Invisible man

Chapter 23

The bar downstairs was hot and crowded and there was a heated argument in progress over Clifton's shooting. I stood near the door and ordered a bourbon. Then someone noticed me, and they tried to draw me in.

"Please, not tonight," I said. "He was one of my best friends."

"Oh, sure," they said, and I had another bourbon and left.

When I reached 125th Street, I was approached by a group of civil-liberties workers circulating a petition demanding the dismissal of the guilty policeman, and a block further on even the familiar woman street preacher was shouting a sermon about the slaughter of the innocents. A much broader group was stirred up over the shooting than I had imagined. Good, I thought, perhaps it won't die down after all. Maybe I'd better see Hambro tonight.

Little groups were all along the street, and I moved with increasing speed until suddenly I had reached Seventh Avenue, and there beneath a street lamp with the largest crowd around him was Ras the Exhorter -- the last man in the world I wanted to see. And I had just turned back when I saw him lean down between his flags, shouting, "Look, look, Black ladies and gentlemahn! There goes the representative of the Brotherhood. Does Ras see correctly? Is that gentlemahn trying to pass us unnoticed? Ask him about it. What are you people waiting for, sir? What are you doing about our black youth shot down beca'se of your deceitful organization?"

They turned, looking at me, closing in. Some came up behind me and tried to push me further into the crowd. The Exhorter leaned down, pointing at me, beneath the green traffic light.

"Ask him what they are doing about it, ladies and gentlemahn. Are they afraid -- or are the white folks and their black stooges sticking together to betray us?"

"Get your hands off me," I shouted as someone reached around and seized my arm.

I heard a voice cursing me softly.

"Give the brother a chance to answer!" someone said.

Their faces pressed in upon me. I wanted to laugh, for suddenly I realized that I didn't know whether I had been part of a sellout or not. But they were in no mood for laughter.

"Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters," I said, "I disdain to answer such an attack. Since you all know me and my work, I don't think it's necessary. But it seems highly dishonorable to use the unfortunate death of one of our most promising young men as an excuse for attacking an organization that has worked to bring an end to such outrages. Who was the first organization to act against this killing? The Brotherhood! Who was the first to arouse the people? The Brotherhood! Who will always be the first to advance the cause of the people? Again the Brotherhood!

"We acted and we shall always act, I assure you. But in our own disciplined way. And we'll act positively. We refuse to waste our energies and yours in premature and ill-considered actions. We are Americans, all of us, whether black or white, regardless of what the man on the ladder there tells you, Americans. And we leave it to the gentleman up there to abuse the name of the dead. The Brotherhood grieves and feels deeply the loss of its brother. And we are determined that his death shall be the beginning of profound and lasting changes. It's easy enough to wait around for the minute a man is safely buried and then stand on a ladder and smear the memory of everything he believed in. But to create something lasting of his death takes time and careful planning --"

"Gentlemahn," Ras shouted, "stick to the issue. You are not answering my question. What are you doing about the shooting?"

I moved toward the edge of the crowd. If this went any further, it could be disastrous.

"Stop abusing the dead for your own selfish ends," I said. "Let him rest in peace. Quit mangling his corpse!"

I pushed away as he raged, hearing shouts of, "Tell him about it!" "Grave robber!"

The Exhorter waved his arms and pointed, shouting, "That mahn is a paid stooge of the white enslaver! Wheere has he been for the last few months when our black babies and women have been suffering --"

"Let the dead rest in peace," I shouted, hearing someone call "Aw man, go back to Africa. Everybody knows the brother."

Good, I thought, good. Then there was a scuffle behind me and I whirled to see two men stop short. They were Ras's men.

"Listen, mister," I said up to him, "if you know what's good for you, you'll call off your goons. Two of them seem to want to follow me."

"And that is a dahm lie!" he shouted.

"There are witnesses if anything should happen to me. A man who'll dig up the dead hardly before he's buried will try anything, but I warn you --"

There were angry shouts from some of the crowd and I saw the men continue past me with hate in their eyes, leaving the crowd to disappear around the corner. Ras was attacking the Brotherhood now and others were answering him from the audience, and I went on, moving back toward Lenox, moving past a movie house when they grabbed me and started punching. But this time they'd picked the wrong spot, and the movie doorman intervened and they ran back toward Ras's street meeting. I thanked the doorman and went on. I had been lucky; they hadn't hurt me, but Ras was becoming bold again. On a less crowded street they might have done some damage.

Reaching the Avenue I stepped to the curb and signaled a cab, seeing it sail by. An ambulance went past, then another cab with its flag down. I looked back. I felt that they were watching me from somewhere up the street but I couldn't see them. Why didn't a taxi come! Then three men in natty cream-colored summer suits came to stand near me at the curb, and something about them struck me like a hammer. They were all wearing dark glasses. I had seen it thousands of times, but suddenly what I had considered an empty imitation of a Hollywood fad was flooded with personal significance. Why not, I thought, why not, and shot across the street and into the air-conditioned chill of a drugstore.

I saw them on a case strewn with sun visors, hair nets, rubber gloves, a card of false eyelashes, and seized the darkest lenses I could find. They were of a green glass so dark that it appeared black, and I put them on immediately, plunging into blackness and moving outside.

I could barely see; it was almost dark now, and the streets swarmed in a green vagueness. I moved slowly across to stand near the subway and wait for my eyes to adjust. A strange wave of excitement boiled within me as I peered out at the sinister light. And now through the hot gusts from the underground people were emerging and I could feel the trains vibrating the walk. A cab rolled up to discharge a passenger and I was about to take it when the woman came up the stairs and stopped before me, smiling. Now what, I thought, seeing her standing there, smiling in her tight-fitting summer dress; a large young woman who reeked with Christmas Night perfume who now came close.

"Rinehart, baby, is that you?" she said.

Rinehart, I thought. So it works. She had her hand on my arm and faster than I thought I heard myself answer, "Is that you, baby?" and waited with tense breath.

"Well, for once you're on time," she said. "But what you doing bareheaded, where's your new hat I bought you?"

I wanted to laugh. The scent of Christmas Night was enfolding me now and I saw her face draw closer, her eyes widening.

"Say, you ain't Rinehart, man. What you trying to do? You don't even talk like Rine. What's your story?"

I laughed, backing away. "I guess we were both mistaken," I said.

She stepped backward clutching her bag, watching me, confused.

"I really meant no harm," I said. "I'm sorry. Who was it you mistook me for?"

"Rinehart, and you'd better not let him catch you pretending to be him."

"No," I said. "But you seemed so pleased to see him that I couldn't resist it. He's really a lucky man."

"And I could have sworn you was -- Man, you git away from here before you get me in trouble," she said, moving aside, and I left.

It was very strange. But that about the hat was a good idea, I thought, hurrying along now and looking out for Ras's men. I was wasting time. At the first hat shop I went in and bought the widest hat in stock and put it on. With this, I thought, I should be seen even in a snowstorm -- only they'd think I was someone else.

Then I was back in the street and moving toward the subway. My eyes adjusted quickly; the world took on a dark-green intensity, the lights of cars glowed like stars, faces were a mysterious blur; the garish signs of movie houses muted down to a soft sinister glowing. I headed back for Ras's meeting with a bold swagger. This was the real test, if it worked I would go on to Hambro's without further trouble. In the angry period to come I would be able to move about.

A couple of men approached, eating up the walk with long jaunty strides that caused their heavy silk sport shirts to flounce rhythmically upon their bodies. They too wore dark glasses, their hats were set high upon their heads, the brims turned down. A couple of hipsters, I thought, just as they spoke.

"What you sayin', daddy-o," they said.

"Rinehart, poppa, tell us what you putting down," they said.

Oh, hell, they're probably his friends, I thought, waving and moving on.

"We know what you're doing, Rinehart," one of them called. "Play it cool, ole man, play it cool!"

I waved again as though in on the joke. They laughed behind me. I was nearing the end of the block now, wet with sweat. Who was this Rinehart and what was he putting down? I'd have to learn more about him to avoid further misidentifications ...

A car passed with its radio blaring. Ahead I could hear the Exhorter barking harshly to the crowd. Then I was moving close, and coming to a stop conspicuously in the space left for pedestrians to pass through the crowd. To the rear they were lined up two deep before the store windows. Before me the listeners merged in a green-tinted gloom. The Exhorter gestured violently, blasting the Brotherhood.

"The time for ahction is here. We mahst chase them out of Harlem," he cried. And for a second I thought he had caught me in the sweep of his eyes, and tensed.

"Ras said chase them! It is time Ras the Exhorter become Ras the DESTROYER !"

Shouts of agreement arose and I looked behind me, seeing the men who had followed me and thinking, What did he mean, destroyer?

"I repeat, black ladies and gentlemahn, the time has come for ahction! I, Ras the Destroyer, repeat, the time has come!"

I trembled with excitement; they hadn't recognized me. It works, I thought. They see the hat, not me. There is a magic in it. It hides me right in front of their eyes ... But suddenly I wasn't sure. With Ras calling for the destruction of everything white in Harlem, who could notice me? I needed a better test. If I was to carry out my plan ... What plan? Hell, I don't know, come on ...

I weaved out of the crowd and left, heading for Hambro's.

A group of zoot-suiters greeted me in passing. "Hey now, daddy-o," they called. "Hey now!"

"Hey now!" I said.

It was as though by dressing and walking in a certain way I had enlisted in a fraternity in which I was recognized at a glance -- not by features, but by clothes, by uniform, by gait. But this gave rise to another uncertainty. I was not a zoot-suiter, but a kind of politician. Or was I? What would happen in a real test? What about the fellows who'd been so insulting at the Jolly Dollar? I was halfway across Eighth Avenue at the thought and retraced my steps, running for an uptown bus.

There were many of the regular customers draped around the bar. The room was crowded and Barrelhouse was on duty. I could feel the frame of the glasses cutting into the ridge of my nose as I tilted my hat and squeezed up to the bar. Barrelhouse looked at me roughly, his lips pushed out.

"What brand you drinking tonight, Poppa-stopper?" he said.

"Make it Ballantine's," I said in my natural voice.

I watched his eyes as he set the beer before me and slapped the bar with his enormous hand for his money. Then, my heart beating faster, I made my old gesture of payment, spinning the coin upon the bar and waited. The coin disappeared into his fist.

"Thanks, pops," he said, moving on and leaving me puzzled. For there had been recognition of a kind in his voice but not for me. He never called me "pops" or "poppa-stopper." It's working, I thought, perhaps it's working very well.

Certainly something was working on me, and profoundly. Still I was relieved. It was hot. Perhaps that was it. I drank the cold beer, looking back to the rear of the room to the booths. A crowd of men and women moiled like nightmare figures in the smoke-green haze. The juke box was dinning and it was like looking into the depths of a murky cave. And now someone moved aside and looking down along the curve of the bar past the bobbing heads and shoulders I saw the juke box, lit up like a bad dream of the Fiery Furnace, shouting:

And yet, I thought, watching a numbers runner paying off a bet, this is one place that the Brotherhood definitely penetrated. Let Hambro explain that, too, along with all the rest he'd have to explain.

I drained the glass and turned to leave, when there across at the lunch counter I saw Brother Maceo. I moved impulsively, forgetting my disguise until almost upon him, then checked myself and put my disguise once more to a test. Reaching roughly across his shoulder I picked up a greasy menu that rested between the sugar shaker and the hot-sauce bottle and pretended to read it through my dark lenses.

"How're the ribs, pops?" I said.

"Fine, least these here I'm eatin' is."

"Yeah? How much you know about ribs?"

He raised his head slowly, looking across at the spitted chickens revolving before the low blue rotisserie flames. "I reckon I know as much about 'em as you," he said, "and probably more, since I probably been eatin' 'em a few years longer than you, and in a few more places. What makes you think you kin come in here messing with me anyhow?"

He turned, looking straight into my face now, challenging me. He was very game and I wanted to laugh.

"Oh, take it easy," I growled. "A man can ask a question, can't he?"

"You got your answer," he said, turning completely around on the stool. "So now I guess you ready to pull your knife."

"Knife?" I said, wanting to laugh. "Who said anything about a knife?"

"That's what you thinking about. Somebody say something you don't like and you kinda fellows pull your switch blades. So all right, go ahead and pull it. I'm as ready to die as I'm gon' ever be. Let's see you, go ahead!"

He reached for the sugar shaker now, and I stood there feeling suddenly that the old man before me was not Brother Maceo at all, but someone else disguised to confuse me. The glasses were working too well. He's a game old brother, I thought, but this'll never do.

I pointed toward his plate. "I asked you about the ribs," I said, "not your ribs. Who said anything about a knife?"

"Never mind that, just go on and pull it," he said.

"Let's see you. Or is you waiting for me to turn my back. All right, here it is, here's my back," he said, turning swiftly on the stool and around again, his arm set to throw the shaker.

Customers were turning to look, were moving clear.

"What's the matter, Maceo?" someone said.

"Nothing I caint handle; this confidencing sonofabitch come in here bluffing --"

"You take it easy, old man," I said. "Don't let your mouth get your head in trouble," thinking, Why am I talking like this?

"You don't have to worry about that, sonofabitch, pull your switch blade!"

"Give it to him, Maceo, coolcrack the motherfouler!"

I marked the position of the voice by ear now, turning so that I could see Maceo, the agitator, and the customers blocking the door. Even the juke box had stopped and I could feel the danger mounting so swiftly that I moved without thinking, bounding over quickly and sweeping up a beer bottle, my body trembling.

"All right," I said, "if that's the way you want it, all right! The next one who talks out of turn gets this!"

Maceo moved and I feinted with the bottle, seeing him dodge, his arm set to throw and held only because I was crowding him; a dark old man in overalls and a gray long-billed cloth cap, who looked dreamlike through the green glasses.

"Throw it," I said. "Go on," overcome with the madness of the thing. Here I'd set out to test a disguise on a friend and now I was ready to beat him to his knees -- not because I wanted to but because of place and circumstance. Okay, okay, it was absurd and yet real and dangerous and if he moved, I'd let him have it as brutally as possible. To protect myself I'd have to, or the drunks would gang me. Maceo was set, looking at me coldly, and suddenly I heard a voice boom out, "Ain't going to be no fighting in my joint!" It was Barrelhouse. "Put them things down y'all, they cost money."

"Hell, Barrelhouse, let 'em fight!"

"They can fight in the streets, not in here -- Hey, y'all," he called "look over here ..."

I saw him now, leaning forward with a pistol in his huge fist, resting it steady upon the bar.

"Now put 'em down y'all," he said mournfully. "I done ask you to put my property down."

Brother Maceo looked from me to Barrelhouse.

"Put it down, old man," I said, thinking, Why am I acting from pride when this is not really me?

"You put yourn down," he said.

"Both of y'all put 'em down; and you, Rinehart," Barrelhouse said, gesturing at me with his pistol, "you get out of my joint and stay out. We don't need your money in here."

I started to protest, but he held up his palm.

"Now you all right with me, Rinehart, don't get me wrong. But I just can't stand trouble," Barrelhouse said.

Brother Maceo had replaced the shaker now and I put my bottle down and backed to the door.

"And Rine," Barrelhouse said, "don't go try to pull no pistol neither, 'cause this here one is loaded and I got a permit."

I backed to the door, my scalp prickling, watching them both.

"Next time don't ask no questions you don't want answered," Maceo called. "An' if you ever want to finish this argument I be right here."

I felt the outside air explode around me and I stood just beyond the door laughing with the sudden relief of the joke restored, looking back at the defiant old man in his long-billed cap and the confounded eyes of the crowd. Rinehart, Rinehart, I thought, what kind of man is Rinehart?

I was still chuckling when, in the next block, I waited for the traffic lights near a group of men who stood on the corner passing a bottle of cheap wine between them as they discussed Clifton's murder.

"What we need is some guns," one of them said. "An eye for an eye."

"Hell yes, machine guns. Pass me the sneakypete, Muckleroy."

"Wasn't for that Sullivan Law this here New York wouldn't be nothing but a shooting gallery," another man said.

"Here's the sneakypete, and don't try to find no home in that bottle."

"It's the only home I got, Muckleroy. You want to take that away from me?"

"Man, drink up and pass the damn bottle."

I started around them, hearing one of them say, "What you saying, Mr. Rinehart, how's your hammer hanging?"

Even up here, I thought, beginning to hurry. "Heavy, man," I said, knowing the answer to that one, "very heavy." They laughed.

"Well, it'll be lighter by morning."

"Say, look ahere, Mr. Rinehart, how about giving me a job?" one of them said, approaching me, and I waved and crossed the street, walking rapidly down Eighth toward the next bus stop.

The shops and groceries were dark now, and children were running and yelling along the walks, dodging in and out among the adults. I walked, struck by the merging fluidity of forms seen through the lenses. Could this be the way the world appeared to Rinehart? All the dark-glass boys? "For now we see as through a glass darkly but then -- but then --" I couldn't remember the rest.

She was carrying a shopping bag and moved gingerly on her feet. Until she touched my arm I thought that she was talking to herself.

"I say, pardon me, son, look like you trying to pass on by me tonight. What's the final figger?"

"Figure? What figure?"

"Now you know what I mean," she said, her voice rising as she put her hands on her hips and looked forward. "I mean today's last number. Ain't you Rine the runner?"

"Rine the runner?"

"Yas, Rinehart the number man. Who you trying to fool?"

"But that's not my name, madame," I said, speaking as precisely as I could and stepping away from her. "You've made a mistake."

Her mouth fell wide. "You ain't? Well, why you look so much like him?" she said with hot doubt in her voice. "Now, ain't this here something. Let me get on home; if my dream come out, I'm-a have to go look that rascal up. And here I needs that money too."

"I hope you won," I said, straining to see her clearly, "and I hope he pays off."

"Thanks, son, but he'll pay off all right. I can see you ain't Rinehart now though. I'm sorry for stopping you."

"It's all right," I said.

"If I'd looked at your shoes I woulda known --"

"Why?"

" 'Cause Rine the runner is known for them knobtoed kind."

I watched her limp away, rocking like the Old Ship of Zion. No wonder everyone knows him, I thought, in that racket you have to get around. I was aware of my black-and-white shoes for the first time since the day of Clifton's shooting.

When the squad car veered close to the curb and rolled along slowly beside me I knew what was coming before the cop opened his mouth.

"That you, Rinehart, my man?" the cop who was not driving said. He was white. I could see the shield gleaming on his cap but the number was vague.

"Not this time, officer," I said.

"The hell you say; what're you trying to pull? Is this a holdout?"

"You're making a mistake," I said. "I'm not Rinehart."

The car stopped, a flashlight beamed in my green-lensed eyes. He spat into the street. "Well, you better be by morning," he said, "and you better have our cut in the regular place. Who the hell you think you are?" he called as the car speeded up and away.

And before I could turn a crowd of men ran up from the corner pool hall. One of them carried an automatic in his hand.

"What were those sonsabitches trying to do to you, daddy?" he said.

"It was nothing, they thought I was someone else."

"Who'd they take you for?"

I looked at them -- were they criminals or simply men who were worked up over the shooting?

"Some guy named Rinehart," I said.

"Rinehart -- Hey, y'all hear that?" snorted the fellow with the gun. "Rinehart! Them paddies must be going stone blind. Anybody can see you ain't Rinehart."

"But he do look like Rine," another man said, staring at me with his hands in his trousers pockets.

"Like hell he does."

"Hell, man, Rinehart would be driving that Cadillac this time of night. What the hell you talking about?"

"Listen, Jack," the fellow with the gun said, "don't let nobody make you act like Rinehart. You got to have a smooth tongue, a heartless heart and be ready to do anything. But if them paddies bother you agin, just let us know. We aim to stop some of this head-whupping they been doing."

"Sure," I said.

"Rinehart," he said again. "Ain't that a bitch?"

They turned and went arguing back to the pool hall and I hurried out of the neighborhood. Having forgotten Hambro for the moment I walked east instead of west. I wanted to remove the glasses but decided against it. Ras's men might still be on the prowl.

It was quieter now. No one paid me any special attention, although the street was alive with pedestrians, all moiling along in the mysterious tint of green. Perhaps I'm out of his territory at last, I thought and began trying to place Rinehart in the scheme of things. He's been around all the while, but I have been looking in another direction. He was around and others like him, but I had looked past him until Clifton's death (or was it Ras?) had made me aware. What on earth was hiding behind the face of things? If dark glasses and a white hat could blot out my identity so quickly, who actually was who?

The perfume was exotic and seemed to roll up the walk behind me as I became aware of a woman strolling casually behind me.

"I've been waiting for you to recognize me, daddy," a voice said. "I've been waiting for you a long time."

It was a pleasant voice with a slightly husky edge and plenty of sleep in it.

"Don't you hear me, daddy?" she said. And I started to look around, hearing, "No, daddy, don't look back; my old man might be cold trailing me. Just walk along beside me while I tell you where to meet me. I swear I thought you'd never come. Will you be able to see me tonight?"

She had moved close to me now and suddenly I felt a hand fumbling at my jacket pocket.

"All right, daddy, you don't have to jump evil on me, here it is; now will you see me?"

I stopped dead, grabbing her hand and looking at her, an exotic girl even through the green glasses, looking at me with a smile that suddenly broke. "Rinehart, daddy, what's the matter?"

So here it goes again, I thought, holding her tightly.

"I'm not Rinehart, Miss," I said. "And for the first time tonight I'm truly sorry."

"But Bliss, daddy -- Rinehart! You're not trying to put your baby down -- Daddy, what did I do?"

She seized my arm and we were poised face to face in the middle of the walk. And suddenly she screamed, "Oooooooh! You really aren't! And me trying to give you his money. Get away from me, you dumb John. Get away from me!"

I backed off. Her face was distorted as she stamped her high heels and screamed. Behind me I heard someone say, "Hey, what was that?" followed by the sound of running feet as I shot off and around the corner away from her screams. That lovely girl, I thought, that lovely girl.

Several blocks away I stopped, out of breath. And both pleased and angry. How stupid could people be? Was everyone suddenly nuts? I looked about me. It was a bright street, the walks full of people. I stood at the curb trying to breathe. Up the street a sign with a cross glowed above the walk:

The letters glowed dark green and I wondered if it were from the lenses or the actual color of the neon tubes. A couple of drunks stumbled past. I headed for Hambro's, passing a man sitting on the curb with his head bent over his knees. Cars passed. I went on. Two solemn-faced children came passing out handbills which first I refused, then went back and took. After all, I had to know what was going on in the community. I took the bill and stepped close to the street light, reading.

I dropped the leaflet into the gutter and moved on. I walked slowly, my breath still coming hard. Could it be? Soon I reached the sign. It hung above a store that had been converted into a church, and I stepped into the shallow lobby and wiped my face with a handkerchief. Behind me I heard the rise and fall of an old-fashioned prayer such as I hadn't heard since leaving the campus; and then only when visiting country preachers were asked to pray. The voice rose and fell in a rhythmical, dreamlike recital-part enumeration of earthly trials undergone by the congregation, part rapt display of vocal virtuosity, part appeal to God. I was still wiping my face and squinting at crude Biblical scenes painted on the windows when two old ladies came up to me.

"Even', Rever'n Rinehart," one of them said. "How's our dear pastor this warm evening?"

Oh, no, I thought, but perhaps agreeing will cause less trouble than denying, and I said, "Good evening, sisters," muffling my voice with my handkerchief and catching the odor of the girl's perfume from my hand.

"This here's Sister Harris, Rever'n. She come to join our little band."

"God bless you, Sister Harris," I said, taking her extended hand.

"You know, Rever'n, I once heard you preach years ago. You was just a lil' ole twelve-year-old boy, back in Virginia. And here I come North and find you, praise God, still preaching the gospel, doing the Lord's work. Still preaching the ole time religion here in this wicked city --"

"Er, Sister Harris," the other sister said, "we better get on in and find our seats. Besides, the pastor's kind of got things to do. Though you are here a little early, aren't you, Rever'n?"

"Yes," I said, dabbing my mouth with my handkerchief. They were motherly old women of the southern type and I suddenly felt a nameless despair. I wanted to tell them that Rinehart was a fraud, but now there came a shout from inside the church and I heard a burst of music.

"Just lissen to it, Sister Harris. That's the new kind of guitar music I told you Rever'n Rinehart got for us. Ain't it heavenly?"

"Praise God," Sister Harris said. "Praise God!"

"Excuse us, Rever'n, I have to see Sister Judkins about the money she collected for the building fund. And, Rever'n, last night I sold ten recordings of your inspiring sermon. Even sold one to the white lady I work for."

"Bless you," I found myself saying in a voice heavy with despair, "bless you, bless you."

Then the door opened and I looked past their heads into a small crowded room of men and women sitting in folding chairs, to the front where a slender woman in a rusty black robe played passionate boogie-woogie on an upright piano along with a young man wearing a skull cap who struck righteous riffs from an electric guitar which was connected to an amplifier that hung from the ceiling above a gleaming white and gold pulpit. A man in an elegant red cardinal's robe and a high lace collar stood resting against an enormous Bible and now began to lead a hard-driving hymn which the congregation shouted in the unknown tongue. And back and high on the wall above him there arched the words in letters of gold:

The whole scene quivered vague and mysterious in the green light, then the door closed and the sound muted down.

It was too much for me. I removed my glasses and tucked the white hat carefully beneath my arm and walked away. Can it be, I thought, can it actually be? And I knew that it was. I had heard of it before but I'd never come so close. Still, could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? What is real anyway? But how could I doubt it? He was a broad man, a man of parts who got around. Rinehart the rounder. It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it. He was years ahead of me and I was a fool. I must have been crazy and blind. The world in which we lived was without boundaries. A vast seething, hot world of fluidity, and Rine the rascal was at home. Perhaps only Rine the rascal was at home in it. It was unbelievable, but perhaps only the unbelievable could be believed. Perhaps the truth was always a lie.

Perhaps, I thought, the whole thing should roll off me like drops of water rolling off Jack's glass eye. I should search out the proper political classification, label Rinehart and his situation and quickly forget it. I hurried away from the church so swiftly that I found myself back at the office before I remembered that I was going to Hambro's.

I was both depressed and fascinated. I wanted to know Rinehart and yet, I thought, I'm upset because I know I don't have to know him, that simply becoming aware of his existence, being mistaken for him, is enough to convince me that Rinehart is real. It couldn't be, but it is. And it can be, is, simply because it's unknown. Jack wouldn't dream of such a possibility, nor Tobitt, who thinks he's so close. Too little was known, too much was in the dark. I thought of Clifton and of Jack himself; how much was really known about either of them? How much was known about me? Who from my old life had challenged me? And after all this time I had just discovered Jack's missing eye.

My entire body started to itch, as though I had just been removed from a plaster cast and was unused to the new freedom of movement. In the South everyone knew you, but coming North was a jump into the unknown. How many days could you walk the streets of the big city without encountering anyone who knew you, and how many nights? You could actually make yourself anew. The notion was frightening, for now the world seemed to flow before my eyes. All boundaries down, freedom was not only the recognition of necessity, it was the recognition of possibility. And sitting there trembling I caught a brief glimpse of the possibilities posed by Rinehart's multiple personalities and turned away. It was too vast and confusing to contemplate. Then I looked at the polished lenses of the glasses and laughed. I had been trying simply to turn them into a disguise but they had become a political instrument instead; for if Rinehart could use them in his work, no doubt I could use them in mine. It was too simple, and yet they had already opened up a new section of reality for me. What would the committee say about that? What did their theory tell them of such a world? I recalled a report of a shoeshine boy who had encountered the best treatment in the South simply by wearing a white turban instead of his usual Dobbs or Stetson, and I fell into a fit of laughing. Jack would be outraged at the very suggestion of such a state of things. And yet there was truth in it; this was the real chaos which he thought he was describing -- so long ago it seemed now ... Outside the Brotherhood we were outside history; but inside of it they didn't see us. It was a hell of a state of affairs, we were nowhere. I wanted to back away from it, but still I wanted to discuss it, to consult someone who'd tell me it was only a brief, emotional illusion. I wanted the props put back beneath the world. So now I had a real need to see Hambro.

Getting up to go, I looked at the wall map and laughed at Columbus. What an India he'd found! I was almost across the hall when I remembered and came back and put on the hat and glasses. I'd need them to carry me through the streets.

I took a cab. Hambro lived in the West Eighties, and once in the vestibule I tucked the hat under my arm and put the glasses in my pocket along with Brother Tarp's leg chain and Clifton's doll. My pocket was getting overloaded.

I was shown into a small, book-lined study by Hambro himself. From another part of the apartment came a child's voice singing Humpty Dumpty, awakening humiliating memories of my first Easter program during which I had stood before the church audience and forgotten the words ...

"My kid," Hambro said, "filibustering against going to bed. A real sea lawyer, that kid."

The child was singing Hickory Dickory Dock, very fast, as Hambro shut the door. He was saying something about the child and I looked at him with sudden irritation. With Rinehart on my mind, why had I come here?

Hambro was so tall that when he crossed his legs both feet touched the floor. He had been my teacher during my period of indoctrination and now I realized that I shouldn't have come. Hambro's lawyer's mind was too narrowly logical. He'd see Rinehart simply as a criminal, my obsession as a fall into pure mysticism ... You'd better hope that is the way he'll see it, I thought. Then I decided to ask him about conditions uptown and leave ...

"Look, Brother Hambro," I said, "what's to be done about my district?"

He looked at me with a dry smile. "Have I become one of those bores who talk too much about their children?"

"Oh, no, it's not that," I said. "I've had a hard day. I'm nervous. With Clifton's death and things in the district so bad, I guess ..."

"Of course," he said, still smiling, "but why are you worried about the district?"

"Because things are getting out of hand. Ras's men tried to rough me up tonight and our strength is steadily going to hell."

"That's regrettable," he said, "but there's nothing to be done about it that wouldn't upset the larger plan. It's unfortunate, Brother, but your members will have to be sacrificed."

The distant child had stopped singing now, and it was dead quiet. I looked at the angular composure ot his face searching for the sincerity in his words. I could feel some deep change. It was as though my discovery of Rinehart had opened a gulf between us over which, though we sat within touching distance, our voices barely carried and then fell flat, without an echo. I tried to shake it away, but still the distance, so great that neither could grasp the emotional tone of the other, remained.

"Sacrifice?" my voice said. "You say that very easily."

"Just the same, though, all who leave must be considered expendable. The new directives must be followed rigidly."

It sounded unreal, an antiphonal game. "But why?" I said. "Why must the directives be changed in my district when the old methods are needed -- especially now?" Somehow I couldn't get the needed urgency into my words, and beneath it all something about Rinehart bothered me, darted just beneath the surface of my mind; something that had to do with me intimately.

"It's simple, Brother," Hambro was saying. "We are making temporary alliances with other political groups and the interests of one group of brothers must be sacrificed to that ot the whole."

"Why wasn't I told of this?" I said.

"You will be, in time, by the committee -- Sacrifice is necessary now --"

"But shouldn't sacrifice be made willingly by those who know what they are doing? My people don't understand why they're being sacrificed. They don't even know they're being sacrificed -- at least not by us ..." But what, my mind went on, if they're as willing to be duped by the Brotherhood as by Rinehart?

I sat up at the thought and there must have been an odd expression on my face, for Hambro, who was resting his elbows upon the arms of his chair and touching his fingertips together, raised his eyebrows as though expecting me to continue. Then he said, "The disciplined members will understand."

I pulled Tarp's leg chain from my pocket and slipped it over my knuckles. He didn't notice. "Don't you realize that we have only a handful of disciplined members left? Today the funeral brought out hundreds who'll drop away as soon as they see we're not following through. And now we're being attacked on the streets. Can't you understand? Other groups are circulating petitions, Ras is calling for violence. The committee is mistaken if they think this is going to die down."

He shrugged. "It's a risk which we must take. All of us must sacrifice for the good of the whole. Change is achieved through sacrifice. We follow the laws of reality, so we make sacrifices."

"But the community is demanding equality of sacrifice," I said. "We've never asked for special treatment."

"It isn't that simple, Brother," he said. "We have to protect our gains. It's inevitable that some must make greater sacrifices than others ..."

"That 'some' being my people ..."

"In this instance, yes."

"So the weak must sacrifice for the strong? Is that it, Brother?"

"No, a part of the whole is sacrificed -- and will continue to be until a new society is formed."

"I don't get it," I said. "I just don't get it. We work our hearts out trying to get the people to follow us and just when they do, just when they see their relationship to events, we drop them. I don't see it."

Hambro smiled remotely. "We don't have to worry about the aggressiveness of the Negroes. Not during the new period or any other. In fact, we now have to slow them down for their own good. It's a scientific necessity."

I looked at him, at the long, bony, almost Lincolnesque face. I might have liked him, I thought, he seems to be a really kind and sincere man and yet he can say this to me ...

"So you really believe that," I said quietly.

"With all my integrity," he said.

For a second I thought I'd laugh. Or let fly with Tarp's link. Integrity! He talks to me of integrity! I described a circle in the air. I'd tried to build my integrity upon the role of Brotherhood and now it had changed to water, air. What was integrity? What did it have to do with a world in which Rinehart was possible and successful?

"But what's changed?" I said. "Wasn't I brought in to arouse their aggressiveness?" My voice fell sad, hopeless.

"For that particular period," Hambro said, leaning a little forward. "Only for that period."

"And what will happen now?" I said.

He blew a smoke ring, the blue-gray circle rising up boiling within its own jetting form, hovering for an instant then disintegrating into a weaving strand.

"Cheer up!" he said. "We shall progress. Only now they must be brought along more slowly ..."

How would he look through the green lenses? I thought, saying, "Are you sure you're not saying that they must be held back?"

He chuckled. "Now, listen," he said. "Don't stretch me on a rack of dialectic. I'm a brother."

"You mean the brakes must be put on the old wheel of history," I said. "Or is it the little wheels within the wheel?"

His face sobered. "I mean only that they must be brought along more slowly. They can't be allowed to upset the tempo of the master plan. Timing is all important. Besides, you still have a job to do, only now it will be more educational."

"And what about the shooting?"

"Those who are dissatisfied will drop away and those who remain you'll teach ..."

"I don't think I can," I said.

"Why? It's just as important."

"Because they are against us; besides, I'd feel like Rinehart ..." It slipped out and he looked at me.

"Like who?"

"Like a charlatan," I said.

Hambro laughed. "I thought you had learned about that, Brother."

I looted at him quickly. "Learned what?"

"That it's impossible not to take advantage of the people."

"That's Rinehartism -- cynicism ..."

"What?"

"Cynicism," I said.

"Not cynicism -- realism. The trick is to take advantage of them in their own best interest."

I sat forward in my chair, suddenly conscious of the unreality of the conversation. "But who is to judge? Jack? The committee?"

"We judge through cultivating scientific objectivity," he said with a voice that had a smile in it, and suddenly I saw the hospital machine, felt as though locked in again.

"Don't kid yourself," I said. "The only scientific objectivity is a machine."

"Discipline, not machinery," he said. "We're scientists. We must take the risks of our science and our will to achieve. Would you like to resurrect God to take responsibility?" He shook his head. "No, Brother, we have to make such decisions ourselves. Even if we must sometimes appear as charlatans."

"You're in for some surprises," I said.

"Maybe so and maybe not," he said. "At any rate, through our very position in the vanguard we must do and say the things necessary to get the greatest number of the people to move toward what is for their own good."

Suddenly I couldn't stand it.

"Look at me! Look at me!" I said. "Everywhere I've turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my good -- only they were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop? Is this the new true definition, is Brotherhood a matter of sacrificing the weak? If so, at what point do we stop?"

Hambro looked as though I were not there. "At the proper moment science will stop us. And of course we as individuals must sympathetically debunk ourselves. Even though it does only a little good. But then," he shrugged, "if you go too far in that direction you can't pretend to lead. You'll lose your confidence. You won't believe enough in your own correctness to lead others. You must therefore have confidence in those who lead you -- in the collective wisdom of Brotherhood."

I left in a worse state than that in which I'd come. Several buildings away I heard him call behind me, watched him approach through the dark.

"You left your hat," he said, handing it to me along with the mimeographed sheets of instructions outlining the new program. I looked at the hat and at him, thinking of Rinehart and invisibility, but knew that for him it would have no reality. I told him good night and went through the hot street to Central Park West, starting toward Harlem.

Sacrifice and leadership, I thought. For him it was simple. For them it was simple. But hell, I was both. Both sacrificer and victim. I couldn't get away from that, and Hambro didn't have to deal with it. That was reality too, my reality. He didn't have to put the knife blade to his own throat. What would he say if he were the victim?

I walked along the park in the dark. Cars passed. From time to time the sound of voices, squealing laughter, arose from beyond the trees and hedges. I could smell the sun-singed grass. The sky against which an airplane beacon played was still overcast. I thought of Jack, the people at the funeral, Rinehart. They'd asked us for bread and the best I could give was a glass eye -- not so much as an electric guitar.

I stopped and dropped to a bench. I should leave, I thought. That would be the honest thing to do. Otherwise I could only tell them to have hope and try to hold on to those who'd listen. Was that also what Rinehart was, a principle of hope for which they gladly paid? Otherwise there was nothing but betrayal, and that meant going back to serve Bledsoe, and Emerson, jumping from the pot of absurdity to the fire of the ridiculous. And either was a self-betrayal. But I couldn't leave; I had to settle with Jack and Tobitt. I owed it to Clifton and Tarp and the others. I had to hold on ... and then I had an idea that shook me profoundly: You don't have to worry about the people. If they tolerate Rinehart, then they will forget it and even with them you are invisible. It lasted only the fraction of a second and I rejected it immediately; still it had flashed across the dark sky of my mind. It was just like that. It didn't matter because they didn't realize just what had happened, neither my hope nor my failure. My ambition and integrity were nothing to them and my failure was as meaningless as Clifton's. It had been that way all along. Only in the Brotherhood had there seemed a chance for such as us, the mere glimmer of a light, but behind the polished and humane façade of Jack's eye I'd found an amorphous form and a harsh red rawness. And even that was without meaning except for me.

Well, I was and yet I was invisible, that was the fundamental contradiction. I was and yet I was unseen. It was frightening and as I sat there I sensed another frightening world of possibilities. For now I saw that I could agree with Jack without agreeing. And I could tell Harlem to have hope when there was no hope. Perhaps I could tell them to hope until I found the basis of something real, some firm ground for action that would lead them onto the plane of history. But until then I would have to move them without myself being moved ... I'd have to do a Rinehart.

I leaned against a stone wall along the park, thinking of Jack and Hambro and of the day's events and shook with rage. It was all a swindle, an obscene swindle! They had set themselves up to describe the world. What did they know of us, except that we numbered so many, worked on certain jobs, offered so many votes, and provided so many marchers for some protest parade of theirs! I leaned there, aching to humiliate them, to refute them. And now all past humiliations became precious parts of my experience, and for the first time, leaning against that stone wall in the sweltering night, I began to accept my past and, as I accepted it, I felt memories welling up within me. It was as though I'd learned suddenly to look around corners; images of past humiliations flickered through my head and I saw that they were more than separate experiences. They were me; they defined me. I was my experiences and my experiences were me, and no blind men, no matter how powerful they became, even if they conquered the world, could take that, or change one single itch, taunt, laugh, cry, scar, ache, rage or pain of it. They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their own voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves and I'd help them. I laughed. Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men ... For all they were concerned, we were so many names scribbled on fake ballots, to be used at their convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a joke, an absurd joke. And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one single white figure. They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used. I had switched from the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same -- except I now recognized my invisibility.

So I'd accept it, I'd explore it, rine and heart. I'd plunge into it with both feet and they'd gag. Oh, but wouldn't they gag. I didn't know what my grandfather had meant, but I was ready to test his advice. I'd overcome them with yeses, undermine them with grins, I'd agree them to death and destruction. Yes, and I'd let them swallow me until they vomited or burst wide open. Let them gag on what they refused to see. Let them choke on it. That was one risk they hadn't calculated. That was a risk they had never dreamt of in their philosophy. Nor did they know that they could discipline themselves to destruction, that saying "yes" could destroy them. Oh, I'd yes them, but wouldn't I yes them! I'd yes them till they puked and rolled in it. All they wanted of me was one belch of affirmation and I'd bellow it out loud. Yesl Yes! YES! That was all anyone wanted of us, that we should be heard and not seen, and then heard only in one big optimistic chorus of yassuh, yassuh, yassuh! All right, I'd yea, yea and oui, oui and si, si and see, see them too; and I'd walk around in their guts with hobnailed boots. Even those super-big shots whom I'd never seen at committee meetings. They wanted a machine? Very well, I'd become a supersensitive confirmer of their misconceptions, and just to hold their confidence I'd try to be right part of the time. Oh, I'd serve them well and I'd make invisibility felt if not seen, and they'd learn that it could be as polluting as a decaying body, or a piece of bad meat in a stew. And if I got hurt? Very well again. Besides, didn't they believe in sacrifice? They were the subtle thinkers -- would this be treachery? Did the word apply to an invisible man? Could they recognize choice in that which wasn't seen ... ?

The more I thought of it the more I fell into a kind of morbid fascination with the possibility. Why hadn't I discovered it sooner? How different my life might have been! How terribly different! Why hadn't I seen the possibilities? If a sharecropper could attend college by working during the summers as a waiter and factory hand or as a musician and then graduate to become a doctor, why couldn't all those things be done at one and the same time? And wasn't that old slave a scientist -- or at least called one, recognized as one -- even when he stood with hat in hand, bowing and scraping in senile and obscene servility? My God, what possibilities existed! And that spiral business, that progress goo! Who knew all the secrets; hadn't I changed my name and never been challenged even once? And that lie that success was a rising upward. What a crummy lie they kept us dominated by. Not only could you travel upward toward success but you could travel downward as well; up and down, in retreat as well as in advance, crabways and crossways and around in a circle, meeting your old selves coming and going and perhaps all at the same time. How could I have missed it for so long? Hadn't I grown up around gambler-politicians, bootlegger-judges and sheriffs who were burglars; yes, and Klansmen who were preachers and members of humanitarian societies? Hell, and hadn't Bledsoe tried to tell me what it was all about? I felt more dead than alive. It had been quite a day; one that could not have been more shattering even if I had learned that the man whom I'd always called father was actually of no relation to me.

I went to the apartment and fell across the bed in my clothes. It was hot and the fan did little more than stir the heat in heavy leaden waves, beneath which I lay twirling the dark glasses and watching the hypnotic flickering of the lenses as I tried to make plans. I would hide my anger and lull them to sleep; assure them that the community was in full agreement with their program. And as proof I would falsify the attendance records by filling out membership cards with fictitious names -- all unemployed, of course, so as to avoid any question of dues. Yes, and I would move about the community by night and during times of danger by wearing the white hat and the dark glasses. It was a dreary prospect but a means of destroying them, at least in Harlem. I saw no possibility of organizing a splinter movement, for what would be the next step? Where would we go? There were no allies with whom we could join as equals; nor were there time or theorists available to work out an over-all program of our own -- although I felt that somewhere between Rinehart and invisibility there were great potentialities. But we had no money, no intelligence apparatus, either in government, business or labor unions; and no communications with our own people except through unsympathetic newspapers, a few Pullman porters who brought provincial news from distant cities and a group of domestics who reported the fairly uninteresting private lives of their employers. If only we had some true friends, some who saw us as more than convenient tools for shaping their own desires! But to hell with that, I thought, I would remain and become a well-disciplined optimist, and help them to go merrily to hell. If I couldn't help them to see the reality of our lives I would help them to ignore it until it exploded in their faces.

Only one thing bothered me: Since I now knew that their real objectives were never revealed at committee meetings I needed some channel of intelligence through which I could learn what actually guided their operations. But how? If only I had resisted being shifted downtown I would now have enough support in the community to insist that they reveal themselves. Yes, but if I hadn't been shifted, I would still be living in a world of illusion. But now that I had found the thread of reality, how could I hold on? They seemed to have me blocked at every turn, forcing me to fight them in the dark. Finally I tossed the glasses across the bed and dropped into a fitful nap during which I relived the events of the last few days; except that instead ot Clifton being lost it was myself, and I awoke stale, sweaty and aware of perfume.

I lay on my stomach, my head resting upon the back of my hand thinking, where is it coming from? And just as I caught sight ot the glasses I remembered grasping Rinehart's girl's hand. I lay there unmoving, and she seemed to perch on the bed, a bright-eyed bird with her glossy head and ripe breasts, and I was in a wood afraid to frighten the bird away. Then I was fully awake and the bird gone and the girl's image in my mind. What would have happened if I had led her on, how far could I have gone? A desirable girl like that mixed up with Rinehart. And now I sat breathless, asking myself how Rinehart would have solved the problem of information and it came instantly clear: It called for a woman. A wife, a girl friend, or secretary of one ot the leaders, who would be willing to talk freely to me. My mind swept back to early experiences in the movement. Little incidents sprang to memory, bringing images of the smiles and gestures of certain women met after rallies and at parties: Dancing with Emma at the Chthonian; she close, soft against me and the hot swift focusing of my desire and my embarrassment as I caught sight of Jack holding forth in a corner, and Emma holding me tight, her bound breasts pressing against me, looking with that teasing light in her eyes saying, "Ah, temptation," and my desperate grab for a sophisticated reply and managing only, "Oh, but there's always temptation," surprising myself nevertheless and hearing her laughing, "Touche! Touche! You should come up and fence with me some afternoon." That had been during the early days when I had felt strong restrictions and resented Emma's boldness and her opinion that I should have been blacker to play my role of Harlem leader. Well, there were no restrictions left, the committee had seen to that. She was fair game and perhaps she'd find me black enough, after all. A committee meeting was set for tomorrow, and since it was Jack's birthday, a party at the Chthonian would follow. Thus I would launch my two-pronged attack under the most favorable circumstance. They were forcing me to Rinehart methods, so bring on the scientists!