet a new brother …”

“Pleased to meet you,” the brother said, smiling. “I heard you speak at the arena. You really told ’em.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“So you liked it, did you, Brother Tarp?” Brother Jack said.

“The boy’s all right with me,” the man said.

“Well, you’re going to see a lot of him, he’s your new spokesman.”

“That’s fine,” the man said. “Looks like we’re going to get some changes made.”

“Correct,” Brother Jack said. “Now let’s take a look at his office and we’ll be going.”

“Sure, Brother,” Tarp said, limping before me into one of the dark rooms and snapping on a light. “This here is the one.”

I looked into a small office, containing a flat-top desk with a telephone, a typewriter on its table, a bookcase with shelves of books and pamphlets, and a huge map of the world inscribed with ancient nautical signs and a heroic figure of Columbus to one side.

“If there’s anything you need, just see Brother Tarp,” Brother Jack said. “He’s here at all times.”

“Thanks, I shall,” I said. “I’ll get oriented in the morning.”

“Yes, and we’d better go so you can get some sleep. Good night, Brother Tarp. See that everything is ready for him in the morning.”

“He won’t have to worry about a thing, Brother. Good night.”

“It’s because we attract men like Brother Tarp there that we shall triumph,” he said as we climbed into the car. “He’s old physically, but ideologically he’s a vigorous young man. He can be depended upon in the most precarious circumstance.”

“He sounds like a good man to have around,” I said.

“You’ll see,” he said and lapsed into a silence that lasted until we reached my door.

T
HE
committee was assembled in the hall with the high Gothic ceiling when I arrived, sitting in folding chairs around two small tables pushed together to form a unit.