Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (32 page)

“Reproached?
I,
” I said, leaning up a little, “
I
been 'buked and I been scorned. Did I
need
it?”

“I don't mean that. I don't mean—
that.
I mean—gods and saints and martyrs don't work for me. They just don't. But I
don't
want to be wicked. People have to find ways of not allowing themselves to become wicked.”

“And what's the way?”

“Well, for me,” she said, “in a way—
you
are. I wouldn't like you to be ashamed of me.”

I sat up, and looked at her.

“I hope you wouldn't like me to be ashamed of you, either,” she said. “I'd like—to be the way for you.” She watched my face, and she smiled. “I think you think I'm being blasphemous. Or maybe you think I'm insane.”

“No. No. I'm just fascinated. I'm trying to follow you.”

“Well, look—you'll see that I
have
thought about it. I've never thought about anything so hard in my life. Look. I know this situation is impossible. I even know, in a way, that
I'm
being impossible. And everyone I grew up with would think so, and many people think so who will never dare admit it. I don't care about those people. I care about whether or not
I
know what I am doing. You're black. I'm white. Now, that doesn't mean shit, really, and yet it means everything. We're both very young, and you, after all, really are penniless, and I'm really not. I'm really very rich. Maybe I don't use it now, but I know I can always call on it, they're sure that when I come to my senses, I'll come home. It's all there for me and, anyway, after all, they're going to die one day. So.” She shivered a little, and paused, and looked away, out of my window, toward the distant mountain. “If we were different people, and very, very lucky, we might beat the first hurdle, the black-white thing. If we weren't who we are, we could always just leave this—
unfriendly
—country, and go somewhere else. But we're as we are. I knew, when I thought about it, that we couldn't beat the two of them together. I don't think you'd care much that your wife was white—but a wife who was both white
and
rich! It would be horrible. We'd soon stop loving each other. And, furthermore—” She stopped. “Would you light me a cigarette, please?”

“Coming, princess.” I lit two cigarettes, and gave one to her. She blew smoke in my face, and smiled.

“And, furthermore—well, look at the way I was raised. You're forbidden fruit. Oh, we'll talk about that another day. But, believe me”—she laughed, it was a very
melancholy sound—“by the time a Southern girl has had her first period, she's already in trouble. Everybody's always told you that the old black man who mows the lawn and rakes the leaves and chops the kindling and takes care of the fires—you know, well, he's old, and he's nice to you, and you like that old man and everybody likes him. And, naturally, you don't know any better, you like anybody that old man likes and, naturally, you like his son. Or you'd like to like his son. And his son looks like—the old man. He smells like him. He's nice, like he is. And he's just about your age. But there's something wrong with his son. There's something wrong with him, you can't be friends with the son of the nice old man. He's not nice, like his father, and he's not like other men at all. No. He's a rapist. And not only is he a rapist, but he only rapes white women. And not only that, but he's got something in his underwear big and black and
always
hard and it will change you
forever
if it ever touches you. You won't even be white any more. You'll just belong to him. Well, you know, everybody wants to be changed. Especially if you're not loved. If looking like a zebra means somebody might love you, well, okay, I'll look like a zebra and you can go on looking white. Have a ball.” She smiled, and subsided. “Anyway, you know, that's the way I saw you the first time I saw you. I even thought, My God, maybe that's the real reason I left home. To find out. But I didn't think I'd better experiment with you. I knew you'd make me pay if I did. And so then I began to think that you mustn't experiment with anybody. So, I tried to get to be your friend. And—here we are.”

“Let me kiss you,” I said, “like a brother,” and I kissed her on the forehead.

Then she kissed me, first like a sister and then on the mouth, and we lay still together for awhile.

“What time are we due at Saul's?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said soberly, “I'd better get downstairs and get dressed.” She sat up, and put her feet on the floor. She wasn't wearing any slippers. “We're due at Saul's at ten. It must be about nine now.”

“How're we going to get there?”

She looked at me. “I'm feared we'll have to walk. Leo.”

I laughed and pulled her to her feet and put my knee in her behind. “Okay. Go on and get dressed. I'll hurry down.”

She went to the door. “I think Jerry's already mowing a lawn somewhere by now.” She stood at the door, as though she hated to walk out of it. “Can I please have another cigarette?”

I lit one, and carried it to her.

“Thanks. I'll yell up the time. Do you feel ready for Saul?”

“No. But, as you said, we have to be great.”

She smiled, and walked down the stairs.

It turned out to be eight forty-five. Jerry made no appearance. Presently, we were walking the road to town. She was wearing a light, brown, summer dress, or “frock,” as she called it, cut below her shoulder blades in the back, and with a wide skirt—this was for the moment in our scene when she pirouettes before me. She wore her hair down over her shoulders; her idea, I think, of the disheveled proletariat, though I myself would have read her for Alice in Wonderland. She wore flat shoes, both for the road, and for the scene. We held hands. The road was long, and there was no one and nothing on it, and so
we skipped. We laughed a lot, for no particular reason. I picked a red flower, and I put it in Barbara's hair. The sun was bright, it was going to be a hot day. The road was dry and dusty. When we approached The Green Barn, we made sign language to each other to be very circumspect indeed, and we stopped holding hands. Barbara put her flower between her teeth. I took off my shirt and put it on my head, and then I put her book and my book on my head, and I walked respectfully, wearily, and proudly behind her. But, there being no one to witness this epiphany, we soon walked together again, hand in hand.

But, as we neared the town, when we saw the proud signs announcing it, heard a train, heard the river, and saw the diner, which stood a little by itself; do what we would, we felt the human heat of the town rush out to meet us, we waited for the eyes, we waited for the silence, we waited for we knew not what. It was vivid to both of us, suddenly, that we had never before appeared in this town without Jerry. We had not thought of it that way, but Jerry had been proof, at least insofar as this white girl and this white town were concerned, of my impotence. But now! and Barbara carefully replaced the red flower in her hair, I put my shirt on. The grass roots of America was waiting for us, spoiling for us, all the good white people, just beyond this small hill and this small bridge which spanned a narrow creek. I realized abruptly, as we were on the bridge, that the car in which Jerry had driven away—driven where?—was not his property and not my property, but the property of the Workshop. Technically, anyway, Jerry was driving a stolen car. And the car was my responsibility. And there would certainly be many things for me to do this afternoon, for
Arms and the Man
was opening tonight. I looked, as we passed, to
see if the car was parked before the diner, but it wasn't. I didn't see any point in saying anything to Barbara about it. The shit would hit the fan soon enough. I was carrying both our books, and I was wondering how these could be used as weapons. For, now, we were concentrating on how to walk just a few blocks through a hostile, staring, gathering town.

It is not an easy thing to do. One's presence is an incitement, and therefore, one must do all in one's power not to increase this incitement. But, by the time one has become an incitement, not very much is left in one's power. It is not a matter merely of walking straight, eyes straight ahead. No, one's eyes must be everywhere at once—without seeming to be, without seeming to move; one must be ready for the rock, the fist, the sudden movement; one must see every face, and yet make it impossible for one's eye to be caught, even for a second, by any other eye. One must move swiftly, and yet not hurry: one must, in fact, give the crowd no opening, either by seeming to be too proud or by seeming to be too humble. All such crowds are combustible, and they always will be. Their buried, insupportable lives have brought them together and on the only terms they can come together: their unspeakable despair concerning their lives. These lives are like old, old rags in the closet of a very old house. The merest whisper will set them aflame. All such crowds contain, and they will forever, one man, one woman, who—if only for the moment it takes to hurl the stone, to leap the barrier, to prepare and spew the spittle, to grab the throat—if only for the moment, without ever having acted before, and never to act again—
is
the collective despair of the crowd,
is
their collective will. Then, the
fire rages, not to spend itself until yet another man done gone.

It is easier to walk such a gauntlet alone. It is very hard for two, especially if they care about each other, especially if one is black and one is white, especially if one is male and one is female. One's own body has a front and a back, has a left and a right. Hopefully, one can maneuver this body in such a way as to prevent its being destroyed. But, with two, one's reflexes are off, for one is trying to calculate danger from too many angles, and one is also attempting a desperate mental telepathy. The people were silent. There were not, I thought to myself, very many. Two or three came out of the diner and stood, leering; three men, not young, I had seen them before. They moved in order to keep us in sight, laughing among themselves. Then, they were joined by another man, and they began to walk behind us, but at a considerable distance. Two men and a woman came out of a house on the left, another man stood behind them on the porch. Then, on the right, first one house, then another, they came out and stood on their lawn. My right was across the street, my left was Barbara's left. On my left, an old woman came rushing to her gate and her face was filled with fury, she was staring toward us, we were coming closer. A very young man joined her, then a young woman, then a child. They were closer to Barbara than they were to me. A car stopped on the other side of the street, there were three men in it. Then, a car stopped on my side of the street, with a young boy in it. He said, “Nigger”—his voice was melodious—“you are a dead man. We going to get you. And your white whore, too.” The old woman and the young woman and the young man and the child were coming closer. I did not dare put a hand on Barbara.
I whispered, “Come closer to me,” and I stepped nearer the curb, and she moved with me, just as we passed the old woman, who shouted, “You hussy! You nigger-lover! You low-down, common, low-class, poor white
slut!
” A great, mocking cheer went up behind us. I dared not take Barbara's hand, or even look at her. Three white men were coming toward us, on my side of the sidewalk. I was astounded to realize that neither Barbara nor I, who, after all, were not without experience, had given a thought to our walking into town together, and on
this
morning, until it was too late, until we were already on the bridge. And, even then, we had not thought of
this.
I cursed Jerry for having taken the car, I cursed Barbara for her romantic folly—look what was happening to us,
look!
—and I cursed myself. The three young men were coming closer. Once we got past them, we had to bear right, into a short, tree-lined street, and, in the middle of this street, on the left, was the San-Marquand driveway. But the driveway was steep. It was relatively hidden—which might be good, or bad. I held both books, but I wasn't going to be able to do much with them, and nothing at all for Barbara. I hoped she would have the sense to run.
The sense to run.
But it is always a mistake to run; unless, of course, you can really run away; which, in no way whatever, could be considered the case here. I stared into the puppy-dog face, the flecked eyes, registered the hanging hair, the pug nose, the crooked teeth. His buddies were on my left. They were abreast of Barbara. He said, “I want your girl-friend to give me and my friends a blow job. Do she cost much? Or do she only suck big, black nigger cocks?” His buddies were whispering to Barbara. I kept moving. Barbara touched the flower in her hair: I knew she was wishing it were a rose, and she
could rake the thorns across their faces. We passed them. The three young men laughed, the street rocked. Just kids, thank you, Jesus, and the daring obscenity was the entire point. We bore right, and crossed the street. We walked in the shade of the trees, and, like soldiers, in perfect unison, turned left, and began toiling up the driveway. They hadn't followed us—only their voices: “Down with niggers! Down with Jews!”

The sun was very hot in the driveway. We didn't speak until we reached the fairly level ground at the top, and were walking toward the house. Then, Barbara looked at me. I looked at her. She was sweating, and she was pale. Her eyes were full of tears. They spilled over, and ran down her face. I brushed them away with my hand.

“Sister Barbara. Sister Barbara.”

She tried to smile. She didn't have a handbag, and so she didn't have a handkerchief. I handed her mine.

“It's dirty,” I said. Then, “Blow your nose.”

She blew her nose in my dirty handkerchief, and handed it back to me.