If he hollers let him go

CHAPTER XVII

I went out, got in my car, and turned back toward Figueroa. When I pulled up in front of the hotel I glanced at my watch. It was nine after eleven; I had no idea it was that late. I cut the motor, took another long swig, then got out and started up the front stairs with the bottle in my hand. I didn't give a damn if the clerk was still on duty and had the whole police force with him. I was rocking and scared of nobody in the world, on a live-wire edge and ready to pop.

The hall light still burned but the desk was deserted. I'd primed myself to give the clerk an argument, to tell him this was America and he could go to hell; and when I found him gone I felt a slight letdown. I turned, went down to the front, knocked at 202. No one answered. I tried the knob; the door was locked. I knocked harder. Finally a sleepy Texas voice asked, 'Who's there?'

'Bob,' I said. 'Let me in.'

There was a silence for a moment then she asked, 'Who?' as if she couldn't believe her ears.

'Bob-from the shipyard,' I told her. 'I told you I was coming to see you.' My tongue was thick and I had trouble with my words.

'You better get away from here,' she threatened.

'Open up the door,' I said. 'Don't be so simple all the time.'

'If you don't get away from there I'll call the police and have you put underneath the jail,' she said in a fierce whisper as if standing close to the door.

'Call the police then,' I growled, rattling the knob.

'I'll scream,' she threatened.

'Scream then,' I said.

She didn't reply and I started hammering on the door.

'Well, wait a minute, can't you?' she whispered, unlocking the door. She opened it a crack. 'You wanna wake up everybody and let 'em see what's happening?'

I pushed inside, said, 'I don't give a damn.'

She quickly closed and locked the door, then wheeled toward me. 'You can't stay here, you'll get us both in trouble.'

'To hell with the trouble,' I muttered, turning to face her. 'Have a drink?'

She backed against the door. 'Well, wait till I get dressed, can't you? Are you in all that big a hurry?'

I put the bottle on the floor by the bed and stood looking at her a moment. She had on a nubby maroon robe and her blonde hair, dark at the roots, was done up in metal curlers tight to her head. Without lipstick or make-up she looked older; there were deep blue circles underneath her eyes and blue hollows on each side of the bridge of her nose. Tiny crow's-feet spread out from the outer corners of her eyes and hard slanting lines calipered obliquely from her nostrils, dropping vertically from the edges of her mouth. Her mouth was big, hard, brutal, with lips almost colourless; and her eyes were wide, blue, staring, almost popping, but now there was a muddy look in them. Beneath her robe her breasts seemed lower, big and loose, and her hips lumped out from her waist like half-filled sacks. For bedroom slippers she wore a pair of worn-out play shoes that had once been red. She had big feet and her ankles were very white, laced with blue veins, and dirty on the bone.

Then I moved in, trapped her against the door.

She jerked to one side, turning, and went half across the room. I lunged, grabbed for her, caught her wrist, and pulled her back. She got rougher and began struggling in earnest. I got her by both arms, put my one-eighty pounds into it, and pushed her down across the bed. She twisted out from underneath me, turned on her stomach. I grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to turn her over toward me; but she rolled clear over me on the other side, and then started fighting with her fists. I grabbed her arms again and pinned them to her sides. She started kicking at me. We tussled silently back and forth across the bed until we were both panting for breath.

She was big, strong, and quick, and it was all I could do to hold my own. 'Gawddamn you!' she grated once, but that was the only time she spoke. I didn't say anything. We stopped for a moment by common accord, resting. Her face was a hard, glowing red and her blue eyes were dark and furious. Her mouth was a hard brutal line.

I relaxed my hold and she snatched a hand loose and hit me in the face. I made a sudden rough grab for her and we both rolled over on the floor. We kept rolling until we were in the middle of the floor and I got her flat on her back and pinned her down.

She stopped struggling and went limp, and the strangest look came into her eyes.

'I dare you to, nigger,' she said. 'Just go 'head. I'll get you lynched right here in California.'

'Aw, go to hell,' I growled.

'My Gawddd, now you wanna beat me,' she said, and all of a sudden started crying. 'I don't know what made me let you in, you cruel black bastard.'

She looked like hell. She was really a beat biddy, trampishlooking and pure rebbish; and since I'd already lost my livewire edge, I wondered what the hell I'd seen in her in the first place. I just stood there and looked at her and wondered.

And on top of all of that she began acting coy. 'Take off my shoes,' she said, holding out her feet.

'Take off your own goddamned shoes.'

'You think 'cause I let you in you can do anything you want,' she flared. 'Well, let me tell you-'

'Aw, go wash your face,' I said. 'You look beat.'

That startled her. She must have thought her being white made her look good to me under any circumstances.

'Wanna drink?' I offered, waving toward the bottle on the floor by the bed.

'That's all you niggers do,' she said, getting up. 'Lie up and get drunk and dream of having white women.'

'Now listen, don't start that-'

'I don't drink noway,' she cut in. 'I'm a Christian woman.'

I started laughing.

She opened her robe. She was naked except for her shoes.

'Ain't I beautiful?' she said. 'Pure white.'

She had a big mature body With. large sagging breasts and brownish-pink nipples the size of silver dollars. Her stomach was soft and puffy and there were bulges at the top of her big wide thighs. Once upon a time she had had a good figure, but age was in it now.

'This'll get you lynched in Texas,' she said.

Just the notion; just because she was white. But it got me, set me on edge again. I sat down on the bed and reached for the bottle.

She kicked off her shoes and ran across the room, big, gawky, awkward, and grotesque, but with a certain wild grace in her every awkward motion.

'You can't have none unless you catch me,' she teased.

I watched her through lowered lids. My tongue was thick and swelling and my stomach was hollow and weak.

'Sit down,' I choked in a thick voice. 'This ain't Texas.'

She came over and stood beside the bed. 'You know what I'll do?' she began. I didn't answer and she started laughing. 'You dare me.' I still didn't say anything.

'The preacher said niggers were full of sin,' she said. 'That's what makes you black. Take off your clothes.'

I laid there and called her everything but a child of God, talking in a slow, slightly slurred voice.

When I reached for her, she jumped back and wriggled free. 'You know what you got to do first,' she teased.

Then I grabbed her and we locked together in a test of strength in the middle of the floor; I had her by the wrists, trying to break her down.

'Take it, you can have it,' she hissed, bunching her shoulders and trying to break my hold by bulling.

Someone knocked at the door and said in a low, hard voice, 'Cut out that racket or I'll throw you out.'

We didn't pay any attention. I took a deep breath and bore down. She began getting blood-red all down from the face in her neck and shoulders. She was almost as strong as I, but not quite. I slowly broke her down to the floor, and she looked me in the eyes, hers buck-wild.

'All right, rape me then, nigger!' Her voice was excited, thick, with threads in her throat.

I let her loose and bounced to my feet. Rape — just the sound of the word scared me, took everything out of me, my desire, my determination, my whole build-up. I was taut, poised, ready to light out and run a crooked mile. The only thing she had to do to make me stop was just say the word.

I gave her one last look, saw her mouth come open as though she were going to scream. Then I got the door unlocked, hit the stairs fast, and was just getting in my car when I heard her call my name.

I looked up. She had the blinds drawn back from the window.

'Wait,' she whispered.

I climbed in the car without replying, snapped on the juice and mashed the starter, then snapped it off just as the motor caught. My passion was gone; I was tired, sore, and deflated; a hangover was taking ahold fast. I hated her guts. But I waited anyway.

In a few minutes she came down, made up like a hustler, and putting her foot on the running board fluttered her mascaraed lashes at me. 'Gawd,' she said peevishly, 'you're sure a scary nigger. Let me in.'

That one really burned me. I was through and I knew it; the white folks had won again and I wanted out. But I couldn't let her get away with it. I didn't want her to have that satisfaction. So I said coldly and deliberately in a hard, even voice: 'You look like mud to me, sister, like so much dirt. Just a big beat bitch with big dirty feet. And if it didn't take so much trouble I'd make a whore out of you.'

She turned a dull dirty red and I could see her eyes getting ugly even in that light. I saw her look up and down the street, then she said, 'Just let me see a policeman, you nigger…'

I dug off and didn't even look back.