If he hollers let him go

CHAPTER XXI

I came to once as I lay crumpled on the deck at the bottom of the ladder. A lot of guys were kicking me. Then again when I was being lifted from the ambulance on a stretcher. I was in a sort of half and half state when the doctors began working on me. I remember swallowing some pills and getting a shot in the arm; and I felt it when they shaved my head and clamped the metal stitches in my skull. They were doing something to my mouth when I just drifted on away.

When I came to again I was in the room back of minor surgery, lying on a cot. My mouth felt dry, cottony; and my head throbbed with a steady ache.

Then I saw the guard sitting in a chair by the door, puffing slowly on a pipe. He was huge, tremendous, the biggest man I'd ever seen, with a squarish, knotty, weather-reddened face, and small colourless eyes, cold and inscrutable. When he saw I was looking at him he got on a look of joviality that didn't change the expression of his eyes at all.

'You're a lucky boy,' he said in a big intimidating voice, and got that phoney lipless smile that the coppers down at the old Thirty-seventh Street station in Cleveland were famous for when they beat a Negro half to death with a loaded hose. 'No bones broke. All in one piece. Just skinned up a little.'

I looked away from him without replying, threw back the covers, propped myself up on my elbows. The slight movement sent the pain through my body. I was nude. My knees, elbows, and one wrist were bandaged and taped and I was splotched all over with mercurochrome. I reached for my head, felt the thick turban of bandages. My face felt raw and my lips were swollen several times their natural size. I explored with my tongue and felt teeth out in front but I couldn't tell how many. I hurt in the groin as if I was ruptured.

I lay back and closed my eyes and tried to remember just what had happened. But my brain was fuzzy. It wouldn't come back clear. I remembered Madge screaming. Then I'd gone panicky. Then I remembered her lying there on the deck, saying, 'I'm gonna get you lynched.. ' Well, she got me lynched all right.

But something was missing. Something important. Then suddenly I knew what it was. I hadn't even tried to rape her; I'd been trying to get away from her. I'd gone up there to case the new job for the gang and had run into her accidentally. She'd kept me there, cornered me, hadn't let me go. I'd wanted to go, but she hadn't let me. She couldn't get away with that. This wasn't Georgia.

I opened my eyes, propped myself up on my elbows again, and said, 'I didn't bother that woman. She's crazy!' My voice was a lisp. My lips felt like two big balloon tyres beating together. I had to push the words half formed through the gap in my teeth.

'I don't have nothing to do with that, sonny,' the guard said jovially. 'You'll have to tell it to somebody who knows more about it than me.'

'I'll tell anybody,' I lisped belligerently.

'There ain't anybody to tell,' he said. 'Now ain't that hell?'

I'd see somebody first thing in the morning, I thought, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed and sitting up. I was dizzy and had to brace myself with my hands. Hell, I'd see the president of the company. I'd get it straightened out. I wouldn't make any charges against the fellows for beating me up; I'd let that go. But I'd make the company pay my hospital bill, pay for fixing my teeth. And I'd get that bitch fired if it was the last thing I did. She couldn't get away with that, even if she was a white woman. But I wasn't worried, wasn't in any particular hurry.

'You wanna get dressed now?' the guard asked, nodding toward a cabinet. 'Your clothes are in there.'

When I stood up to go after them my knees wobbled; I had to catch hold of the foot of the bed to keep from falling. I felt out of balance, uncoupled, like a little tin soldier out of whack. When I took down my things I noticed dried blood about the collar of my coveralls and the upper part of my underwear shirt. I must have bled like a hog, I thought. Leaning against the cabinet to steady myself, I got into my underwear and coveralls without tearing off the bandages. But when I bent over to draw on my socks I almost fell forward on my face. And my ankles were swollen so I couldn't lace up my boots.

The guard sat there watching me curiously. 'Just as good as new,' he remarked jovially. 'By God, I never saw a man what could take so much punishment.'

I didn't see my watch, billfold, key ring, leather jacket, tin hat, or identifications. 'Where are my other things?' I asked, lisping the words carefully.

He chuckled. 'That tap on the noggin ain't bothered your memory any,' he said, pulling my watch, keys, and billfold from his pocket. 'Here you are, sonny. You're lucky somebody was good enough to turn 'em in.'

I didn't ask about my badges and identifications; I was through, I wouldn't need them any more anyway. The crystal of my watch was broken and it had stopped. I checked my keys; they were all there. I thought of my brass tool checks but didn't ask about them. I'd get all that straightened out in the morning. Then I looked to see if anything had been taken from my billfold. My driver's licence, draft classification, a small snapshot of Alice, and the other papers were there, but my money, two tens and four ones, was gone. I didn't ask about it either. I'd make the whole goddamned bunch sorry for everything that had happened, I resolved, stuffing all of it into my pocket.

'That's a pretty gal's picture you got there,' the guard observed. 'Is she white?'

I didn't reply.

'Better get your medicine too,' he said.

I looked on the bedside stand, saw a bottle of brown pills and a paper cup of water that had been sitting there until bubbles had formed in it. I picked up the bottle, dropped it into my other pocket.

The guard stood up. In his uniform, the regular olive drab with the Sam Browne belt and the auxiliary police insignia on his sleeve, he looked impressive, six feet four or more, and a good two-fifty pounds. 'Wanna go 'long with me now?' he said, opening the door into minor surgery.

I took a deep breath and went out ahead of him, weak and wobbly. There were two white-clad doctors, a nurse, and several patients in minor surgery. They stopped in the middle of what they were doing to stare at me. I looked straight ahead, stepped out into the yard.

It was dark; I had an idea it was pretty late. On the ground hundreds of lights made a sort of sketchy daylight, but overhead it was night. Here and there the arcs of welders were bluewhite flashes. The shipways were to my back, big dark eerie shapes with a million lights; but I didn't look about. Workers scurried about, trucks moved by, the noise was still there; the work went on. I had an idea it was the graveyard shift.

'We'll go over to the truck gate,' the guard said.

I headed in that direction; he fell in beside me. When we came to the glass-enclosed guards' room he held open the door. I went inside. There was a slanting draftsman's desk against the window toward the entrance, littered with pads, papers, temporary badges, and the usual forms gatekeepers have to make out before permitting vehicles to enter.

Two heavy-set gatekeepers in blue uniforms with holstered pistols sat on high stools, their feet hooked in the rungs and their elbows propped on the desk, listening to a short, pudgy, grey-haired man in the uniform of a guard captain who stood before them. He had a round rosy face and twinkling grey eyes, but at sight of me his eyes got hard.

'That the boy?' he asked the guard.

'This is him,' the guard said.

For a moment all of them looked at me curiously. Then one of the gatekeepers chuckled. 'Damn if they didn't beat hell out of you,' he said.

The guard captain said, 'You're lucky you're in California. In my home state we'd have hung you.'

I didn't say anything; I expected that out of the guards. Most of them were Southerners anyway. I was just waiting for him to get my time card so I could sign out and go home.

Instead he picked up the phone from the end of the desk and dialled. When he got an answer he said, 'Send somebody out here to Atlas to pick up that coloured boy on that rape charge.' He listened a moment, then said, 'Yeah, you got a warrant for him… Okay, I'll expect you.' He hung up and turned to look at me again. 'You'll get thirty years in this state, boy.'

I was slow getting it. My first reaction was surprise. 'What the hell?' I lisped. 'You having me arrested?' I kind of half thought maybe they were joking.

Everyone in the room gave me a quick, startled look. Then the big guard said, 'That's right, boy. The lady swore out a warrant.'

No one else said anything; they just looked at me.

I didn't get scared right away; I'd been thinking so hard about what was going to happen to her when the people knew the truth. I was even kind of amused to think she was simple enough to think she could get away with that in California. But my mind began going over the evidence. I still wasn't alarmed.

Then it smacked me, shook me to the core. I don't know what set it off; it must have been deep inside of me-always inside of me. I knew in one great flash she really could send me to the pen for thirty years. My word against hers, and all the evidence on her side. I knew there was no way in the world I could prove I hadn't tried to rape her.

Before, up in the room with her, with the mob beating at the door, I'd been instinctively scared of being caught with a white woman screaming, 'Rape.' Scared of the mob; scared of the violence; just scared because I was black and she was white; a trapped, cornered, physical fear.

But now I was scared in a different way. Not of the violence. Not of the mob. Not of physical hurt. But of America, of American justice. The jury and the judge. The people themselves. Of the inexorability of one conclusion-that I was guilty. In that one brief flash I could see myself trying to prove my innocence and nobody believing it. A white woman yelling, 'Rape,' and a Negro caught locked in the room. The whole structure of American thought was against me; American tradition had convicted me a hundred years before. And standing there in an American courtroom, through all the phoney formality of an American trial, having to take it, knowing that I was innocent and that I didn't have a chance.

I was scared more than I've ever been scared in all my life: a rational, reasonable, irrefutable, cold-headed scare. But I wasn't panicky. My mind got sharp, cunning; I thought of only one thing- escape.

A truck drove up, stopped to be inspected. One of the gatekeepers started out the front door; the other one reached for a form to copy the licence number. I swung a long left hook into the big guard's belly with everything I had, went out on the shoulders of the gatekeeper, roughing him to the ground. I stumbled over him, beyond, caught on my hands and one knee, felt the gravel bite into my palms, the pain rack me from the knee; heard the guard captain shout, 'Don't shoot! Catch him!' The instinct of self-preservation got me up and moving; I'd lost a boot and shook the other one off; heard the sudden clutter of action behind me, dug steps with a high-kneed, churning motion, trying to get some speed. It took a flat twelve hundred years to get to the back of the truck, around it, on the other side; and another dozen centuries to get across the lighted stretch of driveway before I reached the darkness of the parking lot.

I didn't think; my mind was following the blind line of action, concentrating on the problem of getting greater motion out of my body, nothing else.

I figured my car was way down to the left, ducked sharp between two cars, skinned my shin against a bumper, stumbled over something in the dark, fell flat, and got up again. I ran past my car and didn't see it, wheeled and sent a stabbing gaze along the row, rigid, tense, desperate, but not terrified. I spotted it three cars back, heard the guards looking for me two rows over, squatted on my hands and knees and walked back to it bear-fashion, hid below the fenders of the cars.

I thought I never would get the door unlocked; to get the key in the ignition took even longer. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw the guards coming toward me. I was parked in a double row with the cars heading in, V-shaped and tight together. A double line of six-by-sixes separated the two rows, served as barriers. There was a vacant space in front of me, at a sixtydegree angle. I cut sharp and headed into it without a thought of whether I could make it; took the double line of six-by-sixes on the starter before the motor caught; heard the back bumper hook into an adjoining fender and the motor roar at the same instant. Noise shattered the night as I yanked the fender off, sideswiped the car in the other line, straightened down the driveway.

Down in the lighted section by the central drive somebody ran out in front of me. I headed into him, missed him by a breath as he leaped away, made a screaming left turn toward the harbour road, but not quite tight enough, and dented my fenders fore and aft against the protective posts.

A P.E. train was coming toward the crossing and I didn't have time to shift. I got across ahead of it so close I heard it ping against my rear bumper as it swivelled the rear end out of line. I had to fight it out of a ditch, felt it lurch crazily beneath me, pulled it right into the harbour road on one thin prayer.

I hadn't turned on my lights and at the first turn a big, fastmoving Diesel cutting a long bend on the wrong side almost ran me down. I reached down and switched on the bright lights, noticed that fog was settling on the night, turned on my fog lights, and stood my stocking foot on the gas as if I was weighing myself. The snaky road came up over the hood, bent, straightened, and came up again. Behind, motor roar spilled like a P-38. The hood squatted so low it looked as though the crankcase would rub.

I started to brake for a left turn into Figueroa, saw a truck coming, and knew I couldn't make it, kept on over to Alameda. Outside of Wilmington a siren blew for me, but I didn't even slow. All I could think of was flight, desperate, cold-headed flight.

I came into the jog beyond the refineries where the P.E. tracks crossed again so fast I couldn't make the bend, went down the tracks, jumped into the gulley, heard water splash, came out on the road down on the floor, hanging to the wheel for dear life. I thought for a moment I'd wrecked it that time, but when I stepped on the gas it took life again.

Then I caught a stretch of open road, watched the needle climb. The speed cooled me slightly and the Buick drove itself. Thought came back into my mind, made me calculate. I looked at the gas. The needle was on '1'; I knew that'd give me three with the two reserve-three gallons. I could get some gas. Then I remembered suddenly that I didn't have any money. Finally I realized I couldn't use my car anyway; the cops would be on the lookout for it; they'd get the description and the licence number from the yard.

Scare hung over me like a cold grey shroud, but I knew I was thinking straight. I knew I had to get out of California before daylight, go somewhere and hide until I got healed up. Las Vegas, maybe. All kinds of strange Negroes had gone to Las Vegas; I could hide there in one of those whorehouses for a time without attracting any attention. After that I'd go east, to Harlem, maybe, take another name, and start life over. Because I knew I couldn't beat that rap that Madge had hung on me.

But first I'd have to get some money. I had about a hundred and ninety-odd dollars in my room. That was as far as I'd let myself think. I'd keep on the dark side streets, do about thirtyfive. I kept down to Fiftieth, turned left back to Untility Fan, came into Long Beach by the cannery, turned left again to Fifty-fourth, right to Central, right on Central to Fifty-first, left over to San Pedro. I was about to turn down Wall when I suddenly realized I'd better call first.

I turned around, drove back Fifty-first to the barbecue joint just before Central, parked half a block up the street, got out, and walked the rest of the way in my stocking feet. Before I went in I took a gander up the street, then peeped inside through the window. The place was filled with a lot of noisy, laughing, half-drunk people, men and women, all coloured. I braced myself and went in, kept on through to the phone booth at the rear. People turned and looked at me. One woman giggled, and another cracked, 'What run over him?' but the guy with her said, 'Tend to yo' own damn business.'

Ella Mae answered my ring. 'Look, I'm in trouble-' I began, but she cut me off.

'Is that you, Bob?'

'Yeah, listen-'

'Don't come home,' she said in a whisper. 'The police are here-' Her voice broke off. I heard a scuffle. In the background I could still hear her telling me not to come home, but yelling now. Then a man's voice said, 'Listen, Jones, the best thing you can do-'

I hung up, hurried out of the joint without looking to right or left. So the L.A. cops were already looking for me; that meant I'd have to keep out of public places. I began feeling pressed, trapped, conspicuous. I turned around, started to go back to the filling station at Fifty-fourth and try to get some gas on credit, then remembered that my ration book was at home. Every time I passed a car I drew up into a knot inside. I felt as though I were driving around a hook-and-ladder truck.

Finally I remembered a woman I knew who lived on Crocker. She worked in private family but was off on Thursday nights and she might be home. She had a couple of roomers, but they'd either be asleep or out and I had to take that chance.

I drove over to Crocker, pulled up far enough in the driveway beside the house so the car couldn't be spotted from down the street, got out, and knocked at her window. There was no answer at first and I knocked again. A female voice said, 'Who is it?'

'It's me, Bob, Hazel,' I lisped. 'I'm in a little trouble and I want to use your phone.'

'You don't sound like Bob,' she said sceptically. 'What's the matter with your voice?'

'I got some teeth knocked out,' I lisped.

'Oh!' Then she said, 'What kinda trouble? You ain't stole nothing, have you?'

'No, I hit a peck with my tyre iron,' I lied. 'The police are looking for me.'

She was silent for a moment. 'All right, come around to the back door.'

I went around the yard, felt the cool damp grass on my stocking feet. She opened the door into the kitchen without turning on the lights. In the darkness she was just a big vague shape.

'I oughtn'ta be doing this,' she grumbled. 'No telling what kinda trouble you might be getting me into.'

'I won't be long,' I promised.

'You know where the phone is.' Then after a moment she asked, 'You ain't killed nobody?'

'No, he's not bad hurt.'

She paused for a moment to look at me in the darkness, then asked, 'What you doing with all them bandages on your head? Somebody beat you up?'

'The police.' I lied.

'Oh!' She started away, stopped. 'Don't bother 'bout the door when you go out.'

The phone was in the kitchen, I dialled Alice in the dark. She answered the phone herself; she had an extension in her room and always answered calls after midnight.

'It's Bob,' I lisped. 'I'm-'

She cut me off immediately. 'If you're drunk, Bob, I don't want to talk to you. We waited dinner for an hour-'

'I'm not drunk,' I cut her off. 'I got some teeth knocked out. I'm in trouble. And I'm in a hurry-'

'What sort of trouble?' Her voice was sharp, anxious.

'I got in a jam at the yard,' I lisped, talking low so Hazel wouldn't hear.

'Talk louder,' she said. 'I can't hear you.'

'I got in some trouble at the yard,' I said, talking louder. 'I got messed up with that white woman I had the argument with and she's charging me with rape-'

'Rape!' Her voice was shocked, incredulous.

'Look, I can't explain now. I'm in an awful hurry,' I said. 'The police are looking for me. I didn't do it-you know that-but I'll have to explain when I see you.'

'Oh, Bob, you would have to get into something like that,' she said. Her voice sounded tearful.

'I tell you I haven't done anything,' I said impatiently. 'But nobody will believe it. Right now I've got to get away. What I want is to get whatever money you have on hand-and your car. I can't use mine and I can't go home to get any money-the police are there. I'll drive over to Western and-'

'But if you haven't done anything, why do you have to run away-'

'I told you, they're charging me-'

'But this sounds foolish. No one can just be charged- What can they do?'

'They can put me in the pen for thirty years,' I said. 'Look, let me explain when I see you-'

'But if you're innocent the worst thing you can do is run away.'

'Listen,' I began. 'You don't understand. I didn't do anything, but I can't prove it. I was in the room with the woman when she started screaming-'

'Screaming!' She got shocked all over again. 'Did you assault her-physically, I mean?'

'I can't explain now,' I said again. 'It just happened I got caught with her and she started hollering, "Rape." I'll tell you about it-'

'But I won't help you run away,' she cut in, getting her Americanism to working. 'That doesn't make any sense. I'll engage Blakely Moore to defend you. If you're innocent, Bob, you'll be acquitted. You forget there are laws. A person just can't charge you with a crime you haven't committed.'

'Look, Alice, this is serious,' I said. 'This isn't just talk any more. I don't expect you to keep our engagement. That's off, of course. But I need some help. I know what I'm doing. You're still talking in the air. But I know if I go before trial I'll be convicted. I know I haven't got a chance. I'm telling you-'

'But you can't know that if you are innocent,' she argued.

'Okay, I don't know it, but that isn't the point right now.' My mouth felt sore and ragged and I was at the end of my patience. 'The point is will you let me have some money and your car? I've got to get away. After I'm gone you can have Moore investigate-'

'If I thought it was for your own good I wouldn't hesitate,' she said. 'But I know it isn't. You're excited and frightened and aren't thinking straight. This is the state of California-I was born here. Why can't you be sensible for once-give yourself up and I will bring Blake down with me the first thing-'

'Will you do it or won't you?' I cut in.

'No, I won't,' she said. 'I'll do anything else-within reason. But I won't help you escape. If you're innocent you have nothing to fear. I'll fight it through the courts with you until-'

I hung up, sat there for a moment, debating whether to call Hazel again and get what money she had. Finally I decided against it. It might get her into trouble.

All of a sudden my body began shaking; I began going hot and cold all over as if I had chilblains. I peered around in the darkness to see if she had anything to drink out there, found a pint bottle half full of some kind of whisky. I tilted it to my mouth, drank, swallowed, choked, then drank again. Then I remembered my pills. I shook some of them loose in my palm, I don't know how many, got a half glass of water at the sink, washed them down.

I heard motor sounds outside, thought it might be the police, ran out the back door across the yard to the fence separating the properties, ready to jump over and run through to the other street. The car passed. I went around, got into my car, backed into the street.

Instinct carried me over toward Central, into the heart of the ghetto. I parked in a dark spot in the middle of the block back of the Dunbar Hotel. I hadn't felt any pain before I'd telephoned Alice, but now I ached in every joint.

The bandages had fallen from my knees, had worked off my elbows. I pulled up my coverall legs, fingered the lacerated kneecaps. I must have landed on my knees when I fell off the jack ladder. Then I groped around underneath the seat on the floor until I found my first-aid kit, felt for the bottle of mercurochrome, slowly and painstakingly painted the lacerated spots. When my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness I wrapped fresh bandages about my knees, taped them, tried to bandage my elbows again but couldn't make it.

As long as I'd kept moving my mind had remained concentrated on the action. But now a dull hopelessness settled over it, an untempered futility. I felt pressed, cornered, black, as small and weak and helpless as any Negro share-cropper facing a white mob in Georgia. I felt without soul, without mind, at the very end. Everything was useless, fight was useless, nothing I could do would make any difference now. I switched on the ignition, looked at the gas. It was on 'Empty'-I didn't know how long it had been there. I didn't want to get into some white neighbourhood and run out of gas. If I had to be caught I'd rather be caught right there in the heart of the Negro district. Chances were they'd catch me before daybreak anyway.

I went back over everything that had happened, detail by detail. I could think about it now: it didn't make any difference at all. I felt very calm and reasonable. They were going to catch me and give me thirty years in prison. For raping a white woman I hadn't even tried to rape.

Then it burst wide open in my mind. I wasn't excited. I looked at it objectively, as if it concerned somebody else. I'd kill Johnny Stoddart and let them hang me for it. All they could ever do to me then would be to get even. I was going but I'd take him with me.

I opened the glove compartment, got out my pistol I'd put there Monday afternoon, snapped on the overhead light, looked to see if it was loaded. Satisfied, I put it back, snapped off the light, mashed the starter, turned on the headlights, I felt for a cigarette, didn't have any. I noticed that my hands were trembling, but I didn't feel nervous.

I went ahead to Central, turned south to Slauson, doing a slow twenty-five, observing all the traffic rules, stopping at the boulevard stops, putting out my hand when I turned. At Slauson I turned toward Soto, stopped at Soto for the red light.

A police cruiser pulled up beside me. The cop on the outside gave me a casual glance, saw that I was a Negro, and came to attention. He leaned out the window and said, 'Pull over to the curb, boy.'

For just an instant I debated whether to try to make a break, but I knew I didn't have enough gas to get away and there was no need of getting another whipping for nothing. I pulled over to the curb, cut the motor. The cops pulled up ahead of me, got out, and came back.

'Let's see your operator's licence,' one said.

I fished out my billfold, handed it to him.

He looked at it, turned the leaf and looked at my draft classification, then caught sight of Alice's picture. He showed it to the other cop. They grinned.

One turned his flashlight on me. 'Whew!' he whistled, then said, 'Get out!'

It wasn't until then I remembered about my pistol but it was too late to worry about that now. For an instant I hesitated, debated whether to try; then I thought What the hell's the use? got out, and stood beside the running board.

'Who you been fighting, boy?' one asked.

It startled me. I knew then that they didn't know I was wanted; they'd just stopped me because I was a black boy in a big car in a white neighbourhood.

'I was in an accident at the plant where I work,' I lisped.

'Where's your shop identification?'

'I left it at home.'

'What you doing out in this neighbourhood?'

'I was on my way home.'

He turned to the other cop. 'Let him go?' he asked.

The other cop shrugged.

The first cop flashed the light into the car, looked about the seats, pulled open the glove compartment, and brought out the pistol.

'Aha!' he said.

The other cop took me by the arm while the one with the flashlight locked the car ignition, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors. Then they got on each side of me, walked me back to the cruiser. One sat in the back with me; the other one drove.

They held me at the desk. Finally a lieutenant came out and looked at me. 'Aren't you the boy they want in Pedro for that rape at Atlas?' he asked.

I didn't reply. He slapped me.

'Answer when I speak to you,' he said.

I still didn't answer. He looked as if he was trying to decide whether to get rough with me or not, then turned impatiently to the cops who picked me up. 'What we got on him here?' he asked.

'Gun in his car,' the copper said.

The lieutenant turned to the desk sergeant, 'Lock him up and call Pedro. We'll let them have him first.' Then he stood there, looking important for a moment, and went out through a door.

The desk sergeant motioned the jailer to take me away. He took me back and locked me in a cell with a guy with a cut head. He lay on his bunk, moaning slightly. I imagined he was more scared than hurt. I stood there, leaning against the bars, not thinking about anything at all. Some time later, I don't know how long, the jailer came and took me out again, and two other policemen took me out past the sergeant's desk again and put me in a car and drove me down to San Pedro.

They put me in a cell by myself this time. It was a dirty grimy cell, stinking of urine, sweat, and filth. The cotton mattress was bare, stained in several spots, looked as though it might be crawling with lice. I didn't give a goddamn; I stretched out on it. I didn't think I'd ever sleep again.