Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (27 page)

“He rode in a little closer, then, and looked down at me. I looked up at him. He said, Who the fuck do you
think you are? and I said, My name is Caleb Proudhammer, mister, and I'd appreciate it if you'd let me get on with my work. He laughed. He actually laughed, like it was the best joke he'd heard in a long time. He said, Nigger, if my balls was on your chin, where would my prick be? And I didn't understand him at first, I just looked at him. Then, when I understood it, I don't know why, I picked up the pitchfork. I didn't do nothing, I just picked up the fork. But the horse kind of jumped. And this red-haired mother-fucker, he looked surprised, and he looked scared, and he was having a little trouble holding on to his horse. I knew he didn't want me to see that. I knew it. He knew I knew it. And he rode off across the field, mainly because he didn't know what to do with me and didn't know what to do with his horse, and he yelled, All right, Sam! I'll be seeing you, you hear me?
I will be seeing
you!

“And, you know, it's funny, I realized right then and there, while I was watching him ride off, it wasn't, you know, exactly like what he'd
said.
I mean, shit, you know. I'm a big boy and I know the score. Shit. You know. If it came down on me like that, well, all right, I'd suck a cock, I know it, shit, if I loved the cat, why the fuck not, and whose business is it? Like, shit. You know. Ain't nobody's business. You know, like, man, I'd do anything in the world for you because you're my brother and because you're my baby and I love you and I believe you'd do anything in the world for me. I know you would. So, you know, it ain't that shit that bothered me. No. He made me feel like I was my grandmother in the fields somewhere and this white mother-fucker rides over and decides to throw her down in the fields. Well, shit. You know. I ain't my grandmother. I'm a man. And a man can
do anything he wants to do, but can't nobody
make
him do it. I ain't about to be raped. Shit. But I knew this mother-fucker had it in for me. I knew, like he said, I was going to be seeing
him.

“And, baby, believe me, I saw this mother, oh, yes, I did. The week wasn't out before I saw him. He was going to break my back. I knew it. He was going to make me kneel down. He was going to make me act out his question. I wasn't going to do it. He knew it. And I knew it. And there we were.”

Caleb's voice, his breath: darkness and silence.

“They had a place there where they put you when they was displeased. It was a kind of cellar. We was already in jail, you understand, but they had a jail inside the jail. But, at least, you know, if they wasn't displeased with you, if you could kiss enough ass, or if they just plain didn't notice you, well, you was in the open air, and, you know, you could talk to your buddies—we was only put there, like they said, for our own good. They was making us useful members of society. But that cellar, baby, I won't never forget that cellar. You ain't never smelled nothing like that cellar—phew! baby, I thought I'd never get that stink out of me. Never. I was dreaming about it just now. That's what I was dreaming about. Me, and Martin Howell, and he had his whip. Oh, Leo. Wow. I didn't know people could treat each other so. And I don't want you to think that it was just him. It wasn't just him. It was all of them, really, and the black guys, too, them that was called the trusties. Shit, baby, they loved whipping ass and the blacker they was, the harder they hit. But, old Martin, he was ring-leader. Everybody was scared of him. I don't know why. And he had it in for me. And—you know. I didn't know what I was going to do. I don't think
that I was scared of
him,
exactly. I believe I could of beat him, had it come to a fair fight. But I was scared. The other guys knew he had it in for me, and they was scared, too, and they moved away from me. And all I'd said to the fire-haired cock-sucker was that my name wasn't Sam!

“Your brother was a very lonely man, because I knew wasn't nobody going to help me. Not even if they wanted to. And I thought of you, you know that—my big-eyed little brother? But I was glad you wasn't there. I was mighty glad you wasn't there.

“First, he made it so that I got took off my job. I worked in the fields, I piled the hay and took care of the grass and all that shit. I liked it, you know, because, you know, fuck it, there I was, and I knew I couldn't get out, and although I knew I didn't have no
business
there, I mean I knew I should never have been sent there, I hadn't done nothing to be sent there, but I couldn't afford to think about that too much and so I thought, well, all right, I'll make me some muscles. But he got me taken off that and they put me in the kitchen. I didn't like the kitchen, but he was going with the head cook, a big old white German lady named Mrs. Waldo. I believe her husband was dead, I don't know. But, anyway—they had me—between them, they had me. They could do anything they wanted to do and couldn't nobody do nothing about it. Baby. That woman worked me like I was somebody's mule. Or maybe nobody's mule. Or
her
mule, but a mule she knew she couldn't never sell and so she might as well work him till he dropped. I had to be there at six in the morning and I had to scrub that kitchen and I washed all the dishcloths and hung them out on the line and then I had to chop wood for the fires. Then I washed the dishes and the pots and pans, they
kind of threw them at me, you know, and, shit, it was a big farm and I didn't have but one helper and he didn't help me because Mrs. Waldo didn't want him to and she always had him out of the kitchen, doing something else. She had a funny way with her. She used always to talk about my mother. She used to say, I bet your mama's mighty sad whenever she thinks of you. She'd say, Where's your father? Your father home? Has he been home lately? You ever seen your father? And, Leo, I just did not know how to handle it. I tried not to say anything, but then she'd get mad and most likely hit me on the head with whatever she happened to have in her hand. And, I tell you the truth, I was scared to death of that woman. I was even more scared of her than I was of him because she had me all day. You know. And he'd come into the kitchen, Lord, Lord, Lord, and sit there like a king and she'd feed him and he'd go on about me and my mama and daddy and my big tool which he wanted me to show him, so he could cut it off. Well, you know, Leo, flesh and blood can't stand but so much. And, one day, I'll never forget it, it was after lunch and I hadn't had
my
lunch yet, there was just them and me in the kitchen and I could hear the boys outside leaving the dining hall, and it was the kind of day that it was today, cold, you know, and it looked a little like rain, and he said something about my mama and my daddy and he come up to me and touched me on the behind—I was at the sink—and when he said whatever he said and touched me, I picked up the big black heavy pot I was washing and I threw the water all over him and I beat him over the head with that pot. As hard as I could. As hard as I could. Oh, we wrestled in that kitchen, baby, I mean we had us a waltz. You ain't never seen such waltzing.
I was trying to kill him. I mean, I knew I was trying to kill him and he knew it, too. And she was screaming. She came at me with a knife and I knocked the knife out of her hand and I knocked her down. Then, they all ganged up on me and some of them held me while he beat me. Then, they threw me in that cellar.

“In that cellar, there wasn't no window, there was just a door with bars on it and if you sat near the bars, then light came down on you, a little light, in the daytime. In the nighttime, there wasn't no light at all. But you could hear for awhile. Couldn't nobody come near you. They shoved the food in through the bars. The food was bread and water. I mean it, man. Stale bread and cold water. You had to shit and piss in a pail. And you had to empty the pail and that was the only time you ever got out of there and then there was two men with you. And, sometimes they made like they was going to spill the pail on you, they had a lot of fun that way and sometimes these mother-fuckers was white, baby, and sometimes they was black. Shit. When they first threw me in there I was in pretty bad shape and what saved me was the rats. I mean it. The rats. I was flat on my back, I guess I was half unconscious, I don't know, and I was thinking of my home and all and I was hardly breathing. Then, I heard this sound, this rattling sound and I wondered what it was and I don't know how to explain this but all of a sudden I felt like I was being watched, like there was eyes on me. And I looked toward the bars, but weren't nobody there. My mouth was caked with blood and I wiped my mouth and I heard the sound again. It was near me, it wasn't at the bars. Then, I saw their eyes. I was so sick I didn't know if I could move. But if I didn't move—oh, man—if I didn't move and there was a whole lot of them
and I knew if I didn't move—and I screamed and I got to the bars and I heard them scurrying away because, then, they knew I was alive and I hung on the bars all night. I was afraid to lie down again. I'd feel myself dropping off, you know, and I'd hold on the bars and drag myself up again. And they was still there, scurrying here and yonder. And didn't nobody come near me, nobody, all night long.

“I don't know how long I was down there, Leo, I swear to God I don't, I'll never know. But, one morning, here he come, like I'd known he was going to, Old Martin Howell, red-haired mother-fucker with his whip. He said, Don't you want to see your friends upstairs? and I said, I got no friends upstairs. He said, Ain't you tired of bread and water? and I said, I'm getting used to it, thanks. The thing is, I was scared of him and he was scared of me. But I really believe that he was a little more scared of me than I was of him, because I knew, if it really got down to it, I was going to have to kill him. Yes. I really don't want to be no man's murderer, but, for me, he wasn't a man, I don't know what he was, but I knew he wasn't never going to get me on my knees. He had his boys and all, though, I knew it, just upstairs.

“He said, Nigger, you remember that question I asked you? He was smiling. I didn't say nothing. He walked up and down, kind of weighing his whip. He was trying to scare me with that whip. He wanted me to beg him not to beat me. I watched him. I knew what he
didn't
want to do was have to call in nobody. He wanted me all to himself. I didn't give a shit. I was going to get beaten, anyway. So I called him every name I could think of, just to get it started, just to get it over with, and he
raised his whip to strike me and I ducked and he raised it again and I grabbed his hand. I battled him to the bars and, you know, I'm pretty strong but I was weakened by being on bread and water for so long and he cracked me across the back of the head with the whip handle and I fell down to my knees. When I fell, he came at me again, but I managed to roll out of his way and when he came back at me I pulled him down, hard, and I got him by the balls and, believe me, I made that mother scream. Oh, yeah, he screamed that morning. I beat him with the handle of his whip and I made his red hair a little bit redder. I heard them coming and I tried to hold them off with my whip but of course they got me and when they got through with me I was lying against a wall. He was standing over me. He said, Nigger, you ain't worth shit. Ain't that right? And he kicked me. I could hardly see anything, I could hardly see his eyes. I said,
You
ain't worth shit, and he kicked me again. Then, one of the black trusties spit on me and so I said, You right, Mr. Howell. I ain't worth shit. And they left me. And I was alone down there for a long time. On bread and water.”

His voice stopped: his silence created a great wound in the universe. There was nothing for me to say: nothing. I held him, held what there was to hold. I held him. Because I could love, I realized I could hate. And I realized that I would feed my hatred, feed it every day and every hour. I would keep it healthy, I would make it strong, and I would find a use for it one day. I listened to Caleb's breathing and I watched him in the slowly growing light of the morning. He picked up a cigarette and lit it and I watched the glow, watched his nose, watched his eyes. Neither did he have anything more to say. We lay
there, in silence. I knew that he had to get up soon, to go down to the garment center. He put out his cigarette. I put my arms around him. And so we slept.

Caleb went downtown with our father in the morning, but by noon, he had left the garment center, forever, and he left New York the early morning of the following day. This is one of the encounters with Caleb which is most dim in my memory, one of the moments which inexorably recedes; most dim, because it was to prove so crucial; most dim, because so painful. I was home around midday, I think. I suppose I had been to school, though I have no recollection of having been at school. Our mother was silent, but I knew she had been crying. Caleb was throwing socks in a bag.

“What's the matter?”

I was standing at the door of our room. I hadn't asked my mother anything.

“I'm going.”

I sat down on the bed.

“You going? Where?”

“California.”

I didn't say anything. I watched him throw some shirts into a bag—a little cardboard bag.

“California?”

“Yes.”

He threw some more stuff into the bag.

“Where's Daddy?”

“Daddy,” he said, “is at
work.
”

“When are you going?”

“I'm taking a bus out of here in the morning.”

“You want to take me with you?”

“No.”

I sat there. I watched him. I didn't want to cry, and I wasn't going to cry. I didn't cry. He kept on doing what he was doing. I sat on the bed.

“All right,” I said. And I walked out of the room. Then I walked out of the house. I had nothing in my mind. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know where I was going.

There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation: I had never seen it before this day. Everything seemed scrubbed, scoured, older than the oldest bones, and cleaner. Everything lay beneath a high, high, immaculate sky, and was washed as clean as it could be. Everything—and everything was still: the stairs down which I walked, the doors I passed, the garbage, the cats, the old wine bottles, the radiators, the drying scum-bag on the steps, the light in the doorway of the vestibule, the boys in the doorway, the white curtains in the window across the street, the blue sedan which briefly cut off the sight of the curtains, the street, long, long, long, the grocery store, the tailor shop, the candystore, the church which faced us when I reached the end of the block, the red lights, the green lights, the long, loaded buses and the people in the buses, the subway kiosks and the people coming upstairs and downstairs, the policeman's badge catching the light, his club swinging, his holster glowing, the vegetable stand, with greens, with turnips, potatoes, okra, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, apples, pears, the sign over another church, saying T
HE
Y
OU
P
RAY
F
OR
M
E
C
HURCH OF THE
A
IR
, the liquor store and all the bottles in the window, the bar signs, and the women outside the bar, the men standing at the corners, the lampposts, the undertaker parlors, the grain of the sidewalk pavement, the light in the water of the gutter, the polish of the asphalt street, the grating
over the sewer's black and fearful depths, the singing of tires and the crying of brakes, the shape of doorways, the monotony of steps, the order and age of cornices, the height of roofs, the unspeaking sky, the tree, the sparrow, the Public Library, and the plaque there which held the name, C
ARNEGIE
, the stone wall of the park, the people scattered about like bones, the hill, the dying flowers, the height, the sun, all, all, all, were clean as I was not, as I could never be, and all—all—were as remote from me as they would have been had I been in my grave and had drilled a hole through my tombstone to peep out at the world. I cared no more than that. I sat down somewhere in the park.