If he hollers let him go

CHAPTER V

I went to Mac's office and asked Marguerite for a sick pass to go home. She gave it to me in her cold business manner without saying a word. But I felt she was all right, she was a fine person, she didn't have anything against me. I smiled at her and said, 'Thank you,' and went out.

That was what it did for me. 'Unchain 'em in the big corral,' the boys used to say in Hot Stuff's crap game back in Cleveland. That was what it did for me; it unchained me, made me free. I felt like running and jumping, shouting and laughing; I felt something I'd felt the time Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling-only better.

When I checked out Gate No. 2 the gatekeeper looked at me and said, 'What, you going home already? You just got here a few minutes ago.'

I wagged a finger at him. 'You don't know how tempus fugits.'

He didn't like that. 'You coloured boys better lay off that gin,' he said, winking at the guard.

I laughed. 'The only way you can make me mad now,' I told him, 'is to get a mouthful of horse manure and blow it through your teeth at me.'

He turned red and started to say something else, but I didn't stop. I backed out my car, circled in the parking lot, crossed the Pacific Electric tracks, and turned into the harbour road, just idling along. I didn't feel like speeding. The car drove easy all of a sudden, I thought. Not a jerk in it, not a squeak; it took the bumps like a box-spring mattress. It was a pleasure just sitting there, my fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel, just idling along.

I was going to kill him if they hung me for it, I thought pleasantly. A white man, a supreme being. Just the thought of it did something for me; just contemplating it. All the tightness that had been in my body, making my motions jerky, keeping my muscles taut, left me and I felt relaxed, confident, strong. I felt just like I thought a white boy oughta feel; I had never felt so strong in all my life.

A warm glow went all over me as if I had just stepped out of a Turkish bath and had had a good massage. My mind was light, relieved, without a care in the world. As I idled along past the long line of industries I felt a sudden compelling friendliness toward the white people I passed. I felt like waving to them and saying, 'It's all right now. It's fine, solid, it's a great deal.'

A well-dressed, slenderly built middle-aged white woman stepped from the curb in the path of my car. I eased to a stop and waited for her to pass. She looked up; surprise was first in her eyes, then she gave a tentative, half-decided smile. I smiled in return, warm and friendly. It made all the difference in the world; the weights had gone out of my head.

Now I felt the heat of the day, saw the hard, bright California sunshine. It lay in the road like a white, frozen brilliance, hot but unshimmering, cutting the vision of my eyes into unwavering curves and stark unbroken angles. The shipyards had an impressive look, three-dimensional but infinite. Colours seemed brighter. Cranes were silhouetted against the grey-blue distance of sky.

I felt the size of it, the immensity of the production. I felt the importance of it, the importance of the whole war. I'd never given a damn one way or the other about the war excepting wanting to keep out of it; and at first when I wanted the Japanese to win. And now I did; I was stirred as I had been when I was a little boy watching a parade, seeing the flag go by. That filled-up feeling of my country. I felt included in it all; I had never felt included before. It was a wonderful feeling.

Glancing up, I saw a dine-dance cafe across from the Consolidated. I pulled into the parking lot and coasted to a stop, got out, and went inside. It was cool inside and so dark I had to pause just inside the doorway for my sight to pick out objects. The bar was flat across one side, and the dining-room circled out in front of it.

There were a number of men at the bar, a few women. A group of loud-voiced shipyard workers sat at a table playing Indian dice. They were all white. I found a seat at the bar between a woman and a man and made myself comfortable. The fear of being refused service might have come into my mind, but I didn't notice it. After a while the bar-tender stopped in front of me. He was a thin, indifferent-faced man with thinning black hair and a winged moustache. I ordered a double scotch and he grinned. The white woman next to me stopped talking and looked around. I could feel her gaze on me.

'You would take gin though, wouldn't you?' the bar-tender said.

I let my eyes rove over the stock. All I saw was gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and wine. I grinned back at the bar-tender. 'Gin's fine,' I said. 'I was nursed on gin.'

He picked up the bottle, poised it. 'Double?'

'That's right,' I said. I turned to look at the white woman at my side. Our eyes met. She had brown eyes, frankly curious; and blonde hair, dark at the roots, piled on top of her head. In the dim orange light her lipstick didn't show and her mouth looked too thin for the size of her other features. She had taken off her brassiere on account of the heat and the outline of her breasts showed distinctly through her white rayon blouse.

She looked away after a moment and when I looked into the mirror I met the eyes of the man on the other side of her. I smiled slightly, looked away before seeing whether he returned it or not.

The bar-tender replaced the gin bottle. 'Chaser?'

'Water,' I said.

He set up the water. 'We don't have no more whisky, only once or twice a week,' he said. 'I ain't seen no Scotch since I don't know when.'

'Scotch? What's that?' the blonde girl said. She had a man's heavy voice.

'Speaking of Scotch reminds me of a joke,' the man on the other side of her began. 'Two Scotchmen went to a Jew store to buy a suit of clothes…'

I got interested in watching a guy down the bar balance a half-filled glass on its edge and didn't listen. When I finished my gin I went over and sat down at a table. A young darkhaired girl in a blue, white-trimmed uniform came over to take my order. She had two imitation daisies pinned on each side of her hair. Her face was impersonal.

I ordered the biggest steak they had, then a double martini as an afterthought. A big rawboned old-timer came in and looked about for a place to sit. Finally he sat at the table with me. I thought to myself, I must be turning white really and truly, and grinned at him.

'If it's one thing I don't like, it's sitting at a goddamned empty table,' he greeted.

'It is kinda bad,' I said.

'You married?' he asked.

I shook my head. 'Still in the field.'

'I been married thirty-two goddamned years,' he said. 'Got the best goddamned finest woman in the world. Got three boys in the Marines. And goddamnit, every time I come into this goddamned joint I don't find nothing but empty tables.' I thought for a moment he was going to bang on the table and complain to the management,

'You work at Consolidated?' he asked suddenly.

I shook my head. 'I work at Atlas.'

'That goddamned stinking joint!' he said. 'The Navy had to take over that goddamned yard before they could get any work done. That is the goddamnest, laziest, prissiest, undermanned, prejudiced shipyard-' He cursed out Atlas until my steak came, then he looked at it and said, 'That looks pretty good. They must be getting some better beef out this way now.' Until his steak came he cursed out the West Coast beef.

We ate silently. I'd never eaten steak that tasted so good. When I'd finished I got up, paid my bill, said, 'See you,' and left. He didn't say anything; but I felt all right about it.

I decided to go back by Figueroa, and when I turned into it a couple of white sailors thumbed me and I stopped to give them a lift. They were very young boys, still in their teens, scrubbed-faced and slightly tanned. The three of us sat in the front seat; the one in the middle put his arm behind me to make room. For a time we went along without talking, then I asked, 'What's you guy's names?'

'Lester,' the one in the middle said, and the other one said, 'Carl.'

'What's yours?' Lester asked, and I told him, 'Bob.'

'You work in a shipyard?' Carl asked.

'Atlas,' I told him. 'I'm a sheet-metal worker.'

'I worked a while up at Richmond-Richmond No. 1, Kaiser's yard,' he said. 'I'm from San Francisco.'

'I was up there once,' I said. 'I like Frisco, it's a good city.'

The boy in the middle hadn't said anything, so I asked him, 'Where you from, Lester?'

'Memphis,' he said. 'You ever been there?'

I gave him a quick side glance; then I chuckled. 'No, I never been to Memphis,' I said. 'I'm from Ohio-Cleveland.'

'I bet you'd like Memphis,' he said as if he really believed it.

'Maybe,' I said. 'But I'll never know.'

He grinned. 'You like Los Angeles, eh?'

'Just between you and me,' I said, 'Los Angeles is the most over-rated, lousiest, countriest, phoniest city I've ever been in.'

That was one thing we all agreed on. They liked my car and we talked about cars for a time as we skimmed along the wide straight roadway. The boy from Frisco said, 'Of course if I had my way I'd take a Kitty.'

I said, 'Who wouldn't?'

We passed a couple of girls jiggling along in thin summer dresses and the boy from Memphis whistled.

I said, 'I bet you wouldn't take it if she gave it to you.'

'What you bet?' he said, and they both blushed slightly.

I got a funny thought then; I began wondering when white people started getting white-or rather, when they started losing it. And how it was you could take two white guys from the same place-one would carry his whiteness like a loaded stick, ready to bop everybody else in the head with it; and the other would just simply be white as if he didn't have anything to do with it and let it go at that. I liked those two white kids; they were white, but as my aunt Fanny used to say they couldn't help that.

When we got closer to town and saw more women on the Street we started a guessing game about every one we passed, whether they were married or single, how many kids they had, whether their husbands were in the Army, if they played around at all. All the elderly women they called 'Mom.' We had a lot of fun until we came to a dark brown woman in a dark red dress and a light green hat carrying a shoebox tied with a string, falling along in that knee-buckling, leaning-forward, housemaid's lope, and frowning so hard her face was all knotted up. They didn't say anything at all. I wanted to say something to keep it going, but all I could have said about her was that she was an ugly, evil-looking old lady. If we had all been coloured we'd have laughed. like hell because she was really a comical sister. But with the white boys present, I couldn't say anything. I looked straight ahead and we all became embarrassed and remained silent for a time. When we began talking again we were all a little cautious. We didn't talk about women any more.

When we neared Vernon Avenue I asked them where they were going and they said down to Warner's at Seventh and Hill. I took them down and dropped them in front of the box office. They thanked me and went off. I kept over to San Pedro and turned south. It was two-thirty when I got home. Henry had already left for work and Ella Mae had taken the baby out for a sunning.

I took a shower, shaved, put on slacks, sport shirt, and sandals; got my. 38 Special out of the bottom bureau drawer, checked to see that it was loaded, went out, and got in my car and drove over to Central to get some gas. I put the gun in the glove compartment and left the car in the station for Buddy to check over while I strolled down past the Dunbar Hotel.

I felt tall, handsome, keen. I was bareheaded and my hair felt good in the sun. A little black girl in a pink draped slack suit with a thick red mouth and kinky curled hair switched by. I smelled her dime-store perfume and got a live-wire edge.

Everything was sharper. Even Central Avenue smelled better. I strolled among the loungers in front of Skippy's, leaned against the wall, and watched the babes go by. A white woman in a Ford roadster with the top down slowed for the traffic and a black boy called, 'Hello, blondy!' She didn't look around.

Tia Juana pulled up in his long green Cat and parked in a No Parking zone. He got out, a short, squat, black, harelipped Negro with a fine banana-skin chick on his arm, and went into the hotel, and some stud said, 'Light, bright, and damn near white; how does that nigger do it?'

A bunch of weed-heads were seeing how dirty they could talk; and a couple of prosperous-looking pimps were standing near by ignoring them. Some raggedy chum came from the barber shop across the street where they had a crap game in the rear and said that Seattle had won two grand. The coloured cop grabbed him for jay-walking and started writing out a ticket; and he was there trying to talk him out of it: 'You know me, man, I'm ol' Joe; everybody know ol' Joe-' Everybody but that cop, that is.

It was a slick, niggerish block-hustlers and pimps, gamblers and stooges. But it didn't ruffle me. Even the solid cats in their pancho conks didn't ruffle me. It wasn't as if I was locked up down there as I'd been just yesterday. I was free to go now; but I liked it with my folks.

A couple of my boys came up. 'You still on rubber, man?' one wanted to know.

'That's right,' I said.

'Say, run me out to Hollywood, man.' It was twelve miles to Hollywood. I laughed.

'Don't pay no 'tention to that nigger, man,' the other one said. 'That nigger's mad. Lemme take a sawbuck, man. I got a lain hooked down here and all he needs is digging.'

'That's right,' I said. 'Try a fool.'

They grinned. 'You got it, Papa.' They went off to find another one.

My people, I thought. I started to get a drink, then glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to four. I hurried over to the parking lot, got my car, circled into Central, and began digging. It was just four-thirty when I pulled up before the entrance to the parking lot at Atlas Ship.

I got out, walked over to the gate where the copper shop let out. My boy was one of the first ones through. I was thinking of him as 'my boy' now. I followed him, wondering how I could work it if he caught a P.E. train. But I got a break; he waited on one side of the street until a grey Ford sedan slowed for him and climbed in. I sprinted back across the street, got in my car, and dug off just as one of the yard cops was coming over to move me. I muscled in ahead of a woman driver three cars behind the grey Ford; kept the position until we came to Anaheim Road in Wilmington, then pulled up to one car behind and stayed there. I thought about my riders; they were burning, I knew.

The next instant I'd forgotten them. It felt good following the guy, knowing I was going to kill him. I wasn't at all nervous or apprehensive. I thought about it like you think about a date with a beautiful chick you've always wanted to make; I just had that feeling that it was going to be great.

The grey Ford had five riders besides the driver. At Alameda Street it turned north into Compton, and two of the riders in back got out, leaving my boy alone. When it stopped before a house in Huntington Park I rolled up and parked right behind it. My boy got out, said something to the fellows in the front seat, and the car moved off. He glanced idly at my car, took two steps towards the house, then wheeled about and stared into my eyes. His eyes stretched with a stark incredulity and his face went stiff white, like wrinkled paper. He stood rigid, half turned, as if frozen to the spot.

I reached into the glove compartment and got my gun, then I opened the door and got out into the street. I wasn't in any hurry. They'd probably hang me, I knew, but I'd already accepted that, already gotten past it. He turned quickly and started up the walk toward the house, walking stiff-jointed, his shoulders high and braced and his back flattened like a board. When he got to the steps a homely blonde woman opened the door from the inside and two small towheaded kids squeezed past her legs and ran toward him.

He pushed the children back through the door with a rough, savage motion, then whispered something sharply to the woman. She snapped a quick frightened look toward me and her mouth opened as if to scream. She let him in and slammed shut the door and I could hear it being bolted from the inside.

I stopped. I didn't have to kill him now, I thought. I could kill him any time; I could save him up for killing like the white folks had been saving me up for all these years.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw two old ladies coming down the sidewalk with loaded shopping bags, giving me frosty looks. It didn't occur to me that my boy might stick a gun out the front window and blow off the back of my head. I felt cool, untouchable, indifferent. I thought perhaps he might be calling the police, but it didn't worry me. When the two old ladies came opposite me I gave them a wide, bright smile and said in my best manner 'It's a beautiful day, isn't it?'

I left them standing dead still on the sidewalk, twisting their scrawny necks about to stare at me with outraged indignation as I climbed into my car and dug off.

I could even go back to the shipyard and work as a mechanic, I thought. As long as I knew I was going to kill him, nothing could bother me. They could beat my head to a bloody pulp and kick my guts through my spine. But they couldn't hurt me, no matter what they did. I had a peckerwood's life in the palm of my hand and that made all the difference.