Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (25 page)

And he turned our mother toward our father, and she raised him by the hand.

He was growing old, our father, but he was also very young; and when he rose, tall and courtly, one saw how young he was. With his lips pressed together, he was smiling, smiling with, and at, his woman, who was being led by him. It was almost as though Caleb and I were not present, or present only as a possibility. It was a dance which was a wedding of the English and the islands, for it really was, as it began, in the English sense, formal. Then, without becoming less formal, it became on her part more tantalizing, on his more aggressive; and, as both knew it was a game, a ritual, a sacrament, it became bolder and more humorous. Her plump hips moved like the hips of a girl, and her bright, bright face turned toward him and then away from him. His patient, eggplant color pursued her everywhere, and his hips moved like the hips of a boy. Their feet beat as though they were barefoot in the fields. He held her by one hip, she held him by one shoulder. They were smiling an indescribable smile. They felt the end of the number approaching, they turned once more, and, as the number ended, she curtsied and he bowed. Caleb clapped his hands.

“Hell,” said our father, while our mother sat down in his chair and exaggeratedly wiped her brow, and lit a cigarette, “that ain't nothing. You should have seen us when we could
really
do it.”

“Is that a fact now?” said Caleb, after a moment, and then he and our father roared. Our mother glared at both of them, then looked at me.

“Both of them,” she said, confidentially, “both of them. They are
both
completely insane. This morning. Caleb, your coffee's cold.” She rose, and tasted it. “Stone cold.” She took it into the kitchen. “You want some coffee, Leo?”

“Yes, Mama. Please.”

“Me too,” said Caleb.

“I knew it. Well, you just going to have to wait till I make some more.”

Now, the news was on, and our father restlessly clicked the dials: the air was full of a false urgency, such news as there might be entirely muffled by the habits and exigencies of salesmen.

“Now, don't you want to know,” asked Caleb, “what's happening in the world?”

“No,” said our father imperturbably, still clicking dials, “ain't no white boy living can tell me what's happening in the world. Not before they find out what's happening on my job.”

“And they ain't never going to do that,” said Caleb.

“No,” said our father, and clicked off the radio. “There'll be something lively on it by and by,” he said.

Our mother brought in fresh coffee, and we sat at the window, watching the streets. Opposite us, other people also sat in windows, watching the streets. I have sometimes
thought that there is probably no more vivid rendering of silence and no more definitive image of attention, than that presented by Harlem windows, some Sunday afternoons. Four or five or six stories up or down, the people sit, or lean, as though they had been stationed or planted there: their faces as still as the stone which frames them. At a top floor window, behind the grillwork he has placed there to prevent his children from falling, sits a man wearing a stocking cap, holding his infant child. The child is restless, but cheerfully restless, and he easily meets the child's movements by slightly shifting his weight from time to time. If it were not for these slight movements, one might wonder if he realized that he was holding a child at all. His face is attentive, but utterly closed and unmoving. A cigarette smolders between his heavy lips; his eyes are attentive to the smoke. It is impossible to say what he is watching; or if he is watching at all. Yet, something is happening in him, one can almost hear small hammers beating and small wheels turning. Just so, the lady on the floor below, her hair tied up in a rag, her elbows leaning on the sill, a fist on either side of her chin. Her face is very black and rather heavy, her lips are very soft and sad, and her long, dark eyes do not move. At the window next to hers, sits a very old lady, in profile, with a strong Indian nose, head thrown back, eyes closed; and at the window below this, sits a boy of eight or nine, his chin on the windowsill, his fists covering his ears, his eyes very wide and black. His hair is very short, and gleams with Vaseline. A fairly light woman, with straightened hair, and wearing a black dress, sits at the ground floor window, with her small daughter standing between her knees. It would appear that they are all watching the
street. The street is very long and wide. On either side of the street, long, gleaming automobiles are parked. The cars are much cleaner than the street—indeed, one very stocky man in shirt-sleeves is busy polishing his car. Garbage cans, so full that their lids cannot fit, stand before every house, and garbage blows up and down the street and collects in the windy gutters. Cars come through the street, scattering the boys; and even though it is rather cold today, the streets are never empty. Girls, in their finery, walk proudly along, sometimes alone, sometimes with each other, sometimes with the boys, in their fine clothes. Matrons pass, with Bibles; a drunken man comes singing, howling along, his old black overcoat blowing in the wind; only the children appear to notice him, and this merely to make his life more difficult by calling him, and following after him. Everything is happening and nothing is happening, and everything is still, like thunder. One might be in the catacombs, with the first believers, waiting for a sign. And always, the echo of music, the presence of voices, as constant and compelling as the movement of the sea.

At length, our mother, having decided to feed her children—and Caleb growing restless, smoking one cigarette after another, and staring out of the window—rose, and went to the kitchen and heated the biscuits, the yams, the chicken, the ham, the gravy, and the rice. She set up the card table for Caleb and me, and we sat down to eat. They sat near the window, watching us; it was almost as though we were children again.

“You know,” said our father carefully, “the place where I work, they looking for a shipping clerk. The one they had been took by the Army.”

Caleb looked up, but said nothing.

“He asked me if I knew of anybody,” our father said, “and I said I might. It ain't a bad job—just to tide a person over.” He looked at our mother.

“You reckon you want to try it, Caleb?” she asked.

“What do they pay?” asked Caleb.

Our father told him. Caleb laughed. “That'll tide me over, all right,” he said.

“I think you might do well at it,” said our mother. “Until you find—until you find—something more to your liking.” She met his eyes. Then she said, “You got to do something, Caleb—just for your own sake, I mean. You can't just sit around here and go crazy.”

“What I'm going to tell them,” Caleb asked merrily, “when they ask me where I been so long?”

“Don't worry about that. Your father can explain all that. They think a whole lot of your father.”

Caleb poured himself some coffee and lit a cigarette.

“They ain't particular, anyway,” our father said. “They can't afford to be so particular now.”

“Yeah,” said Caleb, “they can use us now. They got a war to fight. I think
I
might as well join the Army. Be quicker.”

“Caleb,” said our mother, “don't you talk like that. You hear me?”

“I hear you.” He rose. “If you ready, little brother, we'll go on to the show.”

“I'm ready,” I said. I stood up.

There was a silence. Somebody, somewhere, was singing “A Tisket, A Tasket.”

“Okay,” said Caleb. “What time you leave in the morning?”

“At seven,” said our mother.

“Well, all right,” said Caleb, “at seven. Leo, get your
coat. Get mine, too.” I got our coats. When I came back into the room, Caleb was standing at the door. He took his coat without looking at it, and shrugged himself into it. “Like the farmer said to the sweet potato, ‘I'll plant you now and dig you later!' ”

The door closed behind us. We dropped down the stairs two at a time. Now we seemed to be fleeing from the voices and the odors. We hit the street. Caleb put his hand on my neck, and hurried us down the long block. He did not say anything, and I did not say anything. One of the Holy Roller churches was making even more noise than usual, and Caleb and I danced past it, laughing.

“What movie you want to see?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“We got enough money to go downtown?”

“I don't know. I got four, how much you got?”

“The old man let me have five.”

“You want to go downtown?”

“I don't know. Do you?”

We looked at each other. “Oh, hell,” Caleb said, “Let's go on downtown.”

“Okay. Let's go.”

“You want to take the bus or the subway?”

“Let's take the bus.”

We stood on the avenue and waited for the bus. We were very shy with each other, suddenly; we were very happy with each other, too. Because we were shy, I watched the people passing, listened to the music coming from a bar behind us, watched the church members going home from church. We, as a family, had never gone to church, for our father could not bear the sight of people on their knees. But I thought, suddenly, for the first time and for no reason, that he must surely have gone to
church in the islands, when he was young. I turned to ask Caleb about this, but I was stunned and silenced by his face. The sun was yellow, it was in his eyes, causing him to squint; it fell over his forehead and curled in his hair; his lips stretched upward in a scowl. He was looking at me. He looked worried and thoughtful and happy: no one had ever before looked at me with such a concentrated love. It stunned me, as I say, for he made no effort to hide it. It made me very proud, and it frightened me. The bus came as we stared at one another, and Caleb pushed me on the bus, before him. He got change, and dropped the coins in the box. We sat down. He made me sit next to the window.

“Well, tomorrow,” he said, “I'll be a respectable citizen again.” He laughed. “I reckon we going to pass through the garment center, ain't we, on our way down?”

“I could show you the block where Daddy works—but it's further downtown.”

“I'm not sure I really want to see it.” He laughed again, and the bus rolled down the avenue and we were silent for awhile.

“Leo,” he said, “what you reckon you want to be? to do? You know?”

I watched the streets and the houses roll by, and I watched the people in the streets. I said, “You'll think I'm crazy if I tell you the truth.”

“Well, as I already know you're crazy,” he said, “you might as well tell me the truth.”

“I'm going to be an actor,” I said.

I did not look at him, but I felt him watching me. I watched the streets.

“An actor?”

“Yes.”

“In the movies?”

“On the stage,” I said. I looked at him and I looked away. “You'll see.”

“How you going to go about it, Leo?”

“I don't know yet. But I'll find out. I'll do it.”

“You told Mama and Daddy?”

“No.” Then, “I haven't told nobody except you.”

“Well,” he said, after a moment, “you know the odds, little brother? I mean, you know the odds are against you?”

“Hell, yes,” I said, “I know the odds are against me. But the odds wouldn't be any less against me if—if I worked for the garment center!”

He said nothing. I wished to take back my last words, but I did not know how. “That's true,” he said at last, mildly, and then, in silence, we watched the streets.

“Look, Caleb,” I said, “I know I can't be a janitor. You know? I just know it. I know I can't work in—in—the kind of jobs they give us. Maybe I can't be an actor, either. But I have to try it. I know I have to try it.”

“Don't get upset,” said Caleb. “You didn't hear me say you couldn't do it, did you?”

“No, But I bet that's what you're thinking.”

“Well, then,” said Caleb, “you're wrong. That's not what I was thinking at all. I was thinking how proud I am of you. Don't look like that. It's the truth I'm telling you.”

“Honest?”

He laughed. “Honest.” He raised both hands. “I swear. All right?”

I said, “All right.”

Caleb laughed again. “Ah, little Leo.” He sobered.
“But Mama and Daddy ain't going to like this notion a
bit.
”

“I'm not going to tell them. You think I'm crazy?”

Now, he was entirely sober and still. “No,” he said. “No. You're not the one who's crazy.” Then, “Daddy used to always say, ‘I wonder what's the matter with our people.' I've got to wondering, too. But—baby!—they sure do have us in a mighty tight place.”

“They don't want us to do nothing because we might do it better than them,” I said.

“Well, they
do,
” said Caleb, “tend to try to beat the shit out of you before you can get
around
to doing anything. But we going to have to fox them, little brother.” He put his hand on my neck; he looked out of the window, with tightened lips and darkened eyes. “Yeah. We going to have to fox them.”

The bus rolled on, turned west at 116th Street, rolled alongside Morningside Park for awhile, turned again on 110th Street, and started rolling out of Harlem. This was (in those days) a kind of transition neighborhood; white boys and black boys were in the streets, and white girls and black girls, some carrying books; and we whirled past black and white figures sitting on the benches outside of Central Park, or walking up and down the pathetic green. Now, the buildings began to be higher and cleaner, canopies and doormen appeared, and black and white messengers, on bicycles. More and more white people got on the bus, in furs and perfumes and hats, carrying newspapers and expensive-looking packages. Instinctively, Caleb and I sat closer together. I kept my eyes on the street, in order not to look at the people on the bus. I wondered how we were ever going to fox them if we couldn't even bear to look at them. I looked up, into
the eyes of a red-faced, black-haired, corpulent man, who had, briefly and idly, looked up from his newspaper. His hair was very well combed, his face was very well shaven, his nails were manicured, his shoes gleamed, his suit and his topcoat were expensive, he was wearing cufflinks, and I could almost smell his toilet water. I don't know what was in my eyes—base envy, I think, base hatred, and great wonder—but whatever it was held his wandering, not altogether hostile nor altogether amused attention for a second or so. He glanced at my brother. Then he returned to his newspaper. Then, all of my ambitions seemed flat and ridiculous. How could we fox them if we could neither bear to look at them, nor bear it when they looked at us? And
who
were they, anyway? which was the really terrible, the boomeranging question. And one always felt: maybe they're right. Maybe you
are
nothing but a nigger, and the life you lead, or the life they make you lead, is the only life you deserve. They say that God said so—and if God said so, then you mean about as much to God as you do to this red-faced, black-haired, fat white man. Fuck God. Fuck you, too, mister. But there he sat, just the same, impervious, gleaming and redolent with safety, rustling, as it were, the Scriptures, in which I appeared only as the object lesson.